Girls Trip 3.0 Days 1,2 & 3

Thursday March 9, 2017: Cyndy and I fly from PDX to SLC, grab a little Cafe Rio at the airport and then take a redeye to Baltimore. 

Friday, March 10, 2017: Arrived in Baltimore at 5:10am. We took a train to the DCA airport where we were meeting Felicia. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 2:55pm, so we just hung out, grabbed food and just chatted about all the fun things we were going to do on this trip. Felicia really had no idea what we were doing, Cyndy and I planned it all and she was such a great sport, up for anything and excited about everything! 

We were sitting near the gate waiting for our flight to board when suddenly we noticed that the flight information was no longer listed on the screen above our gate. We went online only to see that our flight to JFK had been canceled and due to that we would not make our connecting flight to ZRH. We received no texts, no emails, no phone calls, not even an announcement overhead that the flight was canceled. We, along with others around us realizing our flight was canceled, went and waited in the Customer Service line to try to see what we do now.

            After talking with those in line with us, we found out none of them received any notification either. When we bought our tickets, we submitted our cell phone numbers and yet no one in our entire party was notified of the canceled flight.After waiting in the line at customer service for over an hour, we finally made it to an agent who informed us that our flight was canceled due to “weather”. When we asked how they could still fly to Newark but not JFK if it was weather related, she refused to answer. No other flights on any other airlines were canceled to JFK, just ours. Fine, weather it is, but we really needed to get on a flight ASAP because we had hotel and train reservations that had already been paid for and could not be canceled. We were also traveling between Switzerland, Germany and Austria within 6 days, so any delay cut into our already short trip and putting us on a flight to Zurich the next day didn’t work because our original itinerary had us heading to Germany the next day.

After almost 3 hours, the agent told us we were booked us on a flight out of DCA to Boston, then Boston to Munich on a Lufthansa and from there we were responsible to get ourselves to our original destination of Zurich, Switzerland. No big deal, we had multi-country train passes, so we would just take a train to Zurich from Munich and that would only have us missing one day in Zurich and we'd still make our hotel reservation. Great!

 Once on board our flight to Boston, the plane started taxiing and then was suddenly delayed on the runway. We sat there for over an hour, then were finally able to take off. We arrived tat Boston, ran to our connecting Lufthansa airlines flight that the agent at Reagan had booked us on and arrived at the check in 40 minutes before takeoff, again late because of an American Airlines delay, only to be told that they had shut the doors and we were not permitted to get on the flight. In addition to being denied access to board the plane, we were told they could not help us get on another flight because they were not our original booker. So, we went back to the American Airlines desk only to find that there were no agents in the airport, they had all gone home for the night.

So there we were, stranded in Boston with no flight, nothing, just stranded and missing our original trip with each passing moment.

 We had been on the phone numerous times with customer service throughout the day, so we called back again. After a couple hours on the phone we were given new flights. We were happy to be on a new flight the following day, but we were still stranded in Boston and left to find a hotel for the night. In addition to the things we had already paid for on our Europe trip that we were unable to do because of the canceled flight, we now had to find a hotel for the night.

Saturday, March 11, 2017, we were flown back to DCA from Boston. From there we had to take the Metro from the DCA airport to the IAD airport, where we were then put on a British Airways to London and from there to Munich. In 24 hours Cyndy and I had flown in or out of every DC area airport, some more than once:)

Leaving PDX

Cafe Rio in SLC airport

Look who's with us!!!!

taking off to Boston

They made Felicia check her carry-on & she was happy to be reunited with it as we ran to try to catch our connecting flight to London

No luck, so now we're stranded at the Boston airport

Walking to dinner after we checked into our hotel. It was super late and we were so hungry!

walking back to our hotel in the Boston Blizzard of 2017

our classy hotel

the next morning getting ready to fly back to DC from Boston

It was so cold outside, I'm wearing the scarf the kids got me for Christmas just for this trip

first time in an international terminal

we may have cried....a lot....watching the series finale of The Vampire Diaries

 Finally on a flight to Europe and we are so excited!!!

Our original flight didn't have individual TV's, so we were super excited about this. Although I was too tired to watch anything

This was taken before we knew we'd be on the HOTTEST flight ever!!! We were both sweating like crazy, the girl next to Cyndy kept taking off layers. Everyone kept asking the flight attendants to turn down the heat, but it was still crazy hot!

I woke up, took a picture of my food, ate my roll, and went back to sleep

London!

Finally in Munich!!!!