Day 894 – We’re Home! (No, we’re not.)

Friday, June 30, 2023

To bring you up to last night – We were on our way to Heathrow Airport, London when our United app informed us our trip had been cancelled because one leg of the trip had the flight cancelled. It turned out to be the last leg.The one hour and four minute flight from Newark, New Jersey to Richmond, Virginia.

Hey? Can’t we take the London to Newark flight? Why sure, but you can’t do that via the app or the check-in kiosk. You have to stand in line behind a bunch of people to talk to the one United employee working the desk. Then a second person showed up and we were on our way to Newark. Ta-Dah!

Shelby got us a room for the cheapest price possible – two hundred dollars. What a deal!

We were in an oval of super highways. Four hotels in a row. Only one restaurant – the Café at the Court Yard. The Courtyard is Marriott’s signature brand. We were in the Fairfield. The Marriott’s not signature brand. The difference is The Courtyard has a bar and a café. The Courtyard charges you for breakfast. The Fairfield includes it: two warmer round hot hinged devices holding four pre-made, recently reheated “products,” cold cereal, hot oatmeal, fruit (not ripe), eight condiments( sunflower seeds, granola, raisins, sliced almonds, etc.) coffee (all day! all night!)* etc.

*The cups said, “Starbucks” and it was between “okay” and “good,” which just goes to show that if you don’t let the baristas at Starbucks brew the swill it can actually be made to taste okay as opposed to burnt, acidic, and over-caffeinated. Amazing.

The round hot service had egg product, which was some sort of watery premade scrambled egg. This is a staple of “the breakfast included” menu at any hotel. It typically shares the burner with either sausage, vegan sausage, bacon, or Canadian bacon. Ours had vegan sausage beside the scrambled product. God knows what that is made of. 

The other burner was divided between real sausage with watery grease and on the first day a cheesy egg croissant. The croissant part was soggy from the wet warm environment it was served in. They were dumped into the serving half side and some didn’t quite make it and were slightly crushed when the lid came down. Others had their contents slipping out. Some had both! Crushed and slipping out – take your pick. Yum. I went for the watery egg product with muffin. Yes, they had muffins.

The second day the croissant was replaced with a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich. Their take on a egg McMuffin. I took the last one and told the ladies in the back who brought out “the product” and coffee. They were rapidly talking in Spanish. They laughed when my presence interrupted them. One woman whom I knew by sight and nod said, “Okay (senor?)”  as she laughingly passed me and sort of put her hand up to my arm like an old friend would do when they found something very funny. A few moments later I went back to that doorway with the sandwich still on the plate. The one lady whom I had spoken to looked at me questionably. 

“This sandwich.”

“Si? No good?”

“No. It’s actually good.”

She laughed with a kind of “whew” gesture. Like it must be some mistake. You actually had something that tasted good. I mean it still had the soggy half crushed, contents falling out display but it tasted decent.

Not something one expects at the free breakfast bar.

Shelby had the great idea to take a coffee cup and put a collection of the condiments and make some gorp. A combination of the sugary granola, sunflower seeds, raisins, and sliced almonds. I did it too. We used a lid to hold it in while we shook it to mix it up. Great. Snackage.

Due to storms across the country, lots of flights had been cancelled. Originally, we got through Customs before most people because we have “Global Entry.” That means we are pre-registered and put our right hand on a finger print pad and take a head shot picture and were through. While I waited for bags Shelby went ahead to see about booking our final leg home.

When I came out from Baggage Claim, Shelby was near the end of a snaking cordoned line to a United counter. she had come out, seen the line, went upstairs to find another United counter only to discover the actual United ticket counter was in a different terminal. Screw it: get a cab, go to the hotel, figure it out later.

The hotel is in an oval circle of high speed highways. It’s one of four. My only question was, “Do they have a bar?” Answer, “No,” but they have a basket next to the the place where you check in that holds four bottles of wine. (“Better snag one of those bad-boys before they run out.”) I later learned they had white wine in the refrigerator in their “Market.” That’s the place that went “Dong!” every time someone went into the space.

The United app could book us a new flight at higher prices or we could use more miles, at higher mileage rates than the canceled leg. Amtrak would sell us tickets for $360. The same ticket you could buy a month in advance for $32. Nice. Same for other modes of transportation. Rental cars – sold out. I called United, answered the robots questions, listened to the instructions of using the app or website, declined all that and was told a representative would be with me shortly before I got the “We are experiencing higher than normal wait time” message. Do these airlines employ statisticians? Because if they do I’d like to know at what time do they not experience “higher than normal” wait times? Maybe, I should write a letter and ask.

To whom it may concern,

Every time I connect to your staff they are experiencing “higher than normal” wait times. Is this always the case? ie that you always are experiencing “higher than normal” wait times? If so, than I’d like to point out that your “higher than normal” wait times are your normal wait times.

Thank-you,

A concerned customer.

This might be better than:

Listen you idiots, I know what you’re doing! Do you think I’m stupid? You’re the idiots. We already established that in my first sentence.

The “experiencing higher than normal wait times” message was followed by “your wait time is over 90 minutes” and the “you can use our app” or “go to our website” messages.

Ninety minutes! We’ll try later.

To Be continued …