After five days of on-and-off rainy weather, how does our last day have the best weather? Talk about irony. We woke up this morning to beautiful weather, and our bags already packed to go home. Sigh.
After a somewhat late breakfast / brunch, we didn’t have much more to do in term of packing. The kids were all packed up, so we let them do the hot tub on their balcony one more time, while Namita and I finished packing the rest of our stuff, then we all swept the room for any last minute items that might get forgotten. The kids took professional photos with an iguana Tuesday, so I went downstairs to find out how much of a ripoff the photos were, and they were $17 a piece. Yikes, no thanks. I then went to the Business Center area to check in online. We were traveling internationally, but we figured it was worth a try.
Sadly, this is when our vacation went south. Our private taxi to the airport went to the other resort next door, then left claiming we were a “no show” even though the driver called the Front Desk while I was there, and Namita & the kids were waiting at the main entrance.
After unsuccessful attempts to contact Customer Service and convince them to pick us up, we had the resort Guest Services call us another taxi. 45 mins later, we were at the Cancún airport. Flight was delayed over an hour. We checked…. again but at a kiosk, but we were not allowed to simply drop off our bags. I had to stand on line for two hours with everyone else on our flight. Why? They wouldn’t say.
Two hours of waiting and standing, and the flight is experiencing mechanical issues at JFK. By the time it arrives, the pilots may not be able to fly legally, so American Airlines is rebooking everyone now to other flights to Miami or Dallas tonight with connections to JFK Friday afternoon. Without much choice, we agree to be booked to Miami instead.
We have lunch at an airport Mexican restaurant, try unsuccessfully to get reimbursed by the taxi cab company, and eventually head to the security check. While on line, another passenger on our original NY flight tells us the flight to JFK is back on. What? At the gate to the Miami flight, I eventually find an AA employee who confirms to us the flight is indeed scheduled to depart for JFK at 8:20 pm tonight. Say what? Without much guarantee, we ask him to rebook us and to pull our luggage from the Miami flight. We also tell some of the other original NY passengers also now destined for Miami about the news. Why didn’t American Airlines announce that the flight was back on? Probably so that they don’t have to rebook everyone again. Nice, but we all would rather go home, thank you very much.
We eventually got new boarding passes, and waited at the new gate with what seemed to be only a few of the original passenger list. The flight itself was now half empty and uneventful back to NY. By the time we finally arrived, transited through Customs, and picked up our luggage, it was well after 1 am. By the time we were back in our car, it was around 2:30, so I give a lot of credit to the kids for never complaining through any of Thursday’s travails. I drove as fast as I reasonably could, and we were home in NJ by 3:15 am.
What a long day. And yes, our cats were happy to see us.
