So its Thursday morning and Jamie and I are now recovering at my sister's place after an interesting day yesterday. There was both good news and bad news from our trip, so lets start with the bad.
The original plan had us leaving Rochester at 10:05am and getting into Harrisburg at 3:25pm. So Jamie and I arrived at the airport at 9am and got ourselves checked in. Right away we were told that the plane we were going to get on was going to be late. It had some mechanical problems causing it to take off late. So it wouldn't arrive and then leave Rochester until 12:00pm. Due to the two hour delay we were going to miss our connection in Detroit, forcing us to reschedule to a 6pm flight out of Detroit that wouldn't get us into Harrisburg until around 7:30pm.
Fast forward to 12pm.
The plane is on the ground in Rochester, but needs maintenance. They tell us it will take 15 mins and then we can board. Ninety minutes later we are still sitting in the terminal and no one is showing their face to tell us what is going on. I went back to the ticketing counter to see if I could figure out what the problem was, where I was informed that the maintenance guys were not answering their phone. They promise us that by 2pm we will be on our plane to Detroit.
Fast forward to 2pm.
Guess who's not on a plane? That's right, Jamie and Ryan. Finally someone comes out (4 hours after we were supposed to leave) and tells us the plane is not leaving... ever. So they are arranging to have a bus take everyone up to the Twin Cities airport. The bus doesn't leave Rochester until 5pm. So let me quickly recap. We were supposed to be on the ground in Harrisburg by 3:30pm, but instead we weren't boarding a bus IN ROCHESTER until 5pm to take us to Minneapolis. Just making sure you were all aware how much NWA sucks. So the only flight option was a direct flight from Minneapolis to Harrisburg leaving at 8pm.
Fast forward to 5:55pm.
Massive accident on highway 52. Both sides of the road are stopped and we have no idea how long we will be jammed up.
Fast forward to 7:15pm.
We get to the Minneapolis airport and get dropped off a half-mile from the ticketing counter (I'm not kidding). Here's the
map of MSP just so you know, you'll need it to understand the rest of this paragraph. They dropped us off at the star marked "Hiawatha Light Rail Station". We then have to walk underground all the way over ticketing area on the far right of the
map. I joke to Jamie, now watch, they'll stick us in the last gate of the A concourse. Folks, I can't make this stuff up, but our flight left out of gate A14. Nearly a full mile walk from the ticketing counter. Jamie and I rushed down to our gate to make sure we can make the flight. Turns out its not going to be a problem, since the plane is late coming in and we now aren't going to leave until 9:35pm.
Fast forward to 10:35pm.
We are actually sitting in a plane believe it or not. However, we have been sitting on the tarmac for 35 mins because our plane is overweight. The pilot is reworking the flight plan and if that doesn't work we have to head back to the gate to drop off several fat people from the plane. Luckily, we didn't go back to the gate. So, we were supposed to leave at 10:05 and we left at 10:35. Not bad, if it wasn't a mere 12 hours and 30 mins after we were supposed to leave Rochester!!!
Fast forward to 2:47am.
We finally pull into my sister's place. We felt horrible because my sister had to come and get us at the airport with our 7 week old niece. So not only did they ruin our day, but my sister's and my little niece's as well. Shame on them.
I do have some good news though... I can save a bunch of money by switching my car insurance to Geico.
PS - I did my best to clean up all words/actions/thoughts that were used throughout the day in this dramatic retelling from our trip which was put together by Hades Travel Inc.
