Twelve hours and two planes later, we have finally arrived in Vancouver. We left our house at 7:30am and arrived at Ohare in plenty of time to check in for our quasi-International flight. We boarded our flight for our on-time departure, and the rainy skies cleared up to become bright blue skies. I thought that God was smiling on us, as payback for our last horrible weather flight.
And then we sat. And sat. And sat some more. The pilot came down the aisle periodically to let us know they were working on some mechnical issues and to sit tight. Finally, about 1.5 hours after we were supposed to take off, we get cleared to leave Chicago. Hooray! We made it about 25 feet from our gate when our pilot came back on to announce that the plane was still broken, and that we'd be taxiing back to the gate to get a new plane. Another 2 hours later, we were finally aboard a new plane, and ready to go. Of course, the skies had clouded back over and rain was steadily falling.
The delay, while annoying to us, was devastating to many people on our plane who were rushing to make their cruises that departed that same day. One couple who was sitting in front of us on the plane was celebrating their 58th wedding anniversary with their first cruise. They were visibly upset that they weren't going to make it, and almost didn't board our 2nd plane to Vancouver. They figured that point they had missed their ship and should just fly back to Tulsa where they'd started their journey. Luckily United came through for all of the cruise passengers who were suffering from the 4.5 hour delay, and they were planning to fly this cute couple as well as others on their same cruise to Juneau to catch up on their first port of call. Others were given priority departure from the plane in Vancouver and rushed to catch their ship in time for their later departure. All seems well in cruise world. Whew!
Having never been on a cruise before, I wasn't aware that those going on a cruise are so easy to spot, but after spending much time in the waiting area with my fellow Vancouver passengers, I can tell you that cruise passengers are easily identifiable. I'm a little scared that I'll be morphing into one of them in the next few days.
A day and a half to explore Vancouver now. Meeting up with Malini for lunch and Malini and Jorge for dinner tonight. Yay! The skies are cloudy but sun is predicted for later. I want to take advantage of as much sun as I can, as we've now entered the rainy, cloudy part of Canada/the US.
(Mike, I haven't figured out to how to post pics later - I'll try to edit this post later with your requested picture, if it turned out well)
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3 comments:
Have fun in Canada! Glad you at least avoided extreme turbulence. --Em
Thank goodness the flight was fairly smooth sailing once we finally took off! WHEW!
Though we're getting some sort of compensation from United for our 4.5 hour delay, and I would have much rather gone through what we did on Wednesday (mechanical issues, slight delay, etc) than what Nancy and Amelia had to handle to get their flight vouchers (worst turbulence ever, followed by 6 hours on the plane in Gary).
Very astute observation - cruise goers ARE incredibly easy to spot. Must be the fanny packs and big white sneakers.
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