The Long and Winding Road

aka the flight path to Edinburgh is not always simple.

WARNING: this is a fairly long post, I hope you'll stick with me until the end!

Thursday September 22 had finally arrived and we were excited. All 9 of us, excited! After all, we had been planning this trip for about 3 years. And the day had finally arrived. 

Steve and I left home at 8:02 AM to pick up Michele, just about 2 minutes behind schedule.  Little did we know the butterfly effect that would have on our plans. Then El Captain, Steve, realized we needed gas so we ended up being 10 minutes late picking up Michele. Then onto Strongsville to Jeff and Cathy's house where other friends had graciously offered to chauffeur us all to the airport. We were off! 

Checking in for our flight to Boston/Amsterdam/Edinburgh was chaos because all the tickets were booked under Steve's name and on his phone. We were like a swarm of over 60 year olds (lovingly referred to among ourselves as Bunions) with our matching duffle bags and our back packs standing in front of the Delta check in counter. I'm sure we were a sight to see.

Once through security we got settled at the gate and started trying to get our communication strategy for overseas in sync. Lots of downloading of apps like What's App, Here We Go, Photo Circle. Once that was completed, we waited to board for our 11:50 flight to Boston.

And so it begins ...

Flight DL4781 to Boston delayed from 11:50 to 12:34. No big deal. We board with no further delays announced. Kim and Paul board first of our group and Kim anoints all of our seats with holy water to keep us safe. (SOP when traveling with Kim.) Plane taxies out to the middle of nowhere and stops. "There is bad weather in Boston," the pilot tells us, "we'll be here for at least 45 minutes." We began to worry about making our connection in Boston to Amsterdam (AMS), a three hour window. 

45 minutes turned into more than 45 minutes as we waited. I really don't remember how long, but it seemed liked forever when you are strapped in and waiting for an adventure to begin. Connection to AMS was looking less likely every minute we sat on the ground in Boston.

Arrival in Boston, needless to say was very late. Before allowing all passengers to deplane announcement was made for everyone to stay seated except the 9 passengers with a connecting flight to AMS. We were allowed to get our stuff and head to the exit. All the other passengers were totally gracious and wished us well. We had under 20 minutes to make our connection, which by the way was already boarding at the international terminal.

We got in line and stood, waiting to deplane with our back packs and purses, neck pillows and books. And we waited. It seemed like a very long time but was probably 5 to 10 minutes. The ground crew was having difficulty getting the jet way lined up with the plane door. Of course they were. 

Finally freed from the plane, we ran through the jet way and into terminal A. We needed to get to terminal E. No one told us there was a bus so we were hustling to go on foot when we discovered terminal construction and that we HAD to go by bus. A bus that was loading right by the gate we had just exited. 

Back we went and got in line for the bus. One of our group went to the front of the line to explain our urgent need to go now but we were told "too bad, everyone's got connections." so while standing in what ended up being a 45 minute line for the bus to the international terminal, our flight to AMS left without us .

When we entered the international terminal we told the agent that we had missed our flight and asked where we should go for help. She directed us to gate E4 for customer service. When were got there, a flight to Rome was boarding and we were told we had to wait until that plane was gone before they would even talk to us. 

We posted up around the gate, a couple of us standing directly in front of the check-in desk, others scattered here and there, in the way, and waited. We even helped a few of the stragglers attempting to board for Rome into the correct line.

When we finally got our turn we found out to our great consternation that the next and last flight to AMS for the day was full. 

The gate agents were trying all sorts of things to get us back on track. 

* Fly to JFK and then AMS then EDI.

* Fly to Heathrow then to EDI

* Fly to Dublin then trip EDI

Finally, after a very long time, Kelvin the gate agent said that the Dublin to EDI plan was going to work. He had been on hold a very long time trying to confirm that there really were seats for us on the Dublin to EDI flight which was an Aer Lingus fight, not Delta. We thought he had gotten the confirmation needed, but little did we know he had not.  

Look at Michele and my faces.

A clue that we had a problem was that we had actual boarding passes for Boston to Dublin, but only an itinerary type document that showed the flight info for the flight from Dublin to EDI. Kelvin said it shouldn't be an issue, that it was an Aer Lingus flight and that they would issue boarding passes in Dublin. We accepted that explanation and took off to find our gate to board the flight to Dublin. At this point we were maybe only about 4 hours behind the timing of the original itinerary.

The flight to Dublin was full and none of our previously selected seats were available so we got stuck randomly into 9 seats on the plane. We were ok with that, just happy to be moving closer to getting to EDI, Scotland, our actual destination for the first week of this vacation.

We flew overnight and arrived in Dublin bright and early on September 23 which just happened to be my birthday. There we discovered that we had not actually been ticketed through to EDI. We showed the Aer Lingus folks our itinerary which included a flight number and they said that flight was sold out and we were not on it. They said we needed to go and see the Delta folks to get this resolved. 

Of course the Aer Lingus check in and the Delta check in areas were at the complete opposite ends of the gate. Off we marched to find the Delta check in. The three people working there said, we can see that you ARE on the Aer Lingus flight. Go back and tell them they are wrong. So off we marched back across the gate to the Aer Lingus check in area, a different one than before. We told them what Delta said and they said we needed to go back to Delta, because they were wrong; we were NOT on the flight and it was sold out. 

At this point, I'm not proud to say that some shouting occurred. The 9 of us were exhausted as it was now roughly 24 hours since we'd left home and we were still not at our destination, and didn't know when we would be. 

The Aer Lingus supervisor said if we didn't leave and stop harassing her staff, she was going to call the airport security to have us removed.

Steve stayed there solo to talk to them more calmly. Kim headed back to Delta and convinced the gate agent to go with her over to Aer Lingus so that they could speak face to face. Some of our remaining group found seats in the middle of the terminal while others went to try and figure out where our luggage was. Only one thing was certain: it was going to be a very long day and we would be missing our first day of sightseeing in Edinburgh.

Finally, Delta agreed that we were not on the Aer Lingus flight that afternoon and there were no others that day. They agreed to get us hotel rooms for the night, give us meal vouchers and fly us out at 6:30 the next morning - on Aer Lingus. When all was said and done we would probably miss another 1/2 day in Edinburgh and we only had 2 to start with. 

Steve said before we accept that offer I'm going over to confirm with Aer Lingus that we are really on their flight. Lo and behold, we were NOT and it was sold out as well. We couldn't possibly get out of Dublin airport until late in the afternoon of the next day, effectively eliminating all of our time in Edinburgh.

By this time I was looking for other ways to get to Scotland, one of which was flying a local airlines -  Ryanair. They had a flight leaving that afternoon at roughly 5 and it had 9 seats available. The catch? Delta doesn't code share with Ryanair so we would have to purchase these tickets out of pocket at $400 each! We were told that Delta would reimburse us, and we really had no other choice so ...

While all that back and forth was going on with Delta and Aer Lingus, Kim managed to track down our luggage. We had to go to a certain part of the terminal and use a special phone that went directly to baggage claim. She had to describe the bags, explain the whole snafu about not being on a flight etc, But eventually they delivered our bags to us on two huge baggage carts! We were reunited and it felt so good!

With our luggage sorted as they say in the UK, we headed to the Ryanair terminal. First we had to find Paul who decided to hit up a bar, and Jeff who went looking for him. Then we followed directions from seemingly well intentioned people who sent us on a couple of wild goose chases. Eventually we made our way to terminal 2, the home of Ryanair. We went to the ticket counter to buy the tickets and were told it was cheaper to buy them on line. So Michele and I sat on the floor (there were no seats anywhere in this terminal) with everyone's passports and bought the tickets. The flight would leave in roughly 2 hours. We checked in, dumped our bags and went in search of alcohol!

$3,600!

Once on the plane in scattered seats again, we realized we were flying with an Irish rugby team on the way to Scotland for a weekend tournament. They were in high spirits, to say the least. As soon as the seatbelt sign was turned off they were up roaming the aisles laughing and carrying on. I think we kind of needed that because we were whipped and cranky.

Once we landed we had to arrange for our own transport to our hotel because we missed the pre-arranged airport transfer we had scheduled. We got to the hotel, checked in and headed straight out for food. It had taken us 30 hours to get from Cleveland to Edinburgh, but by God, our much anticipated vacation was about to begin!

IF you made it this far, thanks for sticking in there. And, as always, thanks for reading!

Post script: Claim filed with Delta about the $3600. Still awaiting outcome. Fingers crossed!

Post script 2: There were 9 of us on this journey, this is my recollection of the events!