Nightmare NYC Flying Trip 2008 – The Sequel

Roxanne, Brenda, & I as most of you know, went to NYC for a much overdue girlz weekend on July 18th. The trip was AWESOME, however, getting home was not so great. It was so horrible, that to quote Roxanne, “You can’t make this shit up!!” Boy is she right!!! Brenda & I thought it was so unreal, that we needed to write it down for all to read, and hopefully later in life (WAY LATER), we can find some humor in this experience! So here goes….

Our story begins around 1:30 PM on Sunday, July 20th, we were scheduled on a flight that was leaving from NYC at 4:35 PM, and arriving in Detroit at 6:45 PM. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it…. Well guess again!!!

Like the good little girlz we are, we left the apartment we were staying at in NYC at 1:30 PM to arrive at the airport by 2:00. We were all checked in (via my BlackBerry – That phone ROCKS!), and just needed to turn in my luggage, and get through security. This all was completed with great ease, and we were all nestled all nice in our seats at the terminal to catch up on some reading while we waited the 1 ½ hours to bored our flight.

Out of the blue, the American Airline Ticket Agent comes over the PA at around 3:30 to say that our flight was cancelled, and we would need to “Proceed calmly to the counter for further instructions, and flight arraignments” (Please make note of the word “calmly”, it comes up often). So of course the 150 people waiting to board the plane walked “calmly” to the counter to get in line, and wait “calmly” for there updated flight info….. NOT!!!!

HOWEVER, B & I did proceed calmly to the counter, and wait our turn. Once it was our turn, we were told by a VERY nice gentleman that we are being moved to a flight that will leave NYC @ 6:20, and arrive in Chicago around 7:00 PM Chicago time. Then we would get on a connecting flight from Chicago to Detroit @ 9:50 PM, and arrive in Detroit @ 12:00 AM. Ok, our first reaction was THIS SUCKS!!! BUT, we then reminded each other that it may SUCK, but at least we would be home the same night.

Our next point of concern was the Sophia. You see, Chad was home with Abby & Dylan, but Pat had to leave for work @ 10 PM, and there was no one to be with Sophia for the night… UGH!! HUGE STRESS for me!! So after much brainstorming, and my hubby making a few calls, we had a plan, and a great one if I do say so myself!! Pat was able to take a vacation day, so all three kids would be tucked in tight in there own beds, and they would be with there Daddy’s…. STRESS GONE!!!! LeeAnn (my WONDERFUL sister-in-law) agreed to come get us, and take us both home. YEAH!! Ok, so off to the new terminal and a little more waiting and we were going to be on our way home, with a slight detour in Chicago. Brenda was just saying that she had never been there, and would love to go… Your wish is my command my friend!!! J

We arrived at our 2nd terminal around 4:30 I think. We found some nice comfy seats, and sat down to do some more reading… Of course we were a bit worried, so we were checking the monitor at the gate every few mins, and around 5:30 or so the flight was delayed from 6:20 to 7:00……. Then 7:40…… Then 8:10. Now keep in mind we had a very good amount of time between flights in Chicago, so I knew we had some wiggle room, however, it was starting to run out… L As you all know, I have traveled A LOT, so I can calculate in my head what time we need to land, so get to our connecting gate, and make the boarding of the next flight. So with the time change from NYC to Chicago, I knew we had about a 1 ½ flight, so we needed to be leaving around 8:15-8:30 to get to Chicago, and RUN to the next flight, and board @ 9:30, to take off by 9:50. So remember a min ago when I said they bumped our delay to 8:10…. UM Yeah, I was starting to get worried!!!

To try to help B feel a little calmer about this much unknown situation she was in, I thought now was a good time to grab a bite to eat. We found a few vendors, and grabbed some YUMMY ( L ) airport food, and found a seat on the floor by our gate to eat. While we were sitting on the comfy & clean airport terminal floor, completely enjoying the FABULOUS airport cuisine, (if you believe all that, I have a bridge in upper MI to sell you!) They announced that the gate we were assigned for our “6:20/7:00/7:40/8:10” flight was being moved to a new gate…. My god, does the madness ever end!!!

So we decided to sit & watch as the tired, hungry, angry mob of circus freaks BOLTED from one gate to the next. I am sure the rush was due to the fact that the faster they all crammed into the new gate area, the sooner the plane would take off!! Are they kidding me!!! My god people, have you never traveled before, EVER!!!! Well at least it was fun to watch as they trampled each other to get to the new gate first…. J Once we finished our gourmet dinner, we decided to join the HAPPY travelers in the gate area so we could hear the announcements for our flight better. We wanted to hear first hand all the great updates of how we were NEVER getting home…. L

We found an empty corner, and crammed ourselves into it to watch all the crazy’s getting angrier & angrier… Yep, this madness was just about to get real interesting…. I told B to hold on to her hat, angry travelers are SCARY!!!!!! B was checking the terminal monitor on a regular basis now, and at some point, the screen just went blank…. Yep, I said BLANK!! So not only were we cancelled, and then delayed 5 times, now our flight info just disappeared… UGH!!! Well, I was completely sure now, we were not going to be seeing MI anytime soon!!! B asked if we should go to the counter to check things out… I looked up, saw ONE person working the counter, and 100 freaked out, pissed off, & tired people standing in front of him…. NOPE, I wasn’t about to get in the middle of that! I told her they gave us our seat assignments after they moved us from our cancelled flight, so I was going to just wait to board (The phantom plane…Yep, 8:20, and still no plane at the door). I told her if they bump us, they would call us up…. We were crossing EVERYTHING!!! Fingers, toes, eyes, legs, each other!!! Lord, please get us home!!!

I think it was around 8:25 when the plane pulled up the gate… WOO HOO times 1,000!!!! Ok, now we were getting somewhere, not home yet, but hey, at this point we would take any form of progress they would give us!!!
Around 8:35 they started to call for pre-boarding… YEAH!!!!!!!! Chicago here we come!!!! We were in line, it was 8:37, and the ticket agent announces (calmly) that we have to all be on the plane, seated, belted in, the door shut & locked, and taking off by 9:00, or they flight attendance on the plane will not be able to fly due to federal guidelines for flight time, and we would be stuck in NYC for the night. I am sure you can only guess how that announcement was so “calming” to the tired, hungry, angry mob of circus freaks….. UMMMM, yeah, not good!!!!!!!! It was like the seagulls on Finding Nemo…. Instead of saying MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE, we heard… WHAT, WHAT, WHAT, WHAT, WHAT!!!! Yep, pure craziness was happening all around us… So we proceeded through the line, got in our seats, belted in, and the door was shut & locked @ 8:55…..Amazing you say…. OH FO SHO!!! So things are looking up right… WRONG!!! The one thing the “nice” ticket agent didn’t mention was that once we are all on the plane, and the door is locked, and you pull away from the gate, we are good…. The plane doesn’t HAVE to ACTUALLY take off for the flight attendants to be within there rules for there flying time…. WHAT!!!!! Are freakin kidding me!!!

So there we sat….. 9:00..... 9:30……10:00 (yep still sitting on the tarmac)….. 10:30….. OMG!!!..... finally at 10:40 (PM, 8 hrs & 40 mins after arriving to the airport) the captain gets on the PA to tell us he is sorry this is taking so long (REALLY!), but we are in line to take off, and we are #9 in line….. Oh, by the way, it is a 10 min delay in between each plane for takeoff…..Um, I am going to give you a sec to do the math on that one…………………..So by now you have figured out we are taking off in oh about NINTEY MINUTES!!!! OMG, this is freaking unreal!!!.... Oh, but wait!! He has just come back on to update us about 5 min later… We are in a different line, and are #3 in line, so we will be taking off in about 30 mins…. So with a total of 2 hrs & 20 min sitting on the tarmack, we are FINALLY on our way at 11:15…… Yep, it only took us 9 hrs & 15 mins to get off the ground in NYC to head to Chicago to get home to Detroit…. Make since… Ya, I thought not!!!

So we landed in Chicago at about midnight Chicago time, with absolutely no clue what was next on the agenda for getting home to Detroit….. Oh, by the way, we missed our connecting flight…. Just in case you didn’t get that already… Again we got stuck in the back of the line… Remember that tired, angry, hungry mob of circus freaks… Yep, they are now even more tired, angrier, hungrier, & out for American Airlines BLOOD!!! So B & I waited “calmly” in the back of the line, cuz we like our limbs attached to our body, and not ripped off for trying to get in the front of the line. Well, it was finely our turn, and we walked “calmly” (remember, I told you that word would come up A LOT!) to the counter to ask eagerly how the heck we were ever getting home. We were told we were booked on a flight @ 7:30 AM the next morning…. GREAT!!! Only 7 ½ hrs until we can make yet our 4th attempt to getting on a plane, and getting home…. Of course the next question was where were we going to take our few hour nap… Oh, we soooo needed one by now!! We were told we could get on a bus, and go over to the Wydham (NICE HOTEL!). So off we went… We got to the hotel (with our free voucher by the way) checked in, and got to our room around 1:15. We were out like a light by 1:40 AM. WOO HOO, back up @ 4:45 AM to jump in the shower, rinse off the yuck, and put our day old clothes back on… That was such a nice 3 ½ hour nap… Really it was, the beds were AWESWOME!!!!!!

So back on the shuttle bus to head to the airport, I was a bit concerned about the security line, due to it being a Monday morning in the windy city, MANY business people are flying out to go visit other business people in other cities, so we made sure to get there EARLY. However, I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived, and got through the line in about 30 mins or so. Why, that was WAY faster then we had expected it was nice to have ONE thing go as planned…. J So off to our gate, and hopefully HOME!! We bored the plane at 7:00 AM, right on time, another nice surprise, a plane that is one time for the first time in 18 hrs!! We were seated, and pulling away from the gate right on time… YEAH!! OH CRAP!! Yep, another problem…. We got almost to the runway for takeoff and the captain came back on the PA to let us know there were some lights out on in the cockpit, and we needed to go back to the gate for repairs… FOR GOODNESS SAKE, is this nightmare EVERY going to end!! For real people, “You can’t make this shit up!!” It is day time, do you REALLY need lights!! Ok, so here we go, back to the gate…. Poor B, I have to say, she has been a trooper!! I think I forgot to mention that she HATES, 100% completely HATES to fly, so this whole cancel, delay, turn around & go back thing, yeah just not comforting to her. But she was good through the whole thing, not one melt down, or freak out…. I looked over to see how she was, and yep, there were tears, I felt so bad!! The very first ones, but they were finally there…. Now don’t ask me why, but all of a sudden this whole nightmare just struck me weird, and I started to crack up, & I couldn’t stop, B looked at me like I was a looney, here she is with tears in her eyes, and I am just rolling with laughter…. I guess I had finally hit my breaking point to…. God help those who were seated around us.

So back on the phone to call the hubbies, and tell them we were delayed AGAIN, not that this was a surprise to them at this point. We got back to the gate, they let the mechanic on the plane to check things out. Now some of you may know, but when we went to NYC in 2004, we had a hard time getting home then also (that is a whole new blog in its self!) But to make a long story short, B made me get off the plane in Fort Wayne @ midnight to rent a car, and drive home. In her defense, the turbulence was REALLY bad, about 90% of the passengers were throwing up! So now that we have spent 18 + hours trying to get home, we were thinking maybe a rental car would be faster, for god’s sake, we could have been home by now if we drove from NYC, instead of this whole crazy mess!! We decided we would see what the mechanic said, and then decide if we were staying on, or heading to the rental car section of the airport….

It was only a few mins, and they told us the repairs would take about 1 ½ hours… OMG!!!! So they were moving us to a new plane… YEAH, plane # 5, was 5 our lucky number….. Let’s hope so!! We decided to stick it out, why rent a car when we were having so much fun living in the airport…. So off plane # 4, and a short walk to a different gate, and on to plane #5… PLEASE, PLEASE let this be the one!!! At this point I have kind of lost track o time, I think it is about 9:30 when we FINALLY take off from Chicago to head to Detroit… OMG!! We are actually going to get home before supper time… Yeah!!! We landed in Detroit around 11:30, and Pat & Sophia were waiting for us to finally take us home… The only last thing I was very scared about was my luggage, it had been checked in at NYC on our first flight, and 5 plane changes later, they told me it would be there, but at this point what they said held very little weight with me…. So off to luggage claim we go….. OMG!!! YEAH, it was there… Can you even believe it, B & I actually did a little jig!!!

So our story ends, 23 hrs & 15 mins after it started… What a crazy & long trip home, but we finally made it… WOO HOO!!! Now I do have to say before I close, Chad & Pat have set some ground rules for us for any more NYC trips… We are allowed to fly there, because that is never a problem, but we are NEVER allowed to fly home… We have to drive, take the greyhound, or Amtrak, but NEVER EVER again can we fly home from NYC… Well, we can’t seem to argue with them on this one can we… J

Blog more soon…..Carrie Ann

NYC Girlz Weekend – 2008

Brenda, Roxanne, & I decided about 6 yrs ago to take a girlz only trip once a year. What a great plan you say, ABSOLUTELY, we thought so anyway!!! This great plan lasted about 2 yrs. The first year we went to Providence, RI, and the second year we went to NYC. Both trips were a BLAST!!! We still laugh about the trips, and the fun we had, we will have those memories FOREVER!!

Of course we spent the next 4 yrs pregnant, 4 babies between the three of us puts a bit of damper on the girlz trips. So we decided that we would put our weekends on hold until we were done with the baby making process, or at least on a break. Well, this year, “We were on a break!” (Good Friends reference don’t ya think Rox!! J )

I think the 2008 trip planning began with Rox (I have to be sure to give credit to our “It’s all about me” girl!!) It was fleeting thought at first, sounded FABULOUS, but we didn’t really think we could pull it off. If I remember correctly, NYC came up because we had such a GREAT time last time, and I of course think it is the greatest city known to man on the planet!! Rox has since nicknamed it “CNYC”, Carrie’s New York City. I think this is a fabulous name!!! But with airfare being what it is these days, and hotel cost, we figured it was just a great plan that would never get off the ground. In comes Rox’s AWESOME boss that owns an apartment in NYC, and offered it up for us to crash. WOW, it seemed to be written in the stars that after 4 yrs, we were meant to take this trip, and it was meant to be taken in NYC…. YEAH says Carrie!!!! NYC, here I come!!!

We arrived in NYC on Friday afternoon, Brenda & I flew in around 2:30, and Rox took a bus from Maryland, and arrived about 20 mins after us. The apartment was on 107th & Broadway, (Yep, the “Upper Westside”). We were going to live like queens WITH a doorman that we decided would be forever named “Atticus Spartacus” (from Birdcage, played by Hank Azera). The fact that we had a doorman, and I thought that was the greatest part of the apartment brought on much laughter all on it’s own for most of the weekend!! The apartment was AWESOME!!! It was 2400 sq feet, and all of it was completely what you would expect a NYC apartment to look like. The view was great, and we were very excited to have such a great place to crash, but equally excited to get out, and hit the streets of CNYC!!

We had decided that we would head to Coney Island (Yep, my idea!!, and a rather FABULOUS one if I do say so myself!!) on Friday night. During our last trip 4 yrs ago, we never tried to subway, so we decided this was a good idea considering Coney Island was about 45 min away, and that would make for a very costly taxi ride. We were trying to go as cheap as you can in NYC for the weekend!! Rox had to take the subway from the bus stop to the apartment, so she had studied the subway map, and was feeling pretty comfortable with being able to get us to Coney Island for the evening. Coney Island is located in Brooklyn, so we jumped on the subway, and got comfortable for our 45 min trip.

We arrived in CI about 6:00, and the first place on the agenda was the have a hot dog at Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand. I got the idea to go to CI from watching “Diner’s, Drive-in’s, & Dive’s”, one of my favorite Food Network shows!! The first thing you see when you step out of the subway station is Nathan’s, it is sooo cool!!! Coney Island was PACKED with New Yorkers, I mean just PACKED!!! The line at Nathan’s was CRAZY!! But worth the experience, had a dog, and a beer, (well, B had a burger, a DOUBLE burger, and she ate the WHOLE thing!!! I was sooo impressed!!).

From there we walked up to the board walk, we had to stop for a pee break, our second one in about 20 mins, (we do that A LOT when Rox is with us, about every 20 mins or so… J ). Both pee breaks, I was standing outside the bathroom soaking in the sights, and the one thing I decided was that the people watching aspect of Coney Island was by far one of the most entertaining parts of the night, (well next to B getting poo pooed… J ) I made sure to tell the girls they really needed to pay attention to the people, they were just CRAZY and so very entertaining!!! We walked both sides of the boardwalk, soaked in the sights, took some great pictures, and had a ton of fun checking out the locals, or “Nathan” as we decided to call them. That was our code word for the weekend for any “interesting” people we saw. If one of us would see a person of interest, we would say “Nathan at 2:00”, so the other two would know where to look. It was a crack up, we saw so many “Nathan’s”, we could barely keep up with the sight seeing!

We had passed a bar on the way to the board walk that was called I think “Beer Beach”, it was very cool!! It was a sand bar with plastic tables & chairs. When we saw it, we decided we would hit it after the boardwalk to have a few beers, and watch more “Nathan’s”. Coney Island does fireworks every Friday night at 10:00, so we got a seat at the Beer Beach, and waited for the fireworks. I think the girlz would agree, this was the most fun night of the trip!! We had so much fun laughing at each other, and of course in our normal thing we do between the three of us, teasing the crap out of each other!! Boy did we need this trip, just to have time for the three of us to reconnect, and let loose… Some more then others… B, you know what I mean… LOL!!!

I think it was around 11:00 when we decided we should head back to the apartment. We had decided to take the subway back, it was just so much cheaper!! So us three drunk girlz headed to the subway station to get started on our 45 min trip back to the city. We got off the subway at Times Square, and of course had to grab a “slice of pie” (pizza) before getting back on the subway to head up to the apartment. YUMMO!!! Times Square was a MAD HOUSE!! It is so cool, all the lights, the people, the crazy bill boards… I could go there every weekend!!! We finally made it back to the apartment about 1:30 AM, what a long day, but WOW was it fun!! Time to go “nigh nigh” to get read for day #2 in the greatest city on the planet!!

After our fun evening, we sleep in a bit, and then decided to hit the streets of CNYC…. By the way, NYC in July…. UGH… HOT, HOT, HOT is all I can say!!!!!!!! During our last trip, we had done all the normal sight seeing things, so we decided we would just relax, and walk around, and see where our walking led us… We left the apartment, and headed north on Broadway, and ran into the restaurant from the Seinfeld show, we had breakfast/lunch there. It was kewl!! After that, we headed further north, and walked around Columbia University. What a beautiful campus!! We headed back south in search of an entrance to Central Park. We had seen most of the southern portion of the park 4 yrs ago, so we wanted to check out the northern section. Did I mention it was FREAKIN HOT!!! In case I didn’t, it was FREAKIN HOT!!! We found the park, and walked around for a bit, until we found a hot dog vendor. There is nothing better then a hot dog vendor in NYC!!! YUMMO!!!! We had decided that our diet for the weekend was going to consist of hot dogs from the vendor’s, and pizza slices at midnight. We were on a mission to have the cheapest NYC trip EVER!!! After the hot dog, we decided to head back to the apartment to cool off, and revive ourselves for the evening.

After an hour or 2 break for the FREAKIN HOT weather, we headed back out with a destination of a kewl NYC diner for dinner, and then on to Rockefeller Center to check out the plaza at night. Rox wanted to see all the flags lit up at night. Remember we were staying at 107th, Rockefeller Center was at around 50th, that was going to be a LONG walk, but we thought it was a good opportunity to check out some of the sights we haven’t seen yet. We were right, the walk was long, but we seen lots of kewl stuff!! We ran into Columbia Circle. It is a circle drive (like a round about) that is in front of the Trump Towers, right next to the south/west entrance to Central park. It has an awesome fountain surrounded by benches in the center, and there was a ton of people just hanging out. I am sure that is not only for the beauty, but considering it was soooo FREAKING HOT, and the water from the fountain made for a nice cool breeze when the wind hit, it was one of the few cool spots in the city! From there we continued south, and found a nice little Irish pub to grab a beer before we hit Rockefeller center. Finally we made it to our destination. It was AWESOME!!! The lights & fountains, and the flags all looked super kewl at night!! It was packed of course, but what is NYC with out 1000’s of people. J Well, it had been a long HOT & fun day, but we were ready to hail a cab (Hell no we weren’t making that walk back!!) to get back to the apartment, so we could catch a few things in the am before we had to head home… YEAH, an aircontioned cab… What a great way to end the night!!

Sunday morning we decided to walk to a park about two blocks over from the apartment, to just relax a bit on our last day, and get some more much needed bonding in. Of course by this time we all three were jonesing to get home to see our babies & hubbies, we were missing them something awful!!! Sunday was WAY FREAKIN HOTTER then Sat… OMG!! It was ungodly! Thank goodness it was a short day in the city, I don’t think we would have made it a full day in that heat.. New Yorkers are troopers I tell ya, I don’t know how they do it!!! We walked around a bit, found a place to eat, and then headed back to the apartment to grab our goods, and head for home……

The trip home was not nearly as fun as the rest of the weekend, but that will be its own separate blog… Unfortunately it is way to long to include in this one.

So our NYC trip of 2008 came to close, we were excited to get home to our families, but we had such a good time!!! Of course, we always have a good time when the three of us get together!!! I promise to add some pics, but our laptop is in for a tune up, so I will have to add them at the end of the week.

Thanx again to my BFF’;s for a GREAT weekend!!! I love you both!!!

Blog more soon…. Carrie Ann

And so it begins... "The Koltz Times"

Hello all!! I know this is going to be a shock to most of you, but I am going to try to write on this new blog I created a few times a month to keep everyone up on the new & changing events in our family. Along with any additional fun events that may be going on for Pat, Sophia, or myself.

So this is my first posting, and really is just to let you all know this is out there for you to check out every now & then. I have a few girlfriends that do this, & I know I really enjoy checking out there updates a few times a month, so I am hoping you will all enjoy checking up on the three of us, and seeing what we are up to.

This is a short hello, I am actually in need of doing some reporting for work, and seeing as how it is 12:30 in the AM, I better stop putting it off, and get to it....

Thanx again for checking us out, and I promise there will be a few postings coming in the next few days...

Blog more soon... Carrie Ann