I am back and I had a great vacation! But this is a post about the travel process and as they say life happens when you are making other plans. Some say that when everything goes according to plan, it may make a vacation a little boring, some of the best times and stories come from mishaps and unexpected situations. However, I still want to rant about my latest adventure.
As my flight from Barbados to New York was landing, I noticed that the ground was a bit wet, but the weather seemed to be fine otherwise. After slowly waiting to pass through immigration, and then attempting to figure out which terminal I was supposed to be at (with no real direction from any map or other information guide - simply what I was told by the ticket agent back in Barbados), I decided to take the AirTrain to terminal 5, because I think that is what he said. Well it was true, but as I was heading toward security I noticed the flight board listed my connecting flight as cancelled. This must be some sort of mistake, so instead of talking to a ticket agent, I pass through security and head toward my gate, where there are no people and the flight screen is OFF. I then check my email to see that I am now scheduled to fly out Thursday at 3:35pm, did I mention this was Wednesday at 8:00pm. Hmm, this can't be happening, I say to myself. I walk over to the "JustAsk" desk, where I wait behind 2 pairs of cranky people who missed their flight because of their own stupidity after some sort of security breach delayed their flight. I waited patiently, and kept my calm.
The lovely employee behind the desk informed me that my flight was cancelled due to weather and that all other earlier flights on Thursday were booked solid. She told me I could find hotel information downstairs near the welcome desk, or attempt to sleep at gate 14 which had 2 "comfy chairs". My only compensation was a $12 meal voucher, that was supposed to ease the annoyance of a now 20 hour layover. Like, I can appreciate my own safety, if a flight is cancelled due to weather, that is fine and I know this is out of the control of the airline. But is a small meal the best you can do over 20 hours? You provide no help in finding accomodations, the earliest flight you can put me on is 20 hours later, like what a joke!
After a momentary debate with myself, I realize the price of a hotel room is worth my sanity for the night. I go down to the information center where I am informed that it appears there are no hotel rooms in the area available, but I can try at the curtosy phone. I called over 20 hotels, NOTHING AVAILABLE!!! At this point I had phoned my mother, who was also doing research of her own. Even hotels outside of the airport zone had NO VACANCY. How is this possible, it is a random Wednesday and it didn't seem like an extreme amount of flights were cancelled. I went back and asked the lady about other info for hotels a bit further, or even motels, or B&B's or short term apartment rentals. She looked at me like I was from space. Like WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE HERE? I need accomodations, and your answer is "oh looks like everything is full". Actually, between her and the other employee, their best advice to me, was to go back to terminal 4, since there would be "more stuff to look at".
In the end it all worked out for me thanks to being part of a big Italian family: my mother called my father's aunt in North Carolina, for her son in New York's phone number, she then called him and asked if he knew of anything I could do, place to go etc. His answer was to pick me up and take me back to his apartment and put me up for the night. What a relief. I wouldn't mind spending the night in the airport if I had an early flight, but all night and then all day again. No thanks. If anyone is looking for a business venture.. open another hotel near JFK airport! Or maybe airports should consider setting up some sort of hostel type accomodations for people who did not anticipate having to spend a night in the airport and have no funds for a hotel, especially when there are no hotel rooms available!!
Seems like customer service still has a long way to go. At least this happened on my return and didn't cut into my time at the beach. Now that I have crossed Barbados off my list, where will I go next?
