So I went to bed Tuesday night thinking "arg! it's going to be a long day tomorrow!" With a 6am flight I was due to be at the airport for 4:30am! But the early rising was going to be worth it because I was going to get to Honolulu for 2:30pm.
While I seem to have some sort of sixth sense about flight delays, it was not working last night because, while in the past I woke up in the middle of the night thinking "my flight has been delayed", this time I slept right through to 3:30 am and in checking my email there was one from United saying they anticipate that the flight will be delayed but to come to the airport for your flight as regular.
Following a rather unhelpful phone call with United I hurried to get all my stuff in order and to the airport for 4:30am (thanks for the drive Dad!!!) Once there I joined the ridiculous line of people looking to be rescheduled. After advancing two people in 30 minutes I decided I would call United again and see if they could reschedule me... It seemed more likely I get an one agent to help me from a sea of call centre agents that in this line with one service agent!
Now as much as I have less than stellar things to say about United, I must admit they fly A LOT of places and they have A LOT of flights everyday. So when I called them, they had quite a few options. In the end, I had to give up my direct flight from Chicago to Honolulu for flights with an additional stopover in San Francisco. Not bad.
While I didn't have time to spare to make my connection through Chicago, I had some time in San Francisco. And while I love airports in general, the San Francisco airport is spectacular! So much so it has made me realize I need to come back to San Francisco again! I have to hand it to the airport authority there... they have done an excellent job "advertising" their city through their airport. Instead of mass purchased art or views of the city in their inter-terminal walkways they have some really amazing art pieces, they actually made me stop and just stand (on the moving conveyor belt) to see all the great pieces. From very large structures (seriously there was a life-size Humvee which appeared to be made of styrofoam!) to smaller photographs and paintings on the wall, it was truly amazing. The food choices available were even a cut above (and with cut above prices but still awesome.)
After my brief stop in San Francisco, I was off to Hawaii! This flight is how I would like to start all vacations, large plane, aisle seat with no one sitting next to me, and free in seat entertainment!
Apparently United also runs a contest called "Halfway to Hawaii" where people guess the exact time to the second (Hawaii time) that the plane is half way to Honolulu. They provide total miles to destination, take off time, air speed, and headwind. All I could think was "Oh no you didn't just challenge me to a math problem when I have nothing better to do than figure this out?!" Challenge accepted! They handed out the contest cards and after figuring things out (yes, I got out paper and a pen) I guessed 3:59:17. Guess who was off by 37 seconds! That's right, I took home the prize! Even though I think I'm way more excited about actually winning, than the prize, which is a 2013 copy of Lonely Planet Hawaii, all in all it was a pretty great flight.
Anna was there to pick me up at the airport (Whoo-hoo!) and we headed back to her place in her brand new car! We hung out and talked... I actually started to glimpse that I'm on vacation!
Here's to the the start of a great vaca!
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1 comment:
way to go - from one mathie to another - I would so have done the same thing and worked it out though no guarantee I would have been as successful
SFO is a fav of mine - made me nostalgic reading about it
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