Cancelled
Twice Friday I was notified of cancellations. First, my original flight to Athens in March was cancelled and they rescheduled...two days later!What for the sake of Pete is that crappy rescheduling? Sure, I want to fly and sit in layovers for 17 hours just to lose two days of my vacation. I rejected that reschedule obviously my. Lots of back and forth with options presented with multiple four+ hour layovers, and eventually landed on one that diggers by about four hours total from the original, but is a 2-stop. I kept reminding myself the journey is part of the opportunity and round trip tickets to Greece from Minnesota for $600 are about as low as a person can find. This was why I bought my Kindle as to do more and frequent travel, I'll have to exchange time, lots of layover time, for money.
Then, several hours later, as I'm checking for updates on the flight, I got notification of another cancellation. This one was for that bloggers conference I signed up for on September 13. I'll get a refund, but funny the odds that these came the same day.
Since I'm supposed to land in Heathrow exactly two months from today, you can bet I double checked my flights. We still need to decide on a theater production for my birthday. My daughter's thought it'd be ironic to see Hamilton in London. I've not seen it live, just the Disney produced performance streamed the first summer of Covid in 2020 with the Broadway cast. I think Siobhan has seen maybe even more than once, so nest to think of several options.
Last thought before I get up and going is on television cancellations. The new season will start in October. I've had standard "nights" where there's a comfortable predictability in the line up. While I don't watch every night or week, knowing Tuesday was FBI night, Monday NCIS etc. was a comfortable pattern. I guess I my one of the three FBIs are back. I liked the new show Watson, a modern day spin on Dr. John Watson solving medical mysteries with the lurking shadow of Homes nemesis Moriarty tainting his being. The problem is, it's never on a consistent night, so it's been happenstance if I've seen an episode. My son tries to explain the industry and why they schedule this way when it's a mid season replacement, as Watson was. Maybe, yrs, probably, I should just skip television altogether.
We had the same issue when we visited Athens-but I discovered that layovers can be your friend. We ended up having a 6 hour layover in Copenhagen on our JFK-Athens flight on SAS. I discovered that the subway from the airport gets you to the center of Copenhagen in about 15 minutes. We went into the city, had coffee on a cute plaza, and took an hour long boat tour through Copenhagen’s canals. We grabbed lunch and headed back to the airport. Our luggage was checked through to the ongoing Athens flight, so we just needed to bring our Backpacks into town. On the way home from Athens, we took advantage of a 23 hour layover in Oslo. We took a train to the downtown area from the airport and walked through some lovely gardens and the harbor area to our hotel-used 20,000 Choice Privilege hotel points. We had a beautiful room and a huge included breakfast which cost us zero using points. Some airports have layover programs where you can get a free or cheap tour of the city if you have a long layover. It is worth looking into. Some hotel programs (IHG and Choice come to mind) have frequent points sales where you can grab discounted points and turn them into a cheap stay at an airport hotel, Athens has lots of history-we booked George’s Taxi for a couple of tours and had a great time!
ReplyDeleteMy layovers unfortunately are just short enough that to try and venture out would be risky but I'll keep in mind for the future.
DeleteI'm glad that you were able to find an alternate flight without too much loss of time. That is going to be such a fun trip.
ReplyDeleteI have always wanted to do a cross country train trip, so I was plotting a route to the Grand Canyon this fall. It was going to take 2 1/2 days on 4 trains, so 5 days there and back again...going to put that trip off to retirement now, can't afford to use so many vacation days on the train.
London and a show sounds like a wonderful way to celebrate a birthday!!
We have Paramount + thru Walmart +, so I am able to stream Watson which I have enjoyed. The season finale was a shocker for me. I think I will keep the streaming service thru winter since there are several shows that we enjoy.
Hope you have a great week.
I think I'd like a cross country train trip too some day. That was both my parents dream and I'm so happy they were able to when both retired and they were still in good health.
DeleteI have found that I enjoy streaming shows rather than watching them as they air. I prefer seeing them on my schedule.
ReplyDeleteGlad you were able to reschedule flights more to your liking. I know it is frustrating to deal with.
I'd prefer that too but just can't justify even more streaming services in the budget when I think I already watch more TV than I feel is good for me. The person on the phone yesterday was lovely but I actually did the leg work for him to find as close as possible, but he made sure no price change.
DeleteRescheduling and cancellations is all a bit tiring and irritating to sort out. Glad you found a way through it all.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad it worked out and I guess fingers crossed there's not changes again.
DeleteUgh. We used to fly as easily as drive back in the day, even after my husband retired. The joke was I would pack my purse. Now even trying to schedule a flight is annoying. Husband used to call the employee line to get DD’s flights scheduled more easily. I guess that’s something else I get to do now! I miss the days of calling the airline, booking the flight, getting a paper ticket, and calling 24 hours to confirm! Sometimes I think everything online is more difficult!
ReplyDeleteAlso, my dear neighbor who uses booking services (Expedia, Booking.com), has one she will never use again for the same reason…constant changes to the itinerary right up to check in. Again, back in the day, we booked our packages through the airline itself. How I miss the ease of those!
Regardless, you will enjoy your trip! I envy you the London visit. I could stay there for two weeks and wish for two more!
-Meg B.
Yes, I used a third party booking site, but this was a cancelled route, so. It their issue. The two days later though, ridiculous. I really want to be able to plant myself someplace for a . month or more. London might be it, but I'm so excited to see other parts of the UK, other countries like Greece. Scotland ( I know the UK still), Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Norway are probably the next on my lists for longer stays. Of course I'd love to get back to the Provence and Riviera of France and wouldn't say no to another week in Paris. Darn bank accounts. I was usually the scheduler for trips so that didn't change after my husband died but everything else fell on me so even things I used to do easily felt like a toll. Be kind to yourself.
DeleteIf I could manage to pass a Portuguese idiom test, I would qualify for Portuguese citizenship. Time to hit the books!
Delete(-Meg B.)
DeleteI have no access to any legacy citizenship. I'm too far removed from my ancestors. Believe me, I've looked.
DeleteI've also found that longish layovers have been my friend. I was supposed to have 2+ hours layovers in Dubai on my trip to Thailand, but since both incoming flights were late I ended up running to catch my connections in the end!
ReplyDeleteI figured at minimum, enough time for a decent walk, bathroom break, and rehydration. The running to make connections is tough. Had one of those in Atlanta and that airport is huge!
DeleteI’m with Anne. I prefer watching shows on my time schedule too rather than when they are scheduled onto. But that is a throwback to our younger days. We had shows to watch every evening starting around 7 pm. Good memories. I’m glad you were able to get your cancelled flight rescheduled.
ReplyDeleteI do as well but I'm tapped out on paying for anymore streaming services.
DeleteIt's really frustrating that they cancelled your flights! I don't even like it when they change the times on some. When I purchased my tickets to London there wasn't that long a layover in Chicago but by the time I left the layover was quite long. Glad you got it sorted though!
ReplyDelete