Day one (part 1)

Working titles…

• The adventure begins.
• Why do I keeping thinking of the Home Alone movie?
• And then there were four...

I don't like to think I jinxed us with the foreboding I felt yesterday, but to say that our trip got off on the wrong foot would be a gigantic understatement.  Perhaps I should have sensed it when I went to try and check in on line the night before and got a message that I couldn't check in more than 36 hours in advance--when at the time, it was only about 15 hours in advance.  After my heart skipping a beat thinking I had book our tickets for the wrong day, I confirmed they were for the next day and decided that it must have been since we had to show our passports that we couldn't check in earlier.

So let me set the stage for how things were supposed to go today…

• Joy--leaving from Seattle-- was scheduled to fly Delta to Amsterdam and then on to Frankfurt arriving about 15 minutes ahead of the rest of the crew.
• Kurt, Jennie, Cody and Cayden--starting in Spokane--were flying down to Portland on Alaska and then taking the same Icelandair flight as the six of us starting from Portland.
• Of the six beginning our journey from PDX, Shirley, Chloe, Terry and I had all booked our flights together via Travelocity.  Cherry--waiting for confirmation from her folks in China that she could go was booked later. And because she was only 17, I couldn't book her flight from Travelocity which doesn't schedule for unaccompanied minors.  Instead, we used a site called TravelOne.  Debbie booked her tickets via Alaska using her miles.

If all had gone according plan, the Spokane crew would have landed at PDX around 11 am; the Portland six would have arrived together via a shuttle service and all would have  boarded together for a lovely flight to Frankfurt via Reykjavik.  But that's not how it went down.

The first sign of trouble came in Spokane.  Kurt and Jennie were ticketed "through to Frankfurt" and boarded their flight to PDX.  Cody and Cayden were informed their  informed their flight was cancelled and they would be flying the next day.  Before taking off, Kurt called me to see if we had been notified of any issues.  I checked my email and sure enough, there was as notice from Travelocity time stamped 1:15 am indicating that our flight had been cancelled and we were being rebooked through London.

The first problem I noted was that our rebooking email only included one leg:  London to Frankfurt.  It was a little short on details as to how we made it to that lovely isle. It was now about an hour until our shuttle was to arrive at the house. I called Travelocity and was assisted by a very friendly guy who immediately understood my concern.  After putting me on hold for awhile, he got back on the line to say he was on hold with Icelandair and that the expected hold time was an hour.  He offered to call me back when he had more info. 

I called the shuttle service to tell them to put our ride on hold until we know what our new boarding time was.  Next calls were to Debbie  and Chloe & Terry to give them a head's up. 

We then called TravelOne to check on what was being done with Cherry's flight info. While on hold with them, I'm using a second phone to text Kurt, Joy and Jessie to keep them in the loop.  The TravelOne guys initially came back and said they had no update that Cherry's flight was cancelled.  I finally convinced them by going to the Icelandair web site and only then did the guy figure out that Cherry had been rebooked to leave Wednesday morning (at 5:45 am) and would be flying through Chicago and arriving before 6 am in Frankfurt on Thursday--a day behind our original plan.

No sooner had I gotten off that call than the other phone rang.  It was Travelocity.  We were "all set" and our flight was departing at 1:45--almost an hour earlier than our original flight.  Quick calls back to Chloe & Terry (thankfully already on the road heading our way), Debbie and Shirley called the shuttle service back.  We still didn’t know our itinerary or if Debbie would be on the flight, but felt it best to get everyone to the airport and figure it out there.

When I made the shuttle reservation, I was very clear in their "comments" box that we would be traveling with a fair amount of luggage and six people.  The guy shows up in a minivan.  To his credit, he somehow was able to shoehorn it all in. My anxiety at this point is through the roof and it almost drove me crazy as he never exceeded the posted speed.  But given the torrential rain at this time; his prudence probably saved our lives when we hit a big pond of standing water on I-5.

So we finally get to the airport and drag all our bags up to the Icelandair counter--which as at one extreme end of the terminal.  There is virtually no line at the counter and I can immediately been assisted by one of the two staffers they have working.  Unfortunately, all they can tell us is that the flight is cancelled and that our rescheduled flight is on Alaska  (extreme other end of the terminal), and that we're now scheduled to go Alaska to San Francisco; Virgin Atlantic to Heathrow; and then British Airways to Frankfurt.  Well, at least that cleared up the "how do we get to London" question.

So the six of us trudge down to the Alaska counter.  The four of us booked together have no problem checking in--expect for that minor annoyance that they can only check our bags to SFO.  From there, we have to claim our bags; take an airport train to the international terminal; check in; go through TSA and get to our gate.  Scheduled time between arrival and take off is just under two hours.

The bad news was that they could do nothing for Cherry or Debbie.  Even though Debbie had used Alaska miles to book her trip, she needed to go through their Mileage Plan customer service to reschedule.  We tried calling TravelOne again to see if they could change her to our flight.  Unfortunately, they could not.  Time by now was getting close for us to board (thank goodness we had TSA Pre-check).  We called my parents and arranged for Cherry to spend the night with them and then take an Uber back to the airport in the morning.  We said good bye to Debbie and Cherry and headed off to the boarding gate.

Meantime; Kurt and Jennie had landed in Portland, but didn't have legs to take them on to Frankfurt.  So instead of ten of us flying off to Frankfurt together, only four of us left Portland today. 

The only one unscathed by all of this is Joy; who left SeaTac without incident.   She will now be arriving at Frankfurt several hours ahead of us; but she connected with Donovan and Jess and I think they are going to meet her there.

When we landed at SFO, we were able to learn that Cody and Cayden will be on the same flight from Chicago to Frankfurt with Cherry.  Kurt and Jennie are booked on a later United Flight out of PDX that Debbie is now trying to get scheduled on as well.  In the end; five of us will arrive in Frankfurt on Wednesday and six will arrive on Thursday.  We had rented two vans with Kurt as the driver as one and me as the other driver. So all in all, things appear to be working themselves out.

Let's just see if all those pieces hold together when we land in London.