This is a collection of my Tweets about my trip home from Orlando. I’ve edited them so they read more like a story and less like a series of tweets. Content is edited for clarity and spelling errors, because weirdly, my spelling skills are not rock-solid at 3:00am.
So, I was once told my most interesting tweets were when I was stuck in an airport. WELL GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE.
Except for you, Frontier Airlines
So, Emily were invited by friends to go to Disney World and see that rarest of things: the one week Epcot wasn’t holding a festival. It was like it’s un-birthday. We had a lovely time. I braved the death trap that is the Skyliner with grace and aplomb. Well, with gritted teeth and Hail Marys. And we had incredible food at La Cellier. Or as the Canadians call it, FOOUD. All was well.
Then we tried to leave. And, not to spoil the ending, but we still haven’t left yet.
So, we got to the airport in plenty of time thanks to Mickey’s Marginally Less Magical Express. I miss when my bags would leave my room and wind up on baggage claim in Ohio. But I’m grateful it currently exists at all. (Angry eyes at you, there, Disney.)
We got to the airport and, here’s where you come in Frontier Airlines, your line to check our bags was as long as Rise of the Resistance, but with less clever theming. We were in need of a FastPass, even with two hours until our 830pm flight. Thankfully, you had automated kiosks. I thankfully, they wouldn’t print out our baggage tags. They SAID we were checked in and didn’t need one. But this was a machine of lies.
Armed with a screenshot saying we were good, we went to what I assume was your audio-animatronic flight attendant and had a Kafkaesque conversation.
“You need baggage tags.”
“Yes, but your machine won’t print them.”
“Yes, but you need them.”
“But you won’t give them to us.”
“You’ll have to get in the huge line.”
“But your machine won’t give us the tags. And that line is as long as the one for Rise of the Resistance.”
“Please. It’s Star Tours length at best.”
“THATS NOT THE POINT!”
“You still need tags.”
Fortunately, my aged eyes manages to see the glyphs that read BAGGAGE TAG PRINTED on a completely different bank of kiosks. I had Emily
go over to see if that would give us the magical tags while I waited in line.
Don’t worry. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Obviously, this was a long shot. I mean, we’d just talked to another Cleveland-bound passenger who had the same problem. There was something wrong with the machines, right?
And here hope enters. (Ted, it’s the hope that kills.)
But my crazy plan worked! We got the tags and even helpfully pointed out to the previously mentioned robot drone that the bank directly in front of her actually worked and she would need to tell people that. She seemed uninterested in doing that.
Cut ahead three hours and we talk to another couple who missed their afternoon flight because the kiosks wouldn’t print the tags and the line they waited in was an Avatar-length one so they missed their flight.
I screamed like a banshee, or as they call it, an Ekron, when I heard this.
The bad machines had been a problem all day. Did anyone mark them broken or tell people to use different ones? No, why ruin the surprise?
So, we walked past the two open food places (at 7pm, which seemed odd for a major international airport) to brave the TSA, planning to get food on the other side by our gate.
Be prepared for an M. Night Shamalan level twist ahead.
WE HAD NO PROBLEMS WITH THE TSA.
Shocking, I know. I wouldn’t have expected that either.
Safely by our gate we decided to get food. Our flight was at 830, we wouldn’t be home until 1130, and those Morimoto Sticky Ribs in my tummy wouldn’t last forever. But we still had an hour and change.
Twist the second! Only two places were open. A Mexican place with too long a wait. And a Burger King with a line that looked like Frozen plus Avatar multiplied by Toy Story Mania. (Look, I was at Disney. I waited in a lot of freakin’ lines this week.) So I got in line while Emily searched for other food options.
Meanwhile, whoever ran this Burger King read Kafka, and programmed the Frontier Bot, said “But wait, this will be my masterpiece!” You see, to order food at this Burger King, you don’t go to the register. No, you go to the app. No, not the Burger King app, you fool. The HMS Host app. And how do you know to do this, you don’t. BECAUSE NOTHING TELLS YOU TO DO THIS.
Fortunately, some… and I don’t use this word lightly… some goddamned American hero… found out that we needed to scan a QR code on a sign that had been removed and she got the manager to put it back so that we could order. In the thirty minutes before they, too, closed.
Yes, I was in a race against time against the dozens of people in line, and the clock, and my flight. Emily texted to say there were no other food options and I said we’re going ride or die here.
I managed to order the food online. And I watched the least effective product line I’ve ever seen get our orders ready. I know they were under stress. But man, that manager should have said “large fries for everyone” rather than hand checking every artisanal order to make sure they had the right size of crispy potatoes.
Emily even got in on the fun when she said, “Oh, see if they have ketchup.” WE GET WHAT WE GET, BABE!
I knew enough to get bottled drinks because who knew how long that one working soda machine I saw would last before it joined its dead fellow soldier next to it.
Got the food. The drinks. Even the ketchup. And then I did a perfect Martin Riggs Lethal Weapon roll under the *closed gate* and, with Emily, we went to our gate. Fifteen minutes to spare. The unmanned Frontier Airlines said boarding at 8:00.
At 8:01pm they announced that, whoops, our flight crew was still in Atlanta and wouldn’t be here until 10:00pm. Weird that they didn’t know their flight crew was in the air before 8:00pm. I think that this lack of coordination will make more appearances in this story.
So Emily and I found a better place to wait with something resembling a table and had our delicious Airport Whopper and Chicken Sandwich on the Wrong Bun and waited for our new departure.
Smash cut to she and I talking to another couple at 1010pm. The STILL UNMANNED kiosk helpfully told us we were had boarded ten minutes ago. With my keen powers of deduction, I figured out that we were still in the airport.
Obviously, I was concerned for the Frontier customer service people who should have been there to give us updates. Had the Rapture occurred? Were we living through The Langoliers? Who knew? But eventually, the customer service person broke out of their Russian detention center to tell us, half an hour later, that we could now board.
Victory!
Oh, you poor deluded fool not realizing that I’m still tweeting at 3am. There would be no victory.
Instead, we sat on the uncomfortably warm plane while our valiant crew tried to take off. Eventually, our flight crew arrived! And victory!
Now, about ten years ago I was stuck in Miami after a convention. That experience is riddled with all sorts of unpleasant memories. But I did learn two things from that experience. Well, three, but the third isn’t important at this juncture.
What I learned was:
1. Flight crews can be on duty too long and time out.
2. In case of a medical emergency, the airline is not required to get you a hotel.
Because you’re not stupid, dear reader, you’ve figured out that after we pushed off from the gate there was a medical issue and we had to go back. Now, I certainly hope that person is okay. But I’d also like to know their social media so I know the magnitude of their issue. If they staved off a heart attack or brain aneurism, awesome. If they had a bad case of indigestion, I might be a little less charitable. But that’s a curiosity that will never be answered.
Of course the ill passenger had checked bags and they had to go back to the gate, unload ALL the bags to get to them, and then reload them. The crew said we could get off the plane and stay by the gate. No fool us, we got off.
We immediately dove for an empty electrical outlet. And, because Andy Ihnatko taught me well, I set up a multi port charger so multiple people could charge. Because that’s what gentlemen do.
And that’s when the flight crew timed out.
Let me say that the flight crew and flight attendants did every darn thing they could for us. They were kind and professional and when my reign is complete, they will have a place in the new order.
Now the counter crew on the other hand…
So, we all got into line to try to sort out this situation. Our flight was cancelled. It was after midnight. Who knew when we would leave if ever. The ghosts of the Haunted Mansion were looking for a one more. Was it me? Was this Disney Hell?
(Of course not. Disney Hell is in Disneyland located in Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.)
As we waited, I knew we wouldn’t get a hotel covered by the airline. But I’m a Hilton Member with lots of points from booking lots of SDCCs. And we’d call customer service at Frontier Airlines while we waited because that could be faster. And just in case, I’d see if my reliable Southwest could get us home.
The phone support was less than helpful. They couldn’t do anything until the flight was actually marked “cancelled” and not delayed. They also told Emily that only the counter could make accommodations like hotels and food vouchers and the like. The counter, of course, would eventually tell us that only the phone people could do that.
Before they unhelpfully broke the lines into REFUNDS and REBOOKINGS (so if the rebooking fails, I have to go to the end of the refund line) I’d gotten a hotel and a second flight out. Which is when they announced there’d be a new 6am flight.
This came with strings. 6:00am meant that, at best, we’d only get a couple hours at the hotel. Even so, we couldn’t leave and maintain our place on the flight because of security issues. And of course they left the bags on the plane.
Which was an issue. Because Emily has this eye condition and needed contact lens solution in her bag because it was too big to check. Because terrorists know that pretending to have keratoconus is the gateway to the success of their evil plans.
I, of course, pointed out that this was a medical emergency and I knew Frontier Airlines
cared so very much about these. So they would get her bag off the plane.
Well, no. There were a lot of bags you see. They couldn’t just get one bag off, after getting the one bag off for the sick passenger. Finally, they told Emily that if she came back to the counter at 3:00am, they could take care of this for her.
The counter crew left at 2:55am. No one ever came back until they were boarding our new 6:00am flight.
Now, the counter crew did manage to secure a single box of Nature Valley granola bars to give out to some of us. Do you know what goes well with granola bars? Me neither, since they couldn’t even get us water. Not bottled water. Not plastic glasses to fill at the drinking fountains, Just dry granola bars.
With our current plan to be on the new 6:00am flight, I had to try to cancel my non-refundable hotel and replacement airline tickets. And both Hilton Hotels and Southwest Air well, they know how to take care of their customers. It’s all good.
Bonus points to my Southwest Air rep who didn’t say, “Well, your first mistake was not booking with us.” Because they’d be right. But they didn’t gloat. Class acts they are.
So, I’m sitting here on the floor of gate 14, hungry and tired, my own normal contacts fusing to my eyes, waiting for our new crew to arrive and board a plane which, given everything else that’s happened, will doubtlessly board right before any restaurant or store opens up.
So pauseth the Ballad of Thom and Emily’s Attempt to Leave Orlando. Updates, unlike
Frontier Airlines’s policy, as they occur.
EPILOGUE
Getting on a plane again. Let’s see what happens. My money is on winding up on an island with John Locke.
Obviously, there were lots of other stories in this adventure that I didn’t touch on. This includes the woman complaining she couldn’t get six standby tickets and saying the plane was smoking when she saw the AC condensation. Or the people who saw people sleeping around them and said “I’m sure they want to hear this YouTube video, too!” Or the new Frontier flight crew who never apologized, never said word one about the inconvenience that we’d all gone through. In fact, they seemed offended that this sleep-deprived, ragtag group of DIsney refugees were frayed and had shorter tempers. And they had to know that this was a surprise flight, right? Because they were all called to staff a flight that didn’t exist until 1:00am that morning.
But there were also people watching each other’s stuff, and jokes and smiles and acts of kindness all around, too. People are inherently good.
Unlike Frontier Airlines.