Travelling woes

What a travel day that started at 4 a.m. and ended at 1 a.m. Friday!

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale two hours late. The delays in Fort Lauderdale since early morning meant that there was a huge traffic jam of planes waiting for gates when we arrived.

We were told we had to wait for a plane to deplane its passengers, have them clear immigration, reboard, and then find crew to move the plane. I could see planes lining up on the runway waiting for gates.

We finally got off an hour and a half? later. Then we had to clear Immigration. We lined up, still optimistic we would make our flights as they had also been delayed by several hours. Originally I had over four hours to do this, have supper, and take my evening flight.

Well, they decided to only let US citizens clear immigration and had hundreds and hundred of us lining up and fenced in like cattle waiting. Some were travelling with babies, some were elderly, all of us were tired and just wanting to get home or make our next flight. We stood there tired, thirsty and hungry, waiting for hours. Spirit, the budget airline I flew with from San Jose, doesn’ t even offer you water unless you pay for it.

When we finally were released to line up for an Immigration officer, we discovered there were only a handful of officers processing hundreds and hundreds of people arriving. They also gave priority to Global travellers. When they took breaks there were sometimes only one or two people processing us.

After more than three hours standing in line with a heavy backpack on I finally got through. I ran to my next flight - after having to go through security again first - but it had left about ten minutes prior to when I got there.

The Spirit agent there ignored me and was leaving so I ran after her and was able to get instructions on where to go to rebook my flights.  Naturally there was another line. While waiting I checked possible flights to LA and Seattle and Vancouver and Victoria. In the meantime my sister emailed me info on the extreme weather in California and flight cancellations there. I decided to avoid California and  was able to find a flight to Vancouver via Seattle for under $600 so I booked that. I was also able to cancel my hotel in Los Vegas and get a credit for it.

It took 1 1/2 hours of waiting to speak with a Spirit agent. She reimbursed my tickets and told me I could submit a claim for hotel and get reimbursed $150. By then it was after midnight, and I started looking for a hotel with airport shuttle.

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