Torturous Trip to Canada

August 9, 2015

in Odds & Ends Stories

I got up at 3:30 am Thursday to fly to Montreal from Oklahoma, then rented a car and drove an hour north of there. I was really nervous about the drive as I knew all the signs would be in French. Turns out that was the easiest part of the trip.

I got up at 3:30 am  to make my flight; transferred to Houston. Got to Newark and that’s when things got crazy. To make a long story shorter at least, I had a flight cancelled in Newark and they couldn’t get me to Montreal. Had to stay the night in Newark. Took 4 or 5 hours after we de-planed before they cancelled; I found new flights and a room. They lost one of my bags, so I had to wait around for a few hours more for them to decide that they couldn’t find it. They promised me it would be in Canada when I arrived.

I got up at 3:30 am again to catch my next round of flights. Couldn’t get directly to Montreal in a timely fashion, so I had to connect in Quebec City. I flew to Quebec City and had a flight cancelled there. The only good news is my lost case was there so that was a relief. After talking to a very rude French Canadian who told me to just sit and wait, I got another flight and made it to Montreal. I knew they had re-booked me when they announced my name as being late for a flight. The guy at the gate never told me. So I flew to Montreal where I did my work on Saturday trying to squeeze 2 days work into one.

Got up at 3:30 am on Sunday to catch my flight from Montreal. Drove an hour to get there and then went through customs. Eventually my flight was cancelled. (This was mechanical, the other two were weather BTW.) Spent two hours in line to get re-booked. My next flight was through Toronto, so I had to get my bags, leave customs and then re-check in on another domestic (Canadian) airline.

Got to Toronto and they misplaced the other piece of my luggage. I waited for two hours and they finally found it. I still had just enough time to go back through customs, but right as I was about to do that my fight to Chicago was cancelled. Had to book a room in Toronto.

There was a Sheraton basically as part of the airport, so I booked it and went there. It was the wrong one. Turns out there are three Sheratons at the airport and one of the other ones was the one we booked. Had to go to the shuttle. Waited an hour on the shuttle, got to the hotel and found it had been booked for NEXT Sunday. Turns out when a hotel is full Priceline suggests other days. Who knew? Also know that by now I’m a zombie. That mix up was completely my fault, but it didn’t really matter whose fault it was at this point. Found a Marriott Courtyard, caught a cab from wrong hotel #2, and from there had as good of a trip as I could have under the circumstances

Got up today at 3:30 am to catch my flight from Toronto, went through customs AGAIN, flew to Dallas, then here. Everything went fine. I got home 26 hours later than I was supposed to with all of my bags and a lovely story to tell anyone who will ask.

The cancelled flights in order were United, Air Canada, WestJet and American.

So that was my trip to Canada.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

paul August 9, 2015 at 5:52 pm

Hey……..At least you didn't lose your luggage.

Reply

Beth August 10, 2015 at 8:52 am

Wow. That was flightS from hell!

Reply

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