REALLY, REALLY BIG First World Problems

 Vacation Day +3

Well, I am still writing, so you know what that means. Again, death by a thousand paper cuts and a few deep knife wounds occurred. Here are the highlights.

We got to the Cape Town airport on Sunday around Noon and we got some lunch prior to our 3:50pm flight to J-burg (I have to start short-handing this name as it features prominently in this story and it is too long to type every time!). Our connection in J-burg allowed for a 1.5 hour layover - plenty of time we were told to get from our arriving gate to our international departure at 7:25 pm on Swiss Air to Zurich (aka ZRH, which by the way I know now every airport acronym in the world).

As we finished lunch, Adam noted a message he received - our flight was delayed by 30 minutes. Uh-oh!! Everyone who has ever travelled knows that this spells trouble. 30 become 60 become 2 hours becomes cancelled. But, optimistically (if you can muster such a feeling after what we have been through), we would still make our connection. Then we were assigned a new departure gate (another bad sign). When we got to that new Gate, it was posted for a 1 hour delay. Now, our 30 minutes layover was extremely tenuous.

Adam and Steve decided to go outside security back to the South African Airways (SAA) check-in desk to see what we could do. A very nice lady jumped into action and she ran us around the check-in hall to various other airlines but it was too late. They had flights to J-burg, but all were booked or closed. So, the lady convinced us that she will alert everyone involved - the flight attendants, the ground crew in J-burg - that we will be scurrying to get to our ZRH departure Gate.

So Adam and Steve have to go back through security and passport control, and now the line was VERY long. But thankfully this lady got us a priority pass and we got through pretty quickly in a separate lane for crew and airport workers.

We got to our Gate where Maria had been steadfastly overseeing the kids. They were real troopers!!! Despite all the wrangling, they were doing OK and keeping a positive attitude. Our flight says it will depart at 4:56pm (not 3:50). Every minute counts. We have to be shuttled out to the tarmac where our plane is and at 4:40 there are no buses. We are all reassuring each other - "If we are a few minutes late, surely they will hold the ZRH flight so we can board. They did that for us in Dulles as well as some other passengers with delayed connections. It only makes sense for such a one-time-per-day international flight." WE are ciphering at this point. OK - leave at 5:00, and its a scheduled 2-hour flight. We land at 7:00, sprint through the airport (the wild card is getting through passport control for the international flight), and we arrive at the ZRH Gate at 7:30 and they are waiting for us.

Then, some encouraging news from some locals. This flight usually takes only takes 1:40 because there is always a tailwind. Great! We will make up some time.

Buses finally arrive, people get onto them and we ride to the tarmac to walk up a staircase to get on the plane. There is a little very old lady (God bless her) that they are trying to get on the plane. Everything is grinding to a halt. Then passengers have brought enormous bags onto the plane that won't fit overhead. The attendants are taking them off the plane and handing them to the ground crew to store below. This is not good. We are sitting and sitting. HELPLESS! NOTHING WE CAN DO. PRAY!

Long story short in bullet form

• the plane has to make an extra loop around the J-burg airport
• we land at 7:05 and taxi forever
• the attendant is supposed to announce that we have tight connections so everyone stay seated; she makes the announcement but it is so quiet and so secondary to all other announcements that I am convinced no one hears it - we barely heard it
• we have talked to the Head flight attendant - she assures us that she has been in touch with the ground crew etc. everyone knows what is up
• there will be a buggy for us
• they have called the ZRH Gate
• none of this happens
• we are running as fast as we can through a very large airport not knowing where we are going - just following signs
• kind people allow us to jump the passport line and go right to an agent
• the passport control system is down; we are supposed to fill out paper forms; we got no forms; we are in an incredible hurry; thankfully he reluctantly stamps our passports and we are off to running
• Gate A18 is the furthest Gate there is in the international departures terminal (you can't make this stuff up!) - See diagram below of JNB.
• We see the Gate way, way, way down the Hall - Maria, Connor and Elise are sprinting ahead; my lungs are burning and legs failing; just need one person to get to the Gate
• As Maria gets there, they had closed the Gate a few minutes earlier; I arrive fuming mad; they say, "We feel so bad. No one called us. We would have waited a few more minutes."
• We watch our plane pull away from the Gate - THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO! We just ran 1.7 miles (literally according to our iPhones) and fell a few minutes short.

To describe the emotional letdown is impossible. Third straight day we have missed our international flight. Now, where do we go? We are spent - physically, emotionally, mentally.

• we struggled to get out of the international terminal and back to an airport counter where we could talk to someone
• we have to go back to Terminal A - reversing our steps through security and passport control; everyone is skeptical of what we are doing and a little slow to help us
• where's our baggage? the woman in the baggage area from United it totally unhelpful and uninterested in helping us solve our problem
• Steve runs ahead to get to ticket counters only to arrive at 9:04; they closed at 9:00; everyone is gone.
• no tickets for tomorrow; no baggage; no hotel voucher; no nothing.
• we check three airport hotels - all fully booked
• thank goodness that Adam is cell phone adept and he uses Priceline.com to get us into a hotel just off the airport property
• it's 10:09; the restaurant closes at 10:30 (hey, one thing went our way); Adam and Steve check-in while Maria takes the kids to get something to eat before it closes.
• in our rooms at 11:00; kids pass out under Maria's watchful eye.
• Adam comes to Steve's room to start the process all over
• it only takes 2 hours this time to rebook a flight that we had found on United.com and given all the details to the agent.

JNB - FRA - ORD - IND (that's Johannesburg to Frankfurt to Chicago to Indy) arriving at 5:47pm Tuesday evening in Indy.

So, as I write this on Monday morning from a hotel near the JNB airport, we have to figure out where our bags are and be ready for a 7PM departure for Frankfurt. Let's see what happens this time.