And ... the Adventure Continues!

I woke up feeling a sense of dread in the night. It was unsettling ... I chalked it up to all the changes we have to deal with when we get home. We need to re-rent a condo that was supposed to be rented until the end of July. We need to start purging and downsizing in order to sell the house. I suspected the realities of these things were disturbing me.

However, once it was daylight ... I saw a "Flight Change" came into my email at 2:40am. Westjet cancelled our connection from Toronto to Calgary. They suggested re-routing us through Edmonton ... we would have been travelliing for 24 hours. Gahhhhhhhhhh.

So, I called them right away and asked if they really intended to have us spend the night in the Edmonton Airport or if they were going to supply us with a room? She put me on hold and offered us a stop overnight in Toronto instead ... leaving for Calgary at 6:30am tomorrow. I could live with that ... but then ... we had to cancel our hotel in Calgary for tonight and book a room in Toronto instead. She said I could seek restitution by logging onto Wetjet.com/guestservices to get reimbursed once we had all our receipts. I guess I will give it a go once we are home.

However, I see that Toronto has a storm warning for tonight and tomorrow morning. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we won't encounter another cancellation. The WestJet lady emailed the new itinerary and told me to check in immediately. I tried ... three times ... it won't let me, It keeps coming up with an error code. So, I guess we will now have to wait in the lines at the airport to check-in. I'm putting it out to the Universe that we will ask for a free seat upgrade as a little compensation for all this caffuddle.

So, we reminded ourselves that our job is to make the best of whatever comes our way. The old boy promptly cut himself shaving. He is sporting a nice "tapie" as he calls it, on his chin. We headed down the street for breakfast and while the old boy was thoroughly enjoying his 'huevos rancheros' ... I was only about half way through my ham and cheese omelette when I discovered a black hair in it. Gag ..............

Fortunately ... they took my plate off the bill but it was still $32.64USD ... for one plate and two coffees. I could not believe it was that high until I noticed that our coffee cost $6.25USD each!!! And the cups were not that big ... and ... they had no decaffeinated options either. We reminded ourselves that we need to make the best of things.

We decided to grab some orange juice and take it to the room so we could enjoy some mimosa's with the wine left over from last night. On the way back to the room, a little critter scared me as it skittered across my path! Sheesh ... I am grateful for the mimosa and the fact that we can delay our check-out until noon.

Well ... when we got to the airport, my WestJet app had deleted my original boarding pass for Toronto to Calgary but it was still showing our boarding passes from Ft Lauderdale to Toronto. And then ... I received a notice that our new rescheduled flight from Toronto to Calgary was also cancelled. The alternate itinerary was a lovely flight leaving 3 days from now!! A full two days later than the newly rescheduled flight! I refused to accept the changes ... and ... didn't think I`d have time to call them before boarding for Toronto ... so I thought we would sort it out when we got to Toronto.

But NO. As we were going through the boarding process, they scanned my boarding pass and "red Light" came on. They took our passports and one of the staff plunked on the computer for quite some time. Almost all the passengers had boarded when they issued us NEW seats ... 30A and 30B. I am not sure what happened to 15A and 15 C which were our previous boarding passes.

And then, I noticed that in the process of issuing our new boarding passes ... they also issued us seats on the flight 3 days from now!! I cannot even begin to tell you how livid I felt. I was using all my best clinical tools and techniques to calm my frustrations as we endured the most bumy and uncomfortable flight we have taken in decades. Due to the weather and our non-reclining, bathroom adjacent seating ... we had lines of people hovering over us (even when the fasten seat-belt sign was on due to turbulence). At times it was so rough that I thought the air masks were going to drop down. I was once again grateful to Caryl for bringing Bonine over the line!!

Upon arriving in Toronto, we weren't exactly sure who to talk to in order to see if we could get on a plane prior to February 25!! We kept asking as we winded our way through customs and immigration. They all told us something different. We finally opted to follow the purple connections signs (even though we no longer had a connection) and found ourselves before Vicki Maxwell. She searched and searched and even invited to me come behind the desk to view here screen. Even though there are 6 or 8 flights per day between Toronto and Calgary ... not one had any seats available. I could have cried.

Finally, she asked me to jot my phone number on a piece of paper. She said she would call me if anything came up. Soemone else said that they might add a larger plane to and existing departure in order to accomodate all those passengers whose flights were cancelled.

I was so very grateful to see Vicki calling me!! She had found two seats out of Toronto at 10:15pm on the 23rd instead of the 25th. We had to check out of our hotel by 11:00am but spending almost 12 hours at the airport sounded far better than staying an extra 72 in Toronto. We will also need to spend another night in Calgary because we arrive so late. Unfortunately, it means we will miss another birthday celebration with our youngest daughter ... but at this point, we will just be grateful to get home.

I have no idea how it will all unfold ... but ... I'll keep you posted! Please keep your fingers crossed that another cancellation does not happen!!Meer informatie