She scheduled her first real vacation
in 13 years, an Alaskan cruise. sailing
out of Seattle Washington.
In order to do this she had to have her
husband approved for a 2 week respite care
in a nursing home, make sure the nursing home
would accept him and his insurance. She did all
of her research,got her plane tickets, made her reservation
for the cruise, asked her husband's father's second
wife if she would like to go with her etc.
Her day started with getting a message from United
Airlines that her 2:30 PM flight has been cancelled, with
no alternative flight offered or suggested. The ambulette
arrived at 7 AM to take her husband to the nursing home
and when she gets there, the person at the desk tells her
they have no information that he has been approved for
a stay of 2 weeks ( she still had to get home and try to
find a flight out to Seattle today because the ship sails
tomorrow morning) My usually quiet calm daughter tells the
lady at the desk that she will have to straighten it out
because she was going home to finish packing in order
to fly out of NY today and it was not going to be her problem.
She goes home starts calling airlines to get a flight to Seattle
and finally gets the last seat available on an American Airlines
flight with a change of plane in Chicago but now she has to
purchase a First CLass ticket because that's all they have which
is about an additional $1500.00 to what a regular ticket
would have been and the plane is flying out of one of the
airports in Queens (she lives in Staten Island which is about a 20
minute ride to Newark Airport where she was supposed to fly
out of originally) Queens is probably about 2 hours away from her
home in SI. My daughter in law offered to drive her to the airport
and in the car she tells my daughter to just look down at the floor
don't watch the road, she's driving and will get her to the airport
on time; and she did, with time to spare. Her American flight
took off on time, she had an hour layover in Chicago and landed
in Seattle about an hour ago. I just hope her cruise goes better
that her day today. She'll deal with United when she gets home.
They gave no reason for the cancellation and the weather was
beautiful, Angela has photos from when she was flying cross
country. And strangely the airports in NY and Chicago were
almost empty for the start of a holiday weekend, unless folks
are not making a weekend of it since the 4th is falling on a
Tuesday this year.
Keep your fingers crossed for her.
