Worst Travel Experience Ever

At the end of October we took a vacation with some of Corinne's family in Tulsa. In order to separate the travel experience from the vacation, we'll talk about the actual vacation separately. But the traveling experience itself was quite unbelievable and deserves its own story entirely. This is the type of story that no one ever wants to experience, but we did. It's fairly long, but it's 100% true.

Such excitement! Little did we know...

Flight Delays and Mechanical Problems
Our flight to Tulsa was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon flying through Denver, but an October snow storm in Colorado caused a one hour delay in our departure from Portland. When we finally arrived in Denver, we had about 5 minutes to make our scheduled connection time. We checked the status board at the airport, and our connecting flight wasn't even listed - not a good sign. We rushed to the gate, and when we got there we were informed that the plane hadn't even arrived in Denver yet; our connecting flight was therefore delayed, but would still be leaving that night.

After about an hour and a half of waiting at the gate in Denver, our flight was then canceled due to mechanical problems with the plane. When we got to the rebooking counter, there were two airline agents at the desk and a line of about 30 people. By this time it was about 9pm, so there were no more flights to Tulsa that day. We were then informed that there were no seats available to Tulsa on the FOLLOWING day, either; the earliest that we could get there would be Friday morning. Needless to say, this did not make the line happy.

Hotel Shuttle
There were, however, flights to Oklahoma City on Thursday morning, so we decided that was our best option. Loren had agreed that he could pick us up from there, about a one and a half hour drive from Tulsa. Since the flight was canceled due to mechanical problems, the airline provided us with a voucher to a local hotel and some food vouchers and things. All of our bags had been offloaded, so we grabbed our luggage and head out to the hotel pickup area. By this point it was 10pm, and the snow was really coming down. Corinne stayed inside with Anders while I waited outside with all of the bags. Given the weather, I called to make sure that the shuttle was still running, and they said that the shuttle should be there in 30 minutes. So I waited. And waited. Shuttles came and shuttles went - many times - but ours did not. Keep in mind that this whole time I was dressed for Portland and Tulsa weather, not blizzard in Denver. After 45 minutes I called the hotel again, and this time they said that there had been "an accident", but the shuttle should be there in 20 minutes. 45 minutes after that (and two additional phone calls later), our hotel shuttle finally arrived. By this time a good sized group of people had accumulated, waiting for that same shuttle. We were last to board the shuttle, and all of the seats were already full. Someone graciously gave up his seat for Corinne and Anders, and the good Samaritan and I sat in the back on top of the luggage for the 25 minute drive to the hotel. The roads were pretty ugly.

Once at the hotel, we checked in as quickly as possible and all three of us got in bed at about 12:30am. The flight to Oklahoma City left at 7:15am the following morning, which only left us about 4 hours in the hotel before it was on to the shuttle again. (The hotel seemed lovely, so it's too bad we couldn't have spent more time there... but I'll get to that in a moment.)

Oklahoma City? No
We arrived back at the airport the following morning and waited for our flight to Oklahoma City. After about an hour this flight was also canceled, this time due to the continuing weather problems. We managed to get rebooked on a flight to Tulsa leaving that evening, exactly 24 hours after our original flight was to leave. But that still left us 12 hours with no place to go. We had already checked out of our hotel, and the airline was not providing hotel vouchers since this time the cancellation was weather-related. Rather than stay in the airport all day, we found an inexpensive hotel that would let us check-in early. But this time, our luggage didn't get returned, so we would have to make due with our carry-ons.

Stranded in Denver
First order of business in the second hotel: sleep. All three of us spent several hours sleeping on the cheap, relatively uncomfortable bed. It wasn't until sometime after noon that we awoke and started to recognize some of our problems:

• We couldn't go anywhere but the airport. Two feet of snow covered the ground, and we weren't about to trudge through it in our only pair of shoes.
• We had no food. Anders was still nursing, but he needs solid foods to augment some of the nutrients. And we need solid foods, too.
• We were quickly running out of diapers. When we packed for our trip, we didn't pack enough diapers in the carry-on for the 24+ hours that we ended up needing.
  

We could have taken the hotel shuttle back to the airport for food, but there was little chance that we would find diapers at Hudson News. When I went down to the hotel desk to ask about calling a taxi, a former hotel employee happened to be there visiting. He overheard my story and offered to drive me to the grocery store that was just a few miles down the road. This was our second - and much more significant - good Samaritan of the trip!

Brakes On A Plane
At 5pm we were back to the airport for our latest attempt to get out of Denver. It looked like we might not make it this time, either; after boarding and closing the doors, they were unable to depart the gate as the brakes on the plane were apparently frozen. It took at least an hour to free the wheels and de-ice the plane before we departed.

Melting the brakes with a portable heater

Luggage? No
We finally arrived in Tulsa after midnight, and it looked like our trials were finally behind us and we could just enjoy what was left of our vacation. But our journey through hell was not yet complete. Remember when I said that our luggage didn't get returned to us after the last cancellation? Well, it didn't get sent to Tulsa with our flight, either. But the Frontier agent couldn't tell us where they went, because Frontier doesn't scan their bags. We would have to wait until it showed up unclaimed somewhere.

So it's 1am Friday morning, we're extremely travel weary, and we're standing in front of a Frontier ticket counter with no bags but our carry-ons. Suddenly, there's a pool of liquid directly underneath Anders in the stroller. You have got to be kidding me. Damn you, disposables! But I guess that about sums up what we think of Frontier at this point.

Luggage? Still no
Our original plans were to spend 2 days in Tulsa, then drive to a "wilderness resort" near Branson, MO to spend a relaxing weekend with the family. But our delays eliminated most of the time in Tulsa. We would be driving the 4 hours to Big Cedar Lodge later that same day - after getting some much needed sleep, of course. But that meant that our bags needed to be delivered to us on Friday so that we'd have them for the rest of our trip. "That shouldn't be a problem," says the agent.

Yeah, right. We got a call later that day indicating that they had found our bags in Oklahoma City, which is where our second scheduled flight was headed. But here's where the next major screw-up happened. Rather than driving the bags from Oklahoma City to where we were in Tulsa - a 1.5 hour drive - Frontier decided to fly the bags BACK TO DENVER. By the time they arrived, there weren't any more flights from Denver to Tulsa, so now it looked like we would have to wait until Saturday. It also meant that the airline would have to drive our bags from Tulsa all the way to Branson. The airline assured us the bags would be delivered first thing in the morning arriving by 2pm.

Saturday morning we talked to the baggage delivery service who informed us that because of our distance from Tulsa (remember, we're 4 hours away now) we would be at the end of the delivery route and probably wouldn't get them until nighttime. At 8pm on Saturday, we finally received our bags. (Recall that we left home on Wednesday.) And we were returning to Tulsa the following day.

Oh, and did I mention that Saturday was Halloween, and that one of the checked bags contained Anders's costume?

It is worth noting that through all of this Anders was as easy going as could be. I think because he didn't really understand all of the things that went wrong that shouldn't have, it was easier for him to just go with the flow. I think we should all take a lesson from that.

"There's Nothing I Can Do..."
Since the beginning of our trip was so frustrating, we decided to extend our stay in Tulsa by a day. And since the airline caused so many of the problems, they were surely going to change our flight without a problem.

When I called Frontier to change our plans, they made no attempt to make things right. They were initially going to charge me the change fee, any fare difference, and the full baggage cost for the return trip. After a long phone "discussion" with a Frontier agent and her supervisor, I finally got them to eliminate the change fee and allow us to use the free "travel vouchers" we received after the first cancellation to cover the fare difference. (I figured we would never use them anyway, since there's no way that we would willingly choose to fly Frontier again.) When we checked in for our return flight, the ticket agent was sympathetic to our plight and sent our checked bags gratis.

There were a bunch of other Frontier customer service snafus not worth the time it would take to explain them. But now that I've written all of this down, I will never have to think about those experiences again.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Date: November 2, 2009