By the numbers

Well he did it. I didn’t think I would see the day, but my brother actually got married. We spent a few extra days and flew down to Sint Maarten to attend the ceremony. We just missed the hurricane and thankfully it swung south altogether. So here are a few numbers to get us started.

7: The number of airports we were at over our trip to Sint Maarten.
Dallas Fort Worth International (DFW)
Charlotte Douglas International (CLT)
Princess Juliana International (Sint Maarten) (SXM)
Miami International (MIA)
Fort Lauderdale – Hollywood International (FLL)
William P. Hobby Airport (Houston) (HOU)
Dallas Love Field (DAL)

5: The total number of days for our trip
4: The total number of hotels we stayed at during the trip
3: The total number of different airlines it took to get there and back.
2: The number of bags American Airlines lost.

Or in short: Five days, Four hotels and three airlines.

What happen you ask? Well hold on…

Thursday night Mom, Dad, Holly and I are staying in a hotel by DFW. Our flight is at 7:15 Friday morning and we are flying standby, so you have to be early. Thursday night also happens to be the night the Tropical Storm Erin dumps a lot of rain on the metroplex. This causes Thursday night flight to be very delayed. Friday morning we check in and learn that due to late arrivals, the crews are on mandatory rest and cannot fly before 9:30. The airline is rebooking paying customers to the next flight, so there is no way we are getting out earlier than that.

So we finally get off the ground and head to CLT on US Airways. As expected we misconnect for our flight to SXM. We quickly make plans, rent a car and get a hotel for the evening. We do get a great break and our great friends (the ones who never comment on this blog) had an open evening and invited us over for some good home cooking. It was yummy, but the company and welcome nature of our friends is what made the evening. The next morning we get up and head to the airport for our flight to SXM.

We load on the plane and sit there. An hour later we finally move. It seems the jet bridge was stuck up against the plane without power. We arrive late to SXM and just a hour and a half before the wedding. So very tired and travel worn we check into our third hotel.

The wedding is nice. It is actually the uneventful part of the story. A separate post with pictures will follow.

We are planning to take US Airways home on Monday. I wake up and check the flight to find that it is sold out, time for our backup plan. We immediately pack and head to the airport to get on American Airlines. After a lot of confusion of whether or not there were seats on the plane we are on our way to MIA. We land in MIA with a four hour layover. We go to the gate to see our place on the standby list is 27 thru 30^th. NOT GOOD if you are dead last on the plane. We get a very helpful AA flight attendant, but some very rude AA employees otherwise. She informs us that she will barely get on the plane, we have no chance. Sure enough we were four of the six people not making it on. So we decide that we are not going to chance it with American Airlines anymore. We hop in a cab, after finding a hotel in Fort Lauderdale. We check into our fourth hotel.

The next morning we head to FLL and get on good ole Southwest Airlines. There noting quite as comforting as home. SWA treats us good, understands our predicament and is nice to us. What a concept. We change planes in HOU marking our sixth airport, landing safe and sound at DAL.

We rent a car and head to DFW to retrieve our luggage that went on American Airlines the previous night. After a lot or running around we learn that one of my parents bags is lost at DFW and the other bad went to Buenos Aires. Now that is a trip!

Needless to say we are tired. But our standby travel saved us over $800. Well sort of, now we have to deduct hotels and rent cars! However, even if we had a ticket we would have misconnected on our outbound. We had a good time and look forward to a longer trip sometime in the future, albeit not on American Airlines.

P.S. I wrote this fast and furious late in the evening. Sorry for bad grammar and no reading checks! Justin