Flight Home from Rome

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

 Rome and Flight to United States 

This was thee most horrendous experience I have ever had flying anywhere!  We got up at 4 a.m., went to the meeting place we were told, and waited.  They called the two groups after us to depart, when we finally were able to find someone from the ship to tell us what was going on.  Apparently we were supposed to meet in a different place, but the ship never told us the meeting place was changed.  When I say us, I mean everyone in our group, not just my family.  We had to hustle to the dock, find our bags, and drag them to the bus.  We loaded the luggage on the bus, climbed abroad and started on our journey to the airport. We got to the airport, had to unload the luggage and drag it to the terminal.  There was no indication as to what you were supposed to do, where to go, etc.  So Ariel and I stood in one line while Grandma and Auntie stood in another line.  Of course, Ariel and I were correct, as usual!  They would not allow us to check in until one hour before your flight, so we had to stand in line forever!  This was not the check in line; this was the line you waited in to get permission to wait in line to check in.  After some time, we were finally allowed to pass through this line. Once through the first line, we headed around the corner, where we waited in what we thought was the correct line, but was not.  We had to figure out what line to go to, maneuver around other people in lines that were not our line.  We waited in line, and waited in line, and waited in line.  When it was our turn, the lady in charge told us to follow her, so we did.  We waited with her for a long time, then she told us she was moving us to an earlier flight, which was fine with us until she couldn’t ticket us correctly, give us the correct labels for the bags, and we could barely understand her.  She then got up and left, but we did not have all our tickets or luggage tags.  Another young lady started doing “stuff” and told us that the other lady screwed up and she had to redo everything.  Grandma and Auntie finally got everything squared away, but Ariel and I had to be re-ticketed for the third time.  We checked the time and had only 30 minutes before the flight, which the lady said we would have no problem making-yeah right!  We sent Grandma and Auntie to the security line and then eventually joined them.  Fortunately this line went fairly quickly.  We got to the other side and had no idea what to do-there were no gates, no planes, no signs…we figured out that we had to take a train to the plane.   We hopped on the train, thinking there was no way we were going to make it.  We got to the terminal, ran to what we thought was the gate, but was only the entrance to go to the gate, which was down a hallway, escalator, and another hallway.  We were stopped at the top of the escalator and had to show our passports again.  We had 10 minutes before departure at this point, still not sure we were going to make it.  We had to go down another long hallway, as we were rushing through it, not knowing if we would be able to get on the flight.  We did make it, barely; the main door to the plane was closed so we had to go to the 1^st class door.  We finally get on, sat down in our seats, and took a deep breath. The flight was extremely long and painful.  It was one of the worst flights ever, but we made it through.   Upon on arrival into Atlanta, we were told to pick up our luggage and take it through customs, and then to recheck it in.  We waited and waited and waited, but one of my bags and one of Ariel’s bags did not show up.  They announced that we had to wait for our bags before going to customs.  It was getting closer to the departure time, and still no bags.  Finally Grandma went to the counter to ask what was going on, and they told her not to worry about the bags and to catch the flight.  We ran through customs, but Grandma got pulled over due to an orange that she had in her bag, well not really an orange in the bag, the smell of an orange that was in her bag before.  We rushed over to recheck our bags in, then over to security.  We were directed to go to this one line, where there was a family with a small child in a stroller, who obviously had no cares in the World, as they did not move forward and were not even ready to go through security.  We now had 20 minutes before departure.  An officer then directed us to another line, which ended up taking longer than if we had waited for that family to get it together.  Again, no clue as to where to go or what to do.  We followed other people to a tram, but it said the tram would take us to baggage claim and we needed to go to a gate.  We got on then got off, then the lady who was to be directing us where to go snapped at us to get on and take it to the gate.  Grandma starts going through the door as it closes on her and does not reopen like an elevator.  I’m thinking she is going to get crushed, when the tram stops, and the doors open while announcing someone’s body is blocking the door.  We jump in the tram as the door is shutting again.  We pray this is the right way to go. 

As we were running through the airport and jumping on the tram, I still had everything from my bag in my hands, since I did not have time to put them away.  I bent down to put them in my carry-on bag when the tram started moving, very quickly; the bag fell over, my backpack fell off my shoulder, and I rolled across the floor of the tram, not a pretty picture!  I was finally able to get my balance, put my things away, and stand up.  The tram stopped, we got off, looked around, and found the gate sign.  Guess where the gate was, the furthest one away, and two escalators. As we sprinted through the airport, dragging our bags along behind us, we thought it best to send Ariel ahead.  She got to the gate as they were closing the door.  She was able to get them to hold the door open for us.  Grandma was really far behind us, and we were worried she wasn’t going to make it, as the gate keeper was yelling at us to get going.  We finally got through the door and on the plane, then looked for our aisle seats.  Our aisle seats turned out to be middle seats, all of them, none of us sitting together.  I was sitting between two large gentlemen, who spilled over into my seat and both had taken possession of the arm rest. Oh yeah, my seat did not recline either.  So I pretty much had to sit straight up, squished.  I tried to sleep with my head in my lap, which didn’t work very well.  Plus, I was freezing, with no blanket!  This felt like the second to the longest flight in all of history!  We went down to baggage claim, thinking we would be able to eat a good dinner, and rest before my next flight,  Boy, were we wrong.  The luggage carousal went round and round then came to a screeching stop.  No luggage, not even one piece arrived.  This was not too good, so we went to the counter, where they started a claim and told us that they knew that two bags should be arriving on the next flight and they did not know about the other two at that time.  They told us to wait.  We waited, the carousal went round and round, no bags.  Again, we were told they would arrive on the next flight.  We waited, the carousal went round and round and then we had hope, Grandma’s and Auntie’s bags showed up, but not ours.  Again, we were told to wait, and again the carousal went round and round, and then two of the four bags showed up.  Back to the counter we went, and again we were told to wait.  We waited, but the bags did not show up on the next three flights.  It is close to midnight now and we were tired, frustrated, and angry.  We made arrangements for them to send the bags to us.  They told us to call in the morning since they were supposed to be on the one a.m. flight.  We called them at one a.m. but the bags did not show up.  They told us to call in the morning but at that point they did not even know where the bags were.  This is a tad upsetting!  We called in the morning and they had located the bags, they had just made it to Atlanta; they had been in Rome this whole time.  We made arrangements to ship my bag to Maui and Ariel’s to Grandma’s, but are very stressed and angry over the situation!  We will send a letter to the airline as soon as we get back.  I just hope the bags actually show up!!!! So, now you know why we were not pleased with the flight situation!