01/11/07: The Trouble with Travels
Jan 25, 2007
Hawaii Update #1
On January 11th, we started our journey to Hawaii. We were lucky to actually finish the trip in the same day. I was scheduled to travel from Seattle and meet Handsome in LA to share the flight to Maui with him. His morning went according to plan; mine, not so much.
Five inches of snow had ground Puget Sound to a halt - it took nearly an hour to make the journey to the airport. After cutting in line for the check-in counter, cutting in line at security, and hijacking the golf cart, I made my flight with 2 minutes to spare. Then, we sat on the tarmack for an hour.
As my flight finally landed in LAX, my connection to OGG (Kahului, HI) was taking off. Handsome had us rebooked on a later flight...BUT the later flight was 8 hours later. 8 hours in LAX with nothing to do. Joy. I called the hotel for a late check-in, and contacted the rental car company to alert them to our late arrival. They might be able to stay open 15 minutes late to make sure we had transportation.
Our flight left LAX 20 minutes late and arrived in OGG at approximately the same time that the rental company closed up for the day - a little before quitting time, as it turns out. I called. The line rang and rang. Nice, helpful people. (Insert sarcasm here) Now, we needed to find Handsome's bag, which had arrived on schedule - 8 hours earlier.
We found the bag and gave our business to a different rental car company. We checked into our condo around 10pm. Starving and fatigued, we trudged into Kihea far enough to find a Denny's. Imagine that...flying to Maui to eat dinner at Denny's. The perfect end to a lousy day.
The moral of the story: avoid American Airlines and LAX - at all costs.
