We are off to Madrid today, the first stop in our 63-day trip around Europe – including 3 cruise ships, 5 cruises and 42 port calls. We’ll be busy, just the way we like it!
The day starts off lovely, it’s really foggy but nice and cool. We’re up early to walk around Charles D. Owen park (oh, and dump our trash in the bins there). It is so beautiful here in the morning, even with the fog. The ducks and geese are everywhere, just gliding around in the lake…until they take off enmasse that is, making all kinds of ruckus, and never return. Could be we just saw the beginning of their flight south. Hmmm….we’ll take that as our sign to fly off too – although we’ll be taking a little bit more north-easterly route!
John is right on time for our pick up and takes us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The place is packed to the gills. Yeah, we’re the 3rd busiest airport in North Carolina, that’s for sure…with absolutely no infrastructure to handle the volume! The one bar/restaurant is standing room only. Literally. We have to stand at the waitstaff area to order and have our drink. Not a place at the bar, not a seat at a table. Sigh. We’re 5th in line (yep – infrastructure!) and we actually luck into a table, which Ed snags while I wait for our drinks. Ay Yi Yi.
After we’ve wasted enough time, we head to our gate to wait some more, then hop on a very smooth and quick flight to Chicago where we luck out and arrive in the same terminal from which we leave. Nice – since Chicago is so huge it could take forever to change terminals. We’re on Iberia and we keep getting offers to upgrade our seats, but we can’t see if they are together because we’re booked on separate reservations (mine on frequent flyer points, Ed’s pay). We make the fatefully smart decision to go directly to the gate to see if anyone is there to ask about upgrading. Oh dear me…the line….it is already 15 people long and they are taking forever for each and every passenger. What is the deal?
We think maybe they are just checking all our paperwork – again – since they definitely checked everything in Asheville, including asking for a hotel confirmation (weird, huh?) – and when we finally get to the desk, 35 minutes later, the agent does indeed ask for our vaccination cards. But then, disaster strikes, we ask about upgrading and she says that the flight is completely full and there are no upgrades, so we say ok, but when she prints out our boarding passes we are in completely different seats – as in I’m in 27H and Ed is in 34A. Um – no – you are giving us our original seats back which we actually paid extra to get!
Thus begins at least a 20 minute argument over seats and placement and trying to get the system to put us back and the agents not being able to override it. OMG. Now we know what everyone was doing for so long! Seems Iberia has an algorithm that bumps you out of your seat if someone else pays for the seat. So essentially, someone else could say they wanted to pay to have an assigned seat and get our seat because we didn’t pay for it. But in actuality we did, they just couldn’t see that in the system. Ed luckily found the email confirmation with the purchase receipt and they tried then to put us back in our seats, but they couldn’t get Ed’s to go. I got my seat, but the agent told us to come back in 30 minutes when the other agent was coming and she could print our pass, and then they would have to page the other person now assigned to that seat and tell them they were moving. OMG. I just had to say that again!
We ran off to have a well deserved drink at a really close bar, then ran back in 30 minutes and thankfully got Ed’s boarding pass without issue. We also thankfully just hung out and found where we should line up with all the other people lining up 20 minutes before the flight and managed to get on the plane safely well ahead of the masses. Deep sigh of relief!
From there on out it was smooth as silk. Watched the latest Downton Abbey movie (a solid meh), ate a decent dinner (BBQ beef) and then tried to sleep as much as possible, which is not much, but what can you do?
A quick 8 hours later….we’re arriving in Madrid….
Andiamo 