Scary Travel Stories By Those Who Travel To Ses/seo/sem Conferences Options

[cre8pc]

It occurs to me that I have the perfect place to whine...

Flights Canceled on Way BACK From SES San Jose



I can't be alone.....gotta story?

[send2paul]

Ouch! What a story - and a bit of an adventure as well! I love travelling and meeting folks - but usually when it's all scheduled and going according to plan

Oddly enough, I did get stuck in Chicago once for a few hours, but not at the airport. It was a Greyhound bus. It was the middle of summer back in 1988 and the air conditioning on the bus broke down shortly after leaving the central bus station. The bus pulled into an abandoned school area, (which looked exactly like the police station and area in Assault on Precinct 13), and we were dumped off whilst they tried to get a new bus. And, being the chatty chap I am I made lots of interesting friends on that trip. (I was on a New York to LA trip).

Reading your story Kim - I bet you were glad of the posh hotel stay!

[JohnMu]

New York to Los Angeles on a bus? Yikes.
Did you take the rowboat back to England?

I hope you made it home safe in the meantime, Kim

John

[khalidh]

Last year, I travelled 120,000 miles. I think I am coming to accept delays as part of my life. I have no clue how these airline companies survive for so long. On the last project, I was travelling from Rochester, NY to Houston. The flight was suppose to take 5 hours. I usually left Rochester on Thursday at 5 pm and got to Houston at 2 pm the next day. I had to do that for 4 months. Frustrating!

[swainzy]

What is up with the airlines? Even your blogger that was going to Arizona got cancelled and I don't believe that was about weather. It's sunny in Arizona!

My girlfriend had a flight cancelled last spring and had to sleep on the Denver Airports floor. The delay was 35 hours. My other friends was on the tarmac both ways for and hour. I'd kill myself. I'm claustrophobic.

Man Kim, I cannot believe you had this much trouble BOTH ways!!! I hate the airlines. I hate flying and don't intend to. When I went back to Philly two years ago, they would not let us use the bathrooms on a 5 hours flight. It also happened to two other friends of mine on seperate flights, then I read in the paper where the same thing happened to two other people.

You know what the airlines are doing? They are not carrying enough water to flush toilets because it is heavy and takes more fuel to carry that weight. They want to save fuel. I kid you not. I read this someplace on compaints.com.

I am so sorry you had this much trouble. Meeting new people is the fun part of traveling. It was the fun part of running a b&b for me too.

Take a rest when you get home and put a curse on the airlines head.

Khalidh - you must have killer mileage and upgrade all the time.

This post has been edited by swainzy: Aug 25 2007, 02:11 PM

[joedolson]

When I was coming back from Vienna last summer, my flight from NYC to Minneapolis was cancelled twice in one night - rather than leaving at 2pm, we ended up NOT taking the cancelled alternate flight at 5pm and finally leaving the airport at 9pm to be driven an hour to the nearest available hotel. That hotel, of course, stopped serving dinner at 10pm...

Fortunately, they generously served us something anyhow. Wasn't particularly good, mind you - but we were certainly hungry enough.

Then, we got to get up early the next morning to get bussed back in to the city and catch our new flight.

Crappy day...especially after having been traveling for the past 4 weeks without a stop...

[bragadocchio]

I haven't had much troubles with travels to or from conferences, and I'm really sorry that you had problems both coming and going, Kim.

I am really happy that you met some nice folks. It was great having Nate join us for the conference, and it sounds like the family that you met on the return trip were great people.

I did have a slight scare on my journey out to SES, with some seriously backed up traffic on the way to the airport because of a pretty horific accident. I hope the people involved were ok, but I wonder after driving past one of the cars.

Last year, I travelled 120,000 miles.

Ouch. khalidh, that's a serious commute.

[cre8pc]

I'm home but it hasn't sunk in yet.

Eric had gotten me into the very last room at the Hilton, at a discount price (he's a member of something....I forget), so I got a nice room that wasn't going to be too painful. I was able to sleep in (to 8am), which was the first time I'd done that since before leaving for SJ.

I had the standby flight at 1:45 and a regular flight at 9pm, so I needed to get to the standby. What a difference a day makes. The O'Hare was calm for starters. I walked from the Hilton to Concourse C, and went through security, only to learn they moved the flight gate to the E gates. I had time, so I walked there rather than take a shuttle.

When they read the names of the standby people, he went down 3 names and stopped. I held my breath and then he said "K.Berg". I can't remember ever being so happy to hear that name. I got in on the earlier flight, which wasn't even a full flight. I think a lot of the people stranded from my flight last night went to other cities, etc.

The flight was uneventful. I met a young professional woman and we had some laughs. She travels a lot on business and understood. My luggage, of course, had already gotten to the Allentown airport so it was waiting for me.

Eric and our two boys met me at the airport and took me out to dinner. I hadn't eaten since our Japan dinner Thurs nite (other than some cashews). My daughter is at work...

It's amazing how quickly life returns to normal. Within the first 20 minutes of being back home, Stefan and I were out in the veggie garden snipping herbs and picking peppers and green beans, and he was showing me some of the work he'd put into it while I was away.

And, it felt glorious to pet my golden...(retreiver), Dakota.

Honestly, I have no idea why some people love to travel. Meeting new people and seeing new things is fantastic but I may stick with places I can drive to

[SEOigloo]

Poor Kim! I was following all of your tribulations in agony. I'm so sorry you had such a miserable experience and am SO glad you are safely home again .

I don't go places that require airplanes. Nope. Sorry. Travel is fun when it's you and your husband sitting in a car eating cookies, drinking tea and looking at the countryside. You would literally have to conk me on the head to get me on a plane.

Dig your heels into that veggie garden to get yourself grounded again. Thank goodness you're back home!
Miriam

[khalidh]

Ouch. khalidh, that's a serious commute

I need to start packing my suite case for my flight tomorrow morning. I wonder why so many clients want to spend thousands of dollars for consultants to fly to in their office week after week.


Khalid

[rustybrick]

Sorry to hear about your flight Kim.

Happy to report that my flights were both pretty much on time... not to rub it in.

I had my share of bad flights and to be honest, most of them were Chicago related. Just stay away from Chicago!

[tamar]

Direct flights all the way.
I warned you about that in San Jose.

(Poetry at its finest.)

[cre8pc]

I spoke with other folks on the planes, who told me the same thing. They avoid Ohare, if they can, and if they can't get direct flights, will find a routes that go north or south to connect. The hurricane season didn't help...Chris Sherman told me that San Jose always seems to fall during a time that causes some sort of drama for people trying to get there or there's something strange that seems to happen.

Shame...because once there, I had the best time. I was able to see people I really wanted to see again or meet and do things I'd always wanted to do. There were some great sessions. I'm still glad I went and have no regrets whatsoever

[tambre]

wow, kim, that sucks. i'm glad you were able to make it home ok though. ohare is horrible, at least in my experience (no offense to anyone). when i would fly home for the holidays in the winter (arizona to connecticut, connecticut to arizona) we'd always get stuck going in to ohare or out of ohare. dallas fort worth wasn't better all the time, either.

arizona has had a lot of rain for the past month and a half. granted, it is almost always sunny and hot and beautiful and like paradise (bleeh) is true, when it get rainy and windy in the summer time things come to a grinding halt. it sucks, but the weather can get pretty brutal out here.

[shor]

I have a scary travel story - a 14 hour direct flight from LAX to Sydney with girly movies for entertainment.

No delays or lost luggage but the flight felt more like 48 hours (we took off 11pm LAX time and landed Sunday morning at 7am).

I watched all the movies I wanted to watch on the flight over and finished my book within the first two hours, so I was stuck with watching all the romcom + girly dramas. Go Pride and Prejudice!