Travel Disasters ??

[RUDisney]

Oh, Victoria, I had a similar issue at work one night when processing didn't go as scheduled during the day. I was the manager and I had panicking staff when I explained that I had to go home for a moment. They didn't think I was going to come back.

I can't imagine being in that situation during hell days of travel.

I'm so sorry that you had to go through that.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Were there any highway exits in those 17 miles? No viable alternate route? How did you handle it if nature called during those 8 hours?

Several years ago we were driving I-95 south to I-26 east to get to Charleston, SC when a major backup happened. Fortunately we were only about a mile from the exit to Myrtle Beach. It took about 20 minutes to get to that exit and according to the GPS the accident was still about 5 miles ahead. We drove to Myrtle Beach instead and then picked up US 17 south to get to Charleston.

Not sure if we saved any time overall, but at least we weren't stuck in traffic for long.

No exits in between. The stoppage happened just as we were getting to an exit, but we had no idea we’d be backed up that long and it looked like a pretty major detour. There were a couple opportunities to do a U-turn, but not knowing what was going on (someone on here looked it up for me eventually), we didn’t want to detour 50 miles out of our way.

For call to nature, we pulled off the highway and made a triangular “blind” with beach towels LOL.

 

[DISNEY1975]

We live 10 miles away, so that’s our airport. When DH has to go to Boston for work, he usually finds driving is the fastest way, but he took Amtrak the last trip.

Someone I work with also takes the train. Said its great, then just Ubers around. Maybe someday Ill try that. I work 12 miles from ERW, in Carteret/Avenel. Love going there just for my FAVORITE diner! They have a cannoli cake that is to die for! Thank goodness I dont live anywhere close!! That would be way too dangerous! Somedat Ill get enough courage to go over to Staten Island. Im a little scared of driving alone/getting lost, but I want to go there badly..dont even know why! I just keep looking over the river and think "Someday" !!

 

[kaytieeldr]

Yes, but its take out only I like to sit and be waited on And its only open for lunch. I heard they opened one at Logan, but Ive never seen it.

Yeah, no. If there was one, it didn't last.

 

[VictoriaT]

Oh, Victoria, I had a similar issue at work one night when processing didn't go as scheduled during the day. I was the manager and I had panicking staff when I explained that I had to go home for a moment. They didn't think I was going to come back.

I can't imagine being in that situation during hell days of travel.

I'm so sorry that you had to go through that.

Thank you, I can finally laugh about it now, but it was mortifying when going through it that way. I thought of Yehaa Bob's "You don't know these people and will never see them again" when walking through the airport.

Men have it so much easier!

 

[wgeo]

We had booked a cruise on the Disney Magic, it was supposed to be the first cruise after she had been refurbed, booked it a year in advance. About 3 months before the cruise, husband starts to look for a new job. Ends up that the job he wants is in FL, they do Skype interview etc. about a month before our vacation and then want to do a face to face. Perfect, we can just piggy back the interview onto our trip. So instead of flying out on Sunday for our cruise and going to FLL, we instead fly to TPA on Thursday. As we are boarding the plane I start to see messages on the DIS that the cruise has been canceled. Get the email from my TA while we are in flight. We land in TPA, and drive to the city with the interview in the dark, while trying to talk to our TA and see if we can get on another crusie that week. Of course we can't. So then we talk to the people that husband is interviewing with and they are super and arrange housing for us for the week that we should have been on the cruise.

The interview on Friday/Saturday goes well, we break the news to the kids on Sunday that we are moving across the country and put a positive spin on the "no cruise" by saying that it gives us an entire week to get to know our new home. We arrange for a rental car and plan on driving the 4 hours to FLL at the end of the week to catch our originally planned flight home. On Monday late afternoon we get a phone call from husband's brother that their mother is not doing well and we need to get home immediately. We contact Southwest who managed to change our Friday AM flight to the Tuesday AM flight for no charge, except we had to still go out of FLL. Mother in law passed away as we were driving to airport Tuesday morning.

I would say missing the cruise was a disaster, except that if we had been on the cruise, hearing the news about MIL on the second day of the cruise would have been bad, so in the end we were kind of glad the cruise had been canceled.

 

[DISNEY1975]

We had booked a cruise on the Disney Magic, it was supposed to be the first cruise after she had been refurbed, booked it a year in advance. About 3 months before the cruise, husband starts to look for a new job. Ends up that the job he wants is in FL, they do Skype interview etc. about a month before our vacation and then want to do a face to face. Perfect, we can just piggy back the interview onto our trip. So instead of flying out on Sunday for our cruise and going to FLL, we instead fly to TPA on Thursday. As we are boarding the plane I start to see messages on the DIS that the cruise has been canceled. Get the email from my TA while we are in flight. We land in TPA, and drive to the city with the interview in the dark, while trying to talk to our TA and see if we can get on another crusie that week. Of course we can't. So then we talk to the people that husband is interviewing with and they are super and arrange housing for us for the week that we should have been on the cruise.

The interview on Friday/Saturday goes well, we break the news to the kids on Sunday that we are moving across the country and put a positive spin on the "no cruise" by saying that it gives us an entire week to get to know our new home. We arrange for a rental car and plan on driving the 4 hours to FLL at the end of the week to catch our originally planned flight home. On Monday late afternoon we get a phone call from husband's brother that their mother is not doing well and we need to get home immediately. We contact Southwest who managed to change our Friday AM flight to the Tuesday AM flight for no charge, except we had to still go out of FLL. Mother in law passed away as we were driving to airport Tuesday morning.

I would say missing the cruise was a disaster, except that if we had been on the cruise, hearing the news about MIL on the second day of the cruise would have been bad, so in the end we were kind of glad the cruise had been canceled.

I dont want to click the like button on your post I am so sorry for your loss. I guess there is a silver lining to every cloud, but......

I hope your husband got the job and you are now happy, living on FL. If you are, you can get FL resident discounts on Disney and cruises

 

[wgeo]

I dont want to click the like button on your post I am so sorry for your loss. I guess there is a silver lining to every cloud, but......

I hope your husband got the job and you are now happy, living on FL. If you are, you can get FL resident discounts on Disney and cruises

Thanks, indeed he did get the job and we are very happily living in FL. This was about 6 years ago, and MIL was in very poor health so while sad, it was for the best.

And on a less important note, Disney really made good on their canceling the cruise with a full refund AND a free cruise. So eventually we did get to take that cruise and had a great time.

 

[mrodgers]

Yikes! Not good! I would have been stressed about the big bill waiting for me when I got home.

Nah, no bill. Insurance

The reason I am with the same insurance, even after divorce, for the past 20some years is the premium has never gone up due to claims after 3 deer, 2 totaled vehicles (one a roll-over), and a road hazard claim. The only time premiums have raised by a few dollars was from replacing vehicles with newer vehicles, which only happened every 10 years. On more than one occasion I have had my premium go down with changing from liability only to full coverage on a newer car.