Flying to Venice

On Friday, October 18, we headed to the airport for our longest cruise of the year, 35 days. It is actually 3 cruises which we are doing back-to-back. Here is the itinerary for the first segment.

Day 1     Venice, Italy

Day 2     Venice, Italy

Day 3     Dubrovnik, Croatia

Day 4     Fun Day at Sea

Day 5     Athens, Greece

Day 6     Izmir, Turkey

Day 7     Fun Day at Sea

Day 8     Messina, Italy

Day 9     Naples, Italy

Day 10   Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

Day 11   Livorno, Italy

Day 12   Marseilles, France           

Day 13   Barcelona, Spain

We got to the airport about 10am for our 2:10pm flight. OK, I had my times wrong and rushed Rexie to get her there a tad early.

Finally, we get close to flight time and we have no plane sitting at the Gate. An announcement is made that it will be a little late. No problem except for the fact that we have already been there 4 hours.

Next, we are told it should be landing any minute. I am looking out at the runway and al of a sudden I see an American plane approaching the runway, Instead of landing, it flies above the runway and does not land. I just figured it had been waived off for some reason.

About ten minutes later I overhear the gate attendant on the pone asking if the pilot got lost because it has not shown up at the gate. In a few minutes, it lands and everyone gets off. We are next, I thought.

Instead, we get an announcement that maintenance has to clear the plane before we can get on. It is now 2:30 and we need to get to Chicago for our 5:20pm flight to London. The next thing we hear is that the plane is going to be taken to a hanger for a maintenance issue and that they will decide by 5:30 if the flight will go to Chicago or not.

A mad scramble is made for the gate attendants to see if they can reschedule flights. Unfortunately, I was not that swift and the line is long. Obviously, a 5:30 decision does not help for our 5:20pm flight in Chicago.

I look down the terminal and there is a gate attendant not busy. I head to them and now I am only the third in line. As I explain the problem, he makes the comment about the plane having a faulty landing gear problem. Ah Ha. That explains why the plane flew above the runway. They were checking to see if the landing gear was down or not. I don’t think I want on that plane regardless.

It takes about 20 minutes for the person to finally route us through JFK, Frankfort and then Venice. After 7 hours in the airport, we take off at 5:16pm.

Originally we were flying American to Chicago and then British Air to London and then Venice. Now we are taking Delta to JFK and Lufthansa to Frankfort and then Venice with an expected arrival 7 hours after our original plans.

In JFK we had to change terminals and found that there are no signs telling you how to get from one terminal to another.  Even the people would say just go outside and turn left. It took us several tries just to find outside and then it looked like we were walking down a roadway,

Oh well, we finally made it and when we got to Lufthansa they had no idea we were going to show up. I must admit that agent took care of us and we took off from JFK with minimal issues.

Once we got to Frankfort, again we had to change terminals but the way was well marked. They had about 80 gates that were all Lufthansa. It is a big outfit in Germany. Here is a couple of shots in the Lufthansa terminal in the big atrium they have.

We finally get to Venice and it was dark already. Originally we had planned to get there about 11:30am and then we would have had all afternoon and evening to explore. Since we didn’t get to our hotel until after 7pm, about all we could do was a little walking and dinner.

Oh, did I mention that one piece of our luggage decided to stay in New York? At least it wasn’t lost, they knew where it was. They promised that it would be sent directly to the ship before we left. Actually, once we get on the ship we do not leave until the next day. Otherwise we would have been one of those people that didn’t have their luggage on the ship.

So, making the most of the situation and enjoying the fact that we made it to Venice, we decided to have a nice evening meal at an outdoor cafe next to one of the canals near our hotel.

Even with all the problems, we are so blessed to be able to travel and life is good.

I must be off!