Friday, April 10, 2009

Well the Vegas trip has ended. We got back Wednesday night and we are still recovering this morning. The return trip was the smoothest time I have ever had at an airport. In Vegas we got out of the cab, checked in, luggage checked, and sitting at our gate in a matter of 10 minutes. No lines, no waiting. And the plane boarded and departed on time. That's quite the change from our trip out to Vegas. Here is a run down of day 1.

Wake up at 3:45 am, and get picked up at 4:30 am. We find a quick parking spot right next to the shuttle, things seem to be going well. We get into Eppley and everything is on time.

5:40 am, we begin to board the plane. We cant possibly have a delay when we are already boarding the plane. As 6:00 am approaches, we are informed we have to de-ice. No big deal, we have decent amount of time in Chicago for our connection. We de-ice and we start going down the runway. We get to the end and we pull off to the side. The pilot comes out and looks at the wings then a pick-up truck drives around us. The pilot comes back on the radio and tells us we have to go back to de-ice again because the left side of the plane has frozen back over and he can't physically see the wing. Meanwhile, about 2 planes have taken off while we sit at the end of the runway.

So we go back for more de-icing and then we make another run back out to the end of the runway. We sit, and sit, and sit, and sit. Then the pilot comes back out and is looking our the windows at the wing. He makes this wonderful announcement that we have to go back and de-ice again.

After waiting in line with about 10 other planes to de-ice, we get our chance. After the third time de-icing, we head back out to the runway and we finally take off. We boarded our plane at 5:30 am for a 6:00 am departure. We left Omaha at 9:00 am. We got to Chicago at 10:00 am or so. Our connection to Vegas was at 9:45 am.

So, since we missed our connection by 15 minutes, we had to get re-booked. All other flights from Chicago to Vegas were booked. So we got on a 3:45 pm flight to Los Angelas and after a quick layover we get to Vegas by 6:00 pm Vegas time. Not bad, 6 hours late is manageable. We sit down for lunch and I get a call. Not even 20 minutes after we re-booked, but our flight from LA to Vegas is cancelled and we are on a new one that gets us into Vegas at midnight. Freakin midnight!!!

So after going to every service counter for United, there was nothing else we could do. We were put on stand by for every earlier flight to Vegas and of course they are all full.

We were suppose to be in Vegas around noon, and get get in 12 hours later. As we sat on the runway in Omaha, Tim and Brooke taxi right on past us and take off and they were sipping cold ones int he hot sun shortly after lunch time.

To add insult to injury, we arrive at our hotel, Harrah's. There is no line to check in, so we walk right up. Even though we booked our rooms around Thanksgiving, we couldn't get one room for the 3 nights we were there. Since we arrived so damn late, our room was taken and we had one room for Sunday night and then had to check out and re-check back into another room. As crappy as this sounds, it wasn't so bad. They gave us a suite for the first night. It was huge. It had two 40 plus inch screen TV's, a huge bar, 2 bathrooms. It was nice, too bad we only had it less than 12 hours.

Other than those fiasco's, it was a good time. We didn't win crap, we spent a ton on booze, but it was a good time.