CarolinaYankee.net

A Disney Adventure in California

Walt Disney, King Tut, James Dean, William Randolph Hearst,

John Steinbeck, Hunter S. Thompson or

"Six People You'll Meet in California"

We're off again for another summer excursion.  Why does everyone keep asking me if we're going to Walt Disney World again?  Like it's a bad habit or something?  Well, we're not!  We're going to California!  Er, well, we're starting off at Disneyland.  Sheesh.  Enough with the third degree! 

Here's what's up:

Getting there is not half the fun!!

But it sure is interesting . . .

Our tickets to California are comps from AirTran Airways as thanks for being voluntarily bumped from our flight home from Orlando last January. I like AirTran. Their agents are generally friendly and responsive, and they have an upstart, irreverent attitude. Their routes aren't fantastic, but they generally fly where I need to go for pretty decent prices. But, no one's perfect.

The day started out well. We arranged for a car service for very reasonable prices, and Jerry, the driver, called the night before to introduce himself and verify directions. He showed up promptly at 9 and we're on our way! When he learned we were priests, Jerry pretty much felt like he had to share his spiritual journey with us.

It turns out our driver is the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He never felt like he fit in, so he converted to Christianity a few years ago. At 56, he said he felt like life was beginning. He's also showed us a picture of his fiancé, an attractive Eritrean immigrant who Jerry says is descended from the Queen of Sheba! You'll never know whom you'll meet (a theme of this trip.)

Now for the fun part:

We get to the airport and are able to purchase upgrades to business class for the first segment of our flight (AirTran sells them for very reasonable rates), and are given better seat assignments for the second segment. Our luck seems to be continuing. We're rewarded for our early arrival also by meeting up with John, an old friend from our days in Providence in RI. He was in Philly, changing to a flight back home, saw us and shouted out a hello. We shared a cup of coffee with him before he had to board. Meeting up with a friend in such a major airport - it's a small world, after all. (No pun intended.)

Plus, Jim got to look at an exhibit of bamboo art. But, little did we know the final sands of the hourglass were just slipping through . . .

We board and are just about push back from the gate when Atlanta puts a hold on all in-coming flights. This leaves us sitting at the gate for an hour. Our layover is 90 minutes, so I'm not overly concerned about making our connections, but I was starting to get nervous. We finally take off about 45 minutes late but make up much of the time in flight.

We land in Atlanta with enough time for a quick bite before our next flight (which ends up boarding about 30 minutes late). Once onboard, we get our seats and settled in - only to be tapped on the shoulder by a woman who says she has Jim's seat. Nope. Our boarding passes clearly say we're where we're supposed to be. She gets the flight attendant who insists we're not on the manifest and tells us we have to move. We show her our boarding passes and say No. At this point, we realize they've double sold the seat. Since it's a full flight, we know we're not getting up. Possession is 9/10ths of the law. The flight attendant laughs and says "I'm not getting into this one" and we wait for the gate agent.

The gate agent comes and says Jim is in the wrong seat. Her manifest shows him in another seat (which is occupied by someone else) and we have to move. Again, we say No. A boarding pass is a boarding pass. The agent is clearly getting exasperated, as are we. Jim's quite the immovable force at times like this.  His two questions:  Where is our luggage, and what compensation are you going to offer if we get up. 

The other passengers are looking for tomatoes and other rotten food to throw at us since this tiff is further delaying the flight. (Thank heavens airlines don't serve food anymore!!) The agent finally says we have to step off the plane if we want to resolve this. We refuse, knowing once we're off the plane, we're spending the night in Atlanta. She finally goes to the other passenger and speaks with her for a minute and then moves her to the only open seat left - in business class. A happy ending for all, and one easily arrived at if the gate agent had been willing to do this from the start. There's no way a computer system can assign us boarding passes and then put us elsewhere on the manifest and give our seats away. Major correspondence with customer relations at AirTran will soon follow.

Well, things get better again once we're in the air. It's an uneventful flight and we land exactly one hour late. I'd hoped we could check into our hotel in time to see the fireworks at Disneyland from our balcony but that wasn't to be. Once debarked, we claim our luggage and get our rental car. A free upgrade there to a full-size car with sun-roof was a pleasant reward for dicey connection in Atlanta.

We finally check in at 10:30 (1:30 our time), tired but glad to be here. Our hotel is the Howard Johnsons' Plaza in Anaheim. It's actually a great hotel, across the street from Disneyland. The rooms are spacious and well kept. We've got an upper floor with views of the Matterhorn and Space Mountain, and the walk is only about 10 minutes to the entry turnstiles.

The customer service is also tops. We made arrangements with a local Albertson's to deliver breakfast items and sodas for HoJo to hold for our arrival. HoJo already had them in our room waiting for us. That's service.

Tired, but glad to be here and finally on vacation, we crash while steeling ourselves for the commando rush the next day.