So around 7pm on Christmas Day, I received a text message alert from Southwest Airlines that my flight back to Raleigh on December 26 was canceled. I called to reschedule and after 50 minutes on hold, was told the problem was all Baltimore flights (I had a layover at BWI) were being scrapped so I had to take a flight down to Tampa then back up to Raleigh. Fine. Done.
Cut to yesterday morning. I checked Southwest’s website as soon as I woke up, before the snow started. This was around 9:15am. Canceled, canceled, canceled. Called them up to see what’s going on. “We can get you on a 10:30am flight out if you can get to the airport.” Checked my watch; it’s 9:55am. I tell him it’s not gonna happen. “What about putting you on standby for the 12:00pm flight to Midway then down to Raleigh?” Sure, fine. I’m not thrilled about going to Chicago in the middle of a blizzard but why not? We get to the airport and there’s a line a gazillion hours long. The line itself wasn’t too long but every single person ahead of us had to reschedule a canceled flight. It was a disaster. When we finally got up there, the woman told me there was 1) no record of my name on standby (and since I was flying Business Select, I was supposed to have been priority) and 2) no way I was going to get on that flight and 3) The Midway to RDU portion was canceled anyway. With the blizzard leaving everyone pretty much unsure of what was going on, they weren’t rebooking anyone for today because they didn’t know when airports would reopen and there were absolutely no open seats on any airplanes at all until Wednesday.
So flying was out. It freaking figures that the first time it snows in the New York area all year is the day that I have to get back home. I need every single vacation hour I can get at work because of the wedding, so I’m freaking out over not being able to make it in. We decided that Amtrak was my next best option.
It was snowing pretty badly yesterday and since I had to be in the city by 9:30am for my 11am train and because my cousin Matt graduates from the Police Academy today at MSG at 11am and my entire family is going to that, we figured it was best for the 5 of us to drive to my Grandparents’ house closer to NYC and leave from there this morning. Good thing we did. LIRR service has shut down, 6 Subway lines are suspended and it’s generally a HUGE mess outside right now. We’ve all been up since 5:30am and are all driving in in 10 minutes, at 7:15am because how else are we going to get in? The roads aren’t plowed very much – they’ve only come around once thus far so we have to leave 2 full hours for an otherwise 35 minute drive.
Wish us luck. Of all the days for New York to have its first snow of the year…
