Airport Craze

Sorry it's been a while but I hope everyone had a great Christmas and is enjoying the rest of their holiday vacations. Christmas was great back in good old Fresno. Sorry there won't be any pictures with this blog but I got a new camera and I'm still playing with all of its awesome features! So pics to follow later! However, my fun filled Christmas vacation began back last Tuesday when school let out for Christmas vacation. (Which don't get me started about why we had to go to a day and a half of school the week of Christmas but whatever!) Anyway, I really didn't want to fly home on Christmas Eve and I wanted to spend enough time with Terra, Josh, and Dakota before they had to leave after Christmas, so I made sure to book a flight that left later in the evening on the 23rd. My aunt and uncle were nice enough to let me leave my car at their house and take me to the airport. I am always worried about flying home so close to holidays and making it on time to my flight so I got there about 2 hours prior to my flight leaving. And its a good thing I did! Upon arrival I learned that my bags couldn't be checked outside at curbside so I had to go inside to Delta's "special services" lines a wait for a bit. They were nice enough and go me set to get on my flight and assured me that my bag would make the switch from my Delta flight to my US Airways flight during my layover in Vegas. I was all set and headed to wait for the next hour and a half at my gate. As I was walking I passed on of the screens that tells you what gate and if your flight is on time. Well, it is a good thing I looked because my flight was delayed from leaving at 7:45 until 9:00! Yes I would be waiting for like 3 more hours! However if that were my only problem I would have GLADLY done it but since my flight was delayed that meant that I was going to miss my connecting flight in Vegas! I immediately got on the convenient telephones and called Delta's help line. They kindly told me that I was screwed as all of Delta's flight leaving from Salt Lake were way delayed and that I could make it to Vegas and stay a day there or leave the next day from SLC, or buy a ticket from some other airline! Needless to say it didn't look good on getting home before Christmas! Luckily there was a direct flight from SLC to Fresno leaving at 8:55 that I could get on standby. My flight left at 9. Which meant that if I didn't make it onto the 8:55 flight I would have 5 minutes to get over and to the other side of the airport and make the other flight and possible get stranded in Vegas! EEK! Luckily I decided to stop at the DELTA customer service desk and make sure that I was on stand by for the direct flight because the lady was nice enough to just put me right on the flight without waiting on standby! NICE! She called down to baggage and again assured me that there was plenty of time for them to get my bag aboard my new flight! So I happily went over to wait at my NEW gate for another 3 hours! Luckily I made it to over to Fresno and even got in a bit earlier than my previous flight would have! But my bag was not so lucky! I hate that sick feeling you get as you watch all the luggage go around the baggage carousel and not one of them is yours and you keep looking and waiting and finally they stop the carousel and say thats all the bags! I do feel sorry for those workers who have to deal with people like me who just don't understand why the baggage workers at the SL airport had OVER 3 hours to get my bag, couldn't put it on the correct flight! UGH! Lucky for me, I had decided to carry on a small bag and put some very import neccesities in it or else I would have had absolutely nothing! It definitely was a bad way to start my Christmas vacation! Well, all in all I spend the whole next day trying to get an acutal human being on the phone! Later that evening we decided that instead of sitting around waiting for the airline to call we took matters into our own hands. I went down to the airport to look for my bag! No luck! It wasn't there! I just wanted to cry! I mean it was all my Christmas presents and everything! Luckily, to make a long story short, the girl who worked at Delta, thought maybe she would call over to the US Airways counter and see if maybe they had it since that was my original flight, and wouldn't you guess.....THEY HAD IT!! I was thrilled! So needless to say, I officially hate the baggage system at all airports! I just hope I don't have to go through all this trouble when I leave again on Sunday! Everyone keep your fingers crossed!