Episode 831 - Stranded At The World

Authored by: FigmentRules on Friday, January 28 2011 @ 02:18 PM CST

My adventure was this week. Wednesday morning checked out of hotel, ran around and did family-business errands in town. Headed to airport for 3pm to catch 5:30pm flight. The flight was delayed, delayed, delayed. At around 9pm we boarded, taxied out and got in line for take-off. (I carry on--phew!) Then they canceled the flight because there was "no electricity at Newark International."

They booked us ALL on a 6am flight the next day--which we could choose to reschedule. I chose (wisely???) to reschedule for 6:25pm instead--ended up the 6am flight was canceled and those poor souls ended up on stand-by while I had a seat. I jumped on the phone to WDW reservations, got an AP discount at POFQ and made arrangements for Magical Express. Thursday, I got up and went to Hollywood Studios, made sure I had a nice lunch at Brown Derby and then went back to POFQ to catch my 3:40pm bus back to the airport.

When I got on the bus, I knew my flight was delayed for at least an hour. We ended pushing away from the gate at around 11:45pm and landed in Newark around 2am. There were stand-by passengers still waiting when we left. There were passengers awaiting to board our plane in Newark. I have to think that it will be days before things are sorted out. Maybe longer because it's snowing outside--again. :-\

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Authored by: pdrph on Saturday, January 29 2011 @ 06:34 AM CST

We've been traveling to Disney World in January since 1994. We've had a couple of delayed flights and one cancelled flight. I always buffer my vacation by 2 to 3 days going down and coming back.

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Authored by: cgessner on Monday, January 31 2011 @ 10:53 AM CST

Great episode. One other suggestion: if anyone has an iPhone or a Blackberry: utilizing cell phone apps can really help. When I was down at Disney for marathon weekend, my flight was scheduled to leave in the late afternoon but was pushed back to later in the evening due to all of the storms up and down the east coast. I was able to quickly find out this info via my Southwest app, which helped me spend a few more quality hours in the magic. If the flight had been cancelled, I could have also found out via the app, which then would have helped with NOT returning the car rental, checking out of the hotel, etc...

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Authored by: cdm115 on Wednesday, February 16 2011 @ 03:13 PM CST

Always make sure you have access to some extra money (cash, credit, whatever) when you plan a trip, incase you get stuck and need to pay for hotels, rental cars, food, etc. It's amazing how many people take a trip and their budgets are so tight that they can't afford to be stuck for an extra day or two.

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Authored by: ErwinM on Wednesday, February 16 2011 @ 07:31 PM CST

We were also down for Marathon Weekend, and starting Saturday night we were watching the weather and working on our contingency plans. Sunday night we called Amtrak to check on the train status, and we were still a go, but were told to call back the next morning. Monday morning and the train was still on schedule. We rolled out on time and apart from having to slow down a little while going through the icy zone in South Carolina, we made decent time.

The train isn't for everyone, but it has a lot more tolerance for foul weather than planes.

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