I Love New York!

I'm once again back in my (almost) favorite city in the world. And i'll be damned if it wasn't hell getting here. And i'm sure that this hotel will be hell getting opened. Let me tell you how my trip went!!!


I was at home and decided to check in online for my 12:40pm flight to LaGuardia International. My mind told me to change to a later flight, but the charge was $150 and I knew that my boss wasn't going to pay for that. The alternative was to wait until 3 hours before the flight and then there would be no charge since i'm a Gold Medallion member. But I decided to go ahead on to the airport and take my original flight.

The drive to the airport was uneventful as there was no traffic as 10:30am in the morning. I made it to the airport and made it from my car to my gate in about 15 minutes (all the ATL airport haters can kiss my ass). Just as I was about to sit down, my phone rang with a call from my coordinator. She said "don't get on the plane, the hotel isn't going to open on Thursday. They didn't pass their health inspection (they had the wrong sized sink) and can't open the kitchen in order to serve breakfast." Hampton Inns have a wonderful complimentary breakfast and the hotels can't open until it's ready. OK, no hay problema. I was kinda pissed, but then glad that I would get a few more days off.

I went up to the counter to speak with the very attractive guy there about retrieving my bag before it was loaded onto the plane. He said that they hadn't put any bags on the plane and he would call down to baggage handling to ask them to send it back to baggage claim. He also told me that I would also have to get down to baggage claim as soon as possible just in case the bag does get put on the plane. So I dash off down the concourse like a damn fool with a 15lb laptop bag. Ya'll know I was dripping with sweat by the time I ran from gate B2 to baggage claim!!!!

Can you believe that as soon as I got down there my phone rang again?!?!?!?!?!? It was my coordinator telling me to just wait a few minutes while she talks to the hotel. They were going to try to cater breakfast in until they could get the issues with the kitchen taken care of. So I proceed to baggage claim service to see if my bag was there yet. When I got there, the agent took my claim number and ran "downstairs" to see if she could find my bag. While standing there trying to cool off, my phone rang again!!!!!!!!! Once again it was my coordinator. This time she told me that the hotel would in fact be catering in breakfast so I could go ahead and travel to Manhattan. WELL DAMN!!!!!!

So, the agent returned from "downstairs" and told me that my luggage was on its way to LaGuardia! I said OK and told her that it was cool because my trip had been rescheduled any way. I thanked her and turned around with the intent to run to security. When I turned around and looked at the clock, it was 12:20pm. That meant that I only had 5 minutes to get to my gate before the boarding door was closed. I started to get irritated, frustrated and mad as hell. But then I stopped.

It suddenly hit me that this was a situation that was easily solved. All I had to do was book the next flight at 1:40pm and head on to NYC. I calmed myself down and thought about what would be the best thing to do. I went to the kiosk and changed my flight to 3:40pm. The next thing that I realized was that I was soaking wet from all that running. I called a friend who lived close by the airport and ask him if I could come by and take a shower and he answered in the affirmative. On the way over, I stopped and bought me a few pair of undies and undershirts so that I could change into those and just in case my bag got lost.

He and I chilled for a minute talking and listening to music while I waited to head back to the airport. When I got back to Hartsfield-Jackson-Atlanta International Airport (the world's busiest). Things were looking up. I had already been upgraded to first class and I was able to go through the express security line. I got to my concourse, got something to eat and sat down at my gate to look over some of the hotel's notes.

My flight was normal as usual with me ordering a rum and coke (I needed it). I slept my requisite 30 minutes and when I awoke I was surprised to find that they were serving dinner on the plane. So a ham and cheese on marble rye with salad and chocolate cake was enjoyed.

When I arrived at LaGuardia's baggage claim, my bag was waiting right next to the baggage claim office. I hopped in a cab (I almost took a limo!) and made it to the hotel without any more issues.

What I had to remeber and re-learn today was that any issue can be handled if you stay calm and think the situation over. I also learned that you should always follow your intuition. Maybe if I had rescheduled my flight, none of this may have happened.

I'm stealing from Cocoa on this one.

Have you recently had a situation where you were all up in arms and had to calm yourself down and think about how to handle it? If you did, did you learn anything from it?