Carribean Cruise May 2011 - Flight there and back

Off to Carribean!!! Vacation!!! Hurrah!!!!

The first thing we did was... we missed a flight!

Unbelievable, yet unfortunately true. When we arrived to AA booth at YYC it was as empty as eaten ouster shell. I thought that we arrived in time, hour or so before the flight, but it looks like that for U.S. customs one has to be there long before that.

It took a quarter of hour to figure that we can't get at our flight. The AA stuff was gone to the gates and there was no one around to help us deal with the woe. The automated check in system did not accept the booking numbers... What to do?! I called AA reservations and one of the agents there kindly rebooked us to another flight. I am describing it as an easy process however at time it was both stressful and time consuming.

So off we went - initially to Toronto, where we stayed overnight. Leo my younger brother - all the credit to him, drove us to parents house where we stayed for a few hours. It was nice to see him, even though now I feel bad about exploiting Leo, got him tired. Pity, my parents left for Europe same night - we

did not see them.

In the morning flight to NY and then connecting to Orlando. We arrived around 03:50 to YYZ this time as the flight was scheduled at 06:25... Interestingly while general AA booths were open, we were sent to (as passengers with a child) to a special one, which opened around 10 minutes after 04:00, time when it was supposed to open. While we waited for booth opening, line for U.S. customs piled up, so after tickets were eventually issued we had to wait for a while in the line. The processing took less time that expected though, U.S. border guys were trying to move passengers as fast as they could stamp passports :)

So we are at the gates. Flight to NY in a small aircraft (don't remember this specific model), then quick connection to Orlando and we are there.

I reserved a transportation from the airport to Port Canaveral and the driver arrived on time. There was a funny situation though when we tried to depart from airport. The cab came in through the automatic gates, but when it tried to get out the transponder did not seem to work. Driver tried few gates, each several times , but it still did not work... Eventually he call dispatcher, then drove towards a little booth, pressed some button and o miracle gates opened letting us out to the wild Florida highways. Fortunately there were no more adventures on the way in.

When flying back we stopped at Dallas. Olga and myself were staying there for connections before, so we navigated without hassles. There is a great deal of shops in Dallas airport, but nothing that we found especially interesting. We mostly spent time playing with Alice in the playground zones and making pictures. And then boarded the plane back to Calgary....

No there was no relieve yet. The plane was delayed for another

hour. Technical difficulties (sounds familiar is it not?) in braking system took almost an hour to fix... Eventually we departed to Calgary...and amazingly safely made it back home.

Few words about AA... we got a negative overall impression on those guys.

• It costs to transport the bags. I suppose that the same story is with most of U.S. based competition and some blaming it on the growing gas prices. With Canadian companies though passenger can check in one bag for free so far. Even though it got spoiled in the last few years. Once upon a time, one could check in 2 bags.
• The airplanes we flew in were bad. First of filthy in my opinion. Secondly they were pretty old and there was not much of entertainment. Most of our planes were those ones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_MD-80. One from NY to Orlando was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_757. In either, there was not much legroom even though both Olga and myself (not speaking of Alice) are not tall folks. The overhead luggage as well as under seat luggage spaces are tiny. Could barely fit my foto backpack in, when in most other aircrafts it never presented any issue.
• The boarding was weird. Here is the guide explaining how the boarding should have happened: http://www.seatguru.com/articles/boarding_procedures.php. We found it a little bit strange though. Even though we were in Group 4 most of the seats in Group 5 and 6 were already occupied. We were almost the last to board, which was a strange experience. With Canadian airlines (both WestJet and Air Canada) folks with children seem to be in the group with special needs and board either with or before business class. With AA all the folks with children (there were few on each flight besides us) boarded as the common passengers. Disabled folks as I recall fortunately retained privilege of boarding first.
• Subjective, but when comparing experience with WestJet, AirCanada or long gone JetsGo the stuff in Canadian companies seems to be nicer. They smile more and are more responsive as I re-call.
• One good thing about AA was that the flight from Dallas to Calgary had a free on board internet. For some (and for myself at times) it may be a nice feature. After all we all want to be connected all the time- don't we?

Will we fly with AA anymore? Likely we will try to avoid them and choose Canadian companies if possible. Is it firm? Nope, things can change.

To be fair I have to mention that I had discussed it with Olga's parent who flew to Miami and back using AA a month ago. Their experience was very different from ours. Nice clean, plane with a lot of leg room and space for in cabin luggage... Good service... I was not believing we flew same company when discussed it with them.