Friday arrived and I went to pick up Jonathan for our trip. We left so that we’d have plenty of time to get to Lambert Airport in St Louis. We made great time on the trip. We made such good time that we had time to stop at Krispy Kreme in Fairview Heights for some doughnuts! We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We got to the D Lot (the cheapest one). One of the shuttle bus drivers flagged us down as we went in and pointed out a parking spot in the crowded lot. We shuttled to the Terminal we were to fly out on. We got through security just fine. I was reminded that each terminal at Lambert has its own security. In other words, you cannot freely move from terminal to terminal like you can at some airports. The big effect of this is it really limits your food choices. I also discovered that there is now an entire terminal devoted almost exclusively to Southwest. This is a big change from the old days at Lambert when it was primarily a TWA hub. An issue with the Southwest terminal there is while there are plenty of charging stations, they don’t have many that take just a pure USB connection – you have to have some sort of AC connector.
The time of our flight finally arrived. We lined up in our assigned position. We both got our desired aisle seats. The original plan was for the plane to take off from St Louis after 7:00pm, stop at Love Field in Dallas and then take back off for Phoenix. Once we landed at Dallas, we were informed that we would actually exit the plane and get on another plane for Phoenix. Jonathan made the statement “Boy, I hope our luggage doesn’t end up lost now”. I hoped he wasn’t prophetic. We got off the plane in Dallas. I was somewhat disappointed to see all the great eating establishments there at Love Field. There was a Whattaburger! If I had only known, I would have waited to eat. I knew better though not to eat any more with another flight ahead of me. Southwest did let the fifteen or so of us that had come from St Louis board first so we got good upfront aisle seats. This flight went well but our whole trip was about the change for the worse.
We got off the plane and headed to baggage check. After all the bags had come out, there was no sign of either one of ours. I headed to the Southwest Baggage office while Jonathan continued to scour baggage claim for our luggage. I was not impressed by the Baggage office. There was a young lady who was told “There is nothing we can do for you tonight”. She tried to impress on them that she had to have her luggage for work several hours later – it was after midnight at this point – and they seemed very unsympathetic. However, after she walked off, both of the employees seemed obsessed with getting luggage delivered to someone. I kept hearing “she’s from Anthem” over and over again. They totally ignored me. I finally saw Jonathan waving at me. It turned out our luggage had come in on an earlier STL to PHX flight and had been stashed in the area for unclaimed bags. It was very fortunate he even bothered to look in that area. I found out later that per the “Contract of Carriage” they are allowed to do this (send luggage on a different flight). I still don’t understand why though. I know that flight was totally full (I checked on changing to that earlier flight).
So, we now have our luggage and we now have to catch a shuttle to the “Rental Car Center”. It took about ten minutes to get there. We arrive at the Enterprise Counter to only find a sign telling us to head downstairs to the Enterprise car area to get our car. We get to the bottom of the stairs and find a huge line. There was one woman working that counter and it was moving super slow. She left and a young man arrived. He took care of one customer and then left for another woman to arrive. What I didn’t understand is why it wasn’t “all hands on deck” to try and process people as fast as they could. After 45 MINUTES, we finally got our (a nice Chevy Impala) rental car and headed for Glendale.
It was 1:15am by now. I hadn’t been up this late in I don’t know how long. Fortunately, we made it to our hotel with no issues. On the way to the hotel (Hampton Inn Glendale), our route took us right by University of Phoenix Stadium. That made me totally happy again to see that and anticipate the game later that day. We got to our hotel and after waiting a few minutes for the guy at the front desk to return and open the front door, we got checked in and crashed out.
Would things get better? You’ll find out in my next blog post.
No comments:
Post a Comment