In all the times I´ve traveled with kids we´ve been extremely lucky not to have any major foul ups. Well, I think we made up for it this time!
We arrived at the Iberia check in at about 6:30 pm with plenty of time to spare. However, shortly after we got into the line, it was clear that something was seriously wrong. No one was moving and there were about 10 Iberia staff at the counter on telephones, talking to each other and looking rather concerned. No one was checking in. Around 7:10, an Iberia staff member came through the line telling us that the plane had not arrived (it originated in Madrid), they did not know if it were going to arrive or at what time. At the moment, everyone should stay in the line, but until they knew the status of the incoming plane, they would check no one in. So we got comfortable - if you´ve ever been stuck in an airport line, you know what that means! The boys went to Subway in shifts and got sandwiches, some played cards, listened to music or read. We established our floor space. At about 9:00 pm, things looked like they were beginning to move. People seemed to be checking in and the line began to inch forward. Unfortunately the news was not so good. Due to severe thunderstorms, the inbound flight (and numerous others) had been diverted to Philadelphia - and the flight was grounded there indefinitely. They were checking us in, giving us boarding cards, taking us to a hotel where we would get dinner and breakfast and we would fly out next morning (Saturday) at 11:am.
Many people had connecting flights and were very dissatisfied and demanded to be rerouted to other airlines leaving that night and as you can imagine, this took a ton of time. Eventually, we got on our bus and for some reason they bussed us to the Holiday Ínn in Ronkonkoma, Long Island (about 1 hour 15 minutes from JFK!) We finally arrived at about midnight. I will never figure out, with all the hotels nearby the airport, how we ended up in Ronkonkoma, but anyway. The hotel had some sort of little league baseball convention and then received a deluge of about 200 tired and disgruntled passengers! They rushed to get us into rooms.... and then the fun began! The boys were put three per room.... and I went with them to sort everything out. The first set of room keys did not work... the next group, the keys worked, but they walked in on guests already in the room! Surprise! Back down to the front desk to regroup. Second set of keys worked just fine, but again!!!! People already in the room! The boys learned to put the chain across and why! I cannot even imagine how startled the people must have been when the keys went into the lock, worked just fine opened the door... and woops! Sorry!!!!! Four times in all it happened. Fortunately, the last two times hotel security came with us and they went into the rooms! Anyway, I got them all situated and finally got into my room around 2 am where I got a chance to get an email off to Spain notifying them of our plight. I had no idea if anyone would be at the airport to meet us when we finally arrived.
After a 6 am wake up, we were back on the bus to the airport, checked in our bags(where Iberia gave each of us a $12 voucher for yet more breakfast) and immediately through security and up to the gate. We only had about 20 minutes before they began boarding the plane and we took of in a special 11 am flight. Because so many people had asked to be rerouted, the plane was only about half full and we in the rear part of the cabin had many seats to ourselves. So many in fact, that nearly all of us were able to take the entire center aisle, 4 seats wide, and stretch out across all four seats to sleep. Most of us slept all the way to Madrid. I told the boys to enjoy the experience as that almost never happens anymore.
We landed shortly after midnight, local time and got our luggage by about 1am. Unexpectedly, the bus was there to meet us, Javier had notified all the families that we would be arriving in the middle of the night, and off we went, dropping each group at their respective houses. They got an amazing tour of Madrid at night - very late night! I finally arrived at my house at 5 am.
So as you can well imagine, we were on Plan B! I met the boys at 3 pm on Sunday afternoon to locate the school, get acclimated and do a little orientation walk around the city. We lost a day and half so I´m trying to catch up! Today, Monday, I´ll work on the telephone situation after classes. So don´t worry if you haven´t heard from the boys. All is well and they are seasoned travllers at this point. They have rolled with every curve thrown at them! They have been spectacular! Of course maybe they are just still too exhausted to do anything else!
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