Hawaiian Honeymoon - August '09

Hawaii, here we come...well, maybe a little later than we hoped.

We were up at 4:30am to get to the airport for our 7am flight. We made it through security with no problems and then made our way to the gate. So far, so good, but soon after we sat down, a voice over the intercom tells us that there are mechanical problems so the flight will be delayed. This is no good. Heidi hates flying with a passion and hearing that did not help matters. "I am not getting on that plane!!!". I told her it was probably nothing, which it was. A back up battery for a smoke detector wasn't working and since they didn't have the part here, they had to get it from Boston. Now, since this is Delta Airlines, wouldn't you think they could have the part flown to Hartford? But noooo....it had to be driven by courier...at least a 2 hour delay. Now we are going to miss our connecting flight from Atlanta to Honolulu.

We are both really furious with Delta right now and we have to scramble to change our flight plans. Heidi gets someone on the phone to try and make the arrangements and while she does that, I try and get us on the flight to Minneapolis at the gate next ours as I knew when booking the trip, Delta flies non-stop from there to Honolulu. As I stand on line, I hear Heidi angrily talking to the ticketing agent, trying to get us on a flight. I told her to tell them they should bump us up to first class as it is our honeymoon and they screwed up. I could tell she was getting more and more aggravated, and it kinda turned me on....They told her upgrading to first class "was not an option" because we purchased economy tickets. The best they could do was give us a $100 travel voucher. As this was going on, I spoke to the gate agent who told me the flight to Minneapolis is completely booked, but I pleaded with him to do what he could to get us to Hawaii today. He felt badly for us but he totally hooked us up. Even though we are still taking the same flight to Atlanta, now we have to connect in Los Angeles and then onto Hawaii arriving at around 8pm local time, about 5 hours behind schedule. But....we are now going to fly first class from Atlanta to Honolulu...for free! Sweet...

It is now 9:35am and we are still waiting for this part. We are told we will be boarding at 10am. Let's hope so.

The plane ended up taking off around 10:30 or so and the rest of the flight out was pretty uneventful, but boy was it nice to fly first class. It really did make a difference...lots of food and beverages, big comfortable seats, and plenty of things to watch on the little TVs. I watched the new Star Trek movie, which I was anxious to see but never got around to it since Heidi despises sci fi movies. I thought it was really good. Heidi watched 17 Again. Once we got to LAX, it was a short layover then another 5 1/2 hours to Honolulu. We both watched I Love You, Man, which we both got some good laughs, but both fell asleep and missed the ending. It wasn't because it was a bad movie...it was due to the fact that we were completely tired from the long trip. We'll have to catch it again when it's on cable to see how it ended.

We got to Honolulu about 8pm local time (2am Connecticut time). Now we've been up for over 22 hours and we're feelin' it.... We find Roberts shuttle and get to our Hotel just in time for us to hit the sack and get some well-deserved sleep. Tomorrow we're off to Kauai!