New Jersey

We are back from New Jersey and we had a great time. We left on Friday, July 27th planning to catch a red-eye flight out of Denver at midnight and we would arrive in NJ at 5:30am. Perfect - so Mikayla can sleep and I don't have to take an extra day off of work since I don't get paid for vacation days yet. Denver is four hours from our home in Gunnison and we were about 2 hours into our trip to Denver and we received a call that our flight was cancelled due to weather but when we called our friends in NJ they said what weather? We decided to try to Denver and get a hotel room and deal with the situation on Saturday morning. Continental said that they had already rebooked us for a 5pm flight out of Denver on Sunday!! I told them that was not acceptable, I had a wedding in NJ at 2:30 on Saturday. Finally at one point I just wanted to get to NJ on Saturday so I would not have to pay for another hotel room.

We went to the airport on Saturday and they rebooked out of Denver Saturday night but we hung out at the airport because they had us on standby for earlier flights all day long in hopes we could get out earlier. Finally we boarded the plane at 5pm on Saturday and instead of the direct flight I had booked we had to fly to Houston and then catch another plane to Newark. Mikayla was wonderful. She was a chatter box all the way to Houston and they slept the whole flight to NJ.

We finally arrived in NJ Sunday morning at 1:30. I am very upset at Continental at cancelling out flight and then rebooking us for Sunday night therefore costing us money for a hotel room, missing the wedding which we had to buy new clothes for, and we lost 20 hours of our trip. My husband is going to write them a letter. From what I am hearing all of the airlines made money last quarter and they are doing this by cancelling flights that are only half full (red eyes or very early morning flights) and they claim it is due to weather since they do not have to do anything for you in that case. Also no one on the phone at Continental suggested to go to the airport to try and get on stand by they just kept saying that you have been rebooked for Sunday and that is all they could do. I am also planning on writing a letter to Travelocity. They are the ones who booked our trip and not once did they call us to let us know the flight had been cancelled. Since they have that stupid gnome with the Travelocity guarantee stating that is something is wrong they will work to make it better. Travelocity was worse than Continental - they kept us on hold forever and they could not do anything to help us. What has happened to customer service in this country?

Well once we finally arrived at Joe's parents house we were able to relax. We were going to go to Vermont for a couple of days to check it out but I was so tired from traveling I did not want to wake up Monday morning and get in the car for another 5 hours so we decided to skip that part of out trip. Mikayla had fun shopping with Grandma and playing in the kiddy pool Grandma bought her.

One night Joe and I went into New York City and had sushi with friends. That was a lot of fun. I enjoy going into the City and seeing different parts. Our highlight of the trip was going to the ocean. Mikayla loved running to the water but she expected me to be right behind her when the waves came! She loved it and did not want to leave.

I will post pictures as soon as I download them from the camera - and Sue please email me the ones we took with your camera.

We ended our trip late on Saturday. We caught a flight out of Newark at 5pm and that was another disaster due to Continental. With all of the rebooking on the front end of the flight no one bothered to rebook us on the return trip. They finally got us rebooked on the correct flight but we had three seats all over the plane. I told the person at the counter that would not work because I had a 2 year old. She said to the flight attendants on the plane. The first flight attendant I spoke with said there was nothing he could do about that but then the second flight attendant worked very hard to get all of us seats together - the first time the whole trip. Mikayla slept part of the flight and was awake for part of it. She does not sleep in her carseat like she use to. We arrived in Denver around 7:30 and we arrived at home at 12:30am! What a long day. Now back to the real world and working everyday!