Several weeks ago, I intended to take a group of 15 former students to NYC. The group first formed in the fall of 2019 to participate in the amazing international Model UN. Some had participated in the spring prior. With the Covid interruption, the organizers cancelled the spring 2020 conference and ultimately turned the 2021 conference into a virtual conference. Rather than attempt to coordinate their participation in a virtual conference (multiple students at multiple different high schools) I turned the trip into a sightseeing visit to make use of the airfare credits we had from the original flight purchase.
Even though I lacked the requisite time to plan the trip far in advance, experience came in handy as I threw together a four day trip, two bookend travel days and two full days in the city. I even had enough time between the school year’s end and the trip start date to write up the itinerary with travel times and directions. I likely could not have prepared more for the trip, for those things I could control. In the end, things I could not control sent the trip careening in a totally different direction.
When rebooking the tickets using the travel credits, I had to purchase them in two separate groups, groups containing only one adult, either me or Dad. Without that adult, the airline would consider the students “unaccompanied minors.” Although my flight left three hours before Dad’s our layover in Charlotte included the arrival time for his group so I could help coordinate from a distance.
Out of the four flights, two for each group, our groups completed only the initial leg of both trips as planned. My group had our layover in Charlotte. Dad’s group had their layover in Washington, DC. This first layover contained the most disruptive and significant change. Technically for my group, the change did not come during the layover. Rather, it came once everyone had boarded and the plane began to taxi away from the gate before coming to a stop. The reason? A “ground stop” around La Guardia that we sat through the first hour on the plane before disembarking and discovering moments later the wholesale cancellation of our flight. Moments later Dad let me know that their flight from DC to La Guardia had also gotten abruptly cancelled.
We never obtained a straight forward answer as to why the airline chose to outright cancel the flights rather than even attempt a delay. Radar did not show significant storms; one fellow passenger’s husband, located a mere 10 minutes from La Guardia, facetimed her to show her the completely clear skies. Whatever the reason, the cancellation resulted in rebooked tickets two and a half days later which arrived only six hours before our scheduled departure and a customer service line that I stood in for more than two hours.
I used my phone quite a bit during that time. I cycled through every possible option for getting us to New York from trying to find a vehicle to rent, large enough for 8 people, to seeing if we could take Amtrak to many other options that my mind has since relegated to the realm of forgetfulness. All of this scrambling occurred as I still in an ever-lengthening customer service line that moved forward glacially slow and while trying to help coordinate the plans for Dad’s half of the group in DC.
By the time I reached a representative, we had decided to try to make a Washington DC trip out of the endeavor which meant changing my group’s entire itinerary, the return journey for Dad’s half of the group, and find accessible and affordable accommodations. (We decided to figure out the sightseeing portion after the groups reunited at the hotel.) AT first, it appeared that we had a slim chance on one last flight that night with only 20 minutes to make it from our current terminal to that gate.
After arriving at the new gate having power-walked while on the phone with Mom getting her help booking the hotel rooms, another ridiculous series of events unfolded, throwing yet another wrench into the plans. First, that plane had also gotten delayed at the point where passengers had already boarded but had to deplane. Second, while in line to board, the gate attendant had us and one other family step to the side, wait until everyone else including that other family had reboarded, and then tell us that she would have to book us on another flight.
To compound the situation, I misunderstood her when she told me the departure time of the new flight. I thought she mentioned 6am the next morning when the rebooked flight did not leave until 6pm. Thus, my half of the group. would miss an entire day plus I would, through no fault of my own, leave Dad as the only chaperone for his group. Things seemed hopeless at this point; I did not know if I could keep up the neutral face I had worn for most of the day.
I could continue to narrate all the other bumps in the road from yet another flight delay the next day caused by weather to a last, nearly midnight the day before the return flight cancellation for Dad’s group. However, the point of this post as set out in the title does not settle on the lemons but rather the lemonade we made from it.
In the two days we had, each group spent time exploring without an agenda. My group had fun checking out rather normal stores in a suburb while I enjoyed perusing the authentic Asian market and small Mexican tienda. Dad’s group had fun on the National Mall with scooters and got to enjoy a delicious sounding grilled cheese restaurant. On the day we had together, we dodged as much rain as we could on our way to the African American History Museum before finishing the day at a five story mall.
We had to let go of all the plans we had made since trying to hold onto them would only make us miserable. Holding loosely helped us survive and bring quite a few stories with us.