Bad, traveller! Bad!

I had a little incident in Kuala Lumpur airport that could have proved costly, but thankfully didn't.

I'd bought my RTW ticket from STA travel a few months before I began travelling, and as far as I was concerned it was valid for one year from the date I began travelling.

However, the staff at the Singapore Airlines ticket desk insisted that they had expired, as it was just over a year since the date I had purchased them.

They told me I would have to buy a new ticket home, and that I should travel back to KL to get a cheap deal. I was flat broke at this point and couldn't even afford the bus fare back to KL, let alone new tix to London.

So, after lots of pleading, a bit of crying, a bit of arguing and more and more senior members of staff getting involved, they took pity on me and finally let me on the flight.

Last year, I was taking my then 11.5 year old son on a five week trip around the US & Canada. I'd scheduled well for all of our connections, except those critical first days that we "had" to make on time...or really screw things up.

So...right off the bat, our first train out is running late. That's okay, I thought. After all, we have an 8 hour layover in Chicago before our next train. Not to happen. The train ends up getting to our station TEN hours late, then loses more time on the way to Chicago. Ok, so no train to Niagara via Buffalo that night, and we have a string of connections the first few days that can't be rescheduled easily.

So, Amtrak gives us a voucher that they said we could use for a Greyound bus ticket. They failed to explain that this could only be cashed at Chicago's Amtrak station. I somehow got into my head that this voucher could be presented at Greyhound. Well, we are pulling into Chicago's train station 30 minutes before the only bus we can hop on that night to get to Niagara when we need to. We'll have to go via Detroit and Toronto. So, we grab a cab and actually make it to the bus station in time but no one knows anything about the voucher there (since obviously, we were supposed to take care of that at Amtrak...but I didn't know that.) So, I pay for our bus tickets and we get in line, only to find out the bus is delayed because the driver didn't show up to work. How nice. Three hour delay, they said, and I was going to head back to Amtrak and get the $ they owed us. Decided not to and it was a good thing because they got a driver there with a somewhat shorter delay. Finally, off to Niagara (but via Toronto)

Well, we finally got to Niagara (about the same time we would have with other layovers we had scheduled) and see the falls, buy our bus tickets to Toronto, and crash. After all, we have a bus to catch BACK to Toronto to catch our train to the west coast. Well, being all exhausted from all of the mess so far, we overslept and missed the damn bus. We practically ran from the hostel to the station when we woke up hours later, hoping to catch the last bus that MIGHT get us to Toronto in time for our next connection. Low and behold there was a train at the station a block away. I ran over to check on the schedule / route and they said we would NEVER make Toronto on the bus and we could take the train IF we could be on in two minutes. Now, I'd left my son at the bus station to go check on the train schedule. So, I had two minutes to go the block over to the bus, get him, grab all of our (too much) luggage, and get us both on the train.

Let's just say we made the train. I thought I'd never catch my breath again, and I was shoving him in the train, then the luggage so they didn't leave us, but we got on. I did have to pay for that set of tickets too, even though we had the bus tickets (thankfully not pricey).

After this we had no more tight connections on the entire five weeks. Believe me, it was enough.

I carried that damn Amtrak voucher around for five weeks before I was finally able to cash it in. It had something like a 24 hour expiration on it, too, so I was sitting on the cell phone while on the train to get them to put notes in a file about the mess. I even managed to get Greyhound to refund the missed tickets a month later at another station. So, in the end I wasn't out any money...but I know not to schedule close connections anymore. (Or do I...I did schedule 60 and 90 minute connections on international flights this summer...thankfully I made both of them)

That just sucks, but the 8 hour layover in Chicago should have been more than enough. Bad luck.

Kudos for making that train!

My husband reckons I'm a chronophobe for wanting to be at the airport 3 hours before a flight, and whenever we're nice and early, the plane is inevitably delayed

some of these stories are funny.. especially the one from chrissy where you got off the train in the middle of nowhere!!


my biggest mistake was just getting to the airport in the AM when it was suppossed to be PM (the workers were awesome and put me on standby so I made it home in time for work)

oops

off by a year.

oh that's a funny story. I don't think I have one like that. But I appreciated yours

Last week, I was set to go to Tonga from Samoa. I got up early to get to the airport for my 8:15am flight.

When I got there, the Air New Zealand crew had packed up and the plan was already taxing down the runway.

I had misread my ticket. I had read the arrival time as the departure time. As there was only one plane per week from Samoa to Tonga, I was stuck in Samoa for a whole week.

Some of these had me laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face.
I feel as though mine pale in comparison, but I still want to share:

Spring break sophomore year, I visited Boston and NYC with my then-boyfriend. We were hitching a ride with a friend to Boston, taking a train to New York, and then getting a one-way back to Cleveland on Sunday to make it in time for school on Monday. We kept debating: Sunday or Saturday, Sunday or Saturday, and decided one day early was plenty of time, so we'd come back on Sunday. He sat there and watched me book the ticket on-line before going off to book his.

Fast forward to a few months later, when our trip is wrapping up. I got my e-mail reminder for my Sunday flight on Friday. I thought it was a little weird that it was reminding me two days before the flight instead of one, but no matter. Saturday night, I called my mom to let her know our flight number, and she insisted that no such flight existed on Sunday. Whatever, Mom, it totally does... check again, we'll see you tomorrow.

You'd think one of those things would have tipped me off. But no.

Sunday morning our flight is at 6:30am, and even feels even earlier because it's Daylight savings time, and the clocks get set forward an hour. Bleary-eyed, we get to the airport, and it is the one time I didn't print out the e-ticket, or write down my confirmation code. My beau and I go to different self-check in kiosks, and I swipe my credit card for it to pull up my flight info. Hm... doesn't seem to be working. Perhaps the machine is broken? I go up to the desk to check-in... and they say they have no record of my reservation.

What?

"Oh," the lady says, "now I see you... it seems as though you were a no-show for yesterday's 6:30am flight to Cleveland."

I had booked the wrong day, and hadn't noticed AT ALL!

I immediately started to cry (I'd never ever missed a flight before, and I didn't know if I wasn't going to have to buy a whole new flight... which, the day of the flight could have been $600 for all I knew), and they said to call the customer service number. My boyfriend was totally unhelpful, and just kept telling me to chill out, which made everything worse. I called the number, and the man on the phone took pity on the crying girl, so he changed my flight to Monday's 6:30am flight for no charge. But he said he couldn't put me on standby because the Sunday flight was full.

I went back to the desk, and asked them if they could put me on standby for this flight, and they said they couldn't because it was already overbooked. I begged and pleaded, and finally said, "Look, I KNOW someone is going to forget it is Daylight Savings time and come late."

This managed to convince them, and good thing too, because somebody probably did, because I was able to get on the plane, and everything worked out fine!

Even though this incident didn't end up costing me any money, it was still really embarassing, and resulted in my complete anal-retentiveness bordering on OCD ritual of checking, re-checking, and quintuple-checking my flight info before booking, as well as paying really close attention to the e-mail confirmations.

I booked tickets earlier this week from Kyiv to Chicago via JFK. After I emailed the itinerary to my wife, she was kind enough to point out that I had allowed for a 5 minute layover in JFK. She didn't think we could clear customs and run from the international terminal to the domestic terminal in 5 minutes. She's so weak.

Anyway, I called Delta and they changed it for me no problem. My stupidity aside, I'm still surprised that they had the option listed for sale in the first place.

I am a dumbass. I miscalculated when Thanksgiving actually is this year. As such, my travel plans to South America could have been 5 weeks instead of 4. Now, if I was an employee I'd know my holidays and would have never made such a mistake.

family trip last year, spontaneously we booked a trip to florida, cruise the whole deal...a week before we booked the flights, jet blue had a deal for 40 bucks each way, we ended up paying about 350 each...ouch!!!!

I was in Edinburgh and decided to go to Tobermory for a couple days. I hopped on the train in the morning and made my way North. As I was travelling I started chatting with a local man. He asked me where I was going and I told him. He then explained that the ferry I had planned on catching only ran during the summer months and that they now ran once a day.

Man what an idiot, I hadn't read the schedule right! When the train stopped in Ft. William I went to a pay phone to make some calls. Every hostel in the port city was booked! I also called every hostel in Ft. William, same deal. I then decided to get on the next train south and go back to Edinburgh.

I arrived back in Edinburgh at 11:30pm, and was lucky enough to get into the same hostel I had checked out of that morning. I felt like such an idiot at the time. But now I just laugh about it

Hmmm... these stories sound achingly familiar!

In Madrid once I missed my flight from Paris to Montreal - because I went to the wrong airport. Cost: $700.

A few years later, I showed up at Geneva airport for yet another flight to Montreal (jinxed?), only to be told I wasn't on the passenger list. Why? Because I was on yesterday's passenger list! I had to wait a week (it was Easter) and buy a new ticket. Cost: $900.

And finally, more amusing and a bit less costly, I took a train from Madrid to Alicante once - or so I thought. I fell asleep, the train split halfway there, and I was a little nonplussed to get out in a city hundreds of kilometers to the south. Cost: $140 taxi to get back to where I was supposed to be (three times the cost of the train journey).

Maybe I should learn my lesson...check the date, check the airport, check the destination...

I think my favorite travel story to tell is about my trip to Poland. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

I took the overnight train from Berlin to Krakow which is infamous for robberies. Typically I'd have reserved a bed, but in Berlin I'd met this Brit who was on a tighter budget and we were going to train together so we got a regular seat. Stupid us, we fell asleep. I remember waking at one point and noticing someone standing outside our door but then going back to sleep. next thing it's 6 am and we're pulling into Krakow and my day pack is gone. In my day pack is my discman & CDs, my jewelry, my passport, my money, my credit cards, my camera and pretty much everything else of value. I'd been using it as a pillow but it was gone anyway.

The brit starts freaking out but none of his stuff was gone. A polish girl in our compartment who spoke no english but figured out what was going on, went to get the conductor and ripped him a new one. He came back a few minutes later with my bag minus all the valuables. There was just my book and some random papers...or so I thought.

So, it's 6 am, in a country where I can't speak a word. No passport, no money, no nothing, harassed by the hostel promoters on the platform and just wanting to find a cop. Not a good beginning.

Ended up talking to one of the hostel guys who took me under his wing. took me to the cops, translated my statement into Polish and then took me (and the 5 other americans who had been robbed on the train) to the Embassy. He gave me some money to go get a drink (since the embassy didn't open until 9 am) and then said goodbye.

Called my mom (waking her in the middle of the night) so she could cancel my credit cards and wire me money. Cancelled my passport and was told to report back in 24 hours for a replacement. The cash would take 48 hours since western union was closed the next day.

My Brit friend offered to float me a loan for the next couple of days until I got my cash. After leaving the embassy we headed to the hostel of the guy who had helped me. He checked us in and said I didn't have to worry about paying until I got things straighted out.

We went to our room and started to unpack and as I was going through my day pack to see what was left what do I find by my PASSPORT and CREDIT CARD! Ugh! They'd gotten tucked into the book I was reading and the thieves overlooked them. By this point the embassy was closed so I decided to go back the next day. Called my mom but she'd already cancelled the card so I was still sans money.

The next day visited the embassy, showed them my passport and they said that they'd remove the "stolen" notation from my passport and I wouldn't have to get a new one (I didn't find out until I got back into the states that this is impossible. When I was going through customs I got stopped and questioned about why I was traveling with a stolen passport...FUN!!).

Eventually got the money and very much enjoyed the next couple days exploring Krakow. 3 days after arriving my brit friend was heading on so I changed rooms to a single. It was the middle of the day and everyone was gone exploring when I moved all my stuff.

I headed to the bathroom in the new 'wing' and when I tried to leave, the door was broken. The handle wouldn't turn at all and I was locked into a 4'x5' cinder block and steel door cell. Grand.

I spent about an hour pounding on the door and yelling to try to get someone's attention when finally I heard a tentative 'hello?' in response. Turns out a new group of brits had moved in just down the hall and had finally come to investigate the banging.

They tried to get me out for about 15 minutes then gave up and went for help. Turns out that the maintenance guy was off so they had to call him in. When he got there he discovered that the hinges were rusted together so he'd have to use a hammer and chisel on them to get me out.

So, after about 3 hours stuck in this box with no water and sweating to death I had to endure this man pounding on the steel door while I sat in the echo chamber.

By this time a rather large crowd had gathered and there were about 10 people sitting out in the hall drinking beer and chatting with me through the door.

After about 4 hours they finally got the door open and the brits immediately put a cold beer in my hand and led me to their room. We spent the next 3 days partying in Krakow, with 3 all-nighters. Easily the most fun!

The brits eventually left and I decided not to press my luck so I went and booked a train for the next day back to Geneve via Vienna and Zurich. It was a night train, arriving in Vienna in the AM and on the way to the train I picked up some food and water for the trip. Mistake, big mistake.

By the time I got to Vienna my tummy was as rumbly as the train. Pressing through to Zurich I missed my train to Geneve because I was stuck in the toilet. I finally crawl to the train and text a friend to pick me up from the station so I wouldn't have to deal with the tram/bus combo to get back home.

Friend picks me up and by this point I can barely walk. After 3 days in bed I finally go the to ER where, after a few tests, it's determined that the food I purchased in Krakow (probably the fruit) was contaminated with e-coli - which would explain why I'd been sick as a dog for the last few days.

A couple days worth of antibiotics has me back to normal and deciding that even though that as the worst trip of my 14 months in Europe, it was also the best.

Traveling is fun! :-)

LOL, great stuff. I haven't been affected like that but can easily identify nonetheless. Safe(r) travelling!