Roller Coaster Day
Trip Start
Jan 18, 2012
1
5
6
Trip End
Jan 23, 2012
Denver, Colorado
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The Lufthansa flight from Istanbul to Frankfurt leaves at 5am, and it's an international departure, so we had to clear immigration and everything. This resulted in getting up at our "airport" hotel at 2:30am. It would have been earlier had we been in the city still. Keep in mind that we generally go to bed late and sleep in while in Europe because of the time difference - 2:30am in Istanbul is 5:30pm Mountain time.
Oh, and "getting up" is a total misnomer. Our night at the HI Airport was really, truly horrible. The room was too warm, with no way to cool it down. I think I ended up with about two hours of sleep total, and basically laid there awake from 12:30 to 2:30. T suggested we try and find the NFL playoff games on TV to pass the time.
The terrible service at the hotel continued through check out (where they shockingly didn't ask how our stay was). While T was checking out, a taxi pulled around, and three guys got out. I was about to go flag the taxi, since he was there, but a bellhop materialized and asked if I needed a taxi. (Remember, it's 2:30am, here. No one else is awake, and the only reason I could possibly be up with a baby is to go to the airport. Yes, genius, I need a taxi.) I said, "Yes - how about that one?" And the bellhop says, "I'll call one." He goes over and presses a button on the wall, and the first taxi drives away.
I was initially a little miffed, but then I saw the headlights of the second taxi pull in right away, so it seemed okay. I prepared to drive the stroller outside, but as soon as the second taxi pulled up to the door, one of the three dudes hopped in it, and before I knew it, my taxi had taken off with him in it! The bellhop just watched all this happen, until I said "Hey, that's my taxi!" Then he had the guard at the gate run out and flag him down. After a brief conversation... he let the guy drive off anyway. So the bellhop inside had to call another taxi for which we had to wait another 5 minutes. Because we had gotten ready earlier than anticipated (see inability to sleep!), by the time we rolled out of the HI parking lot, it was still 5 minutes before our planned 3AM departure, so no real loss. Just annoying.
The bright side of all of this was that Little D slept like a rock through the whole thing. And he'd continue to sleep like a rock through two security checkpoints until well after we had boarded the plane. I had been a bit worried that he'd be way disrupted and overtired, but he did extremely, impressively well at maintaining a great sleep schedule, and sleeping for long periods of time over the course of the whole long day of flying. So much so that he never did end up overtired, and in that respect, this return trip was way better than our return from Spain a couple months ago.
But I get ahead of myself. Our experience with Lufthansa on the return was not quite as glowing as on the outbound. At check-in, they would not allow more than 3 carry-on bags (LH policy: one carry-on per person, unless you are in first class), and they would not respond to arguments that one was a diaper bag, which doesn't count as additional bag on most airlines. And at least one of our bags was over the 8kg weight limit. This would be fine, and just the rules, except that noone on our initial flight to IST had cared, so we felt compelled to argue. T ended up checking one of our rollers - the heaviest bag - to IAD. Interestingly, LH had economy, business, and first check-in lines at IST, despite the fact that the IST-FRA flight does not even have a first class cabin! Since Star Gold's are welcomed in the first check-in, and there are virtually zero first class passengers, we completely avoided all of the lines. But even Star Gold wasn't enough to waive the 8Kg bag weight policy.
After check-in we had a brief respite in the way of the fabulous Turkish Airlines flagship lounge, which is arguably the best Star Alliance airline lounge in the world. It is expansive, with wide open spaces that make it feel airy, and cozy niches that make it feel intimate. There are luxurious draped fabrics, live trees and bamboo for an organic feel, and top-of-the-line electronics including a theater and laptops and desktops (both PCs and Macs) for your use. We were there at around 4am, so the food pickings were limited to fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, and olives, but they have a huge kitchen with picture windows so we could watch the chef preparing the breakfast buffets. There are food and drink stations located through out (so maybe 5-7 of them), and I hear that midday they have cook-to-order stations, where you can get the chef to prepare something to your liking. They had a brightly colored and spacious kids room with toys and games, a cushy changing station with complimentary diapers and amenities, and a quiet room with a crib and a rocker. Worth going back to Istanbul, just to hang out in the lounge some more!
Upon arrival in Frankfurt, we encountered our next snafu. Apperently the ramp-level doors to the terminal were locked, and no one seemed to have a key, so instead of bringing our strollers up planeside, they sent them on to our connecting flight, despite being marked "deliver at aircraft"!! There were three of us in this predicament - us and two Turkish ladies, each traveling alone with their kids to Houston and Miami, respectively. The LH response to this varied from valiant (the pilot, who made calls and tried to pull strings to get the strollers back, and seemed as frustrated as we were) to completely unsympathetic (the gate agent working the next flight for our aircraft, who just wanted to get rid of us).
We argued that just sending the strollers on to the next flight was unacceptable, as we needed the stroller to convey the 30lb baby-plus-car-seat combo around both the Frankfurt airport and the Dulles airport prior to baggage claim, and the Houston-bound lady argued that alone, she needed the stoller to double as a luggage cart as well (great point). No one would hear of any of it, declaring it to be impossible to get it back, and it became clear that if we continued to wait where we were (just off the jet bridge, but still behind the gate), they were going to call the police to get us to move, #Occupy style. Having just had an experience with foreign airport police, I really didn't relish another. So we reluctantly moved on to the LH service center to try to solicit more help/answers/compensation.
They did send an airport host with a wheelchair and a couple umbrella strollers, which helped out Houston-bound (Miami-bound had disappeared), but Little D does not quite have the sitting stamina yet to sit in an umbrella stroller, so he rode in his car seat inside the wheelchair.
We went to the Service Center Star Gold line, but no matter how I tried to lobby that we had sufficient connection time for them to bring the stroller up to us at the lounge, it seemed that the only possible solution was to have them bring the stroller to baggage claim, go through immigration into Germany to get it, then come back through immigration to our gate. Houston-bound did not have time for this, and we couldn't get a straight answer as to whether her stroller would show up planeside or at baggage claim in Houston, so I tried to give her my experienced-flyer briefing on who she should talk to (the purser, the pilot) and that she should not leave the jet bridge until she was assured that it would be waiting for her at baggage claim. She was a very sweet person, a little bit pregnant, and traveling alone with a two-year-old, and so for as maddening as the situation was for us, it was terribly inconvenient for her, and I wanted to help her as much as possible.
We executed the retrieval of the stroller flawlessly, and within 5 minutes of being at baggage claim, the nicest ramp worker ever (who had no English, but whose German I got pretty well for being so rusty: "Komm mit mir, bitte.") delivered our stroller personally. The trip out of and back through immigration ate up most of our long, luxurious layover, but we still headed for the lounge, in need of a snack and a diaper change. It was then we discovered that LH has no Senator Lounge (First Class and Star Gold - great snacks, quiet and private), but only a Tower Lounge (Business Class - absolutely packed, food picked over but lame anyway, impossible to find a seat and get a moment to catch your breath) in Terminal Z... which is where all the flights to the US leave from. Argh.
It was walking to our gate that I said, "Is it sad that I'm looking forward to being back on United, where at least I know where I stand and what to expect, even if the service can be crap?" But even United can surprise you in unpleasant ways. Our plane was at a "gate" away from the building, out on the tarmac in a parking spot, so that we had to take a bus to get there. The person who was at the airplane to take the stroller was a small woman. Travis collapsed the BOB (which retails at about $500), and the woman proceeded to *drag it across the pavement* towards the cargo door. This shocked me and horrified Travis, who ran back down the boarding stairs to yell at the agent to stop her and get someone to pick it up off the ground and carry it. Oy.
The flight from Frankfurt to Washington was actually really nice. It was really empty, and we not only had 21 HJ, the fabulous two seats behind the crew rest, which are absolutely ideal for letting a baby play on the floor, but we also had 21G in the center section... and along with it, that whole row of 5 seats. This allowed one of us to lay down flat (poor-man's business class!) and nap while the other one was on call for the baby. We took shifts, and this worked out extremely well, making up a little bit for the lack of sleep the previous night.
Another bright spot from this flight was the purser, who was a very sweet lady. She came back and greeted me by name (T was sleeping), acknowledged our status level, and chatted a bit. She then brought me a dish of ice cream from up front - awesome! As soon as T woke up, she ensured that he got a hot meal, even though the coach lunch service was well past, and when he finished, she brought him a dish of ice cream as well! It was such a thoughtful gesture, and just made us feel really special. Kudos!
We were feeling pretty good getting off the plane, through immigration and customs, and back through connecting security... which was when I realized that I didn't have my one-month-old Kindle Fire with me. I had loved that Kindle with the fiery (no pun intended) passion of a thousand burning suns. And I had been so careful with it the entire trip - indeed, on every trip, as I have a bad habit of leaving things on airplanes (Ed: ...and in rentals cars. ...and on mountains.) I had made a point to put it back in my purse after every usage - no seat back pockets, no floating around in the car seat - and yet, it still managed to walk off! This was extremely upsetting. I felt very guilty about it, and it basically ruined all of the good mojo I had coming off a nice TATL flight. I did check with the United Club, the agents at the outbound gate (incidentally going back to FRA), and the Lost and Found in the terminal, but it never surfaced, so I think I must give it up for lost. *sob* This does not help my already poor record. Why couldn't I have lost my crappy phone instead? But it does no good to ask these questions now.
Meanwhile, on our "final" leg (final for the day) to LAX, T and my upgrades had cleared, but Little D's had not. Usually we would have taken him as a lap-child into business class and all sat together, but with how tired we were, we thought it might be better if he had his own seat. Indeed, he ended up sleeping most of the way (thankfully). I took the business class seat next to him and got some sleep myself. And T was able to locate and #Occupy a vacant row in the back and lay down some more. But all was not as perfect as this would seem... T picked up some Wendy's at IAD to have for dinner, seeing as how I'd get a meal up in C. But the Wendy's did not treat him well, to the point where we suspected food poisoning. He was in really rough shape for a good portion of the flight and through the night which we spent at the Sheraton Gateway LAX.
This morning, we rose early after a choppy night of sleep to catch our flight back to Denver and then... proceed to day care and work. All things considered we felt pretty great! It was a spectacular trip, and the flying went well. Always nice to end a trip feeling good.
On the flight LAX-DEN, the flight attended asked where we were headed today. "Just home to Denver," Travis replied, and she nodded and walked away. "In this world, you have to ask the right questions" he said to me after she left. "It's not where we're going. It's where we've been."
