So we were supposed to in Amsterdam by now--or, at least, landing shortly.
Instead, we're in the Atlanta airport.
Small favors: At least we found out we were scr*wed before we even left town. We were able to sleep in our own bed again last night rather than sitting in a shut-down airport somewhere overnight.
Our flight was supposed to leave at about 5p yesterday to get us to JFK. We had about 90 minutes at JFK to get to the International Terminal and get on our flight--which was already a fairly tight connection when you're going international. And then our flight from Rochester got delayed. And delayed again. Finally, it was scheduled to depart Rochester after our flight to Amsterdam was supposed to leave NY. No go.
Fortunately, we were getting the alerts about the delay starting before lunch so we were still home. My husband got on the phone with Delta and eventually managed to get us "stand-by" for a flight to Amsterdam from JFK on Monday but there were no guarantees. We couldn't do anything on the Delta site ourselves because everything was still listed as fine and we'd have had to pay change fees. We eventually decided to head to the airport anyway so that we could talk directly to a ticketing agent.
We said goodbye to the dogs...oh, and our daughter who drove us to the airport. What a good daughter.
And we stood for about a half hour while the ticketing agent was on hold with someone trying to rebook our flight. We finally succeeded in getting actual seats (next to each other, even!) on a flight out of Rochester Monday morning at 11:30a, this time through Atlanta instead of JFK.
As we were sitting and waiting for our daughter to come back and get us (what a good daughter!), we noticed that the new flights only gave us 45 minutes between flights in Atlanta. Are you kidding me? Doable, but only just, and only if everything goes swimmingly.
Back my husband went, up to the ticketing agent's desk. The first two tried to tell him it would be okay, but a third one overheard and said, "Are you kidding me?" He rebooked our flights for an early one out of Rochester in the morning (god-awful early) but at least we'd be sure to have plenty of time to get our flight to Amsterdam.
The dogs were a bit confused when we walked back in the house with our suitcases. And then confused again when we left at 4:30a this morning (with a bleary-eyed daughter driving us to the airport for a second time--what a good daughter!).
So now we're cooling our heels in Atlanta on Monday, trying not to think about how tired we're going to be when we arrive in Amsterdam at 6a Tuesday morning their time (midnight our time), needing to almost immediately hit the pavement to catch up with our scheduled tours. I'd take a nap, but we're supposed to be visiting the Rijksmuseum which is a big one on my list. I love me some Dutch Masters.
Fingers crossed we're able to connect with our extension guides when we arrive so we don't miss any more of this vacation that we've already paid for.