And then it started. It was announced that our gate was changed. They got me a wheelchair and off we went to the new gate which was all the way across the terminal. OK. We settled in. They announced first class and others and they announced that I could board the plane. The three of us got on the plane and were almost to our seats in row 33 when the pilot or someone announced that if we weren’t going to Tokyo, we were on the wrong plane and needed to get off. I said to the flight attendant, “This is a joke, right?” No, she said it is very unprofessional and now you have to go to a different gate. I told her I needed a wheelchair and she said she would get it for me. The wheelchair came and we were off to another wing of the terminal. Shelby and Bonnie certainly got their exercise. I mentioned that our plane was supposed to be leaving soon and I was told that it was now delayed it an hour. Well, I thought, we had a 2 hour layover in Miami so that should be OK.
Wrong again. After a very smooth 2 ½ hour plane ride, we landed in Miami and they had no gate open for us. We were in a 777, very large plane and Miami has a limited amount of gates that will handle that size plane. So we had to wait 45 minutes on the tarmac. We had 15 minutes to catch our plane. Now I was getting panicky. I knew there were only a few planes going to Provo (short for Provenciales, Turks and Caicos) and I didn’t want to waste another day of our vacation in the Miami Airport. I told the flight attendant where we were going, the number of the plane and the time that it was leaving. I also said I needed a wheelchair waiting for me so that maybe we could make the flight. He called on the phone and told me not to worry. Bonnie and Shelby were rather calm but I wasn’t. The plane pulled into the gate and we had ten minutes until the plane would leave. By the time we got out of the plane we had 5 minutes left. The wheelchair was there but he had other business he was attending to rather than getting us to our gate, which, of course, was on the other end of the terminal. I kept telling him we had to get to our gate. He completely ignored me and was on his phone. We weren’t moving. Then one of those large electric carts, a courtesy shuttle, suddenly appeared. He got me on and told me to sit there. Then he was going to leave – with Shelby and Bonnie not on the cart. He said they can’t come. I screamed they have to come because they take care of me. Because of necessity, they had now become my caretakers. So he reluctantly stopped squeezed them in and brought this heavy large suitcase to me and plops it on my lap. I yell I can’t hold this and it isn’t mine. So he takes it off and Bonnie told me later that he put it in front of her. I didn’t even look at the time, just sure we had missed our plane. Off we went speeding down the terminal, blowing his horn if anyone was in his way until we got to the very end where our gate was. I jumped off and moved as fast I could. The gate person asked if I was Nelson. I huffed and puffed yes. She told me to take it easy and she took our boarding passes. When we got into the half-empty plane, there were three people sitting in our seats. As it turned out, we sat much closer to the front and, although we didn’t sit together, we had good seats, Bonnie and I had one person at the window and Shelby had her own row.
I breathed a little better as the plane lifted off for our hour and a half flight. I sat back and relaxed. We had made our flight and now everything was going to be great. Again I was wrong. We landed and there was the worst wheelchair I have ever been in but I didn’t care. It was waiting for us after I walked down the stairs from the plane to the tarmac. We were going to our resort with our king bed and trundle beds. We quickly got through immigration and customs because of the wheelchair and now to baggage claim. I suddenly realized that there was no way our luggage would be on that plane. There was no time for them to transfer it. Unfortunately, I was right. I sat with the Beaches guy while Bonnie and Shelby went to American Airlines to file a claim. They located the luggage in Miami and said it would probably come the next day. Meanwhile we had no clothes. None of us thought to pack any bathing suits or underwear in our carry-ons. Shelby did have her deodorant and make up and I had all my medication. Bonnie and I also had all our electronics. None of this would help us brush our teeth or go swimming.
Now you would figure everything was going to be fine even though we had no pajamas or underwear. But you would have been wrong. We got checked in OK and then went with no bags to our room. King bed with trundle bed? Nope. Double beds with a single pull out bed. I was furious. I specifically ordered the king and trundle. I wanted to Shelby to have a real bed and I like a king bed. I was too tired and in too much pain to do anything but Bonnie went right back to the front desk. To make a longer story a bit shorter, they would do nothing for us. According to them, the order was “if available” and none was available. Bonnie had a discussion with them but that didn’t help. This was our room and, as Shelby said, it was a nice room so we stayed there.
We were starving and were told that the only restaurant open at that time – about 9:45 – was Bobby Dees so we went there. By this time I realized that my back would not take the amount of walking required. We had hamburgers, French fries and shakes and I think Shelby had a salad. We made our way back to the room. Bonnie and Shelby took a walk around the resort and said it looked really nice, even in the dark. I was exhausted and even with the pain, fell sound asleep. By the way, it gets dark there by 7:30.
What a day you had!
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