Going to Disney World with the kids was definitely something that was going to be inevitable, given its place as far as mythical wife and I are concerned. A wedding in central Florida where the wife was to be one of the bridesmaids accelerated the trip, and no matter how ready or not we were, the time had arrived to take the girls down to Orlando for a lengthy trip that was chock full of memories, lessons, trials and tribulations, as far as I was concerned.
Tag: airports
How United Airlines got their groove back
If I had to pick an airline, I’m a Delta guy. I’m pretty cool with Southwest too, even though I kind of resent that they absorbed AirTran and 86’d all of their low fares to Virginia. Spirit isn’t terrible as long as you plan well and understand you are literally taking the MegaBus of the skies.
But I can’t really say that I’ve given much thought to United Airlines as an option, even when there was that period of time after they kept tripping over themselves repeatedly, and I figured they’d have to drop their fares aggressively in order to regain some customer equity, but that never really happened.
Not to mention, being in Atlanta, the land of Delta, United doesn’t really have that much of a presence here, but they are still an option for most continental destinations. But since I don’t really feel like being racially profiled and I’m pretty sure the settlement of letting them kick my ass and throw me off a flight won’t be as good as that first Asian guy who got owned, I never really saw any advantage to considering flying with United.
That is, until this true story of heroism came out, where a United flight attendant told a woman with a crying baby that it was prohibited for her baby to cry for more than five minutes, which resulted in the following:
Bala wrote that her family “will never fly on United again.”
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Wait, JetBlue is the bad guy here?
I have been on a lot of airplanes. I’ve had wonderful flights, namely where the seat(s) adjacent to me have been empty, and I’ve been able to exhale and bask in the luxury of space, and once in a blue moon, I’ve had the opportunity to sit in first class and enjoy a cocktail or two.
However, most of the time, I’ve had less-than-wonderful flights, whether it’s been on account of assholes who don’t understand the rules of the armrests, shitheads who pack too much shit and clog up all available space, or fat fucks who ooze over armrests, seats, aisles and encroach upon the personal space of everyone around them. Such is more common than not, because the vast majority of people are simply stupid and have zero understanding of not just airplane etiquette, but just how to conduct one’s self when rammed into tight quarters with other miserable travelers.
Amidst my travels, I have been no stranger to the unruly child in the row behind me that thinks the seat in front of them is the FIFA World Cup and decides to mash the kick buttons like they’re Chun-Li. Under the standby circumstances I’ve flown so frequently in the past, there was little I could actually do about this, since I was vastly less human than my counterparts that paid substantially more than I did, but over the last year of actually paying real fares to fly, I have been no stranger to the turnaround and glare at the negligent parents who neglect bad behavior.
Needless to say, seat kicking ranks somewhere in between being too fat and insisting on existing in one seat and releasing snakes on a plane, when it comes to the worst people on an airplane. Which is why it’s so easy to applaud JetBlue when they removed a family of five from an airplane after a one-year old kicked the seat in front of it.
I’d gladly take an ass-beating for a few mil
I think that unless you’re living under a rock, most people have heard now about the United Airlines debacle where a passenger had his seat “re-accommodated” which was apparently corporate-ese for “physically removing from aircraft by means of yanking them out of seat, bashing their face into an arm rest and dragging a bloodied body away while numerous other passengers video record the whole incident and let it go viral on social media.”
Yes, it’s truly horrific that this happened, yes, United Airlines has found seemingly the worst possible combination of choices in a field of many, and yes, United Airlines is already in the fallout of a lifetime having lost at the time I’m writing this nearly $1.4 billion in lost stocks, sales, partnerships and other financial channels, with the number continuing to escalate as the saga continues. By now, we’ve seen the videos, we’ve read the crocodile-teared apologies, and seen the endless litany of hilarious memes. We’ve all got our opinions about United Airlines, and our own thoughts on the story that we know of.
Most are appalled by United, and probably would make a conscious effort to avoid them moving forward, and that’s completely understandable. Lots of people feel bad for the man, basically targeted, assaulted and basically a sacrificial lamb in this captivating story; it also doesn’t help that he was a minority, although imagine how much worse would this story be if he were black? And just about everyone by now has had a good laugh at a meme about the situation that has probably created way more awareness to the story than there would’ve been from people who simply pay attention to the news.
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Visiting the Motherland, with my Mother
If I didn’t mention it before, the trip to Korea was one that I took with my mother. The idea was that way back when, my dad and sister went together, so it seemed like a suitable idea that this would be a mother and son trip. My mom had recently retired, so she had nothing but time on her hands, and from my perspective, this was a trip that had to be done sooner rather than later, because I didn’t want to live my life with the regret of never going to Korea with my mom while she was still physically able to. Not to mention, my mom had never been back since I’d been alive, so it was literally 38 years since she’d last been in Korea.
This is without question one of the best ideas I’d had in my life, and although I’m not going to sugar-coat and say it was a perfect trip, I don’t have any regrets about going to Korea with my mom one bit. It was meaningful and memorable, and I’m glad to be able to say that my mom was there the first time I visited the Motherland.
I let my mom drive when it came to planning for the trip, since my initial idea of planning a trip to see the places of her childhood and upbringing seemed to fall on deaf ears, so it ended up with us having a few days in Seoul on our own, but then ultimately going on a multi-city tour group through the rest of Korea, back-ended with two more days in Seoul before coming home. I’m not going to pretend like I was pleased with the idea of being on a guided tour, since typically I prefer to be in control of my own destiny, but it was what my mother had wanted, and she didn’t seem to understand that I was quite the competent planner on my own.
I’m with the angry Italian
Fat story made thin: Italian man angry with Emirates airlines because they’re not doing anything to dissuade his dissatisfaction with having to have sat next to a morbidly obese man on a nine-hour flight
I’m aware that this story is one that of an insufferable, apparently entitled individual, trying to cash in on a no-win situation from Emirates, but I’m also not a perfect person either. I’m on the side of the angry Italian.
I fly a lot, as my six readers very well know. I’ve enjoyed the luxury of the occasional surprise upgrade when I played the standby game, but way more often than naught, I’ve suffered the indignity of having to sit next to undesirable people. And I wish it were the people with babies, or the blabber mouths, or the people that often come to mind when people think of undesirable seat neighbors. No, I’m talking about the people who don’t know what a shower is, or had been living at the airport for days, or sometimes both. People who try to dominate the armrests or any and as much space as they can, because they’re just that selfish or greedy.
And then there’s the fat people.
Thoughts on Europe and cruising
Admittedly, I thought I’d be way worse off coming back from Europe after basically a two-week vacation. Sure, the 22-hour trek that saw two layovers in New York and Detroit before getting back to Atlanta was pretty tiring, but I didn’t have that much difficulty in not using my recovery day, and instead returning to work immediately the next day. Frankly, after two weeks unpaid, it seemed like the smart thing to do.
So Europe. So cruise. Long story short is that the vacation was pretty good, and I had a good time traversing various cities in Italy, and my first cruise ever was pretty enjoyable overall. Maybe not as much relaxation as I’d hoped to have gotten, but I was able to sleep in for a few mornings, and those were quite pleasant. Alternatively, there were a lot of mornings that were on the schedules of either shore excursions or travel deadlines, leading to some jam-packed agendas at times too.
Among the things learned about planning a destination vacation as such, is that in the future, shelling out a little bit of cash in order to have some travel insurance might not be such a bad idea. Mythical gf and I got a pretty decent flight to Europe, but it was pockmarked with several layovers both to-and-from the states, and in the months approaching our trip, there were at least more than one deal that showed up with fewer layovers at a comparable price that made us come to the conclusion that perhaps there is some merit to timing.