June 30th, 2009 Posted in Italy, Photos
So we got to the airport in Rome, after carefully checking in for our flight online the day before. I had checked the web to verify our flight was on time – and Northwest sent me text messages assuring me everything was as scheduled. Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the airport and found that EVERYONE on our flight had been BUMPED. It seems the same flight the previous day WAS cancelled, and we were all being replaced with the previous day’s passengers. We were herded onto buses, and shuttled off to be “prisoners” at some cheesy airport hotel for an extra 24 hours.
We arrived at the “Airport Palace Hotel” and – after working myself through the stages of Anger, Grief, and Denial – we discovered that we were actually “stuck” in a pretty nice place. Turns out, the Rome airport is near the coast. Our cheesy hotel was in the Rome suburb of Lido di Ostia, which happens to be a really nice beach resort on the Mediterranean. So, making the most of a bad situation, we spent the extra day hanging out near the beach & enjoying the sun. That evening we saw one of the most gorgeous sunsets ever – some great photo ops!
Northwest ferried in an extra plane to take us home on Monday. That was fun, too – the gate agents at the airport all became computer hackers, as they attempted to see who could figure out how to issue boarding passes for our “non-existent” flight number. Even more fun, since these were all Delta employees (Northwest & Delta recently merged) trying to subvert the Northwest reservation system (which they didn’t know) into doing something it wasn’t supposed to do. After 1.5 hours, one bright agent managed to print one boarding pass, and the entire terminal erupted into applause. Boarding passes were finally printed, we actually boarded a plane, and eventually made it home.