Jacob, Jenny, Scarlett and Mack : San Francisco Adventures... No luggage With A Baby

Monday, July 29, 2013

San Francisco Adventures... No luggage With A Baby

Jake had a business trip in San Francisco so Scarlett and I decided to tag along and make it a family vacation. It was Scarlett's first flight and her first real vacation. She was a total trooper and was a delight to travel with. She loved observing all the people and different things going on. She was also great about napping in her stroller!

I can't write this post without sharing our adventures with our luggage. As we were ready to board the plane to San Francisco they announced that our flight had been canceled. The next available flight was at 9:00 p.m. We could either keep a baby at the airport for 6 hours or go home and come back and do security all over again. Neither seemed like a good option so they switched us to American Airlines instead. We were worried about getting our bags since we checked them with Delta on a flight that never left. Both Delta and American Airlines reassured us that our bags had been switched and would make it with us. Our flight was then delayed and we also had to have a layover in LA so it made for a long day and we didn't get into San Francisco until 9:00 p.m. We arrived only to discover.. no bags. American said it would take them only 30 min to track our bags and then they would deliver them to our hotel. Of course we didn't have Scarlett's carseat either because we checked it with the rest of our stuff. We were able to borrow an airport carseat and get to our hotel. We never did get our bags that night... or the next day. Imagine not having anything you need when you are traveling with a baby. Scarlett happened to poop through her only outfit the first day and was cold at night because all we had for her was a swaddle blanket. No diapers or anything. Jake had to go to the store to get some toiletry items and ended up paying $70.00 for just a few things! The next day we spent half of the afternoon getting some other necessities like jackets and clothes for our baby. We also spent a good portion of the day on the phone with the airlines and were told all kinds of different things; "Your bags will be delivered this afternoon, your bags are on the delivery truck, we forgot your carseat, Delta has your bags, American Airlines has your bags, neither of us can find your bags, so and so has gone to pick up your bags, your bags are lost, don't worry we will get your bags to you soon, there is nothing we can do for you, etc." Things were getting interesting as time went on. By the third day of our trip we were still on the same pair of underwear and same outfit, I had no make-up, and Scarlett had pooped through yet another outfit. We were trying to make do by washing our clothes with the hotel soap bar and hanging them to dry. However we had no blow dryer so I resorted to ironing my underwear dry at 12:30 and night. Jake was nearing all his business meetings and had no business attire. We didn't exactly budget for purchasing nice business clothes in San Francisco. Needless to say we were thrilled when we finally got our bags on day three of our trip! On day 5 it was time to head home. Not surprisingly we had another canceled flight. They put us on an earlier one but it was going to be pushing it pretty close. As we got to the airport they were boarding our flight and we hadn't even checked our bags or gone through security! Yikes! We were totally frantic trying to do everything really fast. When they weighed our bags they were overweight because we had to buy so much extra stuff that first couple days and they told us to repack our bags. Um we didn't have time to do that because our flight was boarding right at that moment. They were going to charge us an extra $90.00! Luckily they finally just let us go and we made it on the plane with 5 minutes to spare. I am sparing some of the other details of our tip that made things a little wild. What an adventure it was. It was one of those times where you are not sure whether to laugh or cry. I just decided to laugh. It was one thing after another our whole trip and all I could do was laugh.

Despite the insanity we loved it and had a really enjoyable time!