Walking in LA or United You Fail

The adventure has begun.

Claire is an expert at packing for the long haul.  Her skills at maximizing luggage space are exceptional, and she used those skills to divert her attention from the fact that her beloved husband and her first born child were about to depart for the the other side of the earth.

Packing complete, banking done, Skype setting complete, tires aired up, and tears fell like rain.  Some joyful, but tears none the less.

The plan was to fly from Indy to Chicago, Chicago to LA, LA to Auckland, Auckland to Christchurch, and Christchurch to Dunedin within a 28 hour window.  Riiiiiiight.

The delay started with bad weather in the midwest which delayed our departure from Indy by three hours.  That put us in Chicago with 20 minutes to get to rescheduled flight from ORD to LAX.  Much running, much lugging, much swearing.  Of course, we were were late and they would not let us on the flight.  We were rescheduled for the next flight to LAX, in 30 minutes.  That would put us at LAX with 30 minutes to catch the flight to Auckland.  Welcome to LAX: Much running, much lugging, much swearing.  We had to leave one terminal and cross the complex to another, resulting in the need to go through international security again.  Arghhhh!

It is at this point that I must point out something about the staff of United Airlines.  This holds true for IND, ORD, and LAX.  It holds true for each United representative, be they ticket agent, gate attendant, stewardess, or pilot.  Not one of the United representatives we came in contact with--and I mean this quite sincerely--not one would smile or look us in the eye unless I forced the issue by staring at them with a big cheesy grin or by point blank asking them to do so.  Is this important to the story?

With 10 minutes to spare, we arrived at the Air New Zealand desk.  Relieved, I presented our tickets and passports.  "I'm sorry sir, but you won't be able to board this flight."

WHAT???  The gasket blew. And while I ranted and raved and embarrassed poor Molly to death, something happened.  The AirNZ attendant (Ruth) looked at me and listened to me.  She didn't type on her computer, or ignore me, or call for security.  She just said that United informed Air NZ that we had missed an earlier flight so would not make this one.  Our seats had been given away.  But not to worry, that Air NZ would take care of us.

And so they did.  The manager of Air NZ LAX greeted us, apologized for the delay, put Molly and I up at the LAX Westin, gave us generous food vouchers, and recommended several places that we could visit while we waited until the next flight in 24 hours.  Each Air NZ person we came in contact-with one exception--was pleasant, professional, and empathetic.  I was totally disarmed.  So we were going to be a day later than planned.  Here is what happened instead:

The we flew to New Zealand!