3am came disgustingly early the next morning. I rolled out of bed when the alarm went off and started tossing stuff in the general direction of my bag. I felt pretty rough when I first woke up, but figured it was the lack of sleep catching up with me and I'd feel better once I got moving.
Nope.
The only place I moved to in the first few minutes was to the bathroom, where I immediately tossed my cookies. Awesome.
My options seemed pretty straightforward: stay in Vegas and be sick in the hotel, or go to the airport and try to get home and be sick there. I didn't want to deal with the nightmare of trying to get on yet another flight home, so I decided to take my chances with the flight.
Nope.
The only place I moved to in the first few minutes was to the bathroom, where I immediately tossed my cookies. Awesome.
My options seemed pretty straightforward: stay in Vegas and be sick in the hotel, or go to the airport and try to get home and be sick there. I didn't want to deal with the nightmare of trying to get on yet another flight home, so I decided to take my chances with the flight.
On the way to Denver; I took this during one of the few minutes that I wasn't trying to sleep away the cooties.
On the ground in Denver; the layover actually worked out pretty well to break up the flight and gave me the chance to grab a snack to settle my stomach. I thankfully didn't get sick at the airport or on either flight, and we eventually made it back to Dulles just in time to get stuck in rush hour on route 66. By the time we got home I felt like death, and despite heading to bed very early that night to try to sleep off whatever cooties I had, I still wound up calling out of work the next day. It took the better part of a week before I felt back to normal again.
Overall, Vegas and Death Valley were fun and I'd happily go back to both (and next time, I'll steer clear of the sushi and shrimp at the buffet). Southwest Airlines is the most abysmal airline I've ever flown and I'd rather hitchhike with a creepy trucker (or more realistically, just not go on a trip) than give them another penny of my money. I've never had such consistent bad luck with flight delays and cancellations, and the company doesn't seem to think that getting passengers to their destinations in any sort of timely manner (which is, after all, what they've PAID the airline for) is a priority. I rarely felt like my business mattered to them, and earlier in the year in Phoenix, I actually had a gate agent cop an attitude with me when I dared to politely ask if he thought I'd still be able to make my connection in Denver when they delayed my flight for the THIRD time since I arrived at the airport an hour earlier (and this was on my second attempt to get home, since my flight home the day earlier had also been canceled...after they had also canceled my flight out there several days earlier, then delayed the new flight I wound up on so that instead of getting to AZ at 6pm, I got there at midnight). The cheaper airfare means nothing when you wind up having to burn extra leave at work and pay for extra hotel rooms and expenses when they strand you somewhere. I'll never fly them again, and I could not in good conscience recommend them to any of my family or friends. Sorry for the rant, but I do a fair amount of traveling and it's rare that I encounter this kind of impressively crappy service.
Anyway, that was it for our 2014 travels. We had a good year, and while 2015 won't be quite as trip-heavy, we do have some fun things planned!
Overall, Vegas and Death Valley were fun and I'd happily go back to both (and next time, I'll steer clear of the sushi and shrimp at the buffet). Southwest Airlines is the most abysmal airline I've ever flown and I'd rather hitchhike with a creepy trucker (or more realistically, just not go on a trip) than give them another penny of my money. I've never had such consistent bad luck with flight delays and cancellations, and the company doesn't seem to think that getting passengers to their destinations in any sort of timely manner (which is, after all, what they've PAID the airline for) is a priority. I rarely felt like my business mattered to them, and earlier in the year in Phoenix, I actually had a gate agent cop an attitude with me when I dared to politely ask if he thought I'd still be able to make my connection in Denver when they delayed my flight for the THIRD time since I arrived at the airport an hour earlier (and this was on my second attempt to get home, since my flight home the day earlier had also been canceled...after they had also canceled my flight out there several days earlier, then delayed the new flight I wound up on so that instead of getting to AZ at 6pm, I got there at midnight). The cheaper airfare means nothing when you wind up having to burn extra leave at work and pay for extra hotel rooms and expenses when they strand you somewhere. I'll never fly them again, and I could not in good conscience recommend them to any of my family or friends. Sorry for the rant, but I do a fair amount of traveling and it's rare that I encounter this kind of impressively crappy service.
Anyway, that was it for our 2014 travels. We had a good year, and while 2015 won't be quite as trip-heavy, we do have some fun things planned!
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