Spirit Didn't Break Our Spirit

The beginning of our Jamaica trip. But first, I have to warn all of you that the next few blogs are going to be lengthy... mostly because I was stuck in airports and was killing time, but also because I wanted to document in detail our wedding for posterity. Feel free to skip any rambling or mumbo jumbo.

All was going well for our Jamaica trip. It was Christmas day in the morning. We got up, got the dogs out the door to the kennel and grabbed a cab to the airport. All by 8am. At the airport, we went to check in at Spirit Airlines and things weren't looking good. The woman behind the desk said we needed to speak to another woman who was behind us dealing with some very angry customers. I overheard her saying to them something about the flight being delayed and missing a connection. One of the passengers was very verbal and angry with the airline representative and the airline woman had to keep asking her to calm down. I let the airline lady know that we, too, were going to Montego Bay. She then began re-explaining the flight situation. The only thing I heard was the part where she said "arriving Saturday". It was currently THURSDAY. I started to cry - Saturday morning was when we had our ceremony booked - not to mention two lost hotel days. She started listing out the options available and the other irate woman got very angry - saying that the airline was accommodating us but not them, even though the same options were available to her. She then took it another step and said that it was because she was black. We got very uncomfortable - not wanting to be a party to any of this arguing, so we walked away. It was very tense and the woman was close to being escorted out of the airport. They ended up working some things out for us - trip to Ft. Lauderdale for the night and then fly the next day to Kingston, Jamaica. We took it, and Marco was able to get us some free tickets out of the whole ordeal.

We finally arrived in Fort Lauderdale later that day (after a lengthy wait to get on a plane in the airport giving me plenty of time to blog those last long paragraphs). The airline had generously booked us a free room at the Hilton Garden Inn, which was right next door to the airport but not next to anything else. Upon arriving at the hotel, we inquired about going to the beach. It wasn't within walking distance. A cab to Miami was 70$ one way; a cab to the beach in Ft. Lauderdale was 40$. We were stranded unless we wanted to fork out the dough. Considering the fact that we were already losing a nice chunk of change on the hotel room in Jamaica that we weren't getting to enjoy, we opted to just scope out the local area on foot after dinner. The airline had given us vouchers for dinner (12$), breakfast (7$), and lunch (7$). The appetizers at the hotel couldn't even be covered by our dinner budget, so we ended up using all our vouchers in one meal and then forking over some additional cash to cover the rest. So much for our "ultra all inclusive luxury" vacation! We made the most of it though - and apparently our waitress - "Crystal" had seen it one too many times. As soon as she came over and introduced herself then spotted our vouchers, the bubbly blond quipped "Oh no, so Spirit broke your spirit!" Not too funny but bring me a rum and coke and it will all be ok.

Over dinner we decided to try to find a movie theater - banking on the guess that it's probably the only form of entertainment open on Christmas day instead of holing up in our room and watching the "A Christmas Story" marathon on TBS. We ended up seeing Four Christmases. It was a decent comedy that strangely is similar to our situation with flight problems and stuck on Christmas dreaming of the beach. Marco and I can have fun in a paper bag, though, so it was all good.