About Our Relaxing Trip Home? We’re Glad You Asked

The travel gods strike again.

No, it was nothing drastic. On our outbound quick trip to France, we flew from Seattle to Toronto to Dublin to Paris (SEA-YYZ-DUB-CDG) in one fell swoop. We’d been looking forward to a leisurely return trip, following the same routing but with hotel stops to break up the trip in Toronto and Seattle. We managed the trip but parts of it were not exactly leisurely.

Our Friday started at a civilized hour. We walked from the very pleasant Courtyard by Marriott to the CDG terminal in less than 10 minutes. We immediately encountered a problem at the Aer Lingus check-in counter. They were still checking in the previous flight and a rep told us to return later, vaguely pointing us toward a kiosk. 

We tried the kiosk without success and eventually got the attention of a wandering employee (perhaps a supervisor) who directed us back to the counter. This time we received boarding passes. 

This gave us a theoretical head start to the queue lining up to use the automatic exit immigration gates, a setup which we realized immediately was horrendous. We only learned later that there was some kind of technology meltdown that day. Two hours later we agreed with each other that we hope never to visit CDG again.

Employees in red vests were monitoring the queue, opening and closing lanes, with any pretense of first-come-first-served abandoned. We moved significantly ahead of people in the line next to us but significantly slower than some in other lines. It was obvious that people would be missing flights this morning.

After an eternity we made it through immigration, with the next stop being security. The line we were sent to us was short, but the setup looked exactly the same as the newest arrangement at London Heathrow.That's bad news for us. 

The first annoyance was that the screeners demanded Brian remove his cloth and plastic suspenders. Brian is incapable of attaching his suspenders to his pants with the pants on. Luckily Kathy was nearby to help him re-attach them.

A high percentage of bags get diverted for secondary inspection, including both of our shoulder bags. Two employees slowly pull bags off the rollers and screen them. Kathy’s bag was cleared after about 10 minutes, but other bags seemed to take precedent over Brian’s bag. 

After another 10 minutes of waiting it was time to play the Ugly American card. We both started to complain. Eventually, one of the employees got around to it and found nothing suspicious.

By this time, we only had time to buy wimpy Cappuccinos at a McDonald’s, our ironic final food purchase in France this trip, before reporting to the gate for boarding.

A large school group was ushered past us to board the flight, and almost immediately a rumor started to circulate that our gate had changed. Before long, passengers  and gate employees were trudging literally from one end of the terminal to the other, a distance we estimated to be close to half a mile.

We eventually boarded, and the pilot apologized, telling us that they’d landed an hour earlier and informing us for the first time that CDG was experiencing computer problems. 

At the lead flight attendant’s suggestion, Brian managed to reach an Aer Lingus “customer care” rep by phone, because it was obvious we were going to misconnect at Dublin. It took her a long time to understand our dilemma, asking several minutes into the conversation “Are you on the plane now?” She eventually offered to route us to Toronto via Chicago for an additional 600 Euros each, and we declined. 

When the lead flight attendant (she’d suggested we call) found this out, she was indignant on our behalf and said she would let our pilot know. Whether he had anything to do with it, when we arrived at the Aer Lingus transfer counter after the one-hour flight, they had new boarding passes awaiting us, business class to Philadelphia, and a small American Airlines Embraer (EMB 145) onward to YYZ. We were going to make our prepaid Toronto hotel and next-morning Alaska flight to SEA (on a separate itinerary) after all!

We had ample time to relax in a decent lounge located in the U.S. pre-clearance area (yes, we quickly cleared US Immigration).

Brian dined on board and added a cheese course instead of dessert. Kathy wisely chose to sleep. 

We landed at PHL, changed terminals, and spent awhile in an American Airlines Admirals Club Lounge before boarding our AA EMB145 for the short flight to YYZ.

We arrived at the Toronto Airport Hilton more than seven hours later than planned, but in time to get a decent night’s sleep, if not to fully appreciate our suite upgrade.  

We’ve subsequently applied for $600 reimbursement each under EU’s regulations. If we receive it, fine. If not, that’s fine too. 

The following day our late checkout let us relax before returning to the terminal  for our nonstop YYZ-SEA flight on Alaska. We were in first class for that flight and quite enjoyed it, other than 40 minutes or more of some of the bumpiest flying (pilots call it “moderate chop”) we’ve ever experienced. Although we spilled a little wine, we’d already finished our maple chicken so it didn't hit the ceiling.

A few hours later, the Cascade Mountains marked our arrival at SEA.

Having departed CDG Friday morning, we arrived at the SEA Hilton Garden Inn Saturday evening, only to learn that their computers were down, and we couldn’t check in. Ah, the symmetry of technology failures at both ends of our trip…

After nursing a beer at their bar, with no progress other than “the manager is on his way,” we bailed out about 45 minutes after arriving, walked literally around the corner  to the Doubletree (it helps to know the geography), and checked in. 

Sunday morning we found room on the 11:20 flight to Bellingham, and took advantage of our ability to make a same-day change for free. 

Kathy ended up in first, and Brian in Row 14, but we had the same foggy and drizzly view of the fields below as we circled around to land at BLI.

As dismal as it looked, it still looked like home.