Communication/Lack there of in the Texas Airport

We are currently on the road to Memphis, Tennessee, after a…fascinating time in New Orleans. It was an interesting city, I suppose. I’ve been there once before for my JCHS Senior trip. We mostly did service work around the area, and didn’t quite get a taste of what the New Orleans night culture had to offer. (Spoiler: it’s alcohol and strip clubs)

            So much to update on from the past two days; I promise I will try and get to it all. Our flight from Houston to New Orleans, after three hour-long delays, was in fact canceled. We considered driving all night to get to New Orleans (AKA out of Texas…), but we ended up just staying the night at a nearby hotel.

            Marci/my mom would like me to include a bit about the lack of communication between the staff at the airport. To start off, as I mentioned in my previous post, the flight attendant giving us the announcements about our delays was disturbingly vague. Looking back, she may have been telling the truth when she said “the maintenance crew isn’t telling us much” or something to that effect. The updates we did hear about the status of our flight were few and unhelpful, but this was only the beginning of our understanding of the communication in this airport.

            Here is just a smattering of the information that somehow got lost in translation (in Texas too, arguably the most right wing American state in America. It’s not even like we were in Lima, Peru or something. That’s a good story. But I digress.)

Suitcase Route: We were told they would bring our suitcases to the hotel, no matter how we got there. We decided we would drive, which had been established as a viable option for the suitcase to hotel route. Upon arriving at the airport desk the next morning, the rather snippy security worker denied our request. And in case you were wondering, no, explaining that the other airport staff had assured us of the suitcase route and this should be a simple logistical procedure changed nothing. No matter how many different ways we described it. 

Rental Car: There was a large problem with the rental car. I think it was assigned for the wrong airport in Texas and then they were trying to charge us a ton extra or something...I wasn't paying attention, but I made 25% (about 45 minutes) of a hat in the time it took to sort it out! (Yes, I measure my time in knitting stitches. Rent measures in love. I measure in hats and rounds and yarn balls and oh my god I think I have a crafting problem)

The shuttle to our hotel: We were told that the shuttle would be there waiting for us immediately to bring us to the hotel, where we would be spending the night awaiting our departure the following morning. Don’t get food with your food vouchers, they said. You won’t have any time, they said. We waited, outside, in the cold (note, this is our first experience in the winter air so far this trip), for 45 minutes (until 12:30 am), with at least three people, including my dad, calling the hotel shuttle to make sure they knew we were waiting. They didn’t, both times. And those phone calls (my dad and another stranded passenger) were spaced apart by about 15 minutes. So, to clarify: the airport called (allegedly), alerted them we would be waiting. The shuttle didn’t come. We wait for 20 minutes and then my dad calls. The shuttle says they were unaware of our waiting and will leave immediately. 15 minutes after that, another woman calls that same number, who tell her that they will have not left yet and will now go pick us up since they now have just learned we are all standing waiting in the cold. We finally got to the small hotel with a low ceiling at one am, finally ending our forever lengthening night.

Food Vouchers: We were given food vouchers worth at least $60. Aforementioned, we were told that we couldn’t get food then because we would miss the shuttle. Yeah, uh huh, okay. You saw how that went. The next morning, we inquired about using them. We had been told the night before that there were restaurants all over the airport and we could use these vouchers anywhere. When we asked the aforementioned snippy security worker about where we could get food for breakfast, she said there were no restaurants outside of security. We explained to her that we were driving out, so we couldn’t get into security. It’s okay; just get a courtesy pass from the service desk, she said. When my mom and sister went to go get this “courtesies pass” to go through all the hassle of security again just to get a freaking sandwich, they were told that this so-called “courtesy pass” was not a thing. And since there’s no food outside security…is that a Chili’s? Indeed it is! So, despite this security woman’s claims, there was restaurant outside security. (On a separate note, the BBQ chicken salad had bacon in it. A fact I learned after eating it. The food wasn’t great, but the mislabeling didn’t make anything better).

So that’s all for this post about the poor communication. I KNOW I AM BEHIND. I WILL TRY TO CATCH UP. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SHUT OFF CAPS LOCK. BIDDING GOOD NIGHT TO ALL my readers out there. Oh hey, look, I DID IT!

REBECCA/RIVI <3 <3 <3