One O'clock In The Morning and $154.40 Later...

As Ryan mentioned, our trip home from the Dominican Republic was less than ideal. In fact, that is the understatement of the century, and definitely needs documenting (although after having finished the post and reading it, it's a little on the long side for me--feel free to skim.)

So, the last day of our trip, we enjoyed a beautiful morning basking in the overcast Caribbean sun and enjoying the clear, beautiful, warm Caribbean sea (as seen below).

After a few hours on the beach, we headed back to our room and packed our bags for the airport. We grabbed a quick lunch and then headed to the concierge. Like all of our transportation, they were right on time; in fact, they were early, so we headed to the airport.

Once we got to the airport, I noticed there was an earlier flight to Miami, and asked if there were any empty seats, but of course there were none. The time was about 12:30, and we sat down to settle into our wait (we were to board at 3:05). In the meantime, a torrential downpour had started outside, but we weren't in any hurry. We had three hours.

So, we waited, and waited, and waited. At 2:55, an attendant announced that a flight to Havana, Cuba would start departing from our gate in five minutes. Wait, that's our gate. What happened to our flight!?

At that point, we became a little concerned, and Ryan went to check the sign. When he came back he said that the flight had been delayed until 6pm. Say what?! 6pm? We were supposed to be departing to DC at 7pm from Miami!

When I heard that, my first reaction was slight panic. Then I became angry that the airline hadn't even MENTIONED ANYTHING! I frantically tried to locate the American Airlines employees, and when we found them, a man told us that unfortunately they would have to put everyone up in a hotel for the night in Miami...

On other days, this would have been fine, but considering we were leaving to drive cross-country at 5am the next morning, that was NOT GOING TO WORK. So, before Ryan started yelling--he was getting a little upset, which is saying something huge for Ryan who is always very even tempered--I told the man that it was an absolute necessity that we get to the DC area tonight. He could tell that we meant absolute business, so which he was taking other people's boarding passes, he said that he could put us on this flight (meaning the flight that was boarding at the time) and then fly us to Baltimore and then pay for our ground transportation to Virginia... So, literally five minutes later we were headed to Puerto Rico--a destination that had not been on our agenda. :)

The flight to San Juan was pleasant, although I can't say the same for our time in the airport. We waited three hours, three delays, and three gate changes, and we were finally--finally--on our way to Baltimore.

After arriving in Baltimore, the task at hand was to locate an actual live American Airlines person at midnight when the desks closed at nine, but we did. After a little convincing that Virginia was really what was meant by 'Washington, DC' in the travel voucher, we hopped in a cab headed to Virginia.

The drive from BWI to Virginia was over an hour. On our way home I apologized to the drive that it was such a far drive, but the driver said that he'd driven to Philadelphia, New York, and Newark in the past, so Virginia didn't seem that far away.

Anyway... we got home at 1am, and when all was said and done, the taxi fare was...

$154.40--the most expensive taxi ride that I have or will probably ever have to pay--oh wait I didn't have to pay (that was definitely a plus).

So, takeaway: Puerto Rico isn't that great when your airline doesn't tell you what's going on, they delay your flight multiple times, and you have to drive 100 miles to get home from the airport. Oh well. I'm sure it won't be my worst traveling experience, but it will definitely be up there.