Anna was overseas for just over a month over
the Christmas and New Year holiday, not to mention her birthday, and her return
was delayed until the 13th of January. With my retirement ceremony on the
15th and our departure for Costa Rica on the 18th, things were tight.
Also, there was so much activity leading up to and during the ceremony, dinner,
etc., that none of us really devoted any time to planning for the trip until
the day before we left. I can say without hesitation that I was the least
prepared for this trip than any we have taken in the past. I did next to
no reading and my packing was haphazard at best. We were all so tired in
the lead-up that packing was a particular chore, but we all
managed.
Our tour proper was to begin on Tuesday
morning in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. We booked tickets to
arrive on Sunday night, which would give us a day to acclimate and settle
in. I used award miles to book our departure tickets. While there
is a non-stop flight from Dulles to San Jose, it leaves at around 3:00am, so I
instead booked business class tickets on Air Canada, which promised to have
lie-flat seats. I figured, "why not?" Sure, that meant we
had to fly north to Toronto, before flying south again to San Jose, but at
least we'd be comfortable.
Anna came to our house around noon on Sunday
and we had a very harried Christmas and belated-birthday celebration for her,
as she had been away for both. It was rushed, but we managed to get
everything open and put away with a few minutes to spare before our Uber
arrived to take us to Dulles. Our flight to Toronto was on-time, luckily,
as there was snow falling for part of the afternoon, but after de-icing, the
very short 50-minute flight went quickly. We found the transit lounge and
only had a few minutes before it was time to board the final flight to San Jose.
That went quickly and the app showed us leaving and arriving early. That
quickly changed, as they announced a "minor maintenance issue, "
which was addressed. We left the gate about 20 minutes late and then
sat...and sat...and sat. The pilot finally came on and said they could
not start one of the main engines, so we had to return to the gate. It
was snowing and the pilot trying to navigate the plane back to the gate on one
engine was something to see, AND FEEL.
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| Departure Drink at Dulles Before We Left for Toronto |
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| Leaving Dulles |
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| Our Originally Scheduled Departure |
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| Loaded on the First Plane...We Had To Be Taken Out of Service |
We
deplaned and went back to the lounge, only to wait as our departure time kept
getting pushed back. After inquiring I finally found out they were
bringing in a new aircraft and crew for us, so we ended up being delayed by six
and a half hours. While we were originally to arrive in San Jose around
midnight, we would now fly through the night instead. We were all
frustrated and tired, but at least we had beds for the relatively short
five-hour flight. While we waited, I wrote the hotel to say we would be
arriving late, and I contacted our transfer driver, to say we were
delayed. I felt particularly bad for the driver, as she responded that
she was following the flight on the Air Canada app. When we were about to
take off from Toronto after midnight, I wrote her again with our new arrival
time. Her response was, "What? You haven't left yet? The
app says you're to arrive in 30 minutes." It turns out Air Canada
never updated the app, so this poor woman was already sitting at the
airport. She ended up staying there and sleeping in her car, for which I
felt very bad.
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| FINALLY on a New Plane and Ready To Leave |
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| Pretty Much a Straight Shot from Toronto to San Jose |
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