Traveling Nightmares Seems To Be The Norm Now!

While traveling from New Jersey to Las Vegas, then to Phoenix, and back to New Jersey, I realized that the whole process is painful, unpredictable, and unreliable. When did traveling become so stressful?

I haven't traveled much in my adult life, but I have taken a few trips back and forth to Florida and never had any of the issues I had on this trip, and I know I'm far from the only one.

Let me first say that the last few trips I've taken, I've flown on Spirit Airlines. Everyone has heard the jokes about the budget airline, but I never had any issues with them. But since I booked my trip through a third-party site because I needed three one-way tickets (New Jersey to Las Vegas, then Las Vegas to Phoenix, and then Phoenix back to New Jersey) it was just easier to do it that way.

It was just me and my 17-year-old son traveling, and our first flight was on United Airlines. Our flight was scheduled to leave around 5 p.m. When we arrived at the airport, I checked the board of all the flights and noticed that United's flights right down the board were all delayed or canceled except for ours. I just knew at that point that things were about to get crazy.

Up until the time we were due to board the plane, we were still listed as on time, but just as we were about to start boarding, our flight was delayed. We were informed that the plane just came in from somewhere internationally and it needed to be deep cleaned but there were no cleaners available just yet so we would have to wait.

After two more delays, employees showed up to clean the plane. After another two delays, we were finally ready to board. We got on the plane, got comfortable and the moment I clicked my seatbelt in, we were told to deplane and take all of our stuff. The disappointment set in fast. It was then that we were told the plane is missing a part and they weren't sure if they had it in stock. What? Excuse me? That's when things really got crazy. The flight was delayed multiple times from that point, and the gate was changed not once, but twice, and the second time, it was changed from one terminal to another one far away.

That's when I noticed a group of people on our flight talking about changing flights, so I joined in the conversation. They said that there were three flights going to Vegas all around the same time and none were full so they believed that possibly this was all happening to somehow combine flights. Well, then why not just say that? So, we all collectively switched to a flight that was leaving before our delayed flight. That way if they were trying to condense flights into one, we had a better shot of getting off the ground. While that flight was also delayed once for needing a deep cleaning, it ended up leaving way before our original flight.

What compensation did we get for hours and hours of delays and miles of walking to new gates, boarding the plane and deplaning? We each got a whopping $15 food and beverage voucher. Mind you, a bottle of water in the airport was nearly $10 so that small gesture did very little.

One thing I will say, the employees were amazing. They all went above and beyond to try to help and make the situation easier for everyone. They were just as upset as we were, and you could tell.

Because we ended up leaving so much later than we were supposed to, the first leg of our trip was cut down by one evening which really wasn't ideal considering we were only going to be in Vegas from Tuesday night until Thursday afternoon. And despite calling the hotel to inform them of all that was going on and then even doing a mobile check in before leaving the ground in Newark, they gave our Strip view room away. Better yet, they gave us keys to an occupied room so at 2 a.m. I likely scarred sleeping people for life as it appeared I was trying to break into their room in the middle of the night.

The second leg of our trip was much smoother. We took Spirit Airlines from Las Vegas to Phoenix and it was on time with no issues.

The only issue we had was our runway was switched for some reason, so we ended up taking off about 30 minutes late, but after what we went through with United, it wasn't really an issue and no one seemed bothered by it. The entire flight was literally 50 minutes in the air, so that extra half an hour was no big deal.

Then came our flight from Phoenix back to Newark, New Jersey, which was with Delta Airlines. We were scheduled to leave at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, but at 11 p.m. on Friday night, just as we were getting ready to go to sleep, we found out that our flight was canceled. They switched our flight to a 7 p.m. one but that was no going to work with our schedule as my son had three basketball games on Sunday.

After an hour of holding on the phone, we got someone who was able to help us get booked on a 1:20 a.m. flight so we immediately grabbed our stuff and headed over to the airport. Getting through security at that hour is so fast and easy, and we only waited about 30 minutes to board our flight. It was smooth flying from that point thankfully.

So, I would love to know, when did flying become such a crapshoot?

With so many delayed and canceled flights, and lots of angry people wandering aimlessly around the airport, it was just such a stressful start to what should have been the beginning of an exciting getaway. And it's not just me who noticed all the trouble going on with the airlines. We met many people while waiting for our flight who were stuck in the airport for DAYS at that point. Why is traveling so difficult now?