Heading Back to Orlando Soon

It's been wonderful spending so much time with my family and getting some wedding planning done. Now I'm looking forward to returning to Naveen in Orlando on February 11. Just booked my flight with Allegiant, despite some prior bad luck with them (as you may recall from this Thanksgiving post).

To make up for the extremely delayed arrival in Orlando last November, they offered an appallingly low $30 credit toward a future flight, and I don't know when else I might use it except for now. It's a shame that about half of that money went to food and water purchased at the airport in Columbia where we were stranded for several hours due to the oil leak in the left engine of our plane. If that weren't unfortunate enough, the pilot had even gone as far as to say several times that another plane was on its way to retrieve us, and that pizza and soda would be offered to us after de-boarding. Of course none of that was true and many of us were angered by the whole experience (especially those who claimed they went through the exact same thing on the initial trip to Fort Wayne prior to Thanksgiving). By the time we had arrived in Orlando it was after midnight (when we were to have arrived by around 6pm) and by the time bags arrived and Naveen picked me up, it was about 1am and airport security actually turned the lights off on us in the airport.

Ever more unfortunate, if you consider the leftover $15 of credit (after buying food and water where we were stranded), I was hoping to apply that to my flight back to Orlando in the next couple of weeks, saving at least the $15. However, the price of the flight I was looking at jumped $20 overnight, so there went the savings. Don't forget the extra $30 of taxes and fees that get tacked onto the seemingly low base price that Allegiant offers. I can shrug my shoulders about the taxes, but a $9.50 "convenience fee" when I had to spend over 14 of my precious Verizon cell phone minutes just waiting for a representative to even answer the call (they can't apply the credit to an online booking - you have to call to make your specially-priced reservation). So 22 minutes later and still having to pay a convenience fee (and don't forget $5 per bag I check), I'm not exactly appreciating the airline's "sincere apology" and I'm just hoping there's nothing wrong with the next plane.

At any rate, I'll be heading back to Orlando in 2 weeks after my parents' birthdays (mom's was yesterday, dad's is on the 9th). I'm definitely looking forward to getting back so I can focus on my reel and some new projects.