March 10 – 13
Hi All,
We are back traveling…yea…but this time on a big expedition style ship!!! Gee guys….where are you gong…well to Antarctica….our 7th Continent…whoa!!! We left our house at 2:45pm on 3/10 on an Uber for our overnight stay at the Bay Landing Hotel near SFO. We had to be at SFO at 6am the next day and since the pandemic we don’t trust Uber to make the very early schedules so it’s just a lot less stressful to go the day before and take the hotel shuttle to SFO the next morning.
We arrived in Dallas on time and then took Uber to go visit Kathy’s 89 year old parents. We had a good visit and were back to DFW by 6pm for our 7:45pm flight. Then the fun started….NOT!! At 5 minutes before we were to board we got a call from the American Airlines gate agent. I was downgraded by American from Business Class to Premium Economy on the DFW to Buenos Aires 11 hour leg. Evidently another Business Class seat was broken so they gave that person my seat and bumped another person in Premium Economy to Economy to give me that seat. Obviously I was somewhat upset and when I pushed back on the Agent….why me, I paid full Business Class fare in June 2022, 9 months ago, and you are separating me from my wife et al….the Agents became surly, very nonprofessional, and threatened me by saying accept the downgrade or we will deny you access to the plane. When I got to my Premium Economy seat, 8A, a woman in 8B was emotional and crying. She was the niece of the woman in 8A who got downgraded to Economy. Kathy said screw it, gave the woman her seat in 2H to the crying woman to help ease her misery as well as Kathy wanted us to travel together. So neither one of us enjoyed the flat beds and got little sleep in the Premium Economy Seats.
For compensation AA offered a travel voucher for future travel. I told them that meant nothing to me as why would I ever consider traveling on American again. I told them we wanted a refund for the fare difference. They never gave us the voucher or refund.
To make matters worse, we both got sick from something we ate on the plane. Kathy actually vomited when we got to the Buenos Aires hotel and I had a bad case of diarrhea. Fortunately the worst was over in ~12 hours but the upset stomach has lasted now for over 48 hours. We believe it could have been bad fruit or the pasta dinner served for dinner. Kathy had the dish, ate 2 bites and said this is awful. I tried a bite and spit it back out. It tasted like dirty soap water.
We have filed a formal complaint with AA and we’ll see where that goes. I personally recommend boycotting American any chance you have!! What a crappy airline for sure!!
Well….how did the rest of the travel go….actually quite good!! We overnighted in Buenos Aires because we wanted to go to a Tango Show. We attended El Querandí Tango Show and dinner. The dinner was good, not great….I had the lamb and Kathy the steak and both were overcooked….but the Show far exceeded our expectations…such vibrant, passionate music and very sensual and intricate dancing!! The only downside was the dinner stated at 8:30pm, the show at 10pm and we were back at the hotel by 11:45pm. BUT, we had to get up at 6am for our 6:30am transfer to the airport for our flight to Ushuaia. We did arrive on time in Ushuaia, got through Customs et al, got on our transfer to the hotel, checked in, had lunch and in our room by 4pm….where we both basically passed out for lack of sleep the past 2 nights. We wanted to go to town to shop, walk around and dinner but we slept through all that…bummer but the sleep felt wonderful!!
https://querandi.com.ar/cena-show-2/
Tuesday, 3/14: We were up pretty early feeling refreshed, made our 8am Covid test….both negative TG, had breakfast….then unfortunately watched it rain hard for the next few hours so didn’t make it to town. Later today we will take a bus tour of Ushuaia where we will visit several museums and then eventually board the ship ~4:30pm. The ship will sail ~8pm and enter Drake Passage ~1am. The weather forecast is for winds 20-35kts, seas 10-15′ but by Wednesday morning conditions hopefully will calm some and we should have a good passage the next day+!!! More on all that in the next post!!
https://www.swoop-antarctica.com/cruises/south-georgia/discover
Past Events Update: It’s now been 5 months since rotator cuff surgery and much better….80% range of motion and 60% strength. The doc has released me with reminders that the tendon is not fully healed until 6 months and it will take up to a year to regain 100% strength and motion!! Good news the knees are in pretty good shape…they should be as not doing too much to stress them….the bad news is both hips have frayed labrums and arthritis limiting walking to 1-2 miles/day. I’m now doing about an hour rehab for knees, hips and shoulder at home and doing much better….it seems I’ve done nothing but home and supervised rehab for the past 6 months….ugh!!!
We did make the family Tahoe ski trip where I did ski 3 days with the grandkids….all groomers….4 & 6 years old…oh what a treat and such a delight. And, the 6-year old has already passed me up…..Papa YB is soooo proud of her, but I can still keep up with the 4-year old!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
soon to board
The view of Beagle Channel from our hotel in Ushuaia
The same view the next day…..yikes!!
The happy travelers…..opening ceremonies at the hotel in Ushuaia
Sounds like a great trip. American is having problems with service and decision making.
Thanks Mike, yep we had to find out the hard way. They won’t even return my complaint emails…ugh!!