The Ups and Downs of our Trip to Ecuador

Well, I have good news and I have bad news…

The bad news: I woke up at 3:14 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep–too excited about the trip to Ecuador!

The good news:  We were up, dressed, and had breakfast in time to catch the 5:30 a.m. shuttle to Kansas City Airport and breeze straight through security (we only had carry-on luggage and had already printed our boarding passes).

The bad news:  Our flight got delayed, so we could have slept in.

The good news:  Maintenance would be along to fix the problem in time for us to catch our connection in Dallas.

The bad news:  The problem required a part that would have to be flown in, so we would miss our connection after all.

The good news:  We had a long layover in Miami, so we could probably arrange other flights to get us there in time for the Guayaquil flight.

The bad news:  We couldn’t.  The soonest we could get to Guayaquil would be the following night.  It was too late to cancel our hotel, so we would lose that money, and we’d have to get another hotel for tonight!

The good news:  We would be able to fly as far as Dallas today and American Airlines would put us up in a hotel, and there would be no super early flight tomorrow.  Plus, we would have time to catch up with friends who live in Dallas!  I emailed the Guayaquil hotel and asked them to move the reservation to tomorrow, and contacted all my Dallas friends.

The bad news:  We would not be seeing our Dallas friends because a ticketing agent at DFW was able to arrange last-minute seats to Miami–in time for the Guayaquil flight!  Or wait…maybe that’s good news…  But more on the bad news front:  I had to contact the Guayaquil hotel to get our reservation back, and there was no time to get online because we had to board our Miami flight!

The good news:  The Miami flight had in-flight wi-fi, so I could contact the hotel and also cancel the party in Dallas.

The bad news:  There was no available gate to park at when we landed, so we sat on the tarmac for 20 minutes…

The good news:  We’d had a tailwind the whole way so the flight had actually landed early and we arrived at the gate right on time.

The bad news:  We were sitting in the very last row in the plane and all the other passengers were taking their sweet time getting out of our way, despite the announcement from the flight attendant asking those without connecting flights to remain seated while we deplaned.

The good news:  We still made it to our gate (after running 1/4 of a mile) in time for our flight.  We made it to Guayaquil and sailed through immigration and customs and caught a taxi to our hotel.  Plus, for all the trouble we’d had with American Airlines, they gave us 9,000 frequent flyer miles, so our trip ended up costing us about the same amount of miles we would have used on a domestic flight.  Score!