It happened again!

We are going to the wedding of one of Jackie’s cousins this weekend in Santa Cruz, CA.  Las Vegas is not exactly where you would fly into if you are going to Santa Cruz but being the procrastinators we are, this is where we ended up.  It isn’t like this was a last minute trip or anything, we have known about the wedding for months.  We have been watching the airfares for several months now, hoping they would come down to under $400 each but they never did.  Finally, only 3 weeks ago we realized it was time to get tickets one way or another.  The prices had not yet come down but we still had miles left over from our trip to Japan a few years ago, which we decided to use.  Since we were using miles and it was such a long flight we decided to splurge and get the first class tickets.  Everyone should fly first class at least once.  Well maybe not.  Because once you get a taste of it you want to do it all the time.  You end up looking at ticket prices and thinking for a split second, maybe that extra $450 on top of my $300 coach fare isn’t so bad.  But then reality sets in and you end up getting the coach seat and you fight for overhead space, you deal with obnoxious people, you get half a can of soda to enjoy and you get to be packed into a small seat for what will inevitably be a long day.  First class is very different.  You really don’t need to arrive at the airport much more than an hour before your flight because you have a separate line to check in.  Sometimes you get through security quicker.  You board first.  Your luggage is free.  You get your luggage usually pretty quickly at the end of your flight.  You have comfortable seats.  You get free drinks.  You get a meal.  You are not stressed.  The list goes on and on.  Can you tell we have been spoiled?  The problem with booking an award flight only 3 weeks out is that your options are limited.  Throw in the fact that you want to fly up front, away from the commoners as Chris calls them, and your options are even more limited.  The nearest major airport to Santa Cruz was probably San Jose, CA.  San Francisco was pretty close too.  LA was only a 6 hour or so drive.  Each of these cities had no award tickets available 3 weeks out, not from Boston, not from any NYC area airport and not from Philly.  We then started looking at smaller airports in California.  None of the airports that American Airlines flies into had any award flights available when we needed to go.  The two nearest places that did have award flights were Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.  We had never been to Salt Lake City before but it was a 12 ½ hour drive from Salt Lake on boring interstates.  Vegas was “only” a 9 hour drive.  If we went the scenic route largely avoiding the highways except for the final 4 hours then it became a 10 hour drive.  Since we have until Saturday evening to get there we chose Vegas because Vegas is more fun. 

We flew out of Newark, again not our ideal choice (we would have chose White Plains) but beggars can’t be choosers.  We rented a car on Tuesday in White Plains for a one way rental to Newark.  This way we avoid parking charges, we don’t have to bother someone to make the 2 hour round trip drive to the airport to drop us off, and the one way car rental is usually cheaper than a car service or taxi.  We left Stony Point around 3:45.  We had a 6:25 flight but we also had an hour drive, we had to gas up the car, and we had to drop off the car.  Traffic was a wild card as well that time of day.  After dropping off the car we checked in at around 5.  Traffic had been pretty much non-existent and despite us having left our EZ Pass in the truck in Stony Point, the toll booths were quick too.  Getting through security was a breeze and we boarded our flight on time.  Immediately upon sitting down we were asked if we would like a drink before we took off.  Ahh, the joys of first class.  Jackie doesn’t like looking the coach passengers in the eye as they walk by but Chris thrives on it.  So we sat there sipping our drinks while they all boarded.  We then sat on the runway for about an hour.  The pilot said it was because our routing to Chicago was being updated because of weather.  He claimed they had to call in their new route to their dispatchers and they had to recalculate their fuel for this new routing.  So we sat there watching planes take off and land for an hour.  Finally, around 7:25, we took off.  While the lesser people behind the curtain (they don’t have curtains anymore but it sounds good) ate their peanuts we had a meal complete with several gin and tonics for Chris and several bloody marys for Jackie.  We had dessert too. 

When we landed in Chicago we were the 3^rd and 4^th people off of the plane and we made our way to the bathroom to unload some of the liquids we had built up on the flight.  In the men’s room Chris found a blackberry.  We really had no use for it so we gave it to a security guard.  Chris greeted him with “here, this is your problem now”.  He seemed happy to have something to do.  He said he would just sit there with it until someone called. 

We boarded our next flight and took off right on time.  This was a longer flight and after the obligatory adult beverages Chris slept for nearly 3 hours.  There was no meal on this flight but we did get warm cookies which was nice.  We landed in Las Vegas at about 11:15 and it was only 102 degrees at that hour.  We like Vegas because you can gamble while you wait for your plane.  There are slot machines throughout the airport.  We chose not to gamble so we grabbed our luggage, they were one of the first dozen or so bags to come out and we headed for our car.  Like we usually do, we played the rental car game where we pay for an intermediate but take the largest beast we can find on the lot, mostly for comfort and the off chance we might sleep in the car at a campground .  The pickings were slim but we did end up with Dodge Durango which will certainly eat less gas than a Suburban.

We made the drive up the Strip towards Paris, where we would be staying.  Las Vegas at night is like Times Square only brighter and more crowded.  There were people everywhere, traffic was much lighter than we remembered but that could be because it was about midnight.  We arrived at our hotel to find the valet lot was full so we went for the self park.  The parking garage was very busy but we found a spot pretty quickly.  We then made our way through the maze of hallways in the hotel, around the edge of the casino, to the front desk.  Total time from car to front desk was about 10 minutes.  They checked us in really quickly and offered us an upgrade to a suite for an extra $60.  We were only paying $48 for our room as it was so we decided to not get the suite.  Maybe we would hit it big and they would upgrade us later.  We were partially right.

We went up to our room which was a pain because the elevators are not right next to the front desk.  When we arrived at our room we found a do not disturb sign on the door.  We were not sure what to do.  Do we knock on the door, thus disturbing someone who may be inside?  Was someone playing a trick and putting the sign on a random door?  Probably, we thought.  We figured if the room was occupied the people inside would surely have the deadbolt on so we would not be able to get in.  Wrong.  We slid in the key, opened the door and were greeted by people’s clothes all over the place, lights on everywhere and stuff out in the bathroom.  We quickly closed the door before anyone could yell at us.  What did we say last time this happened?  We think we said it was pretty common.  This has now happened to us more times than we can remember.  So we trekked back downstairs.  While Jackie waited by the elevators with our luggage, Chris went back to the front desk and told a white lie.  Instead of immediately saying that they gave us an occupied room, Chris just handed the guy the keys and said “the occupant of the room was not happy”.  That would have been true if the occupant was there but we think the person was out.  The guy at the front desk apologized and proceeded to tell us a lie.  He said that only 2 minutes before we checked in he had given that room to someone else because their previous room was damaged.  He just forgot to take it off of the open room list.  We know this to be a lie because there is no way in 2 minutes someone can unpack all of their stuff and throw it all over like that.  That must be their standard answer when this type of thing happens.  So without asking for it (we were going to ask) we were offered an upgrade to a suite.  We happily took it.  We got upstairs (finally) at about 1:15 AM which was really 4:15 eastern time.  Not cool.  We had big plans to go out and do something but we were so exhausted we decided to just stay in.  The suite was nice though.  The bathroom is about as big as half of our downstairs.  The bathtub is as big as our smaller bathroom at home and the shower felt great after a long day.

Good advice!