Vacation Horror Story

My nightmarish vacation from hell started in the lovely Dallas-Fort Worth airport in September of 2000. I was going to spend a month in Europe, starting in Germany.
Everything was fine and good, and I was very excited about my little trip. The first taste of bad luck was the initial two hour delay before we were allowed to board the plane. Apparently, the aisle lighting had gone out and they were trying to get them up and running before we boarded the plane. No problem, these things happen.

Around 5 p.m., we were finally able to board the plane. This flight would take fourteen hours to reach my initial destination, London Gatwick, where I planned to have a two hour layover before hopping on a plane connecting to Frankfurt, Germany. Joyous! We are on the plane finally! I get seated in the center (of course) of a five seat center aisle. Lucky for me, the women sitting on either side of me were quite pleasant and not unbearably chatty. After about twenty minutes, we departed the gate to taxi to the runway. Once we reached the runway, we stopped to wait our turn in line. And we waited. And waited. And – you guessed it – waited. Our Captain was gracious to come across the loudspeaker every twenty to thirty minutes to let us know just what number in line we were for “takeoff”. Our Captain wanted to quickly let us know that we had an Opera Singer in first class, and thank her so much for choosing British Airways for her travels, we were really pleased to have her on board.

“Terrific,” I thought to myself, “something is going to go wrong. The plane is going to crash.”

These things always happen when famous people are on board.

After about an hour and half of playing pussyfoot with our “projected” number for takeoff, Mr. Captain came clean with us all. Apparently, the tower had radioed in to let the Captain know that there was a problem with the luggage manifest. Somehow or another there was one additional piece of luggage onboard that was not “supposed” to be. Since they could not match up the manifest to the extra piece of luggage, we would have to taxi back to the terminal so that the airline could sort out the confusion. Once back at the gate, we sat in the plane and waited another forty-five minutes while our crew and airport personnel went over the original manifest. Of course, the discrepancy could not easily be detected. The only viable solution would be to pull all of the luggage back off the plane and have all passengers de-board the plane, walk down to the tarmac to identify his/her luggage. Row by row, we were escorted off the plane single-file.

I thought to myself, “this can’t possibly be happening”, as I toured parts of the airport that normal passengers aren’t supposed to see. We walked down a series of hallways passed locked doors and down two flights of stairs to the tarmac. Everyone’s luggage was neatly lined up at the feet of the plane. (Planes are SO much larger when you are standing beneath them!) Once on the tarmac, we were instructed to “Please point out which pieces of luggage belong to you.” I saw my one lovely bag poking out among the others. That was all fine and good, Hammack, 1 stowed item. Check. Back to the plane with me!

Once we had all completed this little task and were back in our seats, we pulled away from the terminal once again. This time things went by much faster, and applause erupted once we were airborne. Forty five minutes later, once we were all enjoying the first of many refreshing beverages, alarm bells began ringing and a voice recording boomed, “Ladies and Gentleman, due to an unexpected in-flight emergency, we will be returning to the airport for landing.” Mass pandemonium! We all turned to one another as though the person next to us knew the answers. Less than thirty seconds after we all experienced group heart-failure, the pleasant voice of one of our flight attendants timidly announced that there had been a slight malfunction with the emergency recording system, and to completely disregard the previous in-flight announcement.

Approximately twenty minutes and one stiff-drink later, everyone and I began to ease into our seats and relax. A few hours must have elapsed by the time I woke to the next announcement over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and Gentleman, we would like to ask at this time, that if we have a doctor on board, that you please raise your hand.” Less than two minutes later, one of the flight attendants was escorting a scholarly looking older gentleman to first class. While I secretly assumed that the famous opera singer had choked on an olive or something of that nature, we never figured out just what happened in first class.

Another great thing that happened on this flight, is that when they were trying to fix the aisle lighting, someone touched something they weren’t supposed to and it killed the in-flight movie watching capability for everyone. Imagine this lovely fourteen hour flight with no kind of entertainment. Hours later, I checked my watch and my itinerary.

“If my calculations are right, my connecting flight to Frankfurt is leaving rightâÂ?¦ NOW.” I told the woman next to me. How nice it is to be in midair right about the time you should be boarding your connecting flight. Just gives you a nice warm fuzzy to know you are missing your very first plane ever.

This half of the nightmare came to a close with a nice, soft, safe landing in London, Gatwick. I followed the sea of people to the customer service desk where we all got in line to hop on the next plane out of there. The airline was very apologetic and loaded us up on coupons to redeem at the airport restaurants. We were all a bunch of displaced, disgruntled airline passengers. I was too exhausted to do anything with my vouchers, so I found a comfy looking seat and commenced “people watching”. I was looking at a one hour, forty-five minute layover. No problemâÂ?¦ except it got even further delayed. Two and a half hours later, I boarded my connecting flight. This plane was much smaller than the one that had brought me to London, but hey, this flight was only going to be two hours long!

The sardine can managed to taxi right on time and was airborne quickly. The flight went exactly as planned. It was even better because the person who was scheduled to sit next to me never made the flight, so I was able to, for the first time in the entire trip, have a little space to myself. I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in regards to my last flight into Europe right as we were landing. Second before our wheels touched the runway, emergency alarms went off. I didn’t even hang around to wonder. As soon as they opened the hatch, I was out of there.

Wow! Germany! I was extremely excited. My first stop was supposed to be at the USO, but unfortunately, to my surprise, I flew in on a Monday and the USO is apparently closed in the Frankfurt airport on Mondays. Well, that’s ok, I figured. I’ll just go get my luggage. So, here I go to our favorite place in the entire airport. Baggage Claim. I had found my second wind, and was actually aglow. I was finally on European soil, and nothing else could possibly go wrong. Right. I slowly watched my fellow passengers grab their bags and disappear into the heavy airport crowds. I watched and I watched until it was just me. Just me and the rotating luggage belt. No luggage. None. Not for me.

After staring at the rotating carousel in stunned disbelief for what seemed like an eternity, I made my way to the “lost luggage” counter. There, I provided my name, number, and address. Lucky for me, a message came in while I was filling out the information. Ms. Hammack, your luggage was not properly transported to your connecting flight. “Oh really? No kidding!”. Fine. So now I’m here in Europe and I have no clothes. That’s cool, at least I’m here and my friend will be just on the other side of customs waiting for me and we will figure it all out.

Through customs I go. They eye me just long enough to figure I’m good enough to visit. I’m getting pretty tired at this point. So much for that “second wind”. Good news though, apparently I am already a celebrity and have a message waiting for me at concierge! I arrive, show my ID to get my message. Turns out my friend will not be able to pick me up at the airport. Wonderful. My final destination is Wurzburg, and it just happens to be two hours away. “You’ll need to get a train.”

Wonderful. I don’t know enough German to even begin to ask how I get myself on a train. Well, that’s ok. I’m here, and the best way to learn something new is to be thrown full-force right into it. My first concern is to somehow find a train. Lucky for me I have my German translation book in my carry-on bag, and a ticket counter is located right in the airport. Just my luck, it is the last train headed to Wurzburg today! Excellent! I hot-foot it down the elevators to the basement where the train berths are located. I get to the appropriate gate with eleven minutes to spare! My luck is finally improving. Or is it? After I congratulate myself on navigating the last hour’s worth of havoc, I realize that I am the only person standing at this particular gate. Panic ensues and I grab hold of the first official looking train attendant. My German doesn’t help much, so I show him my ticket. His eyes grow big and he starts giving me rushed German instructions. I give him that, “please say something in English!” look, and he motions for me to follow him.

We sweep back up the elevators where he leads me to another gate. This one has people. I sit down next to a very kind looking woman on a bench. I’m a basket case at this point. She motions to my translation book and says in English, “Are you visiting?”. Desperate for normal human interaction at this point, I begin telling her the horrible details of my nightmarish trip up to this point. When I get to the part about my friend not meeting me at the airport, she quickly pulls out her “handi”, which is German for “cell phone”.

“I know of this hotel where you are staying.” She says.
“I will call and see if your friend is still waiting for you there.”

That is when my nightmare travels finally started improving. The lady was nice enough to get me in contact with my friend, who was sure I had been kidnapped after calling the airlines and being informed that I had not gotten on my initial connecting flight out of London. At that point I was nearly nine hours late getting into country. The lady had me sit next to her on the train, she too was headed to Wurzburg, and would be able to let me know when it was time to get off the train. She even knew where my hotel was, and she and her husband were kind enough to take me to it once we got in the city.

I would never wish any kind of insane travel on anyone, and I’ll never lead on that that vacation was worth any ounce of the trouble I had to go through in the beginning! My luggage finally came back to me six months later, and the airlines sent vouchers for one free round-trip airline ticket to anywhere in the world for all the trials we endured during the first flight. There is justice in the world!

All details may be confirmed.
This is a True Story!