The trip Home

Instead of writing a post about our “Misadventures,” I am posting a chain of texts between me and our children, Carrie and Rick. All times in Eastern Time… Add six hours for the time in Europe.

Wed, Jul 13, 1:51pm

We just got word that the cruise is cancelled due to low water in a stretch of the Danube. We are exploring alternatives.

Carrie: Oh geez

Wed, Jul 13, 3:31pm

Rick: Oh boy

We are trying to work out our options. Probably won’t know anything until tomorrow afternoon. Problems is that every ship going up and down the Danube has the same problem and are trying to get their passenger out.

Rick: Have you spoken to the travel agent?

Thu, Jul 14, 1:23am

We are working on it. The time difference doesn’t help. We are continuing the trip through Passau. They can’t go any further. We are hoping to get a flight out of Munich. Tauck will arrange transportation to Munich.

Sun, Jul 17, 2:47am

We are scheduled to leave the ship for Munich at 10:30 local time. We have a room booked at the Hilton near the airport. As of now we leave Munich on United flt 31 to Newark and then on United 1252 to Miami. If there are any changes, I will let you know.

Sun, Jul 17, 5:33am

We made it to Munich airport. Taking the subway to downtown Munich. Already checked in at the hotel and United Airlines.

Sun, Jul 17, 7:18am

Our misadventures continue… We are a few stops away from our destination in Munich and our train stops, first between stations, and then in a station. Unauthorized persons were on the tracks and someone must have been hit. We got out of the inbound train and are standing on the outbound station heading back to the airport. Been here an hour at this time and don’t know when the trains will start running.

We got the first train heading back to the airport. We had not planned to be in Munich, nothing lost except some time.

Sun, Jul 17, 9:38am

Rick: Oh Jesus. You guys should write a movie

Would it be a tragedy, comedy or horror?

We are back at hotel after a stop at a famous German restaurant, MickyD.

Rick:😂
It would be all 3

OK. You are the pro… you write it.

Rick: Deal

I would wait to write it until we are home in Osprey. The way things are going there may be more calamities. I HOPE NOT. If the plane taking us to EWR lands on time tomorrow morning (the same flight we had coming here), we should be OK. Then we only have to worry about EWR to MIA flight.

Mon, Jul 18, 4:13am

Incoming flight delayed in DC.

We are now on board. Scheduled departure is in 20 minutes. The Newark-Miami leg is delayed giving us about an hour to go through customs. We are told we will get on the flight.

Mon, Jul 18, 12:59pm

Just landed in Newark.

Rick:👍

Mon, Jul 18, 2:14pm

The comedy continues. It took longer than usual to get the luggage and go through immigration. We had to get through customs, which was nothing. Recheck the bags to Miami. We then had another security check that didn’t take long because of TSA precheck. We ran to the gate which was already starting to load passenger. Here is the kicker… the plane is delayed because the crew was diverted to Philadelphia and they won’t load the plane until they are here. Current estimate for departure is 4pm.

Rick: Oh boy. Glad you’re on the plane. Lmk when in fla

Mon, Jul 18, 5:19pm

We are still in Newark. We have a cabin crew and waiting for the pilots. They were making regular announcements. It has been silent for a while and the gate agents are not at the gate. A lot of flights have been canceled. It is hard to be optimistic right now.

We are finally on the plane. Expect to land after 9pm.

Rick: It’s an adventure
Hopefully this flight takes off

From your mouth to God’s ear.

We have been in the plane for about an hour. Now we are in a Air Traffic Control hold because of severe weather in our flight path. We may here for another 30 minutes.

Rick: Oye
You’ve pulled away from the gate?

We’re sitting on the taxiway with engine in low idle.

It’s all weather related. Can’t blame United completely. Part our delay was due to the need to get seats for two crew members coming off a flight. If they didn’t do that we might have been in the air.

I’m going to have to shut the phone down soon.

I will let you know when we get to the hotel. We will probably miss the last hotel shuttle. This is a long 24-hour day for us.

Carrie: You must be exhausted.

It’s almost 24 hours since we got up. Air Traffic Control just cleared us for takeoff.

Carrie: Oy!

Mon, Jul 18, 11:22pm

Thanks. It is 24 hours since we got up. Time to call it a day.😃

As Seen on the Road

We are always on the lookout for something unusual to place in our posts. We call those items, “As Seen on the Road.” This one is better titled, “As Seen on the Danube.”