Stuck in Chicago

Soooooo sleepy...  Yesterday my sister and I were supposed to fly home to Calgary from Nashville on United Airlines, connecting through Chicago.  We boarded the plane in Nashville, and just before we were to pull away from the gate, the attendant informed us that, due to weather, our flight would be delayed for an hour.  No problem, I thought, because we had a 3-hour layover in Chicago anyway.

But the hour delay turned into 4, and I was starting to worry.  The dude at the gate assured me that the flight to Calgary would be delayed as well, so we would make it.  On the way, we received no information, except that we were supposed to check the departure screens at Chicago O'Hare airport for our gate.  We arrived in Chicago, got off the plane, and headed for the screen.  The place was Mayhem, as the entire airport had been closed to all incoming and outgoing flights because of the weather.  On the screen, next to our flight, it read "closed".  Not good.  We had missed the flight.

The United customer service lines were ridiculously long, so I went to an automated kiosk.  It had a phone next to it, and the screen instructed me to pick it up.  I finally got to talk to a customer service agent, who told me I needed to go to the check-in counter, and they would re-book me there, as they couldn't do it over the phone for an international flight.

Once I got to the check-in line, I saw that it was incredibly long and slow.  By this time, we figured out that many people were in the same boat, having missed flights, and so we began scrambling for a hotel room whilst waiting.  More on that later.

After 45 minutes in that queue, I grew tired, and stepped out of line to another automated kiosk.  This time, the agent on the other end  told me that all I needed to do was call the toll-free United number and they would re-book me by phone.  This information was welcome, but about 2 hours late.  I wish they had told me that in the first place.

I called United reservations, and got a booking dude on the line within minutes.  I gave him my confirmation number, and he launches into some speech about how I was meant to be on the flight from Nashville to Toronto to avoid the delay, how someone from United was supposed to tell me about this, and how it would have been smooth sailing had I only been on that flight.  That wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear.  I was a bit irritated by this point, as you can imagine.

Finally, by 9 p.m. last night, I had a re-booked flight for today at 9:45 a.m.  But I wasn't able to claim my luggage, and was informed that it would be forwarded on to my final destination, with no indication of when.  The only hotel available for miles was the Drake downtown, for the very reasonable rate of $395 for one night.  Not wanting to sleep in the airport, we took it.  One $40 taxi ride later and we were there.  Thankfully my sister has travel insurance that will cover those costs for us, though I personally think United should bear some of the cost for neglecting to tell us to get on that flight to Toronto.

At least we got to sample some authentic Chicago deep-dish pizza from Giordano's.  That was our dinner at about 11 o'clock last night.

Because we had to stay so far from the airport, and because Chicago traffic is so bad, we've been up since about 5:30 this morning, so we could get a taxi to the airport and make our flight.  Now we are sitting in the waiting area outside gate C1 at Chicago O'Hare, and that's where I write this from, using the airport wireless and my laptop, fueled by crappy McDonald's breakfast, and operating on very little sleep.

Here's what I look like right now:

Photo 10