We left Seville on New Year’s Day morning and took the train to Madrid. That train ride might have been a hint about what was to come.
When we arrived at the Seville train station about 45 minutes before departure we went to the Renfe Lounge to wait for our track to be assigned. When it was assigned we left to go through security, which had a massive but fast-moving line.
As the train was now boarding we got into the boarding line and when they scanned our boarding passes something appeared to be wrong and so they told us to wait to the side. Once everyone else had boarded a Renfe agent told us that there had been an equipment change and the new train did not have our seats. So we were being seated in their “Executive Lounge” onboard, which sounded much more glamorous than it was. In reality it was indeed a private car but the seats were positioned subway style with tiny windows. It’s sold as a meeting room, if that helps you with the vibe. Not exactly vacation material.
While relatively comfortable I had really wanted to sit in our window seats and watch the Spanish countryside fly by. Disappointing but ultimately not even a 3 hour ride.
So we arrived in Madrid early afternoon, took a taxi to our hotel on the Gran Via and set out to walk around. Not much was open as it was New Year’s Day, but the streets were full of window shoppers.
It also was COLD in that European-seeping-into-your-bones way. Not as cold as Paris would have been but still cold.
We walked over to the Plaza Mayor and found a place to have a cappuccino until we walked back to the hotel. With an early dinner we were in bed by 9:00. Had to be up early for our trip home!
We arrived at the Madrid airport pretty early. You can never tell how long it will take but in this instance it was quite fast and so we had an hour to spend in the lounge. It looked like our inbound aircraft was going to be late which was concerning. Our connection time in Paris was just one hour and this aircraft was already 20 minutes late. Now 30. But still enough time to connect if they made up some time turning the aircraft and then in the air.
The aircraft arrived at the gate about 30 minute late and boarding for our flight began also about 30 minutes late. Concerned. We boarded and then we sat. They had to reboot the electrical system of the aircraft which took about 15 minutes. And then we sat some more – no announcement but it looked like they just weren’t ready to push. Ultimately we left the gate an hour late. Ugh.
En route they made up a little time and Air France delayed our Chicago flight by 20 minutes. So now it looked like we’d have about 30 minutes to connect.
We pulled into the gate at 1:00 and our Chicago connection was delayed to 1:30.
We ran off the jetbridge at 1:04 and continued running. We had to go from Gate F16 in Terminal 2F to Gate K55 in Terminal 2E. Switching terminals but at Paris this was probably the best scenario. We got through passport control in a couple of minutes and then ran to K55, arriving at 1:17 just to see our plane pushing. They didn’t hold it to 1:30 like they had planned, apparently the captain got antsy and they pushed. We were crestfallen.
Worse, Air France had not protected us on anything else and this was a holiday weekend. They directed us to a service center where we worked with an agent for about an hour and got nowhere. There were no seats across the Atlantic and despite this being their fault Air France would not overbook anything to get us home.
The agent wound up taking us downstairs to another service center to work with someone who was supposed to have more power. In reality we just got handed off to a new person as the new agent had no more luck. After about 45 minutes of unsuccessful keyboard tapping I suggested he check for availability on their flight to Detroit. Turns out there were two open seats he could book but it meant an overnight in Detroit, then an early morning Delta flight to O’Hare. Not ideal but after two hours of trying and the clock ticking on the remaining departures we took it in order to get across the Atlantic today.
Then we had to get to the Detroit gate which was a hustle only to find it was delayed by 90 minutes. We could not catch a break! So as we stood there waiting to board we decided to end this adventure as quickly as we could and booked a rental car at Detroit. Rather than overnighting we’d drive from Detroit to Chicago (four hours).
After all this we finally got across the Atlantic and arrived Detroit at 8:00p.
Through customs, to Avis, into three cars (first two were duds), and on the road by 9:15p. It was a pretty rough drive (so tired!) but we got home at midnight, finally ending what wound up being a 24 hour travel day. Exhausted.
I’ll follow up in the next few days with some summary posts about this spectacular trip.
