I Will Never Fly Through Denver Again

So while I was perusing the hundred's of giveaways on the bloggy giveaway carnival, I came upon a contest for the worst travel experience of all time here. Since I have much better luck winning things when I actually have to do something, I thought I'd take my chances. So here's my worst travel experience EVER. And I'm gonna admit, I guess it could have been worse, but not much worse.

At 5:00 AM on Wednesday morning December 20th, 2006, I woke up, showered and grabbed my suitcases to pack in the car. My fiance was supposed to be there around 5:30 AM so I finished packing my suitcases and waited right inside the door for the expected knock. 5:45 AM rolls around, and he still hadn't arrived. Six unanswered phone calls later I panicked. I ran across the apartment complex and not wanting to wake up his roommates, I went around to the back window (he lived on the ground floor). Of course he was still in bed, and I could see him snoozing away. I started POUNDING on the window while he continued to sleep with his headphones on and a fan blowing in his face. No surprise at all that he couldn't hear me. Finally after another ten minutes of pounding and cell phone calling, I watched him jump out of bed, look at his alarm clock (that was blaring by the way) and at me through the window. He was showered, out the door, and at my place in ten minutes. We flew to the airport and got there about 45 minutes before our 8:00 flight to Denver left.

Pretty bad huh. Just kidding, that was just the beginning. Right before the flight left from Salt Lake, I called to check in with my parents (who were waiting for us in a huge house they'd rented for the week in NYC) and told them we were on our way. Flight to Denver was great. We got there in great time, had some great snacks, and were really excited. We were going to celebrate Christmas in NYC with my family before our wedding one week later in Washington DC.

We got into Denver around 9:00 AM on Wednesday morning. We were planning on meeting up with my grandma, brother, sister-in-law, and their then 10 month old son Brazen. Like I said we got to Denver in great time. We went to check-in at the Southwest counter for our 2nd flight to Chicago then on to NY. We were next in line to check-in when we heard a Southwest agent say, "All flights are canceled." What? All flights are canceled? Are you kidding. My family was already on the other side all checked in for the flight, and all flights were canceled? I immediately got on the phone and called Southwest to try and check out other options for getting to NY when I heard the announcement over the intercom, "All flights out of Denver are canceled." Not just Southwest, but all flights canceled. I sat on the phone for an hour trying to figure out some way to get on a flight. My family came back to this side and we began trying to work out a plan to make it later that day or get on a flight in the morning. No way were we missing this Christmas vacation in NY.

Three hours and six inches of snow later it looked pretty hopeless. Then came a spark of hope. Over the intercom we heard, "We will now begin boarding Jet Blue Flight 100 to NY-La Guardia." What? A flight leaving the airport. We raced to the Jet Blue counter where a frustrated travel agent explained they would only be helping people there were already booked on the flight. They were not taking any additional passengers at this time. She then saw me carrying my wedding dress (yes, keep in mind I was carrying my wedding dress throughout this entire ordeal) and began talking to me about how we could get on this flight. She said it would be hard because our luggage was already stored downstairs with Southwest (since my family checked in earlier), but possible. But wait, the tickets were going to be $400/pp one-way. No chance did any of has that type of money on any of our credit cards (or all of them together for that matter). I called my mom, and she said, "Just do it." We booked the tickets, got our luggage, and raced toward the gate. As we raced through the terminal, I kept thinking, "We're going to make it after all." We got to the gate only to hear that our flight was delayed due to weather, but they would be clearing out the runway and leaving in a couple of hours. A couple of hours they boarded us on the plane. And we were off.

Yeah right. That wouldn't be such a bad trip. No we never took off that night. Actually we didn't even take off the next day or the next. They canceled all flights out of and into Denver for three whole days. But it gets even better. It snowed so hard that nobody could drive in or drive out of the airport for that entire three days. We pushed benches together, found cardboard boxes, and newspapers for sleeping materials and "slept" in the airport Weds, Thurs, and Friday night. All of the hotels were either booked or we couldn't get to them, and all of the cots were on the other side of security (where we couldn't go without rechecking in). It would've been fine (not fine, but okay), but we had my grandma (whose not old, but definitely not sleep on the floor young), a 10-month old sick baby, and my fiance who'd recently been diagnosed with a neck/back problem. Sounds like fun huh. We were stuck without any other options. We did find a pack of cards to purchase at a gift shop, and McDonald's was nice enough to stay open (everywhere else ran out of food).

We finally flew out of Denver Airport on Saturday, December 23rd and watched news broadcasts of being part of the Denver Holiday Blizzard of 2006. We eventually made it to NY where we joined my family for a 2-day (instead of 5-day) stay in the city. We did make it to DC to our wedding, but my wedding dress needed pressing (reason I didn't put it in my suitcase), and needless to say, I wasn't as happy as I could have been in the days prior. Yeah, I would definitely have to say that was my worst travel experience EVER. And that's why I will NEVER fly through Denver airport again.