Written 2025-02-17
For the past couple of months, I've been planning a trip that would take me to Vancouver, BC and Seattle, WA over my spring break (which is this week). The itinerary was roughly as follows:
Unfortunately (or, perhaps fortunately, as we'll see later), this did not happen. Step 1 went well enough. Step 2 was rocky, with the hotel having next to no parking and taking over an hour to check me in. I had set an alarm to wake up at 00:30 to get ready and catch the 02:30 airport shuttle for my 05:10 flight.
We now start to deviate from the plan: my grandparents had been vacationing in the Dominican Republic and had been stranded there for a couple of days, and when they finally made it back to Halifax, there were no rooms available anywhere due to an ongoing winter storm and associated flight disruptions. They got in around 23:00, so I told them they could stay with me. I gave them the bed and slept on a chaise lounge. In all, I got roughly two hours of sleep.
It was just before my grandparents arrived that I got a text from Air Canada telling me that my flight was not delayed but outright cancelled, because of conditions in Toronto that prevented the incoming flight from taking off. The text said I'd receive information about a rebooking within half an hour. That, of course, didn't happen, and 30 minutes later I got a text saying the rebooking was taking longer than usual and that they would update me when they sorted it out. I attempted to use the online cancellation/rebooking tool, however it wasn't working (possibly because of how many people were trying to use it at once). So, I called Air Canada and stayed on hold for over an hour before hanging up when my grandparents arrived. In the morning, I still had not received any new information, so I attempted to call again, but hung up when I had to check out. I decided to go to the airport and try my luck there.
I decided to drive to the airport instead of take the shuttle as I had a hunch I would not be getting rebooked. When I got to the airport, I first encountered one of the least helpful airline employees I've ever met, although given the circumstances I don't blame her and definitely would not have wanted to be in her position. Then I waited in a line for about two hours, all the while on hold with Air Canada in case I miraculously got through. I did not, and about an hour in the call dropped and I gave up. I finally got to the front of the line and explained my situation to the very helpful lady at the counter who very kindly attempted to rebook me and, when that was not possible, submitted a refund request. I thanked her and breathed a sigh of relief.
Then I sat on a bench and cancelled all of my hotels and my train, paying a total of $340 in cancellation fees. At this point I was barely awake, so I started hobbling back to the parking garage. I got in my car and started looking up directions when a random woman tapped on my window and told me she wanted my parking space for her gargantuan Dodge Ram. I didn't have it in me to be anything but baffled, so I just drove away. On the way out a guy almost hit me in a giant SUV going about 60 km/h inside the parking garage.
I drove to Stewiacke, NS (which I didn't even know existed) because I needed a coffee to prevent me from crashing the car. As I was sitting at a table in the Stewiacke Tim Horton's, I saw a familiar face: one of my other relatives whose flight had also been cancelled was there on her way home. We briefly exchanged pleasantries and then left.
Surprisingly, Stewiacke has a Taco Bell, which is pretty rare around here. The nearest ones to Sackville are Truro, about an hour and a half away, and Saint John, about two and a half hours away. There used to be one in Moncton, but it closed sometime in the past year. So naturally, I couldn't resist. I got a Baja Blast and a Doritos Locos Taco as a consolation prize and then was back on the road. A couple of hours ago I got back to my apartment and took a nap.
I said earlier that this was perhaps fortunate. When I woke up, I had a bunch of texts from relatives sending me this CBC article about a plane crash that had occurred at Toronto Pearson, leading to all of the airport's runways being shut down for several hours. Even though it was a Delta plane, there's always that feeling that it could've been my plane instead, or that my incoming flight might have been delayed, leading to me being stranded in Toronto during the chaos and unable to rebook because of the backup from the storms. This whole situation seems providential.
Now that my schedule is cleared for the next week, I have more time to do thesis work (yay). What an ordeal!