Subtitled: Finally, now finally, on our Spring Break 2020 (And this time we mean it) trip

We are in Mexico today. We are finally in Mexico. Just as of today. Should have been here on Saturday. But the journey to our sojourn was negatively impacted by forces beyond our control. In other words …

TL;DR — American Airlines is a terrible way to travel.

It starts like this. We booked this in 2019. Then Covid. We rescheduled twice, because Covid. We were supposed to fly Delta, as we often do, but they canceled this route because of Covid. So American Airlines became our only option to Cozumel. Months ago, American Airlines rescheduled the first flight out of Indy, to make it even earlier in the morning.

So we woke up at 4 a.m. to arrive at the airport to do airport things and got on our plane which couldn’t leave on time. There was a fuel door that wouldn’t close, you see. The captain pilot must leave the plane, study the problem, Google the panel code, call his mom’s neighbor’s uncle about it, and then request a repair team to come and bolt the panel shut.

Then, and this part is very true, the pilot comes over his comm system and says “Well, that’s done, but this plane has an awful lot of computers, so it’ll take a little time for us to get started and in the air.”

Gentle reader, dear friend, if an airplane pilot ever complains, or speaks aloud in wonder about the amount of electronics on his flying sky tube, disembark the vehicle immediately. This is simply good life advice.

Only, you see, there’s a script the pilot is using now. Sure you can get off the flying sky tube. Reschedule a flight. Who knows how that will go. And if you leave this flying sky tube you’re not getting back on this flying sky tube. Tricky door panels and all that.

So we stay on. We depart (very) late. We arrive in Dallas very late for our connection. And this is where the troubles began.

We landed, and waited and waited and waited for the plane to connect to the airport, because of personnel problems. Meantime, our connecting flight just … left. Left five minutes early, even.

What airline does that?

(Later — Note how that flight departed early and was still delayed in arriving? Should have been a red flag for everyone.)

So now we’re stuck in Dallas with nothing but our luggage and dreams. There are no more flights to Cozumel, on the Saturday of the first week of Spring Break for most of the US. There are flights to Cancun and, after standing in a line for many hours, we are on standby for each of them.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter the purgatory of ineptitude that is American Airlines, and the studied indifference and downright rudeness of their employees at Dallas-Fort Worth.

Also, that sign in the foreground? May as well be hieroglyphics out here in the real world. You wonder how long before some bored maintenance crew takes them all down at this point, and where the last tattered one will be.

We also spent hours on the phone, to no avail..

We finally arrived at a place euphemistically called Customer Service. We went here three times on Saturday, standing in exceedingly longer lines each time, to be told different stories, tall tales, excuses and downright lies. Six hours or more in this line alone, for lies.

It was well-staffed. If you like irony and travelers’ distress. I painted over the very young person standing here just in front of us to demonstrate the time when the eight-station desk, the one featuring hours-long waits with a line stretching beyond eyesight into the distance haze of the airport. It was staffed by exactly one American Airlines “professional.” At max capacity, there were three people working at that desk.

And dear and gentle reader, at this point I have written 651 words on this shambolic experience, giving you only the highest points. The details will be spelled out to the executives at American. (I found a helpful mailing list.) Suffice to say, to you, that you likely haven’t had the displeasure of dealing with customer service of this sort in a long, long time. The business model, on the phone and in the airport, and at every level, seems to be “Get these people out of my line and into someone else’s.” We spent an entire day and night at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport dealing with these miserable people. And they are miserable. They are angry, and they are angry at you. Do not dare inconvenience them with your inconvenience, no matter how polite or flustered. Also, they’re the ones getting paid to be at the airport today.

Finally we got a voucher for a hotel. We had to re-coordinate with our condo people, who have been amazing. We had to cancel dives. (This is a dive trip. You go to dive and do little else. Because of this airline we have lost 45 percent of our dives.)

We spent Sunday doing nothing in exotic Dallas. Spring Break! We did nothing because The Yankee had to go back to the DFW airport on a luggage journey, another quixotic four-hour tale. One of our bags got to Cozumel yesterday.

American Airlines: Where incompetence meets apathy, in the sky!

Hertz canceled our car reservation, another American Airline knock-on effects, so we also spent about four hours on the phone with American Express and Hertz trying to make this right.

Which brings us today, and the Cozumel airport, after we finally arrived two years, and then two-days, late.

The Yankee retrieved the piece of luggage that arrived yesterday without us (I’m impressed we got anything back from these yahoos) while I stood in the Hertz line, because, we were told, time was critical. The people in front of us at the little Hertz desk, no dice. This bodes well. That poor family was irate, but no carros means no cars.

Meant the same for us. The guy starts to explain it to me. I said, “Please stop, and thank you. But you’re going to have to explain it to her,” and about that time my lovely bride came back with our lost luggage and I stood well, well away, over at the Avis desk, where I got one of the last cars they had available. We previously had a week-long Hertz reservation for less than the daily rate of this Avis car, and American Airlines will get that bill, too. (And the two-night Dallas stay, and the three extra Uber rides. And another for missed dives. It’s going to be fun.)

To sum up: American Airlines is terrible, and by 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon Smith’s First Rule of Economics, “Don’t make it hard for me to spend my money with you,” was invoked.

If American Airlines is the only way to get to somewhere I need to be, I’ll go anywhere else but there.

But enough about that, for now.

We’re staying at a place called Residencias Reef. Let us sing their praises.

It is a nice oceanfront place. We rented a one-bedroom condo. The furnishings are fine and it is well appointed. There’s a note on the printer that says you can’t get these cartridges in Mexico, but some are due in from Estados Unidos this month. Had I known, I would have picked some up for them. It seemed necessary after seeing all of the things there. Need Gorilla Glue? Got it. Forget your beach reading? Two shelves worth. Fresh fruit? At the ready. Sun block? Bug spray? Right over here. Bikes? Paddles for the paddle boards? Of course. Dry bags? You bet.

They’ve been beyond patient and kind to us. As we’ve noted, this is our Spring Break 2020 trip. We postponed it at the 11th hour that because of the rapidly deteriorating Covid situation, wondering “Will they even let us back in the country at the end of the week?” (The next week the mercurial federal government supposedly shut the door to Europe and Canada, after all. And there was something about a wall?) The condo owners were very understanding in 2020. We were ready to make this trip last year, but then a Covid spike hit. They kindly let us postpone once more. But this, they said, was the last time.

It was more than you could ask for, really.

And then we had to write them Saturday and say “We’ll be there Monday, because American Airlines is terrible at their job.”

Residencias Reef has been great. If we come to Cozumel in the future, or steer anyone else here, it will always be with them in mind.

Also, they have two heated pools.

And we waded into the ocean, which was chilly.

Tomorrow, we dive!