by Sunny

follow me on Twitter @Sunnylooksleaps

Let me start by saying that most of our travels are pretty awesome if not very awesome.  But every once in a while you get thrown for a loop and encounter a doozy of a fail that will be a standard in your travel story repertoire for years to come.  Here are two of mine.

Back when we were nonrev rookies, we had excitedly bought tickets to see the Arizona Diamondbacks at their opening day game ON THE FIRST DAY OF OUR VACATION.  If you know anything about flying standby, then you know that this was bound to be an epic travel fail because you can’t count on getting to your destination in a timely manner when you are searching for empty seats on the first day of Spring Break.  Lesson learned. Tickets wasted.

Let me take you back a ways.  Jimmy and I were a mere 6 months into our marriage, he wasn’t yet working for an airline,  and we had decided to buy Walt Disney World tickets for Valentine’s Day.  Yay!  We were planning to visit his sister in Georgia over Spring Break that year and figured we would drive to Walt Disney World from there.  I spent the next weeks anxiously preparing and awaiting our trip and packing my suitcase with new spring clothes.  We set out on the open road around midnight, hoping to be at our niece and nephews’ front door as they were waking up.  I guess it was around 3 hours into our road trip that Jimmy suddenly realized that he had forgotten his sunglasses.  No worries!  A commonly forgotten item can easily be  replaced at the next gas station.  That’s when he followed up with, “So, babe, what did you pack for me in the suitcase?”  Dramatic pause. With a little side eye I ask, “What do you mean?”  “You packed my stuff, right?” he hopefully asked. By now you are realizing that Jimmy’s forgotten sunglasses should have been the least of his worries.  No extra clothes, underwear, toothbrush, nothing…aside from a random pair of swim trunks that he had casually added to my pile of stuff.  So we had to make a very necessary stop at Target, and Jimmy learned that you shouldn’t assume your wife will pack your suitcase.

And for every travel fail, there is an equally exciting story about having an extra stroke of travel luck!!  Here’s one of my favorites:

We were in NYC, enjoying one last fling before back to school.  We got on our first choice of flight home: Newark to Chicago and then Chicago to home sweet home.  While on the first leg of our return trip, the captain made it clear about half way through the flight to expect severe weather in Chicago.  Cue the collective groan from the passengers.  The captain assured us that the plan was to circle around the Chicago area until we were given the clearance to land.  Upon reaching the Chicago area, we did just that with the captain giving us frequent updates about the continued severe weather and that we would land when it was safe for us to do so.  Jimmy leaned across the aisle and whispered to me, “There is only so much fuel on the plane.  If we don’t land soon, they will divert us to another airport.”  “Back to Newark?” I asked.  “No,” he replied with a grin, “home.” Yes!  That is exactly what happened!  The captain explained that the severe weather will not be clearing up in time for us to land in Chicago and that we will make a short diversion to wait our the weather.  We flag down the flight attendants and try to temper our giddiness about this stroke of luck long enough to explain that we would like to get off the plane at the next stop.  The plane lands, we are taken off the manifest, we collect our bags, and are home well before we intended to be!

Do you have any classic travel fails or amazing stories of travel luck?  Share them with me!