This would all be fine if it weren't for the torrential downpour that greeted us in Philadelphia! we had to run, with our bags, from the steps of our airplane to the airport. It was probably at least a 30 yard dash. The two of us were drenched and the airport was about 10 degrees below freezing!
In Philly, they have all the small planes come into Gate F, but if you are transferring to a larger plane (as we were) you have to go to one of the other gates. We were headed for Gate B. Unfortunately, in order to get there (unless you want to go through security again) you have to take a bus. So, it was out into the elements for us once more!
I'll spare my dear readers all the gory details. Suffice it to say that, after at least one further gate change and a delay, it turned out that our flight to Charlotte wasn't going to make it in time for our final connection to Jacksonville.
Again we waited in line, this time to find out how we would get to our destination. We were given the option of just delaying our flight to Jacksonville until 6:45pm (awesome!) Fortunately we had a Plan B...get us to Wilmington. They did book us on a flight to Wilmington leaving, of course, from Gate F!
There was much scrambling to get my car rental reservation moved from Jacksonville to Wilmington and, after a quick bite, we made our way back to the small plane area. It was probably ridiculous to think that we would leave on time for this flight, I guess, because when our boarding time was near, we heard otherwise. A woman, speaking English but doing so as if she had a mouthful of marbles, informed us that our plane was ready, we were just wanting a crew. About an hour later Marbles told us that we had a plane, a crew and a lightning storm that would not be safe for the ground workers. Another half hour and they were getting us onto the plane.
We finally arrived in Wilmington and headed straight for the Budget car rental. A man, looking suspiciously like my mother's long-lost cousin, brusquely greeted us and asked for our confirmation number. I tried to explain our situation as I pulled out my laptop to get the confirmation number I had emailed to me when I made the change. That took too long for him so he deigned to look it up based on my last name. He found the reservation, but when we asked if we could return it to Jacksonville rather than Wilmington he told us we would need to step aside to make a new reservation!
I figured it would be fine to just say "screw it" and return the car to Wilmington and get a ride when we were leaving. However, when he saw my Driver's License, he asked me if it was my current address. I (stupidly) answered honestly that it wasn't and he told me he couldn't rent me a car. He directed us to the next desk down and said they would probably do it.
We shuffled ourselves to the next desk down where the woman was happy to rent me a 16 passenger van! We shuffled again. Finally, at Alamo we met with some aid. The manager was there training a new staff member and he rented us a car AND allowed us to return it to Jacksonville without charging us the exorbitant 1 way fee.
It was at least 4pm at this point, and we had suffered through a good 12 hours of grueling travel. I'm pretty sure we could have driven it in about the same mount of time (Google Maps claims it would take 12.5 hours) with much fewer headaches! In the end, we were safe and sound and we did wind up having a really nice time on our vacation within a vacation!
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