Days 1 and 2 Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov 12 and 13 Flights to LAX and Beijing
We returned to the Denver Airport on the 6 am shuttle, which was completely full, and fortunately, we were able to get on the 8:11 flight from the standby list! Whew! We used half of our food coupons for a McDonald's breakfast while waiting.
At LAX, we were able to get our luggage with no problems, and then took a shuttle from Terminal 7 to the Tom Bradley International Terminal. Even though it all went smoothly, we confirmed that we would not have had enough time if we'd had to wait in Denver for the 9:37 am flight. We were SO relieved that we'd made the 8:11 flight!
We checked in for the Beijing flight departing 1:20 pm, and then used the remaining food coupons to buy a Panda Express lunch. That's when I took the photo on the previous posting. We also exchanged hundreds of dollars of our cash for both Chinese and Japanese currencies. UTO's Day 1 of our tour was the first part of the flight to Beijing. Their Day 2 commenced when we crossed the international date line. Thus, Days 1 and 2 were used up just to get there.
The flight to Beijing was fine, but LONG (about 13 hours). It was not quite as nice as other international flights we'd taken, because the food was a bit below average, and they served only one half-glass of wine (as opposed to providing refills). We watched lots of movies. Funny, we learned only when we arrived that the fellow sitting next to Janet for the past 13 hours was on our same tour! Jack.
Once in Beijing, trouble began again in trying to make our connection to Shanghai. We had a two-hour layover, but that was not nearly enough time in such a massive airport where we had numerous steps to go through, and a huge distance to walk to the next flight.
First of all, the flight arrived about 25 minutes late, plus it took about 15 minutes just to depart the plane from row 57. Then, a long walk to customs, then using a finger-print machine, then filling out a customs form, then the line for passport control, then a long tram ride to the domestic terminal. Once there, we had a long walk to the security check-in, security itself, and then a super-long walk to the end of Terminal C to our gate. We finally reached our gate with just 15 minutes left before departure. We thought we'd made it.
As we got close, we saw the gate agent leaving his post and heading to the door, so I yelled out for him. He just kept going on through the door. So I ran over and knocked loudly on the glass door while he was still in sight, but he did not turn around, and then he was gone. No one ever came back to check for later passengers, so we just sat and watched our plane depart. Oh no. We wondered whether Jack had made it okay.
We asked someone and were told to go to the China Air departure desk. We finally found it, and she put us on a flight for the next morning. I called the UTO contact, and he said this happens, not to worry, and they'd have a shuttle in Shanghai to get us and take us to the tour in progress. Great, but these clothes we were still wearing for the past 2 1/2 days were now going to have to last another 24 hours! Eeeeuu, stinky!
When we found the help desk regarding a hotel for the night, we ran into not only Jack, but his two brothers (Ed and Rob) and two others from our tour (Gary and Sumi) who also had missed their connections to Shanghai. Gary was already on the phone with the same UTO guy I had spoken with earlier, and he confirmed that they would pick all seven of us up in Shanghai, but from two different airports (Jack, Janet and me at one, and the other four at the other).
Eventually, we all got onto a bus and were driven to a nearby hotel. They delivered to our room a typical-looking Chinese take-out dinner, and it was pretty good. We bought beer from the lobby. We again slept naked because the next day, we'd still have to wear the same clothes. We hand-washed some underwear, and hoped they'd dry by morning. They did, but needed the help of the hair dryer.
Monday, December 2, 2019
Saturday, November 30, 2019
A troublesome beginning
Monday, November 11, 2019 Cincinnati to Denver, trying for Los Angeles
This photo is in the International (Tom Bradley) Terminal at LAX on Tuesday morning, Nov 12. The clothes Janet is wearing, and what I'm wearing, had been on our bodies since the day before when we left Cincinnati, and we would be stuck in them for another two days!
It was a quite a hassle getting to our tour in Shanghai!
Our flight departed Cincinnati on Monday evening about two hours late. We thought we might still be leaving early enough to make our connection in Denver (about a one-hour delay), but during the delay, it began to snow hard. That meant de-icing, and it was such a lengthy de-icing that we didn't leave for almost another hour. Our moods were made worse by United's staff promising to make it up to us with special service (free beer?), but they never did anything special at all.
When we arrived in Denver, we had, of course, missed our connection to LAX. I received a text saying that we now were confirmed at 11 am the next day. However, that flight would get us there too late to make our flight on to Beijing. So, we walked a LONG ways to the service counter, only to find that the line there was hours long. Luckily, they had a wheelchair for Janet.
To avoid the line, I used a kiosk to search for an earlier flight than the one they had booked us on . I found three sooner flights, but the first two were full. Luckily, I was able to book a 9:37 am flight (why didn't United choose this flight rather than the 11 am one?), but even that one would arrive so late that we would likely still not be able to make our Beijing flight. Since I could not use the kiosk to put us on standby for the two sooner flights, we went all the way back to the gate for the 10:20 pm flight to LAX, and they did put us on standby. In the end, however, there was no room for us, so they put us on standby for the 8:11 am flight to LAX.
I had to cancel our LAX hotel, and we had to walk all the way back to the service counter to get our hotel and food coupons. (Luckily, the line had gone way down by then.) They bused us a long ways to a hotel in Denver, with a jam-packed shuttle that could not fit everyone who tried to board it. We worried all night about whether we'd make it onto the 8:11 flight, because our 9:37 confirmed flight would likely not work out.
Even though United gave us $40 in food coupons, nothing was open at the hotel, and we hadn't eaten since our pizza at the Cinci Airport at about 2 pm. I was stuck buying a muffin from the hotel lobby. It was 12:15 am (3:15 body time) before we could finally go to bed, and our wake-up call was for 5:15 am! We knew we'd need to wear the same clothes the next day, so we slept naked.
It was a quite a hassle getting to our tour in Shanghai!
Our flight departed Cincinnati on Monday evening about two hours late. We thought we might still be leaving early enough to make our connection in Denver (about a one-hour delay), but during the delay, it began to snow hard. That meant de-icing, and it was such a lengthy de-icing that we didn't leave for almost another hour. Our moods were made worse by United's staff promising to make it up to us with special service (free beer?), but they never did anything special at all.
When we arrived in Denver, we had, of course, missed our connection to LAX. I received a text saying that we now were confirmed at 11 am the next day. However, that flight would get us there too late to make our flight on to Beijing. So, we walked a LONG ways to the service counter, only to find that the line there was hours long. Luckily, they had a wheelchair for Janet.
To avoid the line, I used a kiosk to search for an earlier flight than the one they had booked us on . I found three sooner flights, but the first two were full. Luckily, I was able to book a 9:37 am flight (why didn't United choose this flight rather than the 11 am one?), but even that one would arrive so late that we would likely still not be able to make our Beijing flight. Since I could not use the kiosk to put us on standby for the two sooner flights, we went all the way back to the gate for the 10:20 pm flight to LAX, and they did put us on standby. In the end, however, there was no room for us, so they put us on standby for the 8:11 am flight to LAX.
I had to cancel our LAX hotel, and we had to walk all the way back to the service counter to get our hotel and food coupons. (Luckily, the line had gone way down by then.) They bused us a long ways to a hotel in Denver, with a jam-packed shuttle that could not fit everyone who tried to board it. We worried all night about whether we'd make it onto the 8:11 flight, because our 9:37 confirmed flight would likely not work out.
Even though United gave us $40 in food coupons, nothing was open at the hotel, and we hadn't eaten since our pizza at the Cinci Airport at about 2 pm. I was stuck buying a muffin from the hotel lobby. It was 12:15 am (3:15 body time) before we could finally go to bed, and our wake-up call was for 5:15 am! We knew we'd need to wear the same clothes the next day, so we slept naked.
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