Several of my incredible adventures and worst travel failures took place during a single trip lasting 10 days. It was this winter (January 2017), during my trip to El Salvador with my boyfriend. We stayed at the El Dorado Surf Resort (I highly recommend this hotel!).
Fail number one
Arrived at the airport of El Salvador, we go to the turnstile to get our luggage. After 20 minutes of waiting, we begin to ask questions … We decide to go and see an employee to ask him for information about our luggage, which we still do not see arrive.
He informs us that they are still in Miami (where we did our very long stopover) because the final destination written on our papers is MIAMI … We had asked the employees of the airline with which we traveled if our luggage Would be transferred from one flight to another and we were told that yes …We never thought of looking at what destination was written on our luggage tags … lesson learned!
We then head to the airline’s kiosk for our luggage problem, fill a form and are finally told that we would receive our belongings… eventually. There was no way to know how long it would take to get our luggage back. So there we are, in El Salvador, without luggage for an indefinite period of time.
At least we had packed some clothes, swimsuit, toothbrush and deodorant in our carry-on luggage, just in case! Finally, our luggage arrived at the hotel three days later, on the morning of my birthday: best gift I’ve ever had!
« So there we are, in El Salvador, without luggage for an indefinite period of time. »
« After 2 hours of waiting, we are told that there is no more flight to Montreal until the following Thursday (and it is Saturday!). »
Fail number 2
To return to Quebec, we have several flights to take. Our first flight is Salvador – Miami. Everything is going well, we’ll pick up our luggage in Miami to make sure they take the same flight as we head towards Philadelphia. We will not be caught twice! Rendered in Philadelphia, we have a 14h stopover and we have to spend the night at the airport, as our flight to Montreal is only the next day in the afternoon.
Again, we’re going to pick up our luggage in Philadelphia so they can follow us to Montreal. After spending almost 14h at the airport, we wait patiently for our flight. About 1 hour before departure, we are told that it is canceled due to difficult weather conditions. So we line up like everyone else for the company to find another flight. After 2 hours of waiting, we are told that there is no more flight to Montreal until the following Thursday (and it is Saturday!).
There, we really wonder what to do. We jump with other people in the queue, who are also caught off guard as we … Finally, we decide to rent a car with another couple to return to Montreal. Three other people hear us speak and join us. So we decided to rent a van and go down to Montreal. A return to Quebec! But it is not finished … Another small problem with our luggage, since we had already recorded them for the flight to Montreal. Impossible to bring them back with us into the van. We had to pick them up at the airport within a week of our return.
