Wednesday, March 30, 2011

A trip to Maui, the comedic beginning

We finally decided to take Daryl's sister up on her offer of a week at their condo, when the temps hit -35C AGAIN. We'd been trying to come up with a week that would work for all 5 of us,and just couldn't. In the end, it's D, KT and I.

The trip began benignly enough, with a quick check in and security at YEG, but the flight was ever so slightly late which cut into our time to change planes in YVR. That wouldn't have been a problem, except....

At U.S. customs we were missing a bag, and delayed again. Special protocol for not having the bag identified means another delay. Get to the gate as they call final boarding call - missing a passport. Search everywhere, panic, and a retracing of steps. The gate agent let us know the missing bag was found and on board.

D finds the missing passport,runs through the airport and we get on board, only to find our seats given away, and we are asked to sit in the exit row. As repayment for agreeing, the stewardess promises comp'd first class wine. Not too bad a deal, and the wine flowed freely.

Sadly, the gate agent at YVR was mistaken, and the bag was not on board. Katie is without her stuff, and not so pleased.

Spent the first day getting 'essentials' - shorts, t shirts, swim suit for Katie, food and alcohol at Costco. picnic lunch with whole foods salads and some time watching kite surfers and wind surfers near Kahalui.





After a bit of downtime and a margarita, we head to the beach for our first sunset, tripod and remote shutter release, beach chairs and books in hand. Pretty enough sunset,



but to my chagrin, my tripod plate is no where to be found. Heavy sigh.

We've just heard from the airline, and the bag has been found and is on it's way. Tomorrow awaits, just another day in paradise.

2 comments:

cabbey said...

There's no way that gate agent could have been right. Without you to take that bag through customs it wasn't going to make it onto that flight. I expect they had to route the bag back to Canada and then put it on a plane to hawaii from there. You'll probably have to take it through customs in hawaii to claim it.

Enjoy the vacation. I'll be thinking of you guys when we get hit with snow friday.

Unknown said...

Actually, that was what the extra time at U.S. Customs was all about. Special process to allow us and the bag even though it wasn't showing up on the photo identification device. The bag was delivered to the condo door last night, no extra trip to customs for us. That isn't to say that it wasn't thoroughly searched though.

Vancouver is using bar codes and photos to identify bags. No more picking them up and carrying them through customs yourself.