SEA Trip Day 1: Airport Activities

Saturday, January 14: SMF > SFO > SIN

I got up early enough for a Zumba workout before Mr. E and I headed to the airport for our morning flight from Sac to San Francisco as the first leg of our journey to Singapore. Thanks to being in Business Class, we had access to the lovely Polaris Lounge in the International Terminal at SFO. Since we had nearly 3 hours of layover time, we decided to have breakfast in the table-service area of the Lounge, and we both very much enjoyed our open-faced crab, avocado, and egg breakfast sandwiches along with fruit, orange juice, and coffee. I then used one of the small separate computer rooms for my daily yoga practice while Mr. E had second (and third) coffee. 

Our flight to Singapore was scheduled to depart a little after 10am. We arrived at the gate, the boarding process began, and then we were halted in the jet bridge. After a few minutes of waiting, we learned that the plan had to be taken out of service, so we all returned to the gate area and waited for an update about a new plane and new gate. That information was eventually provided, so we all trekked to the new gate and got ready for the boarding process again. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. With no announcement or update from either the gate crew or any online United systems (email, text, app). 

After quite awhile, the gate crew did announce that the delay was due to a lack of cleaning crew. By around 12:30pm (two hours delayed at this point), we still hadn't begun boarding, and the new estimated departure time showing in the app was 1:50pm. So a bunch of us walked back to the Lounge. However, when we arrived, the staff told us that boarding had indeed started and we needed to get back to the gate. We all walked back and lined up and were informed by a member of the ground crew that we needed to board as quickly and efficiently as possible because we were running up against a timing issue. 

The boarding process was completed, the captain made an announcement about why the previous plan couldn't be used (one of two weather monitoring stations was inoperable), and then we heard an announcement for the flight attendants to disarm doors. Umm. Not good. The doors opened again, and we were told that we needed to disembark because the crew had now entered into a legality issue related to the overall time of their workday. The flight itself was scheduled to be 17 hours 25 minutes, and with the 3+ hours delay due to equipment and cleaning issues, the crew could now no longer fly because they had "timed out."

I returned to the lounge to wait for updates and get some food, and Mr. E stayed at the gate to monitor the situation. He learned about the cancellation and re-booking for the next day before that information was reflected in the app. Arrrgh!!! We took advantage of the staff in the lounge to help with our re-booking and hotel voucher for the evening (thank you, Scotty!). Since we were hoping that the evening flight might have some spots available, we decided to just spend the rest of the afternoon in the lounge, chatting with some of our new travel friends who were in the same situation and making good use of the buffet and bar. By about 8pm, we realized that we wouldn't make it to the top of the wait-list, so we finally left the airport and went to the Embassy Suites Burlingame for the rest of the evening. At least we could use a couple more of our United meal vouchers at the hotel shop!

But this was SO frustrating, since we lost an entire day of our planned time in Singapore, cutting our stay there in half. I had to contact the hotel to reschedule our airport pick-up, massage appointments, and dinner reservation to reflect our new schedule. And of course we still had to pay for the first night of the hotel even though we weren't there because we didn't know about the changes in time to modify the reservation to avoid a cancellation penalty. Arrrgh!!! 

Definitely not how we wanted to start out our vacation...