Continued... Christmas Vacation Story

We left on a Thursday afternoon as we needed to catch our ride on the Victoria Clipper that left really early Friday morning. We woke up to more snow and our Hotel "The Marriott Waterfront" was only a few blocks down the street. So imagine the whole family walking at 7:00am down the street, in the snow while pulling our luggage. We where sooo excited. It was the first time most of us were going to get to use our Passports. (Remember Joe went to France on his) anyway, we check in and take the 3 hour boat ride. Canada is beautiful, we stayed at the Chateau Victoria. The rooms are like, little apartment's, it was very nice. There is a restaurant/lounge bar at top. We ate there only once, food was very good. The soda is so fresh and not sugary or carbonated as much, as it is here in the states. We went to the Buchart Gardens that evening and the next day we got to do a little shopping around town. We receive a phone call from a Victoria Clipper crew member letting us know that another storm is coming through to Seattle and we need to leave an hour earlier. So we are not thinking anything of this and more of the fact they want to get ahead of the storm so there is not to much turbulence for the passengers. Well we arrive in Seattle and oh my gosh it was snowing and there was already about 4-6 inches on the ground. Remember we walk back to the Marriott hotel dragging our luggage behind us. It was cold and we already had been walking on this vacation ALOT!! Anyway still not thinking anything about not making it home or anything. The next day which is Sunday 12/21/08 we get a ride to the Airport by the way the man that took us tried to RIP us off by telling us it was going to be $25 per person for the ride!!! I told Bill "no way, he is lying". I got him down to $20 per person I still feel he ripped us off normal fair is $7 per person. I can understand raising the fee to $12 during such weather, but ugh! Here comes the real journey, we walk into the airport and look at the board and find all flight have been cancelled in order to get on another flight we have to stand in line and rebook. Imagine 10,000 people in the Seattle Sea Tac airport looking for another flight! It was a controlled MESS! Every fifteen minutes someone on the loud speaker would announce: If you are from the Seattle area PLEASE GO HOME!! We stood in line for 8 1/2 hours to rebook a flight that ended up not going to be until 12/26/08 PM. I just started to cry, I did not know what else to do. We booked it and waited another 2 hours for a ride back to the Hotel.
During our time in line we had met several nice people, one of which waited for us after we had finally re-booked our flight and offered to give us his hotel suite that he had pre-booked. See, he had already stayed the night in the airport that previous night and he had no intentions of sleeping on the floor again. He happened to get a connecting flight out and did not need the Hotel Suite, we thanked him so much (of course I cried again) but encouraged him to find another person of the thousands of the people to give it to. He was so kind! His kindness softened my heart as I was still bitter about the cab ride to the airport and how I felt RIPPED OFF!!

The story continues back at the Marriott Waterfront.... Thank goodness they had available rooms as many people were stranded, so we felt fortunate, STUCK!, but fortunate; we had a warm bed. Bill checked all other air lines, buses and even tried renting a car but nothing..until Monday evening Greyhound had a bus ride available leaving Tuesday 12/23/08 in the evening at 11pm. So to save money because we did not budget for additional days in a Hotel we checked out of one of the rooms and combined everyone into our room. We start to get ready to leave when another guest tells Bill that he heard that the buses have also been cancelled! Nooo! It took Bill about an hour to find out sure enough it was also cancelled. Matthew and me well we have a little melt down at the front desk as again we are checking back into the hotel. I was thinking we are stuck here for Christmas and everything is already at home were we are suppose to be with presents wrapped and under the tree.. The manager and even a lot of the staff had already been staying at the Hotel as they could not get home either and they live in Seattle. The Manager was very kind to Matthew and stated that she had it in with Santa and would make sure Santa knew he was staying there. He tried to break a smile but the tears still came. Sure enough Christmas morning Santa Came and brought him a stocking full of candy and some toys. Bill, after many hours on the computer off and on finally was able to get an earlier flight out. We would leave Christmas evening instead of the night after. I love that Man, he never got grumpy and was very comforting to everyone, even joking at times to lighten the mood. We ate sandwiches for 4 days as this was the only thing we could afford. We took apples from the exercise room for snacks at the Hotel. We paid for the room and the exercise room is included with the stay so we did not steal the apples they are for the guest. Although most people I am sure would only take one apple, we had eight people. You do the math! Josh, Joe, Amanda and Andrea stayed in one room, while me, Bill, Matthew and Grandma stayes in the other. We had a wonderful time despite feeling helplessly stranded. We will never take a Christmas Vacation again.