Early in the morning of Sunday, January 7th we were all planning to leave for the cruise. If you remember, Sunday was the beginning of the three big snowstorms which came to most of the East Coast that week. Half the band is leaving from Logan Airport on a non-stop flight, while the other half (my half) is leaving from Manchester, NH on a USAir flight which is scheduled to stop in Washington, DC on the way. The Logan flight went off without a hitch, however that was not the case for our flight. USAir calls me at 4:30am when I'm loading the car to say that our flight is cancelled, and they want to put us (Danny, Steve, Pete, Me and Sarah) on a flight destined for Ft Lauderdale, connecting with an Orlando flight in Philadelphia. About an hour late, we taxi out to take-off. The pilot aborts the take-off one third of the way down the runway, and turns back to the terminal. He says that there was some kind of engine warning light or something and he wants to check the plane out first before going ahead and flying it. We go back into the terminal, and find out that Philly is closing down and 'central control' is trying to figure out whether we are going to go at all. Most of us, about 65%, had been bumped from the Orlando flight and really would've preferred to go directly to Orlando, but the USAir powers-that-be decide to send the plane to Ft Lauderdale. We decide that is closer to the boat (Cape Canaveral) than Manchester, NH and get on the plane. Increduously, the stewardess asks us if we have decided to go with them, and if we are, we should go to the baggage claim to get our bags as they have been removed from the plane. I guess this is because they decided getting to Orlando was out of the question for us! I call ahead and reserve a van in Ft Lauderdale for the expected 200 mile trip to Cape Canaveral from Ft Lauderdale we would need to make in order to catch the boat. Really starting to get nervous here! We take off and fly for a couple of hours pretty much uneventfully, except for the completely cloud covered horizon to horizon situation below us. Late in the flight, the pilot gets on the intercom and says that he is running out of gas and they suggested that he drop down into Orlando for a minute to fill up! We descend like a rock, destroying every remaining ear drum in sight. Pretty much only Sarah suffered there, 'cause Steve, Pete and I have already blown ours out by now playing music (just kidding). We land, pull up to the gate and they tell us to remain seatbelted as we will only be about 10 minutes for the fillup, and then we will be on our way to Ft Lauderdale. Danny and I get up immediately, followed by most of the rest of the plane and meet the gate agent as he opens the door. We ask if we can get off, as this is our original destination. He says no. We say yes we are. He says, OK but you have to leave your luggage on board. We say NO, WE ARE NOT GOING TO DO THAT. Things generally turn into a complete revolt on the plane and finally our pilot, MR. Don Perkins, (the only person in authority here with any common sense) comes out of the cockpit to say that if we surrender our baggage tickets, they will take our bags off the plane so that we can meet the cruise boat on time! Regrettably I discovered later that my video camera had been damaged by the baggage handling. (US-scare will NOT consider helping to repair it, by the way) As a result we have very limited video footage of the trip, only that taken by the photo crew on the boat. We caught the very last shuttle bus for the cruise, and we all knew it was going to be a great time 'cause Taj Mahal was taking a nap in the fourth or fifth row of the bus.... We were on our way... More on the cruise itself coming up!
- John -iii-|