My dad and I had planned an Ohio trip to get to games in Cincinnati and Cleveland as well as the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The original plan was to fly to one city, rent a car, and fly home from the other city. It turns out that renting a car is a lot cheaper when you return it to the same location. So the plan was changed to flying to and from the same city and driving back and forth across the state.
A little background: the only other time I've ever flown to and from the Cleveland airport was 2007. I flew there and my friends picked me up to go to the Notre Dame-Penn State game at Penn State. We lost 31-10. Evidently, bad things happen when I fly to Cleveland.
Back to last week. We were supposed to have an 8:30 flight on Friday morning that would get to Cleveland at 10:21. The plan was to go to the Reds game on Friday night and then we'd drive back north for the Hall of Fame and the Indians the next two days. Driving from the Cleveland airport to our hotel in Cincinnati was supposed to take about three and a half hours. So if our flight had been on time, let's say it takes a little while to rent a car and get on the road, we should have gotten to Cincinnati around 3:00. That's fine for a game at 7:10. Our flight was about 15 minutes delayed when we got to the airport. No big deal. We got on the plane and sitting behind us were a mother and two kids (about one and three) that screamed the whole time. Not fun. A little after 9:00, we were ready for takeoff. The plane accelerated, but quickly slowed down. The pilot said there was some problem that forced him to abort the takeoff. We had to go back to the gate to get it checked out.
So we got off the plane and sat and waited. A little before 11:00, we were told that they were going to take the plane for a test drive and if that was good, we'd leave in about a half hour. After that, the pilot came in and said the plane was good to go, they just had to finish up some paperwork and then we'd board. Annoying, but we'd still get to Cincinnati in time. Five minutes later, he came back in and said they found another problem and we couldn't take off. United's next flight to Cleveland didn't leave until 2:29. That would not get us to Cleveland in time to get to Cincinnati for the game. So I started figuring out what to do. We had plans already for Saturday and Sunday, so it wasn't like we could go to Cincinnati another day. Cincinnati was out. I sold our tickets on Stubhub. I took a decent loss on the tickets. Maybe I could have gotten a little more, but I wanted to try to sell them before I got on the plane and had to turn my phone off. I booked a room for us at the Days Inn by the Cleveland airport. I tried to get a refund on my room in Cincinnati. I explained my whole situation on the phone to hotels.com. Earlier this year, I managed to get a refund for one night at a hotel when my Boston plans got altered because of snow, but they called our hotel and couldn't get a refund. Of course, we could have still driven to Cincinnati and stayed in the room we had, but that would have made no sense since we weren't going to do anything there and we'd just be driving back the next day.
While we were waiting, it was announced that LeBron James was going back to Cleveland. It made it an interesting time to be going to Cleveland. Eventually, we got on the plane for our 2:29 flight. When we got on the plane, we ended up sitting right in front of the same mother and two kids from before. They screamed the entire time. I get that if a one year old is going to be in a bad mood on a plane, there's probably not much you can do. But the older kid was worse. We had a long wait to takeoff. The pilot estimated that we were 15th in line for takeoff. When we were finally in the air, the mother and father switched spots. The kids were even worse sitting with the father. Across the aisle from them was a grandfather with his grandson, who looked to be about one also. That kid was totally calm the entire flight. But the two kids right behind us, not so much. Fortunately, it's not that long of a flight.
We considered going to the Indians game that night, but by the time we got to our hotel and I checked Stubhub, they weren't listing tickets for the game anymore. We were both tired after a miserable day of traveling anyway. So we just hung out at the hotel and watched LeBronCenter on ESPN. I also introduced my dad to Chipotle for dinner since there was one within walking distance of our hotel. He was a fan.
As I mentioned in my post about Detroit, I had met an Englishman who was a baseball fan who was trying to get to all the stadiums also. I gave him my email address because we were supposed to be going to the same Reds game. He emailed me on Friday afternoon to see if I wanted to meet up before the game. I wrote back and told him a short version of our miserable travel story. I had the thought that we were going to miss something interesting in the game in Cincinnati. And we did. Besides this Billy Hamilton play, the Reds came back late in the game from 5-1 down and won 6-5.
So we wasted a decent amount of money thanks to United Airlines. When you add up the loss on the tickets, the hotel room in Cincinnati that I couldn't get a refund on, and prepaid parking (which wasn't that expensive, but still we paid for it and got nothing out of it) and subtract the $14 dollars in vouchers United gave us for lunch at the airport, they cost us a total of $123.30. In fairness, they did save us money on gas since we wouldn't have to do as much driving. But in reality, they cost me (at least) a good deal more than that since now I still have to get to Cincinnati. At some point (probably next year), I'll have to pay for a flight, hotel, tickets, etc. for another Reds game since United Airlines prevented me from getting to one this year.
I've already put some thought into getting to Cincinnati next year. One thought is going to the All Star Game. I would love to go to an All Star Game, but I'm going to say that's unlikely (after seeing ticket prices for the All Star Game at Citi Field last year, I assume it would be really expensive, even in Cincinnati). Another thought is going to a Dodger game in Cincinnati. We might have tried to do that this year, but the Dodgers played a Monday-Thursday series in Cincinnati in the middle of June, so that didn't work. I could also try to include Cincinnati in another trip, like when I went to Milwaukee on my way home from Los Angeles or when I went to Atlanta after going to Seattle last year. So I could to to combine Cincinnati with Anaheim, Texas, or Minnesota next year. The last possibility is combining it with a trip to another place I want to get to. I want to get to all fifty states. One idea I have is to fly to New Orleans and drive to Mobile, Alabama for some minor league baseball (that would get me to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama for the first time). So possibly, I could combine that with a trip to Cincinnati.
Thanks, United Airlines.
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