217: It's 3AM. Do you know where your bags are?

Ever tried to shave hours off a brutal layover and accidentally triggered a full‑blown travel saga? We did. What started as a seamless return from a Disney cruise turned into delay creep, code share finger‑pointing, and a nine‑hour airport marathon, complete with mystery “boarding passes” and luggage that chose its own adventure through Chicago and Phoenix.

We walk you through the decision that set it all off, ditching a late nonstop for a midday connection, and the cascading consequences when ORD slipped, one notification at a time. You’ll hear how our reservation got split, why system-by-system rebooking can box you into worse seats, and how airline apps often contradict reality. We also share small wins that mattered: fellow passengers who swapped to give us windows, a gate agent who overrode nonsense, and Bobbi at Alaska Baggage Services who delivered service with real care when everything else felt broken.

This story doubles as a practical survival guide. We break down why winter hubs plus tight connections are a risky combo, how AirTags expose the truth about your bags, and the callback trick that stops your iPhone from screening out the one number you actually need. We talk IAH logistics, why A3 gates are a power-hunt purgatory, and the comfort calculus of first class when traveling with a knee injury. Most of all, we leave you with hard rules we’ll follow next time: bias to nonstops, avoid code shares for critical legs, build buffers, and keep meds, chargers, and sleep gear in your carry-on.

If you’ve ever watched your plans unravel one delay at a time, you’ll feel seen and, we hope, better armed for your next trip. Listen now, subscribe for our full Marvel Day at Sea trip report next week, and share your best airport hacks. What’s your golden rule for stress‑proof travel?

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Adventures & Mousecapades is a passion project from Alicea & Nathan Novak - two Seattleites addicted to The Mouse. We are not affiliated with Disney, nor are we travel agents. Opinions are our own.

Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Twitter: @ourmousecapades
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podcast@ourmousecapades.com

Transcript

Cold Open: Disney Sounds And Setup

Intro 0:03

Please stand clear of the doors. Por favor, mantenganse a las puertas. Please stand clear of the doors. Because this hear is the wildest ride in the wilderness.

Alicea 0:23

Hello everyone. I'm Alicea.

Nathan 0:25

And I'm Nathan.

Alicea 0:26

Welcome to this week's episode of Adventures and Mouse capades. This week we are kind of going off an adventure rather than a mousecapade. Um, or more of a debacle, I guess. Yeah.

Nathan 0:39

That's a better word.

Alicea 0:41

This is um just a quick recap of our travel on our most recent trip, which was on the Disney Magic.

Nathan 0:48

Yes.

Alicea 0:49

Um, going from Galveston to Galveston, stopping at Progresso and Cosimo. Uh now we will talk about that specific trip on the magic next week.

Nathan 0:58

Indeed.

Smooth Outbound: SEA To IAH

Alicea 0:58

But we wanted to get something in pretty quick. There's a lot of stuff that has happened that that we need to focus on. So we're like, we'll just get something out really quick because we want to spend a little more time on our trip report.

Nathan 1:10

So we've had some family stuff this weekend, not in our family, but in my extended family, and just uh time has run out well. And travel greatly impacted us too.

Alicea 1:24

You will learn about that today. Yes. Uh the travel impact.

Nathan 1:28

Yes.

Alicea 1:30

Um so our our travel to our vacation went pretty well. I don't think we had any issues. No. Um it was a little later of a flight, so we didn't have to get up crazy early, like two or three in the morning.

Nathan 1:46

Yeah. We got picked up for our ride to the airport at like 7.15 in the morning, which is considering how it usually is when we're going to the east coast, is pretty great because that's usually about the time the flight's leaving.

Alicea 1:58

We weren't going to the east coast, though. We were going

Nathan 2:01

hey, it's two hours different. We're we were going east and we were going east, yeah.

Alicea 2:06

So getting to the airport was fine. Um we did we go to the Yeah, we went to um a lounge in the airport just to chill before the the flight, and that was fine.

Nathan 2:18

Yeah, we went to the Centurion Lounge there in SeaTac Airport. Sorry, SEA. I'm sorry, it's the Seattle Airport, whatever they want to be called. I'm gonna call it SeaTac. So sorry.

Alicea 2:28

Is it not SeaTac anymore?

Nathan 2:29

No, they want to be called SEA now.

Alicea 2:31

Oh, okay.

Nathan 2:32

Yeah, anyhow, SeaTac. And it was nice. We had uh there wasn't, I mean it was busy, but it wasn't uh it wasn't horrible. Yeah um uh unlike the previous weekend of travel, I decided that I was going to bring my crutches, which uh meant that I could walk a lot faster and a lot farther with a lot less discomfort. Uh and yeah, it was it was kind of much better getting through the airport on this weekend than it was on Super Bowl weekend when we were traveling.

Marriott Bed Surprise And Transfers

Alicea 3:01

So we got on the plane, had a fine flight, no issues. Yeah, got to Galveston or sorry, got to Houston. We stayed at the Marriott in the Houston and in the Houston airport, yeah. Yeah. Point of note for that Marriott.

Nathan 3:20

Yes.

Alicea 3:22

They only have double beds in that Marriott.

Nathan 3:25

They do not and kings.

Alicea 3:27

They don't have double queen rooms, they have double double rooms, double double rooms, they don't have any queen rooms, they have king and double beds.

Nathan 3:36

Yeah.

Alicea 3:36

We booked through Disney. Do we book the hotel through Disney?

Nathan 3:39

We did book the hotel through Disney, and I had done my research online. I must not have noticed, or it was misleading, or I just assumed who the heck uses double beds anymore. But I thought it was a double queen room. It was not. And we got into the room and Alicea and I looked at each other like, well, uh, two of us are not fitting on that bed. No. And so yeah, Alicea went down and talked to the amazing cast members, or well, whatever Marriott calls them, team members.

Alicea 4:14

Yep.

IAH Logistics: Subway, Skyway, And Layout

Nathan 4:14

Uh down at the front desk and uh was able to work out a transfer over to a king room, and they were able to roll in a uh uh a bed for Sterling as well. So all worked out. Uh interestingly enough, there were a ton of people staying there. I think there was about 150 guests uh overnight for the Disney Magic sailing. Yeah, we took Disney transportation the next morning. There was about uh there were three buses worth of uh worth of folks, so just about a hundred and I don't know, math. It's not 150, but it's up there. Uh and then there was a bunch of crew that were uh swapping out on that cruise as well. So uh when we checked in, there was a stack of envelopes. There was a bunch of crew members who were checking in when I got to the desk, and I noticed all of them were getting an envelope out of the stack. And um, and yeah, it was probably 50 or so uh envelopes there uh at the desk. So a big crew change day as well. So lots of lots of Disney business for the airport Marriott at IAH on that weekend. The other fun thing about the Houston Airport is there is a subway. Evidently, there's also a skyway, which we missed. I think is a lot nicer. The subway, however, is

Alicea 5:41

a ghetto people mover.

Nathan 5:44

She's not wrong, y'all. Yeah. It is a people mover with taller sides and uh of a like a well, it's like a mesh roof.

Alicea 5:56

Yeah.

Nathan 5:57

The the announcements that you're hearing are actually coming from the hallway that you're traveling down and are just coming through the basically open roof of this quote unquote subway.

Alicea 6:06

I don't know. I thought I I thought it was a cool concept. Um could be a little nicer, could be like the one um, oh gosh, where was that gorgeous airport that we were at last time that we liked?

Nathan 6:16

Detroit.

Alicea 6:17

Detroit. It could have been like Detroit. That was a nice people mover.

Nathan 6:21

That was a fantastic people mover. Yes. Yes. So anyhow, just note to self-I don't think the skyway gets you to the Marriott, but I'm pretty sure that if we were going between um terminals that you could take the skyway. And uh evidently it's all it's a lot nicer.

Alicea 6:40

Yeah. So I wasn't super impressed with the Houston airport. Um I I don't know exactly how the layout is, but it took a long time to get places in between.

Nathan 6:51

It did. There's a lot of walking.

Alicea 6:53

In just one terminal. Like you can't go from one end of the terminal to the other easily. And it's like it's like a 15-minute walk for your average person.

Post‑Cruise Dilemma: Long Layover Math

The Rebooking Mistake: ORD, Delays, Panic

Nathan 7:03

Yes, somebody who's not on crutches and walking super slow. And yeah, every time I walked, uh I passed a sign that said, Oh, like, you know, this set of gates is five minutes away. I'm like, that's 15 for me. So yeah. And then coming home also flew out. Um, we were on Alaska. Alaska is a great airline. The problem with flying Alaska to and from most places that are west or excuse me, east of Denver is that there they'll only be like one or maybe two flights a day. Houston is one of those airports, Orlando is another one of those airports, and they have a very early morning flight, and they have a late evening flight. There's nothing in the middle of the day. And when you're getting off a cruise, you are going to get to the airport after Alaska already leaves for the morning. Yep. And you're going to have hours and hours and hours to kill. Yep. And we had initially booked Alaska, like I think it was like a 6.52 p.m. flight from Houston to Seattle direct in up front, because hey, we just spent a you know five nights with the concierge lounge and all the rest of that stuff. I didn't want to, you know, blow the good feeling. And so um, that was the original plan. And then we got to thinking, and we're like, that means we're going to sit around this airport for like nine plus hours with nothing to do. And that sounds like a horrible, horrible plan. Because I had booked that before we had ever been on our November cruise. And so I didn't know that there was really nothing to do or no place to go. There is an there's a American Admiral's club that you could we could have bought like a day pass, but they had a big sign out front that says, No, go away. We're not doing day passes. And yeah, so um it was uncomfortable. So we booked, I booked, uh this is on me. I said, Oh, hey, there's like a 12:30 or one o'clock, no, I think it was earlier than that, somewhere around noon flight from Houston to Chicago, and then we would have had like two hours and 15 minutes or two and a half hours, an exceptionally leisurely well paced out connection to hop Alaska back from Chicago to Seattle to get home on Friday, right after the cruise. And we said, Hey, that sounds like spending two to three hours in an airport instead of nine. Let's do that. Dear reader, that was a mistake.

Alicea 10:13

That was I I have a question for you, Nathan.

Nathan 10:15

Yeah.

Alicea 10:16

We usually fly Delta. We used to fly Alaska all the time, but it it for the same reason that we run into ran into it this we switched over to Delta because most of our flights end up going to Florida, yeah, and Alaska just didn't have the routes we wanted.

Nathan 10:31

Yeah.

Alicea 10:32

Why didn't we do Delta? Yeah.

Nathan 10:34

Why didn't we do Delta? Is there a question?

Alicea 10:36

I'm just curious. Yeah. I I know there had to be a valid reason for it.

Nathan 10:40

Because I didn't want to connect in Detroit or Minneapolis in the middle of the winter. That sounded like a bad idea.

Alicea 10:49

Okay. But Chicago? Okay.

Nathan 10:54

When I saw the option to rebook, for some reason my brain read ORD, and I'm like, oh, sweet. Well, we've taken that's Orlando. We'll we'll just fly east a little bit across the Gulf and then take the long flight home. But we'll be in first, so who cares? And so I changed the flight, and then I was like, wait, ORD, that's Chicago. What the heck? Oh that's fine. It's fine. We have two plus hours. We'll be fine. No, we weren't on our way to the airport. The flight from Chicago slipped. Just a little bit. Just by like 20 minutes. Yeah, it wasn't too bad. I don't care. So we were gonna have like an hour and fifty-five minutes as a layover instead of 215, like fine, whatever.

Alicea 11:49

It kept slipping.

Nathan 11:50

It kept slipping.

Alicea 11:51

And slipping and slipping. And by the time we got to the airport, I think we had we were walking to the um the gate and got a notification that, oh, by the way, you have three minutes to get from your or you have three minutes to get to your connecting flight.

Gate-Agent Gauntlet And Split PNRs

Nathan 12:08

Yeah. At which point we said poop. We did not say poop. We used stronger language, but I'm trying to avoid that. And thus began the cascading fiasco. Uh we were very polite. We used inside voices with each other and said bad things. I felt horrible. This is my fault. It's not my fault, but it's my fault.

Alicea 12:35

We went and talked to um one of the gate attendants. Yes. Once they had finished loading the plane, because there's, you know, there's a there's a plane going to Charlotte at the gate that we were sitting at.

Nathan 12:44

Yeah. But we had f more hours, and I was like, okay, it's fine. Anyhow, yeah, we talked to somebody at a gate. They were eventually helpful. Took very long to do this the whole rebooking thing, yeah, and had all sorts of options. We're like, okay, great, we'll do that. And then it was taking her like 10 minutes per person. And by the time she got through with one of us, like the seats would be gone that she was going after. Like, I don't quite understand what was going on there. Yeah. She was trying, like, it I understand systems are stupid. The people who design these systems, and look, we work at Microsoft, I'm intimately familiar with the people who design systems are far removed from the people who actually use them. So I'm not surprised that they have issues like this. But the net net was eventually we got rebooked on the direct flight for Alaska because that was all that was left. But instead of all three of us being in first class, it was just me.

Alicea 13:52

Yeah.

Nathan 13:52

And Alicea and Sterling got put back in steerage.

Alicea 13:55

Yeah.

Nathan 13:56

In middle seats, because that's all that was left.

Alicea 13:58

No, we didn't have seats.

Nathan 13:59

Well, true.

Alicea 14:01

We didn't have seats at all. Um, now while she was doing all this stuff, she did put she put you on a flight to Phoenix first, right, didn't she?

Nathan 14:09

She was going, no, she was gonna put you guys on a flight to Phoenix. I was gonna go through Dallas.

Alicea 14:15

Okay.

Nathan 14:16

So she split us up, so now all of a sudden we had two reservation numbers.

Alicea 14:20

That's yeah. Okay. And we had asked, well, can't we just get put on the nonstop? And she said, we can only do that if there's nothing left.

Nathan 14:31

Right.

Alicea 14:32

And because everything was taking so long when she was doing person by person, there was nothing left. What's interesting to me is we had a minor traveling with us. And because she was going person by person, there's a good chance that Sterling could have gotten pushed to another flight, which would not have been acceptable.

Nathan 14:50

Yeah, I don't I don't quite understand that.

Alicea 14:52

Yeah, it's interesting how they could only they could only do person by person rather than the whole reservation. Anyhow, we ended up.

Nathan 14:59

Well, I think she'd already split me off and then realized that you guys got boned and then it Yes.

Alicea 15:06

So anyway.

Code Share Blame Ping‑Pong

Nathan 15:08

She was from Oh, and in the middle of all this, while we had to wait to talk to somebody from American, we tried calling Alaska, and Alaska said pound sand, even though we paid Alaska for three first class tickets from Houston to Seattle, they said, well, Americans causing the problem, so it's on American to fix it. So good luck.

Alicea 15:34

Yeah. Even though we didn't ask to be put on American, they just put us on American in the first place.

Nathan 15:39

Right. It was a code share flight.

Alicea 15:41

It was a code share, yeah.

Nathan 15:42

So I was booked on a Alaska flight number that happened to be operated by American. Yep. Didn't and American, excuse me, Alaska didn't want to help from a customer service perspective. That was not ideal.

Alicea 15:56

No. I think that just compounded the issue.

Nathan 15:59

Yeah.

Alicea 16:00

We did we did eventually all make it onto the nonstop flight that we initially had.

Nathan 16:06

Yes. After sitting around the airport for nine hours.

Alicea 16:11

Yes. So because Sterling and I didn't have a seat and we were put back in coach.

Nathan 16:17

Yeah.

Alicea 16:17

Um, I did a little bit of looking to see, oh, look, there's a lot of seats left in premium. Um, not first, although it did show that there were seats in first, but there wasn't.

Nathan 16:28

Yeah. Um they hadn't been assigned yet. The seats had been the the space had been sold, but names hadn't been put on a seat. So their seat selection thingy showed them as open.

Alicea 16:41

Yeah. Yep. Um so I I was chatting with somebody in Amer at American, I think, on my phone.

Nathan 16:50

Was it American or I thought it was Alaska?

Seat Scramble, App Fails, And Callbacks

Alicea 16:52

Oh no, it was Alaska. It was Alaska because this was an Alaska flight. Yeah. I was chatting with somebody from Alaska on my phone to try and see if I could update the seat to premium and went through, you know, all this chat and basically, you know, let them know up front what I wanted. Went through probably 15, 25 minutes of chat. And then they then they said, Oh, I can't help you. I can't do seats. Okay. Okay. Um, and I had also, while I was going through all this, I'd also called Alaska to try and get this figured out. But that was a 45-minute wait. And so I one of the nice things is you can when you call them, if there's a long wait, they will give you the option to do a callback. And I love this feature. I think it is amazing. There's a lot of other companies that do this as as well. So I did a callback. However, iPhone has this new feature where if it's from a number that you don't recognize, they will try to gather more information from them to see if it's a call you want to take. So I missed my callback because Yeah.

Nathan 18:05

Yeah. So note to self the automated system, because at one point I had one of those callbacks set up too very early on when we saw this disaster unfolding before us, and then my first call was to Alaska. Well, actually, my first thing to do was start a chat with Alaska.

Alicea 18:24

Yeah, same thing.

Nathan 18:25

And they basically told me to pound sand and go talk to American, which lots of pounding sand on the side. Lots of pounding sand. And at the very end of the callback thing, it says, here's the phone number that you will receive a call back from. And I noticed that that phone number was already in my contacts as an alternative phone number for Alaska that I have in my phone. So I was like, okay, I know this will ring through. And it didn't even dawn on me when you said you were doing a callback to say, hey, make sure you have this number. Sorry about that. I could have helped you there.

Alicea 19:06

So for those of you who are doing something like this and getting a callback number and you have an iPhone, make sure you add that number into your contacts list. That way it will ring through immediately.

Nathan 19:17

Or temporarily disable the call screening stuff and the call blocking stuff and just deal with spam calls if they come through until you get the call you really want and then turn all that crap back on.

Alicea 19:30

So I missed the call. Um, but in my messages, it said we will call you back again. And I think it was like five or ten minutes later, they called back. And I and I talked with somebody.

Nathan 19:42

Yeah.

A3 Gates: Power Hunts And Waiting

Alicea 19:42

Um and I let them know pretty quickly, like the rundown. Here's what happened. We have paid for first class tickets, and now I'm not in first class, but I see that there are premium comfort plus, whatever the heck it's called, seats available. Could we possibly be moved into one of those seats? The guy said, Yeah, sure, I'll do that. And he assigned seats to Sterling and I. However, on this flight, there were only middle seats available for the entire plane. So I got a middle seat, Sterling got the middle seat behind me. That's fine.

Nathan 20:14

Yeah. Not fine, but it is what it is. Yeah. It's better than being at the back of the plane in middle seats.

Alicea 20:21

Anyway, so we got our seats. We did not have boarding passes, however. When we initially got um changed over, uh, the lady that we were first talking with printed out, I don't know what she printed out, some odd ticket type things. She's like, you need to check in at the gate when they're available to get your boarding passes.

Nathan 20:40

Well, she said, or just the Alaska app will magically generate a boarding pass for you.

Alicea 20:44

It wouldn't, it didn't. We tried multiple times. We couldn't even check in.

Nathan 20:48

Alaska's app sucks. Alaska's app disagrees with itself all over the place. You pull the refresh, it doesn't refresh. You click through three screens, and then all of a sudden it says, Oh, I have new data. Alaska, get your crap together. That app is horrible.

Alicea 21:04

I I'd like to find a company that has a good app.

Nathan 21:08

Delta's ain't half bad.

Alicea 21:10

It's not half bad, but it's not half good either. And Disney's isn't great either. The the they have what do you what do you say? They have good technological aspirations.

Nathan 21:20

They have technology, they have excellent technology aspirations, but their execution is meh.

Alicea 21:26

This is like honestly, it's for any apps right now. Um okay, so uh there we were down in the A3 gates at the Houston airport, which is kind of like an offshoot. It's like the um think of a school that has all the classrooms are full, so they have to have trailers. Yes. That's what this area is of the Houston airport.

Nathan 21:51

And and it's a bunch of like what used to be walk out to the tarmac, like uncovered, like regional flights. Yeah. But they turned those with literal shipping containers into a covered walkway with jet bridges. The waiting area is just this massed waiting area for probably half a dozen total gates. Yeah. There are two locations that have maybe four outlets each for three to four hundred people who are waiting for flights. It sucks. Yep. Anyhow. Yeah. Moving on.

Paper Boarding Passes And Boarding

Alicea 22:38

So there were obviously we were there really early, so there are a lot of other flights going on. Um we just kind of found somewhere to sit. Next to outlets. Next to outlets. Um, and just uh listen to podcasts. Uh you know, in between chats and waiting on calls, um, listen to podcasts, other stuff. Sterling was doing their own thing.

Nathan 23:00

Yeah.

Alicea 23:01

Finally, it was somewhat getting close, and the Alaska folks were there at the counter. Went over there to talk with them and was basically told we're not doing that flight yet.

Nathan 23:13

Meanwhile, all the other people before and after you were talking about the Seattle flight.

Alicea 23:18

Yeah. Maybe she just didn't like my face. I don't know. I was I was friendly because I know you have to be friendly because these the things that these people deal with every day, you have to go in with a good attitude.

Nathan 23:31

And we have like we get really frustrated and pissed off, just like anybody else would in these situations. But when we're talking to somebody in person, that gets put behind a mask, yeah, and our happy faces come on and we fall all over ourselves with pleases and thank yous. And I I'm sorry you have to deal with this. Yeah. And like, thank you so much. And there's a different persona.

Kind Seat Swaps And Middle-Seat Wins

Alicea 23:58

Yeah. So finally got back up there and let them know that we we were told that we needed to check in with you. We can't check in on the app, it won't let us. And we don't have boarding passes. We were told that you were supposed to give us boarding passes. And she checked us in and she gave us boarding passes question mark. This is the weirdest boarding pass I've ever seen in my life. It's literally just a piece of paper that has my name on it and our my seat number. There is nothing to scan.

Nathan 24:30

Nope.

Alicea 24:31

Nothing. Nope. So and they did this for for each of us.

Nathan 24:34

It almost was like the equivalent of a wooden stick with a key on it at like a restaurant or a gas station for the bathroom.

Alicea 24:44

Like that's a it was it was a uh I forgot a carbon copy type thing. It was two sheets. Uh so she wrote on it, we got the white copy, and then there was the yellow copy that they held on.

Nathan 24:54

It's goldenrod, hon. It's golden rod.

Alicea 24:56

She got the goldenrod copy. Um yeah.

Nathan 24:59

So And then we got up to the to the attendant to actually check in, and she looked at us like, what the hell is this supposed to be? I was like, look, your colleague at the counter, this is what she gave us. We have had a day. Yep. And can you is there another way you can look us up? And she did.

Alicea 25:20

She just looked it up on the tablet and like, okay, I have all three of you. And she got us in. We got on the plane. Um so Sterling, Nathan got to sit in his beautiful, wonderful first class seats, and Sterling and I kept moving on down a couple of rows back.

Nathan 25:32

Um the only reason I took first class is because there's no way with my knee in my crutches I could fold myself into a standard seat. We were on comfort plus seats on the way to Houston. Yes. All three of us had a row.

Alicea 25:48

Yeah, and those have have good leg room stuff. Yes. Um I know that. I'm giving you I'm giving you a lot of grief.

Bags Go Rogue: Chicago And Phoenix

Nathan 25:54

I'm defending myself in public.

Alicea 25:57

Okay. I was but I was very adamant when we were getting changed to planes that you had to have a first class seat.

Nathan 26:04

I appreciate that.

Alicea 26:04

Yeah. Um, I don't care where Sterling and I are. Yeah. Okay, so we got on the plane. Um, Sterling and I hit our middle seats, and as people were coming in, we were actually splitting up two different families because of us being in the middle seat. And they were so nice and said, Do you want to to each of us? There's two different families to Sterling and then to me, do you want to take the aisle or the or the window? Could you take the window? Is that okay? So we can sit next to our family? I'm like, Yeah. Sterling's like, yeah. So we both got window seats.

Nathan 26:41

Nice. Yeah. In the middle of all this.

Alicea 26:45

Oh, hold on.

Nathan 26:46

Oh, hold holding on. Let's go back.

Alicea 26:48

So I'm gonna preface this before you go into all that.

Nathan 26:52

Okay, got it.

Alicea 26:53

So while we were at the initial counter trying to figure out what flights we were going to take, right? When they got situated, when we finally got situated with our flight uh that's at seven o'clock at night, yeah. It was 12.

Nathan 27:08

Yeah.

Alicea 27:09

They hadn't started boarding our original flight. It was still like an hour and a half, two hours away.

Nathan 27:16

Yeah.

Alicea 27:16

I asked her, what about our luggage? What's gonna happen? She's like, oh, we'll pull that off right away.

Nathan 27:20

Right. We had four check bags.

Alicea 27:21

Yeah, we had four checked bags. We'll pull that off right away and make sure that it gets on the flight. Yeah. I'm thinking, okay, there's two hours, there's plenty of time. And then there's, you know, another five after that. So we're fine. We're okay. While we're waiting, we just decide to see see where where's our bags? Where our bags are, make sure everything's okay. And a bunch of them were in Chicago.

Nathan 27:47

Yeah.

Alicea 27:47

Three of them were in Chicago had landed in Chicago. This is one of them, one of them looked like it was still in Houston.

Nathan 27:53

One of them looked like it was still with us in Houston and was going to be on our flight until a little later.

Baggage Desks, Real Help, And Delivery

Alicea 27:59

Yeah.

Nathan 28:00

When I think I was already on our flight and I checked the location. We have uh Apple ecosystem, so find my the the air tags. I think we had already gotten on the flight and I looked again just to make sure it was with us, and it pinged a new location. And and one of our bags was in Phoenix. I was like, what? Yeah.

Alicea 28:25

So while while we were waiting for all this, you know, in the middle of me chatting, trying to get a better seat and all that stuff, I had also looked on American Airlines app to see where our luggage was. And that's when I noticed where it was. Um so I started a chat with American and was basically assured that they had gotten onto the flight. They weren't, they were not sitting in Chicago, they were on the flight to Seattle. And I'm like, I don't understand how that is possible when there was literally only three minutes of time between when the prior plane landed and the next plane took off.

Nathan 29:03

And also like the scan things that you could see like loaded onto plane in Houston, loaded off of plane in Houston, transferred over to the other location, like basically handed off. Yeah. And then there was no scan of loaded onto plane in Chicago.

Alicea 29:21

Yeah.

Nathan 29:22

I was like, nope, those are still in Chicago.

Alicea 29:24

Yeah.

Nathan 29:24

And the answer that Alicea got was like, well, wait 30 minutes and this stuff will update.

Alicea 29:30

I'm looking at my chat right now and it says from from the guy I was talking with, as per the update, the bags were picked up and transferred to Alaska successfully for transfer. So basically, I'm reading this now. He's saying, It's not my problem anymore. It's Alaska's problem.

Nathan 29:47

Uh-huh. There's a lot of that.

Alicea 29:49

Yeah.

Nathan 29:50

Yeah. Uh yeah. I I jumping ahead, I'm never getting on an American plane again. Never. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever dealing with American airlines again.

Rants, Future Trips, And Sign‑Off

Alicea 30:04

I I honestly, it's I don't think it's specifically American. It's the it's not my problem from both of these airlines. Yeah. That is really frustrating.

Nathan 30:15

The problem is American airlines. Like just United States' carriers and their commitment to the customer, which is crap. And I will throw that against all of the airlines. None of them care.

Alicea 30:30

None of them. No. It's all about their

Nathan 30:33

we should go to Japan.

Alicea 30:34

Their bottom line.

Nathan 30:35

They at least care there.

Alicea 30:36

It's clean. It's clean. Yeah. Because they will they will hurt you if if you spit on the sidewalk.

Nathan 30:44

That's more Singapore about the case. Sure.

Alicea 30:46

I'm anyhow. So we landed in Seattle, finally.

Nathan 30:52

Yeah.

Alicea 30:53

And noticed that, hey, one of our bags actually made it.

Nathan 30:56

Right. The one that went to Phoenix. It went to Phoenix. Got a flight from Phoenix to Seattle and actually beat us to Seattle by like an hour and a half.

Alicea 31:04

It was there. We had to go to the Alaska baggage counter over in the baggage claim.

Nathan 31:10

Which we divided and conquered because the Alaska baggage counter had a line. It had a very long line. And the American one did not. And so, and it was closer from once we got over to the baggage claim area. So I hobbled over to the American location and was just chatting. And the guy was like, Wow, you've had a day. Um but he was able to look at, you know, like I had the the barcode numbers, the receipts from all the bags. And he's like, Yeah, I can absolutely confirm those are still in Chicago, that Alaska has them. So like you'll need to work with them. I was like, okay, cool. Like, at least now I have positive confirmation from somebody who deals with baggage all the time that that's what's going on. So I'm like, I was super appreciative. Shout out to Mohammed, who was working late night on Friday night in the Alaska baggage claim office in Seattle. Fantastic.

Alicea 32:08

Yep. So back over to Alaska. Um, when I had saw where to go, I just walked right up to the counter and the lady's like, I'm sorry, there's a line. I look behind me, I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. But I could see, I could see my bag right there. I didn't say that to her. I'm like, look, it's right there. I got in the line, and it was a very long line, but it moved very quickly. I was very surprised with that. And we got up to the front eventually and were talking with Bobbi at um the baggage services there for Alaska. And Bobbi was a huge help. She was, she was, I mean, just the epitome of customer service. She was great. 100% and helped us out, let us know that you know they they'd get the bags over as soon as they could, asked for a description of each of the bags and what was in them just in case it had to be opened. So long story long, we got our bags at three o'clock this morning.

Nathan 33:05

Yeah, 3 15 this morning. Yeah. So twenty hours-ish after we got home, our bags got here. Yep. And it's been a weekend.

Alicea 33:18

It has. We are home.

Nathan 33:20

We are home.

Alicea 33:21

I I have unpacked only one of the bags, and that was the one that had the ice pump in it for Nathan's knee.

Nathan 33:28

We got our toiletries out of the one that made it. Yeah.

Alicea 33:30

And my CPAP, so that was good.

Nathan 33:32

And the tequila was in that bag that went through Phoenix that made it to Seattle. So that was also very important. Yes. I mean, priorities, right? I guess. Yeah. Sure. CPAP and toiletries. I mean, yeah, it would be nice to brush your teeth, but we have tequila. We're fine.

Alicea 33:47

Yeah. We're home. We have our bird back. We have our luggage back.

Nathan 33:52

Yes. Uh I can't wait. And yeah.

Alicea 33:57

June's going to be better. June's going to be better. June's going to be better.

Nathan 34:00

Yes. Well, at this point we have other things going on. Uh, we have a uh trip to Anaheim that hopefully goes a hell of a lot smoother than this did coming up in April. And um my mom and I are gonna have to fly to Boston at some point in the not too distant future TBD based on some plans that are being made uh for some family stuff. So I'm not gonna fully unpack, I don't think.

Alicea 34:28

Well, we have to because it's all dirty and I need to do laundry. Okay, yes. I will work on that later today. We're doing another uh podcast.

Nathan 34:38

Yes. So yes. So um our this short little episode is now over a half hour long. So yay! Um, this will be a very light edit. It shipped. Uh we will be back next week. We will do a full rundown of our actual trip report of everything that was on our Marvel Day at Sea. Uh, and now we have all of these stories out of the way so we can actually focus on the fun stuff.

Alicea 35:06

Yes. Yes.

Nathan 35:07

But folks, I want to thank you for listening to this because it feels like it was a bit ranty, but honestly, we needed to get this off our chest.

Alicea 35:15

This is our rant session.

Nathan 35:17

Yes. Next week will be the Raves. Today was rants. Um yeah. Whew. Boy, that was a lot. Um, the there's one really great thing that happened in the Houston airport on Friday. And that is I got a call from the Marriott Vacation Club that they have our second rebound. Hey, are you sure you don't want to buy in uh package that they threw our way? And that is now confirmed. And we will be on the big island of Hawaii for Christmas. And we will be at Aulani in Hawaii on Oahu for New Year's and cannot come soon enough.

Alicea 36:02

Got a couple more, a couple more months. Got a couple other things to go through. Anyhow.

Nathan 36:06

Anyhow.

Alicea 36:07

Thank you for listening to us, Rant.

Nathan 36:09

Yes. Yes, indeed.

Alicea 36:11

As a reminder, we are not affiliated with American or Alaska.

Nathan 36:17

Nope.

Alicea 36:18

These are our own stories told from our own perspective.

Nathan 36:23

Yes. Yes. Uh we are affiliated with bad decisions like choosing to fly on American code share through Alaska.

Alicea 36:32

Choosing to do a nonstop flight. Yeah.

Nathan 36:34

Yeah. Never again.

Alicea 36:35

Yeah. Never again. We we fully understand that we come from a place of privilege where we are able to do nonstop flights.

Nathan 36:41

Now And honestly, I I don't find us having a need to fly through or to Houston ever again.

Alicea 36:52

Yeah.

Nathan 36:53

I'm just and it just we'll talk more about this next week. It was a great cruise. I loved being on the magic. I don't feel the need to do another sailing out of Galveston.

Alicea 37:07

Yeah, we'll unpack that a little more next week.

Nathan 37:09

Yes. Yes.

Alicea 37:10

Again, thank you for listening to us, Rant. If you want to uh forward this wonderful tale to somebody, please feel free to.

Nathan 37:19

Yes. Or if you're with Alaska Airlines and want to give Bobby in Seattle, who was working baggage on Friday night the math, the 20th of February, B-O-B-B-I. She was amazing. She deserves some kudos and a gold star and a pat on the back and a Starbucks gift card. She was amazing.

Alicea 37:43

And if you guys can head to wherever you listen to your podcast, give us a review. Absolutely.

Nathan 37:50

Yeah. Five stars, all that good stuff. And then five stars.

Alicea 37:54

Like, subscribe. Yes. Smash that bell button. Thank you for listening. We'll be in your ears next week. Yes.

Intro 38:03

Goodbye. Thank you for flying star tours. Bye-bye.