Greenland – Day 11 can be found here.
Despite arriving in Times Square close to midnight, we slept well and woke ready to take on the final leg of our travel – or as ready as one can be when one has already spent 24 hours in the Travel Vortex.
First stop was the Silversea rep desk in the hotel to see if we could straighten out what had happened with the rooms. (Recap: We’d checked with the hotel to confirm that they had two reservations, but they could only find one. We ended up booking a second room lest we end up stacking our children in the closet like cordwood.)
I told the Silversea Rep what had happened, and he was quite happy for me to charge the second room back to Silversea when I returned home. He also thanked me for solving my own problem without them.
The Silversea rep also very kindly offered to switch around our ride to the airport so that we could see a bit of New York – but after much debate, we decided to pass. We were about 30 minutes from Central Park so the kids would have only gotten the briefest of windows to play before we had to trudge back through the summer heat to get into a cab. We’ll do it properly next time.
Just to be thorough, I also raised the room issue with the Intercontinental’s front desk – and they very kindly reversed the charge for the extra room. Nice to have that out of the way before we made the rest of the trip home.
We then went to their buffet breakfast which – apart from not being photographed, oops – was very good. Certainly on par with Silversea. We had French toast, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, yogurt, and berries. Everything we needed after our late-night arrival.
Back upstairs – though thankfully there wasn’t much to pack, as my wife had set everything up so that we only needed to dig into a single suitcase. This worked really, really well and will definitely be our preferred approach for single-night stopovers in the future.
Then downstairs, where we waited perhaps 5 or 10 minutes for our driver to pick us up. A small army of bellhops loaded our bags into the leather-clad Suburban – and graciously accepted tips in Canadian dollars, as we had no US currency – and we were soon wafting our way through New York City on the way to JFK airport.
The difference between our drive in to Times Square and our drive out to the airport could not have been more striking. The drive in had been marked with delays and frustrations – herding and milling with armloads of luggage – while the drive out was pure luxury.
We put ourselves in Silversea’s shoes and wondered how our arrival could have been handled differently. Understandably, the simultaneous arrival of 120+ passengers can’t be dealt with via a fleet of SUVs and private drivers – there wouldn’t be enough cars.
But maybe they could have offered private cars as an optional add-on? I would’ve gladly paid an extra $100 to have Silversea send us in a hired car instead of a tour bus – and saved ourselves about an hour of travel time in the process. That also would have reduced the load on the shuttle buses, and enabled them to get the remaining buses out faster.
Mostly, I think that Silversea would have been better off booking a second hotel that was closer to the airport – and those so inclined could have stayed there instead. Then a fleet of hired SUVs could most definitely have been used to shuffle us to our destination, and we would have been spared the 3 hours we spent driving into Manhattan just to be shuffled back out again. (Though it was nice for the kids to see some of New York City, even if just through a window.)
On the other hand – none of the transfers were supposed to have been included. So we counted ourselves lucky, and sat back to enjoy the airconditioned confines of the mammoth SUV.
Arrival at JFK went fairly smoothly – some initial panic when we saw that one of the Air Canada flights had been cancelled, then relief when we realized it was one of the morning’s flights. Then frustration when a family of 8 arrived at the check-in desk without address tags on any of their luggage. (Seriously? Who does that?)
But our bags were soon taken – inexplicably marked with Priority tags, a fan of the trip report perhaps? 😉 – and we were on our way through security.
Security at JFK is a lot like the lines at Disney World. Every time you think you’re getting close to the front, there’s another hidden section that leads you on a winding pathway containing even more people that you hadn’t spotted earlier.
What’s more, TSA scientists seem to have been hard at work in their underground secret labs, discovering new and exciting ways to torment travellers. The latest update seems to have included the following instructions:
– Loudly yell at passengers to start unpacking their laptops when they are 18 feet away from the conveyer belt;
– Shorten the roller belts by at least 30% to ensure that only one person can unload their personal effects at a time;
– Insist that people put their shoes directly on the roller belt, and then yell at them once the shoes inevitably get jammed between the rollers;
– Inconsistently apply the rule as to whether children need to go through the full body scanners, and then roll their eyes when passengers are not immediately familiar with the latest, newest policy; and
– Aggressively point at the packing table when you take more than 32 milliseconds to re-load your bags. Continue to point aggressively and yell intermittently as the passenger waddle-shuffles their most fragile and expensive belongings from the conveyer belt to the packing table, a further 27 feet away.
We were glad when that was done.
Then began the inevitable forage to see whether we could access any of the lounges. We have DragonPass (formerly Priority Pass) through our credit card, but none of their affiliate lounges were at Terminal 9. There was an Aer Lingus lounge, but it was closed. And the airport itself had their own lounge, but at $65 per person we weren’t sure it was worthwhile.
It was then that I stumbled across the hidden mecca of the Alaska Airlines lounge – which had a little sign announcing that they no longer take Priority Pass. But after some brief discussion, they agreed to provide sanctuary for a mere $30 per adult or $60 total – kids were free!
Sold!
The Alaska Airlines lounge was one of the nicest I’ve ever visited. It even had a pancake machine.
This, naturally, was the highlight of our children’s day. (And possibly their existence.) The look on their faces as the machine ladled out batter, and that batter slowly transformed into perfectly cooked pancakes – and then the look on their faces when they saw that there was caramel sauce in addition to the maple syrup.
Priceless.
There was one brief problem, however – I’d pushed the button to start making pancakes for my daughter. And when it didn’t immediately start making pancakes, I pushed the button again.
It then said it was making 6 pancakes. Which was too many pancakes.
There was no cancel button, so instead I listened to my instincts as a former computer programmer.
“Surely,” those instincts said. “There must be a way to reduce the number of desired pancakes.”
Okay… that makes sense.
“I bet,” the instincts added. “That if you continue pushing the button, the number will eventually roll back to zero.”
That seemed reasonable to me. No one human being would possibly order more than 8 pancakes. Rather than roll over to 10, it would then switch to 0 and my pancake problem would be at an end.
So I pushed the button a few more times. But it didn’t roll over to zero.
I’m not quite sure what happened after that, but I do recall my daughter coming up to me and asking, horrified: “Dad?! Why are you printing sixteen pancakes?!”
Oops…
My strategy, clearly, had been unsuccessful. And I wasn’t sure what to do at that stage. Should I stand in front of the machine and hide my mistake as best as I could? Should I try to eat the pancakes as they come out, Lucy Ricardo-style? Would I be sent to wash dishes in the back of the Alaska Airlines lounge as penance?
Thankfully, the machine ran out of batter at around pancake #3 so I was saved the consequences of my actions. But let that be a lesson to the rest of you – the only way to reduce the number of pancakes on a pancake machine is to let that machine make those pancakes.
Anyway – now that I’ve solved a problem that no one else will ever have – please enjoy these photos of the Alaska Airlines lounge:
After I drank a local IPA and my wife enjoyed a strong gin and tonic, it was time to head to the gate to board our flight.
Unfortunately, we were about halfway down the bridge when the word came – the flight was delayed due to thunderstorms in Toronto. So back up the bridge we went, and we settled back in for another wait, wondering if we were going to leave New York that day or if we would be locked into the Travel Vortex for yet another day.
All this time spent in airports has given me the opportunity to hone my carry-on luggage game
But soon boarding was called once more, and we settled ourselves into our seats for the brief flight to Toronto. We landed around 2 hours later, and soon had our bags and had cleared through customs – thanks largely to our unexpected priority tags.
I then took a pair of bags and went out to collect our car from long term parking, while my wife took the kids to forage for dinner. We’ve tried this method before – as opposed to us all trudging out to the parking lot together – and once again, it worked well.
Then the bags were in the car, a Tim Horton’s bagel was in my hand, and we were on the highway.
It was a truly fantastic trip – but it’s good to be home.