The Travel Thread

[zsn]

Spain and Italy are likely closed in August.

Yes. Everyone, literally, is on vacation in Southern Europe for the entire month of August. However, if you’re thinking about late-late August there are great deals to be found, and all the kids are back in school. For about the past several years we’ve either returned from a two week trip by the first week of June or we start the last weekend of August. Weather is still good but it’s a lot less crowded.

[jhawks99]

This is a travel/food thread from Scotland. It caused much controversy with the mods and everyone else on the site when they said too much travel, not enough food. But anyhoo, here it is,,,


https://forums.egullet.org/topic/164577 ... ravelblog/

[jhawks99]

Crazy experience last weekend.

Mrs 99 got an extra day off at work, so we drove down to Southern messourah to see her sister and her family. I checked priceline for a hotel in StL for an overnight stay before the drive home on Sunday. Found the deal where it said 4.5 star hotel for 100 bucks. Jumped on it and it turned out to be the Westin right across the street from Busch stadium. Super nice hotel/room. Restaurant/bar district across the street.

We park in the unloading area and check in. Take our bags up to the top floor (thanks front desk lady). As we round the corner to our room, there's this dude at the far end of the hallway with two pit bulls. One big one and a puppy. The puppy charges Mrs 99 and I step in front of her. It's a puppy but it's got the giant pit bull head/neck and it's growling and trying to get Mrs 99. I'm staying between them thinking I'm going to have to go after this thing. The owner says "it's friendly, it's friendly" and tries to call the dog back with out much success. He puts the big dog back in his room and gets the puppy we go into our room.

I leave Mrs 99 there and drop off the bags to go move the car out of their drive and into their parking lot. As I open the door, the dude is back in the hall, along with a young woman and an older couple. And the dogs. The puppy comes after me again. The young woman runs after it and tries to grab it. It does not have a collar. She manages to get control of the dog and starts to walk back down the hall.

99 says, "Do you have a leash for that thing?"
YW, "Yes"
Silence
99, "Would you mind using it?"
YW, "I can't". Silence again then, "He just ran out of the room."
99, "You need to keep control of that dog, he charged my wife and I twice."
YW, "He DID NOT charge."
Argument ensues. They all disappear back into their room.
I tell the front desk, they apologize and were surprised at 1)pit bull and 2) two dogs in the room. They say they will take care of it and we never see the dogs again. We do end up at the same bars several times later that night, mostly giving each other dirty looks but no more drama.

[ousdahl]

scary. Particularly when it's pitt bulls.

and why is it that whenever there's an aggressive or otherwise poorly-behaved dog, there's always a entitled ass dumbfuck owner to go with.

[pdub]

“ so we drove down to Southern messourah…”

Here’s the problem from the start.

[jhawks99]

I got us outta there as soon as I could. Mrs 99 rarely gets to see that sister, so....

[ousdahl]

sooo

Southwest cancels thousands of flights...

[pdub]

Flew back last night, fortunately through Jet Blue.

There were several people trying to get the last seats who had been put in limbo with Southwest.

[twocoach]

My sister in law and her husband and daughter just had their vacation flights to Cancun cancelled through Southwest. Have to rebook the entire trip for a different date and airline. I have been a big Southwest fan as it serves a lot of places I go from where I live but they need to get their shit together. Like the IRS conversation, it turns out they have severely underfunded their IT infrastructure for years and are not staffed to the proper levels to handle any sort of wave of seasonal illnesses that happen every season. If your approach to your IT systems is "if it aint broke, don't fix it" is one that inevitably leads to major problems.

[jfish26]

My sister in law and her husband and daughter just had their vacation flights to Cancun cancelled through Southwest. Have to rebook the entire trip for a different date and airline. I have been a big Southwest fan as it serves a lot of places I go from where I live but they need to get their shit together. Like the IRS conversation, it turns out they have severely underfunded their IT infrastructure for years and are not staffed to the proper levels to handle any sort of wave of seasonal illnesses that happen every season. If your approach to your IT systems is "if it aint broke, don't fix it" is one that inevitably leads to major problems.

I love SWA. Love love love it. I would choose it over other legacy carriers, even if cost was the same. I'll probably buy SWA stock today, given that it's not like the airline's going to go out of business over all this shit, and the underlying business model is great.

But.

A seasoned SWA traveler could see these IT issues coming a mile away. It's always been very weird that you couldn't book itineraries that crossed days. Always been weird that you couldn't change companion itineraries just like other "associated" itineraries (and that you have to call in to change companions). Always been weird that making changes to single legs of itineraries is so cumbersome that it's actually less work to simply book one-ways. I have a few pilot friends, and the crew scheduling SWA uses is, as I understand it, similarly behind-the-times as compared with other leading carriers.

There just hasn't been a lot of investment on the IT side, and now that bill is coming due.

[zsn]

Also the hopscotch routing is both a blessing and a curse for crew and equipment. When everything is working properly it’s a great competitive advantage, especially for fueling at low cost airports. However, when there’s a problem on the east coast, crews and planes can be stuck across the country and it’s going to take a while to unstick. As is the case now.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

My sister in law and her husband and daughter just had their vacation flights to Cancun cancelled through Southwest. Have to rebook the entire trip for a different date and airline. I have been a big Southwest fan as it serves a lot of places I go from where I live but they need to get their shit together. Like the IRS conversation, it turns out they have severely underfunded their IT infrastructure for years and are not staffed to the proper levels to handle any sort of wave of seasonal illnesses that happen every season. If your approach to your IT systems is "if it aint broke, don't fix it" is one that inevitably leads to major problems.

I love SWA. Love love love it. I would choose it over other legacy carriers, even if cost was the same. I'll probably buy SWA stock today, given that it's not like the airline's going to go out of business over all this shit, and the underlying business model is great.

But.

A seasoned SWA traveler could see these IT issues coming a mile away. It's always been very weird that you couldn't book itineraries that crossed days. Always been weird that you couldn't change companion itineraries just like other "associated" itineraries (and that you have to call in to change companions). Always been weird that making changes to single legs of itineraries is so cumbersome that it's actually less work to simply book one-ways. I have a few pilot friends, and the crew scheduling SWA uses is, as I understand it, similarly behind-the-times as compared with other leading carriers.

There just hasn't been a lot of investment on the IT side, and now that bill is coming due.

SWA blows.
What has transpired over the past few days helps prove it. As does your "weird" examples.
Yes, the IT side is archaic and embarrassing. Now it's biting them on the ass. Hard.
Bob Jordan should be out of a job soon.

[jfish26]

My sister in law and her husband and daughter just had their vacation flights to Cancun cancelled through Southwest. Have to rebook the entire trip for a different date and airline. I have been a big Southwest fan as it serves a lot of places I go from where I live but they need to get their shit together. Like the IRS conversation, it turns out they have severely underfunded their IT infrastructure for years and are not staffed to the proper levels to handle any sort of wave of seasonal illnesses that happen every season. If your approach to your IT systems is "if it aint broke, don't fix it" is one that inevitably leads to major problems.

I love SWA. Love love love it. I would choose it over other legacy carriers, even if cost was the same. I'll probably buy SWA stock today, given that it's not like the airline's going to go out of business over all this shit, and the underlying business model is great.

But.

A seasoned SWA traveler could see these IT issues coming a mile away. It's always been very weird that you couldn't book itineraries that crossed days. Always been weird that you couldn't change companion itineraries just like other "associated" itineraries (and that you have to call in to change companions). Always been weird that making changes to single legs of itineraries is so cumbersome that it's actually less work to simply book one-ways. I have a few pilot friends, and the crew scheduling SWA uses is, as I understand it, similarly behind-the-times as compared with other leading carriers.

There just hasn't been a lot of investment on the IT side, and now that bill is coming due.

SWA blows.
What has transpired over the past few days helps prove it. As does your "weird" examples.
Yes, the IT side is archaic and embarrassing. Now it's biting them on the ass. Hard.
Bob Jordan should be out of a job soon.

Except that, when it comes to so much else, SWA is aces.

I just listed out the only things I find to be bad about SWA, but for one thing: the variety act flight attendants. The true scourge of the skies.

[KUTradition]

lol at the rage towards southwest, given what has transpired with the FAA

[CrimsonNBlue]

Eh, the FAA seems to be getting things up and running again this morning.

SWA deserves all the rage. Largest domestic carrier in the country using infrastructure worse than Spirit. Going to cost them millions if not billions and a lot of their people should be sent packing. The pilots, airport agents, and flight attendants saw that coming from miles away.

I'm less loyal to SWA than I used to be and that didn't help. Hard to trust them around the travel holidays for awhile.

[KUTradition]

point being, even what was supposed to be a solid system built on redundancies is susceptible to problems on occasion

[MICHHAWK]

if you travel during the holidays. don't be surprised if you have headaches.

[CrimsonNBlue]

point being, even what was supposed to be a solid system built on redundancies is susceptible to problems on occasion

You're right. I would just analogize SWA more to building the world's largest outlet mall on quicksand foundation.

[CrimsonNBlue]

if you travel during the holidays. don't be surprised if you have headaches.

So simple and dumb.

That's like being stranded on the highway for 3 days because of a massive road, bridge, weather, etc. failure and saying "if you drive during rush hour, expect delays!"

[Overlander]

if you travel during the holidays. don't be surprised if you have headaches.

So simple and dumb

You expected something different?