No, Suz, they wouldn't put me up in a hotel. All they would do was give me a coupon for an undisclosed discount. And I had to find the hotel. At 2:00am.
They also didn't offer any food to the passengers, although they did make one extra beverage (soda/water/juice/coffee) service while we were sitting in Tucson. If you wanted alcohol, you had to pay full price. They probably didn't want to encourage the already rowdy and sleep deprived passengers...
WO -- stinky doesn't even begin to describe it!
TM -- Yikes is right!
BW -- yes, at least I had the fond memories and funny emails to keep me laughing!
Nancy -- yup, I was the three-legged flyer...
EW -- I am FINALLY home!
Step... yes, there were nasty thunderstorms in the southwest last night AND this morning. The thunder shook the Phoenix airport!
Mrs. Cat... I am so tired I am running on fumes now...
Toto -- that's so sweet, but I didn't think you'd enjoy driving an hour at 2:00am!
So after sitting for THREE hours on the tarmac in Tucson, we finally got refueled and then sent back to Phoenix, arriving around 12:15am instead of the 7:15pm originally scheduled arrival.
I was told that the 8:30pm flight I was SUPPOSED to have caught in Phoenix had STILL NOT LEFT, so I ran to the next terminal, huffing and puffing. Everyone was STILL waiting to board the plane because the flight crew I had just left was supposed to be staffing THIS plane and they weren't there yet. After about another 20 minutes, they announced the flight was CANCELLED due to "weather".
Then it took them another 90 minutes to rebook everyone and print out new boarding passes. The soonest flight they put me on was for 4:45pm TODAY. I didn't like that too much. So a nice man who I think normally does gate ramp stuff helped me out and got me a flight at 9am today to an airport closer to my house.
So by 3am I finally had a new boarding pass and went to the one all-night sandwich shop in the airport to have a bite, take my medications, and brush my teeth (can't tell you what a luxury it feels like after 20 hours). I got back to my terminal around 4am and laid down on the chairs to take a nap. I got about an hour in before people started showing up for work at the Starbucks stand nearby and cranked up their music. Then passengers started arriving for early morning flights. I found another flight at 7:30am going to my same airport and managed to get one of the last two remaining seats left!
Unfortunately, that flight ended up leaving an hour LATE. But at least I still got back to California by 9:45am (12 hours late), and then home by 10:15am (my mom lives close to that airport and she took me home).
This will surely add to the memorability of this trip!