When kids throw up and your travel plans are turned upside down...

As if a combined 12 hours of flight delays, an unexpected night in a hotel in Toronto (sans luggage) and 48 hours of total door-to-door travel time wasn't enough (full story here), we are now delayed a full day coming home because of 2 of our kids vomiting last night.

Monday was rough for the NFO and the kids from the outset.

Yesterday was the one day of the entire trip that the NFO gave me for "blockchain day."  I took the train from Modi'in (near Hashmonaim where the NFO's brother and family live and where the Bar Mitzvah-our purpose for the trip- took place).

I spent the day in Tel Aviv meeting with Israelis in the blockchain scene.  For me, it was a home run.

Meanwhile, the NFO and Team Finland left the house of our dear friends, the Lustmans (who live around the corner from the NFO's brother) at 8:45.

Waze said that the drive to their volunteer day destination (Leket) would take about 50 minutes. They were due there at 10.

Unfortunately, the NFO's Verizon data plan hasn't been working all trip. Mine has (I use Google Fi).  However, since this would be the first day I wasn't driving with them, we printed out Google Maps directions for them to take in the car.

Of course, printed out directions don't automatically update as traffic conditions change or if you miss a turn.

Bottom line, the NFO and Team Finland didn't get to their destination until nearly 12:30pm.

What's worse is that when they called or asked for help, it became clear that no one really knows street names or directions any more.  Our phones have made us locationally blind and directionally challenged (or at least many people).

So, between that and a few other challenges, it was a rough day.

When I walked through the door at 8:30pm after my power day (I was pretty wired because I'd had so much coffee since I'd been up since 4am), I was expecting to relax, hear what was going on, and just hang out on the night before we left.

Instead, I walked into a scene straight out of ER. The first thing I heard was, "Jeremy, [name redacted] just threw up all over the bathroom and [name redacted feel nauseous.]"

Boom.

I walked over to the bathroom and when he said, "Threw up all over the bathroom," he meant it. It was everywhere.

The NFO and I were in full on crisis management mode.

Over the next 5 hours, child #2 threw up, got them cleaned up, cleaned up the bathroom, threw away vomit-covered clothes, got restocked on clothes from the Lustman's house and discussed how we would make a go/no-go decision on our scheduled flight the next day (11.45am departure).

We packed and prepared, got people hydrated, got towels and plastic bags ready for the overnight, shifted sleeping arrangements and went to bed hoping for an uneventful night.

I was the last one down, finally able to take a shower at 1:45am. Alarm was set for 6:30am.

Actually 3 alarms were set. I didn't want to take the chance on oversleeping when we were targeting an 8am departure for the airport.

I got up with the first of the 3 alarms and saw the texts from the NFO (she was sleeping on the 3rd floor with the 2 sick kids. I was in the basement with the one healthy one).

Both of them had thrown up multiple times over the course of the night. They were unable to fly.

I got on the phone with United and prepared for the worst.

As a 1k status member (nearly the highest), I was hoping that I would get some extra care. Plus, given the fact that they had promised me a hotel voucher when we arrived late in Toronto the previous week, but there was no United agent available anywhere in the airport when we did arrive, I thought I could use that as leverage. 

I had planned on dealing with it when I got back. By my estimation, we were down about $600 btw hotels/meals/clothes/Lyft from our 20 hours in Toronto-we got the last room at a hotel 8 miles away.

Also, they had sent 4 of us travel vouches worth $150 each for the delay (good start), but there were 5 of us. Down one voucher.

Anyway, I call the United Premier 1k desk and.... I HIT THE JACKPOT.

I spent nearly 90 minutes on the phone with Sonja (she's from Macedonia) and she was the most empathic, thoughtful, caring, patient customer service rep you could ever ask for. 

She was able to rebook us from Tues to Wed, change us from Air Canada (via Toronto to Dulles) to United (via Newark to Dulles), get us all Economy Plus tickets (part of my 1k status) and do it all for $0 in change fees.

We got kosher meals ordered. We did about as well as we could possibly hope for with seat assignments.

We even looked at using some of my miles for business class upgrades, but it didn't make sense.

She was incredible.

I know airlines and United, in particular, take a lot of flak for their customer service. Sometimes deserved. Many times unfair, in my opinion.

If you talk to flight attendants, they will tell you that the people who are the most difficult are those who only fly once or twice a year.  There are exceptions, but it's usually the people with the most miles who are the most understanding.

In this case though, Sonja was a rock star.  I was so grateful to here and thought to myself "if every United customer service rep was like Sonja, people would be lining up to sing United's praises."

Having put that worry aside, we were able to rest easy.

We are so fortunate to be in a place where we are surrounded by family and friends who are more than willing to help us and make us so comfortable during a pretty inconvenient and potentially stressful time.

It's probably the best possible environment given the situation we are dealing with.

Anyway, I am very proud of Team Finland for having behaved so admirably, displaying great resilience and adaptability on a trip that, both at the beginning and towards the end (as well as some in the middle) has really challenged us to learn how to respond to adversity.

I am grateful to our friends and family who are an amazing source of support.

I'm appreciative to Sonja @ United who helped us get through the challenging time with minimal financial impact.

It's not fun to be in this situation, particularly on both sides of a trip, but I told the team, "in 30 years, we will be talking about this trip. This is what life and family are about."