The Best of Travel Plans Gone Awry

As you may have heard, there were a few delays in the athletes getting to Loule, Portugal.  We were to fly to Newark leaving on Monday at 12:20 p.m., and then Lisbon and connecting to Faro, then picked up by bus and taken to the hotel with an arrival time of late morning on Tuesday.  Well, things did not go quite as planned.  Everyone arrived at the airport by 10:30 a.m.  Once we were through customs, we found out the Newark plane was delayed by two hours, which would mean we would miss our connecting flight to Lisbon, so Air Canada starting finding out what other alternate routes we could take to still get us to Loule by Tuesday.  We ended up staying in Calgary until 5:30, and then flew to Frankfurt, next to Lisbon and then to Faro, and then finally by bus to our accommodations.  With the extended delays and the change of plans, we actually arrived at the hotel closer to 1:30 a.m. on the Wednesday morning and not the late Tuesday morning as we had planned.  It was a very exhausting and long trip, but the girls were great.  They had to go through security four times, customs and passport control.  We had about six hours in Lisbon waiting for a connecting flight, so we had the opportunity to get outside and enjoy the fresh air.  We went to the Oriente Gare and viewed where the 1998 Expo was held, had some time to shop a bit, and then had a relaxing sit-down meal rather than airplane food.  They girls have learned how important it is to be able to be flexible, to keep positive and to be able to work together.  Travel can be unpredictable, but they have proven that it can always be enjoyable!  Without all of the changes to our schedule, we would never have been able to explore Lisbon!

 

Alex, Caitlin D., Bianca Pye, Caitlin B. and Janelle in Lisbon, Portugal, at the Expo 98 site.