First of all, we were fortunate to have chosen to fly to Bimini out of Kansas City this time. CTM chastised me again and again for booking us out of Kansas City and thru Chicago :( "What were you thinking? Are you kidding me? Seriously....thru Chicago this time of year????" Well, I found extremely cheap tickets on United from Kansas City to Chicago and then nonstop to Nassau so I grabbed them. Lucky I did because had we been flying out of Springfield and heading south we would STILL be in Springfield, CTM!!!!! O.K...now that we are done with how smart (or maybe lucky) I was to book us out of KC here's the rest of the story.....
Yes, the tickets were cheap but to upgrade to exit row (typically we do because of CTM's unnaturally high waist and looooong legs) it was going to cost an additional $66 per person. Hmmmmm, adding that now suddenly makes the tickets not so cheap so I think, "Let's play the game and wait until we get to the airport and ask for the exit row and they will give them to us FOR FREE." :) I thought, "This is not my first rodeo with these yayhoos and I will get those seats one way or the other FOR FREE!" When we got to the airport we asked for the exit row seats and were quickly informed that THOSE seats were premium seats and if we wanted them we would have to pay. Nope, not gonna do it! I looked at the available seats online and out of the 12 exit row seats there was only one that was taken at this point so I think, "O.K....let's wait until we get on the plane and we will just move to the empty exit row seats. We are going to get those seats FOR FREE one way or the other!" When we boarded the plane I instructed CTM to put our carryons above the exit row seats because we would be moving into two of those empty seats shortly. Well, once the door to the plane was closed and we were sure nobody was going to be sitting in those seats we asked the flight attendant if it was o.k. to move. She quickly informed us that they were premium seats and unless we had paid for them we would NOT be allowed to move! O.K.....we no longer have flight attendants but SEAT NAZIS on our plane! The interesting part of this whole charge for the premium seat scenario was that the front 1/3 of the place where the premium seats were was totally empty. The back 2/3 of the plane where the economy seats were located was full. It is obvious that United has adopted a policy of punishing all of the cheapskates by making us squeeze into tiny spaces. :)
Once we resigned ourselves that we would be flying to Nassau in a fetal position the SEAT NAZI started her commentary. She said, "Welcome to your nonstop flight to Nasa!" WAIT!!!!! We are on the wrong plane!!!!! We are headed to Houston, Texas not the Bahamas! CTM patted my arm and assured me that we were on the right plane :) Next SEAT NAZI started the seat belt routine, etc. etc. etc. Well, it appeared that they were showing all of the passengers in first class how to use their life vests but not all of us in the economy seats! OMG! Suddenly I am recalling all of that rushing water in the movie Titanic and how there were only enough life boats for the first class passengers! CTM patted my arm and assured me that we really didn't need to worry about not having a life vest because if we crash into the water we will be dead anyway! Next I notice two middle eastern fellows to our left and one row back. OMG! We are going to be hijacked! CTM patted my arm and assured me that they are not terrorists because they both had on North Face jackets and one of them is sleeping with his head on the other one's shoulder so he didn't think we needed to worry about them :)
Other than once we got to "Nasa" and found the beers to be $7.50 in the airport bar and having to deal with the SEAT NAZIS our flights to Bimini were delightful. Here are a couple of pics I snapped from the plane......
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Goodbye Good Ole USA!
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| West End of Grand Bahama...Been There Done That! |
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| Freeport, Grand Bahama |
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| Ahhhhh.....cold $7.50 Kalik in "Nasa!" |
Catch you on the flip flop......
CJM
