Post Your Travelling Horror Stories Here!!!

Squeak

Squeak

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Mar 3, 2002
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In the photo pit at a concert =)
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I am more than SURE there are a lot out there, as I have talked to quite a few people who had major issues getting to PP5. This is mine:

Got the airport at 6am, was supposed to leave at 745am. Got on the plane at 815am thinking we would leave at 845am like it said, but we didn't leave until 930am. Got to Atlanta airport around 5pm, tried to land twice but the winds were too high, so had to fly over to Memphis, TN instead. Sat on the runway for over two hours in Memphis. We did not have any food on the flight except chips, cookies, etc since it was supposed to be a relatively short ride. We were not allowed off the plane in Memphis. The pilot Paul Higgins (on Delta) was out on the kiosk area around the food section. He called back to the plane, told the flight attendants to find out who wanted food. He proceeded to buy all the sandwiches and salads that the place had and said he would put it on his credit card and we could pay him back. Now THAT was incredibly cool! He didn't have to do that. So, there was still not enough food for everyone, so we all split everything (1/2 for everyone). Then we got back up in the air around 7pm or so. We get to atlanta in less than 1 1/2 hours, but we got stuck in the air for about 45 minutes trying to land because the wind was so bad. Mind you, that was 45 minutes of PURE TURBULANCE! Man, I was so sick to my stomach but managed not to puke somehow. We then get off the plane at 915pm (I was originally to arrive at 323pm). 13 HOURS of one plane!!! Hmph. THEN, the airline lost my baggage for 1 1/2 hours! I finally found it on another baggage holder thing, where it wasn't supposed to be. At the same time, Stephan and the drummer of Adagio were trying to find the drummer's bag. So, I helped them with the places to look and then got them in the line to fill out papers for lost baggage. Then I tried to take the Marta to the hotel, what a friggin' nightmare and dangerous it was taking it at 1130 at night with three bags. I get to the station and it is POURING rain and insanely windy. There were no cabs there to be found and I couldn't bring the bags myself as each weighed more than 50 lbs (I brought merch for Into Eternity). This guy that was on my train offered me a ride and while I would NEVER take a ride from a stranger like that, at that point I just didn't care. He was very very nice to do that. So I finally get to the hotel at 1230am. I don't ever want to repeat that trip again.


The Into Eternity guys had to get on a few flights since all the flights to Atlanta on Air Canada were cancelled out of Toronto. I ended up talking to them when they were in Pittsburgh. They flew into Charlotte, NC and rented a van and drove the other 3 1/2 hours to Atlanta. 21 hours later, they arrived at the hotel. Talk about determination to play! They could've easily cancelled out of ProgPower, but instead did everything they could to get there.

So what's your story?
 
I was supposed to be on an 11:00 flight out of Houston that was initially delayed until 12:00. So we boarded around 11:30 or so and left the gate at noon only to sit on the runway for another 45 minutes or so because of further weather/traffic-related delays. Then the auxilary power unit in the plane went kaput and they had to tow the plane to a maintenance bay (no AC at this time) and after trying and failing to fix the APU they just re-started the engines and we finally took off. Unfortunately we had pretty much missed our window at this point as far as the weather in Atlanta; we ended up getteing diverted to Nashville, TN. The pilot told us that the plane was going back to Houston, but that if anybody wanted they could get off the plane and try to find a rental car to drive down to Atlanta they could do so. Only catch was the luggage was going back to Houston so you'd have to go without your luggage. Plus no telling how bad the driving conditions would be going straight through Ivan on the way to Atlanta. All told we spent close to 7 hours on that plane.

So, we got back to Houston to find out that everybody had been re-booked on Friday flights. Unfortunately we got booked on one of the later flights and all of the early flights were full. To add insult to injury our Friday flight was also delayed an hour, so we didn't land in Atlanta until about 5:30. By the time we got our bags, rental car, got checked into the hotel and made our way over to Earthlink Live, Dreamscape was already halfway through their set. :( But, once we were there we had fun and it was a great festival as always (this was our 3rd year).
 
Here's my little adventure. Me and my two riding companions were about an hour outside of Atlanta (driving down from Virginia) coming down I-85. That's when the hurricane's rain and wind really started to pick up for us. Well, we're going about 65-ish when all of a sudden my driver's side window wiper arm decided to shoot off the DRIVER'S SIDE of the car and not come back! LOL! Talk about almost sh*tting your pants! So we luckily made it to the side of the road and the wiper arm had basically strippped and wasn't going to work. We turned on the 'ol hazard lights and I drove looking out the passenger side of the window to the next exit where luckily we found some REALLY cool service station guys who temporarily fixed it...for NO CHARGE! Great guys. After that we got back on the road and were going about 20-30 mph for a while, as was everyone else, because you coudn't see anything hardly with the rain.

Alas, we did make it! :)
 
Thursday evening, 6pm CST.. pile in the car and head for Indiana to pick up oour other travel partner. About 7:15pm, leave IN and head south. About 7:30pm, almost get run off i65 by some assjack trucker who was intent on changing lanes despite our presence there. We rolled into Nashville around 2:30, and after stopping at 3 different hotels which claimed to be open, but had no attendants on duty, we hit a Quality Inn which was nice, clean, and the desk clerk cut us a deal on the room. About 6 hours later, up and at 'em for the drive to Atlanta. We got to the Fairfield by early afternoon, showered, and met up with the rest of the folks we were meeting (megadeth.com forum meetup).

Mumblemumblefridaysaturdayprogpowershowwasawesomehadsomedrinksetc.

After the show Saturday night, we returned to the Fairfield, and packed the car. Spent about 20 minutes saying my goodbyes to the crew, and hit the sack, as the party was going on on the deck outside. About 3 hours later, woke up to the party still going, and drove 12 hours straight through to Chicago.

DRFS' Travel Tips for Future PPUSAs.. Take Monday off, so you can party Saturday night. We plan on making PPUSAVI like our IV trip - one week, cross-country, debauchery all along the way.

- R
 
Wanna hear a sad and pissed off story? Here it goes, you can ask any of the guys from Into Eternity, I'm sure they found out about this one :

I took a train from Stamford - CT all the way to Richmond - VA to meet a friend of mine on thursday. I arrived in Richmond around 8 30 at night and we had planned to leave on that very same night, so we could get in Atlanta on time for the festival. It turns out that my friend's mom and little sister had decided to join us in the trip to Atlanta, so they could visit a little of the city while we were at the fest. Unfortunately they decided to delay our trip for the next fucking morning, so, in other words, we left on friday morning at like 8, 8 30, which was ridiculous in my opinion.

To make all the things worse, when we were somewhere in North Carolina, we met up with a good friend of ours, that Ivan son of a bitch. That brought us major heavy rain and superfast winds, which made us stop the car for some good 30 minutes. Also counts the fact that my friend's mom drives quite slow, while we were in a hurry, and it seemed that nor she nor my friend (which is upset) cared very much if we got a little late to the show. It took us TEN FUCKING HOURS to arrive in Atlanta. So, briefly to tell you the end of the story, when I finally entered the venue, the guys from Into Eternity were saying "Thanks a lot Atlanta, good night, enjoy the festival..." I MISSED INTO ETERNITY, and I will seriously never forget myself because of that, regardless if they sucked or were awesome, I'm a big fan of the guys and they were one of the reasons that made me go to Progpower this year (along with Adagio and Pain of Salvation). Despite the great time that I had at the festival, that really made my excitement go down a lot.

To make everything "better" after the festival, I left my fucking bag at the Hotel's lobby. Luckily another friend that stayed with me in the room found it and shipped it to me from FL. In other words, I haven't yet enjoyed many of my purchases at Progpower... LOL but that's alright.. This is funny compared to the Into Eternity thing...

Next year I'll make sure I won't repeat the same mistakes... I'm still pissed just to think about arriving at the venue and seeing them leaving the stage...

Now, if Glenn wants to get me a copy of the footage of them on stage, it'd make things get better! lol
 
Well we came from Albuquerque in my little Kia Spectra and thought it would be faster to drive through mississippi and alabama. We thought we would go through before the storm hit. We left on Wed. and the first day went off without a hitch untill we reached our stopping place, Little Rock, AR. there were no rooms because of all the people who were fleeing the storm and we finally found one at a place called the Stacy Motel. What a total roach palace, we did not get undressed and slept on top of the covers and left at like 6 in the morning feeling all grossed out by the place. I didn't take long for us to hit rain, and as soon as we entered Alabama and found out where the storm was, we knew we were in for it. We kept on and we were getting low on gas and were super lucky to find one gas station open just uotside of Birmingham. I got soaked while pumping the gas and almost got blown over a few times, but I was able to fill the tank and we continued. It was raining so hard that we could barley go 40mph. We pulled into atlanta at around 5pm. We made it and the car did great, we were blown around a bit, but it was worth it
 
well, we didn't miss any of the festival or bands playing due to our travels however here it is in short....

Our plane cought fire in the mid section of the cabin (it was a Boeing 767) before even getting up to 1500 ft. in the air during take-off. We could smell smoke...badly, and then alarms started going off and the flight attendants were running around like chickens with their heads cut-off. At that point, the plane started banking a very hard right with the engines wailing loudly, and everyone began to panic... I was sweating bullets!!! luckily we made to the ground, and the pilot was in such a big rush himself, that we landed hard, knocking open several of the over-head compartments dumping some carry on luggage on to the passangers....

come to find out it was just an actuator connected to the air-conditioning system that burned up due to a valve that was siezed shut. So it was actually quite harmless, and itwould have made for a very uncomfotable 3+ hour flight, but at the time.... we were scared shitless!!!

to be blunt, I thought I was about to live the scene at the begining of Final Destination! ...and to think my wife was more pissed that we were going to be delayed!

Just glad to be alive!

\m/
Dustin
 
Copied from my LiveJournal:

Firstly, I attempted to change my travel plans on Tuesday, hoping to move my Thursday flight up a day so I'd leave on Wednesday & get there before Hurricane Ivan arrived..however, calls to both Priceline (who said they couldn't change anything without a waiver from United themselves) and United (who said they couldn't change anything, as they had no documentation that Ivan posed a threat to Atlanta, a fact which remained even on Thursday) were futile. So I resigned myself to flying on Thursday, hoping we'd beat the worst of the storm there.

I was scheduled to leave Washington DC for Atlanta at around 12:30pm on Thursday. I arrived at Dulles at 10:30, & was at the gate by about 11:15..better to be early than late, IMO. Boarding time was to be at about 12:10, but at 12:08, a "Delayed until 1:39" sign appeared at the gate next to the flight number. ARGH! Turns out the FAA had placed an Air Traffic Control delay on the flight (so it was a Federal decision, not one made by the airline itself). At around 1pm, they said we'd be leaving around 2:30. However, we were on the plane & departing at 2:15..I was definitely happy to finally be on our way. After a bit of a bumpy flight, we approached Atlanta, & the plane began to resemble an epileptic frog in a blender, shuddering & shaking..and making a dozen or so people (including myself) puke their guts out. I haven't gotten motion sick much since my teens (I do fine as long as I don't read in a car..that'll make me sick in no time), but boy was I heaving on that plane. First off it felt like a hot flash, which I experience on a regular basis these days..then the salivating & queasiness..I tried everything. Tried looking out the window (your inner ear gets messed up when it feels motion but your eyes don't register it in the unmoving interior of a vehicle, so watching the outdoors go by sometimes helps with that), but it was solid clouds..no visible motion there. Then I tried watching the rain streaming along the window itself..only slight help with that. Closing my eyes made it worse, & turning the air vent on my face full blast only helped a bit as well. I was wishing I could go ralph in the restroom, but there was no way I'd have made it down the aisle, the plane was lurching about so much..I'd have ended up puking on someone. So I settled for the handy ol barf bag they so generously provide for you. Such fun.

Our attempted landing is something I will never forget. I was so queasy, & just wishing we'd land already..watching the ground draw closer outside my window, so thankful it was almost over..and as we were over the runway, our plane started doing this teeter totter thing, seesawing to the left and the right. We were maybe 100 feet off the ground when the pilot pulled up, accelerated, & back up in the air we went. Turns out it'd been wind shear causing trouble, & looking back now at what the plane was doing, we'd have snapped off a wing & crashed if we'd continued to try landing in that condition. I should've been scared to death, but I was sick as hell & just wishing they'd let me off the fucking plane. So back up we went..one more attempt at an approach (and two more rounds of heaving up my guts)..and..

they closed the airport.

FUCK.

So we were diverted to Charlotte, NC, which was a useless lil airport, the United rep there was an idiot. Considering that there were 2 jumbo jets (300 passengers on each) that were diverted at the same time, there would've been huge competition for hotel rooms & rental cars..so I went with the 'just go back to DC & try again on another flight' option. Thing is, the people who stayed there in Charlotte were totally on their own..because it was weather related, United accepted no responsibility, & as such, would not put people up in a hotel or anything.

Arriving in DC, I got calls from people in Atlanta who said it wasn't even raining there anymore..ARGH!! Sadly, all the people stuck in DC when the airport in Atlanta closed were the first to get on the later flights to Atlanta, so there were no more seats open on any flights that night by the time we got back. Happily, they automatically reschedule you when you're in a situation like this, & they had me on a 9am flight Friday morning. Strange thing was that some people got on Friday flights & others had to wait until Saturday..I was glad they got me on the flight that they did, because if they hadn't, I'd have had to drive to Atlanta, & I just wasn't feeling up to that sort of road trip at that point. So I got a hotel in Manassas (a city in VA near Dulles), & was up & at 'em early on Friday to try again.

If they had let us take off when we were scheduled to leave, we'd have been fine..as it was, they had us fly right into the worst of the storm. Real fucking bright, FAA type people. *eyeroll & a grumble*

"Gee, Ma'am, why would you want to change your plans..we have no documentation that Ivan will pose any problems for Atlanta.." GRRRRRRR..yup, you can bet your sweet ass that both United and Priceline got nastygrams from me. If there's a major hurricane coming & your customers want to avoid it, just fucking humor them & let them change their plans, would ya? It's not like it's just a whim, for chrissakes. And the big airlines wonder why they can barely stay in business..sheesh.

So no preparty for me, I spent Thursday night in a hotel trying to get some sleep cuz I had to be up early again the next day.
 
:hotjump:

Where to begin... My boyfriend & I drove down from Grand Rapids, MI. We left at 7pm on Wednesday (we were supposed to leave at 1pm) and finally arrived at 1:30pm on Thursday. It took forever to get to Fort Wayne, after that, my boyfriend drove all night to Lexington. I drove from there to the outskirts of Atlanta. Everything was fine until we got to Lexington when it started to rain a bit, by Knoxville the rain steady, by Chattanooga, the rain was torrid and unrelenting. I was driving at night, in the rain, in the morning fog, with a concrete divider wall on one side, a semi truck on the other, through tight turns in a construction zone at 75 mph. It was only about a half hour of driving in those conditions, but it could not have been a worse driving experience.

On the way out, we were going to leave at 5am on Sunday so I could be back to work on time Monday morning. We didn't want to leave the Fairfield party so we decided to leave at checkout instead, plus we would be able to get more rest before our 16 hour drive. The trip home went without any major flaws but we were hauling serious tail to get me back in time for work. I drove from the outskirts of Atlanta all the way to Cincinnati, with only a few stops for quick food and a stretch. We finally got back into Grand Rapids at 8am but I had to be to work at 8:30. I stopped at home to freshen up, empty the cooler in to the fridge and then we both went straight to work. I was only a half hour late (my boyfriend makes his own hours) but I dragged ass all day long because I was so tired.

Overall the trip went pretty well, just some scary driving and being way too tired to go that far. The worst part was having to leave the party early to go to sleep. Cool thing about that is we got to talk to the Tad Morose & Into Eternity guys! I'm just thankful that we got home safely!

Tammy Z
 
Man, I was wondering about what happened to you, Dustin! Someone else said something and I was going to ask you what happened, but you were busy at the other table. I'm glad to know you and wife are okay though!

I think this thread is generating some crazy stuff and I will save it all for future reminiscing. That way no one ever forgets what all us crazy metalheads did to get to ProgPower in 2004!
 
Our trip went rather well considering! Just a shitty descent and landing through Ivan was the worst of it! I was never so happy to see the ground as we broke through the clouds right before we landed!!!!
 
Not too exciting a story here, compared to what others went through. Got up at 4:30 am and called a cab. At 5:30 I was still waiting and getting pissed since my flight was at 7. Finally I had a friend drive to the airport at 6. The line to the check-in counter was huge, there was no way I was gonna make my flight. Luckily, a few minutes after I got in line a Delta rep asked if anyone was on the 7am flight. Of course I immediately yelled "I Am, I Am" and promptly got my boarding pass. I went straight to the gate and ran into Eric from Timeline. They made an announcment that our flight would be delayed until 8. We actually boarded at 7:30 and took off at 7:45. It was a pretty calm flight, but we did run into Ivan somewhere around Alabama. Not much turbulance until we approached Atlanta. As we were coming in for landing, the lady in front of me started freaking out. She wanted to go in the restroom, but the flight attendent wouldn't let her(which made sense considering we were in turbulence and coming in for a landing.) Since we couldn't see anything but dark clouds and rain, it was impossible to know how close we were to landing. All of the sudden we started going up again. The pilot got on the intercom and announced that another plane was on the runway and we would have to circle around. Yay, more turbulence. Finally, we landed, and every passenger on the plane broke out in applause. I was very happy to get off that plane.
I decided to take a cab to the Granada, bad idea. It was pouring like hell, and traffic on the freeway wasn't moving very fast. Except for the cab I was in. Not only was this guy driving too damn fast, but he was on his cell phone the whole time. He swerved out of his lane several times. I couldn't wait to get out of this cab. Finally, after the nerve racking cab ride, I made it to the Granada at around 5. Last year I took the exact same flight and got to the Granada at 2:45.
 
Strangely, I had absolutely no trouble at all getting in on Thursday, but only because I realized that the earlier I got out, the better off I would be, and got my tail to BWI by 8:15am, where they put me on a 9am flight. I got in at 11am, just before things started getting ugly. There wasn't even much turbulence. I could feel the plane sliding a bit in the wind, but it was bouncier coming home on Sunday in bright sunshine.

Dave Thomas, on the other hand, was on the 12:25pm flight I was *supposed* to take, and he said they were delayed for hours.

Luck. Sheer luck that day.
 
I don't really need to go into painful detail about Thursday. Suffice to say that I was stuck there for hours next to some boring old fuck who never stopped talking, watching the flight be delayed four times, then cancelled.

My FRIDAY flight in arrived at the airport at 6:20. I ran like a madman straight to the venue, I even stowed my suitcase in a supply closet so I wouldn't have to waste half an hour to go check in at my hotel. JUST IN TIME for Tad Morose, Kamelot, and all of the Savatage related stuff.

My unique nightmare, though, had to do with my hotel. There was a shitty Super 8 about 12-15 minute walk from the venue. First, the bastards charged me for Thursday night even though there was a FUCKING HURRICANE hitting the city and there was no way for anybody to get in. Then they RAISED the rate from the agreed-upon deal of 3 nights for $60 a night to $79/night for the last two days! They told me that two-day weekend stays were more expensive than 3 nights. BUT THEY STILL GOT MY MONEY FROM THURSDAY NIGHT! That's a load of shit and it probably cost me, in total, $100.

And the management there was so fucking stupid! Motherfucker was dumber than a box of hair! I didn't see anybody else working there all day, and it was impossible to argue this with him because he was too retarded. I'll have to contact his district supervisor or somebody higher up in the chain of command to get my money back. Because I WILL NOT let them screw me over like this.Getting to the show at all was a BIG stretch on my finances, and I can't afford to lose that much money right now. :yell:
 
My plane was supposed to leave Cleveland at 12:55 PM & didn't depart until 3PM..Well,as we were nearing the Atlanta airport we circled twice & they told us the airport was closed & took us to Augusta,Ga.....I had to rent a car & drive 3 hours through the hurricaine shit to get back to Atlanta.At points on the drive back,it was raining so hard that I could not see the road even though I had my wipers going full blast:yuk: ...I finally got to the venue at 10 PM on Thursday.I was supposed to be in Atlanta at 2:45 PM...The rental car had a cd player so I was able to rock out driving in this shit....I made it tho (in 1 rather pissed off piece):loco:
Krusty,
the dude in the Krusty the Klown t-shirt at PP 5.0
 
DRFS Rich said:
After the show Saturday night, we returned to the Fairfield, and packed the car. Spent about 20 minutes saying my goodbyes to the crew, and hit the sack, as the party was going on on the deck outside. About 3 hours later, woke up to the party still going, and drove 12 hours straight through to Chicago.

DRFS' Travel Tips for Future PPUSAs.. Take Monday off, so you can party Saturday night. We plan on making PPUSAVI like our IV trip - one week, cross-country, debauchery all along the way.
Click to expand...
This has got to be Harley's friend Rich... if so, it was good to see you again, and I think your plans for 6 are flawless! :)

Shaye
 
Wait how does this sound. I had my Yukon stolen from the Fairfield with Jon Oliva's Pain Band Promo pictures in it and other band things. I will never stay there again, It took the police over 3 hours to come and file out a report. This is where it gets good the police officer couldn't find the hotel, Needless to say I was not in a good mood around people and didn't talk much sorry to everyone that I might have brushed off.
 
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