Daily Chai

Northwest's shortage of gate agents + elimination of milk in flight does not a happy child make. Nor a happy parent, nor other happy passengers on board, for that matter!

I started blogging once before about my horrible experiences with this one airline that bumped me over the Christmas holidays, even though I had had been one of the first people to check in, and was suffering from a horrible cold to boot. But I never published that entry because I came to realize that flying is just pretty darn horrendous across the board these days, and there's no point in singling out any one airline.

But my recent experiences flying with Susie Q. on Northwest were really unacceptable, even considering today's all around crappy service. Northwest has, in the interest of saving some money, stopped serving milk on all its flights. Notice I did not say it has stopped providing milk for free, because I assure you, I would have been much more understanding about that, more than happy to fork over $5 for a small carton if it meant sparing my one-year-old the sweet airline apple juice on our recent flight from Detroit to San Francisco. 

But you can just bring the milk with you, you say. Or, you can just buy it in the airport. That would be no, and no again. Yes, you can get one small bottle of milk past security, but that is usually only enough for the first hour or two of flying. Our flight originated that day in Bangor, Maine, and even though it was quite late taking off, we still had to wait so long to get off the plane in Detroit while the gate agents made their way to our gate, that I had to run with baby, through the odd nightclub themed undergroun corridors at the Detroit airport, to make my connection, and had no time to do any shopping in the airport. So the two of us are beyond frazzled and after we navigate our way to the one remaining seat in the back of the plane, buckle up, take off, and wait aixiously for the drink cart, I am shocked to learn there is no milk on board.

Like many parents of one-year-old babies, I had not yet even introduced milk to Susie Q. so this was not as simple as swapping Coke for Pepsi. It took her a long time acclimate to this new taste and drink any at all, and on this hot August day (did I mention that they left us waiting for a half hour in Bangor with all the air vents turned off??), I started to worry she'd get dehydrated.

So yes, even though air travel sucks plain and simple, I've flown recently on several other airlines that have provided milk, and provided it for free. If Northwest wants to impose such seriously inconvenient cuts, they ought to warn passengers ahead of time, or at least make sure they have enough gate agents to get connecting passengers off the plane in time that they can buy provisions for their baby in the airport. 

 

More on the disastrous Yosemite trip and how pictures, especially pictures of hotel rooms, can lie.

Which hotel would you rather stay in?

If you're like me, you pick hotel number two, hands down. It looks woodsy and cabin-y and cozy, where the other one looks like a place where someone might get murdered (especially since there were a couple of murders outside of Yosemite ten years back). Certainly not the sort of place you'd want to take your 70-something mother and one-year-old daughter.

Well, that just goes to show you how pictures can lie, even when it comes to pictures that hotels themselves who should know better, offer as their own marketing material. Hotel number one pictured above is actually a lovely place to stay and the place where my family moved at the last minute when I made an executive decision that hot summer weather + no air conditioning + incomprehensibly, no screens on the windows that opened out to brazen squirrel and bear and who knows what other wild animals territory did not equal a fun or even particularly safe outing for said family.

Now, I can appreciate that Yosemite has a policy of no air conditioning in hotel rooms within the park. I personally don't even mind hot weather, as long as it is not of the humid, east coast variety. And I like to rough it as much as the next person. But there is a reason for family-style lodging: different members of the "family" (think very old and very young) have different standards of comfort. I can't for the life of me understand that a hotel that charges a not-cheap $230 per night can get by not offering screens on its screen doors, that you essentially have to keep open to prevent suffocation. They warn you not to keep food in your cars because of the bears, then they let you pay to sleep in wide open rooms that provide less protection from the elements than a tent!

Some other things that the room at the dreadful Yosemite Lodge at the Falls did not offer:

-- any adequate lighting. I'm thinking there were two 25-watt bulbs in the whole room.

--housekeeping. This room was filthy.

--a view of the falls. Not even close.

(And, don't believe the pictures in that link. They are LIES!

I would have just stuck it out for the one night we were there, had I not been very worried about my mom, who apparently likes humid heat better than dry heat. I made an executive decision to leave that night, even if it meant that we had to drive all the way back to San Francisco. But after a very snarly desk clerk gave us a hard time when we asked for a refund ("we've been in business xx years and no one else has complained..." yeah, right) he referred us to his super-nice manager who somehow got us into a very lovely room in the very lovely (very dingy photo notwithstanding) Yosemite View Lodge.  

It's not lovely in a five-star-hotel kind of way, but is just what you want when you've been driving all day with a carload of kids or other family members and need a clean, comfortable, cool place to unload everyone. There's a swimming pool here, and because it's outside of the park limits, the rooms are air conditioned. It's also quite a nice layout that the above photo does not at all capture. Not one building but a series of buildings, almost like a little village, where you can walk around, meet other folks and not feel confided to your room. Somehow, for the same $230, we got a two bedroom suite with TVs in all three rooms. No, I don't ordinarily go to Yosemite to watch TV, but let me tell you, it had been quite a day by that time.

 

Comcast: Wish I'd never switched from DSL

The background brings out the foreground, the sculpture exists because of the parts of the stone/marble/whatever that were chipped away, and no commentary on great things in this world would be complete without some reference to the not so great.

All a way to introduce the first of what is sure to be more of my least favorite things. Today's nominee? Comcast high-speed Internet, which has infuriated me, oh about 10 times, since I signed up for the service about one month ago. You know how people are always inquiring about DSL vs. cable and what's better? It always struck me as idle conversation since they seemed so similar. But while I certainly was not blown away by ATT DSL this cable is truly awful.

They stood me up for the initial connection appointment. Which is not to say they arrived during the final hour of an eight hour window; they just never showed. They incorrectly billed me for services past due, failed to correct the error after multiple calls from me, and then, adding insult to injury, canceled my service because I  hadn't yet paid the amount they incorrectly tagged onto my account.

At least venting helps a little.