After a wild day of nearly missing and then barely catching flights, I finally made it to Dubrovnik, Croatia! Keep reading to get my tips on traveling during this hectic season of flight delays and cancellations - plus find some beautiful images of Dubrovnik!
Since I'm writing this blog post in a lounge chair overlooking the Old City of Dubrovnik, I obviously made it to Croatia, but let me tell you, it was not an easy journey.
I started off my day at the summer camp that I work at, and after a morning of work, I drove to where I stay over the summer and did some last minute packing. You've probably heard about the hundreds of flight delays and cancellations on the news and I will confirm, they are not exaggerating. While I was packing up, I received a text that our flight to Paris was delayed 1.5 hours which would cut into our 2.5 hour layover - first blow. So how did I pivot?
As soon as your flight is delayed, look for backup flights & connections:
Recently, many flights are delayed multiple times or cancelled all together, so after that first delay, make sure to have back up flights and connections in mind so that you can be prepared and act decisively.
In my case, I found a second flight leaving later out of Paris but with another connection - not ideal but we would still get there. We also perused completely different flights that routed through London or Frankfurt.
With things mostly sorted out, I began the drive to O'Hare International Airport... but on the way we got more bad news. Our flight to Paris was delayed another hour. Our connection was no longer feasible, so we pulled over the car and immediately went through our options. After some searching, we found a later flight from Chicago to Munich with a connection and hour and 40 minutes later. We quickly booked this and waited to work on refunding the original flight until we got to the airport.
You can always book a new flight on your own:
Although the airline is responsible for getting you to your destination when they cancel or delay flights, you can always make your own arrangements and get refunds later on. This way you are able to snatch up seats online without having to waste time waiting in line for an airline employee.
Finally, at the Chicago airport we were able to check in for our new flight, get a refund for our old flight, and grab some dinner before disaster struck again. This new flight to Munich was delayed - but only for 40 minutes. We of course checked our options online, but hoping that we make our connection was the only real choice we had. So, we made a game plan and you should too.
Map out your connections ahead of time:
Use websites like Flight Aware to find out what gate you will be landing in and departing from. This way, you can then look up an airport map and plan out how you will get from gate to gate - saving you time later on.
We did eventually get on the flight and made our connection in Munich with time to spare. So, now for the fun part... Dubrovnik!
This city is stunning! The water is so clear and the Old City is breathtaking. Our hotel, Hotel Excelsior, has a gorgeous view and lovely rooms. For the evening, we simply ordered in for dinner and I read from the 2nd Game of Thrones book: A Clash of Kings since part of the show was filmed in Croatia.
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