Timeline of the past 2 days. Not interested?...look away ;)
Yesterday:
9:15am - cab arrives at motel to take us to Houston Hobby airport for 11:15 flight.
Agent at check-in notes our plane's coming through Dallas and there's weather so it's being held at its original airport. New ETD 1:15pm.
1:00pm (approx) - plane has taken off for Dallas, had to avoid weather, ran low on fuel, and diverted to Austin. Leaving soon.
1:30pm (approx) - crew has timed out and replacement crew flying in from *Chicago* !! The original replacement crew is sitting with us in Houston. ETD undetermined.
Two or three later flights leave and Southwest is coming and going with no apparent problem (understanding they're not routed through DFW)
Late afternoon (we've lost track of time at this point) our plane is inbound - not long now folks.
Plane is here, inbound passengers off, they must be cleaning it.....small maintenance issue folks, should only take a couple of minutes to fix....but....we need to find the tech to sign off on it and get him down here.
Another flight arrives - diverted to a different gate and those passengers board and depart....
Finally, around 9:00 pm, we're cleared to board and leave. First time I've ever heard passengers applaud on takeoff! Meanwhile of course we've been re-booking on later flights all day but everything's gone by the time we get to Dallas sometime around 10:00 pm. Reschedule for early morning and head to the bar.
(bright spot) Had mentioned to the bartender we'd heard there would be cots available. Few minutes later he comes over and says "they've just dropped the cots out there in the lounge, and they sometimes go very quickly. Why don't you run out there and grab a couple and bring them back in here." So we're sitting in TGI Friday with a couple of folding cots propped up against the table:)
Found a spot in the lounge with a double electric outlet, plugged in, and set up camp for the night. DFW's WiFi is certainly better than Houston.
Carpets were vacuumed, trash cans emptied, and TSA arrived at 4:00 am.
Just before 7:00 we headed to our gates, goodbye to Tara at hers and headed to mine. "Good morning folks, boarding will be delayed a few minutes while we take care of a small maintenance problem"......."passengers on Flight 1238 the plane has been taken out of service but we have another one ready and waiting for you a few gates down. Please proceed down there for immediate boarding....."
Apart from the above it was a pretty good vacation :/