Travel Travails

Dr Radhika Vakharia

I insisted we join ship together.

After all, I was a ‘seasoned mariner’ of sorts; this being my second trip with my Captain husband.

It was 2009, and we were to embark ship from Hamburg around Christmas. Our visas were in place, well in time. All good, until the check-in staff at Mumbai airport looked at my passport with obvious alarm. My visa was starting 2 days after our travel date. Pandemonium!

Options open now to us were that my husband goes on, and I follow later; or we both turn back and fly 2 days later. We took the latter option cause in our lovey-dovey state of mind we had mix-packed our bags!

Eventually we joined a week later from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.

Fast-forward to 2016. This time boarding vessel at Tampa Bay, Florida, USA with my little one. (Yes, the stork had meanwhile paid us a visit.) All in place this time: visas, tickets, papers. We were to fly Mumbai-JFK-Tampa. I was so sure this was going to be a smooth ride; we’d taken care of everything. But fate once again decreed different.

There was a delay in landing at JFK. Meanwhile a lot of other flights had landed close to each other and the queues had swelled up in transit. I put on my best smiling face and kept requesting people to let me pass. But by the time I had struggled through to the Tampa boarding area, the flight had closed. I stood there staring vacantly at the flickering screens.

I turned tiredly to my child. She looked up at me, innocence in her bright eyes. I just had to be the strong woman she would be rightly expecting her parent to be. I went to the counter and asked for the next flight to Tampa—it was 24hrs later. Not acceptable. Then I asked if there was another airport that I could fly instead to, which wasn’t too distant from Tampa port. Now it was the turn of the rookie airline guy to become baffled.

After prolonged consultations with his bosses he told me that Orlando was a possible option, and Tampa port would be a 3 to 4-hour drive from there. Luckily (yes, sometimes it happens for me, but only sometimes) there was a flight to Orlando in just 2 hours. Booked it and dashed to the gate.

I briefed my husband on the new travel plan and arranged for the Agent to meet us at the port entrance. I picked up our luggage, and jumped into a taxi that would take us the long drive from Orlando to Tampa in the middle of the dark night.

The Agent met me just outside the terminal. I tipped our driver, thanked him, and somehow found the strength to swiftly move baby and baggage to the Agent’s car.

We were aboard…finally, and the Pilot boarded just minutes after!!

–Marex Media

As Told by Kruttika Trivedi

W/O Capt. Akshay Trivedi