What Could Go Wrong

 

  Whenever I go somewhere new, there's always the nagging feeling something will go wrong. In the best case scenario everything goes according to plan. Minor bumps in the road such as a late bus, a suitcase gone astray or finding a stranger sleeping in your room are inevitable. Worst case scenarios such as major injuries or death must be insured for. Coffin shipment home from overseas is expensive.

  One step below death or dismemberment is having to spend the night in an airport. I've only had to spend the night in an airport once. It was at O'Hare, an airport so big that when your flight is cancelled, no one has any idea why. They just give you a cot and some food vouchers and send you to Terminal X. Two hundred of us lost souls set up our cots in the abandoned terminal. There was a line all night for the one small M/W bathroom. The overhead announcements stopped at 1:00 am and at 4:30 a retired drill sergeant rousted us out of the terminal.  I can recommend the Wolfgang Puck Mediterranean breakfast omelet if you're ever stuck in O'Hare. 

  You can try to prepare yourself for a new place when traveling but life is unpredictable. Take getting to Venice. Venice is an island so the trick with Venice is getting from the airport to Venice itself. According to my research, the best way would be to take the ferry from the airport. We could supposedly buy ferry tickets from machines near baggage claim in the airport. We've had trouble buying tickets from machines in the past. It's always better to buy from a ticket counter, though there's generally a line to wait in as your bus, train or ferry pulls out.

 All my research did not reveal any ticket counters. Could we buy our tickets on the ferry? The internet was silent. So we confronted the ticket machines. There were several of them, no waiting. I could see other people getting tickets and moving on. After struggling with a couple of machines we finally got our tickets and started the long hike to the ferry. A half mile in an airport feels like two miles in the country. It took about twenty minutes to reach the ferries and the counter selling tickets. Now I know for next time, though we risk finding a closed for renovations sign at the counter. We boarded the ferry tickets in hand and were soon on our way to Venice- piece of panettone. 

  Yes everything worked fine getting to Venice. We had a couple of free days in the city then joined our tour group. If we had arrived in Venice the same day the tour started then the tour director would have met us at the airport, bought our ferry tickets, and escorted us to our hotel. That service is one of the main reasons people join tours. The tour company makes the rough ways smooth.

  Take the case of Angie (not her real name), one of the members of our group. At our first group meeting, we learned that Angie had missed her flight that morning in Los Angeles. Please remember there's a nine hour time difference between LA and Venice. Angie had arrived at LAX at 4:30 am to catch the first of her three flights that day. Her first flight was on an obscure airline the tour company had booked for her. These little airlines use bigger airline's counters and Angie went where she had been told to go but no one knew where her airline's check-in desk was. By the time she found out, her 6:30 flight had left. 

  Now the tour company support team sprang into action and rebooked Angie on another airline. Nevertheless Angie would be getting to Venice Airport much later than planned and our tour director was worried that Angie would miss the last ferry to Venice. It is the policy of this company that none of its customers will ever spend the night in an airport. Our director was prepared to hire a private motor boat to get Angie to Venice at great expense to the tour company. I understand now why tours are so expensive. It's not cheap to rebook flights and hire private transport. Fortunately Angie made the last ferry.

  Troubles are going to happen. That's life. The tour company holds your hand and makes them go away. Is this service worth the extra cost? Lots of travelers think so, especially older ones who have the money and hate sleeping in airports. Another benefit of being on a tour is the people you meet.  Angie had an interesting tale to tell. She was an excitable person so you could see why she might go astray at 4:30 in the morning. But she had been a psychiatric nurse in a jail for 20 years so she must have been a capable person. Despite having been up 33 hours the day before, she was raring to hit the tourist trail with the best of them, God love her.

 Airport ferry to Venice--Where's Angie?