Saturday August 9 (Auckland to San Francisco)

Oh my, what a trip!!!

The flight from Auckland to San Francisco was a good one and arrived just over twenty minutes early with only a short wait for our gate to be freed up. I have never experienced such a short wait to go through security at SF, it was amazing! But that was counter balanced by the wait for my luggage, lol!

I went to the United Club which has moved and undergone a face lift, as has most of Terminal 3. I then wandered to the gate and was in the first group to board. I had just got settled when I was asked to de-plane as there was a maintenance issue that had to be fixed, apparently it was a slider for the back door. Well, United did NOT cover themselves with glory. They got hold of a part but it was the wrong one and eventually the 4.21 pm flight was cancelled at about 7.45 pm. They had tried to get another plane but did not manage that. When the flight crew came off I did thank them for a wonderful flight, lol!

Fortunately, I had mentioned that I had to be in Chicago for the 4 pm train from Union Station and the woman at the gate had penciled me in for the 6.30 am flight, phew. It will arrive at 12.45 and I hopefully will have time to catch the Blue Line train that goes from O'Hara to a stop close to the station. She also gave me my hotel voucher and three meal vouchers ($7 each). As I walked out I could see a huge queue still at the Customer Services area so I was indeed very fortunate. They had to find seats for about 150 people!

At the hotel, it was a quick shower and then to bed for about 6 hours sleep as I have to catch the 4.32 am shuttle back to the airport. I must admit to feeling a bit frazzled and hope I can catch up on sleep quickly over the next few days. The worst thing about all this is the fact we did not get our bags, it would have taken too long to get them off and to baggage claim, so having to put the same clothes on tomorrow that I have travelled in, yuk! The lady who looked after us told us that the luggage would be scanned to match the flight we were on, yeah right!!