May 28th marked the first day of my study abroad experience to Croatia. I had planned on this flight schedule: Rochester to Washington DC, then Washington DC to Zurich, Switzerland, and then lastly Zurich to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Key word: planned. What eventually happened was a completely different story - a 24 hour flight disaster. Let's start from the very beginning. My first flight to Washington DC went perfectly. The plane was timely and only took 1 hr 15 min. We (two other students studying abroad and me) arrived at the airport at 4:00 pm. Below is a picture from the first flight. We were only supposed to have a layover of 1 hr 45 min in Washington and leave at 5:40 but after sitting on the plane for 30 min we received a PA saying something was wrong on the plane. We then waited another hour before a new PA announced another issue with the plane. Naturally, a baby decided to scream for 15 min after every PA. We waited a total of 2 hr 30 min before they moved us off the plane. By then we would've already missed the connecting flight to Croatia - so to the customer service desk we went. We didn't get to speak to anyone until 10:00 pm. They told us there were no international flights that night or the morning after; we would have to stay overnight and fly to Munich, Germany at 5:00 pm. United put us up at the Hilton and gave us a free lunch, whoopie. After customer service we needed to pick up our checked bags, which were lost, so that whole endeavor took 2 hr 30 min. By the time we arrived at the hotel, it was midnight. Below is a picture of our hotel. Looking on the bright side of things, our 24 hour delay opened up another adventure. Because the new flight is to Munich and we will have a 6 hr 45 min layover there, the three of us are going to use that time to explore Munich, look at some historical buildings, and try some German beer :D
Moral of the story: never fly United. Fingers crossed the rest of my flights run smoothly!
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