Just got back from four days in Vegas. Took a cheap flight on Spirit. It almost wasn't worth it. I seriously considered whether I should have made the fifteen-hour drive instead. It was that bad.
Annoyance #1: Parking at PDX cut in half due to one lot being set aside for vaccinations. Thus, I had to circle like a vulture for twenty minutes to find a spot. Then, the shuttle bus came. Eventually. Extremely eventually.
Annoyance #2: Searched all over for a kiosk to print my boarding pass. The kiosks were well away from the Spirit ticket counter and not marked in any way. Then, I went to the gate from the closer concourse, knowing that the two major concourses are connected...
Annoyance #3: Except that they closed off the gate connecting the two concourses, for some unfathomable reason. I only found this out after I got through TSA (of course, no signage saying "no access to Concourse B from this point forward" or anything helpful like that).
Annoyance #4: At least I got a window seat and the middle seat was empty. This was a good thing, because Jesus that seat was uncomfortable! I'm six feet zero inches, and I didn't have enough legroom. The poor bastard in front of me was six foot three or so, and he had to contort like a pretzel. The seats were as hard as a rock. At the end of my two-hour flight, my legs and butt were killing me.
Annoyance #5: Though my friends met me at the airport on arrival, on my way back, I had to get my own transportation to the airport. I researched and found that Lyft would be $22, while a taxi would be $35. So, fine, I tried Lyft. The app didn't open properly on my phone. I had to delete it and download and reinstall it. Then they wanted to update all my personal info. Then they wanted to text me and send me an email and have me turn on my phone's locator service (which devours the battery), since I evidently couldn't just put in the effin' address manually myself. Then, they scheduled the ride, for twenty minutes later, and I wasn't offered any option to make it later. All this bullshit took 45+ minutes. I showered, dressed, and packed in a hurry and dashed downstairs. No driver (and it had been less than 20 minutes). I waited 20 more minutes. The Lyft driver never showed (and I got no call or text from them). Time was getting very short. I called a cab, which thank God, came in about ten minutes, and sped off to the airport. A few minutes later, I got an email saying I was being charged $5 for "missing your ride." This was the second time in a row that had happened. I came damn close to missing my plane. Assholes! Never again!
Annoyance #6: Had to print my boarding pass, but I was unable to check in online as I had done earlier--because I used my home computer to do that on Monday but today, I couldn't use my phone because the "app" wasn't compatible with my Android 626 (of which there are about 43 billion in the world). So I had to go to the gate without a seat assignment...
Annoyance #7: The plane was 2/3 full. Nonetheless, the ticket bitch, er, gate attendant assigned me to a window seat in a row that was otherwise full---even though there were in excess of forty other unclaimed seats that were in rows with the middle seats empty! The seat I got was even more cramped than the one I had on my outbound trip. Furthermore, it was in the only row where the armrests didn't flip up! The two (not small) guys I shared the row with were as squeezed as I was. Fortunately, I thought to ask the stewardess if I could move to the empty aisle seat behind me--there was only one person in that row. She said OK. Now, why, I thought, didn't that ticket bitch put me in that seat instead?
Summary: I consumed about 10 1/2 hours in total, door to door, in this round-trip journey using the modern joy of air travel. I was worn to a frazzle. Oh, and did I mention the half-mile walk to Gate 43Z at each airport? This was a really, really, really, really, really unpleasant experience all around, and so much of it could have been improved if people were just doing things a bit differently--i.e., sanely. I hadn't flown in five years and I didn't realize just how repulsive and aggravating the whole experience would be. I'm going to drive myself to my next vacation destination, even if it's Hawaii or Europe.
Fortunately, the actual Vegas experience bookended by these trips from hell was great; see Parts 2 and 3.