Punta Cana, Vacation Express and Falcon Airlines Can All Kiss My Ass

Monday the 6th: Both flights were pretty uneventful. Got to the Punta Cana airport around 3:00 p.m. Got off the plane, got my luggage, boarded a bus for a 30 minute bus ride to the "resort". Checked in and went to my room around 4:30 p.m. The first thing I noticed about the room was that my "gorgeous" view was of the parking lot. Wonderful!!! The bed was rock hard including two, one inch thick, pillows. Nice!!!! Started checking out the drawers and cabinets, until one of the cabinet doors fell off when I opened it. Remember....this is supposed to be a FIVE STAR resort. Changed clothes and went to my first of many TERRIBLE dinners. Finally made it down to check out the beach - after dark.

Tuesday the 7th: Got up and went straight to the beach, made Bryan tag along. He doesn't like the sun or the water, but he went anyway. That lasted for about an hour before we decided to go eat the first of many TERRIBLE lunches. I went back down to the beach and he sat by the pool drinking with some of the others that came with us. We all met back up later for another experiment, or dinner, and then sat outside and had a few drinks. Bryan and I decided to try out the casino and had a pretty good time. This is also the day I realized that I left my birth control at home. And as most ladies know....if you skip your pills...your monthly buddy comes to visit a little early. Figures.

Wednesday the 8th: Spent the entire day at the beach by myself. By this time Bryan is absolutely miserable....getting eaten alive by bugs and is just all around depressed. The girls and I decided to walk to a beach market to see what kind of deals we could find. It turned out being a two mile walk.....which we weren't expecting.....and the vendors were WAY too agressive. It was almost scary.

Thursday the 9th: Went to the beach again - by myself - then met the girls by the pool. Bryan is barely speaking to me at this point. He had "high hopes" for this vacation and we were on two totally different pages. We got into a huge fight and didn't speak the rest of the night.

Friday the 10th: Checked out at 12:00 p.m. Dragged my luggage to board a bus at 1:15 p.m. to arrive at the airport for a 4:25 p.m. flight. We had barely gotten through customs when they started calling the "FINAL" boarding call for our flight. WTF???? We were going to leave an hour early. We sat on the tarmac for close to two hours before taking off at approximately 5:25 p.m., an hour late. 15 minutes into the flight, the plane veered hard to the right and the plane lost cabin pressure and was heading straight down at a very fast pace, lights blinking, alarms going off. Bryan and I were sitting right next to the wing and when we looked out we saw fuel spewing from the wing. This is the first and only time I have geniunely feared for my life. All I could think about was that I was all alone, with no one from my family with me. I didn't want to die this way. The plane finally leveled out and the pilot came on the intercom stating that there was some kind of equipment failure and that we had to dump fuel in order to turn around and safely land. Once we were on the ground, one of the attendants said, "be very thankful that we are on the ground". We were escorted off the plane and taken to the terminal, where we sat for two hours while they attempted to "fix" the death plane. I sat there completely hysterical until someone offered me a Xanax, which I took....and I don't take pills. At approximately 8:30 p.m., we were told to collect our luggage. I toted my bags AGAIN to a bus where all 140+ of us were bused AGAIN to a resort, where we were met by a Vacation Express representative. We did not receive our rooms until 11:00 p.m., at which time I laid down and passed out. That pill kicked my ass....and I'm sure this was a blessing.

Saturday the 11th: The rep for Vacation Express told us the night before that we were going to have a meeting at 10:00 a.m. to inform us about what was going on. In short, we were told that, "We promise you that you will not have to be on the same plane. The flight crew will not even get on the plane. Another plane (a Pan Am plane) is on the way. You will have priority clearance at the airport (no security/customs), priority take off (before Flight 222 also heading to Sanford) and a rep would be with us all of the way until we took off." So....we had to check out at 12:00 p.m., lug our bags around AGAIN, board a bus AGAIN, and take off at 3:15 p.m. We arrived at the airport at 2:00 p.m., were not allowed to skip customs or any other checkpoint, had no rep there to tell us what to do. Remember, none of us had any boarding passes or any information. We had no idea if they had connecting flights lined up for us....we were all totally clueless. This obviously upset everyone immensely. We sat in the terminal for another two hours, when at 3:30 p.m., we were told our Pan Am had just landed and needed to be fueled. Boarding would begin within 30 minutes. We sat in the terminal for ANOTHER hour and a half - Flight 222 left without delay, nobody from our flight was on it. At 5:00 p.m., rumors started to spread that we would be taking the same plane (original plane - Falcon Air "Alicia"). Our rep was nowhere to be found. We had her paged at least three times and everyone had her wireless number. She didn't respond to the pages or calls to her phone. At 6:00 p.m., it was confirmed that we would be taking the Falcon Air plane. Various passengers made attempts to call the FAA, the US Embassy in the Domincan and the Vacation Express headquarters in Atlanta. No one was successful in getting someone to not allow them to force us onto the same plane.

Remember, we were promised a different plane and we would not go back on to the Falcon Air plane - to further our trepidation about the worthiness of the Falcon Air "Alicia" plane, we heard that an entire Vacation Express vacation was cancelled out of Louisville a few weeks earlier because the plane was deemed unworthy to fly. Nineteen of the passengers with us were the ones that had their vacation cancelled due to this same plane. At no point during the day did any airport personnel or Vacation Express people try to get us on another flight - a USA 3000 plane had a direct flight to Cincinnati that was half full. They would have only charged us $150 per person for the flight.

The death plane began loading at 7:00 p.m. I was a total wreck....and I wasn't the only one. There were grown men actually crying. Fourteen people refused to get on the plane. I didn't want to take it....but what choice did I have???? I didn't want to be stuck there. After we got on the plane, we had to wait another hour and a half while they retrieved the luggage from the plane of the passengers that refused to fly. The captain stood out on the tarmac desperately trying to get them to board. Telling them how safe the plane was. By this time, I was feeling a little better - I'd taken another Xanax. The captain gets on the intercom and tells us that the plane is safe to fly. They had flown in parts from the States to repair it earlier that day. WTF???? They never intended to give us another plane. The captain also said that he had already taken the plane up twice for testing. WTF????

Many pieces of luggage were ripped and damaged - the airport personnel were throwing all of the luggage from the hull to the tarmac with no regard for possible damage. They were obviously upset that they had to retrieve a small percentage of the luggage. At 8:45 p.m., we start down the runway and I'm praying harder than I've ever prayed. The captain comes on the intercom and says that the cabin lights need to be dimmed for takeoff, but we can turn on the reading lights above our heads. Upon accelleration, the cabin started filling up with smoke and we never even made it off the ground. So we get loaded onto a bus from the tarmac and get taken back to the terminal. Almost every one on the bus is in tears....thinking how we narrowly escaped death again.

We were greeted by the MIA rep at the baggage collection belt. She was confronted by a group of us and was asked why she didn't respond to us, why she had lied to us, etc. - after a couple of minutes of back and forth jarring, she said, quote, "SO I LIED TO YOU, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT NOW?" Airport security, armed with machine guns, start to surround our group and I just backed away. The last thing I wanted was to get arrested there. I would probably still be sitting there. So....after several minutes of arguing....we were told to drag our luggage AGAIN to board a bus AGAIN to be taken AGAIN to the same hotel from the night before, where, oddly enough, we were told that morning that the hotel was booked the entire rest of the weekend. Received room key at 10:00 pm.

Sunday the 12th: Had another meeting to discuss status - was informed Vacation Express could not get anyone out until at least Monday. Bryan ends up with the medic because his hand is swollen from all of the bug bites. Decided to just give up and laid by the pool all day.

Monday the 13th: Doesn't it figure that I'd have to fly home on the 13th??? We had to check out by 6:00 a.m. to fly home at 8:00 a.m. Tote our luggage AGAIN, load a bus AGAIN, and ride AGAIN to the airport. When we arrived, the airport wasn't even open yet and we had to stand in line for over an hour to wait for our boarding passes - which were handwritten. By the time we made it through customs AGAIN they were already calling the last boarding call. The new plane was GLORIOUS. The crew told us that they were called at midnight the night before to fly a "RESCUE MISSION" to get us the hell out of there. I was so thankful. But, I was also a nervous wreck. I don't like to fly anyway.....and certainly not after the last few tries. But, I sat in my seat, closed my eyes, and prayed. For the first time in my life....I gave up everything I had to God. I just told him that I was lifting all of my worries up to him and trusting in HIM completely. And you know what? That was the most peaceful moment of my entire life. One that I will never forget.