Wednesday eve dinner at Napa at the Rio Casino--a fabulous meal. Met a former co-worker with the other two folks I was with, so had a long gossipy dinner. I had caesar salad, tuna (well cooked) and coconut blancmange.
Thursday, conference was over in the late PM--those who paid to attend got their money's worth. I was all by myself as my colleagues had left. Had to fill up the car ($1.59/gallon!) and then re-explored the Venetian Hotel--it really is quite a place, with gondoliers, shopping mall and almost anticlimatically, a casino. Dinner at Wolfgang Puck's (food terrific--artichoke and stilton appetizer pizza, cioppino and berry crisp).
Set the alarm for 4:59 for my 6:00 flight...
woke up at about 445 so got up and got going. Hit the airport at about 620, where got great service from the checkin person at Hertz. About a 10 min wait for the bus (the clock SAID they'd come every 5 minutes) but not really bad.
Snaky line at all airlines. I was on DL. Noticed that the 540 flight n/s to Atlanta was already closed when I got on the f/c line. Had called on Thursday for an upgrade--the LASLAX portion cleared but LAXATL didn't--waitlisted.
5th person in the f/c line, but it moved quickly. Noticed that UA had several xld flights (weather? overtime problems?) but my LASLAX flight was listed...as DELAYED. UA, HP and WN flights all were showing on time, but the agent said that I'd still make the connection (this being 545, they posted a time of 700). I mildly complain that I would be frustrated if I wasted an upgrade LASLAX, and then if LAXATL cleared, I'd lose 2 upgrades (one collected LASLAX, two due LASATL, LAXATL requires two or three). He pounds on the keyboard and looks puzzled, but then out popped my upgraded seat LAXATL (don't know if he forced it or if it really cleared upon checkin).
Out to the gate bypassing the museum at the upstairs area before security
to see them still posting a 700 dept time. They start boarding at 630, and I go to 3A.
7:00 comes and goes, and they make an announcement that was interesting: "The plane is being inspected. The inspection is required in the next 5 flying hours, so we want to complete it here. The mechanic is on the phone with Atlanta to get the information"
Essentially, this was an economic decision--DL put off this inspection too long and tried to get it done overnight at LAS. Since LAS couldn't complete it, if they left for LAX, they couldn't go anywhere else (even LAX-Portland-LAX is more than 4 hours) until they could get the inspection done the next night. They were good at announcing that a group of 45 people going on to Hawaii was being waited for.
By 735, it became clear that I wasn't going to make my flight. As the door was opened, I called my travel agt to find out that later LASATL flights were full but later LAXATL flights were available. I consoled myself with the idea that I might make an adventure out of it--ask to be rerouted LAX-JFK-ATL (get to try out domestic BizElite that way), when the lead f/a comes on board and finds me and tells me that they've rebooked me (in First!) on the 840 nonstop (that my agent said was full) and I could take it if I wanted to. I decided that to do otherwise was to chance irritating the frequent traveler gods, so I got off.
Painless flight on a full 757, b'fast choices were a (delicious) scrambled egg, cheese, ham on a english muffin, apple pancakes or cereal/milk/yogurt. Good crew on this flt, one wearing a lei that she mentioned she'd gotten from a psgr that morning on the LAXLAS flight. It smelled terrific, and she was intelligent about taking it off when she was handling food.
My luggage didn't make the change, but upon arriving there was a message at the luggage counter that it was coming in on the next LAXATL flight, so they're delivering.
Pretty good DL service, all in all! We'll see if I get my extra segment (I had checked in, after all).