Flew home yesterday from a short but nice Christmasy trip with my husband and son. About 15 minutes before departure time an announcement was made that our plane was not yet at the gate, but would arrive within 5 minutes and we would begin boarding in about 15 minutes. Five minutes later an announcement was made to inform us that the lavatory on our plane was "out of order" and "could not be used during our flight". What the ??? Everyone tries to run to the bathroom. Sure enough, we began boarding ten minutes later.

The flight itself was relatively short, at a little over an hour and a half air time, but as a practical matter we were unable to have access to a bathroom for two hours. Sorry to be indelicate, but I would be very uncomfortable in any circumstances to be told that I could not use the bathroom for two hours. Particularly since I had just had a large bottle of water (trying to stay hydrated) but I didn't need to go to the bathroom that minute. I was more than a little uncomfortable by the end of the trip. Much more worrisome was that my son had had a couple of bouts of diarrhea the evening before. I gave him a megadose of Pepto-Bismol to try to prevent a problem. (Thank goodness I decided to brave security and bring a bottle in my purse, just in case.) It was a very, very uncomfortable flight.

We were all sort of shocked by the announcement. I might be more understanding if we were given some additional warning or an option (wait X amount of time and we could have a plane with a functioning bathroom) but the gate attendant was playing it very "no big deal", commenting perkily "Oh, it's a short flight!" when someone else said something about the lack of a bathroom. Or if a problem occurred during the flight I would be more understanding.

These were not cheap tickets. Demanding woman that I am, I do expect to start the flight with a functioning bathroom. Am I asking for too much? Would it be out of line to contact Delta and request some adjustment (credit voucher, bonus Skymiles) as compensation? I fly a couple of times a year and have never run into this situation -- maybe the small print says that you can't have expectations of a bathroom?!