{"id":16607,"date":"2015-02-01T21:15:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T05:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/pointssummary\/?p=16607"},"modified":"2015-02-01T21:15:18","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T05:15:18","slug":"12-hour-travel-nightmare-dominican-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/pointssummary\/2015\/02\/01\/12-hour-travel-nightmare-dominican-republic\/","title":{"rendered":"My 12 Hour Travel Nightmare in the Dominican Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I took a quick jaunt to the Northern Coast of the Dominican Republic<\/a> and couldn’t wait to get back to the United States. On Wednesday, I dropped off my rental car at Puerto Plata International Airport (POP) and arrived early at 1pm for my 4:58pm departure flight to Miami. I had a few hours to kill at the Salon Ambar VIP Lounge while waiting for my flight to board at 4:13pm. I went to the departure gate and saw that the inbound flight American Airlines 935 had not arrived yet from Miami, so I headed back to the Salon Ambar lounge to get some updates. I fired up Flightaware and saw that the plane left Miami right on time, but due to the bad weather in Puerto Plata, the plane was unable to land.<\/p>\n

Apparently, flight 935 (co-incidentally the same flight number from Puerto Plata to Miami as well) was circling around the airport waiting for the weather to clear up. As I was in the lounge, I could see from the window that the inbound AA flight tried to land but had to abort which caused quite a scare to other guests in the lounge.<\/p>\n

American flight 935 from Miami to Puerto Plata (MIA-POP) finally landed at 5:00pm where it took them 45 minutes to turn around the plane. The new departure time was 6:22pm, arriving in Miami at 7:40pm.<\/p>\n

\"aadelaymiapop1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I had a connection flight from Miami to Los Angeles that was scheduled at 8pm, arriving in LA the same day at 11pm which I was definitely not going to make with the tight 20 minute international connection time. I quickly pulled up the AA app and saw that my flight was re-booked for the next day at 7:00am, arriving in Los Angeles at 9:45am.<\/p>\n

\"aadelaymiapop2\"<\/a> \"aadelaymiapop3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I saw that there was a 9pm flight out of Miami to Los Angeles (MIA-LAX), but there was no way I was going to be confirmed on that because it would violate the minimum international connection time. Theoretically, I could get on the standby flight but I could only same day standby for an earlier or later flight which I couldn’t because I was confirmed on a flight for the following day.<\/p>\n

With quick thinking, I saw that I could depart from Miami to Dallas at 9:30pm with an overnight in Dallas and I could catch the first flight out of Dallas to Los Angeles. I’d rather overnight in Dallas than in Miami and didn’t mind forking over money for a hotel in the Dallas Fort Worth area. I quickly tweeted the American Airlines Twitter team that I didn’t like the 7am flight out of Miami and to please change it to the 9:30pm MIA-DFW flight and the morning DFW-LAX flight.<\/p>\n

\"aadelaymiapop4\"<\/a> \"aadelaymiapop5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I left the Ambar lounge and boarding began at 5:45pm. Boarding was completed pretty quickly and we started taxiing out of the gate at around 6:15pm. The weather started to play a huge factor in our departure delay because other planes were trying to land. In fact, a Thomas Cook flight had to be diverted to nearby Punta Cana airport. While waiting on the tarmac, we saw an Air Berlin flight land (there was only one active runway for landing and departures).<\/p>\n

At 6:53pm, the captain announced that the crew had just exceeded their time limit for the day and it was just by 3 minutes. He said that there was a delay in getting the weights and balance paperwork and waiting for the Air Berlin flight to land which all played a factor. He announced that the plane would be taxiing back to the departure gate and everyone on the flight was quite dismayed.<\/p>\n

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The pilot ordered everyone off the plane and we were shuttled into the customs area. Some of us wondered if we had to pay another $10 USD for the arrivals tourist landing card again at Puerto Plata International Airport, but thankfully we didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a video I took in the customs and security area:<\/p>\n