Miami 2025. Day 1. Man Plans. God Laughs. I Cry.
And so begins the weekend of the wedding of Sara and Jeremy Jesselson, son of our good friends Hindel and Mendy Jesselson and Laurie and Adam Lesnick.
The wedding was Thursday, Juneteenth, in Miami. We had scheduled a 2:30pm flight on Wednesday. This way, the kids could finish the last day of school (it was a half day), we would get to Florida by 5:30, grab a quick dinner, and get to bed early. Well, I plan, and God laughs. Or Jetblue. Someone’s laughing and it’s not me. I’m just crying.
12:00 pm: Tzvi receives a text message that our flight is delayed about an hour.
1:15 pm: we leave for the airport
1:45 pm: we arrive at the airport. Check in is no issue and we get through security quickly. We walk around the airport, get Jamba Juice for $30 and see lots of people we know. Neal, Elisheva, Hattie and Jack Feit were scheduled for a 3:30 but were also delayed on Jetblue. Also, I find two former FIDF colleagues in the airport! One of them, Margot, is on my flight.
4:05 pm: We finally start boarding.
4:06 pm: Everything goes to shit.
First, we don’t move. Like for a long time. When we finally push back we taxi and taxi Eventually the pilot gets on and says that we are delayed due to “weather” (sure) and that we are trying to get another route.
6:07 pm: The pilot comes on to tell us they found us another route, but we don’t have enough fuel, so they are going to try to either find us a route we do have enough fuel for, or we’re going back to the gate to refuel. “Sit tight.”
6:28 pm: We are going back to the gate. “Flight attendants prepare for arrival.” Tzvi receives a text message from JetBlue that there has been a gate change.
Now it gets weird.
6:38 pm: They start refueling. Our scheduled departure is now 7:40 pm.
6:48 pm: They tell us that they know we’ve been on the plane for over 2 hours (after the delay) so we are allowed to get up and walk around on the Jetway to stretch our legs, but we’re not allowed to go into the airport. Except of course people start leaving to go into the terminal. It’s chaos. No one knows what is happening. I leave to get the kids food in the terminal because they will starve otherwise. While I am gone they make an announcement that if you go into the terminal you can’t get back on until “boarding”. Luckily they let me back on anyway. I bring back pizza for the kids and tuna sandwiches for me and Tzvi. They eat. We eat.
7:08 pm: Then announce that our first officer has timed out (pilots can only be on duty for a certain number of hours). It will be about a half hour until we could get a new first officer. Our scheduled departure is now 8:40 pm.
7:46 pm: Our first officer has arrived, but the pilot has now timed out and a new one won’t be here until around 930. We all have to deplane. It feels like JetBlue is being run by AI Chatbots that can’t anticipate the next move and just keep sending text messages with random updates about the departure times and gate changes. Our departure time is now 9:30pm.
I call the hotel to tell them odds are we aren’t arriving until much later, potentially 2 or 3am.
Tzvi goes to the counter and asks, ‘aren’t we supposed to get food vouchers?’ After four or five times they finally start printing vouchers... for $12. 8 hour delay and $12. Enough to buy a banana. We fill up on snacks.
The gate agent also tells Tzvi that he is entitled to an Uber voucher on arrival in Florida. She arranges the whole thing. He shouldn’t worry, when he arrives the people in the bag office will give him the code for his Uber app.
9:30 pm: Our pilot arrives. The whole gate erupts in applause.
9:42 pm: We reboard. Our new departure time is 10:15 pm.
10:10 pm: Doors are closed. The pilot comes on the speaker to tell us that the piece that starts the engine isn’t working so “we have to use a bottle to blow into the engine.” I have NO idea what it means, but somehow it means more delay.
10:13 pm: A man a few rows back can’t find his bag. He says he left it on the plane when everyone deplaned. Flight attendants are going up and down the aisles.
10:17 pm: The woman next to Tzvi whips out Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. I guess she purchased them with her $12 food voucher. Tzvi and I switch seats.
10:37 pm: They have finished blowing the engine and we start moving.
10:43 pm: The pilot gets on and says “ladies and gentlemen, there are so many planes ahead of us I’ve lost count. It’s going to be at least an hour.” I check the flight tracker and see at least 25 planes ahead of us on the runway.
10:50 pm: A large man comes to the front of the plane and tells the flight attendants he needs air. He says he’s hot and sweating. He appears to be having a panic attack. The flight attendant asks if this is a medical emergency, because if it is, we need to return to the gate. Thankfully he says he doesn’t have time for that and returns to his seat with a cup of ice.
12:01 am: We take off.
2:24 am. We land.
I have to say, the kids did spectacularly. They watched their iPads for hours, and it was great to spend time with Margot. The kids started to crap out at midnight, as we were taking off. Then they fell asleep for most of the flight. It was a horrible experience, but they were champions.
We got off the plane and waited a few minutes for our luggage. Of course the baggage office was closed and there was no one to give us that Uber code. We got our bags and we were off to the hotel!
We are staying at the Sole Miami where the whole wedding party is staying. We pulled up at 3:35am and found it dead. No one working the door or to help with bags. We saw one woman at the front desk, but she wasn’t helping us. We had to shlep all of our stuff in ourselves, and we don’t travel light. I stand at the front desk and she just gives us a blank stare. I walk up and nothing. No “hello” no “welcome” no “can I help you?” So at this point it’s just awkward and I say “Hi, can I please check in?” and she looks at me with a blank stare and says, “our system does a reset at 3:30 so I can’t check you in for 20 minutes.” I was ready to smack her in the face. I was like that would have been good to know when I called and said I wasn’t arriving until 3am. So she goes, “well the notes say you were supposed to arrive around 1:30.” You can’t make this up
We waited 20 minutes. When she finally does check us in she tells us nothing about the hotel, just gives us our keys and says that there’s no one to help us with our bags, but don’t worry, we can fill up a cart and bring it upstairs. Then she thought she was doing me such a favor when she told me I didn’t have to bring the cart back downstairs. I mean this woman was something else.
Well, we finally made it to our room at 4:00am. We have a two bedroom suite which is really a one bedroom suit connected to a regular hotel room. The girls were happy they each have their own bed. I think the kids went to sleep at about 4:30, me at 5:00 am.
I have no words. Only complaints.