- Feb 8, 2001
- 29,033
- 6
- 81
This is a long story and if you have ADD, suck it up. There are no cliff notes.
So my brother-in-law rented a house on Martha's Vineyard for the week and invited us to join them. I was a beautiful house on Chappaquidick Island and we had a great time and our son got to play a lot with his cousins which was great. Sadly, getting to the damn place was a truly epic saga...
First of all, I don't know Cape Cod from Nantucket from Martha's Vineyard from Mexico. It turns out they are all different places... My wife and I had been using Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard interchangeably when referring to this trip and I ended up buying plane tickets to Nantucket - OOPS! Second of all, my wife is 8 months pregnant and we have a 16 month old son - travel is consequently an exponentially more difficult thing that it would be if it were just the wife and I.
Since changing the plane tickets would have cost us $1000, we looked at our options and decided to go to Nantucket and take the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. Clearly, our flight would arrive after the only ferry of the day had left. Once again change fees were grossly excessive, so I went ahead and booked two dummy seats for my son and brother on the earlier flight to Nantucket so we could go stand by on that flight. We get to the airport, check in and get on the stand by list. I then cancel the dummy reservations and we are sitting pretty. We go to the gate and it turns out they over sold the flight by two seats and we got screwed...
I now make arrangements for us to stay at a hotel in Nantucket at great expense. and we while away four more hours at Newark airport. <cue Jeopardy music> Fortunately, my 16 month old son took his nap for most of this time, so it was more an issue of abject boredome and discomfort than exhausting stress and entertainment. He was, of course, awake and squirming throughtout the 1 hour flight in my lap.
We arrive in Nantucket and call for the hotel shuttle. After driving right past us and leaving the airport, the van circles back and picks us up. The ride to the hotel was 30 seconds as it was accross the street (they neglected to mention that...) We check into the room and the little guy has all sorts of pent up energy which he immediately starts buring off by rampaging around the hotel room. One of his favorite toys is the telephone and he plays with the hotel phone for a while and manages to call 911. Shortly thereafter, the police show up and demand to be let into the room and talk to my wife with me not there to make sure I am not smacking her around. I offer up my son as tyhe culprit but they find no humor in it and go back to making sure I am not a wife beater and that my wife is okay.
After that interlude we go for a walk, have dinner and while away the rest of our evening watching a movie in the hotel room. The next day, we get up and head into downtown Nantucket to while away the hours until the 3pm ferry. It was July 4th and we had a wonderful day as they have a ton of holiday festivities including a moment at noon when main street is turned into a giant water gun fight including firetrucks hosing down the crowd (not at riot control flow rates!!) We stayed away from that, but it was a festive mood about town to be sure. We also went into the whaling museum which was really cool and had some great clam chowder in a local only type tavern. We then head get some ice cream and head to the ferry.
They check our two suitcases and we get onto the giant motor-cat ferry with a kid on a wicked suger high. My wife sleeps for the trip and I chase my son around who has gone bonkers from the ice cream. When we finally get to Martha's Vineyard, we breathe a sigh of relief until we find that our bags went on the wrong ferry to Hyannis. Eventually they promise to get the two bags to the island that night and drive them out via cab to our house at about 9pm. We get in a cab and head out to Edgartown to catch the ferry over to Chappaquiddick. We learn on the way there that Edgartown is having a 4th of July parade and that we can't get near the ferry via car. The cabbie takes us as far as we can ad we are told tby a cop that the ferry is not even running.
At this point my wife is reduced to tears as I asses our current circumstances. After talking to a sargeant, I learn that we have a mile walk and that the ferry will probably be running. 1 mile walks are not fun if you are 8 months pregnent, in case you were unaware... About 10 yards into our walk it began to rain.
Eventually we get to the ferry, cross the 100 yard channel and get picked up by my brother-in-law and head out to the house. We left our house at 10:30am on the 3rd and got to our destination at 6pm on the 4th.
Our trip back was less eventful, but definitely painful. We reversed course and took the ferry to Edgartown, a cab to the ferry, the ferry to Nantucket. We then spend a couple of hours at "Children's Beach" to while away the time until our scheduled departure. We then took a cab to the airport to find the flight was delayed by 3 1/2 hours. Eventually, we got home 10 hours after leaving Chappaquiddick.
We decided that however beautiful Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard might be, we are not going back any time soon...
edit:
TTIWWP:
The House We Eventually Stayed In
My Son Having A Good Time
So my brother-in-law rented a house on Martha's Vineyard for the week and invited us to join them. I was a beautiful house on Chappaquidick Island and we had a great time and our son got to play a lot with his cousins which was great. Sadly, getting to the damn place was a truly epic saga...
First of all, I don't know Cape Cod from Nantucket from Martha's Vineyard from Mexico. It turns out they are all different places... My wife and I had been using Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard interchangeably when referring to this trip and I ended up buying plane tickets to Nantucket - OOPS! Second of all, my wife is 8 months pregnant and we have a 16 month old son - travel is consequently an exponentially more difficult thing that it would be if it were just the wife and I.
Since changing the plane tickets would have cost us $1000, we looked at our options and decided to go to Nantucket and take the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. Clearly, our flight would arrive after the only ferry of the day had left. Once again change fees were grossly excessive, so I went ahead and booked two dummy seats for my son and brother on the earlier flight to Nantucket so we could go stand by on that flight. We get to the airport, check in and get on the stand by list. I then cancel the dummy reservations and we are sitting pretty. We go to the gate and it turns out they over sold the flight by two seats and we got screwed...
I now make arrangements for us to stay at a hotel in Nantucket at great expense. and we while away four more hours at Newark airport. <cue Jeopardy music> Fortunately, my 16 month old son took his nap for most of this time, so it was more an issue of abject boredome and discomfort than exhausting stress and entertainment. He was, of course, awake and squirming throughtout the 1 hour flight in my lap.
We arrive in Nantucket and call for the hotel shuttle. After driving right past us and leaving the airport, the van circles back and picks us up. The ride to the hotel was 30 seconds as it was accross the street (they neglected to mention that...) We check into the room and the little guy has all sorts of pent up energy which he immediately starts buring off by rampaging around the hotel room. One of his favorite toys is the telephone and he plays with the hotel phone for a while and manages to call 911. Shortly thereafter, the police show up and demand to be let into the room and talk to my wife with me not there to make sure I am not smacking her around. I offer up my son as tyhe culprit but they find no humor in it and go back to making sure I am not a wife beater and that my wife is okay.
After that interlude we go for a walk, have dinner and while away the rest of our evening watching a movie in the hotel room. The next day, we get up and head into downtown Nantucket to while away the hours until the 3pm ferry. It was July 4th and we had a wonderful day as they have a ton of holiday festivities including a moment at noon when main street is turned into a giant water gun fight including firetrucks hosing down the crowd (not at riot control flow rates!!) We stayed away from that, but it was a festive mood about town to be sure. We also went into the whaling museum which was really cool and had some great clam chowder in a local only type tavern. We then head get some ice cream and head to the ferry.
They check our two suitcases and we get onto the giant motor-cat ferry with a kid on a wicked suger high. My wife sleeps for the trip and I chase my son around who has gone bonkers from the ice cream. When we finally get to Martha's Vineyard, we breathe a sigh of relief until we find that our bags went on the wrong ferry to Hyannis. Eventually they promise to get the two bags to the island that night and drive them out via cab to our house at about 9pm. We get in a cab and head out to Edgartown to catch the ferry over to Chappaquiddick. We learn on the way there that Edgartown is having a 4th of July parade and that we can't get near the ferry via car. The cabbie takes us as far as we can ad we are told tby a cop that the ferry is not even running.
At this point my wife is reduced to tears as I asses our current circumstances. After talking to a sargeant, I learn that we have a mile walk and that the ferry will probably be running. 1 mile walks are not fun if you are 8 months pregnent, in case you were unaware... About 10 yards into our walk it began to rain.
Eventually we get to the ferry, cross the 100 yard channel and get picked up by my brother-in-law and head out to the house. We left our house at 10:30am on the 3rd and got to our destination at 6pm on the 4th.
Our trip back was less eventful, but definitely painful. We reversed course and took the ferry to Edgartown, a cab to the ferry, the ferry to Nantucket. We then spend a couple of hours at "Children's Beach" to while away the time until our scheduled departure. We then took a cab to the airport to find the flight was delayed by 3 1/2 hours. Eventually, we got home 10 hours after leaving Chappaquiddick.
We decided that however beautiful Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard might be, we are not going back any time soon...
edit:
TTIWWP:
The House We Eventually Stayed In
My Son Having A Good Time
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