Never flying through Philly again

NLfoodie

The good news is, our hotel is clean, the restaurant attached to it had decent food and all isn't too extremely expensive...

The bad news: Our flight arrived in Philly 10 minutes ahead of schedule. That left us with 3 horus and 40 minutes to get to our next flight. Piece of cake, you'd think, especially considering the gate was really really close by.

Guess again.

Immigration was a nightmare. The line was so long that it took between 2.5 and 3 hours (depending on which final line you chose) to get through. And that wasn't even just visitors, US citizens and residents had a line of the same length.

When we finally got through, obviously we'd missed our connection. So I went to reschedule our transfer and ask for a hotel voucher. They refused to give me one (just gave me a discount coupon) because they had delivered us here on time and it's not their fault the government takes it's sweet time letting people though. Sure, they're right about that, it isn't their fault. Except, a number of people in line flew through Philly a lot recently and say this is the case every weekend at this time. In other words, the airline should know this is an impossible connection - so they shouldn't sell it this way.

I'm glad we found a reasonably priced hotel and it's clean and we'll be able to sleep and all, but sheesh, it's still money I'd rather spent on a sleigh ride, or dog sledding or going out to a fancy schmancy dinner! 

TotZiens

Philadelphia is my least favorite airport ever.  We were frequently greeted with barking drug dogs and a woman screaming, "if you ain't got a US passport, go this way!!!!"   

I like the dutch way of being greeted with tulips and cheers when I entered their country  

jldittber

TotZiens:

Philadelphia is my least favorite airport ever.  We were frequently greeted with barking drug dogs and a woman screaming, "if you ain't got a US passport, go this way!!!!"   

I like the dutch way of being greeted with tulips and cheers when I entered their country  

LMAO!!!  That also sounds like Houston!

Sorry you're having bad travel issues! 

kelly321

I just booked a flight for next summer and one possible connection was through Philadelphia. I've only been there once flying domestic, so I didn't know how international was. I opted for another connection and am now very glad I did! Our layover would also have been something like 3 hours, so we probably also wouldn't have made it!

I always fly through Chicago or Atlanta for immigration and have no complaints there other than the fact that my husband can never understand the immigration officers in Atlanta and whenever they ask him something he has to turn to me for a translation. :-) I tell him not to feel too badly, though, I also have trouble understanding them sometimes!

wise_rita

Holy sh!t, that is so unacceptable!  Who can you complain to?  Because that is very worthy of a complaint.

dulcemariamar1

I also had problms in Charlotte. Immigration took over an hour but then we also had to wait another hour to go through security. I think you need at least three hours, four if you want to rush, to make a connecting flight.

NLfoodie

wise_rita:

Holy sh!t, that is so unacceptable!  Who can you complain to?  Because that is very worthy of a complaint.

The lady told me 'if you want to complain, complain to the government, we got nothing to do with the government, they slowed you down, complain to the government'. So well, yeah, useless.

I'm going to try complaining to the airline though, stating that if they know there are issues with immigration there, they need to change what they offer

dulce:

 I also had problms in Charlotte. Immigration took over an hour but then we also had to wait another hour to go through security. I think you need at least three hours, four if you want to rush, to make a connecting flight.

 

Whenever I fly through New York, Atlanta, Minneapolis or Chicago I usually make 1.5 hour connections even. Otherwise, t here's always a later option that night. The only reason I've ever had this, was because my own flight was 2 hours delayed or so.

Thanks all for the sympathy :-)

Springfield (where our hotel is) is a cute town though. We walked around a little (everything was closed) and it looks very cute. Very 'small town America', actually, one street honestly made me think of Gilmore Girls.

It's vacation, I won't get grumpy about it. Next time we'll just plan a 1 or 2 night stay in Philly (if we have to fly through here) and enjoy it even more.

Signing out now, going to take a shower and another walk before we head back to the airport!