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Our flight out of Florence didn’t leave until 13:30 in the afternoon, so we didn’t have to get up real early or rush. We’re flying to Munich, Germany to catch our connecting Lufthansa flight to Washington-Dulles, schedule to depart Munich at 16:25.

We arrive at the Florence airport with plenty of time to get through security and wait for our flight out on Air Dolomiti. We waited, and waited, finally boarding about 1 and a half late. The plane was delayed 30 minutes from arriving due to fog in Munich from where it came, but there was no explanation on the additional hour before we boarded. And then we sat on the tarmac waiting for more wind to help the plane take off on Florence’s short runway! We saw our connecting flight was also experiencing delays due to the Munich fog, so we were still hopeful.

We arrived in Munich about the time of the new connecting flight departure time, but Lufthansa didn’t wait for us (there was at least 11 on our Florence flight that were trying to connect to our flight). Instead we all got rebooking alerts saying we’ve been rebooked on the same flight two days from now! I checked in with our travel agent, Bob Carpenter, to get advice on whether to pursue new rebooking with Lufthansa or try to rebook ourselves and get reimbursed later by the travel insurance. Our missed flight reimbursement was limited to $1000 per person, which wasn’t enough to cover any new flights home. So we went to the Lufthansa service center in the airport and got in line. And what a line! Munich was suffering from a lot of cancelled/missed flights from the fog that morning.

We finally got to a counter about 2 hours later, all together so we would continue to travel together. I was the initial spokesperson, so she handled our seats first and got us on flights through Franfort the next morning, Friday, with assigned premium economy seats, although not together. Then there was a change in shifts and all the airline reps left us. We finally got a new one and she was able to get the other six on the same flight, but on their version of standby. This means you do have a seat on the plane, they just won’t know which seats until boarding time.

Lufthansa provided us hotel and dinner/breakfast meal vouchers at a nearby hotel, Atomis Hotel. We trekked to the shuttle bus area and awaited the Atomis shuttle, and it’s now close to 9PM. With so many other people also waiting to go to the Atomis, it took 3 busses before we all arrived at the hotel. We checked in and then went straight to the dining room which was suppose to close at 10PM and where a small buffet food service was set up. It was hot food and we were hungry, so it was a good match. Afterwards some of us went to the bar for a beer to calm ourselves before retiring to our room for the night. That was our big night in Munich.

The next day was, thankfully, fairly uneventful. Joseph of Twin Beaches Tours and Shuttle was able to reschedule and meet us at Washington Dulles at 5PM for a ride home. Bonnie and Tim were able to change their flight home to Tampa from the next morning to that evening as well. We were home by 7PM, just a day later than planned.