Back home after a long travel day

Monday, September 12, 2022 @ 11:00 PM in 2022 Germany and France

We woke up around 5:30am in Nice this morning, got all of our bags packed and ate some yogurt and leftover pizza for dinner. We were aiming to catch the 6:50am tram to the airport so left with time to get down to the station. We got to the Alsace Lorraine station with plenty of time to buy our tram tickets and get to the platform before the tram came.

There were about 12 stops before we got to the airport but it went by pretty quick. When we got to our terminal, around 7:15am, we had to check in with Lufthansa since they were our first leg of the trip from Nice to Munich. There wasn't any line to check in which was great. Our flight was set to board at 8:25 with a departure at 8:55 so we figured we'd have time to grab a coffee before jumping on the flight.

Wrong! When I had originally booked our flights back in February, Dakotah wasn't born yet and we didn't have any clue what his birthday, name or even gender would be. In order to get the ticket, I just put an estimated birth date and the name Baby OBrien. When he was born, I called United and got his information updated but apparently this change didn't propagate down to Lufthansa.

When we tried checking in, they told us they wouldn't be able to since Dakotah's name didn't match what they have on their system. They said since the ticket was booked through United, there wasn't anything they could do and I should call United to try and get this fixed. Damn, now the stress factor had kicked up. We had about 45 minutes to try and rectify this situation before we needed to board.

I made a call to United and after trying to explain the problem, they said it should be fixed. We went back to the counter and they said it still hadn't been updated. Ugh. Another call to United, speaking to a different person, and they did something else and said now it should really be fixed. Ok, back to the counter and they said it still wasn't updated. When I was on the phone with a 3rd United representative, the Lufthansa attendant came over and said we should try going to the actual Lufthansa service desk to see if maybe they could help.

While walking over there, I was trying to explain to the 3rd United rep the situation and to convey the urgency but she told me that since the ticket was partially used (the flight over counts), they were unable to change anything. I'm not sure why it took three people to tell me that. I asked to speak to the supervisor while Sam was talking to the Lufthansa service desk. The Lufthansa people repeated that they weren't able to do anything so I asked what would happen if we booked a new ticket for Dakotah and at least get to Munich. From there, everything should be fine since his name was right in their system.

Sam started that process while I was talking to the United supervisor. She did some more digging and confirmed that it was still showing the wrong information on Lufthansa's side. At this time they had finished buying Dakotah a new ticket so I told the United supervisor we should have everything fixed now. She said they'd refund the ticket if we filled out feedback once we got home.

By now it was around 8:15 and we ran back over to the check in counter. The rep ran into some problem and had to go talk to someone else. Minutes passed, then more minutes passed, and finally she came back and said that since Dakotah was still attached to my ticket, they were running into a problem since they wouldn't be able to check me in without him (and they wouldn't be able to since he was listed as Baby OBrien). She told us to go down to the other rep and that they were working on it.

More waiting and by now it was getting to the point where even if they got us checked in we were afraid we'd miss our flights anyway. The rep did a little more talking on the phone and finally told us she got it figured out. Apparently she was able to get his info updated on our original ticket and they refunded the new ticket Sam just bought. With our tickets in hand we ran over to security which fortunately wasn't too crowded. We were the last ones to our gate, got checked in, then boarded a bus that took us from the gate to the plane.

I was really convinced we'd lose our bags since we checked in so soon to departure but when we got to the plane I saw them re-opening the luggage hatch to put our bags on. Crisis averted!

From here on out the flights were pretty uneventful. Flying from Nice to Munich was beautiful. It started out with nice views of Nice and Monaco then we started heading over the Italian and German Alps before getting to Munich. While flying over Munich, you could see the Oktoberfest grounds and the main city center.

We were able to get a little sleep on the big flight between Munich and Houston. Customs in Houston went pretty fast and we grabbed some Panda Express for a light dinner before getting on the final flight to Albuquerque. We chatted with some people sitting near us, one of which has a three month old and is planning on traveling to Germany with her daughter to visit family in October.

Once in Albuquerque we got our bags and started the drive to Santa Fe. Knowing we weren't going to have anything in the fridge to eat, we grabbed another quick bite at Wendy's. We got home around 10pm, got settled and then got ready for bed. All in all we were up for about 24 hours from the time we woke up in Nice to the time we got home and were ready for bed.

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