We woke up for the last time in Los Cabos to clear skies and warm temperatures like every other day we were there. We began doing some preliminary packing while we got dressed before heading down to breakfast.

The staff seated us at a different table than usual and we could actually see the balcony of our room just two floors up from our table. We enjoyed our last breakfast at the hotel before heading off for a morning stroll along the beach.

Enjoying the Beach

We strolled down the beach to the east of the resort. We had only been to the rocks at the western edge of the beach so this was new. The tide was high and the waves were quite powerful. In fact they had been all night. As we were sleeping we could actually feel the pounding of the waves from our room every once in a while.

We obviously didn’t go into the surf but spend quite a bit of time trying to get a picture that conveyed the size and power of the waves. I’m not sure we succeeded. It’s a really hard thing to do!

Watching the waves was both peaceful and inspiring at the same time. The beach was also very steep in places where the high water mark reached. It was nearly a 6 foot cliff from the high water mark to the dry part of the beach. The current was no joke.

Just off the beach was a golf course. It was odd seeing the lush green surrounded by the sandy desert rough. It looked like a very difficult course. I’d have to try it a different time.

We slowly made our way back towards the hotel after taking a ton of pictures.

Checking Out

While my wife and I did the final packing, making sure we didn’t leave anything behind, the kids watched some TV. Fortunately everything still fit in our suitcases without much effort. We didn’t buy much of anything to take back and we had plenty of room in the suitcases on our way down.

At the front desk we reviewed the bill to make sure everthing was in place. It was all in peso’s so we had some extra math to do, but everything looked in order. I had to then double check they didn’t add an extra person fee which we had been quoted in the original invoice. We were not charged that because the extra people were kids, not adults. Apparently the charge is something they have to add manually.

As we were all checked out, we said our final good byes to our friends who were leaving shortly after we were. We were on an international flight so we had to get to the airport with more time to spare.

Airport Drama

The drive took about 45 minutes to get back to the airport to drop off our car. We made a point to complain about the condition of the car. While they did go drive it in the parking lot to “test” it, it was clear they had no interest in acknowledging anything was wrong with it. That was expected, but still disappointing. At least their shuttle dropped us off at the airport quickly. We were about 2 hours before boarding time and saw a huge line waiting to check in at the Alaska Airlines ticket counter.

I realized that I had been in too much of a vacation mode and hadn’t checked in online. I also realized I could checkin via the Alaska Airlines app but I didn’t have it on my phone. I tried downloading it so we could avoid some of the line but it wasn’t working. The connections was too slow.

My wife asked one of the staff why the line was so long and apparently the computer system was down and that was slowing the whole checkin process. Luckily we noticed that some people were getting out of line and we overheard something about a kiosk. I took the passports and went looking for them to see if we could check in there since the line was barely moving.

The kiosks were opposite the ticket counters and I got in line. I of course got in the slowest line. The people in front on me took forever to go through the process, then had to start over again for some reason. It was eventually my turn and the process was straight forward if a bit slow. I managed to get our boarding passes printed out and check our two bags. The bags cost a total of $60 and I paid with my credit card. My wife’s United status didn’t convey to Alaska Airlines even though we bought the tickets through United. This is also why I couldn’t check in via the United app like I had for the outbound flight.

With the boarding passes and bag tags in hand I texted my wife who by that time had almost reached the front of the line at the ticket counter. We put the tags on our checked luggage and got in line to get the weighed and out of our hands. The agent was nice and helpful getting the bags through. He then asked for our tourist visas which had been placed in our passports when we arrived through passport control in Mexico.

To my horror I only had three of the four. I couldn’t figure out where the one for my wife had gone. I checked our bags and all my pockets to not avail. The ticket agent said we’d have to go to the immigration office in one of the corners of the checkin hall. We would have to pay a fine to get another one. I think I must have dropped it when I was scanning the passports at the kiosk. They were just pieces of paper that were loosely placed in the passports and we were never told how important they were. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been.

We made the quick walk to the office and waited in line there. Once at the front my wife found out we needed to pay the fine in pesos. We didn’t have any left so we had to go change some dollars. “Fortunately” there was a money exchange outlet nearby and we changed enough money to get the 500 pesos we needed for the fine. We walked back to the immigration office and got the visa we need in a few minutes.

Now all we had to do was go back to the bag check line and get my wife’s boarding pass back. The line was long but moved quickly so we had everything we needed to finally go through security.

Thankfully the security line moved very quickly and we were through that within a few short minutes. We had to walk through the duty free store to get to the terminal where we found our gate. We double checked our seat assignments with the gate agent. They didn’t seem correct, or I just wasn’t reading them right. I still can’t tell. The gate agent printed us a new set though, which had us have three on one side of the plane and the other aisle in the same row.

Quick Lunch

While we were at the airport with plenty of time, all the drama meant that we only had 20 minutes before boarding time. There was a sit down restaurant and several fast food options. All of which had long lines as it was around noon. We picked the fast food place with the shortest line and got some food as quickly as we could. We ate our food as fast as we could and finished just after boarding began for our flight. Our group was already boarding and we were in the last quarter of people to board. We usually like to board early and get situated, but that wasn’t in the cards this time.

There was also a Priority Pass lounge in the terminal. If we had avoided the self inflicted wounds during checkin we would have had time to check it out and relax. It was frustrating that I didn’t prepare like I know I should have. I’ll have to use this experience to remind myself for next time!

Flight to Seattle

We found our seats all the way at the back of the plane as expected and settled in. The plane did not have seatback video screens which the kids were not happy about. The brochures indicated that downloading an app would give us access to videos. I downloaded it before we took off, but I never got that to work during the flight. The flight supposedly had internet access, though for the first hour I tried it wasn’t allowing me to get online. The flight attendants made an announcement that it would only work once we got into US airspace, which made sense, though if they had clarified that earlier it would have been a lot more helpful.

By the time we got over the US, I was able to connect to the WiFi, but I would have had to pay to get internet access. I decided against it as I was able to get work done without it at that time. The movies still didn’t work. My wife played some games like tic tac toe and hangman using the paint program on her computer to keep the kids occupied (she was sitting with them for this leg).

The lack of movies was a disappointment. Fortunately on one of our phones the kids had downloaded some movies on Netflix so they shared some headphones and watched that for the last part of the flight.

Seattle Layover

We arrived in to Seattle on time. It was cloudy and rainy but not overly turbulent. Since this was our entry into the US we needed to go through passport control and get our bags before re-checking them for our onward flight to Boston.

When we landed I fired up the Mobile Passport application on my phone and registered our entry. This saved us from having to fill out all the paperwork and let us speed past all the lines. In fact, following the signs we didn’t have to scan anything until AFTER we had picked up our bags. In JFK and Boston where we have used the application before we had to scan it where the people with Global Entry scanned theirs but for whatever reason Seattle had a different process.

Our bags thankfully came out quickly and we went to the customs line, scanned the mobile passport and then re-checked our bags where the signs directed us to. We then went through another security line and followed the maps to take us to our gate.

While we had a few hours before our flight, we wanted to know where the flight was leaving and then find some dinner from there. We had to take two trains to get to where we wanted to go but we didn’t have to wait long for either of them. The gate was very close to where the train let us off.

The airport itself was extremely crowded, though. The weather had caused a lot of delays and on top of that is was the Friday before Easter so there were a lot of people traveling. Since we had found our gate we were off looking for a Priority Pass restaurant we had found in the Priority Pass app. It was a short walk away, but when we got there it was packed and the kids weren’t interested in anything they had on the menu. We looked around at some other nearby places which were also packed solid. I guess everyone was looking to eat at the same time.

We decided to try to make our way to a Priority Pass lounge that was in the same terminal, though it was at the opposite end. We figured we could try to get some snacks there and eat later since we had plenty of time before our flight. It was a long walk but we found the lounge. It was fairly busy but we found seats. There were enough snacks to hold us over including a salad bar, some candies, desserts and a few hot entrees, including a few types of soup.

Watching Our Plane Online

In the lounge were video screens with all the flight listings. Many were showing delayed and some were even canceled. I looked up our flight on an app called Flight Aware. It showed our flight as officially on time, matching what was on the boards in the lounge. The app has the ability to look up the location of the aircraft scheduled for our flight. Checking that, I found the plane was still on the ground in Orange County California and has been delayed at least an hour, likely due to traffic delays into Seattle because of the rainy weather.

With that information I know there was no chance our flight was going to leave on time unless they swapped out a different airplane, which was unlikely since they were short on aircraft arriving. For fun, I looked where that aircraft originated before Orange County and was surprised to see it had left Los Cabos for Orange County about an hour after we took off on our flight! It’s funny how things work like that.

I knew that with all the delays and the increasing cancellations there was an outside possibility our flight might get canceled. I used the extra time in the lounge to look up hotel options in Seattle. While an airline should put you up in a hotel if your flight is canceled, it’s usually quite a time consuming process for that to happen. Since we had booked the airline tickets with our Chase Sapphire Reserve card, we were covered by trip delay or cancellation insurance if our flight was canceled or delayed more than 6 hours. With that insurance we would be able to book a hotel on our own and get reimbursed for that from the credit card company and avoid the long line getting the voucher from the airline.

Given our situation at the time that wouldn’t have been a bad thing for us. Getting to spend a day in Seattle would have been fine with us and there were several great hotels that still had vacancy.

In the end our airplane finally took off from Orange County and was expected to land about 2 hours late. The airline finally acknowledged the flight would be leaving slightly late and kept pushing the time back in a pattern familiar to anyone who has experienced a delay. Since we knew where our aircraft was from the app it was much less stressful because we could better estimate when the aircraft would arrive and when we would actually take off. It’s no wonder people get so frustrated with airlines and delays. They aren’t very transparent with the information they give out.

Red Eye Home

The plane we flew home is an old Virgin America plane that was outfitted with TV screens, unlike the one we took from Los Cabos to Seattle. Virgin America was acquired by Alaska Airlines a few years ago and are still in the process of updating the interiors of the planes to be consistent.

The kids were excited about having screens to watch, but there would be no TV for them. It was sleeping time for all of us as we had a busy day of soccer when we landed.

It was a relatively short cross country flight so we didn’t have much of a chance to sleep. After we landed, our bags were on the belt quickly and we dragged our sleepy selves to the airport food court to grab a bite to eat. We got a Lyft home in the rain and were a bit relieved the morning soccer session was canceled due to the weather. We all took a nap when we got home and managed to make it to the afternoon soccer session.

We were happy to be home safe and sound though we were sad to have had to end such a great vacation in Mexico.