USA Holiday 2, September 17 (New Vegas)

Friday morning flight with United from Melbourne to Sydney then a connection to go to San Francisco - and that's just the first part. The only on board entertainment is shared video screens with a few movies - no video games! The remake of The Karate Kid was just ok, then a few garbage movies I hadn't heard of. Afterward they played a random selection of episodes from different TV shows - Whose Line Is It Anyway which was good, Two And A Half Men which wasn't. I think at least 75% of flights I've been on have played an episode of it - as if being on a plane wasn't already bad enough.

From San Francisco had to get on a domestic flight with United back to Los Angeles (the flight was booked as Melbourne to Los Angeles with United, I don't know why were sent through SFO, but if it means less time at LAX then great). I looked at the itinerary and saw we had three hours to wait in Los Angeles before the Delta flight to Las Vegas, which sounded like too much time to waste. However the SFO flight was then delayed by a half hour and I wasn't feeling so bad, then another half hour, and not feeling so great any more. We got to board the plane but were told they'd fixed one problem and found another. So we had to sit on the plane for yet another half hour and wait for the final decision. The decision was the plane would take 3-4 hours to fix so we all had to get off, but this was apparently the only available plane around to get everyone to LA. We were advised to go to the customer service desk for more information. The line there was already long and they only had two staff members. We got about half way through the line before I overheard someone say they'd got an SMS update about the flight being rescheduled at another gate - perhaps this was broadcast over the poor quality PA, perhaps not, but if they'd just announced it locally at the service desk they might have instantly cut their line in half.

So anyway, I was in two minds as to what to do now, the Las Vegas flight we've definitely missed, it's with a different airline, and my bags have already been loaded San Francisco to Las Vegas - I'm not sure if they're taking a detour to LA with us or going straight there. So, I wanted to see what my options are, but the line is so slow it's going to be either one or the other. So we took the gamble of boarding to LA, and see what happens there - although being stuck in LAX would not be fun. The gate staff at SF were all set to just switch us to a later Las Vegas flight that night - apparently they aren't in high demand - before realising we were on a different carrier, so there was nothing they could do (the lesson here is to not get connection flights with a different airline). So, arrived in LAX and made it to the Delta terminal, managed to get put on standby for the only flight left, but didn't get charged any extra, so that was nice. Waiting at the gate we finally got a call up for our seats, made the very last row.

So finally in Las Vegas after four flights and a lot of waiting in between. Went through the airport, past slot machines already and...my luggage didn't arrive. Not looking forward to wearing the same clothes for 2.5 days, but at least they believe it will show up tomorrow.

Hotel just behind The Strip.