Well, like I tweeted a bit earlier today, we received the refund for the new stroller. I think that’s very nice, it is solved in a nice way. I still have to tell you how the rest of the story went after the first part of this story (click!)

So, ok, we first had to go through the immigration part of Seattle-Tacoma Int. Airport. There was a nice line of people waiting, like always at immigrations. I was allowed to take the US Citizens line as I am the parent of a US citizen: Isabella, and that was nice because this line was a bit faster. The immigrations officer asked me a few simple questions, like how long we were abroad, what Isabella’s age was, and some other questions along that line. I had to give my fingerprints, and they took a picture of my face: the standard procedure, so to say. After this we could continue to downstairs, to the luggage claim.

While we were waiting on our suitcases (you always have to get these from the belt in the US, no matter if you have to continue after this flight or not), the nice lady from Delta came to me, to tell me where she was while I was waiting for the suitcases. I got the suitcases and wanted to go through the agriculture inspection with the lady from Delta (or should I say girl? She is about the same age as I am, or so I think haha) but I was stopped here since I had some foods with me, we had to get the bags through a scanner first. And what do you think, one of my suitcases was randomly selected for another inspection, the suitcase had to be opened.

After the inspection we were able to continue our trip to the luggage service desk. We (Isabella, the Delta lady and myself) took a train to a different part of the airport, where the service desk was. There they said the same thing as we already knew: the wheels were broken. They looked into the system for a bit and told me they couldn’t do much as Seattle was not my final destination, I had to claim my loss in Honolulu as that was my final destination. Right, so we did. They did give me an umbrella stroller for Isabella, so I didn’t had to carry Isabella all over the place They really helped me with that (believe me, it gets really tiring when you have to walk all over the place with her, especially when you are tired from a long trip).

After all this, the lady/girl (I’m still not sure what I should call her haha) from Delta brought me to the security check (I had to go through the security again as I had to leave the international part of the airport to get to the service desk) and she told me she would make sure that our broken stroller would be brought to the airplane to Hawaii.

During this security check, they checked my carry-on manually again (and only here they found the hand sanitizer bottle that they did not see in the Netherlands) but like expected, everything was found alright. So then it was time to go towards the gate for my flight to Honolulu.

Once we got to the gate, I thought I would be able to call my mother and Michelle through Skype… well, not exactly haha. Isabella started to cry since she became hungry. While I fed her, something started to smell quite bad and Isabella became very restless.. right, a dirty diaper. This meant I had to go to the toilets to change her. Once we got to the toilets, it turned out she did not only have a dirty diaper, no, everything was dirty. I had to clean her from head to toe and give her some new clothes.. hooray! Haha. I was glad I brought some spare clothes in my carry-ons.

Once I was done with all that, I went back to our gate and continued to feed Isabella. And when I was done with that, I was finally able to call my mother and Michelle, and tell them that I arrived safely several hours before all this. I can tell you: I was happy I had a 4 hour stopover, I really needed it.

Once I sat there for a bit, I had to go to the bathroom myself, and after the bathroom visit I looked at the arrival and departure screens and noted that my flight would leave from a different gate… oops, I did not see this earlier (and I should have checked it once I arrived at Seattle!).. fortunately I noticed this on time. I went to the other gate with Isabella and when I sat for about five minutes, I was able to board the plane.

My next flight was Alaska Airlines #859 to Honolulu. I knew there was a possibility that the third chair in our row would remain empty, but if it really would stay empty, I could only hope so.. often they add people on the last minute, people who were on standby for example. I was lucky: the chair remained empty and I had the whole row for Isabella and me. I can tell you this was a real welcome surprise, Isabella slept throughout the flight and I was also able to close my eyes for a few short naps

We arrived about 30 minutes ahead of schedule in Honolulu, and when we got to the baggage belts we finally saw Michelle again after three weeks. I can tell you, Michelle was very happy to see the both of us, and we were obviously also happy to see her again!

After we collected our luggage, we went to the Delta service desk in Honolulu, where a nice lady (this time it was a lady for sure, not a girl anymore haha) helped us. She had, however, some problems with her computer and she asked us to come back a day later so we could finish the claim, which we did. She told us we could just buy a new stroller and bring the receipt with us to get the amount for the stroller reimbursed. This was good news, we would get a refund for the whole amount if we had to believe her. I had some good hope after this!

The day after, on wednesday, we went (with a huge jetlag) back to the airport, together with the receipt for the new stroller, so we could finish the damage claim (by the way, they did not have the same stroller anymore, which was pretty sad as we had such a cute stroller). But they couldn’t find the first claim we made anymore.. ehmm. I instantly started to sweat it as I was unsure what would happen now.. for all I know they would say: too bad…

Fortunately it turned out to be not true. After a short wait, we learned that we would receive a check for the full amount, but that the check had to be signed by two different supervisors and these supervisors had a medical emergency at the same time somewhere else on the airfield. They told us that we could wait on them, but that we could also just come back (together with the proof of the claim) to wrap things up. It seemed the best to just come back the day after (today) to finish it all.

So this morning I went back to the airport again, where I received a nice check from Alaska Airlines for the full purchase amount of the stroller.

You might think it is a bit weird that Alaska Airlines reimbursed the costs for the stroller, but it turns out that the airline you flew last with (in the same booking), is the airline that will have to be responsible for any damages caused (which is probably why Seattle couldn’t help us, I think). Right, I know, it sounds all a bit weird, but that seems to be the rules. It doesn’t really matter to me, I am already happy things are solved.

I can only tell you that I am happy how things went. It is too bad the stroller got broken, but they solved in a very nice manner. Both Delta Airlines and Alaska Airlines have helped us really well on the moments we needed the help the most and that’s something that should be told

For now I can only tell you I am really tired, the jetlag is really getting to me.

However, @DeltaAirLines had gr8 service in SEA & HNL: they were the ones 2 help me in ths matter ->thx! More info l8r @ http://bit.ly/bjObIw

Sweet: got the refund 4 the stroller from @alaskaair Thx!! (odd fact: it got broken on the @deltaairlines section of the trip)

All fun things come to an end, so just as well to our visit to the Netherlands. Our flight back to Hawaii, through Seattle, left from Schiphol Airport last Tuesday, March 2 2010, at 11 in the morning, and so we had to get up at around 6 AM since we had to be early due to the enhanced security checks.

By the way, I will write this story in several parts as I have to tell quite a bit, and it will become quite a large article if I had to write it all at once

For some reason I was already awake by the time I was called to get up, but still I had a lot of trouble to get out of bed haha. It’s no wonder really, I was just getting used to the new timezone, a time difference of 11 hours in the winter. Nah, it was not much fun to get up so early. Once we washed ourselves and got dressed, my mother, sister, my daughters Larissa and Isabella, and myself, went towards Schiphol Airport at around 6.30 AM. Of course we got in several traffic jams (which are, in my opinion, the worst in the world in the Netherlands), and somewhere between 8.30 and 9 AM we arrived at the airport.

I wanted to check Isabella and myself in at one of those self-help desks, but we got a notification that I had to go to a manned desk for an additional check. Once we got helped, it turned out that it was about the ESTA (in short: this is some system that has to give non-US residets and non-citizens permission to travel towards the US). However, since I am a greencard holder, I don’t have to request permission, but for some reason they did not know about this (but now they do haha). They had to overrule the system at the desk, and after they did this, they took our suitcases, gave us our boarding passes and they checked the stroller for a ‘gate delivery’ (this means I could use the stroller at the airports between the gates, I really like this service).

After an emotional goodbye, Isabella and I had to leave towards the gate. First we had to go through immigration, where we could go through the EU passports row even though Isabella had to use her US passport (we used this when we entered the Netherlands, so we also had to leave with the same passports. By the way: she never received a stamp on departure, so I need to call to the Netherlands later tonight (it can be a problem when we go back to the Netherlands when her departure is not registered)).

After the immigrations we went on towards the gate, and on our way there I bought a bottle of water. However, after I bought it, it turned out they could not seal the bottle into a bag (you have to do this, otherwise you cannot take the bottle on the plane), so I wanted to return it but even though I never touched the bottle since I paid for it, they could not take it back, she was only allowed to throw it away… well do that then, I told her, I can’t use it on the plane so it is useless to me. It was, however, 9 bucks that I threw away because of that. Stupid. I had more luck at a different location, where they were able to seal the bottle into a bag.

There was a nice row of people waiting at the gate for the last checks, I joined the queue in the rear but a nice lady from Delta (the airline that I flew with) asked me to come with her so I could line up at the priority row, the line for people in first class and those with elite status. This was fun, especially since it went a lot more faster. At the securitychecks I didn’t have to go through the new bodyscanner, probably because I had a baby with me, but I did have to go through the metal detector and I got a full pat down search also. They also manually searched one of my carry on bags, probably because of the baby milk, but I found out in the US that they did not notice me having another bottle with hand sanitizer in my other bag. They shouldn’t have let that one go through security without any check I think.. It doesn’t exactly seem foolproof these new enhanced security checks. They did manually search the whole stroller, however, I also think they could have been more secure with this, Isabella was, for example, allowed to just stay inside her carseat and who knows what could’ve been put under there, it never went through a scanner.

After the security check, we were allowed to board as one of the first people, so we could strap the carseat into the seat. This was really nice, it gives you a lot of time to get the baby and yourself strapped in (and it is also fun to get on an empty plane for once haha). The plane would remain pretty empty, and I positioned myself a few days before the flight on such a way that I might end up with four seats instead of two, of course depending on what other travelers would do. Unfortunately luck was not with me as two other people joined my row of seats. The rows in front of me and behind me remained empty, but other people were faster than me and they could easily lay themselves down in those rows. Oh well, it didn’t matter much in the end as Isabella was awake a lot during the flight, I hardly had time to close my eyes.

We left about 20 minutes delayed, and after a long, but nice, trip with Delta #233, we arrived around noon, local time (9 PM in the Netherlands), in Seattle. This was about half hour ahead of schedule, so the flight was a bit shorter than anticipated, which is nice on such a distance.

Once we landed, I wanted to call my mother and Michelle to tell them that we were safely in the US, but unfortunately I found out that I forgot to charge the battery of my phone (I kind of didn’t expect the battery to be empty after three weeks of having it turned off, guess I was wrong..). So ok, that had to wait until I was in the terminal and could use the internet to call them with Skype. I hoped this wouldn’t take too long because I knew they wanted me to call once I got on the ground, but unfortunately that didn’t go so easily either…

Once Isabella and I left the plane, we had to wait for our stroller at the entrance of the plane. It came up after a short wait but it turned out that the wheels were missing. There was a nice lady from Delta also at the entrance of the airplane who asked the people on the ground to look for the wheels. Once the wheels came up, we tried to attach them back to the stroller but unfortunately it turned out that this was impossible. After a while we found out that a piece inside the wheels was broken. This happened somewhere in Amsterdam, during the flight, or in Seattle. Personally I think the stroller fell out of the plane once they opened the luggage compartment of the plane, and that the wheels broke off at that time.

This was not fun at all. How did I have to bring Isabella around? Carrying her? That could turn out to be fun, I also had the necessary carry-on luggage with me. Fortunately the nice Delta lady offered me to meet up with me behind the immigrations check at the luggage claim belts, and to go to a Delta baggage claim desk after that, to see what they could do and to possibly give me a spare stroller.

I will tell a bit later today how this all ended in the next part of this story, I first have to go to the airport in Honolulu in regards to the broken stroller.