Rome... Part One: Misfortune or Gift?

I would like to say this trip was phenomenal, but.......... I can't. Did it live up to my expectations? Ummmm somewhat. There were some highlights, but man did it start off rocky.

I'll skip the build up and get straight to getting to Rome. So about 2 hours before my flight was to leave, they announced that DFW had shut down incoming and outgoing traffic for the time being due to the weather. They weren't sure when or if this hold would be lifted. They called us up to the desk advised that they were going to route everyone going to Rome from DFW to PHL instead. That was fine. It just meant that we would get to Rome a little later.

What do we do when we get to PHL? Head to the desk to see if we can get good seats. I ask the lady and she puts on a warm smile, bats her eyes, and kindly answers "Sweaty, I'm trying to get 8 people off this flight. Would you like to be one of them? We're giving $750 to anyone that accepts".

Here's the dilemma. I need to be in Rome by 5 pm because we're going to the Euro Cup qualifying game with Italy vs Greece. She went through the schedule and found flights that would get us there by 3:15 pm. Now she also said that if we accept the offer and it goes higher, then we could the highest offered amount. We waited until they said $1k and I ran to the counter and took the offer. Eventually, the offer went to $1200 and I was pretty happy to make the trip to PHL even though they're now saying we won't land until 4:15 in Rome.

Fast forward..... Get to Rome, get the bags, head to where our driver should be. Now I called the shuttle service twice before getting to Rome to let them know that our flights had changed and we needed to push the arrangements back. They should have been ready for us. They weren't. Of course not. We had to wait until they got a driver there. We wait. And wait. He shows up... looks a little confused, but we all start walking. Then he stops. He has to go to the bathroom. WTH!!! It's already 5:30 pm.

He handles his business and now we're off. When I say we're off, I mean the green light hit and he acted like he was an F1 driver in a damn shuttle van. This dude was cutting cars off. Riding in two lanes. I swear I felt the wheels lift up as he turned. He almost hit several people. Not at one time. But damn near every intersection. He turned down an ally that was crowded with people walking and came close to hitting them as well. We finally make it to the hotel around 6:45 pm and I feel like I was on the worst rollercoaster ever.

Check-in process took maybe 30 mins. We're clearly going to miss the start of the game. It's ok though because I have a $1200 voucher. Finally, we start walking to the metro station using trusty Google Navigation. Hey Google... Your navigation system sucks in Rome!!!! This damn thing kept switching directions on us. Spent 45 mins walking before we made it to the station. Which really was only supposed to be a 5 min walk.

Then... and then we make it to the station that we need to switch to. Jump on that train and then this ^%*&%#@! train goes right past our stop. Then past the next stop. So we get off at an empty train station. Wait about 15 mins and ride it back and it skipped both damn stops again. Now what. No Ubers or Taxi's in the area. 45 mins walk to the stadium. It's already about 9 pm. Man, we walked it. By the time we got there, the game was almost over and they weren't letting anyone in. $1200 voucher. $1200 voucher. $1200 VOUCHER!!! Maybe next time.