Be careful out there! Readers' travel nightmares

No, you really can't get there from here
On arriving at my United gate at the Jacksonville, Fla., airport to catch a flight to Charleston S.C., I was surprised to find the lights off and no staffers in sight. Eventually I was able to get someone from another airline to track down United to explain the situation.  About 10 minutes later a very grumpy woman in a wrinkled uniform, looking at though she'd just crawled out of bed, showed up and turned on the lights.

She assured the passengers ticketed to Chicago that they'd arrive on time because United had decided simply not to go to Charleston. Then she put down the microphone and started to walk off, her work done.   

I reminded her that some of us still wanted to go to Charleston, even if United didn't. She mumbled some suggestions about what we should be doing about it. It took some time to convince her that SHE needed to take some action and fast. (The travelling public — so demanding and unreasonable. They buy a ticket to a city and then expect the plane actually to go there.)

Back at the United ticketing counter, I asked for a mailing address for United's corporate customer relations department. The equally grumpy man behind the counter slapped a piece of paper down in front of me and kept on typing.  

The response I received weeks later from United's corporate staffers was a form letter with my name and the date scribbled into the blank spaces.  Gracious to the end.
— Shay Lynn, Centennial, Colo.

A wedding trip from hell
We had reservations on Jet Blue in February 2006 (President's Day weekend) from New York City to Virginia to attend our friends wedding.

When we woke up in the morning, I checked the flight status, and even though the weather was perfect, our flight was cancelled. ... We checked other airlines, and all the flights were booked. We checked Amtrak and there were trains to Washington, D.C., but we would have to rent a car and still drive about two hours. ...

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We called the groom to let him know we didn't think we could make it to the wedding. He said that he would find us a car...on his wedding day. Half an hour later he called back and said he found us a rent a car at the Washington, D.C., train station — supposedly, one of the last cars available. ...  We tried to make an Amtrak reservation on our cell phone while taking a taxi down to Penn Station, and all the coach class tickets were sold out. We now had to pay twice as much for first class seats. Keep in mind, our original flights to Virginia on Jet Blue were $69 each way. We finally got to Amtrak to catch the train. We missed the ceremony, so we went straight to the reception. I changed in a Burger King on the side of the road. During the reception, I called our hotel to confirm our reservation, because we never stopped at the hotel before the wedding, as originally planned. They had the reservation. At the end of the night, we drove to the hotel, about 45 minutes away and were told they didn't have our reservation and they hotel was booked. It was now 1 a.m. in the morning.  After some cursing, the clerk suddenly found a smoking room for us. Not a great way to end a very long day, but we did make it to the wedding.
— Heather Bloom, New York

No exit to Tucson
We absolutely have the worst road conditions in the entire state. Our city planners find it necessary to have our entire county under construction at any given time.  Case in point: Ten exits are closed on I-10, which is our only freeway through Tucson. This makes it impossible to get to our downtown area now and the traffic backup is ridiculous! I mean why would anyone plan to have our lifeline closed off for two years! This decision has hurt our economy downtown and has worsened the traffic flow, and I NEVER thought it could have gotten worse.
— Aurie Clifford, Tucson, Ariz.

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