72 hours. That’s how long it took to us to rebook our fights once we realized that Westjet had cancelled ours leaving from Comox.

Here’s how it all played out…. we realized at 8:30pm on Saturday night that my mom’s flight was cancelled which therefore meant that ours was too although we had no communication from the airline. I immediately called Westjet and was placed on hold. For 6 hours. No joke. We all slept in shifts and finally got through at 2:45am. The call was pointless as there were no other flights to get off Vancouver Island and the best they could do was a flight leaving on Tuesday and overnighting in Calgary. No bueno.

In addition, Westjet didn’t really know what was happening with connecting flights and there was no guarantee that those flights would be leaving either. At any rate we kept Westjet on the phone and at the same time booked a seaplane for 7am with the hope that it would get us to Vancouver for our connection at 11:30am to Puerto Vallarta. The rep at Westjet was updating our status because we had already been pulled from the Vancouver flight as our original departure had been cancelled. We now needed new boarding passes. We finally got off the phone at 4:30am and woke the kids up to drive to the seaplane in Nanaimo.

We arrived in Nanaimo with plenty of time only to wait and finally hear that the flight was cancelled due to high winds. This is when I cried a little. It’s like the gods were conspiring against us. I called Westjet again to let them know that we wouldn’t make the connecting flight and sat on hold for another 8 hours. I did speak to someone at one point who was trying to get through to reservations to book us on a different airline and she too eventually disappeared. My guess is that her shift ended and she went home. By this time it was Sunday night and I had an Airbnb booked in Mexico starting Monday. We felt defeated, exhausted and over sitting on hold. I resigned that we weren’t going and went to bed.

Monday morning and I woke up feeling depressed and started once again to look for outgoing flights. Then my phone rang and it was Westjet returning my callback that I had requested the previous day. Nick and I decided to rebook our return flights with Westjet and look for an outgoing flight only. I actually got better return flights and paid less than what I had originally paid. We tried to book through Air Canada, Flair and AeroMexico – all sold out. OH THE DESPAIR!! It was really looking like we were back at square one.

Then I found a flight direct to PV but it was out of Seattle at midnight. We did quick math to figure out the ferry and realized if we left immediately we would make it. I booked a reservation on BC Ferries out of Victoria and frantically left 20 minutes later. All this was going on while a rare snowstorm hit the Island and all the ferries were cancelled leaving Nanaimo. Good grief. We raced to Victoria and got on the ferry!!! Step one complete! Then we drove to Seattle, dropped the car at long term parking and shuttled to the airport. And that’s it friends – the flight left at midnight with us on it and we flew to Minneapolis and then on to PV arriving on Tuesday afternoon. Just 36 hours later than we were supposed to arrive. We hired a cab and drove the 4 hours to Melaque and got to the Airbnb at 6:15pm.

Needless to say, we were exhausted when we arrived and went to the Red Lobster for dinner. It was just as we remembered it, delicious and still owned by the same family. Madeline and Nick walked to town to get a few groceries and we all went home to bed.

Day One in Melaque – amazing. Beautiful day, super hot and Nick and I spent the morning biking around town visiting old haunts and getting the essentials. We were all poolside by 1pm with a drink in hand and having a giggle at my mom trying to get in and out of the pool floatys. It was a lazy afternoon with siestas and then out to taco row for a feast. We had several dozen tacos between us all and they were so damn good.

It’s still pretty quiet in town, the bulk of the snowbirds haven’t arrived yet and the beach is deserted except for the occasional Mexican family. The girls are working on their homework during the heat of the day and the rest of us are hanging out reading, swimming, going for walks or bike rides; really just settling in to relaxation. Tonight we are off to Barra de Navidad to watch the sunset and have a look around town. It’s good to be back, it has been a long time since we have been here and while much has changed, much has also stayed the same.