[BlissMom]

I know some people who are at the beginning of the process and want to show them that the worst travel experiences often make the best stories.

These are adoption TRAVEL related horror stories.. not adoption related (i.e. losing referral, bad agency etc.)

Ours took place the morning we left our region on trip 1. I was an absolute wreck at having to leave my precious little girl half way across the world. I sat on the flight with my head pressed against the window to hide the constant stream of tears and mascara running down my face. The two hour flight felt like an eternity.. I looked at my watch.. it had been three hours.. hmm.. that's weird?
Finally we land. I look out the window and see the ground covered in snow. "That's weird, it must have snowed in Moscow while we were gone, it wasn't this snowy when we left"
So we sit and sit. My husband and I assume the bus that takes you the ten yards from the plane to the terminal was delayed. So we sit and sit. Finally an announcement comes and everyone shuffles in their seat. We have no idea what they were saying but I was getting ill from the gas fumes that seemed to be piped into the plane.. it turns out the Moscow airport was fogged in and we had to sit ON THE PLANE on the Nitzny Novograd tarmac for TWELVE HOURS.. every hour they said it would be one more hour. We were on that plane a total of 15 hours when we arrived in Moscow. And the next morning we had another sixteen hours of travel to get home!

We did however meet the band members of a very famous Russian popstar on the flight. One of whom did his best to translate announcements for us and let us use his cell phone to call our agency and our family back in the states! Talk about the kindness of strangers!. It was really interesting to us that they all just sat there.. nobody complained.. the next day we had a ten minute wait in customs at JFK and the guy ahead of us was going ballistic demanding to talk to the manager... He wouldn't have done so well on that flight!

Now let's hear yours!

[ready2adopt]

Well, well, well.....where to begin. I guess the worst of all was our trip to St. Petersburg from Los Angeles, for trip #2.

It took 33 hours, due to delays, all of which were IN THE AIR!!!! Snowing in New York, delay, delay, delay. Then, back-up at London/Heathrow, circle, circle, circle (which was absolutely horrible because we could not leave our seats and I REALLY HAD TO PEE!!!!! ), then run to an alternate flight to Frankfurt since we missed our St. Pete flight (like by 6 hours!) and get tossed around like a Caesar Salad at Ruth's Chris Steak House (due to high winds....bring on the Dramamine), then run to our flight to St. Pete (only to see it too was delayed) until we FINALLY arrived in St. Pete, 33 hours later, at Midnight.

Here's the kicker....NONE OF OUR LUGGAGE MADE IT! It was midnight, 10 degrees outside and we had no coats, boots, hats, toiletries, etc. At that point, after zero sleep and high stress, all we could do was laugh! We made it in one piece and that was all that mattered. I had our important papers with me and really that's all we absolutely had to have. We wound up getting our luggage 2 days later (we washed our underwear and socks in the sink each night and dried them with the wall-mounted hair dryer). I looked like a beast and attempted to buy some cheap, temporary clothes but seeing how most Russian women are size ZERO, I didn't succeed. I wore the same old ratty sweat pants and tee shirt for 2 days. Oh yes, I was a looker. Made for some great pictures!

The day before court, we got our things after a typical Russian interrogation from Customs at the airport, but that's a whole different story! Truly, I have no complaints - all worked out. Thank you, Lord! It could have been sooooo much worse!


Shawn

[marjo]

I never mentioned this on here before tonight (I posted about it on another thread just now) but on our 2nd trip I got a pulmonary embolism from the long plane ride (a bloodclot formed in my leg and moved up to my heart). I had to go to the hospital in Moscow because I got so sick and they didn't want to release me, so I had to sign a release form so they were not liable if I died on the plane ride home. But I did make it home and spent the first week home in the hospital, the doctors said it was a miracle I made it home alive. And I have never had surgery or been hospitalized before in my life, so this was such a freak thing to happen to me.

[KimOH]

I think Marjo "wins" -- ick! how scary...

Here's mine though. Now, five years later, it's more of a bad sit-com... but at the time it was stressful. This account is taken from my "one year ago today" journal.
-------------

The flight out of Moscow was the most difficult one. We had been told by our travel agent that they can’t pre-assign seats on that flight because there are so many "lap children" that they have to be able to adjust seating assignments to make sure there are enough oxygen masks in each row. (This flight from Moscow is known as the "Baby Flight" because it’s often full of adoptive parents and their children, so that sounded reasonable to me.)

We got to the check-in counter at the airport (almost three hours in advance of our flight) and were told that seats had already been assigned by most travel agents (!?!!?), the flight was full, and that all they had were single seats left. We had purchased a ticket for A to ride in his car seat…and the seat they assigned him was FOUR ROWS from the closest one of us. The desk attendant said "maybe they can help you at the gate, but there’s nothing I can do."

We went ahead to the gate and waited for the attendant to arrive. I was frantically looking through my Russian-English dictionary to see if I could figure out how to say, "Will you trade seats with me?" I did find "trade" and "chair" and hoped that would work.

The gate agent did manage to get me and A seats together, for which I was thankful…But 10-1/2 hours of handling him all alone didn’t sound like fun to me, nor did sitting alone for that whole time sound fun to Mom and Mike. Fortunately, there were some nice Russians who did understand "Trade. Chair" sitting near me and A. They traded seats so Mom sat on the other side of A and Mike sat directly behind me.

A was so good on the flight. He hardly fussed at all, although he did want to walk up and down the aisles (he’d taken his first steps two days before in our Moscow hotel room) but the "fasten seatbelt" sign was hardly off for the whole trip.

Unfortunately, we got some "interesting people" around us. Seated on the other side of the aisle from me was an American guy in a slick suit, gold cufflinks the whole bit. In front of him, there was another American (New Yorker) who was not nearly as slick, but you could tell he wanted to be. He was traveling with his girlfriend who didn’t speak English (maybe Italian) and was dressed like a total bimbo. Who wears a mini-skirt, tube top, and 4" heels on an international flight. Diagonally behind me were a couple of very large women with a baby. In front of me was an old Russian guy who started drinking while we were still on the tarmac.

Slick was also very loud. He announced that he was a "man of God" and that he’d been in Russia doing missionary work. He may have likely been telling the truth, but I’ll tell you that there’s no way that I would want him representing my church or my beliefs. He was obnoxious. New York guy spent a lot of the trip hanging over the back of the seat asking him all sorts of questions. Slick reclined his seat all the way, squashing the baby that was sitting on the lap of the lady behind him. She was not very happy. Slick put his chair back up.

After a while, "Slick" turned to me. He asked about our adoption. How old was A? Which region was he from? Then I noticed him looking at my hands. "What does your husband think about all this?" he asked. (I had left my diamond ring at home for our trip and was instead wearing just a thin gold band that I bought for $20 at Wal-Mart. I realized he was really asking "Do you have a husband?") I said, "He thinks it’s great. That’s him right behind me." Slick seemed satisfied with that answer.

After a minute or so, he leaned back across the aisle and said, "Did you know that Russia allows single mothers and even lesbians to adopt?" I said that I did know. He started on this whole rampage about how he thought it was "sick, sick, sick" that lesbians were allowed to adopt and how wrong that was. The lady behind him jumped up and started screaming at him—I guess I hadn’t put two-and-two together before, but I guess they were a lesbian couple who had adopted a little girl. They were really mad. The flight attendant had to come over and tell everyone to simmer down.

After that they served lunch. I don’t think I got much chance to eat mine, but they brought A a baby meal. Four huge jars of Russian baby food. It was on that flight that we found the first thing that A refused to eat. One of the jars of baby food was a white paste (kind of the color of rice cereal). All the writing was in Russian but it had pictures of different vegetables on it, so I assumed it was mixed vegetables. However, as soon as you opened it, it smelled like sauerkraut. A took one bite, spit it out and wouldn’t touch another bite. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have eaten that stuff either!

As the flight dragged on, several people got really drunk. The bimbo girl kept getting in and out of her seat and wiggling her way up and down the aisle. Then she bent over to get something from her bag under her seat. I could see it happen in almost slow motion. While bimbo girl was standing in the aisle bending over, drunk Russian man reached out and pinched her on the bottom (gasp!). Bimbo squealed in protest. New York jumped up and was ready to take it to blows right there in the aisle. Slick was egging him on. The flight attendants had to come again and said if they had to come back there one more time, they were going to have the cops meet the flight in New York. They also cut the Russian guy off from the free bar.

I was really worried about getting into JFK because we only had an hour layover before our next flight took off and we had to go through passport control, immigration, and customs. They came on the speaker and said that we were going to have to circle for 20 minutes before we could land because there weren’t any gates available. Argh!! I’m not sure if I was more frustrated worrying about our connecting flight, or more frustrated knowing I was going to have to sit near Slick and New York for another 20 minutes! We finally did land though (The police did not come).

[Kasey]

great stories!! Marjo--how flipping scarey!!! That is exactly why I take a baby aspirin before long trips.

Our first trip on the way home, we overnighted in London, waited for over an hour for our baggage, when it was realized they forgot to off load the plane and it went to the hangar-thank God I was prepared with extra clothes in our carryon!

Second trip, Moscow to London, I was completely exhausted, holding alek and sat in the wrong row, DH had put all of our stuff up top and then realized I was in wrong seat, so we moved and he slid everything down, except he pushed a little too hard and one of the bottles of vodka we were bringing home as gifts, cracked and began to drip over the nice Russian man in front of us. The flight was delayed so the electricity could be checked, the moved the nice Russian man, DH was mortified, I was too tired to care, but was chucklinng under my breath. 2 years later DH is finally able to laugh about it.

[CarRanVA]

Mine is not a horror story, just a very memorable one. We were on our flight back from Vladivostok to Moscow (about a 9 hour flight). There were a few other adoptive couples on the plane sitting close to us. We saw a man walking up the aisle, well more like stumbling, patting people on the head, rambling on in Russian, making his way up to first class. We saw some flight attendants run and grab him and drag him back to the back of the plane where he was shackled in seat belts at his hands and feet. We were only an hour or two into the flight and he remained that way until we landed where the Moscow police came on board before and "escorted" him out. Of course all the American families were standing watching what was going on. Our flight attendant came up to all of us and said this happens all the time, don't worry!

[Kendal]

Boy to I feel lucky. Our flights themselves were very uneventful. However we were standing at the trainstation in Pskov after completing our adoption with our girls when we got word of 9/11. We were suppose to have gone home on the 13th, but when we arrived in Moscow the following morning we were told that the Embassy was closed (not sure when it would open), and all flight to the US were cancelled until further notice. We had no idea the seriousness of it all until we finally got to see the horrible events on TV. We were finally able to get home on the 19th. It was the Delta flight to JFK and I am pretty sure everyone on that flight had at least one child with them. Delta was giving priority to families. It was not a quiet flight

[waitinginnj]

Wow do I feel lucky. I had no real issues. The worst part was an obnoxious security guard in St. Pete, who didn't want to process us. So he lied and told us we were in the wrong place. We dragged our bags throughout the airport to find out we were in the right place all along. Now his supervisor was around and we were processes right through. I found the people in St. Pete to be the rudest of all of the people that we encountered in Russia.

No flight issues - other then one ticket being questioned - which was resolved quickly. That was on a flight from St. Pete to Moscow too.

There is hope though. I had no crazed drunks etc.

[SingleMama2B]

Hi BlissMom, Mine is probably going to be the most boring one....

DD and I where scheduled to leave Moscow on January 23rd, 2005. We had be staying at the Marriott Rennisiance (sp??) which was booked all of the time. The Blizzard hit the East Coast (US) and JFK etc. was shut down..... Delta cancelled all of their US East Coast flights. I went to front desk, and asked to stay for a few more days, even if we had to switch rooms, etc. NOPE... Nothing available!!! I went into a mild panic as it was just my DD and I, and we had no idea when the flights would resume, and if we could get on one!!! Finally found a room at the OLD ROSSIYA (now torn down). They where the NASTIEST STAFF, smelliest, musty, moldy rooms I have EVER stayed in. the beds where practically child size twin, with a mattress that was all of 1/2" thick! I am allergic to mold, and had a horrible time. Tried to find other rooms, but they said these where the RENOVATED ROOMS... THE BEST!!!! The Rossiya was the biggest hotel in all of Russia, and in most of the world. They litterally had 4 Front desks..... N, S, E, & W. DD and I got lost 3 different times.... couldn't find the front desk, restaurants, etc. It was surly a NIGHTMERE. Even our driver WASN'T ALLOWED to help us with our bags... we had to SCHLEP them all by our selves, and I swear, our room was a good 1/4 mile from the elevators!!! I was soooo thrilled that Delta found 2 seats available for us, and we only had to stay 2 nights there.....

We get the airport (2 hour drive which normally is 35 minutes), to find out that all flights where delayed.... after 7 hours in the airport, they decide to board us.... it was still "White Out Conditions". We taxit to the runway, and the Captain comes on.... "Good Afternoon... Please make sure you have your seatbelts on. They are 'de-icing' the plane while on the runway, and when the equipment moves away from the plane, we have 2 minutes to take off. Thank you" O.k. At least we are going home finally.... well, when the equipment moved away from the plane, the Captain FLOORS THE GAS..... We where still THROWN back in our seats, and I swore that we would hit the fence. I was white knuckled, and praying. DD was playing with her kitty cat doll, and just smiling at me. About 4 hours into the flight, we hit the BLIZZARD over the Atlantic, and for over 2 hours, had unbelievable Turbulence. DD was sleeping, woke up, said MaMa... and threw-up everywhere. We where to remain seated during the turbulence. Nope, I had to start cleaning this mess up. I got up, and went to the Galley to ask for papertowels, etc. The stewardess started yelling at me. I said listen, My daughter just threw up on herself, chair, and the passenger next to us. I need papertowels or something, unless YOU WANT TO CLEAN IT UP!!!! They gave me everything I needed then. Those pilots are amazing, and we made it home safely, albeit 7.5 hours late . Oh, did I mention, I have a FEAR of FLYING

Blessings......................

[bmarsicano]

We were leaving Khabarovsk on 3/30/06. We had an early lunch at the adoption agency office. We asked if they called the airport to see if the flight was on time and they said yes. On the way to the airport, the translator gets a call saying the flight is delayed 2 hrs. so we go to the airport and sit in the van. The driver would have gotten arrested in the States. He shut the car off, no windows open and we are all sweating. poor daughter is in her snow suit. So after about 2 hours we got out and have her walk around. We go into the terminal, they still don't know when the flight will leave. Nothing to eat, but have stuff for daughter. Nobody is telling us anything and our translator is good for nothing. We liked the first one we had better, but had more families coming in and she was familiar with doing all the medicals. Well, we finally boarded the flight and left sometime after 7:00 pm. We originally had a 3:00 pm flight. I bought a seat for my daughter but was told it was a lap seat, not a "regular" seat. fortunately the flight wasn't booked and we got moved. My poor mother held her the entire trip while she was sleeping. i'm sick, picked up a bad cold with sore throat. we finally land around 11:00 pm and the plane lands on the runway, then it takes about 1/2 hour to taxi to the gate. We got all the luggage except her stroller, it came out somewhere else. We finally met the translator and driver and got to the hotel and checked in. We had a 7:00 am appointment at the clinic then a 2:30 pm visit at the US Embassy. finally had the translator get me some medicine and it helped a little. Fortunately we were only in moscow one day and left on Sat. Went to the doctor when I got home and had a bad virus. Got some drugs and it helped a lot.

[58grace]

Actually I have several little horror stories but this one sticks out.

Myself, my DD and my neice and another couple with their baby were taken from the hotel at about 6 pm in the region to the airport. Moscow was fogged in so we waited there about 2.5 hrs ( no heat in the hanger in December) Finally with no time in sight to leave we were taken back to the hotel lobby to wait. By Midnight still no go and the hotel was out of rooms. We were taken to a little room with cots in it and told to be up at 4am to see what was happening. The cots were so narrow I had to sleep with one leg on the floor so Laina had room.

By the way, my neice had a major headcold and I had bronchitis. We were both miserable. At 4 am, no change in the weather so we decided to take the 16 HOUR train ride back to moscow. We left at 9am and after rushing to the store to get baby food, discovered as we were pulling out of the station that it was spoiled.

Laina would NOT sleep and occupying a 11month old crawler in a tiny sleeping cabin for 16 hrs was not fun. To top it off, must of been 95 degrees in side. I had nothing light weight so ended up wearing my neices wife beater and had a huge cold sore on my upper lip. Such a pretty site, I thought some one might take her away just based on that. Laina was also sweating and so I didn't have a coat on her as we walked up and down the narrow hall on the train. Got lots of backlash for that from the Russians.

Laina slept a total of 3 hrs and me - none. Running water, but with no sink , so bottles were a challenge. Too sick to eat and we ran out of kleenex.

FINALLY arrived back at Raddison in Moscow, got settled into the room, into bed and crib and after 30 wonderful minutes of sleep the knock came -- it was the Embassy doctor to examine Laina - had to wake her up and take off her clothes.

The rest of the two days continued in the same vein. Finally got home and was diagnosed with Pnemonia.

Well I still can't laugh but thank god its over!

[Vicki H]

Mine is relatively minor compared to some. On our first trip , things were going well in Moscow, Stavropol was another story.

We arrived in Stavropol around 2 am due to a two hour delay on our flight, which the translator never bothered to check before heading to the airport. We meet up with our translator and driver (husband and wife). He looks as miserable as can be and never said a word, she looked ok and seemed friendly, but appearances can be decieving.

We knew all of our fees we had to pay for drivers translators etc. She proceeds to tell us that we owed more since they sat at the airport and waited, and also there was an hourly rate as well as the flat rate we were told for airport transfers. We didn't have this issue in Moscow, why were we having it now.

Then we get put in a different hotel from the one we were told we would be staying at and the place was a total dive. Not that they are great in Stavropol in general, but this place smelled.

The next day we go about our business at hand, they made this rather unpleasant for us. The let us spend a total of 1/2 hour broken up with Alex and the driver would go around and do his business and was never there when we came out to get back in the car. Then while waiting the translator would shove us into stores so that others could not see us. We were told we had to rush to get papers signed because other Americans were coming to "look" at our son and if we signed they could not adopt him?? I doubt this was true, but the translator did her best to keep us away from any other Americans while in Stavropol. We never stopped for anything to eat or drink and the hotel restaurant had nothing in english nor anyone who could speak it.

We spent a total of 24 hours in Stavropol on trip one, they asked if we wanted to stay an extra day , but said we could not see Alex, so we left and booked a room in Moscow at the Radisson.

I also believe the translator stole the items we brought with for the orphanage and she told us next trip to bring items for 5 year old girls! There were no fiver year olds at this orphanage, she wanted them for her daughters.


On trip two, things went pretty well, the only real issue was I felt sick most of the second trip. I had to run into the bathroom feeling very faint the second we walked into the embassy. One morning we had an appointment and we were in the lobby of the Radisson, dh went up to the room for something and I suddenly felt very ill. I did not want to leave the baby with the translator and driver , I did not want to scare Alex. I was turning a lovely shade of green, but made it until dh returned then headed for the closest bathroom in the lobby.

[KimOH]

I'm sort of surprised we haven't had any "exploding diaper" stories yet. I, thankfully, didn't have that trouble with either of my kids. But on advice and stories from boards like these I made sure I had extra clothes in my carryon during the ride home!

[jimpol]

We didn't really have any bad travel stories. The plane trip home with our son from Paris to Atlanta was miserable. No exploding diapers, but my son screamed bloody murder everytime I took him to the bathroom to use the diaper changing table. It wasn't the diaper change it was the small space with the door closed. It freaked him out. I'm sure that everyone on that plane dreaded the screams when they saw me headed towards the bathroom.

The other bad part of that same flight was that my son didn't want me to sit down. He would cry and scream if I went to sit down, so my husband and I tag teamed standing in the back of the plane with our 17 month old son. I don't think I've ever stood that long on a plane before. There were some (angels) people that came back and offered to help me out. A few women held him so I could go to the bathroom and get a drink while my husband tried to sleep some. A man even came over and hugged my son and I and said thank you for doing what you are doing. It was weird.

[LouLouBelle]

Okay Kim...you want exploding diaper stories? This first part is not what came to mind until I saw your post. Our facilitator warned us over and over (and over) again to stick to "the schedule" for DD and not to change her foods or we would pay for it on the plane. Our 10 days were waived so we were able to leave Russia three days after court. We heeded the warnings and tried to stay with foods that were familiar and tested. I thought I was adequately prepared with an extra sweat suit for DD and a diaper for every couple of hours. Well...by the time we were waiting to board the flight from Moscow to Frankfurt we already had blowout number one. That flight, okay, not great. By the Frankfurt airport the first MAJOR blowout...outfit number two...and where did the extra socks go? Okay, no socks. The flight from Frankfurt to Oregon was horrendous...blowout after blowout after blowout! I felt so bad about the awful stench that was emitting from our row, and even worse for our new little girl. With five hours left to go we were out of diapers and no more pants Thankfully a nice Italian woman was next to us with her baby and loaned a diaper...and then DD fell asleep the most of the way home We survived and I cried. Home never felt so good!

Now, the story I think of is going through customs in Moscow on trip 2. My mom traveled with us to Moscow on this trip. Looking out for her, we send her through the line...all is good. I go next...great. I immediately start looking for our luggage as I know my DH can take care of himself. I find all of our luggage...great. Where is DH? He's not in line, the huge mob of people waiting to get through are all processed. Is he not well and in the bathroom? Hmmm. Half an hour later...no DH. Finally, I go back to the guy in the booth and try and communicate (this isn't working too good...my community college Russian conversation course isn't paying off too well in this situation). Finally a supervisor comes over and tells me there is a problem with DH's visa and he is "fine and sitting in the corner". I couldn't see him. He said they were trying to fix it and it would be "some minutes". What does that mean? Our visas were processed together, I triple checked the dates...what's going on? I am having horrible visions relating to the sizable chunk of change we were each carrying. About an hour later, here comes DH, relieved me and my mom were fine (we weren't the ones detained!). It ended up that his birthdate on the visa was incorrect. Oops...guess I should have checked that, too. Thankfully all was well and nothing lost but a bit of time.