whining

it is hard not to moan and whinge when i talk about my new least favorite airline, jetblue.
if you don't want to hear it, and why would you, please skip this post...but i must get it out publicly!
after numerous delays, hours on hold when they didn't just hang up on me and cancellations, as well as knowingly stranding me in new york, jetblue added insult to injury by losing my checked baggage. if they had once offered any kind of compensation for the inconvenience, or even a bottle of water at the airport, i may have been mollified. but instead they made excuses.
yes yes, the storm - that was four days ago. come on people.
no, not every airline was operating as poorly as you. i saw several that seemed to know exactly how to treat their customers - hotel rooms, food and even the odd travel voucher good for a trip at a later date.
i finally got to maine, but my box did not. no big deal, please put it on the next flight. i am scheduled to fly to jamaica in two days, and i need that box. assurances that the box would be on the next flight.
the next flight was canceled.
but it wasn't on the flight after that, or the one after that.
excellent.
when i called the ny jetblue baggage office, when they weren't hanging up on me, or putting me on hold for two hours, they were informing me that they didn't know where my box was.
panic started to build. there were a lot of things in that box i needed for the long haul, but there were also things i was leaving with my step dad to hold in case i needed them, so having it sent to me in jamaica wasn't an option, especially since i was only planning on being there for a couple of days.
i threw myself on the mercy of us airways, asked if there was anyway they could rebook my montego bay flight to a later date.
the answer 'we would love to do that as a courtesy'
what? tears welled, and my gratitude knew no bounds! i had three extra days to figure out what to do if the box was well and truly lost.

but the box did finally arrive, eight hours after i was supposed to have left. and when it arrived, this is what it looked like:

they hadn't even bothered to tape up the sides of the box they had destroyed. my spanish phrase book was missing. one of my dvds was shattered. the casing of my back up computer was cracked (because TSA had repacked the thing with the protective foam stacked on top - stellar job, folks).
i won't ever fly jetblue again.
i don't want anyone else to fly them either.
i feel wrathful and wish them ill.

and now i am done whining, because the trip is finally begun...

view from the veranda at cedar ridge hostel, montego bay, jamaica