<p>Just returned from dropping off junior at college. Other than seeing him easily fitting in and enjoying a good start with his new schoolmates, the trip was one of the worst affairs in my life.</p>
<p>Lessons learned:
1. make sure your airline can keep its promise to get you to junior's or missy's little and isolated college town.
2. Don't believe your cell phone provider when it says it has ample coverage in junior's or missy's little college town, or in any part of the whole region (several THOUSAND square miles) for that matter.
3. Raise a hissy fit when the Residential Life Office tells you that junior or missy's mailbox keys for their campus apartment (not a dorm) won't be distributed until sometime AFTER THE ACTUAL START OF CLASSES! And you had purchased and arranged for discount textbooks to be delivered to the mailbox a week ago, long after the campus apartment was assigned to your student.
4. Rent a car, preferably in a town with more than one rental car company.</p>
<p>Sorry the day went like that for you. About the mailbox keys, that makes no sense. I would think that other students had books delivered to their mailboxes, too. Why the wait, grrrr. Try not to worry about it tho. At my son’s university, he often doesn’t order books until he finds out if they’re actually going to use them in class; too many instances where those pricey things never saw the light of day! And as frustrating as the cell phone thing is, remember, there was a time when we did not depend on them like we do now, and we turned out okay!</p>
<p>Wow, sounds like you’ve had one heck of a tough weekend. Sorry it was so bad, but you’re right, seeing your child happy is the most important thing right now. </p>
<p>Re #1: Assuming the airline got the plane to the proper airport, what was their expected role in getting you to the campus? </p>
<h1>3 sounds really stupid. Can’t they at least get the contents for your son, even if they can’t give out the key? Chances are the books aren’t actually <em>in</em> the mailbox, they wouldn’t fit if it’s the type of mailbox I’m thinking of.</h1>
<p>Lake- so sorry your time was not what you wanted it to be but I knowing your child is HAPPY is a celebration in and of itself!!! It would have been awful getting on the plane knowing he was unhappy and worrying about him! So now, you have a story ( or may to tell) and hopefully in retrospect, you can laugh about it! Until then, just breathe!!!</p>
<p>Also, realize you were a lesson in true living regarding the art of persistence! Good for you for hanging in there, working thru all the issues and getting your son settled. Hopefully, you’ll be able to laugh about it one day; it will always be memorable!</p>
<p>Oh my, getting to the campus from the local regional airport was more or less the easiest part of the trip. Now getting the flight from my connection city to the airport in this little college town, well that was quite the adventure.</p>
<p>Airline cancelled our (met a set of other great parents headed the same way) flight TWICE. I couldn’t get a flight until the next day, while the other parents were told there were no seats for the next TWO DAYS!!! I won’t re-live all the horrid details here (LOL), but this major airline treated us all quite badly. Airline essentially LIED about the reason for the initial cancellation and we had proof. Essentially, the airline tried to get out of its obligation to provide room accommodations for the night. Hey, none of us were looking to make a buck on the airline’s and our own misfortune, we simply wanted to get to the university town pronto. Everyone understands that occasionally one will confront problems that can’t be avoided when we travel by air, but we passengers were really mistreated. Customer service initially refused to even listen to our tale of woe. Yes, that is what happened. Only when several fellow passengers at the customer desk all of a sudden received email alerts from the airline on their smartphones announcing that the cancellation was due to mechanical failure, that’s when a senior manager relented, double checked the situation, and apologized for giving us the corporate line that there was “a weather problem,” which the airline had no obligation to address with hotel accommodations. Believe me, in the interests of being brief I have left out a lot of the nonsense the airline put us through.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the well wishes. They are a reminder of why we’re all on this board; our children’s best interests. And that’s what made the bad karma bearable in the final analysis, seeing the emotion of great expectations on the faces of Lake Jr. and the other newbies.</p>
<p>We discovered pretty quick how poor cell service is in some parts of the country. You just EXPECT it to work and then it …doesn’t. Or it drifts in and out.
And as to airlines–thank goodness for smartphones and ipads so you can get better info than the people at the desk.</p>
<p>Gouf78, at the freshman orientation picnic, the VP of the university stopped by our table, so I good naturedly told him our tale. He laughed and said during his first year at the school while his wife was still out of state wrapping up the family’s affairs, to reach her by cell phone he had to climb the highest hill in town, for nearly a year!!!</p>
<p>It was just my bad luck that I don’t subscribe to one of the two national cell providers that service the town. Still scratching my head though, because major tourist attractions and vacation areas are not terribly far away. With millions of visitors a year, you would think the area would be serviced by all four major cell providers.</p>
<p>Cell phone reception was also somewhat spotty in son’s dorm a few years ago- had to do with 1940 brick/stone construction and being built into a hill with the north/lake side lowest. Our biggest problem with that dorm was that the centrally located elevators were useless- horizontal series of 5 connected four story buildings progressively one story lower from the center high point that was street level on the south side. Controlling laundry carts on the sloping outside sidewalk was needed to avoid tumbling everything into the woods. Then there were some steps up and then down. Who would have thought being on the ground floor would pose such challenges? The nice surprise was air conditioning on that floor- to prevent mold/mildew issues.</p>
<p>Summer orientation housing was in that building as well. We chose the convenient location (and cheap rates) for the parent program. Shared with spouse on a floor with two long wings, each with their separate hall bathrooms, one designated for women and the other for men. We had a large corner room, close to- the men’s bath. Nothing like trudging to the other end of the building with toothbrush in hand…</p>
<p>These are mere inconveniences, especially compared to others’ problems. But this thread brought back memories, including why we no longer choose dorm life and are glad to be done with phases in life.</p>
<p>^My son had to do that freshman year and cell service went from spotty where my mother lived to non-existent in the same period. How the heck does that happen? So we switched providers. We’re paying more, but at least the phone works most of the places we go now.</p>
<p>Originally I didn’t believe how poor the cell reception was in the area my D lived until I watched a reality show with the “rich and potentially famous” and they didn’t have cell reception either and complained about it.</p>
<p>Which airline (Frontier??)? They shouldn’t have lied about the weather/mechanical like that. </p>
<p>The mailbox thing makes no sense. Why not get the keys right away? The books wouldn’t fit in the box anyway so they’re likely in a shipping box sitting around wherever those go and whoever’s staffing the mail area s/b to give him the box of books. Does he have the books now?</p>
<p>Cell phone reception can be very spotty - even from one dorm to the next or one side of a dorm building to the other side. The only really way to tell is to ask people at the campus about the reception of the various carriers. I did this a couple of times and found the student input on the subject pretty useful. The other objective info would be to know if there’s a carriers cell tower on campus but even then reception can vary depending on where the antenna is vs the cell phone. You certainly can’t trust the carrier to give accurate info in their maps.</p>
<p>Yes, I relied on the carrier map and its online database, to my detriment.</p>
<p>Just heard from Lake Jr. He received his mailbox key today, the first day of classes. As with a lot of absent minded teenagers, his text message left out some crucial information; he didn’t say whether or not the mail order textbooks were delivered.</p>
<p>Let me guess, the airline was US Scare? They did the same thing to us last year, going to a funeral. The flight went from “delayed” to disappearing off the monitor- the only way we knew it was cancelled was other people’s cell phones. Terrible.</p>
<p>I’ll just say that we didn’t find any “friendly skies” as this particular airline’s old TV ads used to proclaim. Oh what the heck…a fellow passenger has dubbed this outfit “Untied Airlines.”</p>
<p>Regarding cell phone service - much of the country is not very cell-phone friendly if you will. I live outside of NYC and we have incredibly spotty service. The best bet is to ask staff which cell service works best at the school and sign your kid up for that service. It might cost a few extra pennies but really, after spending all you are, it’s not much over four years!</p>
<p>That really stinks, LakeWA, how miserable!! Especially the flight delays, just awful.</p>
<p>Last year dropping off freshman S, our rental car died late at night, and we spent hours, exhausted, getting a new one. When we arrived at our crummy hotel, it had the strong odor of cat urine, but there were no other rooms. S had a single room in an isolated area, and didn’t know anyone at school. Everyone else seemed to be walking around in packs or hanging out with their roomies, except for him. I could barely stand to leave him, but he ended up being extremely happy.</p>
<p>This year I still hated leaving him, but no issue or worries. Sorry about your misery, sometimes everything just goes wrong!</p>