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Continuing where I left off and also a quick little review. It is now 29 Sept and we are at Andersen AFB in Guam. We are processed for a Navy flight and are in the bus on the tarmac waiting because now they are not sure if they want to take passengers.
After about 10 minutes of waiting the came back and said that the will not be taking passengers. Their concern was that they were not sure if AMC at Clark would accept passengers. They were requiring that we have a letter from the AMC rep there saying that they would accept us. That is a made up excuse. I’ve been doing Space A travel for many years and I have never heard of such a thing. Also the the customer service reps at Andersen never heard of such a thing. The reps did try to help us though. They were in the process of calling Clark to get him to fax a letter to Guam. Now the flight personnel decided that they needed to leave NOW. It was still 20 minutes before their scheduled departure time. They just didn’t want to mess with passengers and didn’t want to say that. So we missed out on this one too. Curious enough, those flights we had out of Kadena going to Cebu first, and they wouldn’t let us go because of no AMC rep at Cebu, it was also a Navy flight.
Just as soon as we got back to the terminal I decided we should just head back to Kadena, because they had 2 flights on their schedule now, going to Clark. This flight was a KC 135 and had 7 seats. Harry decided he wanted to stay in Guam and wait. As we were at the desk, processing for the new flight, they zeroed out the seats. I thought the guy was kidding when he told me, but he wasn’t. It seems that the flight was carrying patients and they had to add a couple more, so the seats became null. I didn’t mind that so much. After all, patients should have more of a priority than us. But that still leaves us in Guam needing to get away. I had already notified Laurie about the first flight and she had come by to get her blanket that I left for her. When she found out that we were still there and had to spend at least another night, she brought the blanket back. I told you, super nice lady.
New plan. We decided we would be taking the Yokota flight leaving the next afternoon. From Yokota we could take a flight to Singapore and then a commercial flight from there. Tomorrow is payday, so we’d be able to afford to do that. Of course the next flight to Singapore was not until Monday, so we would have to spend a couple of nights at the Kanto Lodge on Yokota. That was fine with me. I like the Kanto Lodge and Yokota has every place I need to go: commissary, BX, shoppette and passenger terminal all within walking distance. Plus if you want to see more of the base, they have a free shuttle that goes around the base.
From Singapore the plan was to take either Tiger Air or Cebu Pacific, because they are the only ones I know of that go to Clark and not Manila. We deal with Manila as little as possible. Flights from there are a little over $100 each. Although JetStar is usually less expensive, they don’t go to Clark (only Manila) and they didn’t have any of their cheaper prices on such short notice. If you are planning ahead of time, use JetStar first for the lower price.
Naturally all did not go as planned. We discovered a mystery flight, and, thanks to more talking to Laurie Hebb on Facebook, we decided that it was a better flight to be taking than going to Yokota then Singapore. Stay tuned. Things are intensifying.
Salamat Y’all
UJ,
I agree the Navy crew was blowing smoke up every ones butt!! I flew as a navy crewman for 12 years all over south east asia based out of the old cubi point. And not one times did we ever require an acceptance approval for anyone regardless who they were or where they were going. As long as they had an ID they were good in my eyes, and it was their issue to deal with what ever immigration came up. Usually it was just some make believe stamp and you were good. As I used to make the decision on who we carried, of course active duty came first, then i put retirees second, most dependents unless accompanied by a active duty spouse were just screwing off and sightseeing so I put them dead last.
The ship I was on in 1967 pulled into Guam was going to stay for 2 weeks and then head to Subic. I talked the XO into letting me go on 30 day leave to the Philippines and meet the ship in Subic. But the AF would not let me Hop out of Guam because they said I did not have Set of Order to enter the Philippines. So had to wait for ship to pull into Subic before going on leave.
So is the Navy has to mess with me because of something that happened to you 49 years ago? Paybacks?
Next time ise to go Malaysia with Cebu pacific costly only 450$ back an fort for 2 person.trust me is a pain less.
We have been going to Hong Kong every other year and it’s pretty cheap for tickets there, less than $450. If you read all the posts you will know that when we started out, we planned to go to Texas. It was the year to go there, but it just didn’t work out. We will get to Texas next year though.
Just finished catching up on your journey. Man I must tell you I don’t think me or my wife would have the patience to go through what you and your wife are going threw. Glad you have met some great people to help you along the way. And sorry you didn’t get back to Texas.
On another note I hope the rain stops for a little while tonight so we can get to the cemetery and spend a little time at the grave of my wife mother.
It sure wasn’t the most rewarding trip we have taken, but at least I learned some things and got to do something different. The people we met really did help things go a lot smoother.
I think it quit raining for awhile, at least around here.
That Navy flight in Guam that would not take you – what type of plane was it?
I believe it was a C40.