Flight to Panama City

Wednesday night (January 21st), United sent an email encouraging passengers traveling on Friday afternoon to change their flights without any fees to earlier in the day on Friday or even Thursday evening ahead of a cold snap and winter storm working its way across the country. 

It would have potentially delayed our flight in Denver and/or Houston. We had originally planned to leave Monument on Friday evening at 5 pm. Instead, we were up at 4 am on Friday morning to leave at 5 am.

The snow that wasn’t supposed to start until mid-afternoon had just started falling as we left the house. Good choice to leave early, but it made for a very long day and early start. 

We parked at the Parking Spot. It is a lot more convenient to our itinerary coming from Monument and not as out of the way as it was when we lived in Firestone.

Maybe we would regret the decision to leave our puffy jackets in the car and not pack them with us to Panama where we surely would NOT need them. Parking Spot is great because they pick you up by your car and drop you off at the terminal. We didn’t think we would have to be in the cold too long and hopefully the weather will be nice on our return home on Sunday, February 1st. 

Once we arrived at the airport, we checked bags, went through security, and arrive at our gate about 5 minutes before boarding. 

Deicing

It took forever for people to board, and then we waited to be de-iced. We were supposed to have left about 20 minutes early but left about 30 minutes late instead. 

No worries, we had almost three hours layover in Houston. But… at least we missed the worst of the weather. 

We spent a few hours in the lounge in Houston between flights, grabbed some food, and caught up on email. Instead of staying over night in Houston (as originally planned), we flew directly to Panama City.

Our original itinerary with the overnight in Houston at a hotel had stated that the hotel points were non-refundable if we had to make changes. A customer service agent with our Sapphire credit card called the hotel personally and told them about the change we made due to the impending storm. Our hotel points were restored.

Chris booked a suite for our first night at the Hyatt La Campania Hotel in the Old Town—Casca Viejo—of Panama City. As we checked in, Chris noted that we had two separate reservations and asked to have them combined. 

We were upgraded to three nights in the Presidential Suite. It was lovely with a great view of the cathedral next door, rooftops, and intermingled with ruins.