The Nightmare Plane Ride

So since I seem to be running about a month behind on blogging, I will go ahead and tell you about our experience with Frontier Airlines on the way home from Florida. This picture of Alayna is really the best way to illustrate the whole thing. We left the Ft. Lauderdale airport on time to go have a layover in Denver (Frontiers "hub"). Alayna took a pretty good nap, but it is a 4 hour flight so by the time we were getting close to Denver, she was very antsy and I was anxious to get her off the plane for a stretch break. Keep in mind she is very active and starting to walk, so she doesn't want to be on someone's lap for 4 hours. I then noticed on the screen that shows where the plane is, that we started turning around. Finally the pilot explains to us that the weather in Denver was bad, and we were circling until they would let us land. Later on he came back and said we didn't have enough fuel to keep circling, so we'd land in Colorado Springs to refuel. Then he said C. Springs was full, so we'd land in Pueblo. Pueblo is a podunk town and we weren't even allowed off the plane, so we just sat there. It sucked. Finally they gave us permission to land in Denver, so we were on our way again.
Now, even if everything had gone smoothly, we were only going to have a 30 min layover in Denver, so making that flight was out of the question. The flight attendants told us that since no flights were coming OR going, our outgoing flight was probably delayed as well. We got off the plane in Denver and an agent standing by our gate told us we'd missed the flight & to go to the Frontier customer service desk. We hurried to the desk and GASPED at the horrendus line. 2 and 1/2 HOURS later, Jeff got to the front of the line. There was only 1 flight left and it was full, we'd have to take the first flight in the morning at 7am.
My problems with Frontier are as follows:
1. If Denver is their "hub", why do they only have 3 agents helping their customers for situations like these?
2. They were very unaccomodating. We had to book our own room at the hotel THEY chose, so we could get a 50% discount. They didn't give us a toiletry kit or even apologize for all of the inconveniences. I do realize they can't control the weather, but they CAN control how THEY handle and are prepared for these situations.
3. We had to take a shuttle van to the hotel. It was 30 mins away with NO carseats.
4. I was also frustrated because I have friends and family who live in the denver area that I could've called, had we not wasted 2 and 1/2 hours in line, that I'm sure would've come and picked us up. But we thought we'd be able to get on the last flight, which left at 11pm.
5. We got to the hotel at 10:30 at night. We didn't bring quite enough formula and diapers for an overnighter, so the hotel lady said there was a Walgreens down the street that closed at 11. Jeff ran there (in flipflops, at night, downtown) only to find they close at 10 NOT 11. He ran back to the hotel and the belhop felt sorry for him and gave him a ride to the closest grocery store.
-We went to bed around midnight and had to wake up at 4:30 to catch the 5:00 shuttle. We had no change of clothes, no toothbrushes, deodarant, etc.
-We arrived in SLC at 8:30 the next morning. Jeff was supposed to work that day and Alayna was supposed to have her 9 month checkup that morning. Those shouldn't have been a problem because we were supposed to get in at 7pm the night before. We went to the baggage office for Frontier because we knew our luggage wouldn't have been on the same plane as us. Their office was CLOSED. And we could see out suitcases through the glass door. It took lots of attitude on our part and 45 minutes for them to sent someone just to open the stupid door. Icing on the cake.
My poor little girl was exhausted and confused, but people kept commenting on how much of a trooper she was!
I have flown back and forth from SLC to Florida MANY times and have had MANY hiccups, and have even had to stay overnight like this before, in Atlanta. But never have I dealt with an airline that has been so unaccomodating and unhelpful.

A couple days later my mother in law said she saw on the news that Frontier is in serious financial trouble....I wonder why.