If we thought flying into St. Maartin (see previous story) was difficult we had a real mess up flying out!

We boarded our American Airlines flight to San Juan which was one of 3 flights we were to take that day to get us to Panama City. The plane taxied out to the tarmac and taxied and taxied and taxied..... it seemed that the pilot was testing the brakes. Eventually we stopped and a mechanic was called and after an hour we were deplaned and the flight was cancelled. Nearly all the passengers had connecting flights in San Juan that were now missed. We went back into the airport and were motioned to go right back to the check in office and start again. It took 2 hours in the queue before they got to us.

The bad news was that we were not going to be able to get to Panama city that night as planned. The good news was that American Airlines would get us on a direct flight to Miami late in the afternoon, put us up in a hotel there, pay for our dinner and breakfast and fly us to Panama city the next day. There was another delay for the Miami flight (flying American Airlines can be a challenge, we heard on that day alone 3 flights had been cancelled for mechanical problems!) but eventually all went to plan and we got a night in a rather swish Holiday Inn in Miami.

So it is on to Panama City next.