KLM part Deux, or secondi, as it were, being an Italy Adventure. As if it wasn't bad enough ending two fabulous weeks in the land of the renaissance and great wine, we had a 4am wake up call for a 5:15 am taxi to Florence Airport. But wait, there's more! Europe selfishly chose this day to begin daylight savings, so subtract an hour of sleep from 4 am! So our body clocks were at 3am and 4:14am. Not ideal after our last night in Italy celebration drinking all the wine we could not stuff into our suitcases .
We boarded the Alitalia flight to Amsterdam on time, but due to a baggage error (not ours!) we sat on the Tarmac so long we missed our connecting flight to San Francisco. Imagine our frustration as we ran through Schiphol Airport to try to make our KLM flight only to be told at the gate that our bags would not be on board so we would not be either. We ranted amongst ourselves as were told were were booked on a later flight through JFK adding about 12 hours to our trip. 
There is a "However" to this story though (however). The KLM transfer desk agent was very understanding of our plight, and with a little pleading on our part and a lot of effort on her part she got The WineWalkabout group on a KLM flight to Vancouver with a connection to SFO on Air Canada, and upgraded us all to business class. Ok, that's not San Francisco direct, and our planned family Easter dinner was not going to happen, but waiting in the KLM executive lounge and flying feet up or stretched out with the seat massager on, well it did take the edge off. We were greeted on the plane with hot flannels and cool champagne, and immediately all the travel stress washed away. We apparently can be bought for good food and wine.
Dinner (or was that lunch) was served with a nice selection of French, South African, and Spanish wines, with a delicious "sticky" Chardonnay from D'Arenberg in Australia. With cloth tablecloths and napkins, metal cutlery, and real salt and pepper shakers, the Winewalkabout travelers were out of their league, but definitely in their travel comfort zone. Second dinner (or maybe this was second lunch now...) was served an hour before arrival, more of the same! Great Champagne and wine selections and very very good food.
Great work KLM for understanding what good customer service really is. For turning around a bad situation that they had no control over, and that they were not at fault for. We at Winewalkabout would like to upgrade KLM to a hearty "Recommend". Check them out for your travel needs.
WineWalkabout
Very nice of them to upgrade you guys.
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