I am a frequent traveler of Spirit Airlines and have been pleased thus far with the service and of course great fares Spirit provides. I am however greatly displeased with the service and lack of communication that was demonstrated to myself and several other passengers during our flight. We arrived to the airport in San Juan early due to departing a cruise ship and upon arrival asked if our seats could be moved closer to the front due to our connection to Las Vegas however all the seats were booked closer. Then the flight time changed to a delay of about 25 minutes which would still have given us enough time to make the connection. Upon the flight landing in San Juan the entire crew had to exit the plane due to mechanical issues from hitting a bird earlier in the day. The flight was then delayed an hour to 5:30pm which certainly would not allow us to make the connection. We went to the gate desk and the agents said to wait 15 minutes for any resolution. We waited 30 with nothing and then they said we are going to board now and arrangements will be made for you in Fort Lauderdale if you miss your connection. Upon boarding the plane at 5pm which was earlier than expected so we may now have a chance to still make our connection. The doors to the plane were shut and the safety briefing was being completed when they stopped and announced they were going to reopen doors and let 3 passengers who missed the boarding announcement to board the plane. This took approximately 20 minutes. After flying the flight attendants did announce to allow for connecting passengers to exit the plane first when we landed at approximately 8:25pm. We thought maybe if we ran with our 3 year old daughter to the other gate we might make our connection flight leaving at 8:40pm. We ran through the terminal to make it by 8:40pm to find that the flight had already departed at 8:33pm which was 7 minutes early. There were several other passengers that missed this flight to Las Vegas. After waiting in line for 30 minutes at the gate counter for some sort of resolution they sent us to the main ticket counter. We ran knowing there was about 20 people behind us and being the 2nd person in line we were not assisted for another hour. After we spoke with Anthony the supervisor at the ticket counter it took him another 20-30 minutes for any resolution as they had "no idea" about our issues. We were then told that we were rebooked on another flight to Las Vegas an entire 24 hours later. The time was now 11:30pm and 3 hours after our flight landed in Fort Lauderdale. We were accommodated for the night as well as shuttle to/from the hotel. The food vouchers we received were not enough to cover our dinner at over $15 a person. We tried asking for an earlier flight with no luck and travelling with our 3 year old and dealing with this was not ideal. The fact is my husband and I both missed work the on Monday and my husband had a huge client he caddies for at the prestigious Shadow Creek making him miss out on over $400 for the one day and I also had my largest customer I missed a meeting with which is unacceptable. On Monday arriving to the airport at 4pm for our 8:40pm flight we found that the airport terminal was evacuated due a burst sprinkler head in baggage claim. We waited outside for over an hour until we were allowed back in the terminal. As soon as we were allowed inside it was Chaos trying to get to the ticket counter as there were hundreds of people. I was able to attain position with my daughter in her stroller with about 20 people in front of me. At the ticket counter it took over an hour to be helped. Once we were helped we were then told we would be charged for our bags. Anthony took care of this for us but the hassle alone has been ridiculous. We made it to the gate with only one hour to spare.
Spirit felt that we were compensated since we made it back to our end location and was only willing to credit us $50 each traveler. Ridiculous!