Ruby Watir Gem, Timing Out on Form Input - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm practicing webscraping using Watir, Mechanize and Nokigiri gems.
I'm running into an issue with my Watir script. My plan is to get a list of prices from flights via http://tripadvisor.com/. When I run the script, the Chrome browser opens as it should, the script proceeds to fill out the first parts of the form, origin and destination and then it halts. Here is the error message I'm getting:
This code has slept for the duration of the default timeout waiting for an Element to be present. If the test is still passing, consider using Element#exists? instead of rescuing UnknownObjectException
/home/jaffejoe/.rbenv/versions/2.4.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/watir-6.2.0/lib/watir/elements/element.rb:515:in `rescue in wait_for_present': element located, but timed out after 30 seconds, waiting for true condition on #<Watir::Input: located: true; {:name=>"rt_leaveday", :tag_name=>"input"}> (Watir::Exception::UnknownObjectException)
from /home/jaffejoe/.rbenv/versions/2.4.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/watir-6.2.0/lib/watir/elements/element.rb:505:in `wait_for_present'
from /home/jaffejoe/.rbenv/versions/2.4.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/watir-6.2.0/lib/watir/elements/element.rb:522:in `wait_for_enabled'
from /home/jaffejoe/.rbenv/versions/2.4.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/watir-6.2.0/lib/watir/elements/element.rb:534:in `wait_for_writable'
from /home/jaffejoe/.rbenv/versions/2.4.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/watir-6.2.0/lib/watir/elements/element.rb:639:in `element_call'
from /home/jaffejoe/.rbenv/versions/2.4.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/watir-6.2.0/lib/watir/elements/element.rb:303:in `send_keys'
from watir_test.rb:8:in `<main>' </
Here is my code:
require 'watir'
browser = Watir::Browser.new
browser.goto('https://tripadvisor.com/CheapFlightsHome')
browser.input(name: 'orig').send_keys('Boston, MA - Logan International Airport (BOS)')
browser.input(name: 'dest').send_keys('Milan, Italy - All Airports (MIL)')
browser.input(name: 'rt_leaveday').send_keys('1')
browser.input(name: 'rt_leavemonth').send_keys('06/2017')
browser.input(name: 'retday').send_keys('30')
browser.input(name: 'leavemonth').send_keys('06/2017')
browser.input(value: 'Search Flights').click
puts browser.url
browser.quit

Answer 1

It can't set value on the rt_leaveday or rt_leavemonth because they are hidden inputs. But you can execute a script to click on dateselector:
require 'watir'
browser = Watir::Browser.new
browser.goto('https://tripadvisor.com/CheapFlightsHome')
browser.text_field(name: 'orig').set('Boston, MA - Logan International Airport (BOS)')
browser.text_field(name: 'dest').set('Milan, Italy - All Airports (MIL)')
browser.execute_script('document.querySelector(".in_date").click()')
browser.execute_script('document.querySelector(".day_28").click()')
browser.execute_script('document.querySelector(".out_date").click()')
browser.execute_script('document.querySelector(".day_2").click()')
browser.span(id: "CHECK_FARES_BUTTON").fire_event :click
puts browser.url
browser.quit
=> https://www.tripadvisor.com/CheapFlightsSearchResults-g187849-a_airport0.BOS-a_airport1.MIL-a_cos.0-a_date0.20170328-a_date1.20170402-a_nearby0.no-a_nearby1.no-a_nonstop.no-a_pax0.a-a_travelers.1-Milan_Lombardy.html