Thumper03
03-21-2008, 10:25 AM
Trip Report – Travel Day
Date: Friday, February 22nd
Queen Reporting
I worked and the kids schooled most of the day Friday to avoid taking an extra vacation day. We had a 6:00PM flight out – lay-over in ATL, then on to MCO…we estimated a late night check-in around 11:30 – Midnight. Reality was much different…check-in didn’t happen until 2:30AM!!! So, let’s talk about the journey. It was quite a story all by itself.
All seemed well at home, but as it turned out, it was not so great that day and evening on the East coast. Weather delays cost us about 1 hour on the first leg of our trip. No problem, we were still fresh…goin’ to WDW…all happy.
Then we get off the plane in ATL, and find out our next flight leaves from a gate that’s on the opposite side of the planet and the only way to get there is to take a journey to the center of the Earth:thedolls: and emerge to a mile long tunnel filled with other anxious running humanity. It was not pleasant. When we finally got to our gate, we were greeted by a lovely woman who said in her growliest voice…”We’re boarding!”…like it was our fault the flights were delayed. We breathed a sigh of relief that we made the connecting flight and found our seats in the way, way back of the plane. BrerFan called it the Romper Room section…you get the picture. But it just gets better…
It’s now 9:45PM EST, and we’re expecting the plane to take off soon…but no. We sit and sweat, and listen to the captain come on telling us we’re waiting (first) for some luggage to transfer…then more luggage…then a connecting flight from Vegas…just 5 more minutes…still waiting on Vegas…just 5 more minutes…OMG!!!!:angry:
BrerFan says “They gambled and lost! Let’s go!” drawing laughs from the adults in the Romper Room.
So (no kidding) 1 hour later the plane starts to move…it doesn’t take off, because we had to wait our turn behind a million other planes that were also apparently waiting for Vegas.
By now, though we’re flying, our nerves and patience are shot. The kids are actually holding up well…the parents…not so much. We had THE WORST flight attendants we’ve ever had…we “affectionately” named one duck-mouth. She had just a little too much nip and tuck I think…and it really wasn’t helping. She was rude to everyone, her perfume was noxious, and she seemed to enjoy sticking her rear-end in your face and leaving it there! AAAHHHHH! :scared: At one point after all bags had been stowed, she opens a closed compartment, grabs BrerFan’s ESPN bag, twists it in half, and stuffs it back in the compartment…slams the door…NO reason whatsoever. He was thrilled…are there Air Marshals on board?…and what’s the chances they are sitting in the Romper Room?
So we fly, we land…we wait in line for a terminal…forever!!! At this point, we’ve been on this plane about three-times longer than we should have. Again, besides being tired, the kids are holding up well…I am beginning to lose my cool, BrerFan begins the realization that he’s too tired to be rational, so he will be silent. When we finally reached the terminal, something or someone at the front of the plane prevented us from moving for almost another ½ hour. I have felt various levels of anxiety in my life, but I think what I was feeling and the way my body was reacting could classify as an anxiety or panic attack. I lost my mind. I was shaking, sweating, had trouble breathing, I was rocking in my seat and fidgeting uncontrollably…I’m pretty sure I looked insane.:blowup: I thought I was going to make a scene, and it took all my strength not to.
Once I could move, I bolted off the plane. :bolt: As soon as I reached the inside of the airport, I started to breathe and all was well. Whew!!! Oh yeah, and then BrerFan and the kids caught up to me.
MCO at 1:30AM is quite a sight…NO People! It was weird, just like our journey there.
We wandered our way to Magical Express, taking our time because the thought of getting back on any kind of vehicle made us cringe. You can imagine at this level of exhaustion the normally annoying becomes infuriating. The annoying was the large group in front of us at the Magical Express check-in counter…they couldn’t decide how many pieces of checked luggage they had, then when they went through each family in their group to count, they couldn’t add. I think I rolled my eyes so hard, I pulled a muscle…the sighs sounded more like growls.
We were ushered past the queue directly to a bus, and then…you guessed it…we sat there, at least another 30 minutes, probably waiting for Vegas again!! It was the longest we’ve ever waited on a ME bus, at the worst possible time. People fill in around us, including a rowdy group who literally ran to the back of the bus, and then together, jumped up and down to make the bus rock! To really top it off, a father and son sat directly behind me (across the aisle from BrerFan), and they SMELLED!! Not a little funky from a long day of travel, but like they just rolled through an MCO dumpster before they got on the bus. I have no idea what it was, but it was overwhelming. I kept my face buried in my jacket. :sick: If the bus had not moved exactly when it did, BrerFan was ready to take us all off the bus and call a cab. So, down the road we went.
Finally, a moment of Divine intervention; our resort, OKW, was the first stop. We were joined only by one young man traveling alone. Good riddance ME!
It’s 2:30AM - - Welcome Home! Ahhhhhh…..check in was fairly painless except their computer was down, and they couldn’t set-up our credit card to charge…blah, blah, blah…I don’t care, I need a bed right now! They drove us and the young man to our respective buildings and we hauled ourselves up the stairs to our room and passed out.:medic:
We’ll go into actual vacation reports next, but we had to share this travel day. It goes down as our most difficult to date.
Date: Friday, February 22nd
Queen Reporting
I worked and the kids schooled most of the day Friday to avoid taking an extra vacation day. We had a 6:00PM flight out – lay-over in ATL, then on to MCO…we estimated a late night check-in around 11:30 – Midnight. Reality was much different…check-in didn’t happen until 2:30AM!!! So, let’s talk about the journey. It was quite a story all by itself.
All seemed well at home, but as it turned out, it was not so great that day and evening on the East coast. Weather delays cost us about 1 hour on the first leg of our trip. No problem, we were still fresh…goin’ to WDW…all happy.
Then we get off the plane in ATL, and find out our next flight leaves from a gate that’s on the opposite side of the planet and the only way to get there is to take a journey to the center of the Earth:thedolls: and emerge to a mile long tunnel filled with other anxious running humanity. It was not pleasant. When we finally got to our gate, we were greeted by a lovely woman who said in her growliest voice…”We’re boarding!”…like it was our fault the flights were delayed. We breathed a sigh of relief that we made the connecting flight and found our seats in the way, way back of the plane. BrerFan called it the Romper Room section…you get the picture. But it just gets better…
It’s now 9:45PM EST, and we’re expecting the plane to take off soon…but no. We sit and sweat, and listen to the captain come on telling us we’re waiting (first) for some luggage to transfer…then more luggage…then a connecting flight from Vegas…just 5 more minutes…still waiting on Vegas…just 5 more minutes…OMG!!!!:angry:
BrerFan says “They gambled and lost! Let’s go!” drawing laughs from the adults in the Romper Room.
So (no kidding) 1 hour later the plane starts to move…it doesn’t take off, because we had to wait our turn behind a million other planes that were also apparently waiting for Vegas.
By now, though we’re flying, our nerves and patience are shot. The kids are actually holding up well…the parents…not so much. We had THE WORST flight attendants we’ve ever had…we “affectionately” named one duck-mouth. She had just a little too much nip and tuck I think…and it really wasn’t helping. She was rude to everyone, her perfume was noxious, and she seemed to enjoy sticking her rear-end in your face and leaving it there! AAAHHHHH! :scared: At one point after all bags had been stowed, she opens a closed compartment, grabs BrerFan’s ESPN bag, twists it in half, and stuffs it back in the compartment…slams the door…NO reason whatsoever. He was thrilled…are there Air Marshals on board?…and what’s the chances they are sitting in the Romper Room?
So we fly, we land…we wait in line for a terminal…forever!!! At this point, we’ve been on this plane about three-times longer than we should have. Again, besides being tired, the kids are holding up well…I am beginning to lose my cool, BrerFan begins the realization that he’s too tired to be rational, so he will be silent. When we finally reached the terminal, something or someone at the front of the plane prevented us from moving for almost another ½ hour. I have felt various levels of anxiety in my life, but I think what I was feeling and the way my body was reacting could classify as an anxiety or panic attack. I lost my mind. I was shaking, sweating, had trouble breathing, I was rocking in my seat and fidgeting uncontrollably…I’m pretty sure I looked insane.:blowup: I thought I was going to make a scene, and it took all my strength not to.
Once I could move, I bolted off the plane. :bolt: As soon as I reached the inside of the airport, I started to breathe and all was well. Whew!!! Oh yeah, and then BrerFan and the kids caught up to me.
MCO at 1:30AM is quite a sight…NO People! It was weird, just like our journey there.
We wandered our way to Magical Express, taking our time because the thought of getting back on any kind of vehicle made us cringe. You can imagine at this level of exhaustion the normally annoying becomes infuriating. The annoying was the large group in front of us at the Magical Express check-in counter…they couldn’t decide how many pieces of checked luggage they had, then when they went through each family in their group to count, they couldn’t add. I think I rolled my eyes so hard, I pulled a muscle…the sighs sounded more like growls.
We were ushered past the queue directly to a bus, and then…you guessed it…we sat there, at least another 30 minutes, probably waiting for Vegas again!! It was the longest we’ve ever waited on a ME bus, at the worst possible time. People fill in around us, including a rowdy group who literally ran to the back of the bus, and then together, jumped up and down to make the bus rock! To really top it off, a father and son sat directly behind me (across the aisle from BrerFan), and they SMELLED!! Not a little funky from a long day of travel, but like they just rolled through an MCO dumpster before they got on the bus. I have no idea what it was, but it was overwhelming. I kept my face buried in my jacket. :sick: If the bus had not moved exactly when it did, BrerFan was ready to take us all off the bus and call a cab. So, down the road we went.
Finally, a moment of Divine intervention; our resort, OKW, was the first stop. We were joined only by one young man traveling alone. Good riddance ME!
It’s 2:30AM - - Welcome Home! Ahhhhhh…..check in was fairly painless except their computer was down, and they couldn’t set-up our credit card to charge…blah, blah, blah…I don’t care, I need a bed right now! They drove us and the young man to our respective buildings and we hauled ourselves up the stairs to our room and passed out.:medic:
We’ll go into actual vacation reports next, but we had to share this travel day. It goes down as our most difficult to date.