Monday May 3rd, 2010
After 3 months of planning, all the packing was done, all the instructions and medical releases had been written and printed, all the checklists had been checked, my mom arrived from Pennsylvania, and Jeff and I were READY TO GO!!
Our flight was scheduled to leave Rochester at 5:55 am....the first flight out. Unfortunately, it was not a direct flight as Airtran changed their direct to Orlando to an afternoon flight. We had a connection to make in Atlanta, but we were still scheduled to arrive in Orlando at 10:35 am. Plenty of time to make the one hour drive to Port Canaveral in order to be on the ship by 3 pm. Well....you know what they say about the best laid plans.......
Jeff's dad had kindly agreed to drive us to the airport (only about a 10 minute drive) at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. He was scheduled to pick us up at 4:30 am. After a restless night of
too excited to sleep sleep, the alarm went off and Jeff and I jumped out of bed to get ready to head to the airport. My mom was sleeping on our couch in the living room so, poor thing, she was awake to hear our last minute preparations. We brushed our teeth, put on our traveling clothes, gathered the last minute items for our toiletry bags and carry-ons and headed out the door to Dad's waiting car just before 4:30 am.
WE ARE ON OUR WAY!!
Arriving at the Rochester International Airport just after 4:45, it was fairly quiet. We had checked in online for our flight and also paid our $30 baggage fee in advance, so all we had to do was check our luggage and head through security. That all went very quickly and before we knew it we were in line to get some much needed
COFFEE!! I am a coffee addict, I admit it! And there's no better coffee than the coffee you get in the airport as you are getting ready to leave on vacation! It just tastes better, don't you think??
After getting out coffee fix, we headed to our gate to wait for our flight.
See...it really WAS early!
Let me do a little explaining about this next picture. Jeff's boss had given him this little green cat to take on the trip. She told him to take pics of Green Cat (as we so unimaginatively called him) on our vacation....kind of odd, but we were game! (For a while anyway....stay tuned!) So, this is Green Cat waiting at the airport!
Here's one of those stretch your arm out as far as you can so we can get a pic of both of us pictures. When it's just the two of you, together pictures are hard! We came to rely on the kindness of strangers!
Before long, our flight was being called to board. YAY!
Fortunately, even though we did not pay extra to select our seats ahead of time, Jeff and I were sitting together on this flight. We got on the plane and settled in.
Before I get too far, I need to tell you a little background. I had been reading and researching cruise vacations like a good little vacation planner. The one rule I chose to disregard was Don't travel the same day the ship departs. The overwhelming recommendation was to travel the day before and stay overnight in the port city to ensure that you made the ship in a timely fashion. A cruise ship
WILL NOT wait for you, so if you miss it, you're out of luck. My thinking was that we were on the first flight out in the AM, we were scheduled to arrive in PLENTY of time to make the drive to the port, it was spring so weather should be a non-issue, and last but not least....we were already spending a little extra money to spend the weekend AFTER the cruise in Orlando. I didn't want to spend any extra for a hotel the night before. This decision proved to be a real point of concern in the weeks leading up to the trip. I was really worried that we would have problems. I did the math and we really only had a short window of time to play with if there were delays, etc. We needed to be on the ship by 3 pm. It was an hour drive from MCO to the port, so we needed to leave MCO no later than 2. We had to get off the plane, get to baggage claim, get our luggage and find the shuttle we had arranged through the cruise line. It was all beginning to really freak me out. What did NOT help my worrying was all the travel issues friends had been having recently. First, a friend went to Florida in March and was 24 hours behind schedule due to flight delays...she had to stay overnight in Atlanta and get a flight the next day.
Another friend took a
Disney cruise in March and ended up having to take the train from JFK back to Rochester due to flight delays and missed connections in Orlando.
Yet another friend had to rent a car and drive from Baltimore back to Rochester due to flight delays in Tampa.
But what was done was done and all I could do was hope and pray for no delays. All the worrying in the world was not going to change our situation, so I tried to be calm.
All that to say that I was very relieved when we boarded the plane on time! I had been watching the weather in Atlanta. There were thunderstorms in the forecast, but if all went well, we would be in and out of that airport before they hit.
Once we settled into our seats, I began to relax and really feel like we were on vacation! Jeff and I joked about the complimentary magazine with Megan Fox on the cover...lucky guy! We listened to a grandmother in front of us try to help her grand-daughters get settled in, it was obviously their first time flying. Before long, the pilot came on and gave us the pre-flight info---how long we would be in the air, weather conditions, etc. He did say that the weather in Atlanta was not great, but didn't seem too concerned. Within a few minutes we were pulling away from the gate and headed toward the runway.
As we waited our turn to take-off, the pilot came on again and said that we were not cleared to take off for Atlanta because there was a ton of air traffic over Atlanta that could not land due to weather. He assured us that he would update us soon and that we would not be kept out on the tarmac long due to the newly passed regulations. Uh-Oh.
All that worry came crashing back in. I struggled to fight back tears as Jeff squeezed my hand and tried to assure me that everything would be fine. Within a few minutes, we heard the pilot again.
Well folks, I told you I would update you. I didn't tell you it would be a good update...