Well I see I'm already having troubles with this photobucket thing. It would only post the one photo so I'm not sure what I did wrong.
I think if you click on the link you'll see the photos though!!
Anyway..... enough of that. Let's get this story going so we can get past the bad part and move on to Disney!!!
Do I sound like I'm procastinating?
Actually, I'm not sure I'm ready to relive this yet!!
But anyhow..... here goes!
I left off when we were on our way to Toronto. It was an uneventful flight an everyone was relaxed.
We get to Toronto and we don't have lot of time between flights and it didn't help that our flight arrived a bit late as well. So we follow the crowd to the luggage carousel and while we wait for our luggage we are frantically trying to find the customs form and get that filled out. All of our luggage comes off the rack and you saw how much we had!! There are no luggage carts around so we have to just make do. At this time, DD is starting to complain that she's not feeling well and we are worried that maybe she is feeling dehydrated and hungry since we left home at 3:30 pm and it is now 7:40 pm
and she never ate anything since we left home at about noon that day.
However.... we manage to get our luggage over to the customs area. The customs officer that we had was just plain rude. I had missed a couple things on my form and he circled them in big red ink and yelled at me that I missed things. He treated me like this was a high school quiz that I was failing and it's not a form that we are familiar with. Anyway, once that was out of the way we gave him our passports. Well, just before this I realized I hadn't got DS to sign his passport (This is the first time using it) and he quickly signed it.
The Customs officer then shows DS's Passport to DD and asks her if she thinks the signatures match. Well what's she going to say? She says "yeah, I guess so!" and then the CO shows me and asks me if they match and I just said "Jamie, what did you do? You can't just scrawl your name like that"
What was I going to say? They didn't match... so I acted like mad mom.
But this CO was sounding like he wasn't going to let us through. He lectured DS about how does he know who he says he is etc... etc... (which was probably not a bad thing for son to hear)
So then I told DS to show him his drivers license and I proceeded to explain that he's a stupid 18 yr old kid that doesn't ever sign his name on anything as he doesn't have credit cards and everything at school is done on computer and he doesn't really have a signature.
CO finally relented and told DS to get a signature and stick with it.
So there.... we finally get through customs and and the plane is already boarding so at this time we are quickly getting to the conveyer belt to put the luggage down. I purposely put my carryon further away beside DD's carry on and I was struggling with a strap on my big carry on. As I was done, I turned around and said "Where's my carry -on" and quickly turned my head to see it go through the flaps on the converyer belt!!
I yelled "stop" - my carry on's going through. I would have thought they had a button to press because I could have reached through and grabbed it!
OMG!!!! My husband accidently put my carry on on the checked luggage.
I panicked!!! EVERYTHING!!!!! AND I MEAN EVERYTHING of importance of our trip is in that bag. The hotel documents, the travel documents, the cruise documents and luggage tags, all my RIDEMAX PLANS that I had made in triplicate. the Magic Express Bus Tickets, and most importantly, the theme park tickets.
The luggage guy said radioed down to see if they could retrieve the luggage but that was useless.
At this time... the family continued on to get on the flight as it was now about 7;55 pm and the flight leaves at 8:15 pm.
And I go out and around into the main terminal again back to the luggage carosel to see if the guy sent it back up.
BTW.... never just trust these luggage guys.. they haven't got a clue what's going on.
So as I'm standing at the carosel waiting and it appears that the guy is radioing back and forth with someone about my luggage it's going on ten after 8 and I ask him if my plane will wait when it's supposed to leave in 5 minutes.
So at this point, I just decide to go over to the West Jet counter.
Thank goodness I did that.
When I get there, this one west jet guy immediately asks if i'm Debbie and that the plane is waiting for me. He radios the plane to tell them he has me and is sending me down. He quickly explained the situation that luggage that is not tagged as checked in will go to dead luggage office and it will take him 3 hours to find my luggage and will do everything in his power to find it and get it on the next flight to orlando in the morning.
All I can do is trust him. And he also said I could have the family taken off the flight or get on which would be cheaper for us and probably wiser so I agreed.
He then helped me fill the customs form again for me and escorted me through. When I got to customs again.. I had a lady who nastily said" Where's your luggage mam?" and i was flabbergasted and asked the west jet attendant if he could help me explain and she replied "No, Mam... how about you tell me where your luggage is?" so I quickly went through the whole story and she looked at the WJ escort and asked if I was with him and he said Yes and she said "Just Go"
Then through security and they made me take my shoes off this time and spent time examining my toothpaste in my liquids bag.
I made sure the west jet guy knew my luggage was bright fuschia pink and he said that would be really helpful and that if you just unzip the front pouch then, all my info would be there. He assured me he would do his best.
He then told me my gate was the last gate and they were waiting and i should RUN! I felt like I was on the amazing race.
Finally, I get there, get on the plane apologize to the flight crew and slide into my seat by the window.
I can see my family staring me down and I couldn't even look at any of them I was so mad.
My husband then dares to ask me "where's the luggage" and I respond with
"they don't know" and "I can't talk about this right now" and for him to not talk to me or I knew I'd lose it.
He's about to tell me he didn't do it on purpose and the thing is.. I know that
so it's best if they all just let me "decompress"
As soon as we are in the air DD heads to the bathroom because she is still not feeling well. Once back in her seat.... this is not good
She's going for the barf bag. DH got the attention of the steward and they brought her more garbage bags. We were all in the same row with the kids having window and middle seat and me and DH with window and middle seat on the other side. So DH asks the guy on the isle seat with the kids if he'd like to trade seats. So there were the 3 of my family on the other side with DD throwing up for 2 and a half hours to Orlando and me "stewing" over on the other side staring out the window!!
OH... this is going to be such a happy trip!!!
I'll let you know how it all turns out next installment!
Debbie
Can't wait to hear more about your trip!
