Bored at the airport!

[Twilight Terror]

Hi everyone!

We are currently sat in Wetherspoons attempting to spend our £15 per person flight delay compensation money! Yes, that's right, we are currently riding out a 7-hour delay!!!

We were due to be on the 13:00 VS15 to Orlando this afternoon, but it's been delayed and pushed back right to 19:20 tonight! At least it looks likely that we will leave at some point today.

I must say, it has been a very eventful trip so far. We conked out on the M23, 7 miles from Gatwick and had to wait for the AA man, got locked out of the hotel room due to a dodgy door handle, had trouble with my glasses, took a trip to Crawley on the bus at the same time as we *should* have been leaving Gatwick on a plane, and then after adjusting my glasses in town, the arm snapped right off!

Here's hoping the flight will be a little less eventful and less stressful. However, the start to the family photo album this year is definitely going to be interesting!!!!

 

[buzz for boys]

Oh No !!
Hope you have a safe flight out and can forget the nightmare start !!

 

[Pegasus928]

Hope have got passed the worst of it and can enjoy the rest of your journey.
Will you be able to keep us updated on your trip whilst over there (please say yes - please say yes)

 

[disney_princess_85]

Oh dear.

Fingers crossed you get going soon!

 

[katiec]

Maybe not the best start to your holiday.... but certainly a different one!

Hope you get going soon.

 

[PJB71]

Oh sorry to hear about your delay

As they say "things can only get better"

Hope everything else goes to plan and you have a great time

 

[wayneg]

Hope you get to go tonight, just checked status looks like its been put back again to 8:30pm now. So maybe boarding?

 

[Pinky166]

Oh no what a bad run of luck.

Hopefully it will all be perfect from now on, have a great time.

 

[2Tiggies]

Well after this lot, you deserve the most wonderful trip you could dream of from this point on!!!!

Have a safe flight. Hopefully you are in the air now.

 

[wayneg]

Status updated again, if they get off now they don't arrive until 2am
Scheduled departure time 10 May 13:00
Estimated departure time 10 May 20:45
Scheduled arrival time 10 May 17:00
Estimated arrival time 11 May 02:08

 

[howlongtillsummer?]

Oh how terrible. But at least a delay is better than a cancellation.

 

[2Tiggies]

Status updated again, if they get off now they don't arrive until 2am
Scheduled departure time 10 May 13:00
Estimated departure time 10 May 20:45
Scheduled arrival time 10 May 17:00
Estimated arrival time 11 May 02:08

I do hope the seats are comfy .... A good snooze on the plane may be the only way to salvage some usable hours of tomorrow. This is so awful. Everyone deserves a wonderful holiday. I do hope everything turns gold from here on for the OP.

 

[wayneg]

Hopefully on their way now.

Scheduled departure time 10 May 13:00
Actual departure time 10 May 20:51
Scheduled arrival time 10 May 17:00
Estimated arrival time 11 May 02:14

 

[disneyholic family]

hopefully you've gotten all the bad stuff out of the way and it will be smooth sailing the rest of your holiday!!

have a magical time!!!!

 

[Cyrano]

Hope you are already on your way

 

[london75]

Status updated again, if they get off now they don't arrive until 2am
Scheduled departure time 10 May 13:00
Estimated departure time 10 May 20:45
Scheduled arrival time 10 May 17:00
Estimated arrival time 11 May 02:08

Manchester is showing the same sort of 7 hour lag on all flights too. I wonder how they're going to catch up until this plume has gone which could be months!

 

[Twilight Terror]

Hello everyone! We are here!!!!

Didn't get chance to get back online at the airport before we departed, but since I am now feeling slightly more human and in the safety of my DVC room, I thought I'd update everyone.

Yesterday was one very long day, that's for sure! In the end, they did move departure back to 20.30 (as Wayne stated), with boarding starting at 19.00. There was one family that turned up in the cabin upstairs looong after are scheduled time to depart, which meant we didn't even leave the stand until just before 9pm.

Thanks to the volcanic ash, we had to do a huge arc up across the country, over Greenland and then went quite far inland to come down over Canada and the US. The downside - it made what should have been an 8hr flight into a 10hr flight!

They also managed to mess up the entertainment system, so we all had the films TO the UK, as opposed to FROM the UK. That annoyed me more than anything as I was totally looking forward to watching Princess and the Frog, It's Complicated and The Blind Side - three films that I was supposed to go to the cinema with my mum to see over the past few months, but other things cropped up and meant we could not. So now, I've STILL not seen PATF!

It was a bit of a strange flight since because of where we were flying, it was light for quite some time, before the darkness crept in. Ended up staying up to watch a few films, then me and Cath sat on the floor playing Travel Scrabble until we hit turbulance over Greenland. At that point, we joined everyone else on the plane in the land of nod!

Although our immigration office was quite sharp and annoyed with everyone (including the special assistance guy!), immigration was pretty straight forward and quick. My suitcases were ready and waiting on the belt by the time we were through - one advantage to PE, plus I was uneasy about doing Twilight Check-in and the bags just not getting there at all!

Since we didn't have our wheelchair and someone else pushing, we were able to keep our luggage instead of having to let it go and recollect again! By the time we got to the Dollar queue, it was 3:15am Florida time! I do not like the way Dollar do things now - you just go across and choose your own car! We were going for the mid-size SUV but there were none we liked. Spoke to the Dollar lady who said we could get a minivan instead, so we did! For the three of us...

By the time we decided on the car, filled in the last of the paperwork and worked out what did what in the car, we left the airport at 4.15am and drove slowly to WDW, and eventually into Kidani Village. We got checked in and were in the room at 5.30am.

It was still dark when we arrived, but it was just starting to get light. We'd seen a few animals out in the darkness, and got to watch the sunrise on the Sunset Savannah and be greeted by three cattle, two zebras, and a noisy crane!

Mum and sister have stayed up spotting animals, while I had a quick catnap for an hour. We all had a reasonably good sleep on the plane, so decided it's probably best just to stay up this morning, go to breakfast, which was already booked for 9.45am at Boma, and then either have a snooze this afternoon or crash early tonight.

But, we are here, and we made it in one piece! Thankfully, because everyone works shifts, we are used to getting varying lengths of sleep and carrying on depending on what combo of early/lates we do, so that is what we will do, so won't loose too much time!

I will be writing a trip report this time I think, just because it's been so strange a holiday! Now I must dash off to breakfast!

 

[disney_princess_85]

Phew! I'm glad you're there, safe and sound. Have a great trip!

 

[wayneg]

Very eventful start, enjoy your holiday.

 

[Neoshoegal]

Glad to hear you guys made it alright
Not a flight I'd like to do, but worth it in the end I guess.

Enjoy your holiday!