Cast of Characters: The Fraggle Family
Mama-me
Dada
Big Sister-3 years
Little Sister-16 months
Day One(Sept. 26), Part One: You are using both of those carseats on the airplane?
Technically my day started out at 12:00 a.m. still packing and not yet sleeping-I must be crazy-checking my packing lists, doing dishes that didn't make it into the dishwasher. Finally by 1:30 I get to bed and that alarm goes of at 5:30. I let it go off 2 more times before I roll out of bed, or rather my husband pushes me out. I actually never fell back to sleep since I was so wound up about our trip. I completed any last minute tasks, got the girls fed and dressed and we made it out the door by 8:00 a.m. We arrived by 8:25 and got a luggage cart since we had so much stuff-2 carryons, a laptop, videocamera, double stroller, 2 carseats, 2 large suitcases. We flew out of the Portland Jetport and it was pretty quiet there at this time. No one in line to check in and the same at security. Security took a while since they had to hand check the carseats and one bag had to be hand searched. Overall the security personnel were very friendly, thanks to the disboards I knew what to expect going through security with all that stuff and 2 little kids, too. I asked if we could board early since we had the carseats, no problem-we were the first on-the problem was we had to go down a flight of stairs to get to the plane (it was a small Canadair jet) and then up the stairs to the plane. Luckily, before we even asked, United employees picked up our carseats and carried them to the plane. The seats fit fine in the plane and we were off to Dulles on time. In Dulles we met up with more helpful United employees, who helped us off the plane with the carseats and into the terminal. Once in the terminal we had to take some sort of transport bus thing to Concourse C, once we reached our gate and the restroom, our connection was boarding. This time it was a bigger jet so we were able to wheel the carseats through the jet to our seats (they just fit through the aisle) and again we were in the air on time. While in the air, a man a few rows ahead of us passed out. I guess his daughters had wanted to plane to make an emergency landing but he refused and we landed in Orlando as scheduled. I don't know exactly what happened to the man-the person sitting next to me told me he had passed out because he hadn't eaten anything and my husband told me he saw the same man lifting his luggage onto a cart at the baggage pick-up area-so I'm not sure what happened-I just hope the man is okay!
So now it is 3:30 and my DH is very crabby and hungry, we head for the AVIS desk, but a sign there says preferred customers go directly to the garage-well the elevator keeps indicating that it is going up and never going down, we look for another but this seems to be the only one going to the tunnel, my DH gets on one going up but there is not enough room for me with the double stroller so I wait for another one-it comes and says it is going down, but never goes anywhere! I get off and finally next the next one goes down to the tunnel. Once in the tunnel we take another elevator going up to the garage level with the rental cars. Since my DH is Avis preferred we get our keys immediately with no wait and no line and get our full size car about 20 cars away (kind of disappointed since I used a coupon for a free upgrade to a minivan) and it is a tight fit with our stuff. So off we go but somehow we end up missing the Beeline which actually works out okay since we see a McDonalds and my DH needs to eat. So we stop and then we are on our way to Fort Wilderness with no traffic.
Mama-me
Dada
Big Sister-3 years
Little Sister-16 months
Day One(Sept. 26), Part One: You are using both of those carseats on the airplane?
Technically my day started out at 12:00 a.m. still packing and not yet sleeping-I must be crazy-checking my packing lists, doing dishes that didn't make it into the dishwasher. Finally by 1:30 I get to bed and that alarm goes of at 5:30. I let it go off 2 more times before I roll out of bed, or rather my husband pushes me out. I actually never fell back to sleep since I was so wound up about our trip. I completed any last minute tasks, got the girls fed and dressed and we made it out the door by 8:00 a.m. We arrived by 8:25 and got a luggage cart since we had so much stuff-2 carryons, a laptop, videocamera, double stroller, 2 carseats, 2 large suitcases. We flew out of the Portland Jetport and it was pretty quiet there at this time. No one in line to check in and the same at security. Security took a while since they had to hand check the carseats and one bag had to be hand searched. Overall the security personnel were very friendly, thanks to the disboards I knew what to expect going through security with all that stuff and 2 little kids, too. I asked if we could board early since we had the carseats, no problem-we were the first on-the problem was we had to go down a flight of stairs to get to the plane (it was a small Canadair jet) and then up the stairs to the plane. Luckily, before we even asked, United employees picked up our carseats and carried them to the plane. The seats fit fine in the plane and we were off to Dulles on time. In Dulles we met up with more helpful United employees, who helped us off the plane with the carseats and into the terminal. Once in the terminal we had to take some sort of transport bus thing to Concourse C, once we reached our gate and the restroom, our connection was boarding. This time it was a bigger jet so we were able to wheel the carseats through the jet to our seats (they just fit through the aisle) and again we were in the air on time. While in the air, a man a few rows ahead of us passed out. I guess his daughters had wanted to plane to make an emergency landing but he refused and we landed in Orlando as scheduled. I don't know exactly what happened to the man-the person sitting next to me told me he had passed out because he hadn't eaten anything and my husband told me he saw the same man lifting his luggage onto a cart at the baggage pick-up area-so I'm not sure what happened-I just hope the man is okay!
So now it is 3:30 and my DH is very crabby and hungry, we head for the AVIS desk, but a sign there says preferred customers go directly to the garage-well the elevator keeps indicating that it is going up and never going down, we look for another but this seems to be the only one going to the tunnel, my DH gets on one going up but there is not enough room for me with the double stroller so I wait for another one-it comes and says it is going down, but never goes anywhere! I get off and finally next the next one goes down to the tunnel. Once in the tunnel we take another elevator going up to the garage level with the rental cars. Since my DH is Avis preferred we get our keys immediately with no wait and no line and get our full size car about 20 cars away (kind of disappointed since I used a coupon for a free upgrade to a minivan) and it is a tight fit with our stuff. So off we go but somehow we end up missing the Beeline which actually works out okay since we see a McDonalds and my DH needs to eat. So we stop and then we are on our way to Fort Wilderness with no traffic.
