D L and K's Mom
<font color=blue>D, L and now baby Kennedy's mom!<
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2001
- Messages
- 3,501
Ok here is the first part of our Christmas Trip. The People involved...
Me (Mommy of 3, fanatic planner of WDW.....we have a schedule you know!!)
DH (Disney Fanatic)
DD 15 (Maybe a little too cool for a trip with the family???)
DS 16 (developmentally disabled and in a wheelchair, loves WDW and all rides!)
DD 3 (Everything is MAGIC, the automatic flushing toliets are MAGIC, the shuttle between the airport terminals is MAGIC the Princess are MAGIC...full of wonder)
MIL (Can't walk long distances, had not been to WDW in years)
SIL ( 35 no children and has little patience for children. Why going to WDW?? Because MIL treated her for her graduation the night before from Massage School, a little hesitant about WDW, lives next door to us and is a great Aunt )
After having our flight information changed 14 times (really, I am not kidding you 14 times, seats, times, flights, connections etc) by Delta in the year before the trip the flight was finally set to leave our airport (Rochester NY) at 5:30pm on December 22.
DH and I are both teachers. We packed our van the night before and plan on getting home on Friday at 3:30 and flying to the airport! MIL and SIL stayed home with the kids so they could sleep in and be ready to go. Things went great. We ran home (sorry class I am so sorry I ran you over in the hallways and screamed ya, ya, ya Merry Christmas to you to I have a flight to catch. I know it was not very "Christmasish"), I promise I will make it all better with the goodies I bring you bakc from WDW. We drove to the airport and checked in!!! Security, great not a problem. YEAH flight still on time, DS and DH have front seats so DS does not kick other passengers etc.....YIPPEEEEEEEE! Everything going according to plan. We settle ourselves down in the airport for our short wait and play Disney UNO! Ummmm wait , what is this....our flight is now listed as DELAYED???? Ok I walk up to the counter (I am the first one there) I am told by a very sweet young lady that our plane is still in Atlanta and has to fly to Rochester and then we will be ready to take off. Ok, a slight delay. What time???? About 8:30 I am told. Ok, is is weather related? Nope, problem with the plane. Ok we settle in and play for awhile. DS watches DVD on his little DVD player, DD amuses herself skipping on the green tiles. MIL reads and the rest of us play UNO. HMMMM what is that terrible noise, Oh my GOD is it our plane...... no its our stomaches, We are all getting hungry.Our plan had been to eat in Atlanta during our long lay over. I go to get food. YIKES airport food is $$$$$. We eat our sandwiches and people watch and make friends with 2 other families going to Florida. Hmmm we say to our new friends there does not seem to be a plane anywhere? We go up again to ask. We are told that the plane but not ready to leave yet. We are all probably going to miss our connections and have to stay in Atlanta for the night but DELTA will pay as it is not weather related. I ask if it would be better to go home and come back in the morning so DS can sleep in his own room. I am told NO the best thing is to get to Atlanta because if we stay in Rochester they will not be able to get us out until TUESDAY!!! YIKES!!! I am given a print out of hotels in ATLANTA that Delta uses. I am told to call and make a reservation , when I get to Atlanta I will be given a voucher when I check in at the Delta desk. OK thank you nice Delta lady. I go and call the first on on the list AMERI SUITES. Yup they have a room. Yes, it is handicapped access for DS. They are 2 miles from the airport and have a handicapped access shutle bus that will take us to and from the airport. Ok count us in. I am told that I cannot cancel the reservation as it is less and 24 hours. I get nervous and have her hold on while I again check with Sweet Delta Lady. I am told to tell the reservation lady about the voucher. I do and she tells me that yes, they work with Delta all the time. Ok we are all set. I have a room for us and one for MIL and SIL. I pass the phone to our new friends who make ressies too. Now I have to call DOLLAR car rental to let them know flight change. I call and get a very nice young man who looks up my ressie and tells me he will have to cancel it and make a new ressie but that they will not have any vans left. WHAT???? I explain again that we will be late and that I need the van and I will pay for the day we are not using the van. He explains to me that they will not have a van. HUH?? I am not getting something here, what about my van, the one I have reserved. He is getting annoyed with me. Miss, your van ressie cannot be held so you lose the van you need to make a new reservation and the cost will be $1853.00 for 9 days for the van but we don't have any available. I lost it....I am trapped in the airport, I am eating salty $$ airport food, I am now losing my handicapped van and I just don't get it. I start to cry....please let me speak to your manager I ask. I am then connected to a young man who tells me the same thing. I ask if they can please just charge my credit card for the whole thing and I will just pick it up when we arrive. I am told that is not the way it works. I ask why they take the flight info when you make a ressie? They can check and see that the flight is not arriving until the next day. I am told they can only hold the ressie for 6 hours when flights are delayed. I ask if there is anything he can do I NEED the van and I booked it 10 months ago. He says hold on. When he comes bakc he says we can upgrade to a larger van (I picture a huge school bus in my head) Ok, Ok I will do it . How much ( I am now picturing having to sell my luggage, etc to pay for this boat of a van) I am told $18 more a day. SOLD. I will take it I am stuck and I need the van. Ok all set. I tell DH and he is sad that I am upset so early on in the trip(notice I say so early on in the trip...we are not lucky when we travel.....hurricane Charley, DS in Celebration Hospital last trip, DELTA leaving us on the plane and locking the doors while we were still on the plane etc...these are a few ouf our other adventures). He tells me not to worry about the $ and to just relax.I love my DH (make a note of that as later in the trip I will be ready to kill him!!!) We board our flight to Atlanta and arrive at approx 11:30. We are helped off last and spend about 1/2 hour waiting for DS wheelchair to be brought up from under the plane. We are all set we roll out to find a HUGE line at the DELTA counter where we have to wait. I am told by the young man who bring the wheelchair that we need to wait there to get our voucher . Ok troops disperse. DDs go to the bathroom. MIL sits down to read. SIL goes in search of food. DH and DS go to find a companion bathroom so DH can change DS diapers etc. I go to the counter and wait. I wait, and wait and wait and hear all sorts of stories about people not being able to find their luggage, not being able to get to their destination due to missing connections etc.I hear about families not being able to get home due to weather I am beginning to feel lucky. So we missed our flight we will have a nice hotel and get one the first flight out in the morning. Boy, am I stupid!! When it is my turn I find out I am in the wrong line and have been for about 45 minutes. I get into the right line and glance over at my troops. MIL is still reading. SIL is asleep. DDs are both sitting on the floor playing with little DD's colorforms. DH and DS are strolling the airport. I wait. When it is my turn I am told that the printer has run out of ink and cannot print any more vouchers....excuse me??? What do I do now? I am redirected to another line. Ok, nope, I am not moving, I am not going anywhere I need a manager. A very nice young man (Darryl) comes over adn askes me if he can be of some assistance. I explain about the lines, etc. He tells me that he is sorry and he can take care of me. He will process everything and print it out on another computer. Thank you !!!! Ok we start the process and I tell him we already have the rooms etc. Oh no you cannot do that. It seems DELTA has to pick the hotel. I pull out the sheet with the hotel listing on it. It has DELTA logo on the top and a list of Atlanta hotels and address and #s. I am told that and error had been made. We will be staying in the Crowne Plaza. I quickly call the AMERI Suites and am told I will have to pay the $99.00 if I cancel after expaling what happened I am still told this is policy I hang up. Ok Darryl now what??? He will give us our vouchers for the Crowne Plaza. I ask if he is positive it will be handicapped access room. He calls and says he cannot be positive but right now they do have one available. I ask about the shuttle is is handicapped access?? Yes it is I am told. Ok fine I will deal with the Ameri Suites tomorrow or I will call credit card company right now the kids are tired hungry and getting crabby. I am so proud of them for being so good for so long. We take the voucher and the food vouchers (just a note all food places in this wing of the airport are closed) and we leave to find the shuttle. It is now close to 1:00. We get little "kits" with deodarant, shampoo, toothbrush ,razor and tee shirt and eye mask( Little DD thinks her bag minus razor is GREAT!!! ) We walk , and walk and walk and finally find the shuttle which is NOT handicapped access. The bus driver says it will take 1/2 hour to get the handicapped van over to us is that OK. "NO" we all answer in unison. We take DS out of chair and get seated. We arrive at the Crowne Plaza. I have to say it was beautiful. We are all so excited to get into a bed. We have to be back to the airport at 7:00 am for our flight out. We get out of the shuttle. Get DS back into the chair, get the carry on bags (our suitcases are on their way to WDW) we enter the lobby to find....a line of 38...I counted along with DD 38 people waiting to check into the hotel. There is 1 yup 1 young lady trying to get everyone checked in. We wait in line until 3:10 to check in. The kids sleep on the floor, MIL and SIL doze in chairs taken from the dining room. I stand in line with DH and DS. This is horrible. The poor young lady is doing the best she can. She explains that DELTA and other airlines just call over to see if they have empty rooms but do not tell them how many people they are sending over. Due to the storm in Denver there are lots of people from all different airlines waiting. Some are getting voucher rooms like us others only discounted rooms. I fell lucky. We are told no handicapped access rooms. At this time I just want a bed. I know it is not this young ladies fault about the room. We go up to our room and fall asleep. We wake up at 6:00 and head out to the shuttle. Little DD asks if this is WDW. I want to cry...........part 2 Can Airline Pilots and Flight Attendants hijack a shuttle bus????????? Is this legal???
Me (Mommy of 3, fanatic planner of WDW.....we have a schedule you know!!)
DH (Disney Fanatic)
DD 15 (Maybe a little too cool for a trip with the family???)
DS 16 (developmentally disabled and in a wheelchair, loves WDW and all rides!)
DD 3 (Everything is MAGIC, the automatic flushing toliets are MAGIC, the shuttle between the airport terminals is MAGIC the Princess are MAGIC...full of wonder)
MIL (Can't walk long distances, had not been to WDW in years)
SIL ( 35 no children and has little patience for children. Why going to WDW?? Because MIL treated her for her graduation the night before from Massage School, a little hesitant about WDW, lives next door to us and is a great Aunt )
After having our flight information changed 14 times (really, I am not kidding you 14 times, seats, times, flights, connections etc) by Delta in the year before the trip the flight was finally set to leave our airport (Rochester NY) at 5:30pm on December 22.
DH and I are both teachers. We packed our van the night before and plan on getting home on Friday at 3:30 and flying to the airport! MIL and SIL stayed home with the kids so they could sleep in and be ready to go. Things went great. We ran home (sorry class I am so sorry I ran you over in the hallways and screamed ya, ya, ya Merry Christmas to you to I have a flight to catch. I know it was not very "Christmasish"), I promise I will make it all better with the goodies I bring you bakc from WDW. We drove to the airport and checked in!!! Security, great not a problem. YEAH flight still on time, DS and DH have front seats so DS does not kick other passengers etc.....YIPPEEEEEEEE! Everything going according to plan. We settle ourselves down in the airport for our short wait and play Disney UNO! Ummmm wait , what is this....our flight is now listed as DELAYED???? Ok I walk up to the counter (I am the first one there) I am told by a very sweet young lady that our plane is still in Atlanta and has to fly to Rochester and then we will be ready to take off. Ok, a slight delay. What time???? About 8:30 I am told. Ok, is is weather related? Nope, problem with the plane. Ok we settle in and play for awhile. DS watches DVD on his little DVD player, DD amuses herself skipping on the green tiles. MIL reads and the rest of us play UNO. HMMMM what is that terrible noise, Oh my GOD is it our plane...... no its our stomaches, We are all getting hungry.Our plan had been to eat in Atlanta during our long lay over. I go to get food. YIKES airport food is $$$$$. We eat our sandwiches and people watch and make friends with 2 other families going to Florida. Hmmm we say to our new friends there does not seem to be a plane anywhere? We go up again to ask. We are told that the plane but not ready to leave yet. We are all probably going to miss our connections and have to stay in Atlanta for the night but DELTA will pay as it is not weather related. I ask if it would be better to go home and come back in the morning so DS can sleep in his own room. I am told NO the best thing is to get to Atlanta because if we stay in Rochester they will not be able to get us out until TUESDAY!!! YIKES!!! I am given a print out of hotels in ATLANTA that Delta uses. I am told to call and make a reservation , when I get to Atlanta I will be given a voucher when I check in at the Delta desk. OK thank you nice Delta lady. I go and call the first on on the list AMERI SUITES. Yup they have a room. Yes, it is handicapped access for DS. They are 2 miles from the airport and have a handicapped access shutle bus that will take us to and from the airport. Ok count us in. I am told that I cannot cancel the reservation as it is less and 24 hours. I get nervous and have her hold on while I again check with Sweet Delta Lady. I am told to tell the reservation lady about the voucher. I do and she tells me that yes, they work with Delta all the time. Ok we are all set. I have a room for us and one for MIL and SIL. I pass the phone to our new friends who make ressies too. Now I have to call DOLLAR car rental to let them know flight change. I call and get a very nice young man who looks up my ressie and tells me he will have to cancel it and make a new ressie but that they will not have any vans left. WHAT???? I explain again that we will be late and that I need the van and I will pay for the day we are not using the van. He explains to me that they will not have a van. HUH?? I am not getting something here, what about my van, the one I have reserved. He is getting annoyed with me. Miss, your van ressie cannot be held so you lose the van you need to make a new reservation and the cost will be $1853.00 for 9 days for the van but we don't have any available. I lost it....I am trapped in the airport, I am eating salty $$ airport food, I am now losing my handicapped van and I just don't get it. I start to cry....please let me speak to your manager I ask. I am then connected to a young man who tells me the same thing. I ask if they can please just charge my credit card for the whole thing and I will just pick it up when we arrive. I am told that is not the way it works. I ask why they take the flight info when you make a ressie? They can check and see that the flight is not arriving until the next day. I am told they can only hold the ressie for 6 hours when flights are delayed. I ask if there is anything he can do I NEED the van and I booked it 10 months ago. He says hold on. When he comes bakc he says we can upgrade to a larger van (I picture a huge school bus in my head) Ok, Ok I will do it . How much ( I am now picturing having to sell my luggage, etc to pay for this boat of a van) I am told $18 more a day. SOLD. I will take it I am stuck and I need the van. Ok all set. I tell DH and he is sad that I am upset so early on in the trip(notice I say so early on in the trip...we are not lucky when we travel.....hurricane Charley, DS in Celebration Hospital last trip, DELTA leaving us on the plane and locking the doors while we were still on the plane etc...these are a few ouf our other adventures). He tells me not to worry about the $ and to just relax.I love my DH (make a note of that as later in the trip I will be ready to kill him!!!) We board our flight to Atlanta and arrive at approx 11:30. We are helped off last and spend about 1/2 hour waiting for DS wheelchair to be brought up from under the plane. We are all set we roll out to find a HUGE line at the DELTA counter where we have to wait. I am told by the young man who bring the wheelchair that we need to wait there to get our voucher . Ok troops disperse. DDs go to the bathroom. MIL sits down to read. SIL goes in search of food. DH and DS go to find a companion bathroom so DH can change DS diapers etc. I go to the counter and wait. I wait, and wait and wait and hear all sorts of stories about people not being able to find their luggage, not being able to get to their destination due to missing connections etc.I hear about families not being able to get home due to weather I am beginning to feel lucky. So we missed our flight we will have a nice hotel and get one the first flight out in the morning. Boy, am I stupid!! When it is my turn I find out I am in the wrong line and have been for about 45 minutes. I get into the right line and glance over at my troops. MIL is still reading. SIL is asleep. DDs are both sitting on the floor playing with little DD's colorforms. DH and DS are strolling the airport. I wait. When it is my turn I am told that the printer has run out of ink and cannot print any more vouchers....excuse me??? What do I do now? I am redirected to another line. Ok, nope, I am not moving, I am not going anywhere I need a manager. A very nice young man (Darryl) comes over adn askes me if he can be of some assistance. I explain about the lines, etc. He tells me that he is sorry and he can take care of me. He will process everything and print it out on another computer. Thank you !!!! Ok we start the process and I tell him we already have the rooms etc. Oh no you cannot do that. It seems DELTA has to pick the hotel. I pull out the sheet with the hotel listing on it. It has DELTA logo on the top and a list of Atlanta hotels and address and #s. I am told that and error had been made. We will be staying in the Crowne Plaza. I quickly call the AMERI Suites and am told I will have to pay the $99.00 if I cancel after expaling what happened I am still told this is policy I hang up. Ok Darryl now what??? He will give us our vouchers for the Crowne Plaza. I ask if he is positive it will be handicapped access room. He calls and says he cannot be positive but right now they do have one available. I ask about the shuttle is is handicapped access?? Yes it is I am told. Ok fine I will deal with the Ameri Suites tomorrow or I will call credit card company right now the kids are tired hungry and getting crabby. I am so proud of them for being so good for so long. We take the voucher and the food vouchers (just a note all food places in this wing of the airport are closed) and we leave to find the shuttle. It is now close to 1:00. We get little "kits" with deodarant, shampoo, toothbrush ,razor and tee shirt and eye mask( Little DD thinks her bag minus razor is GREAT!!! ) We walk , and walk and walk and finally find the shuttle which is NOT handicapped access. The bus driver says it will take 1/2 hour to get the handicapped van over to us is that OK. "NO" we all answer in unison. We take DS out of chair and get seated. We arrive at the Crowne Plaza. I have to say it was beautiful. We are all so excited to get into a bed. We have to be back to the airport at 7:00 am for our flight out. We get out of the shuttle. Get DS back into the chair, get the carry on bags (our suitcases are on their way to WDW) we enter the lobby to find....a line of 38...I counted along with DD 38 people waiting to check into the hotel. There is 1 yup 1 young lady trying to get everyone checked in. We wait in line until 3:10 to check in. The kids sleep on the floor, MIL and SIL doze in chairs taken from the dining room. I stand in line with DH and DS. This is horrible. The poor young lady is doing the best she can. She explains that DELTA and other airlines just call over to see if they have empty rooms but do not tell them how many people they are sending over. Due to the storm in Denver there are lots of people from all different airlines waiting. Some are getting voucher rooms like us others only discounted rooms. I fell lucky. We are told no handicapped access rooms. At this time I just want a bed. I know it is not this young ladies fault about the room. We go up to our room and fall asleep. We wake up at 6:00 and head out to the shuttle. Little DD asks if this is WDW. I want to cry...........part 2 Can Airline Pilots and Flight Attendants hijack a shuttle bus????????? Is this legal???
I'm never good with a cliffhanger . . .
