Arrival Home and Final Thoughts
Although we boarded on time, we sat on the plane FOREVER before take-off. We found out later that TSA was opening and checking every. single. bag. that went into the plane.
We ended up taking off about an hour late. The flight was uneventful, and we even made up some time in the air, landing only 20 minutes late, at 8:22. Heres my twitter feed from the point of landing
Back in Dallas. Took off an hour late, landed 20 minutes late. Not too bad. Now to wait on luggage. 8:22 PM Jan 1st
Spoke too soon. Waiting for mechanic to fix jet bridge so we can get off the plane. 8:32 PM Jan 1st
Still on the plane... 8:59 PM Jan 1st
Heading to a new gate. Hopefully this one will work... 9:00 PM Jan 1st
Finally off the plane. Headed to the car now. Home in an hour or so. 9:18 PM Jan 1st
You should notice that I was not off the plane for almost exactly one hour after landing.
Luckily, they had unloaded most of the luggage while we were sitting at the first gate, the one with the broken jet bridge, so by the time we got off the plane, made a quick bathroom stop, and got to the baggage claim area, all of our bags were there waiting on us.
The shuttle to the off-site parking lot came quickly, and we were back at the car by 10:00PM. We have an hour drive home from the airport, and we had to drop my parents off at their house, so we got home just after 11:00PM. Our trip was officially over, without another one on the horizon.
The End.
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Final thoughts:
- It can be difficult to travel with a large group, especially if members of the group are unwilling to do their own thing. For sanitys sake, expectations of how much time will be spent together/separate should be spelled out before the trip begins to avoid hurt feelings.
- Its hard to be the tour guide. The group assumed I had seen everything Ive ever wanted to see on previous trips, and seemed to think that DH & I should sacrifice the things we wanted to do in favor of the things they wanted to do. Again, this could have been prevented ahead of time if wed made the expectations more clear.
- The worst decision we made was cancelling our room at AKV in favor of a room at SSR with everyone else. Being in a different resort would have forced some alone time, and given us more freedom to do our own things.
- If we ever do a trip like this again, well only take one side of the family at a time, so we wont have quite as much conflict with the different touring styles.
- The extended family all had a GREAT time, so from that perspective, this trip was very successful. Theyre all asking about going back
Im thinking Christmas 2011
- I did enjoy the trip, even though it was very stressful for me. It was really nice to see my parents enjoying their first trip to WDW, and having them finally understand why we like it so much.
- Im SO SO SO glad to have another trip coming up, without the extended family, so that I can really enjoy my happy place. SIX MORE DAYS!
Her concern is her iguana who is very temperamental and since they live with us (and all of us are going on this trip), this would leave the feedings to her mom who hopefully will travel the 20 miles ea way a few times that week to feed them 
This should prove interesting 
My newest addiction is reading TRs!!
You finished a TR, and you go back to Disney this week! 
