Hi. Well we just got back. We were in Orlando since Sept. 16th (first at Universal, and then since the 19th at Disney). We were supposed to fly home today (9/26) on a 2:00 flight, but it was canceled. I had no idea about a hurricane until I put the weather channel on on Friday morning as we we were heading to the parks. I was shocked that they were talking about HURRICANE Jeanne!!! When did that happen! Last I had heard about Jeanne was that she was just a tropical storm and WAS NOT a threat to land. Anyway. We just thought they were putting people into panic mode and went on with our day. By the time we got back to our room Friday night, it was a real and serious threat. I called the airlines (Jet Blue) and they told me nothing was available for Saturday morning and they were suspending all their evening flights. Okay, we will just wait it out. Now I got up saturday at 5 a.m. to see if maybe they added flights or something, still nothing. My DH got up at 7:30 and then we started the phone call frenzy. Finally American Airlines was able to put us on a 4:00 p.m. flight to Newark (but we wanted New York!!). But that's okay, we will deal with it. Then they inform me it will be $255 per person for this 1-way flight! Okay, we have 5 people. So we are talking about $1,250 just to get home and we were worried that the 4:00 flight would get canceled after all. So after much debating we said, it's not worth it. Disney doesn't seem to be worried at this point, so we should just go to the Magic Kingdom and enjoy the day and whatever happens happens, right!!?? Oh, when I called Jet Blue earlier they told me that if my flight was canceled they would get me on the next available flight for Monday. I guess their version of "next available" and my version are different. Now we are at the MK and they started announcing sometime around 3:00 that the Epcot, MGM, and MK would all close at 7:00 p.m. and all the night shows were canceled. I found a CM and asked if I had heard right and then they proceeded to tell me that the airports were closing at 5:00! OMG!!! Okay, now we go into panic mode. I called a few airlines to secure a flight for Monday. They all but laughed at me. Jet blue was able to put all 5 of us on a Tuesday afternoon flight, and we booked it. My DH was able to get us on a flight with Delta for Monday afternoon (but again for $207/person) and it was a morning flight, i think it was a 10:45 a.m. flight. then we started calling car rental places. They all laughed at me when I asked if any vans were available. Hertz was the only one that had a full-size car available. so we booked it. We called Tiffany to come get us and we left Disney at 5:30 p.m on Saturday. We had to to to the Hertz by the airport. We get there and there's no line. Yea! We then ask if they have any minivans available and they did, so we did get one. We decide to drive straight through the night. DH slept, i drove, he drove, i slept. We were doing wonderful, until we blew a tire on I-95 (near Alexandria, VA). We were making good time before that. We called Hertz they sent a tow truck, he puts on the dummy and tells us the tire cannot be repaired (the tire was split and the rim was damaged). We now go to Hertz over by Ronald Reagan Airport. They were super nice. They didn't have a mini van, but the gave us a Ford Excursion! This thing was huge. 3 hours later we were on the road again! Everything was going well until we got closer to the GW bridge. I think it took 2 hours to go just a few miles. The nightmare was beginning. Well anyway, we finally made it to our front door at 7:50 p.m. on Sunday night. We were enjoying our impromptu road trip until the tire incident. We didnt' regret going to the park Saturday for our last few rides. We ended on a nice note.
I'm sorry if this was so long, the adrenaline from the adventure is still pumping. I don't think we really slept, just rested for about an hour or two while the other person was driving. Thanks for listening.
(p.s. I would do it again in a heartbeat!!)
