Thankful for direct flight, and thankful Alberta is finally warming up!

[chimo2u]

I am sooo happy that my flight is direct and that the snow has stopped for our area!!! I depart from Edmonton tonight on a direct flight to Orlando (Red Eye arriving in Orlando at 7:41 AM) I am so glad I will be able to get out of here tonight, thankful for this short reprieve of warmer weather and no snow!!!
Hopefully I'll be able to sleep on the plane....I am not a very good flyer, it makes me anxious, but I am hoping if I take 1 or 2 gravol, maybe I will zonk out enough to not care that I am 35,000 feet in the air!
Excited to be seeing my happy place tomorrow!

 

[weswife]

ENJOY

Have a wonderful trip! A break from the snow and cold. I noticed you are staying at the BC! We are staying there for the 1st time in Nov.!

Safe travels!

 

[Kat&Dom]

Have an awesome trip!

 

[ChisJo]

I wish we had a direct flight

Oh well...heres to next time. Have a great trip! Maybe when you come back, the snow will be gone

 

[tiggerrr]

The direct flight is pretty good. We did it in January. The only problem is that US Pre-Clearance is closed at that time of day, so you clear US Customs in Orlando. This isn't too bad in itself EXCEPT for a weird design in the Orlando airport.

After you speak with Immigration in the Custom area you then proceed to pick up your luggage, which takes time. You have to have all your luggage before you leave Customs. This is where it gets weird. Because Customs is on the Airside of the airport, you have to recheck your luggage immediately after leaving Customs. Then, you have to reclear TSA Security (yep, take off your shoes, no liquids, etc) in order to get access to the train to the Landside part of the airport. In the meantime, your luggage gets transported (eventually) to a regular baggage carousel where you claim it a second time.

In our case one of the baggage carts got lost between Airside and Landside. Plus this arrangement meant that we couldn't have Magical Express take our bags automatically like when you Pre-Clear Customs. Bottom line, from parked at the gate to on Magical Express - 2 hours, 15 minutes. Granted the lost luggage cost us an hour of that time, but we're not sure we'd do the Westjet Redeye Direct flight again.