agotta
<font color=red>WISH Biggest Loser/Red Team</font>
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2004
- Messages
- 3,153
So here we are. Friday, April 9th. Everything has been booked, planned and planned again. I finish up everything at work, change my voicemail and am on my way home. The sky seems to be getting a little dark, and there is a chance of rain. I arrive at home were we had packed everything but the dog. We gather all of her belongings and head off to the sitters. It has now started to sprinkle a little, but that wont get us down. Everything goes great with the dog and we head back home to get a good night sleep.
We wake with the sun on Saturday as the shuttle to the airport is supposed to arrive between 5:25 a.m. and 5:40 a.m. The rain has picked up a little, but nothing too bad. The shuttle arrives right on time 5:45 a.m. Oh well, we are still very early for our 7:50 a.m. flight earlier than we know. The shuttle is almost full, and Kevin and I take the last two seats with me riding shotgun. We get to the airport in record time, even running a red light with a cop sitting right there J As we approach the airport the shuttle driver asks me, for the second time, what airline we are flying out on. TransMeridian I reply. He asks again, TransMeridian? Yes. And you are flying out of Dulles? This isnt rocket science. His job is to take people to the airport. Luckily DH is in the back and cant hear everything that is transpiring. The driver is now attempting to contact base before we pull up. He decides to stop at the first stop and ask the sky captain yes they are called sky captains. The sky captain proceeds to tell him that the TransMeridian counter is through these doors and around back.
We collect our luggage and proceed through the doors and around back. Ok, lets see. Alaskan Air . no Air France no Korean Air no end of counter. Ok, what did we miss? We turn around and walk by the counters again. Korean Air Air France Alaskan Air. Ok one more time Alaskan Air Air France Korean Air. DH proceeds to ask another sky captain where the TransMeridian counter is. Luckily for us, she has laryngitis. Great. We find one more sky captain who tells us that we have to check in at Korean Air. Are you sure?? Check-in goes fairly smoothly and we head off to our gate. With a quick stop at Starbucks we still arrive at the gate with an hour to go.
Of course when we arrive at the gate, there is not one sign for TransMeridian. We ask one of the agents from another airline (not sure what one, but they were headed to Central America and announced the flight in Spanish). They inform us that the agents for TransMeridian are not there yet. Ok, we are still good, we have an hour. 7:30 a.m. rolls around and the agents finally show up. And guess who it is?? It is the same 3 girls from the Korean Air ticket counter!! I am not kidding. For the next hour, they announce every 15 minutes that the flight will be delayed by 15 minutes. It is now pouring outside and the flight crew who had flown in from up North was delayed.
We are finally seated on the airplane and on our way to sunny Florida!! We had a horrible flight, very turbulent, so I tried to sleep through it. We had a horrible landing, close to crashing the nose of the plane right into the runway. We arrived in Sanford in one piece and have our first of many experiences with dumb tourists. It was like a mouse trapped in a maze. Nobody could figure out how to get out of the terminal and down to baggage. DH and I quickly maneuver our way around the mice and head down to claim our baggage. Great our luggage is all accounted for. We head outside to find the Budget counter. Lets see . Hertz Avis Dollar. Yes I am sure Budget is on site. Dollar . Avis Hertz. Well fine!! Lets call Budget and see. Oh, I am sorry, what is that?? Budget is not on-site and you are sending over a shuttle? Great.
The Budget van arrives and we have a pleasant, honky-tonk ride to the nearest ghetto Budget. Seriously there werent more than 12 cars on the lot. We pick up our WHITE grand prix, we didnt have much to chose from, and head to I-4.
The drive takes almost an hour and we finally exit at 535. We need to stop at the grocery store before we check-in but we are starving. We grab a quick bite to eat at Taco Bell before heading to Winn-Dixie. We buy some bottled water, breakfast danish and pop-tarts. We finally drive to Port Orleans French Quarter to check in. The resort is beautiful and DH snaps about 100 pictures while I check-in. Everything goes smoothly except our friend has forgotten to drop off his Cast Member ID. No big deal, as long as he drops it off before the next morning.
We drop our stuff off in our room, room 4207 facing the courtyard. It is beautiful and we are right next to the parking lot. Our friends are supposed to arrive in Orlando at 10:30 p.m. We check our voicemail and find out they havent even left Buffalo yet. They are getting hit hard with snow and rain. Ok, keep us updated. We take a stroll around the ground and take a quick swim before changing for church. We usually go to Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine even though we hate how the priest peddles the gift shop. Mass is about an hour and we leave a couple minutes early to beat the traffic. Doesnt quite work we are both starving by now and are ready to hit Downtown Disney. We get another update from our friends and it looks like JFK is closed and they arent going to make it down tonight. We finally straighten everything out and they will arrive at 10:30 tomorrow morning. I had planned to head straight for EPCOT at park open, but thats ok, we will only miss a couple of hours.
We have dinner at Earl of Sandwich and WOW!! That is an awesome place to eat, and cheap too!! This will be our first of 3 stops there. We stop at Cap n Jacks for a margarita and a rumrunner Yummy!! We wander the shops a bit and head back to try and get some sleep.
Pre-Trip Report
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Recap
We wake with the sun on Saturday as the shuttle to the airport is supposed to arrive between 5:25 a.m. and 5:40 a.m. The rain has picked up a little, but nothing too bad. The shuttle arrives right on time 5:45 a.m. Oh well, we are still very early for our 7:50 a.m. flight earlier than we know. The shuttle is almost full, and Kevin and I take the last two seats with me riding shotgun. We get to the airport in record time, even running a red light with a cop sitting right there J As we approach the airport the shuttle driver asks me, for the second time, what airline we are flying out on. TransMeridian I reply. He asks again, TransMeridian? Yes. And you are flying out of Dulles? This isnt rocket science. His job is to take people to the airport. Luckily DH is in the back and cant hear everything that is transpiring. The driver is now attempting to contact base before we pull up. He decides to stop at the first stop and ask the sky captain yes they are called sky captains. The sky captain proceeds to tell him that the TransMeridian counter is through these doors and around back.
We collect our luggage and proceed through the doors and around back. Ok, lets see. Alaskan Air . no Air France no Korean Air no end of counter. Ok, what did we miss? We turn around and walk by the counters again. Korean Air Air France Alaskan Air. Ok one more time Alaskan Air Air France Korean Air. DH proceeds to ask another sky captain where the TransMeridian counter is. Luckily for us, she has laryngitis. Great. We find one more sky captain who tells us that we have to check in at Korean Air. Are you sure?? Check-in goes fairly smoothly and we head off to our gate. With a quick stop at Starbucks we still arrive at the gate with an hour to go.
Of course when we arrive at the gate, there is not one sign for TransMeridian. We ask one of the agents from another airline (not sure what one, but they were headed to Central America and announced the flight in Spanish). They inform us that the agents for TransMeridian are not there yet. Ok, we are still good, we have an hour. 7:30 a.m. rolls around and the agents finally show up. And guess who it is?? It is the same 3 girls from the Korean Air ticket counter!! I am not kidding. For the next hour, they announce every 15 minutes that the flight will be delayed by 15 minutes. It is now pouring outside and the flight crew who had flown in from up North was delayed.
We are finally seated on the airplane and on our way to sunny Florida!! We had a horrible flight, very turbulent, so I tried to sleep through it. We had a horrible landing, close to crashing the nose of the plane right into the runway. We arrived in Sanford in one piece and have our first of many experiences with dumb tourists. It was like a mouse trapped in a maze. Nobody could figure out how to get out of the terminal and down to baggage. DH and I quickly maneuver our way around the mice and head down to claim our baggage. Great our luggage is all accounted for. We head outside to find the Budget counter. Lets see . Hertz Avis Dollar. Yes I am sure Budget is on site. Dollar . Avis Hertz. Well fine!! Lets call Budget and see. Oh, I am sorry, what is that?? Budget is not on-site and you are sending over a shuttle? Great.
The Budget van arrives and we have a pleasant, honky-tonk ride to the nearest ghetto Budget. Seriously there werent more than 12 cars on the lot. We pick up our WHITE grand prix, we didnt have much to chose from, and head to I-4.
The drive takes almost an hour and we finally exit at 535. We need to stop at the grocery store before we check-in but we are starving. We grab a quick bite to eat at Taco Bell before heading to Winn-Dixie. We buy some bottled water, breakfast danish and pop-tarts. We finally drive to Port Orleans French Quarter to check in. The resort is beautiful and DH snaps about 100 pictures while I check-in. Everything goes smoothly except our friend has forgotten to drop off his Cast Member ID. No big deal, as long as he drops it off before the next morning.
We drop our stuff off in our room, room 4207 facing the courtyard. It is beautiful and we are right next to the parking lot. Our friends are supposed to arrive in Orlando at 10:30 p.m. We check our voicemail and find out they havent even left Buffalo yet. They are getting hit hard with snow and rain. Ok, keep us updated. We take a stroll around the ground and take a quick swim before changing for church. We usually go to Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine even though we hate how the priest peddles the gift shop. Mass is about an hour and we leave a couple minutes early to beat the traffic. Doesnt quite work we are both starving by now and are ready to hit Downtown Disney. We get another update from our friends and it looks like JFK is closed and they arent going to make it down tonight. We finally straighten everything out and they will arrive at 10:30 tomorrow morning. I had planned to head straight for EPCOT at park open, but thats ok, we will only miss a couple of hours.
We have dinner at Earl of Sandwich and WOW!! That is an awesome place to eat, and cheap too!! This will be our first of 3 stops there. We stop at Cap n Jacks for a margarita and a rumrunner Yummy!! We wander the shops a bit and head back to try and get some sleep.
Pre-Trip Report
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Recap
