A little over 6 years ago, my DW and I took our first trip together. We only planned a couple of months in advance and we wanted to fly on points instead of pay for the flights given the seasonal costs. We probably would have just driven somewhere except that we were combining vacation with a trip to meet some bio-relatives we'd only just made contact with. We couldn't get flights exactly where we wanted to go, but, since the closest airport was still a 3 hr drive it seemed like we might as well fly into one airport a 6 hour drive away and fly out of another airport an 8 hour drive away and spend time seeing the places in between. Of course there was still the challenge that we had to fly from an airport 4 hours from our home and we were on different flights on the way out. But, for some reason it all seemed worthwhile at the time. What it should have been was a warning sign....
Two days before we were due to leave we put the dog in the car to go for a walk by the river and discovered that ALL of the traffic lights were out. It seemed so wide-spread, that we turned on the radio in the hopes that they might be mentioning it and discovered a very odd broadcast. Anyone know where I'm going?
The power had gone out across much of Canada and the US Northeast. (The Wikipedia article seems to include a much smaller region than I recall.) It had actually been out for about 5 hours, but, since it was summer and the Sun was just beginning to set, I hadn't noticed. The power was out for weeks in some places and the airports were non-functional for about 40 hours.
We were lucky, our first flight was scheduled for about 12 hours after the airport started functioning "normally" again. Their approach was to send people out on their scheduled flights and deal with the thousands of people whose flights had never left by putting them on the standby lists. My DW had hoped to standby for the earlier flight that I was on -- that was clearly not going to work since there were people who'd already been in the airport for 48 hours! I boarded the plane without her with all of our luggage checked under my name and planned to meet all the later flights throughout the day. Apparently, just after I boarded a guy came to the gate looking for someone willing to switch seats with him (he'd gotten a boarding pass for the next flight after waiting for two days) because he'd already missed being the best man in his brother's wedding and wanted to at least make it to the reception. My DW told him that her girlfriend would be willing to switch, but, that I'd already boarded. A flight attendant agreed to go ask me, but, then never did. I still feel sorry for that guy.
Later during this same vacation, we found ourselves in the midst of forest fires -- at one point we were surrounded by burning on three sides. One of the campsites we were supposed to stay in called to leave a message at our home because it was actually on fire and they wanted to tell us not to come. We'd already figured out that the route wasn't a good idea given the fire path, but, 97% of that forest was gone by the time the fire stopped.
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A year later we headed off on our honeymoon and, as I've already mentioned, we were run over by Hurricane Charley. We got 4 hours at wdw before it closed, then, we saw several mini-tornados on the road on our way back to our off-site hotel. (If I were doing it again I'd know better than to be on the road -- we were lucky!) The back window of our car was smashed in (and other more minor damage) and we spent a chaotic day trying to get out of Orlando, get to Miami and find a way to safely leave our car somewhere while on the cruise since the port parking lot was no longer a viable option since we couldn't lock the car. Yikes! (Now that I know Disney better, I've wished we'd stayed on-site because even though I suspect the WDW parking lots were also the site of smashed windows, I've figured that being at Disney would have been less traumatic.) I will say that I spoke to people I probably never would have without being in the midst of shared chaos and ever since I've had a better sense of acceptance for the people within the part of US society that claim I shouldn't have been allowed to be on my honeymoon. (I am now more able to separate their beliefs -- with which I disagree -- from the rest of who they are, because, I've seen how caring they can be.)
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After our next trip to WDW (the one that started as 3 nights and stretched to 5), we were driving home and making good time when something sounded strange and the engine seemed to disengage. Thus began a nightmare that lasted THREE months as a tow-truck driver (sent to us by
AAA) took 4 hours to show up AFTER he told them that he was 10 min from our location and then took us AWAY from the dealership that AAA had said he was taking us to so that he could deliver our car to his buddy's auto-shop that wasn't going to be open for another 48 hours. That progressed to us having to call CAA at home to get a supervisor to authorize us being towed again and this time ending up with our car at a dealership (not the one we were originally closest to) that claimed to be able to fix it, then, couldn't, then took 2 months before they said we could come get it, then, lost the key to it, etc. We had to involve the Better Business Bureau before we got our car (and money to replace the key) and paperwork explaining what they'd done.
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After a trip to WDW about 2 years ago, we had a problem with a torn airline identifying sticker while passing through customs. Although we brought it to the attention of the baggage handlers while leaving customs they said it wouldn't matter and told us to put it on the belt. Of course, it did matter, and the bag got lost. We'd had some weird conversations with the airport employee in Orlando when he was checking us in. It didn't make sense at the time, but, once we had to figure out how to find the missing bag in the computer system we figured out that he had crossed our names and made a bit of a mess of our check-in making it hard to indicate the bag as lost. The next day we got a call that the airline was bringing the bag. Then, we got a call saying that they hadn't been able to locate it. Turns out, the bag had an old Star Alliance Gold tag of my DW's on it and thus they'd called her to deliver the bag to her, but, they hadn't connected it to the missing bag report.
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Last year I went to a conference in Washington, D.C. and my DW came along for a brief vacation. On the day we headed home, several other people successfully flew home without encountering any problems. We had booked a connecting flight for some reason and encountered more weather problems than I would have believed possible. First, as we taxied to take-off in D.C., the plane suddenly powered down and the pilot came on to explain that there was lightening above us and we had to stop and turn off all power. We sat for about 90 minutes. Then, we took our flight and after landing, before we made it to the gate, we powered down and had to wait while lightening passed overhead. We'd missed our connecting flight and were rebooked on the next one. Once that flight boarded, we had to stop and wait for a storm to pass. Then, we flew home, landed and then waited on the runway for 2 hours for lightening to pass overhead before we could deplane. In the end, we could have driven home in the time it took to fly.
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We have had other travel problems, but, minor ones in comparison. But, there is still a fear that there is a curse travelling with us and we have friends who've refused to travel with us.
So, if a blizzard hits WDW just before Christmas you'll be able to blame it on us.
Glad they got you hooked, since we'd never have "met" otherwise.
We're all very excited
Ahhh...thanks! 
