To ATL and back:Disney Kids survive Snowpocalypse '11~4 month update

[Dugette]

I don't blame you for not wanting to go back to ATL! Being a Minnesotan, I understand the frustration over an airport shutting down for so long over so little snow. There was more snow than that when we flew out of MSP on our Dec. 2010 trip! But I'm sure ATL doesn't have all the de-icing and runway clearing equipment we do.

I'm sure it was pretty miserable, being stuck at the airport with all the other over-tired, stranded travelers. Love your brother's tweets, though.

Ironically, I'm using that same beautiful blanket right now!

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Sorry to hear about your experience in the airport! I love flying but ansolutely HATE getting delayed! I bet you guys were even more mad about that whole thing since that amount of snow would be nothing in the Midwest! Hope that things began to look up for u in Atlanta! I have found that I am often delayed in states like Georgia and Tennessee, my worst delay experience being in Memphis. Also sorry to hear about the gun powder check thing 2! I completely understand how scary that could be! I actually just got home fr Disney last night and had the same thing happen 2 me with the gun powder check! I really wonder what was on my hands that made them check for it?

 

[natebenma]

I completely understand how scary that could be! I actually just got home fr Disney last night and had the same thing happen 2 me with the gun powder check! I really wonder what was on my hands that made them check for it?

Pixie Dust???

 

[natebenma]

Sorry- Duplicate post due to insufficient caffienation

 

[AprilRenee]

Sorry for the long delay between posts. This is kinda hard to re-live. I mean, I want to document it so I have it. But I really don’t like thinking about it. It raises my blood pressure. BUT…we leave for our trip on Monday and I REALLY want this TR done before then. So I will plow through!

We left off at 8 am still waiting for our bags. I decided that 8 am was late enough to call our friends, the B family. I got ahold of them and told them our plight. Basically they told me that they couldn’t get out of the house cause of the ice. I was kinda frustrated cause I was pretty sure that if they had been in STL I knew that my dad would have dropped everything to go get them. So anyway, I got off the phone with them and called my mom back and sobbed again. We had been up for SO long and I was SO tired and upset and just wanted to get my little brothers somewhere where they could sleep (well and I could sleep).

I also called my dad and let him know and asked him to see what he could find. A few minutes later he gave me a call back and told me that he had found us a motel. He said it wasn’t a nice hotel but it would at least have beds. At that point that was all we really wanted so I had him send me the hotel info. It was the ATL Airport Econolodge.

****Hour 27: Still no bags at ATL. Found a motel (you know, the kind you bang a hooker in) but it's better than staying at the airport., and I'm pretty sure it's the last room in town. At least there are beds and pillows. Hey, I'm glad to have a place to rest my head. If you need me I'll be in Atlanta.****
(sorry for the language)

Check in wasn’t for a while so we went back to waiting for our bags.

This was our view…the lovely EMPTY conveyor belt…

“hey Elliott, make a face that shows how you feel right now”

At this point I decided to take another picture of our bags….remember that other picture? These are all the bags we had left!

Depressing…eh?

So while we were sitting there taking pictures got old so I got on my iphone and decided to see just how bad this Econolodge was…. I found it online and started reading reviews…

….

….

It was bad!

One of the reviews was about how the people walked into their room to find blood on the walls.
Another discussed finding “fluids” on the bedsheets
Another found “hairs” in the bedsheets

Turns out it really WAS a pay-by-the-hour hotel that you would (pardon the language again) “bang a hooker in” LOL

I called my dad back and told him what I had just discovered and he canceled the reservation. I wasn’t taking the boys to that hotel. I was wrong…there were worse things than sleeping at the airport. Hahaha!
We all had a good laugh about it, especially after Elliott’s status ended up being so true!

Finally it was 10:59a and I ran to the phones to call the “we might have a room at 11” hotel back. The lady on the phone told me, yeah, I think we’ll have a room. Just go get on the shuttle and come over here.“
HALLELUJAH!!!!

I ran back to the boys at the luggage claim. We quickly discussed our plan and it was decided that I would take the 2 little boys and Elliott and Andrew would stay at the airport til the bags showed up.

So Avery, Oliver and I headed out of the airport to the bus pick up area. It was pretty slick out there and I was still wearing the crocs that I had on when we left Disney and we all only had little jackets on CAUSE WE WEREN'T PLANNING ON BEING STUCK IN FREEZING COLD ATLANTA!!! Anyway…enough with my whining. We finally figured out which area to stand in and wait for our bus. The bus finally pulled up and we went to go get on it. The three of us hopped in and then suddenly there was this huge argument that happened outside of the bus. Apparently a guy got on who hadn’t been waiting very long and a big family who HAD been waiting was really angry cause only half of them could get on the bus (cause it was a TINY little van). The poor guy obviously didn’t speak much English and looked pretty confused that people were yelling at him. Anyway, Avery practically sat on my lap on the ride to the hotel.

That was the longest ride I have ever taken! We were sliding ALL over the road and only going like 5 miles/hour. And then on top of that, the angry family spent the entire 30 minute ride making snide angry comments aimed at the other guy. It was super awkward!!

Finally we got to the hotel and got off the bus and headed in. As we got into the lobby the lady at the counter said that they would start checking people in at 2pm when they were done checking people out so to just wait in the lobby until then.

So we headed to the lobby, at least they had little couches, and sat there staring at the news on the TV. I don’t think we even heard a word that was said on TV though. We were such zombies by that point. I think Oliver went and laid down on a bench in the hallway and Avery and I found plugs to charge our phones. I called my mom and dad and the B family to let them all know that we found a hotel, hopefully!! At that point I started getting nervous that they wouldn’t have a room for us even after we came all the way over there. So I headed up to the counter and just double checked and asked the lady to please write down my name and promise me that we would get one of the rooms. She did and I went back to waiting. Finally around maybe 1 or 1:30 they called us up to check in. We got a room and I asked for a roll away bed (since there were 5 of us and only 2 double beds). I didn’t tell her that there were 5 of us cause I was NOT paying for 2 rooms. And I know that’s bad and I didn’t care...still kinda don’t. Sorry. It’s not like the fire marshal was going to come check them out anyway. He couldn’t have gotten there on the roads!!

We headed up to our rooms and marveled at the beautiful hotel hallways. We were pretty easily impressed at that point! We got into our room and the three of us just about cried! It was beautiful and huge and warm and wonderful!!

We even had a microwave and a fridge!!

The lovely view from our room!!

We snapped a few pictures, posted elated statuses on FB, called Andrew and Elliott to let them know we had a room (they were still waiting) and then I realized that the next step was getting food for the boys. It had been HOURS since we ate breakfast at like 6 am.

We quickly checked the little binder in the room and discovered that there was a McDonalds next door. We grabbed money and headed downstairs. After ice skating across the frozen parking lot (not even kidding…it was a solid inch of ice) we got to the McDonalds. Right after we got in the manager went over to the doors and locked them and told us not to let anyone else in cause they were closing.

Like 2 minutes later some people walked up and tried to get in, I’m slightly ashamed to say that we all ignored them all the while looking guiltily at the other people around us. But I was so scared that if we let them in that the manager would kick us both out and then we wouldn’t get food! I’m a horrible person. I hope those people found food!

Anyway, we got ourselves some food and took it back to the hotel, since McD was now closed…at 2pm…yeah…it was ridiculous!!

We went back to our room, ate our food in silence, and all crawled into our beds and fell asleep. From the time we got to the hotel lobby we really just operated on auto pilot. It was like:
Charge phone
Let mom know we’re ok
Get room
Get food
Sleep

We didn’t need to talk about it, we just did the next thing.

MEANWHILE…..Back at the airport….

**** Hour 29: Still not a wink of sleep. I had gotten into a comfortable position when a traveller walked by on the phone. The sentence I overheard was troubling, "...yeah, I was just calling to say I'm back at the airport. We left the econolodge because our room was coated in fresh blood." I guess I'm in for another sleepless night. If you need me I'm right above the dinosaur in a hall at ATL. (Dont ask)****

Bahahahahahaha I didn’t see this status until I woke up after my nap and I immediately called Elliott to ask if it was true. It was. He really overheard that conversation! SOOOO glad we didn’t go to that hotel!!

While hanging out, Elliott posted this photo on FB and then the mom from the B family loaded it up to an ATL news station that was asking for pics of the "Snowpocalypse" It got 700+ hits on the news website. It was kinda our moto for this leg of the trip

Around noon, one of the bags appeared on the carousel.

(you can see the homeless shelter feel of the airport in this photo)

It was Elliott’s bag. After joyfully digging thru it to find his jeans, he discovered that they had been in the messenger bag he had had all along. Bahahahahahaha!!!
**** Hour 30: I got my bag, 4 more to go. The comforting feeling of my denim jeans against the lower portions of my body fills me with feelings of security and acceptance back into the civilized world. Apparently wearing pajama pants in the airport is a symbol of antisocial behavior. Anyway, the score is as follows- Elliott:1 ATL:3. Oh and I've been awake for 30 hours.****

After waiting for several more hours with no more bags appearing, Andrew decided to take matters into his own hands and get our dang bags back. He went to the Airtran desk and demanded to speak to someone who could “tell him Yes”. The girl at the counter told him that there wasn’t anyone there. She then gave him a phone number to call. He called that number and after following the prompts got to the part where you hold to speak to a customer service agent and then “click” the line went dead. After trying that 3 times, he went back to the counter and then insisted on talking to the highest manger at the airport at the moment. The girl finally went and got him someone and Andrew went to talk to him. Apparently the conversation went something like this:
Andrew: “what would you say an AVERAGE wait for baggage would be?”
Manager: “4 hours is average right now”
Andrew: “And would you say a LONG wait for baggage would be?”
Manager: “Well, I’ve heard of some bags taking as long as 8 hours.”
Andrew: “I’ve been waiting for 14 hours….can we both agree that that’s excessive?”
Manger: “You’ve been waiting for 14 hours?!?!?!!”
Andrew: “yep!”

So at that point, the manager pulled a baggage person, gave them our specific claim numbers and a description of our bags and sent them to find our dang bags!

**** Hour 32: Nothing new to report. I did meet a specialist in the army though. He's on his way back to Iraq by way of Germany. I taught him the German greetings and he advised me on the proper ways to smuggle absinth into the states. I thanked him for his service to our country and gave him a light. *breaking news* Andrew just laid down the law on the baggage people. A twelve hour wait for 5 bags is a bit excessive.****

SIDE NOTE:
Andrew wants me to add in this story that he witnessed:
While waiting at the baggage carousel a young man went up to the Airtran PR guy (wouldn’t want THAT job!!) and asked what the status of his bag was. The PR guy said it would be about 2 hours. The young guy then went off saying that he had been told that 3 times already for the last 6 hours. He felt that Airtran was “screwing” him (he used a different word meaning the same thing) and all the other people waiting for their bags. And in compensation he suggested that the PR guy call up to the office and send someone down to perform “sexual favors” for those waiting and then proceeded to point at each person waiting and say things like “He’d like one!” “She’d like one!” “Wouldn’t that be a great way to pass the time, sir?” The entire time the Airtran employee was doing his best not to bust up laughing.

Finally, a little while later, the baggage person came up with the rest of our bags. Andrew gave me a call and I told him where to go to get the Bus of Death to our hotel.

By the time they arrived, the boys and I were all awake and hungry again. We decided to skate over to the nearby gas station and get drinks (and cigs for Elliott) and ordered a pizza since apparently the Dominoes workers were braver souls than the McD workers. It was the most money I’ve ever paid for 2 pizzas but I didn’t care!! We were hungry!!

This was our purchase at the gas station. LOL I think it’s funny with the booze and then the milk for the boys! Thank heaven I wasn’t pregnant back then cause I don’t think I could have resisted a drink at that point! We took our loot back to the hotel to wait for our pizza to arrive.

In the lobby we ran into someone who told us that the restaurant next door had opened their doors to anyone at the hotel to come over. The lady running the place had cooked up wings and had beer and when she ran out of that she just started making soup and anything else she had in the kitchen to feed the hungry travelers. What a nice person! It was little things like that that really warmed my heart during our stay from hell.

Other things too…like running into people in the airport and having conversations that usually went something like:
“Dude, what are you still doing here?? Thought you were getting out on a 3 pm flight?”
“yeah…it got canceled. What about you guys?”
“Oh, we’re here til tomorrow at 2p”
“Oh man, that sucks…good luck!”
“Yeah you too!”

It was funny how we made friends just cause everyone was in the same boat. We all understood each other.


Anyway, finally our pizza arrived. Andrew had already showered and fallen asleep by then so we just saved him some pizza for the morning and all ate and headed back to bed.

****Hour 36: We have a hotel, we have a flight tomorrow. The Ice on the ground is an inch thick (i am not exaggerating). It took us 30 minutes to get to the hotel 5 miles away. The hotel is actually really nice. After spending 24 hours at an airport it feels nice to get a shower, open a beer, and try to forget the troubles of the day and focus on the good times. I'm going to bed.****

Right as we were falling asleep I remembered that I should check in for our 2pm flight the next day. I hopped on my iphone to check in like I had done before. However, this time it told me I didn’t have a flight!!!!! I freaked out a little bit but then decided we would have plenty of time to fix it in the morning. I was tired and just hopping that it was a fluke and a glitch in the system. So I convinced myself not to worry about it and slowly fell asleep.

Up next…. (which may be after our trip)….Do we have a flight???? Are we ever going to get home??

 

[AprilRenee]

Oh no! Yeah, the Atlanta airport is awful (my boyfriend, who is a private pilot, hates both Atlanta and AirTran. He handles all of our traveling plans because he has so many opinions on airlines!) But I would hate flying anywhere when there's a mention of 'ice' (boyfriend also likes watching documentaries on plane crashes) so I feel like ATL made a good decision because I wouldn't have been getting on a plane! At that point, I probably would've told everyone to shove it and just gone to sleep in one of the chairs and assumed someone would wake me up when it was time to go. I'm sure two more days weren't that big of a deal, there was definitely a good reason for the delay.

You really aren't missing much in Atlanta, so don't feel bad. Least favorite city ever!

Yeah...dying on a frozen plane is probably worse than being stuck in ATL. But being stuck in ATL still sucked

I don't blame you for not wanting to go back to ATL! Being a Minnesotan, I understand the frustration over an airport shutting down for so long over so little snow. There was more snow than that when we flew out of MSP on our Dec. 2010 trip! But I'm sure ATL doesn't have all the de-icing and runway clearing equipment we do.

I'm sure it was pretty miserable, being stuck at the airport with all the other over-tired, stranded travelers. Love your brother's tweets, though.

Ironically, I'm using that same beautiful blanket right now!

Yeah...no...they have 8 snowplows in the entire city...that's right...8...WHY HAVE 8???? It seems like it would just be cheaper to just have NONE!! Same effect!!

Yeah...totally love that blanket!

Sorry to hear about your experience in the airport! I love flying but ansolutely HATE getting delayed! I bet you guys were even more mad about that whole thing since that amount of snow would be nothing in the Midwest! Hope that things began to look up for u in Atlanta! I have found that I am often delayed in states like Georgia and Tennessee, my worst delay experience being in Memphis. Also sorry to hear about the gun powder check thing 2! I completely understand how scary that could be! I actually just got home fr Disney last night and had the same thing happen 2 me with the gun powder check! I really wonder what was on my hands that made them check for it?

Oh I don't wanna hear that Memphis is bad!! We're flying thru there in 3 days!!! :-( Oh well...if we get stuck in Memphis I'm just getting a car and driving the 5 hours to get home...or having my dad come get us!! I won't get stuck...I won't get stuck....I won't get stuck....

Pixie Dust???

Bahahahahahahaha I LOL'd at this one!

Sorry- Duplicate post due to insufficient caffienation

hahahaha also funny!

 

[jc040404]

This just gets crazier and crazier! Sooo glad you all didn't go to the first motel, but that update did have me laughing! Scary that someone was actually talking about the same place that way. Yikes!

Super glad you finally got a nice room. I wouldn't feel bad at all for squishing all five of you into it with all that was going on. It was tough enough just to get that room! Yeah..yeah.. I know it's not right too, but.. Thank goodness you got out of that airport!

Poor Elliott and those jeans! I can't believe he had them all along.

You have me worried about your flight! After all of this, I could really something else happening, but hope things are problem free.. Will you ever make it home?

 

[AprilRenee]

This just gets crazier and crazier! Sooo glad you all didn't go to the first motel, but that update did have me laughing! Scary that someone was actually talking about the same place that way. Yikes!

Super glad you finally got a nice room. I wouldn't feel bad at all for squishing all five of you into it with all that was going on. It was tough enough just to get that room! Yeah..yeah.. I know it's not right too, but.. Thank goodness you got out of that airport!

Poor Elliott and those jeans! I can't believe he had them all along.

You have me worried about your flight! After all of this, I could really something else happening, but hope things are problem free.. Will you ever make it home?

LOL I'm glad to entertain. It really is funny now after a year of recovery. Ok...it was pretty funny after about a week of recovery.

Oh man, that econolodge story still has us laughing. It was just too crazy to even be true and then it was!!

We kinda had the same mentality..."hope things go well, they probably won't"....Who knows if we'll ever make it home!! For all anyone knows, I could be writing this TR from the ATL airport. Haha! I probably would have had it done faster if I had been at the airport all this time. But it really did seem like we were going to spend the rest of our lives there at times.

 

[AprilRenee]

So I was just talking to Andrew and he asked if I had put a specific photo into the TR. Apparently that photo never got uploaded from his phone. I also found a couple other ones that Elliott had taken while they were at the airport and we were at the hotel. I'm gonna go ahead and go add them into the correct spots in the TR but I'll put them here too so anyone who's already read the update can just see the pics.

This was after he got his 1 bag at noon. You can also see the homeless shelter feel that the airport had.

He was pretty excited about having a bag!

He posted this photo on FB and then the mom from the B family loaded it up to an ATL news station that was asking for pics of the "Snowpocalypse" It got 700+ hits on the news website. It was kinda our moto for this leg of the trip.

 

[natebenma]

WOW! Just WOW!!!

This is all unbelievable, but you can't make that stuff up.

That is HILARIOUS about the Econolodge, but only because you were smart enough not to stay there.

Glad to read that you finally got some food and lodging, fingers crossed that you get outa there soon.

Speaking of soon, HAVE A FANTASTIC TRIP!!!

 

[Dugette]

Wow! I don't even know if there are words to describe your experience! Just

So glad you finally got into a nice hotel and got some food and sleep.

Also, hope you have a wonderful time on your upcoming trip!

 

[AprilRenee]

WOW! Just WOW!!!

This is all unbelievable, but you can't make that stuff up.

That is HILARIOUS about the Econolodge, but only because you were smart enough not to stay there.

Glad to read that you finally got some food and lodging, fingers crossed that you get outa there soon.

Speaking of soon, HAVE A FANTASTIC TRIP!!!

Haha!! I guess it is pretty unbelievable, we couldn't really believe it as it was happening. It is all true! But hey, it makes a good story for parties!

Thanks!! So excited!!

Wow! I don't even know if there are words to describe your experience! Just

So glad you finally got into a nice hotel and got some food and sleep.

Also, hope you have a wonderful time on your upcoming trip!

is a good way to describe it!

And thanks! I'm ignoring my packing list to check Disboards...maybe I should go back to packing.

 

[AprilRenee]

Hey!! I'm still alive!! We had a fun trip...different then what I expected. Disney World/Universal is a LOT of walking when you're pregnant (especially 30 weeks pregnant!)...I was prepared to not ride thrill rides...I wasn't prepared for how slowly I would move, how quickly I would get exhausted, and how much of a toll each day would take on my body. We still had a lot of fun, but it took us a day or two to adjust our expectations and pace.

BUT to the matter at hand...we are still stuck in ATL and I have a baby coming in 4 weeks (Eeee!!!!!!!) so I better finish this thing! So here we go!!


The next morning we woke up relatively early, but since we had all gone to bed at like 7pm we were all rested and feeling MUCH better! We went down to the free contentntal breakfast in the hotel lobby and filled up on some “free” food. While down there we met a lady who had won a free cruise and was stuck with us in ATL, missing her free cruise, and paying for a hotel while waiting out the snow. Suddenly our plight didn’t seem quite as horrible. At least we were on our way home, we didn’t miss any of our expensive and already paid for trip.

Once back up at our room some of us took showers and we all packed up to get ready to head out. I had called down to the front desk to arrange a late check out for us that day, wanting to give us time to chill at the hotel and I didn’t want to have to wake anyone up. That would have just been cruel! So we had plenty of time. We decided that when stuck in ATL at 10:30 am….what better to do than finish the booze you bought the night before! Yep! We’re classy like that. We decided to document the occasion!

Elliott looking quite B.A. smoking on our balcony.

While we chilled I started calling Airtran’s customer service cause I still couldn’t check in for our flight. I called them a million times…each time I followed the prompts til I got to the point where it said “please hold for the next agent” which was then followed by a click and a dead phone line. Yep…not once, not twice, we’re talking 10-12 times before I gave up.

**** Hour 1: After twelve hours of sleep the DisneyWorld kids are presented a new day and a new problem. We cannot check in for our flight, being as our flight is the only AirTran to St.Louis not cancelled yet we are getting a little worried. On the bright side, April/Andrew found me American Spirit cigarettes.****

At this point Andrew and I decided that we needed to go back to the airport and figure out the situation. We really didn’t want to miss our flight out. I think Andrew was concerned that we’d get stuck on the road and not make it to the airport in time. Our flight was at 2:20ish and it was about 11 am by then…and I still hadn’t checked in!

So we packed back up all our stuff, hoping we wouldn’t see that room again. However, on the way out I went to the front desk and reserved the room for another night. If we were gonna be stuck, there was no way I was spending that night at the airport again!

Once back at the airport we went directly to the Airtran check in counter, waited in a big long line, and finally got some help. Turns out the reason I couldn’t check in for our 2:20 flight was because it had been CANCELED!!!! Thankfully, they automatically had bumped us to the 10:50 flight (the same one that we had been on 2 days ago!). So the good news was, we had a flight. The bad news: We were stuck in the airport for another 12 hours!!

At this point I decided we were gonna go see Atlanta. I found directions on how to use the lightrail to get to an area with a movie theater. I figured we could at least kill some time there. So we headed to a bag locker place since we didn’t wanna drag all of our suitcases all over Atlanta. My roller bag had broken a wheel some point between the time I left it in the capable hands of the Airtran employee and the time I got it back. And Avery only had a giant duffel that by this point we were pretending had wheels and just dragged it everywhere we went. So we didn’t want them with us.

Once we found a locker place the guy asked us how long we would need the locker. We told him our plan and he told us we were totally nuts. Apparently it took him 3 hours to get into work on the lightrail and he was planning on closing in the next hour or so to get his employee home before the sun set.

Well there went THAT plan. We took our bags and walked on. At this point we decided to explore every concourse of the airport and decide which had the best food. So we started at A and walked thru each one (they went up to E). Just in case you’re ever stuck at ATL…Concourse C is the international concourse and they have the best food…just FYI. After exploring all options, we headed back to C to eat some lunch.

*** Hour 4: Got some lunch our spirits are starting to dampen. The charm is wearing off...***

After lunch we decided (aka I told Andrew) that the last 2 days were just ridiculous and I sent Andrew and Elliott to the Customer Service counter to get us some sort of compensation…I was hoping that they might give us flight credits or something of that sort since Andrew and I had a trip for a wedding that we needed to buy plane tickets for.

I’m not normally a “give me free stuff cause you messed up” kinda person. But we were losing 2 days of work (Andrew was paid hourly at that point in time) and had forked out $200 extra for a hotel room, not to mention the extra food and the stress.

So Andrew and Elliott went up to the counter, they were there a while, and when they came back they had learned some stuff. They did get us vouchers, 1 for each person with $10 coupons for airport food and $25 off a flight. They were also told that we could have gotten one of those food vouchers for every meal that we were stuck there. We also could have gotten toiletries and other needs from the service counter. We didn’t actually need to pay ANYTHING for food or other needs while stuck. Just the hotel. Granted, they had offered us hotel discount vouchers. But all those hotels were full so that didn’t help us.

Anyway, please learn from our plight…if you are ever stuck in an airport….your first move needs to be to go to the customer service desk before each meal and get meal vouchers for your family. You should also ask them how else they can help make your “stay” easier. I wish we had known this before! Feeding 5 people airport food for 2 days really takes a toll on the bank account! Anyway, now you know…so do we….and I pray I never have to use this knowledge!!

*** Hour 6: Played bad cop good cop with the airline. Scored some free sh*#. ***

At this point our family friends in the area called us. The roads were clear enough for them to come visit and they wanted to see us. We were bored out of our minds so we welcomed the distraction. And I mean, we really did want to see them! It had been years!

*** Hour 8: Finally some good news, the B____'s are coming to visit us in limbo. I hope that we can get out of the terminals and return using the same ticket. My new hypothesis is that my plane did not land in Atlanta and that we crashed. This being the case I'm pretty sure I'm in hell. And friends, hell has indeed frozen over.***

So we hung out a bit then headed back through security out to the area under the dinosaur (where we had spent MANY hours the day before…).

So we found a spot to sit in the “homeless shelter” area of the airport and visited. I wish I had taken a photo of the area the day before when it really did look like a homeless shelter.

The B family stayed for an hour or so and it was a lot of fun to catch up.

Elliott insisted on a photo of himself under the dinosaur.

After a while we were getting close to our flight time and decided to go make sure we could get back through security. So far our flight was still going and we definitely didn’t wanna miss it!! So we said goodbye to the B family and headed to our gate.

No problems getting through security and when we got to our gate who should appear but our friends Rob and Jan from the beginning of our adventure!

They were on the same flight as us!! We sat and swapped stories, used our vouchers to get some late dinner, Avery and I went on an adventure to find cheesecake with the last voucher, then it was time to board the plane!! I considered calling the hotel to cancel our room in case someone needed it but decided not to, JUST in case!

***Hour 13: The plane is here getting ready to board. Watching ATL grow smaller and smaller out of the window will truly be one of the most empirically beautiful scenes I feel that I will ever see. Though that will be a close second to seeing my love when I touch down in STL "home of 1000 plows." Atlanta sucks. That is all. If you need me I'll be praying that the wheels go up. *breaking news* boarding the plane.***

This is our “We’re FINALLY getting out of here!!!” face photo.

As people were boarding we saw several people who had been on our original flight. We all kinda waved at each other with “man I hope this plane takes off” faces. One of the people I had let use my phone to talk to Airtran that first night walked by, waved, and goes “hey! Thanks for the phone call!” It was kinda cool that we were all ending the adventure together too!

As we started taxing away from the gate we all kinda shut up and stared out the window. No one was willing to celebrate til we were up in the air. We went through the de-icer machine then headed out to the runway. As the plane lifted up in the air the entire group of passengers started cheering and yelling!! We were gonna get home!!!!

On the plane we ended up being across the aisle from our friends so we talked most of the flight home. 2 days stuck in an airport actually gives you a LOT of story to tell so we were comparing adventures.

Once we landed in STL (about 12:30p), we gathered our luggage (from the overhead bins…no more gate checking for this family!!) and headed to find our parents who were BOTH there to pick us up. As we walked out, I called the hotel to release our room. Still had to pay for it but the peace of mind was worth it.

*** Hour 15: Home.***

Our parents and the boys’ girlfriends were waiting just past the security checkpoint. I walked right into my mom’s arms and burst into tears. I was so relieved to be home and to NOT be the adult in charge anymore!

This was the last photo in my photo book for this trip and I feel like it’s a good ending for this TR too:

Home Sweet Home!!



I hope you enjoyed this Trip Report! I had a lot of fun writing it!! If the mods are willing to leave this open…I’d like to leave it open til our baby gets here and I’ll post some pics!

I also want to post pictures of my photobook that I made for the trip! So that will be coming soon and baby pics in about 4 weeks!!

Thanks for joining in and commenting and reliving my trip with me! It’s been really fun to have you along!

 

[natebenma]

I can't imagine how happy you were to touch ground at home. UNBELIEVABLE!!! Loved the Facebook posts!


Great report!!! I loved following along and I can't wait to see the pictures of the baby and your wrap up photobook pictures.

I don't think the mods will close your report unless you ask them to or if you put something like "The End" or "Completed" in your title.

Best of luck to you in the coming weeks!

 

[jc040404]

You're home!!

This is still the craziest trip ever! I can't imagine being trapped for so long, but did enjoy everyone cheering when you were finally in the air. Nifty that you end up on the same flight as so many you'd known along the way. I hope you never have to experience something like this again!

I can't believe you're only four weeks away!! I can't wait to see pics of the little guy, too!! I actually started thinking about him while walking through Mouse Gear today at Epcot. So much cute baby stuff and I knew you were so close! I can only imagine how excited you guys must be. It's almost time!

 

[AprilRenee]

I can't imagine how happy you were to touch ground at home. UNBELIEVABLE!!! Loved the Facebook posts!


Great report!!! I loved following along and I can't wait to see the pictures of the baby and your wrap up photobook pictures.

I don't think the mods will close your report unless you ask them to or if you put something like "The End" or "Completed" in your title.

Best of luck to you in the coming weeks!

Thanks for following along! Photobook photos coming in a minute

Ok cool...I'll just keep the title without the "update" status until I'm done. Thanks for the tip.

You're home!!

This is still the craziest trip ever! I can't imagine being trapped for so long, but did enjoy everyone cheering when you were finally in the air. Nifty that you end up on the same flight as so many you'd known along the way. I hope you never have to experience something like this again!

I can't believe you're only four weeks away!! I can't wait to see pics of the little guy, too!! I actually started thinking about him while walking through Mouse Gear today at Epcot. So much cute baby stuff and I knew you were so close! I can only imagine how excited you guys must be. It's almost time!

I hope we never experience it again. I totally had to give myself a "we won't get stuck here" pep talk at every layover on our trip this January. OH and to make it worse...they made us gate check our bags!! I totally had a mini freakout at Andrew when we realized they were gonna make us do that. But it was all ok...we didn't get stuck anywhere

I can't believe we're 4 weeks out either!! I'm so excited to meet him! That's so sweet that you were thinking about him while at Mousegears. They do have cute baby stuff at Disney! I managed to resist most things while there. It helped that I had just found a huge pile of Disney baby clothes at Goodwill right before we left for our trip. Once we were at Disney I couldn't bring myself to pay $20 for a baby outfit when I had just spent $15 on 10 Disney outfits at Goodwill!

 

[AprilRenee]

Here is the photobook I made for our trip! I have done one of these for each trip and I just LOVE them!

 

[AprilRenee]

 

[jc040404]

Your photobook is awesome!! LOVE it! I so wish I'd been doing something like this for our Disney days. I suppose I could start, but it seems so overwhelming at this point.. Where/How did you make this? It's great!

 

[AprilRenee]

Your photobook is awesome!! LOVE it! I so wish I'd been doing something like this for our Disney days. I suppose I could start, but it seems so overwhelming at this point.. Where/How did you make this? It's great!

Thank you!!
You could always start now...you have 2 years of trip reports to remember the first years! Just start with this new year of Disney.

I use a program called Picaboo. It's free and you download it to your computer. I really like that you don't have to rely on the internet working/not freezing up on you to work on it (I'm making our "babymoon" one on Shutterfly right now cause I had a $20 gift card and it's driving me up a wall!). Anyway, once you have your book the way you want, you upload it to the Picaboo site (this is all within the program on your computer) and they give you the options of book sizes etc to order. Usually a 20 page book is around $25 or so and they almost always have good coupons or sales going on. For this trip I had a BOGO free code so we paid for 2 books and got 4 so each of us kids got one.

I also love that Picaboo gives you the creativity to do whatever you want. I have to fight shutterfly to change the layout of photos or use one of my photos as a background. Picaboo lets you do that all very easily, even if you start with a layout and just adjust it. OR they give you the option of just using their layouts and keeping it simple.