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

[AprilRenee]

I'm still here! Sounds like a pretty relaxed last day! Except for whatever is coming up...

Can't believe your next trip is so soon!

I'm so glad you're still here! I can't believe our next trip is so soon either!! With being so busy it really snuck up on us!! But I'm excited!!

 

[Merida]

The original Rapunzel and Flynn meet and greet area is so adorable. We saw them inside during the Christmas party on our recent trip and it's just not the same. I wish they were still there (well, Rapunzel still is, but Flynn should be there too)!

Peter Pan and Philharmagic are two of my favorites. There's just something so sweet and lovable about the rides in Fantasyland. I just wish that the Peter Pan line went a little bit faster - it's not so lovable that I'd wait 45+ minutes!

I LOVE the castle blanket. It's so soft and warm and snuggly (unfortunately our cats think so too). It's the perfect size for me so I use it all the time. Pretty sure my boyfriend hasn't touched it since we bought it! I just wish that this year's had the lights on it.

 

[LilAnn]

I'm still here too! I have loved reading your TR because you guys have the best photos. And I totally love your t-shirts that day, especially that you got all the guys to wear it. I always love seeing your "self-taken" group shots - the best.

In case you ahve another long hiatus from the DIs - have fun on your babymoon!

 

[akayek31]

I'm still here too I wish Flynn was there when I met Rapunzel in September. I hope you are having a wonderful pregnancy so far.

 

[natebenma]

Also still here and glad to have you back to finish your report. I'm intrigued to hear about your miserable return home. Been there, Done that!!!

Loving your last day so far though. Yeah on the first Soarin' ride and also on giving your FP away. We do that once in awhile and we always find it harder to do than it should be. People think you are trying to scam them! Or they are leaving the park too. Or they don't speak English. We have had all of those scenarios.

I cracked up about Avery and the Seagulls, but I totally understand. I am still traumatized by the gull who came and snatched a churro out of my hand near Mexico back in the 80s! Those suckers are fierce!

Your shirts are awesome! I noticed them in the Rapunzel pictures, but they are even better with all 5 together. Very cute castle pictures- I love the "saying goodbye" one. Gonna have to steal that idea!

Dee

 

[jc040404]

I love your shirts! I was going to ask where you got them until I saw you made them yourself. Awesome job! Love the pics of all of you in front of the castle!

How awesome that you were on the first Soarin flight, too! I could never be over there fast enough for that.

The seagull story with Avery had me laughing. Poor thing!! I do not like those birds at all but thinking of him curled up, afraid, was too funny.

Can't wait to see how this return journey goes.. It doesn't sound good at all!

 

[Disneylvr]

Love your report and just found it today! We are from STL as well and going to WDW this January (6 days and counting) so I am following your trip report with great interest and can't wait to read the final chapter. Congrats on the baby!!!

 

[AprilRenee]

Wow!! You're all still here AND I got a new friend too!?!?! Thanks guys!!

The original Rapunzel and Flynn meet and greet area is so adorable. We saw them inside during the Christmas party on our recent trip and it's just not the same. I wish they were still there (well, Rapunzel still is, but Flynn should be there too)!

Peter Pan and Philharmagic are two of my favorites. There's just something so sweet and lovable about the rides in Fantasyland. I just wish that the Peter Pan line went a little bit faster - it's not so lovable that I'd wait 45+ minutes!

I LOVE the castle blanket. It's so soft and warm and snuggly (unfortunately our cats think so too). It's the perfect size for me so I use it all the time. Pretty sure my boyfriend hasn't touched it since we bought it! I just wish that this year's had the lights on it.

I wish Flynn was still there too! I mean for all the "it's a boy movie" advertising they tried to do for that movie, they sure did give up and go with the princess thing really easily. Everyone LOVES Flynn!! I don't get it!

Mickey's Philharmagic is my favorite!! Soarin' is a very very close second...possibly a tie. But I think if the Philharmagic was closed for refurb...I might reschedule my trip. Yep.

I love my castle blanket too!! We've been thru a lot together...you'll see soon.

I'm still here too! I have loved reading your TR because you guys have the best photos. And I totally love your t-shirts that day, especially that you got all the guys to wear it. I always love seeing your "self-taken" group shots - the best.

In case you ahve another long hiatus from the DIs - have fun on your babymoon!

Hahaha!! I love my group shots! They make me happy! We take those all the time, even when not at Disney.

I was really surprised, the boys didn't fight me at all on the matching shirts! They were part of my Christmas gift to them last year and they all loved them! They wanted to wear them every day of the trip! And they still wear them now. LOL I'm so glad!

And I'm planning on finishing this TR before I bail for my trip. The return trip home was very stressful though and I'm not really looking forward to reliving it.

I'm still here too I wish Flynn was there when I met Rapunzel in September. I hope you are having a wonderful pregnancy so far.

He was pretty cool! And thanks, my pregnancy has been incredibly easy! I've been very blessed! I hope this trend continues thru delivery!

Also still here and glad to have you back to finish your report. I'm intrigued to hear about your miserable return home. Been there, Done that!!!

Loving your last day so far though. Yeah on the first Soarin' ride and also on giving your FP away. We do that once in awhile and we always find it harder to do than it should be. People think you are trying to scam them! Or they are leaving the park too. Or they don't speak English. We have had all of those scenarios.

I cracked up about Avery and the Seagulls, but I totally understand. I am still traumatized by the gull who came and snatched a churro out of my hand near Mexico back in the 80s! Those suckers are fierce!

Your shirts are awesome! I noticed them in the Rapunzel pictures, but they are even better with all 5 together. Very cute castle pictures- I love the "saying goodbye" one. Gonna have to steal that idea!

Dee

Yay!! Glad you're still here!! Yeah, bad return trips are no fun! But hey! I learned a lot!

We were so mean to Avery too...we kept telling him there was a gull near him and things like that. We're horrible.

I loved those shirts! They're made with a bleach pen! I found the directions here on the Dis and thought they looked cool. I'm really glad they turned out! I wish we had gotten a few more group pics. If we ever do that again I'd wear the matching shirts earlier in the trip. Maybe the first day instead. We were kinda over the pictures by the last day.

I love your shirts! I was going to ask where you got them until I saw you made them yourself. Awesome job! Love the pics of all of you in front of the castle!

How awesome that you were on the first Soarin flight, too! I could never be over there fast enough for that.

The seagull story with Avery had me laughing. Poor thing!! I do not like those birds at all but thinking of him curled up, afraid, was too funny.

Can't wait to see how this return journey goes.. It doesn't sound good at all!

Yeah! You can find the directions here on the Dis. They're bleach pen shirts. They were SUPER easy!

Haha! I'm glad that the Avery story came across funny. It didn't feel funny while I was writing it but it was hilarious in real life!!

Love your report and just found it today! We are from STL as well and going to WDW this January (6 days and counting) so I am following your trip report with great interest and can't wait to read the final chapter. Congrats on the baby!!!

Yay STL!!! Where abouts do you live? We're in U City but I grew up in St. Charles.

Hopefully I'll finish this TR before you leave but if I don't, have a wonderful time!! We'll be there a few weeks after you!

 

[AprilRenee]

And now begins part 2 of our TR entitled:
I Lost My Soul at ATL

Now if you are the type who only likes happy stories of people’s trips to DisneyWorld, I would leave now….this is no longer that kind of Trip Report…..



Still here???



You’ve been warned!


PS...the bright colored font is done too...this story doesn't deserve happy blue font. Even the photo album I made changes from bright colored backgrounds and fonts to shades of gray at this point...


We left off with arriving back at POP to meet the Magical Express. Our Magical Express pick up time was about 4:30p. We got back in time to do some last minute pin trading, use up our last few snack credits, and take some final pics around the resort.

Now…please take a moment to count the number of bags here. It’ll be important later on. There are 8 in this photo…might have been 1 more rolling bag but it wasn’t in the photo.

Finally our bus arrived and we hoped on to head to the airport. Here are our “sad to leave Disney, but kinda glad to be heading home” photos… Little did we know just HOW sad we really were!!

Once at the airport we picked up our tickets at this nifty little kiosk

and headed for our gate.




Along the way we stopped at the Disney Store and the Universal Store in the airport. At the Universal Store we stopped to look at all the Harry Potter stuff. The wands were super cool. All of a sudden, Oliver and Elliott both picked up wands and walked to the check out. LOL!! It was hilarious. They didn’t even discuss it, or sit there going “hmm should I get a wand? What wand should I get?” Nope…just picked up the wand they wanted and walked over to the checkout. I was cracking up!

So after buying some wands… we headed thru security. As I walked thru the metal detector the “random screening” alarm went off. I looked at the lady and was like “I don’t have any metal on me!” She told me I was randomly selected and to please step into this box. The “box” was this little plexiglass clear box. I turned to Andrew and asked him to grab my stuff. I was kinda freaking out standing there in that scary glass box having no idea why they had pulled me out and hoping Andrew grabbed my bags and my cell phone was there at the screening point too, I hoped he grabbed that too!!!! and….and….and…
Then the guy standing there came over and opened the door and told me to hold out my hands, he then swiped them with a little piece of cloth and walked away. A min later he came back and told me I could go. I was like “WHAT WAS THAT???” He said he was screening me for gunpowder residue. WHAT??? I managed to make it over to where Andrew and the boys were, made sure they had all my stuff and then promptly burst into tears!! I was SO freaked out and had no idea what was going on. It was super scary.

After that little disaster we made it to our gate and boarded our flight. We left MCO at 7:35p.

Yeah April…you have no idea yet!

As we landed in ATL we looked out the window to see this:

Now…you can’t really see in this photo…but we’re talking about a DUSTING of snow here. Granted, it was coming down pretty hard…but in the entire time we got there it really only got to be about 1.5-2 inches of snow, MAX!

Our pilot was hilarious and came over the speaker to do his little speech. He goes “Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to…um…Denver?” LOL We all laughed and giggled and then gathered our bags.

I took this pic of Elliott and Oliver’s seatmate. They had chatted with him the whole time and had really hit it off. He was pretty funny.

After we got off our flight (at 9:20p) we headed for the screens to double check our next gate. Our flight was supposed to leave for STL at 10:30p. However, once we got to the screen, our flight was delayed til midnight. ☹ We were lucky though…most of the flights on that screen were canceled!

We decided to just head to our gate and wait it out. The airport was starting to look a little sad. People were hanging out and sitting instead of running from gate to gate.

We got to our gate to discover one of the reasons that our flight was delayed. The flight that was supposed to leave 30 min or so before us, heading to Kansas City MO, had been canceled and they were trying to fit as many people as possible onto our flight.

We sat down to hang out and wait. I called my mom to let her know that we would be later. She had to work early in the am so I called my dad to see if he would be willing to come out and pick us up at 2am assuming we got out of ATL. He said he would and to just call him when we got on the plane.

I took some pics while we waited, updated Facebook and mostly just hung out.

Elliott also updated Facebook. He actually updated FB the whole trip home and had some pretty hysterical statuses. So I’m going to periodically insert them into these posts. If it’s an Elliott FB status it’ll look like this:
***“Pray I make it out of Denver, I mean Atlanta.”***

(This is our “Are we ever gonna get out” face)

I took this to show my mom my awesome blanket.

It was starting to get a little chilly so I wrapped up while we waited. The boys ended up dosing a little but I couldn’t sleep because if I fell asleep then who would watch our stuff. So I sat up and kept watch while they napped a bit. At this point it was January 10th 1:12am…we had all been up for 18 hours.

While the boys dozed I got to watch some airport drama. Some Kansas City lady (evil woman making our plane late!) got up to go do something and another lady came over and sat in her seat. When the KC lady came back she went NUTS, screaming at the second lady, the rest of her family got all involved. There was pushing and an airline official came over to break them up. Then the first lady shoved the airport official and started yelling at him and yeah…it was dramatic. Eventually they all calmed down and the second lady went to find a different seat. It was crazy.

At a few minutes before 2pm they told us they were going to finally board our plane. They told us that we had 20 minutes to get everyone on the plane before the crew timed out. If the crew timed out, we couldn’t leave.

So we were in the very last boarding group and on EVERY other flight we had taken this trip they had asked if anyone would be willing to gate check their baggage since the flight was full and they didn’t have enough overhead space. As we were the LAST people to board the plane we figured they wouldn’t have room for our bags. So we decided to just go gate check our bigger bags and just carry on our backpacks. BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER!!!

But we blissfully headed in and boarded our plane. It was 2am. At 2:30 am the pilot came over the speaker to inform us that in the process of clearing snow the idiots on the ground [I MAY be embellishing a bit here with the specific language] had shoveled a huge pile of snow behind our plane. Our crew had timed out and we were going to have to get off the plane. We were told to go to Gate 2b to get on a new flight. As we got off the plane we asked about our gate-checked bags. They told us that they would come up with the other bags at the baggage carrousel. So we headed to Gate 2b while I called my dad and told him NOT to come get us at the STL airport cause we were STUCK.

In taking the time to ask about our bags a whole lot of people got into the “reschedule your flight” line ahead of us. As we stood there waiting in line the guy at the front told us that if we had a smart phone to get online or call the customer service number and we would probably get faster service. Andrew and the husband of the couple standing in front of us decided to head to the other airlines to see if we could get on a different flight or find a rental car. They were also heading to STL so we decided we could share a car and cost if we could find one. We’re gonna call the husband and wife Rob and Jan cause I don’t remember their real names.

After he left, Elliott and the boys went to go sit while I stood in line. I had THANKFULLY gotten an iphone for Christmas so was able to sit on hold with Airtran while looking online to see if there was a close airport that we could possibly drive to and fly out of instead of waiting for ATL to open back up. At some point they offered a discounted hotel voucher to people so I called to Elliott and told him to grab us one.

Finally I got thru to Airtran! They had like 3 seats on a flight on Monday (Jan 10th) but I really wanted us all on the same flight. So I finally got us on a flight on TUESDAY (Jan 11th) at 2:22pm. As I was talking to the Airtran lady someone asked if they could talk to her afterwards. I asked the lady and we ended up passing my phone around to 3-4 people so they could all book a flight. LOL

It was like this the whole time we were at the airport. We were all friends and helping each other. It was kinda awesome how a shared experience could bond people together.

At this point, Andrew called cause he and Rob (remember him? Guy from the couple in front of us?) had gotten stuck on the outside of the security checkpoint cause technically their tickets were for January 9th and it was now early in the morning on January 10th. So we headed to meet up with them along with Jan (the wife).

We found a table and chairs near a Burger King/food court area near the baggage claim and Andrew went to put in a request for our bags (the gate checked ones!). Then we sat to wait. It was about 3:30 am…we had been up for 20 hours.

‎***(insert a status that sums up an individual's feelings when said individual started the day in the Magic Kingdom and now sits in a pair of pajama pants at the Atlanta airport while snow fails in sheets around him.)***
Elliott had changed in to PJ pants while we were waiting since it would be a late flight and then he gatechecked his bag and ended up stuck in PJ pants in the ATL airport. It was seriously stressing him out. LOL

My dad gets up early so he called about 4:30 to see how things were going, I told him were were stuck til Tuesday. I was pretty upset and crying cause the little boys had already missed a week of school (cause I convinced my mom that they would be fine) and now they were going to miss 2 more days! I felt SO bad. This was their first year in public school (we had all been homeschooled up to that point) and skipping 7 school days isn’t good for anyone, but especially not for people who are still getting used to it!

I also talked to my mom to get a phone number. We had family friends in Atlanta and I was hoping that they would maybe come and get us if I couldn’t get a hotel. That way we wouldn’t have to spend the next 2 days at the airport. I decided to wait til it was a little later to call cause I didn’t want to wake them up. I cried while on the phone with my mom too.

I cried a lot in the next 2 days. Sleep deprivation and being in charge of your 3 younger siblings while in a new, unusual, and very stressful situation will do that to you.

Once the food court opened (5ish maybe?) we got some food and sat and chatted with the people sitting with us. Jan and Rob hung out with us as well as a business man and a younger woman (maybe early 30s?). I tried to call the number on the hotel voucher but all the hotels were sold out and I couldn’t get a room.

***Apparently Atlanta as a whole shuts down after two inches of snow. Yeah, I'm never coming home.***

The business man told me about these phones they have at the airport that have all the airports loaded into a speed dial and you can just type in a 2 digit code and call each airport on the list. He had managed to get a room that way so I headed over to try that while Andrew went to check on our bags again.

The only thing I managed to get was 1 hotel that told me I could call back at 11am and they MIGHT have people checking out but she couldn’t guarantee it. So at that point I called my dad. My dad can get ANYTHING ANYWHERE and I figured he could find me a hotel. It just had to be one with an airport shuttle cause we had no way to get there otherwise.

We found out some time this morning that the airport had canceled all flights for Monday anyway so I was kinda glad we got the Tuesday flight since we would have had to reschedule AGAIN if I had taken that Monday flight.

***Today I watched the largest airport in the eastern United States become crippled by two inches of snow.***

At this point it was about 8am, we had been up for 24 hours, we were stuck in ATL til Tuesday, our bags were still MIA and it was looking like we were going to be staying at the airport again that night.

***Hour 24: My thoughts fall on the reactions of individuals who understand that they can not go anywhere and indeed are trapped. Is limbo such a tiring place? People always say, "I just want to sit and rest for a moment," though when presented with the chance they become in-content and wish only to move forward. (14 cigarettes left)***

At this point he started adding in the hours since we had slept and the amount of cigarettes he had left.


Up next. Do we find a hotel? Do we ever get our bags back? Do our friends come save us? Stay tuned!!

 

[jc040404]

Oh my!! This is sooo much worse than I expected it would be! I would've been a wreck and crying the entire time, too! I am loving Elliott's updates, but I know they weren't very funny in the moment. How awful! Nice to see that most were able to keep it together and help each other through this. I hope your dad finds something for you all, and you find your bags soon and get out of there! Yikes!

 

[AprilRenee]

Oh my!! This is sooo much worse than I expected it would be! I would've been a wreck and crying the entire time, too! I am loving Elliott's updates, but I know they weren't very funny in the moment. How awful! Nice to see that most were able to keep it together and help each other through this. I hope your dad finds something for you all, and you find your bags soon and get out of there! Yikes!

Yeah...it was pretty bad. I held it together most of the time. When I was dealing with things I was fine and totally in control and just doing the next thing. It was just when I'd stop and think that I'd fall apart. It was really only when I talked to my parents and mostly only during that time from 4a-8a when I couldn't do ANYTHING to help us and all I could do was sit and wait and think about was how I was making the boys miss more school and this was going to ruin the wonderful trip we had just had and yeah, I was pretty upset. I just kept thinking "I'm too young to deal with this! I'm just a kid too!!"

And as far as Elliott's status' go...we thought they were kinda funny at the time, once we got past the shock of being stuck at the airport for 2 days. Eventually we hit the point where we just had to laugh cause if we didn't we'd cry (again).
And now...they're HILARIOUS!! And you haven't even seen the good ones yet!! I just texted him tonight with one that I read from my notes and we both cracked up. That one will be coming soon.

 

[natebenma]

You promised pretty bad, and you are delivering!!!

So sorry about all you went through at ATL. Not my favorite airport- we had a miserable (though short) layover there. I can't imagine DAYS!

I love that you are meeting and helping out fellow strandees.

Very Cute Blanket! Wow!

 

[LilAnn]

Ugh, travel nightmares are the worse, and yours is sounding pretty bad. You did warn us too! When I first read the title of your TR, I thought your Snowpocalypse might be the same one we were dealing with when we travelled down to Disney last year, but apparently we were a couple of weeks apart. Growing up in VA, I now that a couple inches of snow can indeed cripple a city. It's still wierd for me to see the massive difference in how the cities function up here in the northeast after a foot or 2 of snow.

Seriously loving Elliot's status updates though on FB. Classic. And his PJ pants trauma.

The blanket is gorgeous though!

Hope your pregnancy is going well!

 

[jane2073]

My husband is from Atlanta and he will agree that the smallest amount of snow shuts down the city.

They don't get it that often-but last year it snowed a lot!

I remember hearing about people being stranded at the airport because of the snow. It is interesting reading a first-person account.

 

[AprilRenee]

You promised pretty bad, and you are delivering!!!

So sorry about all you went through at ATL. Not my favorite airport- we had a miserable (though short) layover there. I can't imagine DAYS!

I love that you are meeting and helping out fellow strandees.

Very Cute Blanket! Wow!

Yeah...it was pretty bad. Was that miserable layover during your most recent trip? The Universal one? I feel like I read about it.

Yeah, we still all say that we are never going back to ATL. I actually booked my flights this trip specifically so that we didn't stop in ATL. Originally our arrival flight did have a short layover in ATL (it was the only option). It was another late flight in the middle of January and I was really starting to panic about it (like my chest would feel tight and I'd feel like I couldn't breathe whenever I thought about it). But they ended up changing our flight times on us and I was able to change flights and we are now flying thru Memphis both ways. Still a southern city that might shut down with snow...but Memphis is only a 5 hour drive from home and worst case scenario, my dad would come save us!

Ugh, travel nightmares are the worse, and yours is sounding pretty bad. You did warn us too! When I first read the title of your TR, I thought your Snowpocalypse might be the same one we were dealing with when we travelled down to Disney last year, but apparently we were a couple of weeks apart. Growing up in VA, I now that a couple inches of snow can indeed cripple a city. It's still wierd for me to see the massive difference in how the cities function up here in the northeast after a foot or 2 of snow.

Seriously loving Elliot's status updates though on FB. Classic. And his PJ pants trauma.

The blanket is gorgeous though!

Hope your pregnancy is going well!

Funny that our trips keep being a couple of weeks apart! Your May trip was right around the same time we went on our first trip! Yeah, STL got a Snowpocalypse a few weeks after we got home. I felt so bad for the people who got stuck at our airport (I seriously considered driving over there and taking them blankets and offering rides to hotels). However, we got like a foot of snow and had the airport back open the next day. Not this silly 2 inches and close down for 2 days disaster!! Ridiculous!!

Elliott's statuses still crack us up! And they get better! Just wait!

Thanks! The pregnancy is going great actually. It's been super easy from the beginning. Hoping this trend continues thru delivery!!

My husband is from Atlanta and he will agree that the smallest amount of snow shuts down the city.

They don't get it that often-but last year it snowed a lot!

I remember hearing about people being stranded at the airport because of the snow. It is interesting reading a first-person account.

Yeah...it was kinda crazy. Honestly, we discovered later, that it wasn't so much the snow...it's that the snow got warm, melted, and then froze into an inch of ice. So IN PART I can understand it...however, we're from STL and that snow wouldn't have even been a blip on the radar for our airport so we just were incredulous that we were stuck for something so silly.

I'm just gonna apologize in advance for anything I might say about Atlanta...I have visited there before and it's very nice, we had a lot of fun at the Coke factory and Underground Atlanta. But I will probably never return just because of the way the letters ATL make me have a panic attack. LOL

 

[natebenma]

Yeah...it was pretty bad. Was that miserable layover during your most recent trip? The Universal one? I feel like I read about it.

No, the ATL layover was during our return home from our 2010 Disney trip. Originally, we had a direct flight from Orlando to Boston, 2 PM to 5 PM. Then AirTrashcan cancelled our flight, had us leave Orlando at 11, fly to ATL and then on to Boston, at 5 PM. So we had to leave 3 hours earlier than we originally planned and got home at the same time.

This turned out to be the worst leg of travel I had ever encountered. My family was split up and interspersed with another travel group. 6 or 7 whiny kids (the worst were teenagers), 2 sets of parents that didn't care. I had a major headache by the time we got to Atlanta.

The layover was bad, but not horrible like yours! Not that long, either, but really crowded.

You are remembering the nightmare issues we had returning home from Universal. We had a 6 PM flight. The driver we hired did not show up on time, then I had to make multiple calls to him- he kept assuring me he would be there in 10 minutes. He was probably around 40 minutes late.

Then there was a major thunderstorm that lasted for hours. Flights were all delayed, so the airport waiting areas got REALLY crowded. We finally boarded the plane at 7:30 pm, but didn't take off until 9:30. Got home around 2 am.

 

[jane2073]

No need to apologize! I would have felt the exact same way if I was in your position!!

I forgot about the ice!! My mother-in-law couldn't leave her house for days because of it!!

Can't wait to hear the rest of the story!!

 

[Disneylvr]

Yay STL!!! Where abouts do you live? We're in U City but I grew up in St. Charles.

Hopefully I'll finish this TR before you leave but if I don't, have a wonderful time!! We'll be there a few weeks after you!

We live in Southwest St. Louis City (near Ted Drewes) and I grew up in Hazelwood. How about today's weather! This is what I am hoping for in WDW next week.

OMG, the latest segment of your trip report has me scared! We are flying AirTran AND changing planes in ATL!!!!!

 

[AprilRenee]

No, the ATL layover was during our return home from our 2010 Disney trip. Originally, we had a direct flight from Orlando to Boston, 2 PM to 5 PM. Then AirTrashcan cancelled our flight, had us leave Orlando at 11, fly to ATL and then on to Boston, at 5 PM. So we had to leave 3 hours earlier than we originally planned and got home at the same time.

This turned out to be the worst leg of travel I had ever encountered. My family was split up and interspersed with another travel group. 6 or 7 whiny kids (the worst were teenagers), 2 sets of parents that didn't care. I had a major headache by the time we got to Atlanta.

The layover was bad, but not horrible like yours! Not that long, either, but really crowded.

You are remembering the nightmare issues we had returning home from Universal. We had a 6 PM flight. The driver we hired did not show up on time, then I had to make multiple calls to him- he kept assuring me he would be there in 10 minutes. He was probably around 40 minutes late.

Then there was a major thunderstorm that lasted for hours. Flights were all delayed, so the airport waiting areas got REALLY crowded. We finally boarded the plane at 7:30 pm, but didn't take off until 9:30. Got home around 2 am.

YUCK!! I just went and found the day in your old TR. What a terrible day for you guys too!! I would be REALLY bummed if I had plans and had to leave Disney World early!! And THEN got stuck in ATL too!! Boo!!

PS I totally didn't realize you had another TR...I'm gonna have to go read the whole thing.

No need to apologize! I would have felt the exact same way if I was in your position!!

I forgot about the ice!! My mother-in-law couldn't leave her house for days because of it!!

Can't wait to hear the rest of the story!!

Yeah...that ice was pretty intense...

We live in Southwest St. Louis City (near Ted Drewes) and I grew up in Hazelwood. How about today's weather! This is what I am hoping for in WDW next week.

Today has been amazing!! I was running errands all day in a t-shirt! SO weird! I called Andrew today to tell him I was glad I had gotten a maternity swimsuit cause if this trend continues I think it might actually be hot enough to swim when we're down there! I kinda hope it gets a little cooler so that FL is like today. Cause right now it's looking like the next few days down there are highs of 79! That's gonna feel pretty toasty!

 

[Merida]

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!