themurrayfamily
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2003
- Messages
- 156
Hi All,
We had a GREAT time, and a few dreams came true
we all enjoyed ourselves and if we can afford it will be returning next year. I've not written any high points yet, since I've now caught the flu, however a definite low point for us all was having our flight cancelled by Virgin the very morning we were due to fly, I didn't blame Virgin for the weather in Orlando but their lack of commitment to arrange alternatives on the day was shocking, I was heart broken for my dw & ds, both who were very upset, although ds (12) was trying not to show it.
At the time all we got from Virgin was a letter and told to go home and call reservations later in the day, with "NO" guarantee of being able to fly at all to Orlando. It wasn't until I went to Virgin's ticketing desk and asked if we could be flown to another US destination that we were advised that New York was a possibility and that we would be on our own thereon in, and we would have to travel to Heathrow within 2 hours to catch the flight from Gatwick, that when things started to go right. Themurrayfamily had a brief discussion and were left with 2 options:
1. We could go home to Milton Keynes and call reservations later in the day, with no guarantee that we would fly at all to Orlando.
2. We could start our holiday now, fly to New York and have a bit of adventure thrown in taking control of our own destiny and removing it from Virgin, and say we were also at New York.
At the time it took about 2 seconds to decide option 2 was the only choice and almost immediately dw & ds seemed to beam again and the race was now on to get our checked in bags back and run for the coach to Heathrow, we made the flight with about 15 minutes to spare and dually landed at JFK. On arriving at JFK I went to the Virgin Ticket desk to see if they could search internal flights for the 14th to discover that they were all back logged because of Charley, at this point I started to feel really low and guilty, have I just taken my family to New York to discover we cant make it to Orlando? The Virgin rep recommended I try Blue Jet on another terminal, which I did and only to discover they were booked solid for the next three days to Orlando, (I really started to panic at this point). I got a list of other U.S. carriers and by the second one I managed to book a flight for the very next morning to Orlando International with American Airlines! I couldnt believe it and by this point I was exhausted and about to break down myself, wed saved / planned for so long for our dream holiday for it all to go wrong on the first day and now at last it looks like were going to get there!
We stopped over in a hotel that night and were up bright and early to get the courtesy couch to LaGuardia Airport, we checked in immediately (although we were about 4 hours early) and watched the flight information for what seemed an age, when we finally boarded the flight we couldnt believe that we were actually going to get to our dream destination and finally start the holiday, at last 13:45 we landed at MCO, picked up the car and found the villa (after a while). Thats it for now and was the only low that I can think of, everything else seemed to be perfect. I enquired with our insurer this morning if would be able to recoup any additional costs that we incurred by having the flight cancelled, and surprise
theres a clause which states since I changed the original destination I am not entitled to claim for additional costs incurred, although potentially our whole holiday could have been cancelled and that I did something positive to prevent that.
Regards
themurrayfamily
We had a GREAT time, and a few dreams came true
we all enjoyed ourselves and if we can afford it will be returning next year. I've not written any high points yet, since I've now caught the flu, however a definite low point for us all was having our flight cancelled by Virgin the very morning we were due to fly, I didn't blame Virgin for the weather in Orlando but their lack of commitment to arrange alternatives on the day was shocking, I was heart broken for my dw & ds, both who were very upset, although ds (12) was trying not to show it.At the time all we got from Virgin was a letter and told to go home and call reservations later in the day, with "NO" guarantee of being able to fly at all to Orlando. It wasn't until I went to Virgin's ticketing desk and asked if we could be flown to another US destination that we were advised that New York was a possibility and that we would be on our own thereon in, and we would have to travel to Heathrow within 2 hours to catch the flight from Gatwick, that when things started to go right. Themurrayfamily had a brief discussion and were left with 2 options:
1. We could go home to Milton Keynes and call reservations later in the day, with no guarantee that we would fly at all to Orlando.
2. We could start our holiday now, fly to New York and have a bit of adventure thrown in taking control of our own destiny and removing it from Virgin, and say we were also at New York.
At the time it took about 2 seconds to decide option 2 was the only choice and almost immediately dw & ds seemed to beam again and the race was now on to get our checked in bags back and run for the coach to Heathrow, we made the flight with about 15 minutes to spare and dually landed at JFK. On arriving at JFK I went to the Virgin Ticket desk to see if they could search internal flights for the 14th to discover that they were all back logged because of Charley, at this point I started to feel really low and guilty, have I just taken my family to New York to discover we cant make it to Orlando? The Virgin rep recommended I try Blue Jet on another terminal, which I did and only to discover they were booked solid for the next three days to Orlando, (I really started to panic at this point). I got a list of other U.S. carriers and by the second one I managed to book a flight for the very next morning to Orlando International with American Airlines! I couldnt believe it and by this point I was exhausted and about to break down myself, wed saved / planned for so long for our dream holiday for it all to go wrong on the first day and now at last it looks like were going to get there!
We stopped over in a hotel that night and were up bright and early to get the courtesy couch to LaGuardia Airport, we checked in immediately (although we were about 4 hours early) and watched the flight information for what seemed an age, when we finally boarded the flight we couldnt believe that we were actually going to get to our dream destination and finally start the holiday, at last 13:45 we landed at MCO, picked up the car and found the villa (after a while). Thats it for now and was the only low that I can think of, everything else seemed to be perfect. I enquired with our insurer this morning if would be able to recoup any additional costs that we incurred by having the flight cancelled, and surprise
theres a clause which states since I changed the original destination I am not entitled to claim for additional costs incurred, although potentially our whole holiday could have been cancelled and that I did something positive to prevent that.Regards
themurrayfamily
