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| Walt Disney World 2001: |
May 26th |
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Trip Reports
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| Walt Disney World 2001: |
May 26th |
| Main Index | < | Travels | < | Walt Disney World 2001 | < | Saturday May 26th 2001 |
The diary entry we didn't expect to be writing.
Woke up early Saturday morning, still in Orlando. Went out on the balcony
with some coffee to find the airport pretty much socked in with fog and
smoke. The lightening from last night must have started yet another
fire. Repacked up our bags and wrestled them back down to the airport. Our
8:00 flight to Denver was moved to 8:30, surprise surprise. It turns out
that they canceled an earlier flight and put all of those people on our
brand-new flight, so it was gonna be a full one. Back to "our" gate, and
unfortunately Rufus wasn't there. Except for the fact that it was
re-scheduled, the flight actually left on-time. It was shortly after
leveling off that the pilot came on the PA to explain away the problems of
the night before. Apparently, as our plane left Denver yesterday afternoon,
one of the windshields in the cockpit shattered. The babies aren't allowed
to fly with a broken windshield so they turned back and landed in
Denver. They replaced the window but the defogger wiring wasn't quite
compatible. This caused a longer delay as they jury-rigged it. They
finally left about 3 hours late. Upon arrival in Orlando, while the cop was
keeping an eye on us, the pilot did a walk-around of the plane. He found a
burst hydraulic line near the landing gear, so they had to fix that as
well. While that was happening, the pilots reached their maximum hours for
that day, so couldn't leave, even if they wanted to. It sure would have been
nice if they had told the gate agents all that the night before instead of
keeping us all in the dark. He finished off his explanation by informing us
that, because originally this was supposed to be a half-full flight, they
hadn't ordered enough breakfast for everyone, nor did they want to delay any
longer to wait for catering to bring more. Would everyone please decline
their breakfast burrito if they didn't need it. We were in the very back row so we
were sure we'd get nuthin. And "Oh yeah, one of the 3 bathrooms is broken".
Well we lucked out and got all the leftovers. We had 2 each :).
By the time we approached Denver, two of the toilets were out of service.
The flight was uneventful and we landed on time in Denver. A short walk over to our SFO
flight gate and we were able to see the departure sign. This sign slowly
inched up in time as our flight got delayed once again. Another mechanical
on the inbound plane. Oy. This time is was just a sticky door and it only
delayed the plane by about 10 minutes. However, once it did arrive, it
turned out our flight crew hadn't yet arrived. This was getting VERY
frustrating and I thanked my luck stars it was happening on the trip home
and not the trip into Orlando. This was eating into my weekend and not my
vacation. Our flight crew arrived to a round of applause, only 45 minutes
late. They had been on a plane in from Omaha, which I didn't even know had
an airport :). We all got on the plane 5 minutes later and were served free
drinks for our trouble. (And an extra snack for loudly repeating
how wonderful the Frontier staff were on command :)
Mmmm, Gin and Tonics... Nothing exciting happened
on the flight which is as it should be. It arrived at SFO at 3:00pm. I
used Denises cell phone to call East Bay Connection and move our reservation
from the night before to now. They said they'd pick us up in 30 minutes, so
we got down to baggage return and snagged our bags. Denise's boyfriend Nick
met us and helped with the bags, then shuffled Denise off. They were
heading to Monterey for the weekend!
East Bay Connection picked us up outside, then went around and picked up some other folks. We got on the freeway and came to a complete halt. Traffic was backed up all the way to the Bay Bridge. Yet another reason to avoid SFO. The maddening part was that this was a Saturday afternoon!. It took 2 hours to get home. One drop-off was in Walnut Creek near my Mom's house and the other was a block away from our house. We staggered into our house at almost 6:00pm. We were tired and hungry and sooooo glad to be home. Only thing that was left to do was to unpack and start working on the website!
I commend you if you have actually made it this far in our trip diary. I've
been accused of run-on writing, though mostly from my proofreader,
editor and wife. I am finally finishing up this last page on June 9th which is an
all time record for getting these things done. This trip was easily one of
the best we've ever gone on. While it wasn't as exotic as our UK trips, nor
as outlandishly decadent as our honeymoon, nor as quick and thrifty as our
little Disneyland trips, it was great in one important aspect. It was having
fun with a like-minded great group of friends that made all the difference,
and for which it will always be fondly remembered. Well that plus 2 and
half hours of video tape and over a thousand photographs... we'll never
forget this bloody trip even if we tried. :)
Tune in next time to find out which won: Ireland (Kel) or Hawaii (Len).
Orlando Airport Hyatt |
On the Plane Finally! |
The Hyatt |
Please put the camera away Len. |
Boo Hoo, Going Home. |
Home! |
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