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The Plane Ride Home, Omigosh!

So I have to tell you about my trip home from Disney.  It was high comedy, let. me. tell. YOU.

First of all, we were flying into Philadelphia.  And if you know ANYthing about flying into Philadelphia, you know that you want to avoid it at ALL costs.  Everyone in air travel knows this.  Case in point: when I checked my bags, the ticket agent matter-of-factly informed me that my flight would be ten minutes late getting off the ground, "but that’s nothing for Philly."

That sparked a conversation because, well, I have flown into Philly quite a few times, being that I’ve lived here for going on 13 years, and I don’t think I’ve EVER had a painless flight home from ANYwhere. 

The worst was the time I was visiting my parents in Virginia, alone with my then 2 children, and about 6 weeks pregnant (thus on the brink of morning sickness) with my third.  Our flight home to Philly was delayed several times and then finally canceled.  The lady at the desk told me that Philadelphia is the worst airport in the United States to fly into.

Well, then.

So this past Sunday, after an action-packed weekend, I arrived at the Orlando airport wanting nothing more than the comfort of my own bed.  First of all, Philly may be the worst airport to fly into, but I daresay Orlando is the worst airport to fly out of.  They have this convoluted system of merging fifteen lanes into three for the security screening.  I recall this from our family trip of 2006.  Except then I had three children with me.  Good times.

This time, fortunately, I was alone, but it’s every man for himself, and if the security lines in Orlando are any indication, chivalry is dead, deceased, departed, defunct — choose any of the above.

So, that’s how my trek home began, fighting my way through the security lines in Orlando.  Oh.  AND.  You will love this.  Remember my trip down?  How I lost my boarding pass not once, but TWICE? 

Well, on the return trip, I almost left my husband’s laptop in the Orlando security checkpoint.  Correction: I DID leave my husband’s laptop in the Orlando security checkpoint.  As I was walking away, a security guard chased me down, laptop in hand, much to the amusement of the onlookers.  Okay, so perhaps chilvary isn’t QUITE dead yet.

So.  When I got to my gate, I noticed that the departure time was posted as 7PM.  The scheduled departure time was 6:10PM.  So much for a 10 minute delay.

I found my new friend Kim — one of the WDW Moms Panel representatives from our trip, and a newbie blogger (another one bites the dust!)– and hunkered down beside her.  We live only an hour apart and shared the plane ride down without even knowing it! 

As we waited together for our flight home, the time got pushed back to 7:10.  But at 6:30, much to our delight, the airplane began its boarding procedure.

Now.

If you have ever had the privilege of boarding a Southwest airlines flight, you know what a labyrinth it is.  In a nutshell, there are no seat assignments, but you have a number, and you board in numerical order.  And heaven forbid you dare deviate from the numerical order.  Oh that is a crime punishable by death, haven’t you heard?

Well, Kim had the foresight to register the night before from the hotel, so her number came up far before mine.  She went off to board and promised to save me a seat.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about the seat beside her being taken.  Because no one in her right mind would have wanted that seat.  But I, clearly NOT in my right mind, took one look at the situation, and afraid of hurting Kim’s feelings, I made a split-second decision to claim the fateful seat.

To be continued…

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12 Responses

  1. No you did not just do that. I’m dying to know now.

    Side note: Um. Yeah. Convluted is a really nice way of putting that screwy security line merge in Orlando. One of these trips I’m going to figure out which line is the best to get in. Did you notice how some of the lines were way short but you couldn’t tell until it was too late to switch. Grrr!

  2. I really don’t need a cliffhanger. Its almost as bad as waiting for Idol results, are you trying out to be Ryan’s assistant? (Didn’t go so well for the last one)

  3. Hey!! That was mean. It was just like those choose your own adventure books when I was a kid. I had to read all the different things to see what i was missing. 🙂

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