Travel Day

One of the not-so-fun things about leaving Vancouver is the flight arrangement back home.  Basically, the earliest flight we can make is at 2pm.  And you can't check in at the airport until three hours before your flight, so you get to spend a lot of time sitting in the main lobby of the Vancouver airport.  It isn't so bad because it's big and roomy and has a lot of chairs.  But it marks the beginning of a long travel day.  Here's how ours went:

*We left our cabins for the last time this morning at 8am.  We had already had breakfast at the buffet, so we were ready to go, not to mention that Disney Cruise wants everyone out so they can clean the rooms for the next inhabitants.  From there we went to a lounge to wait for our luggage tag to be called.  Every passenger was given luggage tags to put on their luggage the night before (and put out in the hall).  We were purple Minnies.  Everyone waits.  And waits.  Luckily ours was the third luggage tag to be called (an hour and a half later).  Once we got into the luggage retrieval room, we understood why it took so long.

*Basically, there's about 60 trillion pieces of luggage in this one room.  Add to that the 60 billion overfed tired travelers in the room, looking for their luggage.  Along with their strollers and small children, none of whom stay together in a group (I directed Maribeth and Everley and stroller to stay THERE and we would get to them).  So you have all these people milling over all this luggage looking for their bags.  Add the sound effects of unhappy people and crying people, and you might understand the craziness.  They can't call more than one luggage tag at a time because that's all the luggage this one room can handle.

*The last time Molly, Charity, and I did this, we stood in a taxi line forever.  Hoping to forgo this, I decided that getting a porter would speed things up (and get us in a quicker taxi line).  The only problem is that there are only four porters.  For a gazillion people and their luggage.  So Steve and Mathieu and I got the little wheelie carts (free in port) and loaded up our luggage.  And then headed to the long taxi line.  But then we saw Porter #3 with an empty cart, and nabbed him to take all the luggage (about eight bags - half of them BIG bags).  He did take us to a shorter customs line and manhandled his way to a short taxi line.  SCORE!!

*Apparently in Vancouver, the cabs can only hold four people.  Which means we needed two cabs.  Which Porter #3 got us.  Once we got the bags distributed (we were going to check two of Maribeth/Matheiu/Everley's bags because we would get them checked free) we were off to the airport.  Which didn't take too long, and then settled down for our wait for the counters to open.

*Eventually the counters opened, and we got in line to check in.  Steve is an AA fancy pants, so we got in the fancy pants line (since I was on his reservation, I could get in line with him even though I am lowly scum).  He has requested (I don't know exactly the AA Fancy Pants lingo) to get upgraded and he got the email that he could, but when we got to Judy the AA Ticket Lady, things got a bit complicated.  Apparently he needed to more stars to get upgraded because he had four but would need six to do the entire trip from Vancouver to Nashville (with a stop in Dallas).  He said fine and then he was set.  Then they couldn't do the upgrade for me, because I had no stars.  So he bought some more stars, but then the stars were put on his account not mine so they had to be taken off his account and put on mine and his credit card had to be refunded and then charged again.  It was complicated and time consuming and irritating to the lowly scum who were waiting in line behind us.

*Eventually it all got worked out and Steve and I were upgraded to Business Class (more on that later).  Meanwhile, Maribeth and family were over at United checking in (yes we were on different airlines so that Steve could use his frequent flyer miles for us.  MB and Co would get in earlier to Nashville than we would, though). 

*In Vancouver, you have to show your boarding pass and/or passport about sixty-eleven times.  First, to get your boarding pass.  Next to get pass the gate agent.  Next to check your bag (once you get through the gate agent you have to haul it to a different location to get it to the plane). At each point they're checking to make sure you're you and you have the number of bags you said you did.  There's a lot of scanning going on.  We had the free rolling carts, so it wasn't too big of a deal and we eventually got the four bags into their checked location. 

*Next stop was security.  There was no TSA Pre line - at least as far as I could see.  We made it to the actually scanning part, where you show your boarding pass/passport to the screening lady who lets  you proceed to the xray thingy. 

*Next stop is USA Customs.  That's right - you get to the USA while you're still in Canada.  You scan in your passport in the little machine and it takes your picture and shoots out a receipt.  Steve's receipt had a big X through it, which meant we had to go through the Customs Dude With A Big Desk.  Apparently, he thought Steve looked okay, so in a matter of minutes (and after a couple of hours) we were actually in the airplane part of the airport.

*This part of the Vancouver airport is very long and large.  Our gate was twenty miles (give or take) down the path.  Past lots of shops and restaurants and stuff.  At our gate area there was a small playground.  About 9000 kids where there playing, and I think they were all just off the Disney Wonder.  At one point, some 10 year old boy slid down the slide right into a toddler girl, whose father had a conniption fit, screaming, "WHOSE KID IS THIS?"  So much for the Disney magic ...  Eventually the rest of my crew arrived, and Everley had fun playing (with no 10 year old boy collision drama).

*Soon it was time to board our respective planes, which took off pretty much at the same time.  Maribeth and Co were going through Chicago with a short layover while Steve and I were going through Dallas with a longer layover.  As I said, Steve got us upgraded to Business Class, which I've only done maybe once in my life (mystery upgrade with MB and Molly on our flight back from London many years ago).  Anyhow, that meant we got to board quickly.

*Things about Business Class:  since I usually fly Southwest where we are all one class, I didn't know what to do with the leg room.  I mean, usually my knees are right up against the seat in front.  With BC, my legs were all just flopping around.  Also, apparently we get our own flight attendant, who although she appeared to be about 80 years old, was still very agile about bringing us hot towels and lots of food.  Speaking of food, it started with a drink (of whatever she had in the BC frig - alcohol and all) and the bowls of hot nuts, which were about 100 times the number of peanuts I get in my SW bag-o-nuts.  Since they were free and hot and Steve didn't want his, I ate almost all of both bowls of nuts.  And then promptly decided I would never eat another nut again, hot or cold.  Grandma brought me another cran-apple, then it was lunch time (what?  but I already ate lunch in the airport.  what?  it's included in the price of BC?  bring it on, grandma!!).  I had the salad with chicken on the top in a bowl that would probably serve my whole family while Steve had a cheeseburger.  Then it was time for the warm chocolate chip cookies (grandma must have had an oven up in her BC kitchen up there).  By this time the movie had started ("Jack Ryan, Secret Something Or The Other") and I was stuffed, so the rest of the long flight was sufficiently occupied.  And smooth.

*We landed in Dallas and got on the shuttle (hey DFW - why the long shuttle loop to nowhere land?  are you going to build another terminal?  how about cleaning up parts of the one you have) to our terminal.  And then descended into the bowels of the terminal to the AA part (I describe it this way because it felt this way - sort of dingy and dusty - sort of the way I felt).  It was 8pm-ish and our flight didn't leave until 10.  Meanwhile, MB texted saying they were on their way to Nashville, and that their pilot said storms were headed into Nashville.  They should beat them but the storms should be arriving by the time our plane arrived.  Fantastic.  I am not a flying fan, and especially not a flying-into-stormage fan.  So the next two hours I practiced my Lamaze breathing trying not to erupt into a full-blown panic.  Meanwhile, the AA dude kept announcing that the flight to Little Rock would be boarding as soon as the plane got cleared for whatever fixing needed to be done on the plane.  Because the fixers felt like everything would be okay.  All I could think was that if our plane was going to get announcements like that, I was going to search for (a) drug dealers and (b) the nearest bar.

*Our plane was clearly visible, and it looked little.  Great.  Little plane headed into big storm.  Boarding started, and again we boarded first because we are BC.  Luckily, no "fix-it" announcements were made.  This time, our flight attendant is Great Uncle Joe.  However, this time, I didn't want anything he had to offer.  Unless it was a life jacket and parachute.  We took off from Dallas, and after about 90 minutes and only a ripple here and there, landed in Nashville.  God is good, and we talked a lot during the flight - a story for another day.

*We grabbed our four checked bags and headed home after dropping off Maribeth's two bags at their house.  Eventually we got home and unloaded and into bed around 1am.  After a long travel day, it's good to be home!!  And I think Maggie and Minnie cats were glad we were home!!

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Today was a great day because:  AA lady at ticket desk; safe, smooth rides home for everyone; Steve upgrading us to BC and all its amenities; getting home and sleeping in my own bed