Slept in again, and we didn’t make
it down for breakfast until after the breakfast bar had just closed at
9:30 (kinda early, I thought! But they closed earlier on
weekdays.) We still found plenty to eat though before it was all
removed.
 So, it was off to the
airport. The drive was fairly busy, but not backed up at
all. We headed into the Budget Rental Car return area, and soon
had the car returned. Grabbed a couple luggage carts ($3 each)
and pushed all that luggage into the airport. Headed to the US
Airways area, and YIKES was it backed up and busy. Past the main
line was the ‘self check in’ with a very SHORT line! So OFF we
went! :-) I love these self check in spots, mainly because
most people are still afraid of using them!
You just pop in your Frequent Flyer card, or the Credit card you used
to buy the tickets and it quickly looks up your reservation. You
can pick seats, and tell it how many bags you have to check. Then
it prints your boarding passes and you go to the desk to have your
luggage ‘tagged’.
 Well, I popped in
my card, and it quickly brought up my reservation. Uh-oh…
First flight is delayed. Darn! Oh- well, we have over a 2
hour layover in Pittsburgh, it should be OK… WRONG! Up at
the desk it was taking forever for the agent to print our luggage tags,
and she finally told me why. It was a BIG delay, and we
WOULD NOT make our connection. She was looking for alternate
routes home and couldn’t find any. After almost an HOUR (!! Guess
that explains that long line! Glad I didn’t wait over
there!) she finally kept us on the same delayed flight and booked
us on a later flight out of Pittsburgh. But our early day was a
loss. We would not be home until 11pm (and it was 11 am!)
Yuck! Why does this ALWAYS happen when I’m sick and just want to
get home!?
During our wait at the counter, I got to see people at their worst
while two guys were hurling profanities back and forth at each other
about who was next in line to just ask her a question. I just
laughed and shook my head. Idiots! Like THAT is going to
help anything. They weren’t even late for a flight or anything,
just impatient! In today’s world they are lucky she didn’t call
security to haul them off!
 So, after finally getting that settled we headed into the
terminal. I plopped down with the carry-ons and the girls headed
into the Disney Store! Never enough Disney shopping! We
also had plenty of time to hit ALL the stores and enjoy a nice lunch at
Chili’s Restaurant. We finally headed out to the gate around 3
hours before it was due to take off. Sigh… The first flight was 3
hours late, and then we had to wait until 10pm for the second
flight. Security screening at MCO was fairly efficient,
except they closed our line JUST before we went through and put us at
the END of another much longer line. D’oh! Then it
was off to the monorail and our gate. The plane finally arrived
(about 30 minutes prior to the delay time!) and they quickly loaded us
on and took off. Yea!!
Arrived in Pittsburgh, and our earlier flight was LONG gone.
(they told us to check). So I headed to the US Airways Customer
Service desk for some meal tickets (this was a mechanical delay, and so
US Airways fault). They gave us $10 a person, in 4 separate meal
tickets. We used three for dinner and saved one for dessert
later. On the positive side I was able to type up about 3 or 4
days of trip report there in the airport! Kristen and the girls
ran around to all the shops there in Pittsburgh. (Its like a big
mall!) That kept them happy while I vegged out at the gate with
the bags.
Eventually our departure time finally arrived, and we boarded our final
flight. We arrived on time (Yea!), gathered our bags, (Yea, they
didn’t loose any!) and headed on home. Arrived home around
midnight, carried everything inside and collapsed. I had to be up
in about 6 hours for work tomorrow! :-(
Overall, it was a stupendous vacation (this last day
non-withstanding!) ;-) We had a wonderful time and greatly
enjoyed the cruise, WDW and SeaWorld!
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