My first alarm went off at 2:50 am, after a night of better sleep than I’d anticipated. I checked my email, saw no emails about flight issues and went back to sleep until my 3:00 alarm.
When the 3:00 alarm went off, I found a brand new flight canceled email. Our flight from MCO-JFK had been canceled. Shit! I’m awake now.
I quickly made the decision to still get ready while waiting for the flight updates to arrive. We needed to get that rental car returned, and maybe showing up at the airport would help our cause?
While getting ready, I got the phone call. We’d been assigned a new flight from MCO-JFK that was identical to the flight that had just been canceled. Only difference was the flight number. Oh and they’d bumped us to row two from the seats I’d upgraded to in row 3 when I’d checked us in yesterday. Hmm…
We headed out the door at 3:30. Disney is so quiet at this hour. It was an easy drive to the airport, and pretty soon we were navigating our way to rental car return in garage C. This was kind of a weird experience. They have this crazy huge, nice, new terminal. The garage is so clean. Yet the rental car companies are operating in the garage literally with folding chairs and folding tables. They didn’t think to put booths in this garage?
Return went smoothly and we were on our way in just a couple of minutes. The walk from the garage to the terminal involves a lot of escalators and a LONG walkway type thing that I think goes over the drop off road at the curb of the terminal. But we made it to the JetBlue ticket kiosks soon enough.
I had the same issue at the kiosk that I’d had in Boston last April. Our boarding passes printed but our bag tags did not. I’m beginning to think I’m missing a button on the screen. But who knows. So we got in the help desk line and within a few minutes, as I listened to the guy next to me be told he’d been rescheduled to a flight to Boston that wouldn’t leave until 4 pm, because of the same cancellation we had experienced this morning, our bags were tagged, and we were on our way to security, grateful that we were still headed northeast this morning, rather than hanging at the airport for 12 hours.
We had no wait (and no issues) in the precheck line and soon we were gateside ordering a breakfast sandwich for Nick. This terminal has legitimate food options! Also, this terminal is intense! It’s so bright and the ceilings are SO tall, so it feels huge! But…they didn’t use the classic MCO carpet at the gates. FAIL.
We sat at the gate for a bit, me eavesdropping on the chatter on the radios. Seems there had been an equipment change, so the gate agents were being warned by the ground crew of potential for seating issues. Great, a potential for a delay. Not what we need this morning. As we were walking to our gate, I had seen on the monitors that JetBlue had clearly originally had two identical flights scheduled, with one (our original for this morning) canceled, and one on time (this one) so my best guess is that there had been an equipment issue leading to this morning’s cancelation.
Boarding started right on time. We were in the A group for the first (and unless I have more travel adventures like this…last) time in our JetBlue experiences, so we were on board pretty quickly, despite having to traverse a LONG double decker jetbridge.
The flight boarded fairly quickly and we pushed back from the gate early. Phew! It was a pretty uneventful flight up to JFK. Nick slept. I slightly dozed but mostly texted because sleep on an airplane? What?!
We landed at JFK early and woah…big airport! It took FOREVER to taxi to the gate so we lost all early landing advantage, but the jetbridge worked and the door was opened right on schedule, and we were off the plate almost immediately. I’d studied the gate info (and terminal maps) in the JetBlue app, so I knew we basically just had to cross an atrium and our gate was the next gate on the other side of the atrium. Miraculously this meant we had time for a quick pit stop at the restrooms next to our gate and…we made it onto the next flight with 10 minutes to spare before official door closing time!
We celebrated making the flight, but honestly, despite not wanting the vacation to end, I was just grateful we had made it this far. Worst case scenario, we could have taken a train from NY to CT, have Nick’s extended family pick us up in CT and then either have his parents drive down to get us or have his extended family drive us at least part way north. Then we settled in to listen to the surprisingly comical for JetBlue safety spiel, and the dude a couple rows ahead of us who was on his phone dealing with some sort of family crisis. About the time the flight attendants were going to tell us about our life vests, he stood up, said he had to get off the plane, and he was escorted to the front, the door was disarmed, he left, they re-armed the door and, eventually continued the safety spiel.
While this was going on, Nick and I were watching my email to see if I got a luggage update email. We fully expected our bags to get left at JFK. But, after the door was closed on the flight for the second time, we heard the ground crew slamming around in the belly of the plane. Could that be our bags?
As we pushed back from the gate, I got the email! Our bags made our flight!
It was a bumpy but otherwise uneventful, less than an hour flight over to Boston, with some clear views of NYC after departure.
Deplaning took a bit from row 19, but we made it off the plane eventually and just about froze when that first blast of air coming through the gap between the jetbridge and plane hit us. UGH, we’re home.
We found baggage claim 4, which they had announced as our carousel on the plane easily enough and proceeded to wait awhile. While waiting, I, no surprise, saw the 10:30 am bus back to Londonderry drive by so I knew we would be waiting another hour for our ride back to NH.
After several more minutes of waiting, a baggage claim change was announced (oh Boston), and we headed for carousel 2, where one of the suitcases was already visible. I picked up the pace and snagged that suitcase while Nick grabbed the other as it came into view. Then we headed down toward the appropriate door for bus pickup and found a spot to kill the next 40ish minutes until it was an appropriate time to head outside.
The time passed quickly because while we were taxiing to the gate, Nick had found a voicemail from the kennel. They’re open for pickup from 9-10 am on Sunday. Snow hadn’t been picked up. So we passed the time trying to get in touch with Nick’s dad. Thankfully while waiting for the bus, the cameras in the house alerted us to motion, and it was the dogs arriving home, followed by Nick’s dad shoveling out the foot+ of cement-like snow at the end of our driveway. Seems John had the pickup time wrong, but, unlike the kennel we don’t use anymore, this one is staffed for more of the day, so he was still able to retrieve Snow when he got there late. Crisis averted.
About 11:20 we put jackets on and headed out to the curb to join the crowd of people headed back to NH. Two Concord Trailways buses rolled in about 11:35 and when the first driver saw the crowd of people waiting, he quickly divided us into two separate bus-loads…one to Concord, one to Londonderry. Despite our house’s proximity to Concord, we got on the bus to Londonderry. That bus terminal is just a few minutes from all of our parents’ houses, and mom would be dropping my car off there.
Obviously loading that mass of humanity onto the buses took a bit, but soon enough we were on our way. There was, of course, traffic in the tunnel, because Boston, but eventually we made it out of the city. Nick slept and I marveled at just how large the craters were in the Massachusetts highways, while watching the snowpack on the side of the road increase as we got closer to home.
Mom sent me the location of my car shortly before we rolled into the bus terminal. We had our luggage in hand in minutes, and easily found my car. I instantly regretted not having left snow boots in the back of my car before the trip, since we had to stand in several inches of slush to load luggage in the car. But soon enough we were on our way home. It was an uneventful trip further north, where the snowbanks got even bigger, and, after a stop for lunch, we made it home where we were very enthusiastically greeted by a couple of pups and a lot of snow.
Final thoughts:
After spending time at Universal and Sea World where those stroller wagon things have not been banned, I’m so glad they are banned at Disney.
Connections under an hour when airlines close the door on a flight 20 minutes before departure should be illegal.
I enjoyed our time at Universal more than I thought I would, but I can’t understand how people are able to go there for a week or more at a time. Most of the rides are the same premise, there really aren’t that many rides, and they all throw you around. Seriously, my shoulder was sore from bracing myself by the end of day 2. Two days was perfect for us.
Wizarding World is incredible and was definitely a highlight. I’m curious to see how the new Universal theme park turns out, now that Universal has learned how to truly theme their park areas. Having been children in the 90s, we will probably have to go back to Universal sometime after Epic Universe opens to see the Nintendo section, but we are definitely more Disney people than Universal people, and Nick is definitely more a cruise person than a theme park person. .
Express Pass wasn’t as necessary as I thought, for the days we were at Universal. It did, however, give us the freedom to just tackle rides as we came to them rather than criss-crossing the park trying to stay ahead of wait times. It is also solely responsible for us making it back to Islands of Adventure in time for the light show on the castle. For many reasons, I have no regrets about staying at Portofino Bay, and I’m glad we had the Express Pass, but staying Premier for this trip for that perk probably wasn’t entirely necessary.
Be early for early entry. It’s the number one strategy at Disney and the number one strategy for Universal.
I miss the one hour long early entry hours at Disney.
Nick liked Sea World a lot, despite initially calling it the Walmart of amusement parks. He liked the laid back nature of our day there and he was impressed by the caliber of roller coasters. And I’ve always liked Sea World.
Always pack an extra shirt or two…spills, sweat, snowstorms canceling flights…it’s good to have extra clothes with you.
I’m really grateful for how smoothly everything worked with our canceled flight. I’m making sure to book with JetBlue for next February vacation and Southwest for April.
It was a fantastic trip!!
