The last Saturday in June we got up early to head to the John Wayne airport in Santa Ana.
Little Princess & I had been staying with Nani so that we could spend some extra time with her before we moved.
Hubby & Little Dudeman were already in Indiana and would be picking us up that evening in Indy.
I could tell that I was starting to get that awful cold that was going around earlier that week by this point.
No fun.
Our flight left at 10:05am and we got to the airport around 8:30ish (if I remember correctly)
We waited in line to check our big suitcase and the carseat,
then around 9-or-so we walked over to security to say our "see ya laters".
They let us go through the first class line since I had a stroller,
then the nice man that checked my ID decided to help us through the line since it was the end of his shift.
I forgot to empty the water out of Little Princess's sippy cup,
& they normally dump it or test it (which I was completely okay with),
but they said that they weren't going to bother because it wasn't very much.
It was more than half-full.
Uhm... not really protocol, but okay?
That was nice of them.
Little Princess was an angel on her first flight, even with her drippy nose.
I began to have more & more sniffles as the flight went on,
but Little Princess slept almost the entire flight, which was quite the blessing.
We were sitting next to a nice man & his partner who loved keeping her entertained during take-off & landing.
She only screamed once...
but that was after we had landed & it was because I was wiping her nose.
Wehad were supposed to have an hour-and-a-half layover once we got to Denver.
Not too short, not too long right?
Enough time to have a quick lunch, go to the bathroom, change diapers, & get to the complete opposite end of the terminal (where our next gate was) without feeling super rushed.
I looked at the departure board with disappointment when I saw that our flight time had changed.
Our flight to Indy was now scheduled to leave at 4:45pm instead of 2:50pm.
Hubby had already left since Indiana is 2 hours ahead of Colorado.
He was about halfway through the 3 hour drive to come pick us up when I called to tell him the bad news.
So they stopped to have dinner since he & Little Dudeman now had plenty of time to kill.
We ate lunch and got to our gate
(located at the opposite end of the terminal, remember?)
About 20 minutes or so passes and the nice lady at the gate kindly lets us know that our plane would be even more delayed, although she didn't have a new departure time yet.
A couple minutes after that she informs us that our new flight time would be 7:23pm out of a different gate
(which was back where I had just come from)
Yep.
So I called Hubby and told him the bad news yet again.
The 7:23pm departure meant we would arrive around 11:30pm (after the time change),
then we would have to get off the plane,
wait for our luggage,
re-install the carseat for Little Princess,
& drive 3 hours to the lake house.
Yeah... did I mention that we were staying at a friend's lake house until we closed on our new home?
It was a nice break from the chaos of moving.
Really nice.
But back to the airport.
I was feeling more & more miserable by the second.
I had terrible hayfever & was sneezing up a storm,
not to mention that my nose wouldn't stop dripping.
Yep, I was no longer stuffy.
It was like a leaky faucet.
I had a headache and well,
I was achy from head to toe...
Not a fun way to spend a layover.
Hubby was thinking about driving back to the lake house & driving to Indy the next day to pick us up if the airline could get us a hotel in Denver, then he would come get us on the first morning flight.
I walked by the guest relations line & decided I would wait for it to die down a little,
but it continued to grow...
After a couple stinky diapers and a few walks back and forth to opposite ends of the terminal I finally decided to wait in the 45 minute line at guest relations to see what they could do about that.
No such luck.
They said that since there was still another flight to Indy (at 7:11pm) that they couldn't get us a hotel.
It's okay.
I didn't want to go to a hotel anyway.
We would have had no clothes or carseat since we had checked it.
They did however give me a $30 meal voucher and a $10 snack voucher to use at the airport while we waited...
35 minutes before the boarding time.
That didn't give us a lot of time to sit down in the nice sit-down restaurant they suggested,
order,
wait for food,
eat it,
change one last diaper,
& get to the gate.
So instead, I ran to the little grab-n-go shop nearby,
got as much food as I could manage to eat &/or stow that would add up to $30
(a giant slice of pizza, raspberry cheesecake, a sandwich, yogurt, a banana, a cookie, some chips, & possibly other things that I have since forgotten about).
Then I ran over to Hope's Country Fresh Cookies,
ordered $10 worth of cookies to save for later,
& headed back to the gate.
There I met a girl on our flight from Carmel, IN (Hubby's hometown)
& a lady that was headed to the exact same lake that we were (Lake Wawasee).
Small world, eh?
We finally boarded our upgraded plane around 7:40pm.
I say upgraded because it was no longer a full flight.
We went from having 2 seats per side to 3 seats per side.
There was a very kind mother, daughter, & grandmother in the same row as us.
The 3 of them decided to all sit together on one side of the plane to give us some extra space since Little Princess was squirmy & needed a lot of extra wiggle room during this flight.
I was so grateful!
I had hoped for another easy flight since I was very exhausted by then & quite miserable from the cold.
Unfortunately I had one fussy toddler to deal with almost the entire flight.
She decided to nap about 10-15 minutes before the descent,
but woke up screaming when her ears started bothering her.
No nap for me.
Miserable.
Absolutely miserable.
We landed around 11:45pm,
got our luggage around 12:15am,
took a quick potty break,
changed diapers,
paid for parking before heading to the car,
installed the carseat,
loaded up the car,
& hit the road.
We ended up leaving the airport around 1:00am
and didn't get to the lake house until about 4:00am.
Little Princess & I had been staying with Nani so that we could spend some extra time with her before we moved.
Hubby & Little Dudeman were already in Indiana and would be picking us up that evening in Indy.
I could tell that I was starting to get that awful cold that was going around earlier that week by this point.
No fun.
Our flight left at 10:05am and we got to the airport around 8:30ish (if I remember correctly)
We waited in line to check our big suitcase and the carseat,
then around 9-or-so we walked over to security to say our "see ya laters".
They let us go through the first class line since I had a stroller,
then the nice man that checked my ID decided to help us through the line since it was the end of his shift.
I forgot to empty the water out of Little Princess's sippy cup,
& they normally dump it or test it (which I was completely okay with),
but they said that they weren't going to bother because it wasn't very much.
It was more than half-full.
Uhm... not really protocol, but okay?
That was nice of them.
Little Princess was an angel on her first flight, even with her drippy nose.
I began to have more & more sniffles as the flight went on,
but Little Princess slept almost the entire flight, which was quite the blessing.
We were sitting next to a nice man & his partner who loved keeping her entertained during take-off & landing.
She only screamed once...
but that was after we had landed & it was because I was wiping her nose.
We
Not too short, not too long right?
Enough time to have a quick lunch, go to the bathroom, change diapers, & get to the complete opposite end of the terminal (where our next gate was) without feeling super rushed.
I looked at the departure board with disappointment when I saw that our flight time had changed.
Our flight to Indy was now scheduled to leave at 4:45pm instead of 2:50pm.
Hubby had already left since Indiana is 2 hours ahead of Colorado.
He was about halfway through the 3 hour drive to come pick us up when I called to tell him the bad news.
So they stopped to have dinner since he & Little Dudeman now had plenty of time to kill.
We ate lunch and got to our gate
(located at the opposite end of the terminal, remember?)
About 20 minutes or so passes and the nice lady at the gate kindly lets us know that our plane would be even more delayed, although she didn't have a new departure time yet.
A couple minutes after that she informs us that our new flight time would be 7:23pm out of a different gate
(which was back where I had just come from)
Yep.
So I called Hubby and told him the bad news yet again.
The 7:23pm departure meant we would arrive around 11:30pm (after the time change),
then we would have to get off the plane,
wait for our luggage,
re-install the carseat for Little Princess,
& drive 3 hours to the lake house.
Yeah... did I mention that we were staying at a friend's lake house until we closed on our new home?
It was a nice break from the chaos of moving.
Really nice.
But back to the airport.
I was feeling more & more miserable by the second.
I had terrible hayfever & was sneezing up a storm,
not to mention that my nose wouldn't stop dripping.
Yep, I was no longer stuffy.
It was like a leaky faucet.
I had a headache and well,
I was achy from head to toe...
Not a fun way to spend a layover.
Hubby was thinking about driving back to the lake house & driving to Indy the next day to pick us up if the airline could get us a hotel in Denver, then he would come get us on the first morning flight.
I walked by the guest relations line & decided I would wait for it to die down a little,
but it continued to grow...
After a couple stinky diapers and a few walks back and forth to opposite ends of the terminal I finally decided to wait in the 45 minute line at guest relations to see what they could do about that.
No such luck.
They said that since there was still another flight to Indy (at 7:11pm) that they couldn't get us a hotel.
It's okay.
I didn't want to go to a hotel anyway.
We would have had no clothes or carseat since we had checked it.
They did however give me a $30 meal voucher and a $10 snack voucher to use at the airport while we waited...
35 minutes before the boarding time.
That didn't give us a lot of time to sit down in the nice sit-down restaurant they suggested,
order,
wait for food,
eat it,
change one last diaper,
& get to the gate.
So instead, I ran to the little grab-n-go shop nearby,
got as much food as I could manage to eat &/or stow that would add up to $30
(a giant slice of pizza, raspberry cheesecake, a sandwich, yogurt, a banana, a cookie, some chips, & possibly other things that I have since forgotten about).
Then I ran over to Hope's Country Fresh Cookies,
ordered $10 worth of cookies to save for later,
& headed back to the gate.
There I met a girl on our flight from Carmel, IN (Hubby's hometown)
& a lady that was headed to the exact same lake that we were (Lake Wawasee).
Small world, eh?
We finally boarded our upgraded plane around 7:40pm.
I say upgraded because it was no longer a full flight.
We went from having 2 seats per side to 3 seats per side.
There was a very kind mother, daughter, & grandmother in the same row as us.
The 3 of them decided to all sit together on one side of the plane to give us some extra space since Little Princess was squirmy & needed a lot of extra wiggle room during this flight.
I was so grateful!
I had hoped for another easy flight since I was very exhausted by then & quite miserable from the cold.
Unfortunately I had one fussy toddler to deal with almost the entire flight.
She decided to nap about 10-15 minutes before the descent,
but woke up screaming when her ears started bothering her.
No nap for me.
Miserable.
Absolutely miserable.
We landed around 11:45pm,
got our luggage around 12:15am,
took a quick potty break,
changed diapers,
paid for parking before heading to the car,
installed the carseat,
loaded up the car,
& hit the road.
We ended up leaving the airport around 1:00am
and didn't get to the lake house until about 4:00am.
Longest. layover. ever.
or at least it felt like it...
Have you ever had any crazy long layovers?
or at least it felt like it...
Have you ever had any crazy long layovers?
Too bad you didn't know in advance, i could have come down and kept you company :)
ReplyDeleteI know - That would have been awesome!
DeleteI've had soooo many crazy flight and layover experiences when I was flying with my kids to see family back when we lived in Arkansas. Kids with high fevers, people getting mad at us cuz our kids were too loud, kids puking (more than once), sprinting through the airport with babies in arms and leaving a trail of goldfish and barely making our connections, and having to stay overnight for a layover because they over-booked. I feel your pain.
ReplyDelete