Our story begins on the last day of school: Friday, July 19th, 2019. (sorry, this first bit will be text heavy) I didn't know this, but neither of my children actually had school this day. Because the Dutch are weird. My son finished 6th grade, and the only thing he had in the last week of school was "camp" and then he was free the rest of the week. My daughter only had to turn her books in and get her report card on the Tuesday, and then she was done as well. So we had everything packed up and we went to my in-laws' on Friday since they would be driving us to the airport at early o'clock Saturday morning.
We got up and got ready at 4:30, and planned to leave at 6:30. My brother-in-law would drive one car, and my parents-in-law the other. But my brother-in-law was late...he lives half a block away. Once he got there, we split up, boys in one car and girls in the other.
We got to the airport at about 8:15...we were cutting it close, since you are supposed to arrive 3 hours before for an international flight.
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DH went to look for a luggage trolley and my son wasn't wanting to be in pictures.
Every time our flight has originated in Amsterdam, we've flown directly to the US, and we had to be in this one section of the airport to check in, and then immediately after security, there is a McDonalds. Our plan was to eat breakfast at that McDonalds before our flight.
This time, we were flying to Frankfort Germany first, and then going to the US. The check-in is on the other side of the terminal. Once we got to check in, we stood in line for quite a while, and there were several flights checking in. We saw one of E's classmates from elementary school on her way to Sudan (I think that's where they are from originally?) to visit their family back home.
It was finally our turn to check in and we spent ages and they couldn't get E's passport entered. It just wasn't working. They call over a supervisor and the supervisor tells my husband that he entered the number incorrectly on the ESTA form, because he put in zeros and it's supposed to be O. He tells her no, he looked it up and Dutch passports do not use the letter O. They do some searching and realize he's correct, and that THEY had entered it incorrectly and now it wouldn't let them redo it. It took forever for them to figure it out, but we were patient. Then at the check-in desk next to us, one of the supervisors starts swearing at the other employees...one of the flights checking in was leaving soon and anyone on that flight needed to be checked in immediately and they hadn't been sorting them out and sending them to the front. It was an issue, but he was very unprofessional swearing at people in front of all the people checking in, including small children. He was very demeaning. I was glad he wasn't the one doing our check-in!
I was told I had to check my carryon with all the ears we had made, because it was a full flight and there wasn't enough space.
We got our boarding passes and noticed we weren't all together for the flight from Frankfurt to MCO, so we went to the gate to ask if they could fix that. But they changed the gate, so then we went to the right gate, but they told us we had to do that in Frankfurt.
We were still sitting at the gate when our flight was supposed to be leaving. They hadn't even started boarding...this did not bode well for transfer times in Frankfurt. We ended up taking off an hour late, so we didn't have much time in Frankfurt. We had to get from terminal A to terminal Z, AND go through passport check again in the process. We follow the signs and go through passport check, we're in a hurry since we only have 30 minutes...A really needed to go to the bathroom and then they chose DH for extra security check, and he's told to wait for someone to come get him. I had to take the kids back out to get to the bathroom and when we came back, DH was gone and nowhere to be seen. I had no idea if he was still in security or if he had gone on without us, and our phones didn't work in Germany, so I had no way to call him to find out. With very little time left, I decided to just go to the gate and hope he made it there. He was there waiting for us when we got there, but there was no time to ask about switching seats as they were already boarding. We had 2 seats together with one behind that, and one on the other end and other side of the plane, and they had E sitting in that one seat. So she and I were going to switch seats so I was the one by myself. But they checked our passports and boarding passes again upon entering the plane, and so we had to switch our boarding passes back, and they sent me to the wrong side and I had to climb over people to get to the right place.
I approach "my" seat (glad we didn't send E there!!) and I have the window seat and the 2 people with the middle and aisle are already seated and NOT happy about having to move to let me into my seat. After much eye rolling and exaggerated sighing and some rude comments, they get out to let me through and I put the arm rests up to get to my seat. I sit down and I'm looking for my seatbelt, and the guy informs me that he is going to have to put the arm rest down. Well yes, I know that. He looks me up and down and asks if I will fit. Then he puts the arm rest just a couple of inches down and looks at me. He moves it a bit more and looks at me questioningly. He says he doesn't think it's going to fit. I'm not THAT big...yes, I know I'm fat, but seriously, I didn't even need a seatbelt extender. I shoved the armrest down all the way.
Just my luck, there is a screaming baby across the aisle from us, and the Judgy McJudgersons, or at least Mrs. Judgy McJudgerson is not happy about this, and complains for the whole 10 hour flight about EVERYTHING. The family with the screaming baby is Desi and has dietary restrictions, so they have ordered special meals, which are served before the rest of the meals. And Mrs McJudgerson does not like the smell of the food and is not afraid to show it. She makes quite the production of holding a stack of napkins over her nose, and alternately using the napkins to waft away the scent, while repeatedly saying "It's absolutely disgusting!" She had what I consider to be a New York accent. I kept thinking "I wonder if this is what a 'flid' is".
Then they go to serve the meal to the rest of the plane and before they even get to our row, she says to me in very slow English like I'm a moron "Do you want chicken or pasta?". Now, I don't know what kind of pasta it is or what is served with the chicken, so I really don't know, and I didn't know why she needed to know, but I thought it would be rude to tell her to mind her own business, so I said "I don't know. Probably pasta...we'll see." and as soon as the FA got to us, she orders for all three of us "We all want the pasta." and as I'm sitting in the window seat, I can't get the FA's attention to tell her I actually don't know, and she's already opened the meal for me and is passing it to me. It was awful and I wish I had gotten the chicken. Then they come to bring headphones. The FA is still 2 rows ahead of us, and Mrs. McJudgerson stands up and reaches over the people in front of us so she can get her headphones first. I think if I had been that FA, I'd have made her wait her turn. She got the last pair. They came around with more...it's not like she couldn't have waited for 30 seconds. Then the lady decides she wants to rest, so she mimes and says that she's going to rest and do I want to go to the bathroom before that? And the way she says it, very slowly, annunciating each syllable like I don't understand English, "I'm. go-ing. to. rest. Do you need the bathroom? Bathroom? I'm going to rest. You won't be able to get out. Bathroom??" So I get up and go to the bathroom and come back and they spend 3 minutes trying to figure out how to turn their lights off while leaving mine on and the woman insisting they ALL have to be off or she won't be able to rest. But her husband is next to me and insisting that I need to leave my light on, because I'm reading. The person in back of me had their window shade open, so I could see just fine, but she's insisting it needs to be dark and he's telling me I need to leave the light on because it's bad for my eyes to turn it off. She was just driving me nuts with her "But how am I going to rest??" so I told him to just leave it off. The poor baby kept screaming...he apparently had an ear infection, so he was uncomfortable. Mrs. McJudgerson made a point of telling everyone how disgusting it was that they brought a sick baby on vacation! And how annoying it was that he kept crying. Then they came around with snacks and again they were still several rows ahead of us and she's asking me "Do you want more food? Moooore. Foooood." I have no idea what it is, and I don't want her to order for me again, I want to be able to make a choice myself, and I didn't know why she was treating me like an imbecile, so I must have been looking at her like she had 3 heads because she looks at her husband and says "Will you tell her? Will you ask her?" When the FA got to our row, she looks at me to ask me what I want, and Mrs McJ doesn't wait her turn, just says what she wants before I can even open my mouth. Well ok then.
At some point toward the end of the flight, they decided to try to make conversation. DH had come back at some point to get one of the bags from the overhead compartment and was speaking English to me, and they had noticed that he was sitting pretty far away from me, and they were asking about my family. When they asked where we were from and I said the Netherlands, she points to the lady behind her and says "OH! She's from the Netherlands, too! Do you know her?" Yes....I know every single one of the 17 million people who live in the Netherlands.
"No, I'm afraid I don't." She asked about our trip, and have I been to Disneyworld before... yes, several times....and then she proceeds to the unsolicited advice portion of the conversation. Make sure you wear sunscreen! You have very light skin and you can burn in minutes in the Florida sun. "Yes, I have several bottles because I burn easily." And you'll need to drink lots of water, too, because it gets very hot. "Yes, I ordered 2 cases of water to be delivered to our resort." Make sure you do this, and make sure you see that, and bla bla bla.
And finally we got off the plane.
It's a VERY long walk to customs/passport check, and you get there and you are not allowed to use your phone or camera or any other device. So, I apologize, still no pictures.
There was an adorable boy in a buzz lightyear suit, though.
One nice thing is that we no longer have to fill in the customs form we used to have to do. So we got through and then we were told we couldn't take a luggage cart out of the baggage area. Why do they even have them if you can't use them? So we were able to send the bags up on a conveyor belt, and then we went in search of food because we were starving and the kids hadn't eaten the food on the plane. I knew
@Tuvalu was leaving the day we were arriving, so I kept an eye out, but we never saw her.
We grabbed some McDonalds food and A was eating and I was telling them about the McJudgersons when he stopped eating and started crying. Apparently the mention of the sick baby grossed him out and he couldn't eat anymore.
We went to pick up our luggage and dh went to find an ATM so we could rent a cart and A fell asleep on the floor. We got right on the magical express and soon we were on our way to CBR. A fell asleep in the bus right away. He was exhausted!
When we got to check in, I was hoping to get my requests. We had a preferred room, and I had requested a first floor room with an adjoining room with my brother's room. My brother's family had arrived in the morning, and they gave HIM a first floor room, and it did have an adjoining room next door, but we were given the room above him instead. So we had to drag all our luggage up and down the stairs, and I had to drag it up and down the stairs every time I did laundry, too. I had actually used Touring plans to figure out which room we wanted, and I made sure to request a specific room on the first floor that also had an adjoining room next door, but obviously that's not where we were placed. The person who checked my brother in commented on how lucky he was, that I knew what I was doing when I requested first floor in the building I chose. Yeah....so why did you give it to HIM and not to ME, the person who requested it? Oh well, he was happy, and that was the point of my planning. I wanted them to have a great time and maybe be willing to go again sometime.
I had ordered our magic bands, just the plain colored ones, when they had just come out with the special upgrades and there were problems with accessing the app to order.
@Rista1313 had suggested using incognito mode as she heard people had success with that, and I was finally able to access it. But when we got our bands, they were just the grey ones, so apparently our order didn't go through. Good thing I had skins!
DH was in a mood by this time. He was being such a jerk I was hoping he wasn't going to be like that for the whole 3 and a half week trip. He was mad that I ordered so much water....he didn't think we needed it. I had ordered 2 packs of 32 bottles, figuring there were 4 of us and we were there for something like 25 days. When I told him that that wasn't even enough for each of us to have one bottle per day, he informed me that
he wouldn't be drinking it, and how was I going to drink all that myself? Had I known no one would drink it but me, I'd have only ordered one. I went to discuss plans for the following morning with my brother and when I got back to our room 10 minutes later, DH was sound asleep and the lights were off, so there would be no discussing plans with him.
Would he be in a better mood the next day? Would everyone make it on time to the agreed upon meeting place? Would I have to throttle my entire group in frustration?
She forgot it was in the drink when she tossed it. Too late now, but no matter, I had a bunch of them.
I guess one of the girls had wanted to take a selfie in every "country" and only had 2 left...all the way on the other side of WS, so C's brother M had taken her to do that, while C's older brother B and his fiance (as of the week before) were having some alone time to celebrate and C and their parents took B's 2 boys. All the kids played in the empty fountain while we waited.
I plugged mine in while everyone was showering and getting ready and kept my phone plugged in until we were ready to go. I put some glow sticks in my bag just in case we split up. We were ready to go.
