Day 1, Part 1: Sometimes Everything Just Goes Wrong

It was finally here, our travel day!!!  I love taking January trips since it seems they come up so fast with the holidays being so close, it really seems like it’s Christmas then BAM the next week we’re going to Disney!

As you may be able to infer from the title of this post, this was not one of those trips that went off without a hitch.  There were hitches, many hitches. 

I need to take you back in time a bit to the night before the trip to get the full scope of what we were working with this first day. 

So I hate leaving for trips and having a fridge full of items that will go bad before I get back, so I usually end up just relying on leftovers for meals for a day or two leading up to the trip to clear out any food that could go back while I’m away. 

Normally this is not an issue, but I may have let a leftover get a bit too old before finishing up the night before the trip because about 20 minutes after eating I got violently ill.  Yup, less than 12 hours from heading to the airport I had food poisoning.  Fantastic. 

The good news is once everything was out of me, I felt significantly better, but the problem was I got myself so worked up and worried about being sick again I could hardly sleep that night.  I did eventually fall asleep, but I had to wake up soon after since I was taking an early flight the next morning.

Now, for the past few trips I’ve relied on a driver I hire to pick me up for early flights since Ubers are still hard to get early in the morning around here.  He’s been super reliable for years, so even though I had a thought to confirm the scheduled ride with him the night before, I figured I hadn’t done so in the past and he’s been on time, so no need to do it this time. 

Well, that was a mistake.

I had him scheduled to pick me up at 5am.  5:00 comes and goes, no driver.  At 5:05 I text him to see where he is, but get no response.  At 5:10 I call him, but no answer.  Uh oh.  So I try to get an Uber, but once again there are no cars available that time of the morning. 

I tried Lyft as well, but same story, no drivers. 

My neighbors I would normally ask at a time like this for a ride were out of town, and my best friend moved super far away so calling her wouldn’t help.  I was stumped.  Now I do only live about 3 miles from the airport via the trail, so I could in theory walk there, but with all my luggage I doubt I would make my flight. 

Guys, I don’t normally panic, but I was starting to go into full panic mode. 

I kept trying both Uber and Lyft, and FINALLY around 5:25 a car popped up on Uber and I was able to get it.  PHEW!  The driver arrived around 5:35, and thankfully I live so close to the airport so I got there just before 5:45.  My flight was scheduled to board at 6:05, so I was cutting it a bit closer than I would have liked. 

Thankfully the TSA precheck line was pretty short this morning, and I was at my gate by 5:55.  Plenty of time to spare! 

Now, it would be glorious if that was the end of the issues this morning, but luck was not on my side this day.

I get to my gate to see that they are still boarding the flight ahead of ours, which being so close to when we’re supposed to board obviously meant that we’d be boarding late. Oh well, at least I had extra time to go grab a coffee and water. 

I get back to my gate around 6:10, and see the flight before mine is still at the gate, so I settled into a chair to read a bit and inhale coffee to try to wake up.

I don’t know what was going on with the flight before mine at the gate, but the doors were closed before I got back to the gate area at 6:10, but the plane just sat there until about 6:35!  My flight was supposed to leave at 6:45, so clearly we were now also delayed. 

Finally, that flight pulled away, but now they had to tow our plane in from storage, which apparently takes forever at DCA, which I do not understand why since it really is a very small airport.  This was a weird morning because a TON of planes had to be towed out of storage, I was sitting by the window and plane after plane was being towed to gates.  I fly out of DCA a lot in the morning and I’ve never seen anything like this.  I wonder if they just had a lot of extra flights this morning since it was the day after the inauguration? 

Eventually our plane was towed to our gate, and shortly after we were finally able to board at about 7:10, over an hour after our original boarding time, and almost 30 minutes after our original departure time. 

I wish I could say that was the end of the delays, but oh no, we’re just getting started. 

We all get on board the plane and settled in for the flight, but I noticed the pilot kept coming out of the cockpit and peaking into the bathroom.  I was flying first class on the way down and in the second row so was closely observing what was going on since it looked like there may be an issue.

Sure enough, it turns out they had run out of potable water, which normally would be an easy fix, just gotta fill the tanks, BUT this morning it was a whopping 9 degrees outside and the valves were frozen shut so they couldn’t open them to do so.

Eventually they got one of the two valves open, which was apparently enough, so they filled the tank. 

So, it’s almost time to take off right?

HAAAAAA, absolutely not! 

Nope, now it was so cold outside that now they couldn’t close the valve they had gotten open.  So we had to sit there waiting for that! 

Seriously, at this point all I could do was laugh.  Every time we got one problem solved another would pop up! 

I guess I have been super lucky the past few trips and haven’t had any delays over 30-40 minutes, so I was due for a nice long delay, and this one fit the bill!

We did finally end up taking off a bit after 8, so less than a 2 hour delay so not horrible. 

The flight down was longer than normal this time, usually it’s anywhere from 1.5-2 hours, but this morning it was over 2.5 hours. 

The good news is all these delays and slow flight actually worked in my favor oddly enough.  My mom was meeting me at the airport, but the earliest flight for her didn’t get her into MCO until over 2 hours after my original landing time, so with these delays we actually would be arriving around the same time!  Yay for not having to hang around MCO an additional 2 hours! 

Once we landed I checked my mom’s flight and saw she was landing about 20 minutes after us, perfect timing!  So once off the plane I headed over to her gate to meet her.

Not long after I saw her plane pulling in, well sort of.  I guess I more saw it parking just off the gate.

My mom is somewhere on that plane!

After a few minutes they finally pulled into the gate, and not long after I saw my mom getting off!

We quickly hugged then made our way to the main terminal to catch an Uber.

Similar to my previous Farts trip, the area outside of baggage claim to catch an Uber was empty, so it was nice and quick for the Uber to get to us.  Soon we were on our way to the Boardwalk!

Next up:  The Boardwalk May be Becoming Our Favorite Place to Stay