11/25/2014
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| Our hotel |
Finally, a day I get to wake up late! Woo-hoo! For the past 7 weeks, I've been going to sleep at 2-3am everyday and waking up at 7am (Angel's a right little dictator on vacation--I get no slack for going to sleep late). She finally let me sleep in today because it's our last day and we have absolutely nothing to do today, except await our 6:30pm flight.
When I woke up, Angel expressed her amazement that I didn't hear the pounding of wind and rain on our windows this morning. It's not that the hotel's windows are crappy--the wind's that strong. She said it's been howling and pouring since 6am. She had the TV on in the other room and the news was blasting hurricane warnings (in place til 11am today), and they warned people not to go outside.
But since our checkout is at 1pm, we had to go outside. We went to the outlets to check if the official Disney outlet store had reopened (they'd been closed for remodeling). Boooo. They'd been hoping to open up for Black Friday shopping but it doesn't look like they will be. The clouds had cleared up at this point and it was nicely sunny out, though very, very humid. Even I was sweating in the short 5 minutes we were walking around the outlet. Gotta hop in the car and turn on the A/C full blast.
Since I have free lounge passes to United and they expire in June 2015, we thought we'd use them up in Orlando, as we probably won't be flying anywhere by June '15. The idea was we'd get to the airport early so to take full advantage of these passes. However, as I started driving toward the airport (it's a 40 minute drive), it started raining. Hard. So much rain poured down, it was extremely difficult--downright impossible at times--to get visibility of the roads. The windshield wipers weren't wiping away the rain fast enough for me to see beyond the windshield. It was super freaky, as we've never encountered this kind of weather in California before (we're talking about the Bay Area people who drive like grannies when it's sprinkling). Thank God most people here were driving 5-10 miles/hour, so I wouldn't be the only one honked at. There were also huge, huge pools of water just collecting by the sides of the roads--Orlando's roads aren't in the best shape, with loads of deep potholes all around. Anytime a car drives past, the pools of water can splatter up to 10 feet in the air.
Returning the car at the airport was a breeze. Thank God the return car area has a covered walkway into the airport, cuz we would've been soaking wet otherwise. The rain did not look like it was going to let up anytime soon. I did have a little problem with Alamo's gas policy and the manager was kind enough to refund half of it back. When we rented the car, the guy told us that we could return the car with an empty tank and they'd charge us only for fuel at the "discounted" rate of $2.75/gallon. 2.75?! Holy cow! Sign me up!
...As it turns out, $2.75/gallon is the average price around Orlando. That wasn't the part that ticked me off though, because I'd gladly pay Alamo the $2.75/gallon so that I don't have to fuel up myself. But they were gonna charge me for the whole tank when I returned it with the tank more than half full! I know, I know, don't get suckered into a "deal," but if the guy who sold me this option had told me this upfront, I wouldn't have opted for Alamo filling my tank. Instead, they hid it in a whole lotta little disclosure terms and they only gave me this paper with the terms & conditions after I agreed to the option. Shady.
Check-in was done in electronic kiosks, as they don't have booths with United personnel manning each booth. By the time we checked in, it was already past 4pm. We originally said we wanted to be at the airport by 3pm tops to take advantage of the lounge, but the rain slowed everything down.
Oh, our breakfast today was the leftovers from Be Our Guest. We microwaved them up and the steak was still oh-so-tender. The green beans were delicious! I'm kicking myself I didn't dig in while we were in the restaurant. I could eat those green beans every day...though they are cooked in a whole lotta butter.
Our lunch was the sandwich that Angel's been making for us every day in Orlando:
Yum. I'm salivating just looking at this picture. I'd like to get me one of these sandwiches now. Pronto.
United doesn't provide food for the 6 hour+ journey from one end of the country to the other. Ghetto! So we stocked up in the lounge. The whole airport doesn't have A/C (or so it seems), so it was not only damp from people coming in outta the rain, it was humid too. Gross. So if anything, go into the lounge to escape the humidity of the airport! Angel had been getting worked up (whenever the temperature rises, so does her temper) while we were checking in, but immediately after stepping into the United lounge, her temper dissipated. We sank into leather chairs and ate a shitload of crackers and cheese, yogurt-covered raisins and Chex mix (they didn't have anything else! If I'd paid $50 for the lounge pass, I'd be super ticked off. $50 for Chex mix?! Have they seen British Airways' lounges???). I tried to be all Starbucks again and made myself a cocoa-dusted cappuccino with vanilla sugar, cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg.
Note to self: never work at Starbucks. They'd fire me. My concoction tasted disgusting. You'd think all those lovely notes would work together!
So you know how United doesn't provide food? Well, after everyone boarded the airplane, the plane didn't take off for another TWO hours. The rain contributed in large part to the delay, but the pilot had also missed his turn in the queue to take off, so our plane had to go to the back of the queue. Grrrr. You'd think United would hand out food for free at this point! It's almost the same length in time across the Atlantic! But nope. Right after take-off, the flight attendants come around with a cart full of food that you can buy. It's like highway robbery, it is.
By the time we touched down in San Fran, people with connecting flights had only 10 minutes to make it to the connecting gates. There was an announcement on board to please sit in your seats so the people who have connections can go first and hopefully make their flights. For the most part, everyone cooperated and I'm completely amazed at how thoughtful people can be. Kinda restores your faith in humanity. While waiting for the airplane door to open, a woman with a connecting flight was standing next to my seat. She said her son's on leave for a couple of days, and this is the only time she ever gets to see him. She has only a few minutes to make her connection or she'll have to wait for a connecting flight to take off tomorrow morning. It's Thanksgiving and I really hope she made it home to see her son. United said they were holding all connecting flights for the passengers on our flight, so hopefully they came through for these people.
11/26/2014
We're now safely back home in good ole California with its balmy weather...and drought. If only they could transport all that rain water from Florida to California! It's a good thing we flew yesterday (right in the nick of time, too!) because I woke up today to see on the news that over 700 flights have been canceled today due to bad weather on the East Coast, including Florida. Yikes. Really sucks right before Thanksgiving. I'll try to upload videos onto the blog in the coming days.
So now we're back home to the headache of our remodeling project *wince*. And Black Friday. Let's see what kinda hysteria is going on this year...
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