Day two...
We awoke at 5.30am, luckily I had set the telephone for a wake up call as my mom's alarm didn't go off
My mom said she didn't sleep very well as the mattress was pretty hard, I had asked her the night before if she wanted the bed and Steven and I would take the sofa bed, but she said it was fine, I guess it was more uncomfortable the longer you lay down.
I got in the shower first and applied my make up carefully as I knew it would have to last all day. My mom went in after and Steven went last. We had everything packed and were ready to head over to the airport by 7.00am. Our flight wasn't until 10.00am but for International flights you have to be there 3 hours prior to your flight. So we grabbed our suitcases and headed out the door. We didn't check out as breakfast was included in our hotel stay so the plan was to check in and come back for breakfast. It was a quick 5 minute walk to the check in gate, it took slightly longer as our suitcases were heavy, even with the wheels. We walked up to the desk and checked my mother in first. Her luggage weighed 19.6kg, the limit was 20.0kg so she just made it, I couldn't believe her luggage weighed so much for one week
Next was Steven and I to check in, I handed her our passports and we went through the speech of yes, having packed our luggage ourselves and no, it hasn't been out of our possession at any time. I put on my suitcase and was surprised to see my case weighed 18.9kg, phew, I thought we may have to pay extra. As a last ditch attempt to get my wedding dress as a carry on, I asked the check in woman if I could carry it on, she said
"Of course you can"
Me, "Really? I was told it may not be possible."
"Let me just check"
She toddled off to her superior and came back about 2 minutes later and apologised profusely.
"I'm so sorry, the rules must have changed, it has to go into the hold"
"Oh, okay then" I felt deflated, I had got my hopes up in that split second she wandered away, never mind, I was positive my dress would be fine.
So we continued with the check in process, Steven put on his bag and it weighed in at 24kg, oh, oh, looks like we have to pay. She informs us that the luggage is fine as our allocation is 30kg each for Steven and myself, huh?
I was told 20kg and 5kg for hand luggage, nope, again 30kg and 10kg for hand luggage! I ask why and she says, "Well you're first class" Huh again, WHAT?
"You are a Premiair Gold passenger, your allocation is 30kg, didn't you know?"
"Um no"
"Oh well, you are, you're luggage will be first off the plane in Sanford, hope you have a wonderful wedding and great trip"
I thanked her and Steven and I moved aside and looked at our boarding passes, right enough, it said 1st Class, but it also confirmed that mom was not with us, she was in Economy and we were right at the front of the plane. We asked her if she was okay with this. I really didn't want to pass up this huge upgrade, we had never flown 1st Class before and it seemed a wonderful amount of pixie dust to receive and this was before we even left Glasgow
My mom was disappointed but agreed that we couldn't pass it up, she said she would likely sleep anyway. We looked into how much it would cost to upgrade my mom, but it would have been an extra £400 ($790) as you had to purchase it for both legs of the flight. There was no way we could have afforded that and I know my mom certainly couldn't. She seemed okay and I said I would come back and check in on her throughout the flight.
We walked back to the hotel and had our included continental breakfast.
It was pretty bland, croissants, danish, orange juice and coffee. I was too excited to eat much anyway. I was really hyper through nerves and excitement when I get like this I talk and talk, I can't remember what I talked about but I do remember Steven saying he hoped I wouldn't be like that for the whole flight
After breakfast we checked out and walked back over to the airport, we decided to head straight for the departure lounge as I wanted to buy some nail polish remover wipes and currency. We went through the metal detectors and had to remove our shoes, including my flip flops
Nothing out of the ordinary happened and we were waved through after I got randomly searched. The departure area was huge, I found Boots again and bought nail varnish remover and we bought $600 in cash as we already had $500 in checks. I also purchased travel sickness meds as Steven sometimes gets bothered by this. He took one immediately hoping it might make him drowsy on the plane.
Now I had purchased an Executive lounge pass which we had access to from 6am-9am, it was already 8.15am and it was decided that we didn't really have enough time to get there and actually enjoy it, so we chose to just go straight to the Gate. I was disappointed as I was really looking forward to the Exec lounge, but I didn't want to chance missing boarding so I put it down to bad timing.
We sat and looked at our plane through the window, it looked much bigger than I remember:
At 9.15am there was the announcement for all wheelchair assisted and stroller passengers to make their way to the Gate for boarding, 5 minutes later all 1st class passengers were called. I guess this was us
I told mom she had to wait for her row to be called, she was row 18 and I told her they usually call rows 10 -20 together. She said if they didn't call her in 5 minutes then she would just board. We explained it doesn't work that way and you have to wait to be called. I already knew that this week was going to be quite difficult. I love my mom to pieces but she has a habit of following other people instead of finding out for herself. Throughout this vacation she did just that and it left me a bit frazzled to say the least.
So we were boarding, our seats were 1A and 1B, we were ushered right up to the front of the plane, the seats were leather and they had spongy headrests, the legroom was fantastic, put it this way, I could stretch out my legs and not touch the wall. We were offered a complimentary pre flight drink so we both took wine. Although we are not wine drinkers we were both nervous about the flight, we hadn't flown in a while and our last flight was pretty bad.
Steven had almost finished his wine when he remebered the travel meds, I checked the box and, yes, it advised not combining with alcohol, oops! So he stopped drinking and switched to water instead. I managed to get 3 alcoholic drinks in before we got ready for departure, 2 glasses of wine and 1 baileys. Yup, I was nervous.
The stewardess came round collecting glasses and the announcement came over that we had to watch the safety routine as we got ready for departure. We started to move and the emergency exits were being shown along with the lifejacket speech. I breathed deeply as I watched the crew sit down and belt themselves in.
We began hurtling down the runway and I quickly asked Steven for some gum. I have problems with my sinuses since my fall last September, so my ears sometimes cause me a problem. I chewed the gum frantically and grabbed on to the arm rests, I felt the lift off and started breathing faster, I looked out the window every so often, but declined when I saw we were turning. I used to be such a great flyer, now I am terrible, I hate any kind of turbulence even though I know it's normal.
I asked Steven about 5 times in the space of 10 minutes whether we were cruising yet, the answer was always "NO" with a variation of sighs tagged on to the end. It seemed to take forever for the stewardess to get out of her seat, when I saw her come down the aisle I calmed down a bit, I must admit to reading the crews faces intently now during any bouts of turbulence
The drinks came out pretty quickly and then the food about 11.30. As we were in first class we received better and more food. We were advised that the bar was complimentary so to ask for drinks as much as we liked. YAY!
We received a cold pasta side dish, which I didn't really care for but Steven liked, a chicken breast fillet done in red wine gravy with carrots and roast potatoes, a small bun (I always love these) Bannoffee Cream Pie (very sweet) Crackers and cheese, dried fruit (didn't eat these) and 2 chocolates (very nice) I also had coffee and a bottle of water. After lunch we were handed out these handheld TV's. I ended up trying to watch Music and Lyrics (Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant) but I couldn't get into it. I watched 10 minutes of a Friends episode I had seen dozens of times (Thanksgiving episode), Simpsons episodes again, why do they always show the same ones? So I started flicking through Radio Stations and noticed that I couldn't concentrate on anything. Steven was quite happily watching the TV. So I got up to look at the toilet. Thats right to look at it, I only used it once during the whole flight, but looked at it 7 times
It was a great source of distraction during times of minor turbulance. I then went to visit mom, and asked about the take off and food. She was fine and I stood there for about 10 min chatting.
I then went back to my seat and Steven could see me staring at him.
"What?"
"I'm bored" It was only 2pm UK time, we had only been in the air for 4 hours and I was really unsettled. I couldn't see anything out the windows but clouds, the TV was a pain, and because Steven was content watching TV, I had no one to talk to
Throughout the flight I chatted on and off to Steven, grabbed his hand when there was turbulance and although I will agree it was minor, I didn't like it one bit. The flight was long, boring and I didn't like the fact I was so nervous. I just wanted to be on the ground and for the flight to be over, I knew I would relax once I landed.
The Captain announced that we were flying over Iceland and I noticed some icebergs but that was all, then again later over Greenland, not much happening there either.
About 6 hours into the flight we encountered some turbulance, the seat belt sign went on and panic set in again, externally I looked very calm, but on the inside I was not doing so well. I would look out the window and say, "it's just clouds, that's why there's turbulance", or "we are over water and there is always more bump over water" yes, all that being true, it still didn't help me that much. After the main movies played it would show us where we were on the map, I remember cursing at 6 hours in, noting that we were still in Canada, "MY GOD, how big is Canada"?
Six and a half hours in I asked a crew member if he knew where we were, he checked with the cockpit and confirmed we were flying over Canada now, WHAT, STILL? I looked out the window and noticed land and lakes and I thought, but it looks like Maine or something like that. I badly wanted to be on US land as it would feel like we were so much closer to landing. The captain did not update us like I would have hoped 8 hours in our TV screen stated that we had 40 min flying time left. Hmmm, and I thought we were still in Canada
As the time ticked down, we gradually descended and I saw the cluds over Florida, yikes that meant a bumpy landing. The captain announced that we were flying over Daytona Beach and it was a beautiful sight, I really wish we had taken pics of it. I had hoped I may have been able to see the spires of MK from the plane but I knew we were pretty far away from it.
The crew was told to get ready for landing, the collected our TV's and any rubbish and belted up. We went through some fluffy clouds which are always pretty bumpy, I didn't know though that we would have to turn quite steeply to land in Sanford, damn, I hate this. We seemed to be descending for such a long time, to be honest I think he was waiting for clearance but never said. We landed with no problems though and on time, I looked out the window to notice some rain droplets forming, I thought to myself that it was so typical, I brought the weather with me
Coming Up...
YAY, we are in Orlando, where are my suitcases? Our coach transfers are going to where? Will we make it to 'Ohanas?