The Honeymoon part I

Things started early as we had to be downstairs at the Oxford Suites by 7 to catch the shuttle. That began a VERY long day of airports and airplanes. We flew to Kansas City where we had a 3 hour layover...I guess, since Orlando is 3 hours ahead of Portland, the main point of that 3 hour layover was to let Portland people catch up to Orlando time. There is a really funny joke in that somewhere, I just can't find it at the moment.

Speaking of jokes I can't find the humor in, let's discuss the Kansas City airport...a place completely devoid of ice cream parlors. There is something inherently criminal about being in an airport terminal, craving ice cream, and not being able to get any.

Sadly, with Southwest there is no assigned seating. From Portland to K.C. we had therefore been unable to sit together since we were both in the last group to board. So in K.C. I sat in the "B" line for an hour or so to ensure we could get seated together. The floor was quite uncomfortable and, on the first day we were married, I really did not feel like being separated from her, so it was worth an hour to be with her for the flight.

Of course, knowing now what I do...what a waste of an hour! The flight to Kansas City had been PACKED. The flight to Orlando? About 1/2 full...we had the emergency row to ourselves, lots of room to stretch out. So that was kind of funny.

We finally got to Orlando about 11:05. The pilot apologized for getting us there 5 minutes late. That is awesome. We literally traveled coast to coast in one day, a mind-blowing accomplishment if you consider it...and here he is apologizing for a 5 minute delay. Seriously, I know people who are later than that walking to the corner grocery store!

We got our bags and went to the Dollar rent a car center. Emily is a very prepared person. She had scheduled the rental several weeks previously. She had print-outs of all the information. She had directions to and from everyplace we planned to visit, the rental agreement, and more. About the only thing we did not have was a rental company that knew we were coming...they did not have the car we had scheduled.

They tried to upgrade us for "just a few dollars per day" to a Charger or some other car. Great...except we already picked the car (and price) we wanted and did not feel like shelling out another 50 or hundred bucks to move from place to place for 1 week. Neither one of us is a status seeker, we don't need luxury cars...inexpensive but reliable is just fine.

Well, finally we got all straightened out and got a car, not the one we wanted but it would get us around. We went to jump on the freeway....and that is when the troubles started. Seems the state flag of Oregon traveled with us to Florida because there were the words nobody wanted to see..."On Ramp closed for Construction".

Hmm. I am very, very tired, it is very, very dark, and the detour signs are very, very unclear. It could have been any of about 3 or 4 different ramps. I have no clue whether I picked the right or wrong one. I suspect the answer is "wrong" because we went about 5 miles the wrong way on city streets before we saw the detour sign that put us on the freeway. Finally...we were on the freeway heading the right way.

On the bright side, we saw lots of signs for Disneyland, Universal Studios, and Seaworld advertising their various charms and attractions so we were a little excited about the fun we would be having. On the dark side...I was really, really tired and the deep dark was not helping.

We got on the highway we wanted, got to the exit for the resort...and there was that flag again, "Exit closed for construction."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emily had previously called the resort to let them know we would be having a late check-in. Now she called again for directions. Now, as a customer service individual, it seems to me they could have mentioned something about the closed exit when we called earlier. They did not. On the bright side, they gave us directions that avoided the closed exit. On the dark side...those directions included taking the exit we had just passed.

We finally got to the resort. We went to check in...and they could not find our reservation.

I should point out that the plane flights had been booked for months, the car rental for months, the resort for months...none of this was last minute stuff. Literally the DAY the plane tickets went on sale, probably within an hour of them going on sale Emily had booked them...yet we got the worst boarding group. The car rental place rented out our car. The resort could not find us. At some point I suppose that could become frustrating. Fortunately, we were on our honeymoon so it was all good.

We finally collapsed into our room about 1:45 or so in the morning. For close to a week we had been running on 3 - 4 hours sleep a night. It was good to get to sleep. Finally. It was a rough start, tomorrow should be better because we were sleeping in. No alarms, no early rising plans, just...sleep...in.



Except the resort called at 8:30 a.m. to see if we wanted a tour...