I looked at this "fine" airlines schedule and it is very limited (remember this) and decided rather than just do an 8 hour round trip for nothing I would fly up to Portsmouth NH to meet them last Thursday and she and I and my son would fly back to Sanford/Orlando airport yesterday. I reserved a rental car at Portsmouth.
Well said brother in law lets all this get booked and then he decides he really does not want to go after all. Instead, he offers to send money to buy off his guilty conscious. I was not and am not a happy camper.
So, instead of just me flying out, suddenly we scramble to get tickets for my wife and my son to fly up. Well, my daughter, who could not take a week off from school decides she can take off two days, so she wants in. Now we have a full monty going.
This many folks means I can't stay with my sister at her condo at Daytona, so I have to book a room in Sanford for Wednesday night.
We all load up Wednesday about 4:45 and off we start on this journey. Wednesday was my daughter's birthday and I give her a card with some cash. She hands back the card, the cash and a speeding ticket she got in Crisp County. What kind of deputy writes a ticket to a gal on her birthday. I am not happy, because I warned her not to hurry and not to speed on the way down.
Get to our hotel and it is ok. Our flight out is at 7:30 AM. I get up at 4:30A and start with one of the "coffees" in the room. Get the rest up at 5:30 and after my daughter irons her hair we run over for a quick breakfast at Mickey D's across the street. Well instead of just eating, my wife goes into the bathroom and starts on her makeup. By the time these two are through, our trip to the airport takes on more urgency. However, when I called the airport on Tuesday, they said that you only needed to allow 30-40 minutes ahead for a domestic flight and we get there at 6:50. Stand in line to check one bag outside and after we wait 10 or so minutes the guy freaks out and sends us inside. Guess, what, another line inside. Check our bag at 7:10 according to superviser later and the lady checking us in says our flight is out of gate 8. Well we get to TSA check point and an old man is totally confused and clogs the works. There are two walk through scanners, but only one being used with 4 or 5 TSA folks just goofing off at the end of one line. We finally get through and head to gate 8. Gate 8 is a flight to Des Moines, not Portsmouth. Scan the other gates and don't see Portsmouth. Check monitor and it says gate 5, which is in another concourse. Run there only to be told the flight had already left from gate 10. To say I was po'd was an understatement.
So we go down to see what can be done and I get a belligerent lady and I finally told her that I wanted to speak to her supervisor before I pulled her across the counter. Her comes Maggie, a nice lady with a british accent, but also a person with no clue about air travel. No flights to Portsmouth until Sunday she says, so do you want me to book y'all. No, I said that flight arrives and we would have to just sit on the plane as our return tickets were for the same plane coming back. Oh wait, yes, one would have to leave the plane to re-check the bag, which had made the plane and was in Portsmouth. She made several other nonsensical suggestions, most of which had our car in one airport and us returning to another. Finally, my son comes up and says they have a flight on Friday to Burlington VT, which although 4 hours further, is our only choice. Priceline.com where I rented the car gets me a fellow in England who has no ability to change car rentals, but tells me not to worry because they have no information to charge me for the car rental if I don't show. Enterprise says nope, no cars in Burlington and Enterprise is the only car rental company that has an office at the Portsmouth, NH airport that we were to fly out of. Then Maggie pulls out an internal number for the Burlington Enterprise office and lo and behold, they do in fact have a car and for an additional fee, I can return it to Portsmouth. This took 2 hours standing at the counter to accomplish. Oh and they wanted $75 per person to change the tickets. Got them down to $50 per person extortion fee and let them know that this $50 was going to cost them, because I am not going to take it lying down.
Guess whose clothes were in the check bag ... yep, mine. So off we go to Bass Pro in Orlando so I can get a few things. Can't get underwear there, so over to the outlets and after checking a couple, find me some at the Neiman Marcus store for only $7 a piece. Did find a little Brazilian restaurant with a really good lunch buffet and that was a treat. Get a room at the Springhill Suites in Sanford and that place and its staff were over the top good. Eat at Miller's Ale house and they had an excellent prime rib dinner. Back for an early to bed, because our flight leaves at 1PM Friday and we didn't want to miss this one. What, the online check in and boarding passes would not work. Oh no, not again. So the wife insists we must get to the airport at least 2 hours early to fix this. We do and although Allegiant normally charges $5 to print a boarding pass, a lady remembers me and she prints boarding pass. We were supposed to be together in row 24, an exit row with extra space, but now for some reason she can only put us on row 33. We board the plane and off we go to Burlington VT. Get there and Enterprise has us a nearly new Ford Fusion to drive. We are off. Well my daughter wants to go to a park. I told her as long as it was on the route we were leaving to get to Boothbay, we were good. No joy, but at least she gets to see the mountain leaves as we pass through the mountains. We come to Montpelier VT, the capital city and they want to stop and see the downtown. We do and we walk around this small quaint capital city. The guy at the chocolate place tells us of a great local restaurant down the street named Kismet that serves Vermont themed meals. We get there and are able to slide in to a slot prior to another reservation. Drew and I had the pork belly and it was off the chain. My daughter has the quail and it is very good. My wife has a good fish dish.
Off we go again and we get to the Tugboat Inn in Boothbay at 11PM to check in. A tired bunch turns in. Get up in the AM and have breakfast overlooking the harbor. The fall leaves were in bloom all over Boothbay. Then our kids decide it is time to walk all over Boothbay. Off we go. We figured we would have lunch across the bay at the lobster fishermen's coop. Well after walking all the way around the harbor, that and nearly everything else on the north side of the harbor was closed. We cross the walkway across the harbor and instead go to my favorite, the Ebbtide restaurant where we had great clam chowder and lobster rolls.
It is time for a nap for the old man. Back up at 2 and back walking and taking in the unseasonably warm fall weather (60 degrees). There were a dozen or so sea ducks in the harbor that I could see and a pair of what were probably wonder bread mallards. Back to the room and dish2go to watch the UGA game at 4PM. What a game!!! Go DAWGS! Then to the Tugboat Inn restaurant for dinner overlooking the harbor. Had the double lobster dinner and man were they good. While we were eating, there was a light rain and when we were done, the wind was up and the temp was falling fast.
Our flight out of Portsmouth was at 1PM and it takes 2 hours to get there. The wife is freaking and wants to get up at 5AM to get there early. I told her that the danged little airport didn't open until 2 hours before the flight. We compromised at 5:30.
Up we get at 5:30 and on the road by 6:15. Drive through the Dunkin' Donuts out in the middle of no where. No stopping this time! We stopped for bathroom break at welcome center on 295 and arrive at the dinky airport at 11AM. Guess what, nothing open other than the building. When the counter opened, we had to explain that our daughter's electronic ticket would not show up online to allow us to check her in. Took them 10 minutes to decide to print her a boarding pass without a $5 charge. Then we get to look at and recheck the bag. Sit around 2 hours, flight is 15 minutes late (probably waited on someone in Sanford) and we have a good flight back to Sanford/Orlando.
Load up and get back home only to reload kids to head back to Athens and Atlanta. They got there about 10:30 and the saga ended.
What I've learned. Allow an extra 30 minutes for girls to fix themselves before flight filled with people they don't know. Don't fly Allegiant Air. Don't fly out of Sandord/Orlando Airport. With the changes, that $300 credit ended up costing me over $400 in change fees, car rental delivery fees and motel charges, not to mention a day out of my life.
Well, at least I can now get ready for duck season without any guilt!
