Our traveling day home was so unbelievably crazy, I just had to share it. Warning...this is very, very long and yes...I promise, all true.
So we woke up the day we were to leave Maui all packed to go home. It was a pretty uneventful morning our last day in the condo. We cleaned out the fridge, had breakfast, threw the pjs and kids sleeping bags in the luggage, showered, checked out, drove to the dollar car rental place 5 mins away and had a very nice woman drive us to our teeny tiny airport at Kapahula West Maui another 5 minutes away. The entire time all of us dragging our feet because no one wants to go home today. It is another beautiful day in paradise and as BW put it.."It's a great day to be on the beach." We all agree. Even the views of the water are breathtaking from the airport. Our driver congratulates us on choosing this airport to fly out of, as it is so small there will be no headaches with traveling today. Like what others would be going through at the other larger airport on Maui, the main airport and a 45 min drive from us. I of course had already secretly congratulated myself on our luck at flying out of this airport. It will be a breeze checking our bags all the way through to Cali and only going through security once and basically just enjoying ourselves on this very long travel day. As it was only 9:30am and we wouldn't be getting in until 9pm that night CA time. I had thought ahead and packed the kids their pb and j sandwiches and apples for lunch, plenty of snacks to tide them over during the flights, even had their dvd players, stuffed toy, books and pjs all ready for them on the flight. The idea being, that when we got back home we could carry their sleepy selves right up to their beds. Yes, I was quite proud of myself and only winced once, the superstitious person that I am, that our driver might have just jinxed us.
Never the less, we walk into the outdoor airport. We are the only passengers there...we were a little too early for our 11:15 am flight but that's okay. We chat with the security guard who puts all our checked bags through security and then we hand deliver them to the TSA guard who will put them on the plane for us. We check in at the counter for our flight and the agent hands us our boarding passes for this flight and for our connecting flight and lets us know that when we get to Honolulu an agent will meet our plane and walk us around security to our next gate. This is such a relief because the Honolulu airport is a nightmare. There are long lines esp. for security and it's very confusing as they have many terminals some which require riding on shuttles to get to other gates. Ahh...this is going to be so easy in comparison to when we went through Honolulu the first time. We each just have a backpack and a child sitting in a Britax marathon seat on wheels thanks to our Go-Go attachment piece. Basicially, it looks like a carseat with a luggage handle and wheels attached. Who knew how handy this little piece of plastic would become to us later on in the day.
We go inside the very small one room waiting room with the one security checkpoint right in the middle of the room still closed as we are the first flight of the day. So we make ourselves at home and soon the airport fills up with the other 15 passengers all on our flight to Honolulu. They announce that we can now go through security and make our way to the gate which is in the middle of the room sectioned off by those detachable belt lines. They remind us to use the bathroom first as the bathroom is on the perimeter of the room and once we are in the middle of the room we would have to go through security again if we leave the center of the room. We all hit the bathroom. We all go through security effortlessly, jokingly with the TSA agents, everyone is happy, calm, no one is yelling at you to quickly take off shoes have id's and tickets ready, laptops in separate containers, to hurry, hurry. We sit down and wait. We see our prop plane outside ready to board. The preboard is announced. We are the only ones with small kids so we move to the front. A few mins pass, there is an announcement that it will be a few more mins now. We all watch, passengers and security as they suddenly take all of our luggage off the plane. Pilots and others are walking around the plane. They start up one then the other propeller and then the captain boards the plane and taxi's down the runway and flies off into the sky. Hmmm...we all wonder. Where's our plane going? Announcement: "The plane is experiencing mechanical problems..your flight has been cancelled..please return to the ticket counter." Well, I'm not panicking yet...we still have an hour and half to get to Honolulu before our connecting flight takes off for CA. We all file back in line. Our agent helps each person figure out what they are going to do as we were all making different connecting flights out of Honolulu. To her credit, the counter agent stayed calm and worked so hard to help us, as did everyone there at that airport. One of the security guards even offered the boys her lunch as it was now lunchtime and there was no food at this airport. Luckily the boys had their pb and j sandwiches, apples and carrots and were busy munching down. The agent could get another plane back over to us in an hour but it would be too late for us as our connecting flight would have left by then. She calls everywhere to figure out how to get us on a flight back to CA. She gets us on 2 flights neither of which is the airline we were flying on. And neither flight is flying into our airport at home but one is the next closest airport to our house and the other is a 3 hour drive away from our house. Naturally, we are hoping for the first flight with the airport only an hour away from our home still getting in around 9:30pm in Ca putting us in our beds around 11pm. The only problem, that flight departs at 2:40pm and it's now 1pm and the kicker..it's at the main airport on Maui 45 mins from here.
We are ready for the challenge. A taxi is paid by our airline...our luggage is quickly loaded into the taxi, my hubby quickly gets the carseats in and we are off. The taxi driver is a little stressed that we won't make it. In fact the entire drive he says, "there is no way..you just won't make that first flight." You see in Maui at the main airport you have to put all your checked bags through agriculture inspection which is a lot like regular security screening. Plus we didn't have boarding tickets so we would have to then take our bags and kids and go stand in line at the counter and then go through security to get to our gates and this is in addition to the 45 min drive. Think positive I say, we are going to try to make it. "I am thinking positive, he jokes, positive you are not going to make it." Finally he settles down and helps us with a plan. There is a porter service at this airport. You pay the porter 2 dollars a bag to get you from curbside to the gate. The plan is to find a porter and pay him to help us. We arrive at the airport...2:04pm..it is a busy day...long lines...crazy people, lots of luggage...your average crazy airport. I look around. The Agriculture line is very long, the counter line for our airline is double and securityline wraps around the corner of the building. It does look impossible. My hubby works to get the carseats out of the taxi and the wheels back on the carseats so we can wheel the kids and our 4 pieces of luggage through the crazy busy airport.
I'm immediately approached by a porter. The porter service is through the airport. They have a podium outfront and wear matching uniforms like the normal sky cab service for your airlines. Except there is no sky cab/curb service in Maui, everyone must go to the counter. He asks if he can help. I explain our situation, cancelled flight, time crunch, not technically on any flight at the moment. He agrees to the challenge of getting us to the gate of the first flight ontime. He loads our bags on a cart and pushes them to the front of the agriculture line. Comes back with the luggage and then takes our old tickets, our id's and runs to the counter. A minute later he calls us over. You are on the flight. The ticket agent will walk you through security, I will run your bags to the airplane. The plane is now boarding, the gate agents know you are coming but you still will have to hustle as they can't keep the plane waiting for you. Good luck. Hmmm...what happens if we don't make this flight but our luggage does? This is no time for idle thoughts...focus. Now with 4 bags gone, carrying very heavy and electronically filled backpacks and pushing our kids in their carseats we run behind the agent all the way to the end of the airport to security. We cut to the front of the massive long line and she hands our tickets to security. She tells us, "this is as far as I can get you..the rest is upto you." We begin the crazy prep for security..take apart the carseats as the wheels can't fit through the scanners. Empty backpacks of laptops, dvd players, take off shoes, have id's and boarding passes out and ready...etc. The security guys says, "we have some good news and bad news. Good news, you made it this far, bad news your family has been randomly selected for a complete security search." Can you believe it? Can you imagine how stressed out I am in this moment? They take all our stuff aside to dump it all out and then they take us to the middle of the room where there is a clear enclosed box wall. I'm briefly separated from my wallet, phone, tickets, id's as I wait to find out what the search of our family involves. Totally unbelievable so far, right? What happened to my nice calm easy traveling day. Where I read my book and wait to board the small cute prop plane at the nice and quiet airport? We get through the search...and yes they did pat down my 4 and 2 year old separately. And the most amazing thing is...that through this entire last crazy hour and a half my kids could not have been any more angelic and patient than they were. Still in quick and crazy mode we make it back to the belt to smash all our stuff back in the back packs, put on shoes, put together the carseats and wheels, put the kids in the carseats and then run up the escalators with kids, backpacks etc. We are trying to make it to gate A5. All the while a security guard yells at us to take the elevator. I feel like a fugitive. At the top of the escalator is gate A15. We run the next 8 gates as fast as we can go as we were told back at the counter the plane was already boarding. I honestly thought I was going to have a hard attack running and pulling my 30 pd kid with 20pds of electronics and stuff on my back. We get to gates 1-7 and there's ...are you ready for this? An additional agricultural security check for our carryons. Earlier we just had to go through the agriculture security scan for our checked bags not our carry ons. Guess who still has 2 apples, and 2 bags of carrots and brocolli in her back pack. I practically had to dump out my backpack again, because of course nothing was where it was after the security checkpoint. I'm allowed to keep the carrots and brocolli but the apples are confiscated. Still at full speed we continue on running down the straightaway and around the corner and make the A5 gate. The agent is waiting for us. She calls us by our last names. YES!!! WE MADE IT!! I'm not really sure how. "Yes, that's us"...breathing very, very hard now. "Boarding passes, please"...oh man...let me think. The slightly irritated agent, "You just had it at security how could you have lost it already?" Aren't some people just so funny? At that point, I'm not sure if I was going to laugh or cry. I'm not even wearing my backpack anymore I've got hubby's...I'm not even sure if I have my wallet anymore or my youngest son's shoes as he was still barefoot and I just realize I've been running fast since security and half my very full backpack is unzipped. Who the heck knows what I've lost along the way. I amazingly find the tickets. The agent sees we have kids riding in carseats. It's a law that carseats have to go in the window seat which means we need 2 window seats and 2 middle seats. The plane is already boarded and we currently are not sitting together...none of us. She works her magic and gets us almost the last 2 rows on the plane, same side 2 middles, 2 windows. I'm assuming some people on board are being moved at this moment. The boys pop out of their carseats and walk with me down the gang way while my hubby carries two britax carseats over his head all the way down the very crowded and did I mention small airplane aisles to the back of the plane. Just a side note...We rode on a very plush 767 on the way to Honolulu. 2 aisle seats on both sides of the plane and 3 middle row seats...40 plus rows with 8 bathrooms in the coach section. We were going home on a much older and much smaller plane; one aisle 2 bathrooms, 3 seats deep. Yep, me and my still newly potty trained son wearing underwear. Whose smart idea was that? Would be spending the next 5 hours climbing over our aisle mate to use the potty. Not to mention how totally sweaty I am and how self conscious I feel having to be crammed in next to my new aisle mate. My poor hubby had to climb over in both aisles to install our carseats. The kids and I hid out in the galley with the flight attendants..my younger son already using the lavatory. That's one less trip to the bathroom I will have to make. And the toliets due flush even when the airplane is not in flight. We finally take our seats. The captain announces we will be departing soon just waiting for them to finish loading the aircraft with some last minute baggage. As we look out the window, yep, there's our 4 pieces of luggage getting loaded on. At least we know our luggage made the flight too. But on the bright side...we were seated at the back next to all the only other kids on board, the captain announced that due to our late departure we would be shaving an hour and 20 mins off our flight so we would be arriving still at the 9:30pm arrival time. The kids were angels on the flight. The flight attendants were so kind and the flight was very smooth. And as for my seat mate..she was a little under the weather and spent the whole flight asleep totally covered under a SpongeBob blanket. That made it so much easier to climb over her the 100 times we had to use the potty. And since we were back by the bathrooms and there were only 2 bathrooms the aisle was pretty much always filled with bathroom waiters so we had lots of company to keep us entertained on our short flight to CA. We were able to change the boys into their pjs and I was able to get a hold of my dad who was so kind to pick us up at the airport in our car and take us home and now was graciously meeting us at an airport an hour away instead of 5 mins away as originally planned. In the end, it all worked out..we made it home that day, the kids did fall asleep in the car and we were able to transfer them to their beds. And most importantly, I learned that I can operate gracefully under crazy conditions as can my hubby and kids. Maybe we were built to be a traveling family after all. Nah...who am I kidding...we are couch potato homebodies all the way...but on occasion we can arise to a challenge if needed.
And as additional side note...the next day when I went to unpack our four suitcases that we had checked, I found a letter on top of the clothes in each suitcase from TSA letting us know that our bags had been chosen for inspection. Well one thing is for sure...the security at the Kahului Maui airport is top notch! They certaintly checked us very carefully. And, we have passed all security checkpoints even after I tried to sneak on my 2 fuji apples..and therefore can I conclude from this that we are upstanding and terrorist free citizens? I think that is something I may be able to brag about on my son's kindergarten application.
So we woke up the day we were to leave Maui all packed to go home. It was a pretty uneventful morning our last day in the condo. We cleaned out the fridge, had breakfast, threw the pjs and kids sleeping bags in the luggage, showered, checked out, drove to the dollar car rental place 5 mins away and had a very nice woman drive us to our teeny tiny airport at Kapahula West Maui another 5 minutes away. The entire time all of us dragging our feet because no one wants to go home today. It is another beautiful day in paradise and as BW put it.."It's a great day to be on the beach." We all agree. Even the views of the water are breathtaking from the airport. Our driver congratulates us on choosing this airport to fly out of, as it is so small there will be no headaches with traveling today. Like what others would be going through at the other larger airport on Maui, the main airport and a 45 min drive from us. I of course had already secretly congratulated myself on our luck at flying out of this airport. It will be a breeze checking our bags all the way through to Cali and only going through security once and basically just enjoying ourselves on this very long travel day. As it was only 9:30am and we wouldn't be getting in until 9pm that night CA time. I had thought ahead and packed the kids their pb and j sandwiches and apples for lunch, plenty of snacks to tide them over during the flights, even had their dvd players, stuffed toy, books and pjs all ready for them on the flight. The idea being, that when we got back home we could carry their sleepy selves right up to their beds. Yes, I was quite proud of myself and only winced once, the superstitious person that I am, that our driver might have just jinxed us.
Never the less, we walk into the outdoor airport. We are the only passengers there...we were a little too early for our 11:15 am flight but that's okay. We chat with the security guard who puts all our checked bags through security and then we hand deliver them to the TSA guard who will put them on the plane for us. We check in at the counter for our flight and the agent hands us our boarding passes for this flight and for our connecting flight and lets us know that when we get to Honolulu an agent will meet our plane and walk us around security to our next gate. This is such a relief because the Honolulu airport is a nightmare. There are long lines esp. for security and it's very confusing as they have many terminals some which require riding on shuttles to get to other gates. Ahh...this is going to be so easy in comparison to when we went through Honolulu the first time. We each just have a backpack and a child sitting in a Britax marathon seat on wheels thanks to our Go-Go attachment piece. Basicially, it looks like a carseat with a luggage handle and wheels attached. Who knew how handy this little piece of plastic would become to us later on in the day.
We go inside the very small one room waiting room with the one security checkpoint right in the middle of the room still closed as we are the first flight of the day. So we make ourselves at home and soon the airport fills up with the other 15 passengers all on our flight to Honolulu. They announce that we can now go through security and make our way to the gate which is in the middle of the room sectioned off by those detachable belt lines. They remind us to use the bathroom first as the bathroom is on the perimeter of the room and once we are in the middle of the room we would have to go through security again if we leave the center of the room. We all hit the bathroom. We all go through security effortlessly, jokingly with the TSA agents, everyone is happy, calm, no one is yelling at you to quickly take off shoes have id's and tickets ready, laptops in separate containers, to hurry, hurry. We sit down and wait. We see our prop plane outside ready to board. The preboard is announced. We are the only ones with small kids so we move to the front. A few mins pass, there is an announcement that it will be a few more mins now. We all watch, passengers and security as they suddenly take all of our luggage off the plane. Pilots and others are walking around the plane. They start up one then the other propeller and then the captain boards the plane and taxi's down the runway and flies off into the sky. Hmmm...we all wonder. Where's our plane going? Announcement: "The plane is experiencing mechanical problems..your flight has been cancelled..please return to the ticket counter." Well, I'm not panicking yet...we still have an hour and half to get to Honolulu before our connecting flight takes off for CA. We all file back in line. Our agent helps each person figure out what they are going to do as we were all making different connecting flights out of Honolulu. To her credit, the counter agent stayed calm and worked so hard to help us, as did everyone there at that airport. One of the security guards even offered the boys her lunch as it was now lunchtime and there was no food at this airport. Luckily the boys had their pb and j sandwiches, apples and carrots and were busy munching down. The agent could get another plane back over to us in an hour but it would be too late for us as our connecting flight would have left by then. She calls everywhere to figure out how to get us on a flight back to CA. She gets us on 2 flights neither of which is the airline we were flying on. And neither flight is flying into our airport at home but one is the next closest airport to our house and the other is a 3 hour drive away from our house. Naturally, we are hoping for the first flight with the airport only an hour away from our home still getting in around 9:30pm in Ca putting us in our beds around 11pm. The only problem, that flight departs at 2:40pm and it's now 1pm and the kicker..it's at the main airport on Maui 45 mins from here.
We are ready for the challenge. A taxi is paid by our airline...our luggage is quickly loaded into the taxi, my hubby quickly gets the carseats in and we are off. The taxi driver is a little stressed that we won't make it. In fact the entire drive he says, "there is no way..you just won't make that first flight." You see in Maui at the main airport you have to put all your checked bags through agriculture inspection which is a lot like regular security screening. Plus we didn't have boarding tickets so we would have to then take our bags and kids and go stand in line at the counter and then go through security to get to our gates and this is in addition to the 45 min drive. Think positive I say, we are going to try to make it. "I am thinking positive, he jokes, positive you are not going to make it." Finally he settles down and helps us with a plan. There is a porter service at this airport. You pay the porter 2 dollars a bag to get you from curbside to the gate. The plan is to find a porter and pay him to help us. We arrive at the airport...2:04pm..it is a busy day...long lines...crazy people, lots of luggage...your average crazy airport. I look around. The Agriculture line is very long, the counter line for our airline is double and securityline wraps around the corner of the building. It does look impossible. My hubby works to get the carseats out of the taxi and the wheels back on the carseats so we can wheel the kids and our 4 pieces of luggage through the crazy busy airport.
I'm immediately approached by a porter. The porter service is through the airport. They have a podium outfront and wear matching uniforms like the normal sky cab service for your airlines. Except there is no sky cab/curb service in Maui, everyone must go to the counter. He asks if he can help. I explain our situation, cancelled flight, time crunch, not technically on any flight at the moment. He agrees to the challenge of getting us to the gate of the first flight ontime. He loads our bags on a cart and pushes them to the front of the agriculture line. Comes back with the luggage and then takes our old tickets, our id's and runs to the counter. A minute later he calls us over. You are on the flight. The ticket agent will walk you through security, I will run your bags to the airplane. The plane is now boarding, the gate agents know you are coming but you still will have to hustle as they can't keep the plane waiting for you. Good luck. Hmmm...what happens if we don't make this flight but our luggage does? This is no time for idle thoughts...focus. Now with 4 bags gone, carrying very heavy and electronically filled backpacks and pushing our kids in their carseats we run behind the agent all the way to the end of the airport to security. We cut to the front of the massive long line and she hands our tickets to security. She tells us, "this is as far as I can get you..the rest is upto you." We begin the crazy prep for security..take apart the carseats as the wheels can't fit through the scanners. Empty backpacks of laptops, dvd players, take off shoes, have id's and boarding passes out and ready...etc. The security guys says, "we have some good news and bad news. Good news, you made it this far, bad news your family has been randomly selected for a complete security search." Can you believe it? Can you imagine how stressed out I am in this moment? They take all our stuff aside to dump it all out and then they take us to the middle of the room where there is a clear enclosed box wall. I'm briefly separated from my wallet, phone, tickets, id's as I wait to find out what the search of our family involves. Totally unbelievable so far, right? What happened to my nice calm easy traveling day. Where I read my book and wait to board the small cute prop plane at the nice and quiet airport? We get through the search...and yes they did pat down my 4 and 2 year old separately. And the most amazing thing is...that through this entire last crazy hour and a half my kids could not have been any more angelic and patient than they were. Still in quick and crazy mode we make it back to the belt to smash all our stuff back in the back packs, put on shoes, put together the carseats and wheels, put the kids in the carseats and then run up the escalators with kids, backpacks etc. We are trying to make it to gate A5. All the while a security guard yells at us to take the elevator. I feel like a fugitive. At the top of the escalator is gate A15. We run the next 8 gates as fast as we can go as we were told back at the counter the plane was already boarding. I honestly thought I was going to have a hard attack running and pulling my 30 pd kid with 20pds of electronics and stuff on my back. We get to gates 1-7 and there's ...are you ready for this? An additional agricultural security check for our carryons. Earlier we just had to go through the agriculture security scan for our checked bags not our carry ons. Guess who still has 2 apples, and 2 bags of carrots and brocolli in her back pack. I practically had to dump out my backpack again, because of course nothing was where it was after the security checkpoint. I'm allowed to keep the carrots and brocolli but the apples are confiscated. Still at full speed we continue on running down the straightaway and around the corner and make the A5 gate. The agent is waiting for us. She calls us by our last names. YES!!! WE MADE IT!! I'm not really sure how. "Yes, that's us"...breathing very, very hard now. "Boarding passes, please"...oh man...let me think. The slightly irritated agent, "You just had it at security how could you have lost it already?" Aren't some people just so funny? At that point, I'm not sure if I was going to laugh or cry. I'm not even wearing my backpack anymore I've got hubby's...I'm not even sure if I have my wallet anymore or my youngest son's shoes as he was still barefoot and I just realize I've been running fast since security and half my very full backpack is unzipped. Who the heck knows what I've lost along the way. I amazingly find the tickets. The agent sees we have kids riding in carseats. It's a law that carseats have to go in the window seat which means we need 2 window seats and 2 middle seats. The plane is already boarded and we currently are not sitting together...none of us. She works her magic and gets us almost the last 2 rows on the plane, same side 2 middles, 2 windows. I'm assuming some people on board are being moved at this moment. The boys pop out of their carseats and walk with me down the gang way while my hubby carries two britax carseats over his head all the way down the very crowded and did I mention small airplane aisles to the back of the plane. Just a side note...We rode on a very plush 767 on the way to Honolulu. 2 aisle seats on both sides of the plane and 3 middle row seats...40 plus rows with 8 bathrooms in the coach section. We were going home on a much older and much smaller plane; one aisle 2 bathrooms, 3 seats deep. Yep, me and my still newly potty trained son wearing underwear. Whose smart idea was that? Would be spending the next 5 hours climbing over our aisle mate to use the potty. Not to mention how totally sweaty I am and how self conscious I feel having to be crammed in next to my new aisle mate. My poor hubby had to climb over in both aisles to install our carseats. The kids and I hid out in the galley with the flight attendants..my younger son already using the lavatory. That's one less trip to the bathroom I will have to make. And the toliets due flush even when the airplane is not in flight. We finally take our seats. The captain announces we will be departing soon just waiting for them to finish loading the aircraft with some last minute baggage. As we look out the window, yep, there's our 4 pieces of luggage getting loaded on. At least we know our luggage made the flight too. But on the bright side...we were seated at the back next to all the only other kids on board, the captain announced that due to our late departure we would be shaving an hour and 20 mins off our flight so we would be arriving still at the 9:30pm arrival time. The kids were angels on the flight. The flight attendants were so kind and the flight was very smooth. And as for my seat mate..she was a little under the weather and spent the whole flight asleep totally covered under a SpongeBob blanket. That made it so much easier to climb over her the 100 times we had to use the potty. And since we were back by the bathrooms and there were only 2 bathrooms the aisle was pretty much always filled with bathroom waiters so we had lots of company to keep us entertained on our short flight to CA. We were able to change the boys into their pjs and I was able to get a hold of my dad who was so kind to pick us up at the airport in our car and take us home and now was graciously meeting us at an airport an hour away instead of 5 mins away as originally planned. In the end, it all worked out..we made it home that day, the kids did fall asleep in the car and we were able to transfer them to their beds. And most importantly, I learned that I can operate gracefully under crazy conditions as can my hubby and kids. Maybe we were built to be a traveling family after all. Nah...who am I kidding...we are couch potato homebodies all the way...but on occasion we can arise to a challenge if needed.
And as additional side note...the next day when I went to unpack our four suitcases that we had checked, I found a letter on top of the clothes in each suitcase from TSA letting us know that our bags had been chosen for inspection. Well one thing is for sure...the security at the Kahului Maui airport is top notch! They certaintly checked us very carefully. And, we have passed all security checkpoints even after I tried to sneak on my 2 fuji apples..and therefore can I conclude from this that we are upstanding and terrorist free citizens? I think that is something I may be able to brag about on my son's kindergarten application.
2 comments:
So, this makes our flights to Russia sound like first class. Ha. I cannot imagine how stressed you were trying to make the flight. I'm glad your vacation went well and you are at home once again! Great story!!
Wow, what a trip!
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