Trying to Leave Philadelphia on a Friday night!

May 4, 2007
For the week preceding our trip, I was questioning why I would want to take a flight out of Philly at 8pm on a Friday. We could have taken an earlier flight, but it came down to three thing I believe.

1. Cost
2. Not wanting to use extra vacation days from work
3. School

So we were planned on taking an 8pm flight out of Philadelphia International Airport on a Friday night. I should know better. I've done that before. At least the last time I did that I was working in Center City and I was able to take the train to the airport. I only had to deal with airport issues on that trip, not Philly traffic issues.

So I had been questioning why I decided to take this flight instead of an earlier flight. I remember all of my reasons at the time, but none of them sound good to me now. I really think that DBF and I should have taken a morning flight and DSF2 and DB could have flow to MCO on their own Friday night or Saturday morning. I really wanted to leave on Friday night so that we could get there and get a good night's sleep to be ready and rarin' to go the next morning. Yeah right.

Our first sign of things to come came a few weeks before when we find out that the flight has been switch to 8:30, meaning that we wouldn't land until 11pm. Ugh! Oh well, though, I get over it and figure that at least I will be going to WDW.

I also had to convince DBF that leaving work at 5pm was not a good idea. I wanted to leave the house by 5pm. So he decides to leave at 4 and I will make sure that the truck is packed and we are ready to go when he gets home. (luckily, my job is flexible enough that I am able to leave early sometimes. I also had worked the previous 5 weekends just to make sure that I had all of my cases done by 1 pm on Friday).

Once DBF gets home and everything is packed and ready to go, we head off into the Philly rush hour. We had already been listening to the traffic report and knew that it was going to be REALLY bad. Almost every single major highway was packed! The drive without traffic, i.e 4am, is about 40 minutes. We were able to get only one town over before we started hitting traffic. I ended up having to negotiate many of the back roads to get us near the airport. We got to the discount parking lot at 7:15. I am not good when you start cutting it close to departure time. Especially since I have seen the security lines backed up all the way to the parking lot.

Once we get to the airport, we get checked in and find out that our 8:30 flight is now leaving at 9pm! Which after landing and taking ME would get us to our rooms around 12:30 if we

At the time that we expect to be boarding a loud and raucous (sp?) group of people approach our gate. Now I've been working 60 hour weeks for at least a month up until this point, so seeing this large group of people was not making me happy since I was hoping to get some rest on the flight.

But I still hadn't heard a boarding call for Orlando. DBF looks around and points out that the people boarding our plane are dressed nicely and why am I not dressed like that? Um... I'm traveling and I want to be comfortable (besides, I was only wearing jeans and a tee shirt, he was in jogging pants and a tee shirt... I say that I was dressed nicer than him). Taking notice of this, I realize that most of these people are in their 20s and they all seem to be dressed nice. Much nicer than the 4 of us. Kinda like I used to dress when I worked for Wet Seal and I was only 23, and I was 50 lbs lighter.

Okay, well, maybe they weren't dressed quite like I used to, but these people were dressed like they were ready for a night on the town.

That's when I heard it...

"Ladies and Gentleman, in a few minutes we will begin boarding US Airways flight XXX to Las Vegas" (no the flight wasn't XXX rated - well, maybe it was, but I wasn't on it - I just don't know the flight number).

Um, no, this gate is for Orlando and it is supposed to bring me to see the Mouse. I see someone who had been waiting at the gate get up to look at the monitors and come over and tell her group that they have to go to a different gate.

So I send DBF on a mission. Let me tell you though, he is not good with certain things. Airports are one of them. I send him to find a monitor to check if our gate was changed. I hadn't heard an announcement, but that is how things roll in Philly. It is the worst airport in the country. At least when you are flying the main airline out. I've flown Southwest out of Philly many times (my godson is about 20 minutes away from Providence and it is a nice hour long flight for me), and while I've had problems with them, they at least tell you what gate you need to be at.

DBF makes MI:Mission Impossible, Possible and returns rather quickly to confirm the gate that we are supposed to be at. I get up to move since I hate running to the gate later and eventually everyone follows me. Now however, our flight is departing at 10pm.

NONONONONO!!!!

I call DM to let her know our status and tell her that I will call her in the morning with some revised plans since us getting to Epcot by 9 am is just NOT going to happen.

We did get to meet a friendly girl who was going to a wedding with her boyfriend, so if anyone got married on Monday May 7 and had people coming from Philadelphia, Hello! I hope you had a wonderful day!

After waiting some more and asking the people at the desk, I found out that we should probably expect to START BOARDING at 10pm. Well, that is just no good for me, but I am held hostage yet again by PHL. Eventually, we board and have an pleasant and uneventful flight to MCO.

I did get the opportunity to listen to the latest WDW Today podcast and I heard Matt read my comment about funnel cake and marinara sauce. He was upset that they didn't offer marinara in the American Adventure the way they do at the fairs in New England. I had to correct him on that one. Any New Englander knows that it is fried dough that you eat the Marinara on, not funnel cake. BLECH!

Next up: They want how many people to sleep in that room?