My one travel bit that I stuffed up on this trip was my transport from the La Quinta to the airport to go to Nashville. I didn’t realise that Orlando had a shuttle service for $17 so I was going to have to get a taxi which is $38. Orlando taxis are SUPER dodgy so I wasn’t looking forward to the journey. I booked it for 10.35am. The minute I stepped outside the some strange guy was saying in a very forceful nature “I will take you to the airport – $38!” I let him know quite abruptly that I had a cab coming for me and to basically leave me alone. Another drawback of travelling alone is having to be a bitch a lot of the time to get pushy people to leave you alone and stop hassling. He kept at it so I put my headphones on and looked the other way. After a while he drove off and before I knew it, it was 10.50am and I was still waiting. Soon, another driver came along in a hot hot SUV and asked very politely and nicely if I was requiring a trip to the airport. I accepted – and he let me know that Orlando cabs are very unreliable and that I could be waiting for ages. So that explained the reason why the lady at the cab company said to me as I was about to hang up ‘We take no responsilbility if you miss your flight!’ Aha! This guy was lovely and again, charged the flat rate and got me there safe and sound and I was able to watch The People’s Court in the car! Super!
I was dropped off at the Delta terminal where this guy just grabbed my bags for curbside check in. I yelled “WILL YOU LEAVE MY BAGS ALONE?!” and he backed off so that I could at least pay and thank my driver and I can’t stand this pushiness from people. It is so offputting and really makes me get my guard up!
Anyway, I then went over to the curbside check in and began the procedure. Oh surprise surprise my case weighed 55 pounds and their limit is 50 pounds. I explained I am on an international ticket and am allowed 80 points getting over here so it is basically ridiculous that then to travel domestically, I have to be down to 50 pounds. He asked if I could take anything out but that is impossible seeing as you can’t basically take anything on the flight that is liquid and 40 pounds of the weight in my bag was makeup and stuff from Sephora! ahahahha I just said “No worries I will pay the excess but think it is ridiculous” Well he comes back and saying “Look – it is Valentines Day and as a gift, I will waive the fee ok Miss?” I politely explained that wasn’t necessary and I will just pay it. He goes “No No No – your bag is through it is ok!” Then he walked around to my side of the desk and goes “Well you know how it is I look after you and you look after me?” I just looked like “Huh?” straight at him and went about putting my passport back etc. He then goes “What I mean is we work for TIPS miss!” ANOTHER TIPPING CONTROVERSY!! Ergh. I thought – well ok but basically he was doing dodgy dealings and pocketing money himself instead of officially charging for the excess luggage! Eeek. I gave him $20 and said make it $5. Which I meant as make it a $5 tip. He thought I meant make it $5 in change. So he gave me back $5 and walked off. I couldn’t believe this guy. I just shook my head and thought well he saved me $10 anyway but HOW DODGY CAN YOU GET?!?
Orlando Airport is not the most exciting place on earth so it was 11am and I am sitting there eating a hot dog before boarding. They had CNN headline news on in the airport and all us Dodgy Delta customers were watching the Anna Nicole news. CNN then cut to footage from Miami of a car chase! Awesome – what I live for is live car chases. Except this was just hillarious as it was a U-Haul van going nuts on the freeway! Within a minute, everyone was watching and cheering at the tv with ‘Whoa!’ and ‘GET OUT!’ and then before we knew it there was also another chase in Houston being broadcast. It was car chase heaven and no-one was even listening to the boarding calls. Then it ends up it is a woman driving the U-Haul and one tyre had blown and she was driving on the rims with sparks flying everywhere. It was just great knowing all these people loved the chases as much as I did and having a crowd basically commentating the chase made the morning so much fun!
The flight to Nashville was in a little Delta Connection commuter jet which was a nice, smooth ride. I queued up my Country playlist on my Nano and it was Patsy Cline, Charlie Daniels, Garth and Gretchen Wilson on repeat the whole way to Nashville – I couldn’t wait!