I wrote this story down the night we got home from PR. Glad I did, because I don’t think I remember it well enough to be quite so colorful at this point….

Day 12: SJU 👉🏻MCO👉🏻DEN – Home Again…

What a hell of a day. We had our usual coffee ☕️ and toast for breakfast, and soon my belly started feeling weird… After running for the bathroom once or twice, I took the antibiotic (left over from Colombia 😬) Matt talked me into taking, and I was magically fine an hour later. Somewhere in there we went to the bakery and got some more sweets for the road…

And then it was time to leave. I’d gotten a text that our 12:50 flight had been pushed back to 2:27. Unfortunately, we had to return the car by 10:45, so we were kinda stuck. 

After dropping off the car, we took the shuttle to the airport and found our gate. Along the way, I’d gotten another text: 2:42 now. Then 4:12. Then 5:12. At this point, we started wondering about our connecting flight. It was scheduled to leave Orlando at 8:20 pm, and we were starting to cut it close. 

Then, 5:30. Then 5:42. By now, we certainly weren’t making our connection. We were scheduled to land 25 minutes after the second flight took off, so we were kinda screwed. And we hadn’t even taken off yet. 

We talked to the gate agent, who told us we’d probably just get a voucher for a hotel in Orlando, and we’d be on the first flight out to Denver in the morning. But, we should figure all that out when we landed in Orlando…

Right before we took off (and I’m not exactly sure what time THAT was), I got an email that we’d been rebooked on a flight from Orlando to Vegas, leaving Orlando at 10:37 pm. We weren’t even sure we’d make that one, at this point. 

We touched down a few minutes after 9:00, and I checked the flight status of our second flight, which happened to be delayed and hadn’t taken off yet!

We weren’t quite sure what the email about getting rebooked meant just yet. We found the gate where our flight out of Orlando was to leave from, and we noticed a bunch of cops standing around, so we figured something had gone down…

When we got in line to talk to the gate agent, the people in front of us were being told that they’d been rebooked and couldn’t get on the plane. When we stepped up, I asked if we could take the flight and she said, “no, you can’t. But let me see your confirmation number.” She clicked some things and said, “I’m letting you on this flight.” We thanked the hell outta her and glanced at all the cops around and asked if it had been a rough day. She said yes….

While we were waiting to board, we heard something about boarding again. I asked some people near us if they’d already boarded, and she responded, “what, you haven’t?”  I asked what happened, and they told me that some girl had been drunk and thrown up all over the place, so they had to clean the plane. Oh, and that somebody had air dropped a bomb threat, which is what made them all get off the plane and explained all the cops. Sheeeee-it. 

I guess they cleared the plane, and we got to board with everyone else. We found our seats, and I noticed people smiling at us… Eventually, the guy sharing our row showed up, and we started chatting. Apparently, the drunk girl that puked all over the place had done so IN MY SEAT. Long story short, the only reason we were able to take this flight was because that girl had gotten kicked off the plane and we happened to have been assigned those and the people they’d been reassigned to after we got rebooked had gotten kicked off. 

And the bomb threat? Some dipshit air dropped a meme that looked like the poop emoji crossed with an alien saying, “I think I might bomb this plane.” 🙄🙄🙄

And so, by some miracle, we made it home. We caught an Uber to our condo and managed to be laid out on the couch at the totally reasonable hour of 1:47 am. Now THAT was a story.

And in case you miss them, here are the videos from the trip: