Sunday: a flurry of trip planning
Jan. 29th, 2023 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutFIL passed early in the morning (expected, and while condolences should absolutely be directed towards my ILs, and my husband, they absolutely are not needed by me). My husband’s phone knew at some lunatic hour in the middle of the night, but he learned some time later when he checked his messages and I learned shortly after that. Very shortly after that, I was engaged in trip planning.
My previous experience with same-day booking of air travel involved weather on a trip to Florida that we were trying to get out in front of (we succeeded). So that was a booking adjustment. I’ve never booked a brand new trip on a same day. I’ve also never booked a one way not having any idea when the return would be. Since there are not _that_ many flights from our airport to the destination airport every day, and because this was an expected event, and because there had been a chance that this would not happen for months, I had familiarized myself with alternate airports so that I would know drive time from the alternates to the destination. Orlando stinks for this destination, and Tampa is a busy airport. Turns out Ft Myers is a nice, quiet airport and basically the same drive time as Tampa. So. Ft Myers FTW. I’m so glad I already had my head wrapped around the alternates and the tradeoffs for each of them.
With that initial flight booked, it was basically packing up and figuring out ground on our side. We figured he wouldn’t be gone _that_ long, so he took the van and drove himself. Meanwhile, I was waiting on the date of the funeral to settle before making a second set of plans for my son to join my husband for that, and also so I would know how many nights to book the hotel for. I could then book son round trip. Because I never bother to figure out how to book with points, and often am flying during blackout periods / points flight limited periods, I have a metric moose load of points; all I had to pay on these flights was airport fees and upgrades.
Looking at my son’s flight out, I was like, there’s no way I can get him to the airport and then be back in time to help daughter out the door. So. He’s almost an adult; he gets to do this on his own. I arranged our normal car service to at least ensure that _that_ doesn’t go sideways. Hopefully.
Best of all, I had — for other reasons — already gone through the identify carry-on bags and learn how to pack carry-on only process with my son, and my husband already knew so he just needed the bag. That makes packing really straightforward and simplifies the airport process.
Husband has to figure out rental car — I just established that there were cars at RSW — and to arrange to return the car at the other airport since I’m not making him drive back to RSW when he can fly home with our son.
And then it was a matter of cancel therapy for Tuesday for son, cancel school for three days, and text him all the info so he could show it to his new job so that he could cancel his Tuesday shift.
Fingers crossed that all this implements as smoothly as it was planned.
My previous experience with same-day booking of air travel involved weather on a trip to Florida that we were trying to get out in front of (we succeeded). So that was a booking adjustment. I’ve never booked a brand new trip on a same day. I’ve also never booked a one way not having any idea when the return would be. Since there are not _that_ many flights from our airport to the destination airport every day, and because this was an expected event, and because there had been a chance that this would not happen for months, I had familiarized myself with alternate airports so that I would know drive time from the alternates to the destination. Orlando stinks for this destination, and Tampa is a busy airport. Turns out Ft Myers is a nice, quiet airport and basically the same drive time as Tampa. So. Ft Myers FTW. I’m so glad I already had my head wrapped around the alternates and the tradeoffs for each of them.
With that initial flight booked, it was basically packing up and figuring out ground on our side. We figured he wouldn’t be gone _that_ long, so he took the van and drove himself. Meanwhile, I was waiting on the date of the funeral to settle before making a second set of plans for my son to join my husband for that, and also so I would know how many nights to book the hotel for. I could then book son round trip. Because I never bother to figure out how to book with points, and often am flying during blackout periods / points flight limited periods, I have a metric moose load of points; all I had to pay on these flights was airport fees and upgrades.
Looking at my son’s flight out, I was like, there’s no way I can get him to the airport and then be back in time to help daughter out the door. So. He’s almost an adult; he gets to do this on his own. I arranged our normal car service to at least ensure that _that_ doesn’t go sideways. Hopefully.
Best of all, I had — for other reasons — already gone through the identify carry-on bags and learn how to pack carry-on only process with my son, and my husband already knew so he just needed the bag. That makes packing really straightforward and simplifies the airport process.
Husband has to figure out rental car — I just established that there were cars at RSW — and to arrange to return the car at the other airport since I’m not making him drive back to RSW when he can fly home with our son.
And then it was a matter of cancel therapy for Tuesday for son, cancel school for three days, and text him all the info so he could show it to his new job so that he could cancel his Tuesday shift.
Fingers crossed that all this implements as smoothly as it was planned.