Home sweet Home from Florida Vacation

Wow finally able to rest and relax sitting on the sofa checking my emails and drinking a cup of my favourite hot milo.

It is an adventure than a vacation. We had hicups from Day 1 - we reached Disney resort. We touched down Orlando International Airport at 5.30pm (Orlando Time), leaving our lugages in care by "Disney Magical Express" who claimed to be responsible for collecting our lugages from the airport into our individual Resort rooms. After an exciting tour around Orlando airport, we took Disney Complimary "Magical Express" bus to Disney resort. Happily expecting Magical service, we found our lugages not in the rooms. After all the dingdong calls to the front desk and to Orlando Airport, we found our lugages still sitting in Orlando International airport like a sushi rolling on the belt. It was 10.30pm then... The best part is Disney claimed that such situation occurred most likely because our bags are lost at Orlando Interntional Airport (pushing the blame to the airport and getting us to call Orlando airport) or our disney tag is detached from our lugages (We have a total of "3 bags" with the disney tag on... and if the tag is of such bad quality, they should revise the tag in the first place). We checked into Disney Resort at about 9.45! We were glad that we made sure our lugages are on the way before touring aound the resort. The worst is not finished, because the last Magical express service leave the airport at 10pm everyday, they claimed that they are unable to collect our bags until the very next day morning. Argh... all our stuffs; clothing, facial wash etc are in the bags and we are planning to set of to Seaworld Orlando early in the morning... After all the screaming and complaining by us and Linda (our tour mate), they finally delivered our bags at about 11.30pm - 12am. I feel sorry for the guy who ran to our rooms to deliver our bags to our door step catching his breath and at the same time apologizing to us. I guess Disney Magical Express management should look into such situation getting the responsible parties to answer for it.

Finally is the last day of our tour and we are intending to check in to US airway at Disney Resort (Claiming they are allies and we can check in though the resort instead of going to the airport) and then to Magical Kingdom again to take photos since our flight is 5.30pm (Orlando Time). We made a point to wake up and meet early so that we may catch some other characters we had missed in the theme park. Guess what... we were at the Disney designated checkin area at 8.30am and the staff told us that their connection with US airway was down. However they do have some records of linda's and her husband details but not me and xuan's...... We ran into the Disney resort front desk to search for internet to try if they can check in online but in vain due to Disney do not have such services to their customer (Such a big resort do not have cyber cafe for their customer). We were glad that the personnel in the front desk is able to check in for us but the nightmare came... Their system is only able to retrieve Linda and her husband details and have found that our flight both me and xuan is at 7.30am.... where the #$## that our flight is at 7.30am and our intinary from Travelocity confirmation is 5.30pm (we booked our packages through travelocity). Borrowing the lan phone from the front desk, we called Travelocity and they claimed that they have changed our flight to 7.30 instead due to the flight is full and they have done they part by emailing to us (in this case we did not received any email notification). They even mention they did tried to call us "numerous times" (but after asking further, they only tried to call twice at an interver of 10mins at abt 10.15pm a particular day). Their reason is because of my surname having only 1 character and when we have given them a go ahead of enter a EE instead of a single E the following day after we had made the booking, the flight is full... Since they can reach us before, how is it impossible to reach us again. A flight is so important thing and they should be tactful to make an effort by reaching the customer than just sending an email and their case is closed..

We were at the lobby when we made the first call to Travelocity. It was a she %$%# (I wonder who is the person. If i am the one on the phone instead of Xuan i will made sure i get the name of the person and complain about her attitude up to the management). She insisted it was our fault and we should always check our email pushing all the blame back to us.. instead of solving our current situation. The best part is when i told Xuan we should speak to the manager and get her to transfer the call, the line was cut off after 10mins of wait.... We have waited 15mins to reach this Travelocity customer service and we were given "shit" than solution. We were attended by Disney floor manager at that moment because we liked to feedback on our delayed of bags on day 1. With all the disturbance from the crowded surrounding and the stress from our flight, i requested to have a quiet room to made the call again to travelocity and kind enough, the floor manager agreed to provide us a conference room and when he was about to lead us to the room, the whole Disney have a black out.... what can be worst????????? The manager mention to us that such situation seldom occur. Although the back up power generator was up about less than 2 mins, the conference room was not powered by the back up system.... After desperately looking for alternative to reach Travelocity again, we are given a go ahead by the manager to go back to our room to made the call since it was about 10am and we can have the room to 11am (resort check out time). We really wonder whether it is us who caused the black out....

I hoped i never get to call travelocity again, it was me who made the call this time and i waited 15-20mins to reach another customer service and 10mins to finally reached the manager. Same old story again and again debating the situation again and again. There was no prove other than what the manager had claimed to have a record of an email was sent to us on May (which is a internal system record) and 2 late call with an interval of 10mins as an effort to reach the customer. This time i was not so kind anymore, justice is on our hand, it is impossible to change the customer flight with out the approval of the customer. We made our package booking in mid may and our tour started on end jul, a total of 1 and a half months... they telling us they are unable to reach us when our friend able to??????? They allows us to fly to Orlando and insisted unable to reach us.... They even dare to tell me the itinary i am holding as an old version and they had send us a newer version by email.. (Where the ^*^$& people will expect a latest version1 or latest version 2 when the customer had never requested any changes to the itinary???????) There was no apology at all... and claimed that it was our fault to miss the flight (which is not ours) and it was their good effort to "help" us change the flight back to US airway what we orginally booked with an extra charge of $150.... (&%$*# when did we request to change the flight?? It was them who changed our flight without our approval or making sure we are aware of the changes and now demanding charges from us!!!). Sound ridiculous right? It really happened to us.. That was not the way... and finally the manager given us 2 solution which is Delta airway (additional of 3hrs with the route of flying to Utah then back to Phoenix with no additonal charges) or US airway our orignal flight (additional of USD150 because the manager claimed that US airway air ticket is more expensive). I really dont understand how can the manager stint when they had screwed up their customer intinary? Eventually we decided not to debate anymore as there will have no ending and we were desperately wanting to go home. When we decided to take Delta airway and waiting for the manager to provide us the confirmation id of delta airway, the manager told Xuan that they had booked our air ticket under US airway and get us to check in at disney... It was about 12pm then... We rushed to Disney Check in counter and best.. the system was not up. Again we rushed to the Resort front desk to seek help in checking in online and printing the boarding pass, there was error message popping out with the confirmation id given to us.. (this time as least at the back to the error message, we are able to get some of our records printed overlapped by the error message).

Since we have given our flight information as 5.30pm to Disney Magical express, we can only take the Magical express bus at 2.25pm (as assigned). Nothing we can do now, we then have our breakfast and lunch at wendy's (fast food restaurant in Disney world) abt about 1pm.. and returned our rented car and getting the Magical Express to Orlando airport.

By right we are able to go though normal self electronic checkin with a shorter queue, however the confirmation id given to us was not accessable by the system and we have to go though a longer queue to have us and our lugages checked in. We were crossing our fingers and hoping nothing got screwed up again. We went though the security-check smoothly and waited at our gate to board the plane. Everything seen fine and the the airbus we taking landed at Orlando and people taking this plane alighted smoothly before allowing us to get onboard. When we were thinking is time the gate personnel to annouce the opened of the gate and allowing us to get onboard, the personnel announced that they have found error on the aircraft indicator and the technicians are checking on it and the flight will be delayed until further notice.... Faint... i guess we even drag the aircraft into trouble.. The flight was delayed for an hour and when everyone was told to queue up and get onboard as fast as possible to prevent further delay, everyone was discussing and asking around what error is exactly happening and whether we are safe to fly. We came to a conclusion that we are willing to be late than lated.... Although everyone and the aircraft personnels tried to get onboard as soon as possible, we took about 30mins to finally settle down and off to the track for departure. The departure was scary... Because everyone have the doubt about the plane in our mind and when we are just off the track, there was vigious shake and something that seen like emergency phone rang... I love to travel and love to take plane and this is the first time i have this gash of fear especially with all the hiccups from the morning all the way without fail.. During the journey back home, we experienced numerious turbulence but i am glad we were all safe and sound. There were even people clapping when we landed safely on the track. Well well... thinking though i guess we are lucky as there are people onboard the same plane as us worrying on their transit as due to the delay, some of them have only less than 30mins to rush to their next flight. I guess the pilot did try his best to catch up the flight schedule that initially our journey was estimated to be 4 and a half hours and we landed on Phoenix with 4hrs journey only.

Finally i am back home safe and sound and my friend who supposed to fetch us did not have anything happen to him or his car such as tyre puncture or so.

We had a long tiring day...