WALT DISNEY: Day 10 HOME
Day 10: Going Home: Airport waiting, a knife, and very important lost items!
The day had come...we were leaving this beautiful area, house, and Mickey land. We had a great time while we were here and got to do a lot of parks and things and it was a memorable vacation, even if some of those memories consisted of 3am cleanings of a destroyed home when we arrived. We would come home and have quite the story to tell. Hey, I guess there's always something interesting happening when it comes to our family right?
I took my last shower with a view of the outside for the last time. I just love natural daylight in the home and the windows everywhere.
The hubby packed the suv while I pulled all of the bed sheets off and placed them in the bathtubs (what instructions said to do). I went around double checking the home and wanted to make sure everything was clean and we weren't leaving anything behind like the last family.
I went up to Sakari's room and found that she had left the remnants of her baby blanket behind. GASP! She would have had a fit. If anyone remembers one of my previous cruise reviews from when she was younger, she carries this blanket with her everywhere and especially on vacation. She usually couldn't sleep without it and there was one vacation that she had left it at home and I was really worried she wouldn't stop whining about it. But, in the end she did well.
So the story behind the "remnants" of the blanket. I made this blanket for her when I was still pregnant. It is crocheted. She's had it since birth. Well about 3 years ago, we were leaving to go somewhere and she ran back into the house to put her blanket up and just threw it on top of the dogs cage. Well, when we returned, he had pulled the blanket into the cage through the small slats in the cage and it was shredded to pieces!!! She was heart broken. We actually had to cut the thing out of the cage because it was so intertwined between the slates in the cage and pulled tight.
Well, there's a very small piece left and yes, you guessed it....she still sleeps with that small piece and takes it with her on vacation.
Here's a picture of us on the plane and she's holding it for comfort. (I had to sneak this picture...she's at that age where she's "too grown up" for things like this and I just let the world know about it oops lol):
We arrived at the airport, dropped our vehicle off and headed inside to... well....sit around for hours.
Sakari and I went to the restroom to find this lady in there putting on a costume for Christmas. She ended up out in the area before security and in front of the hotel there waving at everyone and taking pictures with people as they passed by.
When it was time, we checked in our luggage and headed to security where I would immediately start pointing fingers at Sakari because once again...she left her knife in her bookbag. Like knowing that's something they think is suspicious, why wouldn't you just pull it out and put it in the container for the scanner? Ugh
The funny thing is, she informed me that it wasn't the first vacation that this has happened before. I honestly don't remember her getting pulled over for being bad previously but she said she has. I guess she likes being center of attention and making everyone in line wonder what a child could be getting in trouble for. Still no lesson learned at this point. #throwshandsupintheair #Igiveup
Onto the monorail and over to the planes where we would eat their half-the-size-as-normal-overly-priced airport food and charge our phones, we had been on all morning and afternoon, before we get on the plane.
The airport was pretty vacant despite being one of those airports that are usually so busy and crowded that it's hard to walk in without bumping into someone. Once again, I'm really liking this!
You had prime parking spaces in the boarding area too.
Right before it was time to board the plane, Sakari and I made one last dash to the tiny store for some snacks and drinks on the plane. We knew that with COVID, they weren't serving drinks, but they do serve snacks and I'm honestly not sure why they do that.
I ended up finding this ginormous rice crispy cake with icing on the top and m&m's. I absolutely love rice crispy treats. I figured why not. I mean it was in a section that proclaimed to have been homemade by granny, it was probably her secret recipe, made somewhere out in the country on a farm, probably cooked by a wooden fire stove and individually wrapped by grandpa. Yea, nothing better than granny's cooking right? It was E X P E N S I V E of course. More expensive equals better quality and taste right? (Also, just to show you how big this is, I compared it to my hand!)
We fought our way to the beginning of the line from all the people trying to take their places to get onto the plane. I mean the crowd...geesh. I paid good money for that "Early bird check-in" let me through. Oh wait, there was only a hand full of people. I forgot.
Time to head home...
I couldn't wait for take off so that I could dig into my very huge rice crispy treat and I started tearing into the perfectly wrapped-by-grandpa cellophane and closed my eyes waiting for the mouthwatering juices to start flowing and ICK! Wait, what happened here? I tried again...double ick! Did grandma screw up her recipe? She needs to retire. It didn't even have the taste of a rice cripsy. It was more like eating tasteless cardboard and the icing...it wasn't even icing! Man was I so disappointed! I couldn't wait to get the Southwest mixed bag of pretzels, wheat thins and so on.
A very long 2+ hour flight and it was time to land. The sun was setting and it was beautiful.
The sun was setting and it was beautiful. We land in the crispy bitter cold state of Ohio and was unhappy to be back! Even though we didn't have "hot" weather in Florida, I'll take that any day over the cold state of Ohio in the winter.
Our plane touched down and before we ever made it off the plane, the hubby says "You did get my wallet out of the rental car right?" Wait, say what???? Oh for heavens sake! No, I did not. I cleaned the vehicle out (vacuumed it and threw the trash out) but the last thing I thought to do was look in the glovebox. I mean you don't vacuum the glovebox or put trash in there so why would I even bother to open it???
My heart sank and then his heart sank because after questioning me a few times, he then decided I was dead serious when I say I didn't get it out. Geesh!
I immediately got on my phone, once in the airport, to call Budget Rental and he headed for the luggage area.
I would spend the next however long on the phone with them while they would put me on hold, come back, put me on hold, tell me "no worries mam, we will find it, not to worry". I mean we had JUST dropped it off several hours ago and I would think that it would still be parked where we dropped it off at because I'm sure they have to clean it thoroughly and disinfect it.
He then told me that I needed to call the lost and found number and they would be able to check for it and get it back to me. UGH! All that time on the phone with him and him putting me on hold made me think he was actually talking to the Budget at the airport in Orlando and they were looking for it. NOT!
I called the number they gave me and it's nothing but an automated number that tells you to go online and fill out a missing item form! Say What?? Seriously?!?
We hurried home and got online to fill out the form with all the details of the wallet, the contents inside of it and the vehicle we were driving.
I immediately go to the area that shows "found items" and my heart started beating at a normal pace again.
I was so relieved to see this. They found the wallet. We could relax now. We just hoped that whoever cleaned out the vehicle was honest and didn't take anything out of it. The contents included about 15 credit cards, several are business cards with no limits, several ID's to get into the car auctions, a bunch of personal business cards, a few important papers and several 100 dollar bills. We'd wait and see....
By the next day, the "wallet" found was off the lost and found area and we figured they had matched it up to our claim. However our claim still said "pending", which I thought was weird. I would check several times a day and by the 4th day, it finally said they were working the claim. Ok, what's the hold up???
I was so relieved to see this. They found the wallet. We could relax now. We just hoped that whoever cleaned out the vehicle was honest and didn't take anything out of it. The contents included about 15 credit cards, several are business cards with no limits, several ID's to get into the car auctions, a bunch of personal business cards, a few important papers and several 100 dollar bills. We'd wait and see....
By the next day, the "wallet" found was off the lost and found area and we figured they had matched it up to our claim. However our claim still said "pending", which I thought was weird. I would check several times a day and by the 4th day, it finally said they were working the claim. Ok, what's the hold up???
By the 5th day, I finally get an email from them...
Unfortunately, your Lost Wallet has not been located at this time. We will continue to search for your lost item.
Wait what? The item was on your list and now it's gone! What do you mean you haven't found it yet???? My heart sank again. It's been 5 days since we lost it. How could it possibly not be found at this point? I'm sure they would have had to rent out that vehicle by now right? That means that whoever rented it next, is probably driving around with the hubby's wallet, spending his money and using his credit cards. I had better report them lost.
THAT SAME DAY...within hours of getting this email we get a phone call on our business line. This lady left a message:
Hi, my name is Erica and I am looking for a Samuel or Kimberly ******. We recently rented a car in Florida and weird enough, we are from Ohio, but when we open the glove box, we found your wallet with a bunch of credit cards and cash. I'm not going to disclose anything. I want to make sure I find the right person. If you could please give me a call back my number is ***-***-****. And if you are the right person, I would love to get this back to you. I don't know how long it took, but I'm sure you'd like all your stuff back. Thank you. Have a Merry Christmas, bye-bye.
Inserts the fireworks display here!! OH MY GOSH! WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT SOMEONE FOUND IT AND STILL HAS IT AND LIVES WHERE WE DO????
I immediately called this person and we spoke for a long time. She said the original car she rented they didn't have, so they offer her this vehicle. They were on Christmas vacation to see her family in Florida and had went to the gas station and her son was being nosy and rummaging through the car and found this wallet. She had me describe the contents and she knew it was ours.
She informed me where she lived and I told her where I lived. WE ARE 15 MINUTES AWAY FROM EACH OTHER!! I just couldn't believe the odds!
She said she would hang onto the wallet and they were returning that coming Wednesday and they would get together with me on Thursday for the return.
This is a lesson! There are still good people out there in the world and especially at Christmas time. They were such nice people and the wallet contained more hundreds than we even thought was in there. I offered one of them and of course they refused. However, the son (who found the wallet) quickly snatched it out of my hand and said "Thank you!" The dad told him "no!" but I insisted. He did find the wallet and didn't touch anything in there. He deserved it! Go buy yourself something cool and Merry Christmas!
Second lesson...check all compartments of a vehicle before you return it because obviously the hubby isn't going to. I guess that's my responsibility from now on. LOL
We had a very Merry after Christmas and Happy New Year after getting this back! Bless you all.
We enjoyed our trip so much that we are planning to go back and do all the parks we didn't get to do like Universal, Islands of Adventure, Sea World and a couple of others. I most definitely want to go back during this pandemic and the lines are smaller. So, be looking for another trip here soon hopefully.