So telling this second part of the story is for all those travel warriors who have experienced something similar or will as you travel in the summer. Always creating special travel memories!

Our Delta flight from Atlanta to Orlando boarded 30 minutes later than it was supposed to because there are less agents at 10 PM. While people were boarding the flight, the flight attendant announces on the speaker, “Hurry up and run to your seats because the captain says we only have a very limited window of time to depart and if we don’t take it, we won’t leave.” Thankfully, that worked and the flight left at 10 PM. The Captain came on and said we will be in the air 1 hour and 3 minutes. I have never made it to Florida in that amount of time LOL Anyway, there is always the taxiing to takeoff and to the gate at the other end so we made it off the plane to baggage plane at 11:35 pm.

We spent over an hour looking for our bag among hundreds of bags that had been pulled of the baggage carrousel. Apparently, Delta in Atlanta sent any bag marked for MCO on any flight going to MCO to get the luggage out of Atlanta. So our bags did not come on our flight but came on an earlier flight. YIKES! I never knew they did this when things are so backed up. These people work hard to keep things moving forward and late at night to help. I was impressed.

Next the rental car story. It was easy to pick anyone in a certain section as my name on the board indicated. Then I pull up to the Exit and the agent says they cancelled my reservation because I wasn’t there in the time I was suppose to pick up the car and return it in Sarasota. This required going back to the counter and get it updated/corrected. We drove off the Orlando airport at 1:00 AM.

It wasn’t raining in Orlando. By the time we got onto I-4, it had started to rain. There were hardly any cars (haha – who drives around in a tropical storm?). The wind and rain was not bad on I-4. However, when we got on I-75 heading south – clearly there was a tropical storm happening. Sheets of rain sideways, windy, gusts of wind, lightning, and the windshield wipers can’t keep up with the amount of rain. The best thing about the drive, besides being with each other in case we die, was the Publix truck heading the same direction and we could always see his lights!

Fortunately, we had Yacht Rock Radio to listen to and every song was about rain – “I Love aRainy Night” – just to name one. Truly perfect accompaniment to the drive.

We made it home safely at 3:00 AM. The rental car needed to be back to Sarasota Airport by 9:00 AM and we needed to pickup our car from long-term parking. The flooding on Sarasota streets is for real. Many retention ponds that are near roads are overflowing onto the roads creating challenging driving opportunities.

We are hopeful our next trip will not be as challenging as this one became…..but then again it still is hurricane season! Thanks, Hurricane Debby. LOL