Curacao, Cha-Cha-Cha!

Travel Day One

The day to travel to Curacao had arrived!  I spent the week prior to departure showing the kids maps and youtube videos so they would be familiar with where we were going.  They were super excited, but honestly, they are happy to go anywhere that isn't snowy and cold.  

We were breaking the trip into two days.  If we did it in one day there were two options: wake up at 4am and arrive at 2pm or wake up a normal time and arrive at 10pm.  Neither one of these is ideal when it's one parent traveling solo with two kids.  So I took the third option, do it in two days.  This also meant the kids could go to preschool as normal on Monday, giving me a few kid free hours to finish the packing.  Rob would be flying down a few days before us and would pick us up at the airport.

Anne really wanted to go to the "Buffalo State."

On this trip, my kids collected a lot of swag.  First it was these cute CVG foam airplanes.  Later they would get MD88 trading cards and both Delta and American Airlines pilot wings.  

There was a fairly major meltdown over who got to sit next to the window first.  I owe a huge thanks to the Delta flight attendant who convinced Anne it was better to sit next to the window going into Miami than going into Atlanta.

Seat belt? Check! Snack box? Check!

Play-away Views are the best!

This is what Anne has to say about planes without seat back entertainment systems.

Whenever Ryan flies, he makes sure to read the safety information card. Safety first!

When we touched down in Miami, a few things didn't go our way.  First, there was a security lock down in the terminal so we had to wait to leave the gate area.  This meant more entertaining the kids in the airport when what I needed to do was put them to bed.  We never found out what was going on, but the TSA released us after about thirty minutes.  

The second problem occurred when I called the AIRPORT hotel to ask how often the AIRPORT shuttle came.  You know, the shuttle they advertised on their website?  The woman on the phone told me they didn't have an airport shuttle.  What?!?  I asked how to get to the hotel from the airport and she suggested I take an Uber.  Well, with two kids and no car seats, I couldn't take an Uber.  Grrr.  Luckily Rob was able to get it all straightened out for me, finding a hotel that actually did have a shuttle.  Of course, I then had to wait another half an hour for the shuttle to arrive.  It had been a long day by the time we checked in and went to sleep.

​Travel Day Two

Here's a traveling with kids tip.  Before every trip, I go to the Dollar Tree and buy the kids a few toys.  This provides them with something new and novel to entertain them in the hotel room, but it only cost a dollar so I can leave it behind without feeling bad.  So travel day two started with a cheap pony and a monster truck.  

Time for breakfast in the lobby. Going down?

After breakfast we took the shuttle back to the airport, then through security and to our gate for our flight to Curacao.  Since Delta doesn't fly to Curacao, we would be flying on American.  The flight was smooth and it was neat to fly over the island.  Unfortunately Anne had to go potty as we were making our approach.  It's hard to explain to a preschooler why they can't go to the bathroom right this minute, so she had a bit of a meltdown.    

​A soon as the seatbelt sign was off, I jumped up and took both of them to the bathroom.  And here is my beef with airplane bathrooms.  The three of us no longer fit in one bathroom but my kids are not tall enough to slide the lock on the bathroom door.  The lock is what turns on the light.  So I had to stand there with the door open enough to let light in, but closed enough to keep the people in the back row from seeing Anne do her business.  I'm open to suggestions on how to handle this next time!

Since we were on the ground now, everyone stood up to get off the plane and we were the very last ones off.  Normally I wouldn't mind because we weren't in a rush, but this was an international flight.  Which means we were the last people to get in line for passport control.  But on the way from our gate to passport control, there was a merge point with a flight from Berlin Air.  So not only was I behind all the people from our flight, I was also behind 200 or so Germans.  And there were 3 people checking passports.  So we were in line for about 2 hours.  After being on a 2.5 hour flight.  

​Yes, my kids were antsy to say the least.  I gave those Germans a fine display of American parenting, which in my case means getting down, looking them in the eye and saying quietly that if they ever want to go on another trip they need to stop acting the fool right this minute.  At one point a German woman either asked me if they were twins or told me she was going to call child protective services, luckily my German is very bad so I will never know.

Waiting in Miami.

There is no photography allowed in the passport control area and once we were through I was on the hunt for Rob.  I don't have an international cell plan.  I was worried about our long delay in immigration, but he was waiting for us through the barrier.  And so was the humidity.  Yikes!

I have a ton of pictures from our first evening in Curacao, so I will save the rest of this day for my next post!