The journey to Orlando

Written by: Lotte

Good evening, morning, afternoon, whatever time it is when you are reading this. Thank you for your time. My name is Lotte, I am the oldest of the group of students. In this blog I will tell you about our intense journey to Orlando. Please know that English is not my first language. So there might be grammar mistakes or weird sentences. I apologize for that in advantage.

LET’S GO!

Okay, so on the 27th of february we all gathered at ‘s-Hertogenbosch station. We took the train, picked up other students at Utrecht central station and continued our journey to Amsterdam, Schiphol airport.

Everyone was excited, carrying big suitcases with them. Some bigger than others. We were all packed and ready to go. Checking in went smoothly and when we passed the security we had some spare time for ourselves before the airplane took of.

Our flight was at 14:50 AMS time. We were supposed to fly for 9 hours and ten minutes. But halfway through, the captain told us we had to make an emergency landing. O, god. I was scared. What happened? Well, they told us that the level of oxygen in the cockpit was running low, and we needed our captain to breath to fly the plane. It took the airplane approx 40 minutes to land in Montreal, Canada. When we landed, we had to wait in the airplane for 3 hours! They kept telling us that we had to wait, because there was going to be a mechanic checking on the plane. But that mechanic didn’t have the right parts for fixing the problem. After 3 hours, the crewmembers decided we had to get off. People were getting tired, frustrated and cramped. A bus picked us up. It was freezing cold as it was snowing.

At the airport in Canada we had to go trough security. We didn’t have an ESTA for the country, so we weren’t sure if we were allowed to get in. But that wasn’t our biggest problem. One of the students had lost his passport on the plane.

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

We were allowed to get in. But we had to wait again. The next plane to Orlando would be departing around 11 am in the morning. We had to wait for almost 12 hours! Oh my god. We slept on the ground, as we didn’t got a hotel because things were unsure for the boy who had lost his passport.

Time went by slowly. People got grumpy, I looked like hell, that’s for sure. The sad news came: the boy who had lost his passport and couldn’t come with us to the United States. It was such a shock. He had to go back home. A teacher decided to stay with him to make sure he would be okay.

SO MUCH LUCK!

Around 7 in the morning we were allowed to check in and go through security. Things didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped for. When we were finally on the plane, all of us were looking for the lost passport, as it was the same plane we flew with. One of us did find it! Can you believe that? We were all screaming of excitement! We called the boy to tell him one of us had found his passport. A stewart took over the phone and told the boy what to do. He promised him that he would be in Orlando the same day as us!
The plane took off 2 hours after that phone call, as it had to wait for a GO. As if we had not waited long enough already. Ha ha ha.

ARRIVAL

Okay. The whole journey took us around 24 hours. So far for the direct flight. Because of this delay, we had missed our first day in Orlando, but we couldn’t care anymore. Once we were at the airport, everyone was so happy and relieved. We made it! Two of the teachers from Valencia College picked us up. We went to the car rental service and got 3 big vans. They are amazing! It felt like we were celebrities. Never in my life did I see such fancy cars.

HOTEL

We got dropped off by the hotel. Some students went out for diner with a couple of students from Valencia college. I took a shower and went straight to bed. It was a long journey. Tomorrow would be better, I promised myself.

And it was. Stay tuned for a new blog about our first day!

If you want to see some pictures of the journey, you can see those below this post.