I'm leavin on a jet plane . . .

Ladies and Gentlemen, girls and boys . . . (every morning Darren-the-cruise-captain's voice could be heard over the intercom; he was from somewhere else - all the cruise workers were - and had a cool accent. I met him one of the nights (that sounds bad doesn't it?) and told him how much we were enjoying the cruise :-) . . .  I'll start all of my cruise posts this way too.

The morning of our departure, I practically jumped out of bed singing, "I'm leavin, on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again." Only, sometimes I'd change the ending to say, "I may not come back again.". The weather in Washington was slushy and rainy mixed with snow. In fact, Darren, who drives a motorcycle to work every day, left his bike at work because of the weather and yucky roads. His bike stayed safe and dry all the time we were gone.

We got out the door and down the road in plenty of time. As soon as we showed our boarding passes to the attendants, our youngest asked, "Are we on the plane yet?" We answered, "No". Then we got inside the jet way and she asked the same question and got the same answer. With big hopeful eyes (that the flight attendant must have seen), she asked the question yet again right before stepping on the airplane.

At this point, the flight attendant became hypnotized by the children or something because she directed them right into the cockpit of the airplane! She was in no hurry. The captain and his assistant weren't in any hurry. I kept trying to back out and get to our seats and they encouraged the children to sit in the seats and push buttons. We asked questions. We learned about how the assistant captain got to sit in the cockpit of an airplane when he was a cub scout too (see -- I'm telling you, we got life history, I'm surprised we didn't exchange facebook info). The captain asked our older daughter if she wanted to welcome all of the passengers to the flight. So she did.

And, the special treatment didn't end there!! We headed back to our regular seats (which I assure you were not first class). About halfway through the flight (seems like that first flight was to Chicago), the attendant leaned over and asked if I minded her giving the children freshly baked chocolate chip cookies . . . .

Seriously, can you believe this? I can't. She didn't offer me or Darren one, just the kids.

I LOVED sitting next to Darren all the time :-). I had him trapped next to me. He had to listen to me go on and on about whatever. I think we raced each other part of the time doing a Sudoku puzzle. It was awesome.

My one complaint was my own ears. I couldn't get them to change pressure because I had major congestion. That was annoying. I was pretty sniffly the whole week, but, the fresh ocean air felt a lot better than the overcast air I had been breathing in Seattle.

Lastly, the girls spent oodles of flight time (after the cookie experience) drawing a nice picture and writing letters for the "plan workers". The thank you note went something like this,

 "Dear Plan Workers,

 I am going to have a lot of fun

on a Disney Cruise Boat in the Bahamas.

Thanks for the chocolate chip cookie."

 

Darren and I are kicking ourselves for not taking a picture of the letter, it was incredibly sweet. Our youngest daughter also wrote a letter, but hers didn't have real words ;-).