Home Spring Holiday at Disney World 2016

|≤ <<< Monday, March 7, 2016 >>> ≥| Background

At 0615, it's 61. We packed. Chris came, promptly, at 0930, for the ride to the airport. Check in was without incident. At the security checkpoint, our TSA pre-check line was but 5 folks while the other lines were in excessive of 500. We went out to the "B" terminal on the shuttle train and went to Ruby Tuesday for a light lunch. We then walked out to gate 50 to wait for our flight. We departed MCO at 1229. The flight to PHL was uneventful and we landed at 1420. We took the shuttle bus out to the "F" terminal and to Gate F2. Once there, the gate agent said AA4919 was overbooked and solicited volunteers to take a later flight. A passenger in the gate area noted that the number of potential passengers in the gate area was well below the plane's capacity. At 1535, we boarded the plane, and empty seats were evident. An announcement was made that there were two flight attendants that "must" make this flight and we were waiting for them. No reason was given as to why they could not take that later flight. At 1600, one showed up. At 1610, now 30 minutes late for departure, I asked for additional information. At 1620 the pilot told us the other attendant was 10 minutes out and was landing at Gate F7, and he has been ordered to wait for that flight attendant. (Hours later, it was discovered that the airline had issued a flight delay notice for our flight that had already been boarded.) At 1655, the missing flight attendant arrived and the gate agent then, amazingly, again asked for volunteers to deplane, though there were two empty seats visible. At 1658, the door was closed. At 1701, we pushed back with those two empty seats visible. We were wheels up at 1710, 90 minutes late! At 1746, I secured the car and at 1754, we secured Buddy. At 1830, we were home from another Magical Disney Experience.