Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Are we there yet?

So we left for our trip to Bali with so much excitement and ready to go! We got through the Dammam airport with some annoyances but smoothly and we were off, made it to Abu Dhabi.....and we made a make shift tent out of my abaya to help shield the kids from the light and the intense cold at the airport. Who knew an abaya could be so useful :)


The kids stayed asleep and we made it onto our plane to Kuala Lumpur. The kids were sleeping when they should, being happy and we were doing great. We flew Etihad Airlines for the first time and overall it was a good experience. Peyton liked the eye masks and socks that came in the travel bag. She cracks me up!




We were really impressed in how much easier it is getting flying with them both as long as they are both not asleep. There were sometimes when we had two sleeping kids and I was so thankful to be flying with John and not solo!

Then we landed in Kuala Lumpur.....and things didn't go so smoothly.....

Apparently the guys in Saudi should have tagged our bags all the way through and they didn't but the people in Kuala Lumpur did not know that. We had a 90 minute layover and had to be processed through passports, claim our bags and run to the ticket counter only to find out we didn't make it. Bummer! Oh well....I am sure there is another Malaysian Air flight to Bali tonight....NO! The next one was for 10:00 AM the next day. We pleaded to find another option and they directed us to the office. We waited and waited and waited and found out that they could get us to Bali that night but at midnight....six hours later than we were supposed to :( They booked us on a flight to Jakarta and then a flight from there to Bali. We managed to get hold of the car company we hired and told them our new flight times and off we went to Jakarta.

We bought the kids fun lollipops for being so patient waiting around....happy kiddos but sticky fingers/faces...



When we landed we had to go through immigration and get our visas which was a long process. Graham had meanwhile fell asleep on the plane and was in the baby carrier which was so incredibly heavy. We finally finished with getting our visa for Indonesia which the only positive is that I have read that the visa line in Jakarta is much smoother and quicker than Bali so at least we didn't have that step to do when we arrived in Bali. We then had to walk to the opposite end of the terminal in the non air-conditioned airport and...I am still carrying Graham who at that point leaked through his diaper and essentially peed all over me...nice! I am now wearing a 30lb child, a sweater and have pee all over me and am running through a hot airport. We make it to the transfer desk and they mention something about having to claim our bags, go through customs and recheck them and I start to cry. I really started to cry. It was Kuala Lumpur all over again. John explained that they were checked through, they said no and so he ran to the baggage area to see what to do. He found a baggage handler, brought him back to the transfer desk who explained our bags were checked through and we got our tickets and ran to our next flight. 

We made it on our fourth flight (third airline of the trip) and were finally on our way to Bali. The flight had no one on it and so Peyton made a tent on her side....



And Graham was out cold on my lap.......





The kids were doing great and we landed and were ready to get in our car and go to the hotel. I was so nervous that our bags wouldn't make it due to the confusion but thankfully they were there. We almost make it out of the airport when I realized we left something on the plane. John runs back and thankfully the cleaning crew brought it to baggage claim for us and we were finally on our way out. I just kept trying to not cry again.

Our driver was wonderful! We hired a driver from the company Bali Baby Hire that has drivers, baby supplies and everything else you might need to make your vacation in Bali more baby/child friendly. We had the same driver the whole trip and the kids loved him. We had rented car seats from them as well which was great so we didn't have those extra bags to deal with. Highly recommend their company, it was so nice to have a good driver who was used to kids/families to drive us around!

We finally made it to our hotel and checked in and we all easily fell asleep....

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