Back To The Island Cancun: Travel Day 1
Katie 
Over the next several Wednesdays I will be sharing all the details of my trip to Cancun for Hanson’s Back to the Island event. (Yes, we’re all aware that Cancun is not an Island.) For those of you unfamiliar with the event – the past 2 years have been in Jamaica but this year they moved to a resort in Cancun. The event was from January 7-11 with a concert every night (except the last day when everyone is leaving) which includes 3 Hanson shows as well as a set from special guests Nick Santino and David Ryan Harris. Also included are events with Isaac (mixology), Taylor (after party) and Zac (pottery painting) – but more on all that is still to come.
I’ll start this post with traveling, since I finally got my visa to Bhutan – I had to get up to leave the house at about 2:30 AM as my first flight was taking off at 5:45am. I was greeted in the morning by my car covered in ice – and then I realized that some of it was even INSIDE when I thought I had cleared off the windshield and there were still spots. I had to rub them with my mittens so I could see through the window and off to the airport I went. It was 17 degrees. It was quite dark in the car, perhaps because of window tinting (check out Dalo website if you plan auto glass tinting).
I got to the valet area, left my car, got to the airport and had to wait for the Southwest counter to open at 4am. They had to verify my passport before I could even get on my first flight. Once that was done security went with no problems and then it was time to wait. I was the only one at the gate for a long time. I was excited because I didn’t wake up 24 hours early (it was more like 23) and still got A 37 as a boarding number. Well, it turns out there were only 36 people on the flight! (A1 – 15 are reserved) They said we could spread out but everyone decided to sit in the first 5 rows because they “wanted to get off the plane quick” (I’m not sure the extra 4 steps from a couple rows further back would have made all that much difference) Had I known they were going to do that, I’d have gone to the back myself after pre-boarding.
I ended up with a mother/daughter next to me. The daughter seemed like she really wanted to sleep, but well, I think Mom was a little bit nervous to fly so for 3 hours (when I was hoping to catch up on some sleep) all I heard was “I love you! Thank you so much for flying with me! I love you!” and then she was trying to teach the kid to play sudoku. “Can I sleep?” the girl asked – but Mom talked for almost the entire 3 hour flight. She talked so much she was hoarse by the time the flight landed.
I missed snack service from trying to sleep… and then started having a dizzy spell (which I haven’t had one in a REALLY long time so I was not expecting it) and ended up getting my head as close to my knees as I could and it seemed to pass in a few minutes. Upon landing I grabbed a vitamin water and a snack at a kiosk to make sure that I’d be good to go for the next flight.
Somehow my flight at Atlanta landed at C2 and I only had to go to C5! Usually I am as far apart as humanly possible in these airports so I was excited. They ended up loading up another flight just before ours was supposed to take off because the flight was still in the hanger getting looked at. Then we found out we had to get a new aircraft and had to go to C12 instead. The new aircraft came from stealing it from a flight heading to DC which ended up getting canceled. We weren’t delayed all that much despite the new aircraft and the extra checks it needed for going to a different country.
We landed in Mexico and headed to immigration and then customs. After going through customs they have you hit a red button. If you’re green, you’re good, if you’re red, you are getting randomly selected for a bag check. I was with 2 other Hanson fans I met up with in Atlanta and 1 of us got a red light and the other 2 green. Then I found out my roommate for the trip got a red one too.
We found our shuttle to the resort and off we went! It was nice to have a 20 minute ride instead of a 90 minute one. While we were waiting to check in, my roommate showed up (she got in about the same time as us but was in a different terminal – we were hoping it all spit out to one general transportation area, but it didn’t!)
We checked in to the resort, checked in with Island Gigs for our Hanson credentials, checked out the room and headed to the seafood / pasta restaurant for dinner. I had 2 drinks but neither really were all that strong (and I’m a lightweight – I didn’t feel any of the drinks until the last night!) and then it was time to settle in for Hanson show #1 later that night.
But more on THAT next week 🙂
