It's 9:00 a.m. . .time for a sub sandwich.

Part of what I do as a  Dream Maker, a.k.a  Travel Agent, is to travel to different destinations to explore them thoroughly so that I can be as knowledgeable as possible about the destination and property. These travels include staying in hotels ranging from 3 star to 5 star, compliments of the resort itself in hopes of impressing us enough to get us to send travelers to their properties.  We are taken on excursions in the destination so as to  know what there is for you, the traveler, to do while on vacation.  We are wined and dined and put up in some very beautiful accommodations and some of us even get butlers while we are on the resort, however, I’ve never been so lucky as to be assigned a butler.. . yet.  Many people skoff at my “work” travels saying,  “Oh, it must be rough, being in Mexico or the Caribbean sipping on fruity drinks and 'working’ Truth be told, there is a great deal of work that goes into these travel agent trips and I’m here to set your mind at ease and let you know just how these trips go down. .  the good, the bad and everything in between. I’m going to start this blog with my first day of travels to Cancun, Mexico for an El Dorado/ Karisma/ Azul FAM ( familiarization trip. ~ so grab a cup of coffee, glass of wine or a shot of tequila and join me on my travels to Mexico where you get to be a Dream Maker for a day.

I started my day off later than expected ~ instead of hopping out of bed like a jack in the box at 3:15 a.m. in order to be ready to roll for my 6:20 flight, I cursed the alarm several times, and then after too many times of ignoring my early morning reality, I  flew out of bed as I heard the words, “ Carmen!! It’s 3:5o!” I was supposed to be at the airport by around 4:45 and at this rate, this plan was not going to happen. I raced down stairs, grabbed a cup of coffee, threw myself in the shower and got ready as fast as I possibly could. I managed to get everything together  and be in the car by 4:2o. “Whew! “ I thought…  I am one mean, proficient traveling machine and I’ve got this covered.

I get to the airport feeling confident in my timing of things . I arrived at  Terminal 1 of  the airport and I didn’t see the AirTran sign anywhere so I asked an airport official where it was and his response was, "It's  in Terminal 2.’ To which I replied, “ Oh shit.” I should have known this but I assumed it was at Terminal 1 because every time I travel, I fly out of terminal 1 ~ I’m a creature of habit I guess but lesson learned on this faux pas! I got on the horn, called my husband who just so happens to know me well enough that he parked at the end of the drop-off area waiting for me to call him as he had not seen any Air Tran Signs and figured it was at Terminal 2. . .he’s a smart man and man was I grateful that he stayed there and that I did not have to track down a cab to take me to terminal 2.  I know you may be saying, “You’re a travel agent!? You should have known where the airline was!” Believe me, I was thinking those same things to myself  ~ human error, fully admitted, right here and now~ I know.

I made my trek through check in and sweated it out a little as I weighed by luggage, as it always seems like it weighs at least a good 75 lbs. every time I travel.  I can’t seem to get this packing light thing down very well however, my trusty bag weighed in at 44 lbs..! I made it to the gate on time, boarded the plane and to my surprise, seat 10c was directly behind 3..which totally threw me for a loop but the benefit  of this was that I had a ton of leg room! Score! We took off into the sunrise and as my head was filled with swirling thoughts of travel and sheer exhaustion, my eyes became heavy. The cabin pressure change in the airplane is always a soothing feeling  for me and has we got to our cruising  altitude, I drifted into a semi-deep, I don’t want to nod off on my neighbor, kind of sleep and woke up shortly before we landed in Atlanta.  So, here I sit in the Atlanta airport waiting for three hours for my next flight to Cancun. It's 9:00 and   I’ve managed to scarf down a foot long sub sandwich from the delicious Jersey Mikes Sub Sandwich shop.  right now, my sense  of time is completely warped ~ I’ve been up for over 4 hours so technically, it’s lunch time so a sub seems totally logical. 

Next stop : Cancun.