Planning 18.5

Today’s song: Royals by Lorde

So yesterday, laying flat on my back in my hotel room after three long days at Universal in Florida (which has the nicest staff, I have to say; good on you, Universal!), I called up to make a reservation for a shuttle to the airport because I’m an adult and adults do things like this. They think about transportation before they fly to Florida on an impulse. Yup, I’m an adult. And when I called and made a reservation, they told me that my shuttle would be getting to the hotel at 4:35am. “Four to five AM?” I asked, disbelieving. “Four thirty-five AM,” the apathetic phone voice replied. And so I found myself standing on the curb outside the hotel in what I’m pretty sure was eighty-degree heat at 4:31am this morning. My flight, for reference, departs Orlando at 7:30am. I was not amused.

I had gotten my twenty dollars from the lobby for the shuttle fee, which was substantially cheaper than taking a cab. I was taking the Mears Transportation Shuttle to the Orlando International Airport from my hotel outside of Universal. This is important. I was staying at a DoubleTree. This is not important. I mean, I’m a Hilton Honors Gold Member (see: traveling planetarium professional), so clearly I like Hiltons in the first place, and I had a lovely time, but this is about my trip back to the airport.

I got outside early because missing your shuttle to the airport is how you pay $60 for a cab and maybe miss your flight, and after a few minutes, another couple and a girl about my age showed up. The couple got in a different shared ride, but the other girl and I bonded momentarily over this awkward experience of waiting for a magical van to the airport. The shuttle was hella on-time, though (like, 4:34am-on-the-nose on-time), and my driver was the world’s most courteous human being. I think it probably helped that he had a British accent, but whatevs. He was nice. Put my bag into the back, got out a little stool to help us step in the van. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this whole process was. I mean, the sun wasn’t even awake yet. I’m pretty sure that means life is supposed to be difficult. 

On the way to the airport, he told us stories about his other trips that week and gave us a tour of what you can see of Orlando from the highway. I learned things like:

1. Canadians really are that nice. This couple forgot their passports and (unlike the girl who thought he had given her bag away to another passenger when she had really left it in front of the door to her room) instead of making a fuss and telling him to turn the shuttle back around, they dealt with it on their own. Canadians. Props.
2. There’s a three-story McDonald’s in Orlando. I have since googled and verified that it is in fact the world’s largest. 
3. There’s a convention center (I think) run by this guy who used to work in hospitality at Disney and if there aren’t any conventions in town, he opens up the rooms for the most cheap, like $60 a night, and apparently the guy, who’s around 80, will actually come serve guests in the lobby a couple of times a week, even though he owns the place.
4. Sea World opened up an Antarctica section. Penguins! 
5. The busiest time of year for theme parks is Christmas. They will actually shut the doors to the Magic Kingdom because it’s at capacity. But if you come in the first two weeks of December, everything’s decorated for Christmas but NOBODY’S THERE. 

The driver thought that the girl from the same hotel as me and I were traveling together, so he offered to drop us off at the same terminal if we wanted so we wouldn’t have to split up, which was quite nice. And he also apologized for getting us to the airport so early, as all of us had 7am flights or later and I rolled up here promptly at 5:10am. So, all in all, this experience could have been horrible, but this driver made it not only bearable, but actually quite pleasant. 

I say all of these things because I never got any extra money out for a tip. And I feel horrible about this. I don’t always think about tips because I’m still new to this adult money landscape. My brain is still in the realm of “Can I?” instead of “Should I?” Can I take an impulse vacation to Florida to see my friend? Yes. Should I? Dubious. Can I tip my driver? Yes. Should I? Yes. Did I think about that? Yes. But the ATM in the business center only comes out in denominations of $20, which was what the cost of the shuttle was and I wasn’t going to get out extra cash and make change because what if I was late? I realized that these were flimsy excuses right around the time McDonald’s factoid came my way on the shuttle, so I took to the only recourse I had left: Twitter.

I tweeted about my shuttle ride, tagged the company in a couple of tweets, and sent in a customer feedback email with my driver’s name in it (which I had written down as soon as I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to tip). I have also now blogged about it, which is going to go on facebook. I’d put it on tumblr, but honestly, I’d probably just add a Supernatural gif to the end of it and I’m pretty sure Sam and Dean have never taken a shuttle anywhere and Castiel can fly, so that kinda knocks those out of the running. I have done all the interneting I can at 5:56 in the morning. 

My point with all of this, other than to hope that this guy gets something good for doing something good, is to say that we live in a different world than I ever anticipating living in. It’s a world where people like me can afford to fly and be driven places. It’s a world where some of us are in situations different from what we expected, with protocols that we forget to plan for. Sure, you tip your servers and your bartender, but when else do you tip? What’s expected? How terrible of a person am I for not tipping? Is this guy going to get by without those few extra dollars I would have thrown his way, and the accumulated missing dollars of the other non-tippers in the world?

At the same time, a social media shout-out is money to a company. You might not be on Twitter and you might be new to this whole Book of Faces thing, but then again, you might be another twenty-something who forgets to tip, but is keen to know how to save $40 on your ride back to the airport. This is the landscape I inhabit. Does it feel like a poor substitute for cash? Absolutely, since none of this might get back to the nice driver that set this whole process in motion. But it’s the best I’ve got right now, and it’s not nothing.

So thanks for the free internet, Orlando International Airport, and thanks Mears, for hiring at least one good driver. And friends, if you ever find yourself waiting at MCO for multiple hours, there’s a pretty sweet fountain near terminal A before you go in to security. Enjoy that for a while. I know I did.