You Must Take Your Seats, We're Landing!!!!

I was in Orlando, FL, last week for a conference. Taking a flight to and from Orlando is hardly ever a fun trip. Planes to that airport are generally filled with children. Children who are excited about going to see Mickey. Children who have never flown before or babies that cry throughout the flight. Flights coming home are filled with tired children and families who have brought back way too many souviners and parents who are exhausted.

I changed my seat when I printed out my boarding pass for the trip down. I changed to the exit row as it appeared to be an empty row. And, it was until a man came up while we were boarding and decided to sit there until someone else came along. This plane had an extra row of legroom at the exit row so I know why he chose to sit there. I didn't really mind, but I am hoping the flight attendants didn't think I was with him. During the flight, he ate a bag of those individually wrapped miniature candy bars. As he unwrapped each piece, he dropped the wrapper on the floor and eventually the bag followed suit. The flight attendant asked him 2 or 3 times if he had any trash he wanted to throw away, like his newspaper, and he refused. He never read it again but he left it on the seat beside him as well as a trail of candy wrappers when he left the plane.

The center lavatory was near my seat and it saw pretty constant use. I fly at least 5-6 times a year, some years more, and I have never seen the bathroom events I saw on this trip. Apparently very few of the people on this plane knew that when you went into the bathroom and locked the door, the light above the door turned red. Many people tried to push open the locked door and were confused as to why they couldn't get the door open.

And, at least five people didn't know you were supposed to lock the door. One mother took her child to the bathroom and didn't have her lock the door. The mother stood guard outside the door, until I guess, she got bored and she went about four seats up and started looking thru the overhead compartment. When a man brushed past her to go down the aisle, she suddenly realized he might be going to use the bathroom. She goes tearing down the aisle after him trying to reach the door first, reaching over his shoulder to try and keep the door from being opened.

At one point in the flight, there were probably ten people lined up by the bathroom area (in my exit row). One guy, I thought, must have been drunk as he seemed rather unsteady on his feet. We hit turbulence around then and I thought he might land in my lap. As he turned around again, I realized he had a prosthetic leg which may have accounted for his unsteadiness. Although I later learned he was having an active, loud conversation with a woman two rows ahead of him and he was drunk. (I had a friend who was sitting near him on the plane.) At a later point in time, he returned for a second visit to the bathroom and also did not lock the door. A young boy came down the aisle and opened the bathroom door on him, looked inside for a while, and then shut the door. I only hope he had his back to the door.

We then approached Orlando and began our landing descent. While we were coming down, a woman and her child got up and went to the bathroom. Again, the mother did not lock the door and kept it partially open. Her child is in the bathroom. The flight attendent starts yelling over the intercom, "You must take your seats. We are landing!" The mother tells the child to hurry up and go. The flight attendant again, says, "You need to take your seats!" Finally, before we touched down on the runway, the mother and child returned to their seats. We were not that far off the ground - I was wondering if the pilot would abort the landing because they were not in their seats.

While taxing to the gate, again, a child got up and went to the bathroom. Again, the flight attendant told him to return to his seat. Again, he ignored her.