I'm Leavin' On a Jet Plane....

I'm sure plenty of you know of the excursion my family is planning on taking this Christmas. But for those of you who don't, we are planning quite the trip and vacation to Germany. Most of you know that my mother is German and we have family in that country that I haven't seen in years. Not to mention, none of them have met my brand new husband, who I'm quite anxious to show off.

At any rate, this trip has a lot of planning still that needs to be done, and I wanted to share the process. Mostly, to get ideas if I'm missing anything or of things I could do. To begin with, I'll start with our flight itinerary.

On Tuesday, December 23rd:

We'll be flying British Airways













Depart: Seattle, WA @ 6:30 PM
Arrive: London-Heathrow, GB @ 12:00 PM (the 24th)

Depart: London-Heathrow, GB @1:50 PM
Arrive: Stuttgart, DE @ 4:30 PM, where our family will pick us up.

We'll be returning on January 6th in Seattle @ about 3:50 PM. Yup, that's right. TWO WEEKS in Germany!!!! But here's the kicker: there will be 15 of us going! That includes all the children (even the 2 yr. olds).

Because of work schedules, Ty and I will be the last to get there and flying without the rest of the family. The plan, as of right now, is that Ty will work from home that day until about Noon, which is when we plan on getting our little rear ends out of Moses Lake. Since the flight leaves at 6:30, and according to airline regulations for international flights, we need to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight. We don't want to spend a horrific amount of money parking our car at the airport ($260.00), so we are driving to the apartment complex my brother and sister-in-law manage. Now, our dilemma lies with what is the best solution to getting from the apartments to the airport.

These are our options:

Option #1














There is a Sound Transit Metro Bus stop about five seconds from the apartments. This would definitely be the cheapest of all the options available. The total cost of fare per person is about $2.50, one way. We would start our journey at 3:12 and arrive at 4:20. Now the drawback. Not really the most comfortable way to travel, especially with baggage. Not to mention the there would be at least one transfer in between.


Option #2










If you go to the Sea-Tac Airport's website and look under "Parking and Transportation", they will give you a list of options. The only one serving the area that we will be in (Kirkland) was the Go Shuttle Express. They offer a Share Ride service. They pick you up at you requested destination and drop you off at the airport. There would be a window between 3:00 and 3:20 when they would pick us up and drop us off at the airport at 4:20. Being as there are two of us, and it would need to be a round trip, there's a few discounts. However, the total would still come out to $92.50. Uhhh....remember how I'm trying to save money? This is more than likely going to be either the same or better than getting a taxi, so I'm not even going to look into that.

Option #3



















Last of all options is to beg and plead any family or friends living on that side of the mountains to help us out and take us to and from the airport. We would, of course, pay for gas. This is probably going to be the most comfortable (and compared to the Shuttle Express most cost-efficient), however we don't want to inconvienence anyone. That is, afterall, the day before Christmas Eve. People have better things they could be doing on that particular day.


So here we are. Undecided. Help me out people. What advice can you give? Are there other options that I haven't looked into that might be better?

Next up will be the luggage.....