What to do during 5-hour layover in the Denver airport!
As you know, we are visiting family in Idaho for my niece’s graduation. Both my husband and I and the two kids came and we took Frontier airlines with a layover in the Denver Colorado airport.
What was supposed to be a 4-hour layover turned into a 5-hour layover due to our connecting plane being delayed. This may sound like a horrible situation, and both my hubby and I went into thinking of it that way, but it really was not so bad!
What we did:
got off the plane and decided that we were going to find a place to eat. Instead of picking the first place we could find, we got to be rather picky. So off we went with the two kids and the stroller to find somewhere to eat.
We went through two terminals, Denver has three, and found a place called the Cantina Grill
If you are ever in the Denver airport and have a chance to eat here…DON’T! It was horrible. It was not just a “little bad,” or just “OK.” It was “HORRIBLE!”
There is usually not a Mexican restaurant that our family does not like. My husband and I are known to be Mexican fanatics at times and we can usually find something in the restaurant that makes it worth while but not in this one.
The salsa had so much stinking pepper in it that is all you could taste. The chips came out cold, not ever warmed. We could have looked past the cold chips if the salsa was worth dipping the chips into.
I ordered a chicken salad in a taco bowl, one of my favorites and you usually cannot screw up a taco salad, and it was crap. I had to choose between chicken or vegetables to go with the lettuce. I asked the server, “can I not get chicken AND vegetables?” She just looked at me, and with a funny face and said, “I don’t know, no one has ever asked before.” OK I thought that was strange but I just thought, “whatever.”
The salad came with NO flavor what so ever. My husband’s burrito was 99% rice and barely anything else in it. He pretty much ate rice paste and I ate a tasteless salad. I thought, “OK…I am sure that the peppery salsa may not be so bad if just put one teaspoon in my salad.” I was assuming that the little tiny bit would not make the pepper taste stand out so much and I was WRONG! The pepper taste was so bad that my salad tasted like pepper and that is about it.
The kids would not eat the Quesadilla so my husband ate it and he said that was OK, so I guess there was the one thing worthwhile there.
We ate the food, because it cost us a freaking $35 for it, ridiculous I know, but we were hungry and had a long layover and flight ahead of us. I did complain about the salsa and did not get much more then a shoulder shrug from the server so I just took a breath and let it go. We were all tired and I was not in the mood to be a big witch that day.
Now it was time to kill more time.
We went to the last of the three terminals, which was terminal A, and headed up to the third or fourth floor, which was the mezzanine. The other two gates had stores etc on their mezzanine but not terminal A. This was AWESOME! There was nothing there other then a FedEx box and so we let the kids run for like an hour. They ran and ran and ran some more and they loved it.
I had peanut butter sandwichs packed and their water so they ate and drank that in between laps. Check this out!
This was the best part of the layover. It was even fun for my husband and I because who does not love seeing their kids run off energy and having a great time doing it!
Before we knew it, we were off to our connecting flight so we hopped onto the terminal train and headed to the C gates.
Well…we were delayed 40 minutes. This sounds like it could have been horrible but it really was not because we ran the energy out of the kids, and it was getting late. They really were great during the 40 minute delay.
My daughter found another 5-year-old boy to play hide and seek with. You may think that there is no way to play hide and seek at the gate, but for 5 year olds there is. We would not let them hide where we could not see them, and they had a great time.
We then got on the plane and had a great flight to Idaho.
This could have been a horrible 5 hours and thank goodness, it was not. I really have to say that if you have a good positive outlook you can make anything great. The kids were perfect travelers that day and it was a long day!
I hope you are all having a great Memorial Day! Please remember those loved ones that are gone today with all the happy memories and feel blessed that you got to know them.
I am remembering my first son today, with a smile, and am so glad I got the time I did with him. Someday I will get to hold him again and kiss him forever!
Wishing all happy memories today and a wonderful, non-rainy day!
Peace!
Tawna
