Trip Report: Zootopia

3/18/17

Well, today was the day we departed for Zootopia. My parents dropped me off at DFW Airport at 7:00 in the morning, and I met with my group. We checked into our flight, headed through TSA, and went to our gate, D23. I couldn't believe what I saw. The monitor above the gate door said "American Airlines Flight 309" and the destination said "Zootopia." Since our group had plenty of time to kill before boarding, I walked around the terminal. I watched the Skylink people mover travel up on the roof, and looked at several American planes, some bound to Shanghai and London, while others are bound to San Fransokyo and Quahog.

After grabbing a Sausage McGriddle from McDonald's, I sat down at our gate and listened to music until the plane arrived. The flight attendant announced, "American Airlines Flight 309, non-stop to Zootopia, now boarding. American Airlines Flight 309." Just like that, we boarded the plane. It was a very nice and new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with nice big seats and those fancy technological tinting windows rather than plastic shades. I settled in and within twenty minutes, we left the gate and went onto the tarmac.

I spotted a Zootopian Airlines plane landing on one of the runways off in the distance, which made me even more excited. Terminal D at DFW kept getting smaller as we moved away from it toward our runway. One, two, three, and our plane was up in the air. I started getting chills that we were about to turn into animals, but it turns out that will come up some point later in the thirteen hour flight. I continued to watch DFW and the highways surrounding it get smaller and smaller as we flew away.

Our plane, once about fifteen thousand feet up in the air, our plane received the "all clear" and zipped into super sonic speed, like those aircraft in Star Wars. We couldn't feel it at all, yet I looked outside and everything became straight lines. The windows tinted to black really quick so no one would become nauseated from the view. So for about thirteen hours, we travelled about as fast as the speed of light, if not faster.

They served the usual meals on the plane, which were gross. In fact, the chicken they served was so nasty, I actually felt sick and went into the bathroom. It turns out, it was not the chicken that made me feel sick, but the transformation happening right there. I looked down, and noticed fur coming out of my hand. Then, I quickly looked in the mirror and watched myself change before my very eyes into a bear! I took my glasses off and looked around at all the new facial features I had, which included a snout and wet nose.

I came out of the bathroom, feeling itchy all of a sudden, when I noticed that everybody else on the plane turned into animals as well. There were giraffes, hippos, elephants, lions, tigers, bears, you name it. It was very weird because the cabin didn't smell, like animals in the zoo. Yet, it was like all this wildlife, suddenly sitting in these seats.

 I passed by a couple of meerkats, then some dogs, and finally a fox and bunny sitting in the row behind me until I got to my seat. I just closed my eyes and napped the rest of the way, until I felt a huge jolt of turbulence, which meant we were getting close. The seatbelt sign came on and I woke up. I looked out and noticed we were suddenly not flying at super sonic speed anymore. I looked out the window and saw it was nighttime. I saw the lights of a huge city down below, and immediately recognized it as Zootopia.

I couldn't believe that I was looking at it down below. I saw all seven major districts of the city and then laid eyes on Zootopia International Airport, which I noticed has its runways and terminals in a similar layout as DFW, with one central highway running between all of them, bunched up on either side. Then I noticed a couple of satellite concourses branching of two of them. The plane finally touched down and I saw the airport whoosh right past us. When we slowed down, the flight attendant got back on.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemammals, to Zootopia International Airport. The current local time is 9:07 PM. We would like to ask you all to please remain in your seats buckled in until the plane comes to a complete stop at the gate. We will be docking at Gate E64, that is "Echo 64." Once we dock at the gate you will be escorted down the escalator and through the corridor and mammal mover trip to Universal Customs. We would like to ask you to have your Universal Passport ready. We would like to thank you all for flying American Airlines, and we hope you fly with us again soon. Welcome to Zootopia."