Originally Posted by
CarmenOM
The other lesson in this story is to limit oneself to carryon baggage. For a backpacking kind of vacation, such as the OP describes this to be, the travelers would have saved themselves some of the grief by carrying on their bags.
I believe the main reason they checked bags was because of the liquid rule - I agree, I rarely, if ever, check bags, but sometimes on trips like this, it's beneficial to carry a pocket knife as well - which, these days, must be checked.