Free Shipping w/ Exclusions issue

[cierra]

When we signed up for AC, we were told that the site could handle excluding items from free shipping by setting up separate shipping locations, but after getting our site almost all the way set up and testing we've discovered to our absolute horror that this creates a monster in the checkout. Here is what we are trying to do:

The bulk of our products ship for free if the total is over $100. However, some products, are excluded from free shipping, but everything counts toward the $100.

The problem - in the checkout, it creates 2 shipping methods and says: Your order contains items that must be sent in more than one shipment. View the order details at the bottom of this page for the contents of each shipment.

And it effectively DOUBLES the shipping cost by doing this.

How can we set this up so that the shipping methods are combined and do not show 2. This is completely unacceptable because not only does it double the shipping rates, it will also confuse the heck out of our customers in having to chose 2 methods. They can barely do that now with just one method

Please help!