BrerGnat
04-28-2010, 06:48 PM
Friday, April 2, 2010
Cast:
Me
DH
DS 5-Max
DS 4-Lucas
Today we are going home. But, our DME pick up is not until 12:15pm, so I wondered what to do. Everyone was up by 8:30, and we were all but done packing up. I was pleasantly surprised by TWO envelopes under the door this morning. One was our final room charge summary and the other contained four boarding passes and four luggage tags for our flight home on Jet Blue! Wow...we love Club Level. :D I was all set to drag our bags down to the airline check in desk and do everything down there. But...all done! Sweet. I put the tags on the bags, and the boarding passes in my carryon bag, and we all dressed and had breakfast. DH decided he wanted to work out one more time since we'd be traveling for over 6 hours and getting home late. So, I agreed to take the boys "somewhere" while he hit the gym after breakfast. I thought about what to do and remembered that we had 7 day Park Hopper tickets, of which we had only used Six days, so I felt one last trip into Epcot would be a nice way to spend the morning. So, off we went, heading in around 9:45.
It was warm and muggy today. Eww. Glad we were leaving (sort of). We did the obligatory playground time first. Surprisingly, the boys were both only half hearted about it, and we left after about 5 min. Max requested to see the Jumping Fountains at Imagination, so we went over there. We spent a long time there, Max playing and Lucas just sitting in his stroller. He looked really tired...
I pulled Max away, and we went to watch the fountain of Nations next. At that point, it was around 10:45 and I had told DH we would be back by 11:00, which was check out time, and we still needed to get the bags out of the room and downstairs. Max and Lucas wanted to ride SSE again, but I had to say "no" since we were cutting it close on time. Max was really sad, and he said "we can ride it next time", so I asked him if he wanted to come back to Walt Disney World on vacation again. He gave me a very emphatic "YES!" Music to my ears. :thumbsup:
On the way out, we stopped at the World Traveler store at the Int'l Gateway. I had really wanted to get something Spaceship Earth related for Max, and we never found anything all week (even at Mouse Gears...). But, this shop was a SCORE! We found a tiny SSE snowglobe, a SSE Christmas Tree Ornament, and the Epcot souvenir paperback book. Max was VERY excited about our purchases here. He announced that he wanted to put the book in his "airplane backpack" for the trip home.
We made it back to our room right at 11:00. DH was ready to go, and I packed up the last minute souvenirs and we called for Bell Services, who showed up in about 2 minutes. He told me he'd meet me down at the Resort Airline check in desk, where I had to provide my photo i.d. while turning over my bags. So, we all said a final goodbye to our room and headed out. When we got downstairs, DH and the boys settled in on some couches in a little alcove in the lobby. DH fired up the Netbook and took advanatge of the FREE WI-FI in the BC lobby! This was nice little perk we used a few times during the stay (on my ipod Touch mostly...). I went outside to drop off the bags, and all I had to do was say "those are mine" and the woman working the line said "what time are you flying out?". I told her "three" and she said, "okay, you're all set; you'll see these at your home airport." Painless.
I returned to the lobby and hit up the Marketplace for our dinners for the flight (we planned to grab lunch at MCO prior to the flight). I picked up four Uncrustables, some grapes, carrots and a couple postcards of the resort. We packed up the sandwiches along with some pretzels and crackers we had brought and the cookies we had gotten from the lounge the night before. Looked like a good dinner for all of us in flight. I also bought the boys one last ice cream treat to enjoy in the lobby: A Mickey Bar for Max and Strawberry fruit bar for Lucas. They made huge messes of themselves while they ate those...but I was prepared with wipes! Lucas, at this point, was starting to worry me. He had been sitting in his stroller this whole time, with the shade pulled over him, and he only ate 1/2 the popsicle. Hmmm...he sort of looked like a zombie, but with more color in his cheeks. He was in a bad mood too. I made him use the restroom prior to the DME pickup and he cried and fussed about it. Sigh....
We headed out right at 12:00 to catch the DME bus. It showed up right at 12:15 and was a Disney Cruise Line bus, which we thought was cool (now Lucas had gotten to ride all three of his "souvenir" buses). Lucas was NOT behaving on this bus ride. He kept trying to open the Emergency window release lever. We finally switched seats and DH sat with Max and I sat with Lucas. Once we had picked up the guests at the other resorts, Lucas settled into my lap and put his head on my shoulder for the ENTIRE ride.
We arrived at the airport around 1:15pm, and were dropped off first. We made our way to the food court and had a VERY rushed lunch. We had spied the Security Lines and knew we didn't have time to dawdle. After lunch, we headed to the security line and were SO relieved to be directed into the "families with small children" line, which was only about 5 people long, instead of the MASSIVE line with hundreds! We were through security very quickly, although our boys backpacks were not scanning properly, so that was a minor hold up. For a minute, I feared they would confiscate our PB&J's! We passed inspection though, and made our way to our gate. We got there with about 10 min before our flight would board, so we did another restroom stop and purchased waters for us all. At this point, Lucas really looked like death. His cheeks were bright red, his eyes were watery, and he was crying again (due to being scared of flying again). I decided to take no chances, and gave him a dose of children's tylenol chewables just before we boarded. We got on the plane and took off without incident. Once in the air, Lucas fell asleep across my lap for almost two hours! Following a brief connection in Austin, we were on the final leg of our flight, and this is when I knew something was really wrong with Lucas. He laid across my lap (awake) for the ENTIRE 3 hour flight. Didn't want to watch t.v., play with his toys, books, or color, and did NOT want to play with my ipod. Just laid there... He was extremely warm to the touch and I knew he was sick. I silently gave thanks that he was getting sick at the END of the trip, rather than during it. We had *just* made it off the plane and into the airport when Lucas :ack: in the bathroom. Poor guy. :( We made it home in record time, gave the boys a bath and put them straight to bed.
The next morning, Max joined his little brother in :ack:. Max ended up worse than Lucas, and was quite sick for several days. Thankfully, we got home BEFORE that all started!!!
We were happy to be home, but already missing our Beach Club. But, for the FIRST time ever, I left WDW HAPPY, not sad. I usually get really sad on departure day, but this day, I was SO happy, because we had DONE IT! And, we had had a FABULOUS time, despite the hiccups. Our life is FULL of trials, and we have tried really hard to just make the most of what comes our way, and I think because of that, our vacation kept a positive spin. We are used to just shrugging our shoulders and saying "oh well...time to move on." No, we didn't go on lots of rides. No, we didn't get as much "couple' time as we had planned on. BUT, we spent quality time together as a family, and THAT was the purpose of this trip. And now we know, there will be many more in the future. :mickey:
Cast:
Me
DH
DS 5-Max
DS 4-Lucas
Today we are going home. But, our DME pick up is not until 12:15pm, so I wondered what to do. Everyone was up by 8:30, and we were all but done packing up. I was pleasantly surprised by TWO envelopes under the door this morning. One was our final room charge summary and the other contained four boarding passes and four luggage tags for our flight home on Jet Blue! Wow...we love Club Level. :D I was all set to drag our bags down to the airline check in desk and do everything down there. But...all done! Sweet. I put the tags on the bags, and the boarding passes in my carryon bag, and we all dressed and had breakfast. DH decided he wanted to work out one more time since we'd be traveling for over 6 hours and getting home late. So, I agreed to take the boys "somewhere" while he hit the gym after breakfast. I thought about what to do and remembered that we had 7 day Park Hopper tickets, of which we had only used Six days, so I felt one last trip into Epcot would be a nice way to spend the morning. So, off we went, heading in around 9:45.
It was warm and muggy today. Eww. Glad we were leaving (sort of). We did the obligatory playground time first. Surprisingly, the boys were both only half hearted about it, and we left after about 5 min. Max requested to see the Jumping Fountains at Imagination, so we went over there. We spent a long time there, Max playing and Lucas just sitting in his stroller. He looked really tired...
I pulled Max away, and we went to watch the fountain of Nations next. At that point, it was around 10:45 and I had told DH we would be back by 11:00, which was check out time, and we still needed to get the bags out of the room and downstairs. Max and Lucas wanted to ride SSE again, but I had to say "no" since we were cutting it close on time. Max was really sad, and he said "we can ride it next time", so I asked him if he wanted to come back to Walt Disney World on vacation again. He gave me a very emphatic "YES!" Music to my ears. :thumbsup:
On the way out, we stopped at the World Traveler store at the Int'l Gateway. I had really wanted to get something Spaceship Earth related for Max, and we never found anything all week (even at Mouse Gears...). But, this shop was a SCORE! We found a tiny SSE snowglobe, a SSE Christmas Tree Ornament, and the Epcot souvenir paperback book. Max was VERY excited about our purchases here. He announced that he wanted to put the book in his "airplane backpack" for the trip home.
We made it back to our room right at 11:00. DH was ready to go, and I packed up the last minute souvenirs and we called for Bell Services, who showed up in about 2 minutes. He told me he'd meet me down at the Resort Airline check in desk, where I had to provide my photo i.d. while turning over my bags. So, we all said a final goodbye to our room and headed out. When we got downstairs, DH and the boys settled in on some couches in a little alcove in the lobby. DH fired up the Netbook and took advanatge of the FREE WI-FI in the BC lobby! This was nice little perk we used a few times during the stay (on my ipod Touch mostly...). I went outside to drop off the bags, and all I had to do was say "those are mine" and the woman working the line said "what time are you flying out?". I told her "three" and she said, "okay, you're all set; you'll see these at your home airport." Painless.
I returned to the lobby and hit up the Marketplace for our dinners for the flight (we planned to grab lunch at MCO prior to the flight). I picked up four Uncrustables, some grapes, carrots and a couple postcards of the resort. We packed up the sandwiches along with some pretzels and crackers we had brought and the cookies we had gotten from the lounge the night before. Looked like a good dinner for all of us in flight. I also bought the boys one last ice cream treat to enjoy in the lobby: A Mickey Bar for Max and Strawberry fruit bar for Lucas. They made huge messes of themselves while they ate those...but I was prepared with wipes! Lucas, at this point, was starting to worry me. He had been sitting in his stroller this whole time, with the shade pulled over him, and he only ate 1/2 the popsicle. Hmmm...he sort of looked like a zombie, but with more color in his cheeks. He was in a bad mood too. I made him use the restroom prior to the DME pickup and he cried and fussed about it. Sigh....
We headed out right at 12:00 to catch the DME bus. It showed up right at 12:15 and was a Disney Cruise Line bus, which we thought was cool (now Lucas had gotten to ride all three of his "souvenir" buses). Lucas was NOT behaving on this bus ride. He kept trying to open the Emergency window release lever. We finally switched seats and DH sat with Max and I sat with Lucas. Once we had picked up the guests at the other resorts, Lucas settled into my lap and put his head on my shoulder for the ENTIRE ride.
We arrived at the airport around 1:15pm, and were dropped off first. We made our way to the food court and had a VERY rushed lunch. We had spied the Security Lines and knew we didn't have time to dawdle. After lunch, we headed to the security line and were SO relieved to be directed into the "families with small children" line, which was only about 5 people long, instead of the MASSIVE line with hundreds! We were through security very quickly, although our boys backpacks were not scanning properly, so that was a minor hold up. For a minute, I feared they would confiscate our PB&J's! We passed inspection though, and made our way to our gate. We got there with about 10 min before our flight would board, so we did another restroom stop and purchased waters for us all. At this point, Lucas really looked like death. His cheeks were bright red, his eyes were watery, and he was crying again (due to being scared of flying again). I decided to take no chances, and gave him a dose of children's tylenol chewables just before we boarded. We got on the plane and took off without incident. Once in the air, Lucas fell asleep across my lap for almost two hours! Following a brief connection in Austin, we were on the final leg of our flight, and this is when I knew something was really wrong with Lucas. He laid across my lap (awake) for the ENTIRE 3 hour flight. Didn't want to watch t.v., play with his toys, books, or color, and did NOT want to play with my ipod. Just laid there... He was extremely warm to the touch and I knew he was sick. I silently gave thanks that he was getting sick at the END of the trip, rather than during it. We had *just* made it off the plane and into the airport when Lucas :ack: in the bathroom. Poor guy. :( We made it home in record time, gave the boys a bath and put them straight to bed.
The next morning, Max joined his little brother in :ack:. Max ended up worse than Lucas, and was quite sick for several days. Thankfully, we got home BEFORE that all started!!!
We were happy to be home, but already missing our Beach Club. But, for the FIRST time ever, I left WDW HAPPY, not sad. I usually get really sad on departure day, but this day, I was SO happy, because we had DONE IT! And, we had had a FABULOUS time, despite the hiccups. Our life is FULL of trials, and we have tried really hard to just make the most of what comes our way, and I think because of that, our vacation kept a positive spin. We are used to just shrugging our shoulders and saying "oh well...time to move on." No, we didn't go on lots of rides. No, we didn't get as much "couple' time as we had planned on. BUT, we spent quality time together as a family, and THAT was the purpose of this trip. And now we know, there will be many more in the future. :mickey: