faline
12-27-2013, 11:52 AM
About a week before departure, we began to see weather forecasts that included a snow/ice storm scheduled to hit right as we were scheduled to leave. What to do? Do we request a flight change for a day earlier or take our chances? As we get closer, I decide we'll take our chances - looks like the roads will be a bit icy early in the morning but flights should be able to get out. I then find out my brother in law who is supposed to drive us to the airport has the day off and would have to get up early just to give us a ride. I check the airport hotel. I can get a one night stay at a really reasonable rate. Ok - maybe we can impose on our daughter to drive us to the Import on Sunday. Turns out, she and her husband are going to a show in Boston that day - perfect. She will drop us off on her way in.
Sunday rolls around. Carolyn picks us up and, after a wrong turn and drive around the airport, she leaves us at the front door of the hotel. We are able to check in early and are even upgraded in view. We drop our bags and head downstairs for lunch at the hotel restaurant. We spend the afternoon relaxing - reading the newspaper, watching the football game, napping, and watching a feel-good holiday movie. Not really hungry, we head back to the restaurant where we each order a bowl of clam chowder and a sandwich to split. Too much food - should have ordered cups of soup rather than bowls!
Back to the room hang out a while later and head off to sleep. Around 2, my phone dings and lets me know it is now snowing out. We had set a 5:30 wake up call. We get up, find there's a coating of snow and some roads are indeed icy. We pack up - what little we had taken out overnight, check out and take the shuttle to the terminal.
Bag check and security are both smooth. With enough time on our hands, we stop for breakfast. Still not really hungry but I do order eggs with ham and breakfast potatoes- hold the toast. I eat the eggs and most of the ham - only taste of the potatoes. We head to our gate. Despite the weather, our flight is listed as being on time. We do, in fact board on time but are told we must de-ice. That process means we take off more than 1/2 hour late - not too shabby! Our seat mate is heading to Disney as well. She will be staying at Riverside and has not made any fastpass + reservations saying she likes to decide on which park she will be in without pre- planning.
Thankfully, there were no problems with the flight and we landed safely in Orlando even though we were a bit behind schedule. Within short order, we made our way to the baggage carousel, collected our luggage, dragged it across the street and selected our mid-size rental. Ironically, the Dodge Avenger that weselected has Massachusetts plates on it.
We point the car towards Disney World. Generally, if we make a wrong turn, it is by taking the wrong road out of the airport. On this arrival day, we expertly exit the airport and are on the right road. We're so proud of ourselves! Too soon. Gene thinks we should take a different exit to Disney World than the one listed on the road signs. We get onto Disney property. I think we're going the wrong way. Gene thinks not. Soon we are at the gates for the Ticket and Transportation Center (We, of course, are heading to Old Key West.) We get back on track and find our resort.
Once there, we park and head inside to check in. Check-in only takes a few minutes BUT....in addition to our room not being ready yet (Not a biggie since we have arrived prior to official checkin time), they do, indeed, have magic bands waiting for us at checkin. I, however, have the set we received in the mail. I'm told the bands we received in the mail will do everything we want EXCEPT open our resort room door. To accomplish that, we will need to visit the concierge desk to have the bands we brought with us "linked" to our room. No, I'm assured that will not affect anything else on our existing bands. As it happened, a woman who works the concierge desk was overhearing our conversation - she had been blowing up balloons for arriving kiddos since, until that moment, concierge was not busy. She came over to "link" our room to our customized bands. Oops! What happened to all Gene's fastpass+ reservations. Now, we can only see fastpass+ reservations for one - not two. The lovely lady from concierge says she will come sit with us in the lobby and get it all fixed up for us. Except for one day, we are essentially unable to copy one set of fastpass+ times to a second - either because the requested times are no longer available or the requests violate rules that were instituted after our fastpass+ reservations were made. Twenty minutes later, she prints us a new itinerary. In some cases, she had to make a second fastpass+ reservation for Gene that only partially crosses over with my existing one. For example, on Monday, the day we arrived, we originally had fast passes for Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and Big Thunder Mountain. When concierge finishes with us, Gene has a fastpass for Peter Pan from 3:25 - 4:25 which she crosses out on our printed Iternerary. I have a fastpas from 4:55 - 5:55 and concierge created one for Gene from 5:00 - 6:00 pm. To ride together, we can enter between 5:00 and 5:55 She was able to match the Pooh and Thunder Mountain fast passes. She tries to convince us that the new system is wonderful but I'm currently not convinced!
Our original plan was to head directly to the Magic Kingdom and grab hot dogs from Casey's. I am far too hungry at this point to wait until I arrive at the Magic Kingdom. We decide to head to Olivia's for something to eat. In the interim, we are texting my brother and his family who had 2:30 lunch reservations at the Plaza Restaurant.
While we are ending our meal, we receive a text that our room is now ready. We drive across the road and find our room. I'm a bit skeptical of the location. Yes, it is very close to Hospitality House as we requested. However, our room is right on the entrance road into Old Key West. I'm concerned about traffic noise. Gene thinks it will be fine. Okay. When we arrived at the room, there was a tag on the doorknob that indicated the room was currently being serviced. However, no-one was inside and we figured it had been left in error.
We drag our luggage in and leave the unpacking for later.
Crossing the road once again, we catch a Magic Kingdom bus and are soon at the park. As already described, we have three fastpass + reservations for this afternoon. We reach the park just as it is time for our Peter Pan fastpass so head directly there and this becomes our first ride of the trip. When we exit, we text my brother and decide to head over towards the new section of Fantasyland. I've remembered that we never even peeked inside Gaston's. We make a u-turn when my brother returns my text saying he had just gotten off Splash Mountain and was headed our way. We decide to meet in Frontierland by the River Boat landing. Since the boat is boarding, we decide to take the ride. The Magic Kingdom is mobbed this day. Even the river boat ride is quite full which is unusual. When we exit, we decide to check out the Ariel ride so do that. Gene & I had fastpasses for Winnie the Pooh and Gene asks Sam, my 6 year old nephew if he wants to go with me. He says he does not. We're headed in that direction so Gene & I can ride when Sam asks to ride the Carousel. My brother's family heads to that while Gene & I do our Winnie the Pooh ride. We meet back up after that and decide we should exit the park before the Spectromagic Parade begins. Folks had already been claiming sidewalk space when we entered the park around 5 - a full three hours before the parade was slated to begin. Now, all the viewing areas are crowded with folks so we march down the center of Main Street and out of the park.
We do not use our third set of fastpass+ reservations on this day.
Since we had a late lunch and my brother's family had also had a late lunch, we head over to Bay Lake Tower to go to the Top of the World for drinks, appetizers, and fireworks viewing. We end up taking the monorail over and then walk from there to Bay Lake Tower. We spend some time catching up. We also find that the bartender who used to work at the Tune In Lounge now tends bar at Top of the World. When the fireworks begin, we move out of doors and have a lovely view from there. After the fireworks, my brother heads to the monorail to go to the Ticket & Transportation Center to reclaim his car while Gene & I walk back to the Magic Kingdom to catch a bus back to Old Key West.
Once home, we complete our unpacking. I still have a bath bomb from our last trip so head for a tubby. My, my - I should have started running the water for this tub earlier. The tub here is huge! I finally settle into bed close to midnight.
Sunday rolls around. Carolyn picks us up and, after a wrong turn and drive around the airport, she leaves us at the front door of the hotel. We are able to check in early and are even upgraded in view. We drop our bags and head downstairs for lunch at the hotel restaurant. We spend the afternoon relaxing - reading the newspaper, watching the football game, napping, and watching a feel-good holiday movie. Not really hungry, we head back to the restaurant where we each order a bowl of clam chowder and a sandwich to split. Too much food - should have ordered cups of soup rather than bowls!
Back to the room hang out a while later and head off to sleep. Around 2, my phone dings and lets me know it is now snowing out. We had set a 5:30 wake up call. We get up, find there's a coating of snow and some roads are indeed icy. We pack up - what little we had taken out overnight, check out and take the shuttle to the terminal.
Bag check and security are both smooth. With enough time on our hands, we stop for breakfast. Still not really hungry but I do order eggs with ham and breakfast potatoes- hold the toast. I eat the eggs and most of the ham - only taste of the potatoes. We head to our gate. Despite the weather, our flight is listed as being on time. We do, in fact board on time but are told we must de-ice. That process means we take off more than 1/2 hour late - not too shabby! Our seat mate is heading to Disney as well. She will be staying at Riverside and has not made any fastpass + reservations saying she likes to decide on which park she will be in without pre- planning.
Thankfully, there were no problems with the flight and we landed safely in Orlando even though we were a bit behind schedule. Within short order, we made our way to the baggage carousel, collected our luggage, dragged it across the street and selected our mid-size rental. Ironically, the Dodge Avenger that weselected has Massachusetts plates on it.
We point the car towards Disney World. Generally, if we make a wrong turn, it is by taking the wrong road out of the airport. On this arrival day, we expertly exit the airport and are on the right road. We're so proud of ourselves! Too soon. Gene thinks we should take a different exit to Disney World than the one listed on the road signs. We get onto Disney property. I think we're going the wrong way. Gene thinks not. Soon we are at the gates for the Ticket and Transportation Center (We, of course, are heading to Old Key West.) We get back on track and find our resort.
Once there, we park and head inside to check in. Check-in only takes a few minutes BUT....in addition to our room not being ready yet (Not a biggie since we have arrived prior to official checkin time), they do, indeed, have magic bands waiting for us at checkin. I, however, have the set we received in the mail. I'm told the bands we received in the mail will do everything we want EXCEPT open our resort room door. To accomplish that, we will need to visit the concierge desk to have the bands we brought with us "linked" to our room. No, I'm assured that will not affect anything else on our existing bands. As it happened, a woman who works the concierge desk was overhearing our conversation - she had been blowing up balloons for arriving kiddos since, until that moment, concierge was not busy. She came over to "link" our room to our customized bands. Oops! What happened to all Gene's fastpass+ reservations. Now, we can only see fastpass+ reservations for one - not two. The lovely lady from concierge says she will come sit with us in the lobby and get it all fixed up for us. Except for one day, we are essentially unable to copy one set of fastpass+ times to a second - either because the requested times are no longer available or the requests violate rules that were instituted after our fastpass+ reservations were made. Twenty minutes later, she prints us a new itinerary. In some cases, she had to make a second fastpass+ reservation for Gene that only partially crosses over with my existing one. For example, on Monday, the day we arrived, we originally had fast passes for Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and Big Thunder Mountain. When concierge finishes with us, Gene has a fastpass for Peter Pan from 3:25 - 4:25 which she crosses out on our printed Iternerary. I have a fastpas from 4:55 - 5:55 and concierge created one for Gene from 5:00 - 6:00 pm. To ride together, we can enter between 5:00 and 5:55 She was able to match the Pooh and Thunder Mountain fast passes. She tries to convince us that the new system is wonderful but I'm currently not convinced!
Our original plan was to head directly to the Magic Kingdom and grab hot dogs from Casey's. I am far too hungry at this point to wait until I arrive at the Magic Kingdom. We decide to head to Olivia's for something to eat. In the interim, we are texting my brother and his family who had 2:30 lunch reservations at the Plaza Restaurant.
While we are ending our meal, we receive a text that our room is now ready. We drive across the road and find our room. I'm a bit skeptical of the location. Yes, it is very close to Hospitality House as we requested. However, our room is right on the entrance road into Old Key West. I'm concerned about traffic noise. Gene thinks it will be fine. Okay. When we arrived at the room, there was a tag on the doorknob that indicated the room was currently being serviced. However, no-one was inside and we figured it had been left in error.
We drag our luggage in and leave the unpacking for later.
Crossing the road once again, we catch a Magic Kingdom bus and are soon at the park. As already described, we have three fastpass + reservations for this afternoon. We reach the park just as it is time for our Peter Pan fastpass so head directly there and this becomes our first ride of the trip. When we exit, we text my brother and decide to head over towards the new section of Fantasyland. I've remembered that we never even peeked inside Gaston's. We make a u-turn when my brother returns my text saying he had just gotten off Splash Mountain and was headed our way. We decide to meet in Frontierland by the River Boat landing. Since the boat is boarding, we decide to take the ride. The Magic Kingdom is mobbed this day. Even the river boat ride is quite full which is unusual. When we exit, we decide to check out the Ariel ride so do that. Gene & I had fastpasses for Winnie the Pooh and Gene asks Sam, my 6 year old nephew if he wants to go with me. He says he does not. We're headed in that direction so Gene & I can ride when Sam asks to ride the Carousel. My brother's family heads to that while Gene & I do our Winnie the Pooh ride. We meet back up after that and decide we should exit the park before the Spectromagic Parade begins. Folks had already been claiming sidewalk space when we entered the park around 5 - a full three hours before the parade was slated to begin. Now, all the viewing areas are crowded with folks so we march down the center of Main Street and out of the park.
We do not use our third set of fastpass+ reservations on this day.
Since we had a late lunch and my brother's family had also had a late lunch, we head over to Bay Lake Tower to go to the Top of the World for drinks, appetizers, and fireworks viewing. We end up taking the monorail over and then walk from there to Bay Lake Tower. We spend some time catching up. We also find that the bartender who used to work at the Tune In Lounge now tends bar at Top of the World. When the fireworks begin, we move out of doors and have a lovely view from there. After the fireworks, my brother heads to the monorail to go to the Ticket & Transportation Center to reclaim his car while Gene & I walk back to the Magic Kingdom to catch a bus back to Old Key West.
Once home, we complete our unpacking. I still have a bath bomb from our last trip so head for a tubby. My, my - I should have started running the water for this tub earlier. The tub here is huge! I finally settle into bed close to midnight.