Irma at WDW Trip Report - The Good
Rather than giving a blow-by-blow, day-by-day report, I just want to keep it short and readable. So, I am breaking it up into "The Good", "The Mediocre", and "The Ugly".
We drove down on Friday/Saturday from Virginia, in spite of the forecast and impending threat of Hurricane Irma. More than a few people questioned our sanity or wisdom in doing so. But here was our thinking:
1. We really needed a vacation, and my wife was supposed to be at a conference at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island (outside of Jacksonville) on Friday/Saturday, the 15th and 16th of September. We had annual passes, and enough DVC points to pay for a room at OKW from Sat - Thursday. So, my wife's work would pay for gas to and from Jacksonville, and two nights at the Ritz-Carlton. DVC points would cover the hotel at Disney, and annual passes get us into the park. So, our only outlay would be the hotel nights on the way down and back, and whatever food/souvenirs we buy. That's a pretty cheap vacation.
2. The hurricane was either going to go up the middle of Florida, weakening considerably, or go up one of the coasts, meaning that Orlando wouldn't get the full fury of the storm. Orlando is not prone to flooding, and is not on a river, nor are they any huge lakes with levy's (think Lake Ponchartrain). Plus, Disney is very well prepared for these kinds of events.
So, we figured if we could get to Orlando, we wouldn't have any problems. We packed extra water and gas, just in case, and headed down.
So, here's "The Good":
1. Traffic! It was amazing (for obvious reasons). Fastest trip down, ever.
2. No lines! The day before the hurricane, and the entire week after, the parks were relatively light. We rarely used our fast passes, and pretty much walked on to everything. The only time we had to wait more than 10 minutes for anything was the Navi River Journey. We waited about 25 minutes for that ride. We even walked up to Be Our Guest on Tuesday to see if we could get in for breakfast, and they let us right in. ADR's were easy to come by, as well.
3. Disney's Hurricane service. They do a good job keeping spirits up at the resorts. They had boxed meals available for very reasonable prices ($6/person) that you could either eat there at the restaurant, or take back to your room. Our A/C was actually out on Saturday evening, and when I called to report it on Sunday morning I totally expected them to say that they didn't have anyone available (thinking that they would all be involved in hurricane prep) and that they would have to move us. But no, they sent engineering right over, and our A/C was restored within 30 minutes. It was awesome. They also had Mickey, Pluto, Chip, and Dale over in the main buildings just wandering around, cheering people up. Go to YouTube and search for "Dale Does Algebra".
