ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

At 6:37 a.m. we were in our minivan headed toward the airport for our 8:43 departure - everybody dressed in Disney shirts (previously purchased on ebay but many people along the way thought we must be returning from WDW) and all 8 bags packed up and ready to go. I was a little embarrassed to have so much packed but as I came to find out, it was good to be prepared and have no regrets at bringing sooo much stuff with me. Everybody was in great spirits (why shouldn't they be - we're going to WDW!) and I spent the ride to the airport getting rid of the "did I forget something?" voice that was stuck in my head.

Waiting at airport

We drive up to curbside check in and there's a pretty long line. That's ok, we're here 2 hours early so we'll just park at the curb and when I get to the front of the line, DH will bring all 8 bags over so they can be checked. I had given him 1 assignment and that was to affix our ME tags onto our luggage and that still had not been done! He spent the whole time doing that plus writing out our luggage tags with our name and phone number on them (if you want something done right....). Finally get our bags checked and we're off to drive to the remote parking to leave our van for the week. Park, walk to the terminal to catch the bus to return to the terminal and 3 year old has to go potty. He's fairly newly potty trained and so when he says "i got to go potty" we run. Missed our first bus opportunity and by the time we get to our gate, SIL has called our cell wondering where we are as our plane is loading and they are not boarding without knowing we are also going to be able to. We make it and board all 8 of us. We are seated in adjoining rows.

DN2 (Joey) falls asleep on this flight and DS (Blake) is fussy so we try to entertain him. Finally land at our layover and I give him half a chewable Dramamine for our next flight (he needs this in order to sleep somewhere that isn't a bed). Grab lunch on our layover and we're off on flight #2. DS falls asleep and we have a good flight as a result. :-) Our trek using ME went as follows:

3:55 p.m. - land at MCO
4:21 p.m. - @ ME desk
4:41 p.m. - sitting on bus
4:54 p.m. - bus departs airport
5:30 p.m. or so - arrive at BWV

On Magical Express bus

We check in at BWV and I request that our previously purchased park tickets be added to our room keys for convenience. This takes some time but they do it for all of us. We get to our rooms and our luggage is almost all there already - 11 out of 13 bags have been delivered! Just one big problem: our only request was to have our rooms near each other and we really aren't very close. We had a Boardwalk view and Family 2 had standard. We loved the Boardwalk view room we were given but DH was insistent we be closer to Family 2. After much pleading with the front desk (and he even asked we be moved to another resort if needed), they find us a preferred view room next to Family #2. This didn't compare to the Boardwalk view in the least but it was much, much better being closer to Family #2. Crisis averted. Whew. Now on to the fact that 2 of our bags aren't here....1 of them was my bag that contained some food items for our room (no big deal). The other was SIL's clothes. She was told it would be there by midnight. Off we go for our 8:20 PS at Chef Mickey's. I had tried to get it moved earlier but now we are running just right up against time so it's a good thing it was 8:20. Off on our first adventure using Disney transportation. Had to ask where the bus stop was, found it and waited just a few minutes for an MK bus to come along. Take it to MK and then have to ask where the monorail station is. Get on the monorail for the short ride over to the Contemporary. Make it to Chef Mickey's right at 8:20. Takes 10-15 minutes for us to get seated (I requested main room at check in per TGM/TGMers suggestions - great idea) and we are all seated and ready to eat after a long and stressful day of travel. Everybody has a lot of fun and finds food they like. The character interaction was great and we got some cute pictures. This was to be the highlight of the day and really helped stopped the tension that had been building.



At Chef Mickey's

Afterward, we get on monorail to the TTC because I figured we could get a bus from there to our hotel. We get there and there isn't one so we walk back toward monorail station and it's closed. Oh no.....just what we need! We take ferry back to MK and Wishes fireworks are going off so we watch those. Make our way to the bus area and catch Boardwalk bus from there. We're finally back to our hotel. SIL's bag is still not there. They tell her it may arrive in the middle of the night and if not, she can buy new clothing in the gift shop. She's pretty laid back and will work with that. BIL and SIL have flowers delivered to the room as a thank you for planning the trip. :-) Finally end our day around midnight or so but we're still committed to being on the first bus to MK tomorrow morning!


Flowers sent to me

Best TGM tip of the day: Don't plan too much on arrival day - arrival day is stressful and tiring enough!

My tip of the day: Know the transportation system to and from your hotel better. I had the transportation article from TGM printed out and in my binder but should have looked at the transportation from the hotel better perhaps.

Next up: Day 2: MK with 4 crabby kids and the red shirts! Plus bikes and boats on the Boardwalk!