Joyciemc
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2002
This was a trip almost 2 years in the making. The thing I looked forward to day and night for months and months. It's over. Bummer, huh? It seriously was hard to take coming home. Things got a little better when we figured out that we'd be back SUPER soon (for a very quick weekend trip in December!), but I still miss this trip. It was fantabulous. It really was. And exhausting. As they always are.
If you've read my TRs in the past, then you may remember that I am Joyce. I work at an animal shelter and it is almost as exhausting as a WDW trip. But dirtier and with more angry people.
Ben is my DH and he is in sales and works from home. He loves WDW, too. Which makes things much easier when it comes time to pick a vacation!
This time around, we were joined by our very good friends- Jen and Eric (they had code names in the PTR, but with pictures and the fact that I keep typing their real names... screw it!) I met Jen when she was hired to work at the shelter, 6 year ago. She doesn't work there anymore, but we have remained super close. All four of us get along remarkably well. And to top it off, they recently moved to the same city we live in. Fun! They also love WDW, but hadn't done much planning on previous trips. They gave me total control to plan our trip. I don't know if they regret doing that.
We were staying in studios, first at Boardwalk Villas 10/13-10/17 and then Bay Lake Tower 10/17-10/21. I was worried about the small size of the room, but we are good friends and are all pretty polite. We pretty much made a pact to poop in other places as often as possible, and that made sharing the space much more managable.
So... let's do this!
Our trip started insanely early in the morning. I have a text that I sent Jen the night before that reads: Aiming for your house at 3:45 in the morning. Ouch Her reply: Yuck. OK These were sent around 9:30pm, when both households were STILL packing. I am always last minute, but this extra took the cake!
I am not sure when we finally went to bed, but I know I had a hard time sleeping. I got out of bed easily enough when I remembered what was on the agenda for the day! Ben and I stumbled around and managed to get everything situated to leave the house on time. One last look at the coutdown:
Our bags were all ready to go!
And off we went to pick up Jen and Eric. They were not exactly bright-eyed and bushy tailed, but there was a touch of excitement in the car on our trip to RI. We picked up Ben's dad so he could drive us to the airport, and we were at TF Green in no time.
Once through security (which included a nice little pat-down session for me- sexy!), Ben and Eric stopped at Starbuck's for coffees, and Jen and I continued to Dunks for some breakfast (yep, we're from New England, but gosh do we not enjoy Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Their breakfast sandwiches, though, we do love!). We were waiting in line for quite a while and started to think we must've missed the boys as they passed by us. Ben had my phone in his backpack, and Eric wasn't answering his, so we just kept waiting. We finally spotted them heading our way just as we were getting close to the counter. Incidentally, the lady in front of us waited all this time to just decide right then to get out of line. She as all, I will wait 12 minutes, but gosh-darn it, I will not wait 15!!
Once we had our food, we found our gate and settled down to eat.
As became a habit on the trip, we banished Ben far away and he took our picture.
Because something weird hadn't happened in a few minutes, it was of course right on cue that we noticed a couple of very interesting women who were standing at the Southwest line up poles. Do you know what I mean? The ones with numbers to organize the boarding groups? They had not started asking folks to line up yet, but these ladies were standing there holding their index fingers up (#1) and looking around. They must've been excited to be first on the plane! Unfortunately for them, Southwest doesn't seat by who lines up first, but by the boarding number. So the four of us were first on the plane. The #1 ladies had to wait a bit.
We got settled in two rows right up front and before too long, here came our #1 ladies to sit right behind us. And what did they bring with them? An odor. I very gross, very distinct odor that I don't think I can explain on a Disney forum. Eric didn't seem to notice, but the rest of us had matching looks of horror on our faces as we thought about the next 2.5 hours. Fortunately, once they stopped rustling around and sat still, we stopped noticing the smell. I will say that I was thoroughly entertained listening to them talk about Disney throughout the flight. And I got the impression that the woman who sat next to them may have been a DISer (she certainly knew her Disney facts and tried her best to help correct some of the misinformation the other ladies had)
Once we were airborne, we got much anticipated bloody Mary's.
I read a bit, then dozed a bit. Ben chatted up the very nice woman sitting next to him. He pretty much never stops talking. We landed right on time, and I directed everyone toward Magical Express land. We found no line at all, and only had to wait a little while. Jen was excited:
We spent the drive to WDW taking pictures and acting goofy. As you do.
Upon arriving at the Boardwalk, we were all still in shock that we were actually here. This place is lovely. And creepy
We got in line for on-line check in, and before we could get up to the counter, a CM named Nic approached us and asked for our name. He took Ben's ID and left to get our packet. He was gone for about 14 years. We started to wonder if Nic even worked for Disney, or if he had just stolen Ben's identity. As we all began to fade further and further into wobbly piles of starving humans, Nic finally came back. Turns out the trip (which was booked using our DVC membership) was under Jen & Eric's last name. Weird. But Nic tracked it down and our room was ready! So off we went... and went. And went. Those hallways are ridiculous. And we were at the verrrrrrrrrry end. Along the way, we had time to talk about our plan. I had thought originally that we'd want to rest a bit if our room was ready. But we were all starving. And giddy with the thought of how close we were to Epcot. So plans for resting got thrown out, the way they always do for me on arrival day. Oh, and we also eventually got to our room:
I don't have any pictures of it. It was nice. Small, but adequate. We had a view of a quiet pool.
Day 1, Part 2 here.
If you've read my TRs in the past, then you may remember that I am Joyce. I work at an animal shelter and it is almost as exhausting as a WDW trip. But dirtier and with more angry people.
Ben is my DH and he is in sales and works from home. He loves WDW, too. Which makes things much easier when it comes time to pick a vacation!
This time around, we were joined by our very good friends- Jen and Eric (they had code names in the PTR, but with pictures and the fact that I keep typing their real names... screw it!) I met Jen when she was hired to work at the shelter, 6 year ago. She doesn't work there anymore, but we have remained super close. All four of us get along remarkably well. And to top it off, they recently moved to the same city we live in. Fun! They also love WDW, but hadn't done much planning on previous trips. They gave me total control to plan our trip. I don't know if they regret doing that.
We were staying in studios, first at Boardwalk Villas 10/13-10/17 and then Bay Lake Tower 10/17-10/21. I was worried about the small size of the room, but we are good friends and are all pretty polite. We pretty much made a pact to poop in other places as often as possible, and that made sharing the space much more managable.
So... let's do this!
Our trip started insanely early in the morning. I have a text that I sent Jen the night before that reads: Aiming for your house at 3:45 in the morning. Ouch Her reply: Yuck. OK These were sent around 9:30pm, when both households were STILL packing. I am always last minute, but this extra took the cake!
I am not sure when we finally went to bed, but I know I had a hard time sleeping. I got out of bed easily enough when I remembered what was on the agenda for the day! Ben and I stumbled around and managed to get everything situated to leave the house on time. One last look at the coutdown:
Our bags were all ready to go!
And off we went to pick up Jen and Eric. They were not exactly bright-eyed and bushy tailed, but there was a touch of excitement in the car on our trip to RI. We picked up Ben's dad so he could drive us to the airport, and we were at TF Green in no time.
Once through security (which included a nice little pat-down session for me- sexy!), Ben and Eric stopped at Starbuck's for coffees, and Jen and I continued to Dunks for some breakfast (yep, we're from New England, but gosh do we not enjoy Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Their breakfast sandwiches, though, we do love!). We were waiting in line for quite a while and started to think we must've missed the boys as they passed by us. Ben had my phone in his backpack, and Eric wasn't answering his, so we just kept waiting. We finally spotted them heading our way just as we were getting close to the counter. Incidentally, the lady in front of us waited all this time to just decide right then to get out of line. She as all, I will wait 12 minutes, but gosh-darn it, I will not wait 15!!
Once we had our food, we found our gate and settled down to eat.
As became a habit on the trip, we banished Ben far away and he took our picture.
Because something weird hadn't happened in a few minutes, it was of course right on cue that we noticed a couple of very interesting women who were standing at the Southwest line up poles. Do you know what I mean? The ones with numbers to organize the boarding groups? They had not started asking folks to line up yet, but these ladies were standing there holding their index fingers up (#1) and looking around. They must've been excited to be first on the plane! Unfortunately for them, Southwest doesn't seat by who lines up first, but by the boarding number. So the four of us were first on the plane. The #1 ladies had to wait a bit.
We got settled in two rows right up front and before too long, here came our #1 ladies to sit right behind us. And what did they bring with them? An odor. I very gross, very distinct odor that I don't think I can explain on a Disney forum. Eric didn't seem to notice, but the rest of us had matching looks of horror on our faces as we thought about the next 2.5 hours. Fortunately, once they stopped rustling around and sat still, we stopped noticing the smell. I will say that I was thoroughly entertained listening to them talk about Disney throughout the flight. And I got the impression that the woman who sat next to them may have been a DISer (she certainly knew her Disney facts and tried her best to help correct some of the misinformation the other ladies had)
Once we were airborne, we got much anticipated bloody Mary's.
I read a bit, then dozed a bit. Ben chatted up the very nice woman sitting next to him. He pretty much never stops talking. We landed right on time, and I directed everyone toward Magical Express land. We found no line at all, and only had to wait a little while. Jen was excited:
We spent the drive to WDW taking pictures and acting goofy. As you do.
Upon arriving at the Boardwalk, we were all still in shock that we were actually here. This place is lovely. And creepy
We got in line for on-line check in, and before we could get up to the counter, a CM named Nic approached us and asked for our name. He took Ben's ID and left to get our packet. He was gone for about 14 years. We started to wonder if Nic even worked for Disney, or if he had just stolen Ben's identity. As we all began to fade further and further into wobbly piles of starving humans, Nic finally came back. Turns out the trip (which was booked using our DVC membership) was under Jen & Eric's last name. Weird. But Nic tracked it down and our room was ready! So off we went... and went. And went. Those hallways are ridiculous. And we were at the verrrrrrrrrry end. Along the way, we had time to talk about our plan. I had thought originally that we'd want to rest a bit if our room was ready. But we were all starving. And giddy with the thought of how close we were to Epcot. So plans for resting got thrown out, the way they always do for me on arrival day. Oh, and we also eventually got to our room:
I don't have any pictures of it. It was nice. Small, but adequate. We had a view of a quiet pool.
Day 1, Part 2 here.