Alright! We are finally home, settled back in, totally unpacked, and ready to report! Here we go!
November 25th - the day before we left - was a flurry of busy activity! We finished packing completely that morning and boy did we pack! 2 adults, 2 kids, 11 days resulted in ALOT of baggage! Only the biggest two were checked bags, all of the other ones were carry on bags and let me tell you - HUGE mistake (will talk more about that later).
I decided to have the kids skip naptime in hopes they'd fall asleep early and not be *too* cranky when they had to get up at 1:30am. This idea also ended up backfiring on me.... I took the kids outside after lunch and we played hard until about 4:30pm. Unfortunately Levi couldn't last any longer and fell asleep at 5:45pm. Ava hung out with me finalizing last minute details for the trip and she went to bed at 8:30pm. Grammy (my mom - Ava calls her NeeNee or Grammy) got here around 9:30pm and headed straight to bed. Unfortunately, about 10:30pm just as I was heading to bed, Levi woke up and decided it was time to party... No amount of begging could get him to go back to bed - so I gave in and faced the fact that I was heading to Disney on ZERO sleep.... We hung out by the fireplace, watched movies, and surfed the DIS. Finally at 1:30am I woke everyone up and we were all up, dressed, and ready to go by 2:30am! We made all of our t-shirts for the trip, but splurged on some awesome "I'm Going to Walt Disney World" shirts from Etsy for the trip down there! We loved them! Everyone was in a great mood except for Levi who was finally ready for bed now that it was time to leave...
We loaded up the car and headed to the airport in Charlotte, NC. We reserved a private parking service ahead of time - Charlotte Park N Go - and were very happy with their service!! We arrived to Park N Go about 3:30am and we were immediately directed to a parking spot with a shuttle right behind us to pick us up. The gentleman driving the shuttle bus unloaded all of our luggage from our car and loaded it into the shuttle. The drive to the airport was less than 5 minutes and they dropped us off and unloaded our luggage right outside the Delta check in desk. We checked our two largest bags - 35lbs and 38lbs - perfect! At this point Grammy still didn't realize we were spending our first two nights at Animal Kingdom Villas, so I figured now was a great time to spill the beans! I had her look at our Magical Express tags and ask her if she saw anything 'odd'. She looked them over and didn't find it, so I told her to read all the wording out-loud and the look on her face when she realized they said Animal Kingdom Villas - Kidani was PRICELESS! I wish I had caught it on camera! She was SO excited!!
We then headed through security which was a challenge with Levi since he didn't want to get out of the sling and made a huge scene.... Being up since 10pm and it was now 4:30am - it wasn't pretty! We finally made it though and realized our first big mistake of the trip.... Lugging two tired kids through the airport without a stroller and with 3 carry on suitcases, 1 large duffle, 1 large camera bag, 1 boarding tote, and 1 diaper bag.... We finally made it down to our gate, grabbed coffee and Cinnabon, and it was time to board!
The flight was at 100% capacity - not one single empty seat - so thankfully Delta called for any carry on items that anyone wanted to check for free! Unfortunately the 3 carry on suitcases had items that I needed immediately upon arrival to our hotel, so we couldn't check those - or my camera bag - but we did check the huge duffle (which we found out wouldn't have fit in the overhead bin anyway). We boarded without issue, quickly found our seats, and settled in. I love that Delta does family boarding - we boarded before first class and all other zones which was great! By the time we got to our seats we realized someone else was in our seat... They also claimed to have that seat assignment, so we called a flight attendant over and she checked both of our tickets and sure enough we had booked seats 36 A&B and 37 A&B and this other family had picked those seats upon booking as well. The flight attendant said she'd be back in a few minutes and needed to check something out. I was VERY worried since it was a completely full flight and I had no idea if we'd be bumped or not. Thankfully she came back and gave us new seat assignments and everything was good to go!
Ready to go!
The flight to Atlanta was super simple and very quick - only 34 minutes of airtime!! Not even enough time to pretzels and sprite much to Ava's dismay!
The only negative of the flight was that Levi did not understand why he couldn't sit in my lap for takeoff and landing and didn't appreciate having to put on his seatbelt....
Waiting in line to take off!!
Midway between Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA
Unfortunately both kids fell asleep, so no we had two sleeping kids + 6 pieces of carry on items to carry... I put Levi in the sling and mom woke Ava up (which resulted in a VERY cranky Ava!) and we lugged everything off the plane and found our connection. Of course our connecting flight had to be at a gate WAY across the massive Atlanta airport!
We finally made it to our other gate and had about 20 minutes before we started boarding. A quick potty break for everyone and it was time to board! Again we got to board first, quickly found our seats, and we were ready to go!
This flight had a 61 minute airtime, so snacks were served! Ava fell asleep again, but Levi enjoyed pretzels and juice!
We landed in Orlando and went from a chilly 42* to a wonderful 76* - BLISS! We found Magical Express easily and headed right into the Animal Kingdom Lodge line. We were immediately directed to a bus and hopped on!
We left within 5 minutes and arrived to our first stop in a little less than 1/2 hour - Art of Animation! Most of the bus departed here - popular place for sure! We caught sight of a bit of the resort and it looks so fun!! I can't wait to stay here one day!! Our next stop was Pop Century where a few people got off the bus. Finally we arrived at our stop - Animal Kingdom Villas! They stopped at Kidani first!
Ava was sooo excited when she found out she'd be able to see animals from her balcony!!
Levi wasn't as impressed, but that's expected from a 2 year old...
Grammy was super excited when we pulled in!
We hopped off the ME bus, grabbed our carry on items, and headed inside! It was so, so beautiful! It was my first time in the Kidani lobby - last time were stayed at AKL, Kidani was in the early stages of building! It was breathtakingly beautiful just like Jambo house! Mom was just in awe at the detail - she said it was like nothing she could ever imagine...
We had done online check-in so our packet was ready to go! A CM instructed us to just have a seat in the lobby and she'd bring over everything for us! I also told her we had rented a stroller from Baby Wheels Orlando and she brought that right out to us! She gave us our packet and showed us our room and unfortunately our requests weren't honored. I has asked for a 'low' floor and also close to the lobby. We were on the 5th floor and about as far from the lobby as we could possibly be. I briefly considered requesting a room change, but because we'd only be there for 2 nights/3 days I decided to leave it be. We started the trek to our room and boy oh boy was it just that - a trek! It took us nearly 10 minutes to get to our room....
Here's a map of AKV Kidani and the red dot was our room...
Our room was clean and beautiful and had a great Savannah view! We had some Giraffes having an afternoon snack right outside our balcony! We unpacked our carry on bags which had all our clothes and necessities for the first 3 days of our trip and within 30 minutes of arrival Bell Services knocked on the door with our remaining luggage. It was close to our reservation time for Sanaa, so we quickly finished unpacking, soaked up a little more atmosphere from the balcony, and headed to lunch!
Next up: More AKV and Sanaa!
I'm here! Can't wait to hear more about your trip! 
(Added the banana b/c I miss him. FB should get a dancing banana!) ~Tami
(You know this though...I'm Christine from the FB group! 
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