Walking Up!
So here we are walking up to Port Orleans Riverside! I should be exhausted! I was up all night driving, but I was feeling nothing but happiness! All of the Christmas decorations were amazing. (Christmas decorations are a big deal in my house)
I was pleasantly surprised to see Birdie. I had read a lot about this sweet man but had no idea if he worked on weekends. Well he was there today. He was chatting with some guests but I could tell he was on the lookout for children it seemed. I was carrying Mattie across the little street from the parking lot because there were a lot of buses at the moment. As we approached the doors he made a beeline to us and handed Mattie and Nathan a stack of stickers which Mattie was happy to take!
So we walked in an two things amazed me. First how crazy busy it was in the lobby. It was about 10:30AM on Saturday. Not sure if that was families checking in or checking out or both or the holidays. The second amazing thing was...
What a tree!
Checking In!
I had opted to do the Online Check In from the internet. I forget exactly the pros and cons about online checkin now but even though I had a metric ton of research on what building I wanted in Alligator Bayou I think I ultimately figured since it was my first trip there I didn't really care about the building location because I knew that A) we had the van so bus service was not a worry B) I knew we would not be doing breakfast at food court as we were going to be eating in room. I think I ended up asking for a first floor room as I did not want to carry bags up stairs. I am glad I decided to do it because there was one person in line at the online check in and a really long line of at least 20 waiting in the regular check in line.
What WAS I Celebrating?!
Check In was my first experience with a Disney Cast Member in person besides Birdie. I don't remember her name but she was really good. Very sweet. She pulled my reservation up and asked me very matter-of-factly. "What are you celebrating?" I said "umm I don't know?... my Birthday was last week?" She told me "Happy Birthday!" then lead me on with.. "Any anniversary's, honeymoon's, etc?" I had nothing... It all made sense when a moment later she handed me 5 My First Visit pins and a It's My Birthday pin.
She let me know that the room was not ready ( We were 4 hours before check in time
) but that I would be texted when it was. I was given all of my documentation and I went over to a window seat where Jen was keeping the kids busy.
Mattie started to make good use of the stickers Birdie gave her.
Exploring Port Orleans!
Port Orleans is a very pretty resort. I felt the immersion factor and with a small amount of imagination I felt like I was transported back in time to the deep south. I had seen so many of the structures in other s photos it was really cool to finally see them up close!
Jen taking a photo of me taking a photo!
We decided to head over to the bridges that go to the Waterwheel and then over to O'l Man Island.
We got to the Water Wheel and took a few photos
The Most Uncomfortable Moment of Trip!
OK so here we are about to turn around and head back down this ramp from water wheel when I heard someone yelling. A family was coming up the ramp towards us. Fast moving angry yelling Father in front, followed by embarrassed preteen girl, older teenage boy looking down at his phone while walking, and a very sad looking mother who was trying to stop crying.
Michael like a lot of kids on the spectrum will 'stem'. In his case that means there is a lot of walking around in sort of random small circles with an action figure or something in his hands, he will make some some noises and talk to himself. In his head a great adventure or important battle is happening where he is guiding this action figure through it. To an outsider most of the time he is someone not paying attention and in his way.
Of course Mattie is three and always in someones way. Well when I saw this very angry animated man storming up the walkway I thought to myself 'I need to get the kids out of his way'. They were near railing by water wheel and I was on the other side. I quickly shot across and rangled Michael and Mattie to the railing but at that moment Nathan darted across back in front of this guy. He had to stop short of tripping on Nathan. He let the world know that Nathan had further ruined his day by letting out a "G.D.M.F'r" in front of my kids.
I try not to judge people nor am I very prone to jump in to anyone's personal family business. There was a time maybe ten years ago I would have reacted VERY badly to this but I just apologized loudly as he kept on walking and advised Nathan to make sure he was not running out in front of people. His daughter and son walked past and then his wife. Through tears she said "I am sorry about that" or something similar.
By this time, Angry man had made it to the turn (you can see it in picture above) and he stopped to wait on his family with a loud "Come ON!". The daughter was there in a sec and son 5 seconds later. The son never stopped looking at his phone. When the son got close to the father at the turn I heard. "And You with this F'ng phone!" He then open handed punch/pushed his sons shoulder and it caused him to drop the phone. His wife erupted at this point yelling at him to 'Stop ruining everyone's day!" and "You look like an A'hole". Father was already storming around the other side of the building with family in tow.
Jennifer mouthed "WOW!' at me and Nathan had no idea what was going on and asked why he was so mad. I told him I didn't know. At the time I made a half hearted joke about "The Happiest Place on the Earth", but later decided to ask God to give him grace and patience.
A Little More Resort Exploring...
We headed back over the big bridge to Ol' Man Island. The pool was pretty awesome although for some reason I thought it would be bigger. The kids asked if they could swim and I said sure, when we come back from a break at the parks one day we would go. We brought swim suits for all of us.
We walked around and ended up at some hammocks.
We continued walking until we got to the little outdoor bar at the pool. I decided to turn us around because we had not checked out the gift shop. So we hiked back to the lobby and went in to gift shop.
Mattie loves Chip n Dale. Sadly every meet n greet or appearance they were already gone by the time we got there!
Jennifer wanted some of these charm bracelets but even she thought they were too expensive. We had to save our meager souvenir budget. (or at least that was the plan)
Jennifer had me take a photo so that her matching Minnie Mouse fingernails were displayed!
Your Room is Ready!
About this time ( a whole 40 minutes later ) we got the text the room was ready. I had some ideas about which buildings I would like to stay in. I didn't whip the check in lady with building requests. I was booked on the standard room so I expected to get a parking lot view.
We were upgraded a bit by to a Garden View. Building 38 room 3801. First Floor. I was excited we got a small upgrade and that first floor because at my size unpacking our massive travel load of luggage and toting it upstairs had very little appeal.
In my mind I really didn't care where the building was as I had said already because I had my own transportation and given my families general tardiness and the fact I wanted to make rope drop on multiple days I knew we would not be going to the food court.
We purchased three autograph books at the gift shop and loaded back in to the van to go find our room. I looked at the map and saw where 38 was located so we drove around. When we got there I had to park fairly far away from room buildings in the back of the lot. The last section we were in was packed with cars.
So as we walked to building 38. While I am a die hard NASCAR fan now I had played many a football game and was remarking in my head that the distance from back of parking lot to room was over 100 yards easily. I was right it is about 150 yards.
We opted to just get out of van and walk to room to check it out first. We did not have to be at Epcot until our first Fastpass and 3:20pm. It was barely noon. I didn't get a lot of pictures of the room because we would probably mess it up in 30 minutes. We were greeted with a towel Mickey. At this point I explained what hidden Mickey's were and sent the kids looking around the room.
The pull down murphy style bed was tucked up but you could see some white sheet sticking out. It had a handle and after a while Nathan couldn't figure out what it was he asked. I explained to him without pulling it down is that it was where he would sleep. I could tell he thought I was talking about the little cushion bench seat. He started to get a little mad and asked "Why can't I sleep in a bed?!" I pulled it down at that point and he got SO excited! He felt very special that this was his OWN bed. Michael would sleep with me and Mattie with Jen.
At this point the quote for the trip report title was uttered. Nathan will sometimes make a super big deal out of something that he thinks his big brother would like. As we are pointing out cool things around the room and I commented on how I liked the would plank tile in the shower we hear a sudden, excited... "OOOOOHHHHH!!!" from Nathan. He lifts up the trash can from near the table and says... "Michael look! They gave us an extra trash basket!" He was sooo excited he thought he found something so cool! Jennfier and I giggled because Michael went over and picked it up fully expecting it to be something amazing and just said... "Nathan, its just a trash basket..." Nathan said "Yeah but we have two!"
Our Magical Gift from Lesli... I Mean Mickey!
Y'all didn't forget we were meeting our friends and trip mates for Dinner at Coral Reef at 5:50PM? Well as I was on my 3rd of 4 trips from van to building I got a call from Leslie. They had arrived and checked their bags at Art of Animation and went to have Breakfast at AKL and then had been at Epcot all day.
Leslie had been fretting all the many months of planning that my kids would not get a special souveniors because we had a limited budget so she had arranged for Disney Florist to deliver to our resort 3 Mickey Ears with each of the kids names monogrammed on to the back. The plan was that they would have been waiting in the room at our resort when we got there from The Big Cheese himself!
Leslie was calling to see if the kids liked them. I had forgotten about the hats and let her know that there were none in our room. I volunteered to go to the gift shop to see if they had been delivered. I finished unpacking at 1:30 and drove back around to the gift shop. They were not there. I called Leslie and let her know. They were trying to order counter service from somewhere in Epcot and she started to panic. I told her to eat and I would go to front desk.
These cast members are awesome. I explained the situation to the concierge cast member and 10 minutes later she had tracked them down to them having been to Leslie's room at AOA. They had not been to room yet so they had no idea. The cast member then called Leslie and asked permission to enter room and retrieve our hats and have them driven over to POR. They would be in our rooms by the evening! Amazing service! I stopped at the food court and picked up our resort mugs and headed back to room.
When I got back the kids were watching old Disney Cartoons and Jennifer was on the phone with our realtor. After three months on the market and dropping price a few times we had a legit interested buyer for our current house! The offer sort of low but we accepted with the idea that regardless of home inspection we would not pay a dime in to fixing any issues. It was happy news. They had viewed our hose 2 times and wanted a 3rd showing!
I took a shower to feel human and laid down at 1:30and caught about 30 minute nap as much as you can do with three kids in a 300ish sq ft room can do. I got up and we all changed clothes and to head to Epcot.
Up next... Surprising Kids and Sea Base is Very Cool!