Day 1: Friday, February 25, 2011 - Arriving and Checking In.
Our departure day was filled with a bit of drama. It started at 5:30 AM with Will getting the call that every teacher hopes and dreams of – snow day!
However that’s not what you want to hear with a flight scheduled later on that day…hmm. My first thought after the call was that I wished we’d had an earlier flight since Will’s work schedule no longer mattered, but it turned out to be good that we didn’t – all the earlier flights had been canceled for the day.
Anyhoo, I had the day off as well, so we decided to divide and conquer – Will stayed home taking care of some last-minute stuff (cleaned up a bit, packed, etc.) while I ran out to buy race-day breakfast and drop the Monster-pup off at doggy camp around noon. Here he (Archie) is, all packed and ready for camp…hasn’t quite realized that he’s going yet:
But now he knows! And he’s very excited.
We decided to tempt fate by not snow blowing, and I almost got stuck in the driveway after taking Archie to camp. I got my errands done, but the roads were slick and the snow was still falling heavily. When I came home, I actually did get stuck in the driveway, so we dug the car out, snow blowed, and decided we’d leave for the airport (30 minutes away) at 2:30, even though our flight was not until about 5:30 (and was not delayed!
). We just were not sure how quickly the roads would be cleared.
The snow stopped at 2PM. At 2:20 I got a call from my mom that she and my brother had arrived and checked in at Riverside! Cue jealousy. She said the room was great and they were on their way to Animal Kingdom (or as she called it, "The Africa Thingy"). I asked what building they were in – while making the reservation I requested 14 or 15, and that Will and I be in the same building as Mom and Craig – and she said Oak Manor. Not what I requested, but just as good of a location - I really hoped we were there too.
Back up here in the Arctic, we finished up the packing and relaxed a bit. In the weeks leading up to this trip I had a few disturbing dreams – one involving me getting to Florida and realizing I’d forgotten my running shoes, another with me meeting my first character on the race course only to discover that my camera battery wasn’t charged…horrors.
I was not taking any chances when it came to packing, and double- and triple-checked that I had all of my race day essentials.
We left home around 2:50 and made it to the airport in one piece (the roads were almost bone dry by then – well done, snow plowers!) and got on our flight – we’d be flying to Nashville and then connecting to Orlando. The plane took off about 10 minutes late…we were incredibly lucky that it wasn’t delayed more than that.
Funny story about that flight: our ticket said take-off was at 5:25 and landing was at 6:05. Okay, so a 40-minute flight, and then we’d catch our connector at 7:10. So imagine our horror when it was announced first that the flight would be 1 hour, 18 minutes long…then 1 hour, 30 minutes long!
What was going on here? We were going to miss our connector! I began to think really, REALLY mean things about Southwest – why would they book it this way? Why did the ticket say the flight was 40 minutes when it really wasn’t? – and Will tried to calm me down, but I was so incredibly stressed at this point. We’d been worrying all day that the flight would be delayed, and then it wasn’t, but now this was happening. We told the flight attendant our problem, and she assured us we’d have “plenty of time.” Whaaa? Surely there was someone else on the plane in the same situation – why was no one else freaking out? Eventually we began to wonder if we were changing time zones by flying into Nashville…but the ticket didn’t mention time zones (i.e. our flight took off at 5:25, not 5:25 EST), so we were stumped. When we landed, I turned on my phone. The time flashed as 7:10…then quickly changed to 6:10. Sure enough, we HAD changed time zones and would, as the flight attendant said, have plenty of time to make our connector.
D’oh! And then, of course, when we made it to our next gate we found that our connecting flight was delayed by an hour anyway. Lovely.
We suddenly found ourselves with a lot of time on our hands, so we walked around the Nashville airport a bit.
I just can’t quit you, Starbucks. (I know, I know, who takes pictures at Starbucks? I was trying to figure out how to work my new camera.
)
Will finally found a Fantasy Baseball magazine! (He’d looked for one in the Cleveland airport with no luck.)
Will studied up and occasionally commented on whether or not he agreed with the magazine’s rankings and what they said about the state of baseball today (when Jhonny Peralta is the 13th-best shortstop, you know something’s wrong). I decided to call my mom to check in, and to tell her about our time zone snafu (I still feel really stupid about that , but it’s sort of funny looking back on it). She said they went to Animal Kingdom “the africa thingy” and “did everything.” I needed more details than that! What did they like/not like? What attractions did they go on? The update was that they enjoyed lunch at Flame Tree barbecue and did not get on the Safari (the last one ran at 5:30 and they were too late). My brother did not go on Everest (he thought the line was too long), and they did not “do the Captain Nemo show.” From what I can gather, they pretty much just walked around and looked at stuff, and that was all the detail I got.
My mom said she liked it and compared it to Sea World, but when she says Sea World, she means the Sea World that used to be in Aurora, Ohio – not the one in Orlando. I’ve never been to the one in Orlando, but from what I hear the one we had in Aurora was nowhere near as awesome as the Orlando one is. Hmm.
Anyhoo, we boarded our flight and took off a little later than expected, around 8:40 CST and finally landed in Orlando at around 11:15 (EST!).
We headed to baggage claim, which took quite awhile, and then tried to find our way to the Magical Express area. We couldn’t figure out where the signs pointing us to the DME check-in were – turns out we were in the wrong terminal.
Finally, we made it to the Magical Express area around midnight.
We were only in line for a bus for about 5 minutes, and then were led to the door. The Cast Member was saying “Riverside only!” and I stupidly thought that meant we’d be leaving soon. This was not the case – we waited for about 25 minutes before taking off. The day was starting to catch up to Will, who looked like he was about to collapse (I guess he never got back to sleep after the snow day call). He almost fell asleep on the bus, but then the Welcome video started to play...you know, the one where parents surprise their kids with a trip to Disney. A montage of excited, screaming children. Not great if you want to sleep. I thought Will was going to cry.
After the welcome video, they started playing an old Donald Duck short, “Donald’s Vacation,” which featured him delivering the lines “No respect for the human body” and “Am I mortified” with complete disgust. Loved it! It perked Will right up.
The ride was shorter than I remembered, about 35 minutes (maybe because there was no traffic so late), and I think Riverside was the first stop after our favorite, the Boardwalk.
Check-in was quick and Riverside came through for us – we were in Oak Manor, 3 doors down from Mom and Craig!
We finally got in our room around 1:30 AM:
This was our first stay in a moderate. I thought the room was fine, but Will was surprised that we got 2 double beds – oops! We also weren’t impressed with the shower – low water pressure and the bottom of the tub was pretty slippery. Other than that we liked it though – the location was great, the grounds were beautiful, and we had great luck with buses.
We finally went to bed around 2AM…almost 12 hours after leaving home. But at least we were finally in Disney!
Continued in Next Post
for the weekend!) This was the trip where I was bitten by the runDisney bug 
I really think the BCV decor was just not my cup of tea, and having the handicap-accessible room was a bit of a downer just because I felt like it lacked storage. But if you truly want to try out BCV, don't count it out. Overall I liked it and want to try the Villas again (and the resort side for the first time)...ESPECIALLY since I never got to experience the pool! 
I took pictures but never swam. How lame am I to stay at BCV and not take advantage of Stormalong Bay??? 
).
