We knew this was going to be a weekend of firsts for us, our first trip home to DVC and our first International Karate tournement. We didn't count on the last first, our first hurricane.
Friday (8/13) - Get into Orland at 1:00 am, get our rental car and check into Old Key West at 3:00 am. We are in room 3816, a studio on the southwest side of the resort. We are up at 8:00 am or so and have a message on our phone. The staff announces that MK, MGM, and EPCOT are open from 10:00 to 1:00 for resort guests only, all other parks and attractions are closed, and that we need to bring in all patio furniture due to Hurricane Charlie, apparantly it had changed course during the night and we were in the path. We get ready, grab our gear and head to Olivias for breakfast. After breakfast we head to the Rosen Centre on International Drive for the first day of the tourney which was clinics. Our clinic lasts from 12:00 to 3:00, after the clinic ends we can hear thunder from outside. An announcement is made that no one is to leave the hotel until further notice. The rain and wind is just from an outer band of Charlie and after it passes we have about 45 minutes till the next band. We decide to take our chances and head for OKW, its an uneventful trip, light rain and hardly any traffic on the road. We stop at the gift shop to pick up some sandwich fixings for lunch, it seems like everyone is in there buying food, and board games for the evening. While we are paying for our groceries we notice the manager handing out room keys to the cast members who are working. We get our stuff, head back to the room and have a sandwich, the next band hits and lasts until 5:15 or so. We decide to head to Olivias to see if we can get something hot to eat before Charlie hits, on the way out there are several WDW utility trucks parked in front of our building and the crews are going into rooms in our building. Apparantly Disney has a plan to disburse crews into all the resorts for cleanup and repair after the hurricane. We make it to Olivia's but it is closed for the evening and the manager is telling everyone to go back to their rooms for the evening and stay there until further notice. So ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner with a few adult beverages it is. The wind and the rain gets worse through the evening until it peaks around 1030 or so, there is a noticable breeze through our room from the front door to the back, and looking out the back door we can see trees bowing over and a stand of bamboo laying almost flat. After 1100 that night its starts calming down and we go to bed for the night.
Saturday (8/14) - We wake up at 5:30 since we have to be at the Rosen Centre at 7:00 to get registered for the competitions. There is another message from the front desk telling us there whill be an announcement if and when the parks open and that we are to stay at our resort until further notice. We turn on the TV and watch the news, power is out across Orlando, Traffic Lights are not working in some areas, the Airport is closed due to "Major Structural Damage" and there is a curfew on travel till 7:00 am. So we go back to bed. Around 8 am we get up and call the front desk to see if Olivias is open, good news it will open up at 8:30 so we get dressed and head down. There are leaves and branches everywhere and a few trees are blown over. I don't see any structural damage to OKW and I didn't hear of any the rest of the weekend. After breakfast we make our way to the Rosen Centre for the competition and get there in time for the competition, we see lots of trees down, windows blown out of high rise hotels, signs blown over, trees on cars, and alot of debris. The DW and I compete in the tourney - dont win anything- and head to the Boardwalk for dinner at Spoodles, the Boardwalk appears fine, the boats are running, Illuminations is happening at Epcot, and it is packed. A good dinner and back to the room for sleep. BTW,MK, Epcot and MGM opened at noon, the water parks and AK were closed for the day, the DW and I wondered how the tree of life looked. MCO opened at noon also, which was a good thing since some friends of ours were coming in Saturday Night.
Sunday (8-15) - Tinkerbell must have one big broom, because Saturday she really cleaned. Most of the leaves and debris were gone from the streets of the resort. We get up and head over to the Poly for breakfast at Kona's here the damage is a little more extensive, there are several large trees blown over, and a couple of windows / storm doors broken in some of the lodges. Breakfast is wonderful as usual, and we ride the loop on the monorail, MK looks fine from the rail, as does GF and the Contemp.
We head to the Rosen Centre to watch our instructor test for master instructer, counting on it starting late was our reason for having breakfast, however, unusually, it starts on time so we miss the test. We invite our instructor and his family to dinner at Portabello Yacht Club and head for DD to do some shopping. DD looks fine and Saratoga Springs looks OK, there is some damage to the Golf Courses due to trees being blown over. We shop all after noon, head back to OKW to change then back to DD for dinner. Dinner is excellent as usual and we head back to OKW for the evening.
Monday (8/16) - We get up and head to AKR for breakfast at Boma's, cars are lining up for entry into AK but I'm not sure if it opened or not. AKR looks intact and the grounds are almost spotless as usual, breakfast is great and we head for the airport. We need to fill up the rental car before we take it back. With the power still out in areas the gas stations that are open have long lines of people waiting for gas, it also jumped in price from $1.71 or so to $2.11 from friday to monday. On the way to the airport is when we really notice the damage, the closer to the airport we get the more extensive it gets. Right outside the airport we saw the concrete facing of a hotel blown off. The interior of the airport smells like wet carpet. There are construction workers all over the roof, one of the jetways is broken and twisted up, one of the gates has serious roof/ceiling and paint damage. We get on our flight and head home.
WDW was lucky, it seems the eye of Charlie passed over the airport and not the world, the airport saw 105MPH winds while the estimate at WDW was 75-85MPH we were also on the western side of the storm so we didn't have the sudden change in wind direction that causes so much damage. The only parks we knew of that hadn't opened were the water parks, probably due to the slides. What a trip... but we are heading back in December.
Friday (8/13) - Get into Orland at 1:00 am, get our rental car and check into Old Key West at 3:00 am. We are in room 3816, a studio on the southwest side of the resort. We are up at 8:00 am or so and have a message on our phone. The staff announces that MK, MGM, and EPCOT are open from 10:00 to 1:00 for resort guests only, all other parks and attractions are closed, and that we need to bring in all patio furniture due to Hurricane Charlie, apparantly it had changed course during the night and we were in the path. We get ready, grab our gear and head to Olivias for breakfast. After breakfast we head to the Rosen Centre on International Drive for the first day of the tourney which was clinics. Our clinic lasts from 12:00 to 3:00, after the clinic ends we can hear thunder from outside. An announcement is made that no one is to leave the hotel until further notice. The rain and wind is just from an outer band of Charlie and after it passes we have about 45 minutes till the next band. We decide to take our chances and head for OKW, its an uneventful trip, light rain and hardly any traffic on the road. We stop at the gift shop to pick up some sandwich fixings for lunch, it seems like everyone is in there buying food, and board games for the evening. While we are paying for our groceries we notice the manager handing out room keys to the cast members who are working. We get our stuff, head back to the room and have a sandwich, the next band hits and lasts until 5:15 or so. We decide to head to Olivias to see if we can get something hot to eat before Charlie hits, on the way out there are several WDW utility trucks parked in front of our building and the crews are going into rooms in our building. Apparantly Disney has a plan to disburse crews into all the resorts for cleanup and repair after the hurricane. We make it to Olivia's but it is closed for the evening and the manager is telling everyone to go back to their rooms for the evening and stay there until further notice. So ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner with a few adult beverages it is. The wind and the rain gets worse through the evening until it peaks around 1030 or so, there is a noticable breeze through our room from the front door to the back, and looking out the back door we can see trees bowing over and a stand of bamboo laying almost flat. After 1100 that night its starts calming down and we go to bed for the night.
Saturday (8/14) - We wake up at 5:30 since we have to be at the Rosen Centre at 7:00 to get registered for the competitions. There is another message from the front desk telling us there whill be an announcement if and when the parks open and that we are to stay at our resort until further notice. We turn on the TV and watch the news, power is out across Orlando, Traffic Lights are not working in some areas, the Airport is closed due to "Major Structural Damage" and there is a curfew on travel till 7:00 am. So we go back to bed. Around 8 am we get up and call the front desk to see if Olivias is open, good news it will open up at 8:30 so we get dressed and head down. There are leaves and branches everywhere and a few trees are blown over. I don't see any structural damage to OKW and I didn't hear of any the rest of the weekend. After breakfast we make our way to the Rosen Centre for the competition and get there in time for the competition, we see lots of trees down, windows blown out of high rise hotels, signs blown over, trees on cars, and alot of debris. The DW and I compete in the tourney - dont win anything- and head to the Boardwalk for dinner at Spoodles, the Boardwalk appears fine, the boats are running, Illuminations is happening at Epcot, and it is packed. A good dinner and back to the room for sleep. BTW,MK, Epcot and MGM opened at noon, the water parks and AK were closed for the day, the DW and I wondered how the tree of life looked. MCO opened at noon also, which was a good thing since some friends of ours were coming in Saturday Night.
Sunday (8-15) - Tinkerbell must have one big broom, because Saturday she really cleaned. Most of the leaves and debris were gone from the streets of the resort. We get up and head over to the Poly for breakfast at Kona's here the damage is a little more extensive, there are several large trees blown over, and a couple of windows / storm doors broken in some of the lodges. Breakfast is wonderful as usual, and we ride the loop on the monorail, MK looks fine from the rail, as does GF and the Contemp.
We head to the Rosen Centre to watch our instructor test for master instructer, counting on it starting late was our reason for having breakfast, however, unusually, it starts on time so we miss the test. We invite our instructor and his family to dinner at Portabello Yacht Club and head for DD to do some shopping. DD looks fine and Saratoga Springs looks OK, there is some damage to the Golf Courses due to trees being blown over. We shop all after noon, head back to OKW to change then back to DD for dinner. Dinner is excellent as usual and we head back to OKW for the evening.
Monday (8/16) - We get up and head to AKR for breakfast at Boma's, cars are lining up for entry into AK but I'm not sure if it opened or not. AKR looks intact and the grounds are almost spotless as usual, breakfast is great and we head for the airport. We need to fill up the rental car before we take it back. With the power still out in areas the gas stations that are open have long lines of people waiting for gas, it also jumped in price from $1.71 or so to $2.11 from friday to monday. On the way to the airport is when we really notice the damage, the closer to the airport we get the more extensive it gets. Right outside the airport we saw the concrete facing of a hotel blown off. The interior of the airport smells like wet carpet. There are construction workers all over the roof, one of the jetways is broken and twisted up, one of the gates has serious roof/ceiling and paint damage. We get on our flight and head home.
WDW was lucky, it seems the eye of Charlie passed over the airport and not the world, the airport saw 105MPH winds while the estimate at WDW was 75-85MPH we were also on the western side of the storm so we didn't have the sudden change in wind direction that causes so much damage. The only parks we knew of that hadn't opened were the water parks, probably due to the slides. What a trip... but we are heading back in December.
