Something evil is in my ear. Annoying, high pitched...Garbled. I swat at my ear, it's the phone, it's Stitch telling me to Wakey Wakey or no sleepy or something like that. I can't tell. I'm tired! Such a nice DH, he hears the phone, grabs it and puts it to MY EAR.
Ok, grudgingly I get up, it is our last morning at WDW. I'm bummed. I'm looking forward to Chef Mickey's though! Our ADR is for 7:15 so it is now 5a.m. and we have to finish packing the 'new car' , get the boys dressed, check out of our room and check into our flight at the front desk.
Thankfully I had managed to pack up most of our stuff last night and even whittled our carry on for the flight down to one bag. We get the boys dressed, they don't even wake up for it. We put them in the strollers and wheel them to the car. They still have not woken up.
DH drives us over to the main building and I tell him to just sit with the kiddos while I go check us out and in. He readily agrees as he knows he who remains behind in the car can also close their eyes and sleep for at least a few more minutes. Lucky schmo.
I walk in and let me tell you, 6a.m. check out is a breeze!! Nobody around, very quiet, the CMs are very friendly and seem happy to have someone to talk to! I'm checked into our flight and sadly out of our room in about 8 minutes. I walk outside to find DH and our car.
We slowly drive to the Contemporary and park. At this point the kids have started coming to and are looking around very confused as they are dressed and in their car seats and they do not recall how any of this has happened.
It is at this point that I can assess the moods the kids most likely will be in for the rest of the day. Happy is tired, his bags have bags. So most likely he will be quiet. Grumpy, however, is hyper. He talks a mile a minute and most of it makes absolutely no sense. Maybe after four cups of coffee it will make sense but right now it is just flat out rambling. I just smile and nod. Jack Jack is always happy. He's cutting teeth and he's happy. It's bizarre. But I love him for it.
We go up to the Chef Mickey waiting area and are the first to arrive. We are quickly seated as soon as they open and get a nice large table so that we can kind of spread out. DH goes and loads up the plates as we had wanted to make this our big meal since our flight leaves at 4 and we won't arrive until 6, the middle of dinner time and rush hour in Chicago. This way we'll just grab a sandwich at Downtown Disney and all should be good.
Little did we know...but that's later.
DH brings us all loaded plates and it looks and smells delicious!! I had a chocolate crossant, some bacon, sausage, some biscuits and gravy (which were ok but a little heavy), pancakes and of course coffee.
DH hands the boys their plates and Happy decides to go on a hunger strike. He wants nothing but apple juice. We try everything under the sun to get him to eat something. No doing.
I finally get him to eat some of my bacon but even that was only a little bit. He says he wants a banana. DH gets him one, he pushes it away and says he's hungry.
We keep trying and still he's not eating. Ok fine, we decide to stop fighting with him over it, he'll eat when he eats.
Grumpy is nibbling which is better than not eating so that's fine with us.
I feed Jack Jack his baby food and bottle and then guess who comes to join us?
Minnie!
After that it was a steady stream of characters, Chip and Dale, Pluto, Mickey and we met Goofy in the middle part on our way out.
I have to say that this was the absolute BEST character meal we had during our trip. We were not rushed at all to basically eat and get out, the characters spent a good amount of time with the kids and played with them. Our Happy enjoyed swinging his napkin in the air! We definitely plan on making Chef Mickey's something we do each time we go!
So we finished up our breakfast and said goodbye to Mickey and Pals. I loved the look of the Contemporary and maybe sometime we'll have to stay there.
Take the boys to the restroom to clean up and then repack up and head towards Downtown Disney.
Now I've read up on DD and had heard so many stories about all the shopping and the size of the World of
Disney store. I was excited, I was pumped to go. I love to shop and I rarely get to do so!
So we park (that is a very tricky lot to park in btw!) and we get out and walk into the shopping area (Marketplace). First thing we see is the
Lego store and the cool lego statues outside.
I'm sad to say that I think the Legos outside were cooler than actually going into the store.
I really thought that there would be more options as far as lego packs but most of it was stuff I've already seen out here and nothing really unique. We did get the boys the small packs of legos that build different animals, a turkey for Thanksgiving and a Duplo type boat for JJ's bath. I was mildly disappointed.
Then we walked over to the World of Disney store. From the outside it does look fairly large. I'm excited. We walk into the girly side (the BBB) and of course this does nothing for my guys. *sigh* never had that girl I wanted but that's ok, we move along.
I'm starting to notice that yes, there are many sections, but they are small sections. At least to me they are small. I find a few things that I didn't find in the park or our hotel and pick them up. Chocolates to thank Mom and Dad for watching our petting zoo at home. Cookies for the boys when we are home for a special treat. A long sleeved shirt for DH and I to share. Then just some other little things.
I left feeling that I wasn't really 'wowed' by it.
It was a nice store but again, nothing I haven't seen before. Maybe I'm just jaded because we are going home.
Then we hit a few other stores and I'm looking for MickeyMart, the whole $10 and under thing. I find it and go 'WHAT?' It's like a little back alley. Tucked away, hidden. The stuff in it is nothing we'd be interested in and I didn't really see any good deals at all. Most of the stuff wasn't working or you can tell it's been worn or damaged. I'm starting to get very discouraged now.
We went into Once Upon A Toy and I was happy to find two Christmas gifts for the boys. A Power Ranger set that was a deal! And the Star Wars M&M's for Happy. He loves M&Ms, he can spy them from a mile away and will do anything for an M&M. I brought M&Ms as a bribe to keep him still on the plane!
At this point the sun is getting hot. Boy it is much more humid and hot today than the rest of the weekend! So DH and I decide to each get an italian ice and sit for a bit. We still have about an hour or so before we have to leave for the airport.
This is when I fully appreciate the difficulty of vacationing when the lovebugs are out. Most of the weekend I only saw maybe one or two at the most. I was very happy about this. But I went to the ice stand (which was a glaring WHITE) and the poor girl had them EVERYWHERE! A few almost landed in my ice, which was also white, and they just swarmed all over this little stand. It was gross! I mean, I know they don't bite and they do tickle a bit when they land but when food is involved it's just gross to see that and have to swipe them away before they can get busy on your italian ice.
We quickly got away from the little love shack and hid in a cool corner of Ghiradelli's outside terrace. The ices were delicious and definitely cooling!! After that we wandered a bit and then stopped at Earl of Sandwich to get our last 2 cs credits used. DH ordered the Cannonball Sandwich with a soda and a Macademia Nut cookie and I got the Original 1762 with an Earl Ice Tea and Oatmeal Cookie. We drank our drinks in the car on the way to the airport and saved our sandwiches and cookies for before we had to get on our flight. We figured that the boys could either share with us or we would get them something before getting on the plane.
So back to our car as we leave a little sad that the Marketplace wasn't all we expected it to be. DH quickly rearranged our bags to put in our new purchases while I changed a Jack Jack special delivery and gave him a bottle. Unfortunately I also FORGOT the special delivery on the roof of our car but a nice passerby noticed it, waved us down and even offered to dispose of it for us! Thank You!!
At this point we have 5 large suitcases and the carseat in the plastic bag. So DH and I decide that we will use curbside checkin. He will take the bags out, we will get them checked in and I will wait with both strollers and all the kids in that area until he turns the rental car back in and then we will all go in together. cool. No problem.
Problem, one bag is too heavy. We must take some stuff out of bag A and put it in bag B and C. ok. I do this. Dh takes off in the rental car reminding me AGAIN to NOT MOVE FROM THIS SPOT. Ok ok. sheesh.
So here I am. 2 strollers, 3 kids, 6 bags, carryon. Standing. Waiting. The bag check guy has disappeared.
Hmmm...
About 10 minutes pass. Oh there he is! Ahh problem with the machine. Ok no problem now.
He tosses our bags onto the cart with their little sticker id's and we wave buhbye to our belongings and Mommy's 6 loads of laundry that she will have to do when we get home.
So I stay rooted to my spot though. DH told me not to move. We are paranoid about losing each other and I have his boarding pass.
Just as I'm about to think about moving DH shows up and helps me get the strollers inside. PHEW.
Ok we have about an hour and a half to get through security and then eat.
Now remember, I have a history with all security gates. Me and my hips do.
So we wander over towards security, oh wait, Grumpy needs to go potty. Oh wait, Happy has soggy pants. OOOhhh wait, Jack Jack has made yet another special delivery.
Ok, find the restroom.
About 15 minutes later everyone is dry and clean. Let's try security again I can only imagine what the line must be like.
We stroll over and wait, what is this? Coming from Chicago airports I've never seen this occurance.
There is no line at all at security.
What? Are the planets in alignment? Is this more pixie dust????
So the one guard opens up the ropes so we don't have to do the rat maze to get to the first desk.
This is new. I have to actually take out all of my liquids and he counts how many ounces each thing is and writes it on my boarding pass.
Now, if you will remember back to my first tale of security in Chicago. How he questioned me vigorously about having too many bottles and baby food for our trip? That day I decided that I would only bring 2 bottles and 2 jars of baby food since I was given such a hard time about it. After all, it's perfectly blue skies outside, we won't be delayed and even if we are it won't be for very long.....
So I pull out my 2 baby bottles of formula and 2 sealed baby jars of food, and one small vial of infant tylenol (remember Jack Jack is teething). The guy wants to know exactly how many ounces the food is. I don't know! I don't look at the ounces on those things!! Then he is measuring the bottles. Oh for the LOVE OF GOD, it's FOOD for a BABY! You can OBVIOUSLY see the large baby in my arms. I swear the guy thought he was trying out for a part on CSI or something. It was bordering on the ridiculous by the time he let us pass and gives me my grocery list of a boarding pass with strict instructions to show it to the next security guy.
Fine.
We go up to the still empty security area where they x-ray your belongings and then scan you for metal. Of course, I get pulled aside, pat pat, rub rub, you owe me dinner and cuddling. And I show my boarding pass to a rather uninterested guard. He could care less.
Argh, fine whatever, just let us through already!
We get through and decide, hey we're hungry now! So we sit and I feed Jack Jack his ONLY TWO JARS OF FOOD and one bottle. So remember we now only have ONE BOTTLE OF FORMULA. This will be needed within 4 hours.
We get the boys hot dogs and they eat them up and Happy promptly passes out. He will now not wake up until we board the plane. No matter what we do to him he will not wake up.
Grumpy, however, is still babbling. He will not stop for anything.
Dh and I finally get to eat our sandwiches and ohhhhh my. Even still slightly warm they are delicious! And the Earl Ice Tea, that was heaven! I can't wait to go back just for that Iced Tea. The cookies were also very good and soft and chewy. It all hit the spot and left us with that warm, full feeling that leads to sleepiness. We are now ready to go home.
We go sit in our departing gate area. We watch the news and are sad to hear about the Amish School shooting. It seems strange to watch the news after being in WDW and being in a happy bubble of just plain fantasy and happiness.
Then the flight attendant gets on the speaker. It is very hard to understand her but I get the gist. Our flight has been delayed. Possibly for 3 hours. Though they might have us board the plane and then we can sit on the tarmack for 3 hours.
Oh this is not good. Not good at all. But she assures us that this is the worst scenario and they are trying to get us bumped up to an earlier time.
I call my Mom who is supposed to meet us at O'hare and warn her of the flight delay. She then tells us that there is severe weather in the Chicago area. Oh NO!
About 30 minutes later the flight attendant gets back on the radio and announces that we are boarding and we SHOULD be taking off at 5:48. I then realize that means we will be boarding a plane and sitting in it for almost over an hour. So we drag our feet to board the plane. Seriously just flat out waiting out the others so we are among the very last to get on.
We board and I walk towards my seat. The way it worked out is that I sat with Jack Jack on my lap in the aisle seat on the left while DH and the other 2 had an entire row next to me on the right.
So I walk to my seat and see a middle aged couple in the seats next to mine. I then hear her groan when she sees me coming with Jack Jack.
Now come ON, you are on a flight from ORLANDO, are you really surprised to see children???
I ignore her. Plunk down in my seat and pull on my seatbelt and prepare to wait.
At about 5:50 we take off, finally. We get to cruising altitude and Jack Jack and I decided to show the mean lady next to us what we are made of.
We fell fast asleep for the entire flight.
DH said that at one point it was pretty close which one of us had our mouth open wider. But neither of us were snoring. Or drooling. Well, Jack Jack was drooling but he's teething so that's ok.
So there bitter lady, that 'bad' baby didn't do anything but SLEEP!
I wake up as we are starting to descend, Jack jack is still sound asleep on my chest. I notice that our ride has gotten a bit rough. Then I notice flash of lights and wonder who the heck is using flash photography on the plane. It's not a camera, it's lightning right outside and around the plane!!!
Ok, not gonna freak out. Pilots do this every day I'm sure.
We do land but it is a fast and hard land I notice. Like they wanted to get the you know what on the ground asap! We taxi to our gate and they shepard us off the plane very quickly. No sooner do we get to the area on the walkway where you can collect your gate checked stroller do we learn that ALL GROUNDCREW have been pulled inside and NOONE WILL BE GETTING ANYTHING. Yes, anything. No strollers, no luggage, nothing, nada, zip.
This begins why I will never fly again.
I try to ask one of the United Employees what happens in cases like this, like will they just take our strollers, etc. all to baggage claim or do we wait here?
The *&%$# snaps at me that we aren't getting anything and to get out of the way.
Excuse me? I ask what I believe is a reasonable question in a very pleasant manner and this is your response? This is your response to a paying customer?
Hmm. Not happy I back up and they slam the door shut to the walkway. We are now out in the gate area with about 100 other unhappy customers whose flights have also been delayed. It's us and 3 other families waiting for their strollers that aren't coming and we aren't sure when or where they will appear.
There are other United employees at the check in desks at the gate, we should ask them. Oh no we shouldn't as we observe about 4 of them snapping rudely at passengers who are trying to find out what is happening and they are being downright NASTY.
There was ONE United employee who was doing her job in a professional manner and she said to just stay where we were and wait, usually this type of thing only lasts for 10 minutes the most.
Ok.
We sit down and wait. There are windows in this area and we notice that the hard rain and lightning has actually gotten much worse. And then we notice a hard PLUNK, CLUNK sound. It's hail.
Yup. Hail.
That's never good.
So now it's hailing, raining and lightning.
NOBODIES luggage is getting pulled and NOBODY is getting aboard any plane.
The mean United employees are still yelling at passengers and being generally disrespectful of everyone in the area. And I swear I see a few of them look at each other like they are enjoying abusing us.
The boys are getting restless as are the other kids who are with their families waiting.
I give Jack jack his very last bottle. I have NO baby food. Thankfully he falls asleep in my arms again. Happy and Grumpy are tired and hungry. They are also starting to act out because it is very tense in the gate area. DH goes on the search for food but for some reason most of the food areas have already closed or the lines are horrendously long because of all the flight delays already going on. O'hare is at a complete standstill and that is just NOT pretty.
DH scares up some water and Chex Mix, another Mom throws in some trail mix and nuts that she has extras of. We all camp out on the ground. Thankfully we did not use the portable DVD player on the plane so it still has battery life. Happy and Grumpy watch Power Rangers. Grumpy falls asleep on the floor next to me while Happy tries very hard to keep his eyelids open. DH and I throw back ideas of just leaving and coming back the next day to get our luggage.
But we can't, all of our carseats are still in the belly of that plane. Grandma's car doesn't have any carseats.
We debate about going down to a car rental place and renting car seats from them.
I'm getting angry as the time goes by. The weather actually had slowed for a bit and they still refuse to get our luggage or anyone elses for that matter.
The Evil United Girls are now promising our plane to other passengers and yet forgets or fails to mention that even if they board our plane they can't leave until our bags are removed. I think that's just wrong and mean.
At this point it is now 11p.m. originally we should have already been home by no later than 9. But it is 11, we are still sitting outside our plane, kids sleeping on a hard dirty floor, hungry, tired and angry. I'm so angry I can't even talk. I just download Tetris to my cell phone and play Tetris trying to block out the people around me. How long can they make us wait for luggage?
FINALLY one of the United Supervisors shows up. She convinces her hubby who is a baggage handler to go out with a buddy and at least get us our strollers so we can at least get the heck out of the gate area. We can't get our luggage yet but we can at least get the kids off of the ground!
We know she could get in big trouble for this and we are grateful.
No sooner do we get our contrabanded strollers that the groundworkers are allowed to return to work!!!
Insane. We sat for over 3 hours in the gate area.
So we hightail it to baggage claim and meet my Mom who has been sitting in baggage claim for 3 hours.
YAY! Now we just have to wait for our bags. I have to say that is the FASTEST I've ever seen baggage taken off of a plane at O'hare in my life!
Around 12:30 we've gotten all of our bags and head towards Grandma's van. Did I mention she had to park on the roof? Did I mention that it is still raining very hard and lightning. Oh and it has hailed on and off?
We get the kids into their seats and secure in the van, throw our bags in the back and pile into the van. The drive to Grandma's was treacherous and hard to see.
We decided to just take the bags we needed home and take my car home since I was going to drive and I'm more comfortable driving my own car than the big honking van.
The drive home was hard, I was having a very hard time keeping my eyes open but we made it and I think I slapped myself pretty good.
We didn't get home until close to 3a.m. Tuesday. DH had to be up at 6a.m. for work, his new job.
We all fell into our beds totally exhausted by 3:10, ignoring the 3 estatic dogs that met us when we stumbled in.
Where is the Pixie Dust I ask you?
Steak and candy what could be better?!?
DH and I agree we could just eat our desserts forever and be fine with the gluttony but times a tickin' and we have to go to MK!!
