As Minnie said, I was really going bahookie these last few months. What exactly does "bahookie" mean? I am not exactly sure- it is a word Minnie recently made up. It must mean crazy or obsessed. In any case, I had been spending virtually every spare moment online reading and planning and plotting and scheming. I had selected AKL because of what I read about the beauty of the resort and because of the animals. It also helped that the price seemed great for a deluxe and club level wass only $35 more per night! When the 4/3 deal came out, that sealed it. I eventually had 6 nights booked- Wednesday through Monday nights. I knew we would actually be leaving Monday afternoon, but the price was the same and this allowed us that little extra time in the room without worrying about check out times.
Are you flying? Do you have your tickets yet?
Here is Belle's Best Tip #1: subscribe to farecast alerts at farecast.com.
What a great free service. I got daily emails showing me the best price for my tickets and a suggestion about whether I should buy now or wait. You can also see the history of the price of your itinerary to get an idea of how the price fluctuates. I watched it over time and scored our tickets for $178 each roundtrip. Definitely the best price over the three months I watched (I kept watching after I purchased.) The one problem with the tickets was that they were purchased from united for a usair flight. When we checked in with usair, there were issues with the reservation. They did get fixed, so all in all, still worth it. (The same tickets on usair on the same day were over $70 more per ticket!)
Schools were closed Monday Jan 19th for MLK Day. Turns out we had a snow day on Tuesday the 20th as well. There was about 1 inch of snow that didn't stick to my driveway or sidewalk, but this is Charlotte, so no school. Schools were scheduled to be closed Friday 1/23 and Monday 1/26 for teacher workdays, which is why we scheduled our trip for 1/21-1/26. Minnie and Baloo would only miss one day of school. But Tuesday night we got a recorded call announcing school would be in session on Friday as a make up for the snow day! Ugh. A little more work for Minne to make up, but she is a great student so I wouldn't let this bother me.
We headed to the airport directly after school on Wednesday and-the first magic of the trip happened- our plane was there, our seats were together, and we left on time! (ok, my flying expectations are very, very low these days.) We had an uneventful flight and landed in Orlando about 6:15. Our luggage was some of the first out (thanks to DH's priority status with USAir- he travels weekly), and we hiked down to
Avis. Again, thanks to DH, we were able to bypass the counter and go straight to the parking garage, but it is a long walk. I think we left the airport around 7:15. We saw a Magical Express bus as we left the airport, so for us, the rental car route was faster but may not have been worth it as we used it so rarely.
Belle's Best tip #2: If you are driving from the airport, be prepared for tolls!
We handled the first tolls, but the last toll was for 50 cents and had no humans manning it. There was no way to pay! So we just drove on through. Oops. (There will be some other rule breaking later in the trip!) We didn't set off any sirens or bells or notice any cameras so I guess it all is ok.
Next up: Our arrival at Animal Kingdom Lodge!!
