Carrieberry
<font color=9999CC>Has to post on the right thread
- Joined
- Nov 30, 1999
- Messages
- 2,071
Trip report 1/21-1/28/05
Cast of crazy characters:
Carrie-Me 32 Disney filled years behind me
Mike- DH 32 Never got to go anywhere when he was a kid because he had 5 brothers and sisters Tolerates Disney to a point but every trip says This is the last trip for a long time! (Whatever!)
Bradley-DS 8 STITCH FREAK and loves Disney as much as Mom this is his third trip to WDW!
Brendan-DS 6 Mickey obsessed, deaf and autistic. First trip to WDW but he has been to DL a few times.
Friday January 21 2005 DAY 1
So Im sure you saw my thread entitled We leave Friday, why am I not excited? I got tons of responses from people telling me they feel the same way before the trip so I felt better going to bed last night. Fell asleep with no problem and got up bright and early to head out of the house by 7:45am for our 9:50 direct flight on America West out of Phoenix. Brendan had no idea where we were going so I was expecting a lot of fuss, but he was an angel! Who is this child?? We piled all of our stuff (2 duffle bags, 1 giant suitcase and one little suitcase so our big suitcase wouldnt go over the weight limit) into the van and headed for the airport. Now whenever we go on this particular freeway, Brendan thinks we are driving to California to go to Disneyland so he is all smiles! Boy is he in for a treat!!
We get to the airport, park the van, hop on the shuttle from the economy lot and head to the terminal. Nice and easy! The bags weigh a TON (weight approximate) but hey who cares right? We are going to Disney World! We had printed out our boarding passes the day before and we just needed to drop our bags off and have them checked. Walking in to the terminal I see America West has a huge line to check in. We shouldnt have to wait in that line Mike. We only need to check bags not check in. Wait let me ask. So I meander over to one of the security guys running bags through the huge Xray machine. Excuse me sir, we have our boarding passes and we only need to check luggage, where do we go? He looks at me like I am an idiot (I get that look a lot for some reason and I am not even blonde anymore!) and points to the long line! So naturally doing what every good DIS Board person would do I ask someone else! I walk up to this nice lady in an America west vest and ask her and she says Just go over to the first class check in line and they will do that for you. After thanking her and wondering if the people working at my airport are the same people who work at CRO (you know every time you call you get a different answer?) I wave Mike over and tell him which line we need to wait in. It had all of 2 people in it!
Getting done with all that we head to security. OH HOLY MOLY .OHHHH The humanity!! THE LINE IS ABOUT 400 people long. Ok first of all you need to understand that autistic children like my son Brendan just cannot deal with this type of situation. The masses of people, the extreme heat from all the bodies crammed together, people rubbing up against him. This is like a nightmare scenario for any parent of an autistic child. Many autistic children have sensory problems and that the slightest touch from someone can send them into a downward spiral that ends with them laying on the floor screaming. This is why most parents with children like Brendan get guest assistance cards from Disney when we go to the parks. The lines for the rides can have the same effect. Autistic children cannot handle these types of social situations that we all can. On top of it Brendan is deaf and really has no idea where we are, what we are doing and with these lines we will be lucky to even make our flight! So upon entering the enormous meltdown causing labyrinth I am about 2 seconds from my own meltdown. Aint traveling fun??
Mike of course sees the look of absolute horror on my face and comes to the rescue! My man is so awesome!! He goes and pleads his case to the head of the TSA there at the airport and the man tells him to have us go through the first class security line which, yep you guessed it, had 2 people in it! It was so wonderful! Brendan does great going through and waiting for me on the other side. After Mike and I get completely redressed (has anyone seen my bra?) We get to our plane right as they start preboarding. We hop on, find our seats, get Brendan all settled in and wait to take off. We wait and wait .and wait . What the heck is going on? We have been sitting here almost an hour! Mike looks up towards the front of the plane and gives me this look. They cant shut the door.
I stare at him. What do you mean they cant shut the door? Then it happened. The crackle of the PA system, the somber voice of the captain, the words I knew were going to come next. Sorry folks we seem to be a having a couple (huh? A COUPLE??) of mechanical problems. The gate manager will be down in a minute to explain how the deplaning will go and where they will go from there.
I throw up my arms in defeat. Will we ever get to Disney? I am beginning to think we will not. Mike runs up to the front of the plane and begs them to let us off first because after sitting there and doing nothing for an hour Brendan is about to lose it and even Bradley (the best 8 year old on the planet) is about to cry. They agree and let us off. (Did I mention how awesome my man is?) We get off the darn plane (not the word I used at the time) and they tell us they are putting us on a different one. Yep, it is completely on the other side of the airport in a different terminal. Now I probably should have mentioned this before, but we have a lot of carryons. I have a duffle bag (I think it weighed 40 pounds!) that has all of the provisions for the kids for the flight, plus my actual purse inside it (only allowed 1 carry on and one personal item) and my laptop bag to watch movies on. Mike has the camcorder bag and a laptop bag so he can work on the plane. Bradley has a rolling Stitch suitcase (I said he was a Stitch freak right?) and Brendan has a backpack. We drag all of this stuff with us to the other side of the airport to the other terminal, and the only saving grace for Brendan was that he got to ride on the moving sidewalks again so he was actually calmer than Mike and I! When we get there it is like a giant cattle drive. People everywhere!! CRAZY! I think I must of blacked out or something because the next thing I remember is sitting on the plane again waiting for them to transfer all of our bags to the new plane. 2 hours after our original flight time we finally leave. Now we will get to MCO when it is dark out and we will rent our car and have to find our way around in the dark!!!! Luckily my man is awesome (have I told you that already?) and so I know we will find POFQ eventually! Both the boys do fine on the plane. Brendan snacks and watches videos the whole time while he continues to annoy fellow passengers by continuously raising and lowering the window shades. They give everyone the $5 headsets for free "for our trouble". How sweet of them. Ive been dying to let my 8 year old watch Collateral with Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox. VERY appropriate!
We finally get to Orlando at 6:50pm. Both boys liked the shuttle from the terminal to baggage claim. Of course one of our bags was the very last one to come out so we had to spend about 20 minutes waiting for it but no biggie we are in Florida! We gather up our 1 TON of luggage (weight approximate) and head downstairs to find National Rental car.
We get off the elevator on the car rental level and look down the EXTREMELY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGG hallway to where National/Alamo is located. We he finally get there (I think I must have blacked out again) and head outside to the rental garage. Now this is the first time we have ever in 5 trips gotten a rental car. Usually we use Tiffany (we used Mears our first trip because I had not found these boards yet DUH!) but since we were able to book a full size car for $119 taxes included for 8 days, we figured we might as well. We also thought it would be nicer with Brendan. We follow the signs for Emerald Aisle (thanks to the wonderful tips here on the Transportation board we signed up for this about 4 days before leaving) to pick our full size car out of the aisle. Look its a PT Cruiser! Brad yells. He LOVES these cars. We start to pile our stuff in and soon realize there is no way this shoebox is going to hold our stuff. Plus it is a stick shift. My man can drive a stick (cuz he's awesome!
) but does not care to on vacation. With a disappointed Bradley sulking we take the kids out of the car and head 2 cars over to a charcoal gray Impala. Much better. Our best friend has an Impala and loves it so we figure this is a good decision. We head to the booth and hand over our ressie to the nice girl who then asks for Mikes license. She hands us a map and the rental agreement, asks us the mileage on the car, and sends us on our way. This takes all of 3 minutes! Emerald Aisle rocks! No counter, no trying to get us to buy the additional insurance or gas (she did ask about gas and we just said no), no line, nothing! We did everything online before we got there and it was so easy!! I couldnt even believe it! Anywhoo, we head off through the south exit and off to the 417 toll road thanks to the excellent directions given here on these transportation boards. Brendan decides he is finished and had a complete meltdown. He had no idea where we are and it is dark. I think he thinks we were in AZ still and he is probably wondering what all that flying was about! He cries almost all the way from the airport to the toll road exit before he finally calms down. He is mellow again when we pull into Port Orleans French Quarter and is fine during check in. We leave our credit card for express check out and they authorize it for $1(no holds on any funds-I knew this was how they did it but I did ask just to be sure) and gave us a $1000 spending limit. We get building 1, third floor by the parking lot which is fine with us. I did not request anything here because we are only here for 2 nights before moving to a one bedroom (rented points) at Old Key West. We have bell services bring up our luggage- worth every dime of tip money! Brendan now realizing we are at a hotel is ready to head out and explore. We go over to the food court and get dinner. Mike and I get chicken strips which is weird because I don't think I have ever seen Mike eat a chicken strip until right now. Brad and Brendan get chicken nugget meals. Brendan wants all of my strips and gives me his nuggets and appleasauce 
. Oh well at least they are white meat! We then head out and go look at the pool. It is starting to get chillier so we head back to our room, get ready for bed, and lay down to watch the infamous Krissa. She IS like a hyper Paige from Trading Spaces!! A little while later we turn on channel 14 so the kids can watch the bed time stories. Mike is 64 and there is no way the two of us can share a full size bed. Brendan and I share one bed and Mike and Brad share the other. Off to sleep we go with dreams of the parks the next day!! Mike and Bradley snore!!!
Check out the next part and find out why we have absolutely no video of our trip even though we took our brand new $400 mini DV camcorder!
Cast of crazy characters:
Carrie-Me 32 Disney filled years behind me
Mike- DH 32 Never got to go anywhere when he was a kid because he had 5 brothers and sisters Tolerates Disney to a point but every trip says This is the last trip for a long time! (Whatever!)
Bradley-DS 8 STITCH FREAK and loves Disney as much as Mom this is his third trip to WDW!
Brendan-DS 6 Mickey obsessed, deaf and autistic. First trip to WDW but he has been to DL a few times.
Friday January 21 2005 DAY 1
So Im sure you saw my thread entitled We leave Friday, why am I not excited? I got tons of responses from people telling me they feel the same way before the trip so I felt better going to bed last night. Fell asleep with no problem and got up bright and early to head out of the house by 7:45am for our 9:50 direct flight on America West out of Phoenix. Brendan had no idea where we were going so I was expecting a lot of fuss, but he was an angel! Who is this child?? We piled all of our stuff (2 duffle bags, 1 giant suitcase and one little suitcase so our big suitcase wouldnt go over the weight limit) into the van and headed for the airport. Now whenever we go on this particular freeway, Brendan thinks we are driving to California to go to Disneyland so he is all smiles! Boy is he in for a treat!!
We get to the airport, park the van, hop on the shuttle from the economy lot and head to the terminal. Nice and easy! The bags weigh a TON (weight approximate) but hey who cares right? We are going to Disney World! We had printed out our boarding passes the day before and we just needed to drop our bags off and have them checked. Walking in to the terminal I see America West has a huge line to check in. We shouldnt have to wait in that line Mike. We only need to check bags not check in. Wait let me ask. So I meander over to one of the security guys running bags through the huge Xray machine. Excuse me sir, we have our boarding passes and we only need to check luggage, where do we go? He looks at me like I am an idiot (I get that look a lot for some reason and I am not even blonde anymore!) and points to the long line! So naturally doing what every good DIS Board person would do I ask someone else! I walk up to this nice lady in an America west vest and ask her and she says Just go over to the first class check in line and they will do that for you. After thanking her and wondering if the people working at my airport are the same people who work at CRO (you know every time you call you get a different answer?) I wave Mike over and tell him which line we need to wait in. It had all of 2 people in it!
Getting done with all that we head to security. OH HOLY MOLY .OHHHH The humanity!! THE LINE IS ABOUT 400 people long. Ok first of all you need to understand that autistic children like my son Brendan just cannot deal with this type of situation. The masses of people, the extreme heat from all the bodies crammed together, people rubbing up against him. This is like a nightmare scenario for any parent of an autistic child. Many autistic children have sensory problems and that the slightest touch from someone can send them into a downward spiral that ends with them laying on the floor screaming. This is why most parents with children like Brendan get guest assistance cards from Disney when we go to the parks. The lines for the rides can have the same effect. Autistic children cannot handle these types of social situations that we all can. On top of it Brendan is deaf and really has no idea where we are, what we are doing and with these lines we will be lucky to even make our flight! So upon entering the enormous meltdown causing labyrinth I am about 2 seconds from my own meltdown. Aint traveling fun??
Mike of course sees the look of absolute horror on my face and comes to the rescue! My man is so awesome!! He goes and pleads his case to the head of the TSA there at the airport and the man tells him to have us go through the first class security line which, yep you guessed it, had 2 people in it! It was so wonderful! Brendan does great going through and waiting for me on the other side. After Mike and I get completely redressed (has anyone seen my bra?) We get to our plane right as they start preboarding. We hop on, find our seats, get Brendan all settled in and wait to take off. We wait and wait .and wait . What the heck is going on? We have been sitting here almost an hour! Mike looks up towards the front of the plane and gives me this look. They cant shut the door.
I stare at him. What do you mean they cant shut the door? Then it happened. The crackle of the PA system, the somber voice of the captain, the words I knew were going to come next. Sorry folks we seem to be a having a couple (huh? A COUPLE??) of mechanical problems. The gate manager will be down in a minute to explain how the deplaning will go and where they will go from there.
I throw up my arms in defeat. Will we ever get to Disney? I am beginning to think we will not. Mike runs up to the front of the plane and begs them to let us off first because after sitting there and doing nothing for an hour Brendan is about to lose it and even Bradley (the best 8 year old on the planet) is about to cry. They agree and let us off. (Did I mention how awesome my man is?) We get off the darn plane (not the word I used at the time) and they tell us they are putting us on a different one. Yep, it is completely on the other side of the airport in a different terminal. Now I probably should have mentioned this before, but we have a lot of carryons. I have a duffle bag (I think it weighed 40 pounds!) that has all of the provisions for the kids for the flight, plus my actual purse inside it (only allowed 1 carry on and one personal item) and my laptop bag to watch movies on. Mike has the camcorder bag and a laptop bag so he can work on the plane. Bradley has a rolling Stitch suitcase (I said he was a Stitch freak right?) and Brendan has a backpack. We drag all of this stuff with us to the other side of the airport to the other terminal, and the only saving grace for Brendan was that he got to ride on the moving sidewalks again so he was actually calmer than Mike and I! When we get there it is like a giant cattle drive. People everywhere!! CRAZY! I think I must of blacked out or something because the next thing I remember is sitting on the plane again waiting for them to transfer all of our bags to the new plane. 2 hours after our original flight time we finally leave. Now we will get to MCO when it is dark out and we will rent our car and have to find our way around in the dark!!!! Luckily my man is awesome (have I told you that already?) and so I know we will find POFQ eventually! Both the boys do fine on the plane. Brendan snacks and watches videos the whole time while he continues to annoy fellow passengers by continuously raising and lowering the window shades. They give everyone the $5 headsets for free "for our trouble". How sweet of them. Ive been dying to let my 8 year old watch Collateral with Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox. VERY appropriate!
We finally get to Orlando at 6:50pm. Both boys liked the shuttle from the terminal to baggage claim. Of course one of our bags was the very last one to come out so we had to spend about 20 minutes waiting for it but no biggie we are in Florida! We gather up our 1 TON of luggage (weight approximate) and head downstairs to find National Rental car.
We get off the elevator on the car rental level and look down the EXTREMELY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGG hallway to where National/Alamo is located. We he finally get there (I think I must have blacked out again) and head outside to the rental garage. Now this is the first time we have ever in 5 trips gotten a rental car. Usually we use Tiffany (we used Mears our first trip because I had not found these boards yet DUH!) but since we were able to book a full size car for $119 taxes included for 8 days, we figured we might as well. We also thought it would be nicer with Brendan. We follow the signs for Emerald Aisle (thanks to the wonderful tips here on the Transportation board we signed up for this about 4 days before leaving) to pick our full size car out of the aisle. Look its a PT Cruiser! Brad yells. He LOVES these cars. We start to pile our stuff in and soon realize there is no way this shoebox is going to hold our stuff. Plus it is a stick shift. My man can drive a stick (cuz he's awesome!
) but does not care to on vacation. With a disappointed Bradley sulking we take the kids out of the car and head 2 cars over to a charcoal gray Impala. Much better. Our best friend has an Impala and loves it so we figure this is a good decision. We head to the booth and hand over our ressie to the nice girl who then asks for Mikes license. She hands us a map and the rental agreement, asks us the mileage on the car, and sends us on our way. This takes all of 3 minutes! Emerald Aisle rocks! No counter, no trying to get us to buy the additional insurance or gas (she did ask about gas and we just said no), no line, nothing! We did everything online before we got there and it was so easy!! I couldnt even believe it! Anywhoo, we head off through the south exit and off to the 417 toll road thanks to the excellent directions given here on these transportation boards. Brendan decides he is finished and had a complete meltdown. He had no idea where we are and it is dark. I think he thinks we were in AZ still and he is probably wondering what all that flying was about! He cries almost all the way from the airport to the toll road exit before he finally calms down. He is mellow again when we pull into Port Orleans French Quarter and is fine during check in. We leave our credit card for express check out and they authorize it for $1(no holds on any funds-I knew this was how they did it but I did ask just to be sure) and gave us a $1000 spending limit. We get building 1, third floor by the parking lot which is fine with us. I did not request anything here because we are only here for 2 nights before moving to a one bedroom (rented points) at Old Key West. We have bell services bring up our luggage- worth every dime of tip money! Brendan now realizing we are at a hotel is ready to head out and explore. We go over to the food court and get dinner. Mike and I get chicken strips which is weird because I don't think I have ever seen Mike eat a chicken strip until right now. Brad and Brendan get chicken nugget meals. Brendan wants all of my strips and gives me his nuggets and appleasauce . Oh well at least they are white meat! We then head out and go look at the pool. It is starting to get chillier so we head back to our room, get ready for bed, and lay down to watch the infamous Krissa. She IS like a hyper Paige from Trading Spaces!! A little while later we turn on channel 14 so the kids can watch the bed time stories. Mike is 64 and there is no way the two of us can share a full size bed. Brendan and I share one bed and Mike and Brad share the other. Off to sleep we go with dreams of the parks the next day!! Mike and Bradley snore!!! Check out the next part and find out why we have absolutely no video of our trip even though we took our brand new $400 mini DV camcorder!
Best laid plans......
