Day 1 Part 1- We came, we saw, we ate some more!

[Beth E. (NJ)]

We came, we saw, we ate some more! -- a better late than never trip report.

The vital statistics:

Cast:

Beth E. – the mom, Disney fanatic, trip planner

EE– the dad, just following mom’s well planned out footsteps

Sophie – DD 5 1/2, first trip to WDW, very outgoing child, loves the princesses, has no idea what went in to planning this trip and that anything we do is “out of the ordinary”

Dates of trip: Tuesday December 5th to Friday December 15th

Accommodations: All Star Sports Hotel

Weather: Cold in NJ, cool in Florida – clothing for day: long pants, tee shirts and sweatshirts or light jackets.

Prelude to a trip report: A few days before we left for sunny Florida I decided to reconfirm our flight information. I started by trying to check on the computer and I discovered that our flight from NJ to Orlando International Airport had moved up by 45 minutes. I couldn’t find the flight number for our return flight on the computer at all. At this point (and in a minor panic) I decided to call Continental Airlines for exact details. The man I spoke to was very nice. Sure enough our flights in both directions had changed. The flight home had been rescheduled and given a new flight number. It was now leaving an hour earlier. I was so glad I checked!

Trip report part 1 December 5th 2000 – A Tuesday

After we discovered that our flight to WDW was leaving earlier than expected, we were able to adjust our travel plans and get to the airport with plenty of time to spare – and plenty of luggage to lug. (They don’t call it luggage for nothing!) Since we were going to be away for 11 days and the weather could be anything from balmy to icy I had packed accordingly. For 2 adults and 1 child, I had 2 large suitcases, and we each had a carry-on bag. We also brought DD’s booster car seat and a cheap umbrella stroller. In order to ease the morning cries of “What should I wear?” from my DD, I packed each of her short outfits in a Ziploc bag. While I only did this with the warm weather clothes, this still definitely saved me time in the morning since I didn’t necessarily have to pick out each outfit and scramble to find the matching pieces. This also meant that my DH could get DD an outfit without having to ask me what goes with what!

The flight from Newark to Orlando International was uneventful. My DD’s carry-on had lots of things for her to do including some homework from school and a couple of surprises from my mom. One of the toys that was a big hit was called “Crocodile Dentist” you take turns pushing on the teeth in the open crocodile’s mouth and at some point the mouth closes on your hand and then you are the loser. We played this for a while on the flight home (so anyone who heard strange snapping sounds on a flight on December 15th, that was us!) The snack on the flight was a sub sandwich, which was actually not bad. I did notice that the child across the aisle had the children’s meal, which I never remember to request in advance for my daughter. Oh well! She ate a good portion of the sub without complaint, plus her baby carrots and then she even ate my baby carrots too.

We got to Orlando and picked up our bags from the carousel. Bad mommy – when we got on the monorail at the airport I told DD that this was Disney! LOL We had rented a car from National’s Emerald Aisle, so we proceeded to the rental car area to get a car. Wow! How nice to have the rental cars right there at the airport instead of having to schlep with the bags to an offsite location. I was hoping for a SUV or minivan, but there were none of them to be had when we arrived. DH revisited his teenage years when he saw the cool new VW Beetles in the row. DD seconded the motion, but it was overturned when we saw the very small size of the trunk. Couldn’t even fit one of our suitcases in it, let alone two!

We ended up with a 4-door sedan. I let DH and DD picked it out. DH went for the 6-valve engine and dd went for the color – gold. All I wanted was a car that would go, had air conditioning and comfy seats! After we loaded the luggage, carry-ons and booster seat into the car we were off. It was a very quick process and the selection of the car took longer than the rest of the procedure. After we left the airport we drove to visit a company that does computer tech support for my husband’s business. These are people he speaks to all the time and when they found out he was coming to Florida they told him that their offices were just a few minutes from the airport. We spent a while in their offices and got the grand tour. They were very nice – interrupting their day to meet us and letting our DD tear through their offices burning up “I want to go to WDW” steam.

From there we went to a local Winn Dixie to pick up “room food.” We debated buying a small cooler to keep in the room, but eventually decided against it. We just picked up some snacks and breakfast food. We got Capri Sun juices for Sophie to carry in her waist sack. We also got packets of crackers with assorted fillings, gummy snacks, pop tarts, mini donuts, individual cereal boxes, small boxes of milk, some plastic bowls, two bottles of water and a big jug of water. See how healthy we were being! Lol When we went to check out I saw the most amazing thing – self check out. We don’t have that in NJ yet and I was amazed by it. The only hitch we had was that one of the bottles of water we were buying had at one point been in a multi-pack and therefore had no UPC code on it. We tried to scan it, but there was nothing to scan. The cashier/bagger who was helping us didn’t know what to do with the package either, but a manager quickly solved the problem.

See Day 1 Part 2 for the conclusion of Day 1!

 

[pumba]

Now why can't all first days be that easy.........