I love doing this & I hope everyone enjoys it. I might tell & show you more than you want/need to know - but I will give you lots of details.
Ill start off with what I call our 1st day of vacation.
Friday, Nov. 30
I wake up at normal time after sleeping surprisingly well.
I thought I would be up all night but I think I am a little worn out at this point. Steve is off today so I prepared a to do list for him. When the boys wake up I give them their 1st Disney treat. I found some cookies at a local grocery store the other night when I picked up Steves bday cake. They are Mickey & Goofy cookies so cute!! Matthew gobbled his up; Taylor wanted to save his for later.
I left to drop off Taylor at school & headed over to work. I played the entire time at work. Now the excitement set in. Once at work, I realized Steve couldnt pack the van because I had it.
Yes, I drove off in the getaway vehicle, how stupid but Steve came & switched out the van for the truck & went run his errands.
I got off of work at 11:30, headed over to McDonalds to get me a quick lunch. Then off to pick up Taylor. Picking him up took a while, almost like they were doing it on purpose. Got home, saw Steve & Matthew were not changed into their Disney attire yet!! Got a little angry at that. Why werent they ready!?!? But we all went get ready we all wore out Studio shirts. Then I realized Steve hadnt brought our dogs bed to my parents house. So he went off to do that while I double checked that he had everything. Glad I did. He forgot the camera battery & charger. Then we were off about a half hour later than planned. Its about 12:30 my brother in law & his grandchild are bringing us to the airport. The ride there was kind of working us all up a bit for Disney.
We arrive at the airport at about 1:30 pm & we are completely lost. We go in & realize we were dropped off a good distance from where we needed to be. Steve saw Door 4 & our Gate was D4 Get it?
But all is still well, we do some walking, check our luggage, my suitcase is 49 pounds, Steves is 52. We take 2 pairs of his shoes & put them in a carryon & all is well again. We head on over to security & I know my blood pressure shot up here. Remember we are inexperienced. We should have had the stroller folded up prior to getting there but we didnt. So that took us a little while. After that we headed to our spot & waited & waited & waited.
They finally called boarding for our flight at 3:30 we thought 3:30 was going to be the actual time we took off. Boarding took a while & this plane was really, really small. I didnt take any pictures on the plane as I didnt know if we could. The flight was awesome. Really smooth. We got to see all the lights down below when it turned dark out side. We saw the sun setting. We loved it. I had to feed Matthew snacks the entire time as he wanted to go snooping around. We arrived at the Orlando airport later than scheduled. This airport was much bigger than the one at home. It took us at least 30-45 minutes to find Magical Express. When we found it our bus was a Cruise line bus. But again, all was well well except that Matthew was thirsty but we were now on our way to the hotel. The bus sat there for another 30 minutes or so, waiting for people.
We stopped at Saratoga Springs first. Then it was us. Port Orleans French Quarter. I didnt immediately get that magical Disney feeling at this hotel. We walked into the lobby; kids went color while I checked in. No one was nice. No one. I saw someone with a LGMH checking in. I inquired about my package I sent & they said they never received it. I told her when & who signed for it & she said you are sure it was here? I said thats where I addressed it to. She went double check & said nope, not there. I start to get nervous now.
I tell her its my babys formula, diapers & food & point over to him then she decided to make a call. She says yep, its a Riverside. I comment I guess they delivered it to the wrong hotel. She says no thats were all deliveries go. So why was she looking for it in the first place? She says someone would bring it to us shortly. I ask about the crib & bed rails & she says they are in the room. We did get a good room. #2119 1st floor, right by the bus to downtown, view of the courtyard looked good. No crib or bedrails. We call the front desk & they say theyll bring them. Literally 2 seconds later we have a knock on the door & its our package in bad shape!! Also out there is the lady with the crib & rails. We were worried about the package but later realized they were both sticking around for a tip, which they didnt get since we were all into the package. We open it & everything is ruined!!
At least it looks that way. Steve notices our brown wrapping is gone. I realize its not even the same box!! Someone must have repacked everything into another box & I had taken my time & packed everything so nothing would get messed up whoever repacked didnt. I also had This side Up on mine. This one didnt so some water was leaked on everything as well. I start going through it. The boxes I made for the boys garbage!! Breakfast items, like pop tarts & all, smashed. Snacks, smashed except the Kool-Aid packs & slim jims. Most of the kids goodies were able to be saved. The window decorations were messed up. Matts disposable bibs wet. Diapers were okay. Formula ok, his food was half good, half not. I wasnt happy. But cant change it so got to go with the flow. I salvaged what I could & threw the rest. I am not sure why but I had taken a picture of the box after packing it & this what it looked like then
We caught the boat to downtown & had dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express. This was our first encounter with the Dining Plan & the person who took our order gave us a bad impression. I had the Rotisserie Chicken with Mashed potatoes & a cookie, Steve & Taylor both had Chicken Fingers Taylor had the cookie, Steve had a brownie. Everything was good here portion sizes were huge. I originally planned on taking pictures of our food to share on the Food thread but Steve told me he forgot the camera at the room, which I never checked until we got to the room & it was with us all along. Oh well. So, I decided no food photos. After eating, we went back to the hotel; Matthew fell asleep on the boat ride back. Steve went to the room with him. I brought Taylor for a swim & to the playground. He loved the slide. Only thing is, I didnt go swimming & he wasnt expecting the force of the water coming off that slide to be so much & other kids come out immediately & Taylor, who knows how to swim had trouble coming up out the water. All he had to do was stand but when you panic, you tend to forget the simple stuff. Five lifeguards on duty & none even bothered with him, they were all talking amongst each other. I made him come out & thats when we went to the playground. After a while we went to the room & retired for the night.
Tommorow - Matthew's 1st haircut & Taylor's first time on Splash Mountain!!
- Be back a little later to start the trip report - Hope everyone else who was there at the same time had a great time - I unfortunately did not see anyone there. And for everyone leaving - have a great time!!!
