BrerMama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2000
- Messages
- 2,205
To read Day 9, click here
Our wake-up call was nice and early this morning because we had arranged the night before to have our luggage picked up at 6:40. We were actually up at 5:45 so we could all get showered and changed and packed up before Luggage Services arrived. Of course, he was late. But not horribly late and we gave him our stuff and enjoyed our last few minutes in our room. We left for the bus stop at 7 am.
Animal Kingdom was our choice for today for several reasons. First, it was the EMH park, so we'd get an extra hour out of our day. Second, it's Dan and Brady's favorite park. The rest of us like it OK, so that's where we went.
When we arrived, we were able to get fairly close to the turnstile. Dan held our spots while I ran the kids to the bathroom. Boy, they have to potty a lot! Soon enough, the turnstiles opened and we discovered that we were in the line for people who had no clue how to insert a ticket. Seriously, the cast member had to show every single family in front of us how to insert their ticket, then go through the turnstile, then insert another ticket. In several instances, people were trying to insert 4 or 5 tickets at a time, then all go through together. Of course by this time we had it down to a science and when we got up to the front we went through (by now even Chesney knew how to do the ticket thing) and off to the Tree of Life.
Due to the hold ups in line, the show at the Tree of Life was mostly over by the time we arrived, so we were mostly able to keep walking to follow the van down to the Safaris. We walked right onto a Safari vehicle and the kids loved it. So much so that Chesney asked to go on them again. We stopped and got a fastpass, then beat it to Dinosaur since the rest of the park was just opening.
Once again, we were able to walk right into the building here. We planned to do the rider switch and as we walked up I told Chesney she would be able to sit in the gift shop again. The only problem is that for Dinosaur, the whole family has to wait in line for the ride. Apparently Chesney decided she'd just go to the gift shop by herself, because we got in the building and couldn't find her. I freaked and sent Dan out to look for her. Several minutes went by and he never came back, so I really started to freak. I left the line and went looking for them. They were sitting on the floor in the gift shop. Um, don't you think you could have told us you'd decided to stay with Ches? He had apparently signaled to the cast member at the entrance, who didn't read the signal or relay anything to us.
So now the line has built, but I take the big kids and we get in line. We sat in the front row and for the first time, my stomach got queasy on this ride. To give my stomach a chance to settle, we took the kids to the Boneyard for a bit. There Brady and Chesney got really brave and did the big slide. Yeah!
By now, it was Fast Pass time, so we walked back to the back of the park again to ride. As we're getting close, Chesney started saying, "I don't know about this," which was her way of telling us that she didn't want to ride. This was just crazy because she had loved it less than 2 hours before. We told her that her crying was scaring the animals, so she calmed and once again ended up loving the ride.
My last wish for this trip was to end it by seeing the Festival of the Lion King one last time. It was already 10:30 and the next show was at 10:45, so we had to hustle, especially since we needed to stop at a drink cart for something wet. We made it and actually got decent seats. Once again, my favorite show ever. And a truly wonderful way to end our trip. We left for the resort right at 11:30, but not before running into Timon and Terk on the way out. Those two pictures are my two favorites of the entire trip. All trip, I'd been taking pictures where one or more of my kids wasn't looking at the camera. These were perfection!
We arrived back at POR at noon and went to Luggage Services. I had packed our mugs and our swimming stuff into one bag, so I grabbed it and we headed to the food court for lunch. We all ate at different stations for lunch -- Mykiah had a tossed salad from the deli section, Chesney had chicken nuggets and fries, Brady got a cheeseburger and fries and I had the kids' pasta meal, which was more than enough for an adult. Dan got a double cheeseburger, which took a really long time to make. It's nice to know they're fresh, but the grill line got way backed up at times.
Our original plan was to go swim for awhile, but Dan and I really didn't feel like getting wet at this point. Happy Limo was supposed to pick us up at 2:30, so we decided just to waste time at the resort. We returned the life vest we had borrowed for Chesney, played a lot of games in the arcade, and went back to the food court for ice cream. I had my last Mickey bar.
About 2 pm, we went out to wait for the town car. When we walked outside, I looked around for the luxury van we had ordered, but didn't see any. There were a lot of people waiting for a Mears bus, so it was a bit confusing for awhile. Once they left, we found a bench and moved up close to the Luggage Services area. At 2:15, Dan went ahead and retrieved our luggage, thinking it would save some time. At 2:30, I was getting ticked and called Happy Limo. As I was telling the person on the phone our name, a kid standing beside me said, "There's a guy over there holding a sign with your name on it." Sure enough, our driver was about 10 steps from us.
What was the problem, you ask? For starters, he was driving an Excursion, which was actually an upgrade. He was standing exactly at the door we had used, but when we had come out, he had been in the vehicle. He never walked beyond his vehicle to see if anyone was waiting for him. He said he had told the Luggage Services people who he was expecting, but they were so busy and there were so many people working that it probably got lost. So our driver and myself were a bit peeved at the mix-up. He threw our stuff in the back, I belted the kids in and we were off on a very fast trip to the airport. The limo company assumes that people are going to arrive a few minutes early for a pick-up, so he was pretty tightly scheduled. I sat in the back watching Ricky Martin Live on the screen in the back of the headrest (don't ask) but Dan said he was pushing 80 mph at some points. I didn't notice him doing anything dangerous and we got there quickly and safely, so I'm not complaining.
We were dropped off curbside and immediately a Sky Cap appeared. There was a sign that said Air Tran only did curbside check-in within 45 minutes of departure and we were about 3 hours early, but the sky cap went ahead and checked us in, printed our new tickets and boarding passes and sent us on our way. We spent some time browsing the airport shops before deciding to go through security. We were sent through the Kids Lane line, which was very kid friendly and the kids each got a sticker. Then it was on to find our gate. Once we were close, we found a fairly deserted spot and spread out. The kids colored and played until about 4:30 when we decided to eat dinner. There was a McDonald's close, so Dan and the kids had that. I just couldn't deal with McD's yet, so I went for a pretzel from the pretzel stand and a side salad from Sbarros. After dinner, we walked to our gate, which was the furtherest walk from the center of the terminal, of course.
Our plane, which was actually a Ryan Airlines flight through AirTran, boarded about 15 minutes late. We were once again close to the front of the plane so we were among the last to be boarded. As we're walking on, we pass a lady with a baby. Dan says to me, "I hope she's not sitting by us." That baby smelled rank! Change the diaper before you get on board, please! Nope, of course not, and of course the baby was seated right in front of me.
To make matters worse, our seating was messed up and we had been assigned three seats together on one side and then the aisle and window on the other side, with a stranger sitting between us. The gentleman put in that seat was very nice and took the window seat so that I could sit with Chesney.
And wait, it gets better. I hate take-off. I just know that if I'm going to die on an airplane, it's going to be during take-off. Once we get to a decent altitude, I calm down. So here we take off and I can see we're not gaining altitude. In fact, it looks like we're circling Orlando. Chesney has fallen asleep (on the arm of the nice gentleman in the window seat -- he told me many times she was fine, so I let her sleep) and I'm having this little conversation with myself about altitude. Then we smooth out, and I sigh with relief. Until the pilot comes on and explains that the landing gear door isn't closing correctly. They circled to put the landing gear back down and see if the door would close completely on a 2nd try, but it didn't. "But we're going to go ahead to Atlanta, folks. We'll just have to fly slower and at a lower altitude."
Put that on the list of things I didn't need to know. Once we landed in Atlanta, it was a pretty uneventful trip. Our flight to Kansas City was both overbooked and horribly late, but we made the flight. We arrived in Kansas City at 11 pm, where I learned that the teenage girl behind me had vomited the entire flight. Probably explains why every time I drifted off to sleep, I was woken up by a noise I couldn't quite place.
Once we landed back in Kansas City, I took Chesney to get the van (which was parked in economy parking) and left Dan and the big kids to retrieve the luggage. While we were on the bus to the parking lot, Ches asked me, "Mommy, why do you always take me everywhere?" Thinking back, we had a lot of mom and Ches time on this trip. I told her because I loved her and we found the van and headed back to the airport. It was quite a trip and our luggage was just arriving when we pulled up. Can't figure out why it takes Kansas City so long to get the luggage out when Orlando does it so quickly and is a much bigger airport, but it timed out well anyway. We found our airport hotel, which was clean but smelly, and were in bed by midnight.
The next morning, we drove home, stopping at McDonald's for breakfast. It was uneventful, except that Mykiah vomited all the way home. Guess the girl on the plane had something contagious that she passed on to Mykiah. But in the end, it was nice to be home.
Our wake-up call was nice and early this morning because we had arranged the night before to have our luggage picked up at 6:40. We were actually up at 5:45 so we could all get showered and changed and packed up before Luggage Services arrived. Of course, he was late. But not horribly late and we gave him our stuff and enjoyed our last few minutes in our room. We left for the bus stop at 7 am.
Animal Kingdom was our choice for today for several reasons. First, it was the EMH park, so we'd get an extra hour out of our day. Second, it's Dan and Brady's favorite park. The rest of us like it OK, so that's where we went.
When we arrived, we were able to get fairly close to the turnstile. Dan held our spots while I ran the kids to the bathroom. Boy, they have to potty a lot! Soon enough, the turnstiles opened and we discovered that we were in the line for people who had no clue how to insert a ticket. Seriously, the cast member had to show every single family in front of us how to insert their ticket, then go through the turnstile, then insert another ticket. In several instances, people were trying to insert 4 or 5 tickets at a time, then all go through together. Of course by this time we had it down to a science and when we got up to the front we went through (by now even Chesney knew how to do the ticket thing) and off to the Tree of Life.
Due to the hold ups in line, the show at the Tree of Life was mostly over by the time we arrived, so we were mostly able to keep walking to follow the van down to the Safaris. We walked right onto a Safari vehicle and the kids loved it. So much so that Chesney asked to go on them again. We stopped and got a fastpass, then beat it to Dinosaur since the rest of the park was just opening.
Once again, we were able to walk right into the building here. We planned to do the rider switch and as we walked up I told Chesney she would be able to sit in the gift shop again. The only problem is that for Dinosaur, the whole family has to wait in line for the ride. Apparently Chesney decided she'd just go to the gift shop by herself, because we got in the building and couldn't find her. I freaked and sent Dan out to look for her. Several minutes went by and he never came back, so I really started to freak. I left the line and went looking for them. They were sitting on the floor in the gift shop. Um, don't you think you could have told us you'd decided to stay with Ches? He had apparently signaled to the cast member at the entrance, who didn't read the signal or relay anything to us.
So now the line has built, but I take the big kids and we get in line. We sat in the front row and for the first time, my stomach got queasy on this ride. To give my stomach a chance to settle, we took the kids to the Boneyard for a bit. There Brady and Chesney got really brave and did the big slide. Yeah!
By now, it was Fast Pass time, so we walked back to the back of the park again to ride. As we're getting close, Chesney started saying, "I don't know about this," which was her way of telling us that she didn't want to ride. This was just crazy because she had loved it less than 2 hours before. We told her that her crying was scaring the animals, so she calmed and once again ended up loving the ride.
My last wish for this trip was to end it by seeing the Festival of the Lion King one last time. It was already 10:30 and the next show was at 10:45, so we had to hustle, especially since we needed to stop at a drink cart for something wet. We made it and actually got decent seats. Once again, my favorite show ever. And a truly wonderful way to end our trip. We left for the resort right at 11:30, but not before running into Timon and Terk on the way out. Those two pictures are my two favorites of the entire trip. All trip, I'd been taking pictures where one or more of my kids wasn't looking at the camera. These were perfection!
We arrived back at POR at noon and went to Luggage Services. I had packed our mugs and our swimming stuff into one bag, so I grabbed it and we headed to the food court for lunch. We all ate at different stations for lunch -- Mykiah had a tossed salad from the deli section, Chesney had chicken nuggets and fries, Brady got a cheeseburger and fries and I had the kids' pasta meal, which was more than enough for an adult. Dan got a double cheeseburger, which took a really long time to make. It's nice to know they're fresh, but the grill line got way backed up at times.
Our original plan was to go swim for awhile, but Dan and I really didn't feel like getting wet at this point. Happy Limo was supposed to pick us up at 2:30, so we decided just to waste time at the resort. We returned the life vest we had borrowed for Chesney, played a lot of games in the arcade, and went back to the food court for ice cream. I had my last Mickey bar.
About 2 pm, we went out to wait for the town car. When we walked outside, I looked around for the luxury van we had ordered, but didn't see any. There were a lot of people waiting for a Mears bus, so it was a bit confusing for awhile. Once they left, we found a bench and moved up close to the Luggage Services area. At 2:15, Dan went ahead and retrieved our luggage, thinking it would save some time. At 2:30, I was getting ticked and called Happy Limo. As I was telling the person on the phone our name, a kid standing beside me said, "There's a guy over there holding a sign with your name on it." Sure enough, our driver was about 10 steps from us.
What was the problem, you ask? For starters, he was driving an Excursion, which was actually an upgrade. He was standing exactly at the door we had used, but when we had come out, he had been in the vehicle. He never walked beyond his vehicle to see if anyone was waiting for him. He said he had told the Luggage Services people who he was expecting, but they were so busy and there were so many people working that it probably got lost. So our driver and myself were a bit peeved at the mix-up. He threw our stuff in the back, I belted the kids in and we were off on a very fast trip to the airport. The limo company assumes that people are going to arrive a few minutes early for a pick-up, so he was pretty tightly scheduled. I sat in the back watching Ricky Martin Live on the screen in the back of the headrest (don't ask) but Dan said he was pushing 80 mph at some points. I didn't notice him doing anything dangerous and we got there quickly and safely, so I'm not complaining.
We were dropped off curbside and immediately a Sky Cap appeared. There was a sign that said Air Tran only did curbside check-in within 45 minutes of departure and we were about 3 hours early, but the sky cap went ahead and checked us in, printed our new tickets and boarding passes and sent us on our way. We spent some time browsing the airport shops before deciding to go through security. We were sent through the Kids Lane line, which was very kid friendly and the kids each got a sticker. Then it was on to find our gate. Once we were close, we found a fairly deserted spot and spread out. The kids colored and played until about 4:30 when we decided to eat dinner. There was a McDonald's close, so Dan and the kids had that. I just couldn't deal with McD's yet, so I went for a pretzel from the pretzel stand and a side salad from Sbarros. After dinner, we walked to our gate, which was the furtherest walk from the center of the terminal, of course.
Our plane, which was actually a Ryan Airlines flight through AirTran, boarded about 15 minutes late. We were once again close to the front of the plane so we were among the last to be boarded. As we're walking on, we pass a lady with a baby. Dan says to me, "I hope she's not sitting by us." That baby smelled rank! Change the diaper before you get on board, please! Nope, of course not, and of course the baby was seated right in front of me.
To make matters worse, our seating was messed up and we had been assigned three seats together on one side and then the aisle and window on the other side, with a stranger sitting between us. The gentleman put in that seat was very nice and took the window seat so that I could sit with Chesney.
And wait, it gets better. I hate take-off. I just know that if I'm going to die on an airplane, it's going to be during take-off. Once we get to a decent altitude, I calm down. So here we take off and I can see we're not gaining altitude. In fact, it looks like we're circling Orlando. Chesney has fallen asleep (on the arm of the nice gentleman in the window seat -- he told me many times she was fine, so I let her sleep) and I'm having this little conversation with myself about altitude. Then we smooth out, and I sigh with relief. Until the pilot comes on and explains that the landing gear door isn't closing correctly. They circled to put the landing gear back down and see if the door would close completely on a 2nd try, but it didn't. "But we're going to go ahead to Atlanta, folks. We'll just have to fly slower and at a lower altitude."
Put that on the list of things I didn't need to know. Once we landed in Atlanta, it was a pretty uneventful trip. Our flight to Kansas City was both overbooked and horribly late, but we made the flight. We arrived in Kansas City at 11 pm, where I learned that the teenage girl behind me had vomited the entire flight. Probably explains why every time I drifted off to sleep, I was woken up by a noise I couldn't quite place.
Once we landed back in Kansas City, I took Chesney to get the van (which was parked in economy parking) and left Dan and the big kids to retrieve the luggage. While we were on the bus to the parking lot, Ches asked me, "Mommy, why do you always take me everywhere?" Thinking back, we had a lot of mom and Ches time on this trip. I told her because I loved her and we found the van and headed back to the airport. It was quite a trip and our luggage was just arriving when we pulled up. Can't figure out why it takes Kansas City so long to get the luggage out when Orlando does it so quickly and is a much bigger airport, but it timed out well anyway. We found our airport hotel, which was clean but smelly, and were in bed by midnight.
The next morning, we drove home, stopping at McDonald's for breakfast. It was uneventful, except that Mykiah vomited all the way home. Guess the girl on the plane had something contagious that she passed on to Mykiah. But in the end, it was nice to be home.
