Just to refresh everyone's memories, the cast included:
Myself - 35 year old single gal, this was my 2nd trip to Disney
Jane Smith - 62 year old first timer to Disney (who cannot smile if her life depended on it!)
My day of departure came and I was compeltely panic stricken. I had planned on working most of the day since my flight was not until 7pm, a good plan in theory, but a bad plan when mother nature decided to intervene! The night before my flight the Detroit area started getting a horrible snow storm that threatened to dump 6-8 inches of snow our way. Well I woke up Tuesday morning to a ton of snow. This changed my plans instantly. I got into work, and decided to get everything that I needed to do done and then leave to pick up Jane Smith. I kept checking my flight while at work and one minute it was delayed, the next on time. I spoke with Jane Smith and told her of my plans to leave work early and pick her up. This was where my first glitch happened. Jane Smith couldn't leave early as she had a hair appointment at 1pm. Now why in the heck would you make your hair appointment for the day of your trip???? Well I was asking myself that until it dawned on me that Jane Smith probably doesn't wash/do her hair everyday. I've known many women in my lifetime that have their weekly hair setting appointments, but never did I think that Jane Smith did this at her young age, but low and behold she did and was not willing to move that appointment. So I ended up working until about 1:30pm. I again called Jane Smith on the way to her house, she said she just got back from the hairdressers and had to change clothes and oh, also mop the floor. HUH????? You mean to tell me you've know for 2 months that you were leaving on March 1st for Orlando and you waited until that afternoon to mop your floors???? Makes no sense to me. You see I am pretty organized and when I want to leave, I want to leave NOW!!!! Well as suspected when I arrived at Jane Smith's house, she still had to mop and do whatever else up in her bedroom. 45 minutes later she emerged and said she was ready to leave. So we are finally off to the airport. It took a little over an hour to get there. I used off property parking and took their shuttle to the terminal. As suspected we were dropped off outside of the terminal and had a minimal walk to get in. This is where trouble started. Jane Smith commented that she couldn't walk and this was really far. Far, you haven't seen far until you see the Disney parks. I sort of just brushed it off and walked slow to security. I breezed through security stocking feet and all. Jane Smith on the other hand got detained. I still don't quite know why, but gee it might have had something to do with the fact that she had about 6 bangle braclets that she wouldn't take off, so the alarm kept going off. In the midst of her body search she utters one of the dreaded no no words....ready for this......TERRORIST. My mouth just about dropped to the floor, she said to the security agent "Do I really look like a terrorist". Well where I come from you just don't say things like that, if you do, you might find yourself having an even more intensive search. Got past all that and she came and sat down. She then informed me that she could walk no further and we would have to wait for a wheelchair for her. Now mind you, I am not an ogre or anything, my mother has limited walking capabilities and I deal with it daily, but I had NO idea that Jane Smith had problems of any kind. This was not looking like a good beginning to our trip. After about 10 minutes she decided that maybe she could walk, ok then, we are off. Checked the monitors and had a nice little surprise....DELAYED. Yep, you guessed it, our flight was delayed due to weather.
Not much I could do about it, I figured I'd just make the best of it. Our gate was a bit of a walk, but with the moving sidewalks it wasn't bad. Sat there for a while and the board again updated, DELAYED. I was finding that I really didn't like this word! Now we were about an hour on the delay front. I'm not one to sit so I suggested we grab a bite to eat, since the airlines are too cheap to feed us TV dinners anymore! Had a pleasantly surprising good dinner at the Budweiser Brew House, a hamburger and onion rings. Jane Smith had nachos and barely touched them. She decided to wrap them to go so she could eat them on the plane. Great, our whole plane was going to smell like a Mexican eatery, I could see the looks of disgust now. Again sat at the gate, and again my favorite word....DELAYED. Now we were up to an hour and a half. By the time they started boarding the flight was over 2 hours delayed. Jane Smith was none too happy and told everyone that would listen. Yes, I understand that flight delays are not fun, but there's not much you can do about them. Moaning and groaning is only going to make things worse, so I tried to tune her out. Got settled on the plane and then we just sat there....hmmm what is going on here? The friendly captain came on saying once we got out on the tarmack we would have about a 45 minute delay to wait for de-icing, oh joy, another round of expletives coming out of Jane Smith's mouth. FINALLY, took off at around 10:30pm, heading towards the mouse. The flight was uneventful, I closed my eyes and dreamt of spending the day with Mickey.
We landed in Orlando at about 1:00am, sure glad we didn't have any luggage to check in. I made my way over to the Avis rental counter. I was the next in line. Just as I was about to go up to the counter, a gentleman stepped in front of me and went to the open counter. Now I was a little miffed, but hey I'm in Orlando, no worries. Jane Smith didn't see it that way. She proceeded to say quite loudly how rude this guy was, etc. The counter agent said, he was before you, he just came from outside, so see, it never pays to speak up unless you know the full story. Young guy got pretty aggitated and looked like he was going to start a fight with Jane Smith, I had my running shoes on and was ready to make a quick exit. Finally received our car, pretty cool Suzuki XL7, I'll never want to drive my Escape again! The drive to the hotel was not bad, if you consider I was seeing about three of everything at that point do to fatigue setting in. Finally made it safely to the Crowne Plaza Universal and made it up to our room on the 15th floor private priority club level. I don't think a bed ever felt so good, but maybe that had something to do with the fact that it was the newer pillowtop type mattress with multiple pillows, etc. They even had soft relaxing music playing for when we arrived. I fell asleep dreaming of the day ahead with Mickey.
Up next - day 2 and the evil comes out.
Myself - 35 year old single gal, this was my 2nd trip to Disney
Jane Smith - 62 year old first timer to Disney (who cannot smile if her life depended on it!)
My day of departure came and I was compeltely panic stricken. I had planned on working most of the day since my flight was not until 7pm, a good plan in theory, but a bad plan when mother nature decided to intervene! The night before my flight the Detroit area started getting a horrible snow storm that threatened to dump 6-8 inches of snow our way. Well I woke up Tuesday morning to a ton of snow. This changed my plans instantly. I got into work, and decided to get everything that I needed to do done and then leave to pick up Jane Smith. I kept checking my flight while at work and one minute it was delayed, the next on time. I spoke with Jane Smith and told her of my plans to leave work early and pick her up. This was where my first glitch happened. Jane Smith couldn't leave early as she had a hair appointment at 1pm. Now why in the heck would you make your hair appointment for the day of your trip???? Well I was asking myself that until it dawned on me that Jane Smith probably doesn't wash/do her hair everyday. I've known many women in my lifetime that have their weekly hair setting appointments, but never did I think that Jane Smith did this at her young age, but low and behold she did and was not willing to move that appointment. So I ended up working until about 1:30pm. I again called Jane Smith on the way to her house, she said she just got back from the hairdressers and had to change clothes and oh, also mop the floor. HUH????? You mean to tell me you've know for 2 months that you were leaving on March 1st for Orlando and you waited until that afternoon to mop your floors???? Makes no sense to me. You see I am pretty organized and when I want to leave, I want to leave NOW!!!! Well as suspected when I arrived at Jane Smith's house, she still had to mop and do whatever else up in her bedroom. 45 minutes later she emerged and said she was ready to leave. So we are finally off to the airport. It took a little over an hour to get there. I used off property parking and took their shuttle to the terminal. As suspected we were dropped off outside of the terminal and had a minimal walk to get in. This is where trouble started. Jane Smith commented that she couldn't walk and this was really far. Far, you haven't seen far until you see the Disney parks. I sort of just brushed it off and walked slow to security. I breezed through security stocking feet and all. Jane Smith on the other hand got detained. I still don't quite know why, but gee it might have had something to do with the fact that she had about 6 bangle braclets that she wouldn't take off, so the alarm kept going off. In the midst of her body search she utters one of the dreaded no no words....ready for this......TERRORIST. My mouth just about dropped to the floor, she said to the security agent "Do I really look like a terrorist". Well where I come from you just don't say things like that, if you do, you might find yourself having an even more intensive search. Got past all that and she came and sat down. She then informed me that she could walk no further and we would have to wait for a wheelchair for her. Now mind you, I am not an ogre or anything, my mother has limited walking capabilities and I deal with it daily, but I had NO idea that Jane Smith had problems of any kind. This was not looking like a good beginning to our trip. After about 10 minutes she decided that maybe she could walk, ok then, we are off. Checked the monitors and had a nice little surprise....DELAYED. Yep, you guessed it, our flight was delayed due to weather.
Not much I could do about it, I figured I'd just make the best of it. Our gate was a bit of a walk, but with the moving sidewalks it wasn't bad. Sat there for a while and the board again updated, DELAYED. I was finding that I really didn't like this word! Now we were about an hour on the delay front. I'm not one to sit so I suggested we grab a bite to eat, since the airlines are too cheap to feed us TV dinners anymore! Had a pleasantly surprising good dinner at the Budweiser Brew House, a hamburger and onion rings. Jane Smith had nachos and barely touched them. She decided to wrap them to go so she could eat them on the plane. Great, our whole plane was going to smell like a Mexican eatery, I could see the looks of disgust now. Again sat at the gate, and again my favorite word....DELAYED. Now we were up to an hour and a half. By the time they started boarding the flight was over 2 hours delayed. Jane Smith was none too happy and told everyone that would listen. Yes, I understand that flight delays are not fun, but there's not much you can do about them. Moaning and groaning is only going to make things worse, so I tried to tune her out. Got settled on the plane and then we just sat there....hmmm what is going on here? The friendly captain came on saying once we got out on the tarmack we would have about a 45 minute delay to wait for de-icing, oh joy, another round of expletives coming out of Jane Smith's mouth. FINALLY, took off at around 10:30pm, heading towards the mouse. The flight was uneventful, I closed my eyes and dreamt of spending the day with Mickey.We landed in Orlando at about 1:00am, sure glad we didn't have any luggage to check in. I made my way over to the Avis rental counter. I was the next in line. Just as I was about to go up to the counter, a gentleman stepped in front of me and went to the open counter. Now I was a little miffed, but hey I'm in Orlando, no worries. Jane Smith didn't see it that way. She proceeded to say quite loudly how rude this guy was, etc. The counter agent said, he was before you, he just came from outside, so see, it never pays to speak up unless you know the full story. Young guy got pretty aggitated and looked like he was going to start a fight with Jane Smith, I had my running shoes on and was ready to make a quick exit. Finally received our car, pretty cool Suzuki XL7, I'll never want to drive my Escape again! The drive to the hotel was not bad, if you consider I was seeing about three of everything at that point do to fatigue setting in. Finally made it safely to the Crowne Plaza Universal and made it up to our room on the 15th floor private priority club level. I don't think a bed ever felt so good, but maybe that had something to do with the fact that it was the newer pillowtop type mattress with multiple pillows, etc. They even had soft relaxing music playing for when we arrived. I fell asleep dreaming of the day ahead with Mickey.
Up next - day 2 and the evil comes out.
Why do people have to be like that 
