DAY ONE, THURSDAY NOVEMBER 29TH, PART ONE
I got up VERY early Thursday morning (3:30am) and took a quick shower, then finished packing up my toiletries. I let my dog out and fed him breakfast, then ate a small breakfast myself. My father came to take me to the airport around 4:45am. I walked into BWI to the Southwest desk at exactly 5am. My flight was leaving at 6:45am so I was happy to arrive then. I only had one person in front of me to check my bags and print my boarding pass, so I was done there in about 5-7 minutes and over to security.
Security wasn't long at all either, so I was done there and by my gate around 5:25am. Despite having lots of food options there (seriously at least a dozen places within view of my gate) none of them seemed appealing so I just went into the store and bought a bottle of water and some Chex Mix to snack on. There were only about 10 other people there when I got to my gate, and I was happy to see that instead of CNN (which has it's time and place for sure, but I don't want to hear depressing news or political stuff right before a flight) they had Cartoon Network on the TVs!

I watched the end of Yogi Bear, then an episode of The Flintstones and the beginning of an episode of Captain Planet and the Planeteers while waiting for boarding.
Around 6:25am our plane pulled up to the gate:
My flight info:
Around 6:35am they started boarding. Unfortunately I was in the last boarding group. It was a full flight and only 5 people got on behind me, so seats were limited! I wound up next to a younger couple (probably 20ish), with his family (Mom, Aunt and a young kid) behind me. To say they were obnoxious is an understatement. They alternated between making out and cussing loudly while telling stories (though that was mostly him). He even cussed (mostly "F") while talking to the kid behind us, who looked to be about 5. Obviously this was not considered unacceptable as his mother did the same. I put in my headphones but for some reason the volume wasn't working on my laptop and it took until 20 minutes before we landed before I fixed it, so I got to hear the majority of their conversations about partying, friends getting arrested or killed drunk driving and other exploits.
I was determined not to let them dampen my excitement for WDW though, and thankfully my good mood was helped when we landed 24 minutes early!!! I quickly walked off the plane and headed to the Mini Monorail. I got lucky that it was there when I walked up, so I got right into the back car.
My view from inside the Mini-Monorail
I made my way to Side A and my baggage claim turnstile. While I waited for them to get our bags there I got a couple of pictures. First up, the wreath over the baggage turnstile
And an advertisement for a party I'd soon be at!
Once the bags started coming I got lucky and both of my bags quickly appeared. I had to go back up and then over to Side B with them and my carry-on (which was pretty heavy) to get to DME. Along the way I passed the main tree. It was pretty tall, and quite pretty.
I made my way to the DME desk (thanks to my TA throwing away my ME paperwork) and they were pretty busy.
Thankfully the cruise line side was empty, so those agents started taking ME patrons and I only waited about 5 minutes to get checked in. My agent was great! I don't remember his name, though I have it at home, but he is in the picture above, on the right. He gave me my print out and I walked over to get in my line. I was only in line about 30 seconds before we (meaning me, the 7 people in front of me and the family of 5 that walked in the line behind me) were told we could walk outside to our bus.
This was only my second time I had taken ME, the first time being my trip in February earlier this year. That time I got a Cruise line bus and instead of the "official" video I watched the first 30 minutes of Toy Story 3. Don't get me wrong, I love Toy Story, but I was looking forward to that video. So this time I was really, really, really hoping for an actual Disney's Magical Express bus. So, we were walked outside and I saw my bus...

An actual DME bus! We all boarded and soon were off. Once we hit 417 the video started (which I learned it starts automatically via GPS coordinates).
It was a nice video. Yes, I knew 99% of what they showed and the advice they gave, but it made me even more excited to be almost to the World! And I was even MORE excited to see how beautiful it was that day:
After about 25 minutes I saw my favorite sight, the entrance to WDW!!
We made a quick stop at CBR where a few people got off, then off to POP Century! We arrived around 10:30am.
I made my way off the bus to the red carpet (yes, POP Century does have a red carpet to lead you off the bus into Classic Hall to check-in). Do other resorts have the red carpet?
The line was almost non-existant when I walked in. I had not done online check-in, so I got in the regular line. All of the agents were busy with someone, but I was the first in the line. While waiting to check-in I took pictures of the Christmas decorations in the lobby.
After about 7-8 minutes of waiting I was called over to one of the Online Check-in stations, since no one else was in line over there.
Both the DIS and Photobucket are not being nice to me right now, so I'm going to stop so I get this posted and I'll come back later with another update!
NEXT TIME: WILL I GET MY ROOM REQUESTS????