"I Got A Pocket, Pocketful of Sunshine": 2 Girls, 5 Days in Oct. 2010

[SarahWeasley]

Greetings and warmest welcome to the report for our October 2010 visit to Orlando! Should you choose to join us as we relive our five wonderful days at the Universal and Disney resorts, I can promise you'll be rewarded by encounters with:

• cheeseburgers!
• catchphrases!
• comical headgear!
• and canoes, canoes, canoes! (Okay, this one is a lie, but you'll win points for catching the reference)
• and perhaps most importantly, the answer to the age-old question: can two adult sisters spend the better part of a week together without fistfights, bloodshed or tearful recriminations? (I know I didn't think so.)

Given that there are about 20,000 other trip report threads here, it's probably a safe bet that this will not be the BEST trip report ever. And you can also assume that it won't be the CUTEST trip report ever, because my sister and I are unfortunately long past the stage where we could pass ourselves off as adorable moppets. And we failed to bring any adorable moppets along with us so we could take their pictures (blame my sister for this oversight; she's the one who wouldn't let me pack a bigger suitcase).

But what this will be… what it will be… okay, what it will be is the first trip report that I've ever finished and posted online, assuming I do manage to do that, and I really really want to. And did I mention the funny hats?

So now that I've got you hooked, allow me to introduce your protagonists for this fateful saga (and establish that we did, at least, get inside one theme park before incurring any visible scars):

That's my sister Beth on the left, and yours truly (aka Sarah) on the right. I'm 26 years old, live in northern Virginia (where we grew up), and work for a government contractor, helping the Navy with paperwork. Beth turns 23 (yikes) at the end of November; she graduated from college this year and lives in Cambridge, MA, where she's working with kids in an after-school program while looking for a full-time position (if anyone in Boston needs an entry-level web designer, let me know!).

So how did the two of us end up in Florida, for my first visit to Disney World since I was four and Beth's first visit ever?

Well… because of Harry Potter, of course.

We've both been big Potter fans for many years, and I've been eagerly following news about the Wizarding World at Islands of Adventure since the project was first announced. So when they started previewing it in the press this spring, I knew pretty quickly that I had to visit -- and, with no other big vacations on my horizon for this year, why not add on a few days and see Disney World as well? As I said, the only time I'd been to Orlando was with my parents when I was four -- we spent one day at Magic Kingdom, one day at Epcot, and one day at Cypress Gardens (they say I had a great time, but my favorite parts were the cereal at the hotel breakfast buffet, and the bus we took to the parks). We did also visit Disneyland for a day when we were about 8 and 4, respectively. I had never rejected the possibility of visiting Disney World as an adult; I just never thought about it. If not for the WWOHP, I doubt we would have ever made it down there without any kids to bring along. (But now that we've been there -- spoiler alert -- of course I will be going back.)

All the circumstances of the trip were up in the air for a long time, but when the dust had settled, I was very pleased that Beth was coming with me to Orlando in October. In the meantime, long before anything was remotely decided, of course I had started my research. As an adult, I've discovered that planning a vacation to a new place is one of my favorite things in the world (which works out real well for the people who are going with me but somehow don't get the same thrill from poring over guidebooks). And once I started looking for information on Universal and Disney, it took no time at all to become fully immersed -- especially once I discovered the Disboards. You guys know what I'm talking about.

As we set off for Florida, here was our general plan:

Tuesday, October 12: Fly from Baltimore to Orlando, land around 9:30 PM, and check in at our hotel near Universal.

Wednesday, October 13: Start off at WWOHP, stay there for as long as we want to, then see the rest of Islands of Adventure (neither of us was interested in roller coasters at all, so I didn't think it would take that long to hit the stuff we wanted to do in the rest of IOA). If we have time, start exploring Universal Studios Florida next door.

Thursday, October 14: Return to WWOHP for at least one last quick look, then back to USF. Whenever we finish up there, head down to Disney World, check in at our hotel there (Pop Century!), and hopefully visit one of the Disney parks for at least a little while.

Friday, October 15: Magic Kingdom!

Saturday, October 16: Epcot! (Yes, on a Saturday during the International Wine & Food Festival. I recognized the flaws of this strategy, but with only three days, we didn't have a ton of wiggle room.)

Sunday, October 17: Hollywood Studios, then flying home that evening (Beth's and my flights departing at 6:40 PM and 7 PM, respectively).

Yup, no stop at Animal Kingdom. With such limited time, as the only park that didn't have anything I really HAD to do or see, AK didn't make the cut on our itinerary. I was hopeful that we might end up hopping over to it for a few hours at some point (especially when it started to feel like every trip report I read consisted mostly of totally awesome days in AK), but just had to leave that to chance.

One note, before I begin reporting on what ACTUALLY happened on our trip: I'm writing and posting this in hopes that you Disboarders may enjoy it, but I'm also intending to link friends and family here, so at times I'll be describing and explaining things that any Disney nut would already be familiar with -- I hope that's not annoying. (This dual purpose has the benefit that, if there's no sign that anyone here is remotely interested, I can at least tell myself that my mom and my friends with REALLY boring jobs might still be reading it. And if they're not, either, then at least I'll have it for myself, and that would be pretty nice, too. )

 

[acejka]

Following along...

I grew up in NOVA too! Springfield area.

 

[SarahWeasley]

Although we weren't leaving for Florida until Tuesday, the story of our trip really begins on Saturday morning, when Beth arrived in Virginia. This is the first time my parents and I had seen her since she moved to Boston in July, so I was really glad she could come back home to visit for a few days before our Orlando adventure. (When she landed at Dulles, where our dad picked her up, she had a story to tell about some people who had boarded her plane in Boston, and managed to get all the way to their assigned seats before realizing that their tickets were for a flight leaving at 7:30 PM, not 7:30 AM. Thank goodness that didn't happen to us!)

After she arrived, she and I picked up our mom at her gym, and the three of us spent the afternoon at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, an annual tradition for us and one of my favorite places to go (it was actually my third visit of the season!). Besides seeing shows, eating extremely un-nutritious snacks, and browsing the oodles of amazingly gorgeous and staggeringly expensive handmade goods for sale, I was also using the day to try out the brand-new Vera Bradley mini-hipster bag I'd ordered especially for our trip; I really wanted to travel extra-light in the parks, and the mini-hipster worked pretty well for our RenFest day.

On Sunday afternoon, Beth and I went to see a movie, and as we were exiting the car at the theatre, I noticed something: my credit card and driver's license weren't in my purse. Oh, but that's no big deal; I just hadn't moved them back from the mini-hipster, where I was keeping them yesterday. Except… I still had the mini-hipster in my car, and my card and license weren't in THERE, either. So where were they?!?!?!

I convinced myself that I had left them on my dining table at home, and was able to relax enough to enjoy the movie ("Easy A"), which was pretty funny. But afterward, to make a long story short, it eventually became clear that, two days before our vacation, my driver's license and credit card -- the card I had used for ALL our reservations and tickets and Godknowswhatelse -- were totally missing. And I had no hope of finding them.

Had I ruined our trip?

After scouring the Internet for information, I was pretty sure I hadn't ruined our trip, but it was probably going to be a huge downer to remind myself of my own ineptitude every time I had to show my passport as ID, or use a different credit card, or explain why I couldn't provide the card I'd originally used. (Besides realizing that I'd been really, really thoughtless in keeping my card and license in my bag's outside pocket -- Captain Hindsight to the rescue! -- this was also only a week after I'd managed to lose my cell phone. So even though I'd gotten my phone back, I was feeling extra-pathetic for incurring two disasters in eight days. ) Instead of reveling in excitement like I should have been two days before the trip, I was wallowing in self-blame. (Okay, maybe I was still a little excited. )

After waiting until the next morning to see if my card and license might still turn up, of course they hadn't, so I prepared to call and have the card cancelled. But first, I had to take just one more quick stab at salvaging the situation: I called the RenFest office, even though they hadn't been able to help when we'd called them the previous afternoon.

But this time, when I gave them my name... THEY HAD MY STUFF!!!!

I was so excited and relieved, I couldn't believe I'd been saved (although, if I had to trust any crowd anywhere to turn in something to a Lost & Found, it would probably be the RenFest crowd, because they're good people). I zipped back up to Crownsville to collect my things, feeling extremely blessed but also extremely apprehensive. In two weeks, I'd been rescued from two massive screw-ups. Was a third mistake coming -- during our vacation? Would I be so lucky again? Only time would tell.

On Monday evening, our last night before departing to Florida, we went out to the Macaroni Grill for a celebratory family dinner. After returning to my parents' house, I would have liked to stay and relax for a while longer, but I knew I had to get home to take care of all those little last-minute pre-vacation chores. For example, I needed to start packing.


*pause for gasps to subside*


Okay, just kidding. Sort of. I did not really wait until the night before the trip to start the packing PROCESS. I had spent the last several days accumulating, in a big old pile on an armchair, just about everything that I was planning to bring with me. What I needed to do now was try to cram it into my tiny, puny, diminutive microscopic speck of a bag. See, I had originally intended to pack my giant rolling suitcase. But Beth--a far lighter packer than myself, or our mom--had issued a fervent request that I avoid checking any bags. And because I am an extremely wonderful person , I said, for her sake, I would try to fit everything into my wee little carry-on. And so I did try -- three times. I succeeded on the last attempt, but only after I gave up bringing a second pair of jeans and a second bathing suit. Sigh. (I didn't end up missing them, but I COULD HAVE if things had gone differently! I just like to be prepared!) Finally, having gotten my bags and everything else as ready as it could be, I hit the hay probably a little after 1 AM, which is not bad at all by my night-before-vacation standards.

Tuesday morning, I spent the entire day at work staring at the clock, just like in elementary school when I knew I was getting picked up early. Back then, even leaving twenty minutes before the bell for a dentist appointment was pretty thrilling; as an adult, I do need a little more to get excited about. But leaving early to GET ON A PLANE AND GO TO DISNEY WORLD (and Universal Studios)? That'll do it!

A little after 4 PM, I met my dad and sister outside my office, and she put her bags in my car and she got in and we were off to the airport!! Except that as soon as we started driving, I realized I didn't know how to get on the highway in the right direction. And then we figured it out, just in time to pull into bumper-to-bumper traffic. But the traffic really wasn't too bad, and we made it to the long-term lot at BWI around 5:25. Thirty minutes later, we were sitting by our departure gate. I know this because this is when I started taking really silly, boring photos that serve no purpose whatsoever except for their timestamp:

This is what the airport looked like at exactly 5:55 PM! Thanks, technology!

Once we got situated, I waited while Beth went to pick up dinner for us at the pizza stand, because I have a horrible, sick compulsion that makes it impossible for me to visit an airport--or a mall--without getting a slice of pizza from Sbarro or whatever other awful chain is available. It's a disease. As I sat there, I was struck by a sudden realization:

I HADN'T DOUBLE-CHECKED THAT MY CAR'S HEADLIGHTS WERE TURNED OFF.

See, I have a horrible history when it comes to parking my car at BWI. The last two times I'd parked there for a trip, the first time I'd returned to find my battery dead because I'd left the headlights on. The second time was even worse; my battery was not just drained, but totally kaput, and I'd had to have the car towed back to Virginia. Both times really stunk. So I had really, really meant to double-check the lights when I parked, but once again I'd been distracted by getting my stuff together, and I honestly didn't know whether I'd managed to flip that switch, or not.

(I know you're wondering, at this point, how someone so utterly airheaded could possibly have made it to Florida at all, let alone survived five days and returned home alive. Yeah, it amazes me, too. )

Beth returned with our pizza. I told her of my fear about my car. She sympathized (although it wasn't her problem, since she would be flying back to Boston, not BWI). And then I started shoving it out of my mind, because without enough time to get back to the parking lot before our flight, there was nothing much I could do except enjoy my airport pizza…

And then get on a plane to FLORIDA!!!!!!

Coming up next...will we actually set foot on Orlando soil? Or will I get stuck in an airplane bathroom for twelve hours, eventually escaping only to find myself somewhere over Minnesota?

 

[SarahWeasley]

(Personal stuff has kept me from updating this, but I think the next few posts will come pretty quickly.)

As our 6:45 departure time approached, there were a couple announcements of delays, but it only ended up being about 15 minutes. When we did board, I was glad to find the plane was just as empty as I would have expected a Tuesday evening flight to be.

I think I spent most of the rest of the flight reading the New Yorker. Beth asked if I had any other magazines, and I said I had a lot, but they were all New Yorkers, Newsweeks and Washington Post Magazines. "Oh. So just boring magazines," she assessed. She hijacked my copy of the Unofficial Guide to WDW instead.

I thought I might spend some time on the flight learning about my new camera, but all the Quick Start Guide really told me was that the camera was supposed to be able to hone in on faces. So I spent a few minutes bothering Beth so I could try that out.

Hey, it's a face! Kinda.

We also got these crackers, which I'd never seen before even though we fly Southwest all the time.

I'd like to say they were good, but in truth, they reminded me of a line I read in a Bill Bryson book: "I ate it all because I was hungry... but seldom have I felt more as if I were engaged in a simple refueling exercise."

And then, a little before 9:30, WE LANDED IN FLORIDA!!!

My first reaction upon landing: Look at all the palm trees! They're everywhere! This is so amazing! So tropical! So otherworldly!

Wait, why the bloody heck are there so many palm trees at an AIRPORT?

They were all over the tarmac. You know what's all over the tarmac at BWI? Or Dulles? Or Reagan National? TARMAC. None of this sort of frippery. Still, it was wonderful to look out the airplane window and know immediately that we really weren't in Kansas (or Virginia) anymore.

We deboarded, and I checked about fifty times that I hadn't managed to lose anything in the last three hours (this would be a common -- some might say compulsive -- task for me throughout our trip). We hiked to the rental car area, which took about four hours longer than it would have if I'd remembered that you're supposed to turn LEFT to get to the Dollar desk. Oh well. Several minutes and only one embarrassing incident with a garage attendant later , we were on the road in our little black Chevy Cobalt!

Unfortunately, we had once again started driving without knowing where to go. I had brought my GPS, but it often takes awhile to "locate satellites," so when Beth tried searching for our hotel, it was coming up with hotels a thousand miles away back in Baltimore. Thankfully, in the course of way overdoing my trip research, I had spent enough time looking at maps of Orlando to get us headed in the right direction (and I remembered the first couple of turns on the toll-free directions I'd read on the TripAdvisor forums), so we were able to get started until the GPS caught up with us.

We still needed to stop at a grocery store, though, and despite driving on all these toll- free side roads, we just couldn't seem to find one. I finally just turned in to what looked like a likely shopping center… which turned out to hold THE BIGGEST WAL-MART IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD. At least, the biggest I had ever been in. I guess it was a pretty standard "Walmart Supercenter," but we just don't have those in the parts I'm from. We stocked up on breakfast foods, snacks and sunscreen (which, when I finally found it, was about a seven-kilometer hike from the grocery section). Beth paid while I pulled up the car, and we then spent what felt like hours just trying to get OUT of the parking lot.

As we drew closer to Universal, I kept my eyes open hoping to catch some kind of glimpse of the magic, but my only reward was seeing what I THINK were the two giant Universal parking garages. But I'm such a nerd that even that small hint of the next day's fun was enough to excite me. We finally reached our destination, the Fairfield Inn near Universal Studios, RIGHT WHERE I KNEW IT WAS from looking it up on Google Maps eleven thousand times to trace how close it really was to Universal. Success!

Then I promptly got lost trying to find the hotel parking lot.

Just before 11 PM, we finally lugged our stuff inside to the check-in desk, and retrieved our reservation with no problems. The employee at the desk asked how our night had been, and I said, "Long! We landed about two hours ago!" We made it up to our room, where I insisted on taking a picture...

And then we COLLAPSED.

About an hour later, we both went to sleep, with alarms set for 7:30 and visions of Hogwarts dancing in our heads...

Coming up next: we reach Islands of Adventure, and this trip report's title is explained!