Woke up bright and early (6am) to get ready for DISNEY! I love the feeling of knowing that "today is the day!"
Left the house at 9:00 am in order to get to the airport for our 11:15 am flight on Allegiant Air- a direct connection. My sister drove us to the airport so that we wouldn't have to leave our car there. We checked in, no problems, and sat at the gate for our flight. Things seemed to be delayed for some reason. At about 10:30am we heard that our plane had arrived but that we needed to move to another gate. We headed to the second gate and watched as passengers unloaded from our plane. Things were taking a while, it seemed.
At 11:30am it was announced that the plane had flap issues during landing, and was not going anywhere. Everyone groaned. No panic from us, yet. The announcement was made- they were going to send in a new plane from Vegas., however, there would be a delay of about 4-5 hours. Good thing for us, we didnt have anything planned for this first day at Disney- we had only planned to look around the boardwalk and have dinner wherever the mood struck us.
We called my sister, summoned her back to the airport (good thing it is only 15 minutes from our house where she was staying!) and then left the airport to have lunch. We returned to the airport after lunch and spent time reading, playing games, taking photos etc.
We were finally boarded at 5:00 pm (6 pm Florida time). The flight went very smoothly- this was the first flight for our kids, and they loved it! Upon landing, our pilot announced the current temperature was about 70 degrees at our arrival time of 9 pm! Can't beat that! With the direct flight, we had flown in to Sanford International, so we had to get a rental car and drive the remaining 45 minutes to the resort. Our car pick-up was hassel free and quick, which was great since we were all tired at that point and getting hungry!
We drove to Orlando- the youngest DD falling asleep in the car. We finally arrived at POP Century around 10 pm. The youngest was tough to wake up- as you can see, she was still tired while waiting at check-in.
At check-in, I explained that when we booked our room that there werent any preferred rooms available for our first night, but did get a preferred room for the remainder of the trip, and I wondered if we could get one now to avoid a room switch. The assistant said that she would find us a room that was close to the main lobby/busses, but that it wasnt necessarily preferred.
She got us a room in the 1960s building- right next to the large Mowgli and Baloo icons, #5435. It was very close to the main lobby and pool which is what we wanted. Since it wasnt a preferred location, we would be refunded the difference for the other room for the remainder of our trip. Win-win for us!
After all of the check-in was finished, I went to get our groceries that we had requested in advance (Garden Grocer had delivered while we were still waiting at the airport for our plane and the resort had held it at the luggage area). The man that helped us was very nice, and loaded all of our groceries and bags onto the luggage cart and told the exhausted kids to hop on for a ride to the room.
Once in our room, we unloaded our bags and groceries and then headed to the food court- we were starving! Monkey (6 y.o. DD) ordered the kids cheese pizza. Peanut (8 y.o. DD) had the chicken alfredo. DH had the meatball sandwich and I had the parmesan crusted chicken. Our dining plan didn't begin until the next day, so it was OOP for us- can't find the receipt however for this.
Everyone enjoyed their dinners- I absolutely love the parm chicken. We were astonished to see that the re-fillable mugs were the same as our mugs that we got in December. We kicked ourselves for not bringing them with us!
We went to the gift shop and did our first bit of shopping- we had planned to suprise the kids with tickets to the PPP, so I bought a pirate-princess ball cap to wear for myself for $19.95 and the kids each got a new pin for their lanyards. They had a deal going on that if you spent over $40 in merchandise, you could purchase a WDW tote bag for $10- needless to say, I have one now!
After shopping, we headed to the room for sleep- tomorrow was going to be full of fun!
Coming soon...... Day 2: Animal Kingdom & Magic Kingdom!
I can't wait! 
Will be excited to take photos to share to pay back all of my buddies on the boards! We leave in 2 hours for the airport- first time flying for the kids- little nervous about that, but am sure it will be fine.
Danny
Thank goodness for the DDP! 
