So now that our departure to WDW was nearly a month ago
sad
, I say it's about time that we get on with the show.
Arrival Day: 10/23/09
Our flight out of Hartford was scheduled to leave at 3:05pm. We woke up around 7:30am, and everything actually went very smoothly. I had dropped the bunnies off the night before, and there was no rushing around like a maniac to do any last minute packing. I was surprised at how easy the morning actually went.....
Of course, it was just the calm before the storm. I tried using the WDW Resort Online Check-In service and the system was down. Strike 1.
My mom showed at at 10:30am and it took us 15 minutes to get everything loaded into the car. We made it about 8 miles from home when I had an apostrophe...I mean epiphany.... I didn't remember packing the tickets for
MNSSHP. We pulled over into a gas station so my mom could fill up and I could check my Passporter to see if the tickets were in there.
They weren't.
Strike 2.
Now let me back up just a smidge.... The tickets that we ordered for the party on 10/27 had been purchased as soon as they went on sale which was like April or May...I can't remember for sure. However, at the time of purchase, I did not yet own the Passporter. So everything that I got in the mail from Disney went into the plastic accordian-style folder that I keep my bills and other statements in. I never got around to putting the tickets into the folder because within a week, they were gone. I don't know if they got thrown out (which is most likely) or if my brother grabbed them with a bunch of his mail and they somehow ended up his room...AKA the Land of the Lost. If his rabbits weren't as large as they are (one is 13lbs the other is 15lbs), I would probably never find THEM...let alone a piece of paper with plastic Disney tickets stuck to it.
Sooo... when I got the new set of tickets and the ones the ones for the party on 10/31, I put them immediately into the folder. You know....so they wouldn't get lost.....again....
A couple of weeks later, I got the Passporter on a trip to Barnes & Noble. That night, I went home and cleaned up all of the paperwork Disney sent me and organized everything into the Passporter. I specifically remember NOT putting the tickets in there, in case the book got lost or stolen or something.
So...flash-forward to 11am on October 23rd, and I'm now turning my happy **** around to go back home to get the tickets.
We finally made it to my dad's house around 11:45. I dropped off my birds (I know, that sounds like a metaphor for going #2 but it's not....I have zebra finches who were staying with my dad for the week. Or maybe I'm the only one who saw that as a metaphor.....).
We were finally on our way to the airport and got there at 1pm on the dot. Lumar and I went over to the Southwest counter to print our boarding passes and to check our luggage. My suitcase was only about 15lbs. Lumar's on the other hand....
6lbs over weight.
SIX
FREAKING
POUNDS
The limit is 50lbs. So I start trying to move some stuff from his suitcase into mine. We put it back on the scale.....
51lbs.
The girl told me she wouldn't charge us for 1lbs since I put in a valiant effort. She marked it at 51lbs and let us go without a fee. I call this one a foul ball.
As I'm typing this, it occurred to me that I definitely got us a luggage scale earlier this year so that we could avoid this problem. We moved in March into our own apartment and it obviously got packed somewhere and has yet to be found. It's probably in my brother's room.....
So we make it through security (no lost boarding passes this time), and sit down for some lunch, then head to our gate which is actually NOT 8,000 miles away! It's the FIRST gate!
Our flight was supposed to be leaving at 3:05pm. At 2:50, the plane that would be flying us to Orlando was JUST LANDING at our gate. They still had to unload the current passengers, clean the plane, then reload the new passengers. We finally started boarding at 3:20pm.
For those of you who don't know this, Southwest does not have assigned seat numbers. They give you a position number on your boarding pass (B-51 for example), and load you by position number. You are free to pick any available seat on board. By the time we got on, there were only single seats available. Lumar and I were opposite sides of the aisle and he was behind me so we didn't even get to sit together. The woman next to me was very nice but rather plump and since she was there first, I felt it was my responsibility not to invade her personal space. So I sat at an angle facing the aisle, with my legs tucked as close to my chair as I could get them....for 2.5 hours. My iPod battery died after the first 30 minutes.
The flight attendants, however, were very nice and quite funny. During the pre-flight safety drill show, I remember the attendant said "Should this Southwest flight turn into a Southwest cruise, the exits are located at the front, center, and rear of the aircraft, but your seat cushion can longer be used as a flotation device."
When we finally landed at 6pm, the attendant came on again saying "Thank you for choosing Southwest, we hope you enjoyed your flight to Orlando, but if not, we really don't care. Please collect all of your personal items before exiting, and if you do leave anything behind, please make sure it something of value that can be split 3 ways."
I felt like a pretzel, but she made me laugh so it worked out OK.
There was only 1 family in front of me in line at the DME counter so check-in was pretty quick. Here we are waiting on the DME bus:
And this, believe it or not, is the entrance to WDW. It was night time, OK!? I tried! You can actually see Minnie's dress if you look closely....
We got to POP at 7pm and checked in at Classic Hall. I was really excited when the CM told me we were in the Roger Rabbit building....come on! I get to be in the BUNNY BUILDING! Then....we actually walked there. And I wanted....to hurt....someone. I'm pretty sure that the Roger Rabbit building is the building furthest from Classic Hall. It's like, almost on CBR property, that's how freakin' far away we were, OK?
Since it was dark, none of the pictures we took came out very well. Don't worry, I have some later on when it was daytime.
So we get upstairs (2nd floor, room 7252) and see luggage waiting for us! YAY!
Except....it's definitely NOT our luggage. Someone else's luggage had been brought to our room by mistake. I called the lobby and they sent someone to come get it. We left for DTD shortly after, at 8:15pm. Our ADR for Planet Hollywood was at 9:30pm but we were starving so we headed over there to check in early. They got us in right around 8:45pm and we were on the lower level right in front of the DJ. Thankfully, there were no shenanigans played on his behalf.
We had the potato skins for an appetizer...there were 6 when we started, and then I remember to take a picture:
Lumar had the chicken & steak fajitas:
They changed the name of the Bananarama to the Spiderman something-or-other:
And I also had the L.A Lasagna which was fantastical:
After dinner, we headed back to the bus stop. There was about 30 people waiting already....
A bus came and was pretty much completely packed...I think the bus driver let about 10 people on.
Another bus arrived about 10 minutes later, and this one was also packed full. This time, the driver let 4 people on.
We finally came to the determination that the bus was filling up over at the Marketplace stop and at the rate we were going, we wouldn't get on a bus until after 11pm when the Marketplace closed. So we decided to just walk over to the Marketplace stop and get on over there.
There was NO ONE there. We sat there for about 5 minutes, and 2 other families ended up getting on with us.
We went right to bed when we got back to POP. Coming up next: Our first day at Epcot!