On the Floor and Out the Door!: a 17 day HalloChristmas, RunDisney, MNSSHP, HHN, MVMCP adventure! new 2/8!

[missangelalexis]

You were so busy leading up to the trip! But glad you made it to Mike's mom's house without any problems (and not too many stops )

Uh oh a meltdown

 

[sahu]

I'm the same way with road trips - I just can't wait to BE THERE!

 

[amazingact21]

I'm late, but I'm here!! Can't wait to read all about this trip. I loved the back to back pictures of you two switching from Halloween to Christmas outfits; it's funny how fast the holidays swap over in WDW!

That was a long car ride but you made it! And I'm right there with you, hop in the car and go...no stopping every five minutes!

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

I'm glad your car trip started out ok! I'm not a fan of road trips so it sounds tedious to me

 

[TanzUnited99]

Wow you had a hectic time before heading to Disney...bless Mike for doing your packing for you

Yeah road trips aren’t the best, I always feel knackered after one. Glad you got to crash at Mike’s family before heading to Disney. Looking forward to you guys arriving at Disney!

 

[amberdc1987]

Along for the ride. 16 hours is really long! Been there, done that. Glad y'all made it safely. Can't wait to hear all about it.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Interesting. Most guys I know pack... if they're really organized... the night before a trip.

It's strange to me too lol. I leave on Friday at 5 am and there's been no packing done whatsoever lol

Good Lord!
Does she do those insane hours? I thought when you said she does brunches for the night staff... that the brunch would be... at night!

I have to say- I'm lucky and our management team is pretty great. She works crazier hours that we do and she's salaried so she doesn't get paid more even for all that she does (which is honestly why her guilt trips work lol!) We do our brunches at 11 am so that no one is working during them and if you work the night before or the night of you can still come (just have to sacrifice some sleep lol).

Only an hour? Yeah, I guess adrenaline will do that.

Yup the Disney excitement hit wayyyy too early lol

You must have made Mike so happy.

He was begging me to sleep!

Um... shouldn't every rest stop be clean? It's a sad comment that they have to advertise that.

That's what I was thinking!

Was there room for people???

Just barely lol. You couldn't recline the seats much (without crushing some stuff)

Never had Arby's! Really!
Then again... I don't think I've had it since before you were born...

We don't have one on Staten Island and it was never anything I felt the need to look for lol

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Following along. I love that you had such a long trip! I would love to do a trip that long one day, and even try and hit both Halloween and Christmas in the one trip. How magical!

Thanks for reading! Long trips are amazing and definitely spoiling lol.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

I know you work so many days in a row before your trips to maximize your time off, but goodness, you must be exhausted when you start your trips! I'm glad you were able to get some much-needed sleep on your road trip.

Yeah- it always sounds like a good idea on paper and then it's so hard to do when it's actually time to work!

I also like to minimize my stops and knock out as many things as possible at a single stop. I'm glad you didn't have quite as many stops this time!

Right! It just seems logical!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Wow, you put in some long days before vacation, you were due!

Definitely!

Do you work 3pm to 3am? Yikes! We only did 7am-7pm shifts when I worked 12 hours.

Yup- I switched to it just before our trip in October. Our new union contract gave the ER 4 new full time RN positions and our managers decided to use them for some swing shifts to see how they would work out. So they created 2 9 am- 9 pm spots and 2 3 pm - 3 am spots! It's still taking some getting used to since there's no precedent for it. I like it better for my days off- I feel like I can sleep more and not sleep my whole day away (I used to work 7 pm- 7 am)!

Oh no I hope the meltdown is not to bad!

It was not one of my proudest moments for sure!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

You were so busy leading up to the trip! But glad you made it to Mike's mom's house without any problems (and not too many stops )

Too busy lol!

Uh oh a meltdown

 

[lvcourtneyy]

I'm the same way with road trips - I just can't wait to BE THERE!

Exactly! Especially when they're this long!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

I'm late, but I'm here!!

Thanks for joining!

I loved the back to back pictures of you two switching from Halloween to Christmas outfits; it's funny how fast the holidays swap over in WDW!

Thank you! I know- they do the swap so fast! It's fun to be there for it!

That was a long car ride but you made it! And I'm right there with you, hop in the car and go...no stopping every five minutes!

Agreed- let's just get where we're going please!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

I'm glad your car trip started out ok! I'm not a fan of road trips so it sounds tedious to me

I like road trips but even so, after that much time it's very exciting to be done with it lol.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Wow you had a hectic time before heading to Disney...bless Mike for doing your packing for you

Yess! I'm not sure what I would've done without him!

Yeah road trips aren’t the best, I always feel knackered after one. Glad you got to crash at Mike’s family before heading to Disney. Looking forward to you guys arriving at Disney!

I don't mind road trips but that long in a car is exhausting!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Along for the ride. 16 hours is really long! Been there, done that. Glad y'all made it safely. Can't wait to hear all about it.

Thanks for reading! It is SO long lol.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

The Meltdown

Apologizes in advance: this post is very text heavy but I wanted to get it out of the way before I leave for Disney in 2 days so we could jump into the actual fun posts when I get back!

After sleeping at Mike's mom's house the night before, it was finally Disney day!

I went to sleep incredibly early the night before but because I was SO tired, I still didn't wake up until after 10 am. This was the first of many things that set off my meltdown later that day. We still had a couple things to do that morning and we had lunch reservations at 1:15. Did I mention we were still an hour and 15 minutes away from Disney?

Luckily we learned from last year and packed the stuff we needed for that night separately so we didn't have to repack the entire car. We quickly said goodbye to his mom and headed out because...

we had to stop at his other sister's (he has 3 who all live in Florida and require separate visits ). She is super nice and her kids are adorable but we had places to be! Hello- Disney remember?

We left her house and headed to a Dollar Tree because Mike wasn't sure where he packed my hairbrush and I have a lot of hair (strike two if anyone's recording). We ended up picking up some cereal, soda and snacks which was the only positive of the extra stop.

Finally we were on our way to Disney and the GPS ETA to Coronado Springs was 12:30. In retrospect, we should've drove straight to the TTC but I had high hopes of getting a room ready text and being able to change in our rooms at least.

About 30 minutes out from Coronado, Mike (and the car) announced that the gas tank was on empty and we'd have to get off the highway and find a gas station (strike 3). We had passed no shortage of gas stations earlier in the drive and I didn't understand why he wouldn't have stopped then when it was convenient and made this known to him.

I decided to start putting my makeup on in the car since now we'd be extra short on time and couldn't find my makeup bag anywhere in the car (strike 4 but really it was my own fault- we discovered the next day that I packed my hairbrush and my makeup bag in one of my purses so I'd have easy access to it and forgot all about it). Between the stress of the extra gas stop and this (as trivial as it seems), I was over it! I whined most of the rest of the car ride to Disney and was certainly not the nicest person ever to deal with.

We finally passed under these gorgeous arches at 12:49 pm and my mood started to improve.

We pulled up to Gran Destino Tower at 12:55 and I was suddenly very excited again. We hadn't seen the new tower yet and it was so pretty!



Also, these two pictures were taken 2 minutes apart! The rain came out of no where!




I walked into the tower while Mike parked the car and was blown away by how gorgeous it was. I took pictures the next day but there was no time today. The check-in line was also about a mile long so there was no hope of finding out if a room would be ready.

When Mike made it inside, we quickly went into the bathrooms to change into our MNSSHP costumes and headed back outside to get a Lyft to the Contemporary.

Because the Universe had decided everything would go wrong this day, the first Lyft said it was there but was nowhere to be found and the driver wasn't answering the phone. So I had to cancel the ride and order another one (strike 5). I was back in meltdown mode and was seriously contemplating going to ask the concierge if we could switch our MNSSHP tickets to another night since it had been such a stressful day already. Poor Mike was so patient with all of my ranting and complaining.

Our Lyft finally dropped us off at the Contemporary at 1:30 and we walked at our top speed to the Magic Kingdom and got to the restaurant at 1:45, a mere 30 minutes after our reservation time.

Next time: where did we plan to eat and did we actually get to? And the actual fun begins!​

 

[amazingact21]

Ahhh, one of those days where the universe works against you and anything that can go wrong, will. Those particular days always seem to appear at the worst possible time. Sorry you had so many delays getting to property, sure made it a stressful entrance!

 

[SimplyGoofy]

My goodness, what a stressful morning! I hate how once one thing goes wrong it always seems to snowball. I'm glad Mike knows you well enough to know that you were just having a bad day and you're not usually so crabby. Although perhaps the stress wasn't worth it, I'm glad you were able to get lots of sleep to start off your trip.

I look forward to seeing where you got lunch (food makes everything better!) and I hope the party turns your day around!

 

[ljcrochet]

Meltdowns the first day is not a good way to start a trip. Hopefully this day was your only hiccup