Oops, We Forgot to Leave Our Weather at Home! A Fantastic Festival of the Arts 2025 TR! (RL Update 5/27!!)

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Following!

Thanks for joining in!

 

[VAtink]

I've been thinking about your trip because I knew you were there during the freezing cold Florida weather. You look like you brought the right coat for this trip, and Mom looks very cold in the picture.

Yeah, it was pretty awful weather, we could have rolled with the cold, but to have the cold and constant mist/rain for days was a bit much!

We have taken many trips in January and like you, we had some glorious weather. But after too many really cold January trips we moved to the first week in February. The coldest trip we ever had in January was when we stayed at the BWI. We didn't get warm again until after we arrived at Chicago Midway.

Yeah, I guess I learned my lesson, Florida weather can always surprise you!

 

[VAtink]

Joining in! I'm excited to read about another adventure with your mom.

Thanks for joining in!

It's too bad you got such cold and crummy weather! I went to Disney World in January years ago and found the daytime weather to be quite nice - only the evenings got chilly.

Yeah, it was definitely disappointing to have such icky weather, especially after having some absolutely beautiful weather in January on past trips. On the bright side the weather kept a lot of people away, we basically had the parks to ourselves some days, which was really nice!

Also, your alternative trip titles...

Haha, yeah, there are some stories coming up!

 

[VAtink]

So many teasers. Can’t wait to hear all about it!

Thanks for joining in! Yeah we had some interesting and hilarious stuff happen this trip, it's going to make for a good story time!

 

[VAtink]

Woo hoo!!! And I'm glad I can now tell my aunt (Barb who went with me at Thanksgiving) whose fault the recent weather was. Usually she blames me, but I was holed up in VA. Can't wait to hear all the stories!

HAAAA! Yeah, sorry about that, didn't mean to bring all the winter stuff down south!

 

[VAtink]

Joining in! Hubby and I are headed down in two weeks for a quick fARTS trip to celebrate my birthday! Literally fly in Friday after work and home Sunday night, but I am still excited for it! We went a couple years ago (and yes it was LOVELY January weather. PERFECT park weather, mid 60s low 70s), and took the kids and I have been itching to go back for adults only so I can browse better!

Thanks for joining in! That's awesome you have a trip coming up so soon, I hope you have a great time, and hopefully your weather is much better than last week! And Happy Birthday!

 

[VAtink]

I see a bunch of people following along have trips coming up soon, so I wanted to post this now so you don't make the same mistake we made. So there is something weird going on with the merchandise for this years festival where there are different versions of the same item. For instance, the passholder t-shirt comes in both embroidered with some screen print, or all screen print. The price on the tags is the same (although we confirmed the one with only screen print is $5 less expensive). Prior to our trip I had read on Facebook that they had sold out of the passholder shirts, so I assumed when we found them but without the embroidery that Disney had just made more but a cheaper version. But when we went to a different store we found that they still had the embroidered ones too, so we ended up exchanging the screen print one for the embroidered.

The other festival shirt, the black one with Figment up the back also has two versions that we saw, some have a pocket on the front, others do not. So if you're looking for a certain version of the merch you may need to check various stores since no store seemed to carry both versions at once of the merch. Not sure if there is any other festival merchandise like this, but just a heads up!

 

[Simba's Mom]

HA! I will take the blame for the weather. We were there Jan 15-25.....so we brought it from Wisconsin. You are off the hook. Yeah, back in 2023, our FotArts trip weather was incredibly gorgeous every. single. day. This was the WORST WEATHER EVER. Rain and mist sometimes all day. Cold and windy. Felt a little salty on check out day seeing bright blue skies and sunshine. Mother nature was glad to see our family leave I guess.

Looking forward to your TR.

So now I know who to blame! I was there from the 18-24, and by the evening of the 23rd, I was DONE. Fortunately BCV had some enjoyable activities, because I wasn't going out in that cold, miserable weather any more.
I love the FotArts, too, VATink, so I want to tag along on your trip report to learn what I missed.

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

So now I know who to blame! I was there from the 18-24, and by the evening of the 23rd, I was DONE. Fortunately BCV had some enjoyable activities, because I wasn't going out in that cold, miserable weather any more.
I love the FotArts, too, VATink, so I want to tag along on your trip report to learn what I missed.

I think if it had rained or misted again on our last day, the 24th, I would have just cried. I can deal with the cold, we are from WI.....but it was the all day rain and mist combined with cold and wind day after day after day that took it over the edge. We wore raincoats but our pants and tennies and backpacks would still get wet. Riding outdoor attractions was just not the same having to pull your hood over your face. We cut many days short at the parks because it was just exhausting. And on cue, my oldest DD and I both caught colds halfway through the trip to add to the fun!

 

[KPeterso]

I am in too. The weather reports for FL have been crazy lately!

 

[VAtink]

So now I know who to blame! I was there from the 18-24, and by the evening of the 23rd, I was DONE. Fortunately BCV had some enjoyable activities, because I wasn't going out in that cold, miserable weather any more.
I love the FotArts, too, VATink, so I want to tag along on your trip report to learn what I missed.

You know, I never thought to see if the resorts were doing anything fun during those rainy/misty days, what a good idea! We just spend the day soaking wet and freezing in Epcot!

 

[VAtink]

I can deal with the cold, we are from WI.....but it was the all day rain and mist combined with cold and wind day after day after day that took it over the edge. We wore raincoats but our pants and tennies and backpacks would still get wet.

This is exactly what we were saying. The cold we could deal with, but the cold plus constantly being wet wasn't fun. I was so annoyed since the weather on the news made it sound like the rain wouldn't be constant, but if it wasn't a full on rain there was a constant mist so there was no drying off. Then add in the wind, and ooph, it was cold and just gross!

 

[VAtink]

I am in too. The weather reports for FL have been crazy lately!

, thanks for following along! Yeah, this has been a weird weather pattern for sure. Especially when I got home to find it nice and sunny and warm, like where was this weather in FL the past week!?!?

 

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Day 1, Part 1: Sometimes Everything Just Goes Wrong​

It was finally here, our travel day!!! I love taking January trips since it seems they come up so fast with the holidays being so close, it really seems like it’s Christmas then BAM the next week we’re going to Disney!

As you may be able to infer from the title of this post, this was not one of those trips that went off without a hitch. There were hitches, many hitches.

I need to take you back in time a bit to the night before the trip to get the full scope of what we were working with this first day.

So I hate leaving for trips and having a fridge full of items that will go bad before I get back, so I usually end up just relying on leftovers for meals for a day or two leading up to the trip to clear out any food that could go bad while I’m away.

Normally this is not an issue, but I may have let a leftover get a bit too old before finishing up the night before the trip because about 20 minutes after eating I got violently ill. Yup, less than 12 hours from heading to the airport I had food poisoning. Fantastic.

The good news is once everything was out of me, I felt significantly better, but the problem was I got myself so worked up and worried about being sick again I could hardly sleep that night. I did eventually fall asleep, but I had to wake up soon after since I was taking an early flight the next morning.

Now, for the past few trips I’ve relied on a driver I hire to pick me up for early flights since Ubers are still hard to get early in the morning around here. He’s been super reliable for years, so even though I had a thought to confirm the scheduled ride with him the night before, I figured I hadn’t done so in the past and he’s been on time, so no need to do it this time.

Well, that was a mistake.

I had him scheduled to pick me up at 5am. 5:00 comes and goes, no driver. At 5:05 I text him to see where he is, but get no response. At 5:10 I call him, but no answer. Uh oh. So I try to get an Uber, but once again there are no cars available that time of the morning.

I tried Lyft as well, but same story, no drivers.

My neighbors I would normally ask at a time like this for a ride were out of town, and my best friend moved super far away so calling her wouldn’t help. I was stumped. Now I do only live about 3 miles from the airport via the trail, so I could in theory walk there, but with all my luggage I doubt I would make my flight.

Guys, I don’t normally panic, but I was starting to go into full panic mode.

I kept trying both Uber and Lyft, and FINALLY around 5:25 a car popped up on Uber and I was able to get it. PHEW! The driver arrived around 5:35, and thankfully I live so close to the airport so I got there just before 5:45. My flight was scheduled to board at 6:05, so I was cutting it a bit closer than I would have liked.

Thankfully the TSA precheck line was pretty short this morning, and I was at my gate by 5:55. Plenty of time to spare!

Now, it would be glorious if that was the end of the issues this morning, but luck was not on my side this day.

I get to my gate to see that they are still boarding the flight ahead of ours, which being so close to when we’re supposed to board obviously meant that we’d be boarding late. Oh well, at least I had extra time to go grab a coffee and water.

I get back to my gate around 6:10, and see the flight before mine is still at the gate, so I settled into a chair to read a bit and inhale coffee to try to wake up.

I don’t know what was going on with the flight before mine at the gate, but the doors were closed before I got back to the gate area at 6:10, but the plane just sat there until about 6:35! My flight was supposed to leave at 6:45, so clearly we were now also delayed.

Finally, that flight pulled away, but now they had to tow our plane in from storage, which apparently takes forever at DCA, which I do not understand why since it really is a very small airport. This was a weird morning because a TON of planes had to be towed out of storage, I was sitting by the window and plane after plane was being towed to gates. I fly out of DCA a lot in the morning and I’ve never seen anything like this. I wonder if they just had a lot of extra flights this morning since it was the day after the inauguration?

Eventually our plane was towed to our gate, and shortly after we were finally able to board at about 7:10, over an hour after our original boarding time, and almost 30 minutes after our original departure time.

I wish I could say that was the end of the delays, but oh no, we’re just getting started.

We all get on board the plane and settled in for the flight, but I noticed the pilot kept coming out of the cockpit and peaking into the bathroom. I was flying first class on the way down and in the second row so was closely observing what was going on since it looked like there may be an issue.

Sure enough, it turns out they had run out of potable water, which normally would be an easy fix, just gotta fill the tanks, BUT this morning it was a whopping 9 degrees outside and the valves were frozen shut so they couldn’t open them to do so.

Eventually they got one of the two valves open, which was apparently enough, so they filled the tank.

So, it’s almost time to take off right?

HAAAAAA, absolutely not!

Nope, now it was so cold outside that now they couldn’t close the valve they had gotten open. So we had to sit there waiting for that!

Seriously, at this point all I could do was laugh. Every time we got one problem solved another would pop up!

I guess I have been super lucky the past few trips and haven’t had any delays over 30-40 minutes, so I was due for a nice long delay, and this one fit the bill!

We did finally end up taking off a bit after 8, so less than a 2 hour delay so not horrible.

The flight down was longer than normal this time, usually it’s anywhere from 1.5-2 hours, but this morning it was over 2.5 hours.

The good news is all these delays and slow flight actually worked in my favor oddly enough. My mom was meeting me at the airport, but the earliest flight for her didn’t get her into MCO until over 2 hours after my original landing time, so with these delays we actually would be arriving around the same time! Yay for not having to hang around MCO an additional 2 hours!

Once we landed I checked my mom’s flight and saw she was landing about 20 minutes after us, perfect timing! So once off the plane I headed over to her gate to meet her.

Not long after I saw her plane pulling in, well sort of. I guess I more saw it parking just off the gate.



My mom is somewhere on that plane!

After a few minutes they finally pulled into the gate, and not long after I saw my mom getting off!

We quickly hugged then made our way to the main terminal to catch an Uber.

Similar to my previous Farts trip, the area outside of baggage claim to catch an Uber was empty, so it was nice and quick for the Uber to get to us. Soon we were on our way to the Boardwalk!

Next up: The Boardwalk May be Becoming Our Favorite Place to Stay​

 

[disneyAndi14]

Joining in! Andi and I use to travel in later January and it was always so cold and raining we quit going at that time! Crowds were a little less but the weather was bad!
I will be missing FArts this year, I do love that Festival!
On travel days we have to let it go, right? Everything is out of our hands in the air travel game! Glad it wasn’t to bad and perfect time for meeting your mom.
My sister and I are staying at BWI in early March!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I was so annoyed since the weather on the news made it sound like the rain wouldn't be constant, but if it wasn't a full on rain there was a constant mist so there was no drying off.

I've determined years ago that the weather is Florida is usually predicted to be better than it will be. They predict warmer weather when it is really going to be cold. They predict drier weather when it is going to be rainy. And they completely forget to mention that a huge thunderstorm is going to hit that evening.

Yup, less than 12 hours from heading to the airport I had food poisoning. Fantastic.

This is very bad.

Guys, I don’t normally panic, but I was starting to go into full panic mode.

I would be panicking, too.

Sure enough, it turns out they had run out of potable water, which normally would be an easy fix, just gotta fill the tanks, BUT this morning it was a whopping 9 degrees outside and the valves were frozen shut so they couldn’t open them to do so.

We often have 9 degrees or lower temperatures here. How do they prevent the valves from freezing here and not in DC? This is a weird delay problem.

Similar to my previous Farts trip, the area outside of baggage claim to catch an Uber was empty, so it was nice and quick for the Uber to get to us. Soon we were on our way to the Boardwalk!

Finally, something went right.

 

[VAtink]

Joining in! Andi and I use to travel in later January and it was always so cold and raining we quit going at that time! Crowds were a little less but the weather was bad!
I will be missing FArts this year, I do love that Festival!
On travel days we have to let it go, right? Everything is out of our hands in the air travel game! Glad it wasn’t to bad and perfect time for meeting your mom.
My sister and I are staying at BWI in early March!

, thanks for joining in! I think I've been lucky with the weather in the past in January, but not this time! FArts is such a great festival, I love how much there is to see and do, and all the art is so impressive!

Haha, for travel days you really just have to hope for the best! While it was annoying having all the delays, it did work out well with the timing to meet my mom, so I can't really complain!

BWI is so beautiful, and I 100% recommend requesting the room we got, 2353, even though it is the last room of the hotel. Being the last room it's on the end of the building so has balconies on two sides, looks out over a fountain on one and the quiet pool on the other. The walk isn't too bad to the lobby either if you walk outside instead of through all the winding halls.

 

[VAtink]

I've determined years ago that the weather is Florida is usually predicted to be better than it will be. They predict warmer weather when it is really going to be cold. They predict drier weather when it is going to be rainy. And they completely forget to mention that a huge thunderstorm is going to hit that evening.

HA! I can totally see that.

This is very bad.

Definitely, not a great way to kick off vacation!

I would be panicking, too.

I was so stressed at that point, I'm thinking in the future to book slightly later flights to avoid this again!

We often have 9 degrees or lower temperatures here. How do they prevent the valves from freezing here and not in DC? This is a weird delay problem.

THIS!! I'm like there are airports that have this and colder weather often, how come it's not an issue there?!?! Maybe we just don't have the equipment for temps that cold? It is really really rare to get below 20 here (even pretty rare to get below 30).

Finally, something went right.

Haha, finally!

 

[Stacybaeasm]

Travel delays suck. But at least you have a direct flight with no connections. Flying back from Minnesota after Christmas this year, we had a delay and the connection was already a bit tighter than I like at Midway. Made it with 20 minutes to boarding because, as the flight attendant said before we took off on the first flight "The pilot promises to fly fast. But he also told me he was single yesterday which is a lie so..." That got us all laughing.

 

[Woth2982]

I flew from Florida to Boston the day OF the inauguration and there were a lot of Northeast weather events that day. My friends who were on a different airline were delayed several hours. I wonder if part of it was a run off from that? Pilots and attendants timing out and needing to wait for their window to open. Either way, I would have also been panicking at 5 am with no ride in sight! The delay would have been a bit of relief!