TripletDad
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2002
- Messages
- 136
We got up and got ready and we were at the airport by 5:50am. I found the Albany airport real easy to deal with. I droped everybody and the luggage off and went and parked the van. There is no curbside check in at Albany because all bags are manually checked. Check in with Southwest went like a breeze. We got A boarding passes and went to go through secuity. The security process went realy quik. I had heard niightmares about how long this could take. We were through secuity by 6:30am and went to eat breakfast. Then it was on to the gate to wait. My inlaws got a preboarding pass. My MIL has a bad leg. This ment they would be able to get on and save us some seats. I also met at the gait another DISer who would be flying on the same flight. We had been conversing back and forth prior to our tirp.
It was flinaly boarding time. The girls were all able to sit next to a window. This was their first tirp on a plane. The flight took off right on time. It got into Orlando earlry. The flight was realy nice very little trubulance. I found MCO very easy to navigate. After we landed FIL headed off to get the rental car while the rest of us did pitstops. We got our luggage and had a porter help us to Dollar to load up the rental van. We had a Dodge Grand Caravan. It was a litte tight for 7 of us and luggage. We headed for the JW Marriott Grande Lakes. It was about a 10-15 drive not a problem. We did figure out that the airconditioning in the van was not working right.
The JW Marriott was beutiful but, we found the staff to be a little much. I guess part of that is not having ever stayed at a hotel this fancy. BTW the plane landed at 10:50am and we were at the Marriott by noon. The first thing my FIL did was call Dollar about the aircondintioning in the van. You got to be kidding me if we are going without airconditioning in Florida in the middle of July.
Dollar sent us to a Holiday Inn on I drive to exchange the van. They said they would have one waiting for us. This was not to be the case. They firs tried to give us a smaller van. They also told us it would be a little while before one would be ready. A little while truned into close to an hour. You try keeping three 8 yr old girls occupied and entertained for an hour at a hotel you are not staying at. We finaly got the car and it was back to Marriott.
We went to check out the pool. The pool at the JW Marriott is neat. It has 4 seprate pool areas connected by a lazy river. One of the areas is zero entry. Another of the areas has a bar and on some the days there was live entertainment. The lazy river is nicely done with water falls and landscaping. They do have tubes and floats for rent. The tubes were $4 per hour and some other price for the whole afternoon. We found out they would let you bring your own in. We decided to go and buy 3 tubes after dinner. We did rent the tubes that afternoon so has not to disapoint the girls.
After finishing swimming we went to eat dinner. We went and ate a Perkins on I drive. It was very good in ou eyes. After dinner is off to do a little shopping. We got some bottled water and some Pepsi. We also made a stop at Target and got 3 tubes for $9. I figured even if we used them once and threw them out we were ahead of the game. We went back to hotel and crashed. We are going to do SeaWorld tomorrow and at 6:00pm the welcome part for the Triplet Connection convention started. The first day was long but enjoyable.
TripletDad.
Just a little note.
We flew SW out Albany and I would definatly do it again. Syracuse is closer for us but we got direct NS flights out of Albany. We were orignaly at tickets on USair out of Syracuse with connections in PITT on the way done and PHILLY on the way back. The reason for changing was after WDW came out with FTP we wantd to extend our stay. USair would not budge on changing our flights back with out a $100 per ticket fee. But they woudl refunde the money. They said they would do this beccause 2 legs of our trip had been downgraded from jet service to turboprop. I did some quick looking on line for flights. I found the NS flights on SW out of Albany. I said refund me the money. The tickets were only $8 more per ticket. The $8 was well worth it since we no longer had to change planes on the way down and back. I was realy impressed how things went with SW through the whole process of booking right on down to the acctual flight. I would hightly recomened SW. I even told my DW cousin this yesterday who is pilot for USair.
It was flinaly boarding time. The girls were all able to sit next to a window. This was their first tirp on a plane. The flight took off right on time. It got into Orlando earlry. The flight was realy nice very little trubulance. I found MCO very easy to navigate. After we landed FIL headed off to get the rental car while the rest of us did pitstops. We got our luggage and had a porter help us to Dollar to load up the rental van. We had a Dodge Grand Caravan. It was a litte tight for 7 of us and luggage. We headed for the JW Marriott Grande Lakes. It was about a 10-15 drive not a problem. We did figure out that the airconditioning in the van was not working right.
The JW Marriott was beutiful but, we found the staff to be a little much. I guess part of that is not having ever stayed at a hotel this fancy. BTW the plane landed at 10:50am and we were at the Marriott by noon. The first thing my FIL did was call Dollar about the aircondintioning in the van. You got to be kidding me if we are going without airconditioning in Florida in the middle of July.
Dollar sent us to a Holiday Inn on I drive to exchange the van. They said they would have one waiting for us. This was not to be the case. They firs tried to give us a smaller van. They also told us it would be a little while before one would be ready. A little while truned into close to an hour. You try keeping three 8 yr old girls occupied and entertained for an hour at a hotel you are not staying at. We finaly got the car and it was back to Marriott.
We went to check out the pool. The pool at the JW Marriott is neat. It has 4 seprate pool areas connected by a lazy river. One of the areas is zero entry. Another of the areas has a bar and on some the days there was live entertainment. The lazy river is nicely done with water falls and landscaping. They do have tubes and floats for rent. The tubes were $4 per hour and some other price for the whole afternoon. We found out they would let you bring your own in. We decided to go and buy 3 tubes after dinner. We did rent the tubes that afternoon so has not to disapoint the girls.
After finishing swimming we went to eat dinner. We went and ate a Perkins on I drive. It was very good in ou eyes. After dinner is off to do a little shopping. We got some bottled water and some Pepsi. We also made a stop at Target and got 3 tubes for $9. I figured even if we used them once and threw them out we were ahead of the game. We went back to hotel and crashed. We are going to do SeaWorld tomorrow and at 6:00pm the welcome part for the Triplet Connection convention started. The first day was long but enjoyable.
TripletDad.
Just a little note.
We flew SW out Albany and I would definatly do it again. Syracuse is closer for us but we got direct NS flights out of Albany. We were orignaly at tickets on USair out of Syracuse with connections in PITT on the way done and PHILLY on the way back. The reason for changing was after WDW came out with FTP we wantd to extend our stay. USair would not budge on changing our flights back with out a $100 per ticket fee. But they woudl refunde the money. They said they would do this beccause 2 legs of our trip had been downgraded from jet service to turboprop. I did some quick looking on line for flights. I found the NS flights on SW out of Albany. I said refund me the money. The tickets were only $8 more per ticket. The $8 was well worth it since we no longer had to change planes on the way down and back. I was realy impressed how things went with SW through the whole process of booking right on down to the acctual flight. I would hightly recomened SW. I even told my DW cousin this yesterday who is pilot for USair.
