As most of you know, I started packing about a month in advance. I am happy to report that I didn't forget anything! At least not any of MY stuff....
It occurred to me as we were driving to my mom's on Tuesday morning that I never actually packed Lumar any socks. Oops....
First, let me just say that all of the pics from our first day were taken with my cell phone. I did have both my and Lumar's camera on me, but the cell phone was right there and it's mostly food pics so it worked out.
So we get to my mom's around 7:30am and leave for the airport at 8am. It should have only been a 45 minute drive but with the ridiculous highway construction (they should seriously just change us from The Constitution State to The Construction State), it took us about 90 minutes. We got to the airport just after 9:30am and it was a total shock to me. We are used to flying out of a pretty decent sized airport. The one we used this year only has 4 gates. It has 3 lines for security and one sitting/waiting area. I felt like a sardine. I was not happy. Oh...and then they had the nerve to charge me $12 for an egg & cheese and a small bottle of orange juice.
So our flight finally boards and takes off almost exactly on time! We also landed exactly on time at 2pm! Here are some pics I took "illegally" (i.e I had my cell phone on so I could take them and we were still in the air and I shouldn't have):
Ahhh! Home Sweet Home! So we head straight to the DME counter and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they have changed their process for the better! If you don't have your DME packet, you have to stand in the regular line and go to the big check-in desk. If you DO have your packet, you proceed directly to the bus line and they have a new little booth set up. The CM checks your book and tells you which line to get in and you're done! We were immediately put on a bus and we didn't make any other stops on our way to CSR! The whole experience was Pixie Dust filled in my opinion! We were off to a great start!
So we get to our beautiful wonder home-away-from-home:
and head to the online check-in area. The CM was super sweet but I could tell she was really nervous. She asked if we had stayed there before and we told her yes, but then she proceeded to tell me all about it. So she gives us the packet of info and tells me that I got my building request!
Ranchos section, building 7B! Then she gave us our map and sent us on our way...but I had to ask her for our room number before we left because she forgot to give it to us!
We were on the 2nd floor, room 7669. It was a corner room but only one window, but the rooms were just recently refurbished and everything is brand new. It was gorgeous. I would give pretty much anything to go back and sleep in that room again tonight!
So we're all checked in, we get to the room (about a 5 minute walk from the main building) and freshen up then walk over to the bus stop so we can get to dinner at Paradiso 37 in DTD! I had read that building 7B was close to a bus stop so I was surprised to find that we had a bit of a walk.... (keep this in mind for a future story).
Here we are waiting at the bus stop:
We got to Paradiso about 15 minutes late but it wasn't busy yet so we were still able to be seated immediately. We got a nice table outside on the deck, right on the water:
We decided to just order a few appetizers and split them. Here's Lumar asking me what I want to order and I take my first "SURPRISE!" pic of the trip:
We ordered the Caribbean Crab & Fish Fritters (FABULOUS! I loved these! Lumar tried them and didn't like it but he usually doesn't like fish and at least he tried it!) :
The Central American Crazy Corn (Lumar liked it, I wasn't impressed) :
And the Chili Con Carne (would have been AWESOME except there are beans in it and HATE beans...it was REALLY GOOD aside from that, though) :
And I had my first Big Girl drink of the trip! My favorite, a Cosmo
Oh, and Lumar has a Dos Equis
After our fabulous meal, we decided to try a dessert. We settled on the Chocolate Stack, not really sure what we were getting ourselves into:
It was amazing! Sweet, but good! If Tonga Toast is too sweet for you, then you probably wouldn't like this either...but if you have a crazy sweet tooth like me, this is like heaven on a plate.
So we settle the bill and hop on a bus to somewhere...and make our way to the Magic Kingdom for
MNSSHP! I don't remember how we got there exactly...
We were so happy to be there and having so much fun that we literally took 2 pictures it was of our food that we ate around 11pm! Chicken Nuggets for me and some kind of chicken sandwich for Lumar from the Golden Oak Outpost in Frontierland:
I know we left shortly after we ate but I took absolutely no notes. I know the first thing we did was Haunted Mansion. I think if Lumar waited any longer to get on that ride he was just gonna burst. But other than that and trick-or-treating, I have no idea what else we did for 4.5 hours. The candy was supposed to be a better assortment this year that it was last year but I got NO CHOCOLATE. Not ONE piece! I think I got about 426 lollipops, and a box of raisins. Lumar got a Twix bar, Starburst, a 3 Musketeers, a Milky Way, and a Snickers. So not fair!
On our way back to the room I discover that I have a mosquito bite on my foot and it was itching me like crazy. We get back to the room and I start unpacking our luggage then we crash! Our first full day was coming up fast and we were headed to Epcot!
Stay tuned for more!
Not that he needed any given the weather we had; so it was just as well you didn't pack them.
I would have had to pull the car over into the Wal-Mart and get a new bag, I love new socks
It's terrible! I'm so glad Jet Blue is flying out of Hartford now, in case I want to use them again instead of Southwest! At least you got a ride there, and didn't have to pay $150 to park like we did! 
Maybe next year! Yay for getting your requests!
