Malia78
Flotsam and Jetsam
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2012
- Messages
- 544
Hello everyone. My name is Karilynn and I’m here to take a stab at my third trip report (Aulani-check, Alaska DCL-check). This trip entailed three theme park properties and 4 Disney resort hotels, a good opportunity to play with our DVC points for the first time in Orlando. It also involved a swap of the folks traveling with me.
This trip was initially planned in two segments. The first leg would be my friend, S, her 13 year old daughter, R, and myself—we’ve been on an every other year girls trip schedule having done two Disney cruises together, one in 2012 and one in 2014.This time, we were tackling Universal Studios. Then my parents would come out for leg two which was all Walt Disney World, with an emphasis on Food & Wine (or in my case FOOD). A mini third segment was added at the front of the trip due to some new events and some late miscommunication.
Since it was a part of my personal experience during the WDW leg, I will also mention that I was celebrating on this trip—yes I did pick up a celebrating button. This time of year, particularly October, is significant for me in that most of my life-altering health events had their origins during these fall months—no less than three cancer dx. However, this year I was focusing on the 8th anniversary of my kidney transplant, Oct 1, 2008. I’ve put my new kidney through a lot but it is a trooper and still working wonderfully for me. My button stated as much and I wore it on my sleeve.
So getting down to details…originally we were set to check in for our US stay on Sept 27th. Last spring DVC announced some of their 25th Anniversary celebration events including the after-hours Safari Spectacular at Animal Kingdom on Sept. 27th. Well of course, considering I was planning to be in Florida that day and this would be the perfect opportunity for my friends to visit the park without having a ticket, I reserved our spots as soon as reservations opened. This meant I had to shuffle our US stay a little to the right. I had already bought my Alaska flight—got to love that non-stop from Seattle to Orlando. It gets me into Orlando about 4:30 PM. Beginning of August, I was thinking that it would be too exhausting to fly all day and then zip right over to AK for a late night and then turn around the next morning to go to US. So I decided we should arrive the 26th to give us some recovery time—plenty to do outside the parks for that extra time.
I shared all this with S via the ever reliable Facebook Messenger—yes, I admit most folks would actually have some face to face planning or speak on the phone, but that’s just the way it works best with S. She agreed since she hadn’t bought plane tickets yet. Since Alaska Airlines is awesome, I had no trouble modifying my flight and decided I would try the red-eye flight Sunday night, putting me in Orlando around 0930 and maximizing that ever so valuable vacation time. S said her flights would put them in at 1130—not a problem for me, I would wait and we would ride the Magical Express together. Settled right? Since I was doing all the planning, we just went about our business leading up to departure weekend. I scored a couple of dining reservations including Hoop-De-Doo on Monday night—we messaged back and forth confirming these different things.
Day T-1 Saturday
I get a message from S--she has realized reading back through all our messages that we’ve had a misunderstanding. I misinterpreted her message regarding arrival times—they weren’t getting to Orlando until 1130 PM, not AM like I had thought. Ooops…well, time for a little scrambling. I had their magic bands which they would need for Magical Express. We live in different directions from the airport—they are in Seattle while I live about 45 miles south. We agreed to meet at the airport before my flight to touch base and hand off the bands. I now had Monday to myself as well so I did a little dining reservation juggling too.
Day 0 Sunday
My flight was leaving at 1000 PM so my parents drove me to the airport and I met up with S and R around 7 PM for the magic band handoff. R was very excited to be missing school for a few days and I had a little time to adjust to 13 year old energy. We chatted for about an hour and then I headed off to security. Huge fan of TSA pre-check though the airport was very quiet—arrived at my gate 90 minutes early.
Day 1 Monday 26 Sep
I would like to say that I slept like a log on the plane, but alas not so much—I did the not quite so satisfying “head nod and jerk” routine. I had my preferred window seat but the drawback of the these Seattle to Orlando flights is that they are always full and at the last minute, the middle seat was taken by a very tall athletically built dude—I was forced to relinquish the left arm rest.
Since this was the red-eye, it did have a stop in North Carolina where I had to switch planes. It was still dark when we landed at the airport and apparently we were just minutes ahead of a big thunder/lightning/rain storm. Had we been any later, the captain said they would have diverted us—Yikes! Dodged that bullet. However, because of the lightning and crazy side rain, the plane could not be parked because it was not safe for the Charlotte grounds crew to be outside. So we taxied as close to the gate as we could and waited…and waited…and waited. At least I had a window to amuse me. Finally after 90 minutes, it was deemed safe to park. The good thing is that the weather affected every plane including my connecting flight which was clear across the terminal. After all that excitement, I was glad when we touched down at MCO at 1000.
Did a quick change in the bathroom to put on some more appropriate Florida weather clothing and checked in for Magical Express. Got on the bus pretty quickly but still didn’t pull out until around 1100. I was pretty pleased to get the text that our room was ready though. For this first night I made a cash room only reservation at All Star Movies—they had been a room discount promotion when I booked. We were in Toy Story Building 10 on the first floor, close to the lobby and bus stops. Took another hour to get to the resort and I was shuffling my planned afternoon activities around in my head.
Headed straight towards our building through the door to Andy’s Room—greeted by some really big toys. I like the giant structures but think I could only tolerate the movie/character related ones. Giant guitars or tennis racquets just don’t have the same appeal. Art of Animation is my favorite in that style.
Not much time to waste as I had an ADR to catch and I was heading to Epcot later than I planned.
Only time for this shot at the entrance.
My original plan was to grab a couple kiosk items for lunch and just have dessert at my ADR but with having to walk from the All Star Movies bus stop to the Beach Club with my lungs in the heat, that wasn’t going to happen. I did manage to take care of food and wine logistics though—got my passport, gift card and Remy map.
Bypassing the food booths, I got to Beaches and Cream 20 minutes early. Liked that this duck was having his own private swim time.
Continues next post.
This trip was initially planned in two segments. The first leg would be my friend, S, her 13 year old daughter, R, and myself—we’ve been on an every other year girls trip schedule having done two Disney cruises together, one in 2012 and one in 2014.This time, we were tackling Universal Studios. Then my parents would come out for leg two which was all Walt Disney World, with an emphasis on Food & Wine (or in my case FOOD). A mini third segment was added at the front of the trip due to some new events and some late miscommunication.
Since it was a part of my personal experience during the WDW leg, I will also mention that I was celebrating on this trip—yes I did pick up a celebrating button. This time of year, particularly October, is significant for me in that most of my life-altering health events had their origins during these fall months—no less than three cancer dx. However, this year I was focusing on the 8th anniversary of my kidney transplant, Oct 1, 2008. I’ve put my new kidney through a lot but it is a trooper and still working wonderfully for me. My button stated as much and I wore it on my sleeve.
So getting down to details…originally we were set to check in for our US stay on Sept 27th. Last spring DVC announced some of their 25th Anniversary celebration events including the after-hours Safari Spectacular at Animal Kingdom on Sept. 27th. Well of course, considering I was planning to be in Florida that day and this would be the perfect opportunity for my friends to visit the park without having a ticket, I reserved our spots as soon as reservations opened. This meant I had to shuffle our US stay a little to the right. I had already bought my Alaska flight—got to love that non-stop from Seattle to Orlando. It gets me into Orlando about 4:30 PM. Beginning of August, I was thinking that it would be too exhausting to fly all day and then zip right over to AK for a late night and then turn around the next morning to go to US. So I decided we should arrive the 26th to give us some recovery time—plenty to do outside the parks for that extra time.
I shared all this with S via the ever reliable Facebook Messenger—yes, I admit most folks would actually have some face to face planning or speak on the phone, but that’s just the way it works best with S. She agreed since she hadn’t bought plane tickets yet. Since Alaska Airlines is awesome, I had no trouble modifying my flight and decided I would try the red-eye flight Sunday night, putting me in Orlando around 0930 and maximizing that ever so valuable vacation time. S said her flights would put them in at 1130—not a problem for me, I would wait and we would ride the Magical Express together. Settled right? Since I was doing all the planning, we just went about our business leading up to departure weekend. I scored a couple of dining reservations including Hoop-De-Doo on Monday night—we messaged back and forth confirming these different things.
Day T-1 Saturday
I get a message from S--she has realized reading back through all our messages that we’ve had a misunderstanding. I misinterpreted her message regarding arrival times—they weren’t getting to Orlando until 1130 PM, not AM like I had thought. Ooops…well, time for a little scrambling. I had their magic bands which they would need for Magical Express. We live in different directions from the airport—they are in Seattle while I live about 45 miles south. We agreed to meet at the airport before my flight to touch base and hand off the bands. I now had Monday to myself as well so I did a little dining reservation juggling too.
Day 0 Sunday
My flight was leaving at 1000 PM so my parents drove me to the airport and I met up with S and R around 7 PM for the magic band handoff. R was very excited to be missing school for a few days and I had a little time to adjust to 13 year old energy. We chatted for about an hour and then I headed off to security. Huge fan of TSA pre-check though the airport was very quiet—arrived at my gate 90 minutes early.
Day 1 Monday 26 Sep
I would like to say that I slept like a log on the plane, but alas not so much—I did the not quite so satisfying “head nod and jerk” routine. I had my preferred window seat but the drawback of the these Seattle to Orlando flights is that they are always full and at the last minute, the middle seat was taken by a very tall athletically built dude—I was forced to relinquish the left arm rest.
Since this was the red-eye, it did have a stop in North Carolina where I had to switch planes. It was still dark when we landed at the airport and apparently we were just minutes ahead of a big thunder/lightning/rain storm. Had we been any later, the captain said they would have diverted us—Yikes! Dodged that bullet. However, because of the lightning and crazy side rain, the plane could not be parked because it was not safe for the Charlotte grounds crew to be outside. So we taxied as close to the gate as we could and waited…and waited…and waited. At least I had a window to amuse me. Finally after 90 minutes, it was deemed safe to park. The good thing is that the weather affected every plane including my connecting flight which was clear across the terminal. After all that excitement, I was glad when we touched down at MCO at 1000.
Did a quick change in the bathroom to put on some more appropriate Florida weather clothing and checked in for Magical Express. Got on the bus pretty quickly but still didn’t pull out until around 1100. I was pretty pleased to get the text that our room was ready though. For this first night I made a cash room only reservation at All Star Movies—they had been a room discount promotion when I booked. We were in Toy Story Building 10 on the first floor, close to the lobby and bus stops. Took another hour to get to the resort and I was shuffling my planned afternoon activities around in my head.
Headed straight towards our building through the door to Andy’s Room—greeted by some really big toys. I like the giant structures but think I could only tolerate the movie/character related ones. Giant guitars or tennis racquets just don’t have the same appeal. Art of Animation is my favorite in that style.
Not much time to waste as I had an ADR to catch and I was heading to Epcot later than I planned.
Only time for this shot at the entrance.
My original plan was to grab a couple kiosk items for lunch and just have dessert at my ADR but with having to walk from the All Star Movies bus stop to the Beach Club with my lungs in the heat, that wasn’t going to happen. I did manage to take care of food and wine logistics though—got my passport, gift card and Remy map.
Bypassing the food booths, I got to Beaches and Cream 20 minutes early. Liked that this duck was having his own private swim time.
Continues next post.
As expected, the rest of the crew was a little slower. We called bell services to come pick up our bags and we would see them magically appear later that day at AKL Jambo. The luggage transfer service between resorts is fabulous!
