We Survived Charley!!

[dwfanatic]

Just got back tonite- a little sad about leaving 'home' We survived Charley!! We stayed at a vacation home and lost power in the middle of the night- there was lots of wind, but we faired pretty well. It's 11pm, so I'm keeping this short- DH doesn't understand that I need to share all of the info with my DIS family We had a great time- ate at several new places, DS #1 and # 2 had fun....I'll answer any questions that you may have...

 

[llij]

Glad to hear you made it home safely and survived hurricane Charley!

 

[TupperMom7]

I'm glad to hear that Charley didn't ruin your vacation or that you didn't get hurt in any way. So how bad was it near Orlando? Do you know if Disney World suffered any damage? I would think that the news stations down in FL would cover details like that whereas the stations up here don't.

 

[Poohbear123]

Glad to hear you are safe, and back in NJ! Hope you still had a good time.

 

[dwfanatic]

We saw lots of uprooted trees and signs blown out. I asked a CM and she said they really only had lots of debris, and little damage- I did see a few WDW signs toppled, as well as light posts missing on property. She did say that Universal did sustain more damage- she didn't elaborate, though.

 

[fam4jc]

So glad that you made it through Charlie without injury! My brother had to leave for PuntaG on Saturday. The hospital he was building got hit hard. I suppose the pixie dust protected WDW from severe damage!

 

[soccercruiser87]

its good to hear that you and your family are safe

 

[Luckymommyx2]

Welcome back! I'm glad your family made it through okay. I'm sure it will be a trip to talk about for years to come!

 

[thotfulspot]

We just got home a few hours ago. We had been staying in Sarasota with plans to fly out of Orlando on Friday, but packed up a day early and drove to Orlando on Thursday afternoon. We stayed at the Dolphin, fulfilling a dream of mine, and when our flight was cancelled, we stayed tight.

It was so cool!! We had a view out of our window towards the Swan across the pond that lies in between, and I watched the wind whip whitecaps (say that 5 times fast) on the water and knock the palm trees around. The lights flickered a couple of times at the height of the storm, and I saw one wing of the Swan go dark at one point, as well as the lights illuminating the giant swans on top. The wind was blowing strongly to the right for hours, then it calmed down a bit, then it started howling to the left as the eye went past us.

They changed channel 2 from the Disney parks info to Disney movies, which really impressed me. We didn't notice a single blip in their service -- restaurants stayed open, CMs stayed friendly and informative, and by yesterday morning, they had swept the debris off the roads and untied the front plants from the posts.

I know that the hurricane was a lot of no fun to many people, and my thoughts have been and continue to be with them.

However, should circumstances call for it again, I can highly recommend the Dolphin as a hurricane shelter.

 

[NancyDVC]

Glad that everyone here on thsi thread survived it well. I saw photos of the damage in Celebration. Lots of trees down etc. The photos on the Orlando Sentinel website and the central Florida TV station sites were awesome. Cars crushed, trees through houses. Yikes!

 

[Emmaline Lola]

Living about 15 minutes from Disney and 5 minutes from Sea World, I can assure you it was not "cool" for us locals as the storm went through.

My DH is a manager at the Dolphin and was there from 6:00am Friday morning to 4:00pm Saturday afternoon. This unfortunately left me home alone 5 months pregnant with my mom and a girlfriend to ride out the storm. We lived in our bathroom for a couple of hours and it was truly scary! Our house door was blown open from the force of the wind coming through our garage.

Luckily, my development faired very well, with a couple of trees down and no power. We got power back around 3:30p yesterday.

My girlfriend, however, had major damage in her neighborhood, which is about 20 minutes from Disney in Kissimmee. Major flooding, huge trees uprooted, roofs torn off down to the plywood on most of the houses, garage doors blown off their tracks from the force of the winds.

I understand it is scary for tourists to be in Florida during such a storm, but remember the people that are providing service to you at the hotels have personal lives and worries of their own during such a storm.

My husband had to stop guests from walking outside during the hurricane, because they wanted to see what it was like outside and because they were bored in the hotel. Come on!

Another guest was angry because the Mall was closed and yelled at the Concierge desk.

I could go on with these stories, but I guess that is the business of dealing with the public.

Luckily, the Dolphin weathered the storm well, no injuries, and kept all restaurants running, power going, service going, without guests realizing that there were approximately 400 cast members who stayed over at the Swan/Dolphin to "ride out" the storm away from their homes and families in dirty guestrooms because the housekeepers were sent home early.

Glad to hear you felt safe at the Dolphin-There really is a ton of prep work and dedication from their management staff to provide that level of safety and service to their guests!

el

 

[behappy]

Emmaline Lola,

As you point out, the unsung heroes of this storm are the families and friends of those who are asked to put aside their personal situations and make everyone else's lives better. For that, I'm sure you have the most sincere thanks of those stranded travellers and the respect and admiration of those of us in cyberspace. My sincere thanks to you and your family.

 

[DNBois]

DH and I are not heading down utnil next month but like everyone else, we have been checking out these boards to see how resort guests and Florida residents made out and prayed for everyone's safety.

Emmaline Lola - I read another thread about how wonderful resort employees were during this storm and how they were able to make their guests feel safe and how much their service was appreciated. Unfortunately, there are always some ***** (bleep) that like to just cause trouble and have nothing more to do than complain, even in the worst of circumstances. Even though we weren't there I can assure that if we had been, we would have definitely written a letter to mgmt. letting them know how appreciative we were of the great service that was provided. Hope you know that - and glad to hear you, your child and your DH are safe and sound.

 

[thotfulspot]

Emmaline Lola, I sincerely hope I didn't sound flip before -- that wasn't at all my intention. I can only speak about our own situation, which was so comfortable that it wasn't until we were heading to the airport the day after the hurricane that we saw, through the damaged roofs, dangling traffic lights, twisted and missing signs, a tractor trailer on its side, smashed windows on cars and buildings, and scores of uprooted and snapped trees, how lucky we had been. We were stunned and could only hope that no one had been hurt and that the damage would be repaired as soon as possible.

I'm truly glad that you and your mother and friend came through safely.

I'm just going to assume that if you have a boy, the name 'Charley' is right off the list of possible names.

Please tell your husband that our experience at the Dolphin was just marvelous. We spoke to the concierge several times to get information about the airport (whoever the idiot was who yelled about the mall being closed, it wasn't us!) and always got prompt and accurate information. Our server at breakfast on Friday heard us discussing our options and gave us very good advice and up-to-date info on the airport closing that afternoon, which saved us a good bit of confusion. The movies kept our kids and those of our friends occupied when there weren't very many other options. And we had wondered how on earth everything was kept running so smoothly when the staff surely could not travel back and forth to home.

Such a smooth response to an emergency situation shows tremendous forethought and hard work. I'm in the process of writing a letter to express our gratitude and appreciation.

I hope everything's back to normal as soon as possible for everyone in Orlando, and the rest of Florida.