Friday, February 23rd: Day 0 (Travel Day)
After about 5 hours of interrupted sleep (too excited!), my alarm went off at 4am so I showered & got dressed super quietly to avoid waking the rest of my family. My Uber, which was pre-scheduled to arrive at 4:45, ended up arriving about 20 mins early so I tried to hurry to avoid him waiting needlessly (yes, I am aware of my people-pleasing tendencies 
). As I scrambled to finish getting ready, Matt had woken up & helped me lug the giant suitcase outside to the car. We kissed goodbye & said "see ya in a few hours!"- me greeting the driver, Bert, oohing & aahing at his fancy Tesla, eventually heading off toward the airport.
Thanks to Bert's early arrival to my house, we pulled in to the airport at the time I was scheduled to be picked up- 4:45am. I was shocked to see Delta's SkyCap was open (it hasn't been in previous super-early-morning flights!) and excitedly wheeled my luggage that way, relieved to not need to lug the giant thing all the way to the baggage counter. The Pre-Check line was longer than usual, in fact it was longer than the non-pre check line! Someone nearby made a joke that the secret was out about Pre-Check and that's why everyone was in this line instead. Oh well, my flight wasn't for over 2 hours since I had gotten there so early, so I was in no hurry at all. In fact, I was through security and in line for Caribou by 5am so it really didn't take long at all - funny how long lines, daunting as they may be, can still move quickly!
As I was in the line for Caribou (almost as long as the line for security, ha!) I realized that in my hurry to get ready this morning, I had skipped breakfast! I contemplated getting food at Caribou but the breakfast sandwiches are 1) grossly overpriced and 2) didn't look all that appetizing so I stuck with my mocha (requesting only half the usual amount of chocolate, please!). Coffee in hand, I made my way toward my gate where I was surprised to see 3 other passengers already waiting- despite being 2 hours early! I sat and drank my coffee in peace, scrolling through social media & listening to music.
Fast forward 2 hours (lol) and it was time to board! I quick raced to the bathroom quick before boarding where I found a young mom changing her baby one last time before the flight, and offered to help if she needed it (her hands were full). She declined but admitted to being nervous since it was her first time flying with him. I offered a few tidbits of advice for her to take or leave at her discretion (mainly about timing her nursing/bottle feeds with takeoff and landing) - making sure she knew that her & her baby had just as much a right to be on that plane & take up space (+ noise ) as everyone else and if it's a rough flight, that she would never see these people again so who cares. Basically things I wish other moms had reminded me before/during/after hard flights with littles!
I made my way back to the gate and boarded the plane around 6:45. We left a little late (had to de-ice I believe), but overall the flight was very uneventful which is always a good thing. I was texting Matt throughout the flight (thank you Delta for free wifi!) and he was giving me status updates throughout the morning - drop off went okay, made it to the VA just fine, "on the light rail now", "made it to the airport" that sort of thing. The only thing during the 3 hour flight worth noting was the fact that I was in the middle seat between two older men, the one on my left starting his movie long before takeoff so it ended halfway through the flight. Instead of putting on a new movie, this man literally crossed his arms, shifted his entire body to be angled toward my screen, and watched my movie (Oppenheimer) for the rest of the flight.
Later, as I recounted the story to Matt (chuckling) I commented how it's one of those things that ISN'T invasive or weird at all but something about it in the moment feels weird and invasive
like sir, just put Oppenheimer on your own TV. You can't even hear what's happening in the movie, for Pete's sake!!!!
Tiny little oddity aside, as I said it was a largely uneventful flight and despite our late takeoff we landed early- yay!! However we had to wait for our gate to become available (boo!!) so we still walked off the plane at the exact time we were supposed to. Yay/boo?
My shoes hit the iconic MCO carpet by 11:45 as I made my way to the Fake O Rail.
Since I had no kids with me, I did not rush to get in that first car, and grabbed whichever one looked to have the least amount of people.
I made my way down to the baggage claim and waited patiently til I saw my bag. Does anyone else have the same internal battle/anxiety as me in the moments between spying your bag on the carousel and it making its way to you? "Ok you have to time this just right.... try to make it look graceful...... what if I forget how to pick up this bag?! It literally weighs half of what I do..... you can do this Bethany.... oh god its like 10 feet away now........... should I ask that guy next to me if he will pick it up for me?! No, it's 2024 and women don't need men for this sort of thing! Crap it's 2 feet away... BAH IT'S HERE!!"
Anyone??
No? Just me? That's cool.
Fumbling but successfully lugging that giant thing off the carousel and on to solid ground, I quickly ordered an Uber which arrived in approximately 1 minute's time. Thankfully I didn't have far to go, and we were driving away by 12:10pm. The Uber drive was slow (traffic at noon? Curse you I-4!) and the driver made a few microaggressions against a certain ethnic group so it became a silent trip about halfway through. I am all for addressing racism & standing up to it but only when I'm in a safe place to do so- and the backseat of some strangers car in a different city/state ain't it- so I remained silent.
He dropped me off (see ya never) at Coronado Springs around 12:40 and I excitedly crossed the threshold into the beautiful Gran Destino lobby. Seriously, I will never NOT be in awe of that place. It is so beautiful!!!
There were a scattering of CMs standing in the lobby, one approaching me as I walked toward her. She pulled up my reservation info & asked if I was celebrating anything, to which I replied that my husband was on his way here right now for our first kids-free trip... and that our 10 year anniversary is in 6 months so I guess we could call this a dual-celebration? She congratulated me and we made our way to the desk where she went to check on the status of my room/my room requests. I told her I didn't have a preference for location other than being near a bus stop, which she said she was able to accommodate and that I'd have a room ready right now. Huzzah!!! She also handed me these pins, which I almost teared up at the sight of:
How sweet!
It was about 12:50 by this point and I knew the registration center for the conference closed at 1pm. I needed to get over there in the next 10 minutes if I wanted to have my badge printed for the conference (we were to be in the parks the whole weekend and I didn't want to have to do it early-morning on Monday - Day 1 of the conference). So I thanked the CM and wheeled myself toward the convention center of the hotel, pedal-to-the-medal-speed-racer style to make it in time. I was huffing & puffing but made it with literally 1 minute to spare (this resort is huge!) and thankfully was able to grab my badge and make my way toward my room.
Last year when we stayed, all 4 of our rooms were in the same building (Casitas 4) so I assumed that Casitas was where they stuck all conference attendees....
I was in Ranchos, which is the opposite end of the property so I took some extra steps for nothing 
It was around this time that I started noticing some pain in my knees - I can't remember which one it was (or if it was both), but I know it started this day. I attributed it to lugging the giant suitcase and half running with it, but in all honesty it could just be because I'm out of shape & old and did ZERO preparation for the 30k step days I was about to be experiencing. Anyway, a bit of a spoiler alert of what was to come but wanted to at least share the fact that it definitely STARTED on Friday.
I made it to my room (bldg Ranchos 7A, room 7207 on the 2nd floor) where I did a suuuuuper quick wipe-down of the surfaces, my fear/paranoia of Norovirus in full swing (and yes I know there isn't a whole lot that kills norovirus but it at least makes me feel a tiny bit better so lay off me!) before getting unpacked.
The room was standard, almost identical to the room from Casitas last year as well as our brief one-night stay at Caribbean Beach Resort in September.
By 1:45 I had completely unpacked & organized the entire room and was tired of listening to my stomach growling so I decided to quick wolf down some lunch - not wanting to eat too much since it was getting semi-close to dinner and we had big plans: Monorail Bar Crawl!
I headed down to the pool bar & just got a chicken tender kids meal ($13) with a pop, a cutie, and some fries. The CM told me I only had 2 hours or something to refill my pop, something I don't remember in years past? But maybe they've had a problem with people keeping their cups for the entire trip or something to avoid buying a refillable mug? I don't know, but when I went to fill my cup (just one of those typical cheap cups you get at QS restaurants) the screen on top of the machine said I had 2 refills remaining that expired at 3:45 (or something similar). Odd. How does it know?! It's not like the mugs with the RFID chip.. these are just the thin paper cups they've always used..... ??? Anyway, it was SUUUPER windy this day and I had to hold my plate down because it kept blowing across the table and I was at a huge risk of losing my entire lunch! Incidentally as soon as I sat down at one of the nearby tables to eat, I got the text that my Walmart grocery delivery was on its way. Knowing how far I had to hoof it, I wolfed down as much of the meal as I could (it wasn't very good sadly - the chicken tenders were super hard- so hard/crunchy that it hurt the roof of my mouth) and tossed the rest, power walking to the Gran Destino lobby to meet my delivery guy. As I passed through the lobby I stopped to ask one of those scattered CM if Bell Services would loan me one of the bell hop cart things to wheel my groceries (it was a 12pk of beer, a 24pk of water bottles, and then a few assorted snacks) the mile across property to my room. She said no but for $6 they would deliver it to me. $6 + tip for a $36 grocery order? I don't think so. Not really liking her answer, I walked over to Bell Services myself & asked them if I could borrow one of the carts and he said sure, if they had one to spare... and that the Walmart delivery person would just need to come inside so they could lay eyes on him before giving out a cart. Okie Dokie, will do.
I stood outside in the valet area as I waited for him to arrive. With Matt on Frontier, wifi was definitely not an option for him so I was in zero communication with him after his flight took off (delayed, but only by 30 mins!). I checked his flight status via FlightAware & noted that he was supposed to land in about 40 minutes, so around 3pm. He had no luggage or anything so I figured if he landed at 3, he'd be to Coronado around 3:30 - so I made a mental note that I wanted to be in the shower by 3:00pm so that as soon as he Uber-ed (is that a verb? LOL) to Coronado he could just change clothes and we'd be ready to head to MK to start our Bar Crawl! While doing all this, I was following my Walmart delivery person's little car on the app as it made its way to me, showing that it was about 1 minute away.
What I thought was an Uber/Lyft driver had pulled up and was staring at me from across the way- me probably looking like I was waiting for an Uber since I was standing outside, alone, and on my phone. I kept trying to avoid his eye contact so he would get the hint. I almost shouted "I'm not who you're looking for!" but he kept staring. I continued to follow the little car icon on the map, but then Uber guy opened his trunk, took out a wagon, and started unloading a 12pk of Yuengling & a 24pk of water bottles.
I immediately tried explaining that there must be a lag between the app & his actual physical car because the app still showed him at the security gate but the driver didn't speak a word of English so it was a moot point. I was, however, able to communicate that he needed to come inside with the groceries and so we made our way in, Bell Services granting me a cart & Walmart guy was on his merry way. I promised Bell Services I would return PRONTO (they were very serious about needing this cart back ASAP & seemed to not even want me to borrow it at all - likely wanting the $6 + tip!) and so I power-pushed this cart the mile across Coronado Springs property to my room. It felt a little silly since it was just the 12pk of beer, thing of water bottles and 3 plastic Walmart bags but I know I would have been even more miserable attempting to carry everything so I tried to push past the embarrassment factor.
After unloading the groceries I RAN that cart the mile BACK to Gran Destino tower & then limped back to my room to start getting ready. The knee(s) was really starting to hurt at this point, but I brushed it off as just so much back & forth with the luggage then the lunch & the groceries and powered through. Making it back to my room (again), I quickly checked my phone and noticed a text from Matt that he had landed a tiny bit early (2:50pm, yahoo!) and was on his way! So I got ready, anticipating a 3:40ish arrival.
I'm not one to take selfies so ignore the awkward-ness (what do I do with my hands? do I look at the camera or the phone? or my own eyeballs reflected in the mirror? Seriously idk how you guys do it and make selfies look so good!).
As luck would have it, at 3:27 Matt texted that the Uber had gotten a flat tire and that they were stuck on the side of the freeway while the driver quickly changed it. (!!!) Yikes!
Matt said that this dude changed the flat Nascar pit-crew style fast & they were driving away by 3:48..... only to be in monstrous stop & go traffic. ETA kept pushing back further and further (4:06, 4:09, 4:12...) me deciding eventually that I would greet him at the lobby to avoid him getting lost trying to find our building since this was his first visit to Coronado and time was of the essence - we had a monorail to get to!
He pulled up around 4:15pm where I tried to give him the quickest of tours, showing him the fastest route to our room & pointing out Coronado's beauty as we walked.
After Matt quickly changed clothes, we headed to the bus stop to take a bus to MK to begin our monorail crawl. The wind was absolutely nuts this day, and I had to hold on to my ears (which were from Etsy and sturdy AF- not the Amazon cheapies I've worn in the past) to avoid them blowing off my head. It also was a bit cooler, in the 60s, with fair cloud coverage. The clouds + the wind made it feel even cooler- especially walking anywhere near the fountains like in the picture above - the wind was so intense that if you were nearby you were being sprayed!!
I'm out of picture space and now seems like a good place to pause before we start our AMAZING monorail bar crawl adventure! Stay tuned 
It's hard saying goodbye to your babies!
so instead we headed back outside (brr!) to Tiki Terrace where we sat in a short line for a bit at the walk-up bar, only to be told "go sit down (6 feet away) and we'll come to you" allllllllrighty then! So we did, snapping this picture as we waited for our waitress to make her appearance:
