Walt Disney World Vacation – Day 1 (Arrival Day)

We left for Disney very early on a Sunday morning.  Our flight left Buffalo at 8:15AM and since I’m a neurotic traveler that likes to arrive the full two hours early, mom and dad came to the house before 6:00AM to drive us to the airport.

Right before leaving for the airport:

We got checked in, checked our bags and through security with little issue.  When we got to our gate, our plane was already waiting for us.  The boys enjoyed looking at the plane:

The boys were a little hyper while we waited to board the plane.  I think the “hurry up and wait” thing was a little confusing at the start of the trip but they were definitely experts at it by the end!

I was a little worried about how the boys would do on the plane since they’d never flown before.  Thankfully, both acted like absolute pros!  We were very fortunate to sit beside other passengers that were very understanding.  Since Ian started the trip recovering from a cold (with a lingering cough), the man next to Ian got coughed on for the entire flight.  He was very gracious about it every time we apologized.  The woman next to Matthew was super good about asking questions about his trip.  He really liked talking to her.

Up in the air, Mike and Ian played Uno for most of the flight.  And Ian couldn’t tear his eyes away from the TV screen in front of him. LOL

Matthew was a little harder to occupy.  Not too interested in watching tv, didn’t want to color for long, etc.  The in-flight food and beverage was pretty much the only thing that kept him busy.

Matthew was too short to see out the window from his seat but the woman beside him was kind enough to let him lean all over her to look out as we began our descent.

Before we knew it, we had arrived in Orlando!

On the tram to go to the main terminal:

The Orlando airport was really busy and with a 3 and 5 year old in tow, we accidentally went to the wrong terminal.  So, we had to go back on the tram and get to the correct place. 

When we got there, the line for Magical Express was the full length of the terminal.  I have literally never seen a line so long in my life.  There were people as far as you could see in either direction. 

In front of us:

Behind us:

As we were getting sorted into the line for our resort (Wilderness Lodge), they were loading a bunch of people onto a bus.  We figured it would be a while before the next bus would come so we settled in for a long wait.  Almost immediately, we notice Matthew grabbing himself and doing a bit of a potty dance.  I told Mike that we needed to get him to a bathroom ASAP so that we didn’t miss the next bus.  Mike and Matthew pull out of line and about 1 minute later the line starts moving  again – another bus had arrived and was loading. 

I frantically call Mike on his cell phone and they haven’t even FOUND a bathroom yet.  I still have all 4 bus vouchers so we can’t go anywhere until they get back.  The person in charge tells me to go outside to the line to get on the bus anyway and I’m completely freaking out (and trying to carry all 3 sets of carry-ons, keeping track of Ian, calling Mike on the phone and pushing a stroller by myself).  Mike and Matthew find a bathroom, Matthew goes potty and they literally sprint back to join us at the bus.  We were the last 4 people on board before it left for Walt Disney World.  I think the stress of getting on Magical Express took 2 years off my life.  (The “funny” part was, there was a BATHROOM ON THE BUS! And, the bus was only 75% full when we left – despite all the people still waiting in line to get to their resorts. GAAH!!!)

All-in-all, it took about an hour to get on a bus but once we got on, it was smooth sailing!

We saw EPCOT from our bus:

I almost screamed with excitement when I saw this out the window:

We stopped at the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian before going to our resort. 

Boy, the Grand Floridian really needs to try harder, doesn’t it?  What an ugly resort! 😉

Our turn to get off!!!!

We unloaded off the bus and collected our stroller. 

Funny story:  We borrowed a stroller from our friends, Jill and Greg, and a couple of nights before our trip, I bedazzled the bajesus out of that stroller so that it would be easy to identify while in the parks.  When the bus driver unloaded our stroller from the underbelly of the bus, the other family that got off almost tried to take our stroller.  It’s like, hello?!?!  Did you put 90 ribbons on your stroller?  NO?  Then why do you think this is yours?  LOL  (Thankfully, we never had any other issues the rest of the trip.)

Bedazzled stroller, by the way:

The bedazzlement came in very handy.  It made it very easy to find our stroller in the sea of strollers at Disney World.

Anyway……we got off the bus and headed towards the entrance.  I was greeted by a very friendly woman that said “Welcome Home!”  Bless her little heart.  LOL   Too bad it was only our home for a week.  🙂

She asked me our names, if we’d ever been there before, where we were from, yadda yadda while escorting us to the check-in desk.  When I walked up to the next available cast member, I was told their computers were down at the moment so I couldn’t be checked-in.  They took my name and cell phone number and told me they would call me when the computers were up and we could check in.  Since we were on the dining plan (and it was lunch time), they told me to pay for lunch and they could reimburse us via the dining plan once things were up and running.  AND, since we were sooooooo inconvenienced by the computers being down, the lovely gentleman at the desk gave me 4 complimentary park tickets to use for that day.  And they were hopper passes too!!!!  WHAT THE WHAT?!?!?!?  LOL

Waiting for me while at the check-in desk:

Since we had dinner plans that night, I knew we couldn’t use the passes but I was pretty excited to get free tickets.  (After we got back to Buffalo, I called Disney and asked when the tickets expire.  After waiting on hold for a while and getting traded to multiple cast members, I found out that we needed to hurry up and use them because they expire in 2031.  LOL  Yes, we have approximately 20 years to use these bad boys!  I’m sure they’ll get used before they expire!)

We walked over to one of the restaurants in the hotel and ordered some lunch.  We ate our meals outside underneath an umbrella-covered table and while we were eating, I received a call saying we could check-in and that our room was ready.  SCORE!!!  All-in-all, we only had to wait 45 minutes and we had already planned to grab lunch anyway. 

We quickly checked-in and got our tickets for our dinner reservations.  We headed to our room and were absolutely thrilled with it!

The bunk beds were perfect for our family:

And Mousekeeping (housekeeping at Disney LOL) had left us a Mickey head made out of towels/wash clothes:

Do you see the “hidden” Mickey head worked into the design of the bedspread?  The center of the flower in the bottom left corner?  They also had Mickey heads in the design of the carpet out in the hallway. 

View from our hotel “balcony” (we were on the first floor so it was more like a patio):

The lobby was directly to the left.  The railing at ground level directly straight ahead was a observation deck to look out over the stream that flows from the hotel lobby and down a waterfall.  It was really gorgeous lit up at night.

Ian chilling in one of the lounge chairs:

Once we got in our room, we hurried and checked into bathing suits.  We played in the pools for maybe 30-45 minutes and then went back to the room for naps.  We had already had a long day and we had dinner reservations that we wanted to be well-rested for.

……to be continued……