Our really Hot and Sweaty spring break week trip report April 14th-19th, 2013 About This Page:

[MsPeggySue911]

Our little Spring trip trip report

Who went: Me (Peggy) and DH (Jeremy) No kids this time.
Details: Staying off site at the Quality Suites Lake Buena Vista in a one bedroom suite. Plan on doing 3 Disney parks and 2 Universal parks, Blue Man Group and Cirque Du Soleil. Car rental reservation through Priceline for a mid size car with Advantage car rentals.
Dining reservations at Rose and Crown, 50's Prime Time, House of Blues and the Tomorrowland Terrace Dessert party. Also on the dining agenda, Bubba Gump's at City Walk.


DAY 1- Sunday, April 14th, 2013

For some reason Southwest has made the only non-stop flight of the day between my airport and MCO a late evening flight (which sucks). Our flight was scheduled to leave at 5:55 pm. We were anxiously awaiting our flight all day. It is torture to sit and WAIT when you are so excited to go and get your vacation started. I dont' know why we can't be like some major airports and have early morning flights. That gives you a whole extra day because you get into town so early. But that is not in the cards for us. ANYWAY.

I checked my email about 4 pm and had gotten an email from Southwest saying our flight was going to be delayed and not actually leave until 6:25 pm. Delaying it by 30 minutes. So I told DH we can leave 30 minutes later than we planned because our flight is delayed. Then for some unknown reason after we had already delayed our departure by 30 minutes we got ANOTHER email from Southwest saying OOPS OK the plane is actually leaving at 6 pm. Which is only 5 minutes delayed from it's original time.

Fortunately I always get to the airport about 90 minutes before my flight so we had enough time to get checked in and get to the gate with about 30 minutes to spare. Southwest boards 30 minutes prior to departure.

Since this was a kind of last minute trip we had only bought our plane tickets about 3 and a half weeks prior to leaving. So I knew even though we bought early bird check in that we might not have really great boarding numbers. But we actually got A33 and A34. Not too bad considering how little notice we bought the tickets on. We were still able to sit very close to the front of the plane. Row 4. And DH sat at the window and I sat in the aisle seat and we were lucky that nobody tried to sit between us. I always dread that. We have that happen sometimes. People who don't want to pay for EBCI board the plane last then want to sit right up front with the people who paid extra money to ensure the good seats. Kind of a pet peeve of mine.

The flight was really turbulent. We flew into some bad weather getting into Orlando but for some reason the whole flight was bumpy. We arrived into MCO about 15 minutes late and headed downstairs to the baggage claim to pick up our luggage. Now I know flying into a big airport like MCO where you land at one terminal but have to pick up your bags at another terminal that it takes a few minutes for them to get the bags unloaded and transferred over to the other terminal. But we kept standing there 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. I was getting really ticked off. I had never had bags take this long ever in my life. I guess someone went into the baggage office and complained and they finally made an announcement over the speakers saying “ those of you from flight 351 there has been a delay with your bags and we will have them out to you momentarily.” IT TOOK THEM ONE HOUR before they ever said there was a problem. Another 15 minutes passed, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. At this point we had been waiting for an hour and 45 minutes and we saw ppl going into the baggage office really complaining loudly and furiously. They finally admitted to us that the cargo door on the plane had gotten stuck and they couldn't get it open and our bags would be up in just a few minutes. At the 2 hour mark when the only people left sitting and standing around the baggage claim was people from flight 351, the baggage carousel finally started moving and bags started coming out. I was hot and sweaty and pissed off. It was very hot and humid in the lower level of the airport for some reason and I was very irritated being so delayed. It was 11pm before we finally got our bags.

While we were waiting for our bags DH went downstairs to the car rental counters to check in for our car and sign the contract and get the keys, etc to save us some time when our bags finally came. He came back up irritated and said that Advantage rental cars, who we booked a car through Priceline with, was no longer IN TERMINAL at MCO. They always have been every time we used them. Nobody notified us that they were now off property and you had to be shuttled to their location from the airport. I was at my wit's end. I got on my phone, went to Priceline and booked a last minute car through Alamo, who was in terminal. And had to pay full price. You don't get any discount by booking the day you need the car. So instead of $15 a day we paid $35 a day. GREAT!!

After we got the car DH and I were both starving. It had been about 8 hours since we had last eaten and we had not even gotten to the hotel yet. So we stopped by McDonald's on the corner by the hotel and DH got some nuggets and I ordered a Caesar salad. I had never tried a McD's salad before and I wasn't missing anything. We got checked into the room and got our bags upstairs and I tried the salad. It was disgusting. It was suppose to be a Caesar salad but it had shaved Carrots and Cherry Tomatoes on it. They used Iceberg lettuce. WHO USES ICEBERG LETTUCE ANYMORE?!? But that is just an FYI for those of you who have never had a salad from McD's before. You aren't missing anything. We finally got to bed at around 12:30 am.

Up tomorrow our first park day at Epcot.