We Can Fly, We Can Fly, We Can Fly......We Flew Trip Report About This Page:

[CinderAbby]

Originally Posted by JKnott17

What a cool moment for Abby to have had with Ralph and Vanellope, she must have been thrilled!

Abby is still thrilled about her time with Ralph and Vanellope so yes, it was very cool for her.

Originally Posted by Chancho

I'm so sad this is coming to an end....I always enjoy your TR's. So glad Abby stuck the day out, it certainly was rewarding.

Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoy my TR's - I'm sad it's coming to an end too. It's almost like ending my vacation twice. Abby was definitely "rewarded" for toughing out the day.

Originally Posted by LegoMom

Wow, what a day of ups and downs, huh?! I think the biggest "up" has got to be the M&G for Abby!! What great interaction! Sorry about the pouring rain and the upset tummies, and so sorry it's almost over.

Thanks, it was ups and downs but thankfully way more up than anything. Rain was definitely a "theme" for our vacation this year. I'm used to the 3 pm quick storms so having the rain start mid afternoon and linger the rest of the night was different for me. It also prevented us from doing some things which is a shame but to look on the bright side, it is reason to go back (but it'll be a while).

Originally Posted by SharonK0527

All caught up. Glad Abby is feeling better. Can't believe your trip is already coming to an end!

We couldn't either - and reading it in black and white, it still seems like it went really quickly.

Originally Posted by OneLittleSpark

SOunds like a fun and full last day! Glad you went to Wreck It Ralph, Abby looked so happy. Loved the pics of her dancing with them.

Wow that sounds like some rain! My DH would be freaking out if we had to stop in the middle of the monorail line...he hates the monorail, but will ride it. Lucky, bc next trip we are hoping for BLT and he HAS to ride the monorail! LOL!

It was some rain - and the only reason why I wasn't freaking out is because I know Abby would have too. If mom can stay calm in circumstances, Abby can too and Abby staying calm is a really good thing. Good luck with staying at BLT.

Originally Posted by PrincessSharon

Darlene, it's taken me a while, but I finally caught up! I hate being so far behind on TRs, but it's always nice to get to read so much without waiting for another update. Of course, I forgot half of the comments I wanted to make! Anyway, sounds like it was a great trip so far with a few PPer meets thrown in. Sorry Abby got sick, but like a true Disney nut, she didn't let it slow her down at all. Please tell her that I adore her princess poses in the photos. My own poses still need a little work! And what a completely magical moment with WIR and Vanellope! Definitely a good decision to go to DHS that day! Looking forward to your last day.

Thanks Sharon. I'm glad you've joined me on my TR and that you're enjoying it. I completely understand reading so much of a TR and then forgetting comments - BTDT (and most times I think it's on your TR's ). No, Abby didn't let being sick slow her down. She wanted no part in going back to the room but we did take our time in what we did so she wouldn't feel worse. It most definitely paid off though to go to the Studios after lunch - that was the best "medicine" she had all day long I think. I will definitely pass on the word about her Princess Poses and hopefully one of these days, we'll be lucky enough to be at Disney the same time as you so Abby can help you with them .

[CinderAbby]

Monday morning, I slept in for the first time our entire vacation. I woke up at 7 this day. I was still pooped from the entire vacation so it took me 3 hours to pack everything. During the course of packing, Lenny and Abby even helped. They stayed out of my way so I could get everything put somewhere (things never get packed the same way going home as they do for going on vacation). Also during my packing, our housekeeper knocked on the door - twice - to find out when we’d be out of the room. She was really pleasant about it but it was kind of annoying, especially since the first time she knocked, I told her to please plan on around 11. Our flight home wasn’t until 4:45 so I didn’t need to rush to be out of the room and I didn’t plan on rushing.

Over vacation, we had used a scooter from Walker Mobility again so instead of being able to leave the scooter at bell services, I had to schedule a pick up time. The time for us was between 9 and 10 am Monday morning. At 9 am sharp, I received a call from an employee stating he was just leaving ASMo and he was on his way. Lenny had cleaned off the scooter the night before and had already unplugged it and put the charger back so I headed down to check in to turn in the scooter. For us, it was not an inconvenience to schedule pick up and drop off times. We like Walker Mobility - their service, their scooters - and it was well worth it. Even if they never become a "preferred" scooter vendor to Disney, we will still use them.

With the scooter returned and most everything packed, what was left got moved into the king bed room. I looked through Abby’s room, found it as clean as when we checked in and then had Lenny check it out. When he found nothing, we turned off all the lights, closed and locked the inner door and then left the room for good. Back in the king room, I finished up everything to Lenny telling me to press "luggage services" on the phone when I was done. I’m not sure what prompted him to do it but he told me after he had gone downstairs to have a cigarette, he went to the front desk to ask about help with the luggage. He was told when we were ready, all we had to do was press the "luggage services" button on the phone and someone would come help us. In all of the times we’ve stayed at the AS resorts, I didn’t realize I could do this.

I finally finished packing about 10 and called luggage services on the phone. I was told someone would come right up to help me which I thought was cool. Knowing the scooter was gone and it would take a few minutes for Lenny to get there, I told him and Abby to start heading to RAC as all of us would need to be there. I forget the name of the CM who came up to help but he was there within 10 minutes or so of my calling and he put our bags that were going to RAC on the dolly. We then started to make our way there. On the way, we actually caught up to Lenny and Abby so he slowed down and we all walked together. We had no problems at all doing RAC - our bags got checked and tagged and we received our boarding passes for our flight. Both rooms had been double checked and there was nothing left anywhere so all that was left to do was to grab our carry ons that I had left in the room. Lenny headed to the car and Abby and I went to the room. We grabbed the last of our stuff and we were officially out of the room around 10:30.

Saturday morning, on both of our doors, we received envelopes with DME information only one of the envelopes was for a completely different room (we were 523, the paper was for 463). I took it back to check in to let them know of the mistake and other than those, we never received anything on our doors. We never used our KTTW card for charging so I wasn’t surprised but when we did finally leave our rooms, I headed to the front desk just to verify that we were actually checked out. The CM gave me an invoice showing me the nightly charges for the rooms (that were actually paid off before we even arrived) and then told me I was all set. I went back to the car with Lenny and Abby and just like that, we were leaving Disney property.

It was early - not even 11 yet but we had some plans in mind. Earlier in the week when we had gone to Walgreens on 535, we passed a store that advertised Adult Disney tees for $5.99 and Lenny wanted to go there and see what they had. From ASMu, that’s where we went to. I did find a couple of souvenirs but one thing we didn’t find were adult Disney tees for $5.99. $15.99 yes, but not $5.99. They did have a couple of designs we liked but sadly they didn’t have them big enough. We purchased our few items (some keychains and a HUGE towel) and then decided to hit the Walmart down the street. There we couldn’t believe the size of the area that was nothing but Disney stuff. We did finally find some last minute shirts and a nightgown as well as Lenny’s gum that he’d been wanting for days. Since it was lunch time, we headed back towards 1-4/Crossroads area and stopped at a Wendy’s for lunch. My eyes were bigger than my belly because we all got meals and then I ordered 2 extra cheeseburgers thinking we’d eat everything. We didn’t and had the 2 cheeseburgers left which actually made Abby very happy - she wanted them for her dinner on the plane. Since that was the case, I made her go up and ask for a bag to put them in.

I had planned all along to get sandwiches either from Subway or Earl of Sandwich on our way out of Disney for dinner and just because we knew it would be both easier and less expensive, we chose Subway (which was back by the tee store we had gone into). Abby was happy with the burgers so that just left for me and Lenny and within a couple of minutes, I was in and out of there with dinner and we were on 1-4 headed to the airport at 1:20. Never having done the 1-4 route to MCO, I didn’t know how long it would take but I can know tell you it only took us 25 minutes to get there. It was so easy that we won’t be doing the 417 again anytime soon (although we won’t be doing a Disney trip anytime soon either). We went to the rental car return area, turned it in and took our stuff out. All we had were our carry ons and it was very nice to not have to worry about checked bags. All I had to worry about was getting Lenny a wheelchair and there were none around. The car rental person told me I’d either have to find a skycap and hire them or wander around and see if I could find a wheelchair to use.

I had no idea which way to go for either one so we slowly made our way to the elevators. Luckily for Lenny, a luggage porter came along and asked if he could find a wheelchair for us. We said yes, thank you and in a couple of minutes, he came back with one. He then went on the apologize that he couldn’t push Lenny in it but I told him that was fine. We just appreciated that he was able to find one for us. After giving him a couple of bucks just for getting the chair, we once again headed to the elevators. Getting from the car rental return area to security was no problem. It took only a few minutes and when we saw all the gifts shops, I didn’t make me happy to walk right by them. We had absolutely no room anywhere for anything else so I didn’t want to risk seeing anything that we wanted. Lenny and Abby seemed okay with it (and I didn’t really give them a choice) and to prevent me from changing my mind, we went right to security. It didn’t take us long to get through and unlike at Providence, none of our bags needed extra screening. Not even my backpack that had my 3-1-1 bag that I never even took out (oops). We grabbed our stuff, put our shoes back on and then got on the next to last "ride" of the trip - the airport monorail to the gates.

We made it to the gate about 2:40. We weren’t in any rush as we had gotten to the airport 3 hours ahead of time so that’s why it took us so long to get from the car return to the actual gate. We took our time walking (my feet were beat anyway) and we didn’t rush to put our shoes back on since we weren’t in anyone else’s way doing it. Up until that point in time, everything had been going smoothly but I was starting to wonder if it would continue. As we drove to the airport, we had gotten some rain but at the airport, it was dry. However, when we looked out the windows, the sky was getting really dark. We didn’t know if the storm would blow over or if it would stick around and affect our departure time.

[CinderAbby]

The storm didn’t blow over. It eventually started thundering so loud we could hear it inside the airport and it was lightning out as well. The plane that was due to take off before us was delayed even though it had been boarded and was ready to leave on time (3:10). I felt bad for the people on board - they sat on the plane at the gate for 45 minutes before it finally moved. The storm moved off to the other side of the airport, the plane moved away from the gate and our plane took it’s place.

It didn’t take long for us to board and despite the fact the captain told us it might be a little bit bumpy due to the storm, we had what I consider a very smooth take off. We encountered next to no bumpiness - and considering a ride like Star Tours makes me sick now, I think I’m a good judge of whether it was a smooth take off or not.

And now that I think about it, I not once mentioned how we passed those two hours waiting to board. Some of it was spent watching the weather obviously but I spent a lot of my time hand writing my TR. Abby spent hers listening to her mp3 player (the Wreck it Ralph soundtrack mostly is my guess) and watching outside. Lenny I think spent some of the time dozing and some of the time snacking on the goldfish we had left from vacation. I did run to somewhere at one point in time and bought us some drinks to take on the plane with us so we could have something to drink with our dinner (our subs and leftover burgers).

Now back to the plane. Once we reached cruising altitude (and I think I actually dozed until this time) we took our our dinner and started to eat. The flight attendant came around and asked if we wanted anything to drink. Lenny and I asked for gingerale and Abby asked for Coke but she must have been given Diet Coke because it didn’t taste right to any of us. Once those were gone though we still had our waters (and Dr Pepper for me) to drink. Dinner was good - we all got what we wanted, but it was different to be eating subs (and burgers) on the plane. I would do it again though as we didn’t have to worry about dinner when we got home that night. When everything was cleaned up, I don’t remember anything else from the flight so we must have closed our eyes for the remainder of the flight.

We got back to Providence on time - again to cloudy skies - but it was a smooth landing. For traveling so much during storms, I have to say both of our flights were very smooth and there was no turbulence to speak of. As I might have said somewhere, the few bumps we did have weren’t any worse than driving in a car. Te train was nice those years we did it but flying is definitely the way to go for us now.

We got off the plane and there was someone there to push Lenny up to the terminal in the wheelchair but then he left to go get someone else. Providence is a small airport and very easy to navigate so instead of waiting for the porter to come back, I just started to push Lenny myself. After stop for the bathroom, we made it to the luggage carousels where the luggage was already going around. Mom was there and she had grabbed two of our bags but we waited for the others. I only saw the luggage carousel go around one time and then it stopped - and we were still missing four bags. I was not happy - and Abby started to flip out on me. Luckily for us, there office for SWA was still open so I went in there to find out about my bags. The attendant wasn’t very nice though. I asked her if all the luggage was off the plane and she told me yes. I then said that 4 of my bags weren’t there and she said "let me guess, you used Disney’s Magical Express didn’t you? This happens all the time as they’re not very good." She continued on to make a few more comments basically insinuating it was my own fault for "trusting" Disney to get my bags there on time.

I was pretty livid by that time . She was no help, Abby was flipping out and I’m sure my mother was making comments too (I know she did when we got home). The attendant finally asked me if I even had my stubs for the luggage tags, which I did, but because I was so extremely frustrated , I couldn’t even find them. She used the tags from the bags we did get to put something in the computer where she told me only 4 of my 6 bags had even made it to the airport - and 2 of them being the ones we had. While I was trying to keep my composure (and not succeeding very well) Lenny looked through my bag and found the luggage stubs which I gave to the attendant. That supposedly helped with something, I don’t know what now because looking back, a lot of what was said and done eventually blurred together (and I stopped taking good notes before we even boarded the plane in Orlando). I know at the end of the conversation, the attendant told me that if our bags came in on the next plane and if it actually arrived before 10 (it was due at 9:30 but was running late), she would call me and we could get our bags as early as that night. She also told me that because of the distance between us and the airport, they would get delivered to the house. I certainly hoped the bags would come as I didn’t want to have to replace anything, let alone all our souvenirs which were in one of the missing bags. As for having them delivered, I hoped that would happen too as I didn’t want to travel 2 hours (round trip) to get my luggage but if I had to, I would have. At the end of our conversation, I did thank the attendant for her help and told her I realized it wasn’t her fault but unfortunately, she was on the receiving end of my frustration. She made the strange comment ‘you haven’t threatened to kill me so all is good." I kind of looked at her and said, "I would never say anything like that" and thanked her again for her help and left the office to go find Lenny, Abby and mom.

I found Lenny in the wheelchair where I had left him and mom and Abby outside who had already put our bags in the car (well with only 2, it didn’t take long). Mom left to go get the car and I tried to console Abby. I told her the airline would find our bags somewhere (I wouldn’t think otherwise) and they would even deliver them to the house. It took some convincing, but Abby finally didn’t look at it like it was a tragedy. It was shocking that it happened but not a complete tragedy (again, I wouldn’t look at it as such). The ride home was fine and by the time we got home, we were all exhausted. I went online for a few minutes to the boards to let everyone know we were home, then I went to Photopass to upload all our photos. I so badly wanted to go to bed but I didn’t as I was really in hopes I would get that phone call about our luggage. I’m not sure what else I did to pass the time but at 10:20, my cell phone rang. It was the attendant from SWA - our bags had arrived and they would get delivered that night between then (10:20) and 2 am. I was so happy that all four of our bags were on their way home but it was so hard to wait only because I was so tired. I felt like I had been through a ringer and just wanted to crawl in bed. I did sit in bed to watch tv for a while but then I went downstairs to the computer and did something. Whatever it was I was doing, I know I kept falling asleep and then at about 1 am, I heard Ben (one of our Goldens) barking. Instead of a truck like I expected (don’t know why I expected a truck to deliver them, I just did) a woman in a mini van pulled into the driveway. I went out to help her grab the bags - Lenny did too. I thanked her for delivering them to me and then apologized for not having anything with me to tip her. I forget what she said (maybe "that’s okay?") and soon after she was pulling out of our driveway and we were in the house with our bags. I parked them in front of our front door for the night and promptly went up to bed as I was exhausted.

It was a very rough end to the trip, I can tell you that. While part of us were all happy to be home, we all did agree we could have used a few more days in Disney. Even though it will be years before we go back, it hasn’t stopped us from thinking ahead to another trip - what we’d like to do, what we’d do differently, etc. For this trip though, this is the end of the actual TR. I will have some final thoughts and other musings but that’s the way our trip went and I hope you enjoyed everything. Thanks for following along.

[lauriep]

Definitely not a smooth trip home! What a pain about the bags, especially having to argue about them with the agent. I guess it really doesn't matter, but I wonder whose fault it was that they were delayed. I've never had an issue with DME, but I'm sure mix-ups have happened. The only time I had lost bags on the way home from a Disney trip it was the airline's fault and my bags went to Hawaii without me!

[Cam22]

The travel day home was going very well until the luggage got lost. Thank goodness you got it back that very night. Thanks for taking us along on your family's adventures.

[Danidurph]

That stinks about your bags, but great that you got them very quickly! Thanks for the report, was fun to read.

[JKnott17]

Well, things were going great with getting home until the bags got delayed! I'm glad that they eventually did make it back to you, and quickly too.

[omd]

Great TR Darlene!!! Travel days are difficult enough without having to come home and find your bags are missing. That happened to us only one time, but the airline did deliver them to our house.
All in all it sounds like you had a great time. I know that no matter how much time you spend at Disney it never feels like it's enough. I hope that it won't be to long before you get there again. Thanks for sharing all your fun times.

[shazza]

So glad all of your bags made it to you in the end, but sorry for the frustration. Looking forward to your wrap-up, but sorry to see the trip come to an end.

[wishes]

Sounds like a wonderful trip! Glad you all had a great time, and I hope you get to go back sooner, rather than later...

When we came home from our Disney cruise, SWA charged me $25 for an overweight piece of luggage, then put it on the same cart with the rest of my family's. Wouldn't you know that piece never arrived? We were the last flight in that night, so it came in on the first flight the next morning. SWA luggage in LI already knew it wasn't on the plane. I live in CT, they would have delivered it, but because we were staying at my parents' that night, DH & DF went the next morning to pick it up. Because they didn't have to deliver it (or fly it into Hartford first), they gave us a $50 travel voucher for our trouble. The ironic thing was that when we got to MCO, we discovered DH left a piece of his luggage in the DCL terminal! (That one we had to pay for to ship home). I felt bad for some of the other passengers, though. Apparently there were several of us missing luggage that night, but one of them was a family with a baby, and the car seat was missing!

[LegoMom]

I have loved reliving your trip with you!! You write a great TR. I'm very familiar with waiting years between trips, but I agree it's never to early to start dreaming about what the next one will be like.

[Colexis Mom]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us Darlene!

[Mom24Girls]

Aw I am sorry about your luggage issues. I have really enjoyed reading about your Disney adventures! Thank you for sharing them with us!

[manticorjenn]

Sorry to hear about the luggage issues!! Luckily I have never had that happen. I have only had the medical emergency that delayed our flight and we had to stay overnight in Denver and get home the next day.

Thanks for sharing your adventures with us. I hope your family is able to go back to Disney sooner than you think!!

[PrincessSharon]

Sorry your trip home was rough. I see you fell victim to the mid-day-thunderstorms = airport delays too. Too bad they lost your luggage. In all my Disney trips, they've only lost 1 bag. I often wish they'd lose it because typically all that's in there are dirty clothes and it's literally a 10-minute detour on my way home from work to pick it up, but then SWA gives me a $50 voucher for my "trouble." Oh, and an excuse to delay doing laundry! If I had a bag full of souvenirs, though, I wouldn't be so happy about it.

Looking forward to your final thoughts!