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[nursemom]

A very hard lesson to learn...

As it looks like my trip report with the teaser about "raiders of the lost luggage" is not coming to fruition very soon, I will share those juicy details now!

Lesson learned: DO NOT have the front desk print your boarding passes the day ahead and then take your luggage to the resort airline desk the next morning!!!!!

I repeat, DO NOT!!!!

Here is what happened:

Sat. 5/10/08 3PM airline resort desk closed for the day. No problem
Ask Poly front desk to print my boarding passes so we have them for our 10:40 flight the next day. No problem.

Enjoy last day with family, pack, go to bed. No problem.

Sun. May 11,2008 (Mothers Day): Husband takes luggage to resort airline check in at 6:20 am, returns and states "we are all set".

Did they give you some sort of receipt? I ask. "Uh, no, they just took my name and flight number and said ok". Hmmm....I wonder, this does not sound right, but I'm sure I would have heard on Passporter if people had problems with their luggage at the resort airline check in.

3 hours later, board direct flight to Rochester, NY. Turbulent flight due to tornados, son very sick to stomach, he is frantically splashing sprite all over his head as flight attendant will not allow him to go to the bathroom due to roughness of flight .

Land on time. Go to baggage carousel. Many bags go by, many families gathering their bags, then very few of us, then only our family.

Then the baggage carousel STOPS!!!! MY husband goes over to the carousel and looks under the little flappy thing to see if any more luggage is coming.... Nope. all dark back there!

I sit on the floor and collect myself (I don't know why I chose the floor).

Husband goes to Airtran office to report incident. Kids look at mom on floor and know this is not going to be a good thing.

I call the Poly to check about the luggage. ( I had my handy Passprter with the numbers in my carry on!). I am told (I believe by someone not at the Poly) "M'am they do not have a direct line at the airline check in, you will have to go there directly to talk to them" .

HUH? "I am in Rochester, NY and have no bags, I cannot go to the desk, could you transfer me to someone who can help me?" "Have a magical day" I am told, as I tear up and my kids are getting worried I will totally lose it.

No one has any record of our luggage, so we drive home. OK, no laundry to do, hmmm. No school books to get ready, no souveniers to look at....no sneakers for gym class...this is not how I thought coming home would be. I cannot take out my contacts because I put my glasses in the checked luggage-fool!

Many phone calls ensued over the next 4 hours...DME had no record of our luggage being dropped off, Airtran states it was never on the flight, POLY states the bags are not at the resort.

Hours later we get a call from DME: your luggage has been located ! Hurray!!!!!
It is locked up at the POLY, it was never ticketed or sent to the airport. They treated it as if someone just left it behind, I guess.

It will come by flight next day we are told. I arrange for my dad to go with me to pick it up. OOPs, next day comes... Cannot go by flight we are told, security regualations say there is no passenger with it, so it cannot be flown on Airtran. "We will send it our Fed Ex ground- you will receive it in 4-5 days." 4-5 days? not what I wanted to hear...

I was an nice as I could be and begged for someone to send it next day. I had already had to go out and buy new sneakers for the kids for school, but we needed the rest of the stuff pronto!
The very nice man at the Poly baggage desk (Eder) said he would check with his supervisor and let me know. They called back and said "Yes, it will be sent next day" and gave me the tracking numbers. OK, now I have some documentation that this is really happening and the luggage really does exist!

Everyone at the Poly was wonderful throughout all of this.
It arrived 2 days after we arrived home, all intact, delivered to our front door. I was so happy to come home from work and see it all lined up.

The moral of the story is...I have since found out that if you intend to check your bags at the resort check in, you must have them print your boarding passes.The resort check in desk should not have accepted our luggage without printing the boarding pass.

I have spoken with several supervisors at the Poly and asked that they talk to the front desk staff, so they can tell any guests that request boarding pass printing at the front desk that the guest now cannot check their luggage at resort check in.

The poly did not charge us for the Fed Ex expenses, as they should not have (I just got my credit card bill), They did right by us in the long run!

Long lesson

[tinker_me_happy]

SO Glad you got your luggage back! What a scary story!!! I guess that's an up-side to SW not participating in Resort-Airline luggage check in??

SO Many other good lessons here too!!!

I have three absolutely must get up ridiculously EARLY days and one early day the rest are sleep as late as you want days. The boys can sleep in and the girls can go early and they can meet up with us. Two of the must get up early days are travel days. One we have a breakfast ADR and the last is for rope drop at EPCOT (So I guess if they really wanted to the others in my party could sleep in and I could go alone for that!)
I just hope I have planned enough down time and know when to "Let Go" of the teens so they can go off and do what they want.!

[JoanneS]

1. If you can afford it, book a deluxe resort on the monorail. The less time you spend on a bus, the better the trip.
2. "I'm paying for this, I'm going to eat every bite", is a really bad idea if you want to tour a park after lunch or dinner.
3. Don't let my husband do his own packing.

[GinaButtrfly]

Originally Posted by mtstranscribe

There is always one day where everyone gets mad at each other.

!!! and to me for not realizing EVERYONE goes through it!

[wendybell]

The one thing i thought i could do on our first trip was to see it all in one week... we have 4 trips under our belts now and haven't seen it all YET! Take your time, enjoy what you DO see and look forward to what you WILL see next time!

[mvmcgee]

Don't ride Splash or Kali River Rapids or even a Sea Raycer even without protecting your wallet in a ziploc bag or even a locker. Ruined alot of my cards after one ride on KRR.

[yakamishi]

Rent a car, pennies worth spending compared to the rest of your trip. Less time spent on the ever popular and "timely" Disney transportation system.

During the cooler months, ride the water type rides just before you go home. Or else you'll be cold, and grumpy.

[TraD4Disney]

I've learned that you absolute have to have some sort of plan worked out for each day. Even if you end up chucking the whole thing at least you have a jumping off point. Our first 4 trips were not planned. We've had so much more fun since I've started reading and planning.

And also make those ADRs!!! I never want to hear again "what are we going to eat?" !

[PamelaK]

My Lesson.....Even the biggest chicken can be brave at Disney! Don't be afraid to ride something new. DD and I were both totally scared of roller coasters and anything with big drops. I knew that while there were a lot of rides and attractions at Disney that we wouldn't be scared of, there were some really awesome rides that we would miss out on if we let our fears get the best of us. We rode Splash Mountain, Everest, and (I rode) RockNRoller Coaster. Now Texas or another theme when we go to Fiesta Texas or another theme park, we check out the ride and then compare it to a ride at Disney. If it looks about like one of the Disney rides then we KNOW we can ride it and have fun. If it is still too scarey for us (like Tower of Terror) then we just skip it and move on. But every time we ride we tell each other that we conquered another fear.

[nursemom]

Don't wear a hat on a sea racer1 Mine blew off and I circled around 3 times without luck in retrieving it. A resort launch was headed my way and I had to skeedaddle out of the way. It was lost for good. I got pretty sunburned in the little time left out on the water. Funny story now, but it was my favorite baseball hat!

[PamelaK]

Originally Posted by nursemom

Don't wear a hat on a sea racer1 Mine blew off and I circled around 3 times without luck in retrieving it. A resort launch was headed my way and I had to skeedaddle out of the way. It was lost for good. I got pretty sunburned in the little time left out on the water. Funny story now, but it was my favorite baseball hat!

If you wear sunglasses too with a strap to keep the glasses on, loop the strap through the back of the baseball cap (where the adjustable strap is) so that if the cap flies off, it is still there. DD and I learned that lesson when we went to Fiesta Texas and rode some of the outdoor coasters. It also came in handy when we went to Kemah for the school field trip and my brand new Clemson hat flew off my head. Luckily I had looped my sunglasses strap through it so I didn't lose the hat for good.

[GATechGal]

If you're going to be there early anyway, go ahead and drive your car to MGM. The parking lot is pretty close, and you'll get back to your hotel faster than waiting for the bus. And walk out the International Gateway after Illuminations and then down through the Beach Club lobby and catch a taxi back to your hotel. It's the best money you'll spend. And for that matter, after Wishes, catch the hotel monorail and get off at the Contemporary and catch a taxi back to your hotel. Again, you'll be back WAY faster than waiting for the bus.

[piratefreak]

Originally Posted by GinaButtrfly

Leave my mother-in-law home

Gosh i wish I could ditto this but as much as we have learned this-she lives near Disney and our trips there are one of only times she gets to see her grandkids so comes everytime

But what we did learn is keep CHARGED cell phones on both adults at all times as plans to split up and meet back never go as planned and we have spent a few to many trips circling parks looking for each other.

[MamaTink]

Be sure to make ADRs. We were able to eat at Nine Dragons without an ADR, but had to do counter service for the rest of our meals. Not fun!

[Pamela2768]

I had to promise my husband and daughter that the next time we go:

• we will sleep in and go to the parks after lunch.
• go to a water park for a whole day
• skip the dining plan so we are not rushing to "appointments"
• only book 1 character meal
• walk slower
• relax relax relax

Otherwise I will have 2 Grumpies on my hands like last time and that was not fun.