What a long,strange,mostly enjoyable trip(Report)!! Reed Family Trip May 2012 UPDATED 10/25/18 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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So with that out of the way come and take a journey with me...one filled with mystery, and excitement...with joy and sorrow. One that is really strange but for the most part very enjoyable.
What a long,strange,mostly enjoyable trip(Report)!! Reed Family Trip May 2012
Day 0 May 18th
I got off work at 6 am, for the most part all the packing was done. I had a few chores around the house and some errands that had to be ran before we left. Robin(DW) would not be getting off work till 3:30pm so it gave me plenty of time. Around 11ish me and Skylar(DD) decided to head out. After taking care of the errands it was close to lunch time and I decided to head to Jin's. They serve fairly decent Chinese buffet and have a great array of fresh fruits and veggies for the little one. Now I don't like the taste of fortune cookies but I do enjoy reading the fortune. I have to admit I got a little surprise when I opened mine up. My fortune read " This coming Saturday will be an exciting time for you." My immediate thought was WOW that’s so cool. Little did I know that exciting does not always equal fun. Me and Skylar finished off the errands and made it home by 4 not to long after Robin. We decided to go ahead and pack the truck. By 8 we were all in bed dreaming!!
Day 1 May 19 Travel Day
Now before I continue I have to explain are travel plans in a little bit of detail. First off since we live in NC(near Charlotte) and since are group was 7 people large the most affordable option was to drive. Since it was only going to be about 10 hour drive it just made the most sense. Now me and Robin have two vehicles a Toyota Tundra(very poor gas mileage) and a small(i.e two-seater) Toyota Tacoma. Because of this we would be driving both of Robin parents vehicles. A Ford Explorer SUV(better gas mileage and more room) and Toyota Prius(really good gas mileage). Now car 1 the Prisu would house Robin, her Parents and Skylar. Car 2 ,you guessed the Explorer right, would house Me, Ty(Robins Brother) and Trenton(Ty's Son). So the plan was to for Us(Me, Robin,Sklyar) to drive to her parents house(only about 20 minutes from were we live) and the depart from there to Florida. We choose a departure time of 4am so we wanted to be leaving are house by 2:30am to give us plenty of time to arrive and then repack all of our luggage into the needed vehicles. "Takes a deep breath" So why did I bore you with all this you might ask.....
We woke up bright and early at 2 am. We were skipping breakfast because we knew Waffle House was in the future(more on that later) The whole gang was up and ready and the last few items packed by 2:30am. Everyone was buckled in(if your not sure were in the Tundra, we can't fit in the smaller truck) and there is a feeling of magic in the air. When the most annoying sound in the world...click...click...click...this can't be...click....click...click...yep that’s right the battery is dead. Lets try a few more times...click....click.....cliccckckck. Crud.
OK I got it lets just jump it off...major problem its hard for a 4 cylinder to jump off a 8 cylinder we try for a good 20 minutes no luck. Crud. OK well maybe just maybe the battery in the smaller truck will be strong enough to start the Tundra....uggg this is starting to get really annoying. OK we have wasted an hour lets just throw everything into the Tacoma....someone will just have to ride in the back...its only 20 minutes away. Robin volunteered and I was at the point that I just wanted get moving so I do not put up much of a fight. Finally around 3 we on the road and thankfully we made it there with no major problems. I looked a Skylar " Well if that’s the worst thing that happens on this trip I can deal with" Sigh what was I thinking.
Up Next: Hour by Hour detailed report on the drive to Florida(JK), Resort details and a night at Disney Boardwalk(Spoiler this is one of the mostly enjoyable parts)
P.S. Pictures maybe in future posts I am having some issues right now that prevent me from using pictures. I should say by issues I made a huge mistake, but I don't want to spoil anything. Hopefully I will be able work something out.
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
Sorry your trip started off with the frustration of a non-working vehicle. I'm glad you were able to make it out of your driveway at least. Can't wait to hear more though.
Great start! I HATE car troubles...we had a tree fall on our van while my husband was driving in the night two days before Thanksgiving. We had to take the ONLY rental car available. Our other car (a Mercury Sable with close to 200,000 miles) does not fit three car seats. We ended up with an okay rental that we had to pick up an hour away...until we got to Cleveland and the check engine light came on.
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The Fun, Old-Fashioned Family Vacation, 3.0 http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...ml#post4472933
Ch-Ch-Changes July 2015
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Hard to believe its been 6 years since I have been to Disney World. 6 years since I have posted on PassPorter.
The last 6 years of my life have been pretty crazy and to be honest maybe some of the toughest I have ever been through.
Things are definitely on the up swing, I am as healthy as I have been in maybe 15 years, and I have a wonderful family. My daughter, who was 2 years old back in 2012, turns 9 in less then a month. So maybe you have guessed it but yep I am in the early stages of planning a trip back to Disney World for 2019/2020(not 100% set on the dates yet).
So why bring back this ancient post? Glad you asked!!!
As I started to plan, one of the things I did was dig out my Deluxe Passporter. I started to relive the memories from that 2012 trip and when I logged back in to the forums, I was sort of bummed that I never finished this trip report.
So I decided I want to finish it, I feel like I am starting a new chapter in my life and so why not close out the last chapter by re-visiting one of the happiest times in my life.
I guess it goes without saying this will be a little different the most trip reports, 6 years is a long time so I have to rely on pictures and notes to jog the old memory. Also thought I would share some of what's been going on the last 6 years and why I super excited for whats to come. So with that lets travel back 6 years ago to May 19th 2012.
Next: Arrival Day
So my last post I know I said I was going to dive into Arrival day but I wanted to make another post that sets the tone for the rest of the trip report.
I remember for the first month after I got back from Disney World back in 2012, I was very frustrated and maybe even a little mad about how the trip turned out.
The last 6 years have given me some context, hindsight is 20/20 right, and made me realize how lucky I really was to be able to experience some truly magical moments.
I bring this up because I plan on sharing some of the harder times I have went through after the trip and I don't really want every post to be super depressing(There is a happy ending I promise!!). For this reason I plan on focusing on the positives from the trip. However for posterity's sake I do want to quickly discuss some of the less the pleasant parts of the 2012 DW Trip.
We went at the end of May, and it was HOT Really HOTTT!! Every day the group was just drained by noon. I remember one day it started raining at the park and everyone got excited for it to only end 30 minutes later and get even HOTTER!!
Coming back from a hot day to a 100 degree room is not very fun. On the second day the AC broke. We were staying at the Lake Buena Vista Resort Village and Spa. I remember the process of getting a new room was not a smooth as one would hope. To be fair it was 6 years ago and we may have just had a singular bad experience.
One night I decided to head into Magic Kingdom solo, more about that later , I was on my way back when the car broke down. Very annoying having to call the room at 10 pm, explain what happened, wait for someone to come get me and figure out how to get the broken vehicle back to the hotel. Also annoying for my in-laws to have spend 6 yours of there vacation fixing said broken car.
Trying to do to much!! The 2012 trip included Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Sea World, Discovery Cove, and Lego Land. It was to much in to little of a time. It started to wear people down.
So there you have it, from this point on I only plan talking about all the great and magical moments from my 2012 DW trip.
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Sorry about the early problems!
PassPorter Guide Author
Sorry about the car problems. 
back! Can't wait to read your report and catch up on the past 6 years. 
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