The Trip Full of Thanksgiving and Christmas 11/19-11/28 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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The Trip Full of Thanksgiving and Christmas 11/19-11/28
First let me introduce the Cast:
Me, Amy, planner of all things Disney. To find out more about my plans check out my PTR "The Thanksgiving Christmas Trip" or save yourself some sanity and find out what the final plans were by reading this Trip Report. Favorite Character: Mary Poppins, but I love just about anything.
Tim: the husband, loves Disney. Favorite characters are anything Splash Mountain.
Preston: Son, 16, and he showed it this trip. Favorite character is Oswald.
Caden: Son, 12, bottomless pit. Favorite character is Sorcerer Mickey.
We stayed at Coronado Springs, which was a first for us. This was also the first time we took a family trip at this time of year. We ate at a lot of new places and did a lot of new things, most of which were wonderful.
Well I would love to be able to post about that first day, but Photobucket is not working! So you will just have to wait until this weekend unfortunately.
Well this is day 2 of Photobucket not working and I am a bit beyond frustrated. The only way I can post pictures here is if they are full sized, and that isn't allowed. So, for now, I'll post an update without pictures. Hopefully Photobucket will respond to my email and my Facebook post and get on fixing the issue.
November 19, I awoke about 2:30 a.m. worrying and excited. Excited because I knew I was going to Disney World today. Worrying about all the things that could go wrong, because I am a worrier. I double and triple checked things this morning to make sure I had everything packed, from Mousekeeping envelopes to an extra razor (this actually came in handy later), and tried to ease my nerves. Being awake so early really became a problem later on.
As I got to school, my students knew I was going to Disney World today. Many wrote me letters or notes wishing me a good trip and telling me to hug Mickey for them. We had a field trip that afternoon to a play that I really should have slept through. One of my students did. I was so jealous.
Right after school we packed up our friend's vehicle and headed to the airport nice and early for our flight. We wanted to avoid Chicago rush hour traffic and the long lines at security in light of events and traveling right before a holiday. We got checked in to the airline. The lines were a bit long through security, but we got through them easily enough. Though Preston forgot his phone in his pocket. Then we found our gate and decided that McDonald's would have to do for dinner. I sure was looking forward to Disney food. I had a cheeseburger meal and I believe everyone around us had Big Macs. We found a spot to charge our phones and catch up on things before we take off.
Every other time we have flown to Orlando our flight has always been delayed, and that is one of the things I had worried about. But not this time. We boarded right on time, took off on time, said goodbye to cold Chicago, and had an uneventful flight to Orlando.
We arrived a little early, right about midnight. We went down, and waited for our luggage, as since we arrived so late we had to get our own. Then we made our way to the Magical Express. Except I got a little turned around and another family did too. We found ourselves wandering all over before finally finding side B. I expected the ME to be empty at this time of night. It was not. It was packed. I don't know how long the other people had been waiting on there, but thankfully we didn't have to wait too long before we were finally on our way. And then it was announced that we would be the last and 6th stop of the night. Oh my word, I was so tired.
I had gotten a text before our flight had even taken off that our room would be in Ranchos 7A. I knew it was in the back of the resort and near transportation, but I wasn't exactly sure where that was since it was our first time here. I had heard what a long walk it was to that back of the resort. I wasn't going to think about that at the moment.
We were dropped of at Coronado Springs at 1:45 a.m. Now I have not used Magic Bands before. I wanted to check with the front desk to make sure they were working before I wandered all over and didn't have them let us in to our room. There was a line and then someone cut in front of us. I was in tears. I was exhausted. I had, at this point, been up for almost 24 hours. We decided to just walk it, since we weren't getting anywhere standing in a line not going anywhere. So we headed out with our 4 tired people and 5 suitcases for the long trek to the back of the resort.
Two things struck me as we wandered. It was absolutely beautiful, and it was really warm and more humid than I thought. We made it a bit further with Tim in the lead when he asked me something and I just broke down. I was tired, and lost and wandering around in the dark. It was not a good moment. We've all had them. We finally found the room, we collapsed, and finally got to sleep about 3:30 a.m. But as I went to sleep, after my mini breakdown, I was giddy with the fact that I was finally here. I was glad I had cancelled Be Our Guest breakfast for the next morning. Most of all, I couldn't wait to get into Magic Kingdom the next day.
How would we sleep? What did we did the next day? You will have to wait for Photobucket to start working to find out those answers.
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Last edited by dutchdisneyfamily; 12-05-2015 at 05:53 PM..
Oh my, I understand how you felt. Tired + worried is not a pleasant combination. I say Boo to the rude line breakers! Tomorrow can only be better. Right?
Oh my, I understand how you felt. Tired + worried is not a pleasant combination. I say Boo to the rude line breakers! Tomorrow can only be better. Right?
Sorry for the rocky emotional start. I've had a few of those myself and it's always a lack of sleep that gets it started.
Photobucket worked for me yesterday, and I've not been on today. Hope it's straightened out quickly. But as a warning, I had a problem a couple of weekends ago with my autopay with them. I sent an e-mail and posted a message on Facebook and waited and waited. No one is in on the weekends. But early Monday my problem was resolved.
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