It’s Disney, Four Hours of Sleep is Normal! Mother Daughter 2018 F&W TR! (Updated 9/22!)
- Thread starter VAtink
- Start date
missangelalexis
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2012
It stinks that your mom was in so much pain! But you made the best of the day and relaxing at the hotel sounded nice!!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Haha, glad you enjoyed them! That sounds like my typical Sunday afternoon, love chilling on a lazy afternoon reading everyone's reports.
That's so funny we're arriving on the same day, I cannot believe how close it is! Maybe we'll run into each other next week, feel free to say hi if we cross paths!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Thanks! It was such a fantastic trip, can't wait to go back. And yeah, my mom is really is a trooper, I'm so impressed with her. I hope I'm half as awesome as her when I'm her age!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Yeah, I felt so bad, her poor foot! It was nice having a relaxing day while on vacation, we're not used to doing that! May need to try it at Disney one of these years...
Cloe Colton
Registered
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2018
Your Mom is such a trooper! It does sound like a perfect last day though!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Aw, thank you! Her foot is doing much better. She still has some trouble walking so we're going to have to take it slow this week. Can't believe the trip is this week!
If our paths do cross feel free to say hi!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
I know, she really amazes me! It was a really great way to end the trip. We need to make more of an effort on our trips to actually relax sometimes!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Only three more sleeps until I'm in Disney! I cannot believe the trip is this week. I seriously need to start packing. Also, I need to wrap up this interim TR.
Sorry this chapter has no pictures, but it's full of excitement and drama!
Day 7 – Traveling is even more fun with a broken foot!
We got up super early the next morning. We had scheduled a taxi to come get us at 5:15 that morning.
We made it to the airport in about 10 minutes, and it turns out, we got there too early. They didn’t even have the Delta desks open yet to check out bags. We ended up standing there for a solid 40 minutes waiting for them to open. Finally they did, and since we were flying first class we got to go in the priority line, and were all by ourselves there. Check in was easy, took a while since things were still booting up, but we eventually got our bags checked and got our boarding passes.
We then made our way through security, which took all of 5 minutes and finally into the terminal. This is a super small airport, and we still had about 2 hours until our flight, so there wasn’t much to do. One thing I did want to do was pick up some of the wine and liquor I had tried while there at the store there now that we were past security, so I went and did that, and also picked up some presents for my mom. Then my mom decided she also wanted to pick up some liquor, so went and bought the Queen of the Islands one, ie the rice pudding. We really liked that one!
After about an hour sitting there I checked the status of our flight, and ugh, once again my bad luck struck. The incoming flight was delayed, and delayed about two hours. Now, we were heading home the same way we came, we were flying to JFK, then taking a cab to Penn Station to catch our Amtrak trains to either Boston or DC. We had decided to take late afternoon trains, giving us about 5 hours from when we were supposed to land to when our trains departed. We figured that would be more than enough time, even with a flight delay.
Well…we weren’t expecting quite the flight delay we got. The incoming flight arrived about 2.5 hours late. So our 5 hour cushion was cut in half….and this is before the rest of the adventures that day!
After a nice long wait, our plane finally arrives, and our flight is escorted through another customs type thing and into a secured gate area. When we got in there I went to find a gate agent to see if I could get some help with my mom. Since you have to use stairs to get on the planes at this airport, I was worried my mom wouldn’t be able to make it up the stairs with her foot injury while carrying all her bags. The gate agent was great and said that we would be the first to board and they would get someone to help.
I went to find my mom and sit with her to wait for a bit until they were ready to board. Soon after, the gate agent came to find us, and informed us that there was someone else with a foot injury on our plane, and that she didn’t want to use the stairs, so they would bring out the elevator for her and everyone that needed assistance.
A minute later another employee came to collect us and take us to the door to get on the elevator. The elevator is, well interesting. It’s kind of like the food elevators they use to stock the planes between flights, only it has a second elevator part on the front for loading which can only hold like 3 people, well two people plus the operator. So the other woman with the foot injury and her husband got to go first, then it was my mom and my turn. There was one other guy with a walking cane who joined us.
Once we were all lifted up and boarded the elevator bus, we drove over to the plane. It took seriously forever for them to line up the elevator bus correctly and get us on board. Goodbye 5 hour grace period!!!
We were boarded through the door in the far back, so we had to walk the length of the plane to get to our seat in first class. My poor mom was not happy about that. I carried as much of her stuff as I could to help.
We eventually made it and settled in. Turns out the cane guy was sitting in the seat directly in front of me, so we ended up chatting with him and the stewardess for a while before they started boarding the plane for everyone else. It was a fun group of people up in first class that flight!
Finally after what seemed like forever, everyone was boarded and we were ready to go! I was already getting worried, at this point we were cutting about three hours into our five hour cushion, and I knew the drive from JFK to Penn station would be at least an hour and then we’d have to make it through customs. Yup, I was worried.
After takeoff the pilot came on to say his things about the flight, and mentioned it would be over 6 hours this day….usually it’s only about 5.5 hours in this direction. UGH….seriously more delays?
The flight itself wasn’t bad, super smooth. I ended up watching Captain Marvel and Five Feet Apart during it.
Finally we were over NYC, but instead of landing, we ended up having to circle because some storms popped up. Yup, more delays. This was getting ridiculous.
Upon landing I mentioned to my mom we needed to hustle. It was less than 2 hours until our trains departed! One thing I hate about the plane we were on, is that flying first class means you get off the flight after a handful of rows in coach since they use a door in the middle of the plane to board and deplane. So it took a while for us to get off the plane since we were sitting in row 2.
Eventually we made it off and bless my mom, she started running. Well, run-limping. The poor thing was in SO much pain, but we were running so late. We made our way over to customs and oh my goodness. It was a madhouse. Now, normally our flight would arrive around 10:30 in the morning, a few hours earlier than flights out of mainland Europe. But with all our delays, we were there a bit after 2:00, and it seemed like every flight from Europe was arriving then.
Now, before we went, I had downloaded the mobile passport, and while we were taxiing I had filled out everything and was ready to go. So when we got to customs we tried to get in the mobile passport line, but the people working there told us no way, we had to go wait in the main line, they weren’t taking more people for mobile passport. SERIOUSLY???? I was livid.
So we made our way over to the insanely long line and got in. After about 20 minutes in the line they actually stopped allowing people to even enter the customs area, it was just a madhouse. After about 30 minutes, we noticed a worker was announcing that mobile passport should be in a different line. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? I was ready to punch someone at this point.
We went to that woman and showed her our mobile passport, and she ushered us BACK to the line we had originally tried to get in. Oh JRK, this is not a way to run things. Also, all this running back and forth was not great for someone with a broken foot!
There were only a handful of people in line for mobile passport, which saved us probably over an hour in that other line which hardly moved in the 30 minutes we were in it. Finally it was our turn, and it took about 30 seconds to get through. Finally.
We then quickly made our way to get our checked bags, which were already out and set aside off the carousel at that point, so at least one thing was efficient that day!
After grabbing our bags we booked it over to the taxis and got one immediately. I told the driver we were in a rush and were super late, and thank goodness he listened and drove like a madman!
It was right around 3:00 when we got in the cab, and it wasn’t looking good for us to make our train. The estimate time was over an hour. Traffic was a nightmare. But our driver was nuts and frankly very unsafe, but we made it into the city in only about 50 minutes!
Then we hit yet another problem. Apparently that day was the gay pride parade in NYC….and it basically shut down all the roads in a 3-4 block radius around Penn Station. So our driver had to drop us off blocks away from the station. Great for my mom’s foot. Ugh.
We headed to the first entrance we saw, which of course didn’t have elevators, only stairs, which is fantastic with luggage and a broken foot. It’s especially awesome when you get down a level only to discover that you can’t access Amtrak from that side. Fantastic. So we made our way back up the stairs and dragged our bags over to a side of the station we could access Amtrak. My poor mom was trying to run through the streets of New York with all her luggage and a broken foot. The poor thing, I can’t imagine the amount of pain she must have been in! Plus, with the parade it was wall to wall people there, it was so hard to get through with all our stuff.
Finally though we made our way to an entrance we could access Amtrak, and made our way in and over to the first class lounge. We got there with only a few minutes to spare. I got my mom set up with the red cap service, then went to find seats. Her train was at about 4:05, mine wasn’t until about 4:15. Well, soon after sitting, they called her name for the red cap service, so off she went.
Unfortunately the bad luck continued there, and the red cap guy took her backpack and threw it on top of the pile of bags on the cart and didn’t secure it, so of course when they got down to the train it fell off…..and of course it’s where she put her rice pudding liquor she bought at the airport and it shattered. She didn’t realize this until she had put it on her back and by that point she was soaked with liquor for the entire train ride. That was a massive fail by Amtrak!
Such a bummer, she was really upset about that, and I don’t blame her!
Anyways, after she was gone, I was on my own to wait for my own train. Well, as I’m sitting there they change the time of my train from 4:15 to 4:40, then it keeps changing to later and later. Oh joy. I think it was around 5:20 when we finally were called to board. The number of delays this day were impressive!
They announced the boarding gate for our train, so we all headed out and got in line to board at that gate. After about 10 minutes of standing there waiting for someone to open the gate, someone noticed the sign above had changed and this was no longer our gate! Um, thanks for the notice Amtrak!
Eventually I did make it down to the train and quickly found my seat and settled in. It was such a stressful day and I was exhausted! I just wanted to close my eyes and chill out to my music for the trip back to DC. Fortunately this part of the trip was completely uneventful, finally! Had a nice dinner and some wine and spent some time going through my pictures. The trip down to DC is pretty quick, only about 3 hours, and we were pulling into Union station a bit after 8. It was a long day of travel, and I was so happy to finally be home!
When I got back to my house, I called my mom to make sure she got home alright, and she had but told me about how her liquor did not. Whomp whomp. I have been on a mission since then to find a bottle of this stuff stateside to surprise her with at Christmas…so far the closest place I’ve seen it is in Canada. Maybe I’ll have a work trip up there this fall so I can pick up a bottle!
Funny enough, I ALMOST had a work trip back to Portugal in November, but unfortunately the client decided we didn’t need to attend that one. Oh well, fingers crossed I can find a bottle of that stuff one of these days!
Alright, that wraps up this interim TR! Thank you all for following along! Cannot wait to get started on my newest Disney TR!
Sorry this chapter has no pictures, but it's full of excitement and drama!
Day 7 – Traveling is even more fun with a broken foot!
We got up super early the next morning. We had scheduled a taxi to come get us at 5:15 that morning.
We made it to the airport in about 10 minutes, and it turns out, we got there too early. They didn’t even have the Delta desks open yet to check out bags. We ended up standing there for a solid 40 minutes waiting for them to open. Finally they did, and since we were flying first class we got to go in the priority line, and were all by ourselves there. Check in was easy, took a while since things were still booting up, but we eventually got our bags checked and got our boarding passes.
We then made our way through security, which took all of 5 minutes and finally into the terminal. This is a super small airport, and we still had about 2 hours until our flight, so there wasn’t much to do. One thing I did want to do was pick up some of the wine and liquor I had tried while there at the store there now that we were past security, so I went and did that, and also picked up some presents for my mom. Then my mom decided she also wanted to pick up some liquor, so went and bought the Queen of the Islands one, ie the rice pudding. We really liked that one!
After about an hour sitting there I checked the status of our flight, and ugh, once again my bad luck struck. The incoming flight was delayed, and delayed about two hours. Now, we were heading home the same way we came, we were flying to JFK, then taking a cab to Penn Station to catch our Amtrak trains to either Boston or DC. We had decided to take late afternoon trains, giving us about 5 hours from when we were supposed to land to when our trains departed. We figured that would be more than enough time, even with a flight delay.
Well…we weren’t expecting quite the flight delay we got. The incoming flight arrived about 2.5 hours late. So our 5 hour cushion was cut in half….and this is before the rest of the adventures that day!
After a nice long wait, our plane finally arrives, and our flight is escorted through another customs type thing and into a secured gate area. When we got in there I went to find a gate agent to see if I could get some help with my mom. Since you have to use stairs to get on the planes at this airport, I was worried my mom wouldn’t be able to make it up the stairs with her foot injury while carrying all her bags. The gate agent was great and said that we would be the first to board and they would get someone to help.
I went to find my mom and sit with her to wait for a bit until they were ready to board. Soon after, the gate agent came to find us, and informed us that there was someone else with a foot injury on our plane, and that she didn’t want to use the stairs, so they would bring out the elevator for her and everyone that needed assistance.
A minute later another employee came to collect us and take us to the door to get on the elevator. The elevator is, well interesting. It’s kind of like the food elevators they use to stock the planes between flights, only it has a second elevator part on the front for loading which can only hold like 3 people, well two people plus the operator. So the other woman with the foot injury and her husband got to go first, then it was my mom and my turn. There was one other guy with a walking cane who joined us.
Once we were all lifted up and boarded the elevator bus, we drove over to the plane. It took seriously forever for them to line up the elevator bus correctly and get us on board. Goodbye 5 hour grace period!!!
We were boarded through the door in the far back, so we had to walk the length of the plane to get to our seat in first class. My poor mom was not happy about that. I carried as much of her stuff as I could to help.
We eventually made it and settled in. Turns out the cane guy was sitting in the seat directly in front of me, so we ended up chatting with him and the stewardess for a while before they started boarding the plane for everyone else. It was a fun group of people up in first class that flight!
Finally after what seemed like forever, everyone was boarded and we were ready to go! I was already getting worried, at this point we were cutting about three hours into our five hour cushion, and I knew the drive from JFK to Penn station would be at least an hour and then we’d have to make it through customs. Yup, I was worried.
After takeoff the pilot came on to say his things about the flight, and mentioned it would be over 6 hours this day….usually it’s only about 5.5 hours in this direction. UGH….seriously more delays?
The flight itself wasn’t bad, super smooth. I ended up watching Captain Marvel and Five Feet Apart during it.
Finally we were over NYC, but instead of landing, we ended up having to circle because some storms popped up. Yup, more delays. This was getting ridiculous.
Upon landing I mentioned to my mom we needed to hustle. It was less than 2 hours until our trains departed! One thing I hate about the plane we were on, is that flying first class means you get off the flight after a handful of rows in coach since they use a door in the middle of the plane to board and deplane. So it took a while for us to get off the plane since we were sitting in row 2.
Eventually we made it off and bless my mom, she started running. Well, run-limping. The poor thing was in SO much pain, but we were running so late. We made our way over to customs and oh my goodness. It was a madhouse. Now, normally our flight would arrive around 10:30 in the morning, a few hours earlier than flights out of mainland Europe. But with all our delays, we were there a bit after 2:00, and it seemed like every flight from Europe was arriving then.
Now, before we went, I had downloaded the mobile passport, and while we were taxiing I had filled out everything and was ready to go. So when we got to customs we tried to get in the mobile passport line, but the people working there told us no way, we had to go wait in the main line, they weren’t taking more people for mobile passport. SERIOUSLY???? I was livid.
So we made our way over to the insanely long line and got in. After about 20 minutes in the line they actually stopped allowing people to even enter the customs area, it was just a madhouse. After about 30 minutes, we noticed a worker was announcing that mobile passport should be in a different line. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? I was ready to punch someone at this point.
We went to that woman and showed her our mobile passport, and she ushered us BACK to the line we had originally tried to get in. Oh JRK, this is not a way to run things. Also, all this running back and forth was not great for someone with a broken foot!
There were only a handful of people in line for mobile passport, which saved us probably over an hour in that other line which hardly moved in the 30 minutes we were in it. Finally it was our turn, and it took about 30 seconds to get through. Finally.
We then quickly made our way to get our checked bags, which were already out and set aside off the carousel at that point, so at least one thing was efficient that day!
After grabbing our bags we booked it over to the taxis and got one immediately. I told the driver we were in a rush and were super late, and thank goodness he listened and drove like a madman!
It was right around 3:00 when we got in the cab, and it wasn’t looking good for us to make our train. The estimate time was over an hour. Traffic was a nightmare. But our driver was nuts and frankly very unsafe, but we made it into the city in only about 50 minutes!
Then we hit yet another problem. Apparently that day was the gay pride parade in NYC….and it basically shut down all the roads in a 3-4 block radius around Penn Station. So our driver had to drop us off blocks away from the station. Great for my mom’s foot. Ugh.
We headed to the first entrance we saw, which of course didn’t have elevators, only stairs, which is fantastic with luggage and a broken foot. It’s especially awesome when you get down a level only to discover that you can’t access Amtrak from that side. Fantastic. So we made our way back up the stairs and dragged our bags over to a side of the station we could access Amtrak. My poor mom was trying to run through the streets of New York with all her luggage and a broken foot. The poor thing, I can’t imagine the amount of pain she must have been in! Plus, with the parade it was wall to wall people there, it was so hard to get through with all our stuff.
Finally though we made our way to an entrance we could access Amtrak, and made our way in and over to the first class lounge. We got there with only a few minutes to spare. I got my mom set up with the red cap service, then went to find seats. Her train was at about 4:05, mine wasn’t until about 4:15. Well, soon after sitting, they called her name for the red cap service, so off she went.
Unfortunately the bad luck continued there, and the red cap guy took her backpack and threw it on top of the pile of bags on the cart and didn’t secure it, so of course when they got down to the train it fell off…..and of course it’s where she put her rice pudding liquor she bought at the airport and it shattered. She didn’t realize this until she had put it on her back and by that point she was soaked with liquor for the entire train ride. That was a massive fail by Amtrak!
Such a bummer, she was really upset about that, and I don’t blame her!
Anyways, after she was gone, I was on my own to wait for my own train. Well, as I’m sitting there they change the time of my train from 4:15 to 4:40, then it keeps changing to later and later. Oh joy. I think it was around 5:20 when we finally were called to board. The number of delays this day were impressive!
They announced the boarding gate for our train, so we all headed out and got in line to board at that gate. After about 10 minutes of standing there waiting for someone to open the gate, someone noticed the sign above had changed and this was no longer our gate! Um, thanks for the notice Amtrak!
Eventually I did make it down to the train and quickly found my seat and settled in. It was such a stressful day and I was exhausted! I just wanted to close my eyes and chill out to my music for the trip back to DC. Fortunately this part of the trip was completely uneventful, finally! Had a nice dinner and some wine and spent some time going through my pictures. The trip down to DC is pretty quick, only about 3 hours, and we were pulling into Union station a bit after 8. It was a long day of travel, and I was so happy to finally be home!
When I got back to my house, I called my mom to make sure she got home alright, and she had but told me about how her liquor did not. Whomp whomp. I have been on a mission since then to find a bottle of this stuff stateside to surprise her with at Christmas…so far the closest place I’ve seen it is in Canada. Maybe I’ll have a work trip up there this fall so I can pick up a bottle!
Funny enough, I ALMOST had a work trip back to Portugal in November, but unfortunately the client decided we didn’t need to attend that one. Oh well, fingers crossed I can find a bottle of that stuff one of these days!
Alright, that wraps up this interim TR! Thank you all for following along! Cannot wait to get started on my newest Disney TR!
missangelalexis
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2012
Holy delays! That sounds like SUCH a stressful day 
Glad you made it to your trains on time, but that really stinks about your mom's liquor!
Yay for being so close to leaving for Disney!!
Glad you made it to your trains on time, but that really stinks about your mom's liquor!Yay for being so close to leaving for Disney!!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Holy delays! That sounds like SUCH a stressful day
Yay for being so close to leaving for Disney!!
Yeah, it was a ridiculously stressful day. I love to travel, but I hate the actual act of traveling! I wish I could just snap my fingers and be at the destination!
Can't believe the trip is tomorrow, it still doesn't seem real!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Awesome, have a great time! It's such a surprisingly awesome little afternoon activity.
missangelalexis
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2012
Have a great trip!!
Cloe Colton
Registered
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2018
Wow what an eventful travel day! I was stressed just reading it! Glad you guys ended up making it home though!
Enjoy Disney!!
Enjoy Disney!!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Thank you!
I know the feeling, I've been paranoid all day that I'm forgetting something. Plus always worried about the flights and making sure getting there actually works out. Oh, and can't forget work, think everything is assigned while I'm out, but I still worry! I miss being a teenager when there was nothing to worry about before trips!
VAtink
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
Haha, it was stressful writing it as well! I had to re-write it a few times, kept using language that isn't DIS friendly!
Thank you! Cannot wait to try F&W this year!!!
SimplyGoofy
"You are not Mickey Mouse... you are a rat!"
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
I finally had a chance to jump into your report today... and I got through the whole thing! You did SO many fun things, from the DAH to the KTTK Tour to the F&W Party of the Senses. Also, you were AMAZING at trying so many things at Food and Wine! Even though the portions are small, it's hard to eat more than 2-3 of them at a time. They're quite filling! I really enjoyed reading about your trip and hope you'll write another trip report for your current trip!
You seemed to have SUCH GREAT LUCK getting a Minnie Van! I'll be curious if you were as lucky this year. We may need to order a Minnie Van or two for ourselves on our next trip as they have available car seats (we'll have a one-year-old along and I'm hoping for a few meals at the resorts). From what I understand, you need to add or access something from MDE within the Lyft app to have the Minnie Vans appear? Any other tips or tricks you might have would be very appreciated!
Thanks again for a great trip report and I hope you're currently having a GREAT time at Disney World!
You seemed to have SUCH GREAT LUCK getting a Minnie Van! I'll be curious if you were as lucky this year. We may need to order a Minnie Van or two for ourselves on our next trip as they have available car seats (we'll have a one-year-old along and I'm hoping for a few meals at the resorts). From what I understand, you need to add or access something from MDE within the Lyft app to have the Minnie Vans appear? Any other tips or tricks you might have would be very appreciated!
Thanks again for a great trip report and I hope you're currently having a GREAT time at Disney World!
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