They Don't Eat Hash Browns in Princessland - May 14 COMPLETE! 2/8 pg. 73

[amberg93]

I've actually lurked on your Jan TR and such, but since I can jump in early on this one I figure that I can and will

Can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[sommergirl25]

I'm in! Love your other reports!

 

[steviethegreat]

Your title is super interesting! I'll be subscribing to keep track of your TR. A lot of people really like you, apparently!

I noticed your parents had additional wristbands that weren't Magicbands. Are they wearing … Fitbits? I was wondering how many people I'd run into down in Disney wearing Fitbits. I love mine. But I guess they could also be wristwatches.

 

[DVCWDWMEMBER]

Thanks! I love them so much. Glad you're here.

We love you soooo much too. And love to take vacations with you too. We have an awesome and great time.....

 

[FloridaNative8]

Yay!!! So excited to hear about this trip!

 

[marDgreen88]

Joining.

 

[tinkgurl]

Another TR!!!

 

[ZehnJahren]

I've barely been on the DIS lately since my trip is so far away, but this one brought me back. I'm in!!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Coming out of lurkerdom and officially along for the ride Can't wait to read about your hilarious adventures with the coolest parents EVER! And I adore your wardrobe. Hot Topic is epically awesome!

I'm glad you're here!

I'm pretty lucky. I have some pretty awesome parents. And I am totally obsessed with Hot Topic.

I've actually lurked on your Jan TR and such, but since I can jump in early on this one I figure that I can and will

Can't wait to hear all about it!

I'm glad you decided to hop on board this one! I always makes it so much easier when you can get in early.

I'm in! Love your other reports!

I'm glad you're here!

Your title is super interesting! I'll be subscribing to keep track of your TR. A lot of people really like you, apparently!

I noticed your parents had additional wristbands that weren't Magicbands. Are they wearing … Fitbits? I was wondering how many people I'd run into down in Disney wearing Fitbits. I love mine. But I guess they could also be wristwatches.

Hahaha. I always try to make my TR title interesting somehow. And most of the time they are built out of something that is said at some point on the trip.

I'd like to think that a lot of people like me.

They are Fitbits. We all have them. I was excited to see exactly how much walking was done on the trip. In addition to the fact that my company has a tracking/incentive program.

We love you soooo much too. And love to take vacations with you too. We have an awesome and great time.....

Awwww, Momma. I love you too.

P.S.

Update your ticker.

 

[IheartDDuck]

Yay!!! So excited to hear about this trip!

I'm glad you're here!

Joining.

Woo hoo! Girl, your trip is coming up!

Another TR!!!

I'm glad you're here! I seem to always have two going, don't I?

I've barely been on the DIS lately since my trip is so far away, but this one brought me back. I'm in!!

Yay! How far away is it? Not too far I hope.

 

[WishnDisney]

I, too, am coming out of lurkdom. I've followed previous reports and have to say you are my idol. Love the parents too. Can't wait to see what you get up to this time. (Oh yeah...I'm one of those dweeb-y accountants, too.)

 

[pixiemama91]

YAY another TR! I read all your reports but never seem to get around to posting much. I will try and be more active on this one.

My DD (4) just saw Papadon and told me she could not stop laughing. Another fan in the books!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I, too, am coming out of lurkdom. I've followed previous reports and have to say you are my idol. Love the parents too. Can't wait to see what you get up to this time. (Oh yeah...I'm one of those dweeb-y accountants, too.)

You're so sweet! And have given me impossibly high expectations to live up to.

Yay accountants! But we're the best sort of dweebs!

YAY another TR! I read all your reports but never seem to get around to posting much. I will try and be more active on this one.

My DD (4) just saw Papadon and told me she could not stop laughing. Another fan in the books!

I'm glad you're here!

Hey that's okay. I've followed along on many in the past and not commented much. Life definitely happens.

Yeah, he totally has that affect on people. He's just so likable!

 

[Leshaface]

I'm HERE!!! Subbing right now and will be back to read tomorrow!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm HERE!!! Subbing right now and will be back to read tomorrow!

Yay! I'm so glad you're here my friend.

 

[Queenofallthings]

Nothing I love more than one of your TR's! I am IN!

 

[Corvette01]

I am so excited for your new trip report! I am a frequent lurker on the boards but decided to come out of hiding. It is always fun to find another accountant who is a Disney lover!

 

[USAFdad]

Hello I am joining in.

 

[IheartDDuck]

Nothing I love more than one of your TR's! I am IN!

Yay! I'm so glad that you're here!

I am so excited for your new trip report! I am a frequent lurker on the boards but decided to come out of hiding. It is always fun to find another accountant who is a Disney lover!

I'm so glad you decided to come out of lurkdom to comment on my TR! I lurked for a long time before getting active.

Yay Accountants! We're such dorks really.

Hello I am joining in.

Yay! It was so awesome meeting you guys when we were there!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Day 1 - Thursday May 15, 2014

We'll call this quasi day one. So before you guys get excited and think that it's going to be an awesome Disney day I'm reporting on. Wrong. It's a travel day.

POP! That was me bursting your bubble.

I'm a creature of habit and I like continuity. As much as I would like to be like "magic! We're in Disney!!!" the anal retentive side of me just can't do that. So you're going to sit back and listen to my travel day and you'll like it dangit!



I typically work on my departure days, because I like to arrive in Disney late so I feel like I have an entire day ahead of me when I get there. This trip was no different. It's my way of convincing my pea brain that I'm getting more out of my vacation.

Now, we had added this night on late in the game, because I really wanted to meet up with DISers on 5/16. And the only way I could swing that was by getting there the night before. Thank you Southwest. So, I booked a night at a non-DVC resort as a gift to the P's and changed the flight. You'll see where we were at the end of this update. Cause I'm not dragging a travel day on through multiple updates.

So basically, I worked 6am to 12:30pm. Our flight was scheduled to leave Milwaukee at 3:35pm. I live in an area that we're literally right in between three airports (Milwaukee, O'Hare, and Midway). I prefer Milwaukee for tons of reasons. Parking is one of them. Covered garage parking walking distance from the terminal is $12.50 a day. That kind of parking at O'Hare? $40 a day.

And Midway? Well, you better hope that your car isn't up on blocks when you fly back into Midway. Just sayin'.....



So anyway, I'm not going to bore you with work details. I mean, it was work, right? I headed home and got there at 1pm. I quickly changed into my plane gear and we were out the door.

We had no puppy to worry about, as I had dropped her off at my friend's house the night before. They were watching her for the week. My baby pupper doo at a sleepover!

She absolutely hates it when I stick the camera in her face. Hehehe.



The drive to Milwaukee is nice and easy for us. Right up the expressway. We arrived in about 35 minutes and found parking. I had printed out all of our boarding passes the night before, so all we needed to do was check the luggage. Thank you Southwest, we were bringing 4 suitcases this time. Mainly because I have far too many Disney clothes, and because I wanted to buy Star Wars Weekends merchandise.

Listen, bringing the fourth suitcase was nicer than making alternative packing arrangements for Pop...



We headed in to ticketing and got our luggage checked lickity split. Well, lickity split except for the part when Mom had to put all of her stuff away. Pop and I have this running joke that she is the slowest person with putting her stuff back in her purse. You don't want her to get discombobulated, because it's gonna take about 10 minutes just to get her re-combobulated. But we still love her.

Recombobulation complete, it was time to head in to TSA. Another plus I find at Milwaukee. Virtually no lines. My Mom and Pop were sent through the TSA pre-check line and I had to go through the normal line. It was only later in the trip in Orlando on the return that I found out that they have TSA pre-check printing on their boarding passes!

How in the world.......I want on that boat!

So I had to go through the super scanner, and they had to go through a metal detector. Whatever, it's fine. Pop was convinced though that he made it through pre-check because he's so adorable.

Whatever helps you sleep at night Pop.

It was about 2:30pm when we got to the gate, so we had an hour before departure. Mom headed to the gate, while Pop and I stopped at the Chili's market area to get a few things. We didn't want to eat a ton, because we were going to eat at the resort when we arrived for dinner.

Spoiler alert....from here, nothing really goes as planned.

I grabbed two yogurt parfaits for Mom and I, and a sandwich for Pop. We ate it while waiting at the gate. I also wandered around into the store to grab some water. I saw this.



So true. Nothing tips like a cow, nothing fries like cheese, and nobody says "ya hey der" quite like Wisconsin. Gotta love Wisconsin.



Eventually, we boarded the plane around 3:15pm. Boarding went well. We always buy early bird check in so we board with the first group. Didn't get our exit row though. Boo. I wanted more leg room. Oh well. We didn't actually take off until about 4pm, which was delayed about 30 minutes.

So we bide our time with crazy pictures.



The man starts early. For anyone who HASN'T read any of my previous trip reports. This is my Pop. Pretty much all the time.



Soon we took off, and Mom and I were subject to the most annoying passenger behind us EVER.

All of you Disney fans know this. The person who thinks they know everything about Disney, but are so so wrong? Like, all of the time? So she's sharing her wealth of (incorrect) knowledge with her seat partner for the entire flight. I'm not exaggerating. The entire flight. And she was wrong often.

"Make sure you go to these restaurants"
(Not without an ADR lady!)

"Oh EVERYONE gets the bands now"
(Wrong! Especially not the lady you were just talking to, because she confirmed she's staying OFFSITE! So unless she wants to pay $12...she ain't gettin' no band)

It just went on and on and on. My Mom kept looking at me. So we started mocking her a little bit. We had to keep the plane ride interesting. All in good fun everyone.

The skies were especially beautiful though.



I totally want to just sit on those clouds!



It's 8pm eastern time at this point, and we still haven't landed. I knew we should have been descending or landing at that point, and still nothing. I didn't think anything of it at first, but Pop noticed on the flight tracker that we were flying in a circle around the area.

The captain finally announces that a storm came through the area, and we had been circling, because we couldn't get clearance to land. All flights had been grounded and no planes were being allowed to land.

Finally we landed after 8:30pm. And we sit on the tarmac. The captain said that since all flights had been grounded and none were allowed to land, we had to wait for a gate to open up. And we waited. And waited. And waited. For over 30 minutes before we even got to the gate.

I was losing my mind.





We finally deplaned and were about 1 1/2 hours behind schedule. Okay, not the end of the world. As we deplaned, I noticed that there were so many people around the gates, it was insane. I mean, MCO is a busy airport, but this was busier than I've ever seen it before.

We still had a rental car to pick up, so I sent Pop with the carryons to pick up the rental while Mom and I waited for the baggage to come through.

Yup, I totally tell my Pop what to do. He loves it, regardless of what he tries to say.

Warning: I didn't take any more pictures until we got to the resort. Cause it's about to get messy.

So Mom and I go to baggage claim. The never actually announced what carousel we were on and they didn't post it either. So I did the lemming thing and totally followed everyone else from our flight to a carousel.



15 minutes later, the carousels start moving. There is such a mass of people around, because literally six flights were waiting at the same carousel for their baggage. So baggage starts coming out.

And then it really starts coming out. And jams the carousel 5 times, because so much baggage was coming out of the conveyor that it continually kept jamming because it wouldn't fit.

Over and over and over again this happened.

35 minutes go by and FINALLY we see one baggage.

I may or may not have leapt over everyone to grab the luggage. Get out of my way people, I've gots to gets to Disney! DANIELLE SMASH!!!



In another 15 minutes the rest of the baggage came. Whew. I thought that was never going to end.

So the agreement with Pop was that he would get the car, but would wait for us by the rental counter so we could all go pick the car together. So we're walking....get to Thrifty...and Pop had JUST gotten up to the counter to actually get the car.

Um.....it took him over 45 minutes to get through the rental line. And here I thought that we were going to be the slow ones with the baggage.

He upgraded the car, because he was convinced we wouldn't be able to fit the luggage in anything smaller than an SUV. Okay then.

We're finally squared away, and it's like 9:30pm at this point. And I'm starving. But, no worries, all we have to do it go out to get the car.

So we head out to the Thrifty lot. Find the area that has SUV's...there are three SUV's there. Yay for SUV'S!

Except there are also three individuals standing next to the SUV's, because they also have SUV rentals.

Well then. Okay. So we head back to the booth in the parking garage. And there are five other groups standing up there, because guess what? They don't have cars in their class either.

It appears that with the flights being grounded and many flights being cancelled caused more cars to be rented, and other renters just hadn't brought the cars back yet. Why are they all gone?!



The Thrifty employee was literally just sticking people in cars. She grabbed some people, pointed to a car and said go.

She directed us to one. We were like YAY! It was bigger than our class size, but I didn't care.

Then a lovely lady in a car driving by says "you might want to start it! We tried that one and the battery is dead".

Sho nuff. The battery was dead. And we had already loaded the luggage in it.



Okay........now I'm gonna explode. No Danielle, no. Don't explode.

The Thrifty lady comes by, we tell her the battery is dead, and she shows us to a Nissan Rogue. Fine. We literally JAM all the luggage in there and peel out of the parking lot.

It is now 10:30pm. As a reminder, our flight was supposed to land at 7:15pm. And I still haven't eaten.

As we're driving, I'm thinking that my dinner has just completely slipped through my fingers. There's no way the food court at the resort will be open. I google my heart out. Find out it's open until midnight.



We finally pull into our resort by 11pm. Where were our heads laying down this evening?

Port Orleans Riverside!



Only picture I got at that moment. Could be because I tried to gnaw my arm off due to hunger......

Check in was super easy and the CM was very sweet. We had parked at the main entrance, and figured we would go eat before going back to the room.

After that, we literally booked it to the food court. That is until I found a family of five apparently choosing to have a philosophical conversation in the hallway leading to the food court, while simultaneously blocking our way.

Oh no. People, I am from Chicago, don't mess with me. Homie don't play that!



If you know me, you know that I say SERIOUSLY?! all of the time. That's how I got them to move. I stood there and said "seriously?!"

They moved. I had no shame. I was hungry.

We ordered. Nothing glamourous. But according to this picture, I was pretty stinking happy to be eating.



As was Pop.



Meals of choice? I got kids mac and cheese. I eat a lot of kids meals at Disney.



Pop got a burger.



Mom got create your own pasta.



And I got a magic cookie bar!



Well, that was for Mom and I to share. The CM at the bakery area that gave me that either thought I was exhausted or high. Because I told her that anything with the word magic in the name means I must eat it. She was highly amused.

Warning though? While the magic cookie bar is pretty magical, it's huge. My Mom and I couldn't even finish our halves of it. And if you're diabetic, according to my Pop, just smelling it sends you into a diabetic coma.

It's just a lot.

Continued in next post: