Day One: It's Go Time!
After months and months of careful planning, the big day was finally upon us.
Unfortunately, it was upon us at 3:00am. We had a 6:05am flight departure that morning.
STILL! It was DISNEY DAY! Who cares that we had to wake up so early? We were going to Disney!
I had our bags packed and (mostly) ready to go. I just needed to throw in a few toiletries after we were all dressed and ready, and then we were ready to head out the door. It rained a bit on the way to the way to the airport, but it wasn't anything that slowed us down. If anything, it made us even more excited to leave behind the cold Ohio weather for Florida sunshine. More on that later...
The airport was practically deserted. The only other people crazy enough to fly that early all had suitcases with little yellow Magical Express tags attached to them.
We breezed through security just in time for Chick-Fil-a to open at 5:00am. We ordered a couple of boxes of Chick'n Minis for breakfast and ate them at the gate while we waited to board.
The flight on Southwest that morning was completely full! I'm glad we opted to pay for Earlybird Check In. It was nice to have those A-group boarding passes.
Before we knew it, we were taking off and finally on our way! I'll be honest- I napped on the plane right up until the time it landed, so I couldn't even begin to tell you what the husband and kid did to occupy their time during the 2 and a half hour flight. We landed right on time around 8:30 am, gathered our belongings, then headed for Magical Express.
Check in was a breeze with our MagicBands, and we were able to board the motorcoach quickly. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. After 30 minutes or so of waiting, we were on the road and heading toward Walt Disney World.
The kid obviously was not into having his picture taken that morning. I think he was hoping I'd go away if he ignored me and my request for him to "just say MICKEY!" long enough.
First we stopped at Polynesian.
Then we stopped at the Grand Floridian.
Then we stopped at Wilderness Lodge. WE HAD ARRIVED!!
We waltzed right up to the check-in counter and were greeted by a friendly cast member. I crossed my fingers and secretly hoped for a room upgrade. Drat. Not this time. Oh well! She informed us our room was ready, so we went upstairs to check it out.
Fourth floor, room 4098. I was a little disappointed to see that the room faced the lobby, as I heard it could be noisy.
We opened the door and stepped inside. My disappointment grew a little more when I peeked inside the bathroom.
What? Where was the split bathroom design? Where were the double sinks with ample storage? Where was I?
It's just a bathroom, I told myself. It would make getting ready in the mornings more of a hassle, and it was ugly but we were at Disney. It would be fine.
Then I opened the curtains to see what our view would be like. View? What view? There was a roof. That's it. The only thing you could see was the peak of a roof jutting up. I would have preferred a view of the dumpsters over a view of a wall in front of our faces. I was pretty discouraged. This was not the Wilderness Lodge I knew and loved.
But we were at Disney, and eager to get to our first park, so I let it go. We'd only be in that room for two nights before moving to our woods view room. I could deal with it. We were at Disney!
We headed downstairs and out to the bus stop to wait for our first bus. Animal Kingdom, here we come!