Alrighty here, hope this is the closure. So do you, haha.
So, it's now Thanksgiving time. We have new clothes (not everything, but some things), new luggage, and lots of things that the various online WDW packing lists said are a must. At this time of the year you really need to pack pretty much for two seasons, warm/hot and cool/cold. And we did experience both.
We load the car trunk, it was full, and it was a big trunk. We head north to Milwaukee the afternoon before our flight. We get up to the Milwaukee's General Mitchell field area about an hour later. My idea was to leave the following morning for an early morning flight without being worn out from the hassle and drive up to Milwaukee. An overnight hotel stay right next to the airport's west side was great. The hotel had a park and fly package, leave the car in a fenced-in, locked at night parking area for the length of our trip, the hotel drives us over to the airport in the morning and picks us up when we return.
As we got to Milwaukee late afternoon, as was my plan, we checked in, and, having told the family not to eat a bunch of junk at home before we left, we headed about a mile away to the north end of the airport for a first class dinner at a very classic Wisconsin-style supper club,
The Packing House. We had a wonderful, first class dinner, nice family time talking about our upcoming trip, but few details were shared by me.
As an aside, The Packing House has been Marie's and my favorite more upscale go to restaurant ever since. Among our visits there, we were going to celebrate our 50th anniversary there in 2021. COVID pushed that nice dinner meal there to 2022, celebrating out 50th and 51st. One of Marie's favorites there is one of their famous appetizers, bacon wrapped water chestnuts.. Okay, enough with the dinner.
We headed back to the hotel a couple hours later, all of us trying to get a good night's sleep ahead of our trip starting early the next morning. We probably had a 7:30 AM flight or so. There were 'free complimentary' breakfast items at the hotel but I reminded everyone that we were going to have a really great, first-class champagne breakfast on the plane in 90 minutes or so. (remember, this is pre 9/11, no 2-3 hours before flight time at the airport needed then). We board the shuttle, along with a plethora of luggage
and head about a half mile away to the airport.
We get to the airport, easy check-in, only a quick walk through the metal detectors, no TSA nor methodical procedures. A ticket, a quick walk and board. I did add a video below for anyone who might be interested to see what Midwest was like back then (first 5 minutes or so) (or, if a previous passenger of Midwest, to reminisce The Best Care In the Air). We went to our seating row, got seated and comfortable (gosh, I sure do miss those seats) and buckled up for the slightly less than 3 hour flight from MKE to MCO. Once we were in the air, we settled in with a great champagne breakfast. Not sure if Natalie was served champagne, age 18 on the flight down to MCO. No signature Midwest Air warm chocolate chip cookies after breakfast, not served until after 10 AM.
A few hours later we were in balmy Orlando. We got our luggage and went across the access road to the National Car Rental (learned that was the best rental company from here on the DIS, walk out to the cars, skip the lines and pick the one you want). Pretty sure we picked out a van. Loaded up, headed for Disney. About 20 minutes or so later we drove under one of those famous Welcome arches. We have arrived. I think I may have had a little dust in my eyes at that point.
After getting lost a bit while getting to the Polynesian. It took me a while to realize that to traverse Disney World's vast roadways, a driver has to first head toward a theme park area and then to specifics associated with that park. To get to the Polynesian, one has to first head to the Magic Kingdom area, then to the specific place you want to go. I recall asking more than one park entrance parking attendant where such and such a place was over that week.
We arrived at the Polynesian.
Holy moly, we're here. We pull up to the porte cochere, the bellhops come over to help us get in and so forth. As we were walking in to the lobby, a monorail passed overhead. Amazing! The waterfalls by the entrance were beautiful. Even though it was noisy there at the entrance, the running waters sounded so welcoming. We entered the lobby. Stood there for a bit, just staring at it all. I asked Marie and the kids to wait by the low stone wall that surrounded the jungle looking foliage and another waterfall.in the lobby by the stone Hidden Mickey that was built into the stone floor while I went up to the check in counter. I gave them what they needed, license and credit card I suppose. That went quickly and efficiently.
The CM gave me the welcome envelope with lots of information in it along with 4 key cards. The names of the longhouses had just recently been renamed. We were assigned the Moorea longhouse (previously the Tahiti). Back then, that was considered a lagoon view. Today, it is considered lagoon/theme park view (for even a higher price). That longhouse goes for about $1,500 a night for the time period we were there. I thanked the CM and started back to Marie and the kids. I gave them their key cards, and as I did, the CM called out to me, Mr. Murphy, can you please come back here, with the key cards. Okay, guys, give me the key cards back. I go bac to the check-in and the CM asks me for the key cards as she gives me another envelope. She says that the resort manager has upgraded you and your family to concierge.
. She said the manager reviewed our 'file' and said he'd like to upgrade us. So we had the lagoon/theme park view longhouse with club level access in the Hawaii longhouse next door to Moorea, about $1,850 a night currently.
We walked over to our new home for the coming week. 3rd floor, beautiful balcony with a magnificent view of the magic Kingdom and the Castle in the distance. Total success. Two last pieces of house keeping. I say everybody on the beds. I had prepared a spreadsheet printed in color with our plans for the week. Parks, dining, special stuff. And in the middle of each day was a BIG, WHATEVER. I told them that this is what I am hoping we can do, we should be able to do. BUT, if at any time that anybody does not want to do something,, you all are free to do whatever you want to do. Sleep in, go back to the resort, go to a different park, eat somewhere else, whatever. And lastly, I went to a small box, that I had set on the bed, that the check-in CM gave at check-in and took out 4 cellphones. They were Nextel type flip phones which were cellphones that you could make a regular call on but mostly were used as a walkie-talkie type device. At that time, small, portable cellphones were not what they are now. These phones were very popular at the time with construction companies for pots of workers on a site to keep in contact with each other. A very enterprising company in Orlando saw a great market for them at the Orlando theme parks and rented them by the day, week or whatever. They were pre-programmed to be able connect with each of the 4 phones super easily. They were very helpful during our week there.
With that, we freshened up a bit, explored the resort some and early evening headed over, on the monorail, to the Contemporary and the California Grill. A great first meal followed with watching Magic Kingdom's Fantasy In the Sky fireworks. We rode the monorail back to the Polynesian for a well-deserved first night sleep.
I vividly recall getting up about 3 in the morning to use the bathroom. Before getting back in bed, I walked out on the balcony, looked across Seven Seas Lagoon and while watching the Castle for a couple of minutes, slowly changing the colors of the rainbow, listening faintly to the combined sounds across the lagoon of the night workers getting ready for the coming morning in a few hours, and the sleeping sounds of my family behind me. I felt so good. And then I went back to bed.
All the pictures I took on this first Disney World family trip (and turned out to be the last all family Disney World trip) were taken with film. I've never converted them to digital. I did convert this one some years ago and have posted here a number of times.
The four of us on our Illuminations cruise, celebrating Marie's return to health. A celebration cake can be seen a bit in the lower right. Great memories.
If anyone gets this far, and is at all interested in seeing Midwest Express/Airlines, or would like to reminisce, the first 5 minutes or so will give you a flavor of it. Any time I fly now, I miss Midwest