Thank you ALL for being here. I am overwhelmed by all of you being here to read about our trip.
Before I move on with this TR, I want to share some exciting news with you. The first "real" friend I met here on the DIS was "that's nice" (Tim in real life). Tim and I hit it off right away and I fell in love with his only child at the time, Juliana. Juliana had some serious health issues when she turned a year old. Thankfully, she is now a healthy girl, and has two siblings, Christopher and Gabriella. Anyway, although I've been in touch with Tim and his family for years, I have never had the opportunity to meet them in person. Well, this is finally happening. It turns out Tim and Mel and the kids will be in Disney for part of our September 2014 trip and I am just so excited that I am going to finally meet my first real DIS friend. Okay, back to what you are here for.
Tuesday, December 3 --
It was departure day...finally. I was up just a little bit before 3:45 a.m. to hop in the shower and finish up packing. Before you knew it, I was ready to go:
Now, I just had to get Mark moving...he seemed to be in a bit of slow motion (he told me no more 7:30 a.m. flights; yeah, whatever!).
Andy was up and ready to take us. He loaded the car with our luggage and we were out the door and on the road by 4:30 a.m..
O'Hare Airport decked out for the holidays:
We were through security in under 10 minutes and walked towards our gate. Of course, on the way, those who know me, know that I had to stop for my Starbucks coffee. I also got a butter croissant:
Mark got a bagel (sorry for the "half eaten" food pic...you would think the man would know better by now):
Our chariot awaited:
Waiting patiently to board by reading his Nook:
We boarded right on schedule:
And we were off:
We had a little snack mid flight as we knew we wouldn't be eating until our first ADR which wasn't until 3:15 that afternoon:
The flight had a little bumpiness at one point according to Mark (I didn't notice...I was sleeping). Soon we were approaching Orlando:
And then we were there:
Our first palm tree:
I sent Mark to go pick up our rental car while I went and got the luggage. I figured this would save us some time to get to our first destination.
I met Mark down by Budget and we were set to go. We found our car, got the luggage in and we were on our way. I texted Mary to tell her we should be there in about 40 minutes. But I lied. Within 20 minutes, we were pulling in here:
Mark made a pit stop and then we stopped for our annual picture:
We headed over to Guest Relations to pick up our new Annual Passes and pray that our Magic Bands would work. It took about 20 minutes, but everything was working.
Up next, we check into our resort. Will our room be ready?
And just as a side note: I have LOST all of my cell phone pictures except for the last two days. So as I get to spots where we had DIS meets, please feel free to post your pictures if you have any.