[HollyRose1313]

Saturday January 12th 2008

We woke up at 4:00am to get us to the airport by 5:00. Luckily, when you know you will be in Disney that day it always makes waking up so much easier (even with the fact that we didn’t go to sleep until midnight).
We always debate before each vacation if we should pay an extra chunk of money and fly out of our small city or drive 2 ½ hours and fly out of Minneapolis and each time we are sooooo happy with our decision to leave from our city. Luckily we have a dear friend who was willing to drive us to the airport at 4:30 in morning so we were dropped off right at the airport door (when it is the wee hours of the morning in January in Duluth Minnesota this is a very welcome luxury).
Our flight didn’t leave until 6:30 but we wanted to get there with plenty of time due to a snafu in our plane tickets (Roger made my plane ticket under my maiden name, which for most people going on their honeymoon wouldn’t be a big deal but since we were married a year and a half ago it became a big deal for us). We checked in at the Northwest counter and they were not able to change the name so we got our tickets and went to find a seat to wait for the security check to open. At 5:30 TSA opened the line and we were first through, luckily they let me on but I had to be searched and patted down and all that which was more than a little embarrassing. But oh well it didn’t last long and we were chatting up a Disney storm while we boarding the plane. If it seems like this is a very long entry for a day that mostly consisted of traveling you would be right…this was the loooooongest day of my life. We flew from Duluth to Minneapolis, had an hour layover, flew from Minneapolis to Detroit, had a 4 hour layover, flew from Detroit to Memphis, had a 2 hour layover, and then from Memphis to Orlando. Boy oh boy was I getting cranky by the time we hit Memphis. Just a few travel tidbits from the day, Detroit has the nicest airport I have ever been in, very new, very very clean. Because of the clean carpet I became one of those people I have always stared at before from behind my Us Weekly; I took out my blanket and just sprawled out on the ground near a window and got only a few minutes of sleep but at least an hour of rest. Now just so you all know this is not something I would do at just any airport (but no judgment to those who do, ok well a little judgment but not much) it is just that the carpet was so fresh and clean it would have been an insult not to lay on it. Now Memphis was another story, I would not have laid on the ground in that airport for all the dole whips in the land.
Ok so eventually we arrive in Orlando and head right to the DME, this was our first time on DME and went perfectly.
We arrived at Pop Century at about 6pm but the exhaustion (and crankiness) from earlier in the day had been replaced with the euphoria that comes from breathing in WDW air. We went and checked in to our room (got our Just Married buttons) and dropped our carry ons off. We had gotten a preferred room and were assigned to the 50’s top floor.
After a quick outfit change we were in line for the bus to Magic Kingdom. This is by far my favorite park, and was open a little later that night so it was perfect for our first night.
Into MK we went and we both knew we immediately needed food. We decided to grab a fastpass for BTMR and then hit up Pecos Bills.
We had not eaten hear before and really had never heard anything about it but it was the first place we saw so we were stopping. We were on the DDP so of course we both wanted to get our full value from the plan; I got the Bacon Double Cheeseburger with fries, a coke, and some type of chocolaty dessert and Roger got the BBQ Pork sandwich with fries and some type of fruity dessert. I don’t remember much about this place except I either loved or hated the fries but because we didn’t bring our camera this first night I don’t have a photo to help me out.
So we “finished” our meal, I don’t know why I got the double cheeseburger since the first thing I did was take a patty off but whatever I guess I was trying to stick it to the man. While we waited for our fastpass we went on POTC and ended up being quite pleased with the updates. I still don’t think they were needed but I really don’t think it took anything away from it either. I did enjoy watching people in front of me freak out before the “water” wall.
Fastpass time, yeah! I don’t know what is wrong with me but I always feel so smug walking through the fastpass line looking at everyone standing there in the regular line, like I know some amazing secret they just can’t figure out, does anyone else feel this way? So we just zipped right down to the ride and boarded the train. In the time we were inside Wishes had started and it had started to downpour, so we went left the inside cave it was like sensory overload with the ride, the fireworks, and the rain but it was very cool and our magical moment of the day. After we were done we promptly bought me a poncho and headed for Monsters Inc. (we usually follow a more efficient schedule for rides but we just wanted to make sure we got a few certain ones in this night) and absolutely loved it! Very neat show, I was worried it would be similar to Stitch but luckily that was not the case. Before we headed back to Pop we decided to do Astro Orbitor, not a good thing to do when it has been raining, we ended up sitting in a big puddle of water and afterwards we really ready to go back to our room and rest up for our full day at the Magic Kingdom.