A Very Cold and Character Filled SoloVacation/Birthday Celebration Extravaganza TR About This Page:

[nladams]

Well I guess it's time to get this thing started....

Who: Just me
When: January 2-6
Where: Wilderness Lodge w/DDP
Why: Birthday/Xmas celebration and just to have to time to myself

First a little background behind this trip (for those who haven't read my PTR). This was a birthday present from my DFi and my second solo trip. This was a chance for me to see all the Xmas decorations (as i've never been around xmas before) and to have an early start at celebrating my birthday (which actually is this week).

I had originally booked from January 3-6 but due to a schedule change with West Jet I actually ended up switching to the 2-6 getting one whole extra day and now flying with Air Canada. I was also originally booked in to stay at POP Century (since I was trying to keep this trip cheap for DFi) but when the 40% off came out I just had to switch to WL (since it would only cost 50$ more than what we had already paid). I also added on the DDP (another first for me).

Day 1/Early am Day 2(sorry no pics from Day 1)
Day 1 for me starts on Friday January 1st. Since we had spend most of Xmas holiday at DFi's family's house (near London, ON) I though it best to get a head start and drive to Toronto a day early. Plus my flight was to leave at 6:30am the next day and I didn't feel like getting up at 2 am to drive. I booked myself in at the Hilton Toronto Airport (right beside the airport) with a parking package for only $130.00. This was such a wicked deal since parking around YYZ is ridiculous.

I arrived at the Hilton pretty early, around 2 pm I think. After a short wait I was all checked in and off to go park my car at the back of the hotel. Well within the oh maybe 3 minutes it took me to get parked I had lost my room key. Not a great start to the trip. So back to the front desk I went, got another key, and headed up to my room. The rooms in the South Tower were renovated recently but I found the layout to be kind of wierd and small. The toilet was so close to the bathroom door you couldnt close the door unless you were pretty much standing in the bathtub. There was also a wall that coudl slid across and seperate the bedroom from the hallway/bathroom. And a small couch attached to the wall that was covered with wooden bars....just strange. Nonetheless the beds/pillows were super comfy and the staff was great. Not Disney CM great. But great for Toronto.

Around 4 pm my future SIL showed up at the hotel (she works in Toronto) and we headed out to grab something to eat for dinner. We ended up eating at a Lonestar Texas Grill right down the road from the Hilton. The restaurant was pretty dead (it is New Years Day after all) but had some good service from our waiter. Since we werent overly hungry we decided to order an appetizer platter to share. It had a spicy spinach dip, quesadilla, calamari and tacquitos. Now I don't like calamari at all so I let SIL eat most of it until....oh...my....God...is...that...a hair?!? Yup there was a long (and I mean really long) not just on the calamari but baked into the batter of the calamari!! Well it didnt take SIL too long to make the waiter, manager, and chef aware of what extra surprise was waiting in our meal...The staff was really great about it and gave us our meal and drinks for free and offered to bring us more food...Now you should know that EVERYTIME I go anywhere food related with SIL this happens...something always ends up in the food or we have shoddy service...so I think it's just her luck. Overall the meal was good other than that and the waiter didnt even want to take a tip from us! We ended up leaving money on the table for him anyway since it's not his fault and was so great about everything else.

After dinner I headed back to the Hilton. Had a nice hot shower and sat in bed with my book. Around 11 pm I decided that it would be best to hit the hay since my wake up call was going to be for 3:30 am.

11:32pm.....12:03am...12:47am.....1:21am....1:54am ...Holy!! I need to wake up in and hour and a half and still not asleep!!!

It was brutal I just couldn't sleep at all (guess I was too excited to sleep). Eventually I did manage to sleep ..maybe an hour but it was better than nothing. The wake-up call comes in around 3:30 am (unfortunatly no Mickey Mouse on this wake-up call) and I was up and ready to go around 3:45am. I packed up and headed downstairs to check out and wait for the first shuttle at 4am. Now I had contemplated not taking the first shuttle and waiting for one a bit later but I am soooo glad I didn't. Because of the Xmas Day attempted terrorist attack Toronto airport was a gong show.

I was checked in for my flight already but just needed to get my luggage tags. This took around 20 min or so which isn't too bad for first thing in the morning but when I headed for customs I have never seen so many people in all of my life!! The line was huge!!!! I do have to give credit to those at YYZ though it was fairly organized and they called people through security in order of flights leaving. Since I was one of the first flights out it didnt take too long to get through maybe an hour. The biggest wait came at security. Which don't get me wrong i'm not complaining. I would rather have them do full checks and not risk anything happen in the sky. I am surprised at how many people weren't aware of the "no carry on" rule that they imposed after xmas for people travelling to the US and how many people still don't know they can't take bottled water, cans of pepsi through security.

After I made it through security I decided it best to find my gate first before lining up for Tim Hortons and it's a good thing I did. They had secondary screening set up right before my gate where there was another HUGE line. Here I had the full pat down and I mean FULL. They also went through every single nook and cranny in my purse and even pulled out EVERYTHING in my wallet. Again, a minor inconvience but this was now making me getting to the gate on time a little too close.

After I was given the all clear I found a small coffee shop to grab a tea and ran to the gate just as they were doing pre-boarding. I'm sure if I would have taken the later shuttle to the airport I may not have made it at all.

The flight left only 15 min late as we had to go to the de-icing station before the plane taxied to the runway. I found that sitting in the aisle seat I wasn't as bad at takeoff as I normally am. I am super afraid of heights and flying so normally i'm curled up in a ball by the window sobbing to myself. There was a tiny bit or turbulance but not a whole lot (which also helped my fear) and there was a good selection of movies on this flight to keep me occupied. I settled on watching "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" which was actually pretty good.

We made it to Orlando around 9:35 am. After taking the first monorail ride of the trip I was off to collect my bags. Since I couldnt bring anything in carry-on I decided to collect my own bags rather than have DME do it just because I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed to head straight to the parks. My bag was literally the first off the plane (which NEVER happens for me). I pulled my backpack out of my suitcase and filled it with all my essentials for a day at the parks and then headed to DME.

Coming Up Next:

Will I have a long wait for DME?
Will I get my room requests at WL?
Will I get on any rides at MK?
Will I have an extra surprise in bed tonight?

Stay tuned for more!!

[Ceara's mawmaw]

Great Start! Love reading about solo trips...want to do one for myself one of these days.

[janicelovesmickey]

great start!!

[Diz]

What a busy beginning!
Sounds like you've had a great start with guest interaction so far -- and you're not even at Disney yet!

[Silver-n-Gold]

I can't wait to hear about this solo trip, sounds like so much fun... I the WL!

[islandgirl]

Great start!!!!

[judyjo]

I can't wait to read more!

[debrabrown]

Don'tcha hate the no sleep thing before a trip?!

Great start!

[B.M.]

Great start!

[disney_duke]

Oooh, yay!! You started!! Wow, I'm so glad you took the early shuttle to YYZ. Holy cow that sounded busy! Sounded like a good flight and safe arrival. What teasing questions you post about what's yet to come....

[MickeyMAC]

Great start, looking forward to reading more.

[dwonderz]

Awesome start! Cant wait to hear how Disney World goes!!!!

[lukeandbrookesmom]

Great start - can't wait to read more!

[Jillybean]

Whew! I'm tired already and it's only morning! Can't wait for more!

Jill

[Cam22]

Such a good idea on your part to take the earliest shuttle because that really was a hassle with all the security measures. Can't wait for more.