Day 1-The flight, and “Hey you forgot about me!” About This Page:

[omickeyursofine]

Day 1- The flight, and “Hey you forgot about me!”

ME- AKA- Snow White- 29
DH- AKA- Grumpy- 34
DS- AKA- Captain Hook- 9
DS- AKA- Peter Pan- 6

Occasion: First real family vacation
First trip to WDW
Travel Dates: October 26- November 5

Day 1:

The day began very early as it has for many since the new “security measures” have been put into place due to 9-11-01. Our flight was scheduled to depart from St. Louis Lambert Airport at 7:31am. We live just over 2 hours from the airport, so we decided to avoid any last minute catastrophes we traveled to St. Louis on 10-25 and stayed at a Holiday Inn near the airport and did a “Park and Fly” package. This was a great deal for us. They were a mile from the airport and they shuttled us over to our check-in area. The package was $69 and we got to park for free-we would definitely do this again, it made for a smooth morning and less rushing. Ok, anyway…

I was SO worried about oversleeping that I hardly slept! I set the alarm for 4am and had a wake up call scheduled for 3:45am…well, I was up at 2:15-I couldn’t stand to lay there for another minute. My DH woke up and in a cranky voice said, “You aren’t getting up now are you????” After quickly Shhh’ing him I assured him that it was not necessary for him to get up yet, and told him I would wake him later. He chuckled at me just shaking his head and quickly rolled over and was out like a light. I showered and began getting ready, got the kids clothes out and ready, packed up the dirty clothes from the night before, and before you know it the clock read 3:30 and I figured it was time to get the others up and at’em. I flipped on the lights and announced it was time to “Rise and Shine-Mickey’s waiting for us!” Everyone moaned and Captain Hook told me I was WAY too happy for 3:30 in the morning, but they all quickly got up and began stirring around the room. Now, you have to understand, nobody in my family is a “morning person”. We all tend to get on each other’s nerves in the mornings…hence my DH’s nickname of Grumpy (also the costume I got him for MNSSHP). By 4:15 everyone has showered and dressed and is ready to go. We brought the luggage down to the lobby. They said the shuttle had just left so it would be about 15 minutes before they came back. Perfect! Just enough time to run the dirty clothes out to the van and make sure its all locked up. Captain Hook went with me simply because he was too excited to stand and wait! As we went outside we realized how cold it was this morning!!! We found out later it was 28 degrees—BURR—and we laughed and said in just a few hours we would be wearing shorts!!!

The shuttle took us to the airport and by 5:05 am we were in a huge line to check in the luggage. Baggage check took almost 40 minutes-not bad for the size of the line. Then it was on to security. This line was short, about 5 minute wait. We must have done something wrong, because I think we all set off the metal detectors!!! Grumpy got “wanded” and so did Captain Hook. Peter and I were still on the other side and we were told to wait until they were done. I went through and sure enough, it went off! Peter walked around me and waited while I was “wanded”. After I finished we scrambled to gather our carry-on bags and turned and to head toward the gate. Suddenly as we turned to go, Peter blurted out “Hey! You guys forgot about me!” Grumpy and I looked at each other and then looked at Peter. There he stood in front of a National Guardsmen with his arms sticking out waiting to be “wanded”. Everyone around just started chuckling and he still stood there adamant that they wand him too! So, the National Guardsmen with a smile quickly wanded him patted him on the head and said, “There you go son, you’re ok, you can go now.” Satisfied that he was included, we were on our way. Chuckling all the way to the gate.

The flight went great! It was the boy’s first time flying and I couldn’t wait to see what they thought. They loved it and neither got sick-thank goodness! Before we knew it we were descending and the adrenaline was once again pumping. Grumpy and I had made reservations with Tiffany for a stretch Limo to pick us up—and we didn’t tell the boys. I was sooooo excited to see reaction-another first for them-riding in a limo. As we were getting off the plane I was telling them how we had to shuttle over to the other part of the airport to get our luggage, and you could tell they had no idea what the heck I was talking about. We got on the monorail looking thing and as the doors shut and I heard the voice say, “Please move away from the doors” I got chills- we were really here!!!! As we moved off the shuttle 3 men in full army fatigues carrying M-16’s greeted us! Yikes!! That was a little unsettling, and just a reminder of all that has happened.

I can’t say enough wonderful things about Tiffany Town Car. They were worth every penny and then some. Their service was impeccable. As we went down the escalators we saw the guy holding the sign with our name on it. Peter turned to me with a look of bewilderment. I just smiled and waved to the man. He nodded and we headed toward him. He shook our hand and told us that the luggage was already coming down. I quickly told him that the boys knew nothing about this and it was a surprise. We wanted to video their expression and asked if he could hold the car for a few minutes. He said sure and radioed the driver. He helped us with all our luggage and I didn’t have to carry a thing. WOW!!! Now that was nice! I was getting the camcorder ready as we went up the elevator went up. As we walked outside the boys saw all the charter buses and they were “wowed”. They started asking the guy if we were gonna ride on one of those and he was a good sport. He said “No, we were gonna ride on an older bus, and its not that big.” They just shrugged and said ok. I had the camcorder on at this point and told the guy we were ready whenever they were, and I turned to the boys. I was telling them “Welcome to Orlando guys” and they were waving and just taking in the beautiful weather. Charter buses surrounded us and there was an empty parking space in front of us. I just kept the camera on the boys, and I saw their eyes get huge. “WOW, look at that car!!” they exclaimed. “Mom, look at that car!” and then the car turned and parked right in front of us. They were dead silent. They looked at me, then at their dad, and I shrugged and said, “Well, there’s our bus!” with a huge grin on my face. They started jumping up and down and screaming and they practically knocked us down hugging us! They were so excited and I’ll never forget that moment, and neither will they I know, because they still talk about it. Our driver was Don. He’s a 49 year-old man from Jamaica, and he was incredible. If you ever use Tiffany and get a limo ask for Don! He whisked us away to the Caribbean Beach Resort. Talking and asking the boys and us questions the whole way. He had the Jamaican accent, and a personality that made you feel like you had known him for years. He showed us where the outlet malls were along the way, and where our hotel was at in Downtown Disney. He told us how to get to Cocoa Beach and how long it would take to get there. He said the bar was full and help ourselves. The boys just couldn’t believe it. They laughed and laughed. I was glad the drive was as long as it was so they could enjoy it. As we arrived at CBR Don told us that when we got out he would take our picture by the car if we wanted. Sure enough, he took our picture and then we had someone at CBR take our picture with him too. We thanked him 10 times over and told him we would see him in 10 days.

We quickly checked in with very little wait. Grumpy said that the lobby reminded him of a bank lobby with teller windows. LOL! I just laughed and shook my head. I had requested Martinque and our request was fulfilled. Martiniqe, room 2420. Right by the pool! Perfect again! We were in our room by 11:45. I had decided that the first day was just gonna be a “take it easy” day. Swim, explore the resort, ride the monorails around, and dinner at Chef Mickey’s. I told Grumpy and the boys to go swim and I would unpack and get things settled. Now, do you think they were gonna argue with that?? Not a chance! By noon they were changed and out the door. Our room was super clean and as I walked around I found there was going to be plenty of room for all our stuff. The beds were high off the floor, and the luggage fit wonderfully under there. I was thrilled! We had 11 pieces of luggage and when we first walked in I was thinking “Where am I gonna put all of these bags???” I turned on the Disney channel that told you all about the parks and played wonderful diddy’s in between. It took me almost 2 hours to unpack and get things settled. Just as I had changed into my shorts and was getting ready to go to the pool, the boys and Grumpy came back. Oh well. I got them all dried off and changed and we all sat down and talked about how we all felt and what was next. It was about 2:15 by this time and we were all famished. I had packed an entire suitcase of snacks, cereal, pop tarts, juice boxes, etc. and it didn’t take them long to find it. I told Grumpy I needed to find some milk for in the morning. We picked out our refillable mug, and headed for the food court to grab some lunch and find some milk. I was impressed with the food court area. There were plenty of choices. We decided on the burgers and chicken fingers. I never thought a burger would taste so good! The boys went and looked around the gift shop and I found the milk. I paid $3 for a half gallon…not as bad as I thought it would be. I bought autograph books and pens for the boys and we headed back to the room. Now, the only thing about CBR is that all the buildings are the same color and there are LOTS of them. We made a game throughout the trip to see who could find our room without taking a wrong turn!!!! It took Grumpy and I about 3 days to get it straight!!! It was hilarious to say the least! We’d think we were just around the next corner and when we went around the corner…well, that’s not our room! “The room search” gave us many laughs.

We were off to the monorails. We went to the bus stop to catch a bus. We started to board the Epcot bus and I checked with the driver to make sure we could get to the monorails on this bus. She said, “Well you probably want to take the Magic Kingdom bus.” So we got off and waited. While we waited I asked some of the other people waiting and they said “Take the Downtown Disney bus and then take the boat over to the monorails.” I thought that sounded like it would take forever. Then someone else told us that we should take the Epcot bus, and we just laughed and explained that the Epcot driver had told us to take the MK bus and these people told us to take the DD bus. I was beginning to think that this whole bus thing was gonna be a nightmare. We decided that we would take either the MK bus or the Epcot bus, whichever got there first. Well, the MK bus finally arrived and it was packed. I was pleased to see adults give up their seats so the boys could sit down. Grumpy and I stood and finally we were off to ride the monorails. Note to self: Quickly need to figure out the whole transportation system! We rode the resort monorail first and waited so we could ride up front. Our driver was very quiet and hardly said a word. A little disappointing. Grumpy was impressed with the beauty of the Grand Floridian—until I told him the price per night. Still, the beauty of the resort with the lake behind…how could you NOT be impressed. We got off and switched to the Epcot monorail and got some great pictures. Again we rode up front and our driver, Angel, was very nice. We rode and walked around and looked at the leave a legacy bricks and talked about the day. Finally it was off to Chef Mickey’s. We were a little early and got a beeper anyway. They were packed! People everywhere! It didn’t take long for the beeper to light up and vibrate and we quickly went to get our picture taken and we were seated. The atmosphere was great. A little loud, but it was keeping us awake at that point. We saw Goofy and Donald ( I just love the way Donald has to sign the autograph books!) and Mickey and Minnie, Chip and Dale were there too. There was a birthday table nearby and it was great to see the character interaction with all the kids and adults. The food was delicious. LOVE THE MASHED POTATOES!!! YUM! We had a great time and we were stuffed. We opted not to buy the picture-wasn’t too good-darn! Our bill was about $72 with the tip…not too bad for the entertainment we got. We quickly found our way back to the monorail and figured out where the bus stops were and found our bus. The boys were out before the bus ever took off!!! Back at the resort we managed to find our room… after about 15 minutes of searching. I set our wake up call for 8am and we fell into bed around 9:30. What a long and fabulous day! Next up: Epcot and the Test Track nightmare.

[Elliot'sDragon]

Very nice report. I enjoyed reading it. Very cute of PP to stand their and wait to be wanded.

[DVC_Don]

Thank you. I look forward to the rest. CBR is a beautiful resort. We stayed there a year ago this week. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]