After All That Anticipation

W’re back from a wonderful week at Disneyworld. I can’t say we visited Orlando because we literally never left the property. Who would have thought you could easily fill 7 days that way? Busy. Busy. Busy. We fell into bed every night exhausted and by the last night my legs, feet and back hurt so much from walking and standing that you would have thought I’d undertaken a new exercise program but we had fun.

The kids had a blast. Kamryn is a roller coaster junkie – completely. She begged to go on Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain and Expedition Everest. She did Space Mountain 3 times in a row (once back to back) and Expedition Everest back to back. While her father and I squeezed our eyes shut in fear on Expedition Everest she laughed like she was being tickled. Crazy kid. I don’t know if this is just the way she is or if it’s an age thing that will go away when she develops some common sense. I didn’t take her on Tower of Terror because I thought it was mean to put a small child through that (as evidenced by the 6 year old who cried hysterically from the moment the ride I was on started) but I think I might have actually made a mistake. I think she might have enjoyed it.

Sam wasn’t so adventurous. We scared him for life by taking him through the Haunted House and the Pirates of the Caribbean and on Dinosaur. I was nervous about Dinosaur and kept asking Daniel if we should leave him behind but Daniel insisted that Sam would be fine. Yikes. He was wrong. Kudos to my little man though – crier that he is – he didn’t shed one tear. He was obviously rattled though. He told me quite bravely on finishing Pirates of the Caribbean that he wasn’t scared. But when I asked him if he wanted to do it again, he didn’t let me finish asking the question before he said no. Strangely though he seems obsessed with that ride and talked about it endlessly (in a positive way).

The hotel was lovely. We stayed on Disney property at the Wilderness Lodge. The convenience of not needing a car and being so close to your hotel was delightful. We had the option of either a bus of a boat for travel. It really does add an element of relaxation in to a very full and active vacation. I knew that staying on Disney property in a deluxe resort would probably wreck me for anything else and I must admit it has. I can’t imagine staying offsite and I can’t imagine staying in anything less than a deluxe hotel. Yikes – can we afford to do that again in a few years. I hope so.

We got EXACTLY what we were hoping for out of this vacation. The kids had a magical time. They interacted with the characters and even Kamryn (who had expressed some doubts before going) really believed that the characters she was meeting were real. They could ride most of the rides – we only missed out on Primeval Whirl and the Rockin’Roller Coaster I think. They did fine stamina wise and although they were a lot of work supervision wise; they would have been a lot of work on a trip anywhere. In the Magic Kingdom there was so much to keep them entertained it was no work at all really. I enjoyed the other parks less – fewer kiddie rides more work to keep them entertained. Ironically, the park that was the hardest was Animal Kingdom. I guess the kids just aren’t really into animals.

The trip home was a nightmare. We left the hotel on Disney transportation at 1:35 and got to the airport at 3:00 pm (its kind of a milk run). Our flight was at 4:16. So we get to the ticket desk (because we were flying internationally we couldn’t check in at the resort) and United has a sign that says luggage may not exceed 50 lbs per bag. Sigh. We had three bags for the four of us. Two hard suitcases, one small and one large, and a large soft sided bag. The smallest suitcase weighted 32 lbs. The big soft sided one 44 lbs and the big hard-sided one 66 lbs. It was a $50 penalty for those suitcases that exceeded the limit. One I wasn’t going to pay. So I started repacking and rearranging stuff. Putting stuff in the carry-ons etc. After about 20 minutes and three weigh-ins I get the big bag down to 49.3 lbs. We get in line to check-in. We get to the kiosk, enter our information and it comes up on the screen that we are too late to check luggage for our flight. So panicking I get out of that line and into another line to have an actual person help me. We spend 10 minutes standing in that line and when I get to the desk I tell the clerk that he needs to re-book us because no doubt we’ve missed our flight. Then he tells me it’s all right because my flight is delayed. I should have realized that that wasn’t good news.

We were flying through Chicago and in Chicago there was a raging snow storm. We got to the gate at 4:30. I was still oblivious to the trouble we were in. I clued in when I saw the line at the gate. I joined said line and stood in it for over an hour; when I finally got to the front about 6:10 the gate clerk strongly encouraged me to get on the flight (it was boarding at that point) and assured me that my connecting flight was probably delayed and I should chance the trip to Chicago – BIG MISTAKE.

When we got to Chicago three hours later our connecting flight home had been cancelled, there was a two hour wait for customer service and we had few options. We took one of those options and got on a flight for Toronto – meanwhile we had been ticketed out of Chicago at 6 am the next morning but no one mentioned that to us they just sent us on our way to Toronto. When we got to Toronto at 2 am there was no one to help us (United desk was closed) and Air Canada was already cancelling flights to Ottawa. Air Canada couldn’t help us (put us stand-by on a flight, ticket us etc.) without a ticket from United. I made bed for the kids out of coats in front on the United desk and put them to sleep. We were first in line when the United desk opened at 4:45 am. And the agent quite rudely and dismissively refused to serve us. Her reasoning which she deigned to yell at us was that “we would take a long time; and her priority were the 1st class passengers in line who had tickets.” Wow. We know where United priorities are. Remember my children are right there sleeping on the floor.

We had to wait an additional half hour for the ticket seller to open. She was wonderful and worked hard to help us. On top of that and Air Canada clerk all of a sudden appeared in the line; trying to help someone out who was in a similar situation to ours and whose tickets were also messed up by United. The United ticket seller got us booked on a flight at 12:10 (a flight which incidentally was later cancelled because of the weather) and sent us to Air Canada. The angel at the Air Canada desk somehow moved heaven and earth to get us on the 7:10 flight out. I have no idea how as there was a stand-by list a mile long. That was the second last flight out of Toronto that day (the 8:10 was cancelled; the 9:10 made it out and that was that), so she really saved us. We actually pulled back from the gate on time but then sat on the runway for another hour and a half. I was positive we weren’t going to make it out and so relieved when we finally took off. Our luggage caught up with us the two days later – wet and with a broken lock for some reason and I didn’t even care. Never should have left Orlando. Lesson for next time I guess.

Anyway that was our trip. Mostly good and if the bad had to happen it only happened at the very end which is fine with me.

Our only souvenir of the trip is that Kamryn seems to have stomach flu very bad so I’m home with her today instead of at work. Poor kid hasn’t eaten anything save a bowl of broth since noon on Saturday and has been throwing up anything (even the tiniest amount of water or Gatorade that passes her lips). Not the greatest end to a vacation.