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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Disney September 2013 - Day 1

So much to catch up on, but I'm going to try to get my feeble brain to remember all the way back to 3 weeks ago, so that I can blog about our September trip to WDW with my family.

So without further ado - Day 1

WooHoo! We were so excited! The day dawned sunny and cool. Probably the first cool morning we'd had in over a month or two (we had a weirdly cool summer as I mentioned above ) It was starting to feel like fall and we were headed to WDW and MNSSHP! Yay! 

We got dressed, packed up the car, and were ready to go in less than an hour. Woo! 

We had to say a sad goodbye to Big Daddy who had postponed his flight until Tuesday to finish some work at home.)  We were sad to leave him, and he was sad to see us go, but we knew the days would fly by!







We were flying out of Atlanta again. We arrived at the awesome Peachy Parking (love those Groupons!) a little over 2 hours before our flight (right on time in my book.) 

With two kids and tons of stuff, I sweated my way through security - why don't they turn up the AC in the security line??? Don't they know?? - and once we were through, the kids made a bee line for the closest candy. 


What did I do with my money Mom??? "Well, I'm not sure. Maybe if you had left your giant blanket at home, as I suggested it wouldn't be so hard to find your wallet?" (I told my kids they could bring what they wanted, but they had to carry it through the airport themselves. It was unbelievable to me how much stuff they crammed into their 'carry on and personal item' ha!)


We had time for a nice lunch. Unfortunately, we passed all the good places to eat and ended up at a not so good restaurant. But it did have a nice view of the planes, so the kids were happy!


The flight was delayed by about an hour. Some sort of mechanical problem. The pilot was very apologetic and told everyone on board that was over 21 that drinks were 'on him'. Once we were off the ground, the flight was smooth and uneventful and we even made up some time in the air.

The kids and I sat next to the nicest couple from Palm Beach, who had been cruising Europe for 7 weeks!  I have decided I will like retirement. :-)

Before we knew it, we were off the plane and onto this familiar sight:


Next Stop - Magical Express! It was interesting to see how My Magic + has already made it to Magical Express. They had the 'tap and go' Mickey all ready to go to meet arriving WDW visitors. My Magic + really is going to be an information bonanza for Disney. They'll know how many flights are on time, etc. Maybe even be able to tell how many minutes it takes each guest to walk from their gate to the ME counters! Amazing!

We just had our plain old paper tickets, so they scanned those and I alerted them to the fact that my husband would be delayed by a few days and we were off to our line! One thing that I was sad about - no more hotel names labeling the lines. Now it's just numbers. :-(

We were right up front. Which always means we'll be waiting a while for others to join us. 
We were on the bus soon enough - front row baby! And the Dino sticker was procured:

It was a perfect, beautiful evening:



We didn't check in online, but check in was still a breeze!

I spoke to my sister and my parents. They had arrived around lunch time and were already at the Magic Kingdom. They had 6:45 dinner reservations at the Crystal Palace. I'd hoped (before the flight delay) that we'd be able to join them for dinner, but we walked into our room to put our luggage away at 6:30, so I knew there was no way.




We were starving, and there was no Crystal Palace for us, so we stopped by the Pop Food Court on the way to the MK. 

For the life of me, I can't remember what we ate, but I do remember Pop has added a really cool ice cream area on the gift shop end of the food court and it is fantastic! Milkshakes, sundaes, etc. And of course, knowing the dining plan, I asked if we could have one of those as dessert and the answer was -absolutely! Yay!

We were in a hurry to get to the MK though, so we took our ice cream to go.





 When we arrived at the MK, it was a perfect night! It was just so exciting to be there.





My family had finished dinner and had already seen most of New Fantasyland, so we met them in the Castle hub to find a spot for Wishes!





After Wishes, we decided to set up a spot for the MSEP. We watched the 'castle show' (what's it called again?) while we were waiting.
(Now this is a cell phone pic)








After the parade, the MK was closed, so we made our way down Main Street and toward the busses! 
ML fell asleep on the ride home:
:-)  More to come!

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