Disney!!! We planned a quick Disney trip to take advantage of super-cheap airfare and wanted to be able to take Heidi before she starts high school! These pictures might get out of order a little because they are from Chris, Heidi, and myself - but it should be ok!
The weather was interesting at Disney! The week started off with highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s! It was COLD! We had some good winter gear and managed but it was funny to be in Florida and have falling iguana warnings on our phone!
Also, the trip started out ROUGH... first, it was little things, we normally have no issues with getting our plane seats together, but the flight was oversold and we were all in different rows. Heidi and I sat separately and Chris was able to convince a very nice gentleman to switch with him so he could sit with Lucy. Then it took an hour and 15 minutes to get out luggage! So hard just to sit there when we were planning on going to a park! We landed at like 8 in the morning and it is always hard to waste time in Florida. We finally received our luggage and were on our way. We were starving and grabbed some breakfast before stopping at the hotel to grab Chris' scooter. Chris is still dealing with a torn Achilles tendon and we knew he would not be able to walk all those steps. Plus, it could act as our bag carrier! Well, slight hiccup as the scooter place never delivered his scooter - a couple of long phone calls they were going to deliver it later in the morning. We decided we didn't want to wait and head into Magic Kingdom. By this time it was 10:30/11:00 and we all wanted our vacation to start!
Well...then the worse of it happened... on our way to Magic Kingdom, about a mile to go, a car pulled out of the Riverside resort in front of us - we slammed on our brakes, but then instead of speeding up out of the way - the driver stopped. He just stopped in the middle of our lane. There was nothing we could do. We ran into his side and then we got smacked from behind by another driver trying to stop as well. The air bags did not go off, so Chris did a good job and tried to stop as much as we could, but our car was leaking all sorts of stuff and was done for. The Disney road people were nice and we all had to fill out reports and figure it out. The girls were really scared and Lucy honestly did have a panic attack. Not the way we wanted to start.
We had to get on the phone with our Enterprise rental roadside assistance and it was a nightmare. The gentleman could not understand we were in Disney and he was confused and tried to send a replacement car to Dayton, Ohio, then Daytona Beach, and lord knows where else. I think back to the confusion and we really should have handled it on our own. We were so close to the Disney Car Care Center, we could have just driven there carefully and got a new one right away - oh well - lesson learned. Instead, we embarked into a 6-hour cluster of confusion, phone calls...so many phone calls, waiting, more waiting, and just being over it. They sent a not big enough Uber to get us, we had to get another Uber/Lyft, etc. Long long story short, we canceled our park reservation and headed back to the hotel to hopefully get a new car delivered. Well in the confusion - not only did Enterprise send 3 different tow trucks to get the car, but one had a new car at the airport for us and two others came to our hotel too late, and after we already got a new rental to give us one. By 3pm, we were all over it, National car rental stepped in and we took an Uber to the Disney Car Care center and they got us handled within 10 minutes. Luckily our hotel had some sympathy and got us checked in super early and shuttled us to our villa and were really nice and helpful!
We made our way to Disney Springs and really all relaxed at that point. That first Mickey Pretzel hit hard and was the best thing ever. We ended up having a wonderful dinner with some surprises - like free drinks and free dessert from sympathetic other patrons! The girls had cried too much that day and I was close to tears so many times - we were tired, beat up, and needed a reset button!
Here are some pictures out of order!
Lucy's new favorite slushy was a special 50th anniversary one at Magic Kingdom! She was in heaven!
Another special drink that Chris loved!
We didn't buy this piece as it was already sold and very expensive, but we DID buy some art! It is being shipped to us. We bought a mickey and a muppet piece! I can't wait for them to arrive! The artist signed our muppet piece for us!
The food really was delicious! We got all of this again it was so good!
Whew - I think that is it... We will always have a great time at Disney and we rolled with the punches for sure! There is no such thing as a slow time at Disney any more - the crowds are back, but we know how to navigate them. Until next time...