2010 Disney trip, day 1

Day One - Travel and Shopping

Finally our day came! I left my house at 5:15am this morning to head to the Hartford airport. Just as the parking shuttle was pulling into the terminal I saw my first flight status notification from Delta that we were delayed approximately 35 minutes. I started to get a little worried cuz I knew big storms had come through Florida the night before. I got in past security around 6:15am and hit up McDonalds for some breakfast. It felt like I'd been up for hours already. I got to the gate a little after 6:30am. Original flight time was 7:55am with a 7:15am boarding time. New departure was 8:30am. They made an announcement that pretty much ALL the delta flights were running late that morning because all the planes had gotten in really late the night before and the crews have mandatory rest time. We took off at 8:30am as we were told and off to Orlando we went. Pilot made up a lot of the time in the air. I didn't even get the entire way through my ipad movie - Valentines Day - though I only missed the last 10 minutes or so which I watched on magical express as we headed to Bay Lake Tower.

Check in went really smoothly since we'd done the online check in. Our room, a studio, was small but nice. This sofa bed seems better than the one I had to sleep on at the Beach Club Villas. Though it wasn't easy to undo. The directions say "lift handles and walk away from bed". I did that. The bed walked away with me. I was in the room by myself at that point while mom was in her friend Donna's room checking out her pool view at nighttime. But eventually I got it figured out.

After settling in we left for Downtown Disney. In a CRAZY downpour. That kept going and going and going. Donna and I packed our umbrellas in our carryon. For some reason mom packed HERs in her checked bags. So she got wetter than we did...though we were all pretty wet.

Lunch was the Earl of Sandwich, which was OH MY GOD delicious. How have I missed this place for so long? Line was long but moved swiftly. I got the Caprese Sandwich. Mom got the BLT. We split both sandwiches and also a potato salad. The bread is fantastic. We thought we liked my Caprese Sandwich best, but we decided it was a little heavy on the balsamic so we liked the BLT better.

After lunch was the shopping...and boy did I shop. I'll have to do a whole other report on that, with pictures! I LOVED Tren-D. But of course, I pretty much knew that I would from the minute I first heard of it..I mean all of my non-work clothes are Disney!

After shopping, as it started to pour again, we headed off to WIlderness Lodge for dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe. We were early, so we did some more shopping there. Dinner was fantastic. We got a great table in the corner that overlooks the lobby. Our waitress seemed great early on..but less so as dinner wore on. Food was fantastic. We all did the all you care to eat skillet. We loved everything, but the table agreed the best parts were the corn, mashed potatoes, and corn bread. We didn't ask for ketchup, but the table next to us did so we got to see that. We also saw one of the giant drinks come out. Very cute.

After that we took the boat to Magic Kingdom and then another to Grand Floridian to do some shopping there. I think I didn't buy anything there.....then back to Bay Lake to go up to Top of the World for Wishes. Top of the World is nice. Smaller than I expected, but cute. Watching Wishes from there was great. Even though the angle isn't ideal (fireworks over space mountain rather than the castle) its totally worth it not to have to deal with the crowds...and BOY were there crowds today! After that..a little more shopping at Contemporary, and then back to the room to get ready for tomorrow! Speaking of which..time for me to go so I can re-organize my stuff for the cruise!