Disney Day One

Now that we have had a little time to recover, I am going to start to post about our trip.  First - all the post you read last week were written by me before we left.  I had them "auto post" while we were gone - I don't like to advertise that we are gone.  But we didn't get on the internet during our trip.  It was kind of nice, really.  No internet or work to distract us.  Just fun with the family for 8 days.  It was bliss.

Disclaimer:  This blog is a journal for our family.  These post about our trip may be lengthy on some days, so if you want to skip reading them, my feelings will not be hurt!

First day of Disney was strictly a travel/relax day.  Our flight was an early 8am, so we were up and on our way to the airport by 6am.  The kids were so excited, that it wasn't hard to get them out of bed and ready for the day.  I forgot to take pictures on the airplane.  I am a bit of a nervous flier, and I got distracted trying to not panic, so I blame that for not taking pictures.

We arrived in Disney 45 minutes before our scheduled time (the pilot was moving it) and that was a nice surprise.  Our flight was very smooth, and it was so nice to leave the snow and arrive in the sunshine and palm tree lined streets.

Disney takes care of everything when you stay on property.  This was the first time we have stayed on property, and it was a great experience.  We had a special part of the airport we went to to catch our "Disney Express" to our hotel.  We had everything we needed and they took care of our luggage.  It would arrive at our hotel, in our room, and we didn't have to worry about getting it from the airport.  So we got off the plane, and arrived at a special area of the airport for Disney travelers.  We got right on a large, comfy bus that took us from the airport to our hotel.

Orlando airport is about 30 minutes from Disney, and we had to stop at a few other hotels before getting to our own, but the ride had a movie for us to watch, so the time went by quickly.  The kids enjoyed the ride and were having a good time on the bus.

We arrived at our hotel - Fort Wilderness - a little before lunch time.  We checked in, and believe it or not, our cabin was ready, so we were able to go straight there.  We chose Fort Wilderness so that all 7 of us could stay together.  And these cabins were really nice.   My mom took some pictures:

We had our own stand alone cabin, which had a porch and a grill.  Inside was 600 square feet of a living room and a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom.  There was plenty of room for all of us - we never felt crowded.  The kitchen was fully stocked, and housekeeping did the dishes for us every day.  It was really nice.  We all fit comfortably, and we were happy to have the bedroom with a door where the kids could fall asleep while we were able to stay in the living room in the evening to watch TV.

After we checked out the hotel and dropped off our carry on luggage, we went to find a place for lunch.  Our hotel had two restaurants on the property, and two small grocery stores.  We ate lunch at a cute restaurant, and then went in search of breakfast foods at the stores.

 We were able to get everything we needed for our entire stay, which was nice.  We decided we were going to have breakfast each morning in the cabin, and eat the rest of the meals in the parks.  Mat and I always do this when we travel - it saves us a lot of money and time.

We then spent some time walking around the property.  It has its own beach, horses, bikes, playgrounds, etc.  It is a huge property - very spread out, so they ran a shuttle service to get from place to place.  It was very convienent, and the shuttles came every 5-10 minutes, so we never had to wait.  They were large Disney buses and so we never had to wait for one that wasn't full.  We would stay here again - we loved it.

After lunch, and looking around, we returned to our room and our luggage had arrived.  We unpacked and settled in.  That evening my parents met my sister-in-law, Tricia, and her little man "E" and Tricia's mom at Downtown Disney.  It was late, and the rest of us were really tired (and I wasn't feeling well at all), so Mat took the kids to a little show right on our property instead.

 Mat said the kids loved it.  It was a sing a long with Chip and Dale.  They had a great time and got to take their picture with Chip and Dale.  And every night they show a different Disney movie outside, but our kids were tired, so they opted to skip the movie this evening and head to bed.  Knowing we were going to be busy the next 6 days, we wanted everyone to be well rested.

So - day 1 was a success.  We arrived safely.  All of our luggage arrived without incident.  Our hotel was beautiful and comfortable.  The weather was perfect.  We immediately forgot it was the middle of February, and looked forward to the fun filled days in my favorite park in the world.

Day Two - Animal Kingdom.  Stay tuned!

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In other news - my sister in lawn, Teen, is having a pampered chef party for Finley!  If you are interested in ordering, please get in contact with me, or her, and we will give you all the details.  You can order from now until March 14th.  All proceeds of the party go to our RDH12 Fund for Sight!  Please support!

Here is how to order online:

Please tell them to go to our personal website www.pamperedchef.biz/evelynn, select "shop online.  Enter Kris Ting as the host and select “search for host".  Click on the organization name (RDH12 Fund for Sight) and you are ready to shop!