So today was our departure day to come down to Disney World. I had been in touch with Southwest airlines because rescheduling our flights due to the hurricane caused our early bird purchase to not be in the system. I didn't actually find out that they were not attached to our tickets until Sunday at 4 in the morning.
After tweeting back and forth with a customer service rep, I was informed that they could either refund my purchase and I could buy a new early birds or I can pay to upgrade to business select and they would refund that money as soon as I made the purchase at the ticket booth. I didn't do either of those and checked in at the 24-hour mark even though our boarding passes showed early bird. We got good boarding seats A 39 through 43 but the drama was yet to come.
As usual, we were running behind so we didn't show up to the gate until general boarding had are already been called. Needless to say instead of being seated together like we had planned we were in three separate locations. Me and Chris (3) were seated together. Amy, Justin and Jace(almost 2) were seated together and Ashley was by herself.
This was the first time flying for the two littles, so we were apprehensive about how they would do. Well the problem is that I was seated 4 rows back from Amy and Jace and he was cranky for about the first 15-20 minutes and I had his bottle with me. Long story short, they did pretty good. Chris only got nervous when they first throttled the engines for take off.
It was a nice flight and we arrived at the gate right at the exact time as stated. Did I mention that Amy didn't go to bed at all and I only got about 3 hours of sleep? Good times. This was definitely a learning experience, as we had two car seats to go along with our 3 suitcases, carry on bag, backpack and two strollers with little in them. This is the first time I've sprung for one of those cart things at the airport.
We got our contract for our car with Thrifty and meandered out to the parking garage. The first SUV had a broken middle seat belt and the second SUV had two captain chairs in the middle and we needed full 3 rows. Third time was a charm and we got a Ford Flex. Not too big on the exterior design, bit it's very surprising with the interior room. After a short trip, we grabbed some lunch at Wendy's and then checked into our room. We're staying off-site for budgetary reasons but it's a very convenient spot, so that's good. We did some shopping at Walmart for some essentials and then headed over to Hollywood Studios.
Man, I don't know if the storm pushed people to different times more then I thought it did but Toy Story Mania a 20 minute wait at 6 o'clock? Shoe betcha! I think it took 10-15 minutes to actually get on. I managed to hit 282k but Justin outdid me by 10k. Another 11k and he would have had the high score for the hour. After that, all but Jace and me went on Alien Saucer Swirler or whatever it's called. Then, the two teens and mom went on Slinky Dog. I think it was a combined 35 minutes that they were gone for both rides. Even after Fantasmic let out, Millennium Falcon is only a 25 minute wait and that's where Amy and Ashley are right now.
Man, Batuu is amazing, and I'm not even that big on Star Wars. I sure hope these wait times continue for the rest of the trip. Now comes the part where I randomly post photos that I managed to take. It's not so easy to document our trips since I started having to push a stroller around but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Here's to an up and down first day!
Edit:I'll add pictures later, it won't add them now for some reason.
After tweeting back and forth with a customer service rep, I was informed that they could either refund my purchase and I could buy a new early birds or I can pay to upgrade to business select and they would refund that money as soon as I made the purchase at the ticket booth. I didn't do either of those and checked in at the 24-hour mark even though our boarding passes showed early bird. We got good boarding seats A 39 through 43 but the drama was yet to come.
As usual, we were running behind so we didn't show up to the gate until general boarding had are already been called. Needless to say instead of being seated together like we had planned we were in three separate locations. Me and Chris (3) were seated together. Amy, Justin and Jace(almost 2) were seated together and Ashley was by herself.
This was the first time flying for the two littles, so we were apprehensive about how they would do. Well the problem is that I was seated 4 rows back from Amy and Jace and he was cranky for about the first 15-20 minutes and I had his bottle with me. Long story short, they did pretty good. Chris only got nervous when they first throttled the engines for take off.
It was a nice flight and we arrived at the gate right at the exact time as stated. Did I mention that Amy didn't go to bed at all and I only got about 3 hours of sleep? Good times. This was definitely a learning experience, as we had two car seats to go along with our 3 suitcases, carry on bag, backpack and two strollers with little in them. This is the first time I've sprung for one of those cart things at the airport.
We got our contract for our car with Thrifty and meandered out to the parking garage. The first SUV had a broken middle seat belt and the second SUV had two captain chairs in the middle and we needed full 3 rows. Third time was a charm and we got a Ford Flex. Not too big on the exterior design, bit it's very surprising with the interior room. After a short trip, we grabbed some lunch at Wendy's and then checked into our room. We're staying off-site for budgetary reasons but it's a very convenient spot, so that's good. We did some shopping at Walmart for some essentials and then headed over to Hollywood Studios.
Man, I don't know if the storm pushed people to different times more then I thought it did but Toy Story Mania a 20 minute wait at 6 o'clock? Shoe betcha! I think it took 10-15 minutes to actually get on. I managed to hit 282k but Justin outdid me by 10k. Another 11k and he would have had the high score for the hour. After that, all but Jace and me went on Alien Saucer Swirler or whatever it's called. Then, the two teens and mom went on Slinky Dog. I think it was a combined 35 minutes that they were gone for both rides. Even after Fantasmic let out, Millennium Falcon is only a 25 minute wait and that's where Amy and Ashley are right now.
Man, Batuu is amazing, and I'm not even that big on Star Wars. I sure hope these wait times continue for the rest of the trip. Now comes the part where I randomly post photos that I managed to take. It's not so easy to document our trips since I started having to push a stroller around but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Here's to an up and down first day!
Edit:I'll add pictures later, it won't add them now for some reason.