Who: Myself, Cetta, and my husband, Aaron, our 9 yo son Joseph, and our 7 yo daughter Sadie.
When: Saturday, September 30 – Tuesday, October 3, 2023
Where: we stayed at Homewood Suites at Flamingo Crossing. We picked it because we wanted someplace affordable ($464 for all 3 nights) with an amazing pool because we knew we would have lots of pool time.
What: it was a short trip because I found cheap roundtrip Spirit flights….$152 for our whole family to fly round trip. We did the personal items only and I stuffed them full so I literally just paid for the flight. Didn’t pick seats or anything. I love it! We decided to do just Magic Kingdom because on our last trip we did just Hollywood Studios and Epcot. Aaron and I also had no expiration 4 day water park tickets from our first trip together in 2009, so we decided it was a good time to use one day of those at Typhoon Lagoon.
I realized we didn't take many family photos this trip. Yes, Joseph has long beautiful hair, there was at least a handful of times he was referred to as a female. I think it actually bothered Sadie more than it did him. He likes his long hair and doesn't want to change it. Good for him to sticking with it. Originally he just wanted to grow his hair out like George Harrison and he just never stopped.
September 30, 2023
Our flight was scheduled to take off at 9:00am with boarding at 8:20am so we aimed to leave the house at 6:30am for our 45-minute drive. Our house is on the market and an open house was scheduled for Sunday, so I woke up super early to clean the kitchen, bathrooms, floors, etc. before the kids got up. Aaron helped me mop while I did the bathrooms. Gosh…no one really tells you how much work it is to sell your house. We got everything cleaned and got the blinds open before we left the house a little late, a little before 7am. Of course, we didn’t realize that the highway we take was down to one lane which was causing lots of traffic even for that early on a Saturday morning. We decided to go through Indianapolis instead of taking the highway around it. We got to the airport, parked the truck at 7:38am, and got to shuttle stop 22 right before the first bus came.
They drove right past us with an announcement that they were full. I was starting to get a little worried because I know early in the morning the Indy airport will only have one side of the TSA security open which will cause longer lines. YIKE! The next bus was only about 4 minutes later and we got into the airport to find the line was bad but not the worst I have seen it. We got through TSA by 8:18 and made our way to our gate.
Yes, we are Indianapolis Colts fans!
Of course, our gate was the furthest one away but we made it right as they were calling Boarding Group 3, and we were group 4 so it was a sigh of relief from me that we made it and weren’t the last. They made me measure my new bag because they thought it was too big. It’s a joke that I get a new bag for every trip, I mean they aren’t wrong hahaha it fit just fine, so I got to keep my $50 or whatever I would have been charged if it didn’t it. They even tried to tell me that I had one too many bags, um….I have 4 people in my group and we have 4 bags.
Our flight was uneventful. Since the kids were going to miss two days of school, I had their teachers put together some worksheets and reading materials for them to do on the planes. They did that first and then I let them watch Leroy and Stitch on my phone. We arrived at MCO and were on the Fonorail by 11:25am to start our vacation!
We held true to our tradition of stopping at Dunkin as soon as we got off the plane. The airport was pretty busy, and we were not able to sit at our usual spot. We found a table in the food court that had two seats available so the kids sat down while Aaron and I stood up and enjoyed our sandwiches. Next we headed to the Halloween Horror Nights Store near terminal B. Our family loves Stranger Things (Sadie is dressing up as Max for Halloween this year and you can see she is wearing her Max sweatshirt this trip) so we had to stop in and see if they had any good merch. I did buy a Stranger Things HHN water bottle because I wanted a refillable bottle for our trip and left the one I was going to bring at home so it worked out.
My step-dad/the kid's PopPop is a big Chicago Bears fan and has always wanted a giant Bear for the front yard. I took this picture and told him we found him the perfect Bear.
By 12:30 we were on the road to our hotel. Kids took a quick nap on the way. Our uber driver was super nice and gave me a couple minutes heads up before we went under the Disney gates to wake the kids so they didn’t miss counting down.
When: Saturday, September 30 – Tuesday, October 3, 2023
Where: we stayed at Homewood Suites at Flamingo Crossing. We picked it because we wanted someplace affordable ($464 for all 3 nights) with an amazing pool because we knew we would have lots of pool time.
What: it was a short trip because I found cheap roundtrip Spirit flights….$152 for our whole family to fly round trip. We did the personal items only and I stuffed them full so I literally just paid for the flight. Didn’t pick seats or anything. I love it! We decided to do just Magic Kingdom because on our last trip we did just Hollywood Studios and Epcot. Aaron and I also had no expiration 4 day water park tickets from our first trip together in 2009, so we decided it was a good time to use one day of those at Typhoon Lagoon.
I realized we didn't take many family photos this trip. Yes, Joseph has long beautiful hair, there was at least a handful of times he was referred to as a female. I think it actually bothered Sadie more than it did him. He likes his long hair and doesn't want to change it. Good for him to sticking with it. Originally he just wanted to grow his hair out like George Harrison and he just never stopped.
September 30, 2023
Our flight was scheduled to take off at 9:00am with boarding at 8:20am so we aimed to leave the house at 6:30am for our 45-minute drive. Our house is on the market and an open house was scheduled for Sunday, so I woke up super early to clean the kitchen, bathrooms, floors, etc. before the kids got up. Aaron helped me mop while I did the bathrooms. Gosh…no one really tells you how much work it is to sell your house. We got everything cleaned and got the blinds open before we left the house a little late, a little before 7am. Of course, we didn’t realize that the highway we take was down to one lane which was causing lots of traffic even for that early on a Saturday morning. We decided to go through Indianapolis instead of taking the highway around it. We got to the airport, parked the truck at 7:38am, and got to shuttle stop 22 right before the first bus came.
They drove right past us with an announcement that they were full. I was starting to get a little worried because I know early in the morning the Indy airport will only have one side of the TSA security open which will cause longer lines. YIKE! The next bus was only about 4 minutes later and we got into the airport to find the line was bad but not the worst I have seen it. We got through TSA by 8:18 and made our way to our gate.
Yes, we are Indianapolis Colts fans!
Of course, our gate was the furthest one away but we made it right as they were calling Boarding Group 3, and we were group 4 so it was a sigh of relief from me that we made it and weren’t the last. They made me measure my new bag because they thought it was too big. It’s a joke that I get a new bag for every trip, I mean they aren’t wrong hahaha it fit just fine, so I got to keep my $50 or whatever I would have been charged if it didn’t it. They even tried to tell me that I had one too many bags, um….I have 4 people in my group and we have 4 bags.
Our flight was uneventful. Since the kids were going to miss two days of school, I had their teachers put together some worksheets and reading materials for them to do on the planes. They did that first and then I let them watch Leroy and Stitch on my phone. We arrived at MCO and were on the Fonorail by 11:25am to start our vacation!
We held true to our tradition of stopping at Dunkin as soon as we got off the plane. The airport was pretty busy, and we were not able to sit at our usual spot. We found a table in the food court that had two seats available so the kids sat down while Aaron and I stood up and enjoyed our sandwiches. Next we headed to the Halloween Horror Nights Store near terminal B. Our family loves Stranger Things (Sadie is dressing up as Max for Halloween this year and you can see she is wearing her Max sweatshirt this trip) so we had to stop in and see if they had any good merch. I did buy a Stranger Things HHN water bottle because I wanted a refillable bottle for our trip and left the one I was going to bring at home so it worked out.
My step-dad/the kid's PopPop is a big Chicago Bears fan and has always wanted a giant Bear for the front yard. I took this picture and told him we found him the perfect Bear.
By 12:30 we were on the road to our hotel. Kids took a quick nap on the way. Our uber driver was super nice and gave me a couple minutes heads up before we went under the Disney gates to wake the kids so they didn’t miss counting down.
