Hi everyone! I’ve been home for a few days sorting & editing pictures and can’t wait to start sharing my latest trip
I’ve always wanted to spend my birthday in Disney World – who wouldn’t?!
So when my sister suggested we go for my birthday instead of me flying out to Denver to visit (she just moved), I was in! Then I asked my parents if they would want to come and to my surprise…they said yes! They love Disney too, but we haven’t been as a family in a few years. It was later in the day when it hit me that they really said yes because it meant seeing my sister for the first time since she moved to Colorado haha. But they really were excited to all be together and spend my birthday in Disney World too
We stayed Friday, July 8th to Tuesday, July 12th at Port Orleans French Quarter! My sister and I loved this resort the last time we stayed and couldn't wait for my parents to see it too, we knew they'd love the theming.
Here we are on our last family trip in April 2013
Mom- Phyllis
Me- Sam
Sister- Alyssa
Dad- Larry
There were a few hiccups in the week leading up to and day of the trip...
It was about a week before we were leaving when I found out that one of my admission guest passes was lost by a friend on our last trip. I knew I could replace it but after doing some research I found out it would take two weeks in the mail, or you could do it in person at a site in Celebration. But they close at 4 on Fridays, and I was going to be landing at 2:30, which would be cutting it too close. I decided to apply for a new pass online and hope it would come before we leave. I also started panicking about all the time I spent planning out our fastpasses and not knowing if they’d be able to be applied to a new guest pass. All was better when the new guest pass arrived a few days after I ordered the replacement and they assured me the fastpasses would transfer right over to the new pass with no issues. Crisis 1 averted!
Speaking of fastpasses…some of our fastpasses on my guest passes weren’t showing up, I called several times and everyone gave me a different answer and was told to check back in a couple days and the system should be fixed. That never happened. I was told I used all the allotments I had for my guest passes, I knew there wasn’t any truth to that, then finally a very helpful cast member made new fastpasses for those missing to match the rest of the ones on my main entrance pass. Crisis 2 averted!
And then the biggest problem…my sister flew in from Denver early on the 8th. I flew out from LaGuardia at 11, and my parents were on a 6:30pm flight from Newark. Around noon, my mom gets an email that JetBlue had cancelled their flight and put them on a new one 24 hours later. I’m on the plane and totally helpless (and freaking out). My mom was able to get them on a flight that left about 90 minutes earlier and would connect through Boston and still get in Friday night, just a few hours later. Well, that flight ends up being delayed more and more and eventually there is no way if they ever got to Boston, they wouldn’t even make their connection. So again start looking for another flight and JetBlue puts them on a 5:30am flight Saturday out of JFK. That was the best they were going to get and thankfully I live just outside of NYC so they had a place to stay overnight since jetblue wouldn’t give them a hotel or anything for transportation.
I was, and still am annoyed by the whole thing though. They blamed the weather. I’m a meteorologist. Don’t blame the weather when I see it is NOT raining at or near Newark. Of course safety is the number one priority, and if there had been storms at Newark I would completely understand. But to cancel a flight 7 hours in advance for the chance of a storm, which never happened...I just don’t get it. What is even more frustrating is that all the other airlines were flying out at the time their original flight was supposed to leave…ANYWAY knowing my parents were for sure on a flight first thing the next morning, my sister and I set out to enjoy our night together! We still felt bad they had spent all afternoon sitting around and dealing with the airport, but they were happy too just to be on a flight in the morning.
Sorry that was a lot, but NOW TO THE GOOD STUFF
I worked the morning before I left and when I walked into my office I was greeted with the best surprise! An early Disney princess birthday bash, complete with a blow up Mickey, princess figures lining my computer, a Frozen balloon and Disney music in the background. I’m so lucky that my coworkers are also some of my best friends. They know me very well and really got me good that morning. (ps. I’ve managed to keep those decorations up for over a week now haha)
After work I raced to the airport where I learned I was upgraded to first class…woo! Then we were off to Orlando!
We landed early and I quickly made it on to the magical express and before I knew it, was looking at this!
[url=https://flic.kr/p/K5mqQ4]
Soon enough we were pulling into our home, I hopped off the bus and hustled to our room where my sister, Alyssa, was waiting! It was great to see her after being apart for 3 months, especially since we were in DISNEY! We had so much to catch up on, but had several days to do it- so we quickly changed, grabbed our ears and ran off to Magic Kingdom!
On our way to the bus we picked up a birthday button!
One of the things I was most excited to see was Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire and we needed to hurry to make the last show of the day! Those pictures coming up next[/url]
I’ve always wanted to spend my birthday in Disney World – who wouldn’t?!
So when my sister suggested we go for my birthday instead of me flying out to Denver to visit (she just moved), I was in! Then I asked my parents if they would want to come and to my surprise…they said yes! They love Disney too, but we haven’t been as a family in a few years. It was later in the day when it hit me that they really said yes because it meant seeing my sister for the first time since she moved to Colorado
haha. But they really were excited to all be together and spend my birthday in Disney World tooWe stayed Friday, July 8th to Tuesday, July 12th at Port Orleans French Quarter! My sister and I loved this resort the last time we stayed and couldn't wait for my parents to see it too, we knew they'd love the theming.
Here we are on our last family trip in April 2013
Mom- Phyllis
Me- Sam
Sister- Alyssa
Dad- Larry
There were a few hiccups in the week leading up to and day of the trip...
It was about a week before we were leaving when I found out that one of my admission guest passes was lost by a friend on our last trip. I knew I could replace it but after doing some research I found out it would take two weeks in the mail, or you could do it in person at a site in Celebration. But they close at 4 on Fridays, and I was going to be landing at 2:30, which would be cutting it too close. I decided to apply for a new pass online and hope it would come before we leave. I also started panicking about all the time I spent planning out our fastpasses and not knowing if they’d be able to be applied to a new guest pass. All was better when the new guest pass arrived a few days after I ordered the replacement and they assured me the fastpasses would transfer right over to the new pass with no issues. Crisis 1 averted!
Speaking of fastpasses…some of our fastpasses on my guest passes weren’t showing up, I called several times and everyone gave me a different answer and was told to check back in a couple days and the system should be fixed. That never happened. I was told I used all the allotments I had for my guest passes, I knew there wasn’t any truth to that, then finally a very helpful cast member made new fastpasses for those missing to match the rest of the ones on my main entrance pass. Crisis 2 averted!
And then the biggest problem…my sister flew in from Denver early on the 8th. I flew out from LaGuardia at 11, and my parents were on a 6:30pm flight from Newark. Around noon, my mom gets an email that JetBlue had cancelled their flight and put them on a new one 24 hours later. I’m on the plane and totally helpless (and freaking out). My mom was able to get them on a flight that left about 90 minutes earlier and would connect through Boston and still get in Friday night, just a few hours later. Well, that flight ends up being delayed more and more and eventually there is no way if they ever got to Boston, they wouldn’t even make their connection. So again start looking for another flight and JetBlue puts them on a 5:30am flight Saturday out of JFK. That was the best they were going to get and thankfully I live just outside of NYC so they had a place to stay overnight since jetblue wouldn’t give them a hotel or anything for transportation.
I was, and still am annoyed by the whole thing though. They blamed the weather. I’m a meteorologist. Don’t blame the weather when I see it is NOT raining at or near Newark. Of course safety is the number one priority, and if there had been storms at Newark I would completely understand. But to cancel a flight 7 hours in advance for the chance of a storm, which never happened...I just don’t get it. What is even more frustrating is that all the other airlines were flying out at the time their original flight was supposed to leave…ANYWAY knowing my parents were for sure on a flight first thing the next morning, my sister and I set out to enjoy our night together! We still felt bad they had spent all afternoon sitting around and dealing with the airport, but they were happy too just to be on a flight in the morning.
Sorry that was a lot, but NOW TO THE GOOD STUFF
I worked the morning before I left and when I walked into my office I was greeted with the best surprise! An early Disney princess birthday bash, complete with a blow up Mickey, princess figures lining my computer, a Frozen balloon and Disney music in the background. I’m so lucky that my coworkers are also some of my best friends. They know me very well and really got me good that morning. (ps. I’ve managed to keep those decorations up for over a week now
haha)After work I raced to the airport where I learned I was upgraded to first class…woo! Then we were off to Orlando!
We landed early and I quickly made it on to the magical express and before I knew it, was looking at this!
[url=https://flic.kr/p/K5mqQ4]
Soon enough we were pulling into our home, I hopped off the bus and hustled to our room where my sister, Alyssa, was waiting! It was great to see her after being apart for 3 months, especially since we were in DISNEY! We had so much to catch up on, but had several days to do it- so we quickly changed, grabbed our ears and ran off to Magic Kingdom!
On our way to the bus we picked up a birthday button!
One of the things I was most excited to see was Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire and we needed to hurry to make the last show of the day! Those pictures coming up next
[/url]
but we still had the electric parade! We walked over to frontierland and were basically by ourselves haha, it was so nice until the parade started and even though the entire place was open, a family came right on top of us. The nicest part was that their daughter was SCREAMING
People had surrounded us by this point so moving wasn’t an option.
