WHO: Me and my friend, A
WHAT: The shortest Disney trip of our lives
WHERE: Epcot and MK
WHEN: March 8th
WHY: AP Preview for Tron with the added bonus of Flower and Garden Festival
My alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 3am after getting out of work late the night before and not being able to fall asleep until around 11pm. A's parents picked me up around 3:45am to drop us off at PHL for our 5:30am flight.
One of the perks of taking a one day trip is not having to check a bag and deal with the ridiculous lines to check baggage. I got a little worried however when I went up the escalator and was directed to the end of the TSA line which was in the opposite direction of the security checkpoint. Thankfully, the line was moving quickly and it only took about 20 minutes. However, I will never understand why the rules for what needs to go into a bin vs. on the belt, what needs to come out of your bag, etc. seems to change every time that I fly. This time was particularly confusing. The woman running the line on the other side from where I was, was telling everyone to put everything in the bin and not to take anything out of your bags. But on the side I was at, the man on that side was telling everyone to put bags and shoes directly on the belt and not in a bin and to take out any electronics larger than a cell phone. You would think that the TSA rules would be the same everywhere because they are a federal agency but what do I know?
I made it to the gate just as they were starting the preboarding process so unfortunately I did not have time to grab a bite to eat or something to drink. We were boarded pretty quickly for a change which was surprising because our plane was probably half full of cheerleaders on their way to WDW to compete. I swear there is a cheer competition at WDW 52 weeks a year.
I don't sleep well on planes so I was listening to music with my eyes closed when about an hour into the flight I noticed that all of the lights were turned on which I thought was odd. Then they made an announcement asking if there were any medical professionals on board. Oh no! A few people responded to what ended up being a diabetic reaction somewhere behind us. Thankfully, they were able to give the person some food and they did not need to make an emergency landing. There were paramedics waiting at the gate when we landed at MCO.
The other benefit of a one day trip with no baggage is being able to skip the baggage claim and go directly to Budget to pick up our car. We priced out Uber and it was actually slightly cheaper to rent a car for the day than to take Uber to and from MCO. Plus, we were able to control when we left and how we got back to the airport. It also gave us a place to stash our backpacks.
We hit a little bit of traffic on the way but at 8:56am I was taking this picture....
So we managed to successfully rope drop Epcot from Pennsylvania. All it took was getting up 6 hours before the park opened...
WHAT: The shortest Disney trip of our lives
WHERE: Epcot and MK
WHEN: March 8th
WHY: AP Preview for Tron with the added bonus of Flower and Garden Festival
My alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 3am after getting out of work late the night before and not being able to fall asleep until around 11pm. A's parents picked me up around 3:45am to drop us off at PHL for our 5:30am flight.
One of the perks of taking a one day trip is not having to check a bag and deal with the ridiculous lines to check baggage. I got a little worried however when I went up the escalator and was directed to the end of the TSA line which was in the opposite direction of the security checkpoint. Thankfully, the line was moving quickly and it only took about 20 minutes. However, I will never understand why the rules for what needs to go into a bin vs. on the belt, what needs to come out of your bag, etc. seems to change every time that I fly. This time was particularly confusing. The woman running the line on the other side from where I was, was telling everyone to put everything in the bin and not to take anything out of your bags. But on the side I was at, the man on that side was telling everyone to put bags and shoes directly on the belt and not in a bin and to take out any electronics larger than a cell phone. You would think that the TSA rules would be the same everywhere because they are a federal agency but what do I know?
I made it to the gate just as they were starting the preboarding process so unfortunately I did not have time to grab a bite to eat or something to drink. We were boarded pretty quickly for a change which was surprising because our plane was probably half full of cheerleaders on their way to WDW to compete. I swear there is a cheer competition at WDW 52 weeks a year.
I don't sleep well on planes so I was listening to music with my eyes closed when about an hour into the flight I noticed that all of the lights were turned on which I thought was odd. Then they made an announcement asking if there were any medical professionals on board. Oh no! A few people responded to what ended up being a diabetic reaction somewhere behind us. Thankfully, they were able to give the person some food and they did not need to make an emergency landing. There were paramedics waiting at the gate when we landed at MCO.
The other benefit of a one day trip with no baggage is being able to skip the baggage claim and go directly to Budget to pick up our car. We priced out Uber and it was actually slightly cheaper to rent a car for the day than to take Uber to and from MCO. Plus, we were able to control when we left and how we got back to the airport. It also gave us a place to stash our backpacks.
We hit a little bit of traffic on the way but at 8:56am I was taking this picture....
So we managed to successfully rope drop Epcot from Pennsylvania. All it took was getting up 6 hours before the park opened...
