Day 1, Sunday Dec 12th - Travel Day and Magic Kingdom's Very Merriest After Hours event
First I have to admit, this was done last minute. I NEVER plan a park day the same day as a travel day. Ever! But we were only planning on doing Epcot for the Festival of the Holidays and Hollywood Studios for Galaxy's Edge and Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. But then I saw the After Hours party was going to be when we were there and I wasn't happy about not going to MK. So I decided to not do the Park Hopper option and put that money towards the cost of the event. Last trip, I made the statement that I would not do MK again during the day. It would either be extra magic hours at night or an after hours event. Since Disney did away with the evening hours unless you stay Deluxe, I had to go with the Christmas event.
We had to wake up at 5AM in order to drive to the airport in Richmond for our 8AM. It's the nearest airport with direct flights to MCO and I always want to fly JB. I had travel bank points remaining from the cancelled 2020 trip that were expiring soon, which was another reason to hurry and take this trip. I still have some left bc I was able to take advantage of a great flash sale. We'll need to purchase another plane ticket so we don't lose those funds and just keep moving the date of the ticket without penalty. We stopped at a McD's close to the airport. The Richmond airport is always a very smooth process - I just have a fear of flying bc of claustrophobia and being grounded since 2019 hasn't done anything to alleviate it! We parked the car in a great parking spot a little after 6AM. Our plane started boarding around 7:30AM so we had some time to wait. The flight was fully booked, as well, but surprisingly there weren't that many families.
There's the plane just waiting for us
Daybreak had just arrived and it looked so relaxing. Except for inside my head and stomach, which was a bundle of nerved and anxiety. I almost broke my poor husband's hand during take off.
There was a lot of turbulence during the first half of the flight bc of the storm that had gone thru earlier during the night. Someone asked the flight attendant why it was so bumpy and she said that it was much worse on Saturday. So I'm very thankful that I wasn't flying then!!!
We had a perfect landing at MCO, which was very different than in 2019! We were able to quickly get off the plane. We saw my husband's fav character on the MCO monorail.
We didn't have checked luggage this trip because it was so short. We made our way to MDE and were met by the longest line I had ever seen at the airport. I tried taking a picture but none did it justice. It was past the 3 elevator waaaaaaay down the other side of the terminal. Seeing the demand for it confuses me even more on Disney's decision to end it and let it go to Mears without even charging for it themselves. Looked like a gold mine to me. It moved quickly, maybe 30 minutes. We got checked in and got into line for POFQ. We only had to wait about 10 minutes before we were able to board. And we got a legit MDE bus this time - not Mears, not DCL, but MDE. It was bittersweet. Once, I started flying to Disney instead of driving, it became my fav way to enter the Disney bubble.
This is such a great way to start your Disney trip!
We had to stop off at Old Key West, Saratoga Springs before it got to French Quarter. I can't remember if Riverside was last. I was just too excited to finally be back