Trip Report Hurricanes, Foot Pains and “What The Crocs Just Happened?” Anniversary Tale – A Sept/Irma 2017 TR (COMPLETED)

So here we are again… Another amazing trip is over.

My original title for the is report was:

The Best-Laid Plans Of The Mouse & Men… because so many of our carefully thought out schedules & plans were completely turned upside down by Irma and other “forces” along the way.

However, Ross and Julia who do not share my love for Robert Burns or John Steinbeck vetoed that and came up with their own title.

Before I begin our tale, I want to express and offer our thoughts and prayers to all who suffered in Hurricane Irma as well as Harvey & Maria. There are times when I joke about the fact that we were in Florida during the hurricane, but in no way do I not realize the devastation that was caused to so many.

That being said... Let the Trip Report begin! Who’s in?

 

[dclfan]

Following along. Loving it so far. Your family is so cute. Loved the first couple of "girls days" in the world.

 

[Figment Forever]

Enjoying your report! It is interesting to see how Disney handles these situations. It seems like they do a great job all things considered. It's wonderful how all the characters come and have fun with the guests!
Julia's Monopoly set is sooo cute! I may have to make room in my suitcase on my next trip to bring one of those back with me

Thanks for following along! We were all impressed with Disney and all the CM's who were all awesome.

We have enjoyed the Monopoly - and they even had a Figment character!

 

[Figment Forever]

Really enjoying the report. I always follow your family's WDW journeys on here, but the fact that you were there for Irma, makes it all the more interesting. I went through the hurricane as well, but in another part of Florida. Thank you for the report. You have a lovely family.

Thanks so much for following along with us and the kind words! Glad you made it through the storm okay!

 

[Figment Forever]

Following along. Loving it so far. Your family is so cute. Loved the first couple of "girls days" in the world.

Thanks for following along! We do love our "girls days". They are a lot of fun!

 

[Figment Forever]

Day 4 Monday September 11

When I woke up, the worst had past by. Outside, the rain had mostly stopped but the wind would come and go in bursts.

We were fine. Not a drop of water came in our room. But The Florida Keys and parts of Miami they showed on the TV…. Beyond words.

Our resort TV was telling guests to remain in our room while they assessed the damage.

However, not everyone listened because a bunch of people walked past our room. I stepped outside our door to see what everything looked like, but I didn’t venture out any further. I could see a tree fell down past the quiet pool.

I noticed our neighbors had moved their chairs outside.

Some of the restaurant staff must have stayed in our building.

We all got ready for the day unsure of what it would bring. I made my slew of phone calls and texts to everyone back home. My friend near Tampa was okay – they had minimal damage as well.

 

[Figment Forever]

By 11:00AM, the TV was saying resort dining and the main building would open at noon. Guests would now be allowed to walk around the resort, but we were still on the local curfew so they reminded guests to stay on resort property and be careful of all the walkways. The parks and DS would remain closed until tomorrow.

I kept the local news station on and listened to updates. One thing that caught my ear was that Orlando airport was still closed and would remain closed until they could assess all the damage. I was worried that they may not be operational for Ross’ flight on Wednesday. I called him back to make him aware of it, but he was not the least bit worried.

We straightened up the room and retuned everything to normal. I was hoping that they would reopen the laundry because we had accumulated a bunch of stuff and I really wanted to get it washed. They CM’s had locked all the pool areas – so there would be no access to them until they reopened the area.

We left our room around 1:00PM and walked down to the food court.

There was a lot of tree damage everywhere – but nothing too crazy. None of the walkways were blocked and we could see many people were leaving their rooms and going to the main building.

We stopped by the pool and saw at least a dozen CM’s cleaning the area. You could see all the leaves and debris that fell into it- It looked as if it was abandoned for a long time. To think that this was done in a few hours was incredible.

Judging by the amount of CM’s they had working on, around and in the pool, I figured they were hoping to have it opened by the time the 6PM curfew was lifted.

When we reached the food court, the line for food was massive! It stretched out past the register area and wrapped around heading towards Boatwrights! CM’s stood with signs directing people and answering any questions. Again, there was a limited menu.

We had eaten breakfast in the room and still had plenty of food for lunch which was good, because I did not want to have to stand in that line!

I was kind of surprised of the line for food because with the amount of food I saw people buy the previous day, I would think that like us, there wouldn’t be such a need to buy more. We purchased enough food to last 2 days in the room - but could have easily had enough for 3 – and it seemed that most others did the same. I kept thinking about the family’s who were purchasing 10 bagged meals at a time.

We walked over to the lobby area where it seemed that activities would start up again. Julia wanted to see if the arcade was still on FREE play so we walked over and saw that yes it was, so we played a few games.

We decided to go back to our room and eat lunch. We really didn’t want to deal with the craziness in the food court.

 

[Figment Forever]

After lunch we were hoping the pool would reopen soon, actually I was hoping DS would open at 6PM. But no, DS would remain closed until tomorrow. I suggested we walk over to FQ and see if their pool reopened. So off we went.

As we approached, FQ we could see that the damage was much worse – either that or the crews just took care of Riverside first. There was so much debris on the ground in certain areas that paths were closed and we had to walk through the buildings.

 

[Figment Forever]

Once in side the lobby, we walked around the gift shop. Donald was apparently doing some shopping.

Hope had her eyes set on a few things… One thing that really changed this year was her ability to tell me what she wanted. No longer did I have to guess what to buy her.

However, we wouldn’t buy anything today.

We went into the food court. It was the first time we had been here since the refurbishment. I have to say, I like the old decorations better.

We were going to get some ice cream, but they didn’t have any on the limited menu so we just filled our mugs. They have a Coke Freestyle machine here – and I though that was cool. I wonder if they will be placing those in the others resorts too. I love Riverside, but I do miss FQ.

 

[Figment Forever]

Some people had moved their chairs and table outside their door.

The pool was not open and unlike Riverside, there were no CM’s working on getting it ready.

We made the walk back to Riverside.

On the way, we saw Santa.

 

[Figment Forever]

The wind was still blowing, but it was warm out and the sun had started to peek back out. Hope wanted to go to the playground so I took her while Julia went back to the room to do some schoolwork. At the playground a little girl decided she wanted to play with Hope. I have to say Hope is like a kid magnet. Wherever we go, someone comes up to her and wants to play. It’s hard for me, because for Hope, playing with someone is a work in progress. She doesn’t engage in very much spontaneous language, so when a kid asks her to play, she could reply with a random response that most times makes her look crazy and the scares the other child.

So here comes this adorable little girl who announced to her mother she HAS to play with the girl with the mermaid sunglasses (Hope). She walks up to Hope and asks if she would like to play with her and at first Hope does not respond at all. The little girl asks a second time and then Hope replies, “Little Pony The Movie coming to a theater near you on October 6th.” The poor little girl started to cry and ran to her mother to tell her that the little girl with mermaid sunglasses didn’t want to play with her. I felt so bad. I walked over to the mom and explained that Hope is Autistic and didn’t “get” the concept of playing together yet. I knelt down to the little girl and made a suggestion to her. I told her sometimes Hope has a hard time understanding what people say to her but if you ask her to go down the slide with you, she would probably like to slide down together. The little girl seemed scared to go back over to her but I did see them sliding together for a while. So that was good.

As we were leaving the playground, it looked as though the main pool would be opening soon.

We returned to our room and just hung out a while. They had reopened the quiet pool area – not the pool – but guests now could do laundry. So I gathered up our clothes and threw in a few loads. I also had to reschedule a dinner for us since Boatwrights was closed. I went on the APP and saw there was an ADR for Japan the next night, so I booked it. I also had had a ADR for CRT for this morning – since today was our scheduled park day – I had wanted to have Hope eat in the castle one time. I went on the APP and sure enough there was plenty of availability for the next day, so I also booked a breakfast time for us.

Disney had “unlocked” their move channel for guests to watch Disney movies. Monsters University was playing, so we all decided to watch it. I actually started to dose off when I got a text that woke me up. It was from Ross and it was 2 words… “Not good.” I called to find out what was going on. He said Jet Blue canceled 900 fights through Wednesday and he was hold to find out if his was one of them. He said all flights out of NY were booked until Saturday!

Thank goodness he called me back after a short time and said luckily his flight was not cancelled and Orlando Airport was scheduled to open Wednesday morning. He would probably be among one of the first batch of planes in. That was a huge relief!

 

[Figment Forever]

It was still odd to see this posted on the TV...

After the movie, I collected all our laundry and put it away and then we decided to go to the food court for dinner – It was probably around 6PM.

They still offered a limited menu and while it was busy – it wasn’t crazy. Hope had chicken & fries, Julia had a flatbread and I had Jambalaya.

It was all yummy and while we ate, we discussed our schedule for the next day. At the end of our meal, we heard that the pool was re-opened so we decided to back to the room and get changed and go for a swim.

 

[Figment Forever]

As we walked back to our room, this is what we saw…

My phone was dead, so I left it in the room on the charger while we headed of to the pool.

When we got to the pool we got a surprise when we put our feet in – it was FREEZING! Even Hope couldn’t get past her knees. Since it was around 8:00PM, I suggested we call it a night. I figured an early bedtime would have us ready to go in the morning. The girls agreed and off we went back to our room.

We got ready for bed, watched some more Duffy and then drifted off to sleep. I think this was the first time this trip I feel asleep without worrying about the next day.


Up Next: Magic Mirror on the wall, who’s the best picture frame of them all?

 

[Figaro Family]

So here comes this adorable little girl who announced to her mother she HAS to play with the girl with the mermaid sunglasses (Hope). She walks up to Hope and asks if she would like to play with her and at first Hope does not respond at all. The little girl asks a second time and then Hope replies, “Little Pony The Movie coming to a theater near you on October 6th.” The poor little girl started to cry and ran to her mother to tell her that the little girl with mermaid sunglasses didn’t want to play with her. I felt so bad. I walked over to the mom and explained that Hope is Autistic and didn’t “get” the concept of playing together yet. I knelt down to the little girl and made a suggestion to her. I told her sometimes Hope has a hard time understanding what people say to her but if you ask her to go down the slide with you, she would probably like to slide down together. The little girl seemed scared to back over to her but I did see them sliding together for a while. So that was good.

This happens to us a lot too. Xander is more interested in other kids than he used to be but does not initiate. His response to other kids overtures is almost exactly what you described here with Hope. A couple months ago we were at Krispy Kreme watching the doughnuts cooking through the display window (Xander loves this) and a little boy tried about 5 or 6 times to engage Xander in conversation with no response. I finally had to explain to him that Xander doesn't talk very much. The kid watched Xander (who was bouncing and waving his hands while looking at the doughnuts) a bit longer then ran over to his family and said loudly "That boy is really excited about doughnuts!"

 

[Matt and Kelly]

I'm so glad to hear everything went ok for you guys. I couldn't even imagine how scary it would be.

 

[blreinsel]

The Royal Rooms are just stunning! I hope I get to stay there one day!

Even though Irma is long gone, it's still so scary reading about your experience leading up to and during the storm! It makes me thankful all over again that we decided to evacuate. I'm not sure that I could have handled all of the worry!

So excited to read all about the "real trip" now that the storm has passed!

 

[Courtney6682]

I may be jumping ahead, but did you receive any type of credit for the parks not being open?

 

[fractal]

Glad hope found a friend at the playground, and Ross was still on schedule!

Looks like Disney did a good job managing through a tough situation.

 

[Asian2000]

It's funny seeing Irma through someone else's eyes. We were there, staying the same resort actually, at the same time as you. We saw you guys a few times and I noticed some of my family members in a few of your Lobby and food court pictures. We actually were on the same Monarail and Bus as you guys a few times. Can't wait to follow along with the rest of your report

 

[Gabe1]

It's funny seeing Irma through someone else's eyes. We were there, staying the same resort actually, at the same time as you. We saw you guys a few times and I noticed some of my family members in a few of your Lobby and food court pictures. We actually were on the same Monarail and Bus as you guys a few times. Can't wait to follow along with the rest of your report

I'm following along too as we were there for the before, during and afters of Irma on an extended Disney vacation. While we more often than not stay at POR we happened on a great deal for the Wilderness Lodge for the the same time frame this year. Worked well for the 2 day hiatus curfew days in the middle of our trip. While this was our 3rd Hurricane trip this was the most disruptive. We never lost 2 days before lodging in the middle of the state before. It is an interesting flash back now to see others experiences we all shared. Still trying to find time to at least put together thoughts in a mini trip report mini version. Glad we did it. We never considered cancelling.

 

[Figment Forever]

I'm so glad to hear everything went ok for you guys. I couldn't even imagine how scary it would be.

Thank you! It was scary but it was also such an incredible experience and I'm so glad we didn't cancel.