DAY ONE - Travel, Check In, and The Disney Hollywood Studios
First, just a brief introduction. I'm Kirk and I'm celebrating my 40th birthday this year. Connie is one of my dearest friends, a huge Disney fan, an even bigger Star Wars fan, and the best person to travel with because we are both very independent and don't mind separating at times to do what we want without any drama or difficulty.
We decided to fly Frontier instead of Delta this trip; the only flight out left at 12:50pm, which is unusual for us. Typically we're up at the crack of dawn and heading for the first flight out. Instead (and because we're returning on different days) we drove to the airport seperately. I got there first and discovered that Frontier doesn't staff their desk until 2 hours before the flight. This wasn't really a problem, but I was itching to get through security and eat lunch. I grabbed a Hot Chocolate (with a shot of raspberry) from Starbucks and waited on some very comfortable chairs until they opened the counter. Once they did, I was third in line and dropped off my bag without any problem at all. In fact, the clerk was very friendly. Connie, however, reports that whoever checked her in was not nice and started things off rocky.
I got through security quickly and without incident, as well. Again, though, Connie reported that the TSA Agent was yelling at people, being generally unpleasant, and stressed her out a little. Because Frontier is in a different Terminal than Delta I didn't know what food options I had. The first place I saw was Subway, which would have been a solid backup plan. There was a sit down place starting lunch at 10:30 (it was now 10:45) called Locals so I grabbed a burger and fries and waited for Connie. I thought maybe she was going to head down to Terminal B and get Chik Fil A and come back but she had some pulled pork sliders with me and we headed towards the gate.
Frontier was very efficient at boarding us, filling up the plane very quickly. I lucked out and got the whole row to myself. Connie was across the aisle from me. Because I'm 6'4 and a little wide this was a wonderful first birthday present. The pilot announced that we would be there in an hour and 30 minutes, shaving a half hour off our usual flight time. Once we landed, we bolted off the plane (we were in the third row) and that was great except we waited for what felt like forever for our luggage.
Once we secured our bags, we headed to the Dollar Rental Car Express kisok, updated our information, and headed towards the beautiful Kia Optima. It was a deep maroon color, which made it very easy to spot in parking lots for the rest of our trip. Connie is the designated driver (she rents the car) and so she got us through the tolls and to the Pop Century right around 3pm.
Neither of us had paid our room off because we both had our credit cards hacked shortly after booking our trips. I was very wary of paying anymore on Disney's web site (even though I doubt it was the culprit). I also wanted to try to sweet talk my way into a King sized bed if necessary. It turned out that it was not; for the first time ever I secured a King Bed and even a handicap accessible bathroom, which makes me very happy. The shower is so much nicer and I love the movable shower massage head on my soon to be sore back.
We dropped off our stuff, took a minute to breathe, and then departed for the Disney Hollywood Studios (where I'm writing this report from as we speak - but three days later!)
More soon....
