Trip Report Mask up for the August Alternate 2020 Trip

Hello friends! My husband and I just got back about a week ago from our WDW trip, it was strange, hot, fun, and in a way unexpected. I'll start with some quick details:

Who: Me (Am) and my husband (Brad)
When: August 6-20, 2020
Resort: Pop Century (was scheduled for All Star Sports)

Let me explain my title a little: We were scheduled to travel to WDW in June the 21st through July 5. It was going to be epic.....we would be there over our birthdays, 15th wedding anniversary, and had a couple of Magic meetups planned. That trip didn't happen. While planning our trips at home I always come up with some sort of title for our trips to give it a little excitement. Well, shortly after the shut down in March, about 2 weeks after the parks closed I had a feeling that my June trip wouldn't happen so hubs and I looked at the calendar and figured out a date when we could go to WDW, we had to plan around some of his church activities (all got cancelled) and a girls trip to California for me (cancelled too). So in late March I booked a two week stay at the Sports. But all while planning including the frustrating day in June to get park reservations and the day I cancelled June/July I was never able to build up much excitement for this August trip. So I always stayed labeled in my planning things as the August Alternate trip, how generic! So I had hope that the trip would happen but I was convinced something would happen and we wouldn't be able to go.

Fast forward to the first week of August, days before leaving. I get an email from my boss (principal) asking what my travel dates to Florida were so they could be consistent on teachers traveling and returning back to work. My return date was 4 days before I would start back to work for inservice so no time to quarantine if he asked me to! Ugh! I couldn't lie to my boss and I couldn't ignore his email. Well he didn't ask me to quarantine but he did ask that I get a Covid test upon my return and then quarantine if needed or until my results came back. He asked if I wanted to come in an work a day so that if something happened I would have had time to work to get my classroom ready and he said I could bank it as a day worked so I wouldn't have to use a day if I did quarantine. So that's what I did. In a way it was surreal to be back working in my room, which was the day before we left for WDW. As I was working in my room that day I had a flash, the last day I worked a full day in my classroom was before I went to WDW in March! Whoa! So with a fully day of work banked, suitcases packed, it looked like our Alternate trip was really happening!

*Spoiler alert: my Covid test came back negative, it was probably too early to take it when I came back but it satisfied my boss. Also neither of us have had any symptoms of Covid upon return so looks like we might have stayed safe.

Okay, let's begin......

August 6, 2020

Our flight out of Minneapolis left at 8:20 am so our plan was to wake up around 4 am get ready and drive to the airport. Who sleeps before a trip! We were up around 3am but we didn't leave until around 4:15am. I got a great parking deal at a Park n Fly for our two week park that was like $7 a day so much cheaper than the small airport lot at $15 a day! Does anyone remember the old WDW information station that used to play the song "I'm Going to Disney World"? I have that song and usually play it on the way to the airport and I played it as we pulled into the Park N Fly lot. I didn't play it before I didn't want to jinx us!

The airport was really strange, usually it is such a hub bub of activity but today it was so strange because there weren't many people. Security was a walk up and we were through in less than 2 minutes! We got breakfast at the Caribou Coffee near our gate and spent time just relaxing in our masks waiting. Our flight was on Delta and they did a great job on the flight. When we boarded we were handed wipes to wipe our area, they reminded people about masks, and during flight we were handed a snack pack in a plastic bag with water,chocolate covered pretzels, cheez-its, napkin and hand sanitizer. The middle seat was empty so we had our own row and Brad watched Star Wars something and I watched the Downton Abbey movie (I'd rewatched the series before leaving so this pleased me to rewatch movie too).

The airport in Minneapolis.
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Flights on time, and plane is here! It's happening! It's really happening!
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Waiting at the gate
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On the plane, looking out! Different from my last flight in March. No snow on the ground this time!
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Ready for flight!
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And we've made it to Orlando!!! Again the airport was pretty empty and we had to retrieve our own luggage this time.
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And here we are at Magical Express, not too many people in line. I think when we came in March this is where we started our line up to check in.
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There was a sign that said our wait could be an hour and the ME agent said that too but from check in to the bus pulling away it was less than 20 minutes which is shorter than some of the pre-Covid trips we have had.
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Coming up: arrival at WDW and will there be tears?
 

Laurenciaa

Well-Known Member
Just caught up with your report! I know, I'm 5 years too late but still! Enjoyed the pictures and the writing of your TR! Also makes me a bit sad that our magical meet didn't happen in 2020 but I'm optimistic for 2021 ;)!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Just caught up with your report! I know, I'm 5 years too late but still! Enjoyed the pictures and the writing of your TR! Also makes me a bit sad that our magical meet didn't happen in 2020 but I'm optimistic for 2021 ;)!

Thanks for catching up, its so nice to have you pop in. I really need to finish this report soon. I hope 2021 can happen. We are booked for the same time in June/July as we were last year. :)
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Happy New Year! I finally managed to catch up on your report. As so many others have commented, your photos have been fabulous. I loved seeing all the low crowd pictures. I also loved the photos of your trip to Marcelline. It's definitely a trip I'd like to take someday. I'm looking forward to the rest. I hope you enjoyed your winter break. I'm a teacher, too and we head back tomorrow. We've been back and forth between fully remote learning and "blended" learning (all students remote on Mondays, Group A (about 1/2 of my class) attends in person T, W and Group B attends Th, F. Days students are not attending in person I have to post lessons online for them to complete at home. At the moment we are fully remote. I have a feeling we will be that way until spring break. We shall see. Good luck with the second half of the year!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Happy New Year! I finally managed to catch up on your report. As so many others have commented, your photos have been fabulous. I loved seeing all the low crowd pictures. I also loved the photos of your trip to Marcelline. It's definitely a trip I'd like to take someday. I'm looking forward to the rest. I hope you enjoyed your winter break. I'm a teacher, too and we head back tomorrow. We've been back and forth between fully remote learning and "blended" learning (all students remote on Mondays, Group A (about 1/2 of my class) attends in person T, W and Group B attends Th, F. Days students are not attending in person I have to post lessons online for them to complete at home. At the moment we are fully remote. I have a feeling we will be that way until spring break. We shall see. Good luck with the second half of the year!

Hi! I guess I've forgotten to finish this. I will have to soon! We went fully remote after Thanksgiving until Christmas break but tomorrow we are returning face-to-face (kind of). We have a few students that opted to be remote all year, and our face to face model has half of the kids in our gym and half in our actual room and they rotate every other class period that way. It is weird and I don't like it but it is what it is, I guess. It seems the case rates in our county have been going down so as long as they stay what they are now or continue to go down we will be having kids at school which is good. Good luck to you as well!
 

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