Travel and Day One:
I picked up DS12 after school on Friday, 22 June and we started south. My goal was to carry enough reading material to get him from Ottawa to the Auto Train in Lorton, VA. Well, he’s a more voracious reader than I thought and the three books I brought weren’t quite enough!
We drove as far as Clarks Summit, PA the first leg. My goal had been Scranton, PA, so we were close, but I was tired and it wouldn’t have been safe to push further. We found a Comfort Inn that was passable and crashed for the night. The hotel provided a self-serve breakfast that included fresh waffles! Gonna have to get me a waffle iron… LOL
We had a relatively short drive to Lorton on Saturday, 23 June. The cars were already lined up when we arrived, but weren’t actually being let in yet. Turns out the train had been late arriving and hadn’t finished off-loading yet. They finally finished around 1230 and by that time we’d checked in and gotten everything else ready, so the loading went smoothly and we departed on time.
The trip was made bearable by the digital movie thing they rent to passengers, best $35 invested ever. DS was content and I wasn’t bombarded with “Are we there yet?” and “What now?” the whole trip. The evening meal was great! Excellent food and service. Then we tried to sleep… OMG! I was thrown back and forth all night. It was a noisy and rough ride all the way. If I managed to doze off during the night, I didn’t notice. I’ll avoid the train in future, but only because of trying to sleep. The rest of the experience was good. Well, except that our vehicle was second-last off the train! DS was starting to joke that they’d left it in Lorton.
DS enjoying a sandwich while watching a movie on the rental viewer:
Obligatory picture for Mom of DS in front of our train car:
And me:
A quick trip down I-4 [including a stop for gas] and we were checked in and into our room at the Contemporary by noon. Beautiful room, great view of MK and we were quickly organized and out the door.
View from our room:
Next… An afternoon in the Magic Kingdom
I picked up DS12 after school on Friday, 22 June and we started south. My goal was to carry enough reading material to get him from Ottawa to the Auto Train in Lorton, VA. Well, he’s a more voracious reader than I thought and the three books I brought weren’t quite enough!
We drove as far as Clarks Summit, PA the first leg. My goal had been Scranton, PA, so we were close, but I was tired and it wouldn’t have been safe to push further. We found a Comfort Inn that was passable and crashed for the night. The hotel provided a self-serve breakfast that included fresh waffles! Gonna have to get me a waffle iron… LOL
We had a relatively short drive to Lorton on Saturday, 23 June. The cars were already lined up when we arrived, but weren’t actually being let in yet. Turns out the train had been late arriving and hadn’t finished off-loading yet. They finally finished around 1230 and by that time we’d checked in and gotten everything else ready, so the loading went smoothly and we departed on time.
The trip was made bearable by the digital movie thing they rent to passengers, best $35 invested ever. DS was content and I wasn’t bombarded with “Are we there yet?” and “What now?” the whole trip. The evening meal was great! Excellent food and service. Then we tried to sleep… OMG! I was thrown back and forth all night. It was a noisy and rough ride all the way. If I managed to doze off during the night, I didn’t notice. I’ll avoid the train in future, but only because of trying to sleep. The rest of the experience was good. Well, except that our vehicle was second-last off the train! DS was starting to joke that they’d left it in Lorton.
DS enjoying a sandwich while watching a movie on the rental viewer:
Obligatory picture for Mom of DS in front of our train car:
And me:
A quick trip down I-4 [including a stop for gas] and we were checked in and into our room at the Contemporary by noon. Beautiful room, great view of MK and we were quickly organized and out the door.
View from our room:
Next… An afternoon in the Magic Kingdom
After a couple of visits we realized neither of us could finish an order of Tonga Toast ourselves, so we decided to start splitting one between us. I can manage a half order and DS still can't quite finish his half. I love the stuff, but I find all serving sizes at WDW to be way too much food for me. We only eat twice a day while we're there, breakfast and dinner [we rarely finish either], and maybe have a Mickey Bar or a Churro to tide us over. If I ate what they serve for three meals a day I'd put on way too much weight [as it is I have my work cut out for me to lose what I did put on].
