Day 1 cont’d
We left the house at 2:30 am and arrived at the parking garage at the Toronto airport at 3:20am
Got to the terminal and lined up at the check-in desks and waited till 4am for them to open
Why you ask?
I have an Aeroplan Visa that gives me a first bag free for up to 6 people in my party
We checked 4 bags so we avoided approx $136 each way
But I had to show my card and ID to a person at the airport check-in to get the benefit
It seems strange that in 2022 I can completely check-in online for everything else but have to show up in person to get a free checked bag
Rant over
Got though security and customs in about one hour - which was pretty good compared to others who recently travelled through this airport
Chilling and eating brekkie ( that one is for
@wdisney9000 )
Took off and landed on time - watched Maverick on the plane
CN tower during takeoff( trust me - just zoom in to the stick near the middle of the picture!)
All the bags arrived - tracking them using apple tags was both fun and stressful!!
The rental pickup was slow - we wanted a minivan but they could not tell me if they had any - so we ended up with a mid size suv
We tried to pack the first one - gave up and tried a second one - it was tight - no pics because we were all not in a great mood at that point
Drive from airport was good - very little signs of any damage from the hurricane that has gone through a few days before
And all the tolls we’re free for the duration of our time in Florida
We arrived at the Dolphin and had a similar checkin experience as we did in 2018
We booked 3 King bed rooms - when we arrived they had none ready ( it was around 1pm) but told us that one of the rooms was going to be a 2 double room
We said no and took a king room that was ready now but on a different floor and a different tower
So the girls would be riding up and down the elevators quite a bit during the week
This allowed us to bring all the luggage up to my room now and then headed out for lunch
We were tired and a little giddy
Grabbed lunch on the boardwalk-near the piano bar - someone help me with the restaurant name please - edit Big River Grille (thanks Tu!)
Fish tacos for me!! - and some good blue lemonade drinks that had a kick ( almost empty glass to the left)
After lunch we went to Epcot and stopped by at guest relations
If you remember the 2018 trip we had a really bad experience at AK - we were told we could not enter because our tickets were invalid- long story short Disney had not done their job and we were compted 6 free tickets ( 4 day hoppers) for our troubles
So we had to go to GR to show the email chain and the tickets and get everything sorted out
For those wondering Steph, Jordan and I used the comp tickets(2 x 4 = 8 day park hoppers)
(Sorry
@Tuvalu - this post has some math)
We then purchased an 8 day hopper for Tricia and 2 x 7 days hoppers for Cassie and Shane ( they are going to USF for one day)
Anyway an amazing CM helped us and got everything linked up and we were ready to enter Epcot
If only I could remember his name!!
Oh yeah - it was Del
Next up - enter a Disney park for the first time in almost 3 years!!
Max
