Day One Continued
I forgot to mention the family that we met on the shuttle over to the airport in my last post. Believe it or not, at 4:30 in the morning we had a full shuttle to the airport. We ended up starting a conversation with the other two families on the bus with us and found out that one of them was on our flight! They had an adorable little girl who had a homemade princess skirt on. When we got to the airport we politely mentioned we'd say hi if we saw them at the parks at all, assuming that we wouldn't (important for later).
Anyways, continuing on...
After landing at about 8:30 am, we disembarked from the plane and made our usual bathroom stop. Once that was done we headed for the monorail as fast our legs would take us. The faster we got to the DME the faster we could get to the parks!
We boarded the monorail to my mom's and my usual jokes about it being the first ride of vacation. At some point while we were on board I managed to catch this beauty:
I can't exactly remember what she had gotten grumpy about (probably my dad or me making a bad joke), but to me this picture just screams "I'm a moody teenager." Luckily, she was only unhappy long enough for me to take this picture.
After our exciting "first ride" we headed straight to the DME. This was our first time riding it, so we just followed all the signs to it. I'm always surprised by how long it takes to walk places at MCO. It felt like we passed fifteen signs telling us that we had to keep walking. When we got there, there was only one family ahead of us so things went very quickly. We were soon tapping our magic bands to the mickey head (the first time ever for us since we haven't been since 2013) and boarding a bus.
My dad and my sister couldn't resist the chance to photobomb our picture.
We were really happy with our experience on the DME. In previous trips we used a car service and were relatively happy with it. However, we had an issue with them taking us an odd way to WDW last trip and ended up stuck in traffic for more than an hour. That meant that even though our flight landed around 7 pm, it was after 9 by the time we got to the hotel.
I know people have said they don't like the new DME video as much, but since we had nothing to compare it to we really enjoyed it. It was nice to be in the bubble just a little bit earlier than we have been on previous trips. It also helped distract us from our growling bellies on the way. We couldn't wait to get to POFQ and grab something to eat.
It wasn't long before we were seeing this wonderful sight
By 9:30 am we were pulling into the bus loop of POFQ. I think we may have had one or two stops before ours, but I can't remember now. After grabbing our carry-on from under the bus we headed straight to the little bag check counter. It was wonderful to be able to leave our carry-on here so that we could get some park time in before our room was ready.
Once all that was settled, it was finally time to head inside. What a lovely sight that fountain in the lobby was!
So lovely in fact, that we made my dad to take our picture in front of it.
I think I forgot to mention earlier about my mom's, sister's, and my matching shirts. We have long looked at groups in the park who dress in matching shirts and thought it would be funny to do it ourselves. So, for this trip my mom went on etsy to see if she could find a shop that would make us a few custom disney themed shirts. Unfortunately the lady she ordered from ended up not being able to make the shirts. Instead, my mom spent some time at the Disney Store and found us some shirts that would look good on the three of us. Those shirts made some pretty great pictures this trip.
Luggage away and photo op taken care of, our next order of business was food. On our last day at POFQ in 2010 we finally got around to trying the beignets. They were fantastic, and I was sad that we only got to eat them once that trip. I vowed to get them again the next time we stayed there. So, the first thing I would eat on this trip would be those beignets.
Maybe a month or two before our trip we found out that the food court would be closed for renovation. After a brief minute or two of panic, I found out that there would still be a small food area and they would still be serving the favorites (including the beignets). Whoo, thank goodness I thought. We would get to eat beignets after all.
We wandered over to the small food area to order. We were sharing six beignets between the four of us. We found a table in the middle of the room and waited for our food to come out. While we were still excited to get to the parks, we were starting to get a bit tired from lack of food. It took a little longer than expected for our food to come out as well.
I thought, "oh yes" as I saw the server coming towards us with the food. She placed it on the table and I prepared myself to dig in.
I cautiously grabbed one by the corner (they were still very hot) and started nibbling the other end. "Huh, maybe it's just because its still hot, but this isn't as good as I remember. Maybe if I keep eating it'll get better." Spoiler alert, it did not get better. Even my parents mentioned that they seemed a little overdone. While they weren't by any means horrible, they weren't really what we were hoping for. I couldn't tell if the food wasn't as good because of the temporary food court set up, or if they were just better in my fourteen-year-old self's memories.
Feeling slightly disappointed in our meal, we finished up and then headed out to catch a MK bus.
. This is our first trip to Disney since 2013 so we were all very excited to go back.
