Adventures in Arriving

So, in my last entry, I wrote about how we found out the day before we left for our vacation that our flight had been bumped up an hour. So, we were all up and ready by 5:30 am Wednesday morning. That is a full hour before I even wake up for work on a regular day! We were all ready but the car wasn’t. We had to give them a call since they are usually prompt and they had a car to us within fifteen minutes.

Our driver got us to Newark and my mom arranged for a car to pick us up when we returned in fifteen days. We raced through the terminal to the Continental domestic flight check-in area and discovered the first line of our Disney trip. Fortunately, the people at Continental moved us along. Baggage check-in was automated and everything moved quickly. We got our gate and eventually made it there with ten minutes to spare before they started boarding our plane.

We were unable to get four seats next to each other, so we were separated into pairs. My sister and I boarded the plane first and quickly found our seats. I was slightly disappointed to see I was sitting on the aisle—I ALWAYS get a window seat. Even when I went to London, I still managed to swing a window seat. We were settling in when a commotion was raised by another passenger. He demanded to sit next to his two small children. The Continental flight attendants were accommodating and people began to shift their seats around. In the shuffle, I ended up sitting in a window seat next to my mom because the passenger assigned to that seat needed to sit on the aisle due to a broken arm.

My mom later teased me because I ended up sleeping the entire flight, so she didn’t see the point for me to have a window seat. As for the passenger who wanted to sit next to his children, turns out he only had ONE child and was trying to angle a seat for his wife. The flight attendant managed to get him next to his child but refused to do anything else after discovering his dishonesty.

We arrived in Orlando and thus began the Quest for the Boarding Pass. Our boarding passes held our baggage claim numbers and mine had disappeared. I swore my mom had taken it when I moved to my new seat. She swore she didn’t have it. I checked my bag but it seemed lost to the ages. So I now had to get a lecture in responsibility while we dashed for the monorail.

In the end, the Quest for the Boarding Pass was in vain because we didn’t need our claim numbers. We had signed up for Disney’s Magical Express. A cast member would collect our baggage, signified by a yellow tag, and deliver it to our rooms for us. We just needed to find our bus to Pop Century and begin to relax.

Check-in was a breeze, though our rooms weren’t ready yet. However, Disney promised to send us a text message with our room numbers when they were. So, we dropped off our carry on items at baggage assistance. They would bring them to our room with our luggage.

We were free to begin our adventure in the park.

Disney pampering is the best pampering in the whole world.

PS: My missing boarding pass was found that night. My mother DID have it the entire time. She just put it away separately from the others.