January 2018 Disney Trip Report Day Four
My mom and I just returned from our annual trip to Disney World to celebrate my birthday. This was the last of my birthday celebrations for the year, so it was a great one to end on! I already wrote all about the planning that was involved, so now I want to fill you in on how the trip actually went! Below is day four - Monday, January 29th!
So we decided to sleep in and see where the day takes us. We didn't end up getting up until around 8 am. It was nice after an intense trip of early morning and late nights to get some good sleep before heading back home to a little one. We relaxed and took our time getting ready. We also did a little bit more last minute packing, then we headed to the food court for breakfast. We ate breakfast around 9:30, and we explored a little bit around the pool area.
We headed back to our room around 10:15 to finish packing and do a little bit more relaxing before we had to "check out". Check out pretty much consisted of just leaving the room since we had a credit card on file. I was also able to talk to Brad and Melody some during this time.
We left the room around 10:45 to go and check our luggage. We had to make sure we packed everything we needed as well as kept everything out that we needed for the plane. Checking our luggage was quick and easy since there was no line at this point. Magical Express wasn't picking us up until 1:10 pm, so we had about 2 hours to kill.
We decided to explore the entire resort. It is really small, so I knew it wouldn't take the entire two hours at all. I took lots of video and pictures that I plan to include in a post in the future regarding the resort itself.
We were able to walk the entire resort, we stopped and used the restroom, and I stopped and took lots of pictures and videos, and we were still finished exploring after an hour. I did notice that there was some construction going on in one of the buildings. I was surprised because we had not noticed this in the other three days we had been there.
We headed back to the food court and sat down and killed time. We were not really hungry since we had a later breakfast, so we just sat around. Mom made a few phone calls, and I took some notes in my journal. We did end up deciding to get one last order of beignets just because. This would hold us over until we ate at the airport.
We went to the front of the resort and waited on Magical Express. We only had to wait around 10 minutes before it arrived. We had to stop at Riverside and Fort Wilderness before heading to the airport. The driver was new, so that was lots of fun to experience. His trainer kept yelling at him throughout the drive. It was only SLIGHTLY nerve-racking, ha!
We made it to the airport within 30 minutes of leaving Fort Wilderness. We had TSA Precheck, so we headed straight there. We experienced quite a few people being turned away for not having Precheck. This did hold up the lines some. Most people left as soon as an agent told them. We had one person who refused to leave so she stood on the side and kept trying to find where she had it listed on her ticket. Even with the small issues, we were through security within 10 minutes.
We still had around 2 hours until take off, so we decided to go eat lunch at Outback to kill time. Even though this wasn't Disney food, I still took a few pictures, ha! It was actually really good. They didn't have the full menu at normal Outbacks, but they still had enough for us to select from.
We made it to our gate about 15-20 minutes before boarding. It was the most crowded I had ever seen. There wasn't a single seat available and tons of people were standing.
We were boarded and seated by 4, and we took off at 4:30. This flight was overbooked for sure. They had a few Delta staff members that had to take some seats that people were willing to give up.
We landed in Atlanta around 5:45. We basically went straight to our gate. We did stop for a snack that we took with us on our flight. We were boarded by 6:30, and we were taking off around 7.
We landed in Huntsville around 6:50 (central). Melody was really happy to see me for sure. When she gets excited she runs for some reason. Not to you but away from you, haha. As soon as we made it to baggage claim, our luggage was already there. Then back to reality we went!
Overall it was a super fun trip. I definitely missed Brad and Melody. It is really weird to be away from Melody since the only times I have ever been away from her were with trips with my mom. I think next year we are going to attempt to take her so that my mom can experience Disney with Melody. But at the same time, it is nice to have some time away. It is bittersweet too because I know it will be a year or so before we go back to Disney. Or at least that is what we are telling ourselves...
