Friday 1 December 2017 Regina to Orlando

After Celeste’s Mom passed away last year, we decided that we would use our share of the proceeds of her estate for a blowout family holiday in her memory. We are sure she would be excited about our adventure if she was still with us.

We have been planning this for much of the past year, led by Carla, our family researcher extraordinaire and Disney enthusiast. She steered us in planning an itinerary and ordering some groceries, allowing us to have breakfast in our suite, have snacks and water for the day, and a cold beer on our return in the evening.

In getting to and from the airport, we decided that, rather than everyone making arrangements for a ride, a taxi, or parking, we would book a limousine for the whole gang. The limo picked us up at 6:30 AM, proceeded to Matlocks’ (where the twins were VERY excited), and then on to Carla and Tyler’s.

We departed a few minutes early, just before 9 AM. Annabelle and Louisa both had the sniffles, so we were a little concerned that they would have ear trouble with the pressure change, but nothing developed. Before we left, Charlotte, recalling past unpleasant flying memories, said she would laugh on the airplane, then she said she would cry, but , once we were underway, all seemed forgotten and she had no problems. The twins were absorbed in books and videos for the whole flight. Louisa slept about 45 minutes, was restless a few times, but never had any real difficulties.

We arrived a few minutes early, just before 2 PM (1 hour time difference – nearly 4 hour flight). After a long taxi in, there was a problem with our unloading bridge that delayed us for a few minutes. Customs, immigration, and baggage claim went smoothly. We walked forever to the Disney bus area, waited for the bus to load, then waited on the bus, crawled through a traffic jam, and finally arrived in our hotel suite in Disney Boardwalk Villas about 5 PM. Our groceries arrived at 5:10, closer timing than we had planned, but still no problem.

The twins thought the old Mickey Mouse cartoons on the bus video screens were pretty funny. Dad, not so much.

We met Darren’s crew in the lobby at the same time we picked up our groceries. They arrived the night before (after the cutoff for the Disney bus), stayed near the airport, went back to the airport in the morning, caught the Disney bus, and arrived at the resort about 1 PM. They were exploring and killing time waiting until the room was ready.

We went for dinner at a brew pub on the boardwalk. We had purchased our Disney park passes with a Canadian discount which required us to exchange them, while showing our passports, for the actual passes. So after dinner we walked to the nearby back entrance of Epcot to get this out of the way so it would not be an obstacle in the morning. We then returned to the room, where Carla presented us all with a collection of pins that she had purchased for us online so that we could all participate in pin trading. The kids all embraced this enthusiastically, trading with the adults to upgrade their collections. Soon the nightly fireworks began at Epcot. We had a decent view from our balcony.

After a long day with little sleep Louisa was cranky and howling at bedtime, but Celeste worked some Grandma magic and put her to sleep.