Day One - July 12, 2003

On Saturday, our big day had arrived. There were no more Mickey heads with dates to countdown. No more entries in Birnbaum's to read to each other. We were going to Walt Disney World!

We had packed most of our stuff the night before, chosing to only bring a half week's worth of clothes with us. We figured we might need the extra room for souvenirs and instead we'd use the laundry facilities at the Wilderness Lodge to clean our clothes while we were there. So we took our suitcases, computer case and camera bag and headed to Kathy's parents' house. Her dad would be taking us to LAX for our trip. We wanted to get there early because we didn't know how extra security stemming from 9/11 would delay us.

Because we had bought our tickets online, we were able to use Delta's e-ticket check in. We simply put a credit card into the reader for the system to identify our names, we picked some options on the touch screens, had our bags checked in and we were off to the terminal. It was pretty painless and much quicker than standing in line at the ticket counter.

We decided to eat breakfast at McDonald's in the Delta terminal. We weren't really hungry but weren't sure what to expect on the plane (Kathy's not a big fan of airline food). We got some of the new McGriddles, which are pretty yummy. After eating, we'd hit the gift shop so that Kathy could buy a book of crossword puzzles, a sporting newspaper with information on Angels players in the All-Star game and some gum for de-pressurizing our ears upon take off and landing. All we had left to do was wait for our flight.

Kathy hanging out at the Delta terminal at LAX waiting for her flight to Orlando.

It's a five-hour flight and we'd lose three hours in time changes but I was hoping that we'd get in with enough time to hit maybe the Magic Kingdom for an hour or two. The in-flight movie was Bringing Down the House, but we decided not to pay the $5 headphone rental fee. From what we saw of the film, it looked like that was a good decision. There were a number of storms in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Florida coast that we had to contend with, so we were a little delayed in landing. I pretty much figured that closed the window of opportunity on hitting a theme park after getting to Walt Disney World.

MCO was pretty busy and our luggage seemed to take a long time to be put onto the pick-up caroussel. Though it was a long wait, we were lucky that our bags were among the first to arrive. We took everything and headed off to the Mears Shuttle counter. When we visited four years before, taking the shuttle was a pleasant experience. However, my opinion would change after this trip.

The counter in the airport terminal had already closed, so we dragged our bags to street level trying to find Mears' pickup. When we finally found the area, we handed our pre-paid reservation printout to the shuttle employee. He said that we'd have to check in inside at the counter and get a boarding pass from them. So we had to wait in line anyway. Then the smileless agent behind the counter asked for our returning information even though it should have been in the computer from when I made the reservations. Finally, we got our passes and went back to the Mears guy, who took our ticket and handed us one of those blinking pagers that they use at restaurants. Seems we still weren't ready to depart.

After a while, we got paged and loaded onto a bus. The driver seemed pleasant enough but complained about how the process was going. Unfortunately, we had to wait for a large party to board, and THEN, we were informed that he had to make pick ups at three other stops all around the airport before we could leave for the Walt Disney World area. It took us a long time to make all of the stops and when we hit the highway, the driver drove slowly, partially because of the rain and partially because he seemed to like playing the part of tour guide, pointing out things of "interest" along the road.

Luckily, Wilderness Lodge was the second stop after Port Orleans. I really, really had to use the restroom by that point but I was still excited about seeing all of the sites once we were on property. Pulling up to the Wilderness Lodge was a wonderful experience and I couldn't wait until we unloaded.

The cast members greeting us were very nice. We checked our two luggage bags with the bellmen to be delivered to our room after checking in. The lobby of the Wilderness Lodge was awesome. Even though we saw it before on Samantha Brown's "Great Hotels" show, it was so much more impressive seeing it in person. Kathy stood in line to check in while I hit the restroom. She hadn't moved much by the time I got back, even though there weren't too many people in line before us. It was after 8 p.m. so they didn't have many receptionists working at that time.

Our room at the Wilderness Lodge featured a Western theme in nearly all of the furnishings decorations.

We had paid for a Woods View room with a request for a king-sized bed instead of the two queens. Because most of the king sized-bed rooms are customized for handicapped guests, they are only found in certain locations. We were hoping to have a view of the otter pond but instead was given an "upgrade" to a courtyard view on the first floor. It was indeed a handicapped room, which basically meant no tub but a walk-in shower instead, which was fine with us. We were disappointed that we weren't going to see the otter pond but our room turned out to be very nice. Great location. We were only around the corner from the Roaring Fork snack shop, close to the laundry room, just a little ways away from the boat dock that would be our launching point to the Magic Kingdom, and a view of the pool area that certainly was better than ground-level of the woods. For us, it was an ideal room.

We called to have our bags delivered to our room. After checking the room out and taking some pictures, we decided to check out the rest of the hotel resort area (we were indeed too late to make any of the theme parks and we decided to not head for Downtown Disney, which was our backup plan). We ate at Roaring Fork, buying our refillable mugs for $9.95 a piece. That would be a great deal as many times as we got soft drinks during our eight-night stay. The food was somewhat standard lunch-counter type food but it was very tasty.

Kathy and Matthew posing for a picture on the king-sized bed that we requested at the Wilderness Lodge.

After checking things out a bit more, we headed back to the room, where a message on our phone said to call the front counter. It seems that the manager that checked us in forgot to give us our voucher for our Mickey's PhilharMAGIC lithograph and pin, which came with our Fairy Tale Package. When we got to the front desk to pick up the voucher, we were told we could exchange it at the Mercantile but they were closing up so we decided to do it another time.

It had been a long flight and we wanted to be ready for early entry at the Magic Kingdom the next morning, so we got ready for bed. Kathy was excited that they had SoapNet on TV so I'm sure that's what we fell asleep to.

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