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| On our way to see Mickey! |
We spent most of Friday and Saturday before we left
packing. This was a whole new experience
for us to pack for the two of us and Ellie, our 14 month old daughter. We tried to think of every possible situation
and what we would need for it. In
hindsight, we probably brought too much, but not by much. On flight was at 8:20am Sunday morning. We got up at 5:30am (yikes), and left the
house by 6:30am. That was early for all
of us. We fed Ellie a little snack
before we left. Our breakfast was the “snack” provided by the airline. We parked at the Parking Spot, which is
fantastic. I dropped everyone off at the
curb and went to park the car. The bus was
at my parking spot and went straight to the terminal. When I got to the terminal, I found out that
the airline computers were not working and since we didn’t have a printed
boarding pass, we could not get one.
They were hand writing boarding passes.
We were able to get one to print as the computers temporarily came up
and went straight to the gate. I had Ellie in the carrier on my back and security was fairly easy. She and I went through the metal detector and
they checked my hands for explosive material.
I was cleared. We made it through
security, but because of the boarding pass delays, we were the last ones on the
plane. That kinda sucked considering I
had got up early the morning before to check in and got A55 & A57. Darn.
One of our concerns for the trip was: How is Ellie going to do on her first plane
ride? For the most part, she did very
well. Thankfully my parents were on the
trip and my mom sat with Lisa and I. We
basically just passed Ellie between the 3 of us for 2 ½ hours. She did not even try and sleep. We fed her milk, gave her a snack, but the girl did not get sleepy.
She laughed and played most of the way.
She only wined a couple of times and there was no screaming.
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| Getting ready to take off for Ellie's first plane trip |
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| We made it!! Papa's got Ellie. |
We made it to Orlando and went to find the Disney Magical
Express. This is Disney’s complimentary
bus transportation from the airport to your resort. They have this down to a science. It is located at the end of the
rental car area and you get in line depending on your resort. We used our Magic Bands to checkin and within
20 minutes, we were on our way. We were
the 2nd stop and it only took a little over half an hour.
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| Headed to the Magical Express in the Orlando Airport |
We are staying at the Boardwalk. I changed the tense because I am typing this
on the balcony of our room while Ellie sleeps.
The Boardwalk is one of our favorites.
It is right next to EPCOT with several other hotels. It is a deluxe resort and very
comfortable. We can walk to EPCOT, take
a boat to EPCOT or Hollywood Studios.
And we can take a bus anywhere else.
We got checked in without a hitch.
Our rooms were ready and come to find out all three were right next to
each other. We had also rented a
stroller from Orlando Stroller Rentals and I asked the bell man if it was
ready. He disappeared and came back a
couple of minutes later with the stroller.
It is exactly like ours at home; clean and in great condition. We found our rooms and they are great. It is one of the studio villas with a balcony
looking at the boardwalk and a kitchenette area inside. There is a little nook by the front door and that
is where Ellie’s pack-n-play went. The
room is very nice, comfortable and clean.
It looks like it had been renovated fairly recently. We dropped our stuff off, got the stroller
and backpack as ready as we could and headed to EPCOT for lunch at Rose and
Crown Pub at the England Pavilion.
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| Ellie's bedroom - the pack n play is behind the curtain |
To setup the next part, we need to recap a little bit. We woke up at 5:30am, we had a small
“breakfast”, we had a small snack at the Orlando airport, and nobody, including
Ellie, had taken a nap all day. Ok, got all
that? We got into EPCOT no problem, took
a couple pictures and headed to England, which was right after you enter the
park. We checked in and were waiting for
our name to be called. As we were
waiting, we took Ellie out of the stroller to let her walk around. The ground outside the restaurant is
cobblestone and not easy to walk on. She
also had a water bottle she was drinking out of. Ellie is 14 months and has been walking for
about 2 months. She stumbled and fell
and the water bottle hit the ground first, and Ellie fell to the ground. I saw the whole thing happen, and I reached
for her as I saw her fall but couldn’t reach her in time. As I went to pick her up I saw something on
the ground that resembled a tooth. Yep,
a tooth. Ellie’s tooth. The whole tooth, root at all on the ground. She freaked out. I freaked out. Lisa FREAKED out. We had no clue what to do. She just got her teeth over the past few
months (I think she had 11 to begin the trip).
What do we do? So our first
thought was to go to first aid. Well, I
thought first aid was the front of the park, but it’s not. It’s in a building between Mexico and Future
World. By the time we got there, Ellie
had cried herself to sleep. We told our
story to the first aid people. One of
them couldn’t have cared less. The other
lady was very nice. They couldn’t do anything
to help us, but the nice lady was very concerned. She referred us to a local dentist (who I have
not heard back from), gave us an ice pack, and even took it a step
further. She asked if Ellie got blood on
her clothes (which she bled a lot. It
was all over a burp cloth, and some on my clothes and some on Lisa’s
clothes). There was some blood on her
clothes, but not much. I didn’t think
much of the question, but she came back with two vouchers for a new pair of
pants and a new shirt from the gift shop.
I thought that was very nice. She
did not need to do that, but it was a very kind gesture. We went to the baby care center, which was
next door to first aid, and got Ellie cleaned up. We also got some children’s Advil, which was
nice that they had that available. We
gave that to her and then she napped again on our walk back to England.
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| Lisa using her Magic Band to get in the park |
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| What a happy, good looking family (for now) |
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| Yep, the whole tooth came out. Still can't believe it happened. |
My parents had told the restaurant what had happened and
they rescheduled our meal to a later time.
By the time we got back, it was time to eat and my brother and his
family had met us. They were on a
different flight so they arrived a little later. Lisa and I were a wreck. We thought we had broken our baby. But you know what, she was a champ. When Ellie saw everyone there, she started
smiling and it was like nothing had happened.
We were worried about her eating and drinking. She did both at lunch without any
problems. I was extremely surprised and
impressed with her resolve. We ate out
meal and then headed out.
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| Happy Ellie and daddy on Ellie's first ride. |
We had a FastPass for Living with the Land at The Land
pavilion of Future World so we went ahead and used it. This is a fun, informative ride about
agriculture and growing and developing food sources. And you get to see fruits and vegetables
shaped like Mickey. This was Ellie’s
first ride at Disney World. We had no
idea how she was going to react to it.
She was entranced by it. I
couldn’t believe it. She watched and
looked around the entire ride. She
seemed to love it. The entire ride was
intriguing to her. On the flip side,
Riley, my 3 almost 4 year old niece, was scared of the fake thunderstorm at the
beginning of the ride. It was her first
ride too though. Oh kids, you just never
know.
After that ride, we called it a day. Lisa and I hauled our butts and our baby back
to the hotel. We got all situated and
were in bed by 10:00. It was a full,
stressful day. Everything ended up just
fine, but my gosh that scared the ever-living crap out of us.
Next up, our first full day in the parks at the Magic
Kingdom……
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