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January 20, 2008
Off the boat and to Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas
Today the plan was to have breakfast at 7 a.m. and then roll off the boat. I, honestly, had some concerns about being able to mobilize everybody in time to make breakfast and was tickled when I woke up around 6.
Without getting into all the magic (some of it Disney, some of it mine) involved I'll skip to the part where the boys and I decided to scoot off the boat at 7 in an attempt to avoid the going-through-customs crowd.
Around 7:15 the all clear was given to exit the boat. As fast as we could walk we had our luggage, cleared customs, and were sitting on our butts drinking pop. It couldn't have taken five minutes.
When you compare this to the fear I had of standing in a customs line for an hour, with 2000 other people, with three boys poking and prodding each other … well, there is no comparison. [I have no problem waiting in line with other travelers as I have a full awareness that the line will eventually wither to nothing and I'll get to where I'm going. Teen and pre-teen boys lack that awareness.]
The downside to the whole thing is that we haven't eaten. Fortunately, we've been storing about 10,000 extra cruise and park calories per day for the past week and we're unlikely wither away to nothing.
Let's do a travel recap:
In Columbus:
- At the airport early
- Zipped through security (Samson declared it the most fun he'd ever had)
- Had a great flight to Philly
- Great weather
In Philly:
- Made it to our connecting flight without a problem despite the fact its gate was in a different county that the plane we flew in on
- Zipped through security again
- Great weather
In Orlando:
- Took a train to get our baggage
- The World's Greatest Brother-In-Law picked us up at the airport
Getting on the Cruise:
- We took a chartered bus
- Disney had plenty of people to help with check-in. It was painless
- As you know, the cruise was great
Getting off the boat:
- Well, you read about it earlier in this entry
Things could not have been better, and this is a problem. My kids have no appreciation for how rough traveling can be. (My niece, who joined us for the cruise portion, had her 6 a.m. flight canceled the day the boat was to leave. Naturally, she found out about it only after she drove, in the snow, to the airport.)
[Later that day, and too tired and lazy to care about tense change and opting instead to insert a blurb in brackets, he typed…]
The latter part of the day was spent at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas. We got there some time before noon (via chartered bus) and had the boys swimming in the heated pool shortly thereafter. It was rather chilly out, though the boys didn't seem to mind.
I ordered pizza for dinner and had a moment of pause when I said, "We're at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas" and the order taker asked me for the cross streets so the driver could find it. I thought maybe I'd called the wrong Papa John's; I'd thought correctly.
Samson and Jack swim. You'll notice the lifeguard is all bundled up.
Haydn crashed before the other boys. He'd been up late the night before and was going on four hours sleep.
A shot from my sister's room.
Zebras.
A shot from the pool area.
Posted by delmer at January 20, 2008 11:52 PM
Comments
I have a vague sense of Jurassic Park-like unease (is that dash in the right place or do I need more) looking at wild animals grazing outside the hotel balconies.
Posted by: Icy Mt. at January 22, 2008 9:36 PM