Christmas 2010 Trip Report (Part I)
Part I
Welcome to our Christmas 2010 Walt Disney World Trip Report! For those of you who have been following our Saga in our other reports, thank you for joining us once again! For those first time readers, thanks for opening this thread–we hope it doesn’t disappoint!
The trip began in its typical manner, under chaotic circumstances. Packing the night before actually went better than usual, as we had accomplished some packing ahead of time. We got to bed relatively early the night before, around 10:30 pm. The next morning we were up bright and early, with Sarah’s dad taking us to the airport at 5:30 am. We took one set of bags down to the car and were planning on going back up for incidental items, to do a once over, and to lock up the fort. The previous trip down, I told Sarah that I would just leave the keys upstairs since my hands were full. Unfortunately, in our apartment building, once the door shuts, you have to use a sensor (on our keychain) to open the front door. Here we are, at 5:30 am in 20 degree weather, no coats, locked out of our apartment building. We had to go back upstairs as our unit’s door was open, plus Sarah’s ID was up there.
The natural response to this situation is to buzz the call box of all adjacent tenants to see if they’ll let you in. Well, maybe this isn’t the natural response of everyone, as some of you may have more common courtesy than us, but it was 5:30 am, we were freezing, and fearful that we’d miss out flight to WDW. It was our natural reaction. Our neighbors either were undisturbed by the constant buzzing (in which case no harm, no foul), or chose to ignore (in which case I don’t feel too sorry for them). Not knowing what to do, we called the apartment’s emergency line. This line is reserved for situations such as gas and water leaks, but I felt missing a flight to WDW was fairly analogous, so we called and left a message. After more time passed, the gentleman who delivers the newspaper came by and let us in. But for him, I think we would have missed our flight. Add leaving our keys in the house to the list of things not to do before heading to WDW (add it to the list of things not to do whenever leaving home, for that matter).
Other than this, the trip down was relatively uneventful. There was one somewhat minor issue, but that was relatively quickly resolved: I couldn’t decide whether to order 2 or 3 sausage McMuffins with egg from McDonald’s. I decided to order 2, then see if I wanted another. I ended up wanting another, but was too lazy to wait in line again. Lesson learned there!
Sarah was selected for advanced screening in Indy, so she went through one of the WBI machines. I did a fair amount of research on WBIs, BDOs, SPOT, and the rest of the acronym soup involving advanced measures of airport security in law school, so I was sort of hoping to be selected for the screening to experience it first hand. (For those curious, my ultimate thesis was that whole body imaging was impractical due to its costs and inevitable ability of terrorists to circumvent it; I found advanced screening unobjectionable from a personal liberties perspective. Although I’m sure no one cares.)
Once through screening, we headed to our gate, and boarded shortly thereafter. We slept most of the flight there to conserve our energy. What seemed like 15 minutes later, we touched down in Orlando, and headed towards the DME area. In previous trip reports, I’ve commented on our inability to find this area despite heading there so frequently, and more importantly, having maps indicating how to get there. This hadn’t been an issue for the last couple of trips, as we had found it right away without the maps, but this time, I decided to follow my instinct, and disregard the map–with Sarah all the while telling me I was leading us the wrong direction. As a proud male who both refuses to follow a map and is seldom wrong, I can only assume the airport had been reconfigured since our last trip, as we were in the wrong area.
We re-traced our steps, headed to the other side of the airport, and boarded the DME shortly thereafter. Since we were staying at an All Star resort (Music) the first night of our trip, we were sandwiched in among Pop Warners parents and players. They must not have been too loud, as I was able to sleep. (I almost wish they had kept me awake, as I missed that DME video, which I love!)
This would be the first of two admittedly “new” DME bus drivers we’d have on the trip; this particular one drove to All Star Music, before realizing he had forgotten to stop at All Star Sports, and turning around–without dropping off us guests staying at AS:Mu. Not wanting to deal with any more of his brilliant moves, Sarah and I got out at Sports and walked to Music. Given the crowd that came behind us to check-in, I’m fairly confident that I’m right.
We met our friend, Nick, at the check in desk and then proceeded to our room to drop off some stuff before we headed immediately to the Magic Kingdom. I had opted to wear jeans and a long sleeve shirt that day given that we’d be in Indy part of the day, and that night was supposed to be cool, but I noticed that even during the day, I didn’t feel hot in that attire. Oh well, I thought, the next 11 days would be warmer.
We engaged in so many unique experiences and I’ve written so many thoughts on specific attractions in previous trip reports in the past that to do so again would be superfluous. If there was anything out of the ordinary or specific to this trip of which I think, I’ll discuss it, but otherwise, assume we rode attractions each day in addition to what is discussed…
There are multiple pages in this Walt Disney World trip report installment. Navigate to the next page below!
12 Responses to “Christmas 2010 Trip Report (Part I)”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Disney World February 2012 Trip Report Part 8 - Disney Tourist Blog - [...] didn’t seem like anything special at the time (in fact, I didn’t even include it in our trip report!), ...
Leave a Reply
Follow Us!
We Recommend:
We always spend New Year’s in WDW so seeing your pictures is liking remembering my past trips! Although I’ve never done any meets down there. This is a totally random question, but where did Sarah get that camera strap? It looks so cute!
The all black camera strap that Sarah uses? That’s an Op/tech strap. She got it from Amazon.com for like $5.99.
Speaking of camera straps…I noticed you had several different Disney ones…do they have different ones each year? I purchased the one this year with the various Mickey ‘parts’ on a red background, but that is the only one I saw.
“Sarah was selected for advanced screening in Indy, so she went through one of the WBI machines.”
TSA must have heard how she feels about the American Adventure! LOL
Haha, it wouldn’t surprise me! Seriously, how can anyone not LOVE the American Adventure?!
Thanks so much for the trip reports – they are great! We were just in WDW this past December, too. I had been numerous times, but never at Christmas, and we had such a great time taking in all the decorations. I’m currently finishing up my second year in law school and can’t wait until I can graduate & start making some money, so we can head back to Florida. You take really great, creative photos and I enjoy looking through them – they make me “homesick.”
(Belated) congrats on the graduation, and thanks again for the great pictures!
Law school, ouch. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
Hopefully you’ll have TIME once you start working to visit Florida!
Yeah, I don’t have much surplus time right now. I’m scared to think about life 18 months from now!
I must say your site has reawakened a long-dormant interest in photography. My wife likes to joke that when I’m behind the camera we end up with more pictures of “stuff” than the family. Now I just need to figure out how to convince her to let me spring for the right camera. Any suggestions for a good “starter” camera for an amateur?
You really can’t go wrong with any of the entry-level Canons or Nikons. Sarah just got a D3100, and that seems pretty nice.
Haha so I won’t be the only lawyer in the world with a Disney obsession. Tom you’ve about convinced me to try the park hopper tickets. We’ve never gotten them, but now we’ve be traveling with the pup and have to go back to our off-site (grrrrrr!) hotel in the early afternoon to walk her, so it’s not like we could stay at one park all day anyway. I’m copying your law school graduation dinner at V&A’s idea. Last final in April 18th, and everything I’ve read says that would be a decent time to visit.
I’m a little late to the party here, but we just booked for Christmas this year (we’ve never done that before), and your report has made me all the more ready to hop on the plane!
I will be going to Disney for the first time this Christmas. I was wondering how you got such great photos at night. I have a canon 7D, but I have trouble getting great shots with lights without a tripod.