It's October 31, 2013 and the McKnights are heading to the airport. We were ready to embark on this epic Walt Disney World and Disney Cruise Line vacation. Twelve nights total with three of them on the Disney Dream to celebrate Doug's parents 40th Wedding anniversary. It will be the first time we travel with family to our favorite destination. It was a crazy busy day with school Halloween parties for Sam and Clair. (Alden had to miss his Kindergarten Halloween party to make it to the airport in time, he seemed okay with the trade off of Disney World a day sooner.
Because we were traveling on Halloween we thought we should all be in "costume" so the girls went with a Star Wars theme and the boys went Avengers.
 |
| Sam and Clair at the Airport with their Her Universe outfits on. |
Sam spent the travel day as her favorite Star Wars character Ahsoka Tano and Clair was R2D2.
Almost as entertaining as the back side of water.
 |
| R2D2, Asoka, and Captain America ready to fly |
My trio of mini Disney Experts. The kids liked the extra attention they received from their outfits. Their were a few other people dressed up a little for the holiday.
Alden on the first flight from Omaha to St. Louis.
We flew on Southwest down to Orlando. At the Omaha airport the Southwest employees were the only ones in costume for Halloween. The flight attendants told the kids they weren't allowed by the government to wear costumes when they asked.
Sam was already hard at work on home work.
Clair was doing her "homework" too.
The first leg of the trip we sat girls in one row and boys behind us. I was wearing a Asajj Ventress Tunic from Her Universe.
And a shot of Alden doing his home work just to prove we did it. I was proud of the kids for working on it so much on the flight down.
Alden kept trying to boss Doug around because he was the "captain" of the Avengers. Doug would simple reply that no one can tell Iron Man what to do. They were a little too into the outfits at times.
 |
| The kids about to board the plane. |
After a stop in St. Louis we were getting back on our way to Orlando. In St. Louis, we were able to grab a greasy bite to eat. As you can, see we make the kids pull their own weight by carrying their own back packs. We really like the back packs that have a chest strap. This prevents them from letting it just fall off their shoulders. The backpacks we like best are from Pottery Barn Kids.
From STL to MCO I got to sit with the oldest and Doug got the pleasure of sitting with Clair. It really is a toss up on who you want to sit by. We fight over Alden as he is the best travel buddy. The girls are higher maintenance, but over all they all travel very well. We try to force feed Clair something as the plane takes off and lands. Usually fruit snacks or something chewy so there is lots of saliva to swallow. This was the first trip that Sam and Alden could handle gum. Our flight out of STL was possibly the roughest we have ever had as we took off in a thunder storm. Our kids though it was cool, Doug was glad he had put on a patch (for motion sickness), and about 30 middle school Softball players on our flight thought it was a good reason to scream like they were on the Tower of Terror.
Here we are waiting for the bags to arrive and letting Alden test his camera skills. Since we got in late and we were renting a car we had to pick up our bags. One huge advantage of staying at a Walt Disney World Resort is the Magical Express and their bag service. You get to skip picking up your bags at the airport. You get a tag to put on them at home and then they are delivered to your room, but it takes a few hours so if you are arriving late in the day or evening you might want to grab your own bags or you could have a bell hop show up at your door at 11:00pm. We rented a van for this trip because we need to drive to the port and we were switching hotels 3 times.
The picture we take every trip to show how much stuff I pack and make Doug lug around. However Alden is starting to become useful at pulling bags. Samantha and Clair still have a ways to go.
Headed down with our bags to rent our van and found this nice big line at Alamo.
But no line at the kiosk so we swiped our drivers licence and it pulled up our reservation and after a few screens we were out in the parking lot picking out our van.
After a very low stress drive we have arrived at "Where Dreams Come True".
 |
| The Kids in the lobby of Port Orleans Riverside |
We found our way to the lobby of Port Orleans Riverside where we will be staying for the first part of our trip. It is also the portion of the trip we will be using the Disney Dinning Plan. The dining plan comes with refillable mugs, so we grabbed those from the food court before we left for our room. We were in building #39 which is about as far from every thing as you can get.
 |
| A map of Port Orleans Riverside Resort find more info on the resort at the website www.portorleans.org |
The Disney World Moderate resorts all have a large foot print and are quite spread out. It was about a 7 to 10 min walk to the food court/lobby.
As a family of 5 our choices our limited when choosing a resort. Port Orleans Riverside is the only moderate that can sleep five. The beds have Louis from Princess and the Frog movie on the pillows. The painting on the wall also features characters from the movie.
This is where Disney got creative with having a 5th person in the room. During the day it was nice to have the bench under the TV.
The cabinet under the TV folds out to reveal a bed. This bed was fought over the whole time as to who's turn it was to sleep with Louis and Ray. The bed was easy to put up and down.
A mickey head greeted us as we entered the room.
They put the bayou theme everywhere and hid lots of little gems like the "92" on this wash board is for the year the resort opened in 1992 as Dixie Landing Resort.
The refrigerator is in the cabinet with the coffee maker and ice bucket on top.
It almost feels like you are taking a shower in a wash tub.
The curtain is nice for the mornings when I was up getting ready. It let the kids and Doug get a little more sleep.
It was late and we had to get to bed but it is tough to fall asleep when you just arrived in Disney World. So the kids watched the "Must Do's" with Stacy to help unwind.
After a mean game of rock, paper, scissors Clair won the rights to the special bed for night #1.
By this time it was about 11:30pm Eastern Time, so we had to get them to sleep so we can hit rope drop at the Magic Kingdom in the morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment