Disney Day One

We left our house at 8:30 this morning and headed to O’Hare airport to begin our adventure. I had checked in online last night, but couldn’t get my printer to work, so we had to stand in line to print out our boarding passes. Unfortunately, dork that I am, I hadn’t written down the confirmation number and I didn’t have my frequent flyer card with me so I couldn’t pull up our flight information. I kept looking at the screen, thinking there had to be an option where I could look up my flight info by name. Nope. The screen kept asking me, “Do you need more time?” I thought to myself that I didn’t need more time; what I needed was psychic ability so I could discern my confirmation number. The screen then flashed, “Are you stupid? Did you not know that you were going to need a boarding pass? Why on earth wouldn’t you have your confirmation number written down?” Then the screen flashed the message, “Do you see the phone to your left? We put that there for idiots like you. Pick it up so a customer service representative can help you.”

I picked up the phone, gave the voice on the other end my name and the poor customer service rep who gets stuck dealing with imbeciles like me all day, helped me with my confirmation number so I could print out our boarding passes. We checked our luggage and moved on to the security check-point.

Upon arrival at security, a gentleman looked at all of us and counted the tickets, then looked at all of us again.

“You have SIX kids???”

“Uh yeah.”

“Really? Six?”

“Still yeah.”

“Wow.”

So he checked off all our tickets and we proceeded through security. Everything went pretty smoothly there with me and the kids. Joe set the alarm off 4 times though. I think he was trying to get strip searched.

The flight was uneventful. Clay had a hard time sitting still and I was constantly reminding him not to kick his feet. The poor woman in front of him probably had an exceptionally enjoyable flight. Not.

We went to pick up our rental van and the guy quoted me a price that was about $200 more than my email confirmation. I argued with him for several minutes and finally gave up. It was hot, the kids were restless, and we were all really hungry. I’ll look at the agreement more closely tonight.

We stopped at Ihop on the way to the hotel for an early dinner. The bathroom was out of order. The credit card machine was out of order and apparently they were completely out of fresh fruit. It’s FLORIDA! How does a restaurant in sunny Florida run out of fresh fruit???

Then it was on to the hotel. We were totally spoiled when we were here last October courtesy of the folks at Discovery Cove. This time our room wasn’t as nice, it wasn’t near a pool, and it smelled like someone had bladder control issues on the carpet. We requested a different room and got one right by a pool. It never hurts to ask!

Right now, Austin has a bad migraine that came on suddenly. I gave him some medicine and he fell asleep so I’m hanging out in the room with him. Meanwhile Joe has taken the other five down to the pool. I can hear them laughing and playing and it’s making me smile. I can also hear the sound of a waterfall in the background and Jimmy Buffet singing Cinco de Mayo in Memphis. The air is warm and (unlike California) very humid, but there’s a nice breeze rustling through the palm fronds out here on the balcony.

Ahhhh, this is going to be a nice family vacation. Although I really wasn’t looking forward to it, I’m anticipating a lot of fun, excitement on the kids’ faces, and some great family time. Yes, you can laugh at me come Wednesday when we’re all sick and tired of being confined together and the kids are all wired on artificial flavors and colors and the “GO GO GO “ factor has set in and everyone is having crab attacks. But for tonight, we’re going to enjoy each other’s company as we head to the grocery store to get some breakfast items and snacks before we call it an early night.