Duffy Lover
What?!?!? No!
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
Wow. What a week. I hope everyone is safe out there during this tragic hurricane season. I was all prepared to post this update last Friday, but instead I found myself making travel plans. My amazing, strong 97-year old Grama suddenly passed away and that eclipsed everything else for the past week. Here’s a pic of us sisters with her:
It was a pretty tough week… Sigh. Now that I’m finally home (my Grama lived down the street from my parents and Brie in Michigan) I think I’m going to take some me time and share this update….
Day 1: Saturday, June 3rd, 2017 – Resort: AKL – Parks: None
I finally found my journal where I kept my notes from the trip and I totally forgot what was a heart stopping moment for our Disney family. The agent who checked our bags at Frontier was super helpful, but as we put our first bag on the scale she proceeded to start tearing off our yellow DME tags. Both my husband and I literally screamed “NO!” She was so surprised, we stopped her in mid-tear and we were able to salvage the tags. Of course, being a good Disney traveller, I had extra tags in my travel folder so in any case we were all set. I just can’t believe she hadn’t seen DME tags before! Talk about disaster averted, I certainly didn’t want to wait around for bags at 6 am EST. No thank you.
Anyways, back to where we left off … We boarded our flight just after midnight on Saturday, June 3rd. We got the girls cozy and they went to sleep almost immediately. Yes, they slept. The girls and I had a row and we got them super cozy with pillows and blankets. Caz and I had neck pillows and although we snoozed it was more of a twilight sleep. I swear the flight attendants made it a point to open and close cabinets as loud as they could, thus waking us up every 10 minutes or so. Overall, the flight went well and we landed early. I would say our first red-eye adventure went well. Actually very well.
Before we knew it we were officially in Disney territory:
And we were ushered onto our DME bus where we waited for about 10 minutes before departing. The girls were tired, and looked it, but they were also super excited. So was I! No more pre-trip anxiety. Whew!
After a stop at Coronado Springs, we arrived at AKL and its majestic lobby.
And as it turned out, we didn’t need Papa’s studio after all… The grand villa was ready!!
But as the rest of our party wouldn’t be arriving until almost noon, and we knew how excited the boys were, we wandered off to take a nap in Papa’s villa. We got lost on the way, but it let us take a tour of our first resort.
We finally arrived at Papa’s room around 7:45 am EST. Considering that the girls only had about 3 solid hours of sleep on the flight, everyone was doing just peachy, but to avoid burnout early on, and risk beating down our immune systems so early on in such a long trip, it was time for a nap. And nap we did! We put Clara in Papa’s bed (he left to, ahem, “visit the office”) and Eme insisted on sleeping on the couch cushions while Caz and I slept on the pullout. In the end we slept until 10:10 (Eme woke us up with her excitement), so we added about two more hours of sleep to the three we had earlier. Not too shabby!
In the meantime, the rest of the Michigan family was on their way!
Side note.. I may play around with embedding video in these posts… I am using Google Drive and Photos to organize these pictures and I’m wondering if adding video is just as simple as adding photos. Time will tell. Back on topic… After we woke up we brought our carry-on luggage and Papa’s luggage over to the grand villa - BUT only Caz went in. We had waited so long there was no need to ruin the “grand” entrance as the boys still weren’t with us. We particularly enjoyed the art of AKL. This piece was right outside the grand villa’s door:
Once we were unburdened by our luggage, we headed out for breakfast - everyone was famished! This was only one of two Disney breakfasts over the span of this 16 day trip, and for that I am not sad. Disney breakfast is so sub par compared to the breakfasts Caz can whip up!
Clara and Eme found a hidden Mickey at the Mara. Too cool!
As we were eating, we got word that Buszia and the others were on their DME bus and on their way here. We wrapped up and headed out to wait for them.
And before we knew it, they arrived!
And it was time for the big reveal:
Which will have to wait for our next installation. Got to build up the excitement, right?
See you real soon!
It was a pretty tough week… Sigh. Now that I’m finally home (my Grama lived down the street from my parents and Brie in Michigan) I think I’m going to take some me time and share this update….
Day 1: Saturday, June 3rd, 2017 – Resort: AKL – Parks: None
I finally found my journal where I kept my notes from the trip and I totally forgot what was a heart stopping moment for our Disney family. The agent who checked our bags at Frontier was super helpful, but as we put our first bag on the scale she proceeded to start tearing off our yellow DME tags. Both my husband and I literally screamed “NO!” She was so surprised, we stopped her in mid-tear and we were able to salvage the tags. Of course, being a good Disney traveller, I had extra tags in my travel folder so in any case we were all set. I just can’t believe she hadn’t seen DME tags before! Talk about disaster averted, I certainly didn’t want to wait around for bags at 6 am EST. No thank you.
Anyways, back to where we left off … We boarded our flight just after midnight on Saturday, June 3rd. We got the girls cozy and they went to sleep almost immediately. Yes, they slept. The girls and I had a row and we got them super cozy with pillows and blankets. Caz and I had neck pillows and although we snoozed it was more of a twilight sleep. I swear the flight attendants made it a point to open and close cabinets as loud as they could, thus waking us up every 10 minutes or so. Overall, the flight went well and we landed early. I would say our first red-eye adventure went well. Actually very well.
Before we knew it we were officially in Disney territory:
And we were ushered onto our DME bus where we waited for about 10 minutes before departing. The girls were tired, and looked it, but they were also super excited. So was I! No more pre-trip anxiety. Whew!
After a stop at Coronado Springs, we arrived at AKL and its majestic lobby.
And as it turned out, we didn’t need Papa’s studio after all… The grand villa was ready!!
But as the rest of our party wouldn’t be arriving until almost noon, and we knew how excited the boys were, we wandered off to take a nap in Papa’s villa. We got lost on the way, but it let us take a tour of our first resort.
We finally arrived at Papa’s room around 7:45 am EST. Considering that the girls only had about 3 solid hours of sleep on the flight, everyone was doing just peachy, but to avoid burnout early on, and risk beating down our immune systems so early on in such a long trip, it was time for a nap. And nap we did! We put Clara in Papa’s bed (he left to, ahem, “visit the office”) and Eme insisted on sleeping on the couch cushions while Caz and I slept on the pullout. In the end we slept until 10:10 (Eme woke us up with her excitement), so we added about two more hours of sleep to the three we had earlier. Not too shabby!
In the meantime, the rest of the Michigan family was on their way!
Side note.. I may play around with embedding video in these posts… I am using Google Drive and Photos to organize these pictures and I’m wondering if adding video is just as simple as adding photos. Time will tell. Back on topic… After we woke up we brought our carry-on luggage and Papa’s luggage over to the grand villa - BUT only Caz went in. We had waited so long there was no need to ruin the “grand” entrance as the boys still weren’t with us. We particularly enjoyed the art of AKL. This piece was right outside the grand villa’s door:
Once we were unburdened by our luggage, we headed out for breakfast - everyone was famished! This was only one of two Disney breakfasts over the span of this 16 day trip, and for that I am not sad. Disney breakfast is so sub par compared to the breakfasts Caz can whip up!
Clara and Eme found a hidden Mickey at the Mara. Too cool!
As we were eating, we got word that Buszia and the others were on their DME bus and on their way here. We wrapped up and headed out to wait for them.
And before we knew it, they arrived!
And it was time for the big reveal:
Which will have to wait for our next installation. Got to build up the excitement, right?
See you real soon!