It's kind of fun to do the impossible - 32 days of fun and friends - updated December 29

Oh man, that happened on my last flight. Delayed for 45 minutes once we had all boarded due to thunderstorms to our east. I'm glad you finally got on your way and that the pilot was able to make up some time in the air!
 
At least the major delay was on your flight to Orlando and not the internal flight! Food looks decent. That is a nice path - glad there were no storms in the Atlantic that would have forced a longer route.
 
I have to admit I was flight stalking Karina and Tom online and I was providing live updates to the other travelers in our group as they made their way across the Atlantic. ;) We were all relieved when their flight took off from Frankfurt and when they finally landed at MCO!

Jill in CO
 
Since I have been flying to Miami quite often in recent years, I am always surprised how those flights usually do the direct shot across the Atlantic, but every flight to Orlando was always the northern route via Greenland. Interesting that they chose to go across the middle of the Atlantic for you to make up time. I wonder if they need more fuel for that route?

We have only flown into Miami twice and I am not sure about the route, but into Orlando it has always been via Greenland. So we were pretty surprised they took such a direct route. We were wondering about the fuel ourselves, but I guess that is the reason they usually fly the other route.

The one benefit fo flying to Miami that way is that you fly across the Bahamas. I am quite confident that I was able to spot Castaway Cay once from the plane, but so far no Disney ship. I have seen other cruise ships though.

Wow! That must be awesome! Keeping my fingers crossed for you to get a glimpse of a Disney ship one of these days. :goodvibes

I really do like the look of the Premium Economy on Lufthansa. With Michael and me flying so often, we are still trying to get the cheapest ticket possible. But we have a big trip planned for next fall and I am secretely lobbying for us to use miles and fly Premium Economy!

To be honest, we are at an age (and size) where a little more room is so worth it. I know there are cheaper options, but I am pretty sure it would take me quite some time to recover from 10 hours being squeezed in. ;)
And this time we did fly on miles, which resulted in "only" 600€ in taxes. How nice of LH to reward us 1200€ for their cancellation. :goodvibes


Oh man, that happened on my last flight. Delayed for 45 minutes once we had all boarded due to thunderstorms to our east. I'm glad you finally got on your way and that the pilot was able to make up some time in the air!

That sucks, doesn't it. But if it is weather related, there is nothing you can do.
Yes, we were on our way and the pilot made up a good chunk of time, but we had not landed yet and there are always afternoon storms. :laughing: Don't want to get too far ahead of myself.


At least the major delay was on your flight to Orlando and not the internal flight! Food looks decent. That is a nice path - glad there were no storms in the Atlantic that would have forced a longer route.

Wow, I never even thought about a delay on the first leg of the trip. Yikes, that would have sucked. :lmao:And no storms in the Atlantic, but remember there are usually afternoon/evening storms around Orlando and we were supposed to land around 7pm. ;)
 


I have to admit I was flight stalking Karina and Tom online and I was providing live updates to the other travelers in our group as they made their way across the Atlantic. ;) We were all relieved when their flight took off from Frankfurt and when they finally landed at MCO!

Jill in CO

Hm, so you are a flight stalker. :rotfl2::rotfl2: Ah, well, we do that too. :rotfl2::rotfl2:
You have NO idea how happy we were when we finally set foot onto US soil. :thumbsup2 And we couldn't even imagine what FUN that trip was going to bring. :grouphug:
 
Wow, that stinks about your flight and missing a day but at least you had many more to enjoy. We are visiting Munich and Austria in April. We will be spending a few nights in Hallstatt. What part of Austria are you from? We were in Prague this year and connected through Frankfurt on Lufthansa. We had a great experience and are hoping to fly them again next year.
Can’t wait to hear all about this trip, a month long trip of Disney is a dream of mine!
 


I just had a chance to log on today. Thanks for the notification Karin! We had such a great vacation this year, I can’t wait to read your report!
 
I'm so excited to hear about your full trip. I can't imagine the disappointment of your cancelled flight, but at least it was only 1 day.
 
Sounds like a awesome trip. I'm sorry you had such bad luck with your flights. I hope things got much better after you arrived in Orlando.
 
Our flight from our hometown to Frankfurt had been cancelled.

Ugh was what I thought when I read that update on Facebook! You have been looking forward to this trip all year and now this! But at least you got to enjoy this lovely lunch:

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That looks like a very good pizza! Tom must be a very good cook!

Glad you finally made your way over, always a hassle to have to cancel and rebook everything but whew at least it all worked out and you are in vacation mode. :)
 
Wow, that stinks about your flight and missing a day but at least you had many more to enjoy.

After we had recovered from the initial shock of the cancelled flight it was not so much the lost day, but all the things that needed to be rearranged. I had a lot of dining experiences booked and they would have started with a Monorail Dine Around, which we were to miss as we would only arrive the day of.
I was really unhappy to see my well planned vacation fall apart, but luckily we were able to juggle things around and we were even able to rebook BOG!
:thumbsup2

We are visiting Munich and Austria in April. We will be spending a few nights in Hallstatt.

Is it just Hallstatt you are going o visit in Austria? Hallstatt is very beautiful with a lot of history. I bet you are going to like it. I just hope you'll have good weather as it makes it even more beautiful.

What part of Austria are you from?

In the North/Upper Austria

Can’t wait to hear all about this trip, a month long trip of Disney is a dream of mine!

Usually our trips to the US are between 4 - 6 weeks as it makes more sense with the hight of the travel season airfare. And it makes for a relaxed trip as there is no time pressure. :goodvibes

So glad to hear the next day was successful and you were on your way.

I took a sigh of relieve when we moved out of Frankfurt. What else could go wrong ........... ? :rotfl:

I just had a chance to log on today. Thanks for the notification Karin!

No pressure Teresa. Just wanted to let you know that I started. Life gets busy sometimes. ;)

We had such a great vacation this year, I can’t wait to read your report!

It definitely was a great vacation. We loved every minute of it.:cheer2:

I'm so excited to hear about your full trip. I can't imagine the disappointment of your cancelled flight, but at least it was only 1 day.

The good thing was that it was only one day, even though we were both pretty "unhappy" with it.
They must have known a while before that the flight would be cancelled and could have let us known. There are other means to get to Frankfurt and we would not have minded taking a train, but being stranded last minute was so u
nfair.
 
Sounds like a awesome trip.

It definitely was!

I'm sorry you had such bad luck with your flights. I hope things got much better after you arrived in Orlando.

Once we had made it to the resort, everything was fine. It turned out to be a lovely time and the time with friends was fantastic!

Ugh was what I thought when I read that update on Facebook!

I was so angry with the way they told us and especially wih the person at the gate, who was so not helpful. That'S what really got me going.

You have been looking forward to this trip all year and now this! But at least you got to enjoy this lovely lunch:

It had been a long time in the making and everything had been planned out and now we had to juggle things around and it had us to use the car to go to some dining events, which I had not wanted as I had wanted Tom to enjoy the liquid treats as well. ;)

That looks like a very good pizza! Tom must be a very good cook!

He definitely is. I am very lucky to have him being the cook of the house. :thumbsup2

Glad you finally made your way over, always a hassle to have to cancel and rebook everything but whew at least it all worked out and you are in vacation mode. :)

Once we arrived, we very quickly got into vacation mode, especially since we got to meet our friend Pamela very early into the trip and she is so much fun to be with. :goodvibes

Wow not the best start to the trip but hooray you're in the air.

Definitely not the best start, but thankfully it was the only disappointment. From the time we arrived the fun started and it stayed that way.
 
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Day 2, August 9


Let’s try this again! - Part 2


The flight was mainly uneventful and about two hours before we were supposed to land we were served dinner.

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Again it was a choice between chicken or pasta and again we both chose the chicken dish, which was

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Grilled Chicken Breast with Barbecue Sauce accompanied by Pumpkin Stew and Sweet Corn Mash and Fruit Salad with dried Lingonberries for dessert.
We had made up about an hour of flight-time and were approaching the Florida Coast and were happy to be able to get out of the plane soon, when the captain came on again, telling us that we were redirected as there was a thunderstorm approaching the airport.

So we went all the way down to Lake Okeechobee.

We went all around it and back up to Orlando and when we finally had made it there we had lost all the time we had made up.
The plane finally landed more than two hours late and while rolling to the gate we were told that we might be stuck on the plane for another hour as the immigration hall was full.
Can you see a trend here?
But at least this delay did not go through as we were directed to our gate and within five minutes the doors opened and First and Business Class passengers started to get off.
Soon it was our turn and we hotfooted it over to immigration where the lines were ever so long and it took us another hour to go through, even though we had a very nice officer, who even spoke German. Good thing when immigration takes that long is that your luggage has already been delivered by then. So we went around the belt and collected all four pieces we had checked in, left through customs and stopped right before we hit the elevator to pack one of our carry-ons into our half empty suitcase and off we went.
We hauled all our luggage down to the rental car counters, walked over to Hertz, preparing ourselves as every company had a long line and finally got to ours, where we were surprised by each and every station being manned and it was our turn within a few minutes.
We had a voucher and everything possible had been paid for, so it only took us about 5 minutes and we were told to pick any car we wanted in a particular row.
Now, I hadn`t noticed that we were way off from where we needed to go and once we got outside the humidity hit both of us and our steps slowed down and it took us a bit to make it across the street and up the escalator and over to our row. Tom went ahead to check out the cars while I slowly crawled over, pulling two of our four pieces of luggage.
When I finally made it there, Tom had narrowed it down to two cars and we finally agreed on a blue Hyundai.
All of our luggage fit into the trunk and only our carry-ons had to go on the back seat. Tom fixed the GPS and adjusted his seat and then we finally left the airport. It was now way past 9 o’clock and it had been a long day.
It took us about half an hour to finally drive underneath that welcoming Walt Disney World Arch and on to our first resort, Bay Lake Tower. Once we made it to the Magic Kingdom parking area, we missed some of the signs and went into the Magic Kingdom parking lot instead of taking the new road to the resorts. S
o we wasted another 10 minutes going around the parking lot and back to where we had been supposed to go.
We made it to the resort at 20 past 10. There was a parking space close by the entrance, which was lucky, so we just took a suitcase each and the carry-ons and headed inside. Since we were a day late we had been assigned a room the day before, so we knew which one it was, the only thing missing were magic bands.
So we headed to the front desk, found a Cast Member and she was quick to check us in and go get our magic bands. I told her that there should be a second set, our annual passholder ones and she promised to bring those back as well. When she finally came back, she only had the regular set as the passholder ones were nowhere to be found. They tried to order us new ones but we never received them during our trip. Once we were checked in, we headed to our room

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and as I had suspected our standard view room on floor 3 had both, a water and a theme park view.
By now we only had little time left to head over to the Contemporary and get a few nibbles, so we parked our luggage in the room and headed over to the Contemporary where we did a little shopping for some drinks, Tortilla Chips, some salsa and a cupcake from the Contempo Café. And while I returned to the room with our shopping, Tom went to the car to pick up the rest of our stuff and bring it back to our room. Finally we had arrived. It was past 11pm when we finally sat down, had a drink and snacked on

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some chips and salsa and

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the cupcake. We finally went to bed shortly after midnight.



To be continued .....
 
I'm a little late!

I do remember following your saga of trying to get to the US on facebook. That was crazy but I am so glad you finally did make it!
 
I'm a little late!

Not at all, Jen! I just started this one.

I do remember following your saga of trying to get to the US on facebook. That was crazy but I am so glad you finally did make it!

I was glad we had that group to share some of the disappointment with you all, but as you know, there was lots more fun to come once we finally made it.
 
Yay you made it what an exhausting adventure. I’m sure you both slept well.
That’s the magic of Disney no matter what stresses you have prior to arriving they all melt away once you see the sign :goodvibes
 
Yay you made it what an exhausting adventure. I’m sure you both slept well.

It made for a really long travel day, but we were so happy to be back on the ground and that our vacation had finally begun. Slept well - you bet. Didn't take me a minute to fall asleep. :rotfl2:

That’s the magic of Disney no matter what stresses you have prior to arriving they all melt away once you see the sign :goodvibes

Driving under that sign makes me heart jump. Nothing better than being back home where we belong. ;)
 

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