Mom/Daughter Birthday Celebration: Lots of Firsts and Laughs! (Update 3-18-13)

[mousetravel]

Join me for another one of our Mom/Daughter trips to WDW! We had some rainy days, but tons of fun! Here's the quick who, what, when, where, and how did we get there?



Who: Mom, who loves everything Disney.
Daughter, who also loves Disney, celebrates her 17th birthday on this trip!

What: Another Disney vacation, just the two of us!

When: June 13-21

Where: Split stay at Best Western LBV & Disney's Saratoga Springs

How did we get there? We flew Allegiant Airlines this time. I always have either drove by myself, or took the Amtrak. I have to say I love arriving in Fl. in 55 minutes vs. 10 hours!!!


Here we are having her an early birthday get-together before we left:

Hope you all join me while I share our memories, along with lots of reviews!!

 

[jenseib]

Woohooo!!!!

 

[TinkerBrig]

yay! sounds like it`s going to be a fun trip report

 

[alice99]

I Love my mother / daughter trips..... and am really looking forward to hearing about yours!

 

[NancyLuvsMickey]

I'll ready for another TR!!!

And I gotta tell you that my DD went on vacation last week with a friend and there was a Disney Outlet store in the town they went to...

I know... Who knew???

Anyway, she bought me a Disneyland sweatshirt and a Mickey bag to carry all my work papers to/from work... She's the BEST!!!

And the Disney outlet is only 3.5 hours away... I'm thinking ROADTRIP!!!

 

[mnrhannah07]

I'm here!!!!

 

[mousetravel]

Woohooo!!!!

yay! sounds like it`s going to be a fun trip report

I Love my mother / daughter trips..... and am really looking forward to hearing about yours!

Thanks for joining my TR!!

I'll ready for another TR!!!

And I gotta tell you that my DD went on vacation last week with a friend and there was a Disney Outlet store in the town they went to...

I know... Who knew???

Anyway, she bought me a Disneyland sweatshirt and a Mickey bag to carry all my work papers to/from work... She's the BEST!!!

And the Disney outlet is only 3.5 hours away... I'm thinking ROADTRIP!!!

How neat! We always have to make it a road trip on our Disney store shopping visits! There's 2 malls in the Atlanta area that have Disney Stores, so we always go to both, especially since we have to drive almost 2 hours to get there!

Glad you joined me on another one of my TR!

I'm here!!!!

Glad you're here!

 

[mousetravel]

Wednesday, June 13

One of my "firsts" that I will be reviewing is our Allegiant Airlines experience.



We decided to go with Allegiant because they had a great rate, even after adding in all their fees, etc.

We had a late flight, leaving from GSP at 8:45pm.

I had read a few reviews of Allegiant, some good & some bad. For us, we had no complaints at all! It was a quick 55 minute flight. It was quit bumpy, though, because we ran into stormy weather. I was really nervous but amazed at how beautiful the sky was, as it was lit up by the lightening.

The employees we dealt with were very nice, the plane was on time, departing and arriving there & back. The airports were easy to navigate, probably because GSP and Orlando-Sanford are small airports.

DD & I have traveled many times, by ourselves, and I was worried about navigating around the airports and getting the rental car, etc. by myself but everything went smoothly!


Here we are, bored and waiting....

In the previous pic, see the lady off in the background, to the right? Well, she saw us taking pics of each other, and came over & offered to take one of us together! How sweet!

I didn't prepay for assigned seating, but for both flights, we ended up sitting together anyway! The way it works, is they call groups of priority, family w/ kids under 8, pre-paid seating, then they do "open seating", so you get on and just sit at any available seats. So it worked out great!


Here comes our plane...

Got a great window seat, and a pretty view of the sun setting...

More pics from the plane:

A few more pics, just cause I was bored.....

We finally made it!!

We got our luggage and headed to the rental car area, which was a long walk, especially in the rain!!!! The walkway was covered, but it was raining pretty hard, so we did get a little wet (with the umbrellas being in the luggage.... ).

We got to the rental car counter (Alamo), and it was a quick process and we were off to find our car. They gave us a choice between 3 cars, which I'll post a pic of in my next update. Since it was dark by now, I didn't get a pic until the next day.

So we headed off for the rainy, hour drive to Orlando, and to our hotel:
Best Western LBV (in the Downtown Disney area)

 

[UGAFan0829]

Yay! I'm so excited that you've started the report!

I'm glad that you had a safe flight down--I loved seeing all the pics! I think I would have a little scared if the lightening was flashing!!! That makes me nervous on the ground, much less in a plane! I'm glad that the airports were easy to navigate.

 

[mnrhannah07]

We have flew into the orlando airport so many times and I never have priced a flight into Sanford. I actually never heard of it before the Dis, where many people talk about this airport.. How big is that airport? I'm going to look at prices for our upcoming Nov trip...

 

[LuvEeyore]

Joining in for the fun. I just love your trip reports.

 

[reyasmommy]

You're like me LOVE to take pictures of EVERYTHING!! You're daughter is beautiful, I bet it's hard keeping all the boys away.

Excited to read more and to see more pictures.

 

[tyandskyesmom]

Glad to see you've started! I need some good reading to keep me occupied for 137 more days...

 

[SnowWhiteInDisguise]

Been a bit of a lurker, read your PTR and now excited to read your TR. hope all of your planning went to plan!
xXx

 

[Bethislucy]

Joining in nice to see another carolina family.

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

Just joining in. I read your last trip report and I'm glad to have found this one too.

 

[alice99]

We have flew into the orlando airport so many times and I never have priced a flight into Sanford. I actually never heard of it before the Dis, where many people talk about this airport.. How big is that airport? I'm going to look at prices for our upcoming Nov trip...

I really dislike flying into or out of Sanford Airport, it is 45 minutes from the Disney area.

It would have to be a very good deal for me to fly from there.

Sorry, ff topic:


To the OP - I am enjoying your trip report and photos. It's getting me excited for my December trip with my daughter....... leaving the boys at home.

 

[jenseib]

I'm glad you liked Allegiant. I rented from alamo too. so I know how far away it is...and pulling a suitcase along doesn't make it any better, so I can imagine it raining yuck.
I know people say Sanford is too far away. but we never have made it from MCO any faster than we do from sanford, so it's not bad at all.

 

[disney.nut]

Keep the trip report coming. Can't wait to hear more. What part of SC did you live? We live in Augusta, Ga. I guess you can say we are neighbors.

 

[Pinkocto]

Subbing, must now go back and read