footballmouse
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2008
Introduction
Hello everyone, I'm Jenny, single mom of 3 grown boys, 1 daughter-in-law and 1 granddaughter. My kids don't travel with me anymore since they have to pay for themselves so I've been heading to Florida with a friend or two but I really wanted to go back to Disney. If that's where I was going to go, it was going to be by myself. About a month ago I found a flight with Frontier that left at 7:15 am and returned home at midnight that same day for only $38. I sometimes do product studies for P&G and I'm paid with a Visa gift card. I finished up a study in November that paid pretty well so I decided to use some of that money for my park ticket, saved the rest for my beach trip. Rolled my Disney Visa Rewards onto a card and decided to book the flight. I was really only paying for my flight and uber from airport. I was getting excited to go and I asked my Florida friends if they wanted to go with me (I really didn't want to go by myself). The one said she wasn't able to and the other waited until the day before and since the flight cost kept increasing she decided not to go, so I was on my own. Keep in mind that I can't eat in a restaurant by myself so I'm not sure what made me think I could do this.
Travel Day - 1/16/24
Tuesday came I headed to the airport at 4:30 am. I signed up for a free 3 month trial of CLEAR+ at the airport so that was helpful to get through security. Go to my gate and bought Genie+, since I was going to be limited on time I thought this was the best move. 6:00 came and I received a text that my flight was cancelled. I'm sorry, what? I looked around and nobody else seemed to be getting the notification. Finally one man said something so I spoke up and said my text showed it was cancelled, a lot of other people weren't notificed. I went to the main ticket desk and she did say that I could be refunded or be put on a 12:30 pm flight and a flight home the next morning at 6:00 am. I went ahead and took that flight, drove back home to get things reorganized. Text my kids to let them know of the change and asked my oldest to come over a little later to feed the dogs and let them out instead of stopping by after work. Called Disney and got a room at All-Star Sports for $119, I didn't think that was a bad price so I was okay with my decision to stay overnight. Made a ILL for Tron because I didn't want to miss out on that and I grabbed a LL for Peter Pan. Threw a couple of things in my backpack, let the dogs out one more time and then headed back to the airport. Security was a breeze and waited at my gate. Around 12:00 there was an announcement that the flight has been delayed until 2:30 pm. Are you kidding me! I knew that was not enough time to get through the park, nor did it make sense to pay $168 for a ticket for only 4-5 hours. I decided to cancel the whole trip. Texted my kids not to worry about the dogs, I was getting ready to drive home. I was on the phone with Disney to cancel the resort (nonrefundable but I was going to ask) when I started getting text from my kids to just go and stay all day tomorrow. I thought about it and realized that I did take the next day off of work, I already had a room, I just needed to get a flight for the evening. Still on hold with Disney, I ran up to the gate desk and asked about changing my flight to the evening. He said he could get me on a 9:45 pm flight out of MCO at no additional charge. Book It!!!! Disney comes back on the line and said he was able to cancel my room and refund the money, and cancel and refund my money for the ILL and Genie+.
Um, thank you so much but I need to book a room again. I called Ticketing and had them move my ticket date to the next day and called Reservations back to book another room. This guy was on top of things b/c he got me a room at Sports again only this time is was $99. 
Thank you very much!!!!!! So I'm all set, return ticket in hand, room confirmation sent to my email and oh look, the plane is boarding. Off I go.I've never used Uber or Lyft before so I was a little nervous navigating that but when I got to MCO I reserved a car through Uber (they were cheaper) and I was on my way to the resort. I haven't stayed here since my oldest (he's 29) was 4 and I was excited to be back. It's such a cute resort and I liked the upgrades to the room. My oldest said that he did remember the big footballs and baseball bats, my other 2 said they were jealous that we never stayed there when they went. I stopped at the desk and she gave me a card to use for my room key and my ticket since I mentioned that I was nervous using my phone. I wasn't sure how that actually worked. She was very helpful and I was off to find my room.
I decided that since I was all on my own I was going to eat somewhere that I've never been before. I was thisclose to heading to the Poly and trying their QS option but then I remembered the Riviera and the Skyliner. That's what I decided to do, head to Riviera to play on the Skyliner and then stop at Primo Piatto for dinner. Hopped on the first bus that was waiting so I ended up at Epcot and then caught a bus to the resort. Can I just say OMG the Riviera scent ... heaven!!!! I made my way over to the Skyliner and would you look at that, it's closed for the week. I completely forgot since I didn't have any plans to use it. Ugh
, might as well go get dinner. I decided on the Croque Monsieur with the Romano & Herbed Fries, very good but way too much to eat. Ate the fries and took the sandwhich back to my room. Grabbed a bus going to the Studios and then to my resort. It was actually very relaxing, the bus ride, the walk back to my room and just sitting there eating and reading a magazine. I couldn't wait to get into that wonderful bed. It was a queen bed but they had 8 pillows on there. It was sooooo comfortable. I slept great that night, no rolling around, didn't get up for the bathroom at all, I was just so comfortable.
. I atleast grabbed my phone and bought my 
. I got the heck out of there and headed to Space Mtn. I know this probably wasn't the best choice, I could have gotten a LL for it later in the day but that's they only place I thought to go to, BTM was down for the week. SM was a walk on so when I got off of that I made my way over to Frontierland. I stopped and picked up a Cheshire Cattail, this was on my Need to Get Snack list. First time I got it and it won't be the last, it was really good 
. Nothing I could do so I accepted the change and figured I'll deal with it later, I had to get to my HM LL (priorities, I know 
). Realizied that I had until park close (10:00) now so I started to slow down and just meander around. I made my way back over to Gaston's by now (evening) and saw that the line wasn't bad at all but I decided to ride Under the Sea first. Well when I went back to Gaston's, it was closed. Seriously 
! I guess I wasn't meant to try the Brew. 
. I guess I could have just found a seat at the front of the airport but I didn't know if there was any seating before the security check points. I decided to come up with another plan. By now MK is closing so I sat down to figure out if it was cheaper to get an Uber or Lyft from MK or the resort. Uber from the resort was cheaper so I jumped on a Sports bus. While on the bus I got a crazy idea to ask if I could just hang out in the lobby until 3 am. The girl at the desk said it was completely fine to stay and gave me a toothbrush, some toothpaste, and floss. Around 2 am after I was done people watching, I went in the bathroom and freshened up. My Uber came at 3:30.
!!!!! This is where my rage for Frontier came into play. The ticket agent asked if I wanted to speak with a supervisor since there wasn't anything he could do. I of course, said yes. Instead of a supervisor another ticket agent came out about 15 minutes later. I said that I wanted to talk to a supervisor, not another ticket agent. He said if I wanted help then I needed to talk to him. A supervisor finally made her way out and the two of them were so rude, I just couldn't believe they worked in customer service. She told me that I never had a reservation on the 9:45 flight. Yes I did, the agent at the gate made the change and booked that flight for me (at no extra charge, thanks Cincinnati Frontier people). Then I showed her the email I received stating that my 9:45 flight has been changed. I told her over and over that I accepted the change to the 6 am flight. All she did was fold her arms and tell me "no you didn't, you were never on the flight." I could have screamed, I really wanted to jump over the counter and punch her but I knew that wouldn't have been the smart choice. I finally ended up paying for a 12:30 flight. I asked for the ticket agent's name and then I asked him what the supervisor's name was. He said he wasn't going to give it to me. I waiting 35 mintues before someone finally gave me her name. While I was waiting I watched another guy get yelled at because his suitcase was over the weight limit so he was taking things out. He asked if her could use any emply scale to check the weight and the ticket agent literally yelled at him and told him "no, get back in line". He said he wasn't trying to cut in front of anyone he just wanted to check the weight at an empty scale. She wouldn't let him.
. I can't say enough for the great customer service that I received from them. The park was fun, did so many things, maybe next time I would slow down a little. Resort was wonderful, definitely would stay here again. Never had a problem with the bus system, maybe waiting 10 minutes at the most for a bus maybe once.
