We Broke All The Printers! - A Hurricane Dorian TR- Updated 10/26 *COMPLETE*

LeiaIsAPrincess2

Mouseketeer
Joined
May 10, 2018
Hello fellow trip report readers! Coming up, a story of last minute plan changes, heat, hurricane scares, heat, trying out new restaurants, heat, and days we never used a Fastpass! If you'd like to delve in to all the gory details of how this trip came to be, check out my PTR in my signature.
In a nutshell, last Christmas my cousin and I started talking about our 2019 WDW trip and how we wanted to take another cousin with us (she's a Disney Parks virgin). She unfortunately is dealing with chronic medical issues and couldn't come but a friend of ours could and so the planning began!

Some introductions:
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Me! I'm Leah and this was my 4th trip to WDW, after 2 trips in 2018 and a semi-disastrous family trip as a child. Now I'm an addict and I have 2 more trips in the works. I own a pet sitting/dog walking business and I'm a Certified Veterinary Technician (veterinary nurse). I live in Minneapolis, MN with my 3 dogs, 1 cat, and 2 parrots, and I'm lucky my mom is willing to stay with them all while I travel! There's no way I could ever pick a favorite Disney movie and some of my favorite characters are Belle, Dug, Eeyore, Pluto, and Chewbacca. I'm a huge Star Wars fan and I was actually named after Princess Leia.

Our Disney trip expert and planner is my Cousin, who I'll call DC. She's been to WDW a bazillion times and does an awesome job planning our trips. She's also the person who got me addicted to these trips :rotfl2: She had her work cut out for her with all the last minute changes to this trip!

Finalizing our trio is a good friend of DC's and now a good friend of mine, who I'll call DF. She's been to WDW before but not for about 3 years. We were excited to show her Pandora and Toy Story Land!

This trip was originally planned for Sept. 3rd-9th, 2019 and we booked the Magic Your Way deal in a standard room at the Contemporary with the regular dining plan. We wanted the extra bed so no one would have to share and we always get a good value from the dining plan because we like to eat!

I had a few things I really wanted to accomplish on this trip:
Visit Toy Story Land in the dark
Visit Pandora in the dark
Have my first dole whip
See Happily Ever After
Buy a spirit jersey
Attend MNSSHP
See Illuminations during our La Hacienda dinner
Visit my friends the manatees
Walk the animal trails at Animal Kingdom

How much did we manage? Follow along to find out!

Next Up- will we even make it to Orlando. Go away Dorian!
 
Following! I live an hour away and wait times during Dorian were great! Excited to read along.
 


Following! How much do you charge for watching dogs(while people travel to Disney for vacation)
 


Following along! Dorian really threw a loop in all of my planning so I'm interested to hear how yours worked out! :-)
 
Me too. Im in. I can't wait to read all about your adventures.
:welcome: There were plenty of adventures!

Following! How much do you charge for watching dogs(while people travel to Disney for vacation)
:welcome: A complicated question- I actually don't stay with dogs while people are out of town because my schedule and my own dogs won't allow it. I do out of town pet sitting for cats and exotic pets and midday dog walking while people are at work. In general, 30 min pet sitting visits in this area are around $20-25 each and staying overnight is about $55-100 a night.

So excited to join in and hear all about it!!
:welcome:Glad you are here!

I'm here too - fellow Minnesotan, out of St. Paul. Excited to read your report!
:welcome: Howdy neighbor!

Following along! Dorian really threw a loop in all of my planning so I'm interested to hear how yours worked out! :-)
:welcome: It certainly made an interesting start to our trip

Joining in.
:welcome: Happy to have you!

Joining in!!
:welcome: Welcome aboard!
 
A lot of words and very few pictures to kick off this trip report but a lot happened right away!

August 31 & September 1

I had this weekend almost completely off work to finish my final packing and prep my house and pets for my mom to come and stay. Hurricane Dorian was moving closer to the US and depending on which weather channel you watched, it was either going to hit Florida or miss it entirely. I started reading threads here on the DIS looking for better information about it and hurricanes at WDW in general and saw many people canceling or rescheduling their trips. Of course, I start panicking because that’s what I do. Luckily, someone recommended following Denis Phillips weather on Facebook for more accurate forecasting and he kept repeating that Dorian would stay offshore. Dorian was moving so slowly that we didn't know what to expect.
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On September 1st, our flight out for Tuesday morning (the 3rd) became part of Delta’s offer to change or cancel for free. DC, DF, and I discussed canceling our trip or delaying but their jobs would not allow us to push the trip back. MCO was supposed to be closed on Monday the 2nd but they lifted that closure and I immediately messaged DC to see if we should try to move up our flight to Monday instead of waiting to see what would happen on Tuesday. We couldn’t reach DF to get her opinion because she was at work all day Sunday (she’s a Physician’s Assistant). We checked the forecasts again and decided to move our flight from 7am Tuesday until 6pm on Monday. This was either going to be the best decision ever (if the hurricane missed us) or the worst decision ever (if we were flying directly to the hurricane area). DC called Disney to try and add on a night at the Contemporary but they were full, so she booked us a night at the Poly instead. We were able to tell DF about the changes late Sunday night and thankfully it all worked out for her too. She was supposed to have some lab work drawn on Monday but she still had time to do it before our flight. Still slightly stressed, I headed to bed.
 
September 2nd- Travel day, finally!

After not sleeping much, I had 2 pets to care for today and that wasn’t enough to keep me distracted! I finished work around 1pm and stopped at Wendy’s to grab the lunch of champions (chicken nuggets and fries). DC messaged to say she’d already gotten our room ready text and we were in the Rarotonga building on the 3rd floor. I headed home to wait because DF’s husband was driving her and DC to my mom’s house, who was taking all of us to the airport. My dogs gave me sad puppy eyes and my cat seemed pretty indifferent to me leaving.
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I was still checking the weather every 5 seconds and Dorian was just moving so slowly. Right before everyone arrived to pick me up, I got an email from Delta saying my flight was canceled and I just about had a heart attack!.Once I opened the email, I realized it was our original flight for Tuesday morning that was canceled but I also saw that MCO would be closing at the end of Monday’s flights. Whew.
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We had a short ride to the airport because I live about 5 mins away, and DC surprised us with first class tickets. We were a little worried about security because MSP is doing some construction and people were reporting 2-3 hour waits, but we made it through in about 10 minutes, including having DF’s bag pawed through because she forgot to pull out her meds that were on ice. We grabbed some bottled water and settled in to play Disney Emoji Blitz while we waited. Way too many hours later boarding began and as soon as DC scanned her ticket the gate agent told us to wait because our flight had been delayed or possibly canceled. I literally thought I was going to cry. She got on the phone right away and was talking to someone and telling them they’d already started boarding. After a very tense few minutes she told us to go ahead and not to worry. We actually took off about 15 minutes ahead of schedule and I finally started to relax! I was seated next to a nice lady who had just run through the airport to make her connection and she started drinking right away. I completely understood the feeling! I watched Detective Pikachu and had the turkey salad dinner and a few glasses of wine. The movie and the food were pretty meh but it passed the time.
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As we landed, DC realized she’d never updated of DME info so there likely wouldn’t be a bus for us. Everything at the airport was already shut down and it was pretty creepy so we just decided to order a Lyft. Our driver was very nice but had a super thick accent. She asked if we wanted the route with or without tolls and we said without. Unfortunately, toll charges showed up on DF’s Lyft account later so she is still fighting that. We arrived at the Poly around 11:30 and found our room pretty easily.
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We starting looking at the park hours and notices in MDX for the next day and it was showing that the parks were closing at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Even though we were all exhausted, we decided going to Super Crazy Early Morning Magic Hours at Hollywood Studios to see Galaxy’s Edge would be the best option since we didn’t know how long the parks would be closed. I also had the fun experience of realizing my aerosol sunscreen had exploded in my checked bag. It ate through the ziploc it was in, ate the paint off my hairclips, turned my toothbrush into powder, oil stained a bunch of clothing, and ate through the lining of my suitcase. I cleaned everything up the best I could and we headed to bed for a few hours!
 
OMG, thank goodness your flight wasn't cancelled! She should have verified BEFORE giving you a heart attack.

How cool that your cousin surprised you with first class seats!!!
 

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