PHM Weekend Begins! Day 1

My journey to Orlando started in the evening hours on Wednesday night.  I was taking the red eye to Orlando from Seattle, leaving at 9:45pm and arriving at 8:35am.  When you travel cross country there is always time lost and I hate losing an entire day to flying, so I gambled on losing a night of sleep instead.  Good idea or bad idea?

My pre-flight ritual is the same.  I stop off at the airport bar for a little drink and my first dose of Airborne for the flight.

 

I had a layover in Atlanta before I got to Orlando, this was about the extent I saw of Atlanta, besides I was bloody tired and all I wanted to do was get to Orlando and get the party started!  By that time the tweets had started rolling in of all the others leaving on jet planes to meet at the same location.  By this time I was giddy with excitement!

I bet my seat mates were puzzled as to why I was seemingly taking a picture of my crotch, but I didn't care.  I was proud of the fact that I could buckle my seat belt and have plenty of slack on the strap, that wasn't the case not too long ago. Yay for non-scale victories!

By the time I landed in Orlando I was wired from the flying and really just wanting to be off the airplane.  I had gotten only 2 hours and change of sleep, so this was a sight of beauty.  Come to mama!!!

I went downstairs to check in for Magical Express to take me to my new home for the next four days.  Caribbean Beach, here I come!

Have coffee, will travel!

I got to the hotel and checked in, I had never been to this resort and marveled at how HUGE it was.  The lobby was completely separate from the rest of the resort, you had to take a bus to get to it!

 

Finally arrived at Jamaica, the "island" where our room was located.  I say "our" because I was sharing a room with three other ladies.  Marcia from Travel Run Eat whom I had met through Team runDisney board, Sharri and Kimberly whom I had met through Princess Facebook boards.  The four of us ladies were shacking up in this paradise for four days.  Who can argue with sandy beaches and hammocks!

However first order of business was to sanitize!  I don't care who you are, but when I go to hotels and I want to stay healthy, I always sanitize every surface my hands and face will come into contact with.  It's just good practice!

Mickey says welcome home!

I had some time to kill before Sharri arrived, so I went to Hollywood Studios to ride a few rides and walk around.

Oh yes!  I LOVE this ride.  I could ride it all day long and not get sick of it.  Though I was almost sure the guy next to me was going to get sick.  He looked like it too, good thing that messy stuff didn't happen.  Ew.

 

Got to take a ride on Star Tours, I love how there are so many story options!  I have not had a repeat story yet!

Now Sharri was coming in not long after me, so we decided to get together to check out Magic Kingdom park and relax a bit.  Today was a day for me to climatize to east coast time and try to reset my body clock so the early wake up calls didn't jolt me too much!

Had to get our picture taken just through the Main Gate!  Speaking of the Main Gate, have you seen the new entry system?  This is trippy, you put your card in front of the Mickey ears and the white light circles around, then you put your finger print on the pad and the light goes around that.  If it glows green, then the ticket and print are verified, if it glows red, then they don't match.

 

 

Ah...I'm home!  I can't believe the race weekend is finally here!  I love this place and how it makes me feel like a kid.

Now this is my kind of carb loading!  No visit to a Disney Park is complete without a churro!  It's tradition!  Though this picture was taken seconds before a seagull swooped down grabbed my churro and flew off!!  The bird made off with half my churro!  Jerk.  Next is the chicken waffle sandwich at Sleepy Hollow in Liberty Square, Sharri and I shared this beauty.  SO GOOD!!!

 

The rest of the day we spent riding rides, walking around the park and enjoying the down time.

 

Oh and caught some great fireworks as well!  The fireworks made a "hidden Mickey" too!  Can you see it?

Marcia arrived into town around this time and was settling into the hotel room as we made our way back.  The three of us ended up spending the next 2 hours gabbing about various things and talking excitedly about all our plans for the days to come.  This was going to be a packed weekend for all of us and sleep was going to be at a minimum, so we decided to turn in.  But not before Marcia and I made our plans for the next morning.  

We were doing our own version of a meetup, since neither of us got into the official runDisney meetup, Marcia named it #RunShopEat.  We were going for a run around the Coronado Springs property, followed by time at the Expo to shop (since it was being held there instead of the ESPN Sports Center) and then heading to Magic Kingdom for Nutella waffles at Sleepy Hollow.  Oh yum!  

You don't want to miss that recap and the rest of the crazy filled day, coming up next on tomorrow's recap.  Stay tuned!