Our Little Vacation in December - Day 1

It seems that I've neglected to post on our recent vacation to Didneywhirl. For those of you who don't speak Philly - that translates to Disney World. Last year when Jim and Jess came out for Christmas, and told us that they had joined the Disney Vacation Club. They told us to clear a week in 2008 to join them down in Disney, and they would use their points to take care of lodging for the week for both families. Since they were taking care of that, all we had to do was budget for park tickets, plane tickets down, food and souvenirs, and a rental car for one or two days possibly. What a generous offer from my dear friends - more like family, I say. In any case, over the year we scrimped and saved our pennies, and used the budget minded talents of my wife to be able to afford to go. So, I'll try to break down the vacation like I did our reunion earlier this year, so I don't leave anything out (if possible.)

Day 1 -

We left on Sunday evening from here. We couldn't find anyone to take us to the airport, unless we left our car with them for the week. I don't really feel comfortable doing that, as I have this fear that they're going to save the gas in their car by tooling around town in ours running errands. We ended up finding a long-term off-site parking lot that wasn't too expensive to eliminate begging for a ride. We flew Southwest (my first time) down, and I can see why they are a successful company. We took the Disney Magic Express shuttle from the airport to our hotel for the first night, as we weren't joining Jim and Jess at the resort until the next evening. It was late, and we just wanted to get the kids down and sleeping. Our bags didn't make it to the room until well after midnight, but Rachel had prepared for that by packing the PJ's in a carry-on. I walked down to the McDonald's to get us some dinner, and in doing so found out two very important things about Orlando that would serve me well. First, EVERYTHING is more expensive - Second, that I would have to get used to half-cooked hamburgers served by some flunky in a costume for the next week. That ended our night, and we were looking forward to starting early the next morning.

Here's a picture of our hotel for the first night - All-Star Sports.