The Walking Wounded Take on Disney World's Food and Wine Festival: A November 2016 Trip Report: Day 1

Day 1: Thursday 11/10/16

For me the day started about 4 am, when I woke up too excited to sleep. Some things don’t change! Nick noticed I was awake and tried propping me on his “magic shoulder”, which usually gets me back to sleep, but sleep wasn’t happening. Good thing I’d be landing in Orlando before 8 pm and would get to the hotel at a reasonable hour?

Eventually I got up and got ready for the day, which took a bit longer than usual, since I’d be going straight from work to the airport. Plus Gizmo was following me around, in disbelief that I was leaving him again.

The work day passed more quickly than I expected, and, after a quick eval summary meeting (where I got the “your room isn’t quite ready but we’ll let you know when it is” text from Disney, ha!), I was peacing out at 2. Shh...only my direct supervisor knows my real destination. The office thinks I had an appointment (I did...with an airplane!).

After a quick “please email me your question, because there’s no way I’m going to remember to look up the differences between AAC (speech generating) apps per your request” exchange with a paraprofessional as I was sneaking out the door, and a quick glance at the text I received that my room WAS ready as I climbed in my car (room request of “high floor” was met!) I was finally on my way to the airport.

Traffic was non-existent, and google was showing smooth sailing, so I decided to make a very quick detour to change into clothes that would be more comfortable when arriving in FL than khakis and a light sweater. We only live about a mile off the highway, so it didn’t add much time to detour, run past the glaring dogs, change, and run back out to my car.

About the time I got back on the highway mom called to find out if I was on the road. Her next question…”what’s going faster, the car or you?” Ha ha...very funny mom. But, admittedly, I was moving in fast forward.

The drive to Manchester was easy. Shortly before I arrived at the airport, I received the call from Southwest that my flight was delayed (ugh), but only until 5 pm. It was originally scheduled until 4:30. Perfect...don’t have to stress while I drive in circles through the parking lot trying to find an empty spot.

As I arrived at the airport, I saw a sign about active vehicle screening. I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen that sign since February 2002. Maybe they just recently cleaned it or something? Maybe I’d been too excited to notice it or too distracted talking with my parents as they drove me to the airport on previous trips?

Nope, they really were actively screening vehicles for explosives. And obviously, I got selected to be waved over. The good news is, I’m pretty sure it took longer for the officer to explain the process and for me to turn the engine off and restart the car then it did for the dog to sniff the car.

Once that screening was complete, I hightailed it to long-term parking. As anticipated, it took awhile to find a spot, but eventually I was avoiding eye contact with the shuttle driver (I’m going to be sitting for several hours shortly!), and hiking over to the terminal. I’m pretty sure the long term lot at Manchester is closer to the terminal than the rental car facility is in Nashville (to which there is no shuttle), so it’s not a bad walk.

I wasn’t checking luggage, and had already printed my boarding pass, so I was able to hop directly on an escalator to security once I entered the building. I was thrilled to discover that my favorite checkpoint (to the left to the left…) had re-opened after security expansion construction that took place this summer, and there were only a handful of people in that line (as opposed to the line at the top of the escalator, which, no surprise was much bigger!). Within minutes I was piling my stuff on the conveyor belt and waiting in line for the scanner.

And then the fun began. Before I even made it through the scanner, they had pulled my backpack for extra screening. But I took the baggie of quarters out that flagged the x-ray this summer! Going through the scanner resulted in the usual patdown of my shoulder. I really need a haircut.

Once through the scanner, it was time to see what was up with my bag. The TSA guys (they’ve got a good bunch in Manchester) were having a good time with my “Mine mine mine” luggage tag. Turns out, in addition to my bag, my bin needed screening. I can always count on Manchester to have picky x-rays.

Eventually it was determined that my camera (the same one I’ve traveled with for years) was just a camera, and my bag of liquids was not oversized (though I did notice it was filled with liquid not contained within a bottle...uh oh), and I was sent on my way.

After rearranging my stuff, I headed for gate 14...briefly. Shortly after arriving, I discovered my watch was missing. Uh oh. I knew I had grabbed it out of the security bin, so I re-traced my steps, thinking maybe I’d dropped it while juggling my coat. Found it in one of the gaps on the bench where I had set my stuff down to reconfigure everything. Phew, crisis averted!

Next stop was the restroom to deal with the exploded bottle of shower gel. Apparently, this is why I packed extra baggies. It is AMAZING how much shower gel is actually contained in one of those travel sized bottles! Every item in that bag had to be thoroughly rinsed off, and put into a new bag. All I could do was hope that the toothpaste wouldn’t end up being “warm vanilla sugar” scented…

Back at the gate, they announced that our plane had finally left Baltimore, following “operational issues”, and that our 4:30 departure was now estimated to be a 5:50 departure. At least the plane was in the air? I decided it was time for dinner and to scope out the liquor store.

NH has state run liquor stores. For the most part, they reside RIGHT on the side of the highway, including a couple of wisely positioned ones immediately after a toll booth for maximum revenue potential. A few years back the state realized that they were missing out on serious revenue potential, and put a liquor store after security at the airport. My job was to scope it out and see if they sold mini bottles there that Nick could buy to mix with Coke on the plane, since neither one of us received any drink coupons this year. Final answer? They do sell minis there.

Research complete, I headed for Quiznos. I got a sub, and found a spot at an empty gate to eat in peace, watching the sky change color, and checking in Nick for his flight the next day, and did some facebook spamming, because hey, that Magic Band is fun and I was bored! 

As I returned to the gate, they made an announcement that the plane was in range, and quite possibly was the plane that we’d all noticed just touching down, so the mad rush at the gate began. I had A60 for a boarding position, so it was really easy to find my spot. I fired off some texts to Nick (who was on his way to the state liquor commission’s distillers showcase), my dad (who was going to the same place as Nick), and mom (who wondered if I had a “move it move it” sign out yet to get people to move faster haha), letting them know I’d be on my way shortly.
 

Manchester has an incredible crew. I’ve seen them reboard a whole plane, after we’d been let off the plane while they determined next steps in a blizzard, in less than 15 minutes. I’ve seen planes turn in less than 30. It was clear that today would be no different.

Thanks to MHT’s efficiency, the plane was pushing back from the gate at 5:30. As we pushed back, Captain Lead Foot announced that due to the delay, air traffic control was going to let them fly the short route. Additionally, we would have a great tail wind. It would be a really short flight.

And it was. We touched down just after 8 pm. I’ve never had such a short flight to Orlando! Because of all of the above factors, and a really padded flight schedule, we touched down just 15 minutes after our originally scheduled arrival time. As an added bonus, it was a really nice evening in Florida. Captain Lead Foot announced that it was cold for Florida: 68 degrees. Sounds a lot warmer than the 25 a couple mornings earlier when I left for work!

I had grabbed a seat on the aisle in the 3rd row, since my only window seat options when I boarded were halfway back on the plane, so I was off the plane within seconds of the door being opened. I could feel the warm air coming through the gap between the jet bridge and the plane. It felt amazing.

I moved as quickly toward Magical Express as my foot would allow, and ended up basically walking straight onto a loading bus. Woohoo! However, there was only one family on the bus, so I knew it’d be awhile.

I think the wait was about 20ish minutes, and then we were on the road to WDW! The driver announced that POFQ would be the first stop! WOOHOO! On the way to Disney, I couldn’t help but notice gas prices were a good 15-25 cents cheaper than at home. *Sigh*. I remember a time not that long ago, when Orlando gas prices and NH were pretty much equal.

I was at the hotel a little before 9:30. Since I had my room ready text, I went straight to the room, 2318, in building 2. On the walk over, I was blown away by the dramatic difference between the value resorts and the moderates. I still have no problem with the values, but wow was this a beautiful resort.

Once I found my room, I took a few minutes to get situated (aka find my flip flops), and then it was off to the food court for some beignets, with raspberry dipping sauce!

We were in Disney for the final weekend of the temporary food court set up at POFQ. They definitely could have used a couple more cashiers and a couple more Coke Freestyle machines (those really just take too long to be used at Disney), but overall, they did a good job with the set up. My beignets arrived quickly, and while they weren’t Cafe du Monde’s, they were pretty darn good. And that dipping sauce was just as good as the sauce sold with the doughnuts at the water parks!

After enjoying my beignets, I headed back to the room to crash. But first, a couple pictures of the room. 

Once the picture taking was done, and a few more texts were exchanged, the alarm was set, and I crashed. It had been a long day!