The alarm went off and there really was no time to spare this morning, so we got up, finished packing, and headed for the tower. I go back to work tomorrow, so it’s apparently time to go home.
I’d noticed when I checked my email that I hadn’t gotten the usual check out morning folio, so I checked the app, where it said I needed to check out at the front desk. Thankfully, the CM with an iPad pushed some buttons and got things squared away. For some reason the system hadn’t zeroed out my file, even though I’d done all the right things. It was a quick process, but added a step I didn’t want to spend time on after a short night.
We hung out in the Tower lobby for a few minutes before it was time to head to the bus. Obviously, that meant I took some pictures.
About 20 of 8 we headed for the bus stop. Our bus pickup was scheduled for 7:55 am. The bus rolled in early and we actually were rolling out of the resort at 7:54. Take them seriously when they say to be early to the bus stop folks! Also, Mears sent a bus tracker link to me when the bus was on the way, but not until it was already almost at the resort.
We were the last stop before the airport, so even with morning traffic, it was a pretty quick trip. We’d apparently partied too hard the night before so Nick slept.
Even with a stop at Terminal C, we were unloading at the main airport by 8:30. We somehow took the extra long route to the Southwest ticket counters, but we found them easily, and because so many people fly to the northeast from FL, we bypassed the longer lines at the main Southwest counters, and took full advantage of the separate Southwest counters that have been set up just for destinations in the Northeast. We had boarding passes and my suitcase checked pretty quickly.
Then it was off to security, where we waited maybe 5 minutes to get our IDs checked. Actual security took even less time, and we were on a tram to the gate before 9 am.
Needless to say once we were gateside, we found some breakfast. Nick got McDonald’s. I went to Jersey Mike’s, because I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were a) making breakfast sandwiches and b) making breakfast sandwiches with real food. Like they crack a real egg on the griddle for their breakfast sandwiches. I had an egg and cheese sandwich. It was excellent. Nick had…whatever he has from McDonald’s. Oh and I had one of the McDonald’s hashbrowns, because he’s a smart husband and always buys one of those for me.
We were done eating with still 2 hours to go before our flight. Mears got us to the airport just a little early…
Eventually we made our way to the gate, where Nick read and I texted until flight time. Boarding was on time. The flight was uneventful. Nick slept. I didn’t. Nothing new there. We landed in Baltimore a few minutes early, which is always nice.
Once in Baltimore, we grabbed lunch at Chick-fil-A. They initially screwed up our order and gave us chicken sandwiches with pickles, instead of plain chicken sandwiches, but Nick got that squared away, and we enjoyed our late lunch, because it’s Chick-fil-A. Then we worked our way to our next gate, where, surprisingly for a midday flight, this flight was also on time. Our flight up to Manchester was also uneventful, but it was longer than the typical flight to MHT from BWI (meaning it actually took more than an hour like it was scheduled, instead of the usual, just under an hour), which was really unfortunate because Nick takes the window seat, I take the middle and the guy on the aisle was an armrest hog who had clearly never learned about deodorant.
Needless to say, I was very glad to touch down in Manchester, even though it had been a great vacation. After we deplaned, we headed downstairs. I hung around baggage claim while Nick hung back a ways, since it was only my suitcase that needed claiming. My suitcase was the very last one to come out onto the carousel…like it emerged and then the carousel was immediately turned off, so this took awhile. Less time than at a big airport, but the wait was awhile for Manchester.
Suitcase in hand, I turned around and…Nick was nowhere to be found. I waited a few minutes, looking in the direction of the bathrooms thinking he’d gone there, but he didn’t emerge. Then I started to see people gathering near the escalator to the parking garage, and cops heading in that direction. Hmm. And then Nick came walking over from the direction of the escalator, left his bag with me and said he had to go wash some guy’s blood off his hands. Umm.
Nick emerged a few minutes later and told me “some old guy” had fallen on the escalator and gotten pretty banged up. Nick, having dealt with his share of escalator incidents in his days working loss prevention at Macy’s, had hustled over and stopped the escalator and then helped get the guy up and situated not on the escalator.
We headed for the parking garage, with Nick taking a route past the dude to make sure a) he was still breathing and b) he was still being attended to, and then found the car and headed out. As we were leaving the airport, we could see an ambulance arriving, so we knew for sure that the escalator dude was going to get medical attention. From here it was a quick ride back to my in-laws, where the dogs were thrilled to see us. We chatted for a bit, loaded the doggos up in Nick’s car, and headed home to get ready for my first day back at school.
Final thoughts:
Nick did better than I had anticipated, but if I do any future summer trips, he’s not invited for park time.
I’m sure I’ll have future value resort stays for solo trips, but we have definitely become moderate resort people.
Coronado’s layout isn’t nearly as overwhelmingly big as it seems. I really enjoyed this resort, and I’d happily stay there again. French Quarter, though, is still my favorite moderate.
It’s really hard to juggle party events AND multiple new headliner attractions. But I’m really happy with how much we accomplished that evening.
I like the Christmas party better than the Halloween party. Nick would like to try the Halloween party again some year in October. I think he thinks it will be cooler and less humid.
I feel like I found the right balance this trip between parks and non-parks, which is good, because with the cost of tickets, less park time is probably going to have to become the norm!
It was so nice to be able to try a bunch of new to us restaurants.
I’m blown away by how good our weather was for August.
I’m getting too old to do 4 parks in one day in the summer!
It was a great trip, despite how wild the days leading up to it were!
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