Last Minute Trip to WDW!

On Friday, January 30, my mom officially retired from a four-plus-decade career in nursing!

The same day, I received an email about a sale on Frontier Airlines.  I decided to look at the dates and destinations; C and I are always up for an adventure and we've been known to take spur-of-the-moment trips if a great deal presents itself.

The Washington to Orlando flights were $29.  $29!!!!!!!  At that point, I had pretty much decided that if there was any way to make the available dates work, I was taking advantage of that sale.

It turned out that I could fly to Orlando on Sunday, only two days later, for that $29 fare.  I have class on Wednesdays and Thursdays this semester, so I knew I would have to return on Tuesday.  When I checked that date, the return fare was $82.  Amazing!  $111 return for direct flights at very convenient times!  Yes, please!

So since I knew C would not be able to take Monday and Tuesday off on such short notice, I immediately thought of my mom and how we could turn this into a quick getaway to celebrate her retirement!

I called WDW Reservations and was able to get a great room at Yacht Club for an amazing rate.  With everything falling into place so easily, I was feeling more and more like this trip was meant to be!

On Sunday morning, we were taxiing toward the runway to take off, when suddenly there was an announcement that we were going back to the gate because a family wanted to get off the plane.  Very bizarre.  This delayed our departure, but overall, the flight was uneventful and I was able to do a ton of reading for class. 

Our seats were right over the wing, so I took a bunch of photos:

We landed at 9:38 am, and sat a few hundred yards from the gate for over an hour.  Over an hour!  We did not get off the plane until 11:00 am (thank you, text message time stamps!).  The seatbelt sign was turned off during that time so people could stand up, stretch, go to the bathroom, etc., but still!  That was a very long wait.

Determined to not let that minor inconvenience affect our day, we grabbed a drink from Starbucks, got our rental car, and were on our way!  We decided to stop at Downtown Disney to do a little shopping before checking in, and we went to Ghirardelli for sundaes.  So yum!

my secret identity

After checking into Yacht Club, we just wandered around the resort and relaxed before our dinner at Beaches and Cream.  The Super Bowl was on, but neither of us care for football beyond hoping the Seahawks would win because they are my brother's favorite team.  We all know what happened, so that's the end of that conversation!

Monday was another relaxing day.  We had breakfast at Ohana, which is over at Polynesian.  It was my first chance to see the new lobby over there and my first time at Ohana, which is a character breakfast with Mickey, Pluto, Lilo, and Stitch.  The food was delicious and having the characters - especially Pluto! - come to the table was fun!

We took the monorail to Grand Floridian and no matter how many times I visit different resorts, there are always details that I seemingly notice for the first time.

We then took the monorail to Contemporary, and along the way, I snapped a photo of the entrance to MK – not bad, considering we were moving!

While we were at Contemporary, a huge rainstorm appeared.  These photos were taken about five minutes apart.  It seemed like one minute I was talking about Discovery Island, which was right outside the window, and the next minute, Discovery Island was shrouded in clouds while the rain came down.

We went back to Yacht Club to relax for a while, and then headed to Art of Animation for dinner and then Port Orleans French Quarter for beignets.

Tuesday meant checking out, which is always my least favorite part of any trip!  We had a late breakfast / early lunch over at Pop Century and then just relaxed the rest of the day before heading to the airport.

Although we would have loved to stay, let's face it, forever, this was a great trip where my mom and I could just be together without worrying about medical tests or doctor visits.  So I'll take a 60-hour trip to WDW with my mom ANY DAY, even if it seems crazy to everyone else.

Life is short.  Say yes whenever possible!

Happy Tails to you!