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Day: October 6, 2010

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Wine and Dine Weekend – Episode 2

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We arrive safely at the Orlando International Airport, but we’re starving and tired.  We hop on Magical Express (I so appreciate this complimentary service more and more each time we use it).  It is truly nice not to have to run to claim the luggage and worry about dealing with it when you get to the resort, especially if you’re room isn’t ready.  The ride is cool, comfortable, and gives us not only a chance to relax, but also the opportunity to raid Jim’s bounty of First Class snacks.

We arrive within 40 minutes to Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort, and there is no line at all at check-in!  The girls and I wander over to the High Rock Springs Pool while Jim heads for check-in, but he’s nearly done by the time we wander back over to him.  Guess what?  The room is already ready!!  Get the heck outta here!  That never happens to me!

Our room is in THE perfect location!  We are in the Springs section, and you literally just walk right into the first floor room off the parking lot.  It’s gotta be easily the most convenient room we’ve ever had.  I can almost see the Carriage House from here, and the gate to the pool is just across the street from the parking lot.  This is awesome!

There is just one thing….

The room is an accessible room, and my immediate thought is this perfect room isn’t really ours.  We are really in Congress Park, way in the back, where it will take an hour and a gallon of water to get me from our room to the main building.  I hesitantly ring the front desk, but I worry about karma, and if I’ve taken a room really meant for someone who needs the amenities here, I just know that not only will I be struck by lightening, but it will be just as they’ve loaded my treat bag from Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party with Clark bars, so I won’t even get to enjoy their crunchy peanut buttery goodness.  The double whammy, so to speak.

I call the front desk, and they immediately transfer me to the Room Assignment gods, who inform me that if the room had been needed by a guest, my butt would not be standing in it.

WHEW!  We get to stay in the cool room 🙂

It’s time to check my time, because I am meeting my Moms Panel Moms at Via Napoli for dinner.  Dinner?  Oh yeah – but wait, we haven’t even had breakfast yet!  No wonder I am slurring my words, broken out in a cold sweat, and panting like a starved dog!

Now where to go for lunch?

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Wine and Dine Weekend – Episode 1

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As with all good Skamarakas Family Trip Reports, this one starts with chaos and mayhem.  After deciding to make this weekend trip, I decided to go back to school.  That means that in addition to the kids each missing two days of school, I’m missing two days of school.  I scrambled to get the kids’ stuff ready to go, coordinate my nurses schedules, make sure my doctor was okay with the trip, got my assignments emailed to me, and picked up the homemade soup and pierogies Pop-Pop was sending to Brighid.

WHEW!  I can finally begin packing to get everyone there, clothed.

Except there’s a bad storm coming up the east coast.  And despite multiple conversations previously about whether it was better to fly or drive, now that flights have gone up by $50 per person, it appears we should have made the decision to fly.  So now that the trip will be even more than we budgeted for, we’re flying!

Okay, so how much do they charge per piece of luggage?

Now I have to pare down everything I planned on bringing.  When I have successfully put everything in two suitcases that I absolutely NEED to bring, it is nearly 11 o’clock at night, and we have to be up at 5 to head to the airport.  Did I even make dinner?  No worries – they’ll probably be eating the soup Pop-Pop made on the plane as it defrosts all over us.

The rain on the way to the airport is torrential, and I am so glad I don’t have to drive 1100 miles in this kind of weather.  I’m nervous enough about the drive to Philly!  We are soon on the shuttle headed to the terminal for our first restful break of the morning – time to grab breakfast, something to drink, go to the potty.

Uh, no.  Check in is nothing if not chaotic.  We somehow got put on two different reservations; I’m not sitting with the kids, who somehow got put in emergency rows, where they aren’t even allowed to be, and Jim, who is of course Jim, is assigned an upgrade to first class.  It’s just me and Bob Uecker in the last row of the plane.  Seriously.  The last row before the potty.

By the time we’re all straightened out, the girls and I are all sitting together; we still have the LAST row on the plane; and Jim is still in first class.  But now we have to race to the gate because they are going to be boarding in a few minutes.

Good thing we’re right next to the bathroom.  It’s so hard to make a potty stop when you’re speeding through the airport trying to make sure the flight to FL doesn’t leave without you!