Ah, departure day. The BEST day of vacation.

Our departure day was on a Thursday, so CP and I both took the day off from work, as our travel plans were a bit convoluted. Door-to-door, our travel would take almost a full day.

Sound crazy? Well, it is, a bit. Where we live in Connecticut you have a few options for flying:

a)Fly out of Hartford (BDL), which is 1. sometimes very expensive 2. offers far fewer nonstop flights and 3. at the time had no JetBlue service (my favorite airline – somehow having a tv to watch during takeoff and landing distracts me from the thought of plummeting five miles out of the sky).

b) Fly out of JFK or LGA, which would mean either taking the MetroNorth commuter train to Grand Central, and then taking either a shuttle or a loooong subway/AirTrain ride to the airport. Conversely, we could take  an overpriced shuttle from where we live to either airport.

c) Fly out of Newark airport. To get to EWR, take aforementioned expensive shuttle, or take Amtrak directly to the airport.

We chose option “C.” Sort of. JetBlue flights out of Newark were cheap and nonstop.  Amtrak fare was pretty reasonable, although we had to make a brief stop at Penn Station in NYC to change trains. For our return trip, however, fares TO Newark were ridiculous, so we decided to fly back into LGA and take a shuttle home. That is until JetBlue canceled our flight and rebooked us on one that left several hours earlier, thereby eliminating day 10 of our 10-day extravaganza. With one call to JetBlue, I rebooked us, for free, on a flight that left Orlando at the same time as our original flight, except it arrived at JFK. I even found a not-too-ridiculously priced shuttle home. Sold.

Anyway.  Our travel day got off to a seamless start. Cab to the train station. See James Franco a few steps away and gawk.  Quiet train ride to Penn. Loud but brief stop in Penn station. Quick and loud trip to EWR stop.

As we unload from the Amtrak station at Newark airport and make our way into the AirTrain station that takes you to the terminal, I spotted the *gasp* DREADED SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE. All alone in the middle of the station sat a gigantic and unattended suitcase, adorned in numerous bumper stickers and held together (barely!) by a brightly colored bungee cord. Not being the happiest or most trusting of fliers I immediately got a bit panicked, until out of the corner of my eye I spotted a long-haired woman in a flowing crinkled skirt and tunic shirt, dragging a huge box toward the unattended suitcase. It quickly became clear that this woman was traveling alone and couldn’t manage all of her luggage by herself, so CP and I jumped in to help her transport her bags, even accompanying her to her terminal so that she could get to the check-in desk without killing herself (or getting herself arrested for having an unattended bag).  As it turns out she was en route to India, where she would be studying Ayurvedic medicine for several weeks. With several grateful “Namaste!”s she was off, and so were we, back to our terminal for our own check-in process.
Now I know a lot of people who complain loudly about the headache that is EWR. Granted this was only our second time flying out of Newark, but once again Terminal A was deserted.

Look out for all those people! Oh, wait...

We killed time reading on our iPads, calling family, and doing what little people watching we could in the empty terminal. Eventually we decided to brave security, which was painlessly – almost unnervingly painless. Moments later we walked down the long ramp into the gate area, and THAT is when we found all the people. Hundreds and hundreds of people, all seemingly waiting for delayed flights.  There wasn’t a seat to be found. So, CP and I stretched out on the floor, had some Starbucks, I took my flier’s little helper pills, and soon we were boarding.

As usual, another great flight on JetBlue. I zoned out to the television, slept a bit, enjoyed the free and plentiful snacks more than I care to admit (they have MUNCHIE MIX on JetBlue! What is not to love??), and before we knew it we were landing in Orlando.

The Orlando airport was quiet when we landed around 10pm. We quickly made our way to baggage, equally as quickly found our luggage, and proceeded down the endless hallway to the Disney’s Magical Express area. Unlike our April trip

The floor at the Orlando airport...apparently this is what I take pictures of after flying under the influence of Ativan.

where we forgot to record our airline information with Disney, we had received pre-printed DME tickets for this trip, and thus we just had to show them to the ticket-taker and then proceed directly to the line for our bus.  Also, unlike in April we only waited maybe 10 minutes to board a bus – our wait in April definitely took the “express” out of Disney’s Magical Express. In both cases, however, the Animal Kingdom Lodge was the last stop for the bus, so it still took us about an hour to reach the hotel.

Our room at check-in, before we demolished it later in the week.

Our check-in process was quick and painless; I wouldn’t say the person who checked us in was particularly chipper or “Disney” in demeanor, but she was efficient, which goes a long way at 11pm.  We were given our Happy Birthday buttons (my birthday was in September, CP’s upcoming in October), our I’m Celebrating buttons (that was gratuitous, but I was celebrating a new job), and we made our way to our room for the trip.  Unlike other room locations at AKL our room was only a five or so minute walk from the lobby (AKL is one huge resort), and it turned out to be a great location. At first I wasn’t thrilled about being on the ground floor, but we were close to the Mara (for drinks and snacks and quick meals), close to the pool, and close to some great animal viewing spots.

By the time we unpacked it was quite late, but we were pretty giddy and unfazed by the late hour. Eventually we turned in to sleep. We didn’t set the alarm for the next day, as this ten-day trip allowed us to relax a bit more than we would on a shorter trip (like the one coming up in a few days, for instance.)  The bed in our room was quite comfortable, we had zero noise from our neighbors, and with the help of a white noise app on my iPhone, we were both asleep in no time.

Coming up on day two:  Our first visit to the Magic Kingdom, and a very special evening at Epcot.