Blogging about trips to Disney is a funny thing. On the one hand, you want a vacation that runs smoothly and offers great relaxation and fun – otherwise, why go on vacation? But on the other hand, a problem-free vacation doesn’t always make for very exciting storytelling. There are only so many pictures of Cinderella Castle you can throw up on the Internet and still be considered someone with interesting things to say.

Luckily for you – and not as luckily for us – our recent trip to WDW was far from seamless. Between travel problems, severe weather, ongoing frustration with the MyMagic+ test, and the particular brand of annoyance that only WDW in the sweltering month of August can provide, I have lots of interesting things to tell you about. This isn’t to say I’ve officially changed my name to Debbie Downer, however – in spite of the challenges we faced on this trip, we had a great deal of fun. We had fantastic meals, stayed in wonderful resorts, met some great people heretofore only known online, and indulged in our favorite park activities. Was it the completely relaxing, restful vacation I had hoped for? Far from it. But every trip writes its own story, and sometimes all you can do is go along with it and see how it turns out.

On that note, let’s get started, shall we?

Monday, August 5

Departure day!

After spending much of my morning finishing our packing, cleaning, and setting out extra food for the cat, I headed out around 1:30 to pick CP at work and head to the airport. Our flight was at 4:45, but Hartford is a small, easy airport, and so we had plenty of time to grab some Starbucks and park the car in the long-term lot. After lugging our behemoth of a suitcase inside (seriously, this thing is huge, and draws no shortage of remarks from airport workers and fellow fliers alike), we check bags and head off to security, still with ample time to get to our gate and have some food before the flight. We proceed to the first TSA checkpoint, and the guard checks my ID and makes her notation on my boarding pass, all as per usual. Suddenly, however, someone yells out “STOP SCREENING.” What?

The security area goes eerily quiet, and we’re all held in place in our respective lines. All of the sudden, we see Connecticut state troopers rush into the security area, and they grab a man in the line ahead of us and pull him out, heels dragging on the ground. TSA agents then began yelling for all of us to evacuate the security area, and so we’re pushed nearly out of the terminal. Everyone is nervous – this was happening less than 24 hours after the state department announced a global travel warning. Soon we see more state troopers enter the security area with bomb-sniffing dogs, and they begin searching all luggage that remained on the conveyor belts once everyone was ordered to evacuate the security area.

Pushing us back out of the screening area.

Eventually we learn what was going on, and if you’re curious, here’s the details. Although we were only held up for maybe half an hour or so, people were starting to get really nervous that they’d miss their flights – typically Hartford is an airport you can breeze through, and so many people hadn’t allowed the normal 90-120 minutes before their flights. Luckily, all flights had been held during the scare, so no one missed their planes. Still, it was a totally unnerving experience. I don’t recommend it.

It’s a blurry picture (hey, I didn’t want to anger state troopers), but here’s the guy getting hauled out of the building.

Safely through security, we headed to our gate to take some deep breaths and regroup before boarding. We had just a few minutes to grab some McDonald’s before jumping on the plane. We were flying Southwest, and had purchased early check-in, which made us 3rd and 4th on the plane. This turned out to be a blessing – I’m used to Orlando-bound flights being full of kids, but this one had so many kids that one of the flight attendants remarked it was “a daycare center from the wings back.” And oh, it was. Luckily, we ended up in an exit row with only two seats in it, so we had some extra leg room and personal space. Unfortunately, this did nothing to protect us from the nearly three hours of screaming and bad body odor emanating from all corners of the plane. With Southwest free drink tickets in hand, I got myself a gin and tonic and tried to block out the chaos as best I could. Not the best of travel days, that was for sure.

Welcome to MCO.

Once in Orlando, our travel woes continue. We headed to the airport monorail, got our bags, and then to National’s Emerald Aisle, where we snagged a Nissan Rogue for our visit. (This would turn out to be a problem later, sigh. As of now, it still is!) Although our pilot had warned our flight of the potential for bad weather when landing, we had encountered only sprinkles upon landing. By the time we hit 417 toward Disney, it was raining pretty heavily. A few exits later, however, the weather had turned positively apocalyptic. Lightning strikes were hitting nearby on all sides, the thunder was deafening, and the rain was coming down horizontally such that the road was imperceptible. We pulled over to wait out the storm; eventually it diminished a bit, but the radar showed no signs of things letting up. We really had no choice but to continue driving, so we got back on the road, and moved at a crawl toward Animal Kingdom Lodge.

I think that says we’re at Universal Studios? Hard to tell in that rain.

By the time we reached the security building at AKL, the rain had let up enough that I could roll down my window and quickly show the guard my ID. Check-in was fast and painless, and I like that Cast Members are now meeting arriving guests outside, whether they are staying club level or not. Our request for a high floor room had been honored, and soon enough we were off to room 4420. Not much had changed since our last stay at AKL in 2010. The room looked good, was very clean, and I think had new lighting, since it was much brighter in the room than it was last time.

Bed bug free. (I checked.)

We unpacked, bought our refillable mugs, and walked back up to our room, whereupon I discovered that my MagicBand wouldn’t work to open the door. Okay. Back down to the front desk I went…and this would be the first of many visits on this trip. It took the Cast Member a few minutes to figure out what might be going on – apparently my Band wasn’t “encoded,” so the Cast Member made a few adjustments and sent me on my way. Off to bed. It had been a day.

MyMagic+ Problems Today: 1.My MagicBand wouldn’t open our room door. Trips to front desk/guest relations: 1. Total trips to front desk/guest relations to date: 1.

Up next: we give FastPass Plus (FP+) a try, and – much to Disney’s chagrin – head off property for a fantastic meal.