OMG You're a Disaster......no wait I'M a Disaster! August Land and Sea Adventure!...Updated 9/30

[Woth2982]

Hello Hello!

Ever have a friend that is a complete disaster? Sometimes I think it is contagious, I mean how else do I explain ME becoming a complete disaster?

I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here. Allow me to introduce myself.

I am Katie. Happily married (most of the time) and a mother of two. I amuse myself during the day working as a Cost Analyst. Ok it isn't amusing. It is boring AF, but it pays the bills and keeps me in Disney so that is all that matters.

Here is a photo of my happy family last March. Little man was 2 weeks old here and a week exactly before he was born, my extremely cautious daughter decided it was time to be adventurous and fall out of the crib at my parents house and broke her arm. My life ladies and gents. My life.



For this trip I decided to leave the three of them at home. It isn't that I don't love my family, but I needed a break from them. They are a lot of work! Why aren't babies born self sufficient? I kid. I love being a mom, but all moms do need a break. Plus, my friend and I booked this trip before little man was even conceived so what choice did I have?

So who is my travel companion? My fellow disaster in the making? My bag enabler?

My friend Anne of course!

Anne is a social worker and cat mom. She ditched her boyfriend and cats for this trip. Again, to be fair, we planned this trip before she had the cats. If I am being honest, cats and kids wont stop us from doing this again.

So, now that you know who we are, and what awful humans we are for having not qualms about leaving our families behind, where are we going?

We are going on one of the Inaugural Voyages of the Wish of course! We were on the Wish August 22-26, then we stayed for two nights at the Beach Club Villas in a Studio on Anne's points. We are both DVC owners and have stayed on each others contracts before.

So come along with us as this Epic Disaster unfolds!

 

[dizneedoll]

Great start! Following along. Thank you for sharing!

 

[Paulaparm]

Following !

 

[summerlvr]

Great start! Can't wait for more!

 

[Woth2982]

Great start! Following along. Thank you for sharing!

Welcome! Thank you for joining!

Following !

Welcome! Thank you for joining!

Great start! Can't wait for more!

Thank you! Welcome aboard!

 

[footballmouse]

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Following! Land and Sea in the works for my parents 40th next year! So this will help immensely!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Joining in! I can't wait to hear all about your adventures sans kids.

 

[Woth2982]

Well when we left off I was introducing myself.....ourselves? Us? Eh anywho.

I mentioned that my friend is a disaster, and she is. She just rolls with it and it is our favorite joke. She is a really good sport about it and has a great sense of humor. We have traveled together for years and know each others habits. We like to do things together and we like to do our own things. It works so well for us!

Our travel day was one of those solo adventures.

Flights for this trip were $$$$. Seems like everyone in the northeast needed a last minute get away to Florida. Why August? I have no clue. We have free heat here. I would have preferred not to travel to Florida in August, but this honestly worked best with both our schedules. Anne flew out of Boston, I happened to be stalking flights (I already bought mine) and found a REALLY good fare so she booked it right away. Her flight was for noon-ish, and mine was at 7:20 PM out of Providence. I live equal distance from both airports and prefer the Rhode Island air port. I did say on the cruise the airport was the only good thing about Rhode Island and pretty sure my 2 year old has failed 8th grade English as a result......more on that later.

We flew out on August 21st, this also happened to be my DD's 2nd birthday! So our morning was spent getting spoiled by her Grandparents, Aunt, Uncle and Cousin. Mom and Dad just got her cake lame parents that we are.

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After Cake Savannah and her cousin opened all her gifts. You can see my packed bags ready and rearing to go behind S.

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Once the birthday part fun ended, and the mess was cleaned up, both my kids went down for a nap and my parents and the in laws went home. I hung out and obsessively checked my Southwest App to see if my flight was delayed. Around 4:30 I found out I was delayed about 30 minutes. No big deal. Around 5:15 I said my final good byes to my family and headed out the door. I drove myself to the airport, given my departure and return times it just made the most sense. Plus I needed to catch up on my Pod Meets World Podcast, and that is best done solo (any other Boy Meets World fans out there?).

I got to PVD around 6 and parked my car. I got the most perfect parking spot ever. Directly across from the elevator. Like 50 steps max car to elevator. I got all my bags out of the car and had my first "OH NO" moment.

WHERE ARE MY KEYS!!!!????
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I had switched bags from my Loungefly to my Dooney and forgot to put the keys in my Dooney. I have keyless entry so I never remember to move my keys, they are always JUST THERE. So I took a deep breath and pondered a moment. If I didn't have my keys the car would not start. My car was in the driveway which is FURTHER from my kitchen where the keys would be. My car wont start if it is in the garage without the keys, so no way it will start in the driveway. That is when the lightbulb went off in my head. I PACKED my Loungefly in my carry on suitcase! Dug out the little bag, found the keys, locked the car, and walked to the elevator from the most perfect parking spot in the garage.

I strutted my stuff right into the airport, where there was no wait to check my bags. Waltzed through security with basically zero wait. Saundered to my gate. Parked my butt in a chair, pulled out my kindle and took in the bliss of being ALONE in an airport. No one to bother me. I could read a book. I could watch a movie. I could do whatever I wanted! I was alone.....you know with a couple hundred of my closest friends who would join me on my flight.

While alone in my bliss of loneliness, I get a text from Anne.

Anne: Sooooo......the Hyatt you booked, is NOT the Hyatt at the airport
Me: Ummm what? It says HYATT AIRPORT on the email!
Anne: So yeah, there are two and you need to take a shuttle to get there
Me: TWO? No one told me there were two!
Anne: Yep, here is the number. Call that when you have your bags and they will pick you up.
Me: Ok cool. I am delayed but I will text when I land. See you soon!

Finally our boarding groups were called and I got on the plane. I secured an isle seat and settled in with my ipad so I could catch up on 90 Day Fiance. Anne had let me know she made it to the hotel and was going to go to sleep but there is a key for me at the desk. Cool. Crisis averted. We had gotten all our Ooopsie's out of the way in the first few hours.

Or did we? Stay tuned.......

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[BroadwayHermione5]

Love Pod Meets World!


I have to remember that there are TWO Hyatt’s.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

I had switched bags from my Loungefly to my Dooney and forgot to put the keys in my Dooney. I have keyless entry so I never remember to move my keys, they are always JUST THERE. So I took a deep breath and pondered a moment. If I didn't have my keys the car would not start. My car was in the driveway which is FURTHER from my kitchen where the keys would be. My car wont start if it is in the garage without the keys, so no way it will start in the driveway. That is when the lightbulb went off in my head. I PACKED my Loungefly in my carry on suitcase! Dug out the little bag, found the keys, locked the car, and walked to the elevator from the most perfect parking spot in the garage.

Keyless entry is a blessing and a curse!! I hate that feeling when I know I have to have my keys or I couldn't have gotten anywhere, but I cannot seem to find them. Or, I drop Hubby off somewhere, he gets two steps, and the car starts blaring because he kept the keys in his pocket when he got out. I do adore the keyless in many ways, but it has its own quirks.

Parked my butt in a chair, pulled out my kindle and took in the bliss of being ALONE in an airport. No one to bother me. I could read a book.

Only a mom of little ones can truly understand the value of being able to just do one's own thing in a moment of quiet. Even now, I have it better because my kids pull out there books or audiobooks and leave me the heck alone for some amount of time. But, during those infant and toddler years, ooooof! It's completely overwhelming how darn *needed* you are.

 

[Woth2982]

Welcome!

Following! Land and Sea in the works for my parents 40th next year! So this will help immensely!

Welcome! I hope this report helps! I will make sure to include all our travel woes.....I mean arrangements.

Joining in! I can't wait to hear all about your adventures sans kids.

Welcome! It was so wonderful, I missed them but only at certain moments of the day lol.

Love Pod Meets World!


I have to remember that there are TWO Hyatt’s.

Pod Meets world is so great! Yes! I will go through my emails and see if I can figure out the identifier before my next post!

 

[Woth2982]

Keyless entry is a blessing and a curse!! I hate that feeling when I know I have to have my keys or I couldn't have gotten anywhere

It really is! It is so nice when I have my hands full trying to get two kids into car seats, but when I misplace them. Yikes! One time I was frantically looking for my keys when leaving a doctors appointment. I valeted the car. Completely forgot! Another time I was driving my car on the highway (back when we had to put the key into the ignition) and had the panic moment that I could not for the life of me remember where I left my keys......my car keys.......while driving the car......on second thought, maybe it is ME who is the epic disaster and not my friend

 

[Woth2982]

My solo flight to Orlando was blissful. I read some of my book and caught up on all my terrible reality tv. We had a smooth flight with little to no turbulence. I was worried, not so much about turbulence, but for another delay, because I had heard there were some evening storms in Orlando. We landed with no incident and no further delay and as we were taxiing to the gate I sat straight up.

Panic.

Oh No!

I didn't

Did I?

No I couldn't have.

I did.

I forgot my passport at home along with my luggage tags for the cruise. My face flushed. I can only imagine what people were thinking of me. I started immediately searching for the DCL number on my phone. What was I going to do? I can't believe I did this. I am a DISASTER! First the keys, then the hotel, now THIS. So I got a hold of a very nice DCL rep who said all I needed was a COPY of my birth certificate and my license since it was a closed loop cruise. Ok cool.

Call hubby. He didn't answer. Call again. Still nothing. One more time. ANSWER HUSBAND!!!!! He doesn't. I leave him a voice mail saying I am ok, but CALL ME BACK! Then I sent him a text that said I needed him to send me a copy of my birth certificate and my marriage license (I did not need that, but if I didn't have it I knew I would need it). Meanwhile I am texting my mom

Me: So I did something dumber than Andrew
Mom: What?
Me: I forgot my passport
Mom: WHAT! How?!
Me: Stress

Backstory - Andrew forgot his wallet the last time we went to the airport. I almost killed him, but there were too many witnesses, and I do not look good in orange. My parents were able to help him out and thanks to a delay, he got his license in time to get on the plane. So I was HYPER aware of this before I left my house. He also lost his job in June and has not been as aggressive in getting a new one as I would have liked him to be, so I was stressed out leading up to this trip. My type A personality and OCD has been in over drive the last three months, plus I am still dealing with being post partum, so it is a lot.

So my mom is trying to figure out if she can fedex me my passport in time for me to get on the boat and I am trying to wake up my hubby. Finally my bags come and I head out to the shuttle stop to wait for my bus to the hotel. Meanwhile I am searching high and low using Lord Google to see if I will be ok with a copy of my birth certificate. I screen shot the DCL website that says COPY of birth certificate.

The Shuttle picks me up and takes me to that OTHER Hyatt. I go to the desk and ask if there is a business center so I can print something in the morning. They tell me yes and give me my room key. I barge into the room and inform Anne I am in fact a disaster and left my passport at home. She is still sleepy and asks how I got on the plane without it. I kindly reminded her that Providence to Orlando is a domestic flight and as of today I do not need a passport to fly there. Hind sight if I did it would have saved me a lot of anxiety.

It is now after midnight and I am exhausted. Husband is not answering the phone and there is nothing else I can do at the moment, so we agree to go to sleep.

The next morning I wake up to a text from Hubby saying he got all three of my panicked voice mails and my text and sent me copies of my birth certificate, marriage license and passport (just in case). I inform Anne, that if this does not work, she is to get on the boat without me. We also decide we are hungry so breakfast is a must.

Now one of the major benefits of being dumb and booking the WRONG Hyatt, is the OTHER Hyatt is across the street from A Denny's! I love breakfast and I love Denny's. So we walk over to Denny's and ponder whether or not there are alligators in the little pond we are walking by. We decide that since it is water and it is Florida there are in fact alligators in there, so we should avoid going near the water. This is also when Anne tells me she has NEVER BEEN TO DENNY'S! WHAT??? How?

Naturally I had to document her first visit with a photo

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Being the Basic B's that we are, we both got French toast, bacon and Diet Coke. We are MAJOR DC addicts. In fact we even got the waitress to give us two cups to go, which we drank on the walk back while pondering if the fishermen knew that there were alligators in that pond. We debated if we should tell them or not, but in the end it was hot and they were too far away. I am sure they were fine.

We got back to the room. Packed up our stuff and I went down and printed out my documents and said a prayer they would work.

Here is our room. Nothing fancy, but it did the trick for the night. It was about $150 for the night and had two queen beds and a couch. We decided in the future we would absolutely stay here again. In addition to the Denny's there was a TGIFriday's next door in walking distance. With the free airport shuttle this was well worth the price we paid. Some times mistakes are the best decisions.

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Now to get to the port we had a few options. I did some deep dives into what the best bang for our buck would be. There was the traditional Disney bus, but that was about $80 round trip and I had to call since we were returning to a Disney Hotel verses the airport. So after all my research I found a company called Airport Canaveral. It was $22 each one way and a shared van situation. Nothing fancy, but it was perfect for what we needed. We ended up with two other couples on our shuttle and it was nice chatting with them. We would definitely use them again. I cruised in May with my whole family (6 people) and we ended up renting a car, since that made the most sense for what we needed.

Up Next......my moment of Truth, will I get on the boat? Stay tuned.....

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

My this is getting stressful!


Also as someone who doesn’t leave the ringer on her phone-I still would’ve texted back asap lol

 

[Hubie]

I'm anxiously awaiting what comes next.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

No passport, oh dear!! Thank goodness it's a closed loop cruise!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[Woth2982]

My this is getting stressful!


Also as someone who doesn’t leave the ringer on her phone-I still would’ve texted back asap lol

Haha imagine living it! He slept through his ringer! Worries me if I have a REAL emergency. In pre-cellphone by the bed days, I was in a really bad car accident, my mom was working as an overnight nurse at the time and slept during the day. She forgot to plug the phone back in when she got up that evening. I was on my way to work at 5 am when a drunk driver ran a red light and totaled my car. I could NOT get a hold of anyone and didn't have my moms work number memorized yet! The hospital also had a strange name so I could not remember what it was called for the police to look up the number. So I have a little PTS when people don't answer phones.

I'm anxiously awaiting what comes next.

Stay tuned!

No passport, oh dear!! Thank goodness it's a closed loop cruise!

Yes, that was my only saving grace and allowed me to sleep that night.

Looking forward to reading more!

Yay! Thanks!

 

[Woth2982]

So when I last left off, I had NO passport, and a print out of my docs, and on the shuttle to the port.

As we got closer to the port we saw her in all her glory.

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Well we saw part of her and most of the parking garage in all ITS glory. Not the worst photo I have ever taken, but pretty close.

We approached the terminal and got out of the van. Tipped the driver, handed off our bags to the porter, and said a Hail Mary. Held my breath and walked towards the building. I have no photographic evidence of this as I was dragging my carry on suitcase in one hand and clutching my printed copy of my birth certificate in the other. We got into the line for Castaway Club members and held our breath. We showed the guy in charge our drivers licenses and my birth certificate and he scanned our boarding passes. One hurdle down.

We go through the snaking line and I get distracted by a service dog. He was a beautiful black lab. I told the owner if he goes missing do not come to my room. He will NOT be there. I am not sure what his job was, but if he was an anxiety dog, it surely helped me.

Finally it is our turn. We get sent to the customs lady in the concierge line, we got no special upgrade, but I like to think her over the top service for the concierge folks worked in my favor. She took Anne's passport and checked her in.

Then she looked at me. She said "Can I have your passport?"

Me - No

CM - No? Are you a felon?......ok she didn't say the last part

Me - No I forgot my passport, but I have my drivers license a copy of my birth certificate, marriage license, and a copy of my passport.

****45 minutes of staring blankly at me goes by****

Ok so it was maybe 2 seconds.

CM - OK that is not a problem at all, I just need to scan it into the system and update your account. It will just take a minute.

****Another 45 minutes goes by****

Ok it was actually only two minutes.

CM - OK you are all set!

Me - Really? That is it? I can get on and more importantly OFF the boat?

CM - You are able to get on and off the boat! Have a magical day!

Me - Yay!

Anne - You are a disaster

Me - I know, but Yay!

I texted my mom that I made it through security and sent a photo!

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Up the magical escalator we went to wait for our boarding group. Mom texts me back and says text me when you are on the boat. She refused to believe I was safe until I was on the ship. We sat in the magical lobby with the calming blue walls and anxiously waited our turn to get on the boat. I pulled out my kindle and read a little bit, but I was too anxious. I looked around for my anxiety dog friend, but he was no where to be found. Finally they called our group!

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Group 21 was clear to board. We got into the snaking line and headed towards the big Mickey Ears that would bring us to our home for the next four nights. Anxious to get on the boat and to the bar......I mean on the boat, yeah, just on the boat......we opted to skip the photo. We got to the front and had our boarding passes scanned and walked up the ramp. We got to the main atrium and the CM proudly announced "THE DISNEY WISH WELCOMES KATIE AND ANNE!!!"

Woooo the crowd goes wild! Or we breathe a huge sigh of relief that after my disasterous day -1 that all was good.

I took a selfie to Celebrate and we were on our way!

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