A Disney Parks Around The World Journey: Day 4 – Man Plans, God Laughs

“The best laid plans of mice and men…” – Robert Burns

Today I woke up at 6:00 AM and decided since I was up that I might as well go start some laundry. The laundry is located in the Moorea building right next door, so I get dressed and walk on over. I walk outside to a very pleasant surprise. It is MUCH warmer today then the low 40s Fahrenheit it was yesterday. It felt like the mid 50s and I wish I had time to go for a run as it was perfect running weather.

The laundry machines were free to use which was nice and you only had to pay for detergent if you didn’t bring any from home. There was only one other person doing laundry at this hour so I didn’t have to wait for a machine thankfully.

I brought the laundry back to the room and Kendall and Lucy help fold, and we packed up the room. One of the joys of traveling with a carry on is it doesn’t take long to pack a room as you really aren’t bringing much. We left the room right at 11:00AM and my parents pick us up to go to mass a short drive away at Mary Queen of the Universe.

Another bonus of having my parents living in Orlando, is that they can ship and buy any merch we buy on vacation. We traditionally buy only a magnet when we go somewhere, but this trip we did buy some of the VIP merch and we didn’t want to drag it across the world so they’ll ship it home for us.

We went to mass, and like any Catholic mass it was totally uneventful. Afterwards we went to Panda Express for lunch. We don’t have a Panda Express in Ashland and Lucy and I love it, so anytime we have a chance to go to one we typically do. We bought the family meal which was an insane amount of food for 39.99 which included 3 large entrees, and 3 large rice.

Our next stop was Walgreens, or “Greenwalls” as Lucy likes to call it for some last second items, like some snacks and a hair brush. Airport snacks are ungodly expensive so we always try and buy some prior to arriving at the airport to save some money.

It’s been many years since we flew out of MCO, the main airport in Orlando, as due to Allegiant we typically fly into Sanford. Our family is all about smaller airports, so having Allegiant fly to Sanford is perfect. Most prefer MCO because it’s closer to WDW, but I find the time it takes to get to WDW somewhat equivalent as the time it takes to get your car rental and the added time to get out of MCO somewhat neutralizes the shorter travel distance. Also, MCO really lost a huge advantage since the loss of the Disney Magical Express.

Our flight on Delta was at 5:25PM out of Terminal B and we arrive at the airport at 2:50PM which gives us ample time to get through security. Since we are team carry on it was nice to not have to stop by the check in counter as the line was kinda long to check a bag.

Interestingly enough the regular line today is shorter than TSA.

We debate for a short moment which line to go for. The main difference in TSA vs the regular line is that with TSA you don’t have to pull out your electronics, liquids, or take off your shoes, belt or light jacket. Pulling the electronics and liquids out of our carryons is an absolute pain so we’d rather wait a couple minutes rather than go through regular security.

Unfortunately, that was not an option for us today because when we get to the front of the TSA checkpoint, the security officer notes we don’t have TSA on our boarding pass. The KTN number apparently fell off when we upgraded the flight and we didn’t have TSA precheck. We could go to the counter to add it on, but it’s just not worth it to be honest so we get out of line into the regular line.

We go through security and as we are just finishing we hear Kendall’s name called on the overhead to go to ticket counter. Kendall then leaves Lucy and her luggage with me and she goes out of security back to the Delta ticket counter. My assumption is it’s likely something we dropped or left behind. Normally a passport or ID tends to be the most likely thing but I wasn’t missing either of those so I wasn’t sure what it was. Kendall comes back a couple minutes later, and thankfully, it wasn’t anything too exciting. It ended up being a credit card that must have fallen out of Kendall’s wallet when she pulled out her ID for security. We can only hope that’s the biggest mishap that happens this vacation.

After the minor snafu we then go to The Club at MCO. This is a lounge we have access to via either our Capital One Venture X or Amex Business Platinum. We arrived and they say they are full and it’s a 45 minute wait. They tend to overestimate wait times significantly as people fall of the list fast because they have to make their flight and end up being no shows when called back. It ultimately ended up only being 17 minutes long.

This wasn’t the greatest lounge ever nor the worst. The furniture was pretty worn and needed replacement, but it’s free food and drink and better than sitting in the terminal so I’ll take it.

It had a cute little kids area, but Lucy wanted to sit in the comfy chairs though so we did not utilize it.

It was definitely one of the larger The Club branded lounges that I’ve been in and had a large work space and several seating areas.

The food was pretty scarce though and not really enough to make a meal.

The good news is we had just stuffed ourselves with Panda Express so we so we just got a drink. Interestingly enough, they had gummy bears which was definitely unique in terms of lounge food, and they were shockingly pretty gummy and not hard like a rock like you’d expect. We eventually headed to the gate at 4:35PM for 4:45PM boarding and we boarded on time.

Today we were flying Domestic First Class via my Flying Blue and Delta Skymiles in seats 2A,2B,2C.

It was a pretty standard Delta First Class seat on what appeared to be a newly refurbished A319 with larger in flight entertainment screens than typical.

Being only 5’3” I have ample leg room in economy, so this felt palatial.

We were offered a preflight drink, pushed off from the gate and left on time. The flight was a brief 37 minutes and they didn’t even turn off the fasten seatbelt sign. Unfortunately, Lucy ended up spilling a ton of water on herself midflight and we’d have to change clothes in Miami. This isn’t a big deal though as we planned on all showering at the Miami lounge and changing clothes before our long haul red eye flight anyway. We landed at 6:10PM but we had a last second gate change so we didn’t taxi to our gate till 6:35PM.

After arriving at the gate, we left the terminal to check in with Air France as they had not issued our boarding passes despite completing the online check in. This is not a particularly abnormal occurrence for an international flight as sometimes they just need to see your passport prior to issuing your boarding pass, but today my spider senses were going off and I was starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Unfortunately, over time, through conditioning, our family has been trained to expect the worst when we travel. I know many families in which the worst thing to ever happen was maybe a delayed or missed flight or a lost luggage. I would absolutely kill to have that travel record. I’ve had the misfortune of having experienced the vast majority of travel issues and disasters over the years such as:

• Kendall being run over by a car in Zimbabwe
• Me and Zack being quarantined with COVID in Ecuador
• Skidding off a road in middle of nowhere Alaska into a bog prior to the days of cell phones
• Having to leave the Inca Trail mid trail due to a family emergency.
• Riots around the Arc de Triomphe the day we were to see the Champs-Elysee.
• Getting scammed by a taxi cab in Russia for $250 dollars for a $10 dollar taxi ride
• Being left behind by our tour group in Columbia and then subsequently getting into a car wreck in the taxi getting back to the cruise ship
• Being stranded in the sketchiest area of Quito at night with no way out. So sketchy in fact Ubers and Taxis do not go there due to a very high carjacking rate
• A cruise being blind sided by a massive storm causing the ship to tilt so much that the chief safety officer on board attempted to launch a life boat during the storm
• Driven to the wrong airport on the day of our flight causing us to miss our flight
• Having our hotel room broken into and my camera and other items stolen
• Booked the wrong date for a flight finding out at the airport on the day of the flight
• Nearly missing a flight because we did not have the physical credit card the flight was purchased on with us, so we had to produce other documents proving we purchased the flight
• Hotels ceasing to exist and no one informing us. This was even a Marriott branded hotel, so not some random brand.
• Trips to the ED in foreign countries
• Massive last second airline itinerary changes by the airline
• Sickness of family members at home while on vacation causing a trip interruption
• The standard overbooking, missed flights, lost luggages, bad weather, missed port stops, stolen and lost phones, and a variety of other lost items.

Needless to say as I approach Air France’s desk I ask myself what could possibly go wrong? Well, buckle up boys and girls because you’re about to find out and it’s a doozy.

Read the conclusion here.

Read about the previous day here.