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1.27.2019

Disney Days 2109 {getting there}

To know our family is to embrace that we are not a group of morning people.  On weekdays you'll find kids...as well as Ian and I...stumbling around like zombies and on Saturdays you're likely to catch at least several of us still in our pajamas past noon.

But there is one thing that can motivate us to get on out of bed insanely early...

sunrise somewhere in SC

...knowing the end of the journey lands us at Disney World!  We were backing out of the driveway just before 6am!  As the kids said, "That is 'going to China early'!"


Note, I did say out of bed, not necessarily wide awake...


We made a brief stop somewhere in southern SC for a breakfast/restroom/refuel the van stop and kept trucking, hitting the GA border before 11am.


One troublesome thing we noticed, the skies kept getting grayer and heavier the further south we went.  It had been clear skies at home but literally with the FL state line sign in sight, we hit our first raindrops of the day.  They wouldn't be our last...

FL by 1:15!
 I think we stopped for lunch.  Or maybe we just ate snacks in the car.  None of us can really remember.  What we do remember is getting excited as we began to see billboards for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and the four parks of Disney World.


Despite a crazy deluge as we raced across the resort to carry our luggage inside, excitement was high as we finished checking in and getting settled.

Enough so that the reluctant photography subject even posed for a silly shot...


And of course so did the "me too" kid!


Once we switched to dry shoes and socks, we headed to the Animal Kingdom lodge to meet our dear friends Neil & Bekkah and their girls for dinner.  I grew up with Neil and Bekkah is our Magical Vacation Planner.  Let me tell you, if you don't have one and you're considering a trip to Disney, you need one.  And for knowledge of the parks and ways to save you time and money, Bekkah can't be beat!


Unfortunately we arrived right as the outside light was fading, Neil told us giraffes had just been grazing outside the large windows moments before we got there.


We ate at the Mara and spent a leisurely meal catching up after several years of the Florida/NC distance standing in the way of seeing each other.  Daniel and Em didn't know each other at all, but quickly hit it off as a duo of ten year olds, just a few months different in age.  In fact that very day they both lost the same tooth and wanted a photo to document their "sameness."


We could have stayed for much longer swapping stories over events that had happened over the past few years, but they had the drive back to the greater Tampa area and we knew we wanted to get an early start for our first day in the Magic Kingdom the next morning.


So we took one last look at the grandeur of the lodge and headed back to our own budget digs at the All Star Sports resort.

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