Our Day One at WDW.....frustrating.....fun, exhausting....

Our first day of arrival was so exciting, and frustrating all at the same time.  We arrived at Orlando International Airport about 1:20pm, and made our way pretty quickly over to Disney's Magical Express.  Boarded, and we were off about 5 minutes later.  We arrived at our home for the next 5 days, Port Orlean's Riverside.  That was when our frustration began.  First off, we pulled up, and there was a yellow fire truck parked right by the main entrance.  My husband and I both looked at each other and said, "oh great!"

 We made our way into the registration area and over to the "on-line" check in desk, as we had done our check in at home 10 days before.  For my readers who are not aware of this, Walt Disney World resorts allow you to check in 10 days ahead so you can get through the registration process quicker.  Normally, this is what happens.......however, Disney was updating their system on the 8th and 9th of October.  I could not even get into the travel agent site at home the day before, or the morning we departed.  We arrived and they said, "our system is still down so we really can't check you in completely, and your room is not ready anyway.  If you will please come back in an hour, it should be up, and we can get you all set."  So, we went for a walk around the resort a little and went back at 3pm.  Still not up, and they said they could make up temporary room keys.  Well, that's fine, except we had dinner plans with ADR's and we were planning on going to Magic Kingdom that evening for a few hours.  They had to make us one day passes, and told us we would have to pay for our dinner that night because there was no way to connect the temporary one day cards to use for our meal plan.  That was very frustrating.  So, we just paid for dinner that night as we had more ADR's for the trip than dining credits anyway.  Not really a big deal.  So, we go to our room, no luggage.  We had been in the same clothes since 4am, and I really wanted to change before going out that night, but again......frustration.  I wanted to change my shoes as the keds I had on were not what I would wear to the parks.  With the problems I have with my feet, I need more support........but no choice.  We had to go "as is."
We took the boat down the Sassagoula River to Downtown Disney Marketplace, and then caught a bus over to Wilderness Lodge for dinner.

 I had not eaten there in years, and the food was as good as I remembered.  But, before dinner was cocktail time!  After all the frustrations so far, I needed a libation!  Well, our server recommended the Moonshine Margarita!  Wow!  Really?  Moonshine?  Well, it is legal to distill it now, so I guess we might start seeing this served at places more and more.  So, she said to me, "if you don't like it, you don't have to pay for it!" I said, sure.......and OH!  WoW!  It was really good!  I highly recommend it myself!  One was all I could drink though....2 of those and I would be seeing 3 Dumbo rides, not the 2 that there are now!!

After dinner we went over to Magic Kingdom for a few hours.  To my surprise, Main Street Electrical Parade was running that night.  It was not on the schedule for that evening, so I was happy because I thought we were going to miss it totally.
We went about our merry way doing some different things, making our way over to Cinderella Castle.

  I wanted to go check out the new Storybook Circus which I found to be a bit confusing.  Especially in the dark.  The queue for the new Dumbo was odd, as we had a hard time finding where you go in.  We finally did, but by the time we got in there, and waited a little bit, it was getting too close to MSEP time, so we turned in our pager, and left.

We went out to Main Street, which was totally packed and we barely got a decent place to stand.  We were surrounded by foreigners who spoke no English, and they could not get the point through their heads that they had to stand "inside the white line" as the cast member kept saying over........and over........and over again!  I felt bad for her because these people where not listening, or understanding.  So, the parade begins, and we had been standing there, in one place for over a 1/2 hour already.....well, remember before I said that I have to wear certain shoes when I go to the parks?  Well, that point came to be a reality that evening because my feet were killing me!  So bad so, that we had to leave from the parade route before the parade was over.  My feet hurt so bad, and there were so many people, I thought I was going to pass out.  So, we made our way back down Main Street toward the train station.  We went upstairs and waited for "Wishes" to begin.  That is actually a really nice place to watch the fireworks.  You can't see Tinkerbell really good when she makes her flight, but we did see her!

After the show was over, we made our way over to the Polynesian to meet with Tony Caselnova  from Disney by the Numbers.  Since I am writing for him, I thought it would be great to meet in person.  What a nice guy he is!  I was so incredibly exhausted at that point, I totally forgot to have my husband take a picture of us!  Next time!

Finally we arrived back at our room, and thank goodness, our bags were there!  We unpacked and I took a bath, and when I went to sleep that night,  I honestly don't even remember my head hitting the pillow!  I slept great, and was ready the next day to head off to EPCOT!

Day 2 story coming soon!  Thanks for reading!!