Our 3rd Anniversary at WDW: Part 1

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

Travel day! I love flying to Orlando, compared to driving I'll take flying any day. We always fly Southwest Airlines and each time we have a pleasant experience. Since I was still having foot problems, I was traveling with the walking boot. Thankfully going through airport security was easy (Indianapolis airport's security usually isn't busy and the TSA are usually nice). We arrived at our gate and ate our breakfast while waiting for the plane to arrive. When it was time to board we got to board first since I had a pre-boarding pass.*

*Southwest has open seating, there are no assigned seats. When you check in for your flight you'll get a group letter and number and when boarding everyone gets boarded in groups (A, B, and C). If you have a disability or require assistance to board you can request to pre-board so you can get on the plane before everyone else so that you can get the assistance you need without being in the middle of a large group and potentially hold everyone else up.

The flight attendant who helped us board (I got to ride in a wheelchair) was so funny! His name was Raoul and he kept cracking jokes with everyone. Since we pre-boarded we got to sit in the front which was wonderful, with the boot on I needed all the leg room I could get. We took off and had an easy flight, Chauncey played games on his tablet and I watched a movie on my laptop which made time go by quickly, plus we landed almost 15 minutes early!

After landing we collected our luggage and took Magical Express to our hotel, Pop Century.

We checked in and took our luggage to our room. Then we went to bell services where I picked up my ride for the week.

I knew going into this trip that with the boot I would not be able to do all the walking required at WDW. It's too heavy and wearing it at home it ends up making my lower back and hips hurt so I had to rent a scooter. Disney has scooters for rent in the parks but they're expensive, come in limited quantities and you can't use them outside the parks. So I went with an outside company, Apple Scooters. (I'll go into why I picked Apple and my experience in a separate post.)

Once I got my scooter we took off for our first park, Disney's Hollywood Studios. We had to stop at the ticket window and pick up our annual passes, we had purchased them online but didn't have time to have them shipped to us so we had them sent to will call instead. Soon we were in the park and our first order of business was to find food. On the way we came across the ending of the Citizens of Hollywood Glee Club skit.

$helby Mayer

Daley Reels

Ben Appetite

Bo Wrangler and his action figure

Stone Granite

Betty Shambles

Paige Turner

After the Glee Club left we worked our way down Sunset Blvd to eat dinner. I hardly took any food pictures this trip, sorry! We didn't do much on our first day, we did go on the Great Movie Ride.

I had a lot of fun using my new iPhone and Instagram while at WDW

I think we ended up calling it quits fairly early since we were planning on getting up early the next day for the opening of New Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom.