Chapter 3:Blast Off, at last!

So, after we were all done looking around the airport, we decided just to wait and sit in our gate's waiting area. We only had about 15 minutes before they would begin boarding, so I looked through my Golf Digest while waiting. They had some good tips on how to improve your swing, which I read through while waiting. Within 10 minutes, they began boarding First Class. After First Class was done, they would start to board the people towards the back of the plane. We were in the middle of the plane, so after 5 minutes we decided to head over to the gate because almost everyone on our flight was over there. We waited on line to get our tickets checked, which took about 5 minutes. Finally, we were ready to board the plane. We went aboard and quickly found our seats. Our plane was bigger than the plane's I'm usually in. It sat 2 then 3 then 2. We took the middle seats and one of the end seats. I sat on the far left in the middle row. The first thing I noticed on the plane was the TV's in the seats in front of us. Yes! I was hoping that we would be able to watch some sort of movie or something while in the air. Luckily, that would come true, but more about that later. The next thing I noticed was that people were bringing drinks on to the plane. What? Wasn't there a big liquids search going on and it was issued that drinks were not allowed to come on planes? I guess some people can never follow the rules :rolleyes: Anyway, it would be a while till blast-off (and I mean a whileee) so I opened my orange Under Armour bag and found my Golf Digest magazine that I stuffed in there before we boarded. I looked through that for a bit, especially at the parts about improved your game. While I was looking through it, the pilot came over the Intercom and had some bad news for everyone. He said that a storm was in the area and that this would delay their departure. Just great. There were clear skies outside our window, so I don't know where that was coming from. Anyway, we all just sat there, waiting to finally see some action going on. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. During the near 2 hours that our flight was delayed (yes, that's right, 2 hours!), I found a Sky Mall magazine in the pocket in the seat in front of me, and looked through that. This magazine is actually pretty amazing. It has a ton of cool stuff to look at, like the things you won't see everyday (interesting little gadgets). After I was done with that, it was time to bring out my iPod. I listened to a variety of songs, mostly from RHCP's Stadium Arcadium. Believe it or not, but after a while of listening to my iPod, the pilot came over the intercom and said that we would be in the air soon! Yay! It really didn't feel like 2 hours, but it indeed was. After that, I turned off my iPod for a while and decided to check out what they had on the airport's radio. There really wasn't much of my liking, but I really never listen to the radio anyway. Pretty soon they turned the TV's on in the plane and showed a video as to how they worked. They had an entertainment guide in the pouch in the seat in front of us, so I looked through that to see what kind of entertainment they would be showing us. They ended up having a variety of options, but I decided to watch Mission Impossible 3. I saw it in theaters and thought it was actually a very good movie, so I decided to watch it considering there wasn't much else anyway to watch. After I put the entertainment guide away, we were almost ready to launch our flight. Once we finally reached the runway, we all sat in our seats, just waiting to get in the air. Finally, we started to move, then going faster, and faster, and faster! Whee! After gaining a ton of speed, we started to drift off the runway. The lift-off on an airplane was more forceful than I remembered it. I popped a piece of gum in my mouth and prepared myself for the ascent. We soon got higher, higher, and higher! Soon enough, we were high in the clouds, soaring over NJ and ready to arrive in Orlando, FL.

Once we were high in the sky, our TV sets turned on, and we were free to change the station to whatever we had liked. I found MI3 on a channel, and then proceeded to relax in my seat for the ride to Florida. During the main part of the flight, all I really did was watch the movie. It kept me entertained for the entire flight, which ended up being about an hour and 45 minutes (there was a clock on the TV). Unfortunately, we weren't able to finish the movie as we began our descent in Orlando, FL. The descent was pretty rough, so I relaxed and continued to watch the movie until all the screens went blank. After that, the end was over for us. Ugh, I would have liked to watch the end. Oh well, we were about to land in Florida, and have an amazing vacation. Once we finally arrived at our gate, we waited to get off the plane and go into the airport. Once inside Orlando International Airport, our first stop was the bathrooms :P Then we took the trams over to the main part of the airport so we could pick up our bags. That ended up taking an extremely long time, and it seemed like the same few bags would go around and around... Anyway, it took about a half hour for us to get our bags, and once we finally found them, we went over to Avis for the car we'd be spending the next week in. Once all things were handled at the front desk, we made our way to the parking lot. Once we entered, I said to myself, "this is the nicest parking lot I've ever been in". Seriously, it was. There were a ton of waterfalls and fountains all over the place. Seemed like a good place for some gators...anyway, we found the Avis place which gave us our key to the car. Once we finally found it, the first thing that crossed our minds was...why do we have an Arkansas license plate!?!? That was pretty odd...anyway we piled in the Sonata (our rent-a-car) and hit the road for our hotel...The Reunion Resort. On the way there, we encountered quite a few things. 1. Being the major construction going on in the area. 2. Being the large amount of tolls on the road. 3. Was the insane amount of trees, most notably palm trees. Since it was pitch dark out, these were the only things we could take note of...other than the lit-up billboards, some of which were for Disney (We passed a Soarin' one right near the airport, as well as BGA) Anyway, the drive to the hotel wasn't bad at all. It was 25-30 minutes tops. We came down the main exit off I-4 (The main road near WDW) and encountered the area we would be staying in for the next week. The nice little area was home to two hotels, ours and Champions Gate, which had a nice assortment of restaurants and stores on site and accessible to anyone. It was already 10:00, and we were all pretty hungry, but we decided to go and finally check-in first. Once we finally reached the gate to our hotel, we found our area (the resort is HUGE) and pulled into the small gate house they have. This is where we would check in, and where they also had free, fresh lemonade :P Once we were all ready to go and were checked-in successfully, the lady said she would show was where our room was (yes this hotel is freaking hugeeeeeee) The drive to our room wasn't that long, luckily though. On the way there, we noticed a very rare amount of cars parked at their respective "houses" (Our district is a large assortment of "houses" hold 8-10 rooms). We figured they were all at Disney, but we were dead wrong :rolleyes: Finally, we pulled up to our house, with no other parked cars near it. Once we all finally reached our destination, the lady firmly said that there was NO ONE ELSE IN OUR BUILDING, but we had neighbors in the other houses. :lol: This was unbelievable. She said that it was a golfing resort, so most people didn't come this time of year. Anyway, after this strange occurrence, we walked into our room. Holy crap this thing was huge. Our room had 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a huge amount of closets. Holy crap...seriously. There were two floors all to ourselves. This was indeed amazing. After exploring every nook and cranny the room had to offer, we were all hungry :lol:. However, it was after 10:30 already, so we had to hurry. We all piled back in the car and headed over to Chili's for a bite to eat. I had my usual...Chicken Ranch sandwich, and it was excellent. We asked our waitress about what park to do tomorrow (I still don't know why), and she said Universal. Of course, we wouldn't be doing Universal on this trip, so she said Magic Kingdom, and noted that EPCOT was "boring". :rolleyes: Anyway, after a quick dinner at Chili's, it was almost 11:30 already. Wow. We stopped at 7-11 for drinks for the room and finally arrived back at the hotel. It was indeed a very, very tiring day, and we all fell right asleep.

Disney Trip Report

So, we were on our way to the most popular airport in our area, Newark International Airport. We quickly pulled away from our house and said "bye-bye for a week!" Man, I couldn't be happier than to get out of that house. I love being out of the house. Staying inside for hours and hours at a time will kill me. Anyway, we hoped on Route 1, and then exited so we could join the good old Jersey Turnpike, then take that to the airport. On the way to the airport, I really didn't do much of anything, besides look out the window. I had my last few looks of New Jersey before coming to the airport. I wouldn't miss NJ in the Sunshine State of Florida. I really couldn't wait to finally be there and most of all, be on vacation. Luckily there was no traffic on the Turnpike, which made our 30 minute car ride to the airport smooth-sailing. We were lucky, too. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time for security purposes considering the circumstances. Our quick trip to Newark was shorter than I expected it to be, most likely due to no traffic. We arrived at the airport in about 20-25 minutes, not bad at all. We stopped in front of the Continental gate, which is the flight carrier we would be flying with today. Outside of the gate, the streets were packed with people trying to get out of their cabs and cars and trying to get safely inside. The place was a nightmare, so we stopped and quick grabbed our bags from the trunk. After that, we made our way over to the sidewalk and found a line outside for the "baggage check". I don't really know what to call it, but it's where they take your big bags, label them, and put them on to a large conveyor belt that takes them away. Anyway, we waited about 10 minutes in line for us to get rid of our big bags, which is nice. I really didn't feel like dragging big bags all over the airport. Once that was all said and done, the guy told us our gate was changed to 90. With that, we entered the airport, and continued to make our way towards the security terminal, which was bound to be a nightmare.

On the way there, we looked at the big TV screens to see if our flight was delayed or on-time. Luckily, it was still on-time, but that was bound to change. We noticed, however, the old gate number was still listed on the TV screens, and then an attendant reassured us that the number on the screen is the correct one. What?? Where is this guy shipping our bags then?? At that point we were all just very confused, so we went with the attendant and the TV screens and decided to make our way to the left side of the airport. However, first we would encounter security, and we were all ready for it. We made our way up the escalators and to the security station. Once we reach the top, we see…about 25 people in line. What? Weren't there supposed to be huge security back-ups today because of the bomb threat? This was the shocker of the day. The line took a matter of 5 minutes or less…especially when an officer opened a new device right where we were in line. Sweet! We proceeded towards the security terminal, and unlocked our pockets and put our carry-on bags in baskets so we could push down the security conveyor belt. After our belongings were on our way, it was our turn to go through the metal detectors. We all removed our shoes and quickly walked through with no problems. We quickly gathered up our belongings, put our shoes on, and made our way towards our gate. Since we had some (some? No, a LOT) of time to kill, we decided to find our gate, and then wander through the airport. I had been in this airport since 2000, so I really didn't remember much about it. Anyway, as we walked down the hallways, the airport started to look more like a mall of sorts. There were many little shops and restaurants…which I was surprised to see. Once we came to the end of the main connector hallway, we entered the complete left end of the airport. Now, this part definitely looked like a mall. Shops were lines up left and right…and in the middle were something you never see at any mall… People Movers! Yay! I love riding these things. There were quite a few of them, and we rode them all the way down to our gate…which was all the way at the end. We also discovered something pretty cool on the People Movers. Try walking on them to the end, and you'll notice that you have some sick speed coming off them. Anyway, once we reached our terminal, we really realized how much time we had. There were people waiting to get on the flight BEFORE us. So, yep, we had some time to kill. We explored the mall…eh…airport for a bit and I bought some gum in a magazine store. Orbit Cinnamon baby! This stuff is amazing. It's always good to have gum on a plane…it makes it much more comfortable for me. Anyway, we sat down for a while, and noticed all the restaurants and shops around us. This thing was amazing. At that point, I finally realized how HUGE airports really are. We took a quick rest, and decided to get a quick snack before boarding the plane. There was a cheesesteak place nearby called Steak Escape, so my brother and I decided to split one before boarding our plane. The cheesesteak ended up being much better than I thought it would. It was a good little snack before we were finally airborne. We relaxed at a table for a while after having our snack. A few minutes passed and we decided to check the TV screens once again to see what gate we really were supposed to be in. And sure enough...the guy single guy was correct. It was gate 90. Ugh...now we had to trek all the way to the opposite end of the airport to find our gate. Luckily, airports have the little amazing things called People Movers. As we made our way to the direct opposite side of the airport, we got to ride them once again. After about a 10 minute walk, we finally found our gate. We had about 45 minutes to kill before our flight began boarding, so we walked around the shops near our gate, going in a select few of them. This quickly burned some time, and before we knew it, it was 15 minutes till boarding time. I stopped in a magazine store and picked up the latest Golf Digest. After that, we took a seat in the waiting area, and waited for our plane to board. It would only be a matter of time now. I flipped through my Golf Digest, but the only thing that was going through my mind was "I'm going to Disney World!"