Princess Day 1- March 5

Our training was complete! We were leaving!

Kayla and Theresa knew where I was going and although they were sad I was leaving, they were also excited to spend some quality time with Dad whom we hardly ever see because he's busy with school and work. And me, yes, I was going to miss my little family but I was looking forward to a much needed break from what had seemed to turn into my single parenting job. After we picked up Kayla from school, we headed straight to the airport to drop off me and my ONE carry-on bag.




After an uneventful flight to Orlando with a stop in Atlanta, we had made it a little after midnight. Oh and as far as our plans for that night: there were two options. A- we were either going to sleep for a couple of hours in the airport or B- beg try to get our room early.

We made our way through the deserted airport to the Disney shuttle service. The nice (but very wrong) lady told us after we explained our room situation that the rooms at our hotel are usually ready around 3am since they are expecting us and worst case scenario is that we would have to wait a few hours. A few hours wouldn't be so bad! So we hopped on the shuttle bus and off we went to our hotel. It was freezing on that bus. I had on jeans and two shirts and I was still shivering. The good thing was that by now, it was almost 3am and I was imagining that nice, warm bed waiting for me.

We walked up to the lady at the front desk and explained how we "accidently" forgot to book a room that night and told her what the nice lady at the airport told us and she said, let me talk to my manager. She came back and said, "Nope sorry, you can't check in until 11am or you can pay the extra night." We tried arguing with our best feel-sorry-for-me faces but she didn't budge. To be exact, she was really rude. Doesn't she know she is working at the Happiest Place On Earth?!

So we camped out in the only place we could. The hotel lobby. Off to the side, there were about 15 movie theater-like seats in front of a tv. That would be our bed for the night- a red, velvet chair in front of a blaring loud tv. Seriously, why do you even need the tv ON at 3am?! As soon as we sat down in those chairs with our bags, we noticed it was really cold in the lobby. Colder than the bus. To make matters worse, the bathroom in the lobby was broken. K really needed to go and couldn't. I told her not to worry, she could empty her bladder in 8 hours. Haha.

So there we were, dozing in and out of sleep, shivering in those uncomfortable chairs. K checked the bathroom about every 15 minutes trying to determine if the yellow tape outside of it was because they were cleaning it or because it really was broken. I remember watching a really bad movie about a kid scientist pretending to be a cool kid at another school and ice hockey players flying.

We were really looking forward to 6am which is when the cafe opened. The hot chocolate machine was calling our name.

K was still in search of a bathroom so she left to go who knows where to find one so I decided to doze off in the booth. I had just gone to sleep when I opened my eyes to find her hoovering over me, telling me about a bathroom that has hairdryers we can use to warm ourselves up. The only bad part was it was outside next to the pool which meant we had to walk in the 40 degree temps to get to it.

After we were semi-warm thanks to the hairdryers, we sat on the changing table (don't worry, I cloroxed it) and leaned against the wall to get some more zzzz's. I guess I had hunched over because I remember some lady walking in and saying in Spanish, "Oh poor thing, she's asleep."

By now, it was about 7:30am and we decided to go try the front desk and see if we could get our room. We were hoping for a shift change and that happy people would be working there now. We walked out of the bathroom and into day light. I remember telling K, "We survived!!! Just like in the horror movies, once it's daylight, all the bad stuff goes away!!" Even better was that the super nice lady now working at the front desk apologized profusely and gave us our room. To top it off, she told us, "I don't know why they didn't give you your room. Usually we ALWAYS do or they give you an alternate room to sleep in until yours is ready." Fantastic.

Looking back on what seemed to be the worst night ever, is actually quite comical now. We knew the rest of the weekend was going to bring great memories.