Monday, August 6, 2012

Disneyworld Recap: Day 4, and A Little Rant

You've heard about travel day, day 1, and day 2 and day 3 of our Disneyworld Trip. Today?  Our final day at the Park, and our long travel day home.


Day 4: Epcot
and Dinner at Downtown Disney

Our final day at Disney was a low-key one, and it was necessary.  We were exhausted by Day 4 - I truly don't know how people have the stamina to go for an entire week and then some! 

We got to sleep in a bit before heading to Epcot, where we jetted to the Soarin' ride to get our Fast Passes, and then headed straight to the World Showcase.

We made our way through the countries, stopping to shop and take in the sights.  We ate in the Japan Pavillion again - guess we just love Asian eateries!

Mexico Pavillion

Germany Pavillion

Italy Pavillion

After seeing all the countries, Soarin' over California on one of my all-time favorite rides, and sufficiently bitching about the heat, we headed to Downtown Dinsey to do some final souvenir shopping and have our final dinner at Rainforest Cafe.

The massive World of Disney store in Downtown Disney

Rainforest Cafe via

We got our grub on (though, if I'm being honest Sister Singer and I were totes unimpressed with our meals) and then got on one of the last buses we would take back to our hotel.

After taking a short break in our rooms, Sister Swimmer, Handsome Hubs and myself headed to the Magic Kingdom for one last time to check out the fireworks show.  Sister Singer declined...major faux paus on her part cause the show was fantastic!

Immediately before the fireworks show, they presented a show called The Magic, The Memories and You! which I cannot reccomend strongly enough!  They project images (including photos of people who were at the park that day!) onto the walls of the castle - it is amazeballs!

{via}

From my cell - I got skills, yo.

Post-fireworks, after fighting the crowds for what felt like an hour, we were on a crowded bus back to our resort for the very last time.  It was bittersweet to say goodbye to our trip because while we had so much fun seeing the parks and especially spending time with my sisters, we were exhausted and ready to get back to our own bed.

The next morning called for a disturbingly early wake-up call: we had to be in the lobby of our hotel at 4:30 in the morning!  Rough as it was, we made it, and got to the airport safely and in plenty of time for our flight.  After some breakfast burritos and smoothies, some Kindle reading, and light chatting - we were finally on our (overbooked, again) flight to San Francisco.

In 'Frisco, we had time to get lunch (or what felt like lunch, even thought it was only 10am thanks to the time change) and were treated with one of the oddest waitresses we'd ever encountered (who also sounded like Roz from Monsters Inc, although maybe we were just seeing everthing in Disney at that point). 

Here's where it started to suck: our flight was delayed.  By almost two hours.  Because a flight attendant called out sick.  Look, I'm no airline expert, but something tells me there should be...I don't know...a back-up plan in cases like these.  (It also annoyed me to no end that the replacement flight attendant waltzed up over an hour after our flight was to take off and was greeted by fellow passangers clapping as she boarded the plane.  I cannot remember the last time my patients clapped as I walked into work...)

I'm going to be real here and say United Airlines let me down on this trip.  Every flight we were on was overbooked, and the majority were running late.  Something tells me if 3/4 times you're running late, it's a problem.  (To be fair to United, I did try reaching out to them on Twitter and got no response, so this bad review could have been prevented with a simple I'm sorry you paid $2,000 for shitty service.)  I am prone to just picking the cheapest flight offered for the dates I'm interested in travel, but I think this experience may have changed that.

Do you pay extra to fly a certain airline (or to avoid a certain airline)?

4 comments:

  1. I travel a lot for work and after numerous cancellations, lost luggage and sleeping in airports because they wouldn't give out hotel vouchers, I will never fly united again. I have also tweeted about my misfortunes and no response. I feel like they need better customer service or media relations people to handle twitter complaints.

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  2. rainforest cafe is an awesome concept, but we didn't feel like it had food to rave over either.
    epcot has been my favorite park so far! glad you had an awesome vacay - hated that the airlines were horrendous!!

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  3. OMG, I just love Disney! I went last September and miss it already! It sucks that your flight situation was so bad, though. Way to ruin the Disney buzz!

    I'm a new follower from Aly's blog. :)

    Jamie
    asoutherngirlblogs.blogspot.com

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  4. Ugh, airlines. I try to fly Southwest. They never let me down. American sucks but I guess thats why they are going bankrupt. On my last flight a month ago, our plane was delayed and then we finally got on the plane and had to sit for another almost hour because they put the luggage on.the.wrong.plane. Wow.

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