Orlando Getaway

Jonathan has been traveling a lot lately and I never know exactly how long he'll be gone when he leaves.  This month he had a trip where he left and a week later when I was so hoping he'd call and tell me he'd be coming home the next day, he instead called to say he'd be going to Orlando for a week.  Are you kidding me?  Usually he isn't anywhere more than about a day or two, so knowing he'd be there for a week was really depressing.  Since he was staying in a hotel by himself in Orlando, I started insanely contemplating flying with my kids down to see him for the week.  The more I thought about it, I just couldn't picture it logistically.  I was commiserating with Emily and she VERY graciously volunteered to watch Rylee & Corben so I could fly down with Baylor for the week.  After more than a week with those two and no relief, I decided to take her up on her offer.  So two days later we drove up to New York and EARLY Monday morning me and Baylor flew from Newark to Orlando.  Baylor did great even though she only slept part of the time.  Everyone kept commenting about what a happy baby she was and the man sitting next to us just loved her.  This was about when Baylor really started sticking her tongue out, so he got a kick out of that.  

New York City skyline

After much debate, I had decided to not take a car seat and just Uber from the airport to the hotel since you could request a car seat AND I had a $20 credit for my first ride.  Apparently you can't specify what kind of car seat and the car that came had more of a glorified booster seat that could not be rear facing. It was a nerve wracking 18 minute ride.  Baylor loved it.  I knew I'd have to find a different way to get back to the airport not only because of the car seat thing, but also because even after the $20, it still cost me 42 stinkin' dollars.  The ride itself was $50, so would have only been $30, but there was $2 in tolls and then some $10 airport surcharge.  What the heck?  Anyway, the car and driver were both really nice.  

The hotel was super nice, too, but I'm really getting annoyed because the government more often than not puts them up in these 4 star hotels that don't include breakfast.  So lame.  It did have a nice pool, though, and Baylor loved the water!  Both Monday and Tuesday were 'off days' for Jonathan, so I'm really glad we got to go down.  If I'd been miserable at home where it apparently rained every day and he was lounging by the pool in beautiful weather for days...let's just say the depression on my end would have been great! lol 

 

There were a few guys from Jonathan's training also there and they though Baylor was great.

Tuesday was a pretty laid back day. We had breakfast at McDonalds (where Baylor sat in a high chair for the first time at a 'restaurant'), rode the trolley on "I-drive" (International Blvd), and napped.  Well, Baylor took a 2 1/2 hour nap and Jonathan didn't seem to mind too much. ; )

The Orlando Eye...it would have cost us about $60 to ride it so we passed. 

Wednesday Jonathan was supposed to work from about 3:00 to 11:00.  So I decided that I'd take advantage of the free shuttle from the hotel to Disney and take a look at the free stuff.  

My friend Beth knows all-things-Disney and sent me a ton of info and great directions for my two main objectives: Get a Dole Whip and the Thai Coconut Meatballs (both her suggestions).  We left on the 11:30 shuttle with plans to return on the 5:00 shuttle.  We rode the ferry to Magic Kingdom, rode the monorail to The Polynesian (in hind site, I realized the shuttle had actually dropped me off by The Polynesian, but the ferry ride was still nice), and got my Dole Whip in the first 30 minutes.  So then I had hours to kill.  

On the shuttle

5 minutes in. lol 

We made it!

On the ferry 

Leaving The Polynesian behind.  Oops. 

The Grand Floridian...the whole reason Jonathan was in Orlando was because Joe Biden was at The Evictus games.  He wasn't staying at this hotel, but apparently Prince Harry and George and Laura Bush were.  No celebrity spottings for me, though.  

With time to kill we sat on the swing at the empty beach for a little while and then took a walk to the Grand Floridian.  It was pretty fancy.  And further than it looked. ; )

Beth told me about this awesome-smelling soap store on the second floor.  It was tempting!  Oh, so tempting.

IF I had relented and bought one, the Mickey soap below would have been my pick.  It smelled so good! 

 Holey schnickies....just browsing one of the gift shops

So after wandering the Floridian, the plan was to ride the Magic Kingdom monorail back to the transit center and take the Epcot monorail over to just see it. As luck would have it, the Magic Kingdom monorail was down, so we had to walk all the way to the transit center.  Long walk, but we had plenty of time to kill, so not too big of a deal.  There was a bus we could have taken, but I preferred to walk. 

On the Epcot monorail

Then we walked back to The Polynesian so I could get the meatballs.  They were SO good.  

Then we walked back to the transit center to catch the shuttle back to the hotel. As it turned out, Jonathan's start time kept getting pushed back and he ended up not having to go work until 7:00.  So he totally could have come with use to Disney.  Oh, well.  

We were supposed to be there until Friday, but as luck would have it again, Thursday morning he got an email saying they were flying back to Baltimore at 5:00 that evening.  So the trip got cut a day short, but still glad we got to go. And glad we flew with Southwest so that it wasn't a problem to change my ticket to Thursday instead of Friday. 

So for the ride back we decided to take the city bus.  It picked up in front of the hotel, had a direct 45 minute route to the airport and was only $2.  #win

Flying back to New York.  

Baylor had caught a pretty bad cough on the plane ride down and you can briefly hear it at the tail end of this video.

It actually ended up being nice to have an extra day to spend at Emily's before driving back to Maryland on Saturday. The plan was to leave Saturday around 8:00 to drive back.  Baylor (the little stinker) slept in until 8:50 that morning.  And that was after sleeping horribly in Orlando every night.  Babies.

Meanwhile in New York, Rylee and Corben were having a BLAST at Emily's going to the park every day and playing with their cousins.  Except for those two days when Rylee had a stomach bug....I owe Emily big time!

(these are all the picture she sent me while we were gone)

 

Thankfully, no one else caught the bug.  And as much as I feel bad that Emily had to deal with it...I admit it sure was nice NOT having to deal with it! 

Short trip, but I'm so glad we were spontaneous and it.  We are so appreciative to Emily (& Dan) for making it possible for us!!  5 hour drive each way to New York was totally worth it...I wouldn't mind leaving my kids with Emily again if Jonathan ever has another week long assignment. ;)