Arriving in Orlando

I changed the clock on the camera to Eastern time for the remainder of the photos.

Lake Griffin-About 30 miles NW of Orlando

Listen to Leland say "We're inside the clouds of heaven." Then you see the shadow of the airplane on the clouds … pretty cool I thought.

We land at 5:56 pm for 4 hours 3 minutes of flight time, with a scheduled time of 4 hours 40 minutes. The scheduled arrival time was 5:40 pm so we ended up being only 16 minutes late after a 30 minute delay leaving Las Vegas. All in all not too bad.

Once we landed we got off the plane and headed towards the tram that took us from the C Gates, which Southwest uses, to the main terminal where baggage claim is.

After these pictures we continued to baggage claim where we got a cart and waited a just few minutes for the bags. My bag was the last that came through the chute, and thus another sigh of relief now knowing that the travel stage was behind us and we had all our stuff. We headed a little ways and found the Alamo counter and we did the paperwork for the car and were directed outside into the parking garage where they said to take "any car" on a certain row, we took the white Hyundai Santa Fe. The kids loved the car and wished we had one all the time.

I remembered to get the roll of quarters I brought from home out of my carry-on bag before we left the parking garage and we headed off. It was starting to get dark as we headed out of the airport and to the toll road. There was not much traffic but it was nice to have the quarters and to use the exact change line as we passed through 3 or 4 toll stations before we exited on the International Drive exit. I think Autumn sent a text to her mother stating we had "to pay to drive on the Florida roads."

I haven't had Chic Fil-a in ages, so this stop was part of my plan since the beginning. I thought it was about as good as I had remembered, but no one else was really impressed. We then headed north on Apopka Vineland road to a Winn-Dixie to stock up on goodies for the week. The kids were VERY impressed when we walked in and saw a huge coke display of 12-packs in the shape of a Mickey Mouse. I left my camera in the car, but you never know when you might need it to take a picture or a video.

From the Winn-Dixie I drove via Vista Blvd to the Port Orleans Riverside Resort to come in through the back entrance to WDW. It saved a lot of time as the other route has a lot of traffic and goes by Disney Springs. At some point I think it was while we were in the airport, Jan received a text from Disney telling us which room we were staying in. I had brought a map of the resort so I knew where we were headed. We came to the guard gate where you show them your Magic Band and we headed straight for our room, no need to stop and check-in because your Magic Band is also your key to the room.

We got to our room at 9 pm which is actually 6 pm for our body clocks and the kids are excited as they well should be. Natalie gets to sleep in the pull-down bed. At first we were surprised to see no spread on the beds, but eventually came to the conclusion that it was intended that way. Having the pull-down bed and sleeping five was one of the reasons I choose Port Orleans Riverside, along with the Southern flare and pine trees which all remind me of home in NC.

At some point I asked if they "wanted to see the pool" and that was all it took and we were all headed out to check out the pool. I thought it may be too cold to swim, but as you see in the video the water was warm so we were all off back to the room to get our swimming suits on. Opps ... I forgot to pack mine!