So the day before I left Australia, I travelled with my parents to Melbourne. We stayed the night at my brother's house which was nice because got to say a last goodbye to my brother and his family. On Friday morning, January 9th, I got up bright and early and made sure all of my stuff was securely packed before we headed to the airport. I was excited, but at the same time it didn't quite feel real that I was moving to America. I got to the airport first and messaged the other girls to let them know where I was. Before long, Aprille, Hannah and Nichola arrived - I'd met Hannah and Nichola before but it was my first time meeting Aprille. At this point our flight had been delayed, but we stayed positive and checked in before heading off for some final time with our individual families. Finally the time came for us to head to the gate so we said our final goodbyes. I tried not to get too emotional, but it was weird to think I wouldn't be seeing Mum and Dad for nearly a year.
Once we found our gate, we discovered that our flight had been delayed even further. We were worried about making our connecting flight in LA, but there was nothing we could do about it so tried not to let it bother us. The airline did give us all $20 vouchers to use in the terminal food court, so we stocked up on snacks for the flight. Eventually we boarded and settled in four our 14 hour flight to LA. As far as long haul flights go, it wasn't too bad. It was my first time flying international with Qantas and I was very impressed. Having an individual TV screen is so good, and it makes me wonder how I actually coped with my first flight to LA back in 2000 when I had to watch the same three movies as everyone else! I watched Guardians of the Galaxy and Despicable Me 2 during the flight and went for lots of walks around the cabin and eventually we landed in LA. We had missed our connecting flight and by the time we got through customs, we'd also missed the second flight they had booked us on! Unfortunately, the next flight they could get us on wasn't until 10pm and it was only midday! However, the airline put us up in a nearby hotel so we cold get some rest and relax before our flight. I managed to catch a few hours sleep at the hotel which kept me going for the last leg of our trip, although the flight to Orlando was pretty tough.
But...FINALLY we landed in Florida at 6am on Saturday morning - about 12 hours later than we had originally intended. The Orlando airport was very cool - we had to take a monorail from the gate to the main terminal building! We picked up our bags and headed to the area where Disney's Magical Express picks up from. We didn't have to wait at all before we got on to a lovely coach bus that we had all to ourselves! Our driver was very friendly and told us lots of little tidbits about Disney World and Orlando during the trip to the hotel. The moment we drove under that famous Walt Disney World sign was incredibly surreal, and it was even more special that the sun was just rising as we made our way on to Disney property.
Eventually we arrived at Disney's All Star movies Resort and made our way in to the check-in desk. Check in was super easy and they even allowed Nichola and I to split the payment for the room which was very convenient. We got given our magic bands, which have our names on the inside and we made our way to our rooms. Nichola and I were kind of disappointed because whilst Hannah and Aprille had a room in the 101 Dalmatians area of the hotel (also where Lily and her Mum were), we'd been given a room in the Toy Story section, on the opposite side of the hotel. But there were more dramas to come. You see, when we got to the room, it wasn't clean. In fact, it looked like someone had crashed it for a movie night or something because the beds were unmade and there were food packages everywhere! Nichola ran back to the front desk so we didn't have to drag all our luggage again and when she returned she said they were going to allocate us a new room but it wouldn't be ready yet. We left our suitcases with baggage services and went to find Hannah and Aprille's room. We all had showers and got changed in to fresh clothes which was such a relief after so many hours of traveling!
We'd been messaging Lily, our roommate who was also staying at All Star Movies and she said she was heading down to the food court for breakfast so we made our way down there to meet her. Once we found Lily and her mum, we snagged a table and got some food - I finally got my first taste of Mickey waffles! After breakfast we checked out the hotel gift shop, which was much larger than I was expecting, and then said goodbye to Lily as she and her mum were heading off to a park for the day.
We returned to Hannah and Aprille's room and rang up to check on our room, but it still wasn't ready, so we all had a bit of a nap and just sat around watching old school Mickey Mouse cartoons for a few hours. After a while, I rang the front desk again and they said our new room was ready! The most exciting thing was that our new room was in the 101 Dalmatians area! And we found out a little bit later that by some incredible coincidence, we had been put in the room right next door to Lily and her mum! So crazy! Nichola and I finally headed to our new room to get freshened up before the four of us caught a taxi to Walmart. We wanted to see if we could get some bedding before the crazy rush of check-in day. Walmart was great, but in the end we were all so tired we just wanted to go home.
Back at the resort, we had some dinner at the food court and then I skyped my family back home. Nichola found Finding Nemo on the TV, so we watched that for a bit and Lily even came around to visit for a while but we were starting to doze off so we settled in to our beds to finally get a well deserved good night's sleep.
