Day One – Disney, we are coming!

August 18, 2007 started beautifully with both kids woke up very early in the morning happily. Checking in at the airport was smooth. If I did not get lost on Rt. 66, the starting point would have been perfect.

Air Tran offers much cheaper tickets comparing to its competitors. Even I was short of time, I still could get pretty good deal from Air Tran. In the couple week I did the research, the airfares fluctuate to the lowest points on Friday then start another cycle from the upcoming Monday with the high figures. So does the car rental. However sometime could be opposite. Air Tran’s service is about average. The assistants were nice to the customers. The plane was almost full on the way to Orlando. For a short flight from DC to Orlando, the airline serves drink and a piece of cookie. Zippy cups are allowed to bring with the young kids. The flight assistants even asked if we’d like to fill the cup with juice. Kathy fell to sleep shortly after we took off from DCA and woke up about 20 minutes before we landed at MCO. At only two and half, she behaved very well for her first flight.

The day was taken down by the Payless car rental. Our first car had one tire leaking air till it went to flat. Steve had to change on the spare tire, otherwise we were stocked. Should I appreciate that they actually had a spare tire? Fortunately Payless examined the bad tire and replaced with another car without any hassle. But anyway I will skip this car rental company from now on. Their cars are old and most of them are in below average conditions.

As I planed, we stopped by the First Oriental Store. On the same street with this Chinese grocery store, we saw quite a few Chinese restaurants. There must be a pretty big Chinese population in that area. The store is big but does not have a variety of inventories as the stores in DC metro. I don’t see milk, 油条, and quite some other common Asian snacks in that store. But in a place thousands of miles from home, this store is good enough. There are many grocery stores along the US Rt. 192 in the area that Windsor located. Publix seems to be the major supermarket in Orlando.

Billy Boy’s Discount Tickets is about 10 miles from Windsor. Their services are good. Just don’t be rejected by its look. The store looks pretty creepy from outside. I ordered 3 four-day Disney tickets and was updated automatically by Billy Boy’s to five-days. The lady at the registration gave me some brochures and introductions on the Disney World. Now that I can save one of the one of the Sea world /Busch Garden / Sesame ticket for later. Sesame Street at Northeast Phila will be our next destination soon.

By the time I picked up the tickets and finished my grocery, I was hungry and tired. Felt like that I could faint anytime to scare the other three. Steve cooked some pan fried dumplings and steamed shrimps for dinner. And by the way, First Oriental carries very affordable seafood that was pretty fresh too. I started planning for the next day at Magic Kingdom.

Couple others things to keep in mind. The water condition in Orlando is not very good. I could feel how hard it is. And boy, it smells bad. Next time I will invest some good shower gel and shampoo. On US 4 highway, though it is local right within Orlando area, we had to pay tolls several times within one day. Some roads could be confusing. Even with GPS, I still made couple wrong turns today. Good thing is that the Orlando drivers are not as aggressive as drives in Maryland.

Windsor locates in a nice quite area with houses and condos. The houses here have the attached outside swimming pond. Steve and I joked about if we should pay some extra money for an out door bath tub. See how small the pond is now? In the following days we saw quite some lizards, grasshoppers, and other kinds of bugs in the yard.