christmas magic day 1

At 4:30 in the morning on Dec 24th, the wife and I left our house in upstate NY for the airport. We did'nt expect to be leaving in one of the worst ice storms i had ever seen. What normally takes 45 minutes, took 1 1/2 hours. We were just ahead of any salt trucks, so between being a professional driver and having all wheel drive we made it to the airport safely. Our flight was to leave at 8:10am, and we boarded the plane 7:50. So far, so good. We back away from the gate at about 8:20, Disney World here we come! So i thought, instead the pilot gets on and tells us we need to wait 1/2 hour so they can deice the plane. OK safety first and we can make it up in the air. After we get deiced, they can't start one of the engines. I think when they are away from the gate, they use compressed air to start the engine, and, as a truck driver, im thinking that condensation turned to ice and blocked the air line. OK now we have to get towed back to the gate. It's now 9:30 and we are going nowhere fast. After another 40 minutes they finally get the engine started. Now we back away from the gate again only to be told we need to deice again. Well very long story short, after the 3rd time deicingand sitting on the plane all that time, the plane finally took off at about 1:30. Disney World, HERE WE COME! Finally we get to MCO and all Icared about was we were safe, and it was WARM! So long NY ice storm 30º weather and hello sunny warm 80º florida! We took Magical Express to POFQ where we checked in. The only other problem was it was now 4:15 and we had a 4:20 priority seating at O'Hana's. We had called from the plane while stuck on the ground in NY to disney dining and we were told that normally if your not at your PS within 20 minutes after your scheduled time you lose it, however since it was Xmas eve they said to go to the host stand and we will be put in the que.
So, bus to MK then monorail to Poly, and we finally got to O'Hana's at about 6:15. We explained what happened and when they pulled our name from the syatem, it showed that we called, and they gave us a beeper, 10 minutes later we were seated and enjoyed our favorite restaurant! From Poly we took the bus to downtown and did some browsing, but not much shopping, as the lines were crazy. At about 10:30 it was back the POFQ for some well needed sleep.

Sounds like a rough start. Glad your dinner at O'Hana's worked out and you were able to properly begin your vacation.

Thanks for the Report! :smickey:

Oh my gosh!! What a frustrating start!!
Glad Ohana's seated you, Ohanas is a great way to begin your trip!

Oh goodness, what a long day! Travel days in the best of times can be very tiring! Glad you arrived safely and were still able to enjoy a good dinner to start your trip!

Nice save with Ohana's

That is a rough start! We just missed those ice storms in Baltimore but I understand that they were very bad! At least you were able to be seated in a timely fashion! I am looking forward to hearing more about it.

Glad you made it!!!

Christmas Eve was nasty here in the morning!!

Julie:mickey: