Brown and Pink Polka Dots : Disney Day 1

We spent this past week at Disney World!!!! My happy place!

This was our first big vacation since Jillian was born. We have gone to Door County (my parents own a place there) and to visit some friends, but this is our first week long plane trip anywhere.

We decided back in May to take this trip once we found an AMAZING deal (free dinning plus great room price). This was at the same time we made the choice that I would not be teaching this school year because of Jillian's health needs.

My plan is over the next few days to blog the details of the trip and then at some point blog some of the special needs tips that I learned along the journey, but for now I want to put down the fun things we did. I am going to do each day a seperate post because I dont want it to get too long and I have LOTS of pictures to share. So here is day one:

We got up EARLY, like 3:30am early. None of us slept really well that night anyhow, we were too excited! We had spent that night at my parents since it is closer to the airport. We left mom and dad's house around 4:15am and headed to the airport in Milwaukee.
We normally park in the surface out lot however with all of Jillian's stuff it was worth paying the little extra to park in the parking garage. We loaded up all of our stuff and headed to check in. The airport was rather busy for being that early on a Saturday because there was an Honor flight flying out that morning, it was a very humbling place to be.
We then headed to TSA. I had everything that needed to come out in one section of my backpack and each thing in its own bag so it was fast to pull out. Jilli did not like that mommy, daddy, grandma and bumpa had to take their shoes off, shoes to Jillian are a big deal and she thought they were taking our shoes away from us. TSA was VERY helpful and despite Jillian crying about shoes the process was calm and a lot quicker then I was expecting, which I was grateful for. Once we got through we grabbed some breakfast and found an outlet to charge Jillian's oxygen (VNA brought us a portable oxygen concentrator on Thursday, it was about 25lb and JUST small enough to fit under the seat in front of Jillian on the plane). We talked to the people at the counter and they checked her oxygen and the letter from the doctor and they tagged her stroller for gate check.
A little while before the plane started loading the person that scanned tickets at the gate called me up to look at Jillian's oxygen and make sure everything was set. He told us Jillian and I would be pre-boarding. Pre-boarding was nice to get Jilli on the plane without a ton of people behind us however it was also a pain because Southwest does not assign seats so I was trying to get a spot for us and deal with Jilli. Brent and my parents did not load until the C section and they had Jillian's car seat so I could not get her buckled into her seat until they came. It would have been really helpful if Jilli, myself and one other person could have pre-boarded, but that is not the way Southwest does things.
Jilli played on the i-Pad the entire flight (thanks Dan for letting us borrow your iPad mini) and barely made a sound their entire 2hr flight.
We landed on Orlando and waited for most of the plane to clear out before we exited. We got off the plane and into the terminal and stepped off to the side so we could get our things together before heading towards the Magical Express (Disney's bus from the airport to the hotel). This is when a Disney cast member walked up to us and asked if we were the Upton/Schofield family and if this was princess Jillian. We said yes as we were rather confused. She said that one of their cast members follows my blog and they wanted to make our trip special. We were very surprised. She said she was going to walk us down to Magical Express. Once we got downstairs she walked us over to a separate line where we checked in. They then brought us past all of the bus lines and right onto a bus waiting out front for us and they saved the first row for us so it was easier to get on with Jillian's stuff. They also gave Jillian some special pins and a bunch of stickers. They put a sticker on her that said "princess of the day." We were blown away and felt so special. We had no idea who set this up for us (we met the cast member who said they followed my blog but I did not know who they were) and it was not until we got home that we figured out that it was my brother's girlfriend's mom's cousin who follows my blog and wanted to make our trip extra special. It was amazing! We felt so blessed and special.
We took our bus to our hotel where we went and checked in. Our room was not ready yet so they held our carry on stuff for us. We went into the food court and had lunch. At this point we really needed to charge Jillian's oxygen (the battery claims in has a 5.75hr charge, that was not true, it did not have a consistent time that it stayed charged for). I let Brent know what I wanted and Jilli and I went looking for a table to plug in at. I was not finding any tables near a plug so I asked a cast member and she was SO helpful and found us a table next to an outlet. I was so grateful! Jilli took a nap while we ate (she had been up since 3:30am).
We then headed to Epcot. Our first stop was guest relations to get Jillian's stroller tagged as a wheel chair. Between Jillian, her oxygen (which was the same size at the basket under our Baby Jogger Summit X3, which I need to look for a replacement basket for now as it was really hard on it carrying oxygen all week) her feeding pump and her muscle tone issues there was no way we were going to be able to carry her in cue lines, and having just had a conversation with Jillian's doctors about how she will need a wheelchair once she grows out of her stroller anytime we are out of the house and walking around I did not feel as bad about requesting a stroller as a wheelchair tag. We went into guest services and asked for the tag, the cast members started to ask me why I thought she needed it and what my concerns where and as he got the question half way out he looked at Jillian, stopped mid sentence, turned around and and went and got the tag for our stroller. I was all prepared to tell him why we needed it but it was nice to not have to and for him to just look at her and see all the stuff and realized that we needed it. It was a life saver for the week!
First thing we headed to see Winnie the Pooh and Tigger in the United Kingdom. They were great with Jillian. The manager noticed our Magic Bands (I decorated them) and wanted to take a picture. She then walked us outside to ask if we had seen Mary Poppins yet and we said no. She asked if Jillian struggles in the heat (she does, that is part of why we did not go in the middle of the summer, she gets hot fast, she is a puddle of sweat each morning and she sleeps in a t-shit and only has a sheet on most nights and we keep our room in the low 70s). She said that she would help us meet Mary Poppins in the safest way for Jilli. She had us wait in the shade and then she had a few families, meet Mary Poppins and then she sent Mary over to us to say hi to Jilli. It was magical! We were amazed that in a theme park someone took the time to care about my kid and what was best for her.
We then headed over to meet Aurora in France. It was a few minutes before she was to come out but after a short wait we got to meet her. We then headed to the American pavilion and looked around a little bit. Jilli really liked these story telling lamps they had. We re-hydrated and then went to head to Mexico as their ride is air conditioned and by this point Jilli was warm. As we were leaving the American pavilion we came across a character training session where a bunch of random characters were meeting next to the American pavilion. Jilli got to meet Stich first (she likes watching the Stich TV show) and then Micko from Pocahontas. She just kept telling him that they were friends, it was sweet. Then we met King Louie. He did could not sign her book because he did not know how to write his name, Jillian told him he needed to go to school.
We then continued on and rode the boat ride in Mexico.
Once we were done in Mexico it was time for our Fast Passes to meet Mickey, Minnie and Goofy. Jilli loved meeting them! After she kept asking where chip and dale where, but by then it started to rain and they met outside so I figured they were not meeting. We hung out in an area behind the meeting area to charge Jilli for a little bit and then all of the sudden Chip and Dale walked in, they were doing their meet inside since it was raining! We ended up being the second family to meet them!
Next we headed over to Figment and Jilli rode her first accessible ride (after I blog about each day I am going to do a post about accessible rides since we experienced them first hand, I'll also happily dispel that myth for you that being in a wheelchair gets you on the rides faster, in fact for Figment everyone else walked on and we had to wait a while for the accessible car to come back around, which is fine, just funny how people complain all over the internet that people in wheelchairs get to get right on rides). We then walked quickly in the rain to our Fast Passes to Spaceship Earth.
Once we got off Spaceship Earth we ran to our dinner reservations at the Garden Grill. It took over a half hour past our reservation to get seated because they were waiting for an accessible spot to open up. They were really kind about it (we were fine, we had found a place in the waiting area to charge Jilli's oxygen again which she needed). They gave us an extra fast pass to any ride we wanted since it took so long for us to get a table. Dinner was amazing! This is a character meal with Mickey, Chip, Dale and Pluto. The food was REALLY good, so good Brent asked for the recipe to their cranberry sauce and our waiter brought us out the recipe from the kitchen which makes two gallons on cranberry sauce. We will be back to eat there again! It was a restaurant that has always been on my Disney bucket list as the land is one of my favorite pavilions at Epcot (just behind Wonders of Life but that is not what it once was) so I have always wanted to eat there but could never get in. We originally had 8:05 dinner reservations but a couple days before 5:35 reservations popped up and we were able to change ours.
After dinner Brent and I ran in the rain to the photo center to fix an issue with our photo pass, and then we came back. Since it took so long to be seated we missed our Test Track fast passes but it was raining anyhow so the ride we down, so we decided to use our extra fast pass to ride Soarin. Brent, dad and I rode (this is one of dad's favorite rides) and mom stayed with Jilli. Once we got off we found out that Test Track was back open and because it had rained during our earlier Fast Fasses and the ride was closed they extend the fast passes and we were now able to ride. Mom and I went on and the boys stayed with Jillian. The line was moving slow inside and the park was getting ready to close. We were getting worried the boys would not be able to ride but they told us that they would make sure the boys could ride before they closed. The boys met us at the exit when we were done and they rode. We then headed for the buses to go to our hotel.
All of our bags had been delivered to our room for us so we started getting everything situated. Dad and I went down and got our Amazon Pantry box from the front desk and brought it to the room. Once we got Jilli all hooked up for the night we headed to bed around 11pm (yes, all of us adults had been up since 3:30am)
It was a MAGICAL first day!