Day 2, Part 1: How to Confuse a Minnie Van Driver

I woke up this morning at 4AM and could not fall back asleep for a long time.  I don’t know why I’m so bad at sleeping, but it is rather annoying.  I did end up falling back asleep around 7, but then my alarm went off at 7:30. 

Oh well, I guess I was just so excited for my mom to finally get there!

So as mentioned earlier, my mom was getting picked up by a Minnie Van at the airport this morning.  We figured this would be the easiest way to get her to the hotel since she doesn’t do Uber/Lyft. 

The previous day I had gotten a call from Disney to confirm the details for the Minnie Van, and they told me where they would be meeting my mom, to which I replied that I knew exactly where that was since I was just there.  This led to some confusion since they were like “wait, you’re already at the airport?!?” but I clarified that I flew in early, but the Minnie Van was for my mom flying in the next day. 

Well, even though I explained that, it seems some wires still got crossed, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

I got ready for the day before heading out of the room at 8:30. This morning I was moving over to the Contemporary where I would be meeting my mom!

I took some final pictures of the room.

I called for an Uber and got one pretty quickly.  On the way over I was tracking my mom’s flight, which landed just before 9, only minutes before I arrived at the Contemporary.

Once I arrived, I headed to the front desk to check-in.  The CM doing the check-in was nice enough, but throughout the process didn’t make a single mention of me staying club level.  So after he completed the check-in, I asked if I could go up to the lounge, to which he simply replied, “of course.”

But I suspected that my magicband wouldn’t work to get me up to the club level floor at that point, so I asked about it, and he replied “yeah, it probably won’t.”

Um….

No offer to bring me up, no offer to get the magicband activated so I could go up.  Like what!??!

So I asked if he could help me with that, and it was at that point I think it clicked, and he was like “oh yeah, I can do that for you!”

Thanks dude. 

He did mention that he doesn’t normally work at the Contemporary nor the front desk, so he was kind of lost. 

He got my magicband activated and told me I had to drop my bags off at bell services first before heading up.  So I went over to bell services where they told me I had to go use the stand outside since the inside bell services didn’t handle bags.

Seriously, this check-in process was becoming increasingly frustrating. 

I made my way outside and finally got my bags checked in, then made my way back inside and over to the elevators where I scanned in and was whisked away up to club level, finally!

Once up at club level things went much more smoothly.

It was still breakfast time at that point, so one of the CMs up there showed me around the lounge and pointed out all the food offerings before letting me loose to grab breakfast!

I LOVED the self-pour mimosas there, although I found the glasses didn’t fit under the dispensers for the POG or OJ, but I realized that the Styrofoam cups were perfect to fill up with the juice, and then you could create a nice spout by simply bending the cup slightly to pour into the champagne flutes.

For breakfast I got some cheesy eggs, a fruit cup, bacon, coffee, POG juice, and of course a POGmosa.  The lounge was packed, so I didn’t get any pictures this morning, sorry!  Well, I did get one picture of a very fogged up window of the view from the lounge!

While eating my first round of food I got a panicked call from my mom.  She was at the location the Minnie Van CM said they would meet her, but there was no driver there for her! 

Fortunately, they had sent me the phone number of the driver, so I quickly texted him to find out where he was while trying to calm my mom down since she was in full on panic mode at that point.

Instead of texting back, the driver ended up calling me, so I put my mom on hold to speak with him.

It turns out my conversation with the CM the previous day had confused them greatly.  They had noted that we were already in Orlando and just wanted to meet them at the airport.  So the driver thought we’d be on the departures level since he was told we were coming into the airport from wherever we were in Orlando to meet them there.  Oops!

So I explained to him that no, my mom just landed and was waiting at the top of the escalators like we had been told. 

He was super nice and sooooo apologetic, which wasn’t needed, it was an honest mistake and it’s mostly our fault for confusing them!

I got back on the phone with my mom and let her know that he was on his way to her and told her not to move.

Fortunately, he found her soon after, and the good news is all this took up just enough time for my mom’s checked bag to come out!

They were finally on their way to the Contemporary, and it looked like they would be arriving a bit after 10.

A bit before my mom was supposed to arrive, I inquired about the mosaic class at the club level desk, but they told me I had to sign up downstairs out by the pool, so I headed out that way to do that.

The mosaic place wasn’t open yet when I got down there, even though it was past 10 and they were supposed to open at 10, but no big deal, my mom would be there soon so I wanted to meet her our front.

I made my way to the front and waited a few minutes until I saw her Minnie Van pulling in!  Well sort of.  Earlier that morning they had emailed me with the Minnie Van number, and the one that pulled in was a different number, but I swore I recognized my moms hair in the backseat, so I cautiously made my way over to the vehicle to find that it was in fact my mom!  Apparently, they changed the drivers car that morning and didn’t update us.  Oops!

I was so happy my mom was finally there!!!

Since breakfast would be ending at 10:30, we rushed her upstairs after checking her bags at bell services so she could grab a bite to eat as well before the service ended.

It was a bit of a hectic start to the trip, but we were so excited to finally get the trip really started!

Next up:  I Doubt It’s Going to Rain Today…