April 1st, 2023 Part 1 - The journey
Let's start this one off the night before, when I dropped off our two puppies at my brother's house.
Yup, you read that right....TWO puppies!
For my returning readers, you already know our 7-year old rescue, Boo but what you don't know is that we rescued another dog in December last year. We don't know much about her background. She was found on the streets, pregnant and alone, no collar, no chip, no tattoo. The vets estimated her age at just over a year and from our experience with her in the past four months, we think she might have been a stray her whole life.
Anyway, we named this gorgeous girl Luna and she's awesome! A little cray-cray but a fun and loving addition to our home.
So, while Boo knew exactly what we were up to when the suitcases came out and her go-bag was all packed up, Luna was completely oblivious.
Since I had to get up shortly after 2am on our travel day, Kira and I ended up dropping them off the night before. Kira cried when we said good-bye.
Luna is her dog (she's the main reason we got a second dog) and they had bonded quite quickly so it was tough for her. I reminded her that this was a short trip (purposely, for many reasons) and that she would see her again soon.
Luna Schmuna on the left and the Booberry on the right.
We were in bed by 8:30pm that night, after having time-shifted for a few days in order to prepare for the time zone difference. I find it a little easier, now that I am older, to slowly shift to the EST zone a few days before the trip than doing it ON the trip, so we all do it together.
We were all up at shortly after 2am to get ready and pack up the last-minute stuff. Kira had been on a Eggo waffle kick lately, so she had her fix before we left the house at 4am.
Although my phone is an iPhone 14 Pro, and most of the time the photos are great, sometimes, they end up with this weird fuzziness to them.
Rob dropped us off at the airport by 4:30am and then headed off to park our car for the week.
Kira and I checked us in, tagged and dropped our checked bags and then reunited with Rob before heading to security. This was the first time in forever that Rob travelled without his laptop, so it made going through security a breeze!
We wouldn't be eating again until Toronto, which was 6 hours away so we stopped at Chili's for breakfast. There's not many choices in this terminal so we always end up at Chili's.
The breakfast offerings weren't plenty but I got the bacon and eggs and Rob chose the waffles. They did have my delicious egg rolls back in stock finally but our server said that since they are short staffed, they could only offer the breakfast menu this morning. Ding dang, I have no luck with my SW egg rolls.
Mine was pretty good but Rob said his waffles were more like a dessert and were too sweet to eat. Thankfully Kira had already eaten at home because she wouldn't have cared for these waffles either. Lesson learned, next time he will order what I ordered.
I shared some of mine with him and then he went to Timmy's for coffee and snacks, which lasted him until our dinner in Toronto.
As we were sitting there at Chili's, we got a notification that our flight from Toronto to Orlando would be delayed. It had already been delayed once about a week before we left, something about scheduled maintenance to our plane. So, originally, our layover in Toronto was three hours, the first delay made it four hours and this recent delay would make it four and a half hours.
For those of you who don't already know, the Toronto airport SUUUUUUCKS!
It's known for it's delays and lost baggage and just plain general airport suckiness. Like most other Canadians, we try to avoid it when possible but sadly, as this was a Spring Break trip and the prices were crazy, it was unavoidable.
It was time to board our flight and they were actually enforcing the whole don't stand in line until your boarding zone is called, which was a nice change! We were zone 3 and there were people in the line ahead of us in zone 4 and 5! They were actually told to leave the line and come back when their zone was called.
We settled in, took our traditional seat pic, lysol'd everything and as soon as we got to our cruising altitude, Kira and I proceeded to pass out on Rob.
We landed in Toronto and headed up to security and US Customs. This is yet another reason I hate connecting in Toronto, you have to go through security again! And they are always a lot more thorough than anywhere else. Rob and Kira sailed through but for some reason, they needed to swab my ipad. Oh well, it was still the smoothest and quickest YYZ security for us ever.
Customs was also a breeze with our Nexus cards. There was a massive regular line but for Nexus members, you stop at a machine, it takes your pic and spits out a piece of paper, then you proceed past that massive line and basically get the next customs agent. Best $50 I have ever spent! Well, since I've renewed it once already, best $100 I've ever spent.
We made our way to our traditional YYZ stop, Wahlburgers. It was packed but there just happened to be one table left and it was "our" table. And if you're a Wahlburgers TV show fan, you have to say that last line like they do in the show.
The full menu was back but we always get the same thing, burgers for Rob and I and chicken strips for Kira.
Kira was missing her dog so much that she kept showing me Luna photos every few seconds.
The service was terrible but the food was delicious!
Before we left on this trip, I had made the decision to TRY to vlog this trip instead of writing a trip report. There were a couple of comments on my Alaska YT videos about how they don't like the music that I use on my vacation videos and that they would prefer a vlog type series like all of the YouTubers do these days.
At first I just brushed them off and thought, well, if you don't like my videos, then don't freaking watch them! I don't have a monetized account, I have a whole 245 subscribers,
I make the videos for me and my family, to relive them as Kira gets older. I don't make them for other people. I make them for myself.
Then, as the trip got closer, I thought maybe it would be nice to vlog them, then I could share real-time reviews of what we see and eat and have more of Kira's voice featured on the videos instead of just my footage set to music.
Okay, so that was the goal!
It started out alright I guess but by the time we got to Toronto, I realized I was NOT a vlogger!
I don't like to be on camera, I don't like talking, I don't like the sound of my voice and neither Rob or Kira were interested in narrating/commenting while I filmed. So that was quickly shot down.
So stay tuned, after this report is done, for vacation videos.
We made our way to our gate and found a seat close enough that we could hear the announcements for our flight. Toronto doesn't have a lot of regular seats near the gates, they are all tables with the ipads on them to order food and drinks, so we stayed at the table until boarding began.
There was one more delay, I can't recall the reason but we were in those chairs for quite some time! I told Rob that the next time we have to do a layover in Toronto, I will make it a later flight and spend the night there and then fly out to MCO in the morning. I am getting too old for this
Kira got comfy for the looooong wait.
Finally, we boarded! This was a cool plane, it had lights that changed colors, it was very pretty! The seats were 2 x 4 x 2 and Kira chose to be in the aisle seat in that middle section. She lucked out and had nobody next to her.
We were originally supposed to land at MCO at 8pm, and although we definitely made up some time in the air from YYZ to MCO, we didn't land until just after 10pm.
All was good though when we saw that all three checked bags made it!
We headed to the garage, picked out a Malibu for the week and headed for Disney!
I had received our room assignment when I landed but I was really hoping for a ground floor room. It was the only request I put in but when I checked upon arrival, they said they were fully booked. Oh well, off we went to find 8504!
I was tired, didn't take the best pics
We were all exhausted. We sanitized the best we could and unpacked and then passed out around 12:30am.
Stay tuned for a brunch and some late hours.
2005 Live WDW & DCL
2016 Christmas on the Wonder
2021 Christmas on the Wonder
Lovely to see all your beautiful faces in the pictures 
Glad to made it there with not too much delay (considering how travel has been in the past year) and having all your luggage is definitely a major plus!! Can't wait to hear all about you trip. And about the vlog vs videos, you are totally right, they are yours and make them however your love family loves them. I always enjoy them!
And I double Disney dare you not to yell out SQUIRREL when you see a Disney squirrel! It's unpossible! 
