February 27, 2015

Chapter 3
Transfer Time

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We had laughed when we looked at the sleeve that our room keys came in and saw this warning about stranger danger.

Then during the night, we did have some random strangers banging on the door of our room. I think they probably just got the wrong room, but it was still a little ironic. The guests at this hotel were a little louder than we would have preferred, so we didn’t sleep that well and were glad we wouldn’t be here another night.

When we got up, we threw all of our belonging back together and put our DCL luggage tags on our big suitcases. Then we headed downstairs and asked when the next shuttle back to the airport would be arriving. The font desk attendant freaked us out by asking if we had gotten on the list yet (no one had mentioned a list when we’d asked about the shuttle the night before). He freaked us out further by telling us that the next shuttle was already full so we probably wouldn’t be able to get on. We very begrudgingly started trying to formulate a plan for taking a cab back to MCO, but we still waited around in case there were some no-shows for the shuttle. I’m not sure what happened exactly, but we were just able to squeeze into the van and head back to the airport for free.

I took a picture of the hotel sign as we pulled away.

We hadn’t eaten anything yet this morning, so we went to the food court right when we got to MCO.

We got a Frappucino and a scone at Starbucks (and we were excited that it was the last meal we’d need to pay for in the near future).

Breakfast in hand, we started toward the B side of the airport (we actually got it right this time!).

Even though we weren’t taking the regular Magical Express, we still needed to follow the signs as though we were.

We enjoy watching the See Ya Reel Soon YouTube channel with their weekly video trip reports, and Joe and Ashley always talk about the clacking sound that their suitcases make on the tiles at MCO. I got a picture of Tracy as she enjoyed the sound.

The check-in process for the DCL transfers is much less involved than the one for all the different resort hotels that the Magical Express services. We just had to follow a couple signs.

They checked our boarding passes against our passports and threw our suitcases under the bus (we wouldn’t see them again until we got on the ship). There’s something satisfying about taking an actual Magical Express bus when you ride to WDW and taking an actual DCL bus to the cruise terminal.

After boarding, we found seats with a nice view of the TVs.

The driver told us that it would take just about an hour to get to the terminal, and we were quickly on our way. We were excited that there is a special DCL welcome video, featuring all the characters.

The video didn’t take up the whole ride, but then they showed a couple cartoon shorts and some Disney trivia after it had ended.

We knew that we were getting toward our destination when we started going over bridges to the peninsulas that make up the far eastern edge of Florida.