Three Generations do a WDW Split Stay! April/May 2022 - Day 01: Travel Day + OKW

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[-- Trip Index --]

Day 01: Travel Day (April 23 2022)
Flights from Amsterdam - Newark - Orlando, checking in at Old Key West and QS resort dinner.

The big day is finally here! After a little over 2 years and 3 cancelled trips, we were finally heading to Florida again!
Yesterday was Friday and Myla's last day of school. I had finished packing and laid out our clothes for today, so when we got up at 4:30AM, we just needed to get dressed, brush our teeth, and that was it really!



By 5AM, we were all sorted and ready to step out the door. My husband was driving us to the airport - we swung by my mom's to pick her up (a 5 minute drive), and then headed on to Schiphol airport. This was a 30 minute drive, and by the time we'd parked and walked all the way over to the checkin desks, it was 5:45 AM. Check in was due to open soon, 6ish for the 9:15 AM flight, so we said goodbye to my husband, and joined the queue, full of excitement about our adventure!



Luckily, checkin opened a little early, and we were all sorted with bags dropped pretty quickly. There was no real queue at security or passport control either, so barely an hour after arriving at the airport, we found ourselves at the airside Starbucks for some breakfast, with a good 90 minutes to go until boarding.



Myla did some coloring as well, and we pretty much just chilled here for an hour.

Side note about the face masks, this trip was at a weird in-between time for face masks. The rules on this day were: no masks required in the Netherlands at all, no masks required in the USA at all, BUT, masks *were* required on the airside of airports to satisfy the rules of countries where masks were still mandatory. So we had the odd situation of no masks for check in, passport control, or security. You had to wear a mask as soon as you were past security (except when sitting down at, for example Starbucks). And then for our USA flight, we could take the mask off as soon as we stepped from the tunnel onto the actual airplane. Oh, and no masks for younger kids required anywhere. It all felt pretty confusing and pointless, I'd say maybe half of people in Schiphol were actually bothering with it, and by the time we flew back, less than 3 weeks later, masks in the airport were no longer mandatory either.

By 8AM we left Starbucks and headed to our gate, stopping by the toilets, the water refill station for our water bottles, and the Nijntje (Miffy) store for a quick look.



We checked out our plane which was already at the gate, and sat down to await boarding. Myla did some more coloring and was very excited!



This is when I started to get text messages from friends and family - apparently there was an unannounced strike happening at the airport right now, it was all over the news, from security personnel as well as baggage handlers and anyone wanting to check in right now was encountering chaos and huge lines. We hadn't noticed ANY of that - it must have started just after we got through everything. Our flight ended up being 20 minutes delayed taking off because of this, but that was the only minor inconvenience; I read later on in the papers that that Saturday turned into chaos at Amsterdam Airport, with people queuing for hours and hours and many missing their flights!

Finally at 9:20 we were boarding. Our seats were in the second last row with no one behind us.



We got ourselves sorted with headphones, chewing gum (me), and lollipops (Myla), and admired the nice views out the window once we finally took off!



The flight itself was fairly uneventful. We had some nice views flying over Ireland, and encountered a minor hiccup when the food service came around. I normally always pre-order vegetarian meals for myself, but post-covid, United Airlines didn't have the option to order different meals yet, other than child meals. And since we were at the back of the plane, by the time they came around to us, there wasn't any choice left in meals. Luckily the vegetarian meal was the one they had left; but that's a definite downside to seats at the back of the plane. Other than that the time passed quickly! We all slept a bit, Myla managed around 2 hours, watched movies, and Myla did a fair bit of coloring too.



Over Canada we saw lots of snow!



And as we were coming in to land, we had a great view over Manhattan. Oh the memories! My mom and I have been on many trips together, just the two of us, and our favorite ones were the 2 trips we took to New York City, in 2007 and 2011. Just flying into Newark and seeing the skyline brought back so many happy memories!



The landing was fine, and before we knew it, we were getting off the plane and were back in the USA! Yay! First stop, immigration. This looked busy but actually wasn't too bad, we were all through in less than 30 minutes.



We then went to collect our luggage, only to hand it in again around the corner. All quick and easy too, here's Myla waving goodbye to the suitcases:



Now we made our way to security again, no terminal switching required this time around, but security was strict as always. No major queues or anything, but altogether it took nearly an hour from waving off our bags, to be at the Starbucks near our gate. I took some photos of the lovely mugs they have, and got us some Frappuchinos and a fruit cup for Myla before heading to our gate.



We were all in high spirits, happy to be back and excited about the weeks ahead!

We'd landed in Newark at 11:15 local time, and by 13:15 we had boarded our next flight, taking off half an hour later for the last little leg to Orlando! A 2.5 hr layover in Newark feels just right for us - not so tight that you're stressing, but not so long you feel like you're having to wait ages either.



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The flight itself was smooth and uneventful too. I managed some sleep and Myla was good as gold again, she's such an easy and seasoned traveler! The landing was a bit bumpy, but we didn't really care, we were too elated to be back in our happy place!



Because we'd already cleared immigration in New York, it was just a quick and easy walk off the plane, stop at the toilets, and then we were on the monorail, the traditional first proper ride of the holiday.



I can't explain how happy I felt to be back; see the palm trees and the sunshine and the whole holiday ahead of us! After we got off the monorail, we couldn't resist a quick browse at the Disney store before making our way to baggage reclaim. We also stopped at the Kingdom Strollers desk to pick up our rented stroller.



In the mean time, I'd gotten a notification in MDE that our room was ready at OKW, and I'd been texting with my good friend Heather, who was picking us up from the airport. It was a bit of a faff to find her - the signs directed her in a different direction than where we were, and we ended up having to traipse from one side of the airport to the other with 3 suitcases and the stroller between me and my mom haha. We got there in the end though, and by 5PM, just over an hour after we landed, I'd reunited with one of my dearest friends; we'd overloaded her car with our luggage, and were on the road to OKW! Passing under the WDW sign is always a special moment.



When we pulled up at OKW, I got Heather to drop me off at the reception first of all, and for everyone else to stay in the car. The room that we'd been assigned, was in the Old Turtle Pond Area, and I went in to check if there maybe wasn't a room any closer to Hospitality House available. I had a very nice CM help me, and he found me basically the closest studio to HH that there is, just across the zebra crossing before the bridge! It wasn't ground floor like I'd requested, but the location made up for that. I thanked him profusely, and headed back to the car 10 minutes later. Heather was able to park right outside and gave us a hand with the luggage up to our room, as well as the box of Amazon stuff I'd had delivered to her house (snacks, sunscreen, etc), and some presents she had with her for Myla. Myla didn't remember meeting her when she was 3, so this was a great icebreaker of course! Heather is just the best!



Our room was lovely again - this was my second time staying at OKW but my mom's first and she was in awe with how nice everything looked! By 6PM we said goodbye to Heather for now (we were meeting up with her and her husband again tomorrow). We got changed out of our plane clothes into something more suitable for the hot weather (30 degrees outside!), and decided to do our best to stay up a little longer. We walked from our room to the lobby (1 minute!), had a little look around, and got some dinner from Goods to Go, the QS there. We sat at picnic tables overlooking the water to eat, watching the Disney Springs boats and generally just loving life! We both had the Power Salad, which was yum, and Myla had the kids snack pack. I know OKW isn't the flashiest of resorts but it's one of my absolute favorite places to stay, just so chill and beautiful, and it was lovely to see my mom fall in love with it too!



After we finished eating, we showed my mom the pool and the playground - Myla actually remembered these from 2 years ago and immediately ran off to go down the slides in the playground.



Myla also tested the pool water - approved haha, and she only got out because I promised there'd be swimming very soon!



We stopped by the giftshop on the way back to the room for a nosy, and my mom was so pleased to have the CMs compliment her on her top! Made her day!



We were back in the room just before 8PM, and fell into bed after a long 22-hour day! So happy everything went so smoothly, it was a great stress-free travel day!

[mrsdjh]

A long day but you all look so happy to be travelling. Your room looks lovely.

[Mamie Baldwin]

Your Mum’s top is fab. Can you post a link to your website please?

Thank you

[unixgirl]

What a great travel day and so lucky at Schipol.

[Frankie & gang]

Loving your trip report so far. Thanks for posting, I’ll look forward to reading all the rest of your trip

[Cutiepie]

Great travel day I was glad to see that you had started your report. I wondered if I had missed it. Looking forward to reading the rest

[nothingless]

Originally Posted by Mamie Baldwin

Your Mum’s top is fab. Can you post a link to your website please?

Thank you

See more...

Aw thanks! It's rainbowrules.com

Thanks everyone! I had meant to start this sooner but first we were away for most of the summer camping in France, and then in September we decided to go traveling for 4 months and we're just back from an epic trip to New Zealand haha! Such fond memories of this trip, it's lovely to relive it by writing all this up.

[Mamie Baldwin]

[QUOTE=nothingless;15809109]Aw thanks! It's rainbowrules.com

Thank you. I can’t see the top
your mum was wearing, was it one of the dresses?

[Palm trees]

Thanks for starting a new trip report. Your travel day sounds super smooth.
What a great feeling to be going back under the Disney arches again!