Eight Hours in Orlando

It was July 2017 when I bought my tickets to visit my family in Brazil during the winter break. My classes would be done in the first week of December, so I wanted to buy the tickets at a reasonable price as soon as possible. I would have a layover of eight hours in Florida, but I didn't pay attention to the airport, so I thought it was Miami since I've been there all the time between my flights from Brazil to Minnesota and vice versa. At the end of November, I wanted to check my layovers to let my mom know about everything, and I realized I was actually going to Orlando. So I searched how far would be the airport from Disney World, and it would range from 20 to 25 minutes. I realized I had my perfect chance to get to see Disney World, and after talking to my mom about it, she was afraid I would not have enough time to enjoy the park and catch my flight, but I convinced her and bought my ticket online.

Purchase ticket here:

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/admission/

They have four fantastic Theme parks, including Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom. I chose the Magic Kingdom since I dreamed of visiting the castle and seeing Mickey Mouse. I was really excited on the day of my trip, I woke up early morning to get ready, and I would be in Orlando by 10 am. As soon as I got into the airport, I went to Azul Airlines to check my luggage and go to Disney. However, the Brazilian airline was closed, and someone told me they would only open around 3 pm since the flight was at 6 pm. I got upset, I thought my trip was ruined, and I couldn't go to Disney anymore, I started crying and called my mom. She told me: "It's okay, perhaps you can go to a hotel and leave your luggage there. Use your credit card, and I will pay you later." My mom made me happy again, and that's what I did, I looked for a hotel near Disney, so I could leave my luggage there and enjoy my trip. I picked the first place it was available, and the place was Wyndham Grand Orlando Resort.

Book here:

https://www.wyndhamgrandorlando.com/

I book a room in Wyndham Grand Orlando Resort, and I call an uber to go there. Once I am at the resort, I get mesmerized because the place is simply amazing. How did I book such a place for my luggage? It was 11 am, and I had to wait a bit for people getting check out so I could go to my room. I'm starving, so I have croissants and tea at the restaurant. Around 11:30 am,  I am able to get my room, so I go upstairs while this guy is taking my luggage there. I get out of the elevator and start going to the room when I wanted to record a video of the hall, I don't find my phone. I remember that I left my phone in the restroom next to the restaurant, so I start running and I am afraid of losing my phone. The guy with my luggage sees me running in the hall, and I assume he must think that I am crazy. I get to the restroom and find my phone; I feel so relieved. I finally go running to my room because I need to go to Disney as soon as possible to have time to enjoy the park. The same guy sees me running again and smiles. Here's your luggage – he says. Thank you – I reply, and I stay with an open mouth when I see my room. I enter and see a fancy king bed and the room has beautiful decorations, I look through the window and see a beautiful view of Orlando and the swimming pool seems amazing, the bathroom also looks impressive, and I jump laying on the bed thinking "should I even go to Disney? Well, I paid for it, so yeah!" I look at my luggage and say “enjoy your stay while I have fun at the Magic Kingdom.” I go downstairs and call for an Uber, I see the driver's name is Jose, and I keep waiting for him. Well, he takes at least 20 minutes to get there, and I get a little impatient since I really need to be at the park as fast as I can. Jose calls me apologizing for being late, there is traffic and finding the resort was a bit difficult for him. He sounded very nice and I thought everything would be fine. He arrives at the resort, and on my way to the park, I explain everything to him. We became friends in the short amount of time between the resort and the park; he even offers to pick me up at a particular time to take me to the hotel and then the airport. I agree with him, I get his phone number, and we plan to meet around 5 pm since my flight is at 6:15 pm.

I arrive at Disney World, and everything looks magical. Well, it is actually the place where all your dreams come true. I show my confirmation number and get my card for the park. I enter the park, and the first thing I do is get my selfie stick and start taking pictures, it just took ten minutes before a security guard came and asked me to follow him, I couldn't use the selfie stick, so they keep it, and I can get it back once I am done playing there. The park is huge, and they have a little train so people can stop at certain stations, so I take the train, and I see the castle on the way. I had a plan to visit three attractions in the park, but since my plans were messed up by the airline, I decided to walk around and to take pictures instead of figuring out what time are the attractions. There is a parade when I am walking on the way to the castle, and I see a dragon, warriors, then I see Donald Duck, and many others, but when I finally see Mickey waving and talking to Miney, I feel like I am a five years old meeting one of my favorite characters in real life.

While walking, I see attractions such as Peter Pan, the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and when I get to the castle, they are having a show. I see many characters from Frozen, and I take several pictures in front of the castle. It is almost 3:30 pm when I see people in a big line take pictures with Buzz Lightyear, I thought I want to take pictures with him since I don't have any picture with any other character, so I go to the line, and when it hits 4:30 pm, I think to myself regretting my decision of trying to take a picture, I know I need to leave by 5 pm, or I would risk of missing my flight. I was tired of walking around so I still stand on the line knowing I should take a picture soon, I finally get a photo at 4:50 pm, and once I'm done, I run. I had a backpack, and I was exhausted, but deep down I knew I had to run, that day I felt I never ran more during my whole life. I run to a station to take the train and get out of the park. I see people in line, but no one is going inside the train because they are going to wait for the next one, but I can't wait. I see a security guard closing a small gate, but the train door is still open, I wait until the guy looks to the other side, I jump the small gate and get into the train, the guard saw me, and he was coming in my direction but just in time for the train doors to close. I get relieved I am on the train and at the same time I feel bad for doing such a thing, I call my mom and ask her: “I'm still at Disney, I will go pick up my luggage soon, please pray, so I don't miss my flight.” People inside the train seem to feel bad for me since I look so tired, and they heard my conversation. I get out of the park and I run to the place to get my selfie stick back, there was a long line, so I just leave it there. I keep running in the parking lot while calling Jose, he tells me where he is, and I see his card far away. I hear someone shouting, "your jacket fell; here's your jacket." I don't care for a while, but when I look back I see this man running towards me and holding my winter jacket (it's winter in Minnesota), I look my backpack that is opened, and it probably opened while I was running all this time, I thank him for that and meet Jose.

He's driving to the hotel, and he asks me to call the hotel and check out saying it's an emergency and will miss my flight. I call them, they say my luggage will be down, but when I get there the receptionist was not the one I talked on the phone, and my luggage is not down, so I run to my room and take them down, Jose takes them to his car while I try to check out, then someone shows up saying my room number, so I know that was the woman I talked to, so I say: “I already got them don’t worry, please check me out because I need to go.” I run to the car and on the way out, the same guy who was taking my luggage in the morning saw me and had a big smile on this face, he was talking to another guy, and I am pretty sure he could’ve mentioned how much he has seen me running today.” While in the car, Jose drives so fast, and he talks to me saying that hopefully there will be no police to stop him, and if I miss my flight, he can take me to a hotel so I can stay the night. This thought scares me because I really need this flight since the next morning I will be landing in Sao Paulo, Brazil and I am going to a Michael Jackson Hostel, but that's another story I will tell later. We got to the airport around 5:50 pm and thank God, they still take my luggage to check-in, and I run to my plane, I thank Jose a lot through texts since he was waiting outside to make sure I didn't miss my flight. I pass security, and when I am almost at the gate, I hear people talking loud, and in Portuguese, I never felt so relieved and so happy for having a flight delayed. Yes! My flight was delayed. Instead of leaving at 6:15 pm, we left at 6:40 pm; I told my mom everything while waiting inside the plane to depart. I hear the guy sitting next to me laughing while I speak to my mom. Well, I guess this story seems funny and crazy. When the plane took off, I close my eyes and think how much I planned this trip, and nothing happened as I expected, with this thought I realize, it wouldn't such a fun adventure if it happened the way I expected, so I am happy nothing happened the way I planned.