August is here and after the hurricane season of 2017, this time of year will inevitably bring back memories for many islanders, Floridians, and vacationers who were impacted by the back to back storms last year. Our hearts were breaking each night as we watched updates of the hurricane force winds destroying property and creating flooding in Texas, Cuba, Florida, Puerto Rico, and all the other affected islands.
It just so happened that we had booked a Disney vacation for the second week of September 2017. Our flight was scheduled to land just hours before Hurricane Irma made landfall herself. Many tourists carried on with their vacation plans. Our September 9th flights into Orlando were not cancelled, but we opted to reschedule, not knowing how bad the storm would be, if our presence would create additional stress on emergency responders who were already stretched thin, if local evacuees would need the room we were giving up, and on a personal, selfish level, how much our own vacation would be impacted.
I must take a moment to brag on the excellent guest service that both Disney and The Affordable Mouse provided during this time. We ended up pushing our trip back by just one week. We were not able to stay at our original resort, Port Orleans Riverside. Nancy was on the phone for literally hours, several days in a row assisting my family and other guests. We ended up at Coronado Springs, which turned out to be a wonderfully magical experience. Disney guest representatives worked tirelessly to rearrange reservations without penalizing anyone. Southwest Airlines also made switching flights super easy, without charging passengers a dime.
The Walt Disney World theme parks ended up closing early on Saturday, September 9th and remained closed Sunday and Monday, reopening Tuesday, September 12th. Resorts remained open to guests and local evacuees throughout the storm. The hospitality at resorts was phenomenal and cast members who could have been safely at home with their own families made sure that guests were safe first and foremost, but also fed and entertained. Disney was well-prepared to handle the dangers of the Category 1 storm as well as guest occupancy.
By the time we arrived on Saturday, September 16th, there was barely a trace of the storm on Disney property. We spotted a couple trees down at our resort, which were cleaned up before we left, and 2 attractions were closed throughout our trip due to minor damage (Jungle Cruise and Tom Sawyer Island at Magic Kingdom).
Since we rescheduled our trip at the last minute, we lost all of the FastPass+ reservations we had planned. We didn’t have much trouble getting most of the same ones again, but understandably there were a couple we thought we would have to miss out on this time around. A couple days into our trip, we received an email saying we would receive additional Fastpasses for all the attractions we had previously scheduled for our original reservation that could be used at any time during our stay. When we went to guest services and informed them that some of the Fastpasses they gave us were at parks that we would not be returning to, or for attractions that we had been able to reschedule ourselves, they went above and beyond to help us. We ended up having 6 Fastpasses in each park for the remainder of our trip, which made riding everything an absolute breeze. We felt like VIPs walking onto Flight of Passage and then Nav’i River Journey at Animal Kingdom. Disney really took care of us, their property, and hopefully their amazing cast members during this crazy, stressful time.
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Candice was raised in east Tennessee. While in college, her best friend dragged her to a Walt Disney World College Program recruiting session at the University of Tennessee and the rest is Disney history. In the Fall of 1999, Candice became a quick service food hostess for Sunset Ranch Market and Fantasmic at Disney-MGM Studios – or what is now known as Disney’s Hollywood Studios. While soaking up her time as a cast member, she met Ryan, a neighbor and a fellow college programmer who worked as a custodial host at Epcot. Four years later, Candice moved to the Midwest and married that boy from across the hall. They now live in Greenwood, Indiana with their two little boys. The Disney-loving foursome took their first family trip to The Happiest Place on Earth in 2013 and Candice is eagerly planning their return. Candice also works full-time at a community mental health center and enjoys taking photographs and blogging at Mommy in the Midwest.
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