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Well, we are back from Florida now (well, last night, actually).  I had intended to write while I was down there, but I ran into a couple of obstacles.  First, our hotel did not have good internet access in the rooms.  I could pay $9.99 per night just to write a blog post, or I could go down to the lobby to use their free wireless access.  The second option would have been okay, except that we were never at the hotel long enough on a night to make that worthwhile either.  The longest we were awake in our hotel room all weekend was three hours on Saturday night, and that's only because we decided to eat supper there once we were done at Epcot.

Not getting into details of the vacation itself, here's the good and the bad from our trip:

The Good

• Hotel Location - We stayed at the Comfort Inn in Lake Buena Vista.  It turned out that this is right off the Interstate, and less than a ten minute drive to any of the main parks at Disney.  There was a convenience store on the same road, right on the way to the freeway, so we could stop and get breakfast.  Even though I might not recommend the hotel itself (still undecided with that), I definitely recommend the area.  There are several hotels right there to choose from, and all are definitely less than the price of any of the Disney resorts.
• The aforementioned convenience store - Not a huge selection, but enough where we could buy some decent snacks for the park, and a few choices for breakfast, all reasonably priced.
• The Disney FastPass - Overall, we did not have any really long lines anyways, but for the few attractions we wanted to do that did have long lines, the FastPass was absolutely amazing.
• The Toyota Prius - Being environmentally conscious, we decided to rent a Prius for our travel needs down there.  I guess we could have just taken shuttles to and from the airport/hotel/parks, but I like having the freedom to go where I want, when I want.  I had to put in a total of 2.4 gallons of gas before returning it, after four days of use.  In addition, the car was a great ride, has some really nice features, and was just big enough for our needs.  It takes some getting used to, since there is no key to turn, and the various functions are not in any of the normal spots (standards, anyone?) but once I figured out those things, it was great.  If I were ever to buy a foreign car, this would probably be it.  Never going to happen, but I did enjoy it for the four days we had it.
• Catching up on reading - The only good thing about waiting for a flight and flying itself is that I can normally get some good, solid reading time in.  I got through about five magazines and most of a book during this trip.

The Bad

• Hotel Management - They lost our reservation.  I booked it through Travelocity, so they really had no choice but to find us a room.  However, the night staff was pretty much totally incompetent.  We got to the hotel at about 12:30 in the morning.  We did not get to our room until almost 1:30.  That is absolutely ridiculous.  At least we were able to get a room with a king-sized bed instead of two doubles.
• Detroit, Orlando, and Memphis airports - Taking off from or landing in any of these airports was a horrible experience.  The least amount of time we were taxied at any of these airports was 10 minutes.  Landing in Memphis, we were on the ground for over 20 minutes before passengers started to get let off the plane.  If the plane for our connecting flight back to Milwaukee hadn't been delayed in arriving, we very well could have missed our flight.  The ground travel time has to be known by airlines by now, they really should factor that time into the flight time, because a flight to Milwaukee with a time of one hour is typically about an hour and ten minutes, but a flight time to Memphis with a time of one hour much closer to an hour and a half, if not more.
• Connecting Flights - It never fails, if your plane is late and you have a minimal amount of time to change planes, the gate you come from and the gate you need to go to are always as far apart as possible.  We arrived in Memphis at gate B-3, and had to go to gate B-41.  Concourse B only has 44 gates, and no moving walkways to speed things along.
• Food prices at Disney - They make major sporting events and venues seem like little league concession stands when it comes to food pricing.
• Not travelling Midwest - Not that Northwest is a bad airline, because I would still choose them over most others, but I'm spoiled.  Midwest is leaps and bounds above everyone else, and they are priced very competitively if you book in advance.  However, since we booked this trip last minute, and flew on what are two of the worst travel days all year (Wednesday before and Sunday after Thanksgiving), Midwest was way too expensive.  It would have been another $350 per ticket if we had gone that route.  Northwest doesn't even give you a free bag of peanuts or pretzels anymore.  If you want any sort of snack, you have to pay for it.  They also only gave me the cup filled with ice and about two swallows of soda on our flight down to Orlando.  Just give me the whole can.
• Airports at night - Back when there were night flights and redeyes, airports had shops that stayed open late to get food or something to read or whatever.  After 9/11, and air travel died off so drastically, the shops are all pretty much closed by 9pm.  Really sucks if you are on one of those late flights, even worse if your flight is delayed.
• Parking at Disney - You already got over $400 from me for tickets, now you want another $11 a day for parking?  That is absurd.
• Parents taking kids to attractions inappropriate for their age group - There is no reason to take your two-year-old to the Indiana Jones stunt show.  He will get nothing out of it, and will most likely ruin the experience for everone around you when he starts crying with the first loud noise.  If you are going to a park like this for the kids, then do the things that the kids will actually enjoy.  If you are going to the park for your own personal enjoyment, then leave the kids at home.
• People cutting in front of you at the airport - Everyone is getting lined up to board the plane.  Then some jerk decides that he is more important than everyone, and pushes his way to the gate, and just stands there, like no one else was there before him.  Or while you are waiting at baggage claim, standing about a foot away from the carousel, someone steps in front of you because he saw an opening to get his luggage five seconds sooner.  I stand back a little bit so that multiple people can see into that opening, and be able to get their baggage, not just me.  I wish other people would be more considerate at airports.  It's also really annoying when someone in a row behind you on the plane pushes you out of the way so they can get out before you.  That extra minute isn't going to save you anything at all, especially if you have to wait for your luggage anyways.
• Northwest's insane boarding policy - After preboarding, they then board everyone at once - all rows.  Again, this might just be Midwest spoiling me, but it just seems to make sense to board the back rows of the plane first.  This way, you don't have some idiot in the fifth row standing around for five minutes getting himself settled, preventing the forty rows behind him from boarding at all.  Boarding the plane can be done in less time that way.

Anyways, it might seem like the bad outweighed the good, but in reality, it doesn't.  All of these things, for the most part, are just part of travelling by air.  I'm used to them by now, but they still annoy me quite a bit.  As long as the main event of any trip is good, then the trip is a success to me.  And this was definitely a great trip, but I'll leave that for another post.