You Can't Run Away From Trouble. There Ain't No Place That Far

During college my sister did an internship at Walt Disney World. There were plans to go there as a family while she was there (and could get us into the parks for free!) but it never happened. Ever since then, we have always said we would "eventually" take our families there. 

A year and a half ago my wonderful sister called me up and said she was sick of saying "eventually". So we finally made the plans. We bought plane tickets. We booked hotels. We made our Fast Pass reservations. 

My sister is an amazing vacation planner and she did most of the planning. She figured out what day we would visit which park, which rides we should go on in which order and so on. We spent hours and hours talking about our plans, amending them and re-amending them. 

Last Saturday we got on a plane for Orlando. We rode the Magical Express from the airport to our on-property hotel. Monday we went to Epcot. Tuesday we did Magic Kingdom. Wednesday we swam at Typhoon Lagoon. Thursday was Hollywood Studios and Friday and Saturday we re-visited Magic Kingdom and Epcot, respectively. 

Our planning paid off. Everything went smoothly, we missed a huge chunk of the crowds and we only had to wait in line for more then twenty minutes once.  

It was Friday we ran into a bit if trouble: We were there when the park opened and went straight to Frontierland to ride Splash Mountain. Because Alexa is too small for these rides, Drek and I take turns riding with Ash while the other stays with Alexa.  For this ride, Drek waited with Alexa while Ash and I did Splash Mountain. Right before we climbed into our floating log I stuffed my phone into the front right pocket of my jeans. Right after the big drop (and thank goodness not right before!) the ride stopped. While we waited for them to start us back up again I wanted to check the time. I reached for my phone: It was gone. My pocket was empty. I searched around us: no phone. The ride started moving again. We made it a few feet before it shut down again. I continued my search to no avail. Once again we moved forward and once again we stopped. And then a thought occurred to me: was it possible that my phone fell out of the ride into water on the big drop? Was it possible that the phone was on the ride's track, messing up the gears and that's why the ride kept stopping? 

As soon as we pulled in to unload, I searched though the log. I alerted the cast member to my missing phone, and she also searched: nothing. She shrugged and suggested I try the lost and found in a few hours. 

That night we rode The Jungle Cruise. It's located close to Splash Mountain and is also on water. At the end, we got stuck and had to wait for ten minutes not knowing what had caused the stop. Right after that we rode Pirates of the Caribbean: also located next to Splash Mountain and also on the water.  Right in the middle or Tortuga the ride stopped and we were stuck for over twenty minutes listening to the same two minute sound track. Drek wondered aloud whether the three systems were connected and whether or not my iphone could be responsible for jamming up all three rides all day long. 

After we finally escaped Tortuga we went back to Splash Mountain. Ash and Drek rode on it (and got stuck!) while Alexa and I asked every single cast member about my phone. One of them assured me that nothing falls out of the logs, and it was very unlikely that my phone had fallen out into track. Still, no phone turned up and all the cast members couldn't explain why the rides kept stopping. 

 The next day my sister received a text from my phone, sent by one of the cast members. My phone was returned to me without any explanation as to where it had been found or how it has disappeared Still, all my pictures were still on it and I was so happy to have them back. And after all, what good is a year and a half of planning if you don't have pictures to show for it?