With A Little Help From (Disney) Friends

Let me start off my saying this blog is being shared as a glimpse into our personal experience during our Fall break vacation in Orlando, FL as hurricane Milton passed from west to east through Florida. This writing is in no way meant to make light of the disastrous path left behind by hurricanes every year.

Our family has been heartbroken by the impact of hurricanes Helene in late September as it resulted in death and destruction all the way from Florida, Georgia, South/North Carolina, to our beloved East Tennessee and beyond. The lives lost are a reminder of the dangers of severe storms and the fragility of life. My bother’s community in NE Tennessee was greatly impacted by Helene and it will take a long time for areas like his to return to normalcy.

For anyone who is curious how the folks at Walt Disney World handle a major weather event like hurricane Milton, I thought I would share our firsthand story.

Hurricane Milton made its way through Florida beginning on October 9, 2024 as it reached landfall as a category 3 hurricane on the west coast of Florida in the Siesta Key area and finished up on October 10 as it exited off the east coast of Florida. Unfortunately not before leaving behind a lot of damage from storm surge and flooding, and most importantly the impact of lost lives.

The Orlando area has only had two hurricane warnings in the last fifty years (the last one being hurricane Charlie in 2013). As far as our experience with hurricane Milton, there was never a time where we felt it would be necessary to leave town before the storm. I wanted to be clear on the priority we placed on staying safe.

We arrived to Orlando on Saturday, Oct 5th and while we knew the weather was not looking like it was going to be all sunshine and good weather, we planned ahead for some indoor activities to keep ourselves entertained.

Cirque du Soleil was an awesome show at the Disney Springs location, our daughter had fun trying indoor skydiving at iFly, and we “escaped” with one minute to spare from an escape room at The Great Escape Game. We also surprised our daughter with a day at SeaWorld.

The first hurricane warning alert came across our phones while we were in the escape room. It’s was about 5:15pm on Mon, Oct 6. The trip back to the resort was slow going because of heavy traffic. A lot of people were heeding the evacuation warnings or traveling back home early from their vacation. However, things still seemed pretty normal on the resort property and Disney had signs posted around the entrances and elevators that they were monitoring the weather and stated they would continued to operate normally until further notice.

On our way to SeaWorld on Tuesday we stopped for gas at the 3rd gas station we found after the first two were out of gas. It took a lot longer than usual due to the lines but we felt better having a full gas tank for when we needed it. SeaWorld was not crowded at all so it allowed us to see and do all the things.

For this particular stay in Orlando, we had planned ahead to do some Disney resort hopping since we weren’t planning to spend our days at the parks due to the iffy weather. Going to the resort pools and doing things on the vast Disney property is fun even when park visits aren’t on the agenda. Our 11-year-old daughter loves the pool so that was an easy way to relax while she had fun.

We spent our first night at the Grand Floridian, night two at Saratoga Springs, our 3rd night at the Wilderness Lodge and nights 4-6 at the Riviera Resort. We had planned to spend a night at Bay Lake Towers but would have had to change resorts during the storm so we opted to stay put at the Riviera Resort to be on the safe side.

On Wed, Oct 8 we knew the weather would be getting dicey when the Disney folks announced they would close the Disney Parks at 1pm on Wednesday and they would remain closed on Thursday. They also evacuated the Disney campground and the treehouse villas nearby. We saw that they removed the Skyliner gondolas from the high wires above our resort property.

We stayed on the 5th floor of a 10 story building so we felt secure. Activities for the kids were set up around the indoor areas of the resort so there were some fun things to do. During that time we got the first alert that there would be a county wide curfew from 8pm Wednesday until 10am Thursday.

On the property the resort personnel had tied down everything that was loose as a precaution. Several Disney characters came to the hotel lobby for a visit, including Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck.

The landfall of hurricane Milton that was aiming right toward Tampa Bay started to shift further South and the originally catastrophic category 5 hurricane lowered to a category 3 by the time it made landfall. We went to bed on Wednesday night without knowing what would transpire with the hurricane. I have always been a heavy sleeper and could sleep through most storms but this was different. I was jolted awake around 3am due to the high winds whistling by and the vibrations of the glass balcony doors.

We were fortunate to not experience the 120+ MPH winds but they were still very fierce. The winds were stated to be 64+ MPH when I was awoken at 3am. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be inside the eye of a category 5 hurricane after seeing and hearing the winds of a category 1. It’s an ominous feeling and the complete lack of control is overwhelming.

The morning after the storm people slowly came out of their hotel rooms to look around. Besides some downed trees and limbs there wasn’t much evidence that a hurricane even came through our resort. The wind continued to blow and the air was cool from the recent rain. When we drove off Disney property we saw more downed trees and most businesses were closed on Thursday. We are beyond grateful to have remained safe during this time and pray for all those impacted. Now back to our regularly scheduled vacation.