A Disney-loving family from Arizona rode out Hurricane Milton’s wrath on Wednesday from the comfort of their Disney World resort room as the park offered partial compensation amid the destructive and deadly storm.
Sandra Guadarrama-Baumunk has made the trip from Phoenix to Orlando over the past three years and thought it would be a perfect time to go to the theme park after Hurricane Helene pummeled the area one week earlier.
“Oh, thank goodness. We missed it by a week,” the married mother of two recalled in her essay for Business Insider.
The family remained committed to their trip to the park even after learning of Milton barrelling toward the Sunshine State.
Guadarrama-Baumunk, 53, her 58-year-old husband Brian, their two daughters Sofia, 21, and Mia, 25, along with Mia’s boyfriend Jeremy, 25, flew into Orlando on Oct. 5 for their vacation.
“I thought positively that it was going to miss us,” Guadarrama-Baumunk added. “I also felt a resort was one of the safest places to be in a hurricane because they’d been through it before and knew what to expect.”
Along with the rest of the country, the family monitored the powerful storm approach Florida.
They enjoyed all the parks and the amenities they could until the park shut down at 2 p.m. Wednesday ahead of Milton’s landfall on the western-central coast of Florida.
After the parks closed, they made their way back to the resort, where staff prepared activities for the guests including crafts and s’mores, Guadarrama-Baumunk wrote.
The storm made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane near Siesta Key in Sarasota County, 125 miles southwest of Disney.
To pass the time, the family played games they purchased from the gift shop, including UNO card games and enjoyed the bar, but — like anyone else — being too close to others for an extended amount of time can cause problems.
“When you’re with your family in such a confined space, you have to dig deep for patience sometimes,” she wrote.
To accommodate the unfortunate circumstances, the hotel offered discounts at the restaurants, which featured limited menus.
The family dined out on a barbecue-themed dinner for $26 a person instead of the usual $40, and a breakfast skillet was being sold for $14 each instead of $26.
Guadarrama-Baumunk had already changed into her pajamas at around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, as the storm slammed the western part of Florida.
The family then endured the resort’s fire alarms which were set off during Milton.
All the guests evacuated to the lobby, where they remained “calm and well-organized.”
“The Disney staff said the fire station had already arrived, which was reassuring. After barely 10 minutes, they said it was some kind of short circuit, and we were safe to return to our rooms,” she said.
“It was the only drama we had all night, apart from the wind and rain lashing at our windows. I know other parts of Florida were badly damaged but, for us, it was fine.”
The family’s trip was extended one more day, as their flight out of Florida for Friday was rescheduled to Saturday.
The resort offered a 40 percent discount on their two rooms for hurricane relief, saving over $2,000 for the extra night.
Milton is being blamed for at least 17 deaths across eight counties in Florida.
Despite the worst-case scenario for the state not playing out, more than a dozen deaths were attributed to the storm, with many caused by a tornado outbreak that left mobile home parks flattened.
Winds over 100 mph caused chaos around the state including in St. Petersburg where strong gusts tore the majority of Tropicana Field’s roof off, and a crane collapsed into the Tampa Bay Times building in the city’s downtown area.
Around 1,000 people and at least 100 animals were rescued from debris and floodwaters, emergency managers said.
Roughly 2.5 million customers remained without power Wednesday morning, according to Poweroutage.us.
Despite Disney World closing Wednesday and Thursday, officials confirmed the park would reopen to guests Friday morning.
With Post wires