A Pearland family is making the best of their trip to Disney World after a twice-rescheduled vacation as Hurricane Ian rips through Florida.
“I think it’s kind of ironic, I’m like, ‘Is the universe trying to tell us something?’” Colleen Casady said from her hotel room.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the family’s trip. Last year, doctors diagnosed Colleen’s husband Lauren with cancer.
“We didn’t have any hurricanes in the Gulf over in Houston this year, and we come all the way to Disney, and here we go,” she said.
Colleen was supposed to have a conference there that’s now been canceled.
The family arrived in Orlando on Saturday when forecast tracks showed the storm going further north.
“We didn’t really think about it coming straight towards here,” she said.
By the time Ian gets to Orlando, the impacts are forecasted to be less severe than when the Category 4 hurricane hit southwest Florida on Wednesday afternoon.
As of Wednesday night, high winds and rain were already picking up outside their hotel room.
The family is eating sack lunches, hunkering down, and following Disney’s guidance to “shelter indoors” and “not leave your resort building until further notice,” according to a push alert Casady received from the Disney app around 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
“Now, I get alerts like every five minutes on my phone. The Disney app is constantly going off,” she added.
Commercial operations are currently suspended at the Orlando airport, one of many airports across the Sunshine State affected by Ian’s path.
So, the Casady’s will ride it out, happy to be spending time together after years of setbacks.
“For us realistically, I mean, we’re at Disney. It’s not the end of the world,” she said.
They are expected to return to Houston on Monday.