Will we stick to the schedule I've laid out for us? Will my MIL use the wheelchair we have rented for her or will we end up convincing her to rent a power operated scooter instead? Stay tuned!
PRE-TRIP REPORT - AKA All about US!
Ok, so below you will see the PLAN for each day followed by WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!
Day 1 - Arrive at airport, pick up rental minivan, drive to Beach Club Resort for check-in. Our DVC room has never EVER been ready before 4pm but we have 2 different regular rooms this time so maybe we'll get lucky. Since we arrive around lunchtime, I'm thinking of hitting Beaches and Cream for lunch...how I'd LOVE to try a kitchen sink! Then we'll hang out at the pool for the rest of the day, have dinner that evening at Spoodles around 7pm, then if we are up for it maybe we can hit EPCOT in the evening, even if only to catch Illuminations.
What actually happened:
DAY ONE: Today's the DAY! Here we GO! (AKA We love AirTran!!)
DAY ONE Cont'd: ARRIVAL AT BEACH CLUB RESORT
Day 2: The Original Plan
Early morning checkout of our room, see if our rental stroller is ready for pickup. It's early entry for Hollywood Studios so we'll hop the boat over there and hit Toy Story Mania at rope drop. Lunch that day is at the Brown Derby. We'll catch the 3pm Block Party Bash because the kids want to see it even though DH does not enjoy parades. We'll also try to get in line for photos with the Cars characters as my youngest LOVES them (anyone know if you still have to line up a good 30 minutes for that?) We'll leave around 4pm, boat back to Beach Club, drive over to Animal Kingdom to check into Kidani Villas. Boma for dinner that night.
What Actually Happened:
Day 2: Hollywood Studios 1st Time Riders
Day 2: What a VIEW! Kidani does NOT DISAPPOINT!
Day 3 - The Original Plan
Leave hotel bright and early for breakfast at Chef Mickey's and spend the morning at the Magic Kingdom, hopefully getting there close to opening and heading to Tom Sawyer's Island first thing. Spend most of the morning there, back to the hotel for a light lunch and rest if we need it. If we can withstand, we can stay all day and go right from there to the CA Grill for dinner if we don't feel a need to clean up first. After dinner, catch Wishes from the CA Grill. If we are up for it, MK is open until 1am so we could head there for a little bit.
What Actually Happened:
Day 3: The Chef Mickey's Tradition
Day 3 Cont'd: Hello Dole Whip - Ice Cream is NOT lunch?!
Day 3 Cont'd: That is one TASTY bird...tastes just like...BEEF?
Day 4 - The Original Plan
If we aren't out too late the previous night, we can plan to hit Animal Kingdom by 8am for EMH and do the Safari first thing. Ride all we want to do here, catch Flights of Wonder and maybe Nemo; kids to the playground there if they are up for it (we never miss it). Back to the room in the early afternoon for some pool time and cleanup before dinner that evening at the Kona Cafe. Catch monorail over to MK after dinner for 9pm viewing of Spectromagic.
What Actually Happened:
Day 4 - Where they learn a HARD lesson about listening to MOM!
Day 4 Cont'd - ADRs...just a guideline right? HA!HA!
Day 5 - The Original Plan
Drive to the TTC, park and monorail over to the Poly to hit Capt Cooks and get some Tonga Toast for breakfast! I just didn't want to schedule another Kona Cafe meal for the sake of saving time. Monorail over to EPCOT afterwards and spend some time there, try the Kim Possible Mission with the kids. Leave EPCOT and back to the hotel for rest and cleanup before our dinner at 1900 Park Fare that night. I'm still worried about this one. Never done it for dinner, but reading increasingly bad reviews about it. Maybe some mini-golf this evening?
What Actually Happened:
Day 5: When Lady Tremain speaks, CHILDREN LISTEN
Day 6 - The Original Plan
Weather permitting, this will be a water park day for all. We'll spend most of the day at the water park, return to the hotel for rest, and then dinner that night at Captain's Grill. We'll drive over to the Y&BC or Boardwalk. After dinner, either walk around Boardwalk or head to EPCOT. Mini-golf if we haven't squeezed it in yet.
What Actually Happened:
Day 6: Surfin' and Adventures in All-U-Can-Eat Lobster
Day 7 - The Original Plan
Alternate water park day if the previous day was not a good one. Otherwise, return to Hollywood Studios or maybe Magic Kingdom for the morning. If choice is MK, we'll do another early entry day there and do Tom Sawyer's Island if we didn't do it before. Sometime late afternoon we'll head over to EPCOT and remain there until dinner at Tutto Italia.
What Actually Happened:
Day 7: So THAT'S why they call it SPLASH! Mountain!
Day 7 Cont'd: Yes we are the PERFECT parental examples OBVIOUSLY!
Day 8 - The Original Plan
Our last full day. Our stroller will be returned this morning. We have our choice of parks or shopping or whatever we want to do with this day. This is the day I have Garden Grill for dinner. We'll see if that sticks.
What Actually Happened:
Friday May 8, 2009: This was our designated “3P” day – park, pool and pizza! After some discussion, the best plan of action was to head to the Magic Kingdom since I had already promised Noah a ride on the Rocket Ships and that is such a low-throughput ride we’d have to get there early to not have to wait forever.
We drove to the TTC and then took a boat to the MK. We arrived just after the park opening and headed directly to those RocketShips which had a 10-minute wait, so the five of us got in line while the in-laws lagged behind and ended up doing the Stitch attraction since they had never done it before (only back when it was the Alien version) and knew that it was not something the kids would likely tolerate.
Once off the Rocketships, we headed to Buzz Lightyear, as this was the next repeat ride requested by the kids. That was another quick ride. The kids really wanted to do the Laugh Factory again so we hit that too. They were all hoping to be called on for it, and Nicolas even tried to sit in the same row as before but we forced him a few rows up from that one (center aisle, on the end, about 8 rows up). Noah kept asking before we went into the ride 'where do we live mommy' just hoping they would call on him this time too. They ended up calling on a lady 3 rows in front of us (probably our same row from the previous time) and then highlighted the man behind her and even the people behind our row, even though the kids, especially Noah,kept raising their hands to be called on.
Once the show was over, we decided to hit Haunted Mansion again at the kids’ request, then circled back to Adventureland. We were going to ride Pirates and the Jungle Cruise but Noelle had another major meltdown so I sat down with her as the rest of the gang went on Pirates. When they were finished, we joined them and got in line for Jungle Cruise…about a 20 minute wait…and I got Dibs and some snacks to share in line, which helped everybody. Noelle and I also had a chance, while the rest were in Pirates, to do a bit of shopping…that always helps too!
After Jungle Cruise, the in-laws wanted to stop for a Dole Whip again (we got them hooked on that!) and I got the kids some ice cream bars to eat as well. Then we walked out of the park, stopping to do some shopping on Main Street at the Emporium and we even caught some of the Street Party as it went down Main Street towards the castle. We caught the monorail back to the TTC and drove back to our hotel.
In the room, we changed into swimsuits and we all hit the pool and stayed there for several hours. Noah finally ventured onto the big slide, though he insisted on wearing a free vest to do so. He would put it on with his sister’s help whenever he wanted to ride the slide, then would take it off to play in the rest of the pool. Noelle and I played another game of Bingo but didn’t win. Even my FIL loved the big slide…it was a huge hit and I have to say we love the Kidani pool if only for the extra fun slide. We relaxed by the pool, Frank and I split a turkey sandwich from the bar there and had a few drinks. When the kids were hungry, I returned to the room to retrieve some Uncrustables and some yogurt for them from our refrigerator.
Around 5pm or so we finally headed back to the room to get cleaned up and start packing our stuff. Frank and I ran out to find a pizza place while Nicolas worked on some more homework. We easily located Giadonis on 192 and ordered an appetizer platter and 2 pizzas…well we thought we ordered 2 pizzas but when the order came up about 15 minutes later and we found only one pizza, we realized we had to order the cheese one for the kids again and wait. The $18 appetizer sample was HUGE with calamari, chicken fingers, mozz sticks, fried zucchini and fried mushrooms….it could have been a meal for all of us. The thin pizza was very good as well. We were back to the room about 6:30pm to finish dinner. Then I finished packing myself and the kids and around 8:30pm we headed over to Jambo House to do the Night Vision view of the animals, something we had promised Nicolas he’d see. The bugs were biting out there so we did it quickly and then returned back to our room to retire.
Day 9 - The Original PlanOur last official day. Check out of our villa, drive to either EPCOT or Hollywood Studios since both parks make for an easy and quick exit. Leave park by 3pm at latest, drive to airport for flight back home!
What actually happened:
Saturday May 9, 2009 - Our last day…always a sad time for us. We were up early and ate some leftovers for breakfast, cleaned out the last of our food, returned the wheelchair and then hit Hollywood Studios. We were there around 8:30am, which was well before the 9am opening for the “regular” folks so we had to show our keys to enter the park for early entry.
We sent the boys to Toy Story Mania to check on Fastpasses for all of us, but the return time was after 2pm and we didn’t plan to be there that long. The girls then hit Tower of Terror while the boys were there and as we came out Noah finally got his Tower of Terror tshirt in the store there. Then the men and Nicolas hit Rock N Roller Coaster while the girls (and Noah) headed over to Animation. Unfortunately, it did not open until 10am but there was a showing of Playhouse Disney and as there was no line I asked Noah if he wanted to go to see it. He said yes, so I took him into that while MIL waited with Noelle outside Animation. The show ended after about 20 minutes and when we came out it looked like everybody was inside Animation but instead of going into the show first we entered the gift shop and headed to the studio bypassing the show and Noah did some interactive stuff there as we waited for the rest of the gang.
The kids had wanted photos with Bolt and the Hamster but we learned they would not be out for another 30 minutes or more and there was already a line forming, so we bypassed that and headed out of the park instead. We drove over to EPCOT.
First for EPCOT was Spaceship Earth (AKA The Big Ball) so the 20 minute wait for that went quickly. When we got ouf of that, we thought about hitting Soarin' but return Fastpass times for that, at just after noon, were up to 4:30pm so that wasn’t happening. We had some lunch then headed to Finding Nemo and Turtle Talk with Crush. During the show they called on a girl in a purple 'shell' with a butterfly on it and brown fur and it ended up being Noelle! She asked him "What do turtles eat?" And was quite happy that she got to talk to the turtle. At this point Noah is the only one who has not had an interactive experience at Walt Disney World and so far two out three kids have had the chance to talk to Crush there...pretty amazing considering he generally only talks to about 4 or 5 kids MAYBE per show and we've only seen it two or three times! Hopefully he’ll get his turn soon enough.
After that, we just walked through Mousegear and did some shopping, after Noelle stopped for her photo with Chip and Dale. We left the park around 2:45pm, arrived at the airport around 3:30pm and checkin wasn’t as smooth as possible due to some kind of accounting glitch on our account that took a while for them to clear up. The security line was HUGE as well, and once again the alarms were set off for MIL’s hip so she was ushered into a back room to be wanded and Frank stayed with his dad while I took the kids off to the gate. We stopped at Burger King on the way to the gate for for some dinner, since I knew they would not get food on the flight, and as I’m in line waiting with the three kids for chicken tenders that I paid for to be cooked Frank is constantly calling me to find out where I am, they are seating us, they may give up our seats, etc. I finally get there about 25 minutes prior to our flight time, we don’t’ get upgraded to Business Class, Frank is in a mood because I was so late and did not get him food (or food for myself because I didn’t want to have to wait longer) but the flight went well and we arrived in Baltimore on time. We then waited nearly 30 minutes for the luggage, so long that I took the kids on the shuttle to get the car and everybody else stayed behind to get the luggage we checked…including the carseats. We were home by about 8:30pm and then put the kids to bed as Frank headed to Subway to get us dinner and we chilled at home with a movie to wind down.
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