Total Chaos, fried nerves, and can't believe it's happened trip report - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Total Chaos, fried nerves, and can't believe it's happened trip report
OK--so we've been back more than a month and I apologize. Life has been crazy--with trying to catch up with school, sickness, and just life in general. Not to mention that quite honestly coming here makes me so homesick for Disney it's hard to read what's going on. Commercials about Disney make me want to cry and we will be going back--but it won't be until Dec 2010/Jan 2011.
So--on to the trip report which will take me a while to get through but I'll try to do it fairly quickly. On the trip were me Vicky (36), Mike -DH (39), Cassy (13 the day before we left), and James (6—has adhd and sensory processing disorder). The plan was to spend 9 days, 8 nights at AKL, savannah view—2 queen beds.
We left Friday afternoon September 18th. The kids both went to school in the morning--Cassy for normal Jr. High classes and Jamie for a field trip with his first grade class. Mike went with him and they left at lunch time. Meanwhile I spent the morning running around Wal-Mart, finishing schoolwork, fighting a migraine and dealing with a very upset stomach. It all had me a little worried. But some Excedrin migraine and Imodium and I made it through.
My father-in-law picked us up and dropped us off at the airport--where we waited for about 2 hours. Mike and the kid grabbed some lunch at McDonald's while I sipped a coke-not wanting to egg on my upset stomach any worse.
Jamie almost had a meltdown going through security--he was not happy about having to take off his shoes--and the security guard, instead of being at all compassionate (there was absolutely no lines) was rather brusque...not helping the situation. I tried to explain his sensory issues and such before he got up there...not because it would keep him from having to take them off--but because I was hoping she'd be more kid-friendly. It didn't work but we made it through.
The wait was long. Jamie and I wandered and bought some gummy worms at the candy store--some very expensive gummy worms...lol. And then we waited some more. Jamie--quite happy the plane is here to pick us up!
Finally our plane got there; we got loaded and crammed into our seats. The trip was ok—though Mike got sick to his stomach—he has motion sickness—but we had no problems the last time we flew. I managed to get to my carryon and got his pills and things went better from there.
We landed in Orlando, made our calls to friends and family to let them know we had arrived safely, and went about finding DME. We followed signs, managed to get outside where we thought we were supposed to be and asked someone at a podium how we were supposed to get to DME. The guy was quite rude and very unfriendly about the whole thing. And then tried to play it off on how “old it gets to always be asked”. I let it go and decided that it was NOT an omen for our vacation.
Cassy and I on DME--Mike and Jamie are across the aisle...as we wait impatiently to GO.
We got to AKL—and I’m not uploading any of those pictures because Mike’s camera, while it takes wonderful pictures—they are very big..and cropping and resizing them takes away from the beauty somewhat. Anyway, I had done online check in and had called and asked for Arusha Rock overview on Zebra Trail—which we got. We had asked for a 2 queen room-not because I wanted my kids to share a bed (my kids don’t’ like to sit next to each other on the couch) but because I didn’t want to spend another $40 a night for the bunks. I asked the gentleman who signed us in and all for 2 twin-sized sheets and blankets to try to help at least limit the struggle in the bed at night. Imagine our surprise when we walked into the room and found a queen and a set of bunk beds!!! Especially when the CM said nothing about it! The mousekeeper left us a mickey head on the bed made from towels...it was really cool.
So then we went to check out our view—and crossing our fingers for a decent one, we opened the curtains to find WHat a cool greeting! (I know this isn't a very good picture---Mike's camera takes awesome pics--but having to resize is not showing how good the pictures really..hopefully they will show up better than I think they will.)
We then headed down to the lobby to check in for our reservations for Boma—and thinking we were on time. Only we weren’t—we were half an hour late because I wrote it down wrong!!! Thankfully they agreed to seat us anyway. While we waited, we decided to get a photopass picture taken since we preordered the cd. Only problem was—the photographer rather liked Mike’s camera—and she and another photographer decided to check it out instead…lol
They did actually take our picture –before they took each other’s—but they were using a Nikon D40 and he has a Nikon D90…so we had lots of jealousy all week long. LOL
More to come this evening...to finish out our day.
Ok, so we ate dinner at Boma's--and while I have food pictures--I have to say that we didn't take very good ones because we were half-starved and didn't wait. lol
I will say that, we are not adventurous eaters. My husband enjoyed Boma--enjoying most of it and trying many new things. Cassy and I were ok with it--some of it we liked, some of it we didn't, and while we did get filled up--it's not some place I would consider a "must do" again. Jamie would prefer to never eat there again. Even the chicken nuggets were wrong--and he's not a super-picky eater. It may have been the end of a very long day with many new and exciting things--or it may just have been all the new textures, foods, and noises. Regardless, even he found a dessert or two he liked. Family picture that was taken by our waiter.
After dinner we caved and took the kids swimming. Keeping in mind at this point it is close to 11pm and we've all been up and on the go since around 6am. Regardless, we had to check out the pool--which was nice, quiet, and fairly peaceful. After the pool we went in search of the hot tub, found a banana tree and almost stepped on a frog. While we were soaking Mike and I decided that we needed to talk to the front desk staff and make sure that our queen/bunk room was not a mistake--since the original CM said nothing about it. So off to the desk we went--and were gratefully told, that we had, in fact, been given an complimentary upgrade to the bunkbed room. She was surprised to find out that the original CM had not told us---and then asked if he'd told us we'd also been given an upgrade to concierge...when we told her no she explained it meant access to the 6th floor and free food and drinks through out the day. THis meant not having to eat cereal out of bowls in our rooms and having free snacks!! I almost cried--this trip was such a blessing from God and I saw his hand in it in so many places.
Finally, we headed up to bed, settled the kids in, chitchatted a bit, and called it a night. Before I sign off though--I want to share a hidden Mickey we saw in the sky. I'm not sure whether you will be able to see it with the picture compressed...but I hope you can.
I'll try to get back soon with our first full day--and our visit to DHS and the SPOA dinner. Let me just say DHS was an interesting experience--mom realized the necessity of always taking a backpack with "required" things..and SPOA was absolutely ...well...I can't give away everything or you might decide you don't want to listen to me ramble...lol
Update coming soon. Thanks for stopping in
hugs
Vicky
And if anyone has any tips on making the pictures better for you all to see--I'm game...I've resized and compressed..I've read the directions on how to do this...sigh...I don't want them to be so tiny you can barely see them...but they started out so durn big!!!
If you have a Flickr, Photobucket, or other online photo account, you can just link the pics into your TR. They will come out larger and easier to see. I have a Flickr account personally. I load my pics up onto Flickr and then copy and paste the image link into my posts where I want them. Just click on the little box with a mountain up above and paste the link to your image.
If you have a Flickr, Photobucket, or other online photo account, you can just link the pics into your TR. They will come out larger and easier to see. I have a Flickr account personally. I load my pics up onto Flickr and then copy and paste the image link into my posts where I want them. Just click on the little box with a mountain up above and paste the link to your image.
That's how I do - I use Photobucket and it works really well.
That's how I do - I use Photobucket and it works really well.
But I use Webshots and that also works well.
Sounds like a very lovely first day. I love the bunk beds for your kids. I'm sure that they were very happy, plus getting concierge, WOW! Looking forward to reading more.
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