Oh the Places We Go, The People We See Updated 11/03/2013 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Oh the Places We Go, The People We See Updated 11/03/2013
Welcome to my newest Trip Report. For those who don’t know me, I am Jen.
That’s my Daughter Claire with me.
We just got back from an amazing vacation with several family members. We traveled Nov. 1st thru the 15th, 2012. We rested our headed at 6 different places on this trip, and though it wasn’t always easy to keep moving from place to place, I am happy to have tried some new resorts out and stayed at some familiar ones as well.
This trip came about over a year ago. My Mom’s cousin Vicki wanted to take a trip with her and my Aunt Mary. Her Daughter Katie also wanted to come along. After some talking and planning it became a group of 16 traveling. I was elected ring leader since I have quite a bit of Disney experience. Plans were made, some were changed, and some were a little slower at making decisions than others. My husband Skip is what is known in the Disney groups as a resistor and he decided NOT to come along. He was not so happy about the amount of time I was going to be gone.
The dates for the cruise were set first, Nov 4 through the 8th on the Disney Dream. We all planned to arrive a day early and stay at the Residence Inn near the port. Soon I decided that I must add a few Disney days, and so did everyone else eventually. I thin decide…heck lets add some more, and Claire and I ended up staying 3 more days after the rest left. Then after doing some research and with a heads up from my good Dis-friend Carey, I was alerted to the fact that the last Halloween party was on Nov. 2nd. How could I pass that chance up? So Claire and I decided to fly in a day earlier than everyone else to hit that party. Claire and I also decided to fly out of Columbus. My family lives near the Toledo, OH area, and the best direct flights are out of Detroit. My youngest sister, who was not going on the cruise, lives in Columbus, and I was able to get a decent priced direct flight from there, so Claire and I drove down Nov. 1 and spent the night before our early flight.
Plans were finally all set in stone and we just had to wait for our time to arrive. Not an easy task, but we all managed.
Let me introduce you to the crew. This is a picture of a picture. My sister has the CD with the actual digital copy, but hasn’t yet loaded it to the computer, so I had to go with this for now till I can get a copy.
In the back row, left to right, we have my parents, Joe and Paula, next to them is my Uncle Geoff. Next to Geoff is cousin Vicki and her son in law Thad. Next to Thad is Pete, Vicki’s husband and then me. Aunt Mary is on the end, she is married to Uncle Geoff and my Mother’s sister. Down towards the front, left to right, is my nieces Alexis and Abby with their parents Rob and Gail. Gail is my sister. Front and center is Claire. Behind Claire are Jude, and Katie. Katie is married to Thad and is Pete and Vicki’s Daughter. And then we have baby Luke in the stroller. He is only about 9 months old and what a cutie he is.
This trip had the usual ups and downs that most every family will have, but I have to admit things went much smoother than I planned. We never felt the need to kill each other for the most part. LOL We had several cruise newbies and several Disney World newbies as well.
Please join me in reliving a very magical trip with all the places we traveled and all the people we met along the way!
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That's quite a crew! Very ambitious to travel with such a large group, but it sounds like it worked out very well. I'm sure you all made some great family memories and it must have been nice for Claire to spend so much time with her little cousins.
You and your family really seem to have touring together down. You enjoy time together AND apart, which can make all the difference! As always, I'm amazed at your stamina and how much you can fit into one day.
Oh what a great dinner in Akerhaus. That's made me hungry - I love Norwegian food.
It was a decent meal, but it was better last time. But we still enjoyed it and had a grat time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhinohunter
Great day at Epcot. We always like to eat at Akershus for the food and of course the princesses. Your pictures are great as usual.
I really like it there. I wish I had a bigger stomach so I could eat at more places.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
You and your family really seem to have touring together down. You enjoy time together AND apart, which can make all the difference! As always, I'm amazed at your stamina and how much you can fit into one day.
We do a fairly decent job and know when to separate so we don't kill each other.
Illuminations!!!! I’m going to let you in on a secret. I like Illuminations, but I don’t LOVE it like many people do. I also don’t love Wishes. Ok stop throwing things at me!!! I like them but they are not must sees. I do enjoy them when I see them though. Here are a few of the pictures I took of the show this evening. We were under a tree, so it made it hard to get some photos and of course, without a tripod you can’t get decent ones anyways.
After the big finale we all talked some more. I had a little gift for Juliana and I gave that to her and she opened the bag and checked out her goods. Claire and she seemed to be kind of at least interacting a bit. That was a nice change.
Tim then told me a bit of big news. Mel was pregnant with their 3rd child. I felt so privileged to have some inside info. I want to congratulate the happy family who recently gave birth to Gabriella! She’s a real cutie! And he is a very busy dad these days too.
We then decided it was time to get a picture. We had his mom take them and it did take her a few minutes to get the hang of my camera, but she did a good job!
Juliana started playing with some things from her bag and she invited Claire to play along. It was so nice to see them getting along so well.
What was also nice is that Claire wasn’t bugging me about leaving. She was having too much fun.
I think we chatted for about 20 minutes or so and then we decided it was time to get heading out. Epcot was thinning out fast. The girls didn’t want to leave, which was a nice change, but they did come along and we all said goodbyes.
I was really happy to meet Tim. I have been following his TR’s for a few years and we have been at Disney at different times, but sometimes only missing each other by a few days. He was one of those people I had on my bucket list to meet. He’s a super nice guy and has a great family.
Claire and I then headed towards our backdoor exit.
We stopped and sat on a bench as I was going to call Skip again. We noticed fireworks in the distance. At first I wondered if they were MK fireworks, but the timing was not right and then I wasn’t sure if that was even the right direction. Then I figured it might be something from Fantasmic. I have never seen it myself, so I wasn’t sure. It was actually today while editing these pictures that I realized Hollywood Studios had closed that day at 4Pm for a private event. I bet these fireworks were something for that event.
I took a few pictures of the window nearby too. So cute!
I was excited to see Christmas décor at Epcot as well.
We both talked to Skip a bit. Claire is a daddy’s girl and she was missing her Dad. Thank goodness we didn’t have any major issues. Over the past 2 years she has come home from a few overnight stays around 11 PM because she can’t sleep without Daddy’s kiss. I’ve kissed the guy a time or 2 and I don’t think it is THAT special. LOL
We then headed back to the Beach Club. I tried calling my parents again. I had not gotten any response from them at all and I wanted to be sure they knew which room we were in. It went to voicemail once again. I then called Geoff and asked if he had seen them. Yes he had and they were dropped off at our hotel quite a while ago after dinner. Ok, then. I am assuming they got my messages and were in the room.
We made the trek back to the room and sure enough they were there. Dad was watching tv and mom was sleeping. Mom wasn’t feeling the greatest either. She was pretty sure she had a sinus infection. I got Claire ready for bed and then myself. Now this is embarrassing. I took my jeans off and noticed a tag. You know the kind that has the size that is kind of sewn on the waist band or pocket. These jeans were new and I guess I missed taking that off. Oops. Hopefully my shirt and jacket had covered that up all night long. Thank goodness I didn’t have the tape thing that runs down the leg with your size on it left on there. That would’ve been way more embarrassing.
I settled in bed and surfed facebook for a bit while Dad watched TV till late in the night. Well actually he falls asleep while watching it. I think I took over the remote to turn it off at some point in time.
It was a very long day, but we had so much fun. We woke up on a ship and now are back to another resort, my 5th pillow of the trip. Oh the Places We Go! We met up with Tim, Juliana, and Tim’s Mom. It was a wonderful meet and it made my day. Oh the People We Meet! We had another busy day coming up and I soon drifted off to sleep.
It does sound like a super long day. Illuminations is not my favorite either. I have never seen the parade at AK (christmas or otherwise) It is always so hot that we leave before they start. I do hope to see it on my next visit.
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That's quite a crew! Very ambitious to travel with such a large group, but it sounds like it worked out very well. I'm sure you all made some great family memories and it must have been nice for Claire to spend so much time with her little cousins.
I was a bit worried how it would al lturn out. I guess because of my worries, it worked out better than expected.
The memories we made are priceless.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Wow - that's a huge group!
Sure is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MayraLR
Great start! That's quite a group! I bet you had lots of fun.
We did. I would love to do it all ovr again....next week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by taylan1
What a great group and a great start! Love the picture! Can't wait to read all about it!
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sorry. Luke belongs to Katie and Thad, Jude is his brother.
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