My Very First Trip Report - Pop Century 2013 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Since I've never done this, I guess I'll have to see how it goes, but I wanted to try. I'll start with the day we left. I was up early, about 6:00, to do last minute packing and dry one last load of laundry. I woke up DS Joel about 7:00, we both got ready, and then we packed the car with our suitcases. DM/GM, who was traveling with us, had a dermatologist's appointment at 9:30. After that, we were to pick her up, check on any RX she might have gotten, load her stuff, and hit the road.
All went as planned, and we were traveling by 10:30. I chose my usual route out of Knoxville...I-40 east to I-26 east to I-95 south to I-4 west. The plan was to drive all the way to Jacksonville, but not quite all the way to WDW, because Mom doesn't like to make the 11 hour drive all in one day. She says it wastes a night on property to just arrive, check in, and sleep, so she pays for an overnight stop about two hours out...works for me.
Along the way, Joel was in charge of Disney and Star Wars trivia games. My angel has Asperger's and is currently over the moon for all things related to the Star Wars movies, so this trip was for him to visit Disney's Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekends. Off and on, over the course of the first 5 hours or so of the 9 hours on the road, Joel quizzed his mother and grandmother and routinely amazed us with his extensive knowledge. In between games, we stopped for a quick lunch at McDonalds just east of Asheville, NC, Joel played his Nintendo DS game or watched a movie on the portable DVD player while his "Meem" and I chatted.
The only glitch in the day was totally expected. Mom is generally a bit negative/critical, not of us but just of things in general. Actually, I guess it's more that my opinions differ from hers, and when she makes her critical remarks, it bugs me, especially when we're on vacation. But, she's my mom and she is very good to us. She did some complaining about the world. She knows we have differing outlooks. We just agree to disagree about things like politics and my super-stressful job. We all love and support each other...but that's an aside.
So, we arrived in Jacksonville and checked into the tricky-to-find Holiday Inn Express at exit 344. It was quite nice, and since it was in an area of mostly office buildings, it was really quiet on the property. We had already stopped for a quick dinner at KFC, where I learned I don't care for the new boneless chicken, so now all we needed was to take in an overnight bag, clean up, and hit the hay. The night passed uneventfully. We all slept well...zzzzzzzzz
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One of the nicest things about stopping overnight before continuing to Walt Disney World is that you can sleep a bit later, have a leisurely breakfast, and take your time getting back on the road. That's exactly what we did on Day 2. We woke up about 8:00, cleaned up, got dressed, and we were down to the Holiday Inn Express breakfast by 8:45. Oh, it was really good! Let's see. We had bananas, biscuits and gravy, sausage, scrambled eggs, and pancakes. The relatively new pancake makers at HIE are just fabulous! Literally, you push a button, and a large pancake comes out in about a minute...no mess...and they are delicious! And, we didn't even touch the assortment of cold cereals and breads. We finished with cold milk and juice. The seating area was sparsely occupied, so we almost had the place to ourselves. It was really relaxing. Breakfast was a huge hit!
Next, it was back up to the room to get our overnight bags packed up. We took a few minutes to hang out, since my goal was to get to WDW sometime near noon. We watched the news and asked housekeeping to hold off on cleaning our room, which they were happy to do. At about 9:45, we were ready to load up the car and head out. We thanked the front desk staff at check-out. Everything at the Holiday Inn Express, Salisbury Road, Jacksonville was quite nice, and we would recommend this as a stop for weary travelers.
As we got going, I asked Joel if he had ever seen the Atlantic Ocean. He said he didn't think so, so I suggested we make a quick stop in Daytona to glance at the speedway and the ocean. About an hour later, we reached Daytona. Despite some minor protests from my mother, I assured her that I could indeed find the speedway and the beach. About 60 seconds after we exited I-95, we saw the speedway on our right. If you have never seen it, you should make the very minor effort if you're in the area. It's very impressive, and you can see a lot of it from the street. We never turned into the parking lot and got a great view of it. Now, on to the beach...or not!
Next, we worked our way down the street and began to look for signs of the beach. Quite literally, there was a sign on the right that informed us the Daytona beaches were 6 miles away. Well, I knew the answer to the question before I asked it, but still I asked, "Do we want to go the 6 miles or just turn around and head to Disney?" As if they had rehearsed it, both Meem and Joel said in chorus, "Let's go to Disney!" So, no visit to see the Atlantic Ocean. I guess that will have to wait - a good reason for another trip!
In spite of the fact that I-4 is experiencing some "refurbishment," the hour-long drive to sunny Orlando was fine. Joel anticipated seeing the Disney billboards and almost screamed at us when he began to see them. There was the Tower of Terror, the New Fantasyland, and the Star Wars Weekends, among others. He was almost as thrilled to see the Shrek and Harry Potter billboards advertising Universal Orlando. All of that helps the time to pass quickly, and before you know it, we have arrived at the greatest travel landmark of all, the Walt Disney World sign that stretches across I-4 and signals that you have arrived in the "bubble." Yay!!!
What a great start! Sounds like y'all had an easy drive!
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I had to laugh about the KFC boneless chicken. We tried it too -- and YUCK! It was WAY too salty and just overall very disappointing. We'll never be ordering that again!
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
Thank you all! This being my first effort at a trip report, I'm finding my way with descriptions, etc. I figure I'll do one installment a day. I appreciate the feedback.
So, we arrive, and check-in could not have been smoother. I had already done online check-in, so all we had to do was pick up our packet and get instructions on how to proceed to the room. Erin was very attentive and helpful. The only thing I thought was strange about the whole process was that she gave us directions to get to our room as if going on foot. She knew we had a car and showed us our parking tag, but she told us to walk out the rear of Classic Hall and turn left to get to Building 10...a small issue, but it did make me chuckle. Fortunately, I knew enough to pull the car around to the parking lot!
I had requested ground floor, 70s area, and that is exactly what we received. In fact, we had the very first room on the corner of Building 10, as you proceed into the 70s section of the resort. Except for the fact that the configuration of the sidewalks and shrubs forced us to go several extra steps, the location could not have been better. Even my somewhat negative DM saw nothing wrong with the room location. Personally, I was shocked that for the second year in a row, we were in a corner room closest to the main building at our resort. I mean, what are the odds that we were in a corner room next to the food court at All-Star Sports last year and again this year at Pop Century? It was a great, most pleasant, surprise. For Joel's part, I think he could've been in a tent along Hourglass Lake and been happy.
We enjoyed the walk to the room, pausing to read the signs detailing great and not-so-great moments of the past 50 or so years. When we got to the room, it was clean and ready for us. We settled in and headed to the food court for lunch.
I knew Joel would order pizza. Disney pizza is his favorite pizza in all the land. I pointed him in that direction, while I debated my own food choice. I decided on the turkey sandwich with house-made chips. Mom chose the Create-Your-Own Salad. We all picked up refillable mugs and headed for the cashier. (Cue ominous music). We all assembled at a cashier station, where Joel said to me, "They've changed their pizza." Uh oh! How will this go for us? Indeed, Pop Century now has what they call pizza bread. Honestly, I didn't know if Joel would eat it. Let's just say he's a picky eater; but we got the pizza bread and sat down with it. Basically, it's a thick bread, sliced in half, with pizza sauce and cheese (also a pepperoni version available). My boy is growing up. He ate, no problem. The truth is the new pizza bread is a bigger portion than the typical individual Disney pizza.
As for the turkey sandwich, it's tasty. It's sort of like a turkey dinner on bread...cold turkey, stuffing, a cranberry spread. The bread was interesting, as it was yellow. Neither Mom nor I could identify it as any kind of ethic bread, but it was delicious and complemented the favors in the sandwich. Mom loved her salad and in fact got another one later in the trip. Now we were all full and happy!
Next, we decided to walk across the Generation Gap Bridge to tour the Art Of Animation resort. This was a great idea! What a treat it was to see this new property!! If I could afford it, we would definitely stay in a suite there sometime. We adored the Cars section, with Nemo coming in a close second. Don't get me wrong. Every area was great in its own way. The Lion King is terrific too, filled with plants and characters, as well as man-made props to accompany the natural plants. The Little Mermaid area is just beautiful...but a word of warning...it is pretty far from Animation Hall. The distance would, I feel fairly confident, keep us from staying in those rooms. All three pools are beautiful. The Cozy Cone pool is very small, but the cones are adorable and provide shade for any guests who get to them, no additional charge. Overall, the tour of AoA was a great way to start our time at WDW.
Whew! We mosied back over to Pop Century to relax. Joel read some of the info in the welcome packet and discovered the Movie Under the Stars that evening was Cinderella. I am shagrined to admit that my Disney boy had never seen it, so this was a no-brainer. We rested. Joel watched his girl Staci on that non-stop Disney Must-Do channel. He just loves her! After a while, we ate dinner, again at the food court, got drink refills, and headed poolside for the flick.
One of the things I most love about staying on property at WDW is that, even for those of us who are Value guests, they make a real effort to provide some nice extras above and beyond what a typical Orlando-area hotel/motel does...like the movies, pool activities throughout the day, and at Pop Century, the Hustle and the Twist in the lobby. It's part of what makes Disney so magical for us. At the end of this, our first day, we headed back to our corner room with a great sigh of contentment at being back in our favorite place.
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