WENDY & FAMILY DISNEY TRIP JUNE 22-30, BEACH CLUB VILLAS---COMPLETED!!!! About This Page:

[Wendyismyname]

WENDY & FAMILY DISNEY TRIP JUNE 22-30, BEACH CLUB VILLAS


Cast of Characters: Myself(wendy), 28
Joshua(son), 8
Carlee(daughter), 7
Whitney(niece), 16
Dexter(nephew), 13
Kaylie(niece), 11


This trip actually starts Saturday, June 21 with a stay over at the RADISSON at Indianapolis Airport.
The limo picks us up at about a quarter to three Saturday afternoon and we arrive at the hotel shortly before 4pm, give or take. Check in was uneventful. Up to our rooms on the 5th floor. We have connecting rooms so it was really nice to have all that extra space. Not the cheapest, but at $89/room it wasn't too bad. We snack on the peanut butter sandwiches while waiting on our cheeseburgers from room service arrive. I had baked cookies and brought pepsi with us, so room service wasn't bad at all.
We were all so sleepy, yet so wired that we couldn't wait to get our pajamas on and get under the covers. Unfortunately, our bodies weren't letting us go to bed at 6:30pm! So we watched a little on the telly(not much on a Saturday night). Caught the bit of sprots on the news that told us that our hometown lost the Boy's Baseball Championship by 3 points. Good Job Frankton!! Number 2 is alright also!! Woohoo!!

We set the wake up call and are really really bored by now so we find Rat Race and watch a bit of it. I was finally getting really tired and I think I was asleep by 9pm.

More to come so stick around. Up next, Sunday, our day of travel.

Wendy

[ 07-05-2003, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: Wendyismyname ]

[Wendyismyname]

SUNDAY JUNE 22

Cast of Characters: Myself(wendy), 28
Joshua(son), 8
Carlee(daughter), 7
Whitney(niece), 16
Dexter(nephew), 13
Kaylie(niece), 11


We wake up at 4am and every one is pretty much up and ready by 5am and ready to go to the airport. So off we go. We do self check with ATA and it wasn't that bad at all. Not too busy at that time of the morning. I am checking out the bookstores for the Harry Potter book and find it after we go thru security. We go eat at McDonald's and I see the line forming for security. We finish up and stand in line. WHAT???? We have to take off our shoes! I thought I smelled a stench and that must have been it! Well, my purse gets pulled aside and said they need to check it. Not a problem I say, I know there are my round scissors in there(to cut the black zip ties). Oops! Next is Josh's bag. Two pair of scissors! LOL! In his crayon box. While both where child scissors, they took the ones that were pointed, but still rounded. Not a problem there either. The lady was extremely nice.
On to the gate. We wait for only about 1 hour until we start loading. Get loaded without a hitch. Dexter and Kaylie really enjoy their first flight and I am really glad it was a non stop. Those layovers are a real pain! I really enjoyed starting that new book(I bought the second to last copy in one store, the others were all sold out).
Whoa! That's a thunderstorm we are landing in! Not too bad on the turbulence. I enjoyed it really. Am thinking that Florida must know that I am coming so that is why it is raining! Ha Ha!
Well, onto the baggage claim where we are met by Mr. Lamy from TTC. He remembered us from last time and as before, he was very kind and curteous!
It was raining still a little as we were driving and I hope my picture of the Walt Disney World sign comes out fine. But if it doesn't, I'll be back there some time and will take another!
It is such a great feeling that comes over you when you come onto property. That excitement builds even more! We arrive at the Beach Club where I wait in line to check in. It only took about 10 minutes before I got called, but it was still quick and painless! It was really neat to hear my first Welcome Home! Although I think since I read so much about all the resorts, some of the 'newness' wore off because I felt that I had been there before(aside from the usual touring).
Since we arrived before 1pm, I was not expecting my room to be ready, but lo and behold it was! I only requested a smoking room, and was not picky about the view or anything else, but my request was ignored and the smoking rooms were all taken. HOWEVER, we had an awesome location. Ground floor, end of the hall, closest to the quiet pool and bus stop. So I could live with having to smoke outside.

Well, we store our luggage in the room and take off to resort hop. I had PS for Boma that night at 5:30pm but we were all starving. So I suggested eating at Whispering Canyon Cafe at the Wilderness Lodge. I really love that place(the resort) and am looking forward to staying there.
We get three meatloaf plates, a chicken plate, and macaroni and cheese and a hot dog. Every one is fed and quite blissfully happy.
We head out to the dock and catch the ferry to Ft. Wilderness. NOW we felt at home! We shopped in the Settlement trading post and caught the next ferry to the Contemporary. We shopped at the stores there also and then up to the monorail and more resort hopping. The four younger kids were able to ride up front for the first time and received their co-pilots license. They liked that. I think I like the Polynesian the best out the three monorail resorts. But we go into each and look around. The kids were not really impressed with the Grand Floridian and thought the lobby was too rich and snobbish. I think it is really pretty though and the orchestra was playing while we were there.
Anyhow, we board the monorail again and I am finally able to get ahold of my husband. He hears part of the recording and laughed. He was certainly able to guess where we were! LOL!!
We get off at Magic Kingdom and I could feel it pulling me. It was saying 'Wendy come in!!', but I trudged on to the bus stop. Laughed at Whitney as she started to board the ferry back to Ft. Wilderness, since both times she has been, that is where we have stayed.
We didn't wait long for the bus to arrive. Back to the Yacht Club where we decide to get off and walk thru. Back to the room and almost ready to call it a night. First thing I noticed was the groceries had arrived and the preishables had been put away. Very cool indeed!
We unpack and the kids get cleaned up. It took us a little while to get used to all those doors leading into the master bath area.
Set the wake up call for 6am and get ready for bed. Think we were out by 9pm!


Stick around, there's more. Next up, Monday!

Wendy

[tikibird]

Great start to your trip! You were brave taking all those little people with you - can't wait to hear more! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[LilMarcieMouse]

I wish I could have gotten to the Raddison to meet you. We'll have to figuer some out. Sound like a lot of fun so far . I'm looking forward to reading more. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[DrDolphin]

Great report so far - can't wait to hear more about your resort since we are considering a stay there!!

[MrsM]

Wow, you took 5 kids that weren't even all yours? You're a brave woman [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] ! I'm looking forward to hearing more about your trip!

[simbarel]

Great start...can't wait to read more!

[statelady01]

I also am impressed by your taking 5 kids by yourself! Great report, looking forward to more!

[img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img]

[chezp]

Great to see you posting this Wendy - I'm really enjoying it and can't wait to read more!

[coffeechef]

Nice start to trip report. Can't wait to hear more. Taking five kids,Wow. Can't wait to hear more.

[Wendyismyname]

MONDAY JUNE 23

Cast of Characters: Myself(wendy), 28
Joshua(son), 8
Carlee(daughter), 7
Whitney(niece), 16
Dexter(nephew), 13
Kaylie(niece), 11

Six o'clock sure does come early! But we're up and at'em since Mickey woke us up. I tell you, I wish that I could get that recording for my phone! I put the coffee on, get into the shower, and then enjoy my first cup of coffee. The only ones up at this time are me and my nephew. We're early risers. So, after enjoying that first jolt of caffeine, I am able to face the others. We wake them(wasn't hard today) and start the day out by having bacon and eggs. I ask who wants a bacon and egg sandwich and who wants bacon and eggs. Well, okay, that's four sandwiches and two bacon and eggs. I ask Kaylie how she wants her egg? Soft? Yep, okay. I made the eggs perfect(doesn't happen often) and slide them on to her plate. She says, I don't like these kinds. Tough I say as I asked her what she wanted. She ate it because she really didn't have a choice. But I learned something about her today....she's picky!

Alright, time to head to Epcot! We leave a little after 8am. Don't know why, but we do. Now we know not to leave until about 8:30am! We wait for them to start letting us in. First thing we head to is Test Track. We get fastpasses and then we decide to go into the single riders line and we knew we'd get separated. Not a problem. Everyone handled it well. Dexter and I rode in the same car, Josh and Whitney rode in the same car, but Kaylie and Carlee rode in separate cars. We all loved it. So, we head back for our fastpass time. We go thru the briefing room and get up to the gates. What? It's stopped working? Geesh! Oh well, we get those purple passes and go towards Spaceship Earth. Line was long, but not queued up much. Moved pretty fast. Like this ride well enough. It's dark, it's cool and it's really nice to sit back and relax.
Okay, time to head to Ice Station Cool. Can't wait for Dexter and Kaylie to try Beverly. WHAT? They're closed and will be bringing more tastes of coke? Geesh! Our luck isn't going too well. Ha ha. So, we try something we've never done. We head over to the Land and take that little boat tour. Kaylie snapped quite a few pictures. It was really neat to see how they grow their veggies. But I'll stick to my way, throwing the seed into the dirt and battling the weeds. Ha ha.

Out of the Land and it's about 11:30am, so we head to World Showcase and to Canada. I'm thinking we'll try out Le Cellier. It didn't open until noon, so we wait in the hot sun.

Woohoo! It opens and another fan of the cheese soup is born! Oh my, that is good stuff! I had a salad of some sort that had beef in it, Kaylie had the kids' steak and fries and I can't remember what everyone else ate. Probably burgers and chicken strips. It filled us up. We walk back to Mexico and do the el Rio del Tiempo. Walk the rest of the way to the International Gateway, stopping only to hear the end of the Drum and Fife Corps. That was neat! The three youngest went up and said the Pledge. I was proud of them. We walk out of the park and head over to the hotel to rest just a little bit for our big night at MGM.

We only rest for about 2 hours and head over to MGM. I know we get there by 3pm. We head off to ToT and get 3 fastpasses for that and then 3 fastpasses for RnRC, each available after 6pm. Head back towards Great Movie Ride. There's a 25 minute wait but it is too close to our PS at Hollywood and Vine. So we hoof it back to find it. We've never been on that side of the park so we didn't know where it was. I check in and tell the kids to wait there while I smoke. I strike up a conversation with a very nice Brit. It was her first time in the States and she was having a great time! She only had a two week holiday and said she really needed three weeks there! Turns out, she is from Romsford, Essex, and real close to a couple of my friends who live in UK. I told her I have a good friend named Lynn who lives there. A little while later, we're standing at H&V waiting for our names and she comes up to me and asked the name of my friend's husband. Turns out she knew a Lynn in Essex, but they weren't the same! That would have been really weird if they knew each other!

Hollywood & Vine exceeded my expectations! That buffet was fabulous! There was another couple sitting a table away. He asked the waiter to tell the Chefs that this was the best food of all the places at WDW! I don't know about the best, as I haven't tried every place, but it sure was yum!

Got our voucher for Fantasmic! and off we went. First, we head to the Great Movie Ride, then Star Tours. Now it's time for ToT and RnRC. Whitney stays with Josh and Carlee while Kaylie, Dexter and I fall to our Dooms! We only dropped 4 times and it was awesome! We were in the front row and I was again without handles. I didn't need them anyway. The picture was quite funny as Kaylie and Dexter were turned facing each other. Kaylie was laughing at Dexter and he was making quite a face.
Now, it's my turn to sit with my kids while the teens head to RnRC. Gotta love that smoking area, it's nicely located for those two rides. The kids love the coaster and soon we're off to the reserved entrance for Fantasmic! Sure, we've got to wait for two hours for the show to start, but we got front row seats! I couldn't get over how well my kids were behaving. So much better than last year at this time!

Fantasmic! starts and we're in complete awe. I can't say enough about it, it was just plain AWESOME.

We manage to catch the boat back which was standing room only. Hobble to bed. Set alarm for 6am and get ready for another long day. Plans were to go to Animal Kingdom and spend the afternoon in Magic Kingdom.


Next up, Tuesday, so stick around! LOL

Wendy

[tikibird]

Enjoyed hearing about your day, and lglad we have a new cheese soup convert! [img]graemlins/yuma.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Can't wait to read more... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[luvnwdwgal]

Hello Saint Wendy! You must be to take 5 kids to WDW on your own!! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]
Glad you are all having a great time and the kids are all behaving! We really thought the buffet at Hollywood & Vine was awesome too!!
Looking forward to more!! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Wendyismyname]

Hi! Dr. Dolphin, having never done anything like that, I figured I wanted to get there as soon as possible. Now that I know what to expect, I probably wouldn't go as early. Next time, we could actually just go at almost 9pm and sit in the far far back. It filled up rather quickly. I had heard it was a large theater, but I didn't realize how large it actually was!
Also, I have this obsessive need to be early for everything! LOL!!
I'm glad you guys are all enjoying the Trip Report. I almost didn't post it. I'm sorry I don't go into much detail about places, but I've always been bad about that. Thanks for reading this so far!!

Wendy

[Wendyismyname]

Hi! I'm not really a saint, the kids were pretty well behaved. I know my sisters would never be able to take them to the best place on earth. I made them all a promise last year that over the next few years, I would take all my nieces and nephews to WDW. I regret it sometimes, but it does give me an excuse to get back there. Thankfully, I only have two left to go and one much later(she's only two now).


TUESDAY JUNE 24

Cast of Characters: Myself(wendy), 28
Joshua(son), 8
Carlee(daughter), 7
Whitney(niece), 16
Dexter(nephew), 13
Kaylie(niece), 11

We wake up early, as par for the course, and have breakfast of cereal or doughnuts. Then we head off to the bus stop, which was located quite close to our room! nice short walk!
And.....off we go to AK. It's nice enough, but it's not my favorite. We're there only for a little while, the heat and humidity zapping us despite drinking what seemed like gallons of water. We arrive for park opening and unfortunately, Josh stops to talk to a CM who is holding a very ugly looking spiders. I'm talking to the guy, but not looking at him or his box with the spider. Nope, nosiree, nohow!
Oooh, I'm shuddering just thinking about it. Josh of course tells him how I killed a rather large spider(think it was a wolf spider) that was in their bathroom. He says, ah, next time get a jar and a piece of paper and then release him. I said, not as long as I have my size 10(foot) handy, spiders die!! Yuck and double yuck! Still I thank him for his time and for answering Josh's questions.

We head to It's Tough to be a Bug. I love this show. It's rather cute. I really like how Hopper makes his entrance. Very neat.
Out of the theater and head to Kali River Rapids. We get fast pass and wait for it to open. We only wait about 5 minutes, so off we head to get soaked. Yep, sure did, just not as bad as last year, thank God! Then over to the Safaris where Carlee, Josh and I decide to not ride this one. guess we're bored with it. So, I tell the kids to meet me in the smoking place when they are done. While they're off, we get some waters and couldn't resist that cinnamon roll. We walk back to the smoking place and see De Vine. Now that I had seen her for the first time last September, it didn't bother me to see a 'walking vine thingy'. Quite neat!

So, we wait and wait and wait. Finally they arrive. They had been standing at the exit, not daring to move because once you move, then that person you are looking for, comes along. Anyway, we weren't there but they waited about 15 minutes before Whitney remembered that I probably went to smoke. Oh well, I had to laugh at them. We were all nice and cooled down.
We head over for our fast pass time and decide not to ride as we were still wet and getting grouchier by the minute.
An aside........I knew that bringing five kids along with only one adult they would fight, but they didn't fight........they bickered and bickering gets to me quicker than an all out fight.

Back to the story. We're standing there looking for some one to hand the tickets off, ah! There's a party of six. I ask the guy, how many are in your party? He looks at me funny and wants to know why, so I explain that we've decided not to use our fast pass and they can have them. He showed relief then! Honestly, I don't know what he was thinking I needed to know how many people in his party, he seen I had 5 kids with me, how dangerous could I be? Must be from a big city, instead of a naive country bumpkin like myself.

Well, by this time, I had managed to totally tick each one of my party off at one time or another and they did the same with me. So, I'm hot, tired, getting blisters by the second. Let's head back and rest. Ah, wait! We need to ride Primeval Whirl, so off we go. Why does it always seem hotter in that part of the park than elsewhere?

Oh goodie, a 20 minute wait. This ride is not worth waiting any longer. Some how 20 minutes turned into about forty. But at least they have fans running! We all enjoy our rides. Whit and I rode together with a lady and her son while the other four got their own car. Loved it! Instead of riding Dinosaur, I say let's get back and rest. I had been planning to rest and then visit MK that night. Well, we stop to take Carlee to the bathroom and Dexter is watching her waterbottle/fan. He gets up but doesn't take it with him, leaving me to carry it along with the bag that mind you, is holding their stuff too.
So I get a little ticked, it's the heat I am telling ya, and tell him he could've picked it up and carried it for me, but that's quite alright. Then I read his body language and it's not good, so I pester him and tell him to knock it off, we're not going to any more parks today, although I was going to suggest MK! We ended up swimming that night instead for quite a few hours.
By this time, though, I was really ticked off. Why do my feet have to get blisters? Why does WDW have to involve so much walking? Why is that sun so blasted hot? Why why why?? LOL!!
My feet do get much better by the end of the week, it's just always at the beginning though. Enough about them.

So, nothing much else went on that day, we did rest as we were planning on being at MK Wed. when it opened, so we swam, ate room service I think and off to bed.


Next up, Wednesday and touring the best park of all!
Wendy