After 15 years of Magic, we finally get to leave our kids at home! My trip report. Updated 11/16 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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After 15 years of Magic, we finally get to leave our kids at home! My trip report. Updated 11/16
This is my first real atttmpt at at trip report so...be kind I'll start with the stats: Who: Me (Wendy) and DH (Chris) Where: Disney's Port Orleans Riverside Why: To celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary When: October 6-11th 2010
I didn't do as much planning for this trip as i had in the past because this was our first Disney trip where i was actually working outside the home. I did manage to book (and tweek) our dining reservations, tickets to LaNouba and MNSSHP, plus i had a few tricks up my sleeve for DH!
The morning of the 6th came FAST! Our kids were going to stay with my sister so we knew they'd be ok but i still felt the guilt of going off to our Happy Place without them....i will get over that! We said our good-byes to the girls and headed off to the airport. I'm a nervous flyer so i was armed with 10mg of valium and my iPod to make the flight easier to take! It was a pretty smooth flight! Before i knew it, we were on the ground at MCO...we're getting closer
We grabbed our checked bag and headed to the rental car...we were on our way! We made a few stops on the way, one to pick up bottled water and lysol wipes and 1 to eat before we entered the bubble. We were in the bubble before noon so we hung out in DTD to shop and look around.
Continued in next post.....
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Last edited by wendybell; 10-24-2010 at 10:56 AM..
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After shopping, we decided to check in at the Resort...luckily our room was ready early! We got our "Happy Anniversary" pins from the lady at check in and decided we liked them better than the ones we got from Guest Services in DTD because the girl at POR didn't write on them, she kept them plain. Anyway, we got a room in Oak Manor that faced the fountain, we were pretty happy with that, as long at we didn't face the parking lot, i was a happy camper! We got to the room and put our stuff outside while Miss OCD (that's ME) went in with the lysol wipes and wiped down every hard surface in the place...everything! Then i pulled up all 4 corners of both beds to examine for any unwanted "guests" before letting DH in with our bags. Yes, i admit that sounds a little "weird" but i just like to KNOW a place is clean. We unpacked, hung up our clothes, organized our toiletries and then headed to Riverside Mill for our refillable drink cup and to explore the Resort. I really liked it! We'd stayed at POFQ twice and i'm really glad we came to Riverside this time.
After getting our drinks, we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. I had made a VERY EARLY dining reservation at Coral Reef for 5pm because that was all they had for dinner that ENTIRE WEEK! That may have been a clue to just how busy it was in all of the parks while we were there! So, we freshened up and headed out to Epcot!
Coming up next...Epcot, special suprises and LONG LINES!
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Last edited by wendybell; 10-24-2010 at 10:58 AM..
Great start! I do the lysol wipe down and bed check too! We have never stayed at PO Riverside so will look forward to hearing more about it as well as the rest of your trip!
Great start. I'm really thinking about a trip for me and DH so I can't wait to read about yours. I do the lysol and bed check too, lol. Not sure what I'd do if I ever found anything though as I would probably just want to go home.
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great start my hubby and I are leaving in 18days for an adult only trip for your birthdays. and i will be checking the beds as well. we will be are cb resort..This is our first time there hope we like it
Great start! DH & I went w/o the kids for his 40th birthday. Told the kids we were going to visit my aunt! We need to do that again.
Looking forward to hearing more about your trip.
Happy anniversary!
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great start my hubby and I are leaving in 18days for an adult only trip for your birthdays. and i will be checking the beds as well. we will be are cb resort..This is our first time there hope we like it
Enjoy your trip...honestly, it was so great to have an adult only trip! We did so many different things. We had a blast!
Day 1, part 2... We were in Epcot by 4pm and decided to check out the Seas with Nemo and Friends. On the way we saw that the wait for Soarin was 50 minutes and there were no more fastpasses (which wasn't a shock) so we figured we'd do that later.
We hopped onto our "clam mobile" for our under-sea adventure. I was just SOOO happy to be in Disney! There were a few moments that i thought "awww...the kids would be loving this" but they were ok with us going. * sidenote: my girls are 14 and 11 and were both really ok with us taking this trip, in fact neither one wanted to be pulled from school for a vacation.
So, after exploring the Seas we headed over to Coral Reef for our first dinner in the World. We checked in and were seated pretty quickly. Our server was super nice and wished us Happy Anniversary. We were seated down near the tank which was awesome! They gave us a "fish identifier" cheat sheet so we started trying to correctly name the fish A HUGE sea turtle came down to the bottom of the tank right in front of us and looked to be napping throughout our dinner. He would occasionaly swim to the surface for a breath and came right back down.
After dinner, our server came out with the cake i had ordered as a surprise for my DH. Coral Reef doesn't normally do freah, custom cakes but after a few phone calls, i got the General Manager Rob to help me out with this He was AWESOME and i appreciate that he was willing to go out of his way to make this Magial for me! I was so glad i was able to pull off that surprise for DH
After our awesome dinner, we made the decision to go back to the room to bring the rest of the cake back...really, we wanted to save the topper and chocolate banner (we never even ate another bite of the cake, it was delish but with free dining, it seemed like we were always eating. We did manage to get the topper, banner and a few of theflowers home with us). So, we went back to the room and put the boxed cake and topper in the fridge, then headed back to Epcot to enjoy EMH's! I HAD to ride Soarin (my favorite ride). We did go back and waited at least an hour in line, it was BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!! It was worth the wait though, oh how i love that ride! We needed to head over to World Showcase to get a place for Illuminations, it was so crowded! We decided to just stay in Mexico, we caught our first peek of the Food and Wine Festival booths but couldn't eat a THING! Illuminations was fabulous (as always) but the music seemed a little quiet (or maybe we were just near loud people). When Illuminations was over, we stayed put for a bit, just enjoying the evening air and letting the crowds thin. We headed back toward The Land for Soarin and it was still a pretty long wait, i think more and more people were taking advantage of the evening EMH's. We took a run on Test Track, went to Mars and then hit Spaceship Earth before calling it a night! We were exhausted! When we got back to the room, i spotted a beautiful gift basket had been left on the table for me! DH had it delivered while we were gone and it was perfect because it was after midnight, so it was officially our ANNIVERSARY!
We had a great day but needed to rest up...we had BIG plans for October 7th!
Coming up next...Food, Food and more Food, plus partying like Rock Stars with Mickey and Friends!
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Last edited by wendybell; 10-24-2010 at 10:59 AM..
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We need to do that again. 
A HUGE sea turtle came down to the bottom of the tank right in front of us and looked to be napping throughout our dinner. He would occasionaly swim to the surface for a breath and came right back down. 
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