Just Us 2, Just 1 More Time… Our 7th Anniversary Trip - Our Journey and Arrival (Updated 11/3) - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Just Us 2, Just 1 More Time… Our 7th Anniversary Trip - Our Journey and Arrival (Updated 11/3)
Hello all! Welcome to our trip report! I’m so excited to share our trip with you as I have enjoyed reading others so much. I thought I’d give it a go too. We are heading out on Sunday morning for 5 nights and 6 days of magic, and are so excited!
Who’s going: Myself and DH Alan (31 and 34 respectively)
Our last trip was for our 2nd anniversary in 2002, and during this trip we’ll celebrate our 7th! We have no children yet, but hope that will soon change… hence the title of this report. Next time we come we hope to have kiddos in tow. This is a celebration of us and we plan to live it up!!
Our journey: We’ll be there 10/19-10/24 and are flying Southwest from Chicago.
Our lodging: Port Orleans Riverside! This will be our first time at this resort, not to mention at a moderate. I’ve always stayed at a Value (except at the Poly when I was quite young) so I’m really looking forward to staying there! I’ve requested a room in Alligator Bayou, Bldg 18 or 27, and faxed over a poetic request yesterday. I know it might not make a difference and we might end up somewhere else, but that’s ok… hopefully I made the CM on the other side of the fax giggle.
Our special plans: Of course we have to hit up MNSSHP! We had so much fun last time.
Golf! We love to golf together, and Alan really had to at least try one of the courses down there. So we’ll be golfing at Magnolia on 10/20. (We HAD to go with the one with the Mickey sand trap).
And we’ll be dining at Artist Point for the 1st time on our anniversary evening.
A super (cala-fraga-listic-expi-ala-docious) rough itinerary:
Sunday 10/19: Leaving for the airport at 5:00am (*gasp*) I’m sure we’ll be excited enough to get up and go. I am ready to put “Circle of Life” in the CD player and blast that puppy if Alan won’t get up.
We should land by 11:00am and are taking DME for the first time.
Checking in if we can – and then not sure! I think we’ll explore the resort a little bit and get settled. Grab some grub at the food court and head to MK when we’re ready, planning to stay through the party.
Monday 10/20: Up early for Golf! Quick breakfast and will head over to Magnolia by 8:30 so we have plenty of time to warm up with those free range balls. Our tee time is at 10am, so I’m sure we’ll be there until at least 2:30-3:00.
Either grab a light lunch there or head back to POR for a quick bite.
Our ADR for Artist Point is tonight at 8:40. So we have some time to do whatever we feel like until then. We’ll most likely swim and relax at the resort, and then head back to MK by 6:30-7:00ish. On our 2nd anniversary we renewed our vows with Gifts of Lifetime at the Wishing Well. So that will be a necessary stop.
At 8:00 we’ll line up for and catch the boat to the Wilderness Lodge for a dinner I am SO looking forward to!
Tuesday 10/21: Sleep till we please and then…Epcot Day! All day! This is our favorite park by far. This will be our first time on Soarin… I’m really looking forward to it.
No meal plans except to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival! Yum!
Wednesday 10/22: Not a clue! We have Fantasmic Dining Reservations at Hollywood and Vine at 4:30 (we’ve never seen Fantasmic), so we may head over to the Studios and spend the day. There are things we love about this park, and things we don’t really care for… so not sure if we need to go there first thing.
So… we may go to AK in the morning. I am totally geeking out to ride Everest – last time we were there we watched it being built from the Flame Tree patio in 2002, and I just KNEW I had to ride it someday. So perhaps we’ll do that and then head to HS in the afternoon. As long as I ride TOT and Star Tours here I’m good. And DH really wants to take another one of these:
Thursday 10/23: Whatever we need more of! AK or HS most likely in the morning and afternoon, with plans to head back to Epcot for dinner at the Festival.
Since it’s our last night we may head to DTD as well since POR has a boat that goes there. (But man we are sorry the clubs will be closed!)
Friday 10/24: I don’t even want to think about our last day! But I must. Our flight doesn’t leave until 7pm, so we plan to store our bags at the resort until we have to leave. That leaves the day to play wherever we wish, squeeze in what we need to do again, and say good bye to the last time (for quite awhile anyway... we hope) we will be at the World... Just Us 2.
Thank you for reading! Any tips you have on our itinerary are more than welcome, and I’ll of course be popping on to say “See you real soon” before we go!
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I hope that you and your dh have a magical time at the world
__________________
Heather - "I'm Tinkerbell's biggest fan!"
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
We are back and had a really, really wonderful time. This trip was so much different than the last, but still so magical. How wonderful that you can return somewhere you love time and time again, and never have the same experience twice!
I'm working on getting some pics uploaded and will continue with the report very soon. We hit all four parks, all the rides we wanted twice, and ate WAAAYYY too much at the F&WF. Did we reach our goal of eating and drinking at every single booth? You bet'cha we did!! PO Riverside was lovely, we did ok at golf, and it only rained on us the last couple of days.
It was truly a wonderful trip that we will cherish for a long time.
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The day had finally come – we were going back to Disney World!
There was to be no sleep for me the night before we left – we headed to bed early, and my alarm was set for 4:00am, but there was no way I was getting any shut-eye! Way too excited! So at about 3:45am I figured it was simply pointless, and snuck out of bed to start our magical week. And how did I do that?
By putting in the Lion King on Broadway in the CD player and blasting “Circle of Life” of course!
Alan came dancing out of the bedroom, it was hilarious (and we were of course sleep-deprived slap-happy).
We arrived at Midway airport shortly after 5:30am and checked into our Southwest flight. I have to say I really like Southwest’s new boarding procedure. It was so much more relaxing to know we just had to show up on time and relax – not having to claim a spot on the floor an hour before the flight boards. Good job Southwest! We had good old McDonald’s for breakfast as did most everyone around us… I love to look around and see all the excited faces heading to we know where!
Our flight was just fine. The attendants were so nice… in fact right before we took off one of them got on the intercom and told all the children that they need their help to take off, so that when she said, to pedal their feet as fast as they could to get the plane off the ground! It was so cute (and yes we pedaled too). All that pedaling must have worked because we landed about 20 minutes early. Yeah!
Once at the airport we found our way to DME. It is a bit hidden though isn’t it? Luckily there were several friendly and helpful faces along the way. I was amazed at how organized this operation is and think it is such a great perk to staying on property. We probably waited a good 10-15 minutes for our bus to POR, but we were entertained the entire time by the DME cast members. We even got a round of applause from all waiting for our anniversary.
Then finally, our turn to go!
The DME buses are so comfortable! And very clean too. The video you watch on the way there is super cute and passes the time nicely. So far DME is getting top marks with us!
When we arrived at POR we were so excited we could hardly stand it anymore. It must have been obvious because a cast member stopped us on our way in and said, “My goodness you two are just radiating sheer joy!”. Yep we were! Though it was only just about noon at this point, we decided to see if we could check in early. We weren’t in any huge rush to get to the parks, as we had tickets for MNSSHP that night and knew we’d have plenty of time to play later. We took in the atmosphere of the beautiful lobby for a bit and then headed to the line (which we were through very quickly).
The lovely CM that checked us in (Heidi, who seriously cracked us up by the way) informed us that they had received our request for Bldg 27 in Alligator Bayou, but unfortunately a room would not be available until after 5pm. She could give us a first floor, corner room, right away in Bldg 28 however… would we like it? Having never been to POR we had no idea of the difference in distance, and even though it did seem a little further, we snagged it. And it turned out to be a pretty decent location! More on that later. She had us checked in, park ticketed, and sent us on our way with a smile.
Our walk to our room was long, but not too bad. We made it longer as we got lost a couple of times, but once we figured out the map we were set. We took the scenic route evidently. Walking into our room I wasn’t blown away, but I did appreciate the theming of the nice big armoire and chest. It was lovely having a refrigerator and coffee maker, and the double sinks were great too! We did think the beds were small, but comfy none-the-less. Since we had two windows we had great light so it seemed more open than it was, and after-all, we weren’t planning to be in the room much except for rest!
We had packed “Florida” clothes in our carry-on since we knew our luggage would be arriving hours after us, so got rid of our jeans and jackets for a week and put on the tourist gear. We decided to explore the resort and grab some food before heading out for the night, so took a leisurely stroll back to the main building and the Riverside Mill Food Court.
We were really impressed with the large scale of the food court and what was offered. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have Chicken Quesadillas, as that was my standard first Disney meal when we stayed at the value resorts, but we both had a chicken and fish basket with fries that was very yummy. It was 1:30 by now, and it wasn’t crowded at all. We figured everyone was at the parks! We also grabbed just one refill mug, but honestly due to the walk between our building and the food it probably wasn’t near as worth it as we had hoped. But that’s ok, it’s a cute mug.
After lunch we decided that it was time to go play, so we headed back to the room to grab the camera, our MNSSHP tickets, and sunscreen for me… SPF 85. No really Neutrogena does make it that high… it’s a life-saver for this redhead! When we walked into our room, our luggage was already there! Poof! Disney magic. How wonderful. Of course this meant Alan had to patiently wait as I had more outfits to choose from.
We noticed we were near the West Bus Stop when we got, um lost the second time, and decided to head there. The bus service was always just fine. We never had to wait more than 5-10 minutes (at the resort or the parks), and we quickly learned a good system. If it was a prime-time of day, we knew to get on at the West stop as it was usually the first of the four stops at POR (and we’d get a seat). And we’d usually get off at the South (main building) stop unless we were completely bushed, as it was the first on the way home and we enjoyed the walk back to the room (and grabbing a nibble at the food court too). It is a large resort and can be overwhelming, so room location really does make a difference. I think Bldg 28 was about as far as I’d like to be. 18 Looked like the place to be!
And so, we were off! How long would the lines be? Would there be a huge crowd? What do we jump on first? Could we possibly stay up until midnight when we had been up at 4:00am that morning?!
More coming soon! (and pics too!) Thanks for reading!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
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We are heading out on Sunday morning for 5 nights and 6 days of magic, and are so excited! 
But I must. Our flight doesn’t leave until 7pm, so we plan to store our bags at the resort until we have to leave. That leaves the day to play wherever we wish, squeeze in what we need to do again, and say good bye to the last time (for quite awhile anyway... we hope) we will be at the World... Just Us 2. 
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back!! Looking forward to hearing all the details!!
Walking into our room I wasn’t blown away, but I did appreciate the theming of the nice big armoire and chest. It was lovely having a refrigerator and coffee maker, and the double sinks were great too! We did think the beds were small, but comfy none-the-less. Since we had two windows we had great light so it seemed more open than it was, and after-all, we weren’t planning to be in the room much except for rest! 
When we walked into our room, our luggage was already there! Poof! Disney magic. How wonderful. Of course this meant Alan had to patiently wait as I had more outfits to choose from. 
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