Our Stop and Smell the Roses (a.ka. ditching the itinerary) Trip Report- COMPLETE!! 2/16 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Our Stop and Smell the Roses (a.ka. ditching the itinerary) Trip Report- COMPLETE!! 2/16
Hi everyone! We're back from nine wonderful days at WDW. Inspite of some bumps in the road with our stay at GF (which I'll get into as the TR goes on), we had a fantastic trip. We had a wonderful stretch of weather for the majority of the trip -- not too hot and not too cold, just perfect temperatures and beautiful sun. I was amazed at how much more stamina we had in the parks when not contending with the really high temps we sometimes experience in April/May. Even though the park hours were shorter than other times of the year that we've gone, I felt we got more done each day.
So without further ado, I present you with my trip report. This first post will be pictureless but I have lots of pics to share later on...
To me, the official start of vacation is actually about 24 hours before our flight leaves because that's when I start stalking the SWA site to get our boarding assignment. I was a little anxious this time around as it was our first time checking in since the introduction of EBCI but we did fine and still got As (47, 49 and 50). Good enough.
Thank goodness DD's cold had finally gotten better and she was well enough to go to school. She had been literally bouncing off the walls all week from being cooped up at home sick and I really needed to get some errands done. After I dropped her off at school I took our dog down to the kennel he boards at (poor guy was shaking like a leaf, he always gets the short end of the stick when we go on vacation). I came home and got the bulk of my packing done before I had to pick her up. DH was working from home that day and was able to knock-off work a little early so I could run out for a pedicure -- had to make those winter feet presentable .
We got Subway for dinner and then I did some last minute preparations. I printed out tiny versions of our daily itineraries and pasted them into the front of my travel diary so everything would be in one place. I also found a list of pressed penny machines and printed that out and made a little pocket-sized booklet out of it. When all that was done we headed off to bed since we had to be up around 5 a.m. the next day.
Up next: Day 1 - getting to the World and one night at POFQ
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We had set the alarm for 5 a.m. but I was up before it even went off (too excited to sleep). We waited as late as possible to wake up DD and we hit the road by 6:45 a.m. -- 15 minutes later than I was hoping. We hit no traffic whatsoever, so we were at the remote parking lot by 8 a.m. and through security by 8:30 a.m. We had plenty of time as our flight wasn't until 10:10 a.m.
None of us had eaten yet so we stopped at McD's for breakfast. DD had pancakes and DH and I each had a yogurt parfait and an English muffin. Next we stopped at the newsstand to get DD a sticker book (and DH snuck off and got her another book in case we needed a back-up diversion -- this one was an Ariel magic coloring book).
The flight was very full but inspite of being toward the end of the A group we still managed to get row 8. The flight pushed back just a few minutes late but next thing we knew the captain came over the PA and said that one of the passengers noticed a potential safety hazzard and we had to go back to the gate. Well this was not comforting. After getting checked out for about 15 minutes they determined that it was de-icing fluid dripping (the passenger thought it was a fuel leak). Better safe than sorry, right. So we finally took off and it was for the most part an uneventful flight - just a bit of turbulance.
Even with the delay leaving, we landed a few minutes early at 1:15 p.m. We headed straight for DME and I really liked the new procedure where you can proceed directly to the bus line if you have your booklet.
We sat right up front and I finally got a good gate shot, which has alluded me for years.
We noticed that the driver had a huge balloon up front. He said a guest on the previous trip had left it with him since it couldn't go through security. He wanted to give it away to someone celebrating a birthday and asked if there were any on-board. DD and I immediately started pointing to DH and there were a couple more birthdays on-board. He sent it to a trivia question and we lost out to a little boy in back. The driver said he'd make it up to us when we got to the hotel but what I didn't realize was that he thought it was DD's bday. So when we got to SSR the driver got off the bus and brought on two CMs to sing to DD. They had a birthday button with them and asked what the bday girl's name was and she says, "it's Daddy's birthday!" Oops! They sang a barbersharp quartet-style birthday song for DH and he was pretty red by this point. I was so surprised I didn't get any pictures, shoot!
Our bus arrived at POFQ around 2:45 p.m. and our room was ready. We had a first floor room in building one. Since we were only there for one night I hadn't made any requests so this was fine by me.
Here's the view from outside our door:
Once we got settled in a bit we headed over to the dock to catch the bus to DTD.
There was a pretty rowdy group on the boat to DTD so the ride wasn't exactly relaxing, but we got there in no time and were off in search of something to eat. DH and I were craving seafood so we headed to Fulton's. Unfortunately we hit them between lunch and dinner service and they weren't seating anyone for about 20 minutes (for some reason I thought they served straight through). I was just on the cusp of my hunger turning into a stomachache so I figured we better go somewhere that could take us right away. We ended up at Wolfgang Puck Cafe. The place was empty and we got a table with this view:
(the characters in flight balloon was down due to wind, same as our last trip)
DH and I got the beef teriyaki satay, which was just okay -- a little too salty for my taste. Then we got one order of pumpkin ravioli (so good) and a couple of sushi rolls (shrimp tempura and spicy tuna). We split everything (I know, weird combo of stuff, right?).
DD had the kids' pasta and meatballs. We also ordered her the "flight" of milk because I'm way into things with a cuteness factor and I figured this would be really cute. I was wrong, it was just three jugs of milk (and they didn't even have three different flavors) -- I guess I was picturing little glasses or something. This was way more milk than one little girl could drink.
After dinner we headed to WoD so we could get DD some Disney Dollars in exchange for money she got at Christmas. This would be her vacation fun money. No sooner was that money in her hand did she pick out this:
Ay yi yi, I really hadn't wanted her to spend so much all at once, not to mention it was a big item to be lugging around. But it was her money so we let her go for it. In the meantime I headed over to look at the Dooney and Bourke wristlets. I probably drove the CM a little nutso looking at all the patterns before picking one I liked . With that done DD and I shooed DH away to pick out a birthday plush for him. DD picked out the Mickey with musical cake (I was partial to Stitch coming out of a cupcake myself).
Our last stop of the night was Goofy's Candy Co. where we picked up a giant oreo stuffed with mint fudge to bring back to the hotel. We timed it just right to get the boat back and the skipper gave us some interesting trivia about the Treehouse Villas. She said that Disney bought up and donated many acres of wetlands to the state of FL in exchange for permission to rebuild the treehouses (apparantly current building regs would not have allowed for them to build on that land).
On the way into the resort we saw the carriage ride coming by and decided to try for a last-minute reservation. I waited for quite a while in the concierge line only to find out that we would need to walk over to POR to find out if there was availability. We didn't feel like making the trip over without knowing for sure so we gave up on the idea. We made a quick stop in the gift shop for an autograph book then to the food court for beignets. YUM!!
We had these and the giant oreo (didn't taste as good as it looked) before heading back to the room to turn in.
Once we got to the room DH found that one of the dresser drawer was stuck open. He tried to shut it and noticed there were clothes in there. Strange because we hadn't unpacked anything. He opened the drawer further and noticed it was full of dirty underwear from the previous guest. EWWWW! I immediately called housekeeping and they said they'd send someone right up. Well "right up" turned into over 45 minutes and we were really wanting to get DD settled down for the night so DH somehow managed to scoop the laundry into a bag without touching it and he brought it down to the lobby. The CM he spoke to was pretty horrified that housekeeping had missed this. Funny thing is, two days later we got a voicemail on our cell from POFQ wanting to know if we'd left a bag of laundry there. With that settled we all turned in for some much needed sleep -- travel day is always so tiring.
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Yea! So glad you started and happy to hear you had great weather. Now I wanna know about ditching the itineraries!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lukeandbrookesmom
Wow, great start Heather!
Thank you!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Great start, Heather! Sounds like a good start to your vacation (minus the dirty underwear)! The beignets had my mouth watering.
Yes, the beignets were sooooo good! I could go for some right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick and Ryans Mom
Great start!! How gross about the dirty underwear!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by elisa1006
GREAT start!
Icky underwear. gross!
Can't wait for more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Great start! How gross about the dirty underwear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovedisney247
Good start . . . except for the dirty undies . . . yuck!
Yes, I was quite grossed out about the undie "situation." I was glad we didn't need to unpack because I'm sure I would've never felt right about using that drawer .
On the past few trips I've had insomnia on the first night and this time was no different. I fell asleep fine but then my eyes snapped open around 2:50 a.m. and I was wide awake. Ugh -- I hate this feeling. I sat there for quite a while -- I'd say probably until about 4:30 a.m. when thankfully I drifted off again until 6:30 a.m. I got up and poked around the room for a while until the rest of the gang woke up at 7 a.m.
DH went down to the food court to get us breakfast. DD had the kids' Mickey waffle platter and DH and I each got cereal then split a yogurt parfait. The yogurt parfaits at POFQ are so good -- lots of granola in there and a nice mix of berries (strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, my favorite).
After a quick stop in the gift shop to pick up tapes for our camcorder (forgot to pick them up at home so ended up paying double to get them onsite ), we were off to get a taxi to GF. The greeter that helped us was so incredibly nice! He offered to transfer our luggage for us (we'd already decided to take it with us so we were okay) and without us even asking, he made a special call to get a cab with a carseat to come by (the cab we got actually had a carseat and two boosters -- very well prepared!!). He also gave DD a little toy coin as a souvenier.
When we arrived at GF, bell services came right over to take our luggage. I told him we were checking in Club Level and motioned for us to go to the check-in desk in the lobby. It really didn't matter to me where we checked in, but from reading the boards I thought we'd get to check in right in Sugar Loaf. As we approached to door to the lobby a CM came over to us and greeted DD by name (adding "Princess" to it off course) and said our room wasn't ready yet (it was only about 9:30 a.m. at this point) but she would take us to Sugar Loaf to check in. Cool! Check in was quick and easy and before we new it we were headed back to the lobby to check our tote bags and get the monorail to MK. They took my cellphone number and said I'd get a call when our room was ready.
Of course, before I would get on the monorail, I had to stop at Summer Lace and look at more Dooney and Bourke wristlets to see if there was a pattern I liked better than the one I got at WoD (as you'll see, this will become a theme during this trip ). While we were in the shop we had a very nice convo with the CM working there. She was from Barcelona and we were telling her about a Med. cruise we took out of Barcelona back before we had DD.
We finally made it to the monorail and in no time we were in our happy place! Yay! I was pleasantly surprised to see that the construction on the castle was not really noticable when looking straight on. When we got around the side of the castle we could see the scrim they had put on, which at this point was plain, but later in the trip it was covered with one that matched the bricks so well I could hardly tell it was there. Here's what we saw that first day:
We headed first to Toontown (full disclosure, I stopped at Uptown Jewelers first to look at the Dooney and Bourke wristlets but they didn't have any in stock ). On the way there we saw Lady Tremaine and the Stepsisters just arriving for a meet n greet in front of Belle's storytime. We jumped in line with just one family in front of us but DD said she was too scared to meet them , so this is all I got:
Once we got to Toontown we headed straight to meet the Fairies. The line said 60 minutes but DD insisted she was up for the wait -- ugh. Luckily the line moved faster than that and from start to finish we were out of there in about 45 minutes. My camera doesn't like the lighting in there so I mainly left the photos to the PhotoPass photogs. I did get this picture of a hidden Mickey in the final waiting area:
The Fairies there that day were Tink, Silvermist and Rosetta. We didn't meet Silvermist last time so DD was thrilled with that.
By now we were starting to get a little hungry and our lunch ADR at The Plaza wasn't until 2 p.m. (when we realized how far ahead of schedule we were running we tried switch to an earlier time but they were booked solid). We picked up some apple slices and pretzles to munch on before heading over to Fantasyland.
I grabbed FPs for Peter Pan and then it was on to IASW. I noticed that the gondola was empty -- isn't there usually a gondolier on there? It looked kinda sad and lonely this day:
DD didn't quite understand that we had to wait until 1:20 to use our FPs for Peter Pan and she was getting a little cranky about wanting to go on. We passed the time by browsing in Tink's treasures. DD asked to look in the keyhole to see Tink but they told us the drawer is no longer there. Instead they let her ring a bell to make Tink appear (I won't give away the rest for anyone else who wants to try it). Afterwards the CM sprinkled DD with pixie dust:
I'm not quite sure what's in that pixie dust but we had the darndest time getting it out of DD's scalp. Even worse than the stuff they put in her hair at BBB!
At this point we still had time to kill and DD said she wanted to do Philharmagic -- sold! She wouldn't wear the glasses but seemed to enjoy it anyway (I took mine off a couple of times to see what she was seeing without the glasses -- holy blurry!). Next we did Snow White and DD ended up hiding her head in my lap for almost the entire ride -- the queen was too much for her I guess. We stopped in Sir Mickey's to pick up a few pressed pennies and then it was finally time to use our FPs!!! We must've missed a downpour while we were on Snow White because we noticed crowds of people under the overhangs when we came out.
After a fun ride on Peter Pan we headed to The Plaza for lunch. It's been 11 years since we've last eaten here and now I'm sorry we waited so long! The food was fantastic. I got a burger and it was hands down the best burger I've ever had at WDW:
DH had the veggie sandwich and was raving about that:
DD had the kids' burger and the Mickeylodeon sundae:
When I'd checked in I asked if they had the pirate mini-surprise cakes, which they did, so I ordered one for DH. The waitress came over and whispered in my ear, "what's HER name -- it's not on the slip." Oops, again they thought it was DD's birthday. I told her it was for DH and she went back to get the cake. When she brought it out she got the attention of all the other diners and said that it was his birthday and everyone had to sing -- oh boy was DH red! He gets embarassed by this kind of attention but I thought it was hilarious. Here's the cake:
By the time we were done with lunch it was just about 3 p.m. and we still hadn't gotten a call about our room. I was starting to think they forgot to call but then right at 3 p.m. they did so we decided to head back to get settled.
On the way out we saw the pre-show for the parade -- a tribute to volunteers as part of the Give a Day promotion. DD was thrilled to see Miss Piggy and Kermit on a float:
Up next: Day 2 (part 2) -- "we need to be more specific..."
Last edited by WeRDisneyFanatics; 02-02-2010 at 08:53 AM..
Reason: typo
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About This Page: 
We're back from nine wonderful days at WDW. Inspite of some bumps in the road with our stay at GF (which I'll get into as the TR goes on), we had a fantastic trip. We had a wonderful stretch of weather for the majority of the trip -- not too hot and not too cold, just perfect temperatures and beautiful sun. I was amazed at how much more stamina we had in the parks when not contending with the really high temps we sometimes experience in April/May. Even though the park hours were shorter than other times of the year that we've gone, I felt we got more done each day.
. This first post will be pictureless but I have lots of pics to share later on...
.
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Deb
. Well this was not comforting
. After getting checked out for about 15 minutes they determined that it was de-icing fluid dripping (the passenger thought it was a fuel leak). Better safe than sorry, right. So we finally took off and it was for the most part an uneventful flight - just a bit of turbulance.
. So when we got to SSR the driver got off the bus and brought on two CMs to sing to DD. They had a birthday button with them and asked what the bday girl's name was and she says, "it's Daddy's birthday!" Oops! They sang a barbersharp quartet-style birthday song for DH and he was pretty red by this point. I was so surprised I didn't get any pictures, shoot!
turning into a stomachache so I figured we better go somewhere that could take us right away. We ended up at Wolfgang Puck Cafe. The place was empty and we got a table with this view:
! I immediately called housekeeping and they said they'd send someone right up. Well "right up" turned into over 45 minutes and we were really wanting to get DD settled down for the night so DH somehow managed to scoop the laundry into a bag without touching it and he brought it down to the lobby. The CM he spoke to was pretty horrified that housekeeping had missed this. Funny thing is, two days later we got a voicemail on our cell from POFQ wanting to know if we'd left a bag of laundry there
. With that settled we all turned in for some much needed sleep -- travel day is always so tiring.
Deb
PassPorter Guide Author
How gross about the dirty underwear. 
. I fell asleep fine but then my eyes snapped open around 2:50 a.m. and I was wide awake. Ugh -- I hate this feeling. I sat there for quite a while -- I'd say probably until about 4:30 a.m. when thankfully I drifted off again until 6:30 a.m. I got up and poked around the room for a while until the rest of the gang woke up at 7 a.m.
), we were off to get a taxi to GF. The greeter that helped us was so incredibly nice! He offered to transfer our luggage for us (we'd already decided to take it with us so we were okay) and without us even asking, he made a special call to get a cab with a carseat to come by (the cab we got actually had a carseat and two boosters -- very well prepared!!). He also gave DD a little toy coin as a souvenier.
. As we approached to door to the lobby a CM came over to us and greeted DD by name (adding "Princess" to it off course
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