Easter 2005: CBR (one-night at All-Star Music) Part two added] About This Page:

[TiggerTails]

Grandkids first visit to the Mouse’s House

Our trip report (Part 1)

There were seven of us on this journey: Nana AKA Janice the Mum, Grumpy Grandpa AKA Randy the Dad, Auntie Liz AKA Bethany the sister age fifteen, Son Jamie, Daughter-in-law Michelle and Grandkids Alison, age three, and last but not least, Riley, the baby, age one.

Our journey started from Columbia, Maryland. We woke up bright and early at three o’clock Thursday March 24. We had planned to be on the road at around four o’clock.
Well, we did leave at 4:30 am--not too shabby! Janice had made some turkey and cheese rolls the night before, and cream cheese bagels for our journey. The cooler was all packed. All we had to do was wake up Liz, point her in the direction of the van so she could fall asleep again! Jamie, Michelle, Alison and Riley were leaving from Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the next day and we were planning to meet at MK Friday night.

Our journey went smoothly. We breezed past the dreaded DC, even my bladder was holding up well. We stopped for coffee and broke out the rolls. We were making good time, in fact we had a hotel booked in Jacksonville for the first night to break up the journey. But, the Mouse’s pull was just too great. So I called Shades of Green, but there were no vacancies. Then, I tried calling All-Star Resorts directly, but the CM told me that everything was booked. Not really believing that there was not one room open, I called the Disney reservation line and was told we could have a room at All-Star Music which we took! We are in! We concluded the first CM had not bothered to look for us.

Then we hit traffic!! Ah did we do the right thing? Stop, start from here on out.

We arrived at All Star Music around 8:30 so it took us sixteen hours. Two CMs were making balloon animals outside reception a nice touch .

We headed to our room with our cases. The room was small, as we expected and a little warm for my liking. I turned the air down, It never really felt cool to me though.

Randy and I decided to go explore a little and go buy some milk for breakfast. Liz wanted to watch TV and veg in the room. We walked out still dressed in our sweats from the long drive (maybe that was why the room felt warm ha ha) The pool looked nice and lively with lots of teens. They were coming in by the bus load as we arrived. They all looked well behaved and were just having a lot of fun.

The gift shop was large. We got the milk and some juice from the food court. We saw some people coming out with taco salads that looked yummy! We had a little walk back to our room, lots of kids splashing around in the piano pool. It was quite noisy even at that hour, but looked to be a good spot for kids. Got ready for bed, the bed was small (we have a king at home) But, we were so tired we hardly noticed. Till I was woke up by some noisy neighbors coming back from the parks. I guess they kept telling their kids to Shhh and be quiet (I didn’t hear the kids only the parents!) We did not have to get up early as all we had planned was to go to SOG and buy our tickets, and check in to CBR.
With our 15-year-old daughter, we wouldn’t stay at the All-Star Resort after staying there for one night. It seems a great place for those who need the cheapest hotel room on property and for those with small kids who want to spend a lot of time in the pools. Of course, the room was clean and everything was still very “Disney-fied”, just not our “cup of tea” at this time of our lives. CBR, on the other hand, was!!!!

We drove over to SOG, told the toll attendant we were there to buy tickets, she waved us through. Getting the tickets was a breeze, no wait. We got eight day stars and stripes park hopper plus tickets, she didn’t even ask us how long we were staying!
We stopped by the shoppette, the prices were good and they had the usual fare (for those reading this who are military and shop at PXs/BXs/NEXs will know).

Then we headed on over to CBR, My first impression was how lush and green the grounds were and it was beautiful! We stopped at Custom House, it was only noon and already there was a long line of people with cases waiting to check in (and a few checking out, we felt sorry for them) We waited for 30mins or so till it was our turn. The CM offered us a room that was in Aruba or we could wait till our requested Jamaica 45 was ready, we decided to wait for Jamaica 45. The actual room wasn’t ready and we weren’t assigned one. We were told to call back and they would give us the room number when it was ready. They did give us our room key so we were able to start charging on it immediately.

So, we headed to DTD for lunch and shopping! Yey! We lunched at Earl of Sandwich, thanks Passporters! It really is a tasty place for lunch. I got The Original roast beef and horseradish sauce with Swiss cheese. DH got the Chicken with hot wing sauce. I also got a banana and strawberry smoothie. DD got a frappe at Ghirardelli. She talked on the phone and held us a table as we waited, the line did move along well and we didn’t have to wait too long. We called and our room was not ready at 1:30. Yey, time for shopping!
We shopped, then called an hour later at 2:30 and our room was ready, They gave us the last two digits of our number 4531 which was a courtyard view room. Perfect!

Jamaica was lovely! We parked in the circle and unloaded our van easily. Then, wheeled in our cases (we got the ground floor as requested). Our room was much larger than All Star Music. We loved the decor and the little touches like the fridge! We could see the curtain between the bathroom and sleeping area was going to come in handy with DD. We were a short walk to the village pool and across the bridge to Old Port Royale, the central hub of CBR where the food court, shopping and theme pool is located. So over we went to buy a refill mug. We noticed during our stay that a small rabbit lived in the growth of vegetation right outside our room. She was quite tame and we were able to get quite close and leave her food. It was so appropriate since we were there over Easter!

We had a PS for Liberty Tree Tavern for 7pm; we called our son to see if he was getting close to WDW. He was hitting rain and traffic and was still awhile away. So we headed off to MK.

[mom2my4dwarfs]

Great start! We love the CBR. Last year we stayed in Jamaica building 44 and will be at the CBR soon.

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Jan More please

[katspjs]

Great start Jan! Looking forward to more!

[eeyore8484]

Great start! Can't wait to read more.

[DawnDenise]

Can't wait to read more!! We'll be at CBR soon as well.

[TiggerTails]

Our trip report (Part 2)


We were also getting some rain at MK, so we made our way to Liberty Tree Tavern around 6pm; we were hoping to get in early for our PS. Because of the rain people were taking longer than usual at their tables (according to one CM). They had some CMs calling names there from Hong Kong Disney. (We later found out during the Jungle Cruise that 500 Hong Kong Disney CMs were training at WDW in preparation for their opening.) It was quite difficult for them to be heard amongst the din of the restaurant. And with their heavy accents it was even harder for people waiting to understand who’s name and state was being called, this added to the confusion. But, people were all very understanding, and other CMs were ready to step in and help them if they got really stumped. The meal was great. It is all-you-can-eat thanksgiving-style meal. We all liked the beef, and the gravy was delicious. In fact, we asked for more meat to be brought out and the CM only brought out ham and turkey. I guess we could’ve asked for more roast beef, but we had had enough by then. The character interaction was very good, we joked with Dale. DH called him Chip and accused them of BOTH looking the same anyway. Minnie was cute as always.

We got a call from Jamie, Michelle and the Grandkids saying they had arrived at MK, so we arranged to meet them at City Hall, not realizing Spectromagic was soon to start. We tried to cross over to City Hall but it was all roped off, so we joined the exodus of people leaving the park and managed to cross over to City Hall. We saw Alison on Jamie’s shoulders (he is 6ft 4inches) not too hard to miss in a crowd. It was truly a magical moment that brought tears to my eyes...........seeing our Grandkids for the first time since Thanksgiving, and watching the magic in their eyes. We said our hellos and watched the rest of the parade. Riley was a little shy, we saw him take a few steps he wasn’t walking the last time we saw him. Alison warmed right up to us ever the extravert! They were hungry so we went to Cosmic Rays. They ate and we visited with the Grandkids. “Wishes” had started and we could hear the fireworks, but we didn’t want to be rude and rush out to view them. DS was so busy tucking into his hamburger, we didn’t want to bother him! Afterwards we walked to Fantasy Land, we got in line for Winnie the Pooh ride, and it was so cool to see it through the eyes of a child. Our DS was very reluctant to make any plans for MK and was shocked after we stood in line (without the stroller, which of course was parked in the stroller parking area) for almost 45 minutes! Maybe next time he will heed our advice… we really should have pulled some FASTPASSes. Alison rode with Auntie Liz and Randy and I sat in the back. Jamie, Michelle and Riley followed in another car. After a nice evening we arranged to meet again the next day at MK.

[Colexis Mom]

Glad you were able to meet up with the rest of your family More please