Our party of 2 is now a party of 11 - UPDATED 8/19/11 - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Great Plans!!! Our big group will be at the World 8/10-8/14. I know how you feel about the increase in the number of people !!! hahah Our trip started out as a trip for myself, DH, and DS...now it grew to 8. For the WHOLE trip !!! haha..We will be at MK on the 12th as well...If you hear a very loud New Yorker (woman), that would be my MIL (gotta love her!! ) Maybe our paths will cross!!! Your plans sound great!!
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Well we are back so I'm going to try to start the trip report. It was a very long trip and for the most part good. My dd got hurt the weekend before the trip but for the most part that was ok. I'll try to do this day by day and get thru all 10 days.
Today started off as most of my days do. I got up and got ready for work. I was alot happier this morning than most mornings thought because the day wasn't going to end as most days do!!!!!! DD got up with me and we put on our clothes that were already set aside. The luggage was packed and we headed off to my job. I only had to work until noon then we were heading straight down to the airport for our 3:55pm flight to Orlando. The work day went well and then we were off. DD was excited as it was her first time driving to the airport for one of our vacations as she turned 16 in June and got her permit. I found a coupon for off site airport parking at the place right across the street from where we usually park so we headed down to Fasttrack (now known as The Parking Spot). I loved the lot I use to use (Central Air Park) but I had a coupon for $5.95 per day for parking at Fasttrack so I couldn't pass up that discount since the car would be there until late on 8/14/11. We got a parking spot about 6 spots from the main bldg which was great and the shuttle came right over. He put our 2 suitcases in the shuttle and we headed over to the Valet parking and picked up a few people and headed to PHL. We had already printed out our boarding passes which gave us our gate assignment so when we were dropped off we checked our two bags and headed for security. Once at security they checked our boarding passes and sent me to the metal detector line and my dd to the full body scan line. I got thru my line quickly and waited at the other end for my dd after I got all our stuff off the conveyor belt. After the full body scan they wiped my dd's hands and knee brace for what I believe is explosives and then patted one of her legs down. It was funny I was joking with her that she must look shady. She didn't find it as funny that I made it thru easily and she did not. We then headed toward our gate and had lunch. Expensive but tasty sandwiches. We bought some water for the flight and a snack and sat at our gate. It seemed weird to me that there was still another flight listed that wasn't ours but we were very early so I just shrugged it off. Then I realized that the flight listed picked up shortly before our departure time so I went out to find a board to check our flight. Yup you guessed it we were sitting at the wrong gate. The boarding passes that we printed 24 hours out were wrong so I signaled to Kelsey to grab my bag and hers and she came out and I explained to her that we were idiots to have not double checked the board and we hussled over to where we were suppose to be. The flight was full so the area was packed but we found 2 seats together and waited. The guy next to us was playing a game on his phone that beeped very loudly and was kinda annoying. I was hoping that we wouldn't be seated by him on the flight down (which we weren't) We realized that the people on the flight were very different from the usual people we have on our flights down to Disney. We usually leave on a flight around 7:00 am and have mostly families heading to Disney with happy children on them. With a 3:55 pm flight we had mostly adults and families from Europe on our flight as almost everyone checking in at the gate had passports in their hands. It was ok just different. Our next flight in Oct is 7:00 am so we will be back to normal. The flight went well. The window seat was occupied by an airline employee who sat quietly thru the flight watching something on a laptop. We spoke briefly while waiting to disembark and he seemed nice. We touched down around 6:13 and were out of the plane and at DME by 6:30/6:40. We were the only ones in the Pop line and they put us right on a bus. Our bus left right before 7:00 with stops scheduled for CBR, Pop, AKL and Kindani Village. We only saw CBR as Pop was the 2nd stop. It was raining but we took the normal pictures on the bus and when we got to Pop we walked right up and since I had done online check in we got our packet and were off to our room. 50's bldg close to the main building. I don't have my notes with me or my digital camera so I'm not 100% sure of our room number but it was something like 3364 or 3346. I went to pull out my room keys and there were 4. I pulled them all out and realized I had 2 extra keys that were someone elses. I gave them back at the front desk and we headed off.
Next up - Our room at Pop and the first evening
Well we walked thru the rain to get to our room. Luckily we were close and it wasn't raining too hard but my dd had to take off her shoes because she didn't want to get them wet. Now I reminded her (it is our 7th trip afterall so she should remember what Florida in the summer is like) that it rains almost every day in Florida so pick appropriate shoes. We call my dd Amelda due to her love of shoes and she brought 2 pairs of sneakers, 2 pairs of Sperry's and 1 pair of flipflops but her flipflops were in the checked luggage so she didn't have possesion of them yet and I only had the flipflops on my feet. She had sneakers in her backpack and sperry's on her feet I believe. We got to the room and it was a great room. Just like the All Stars but really all we needed. We then headed over to the food court for dinner as it was around 8:00 pm and we hadn't eatten since lunch in Philly. We are on the regular dining plan for the first half of the stay as we have a couple of TS meals planned with our friends. I had the bacon cheeseburger with fries, orange soda and tye dye cheesecake. Kelsey had the Chicken Pasta Alfredo with a coke and a chocolate oreo cupcake. Everything was yummy (we loved the Chicken Pasta Alfredo from last stay at AS Music). We took the desserts back to the room to eat later. We decided to take a walk around the resort to check it out. It was very muggy but I'm glad we did it as we never made it around during the daylight hours. I enjoyed all the year signs and we took some pics. We found our friends car and motorhome which were down there. They were having dinner at WL with family that were leaving WDW soon so we texted them that we would see them later. When we got back to the room DME had delivered our bag plus someone elses bag. I think Pop really wanted me to have everything this trip. First I got someone else's room keys and then I got someone else's luggage. I called down to tell them to come pick up the bag and I moved ours back by the sinks. We put on our bathing suits and went to the bowling pin pool for a swim. That didn't last long because even though it was around 9:00 pm the water was about 90 degrees. I really don't like it when it's that hot. It kinda creeps me out like your swimming in someone else's bath water. So we headed back to the room and the other person's suitcase was still there. We took showers and of course right when I was about to jump in the shower the luggage guy showed up so I threw something on and gave him the other bag. Luckily we were there because he was totally confused as to why he was there. When I answered the door he asked me if we had all our bags because he was "just checking". I told him I had both of mine and someone else's and gave him the other person's bag. I hope they weren't waiting long for it.
After showers our friends stopped by because we had their tye dye tshirts we made for the trip. Kathie and Skyler really liked them and we made plans to wear them on Sunday since we were headed to MK that day. We ate our desserts (Kelsey became addicted to tye dye cheesecake) and watched some tv and went to bed. We were going to head to MK that night but by the time we got down there Kelsey just wanted to swim and her knee was bugging her so we just hung at the resort. That is part of the joy of having a bunch of trips under your belt. You can sit back and relax and not have to spend every minute of your vacation running from one ride to the next.
Next up: First official Day EPCOT
DD & I woke up and got ready and headed off to Epcot. We didn't want to hold up the rest of our party while we activated our very first AP's so we left without them. We headed to the food court at Pop first to get breakfast. I had the egg platter and Kelsey had chocolate chip pancakes. We like to get different stuff then share. It's always been the way we order and I'm sure it always will be. We only got the same stuff once but that is a story for tomorrow. We got the nicest cast member to activate our AP's and once they were in hand we headed into the park. My AP has Mickey on it and Kelsey's has Pluto which is kinda funny because that is Kelsey's least favorite character of all times. Once inside we headed straight for SE. We love that ride and I especially love the smell of Rome burning. After that ride we went into Innoventions since we had never been in there. We created our own video game where they take you running, jumping and doing a victory dance. It was fun and at the end we were able to email it to ourselves. Then we headed over and played the game Where's the Fire. It's funny but I never saw the Segway section in here where you can try them out because I would have done it since we had the Segway Around the World tour scheduled for later in the week. We were over trying some free soda's in Club Cool when our friends finally texted that they were on there way in. They are a party of 9 the youngest being 15 so they don't exactly move quickly. We met them at the Soarin Fastpass machine so we could ride together later. Most of us got in line for Test Track. I hadn't rode Test Track in a few years as the speed outside was bugging me but I really wanted to do it with the group or atleast all but two of the group. We had fun and I got a Photopass card at the end with the 2 cars that we used. We did something new for us at Epcot in Ellen's Universe of Energy. That was cool since we had never been in there. Half our party fell asleep since they had rode it a bunch although it was there idea. We also did Nemo again and to be truthful I only rode it because they were as I find that to be the most boring thing in all of WDW. We split up for lunch as they wanted to hit the Electric Umbrella but Kelsey and I wanted Nachos from Mexico. We love that we can split them and only use one cs credit. We then rode Grand Fiesta Tour while we were in Mexico before meeting them for our Fastpass. We got to Soarin before them so we jumped on Living with the Land which was a great place for Kelsey to rest her knee and I love the ride. Plus our friends wouldn't ride it as it is what they deem the most boring ride in WDW. Our wait for Soarin wasn't long and it was the most fun I have ever had on Soarin in my life. I love the ride and do it every trip but my friend Kathie (the mom of group down with us) wanted to ride Soarin but once we were on the ride we found out that she is afraid of heights and we were in row A. She was so stinkin funny on the ride I still laugh today thinking about her on the ride grabbing hold of her husband on one side and daughter on the other. Kelsey and I have never laughed so hard in our lives. We did finally get the rest of our party (or atleast those that hadn't already broken off) to head into World Showcase. That is when we found out that they never go into World Showcase!?!?!?!?!?!?! I couldn't believe my ears. My dd & I usually ride SE & Soarin then spend the rest of our time in WS. I can't imagine spending a day in Epcot and not doing WS. To this day I'm still shocked that they don't do WS. OK my rant is done. We rode Grand Fiesta (again) and were going to do Maelstrom but the line was a little long and we had dinner ressies at Teppon Edo. I love that restaurant so when Kathie said they were going there and did we want to join them I immediately said yes. Unfortunately you can't get a party of 11 at a table at Teppon Edu so we split up 8 and 3 which kinda worked because one of the older daughters was there with her boyfriend and a friend so they were the 3 left out. They ended up at the grill right next to us but that didn't help with the confusion of table credits. Kelsey and I were easy as we are 2 credits from the same card and were seated at the same table. But our friends had 3 room. One under Kathie, one under her dh Bob and one under one of the older girls boyfriends. They couldn't put someone at the other table on Kathie or Bob's card and it didn't really help that the guy from the restaurant had a very thick accent and wasn't easy to understand. I stayed out of it and can only assume it worked out in the end. After we rolled out of dinner (by the way I had the Filet Mignon and Kelsey had the shrimp and chicken) we went and rode Maelstrom. After that they were going to go get in line for Test Track again and Kelsey and I didn't want to ride it so we said our goodbye's and headed for the Monorail and off to MK. Our friends had 3 day base tickets where we have AP's so we could park hop. While at MK we rode Jungle Cruise, Aladins Magic Carpet, BTMRR (during Wishes!!!!!!!!!!) POC, HM, IASM. And shared a dole whip. It was a wonderful day and we headed out before being trapped by the 2nd parade run.
Next Up - Magic Kingdom
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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