We Can Fly, We Can Fly, We Can Fly......We Flew Trip Report - Page 7 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Sorry, I know this is somewhat off topic, but I think the Boardwalk looks fabulous. I have loved the look of the rooms, resort, and location is pretty sweet. That being said, I would have a hard time staying there bc of Scary Clown pool. That is just so freaky looking!
So I have talked about "SCP" so many times to my GF who is giving us points to stay DVC our next trip...that she said, "You keep talking about that Scary Clown pool and you might end up staying there, bc I'll book you on purpose! Just for kicks (only not kicks)!" She wasn't being mean, I don't have a phobia of clowns or anything, I just don't like it. I laughed, bc I know she would do that...especially since she already told me she plans to have me there on speaker when we book and whatnot.
Just thought I'd share. LOL!
Sorry about all the glitches on your travel day!
Great pictures from Sea World!
great job to Abby for not panicking in a scary situation (it would have been for me)!!
Looking forward to more!!
I just found your TR and read it from the beginning. I have always enjoyed your writing style and all of the pictures you share. As others have said, I can't believe how grown up Abby is looking! She did a great job acting more grown up by not panicking when she lost you. I can imagine how proud you were of her.
I smiled while reading about SW - it's been 30 years since I've been there - and had happy memories.
Thanks for sharing the good and not so good with us. I think every family has its ups and downs while traveling together - and in life! I know we certainly do......and I somehow have become a master at knowing what circumstances will trigger certain behaviors in our crowd. We just returned from our annual trip to the coast and after 28 years together, I finally figured out that my husband always becomes grumpy the day before we travel home.
I can't wait to read more.
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I just caught up Darlene; and I must say, it started off bumpy but more seems like it's going smooth. I like the photos, and was glad to hear Abbey followed your advice when lost. Looking forward to reading more.
I just found this today! I love the Sea World update. I'm not sure if we'll make it there next June or not, but it's a possibility.
I'm glad you enjoyed the update - I have another one coming today with a little bit more SW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OneLittleSpark
Sorry, I know this is somewhat off topic, but I think the Boardwalk looks fabulous. I have loved the look of the rooms, resort, and location is pretty sweet. That being said, I would have a hard time staying there bc of Scary Clown pool. That is just so freaky looking!
So I have talked about "SCP" so many times to my GF who is giving us points to stay DVC our next trip...that she said, "You keep talking about that Scary Clown pool and you might end up staying there, bc I'll book you on purpose! Just for kicks (only not kicks)!" She wasn't being mean, I don't have a phobia of clowns or anything, I just don't like it. I laughed, bc I know she would do that...especially since she already told me she plans to have me there on speaker when we book and whatnot.
Just thought I'd share. LOL!
It's still kind of on topic as you were telling me about that SCP - and I admit, it doesn't look friendly and it's a turn off for me too. Hopefully your friend doesn't book you there though as it would put a damper on your vacation I would think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DawnK
Sorry about all the glitches on your travel day!
Great pictures from Sea World!
great job to Abby for not panicking in a scary situation (it would have been for me)!!
Looking forward to more!!
Thanks Dawn. Great job for Abby and while I don't like to pat myself on the back, luckily I didn't panic either. I was very concerned, but I wasn't to panic mode. I figured she had to be somewhere in the exhibit - or maybe I should say I didn't let myself think that she would have left it completely - so I knew I'd find her but it was a matter of how far I'd have to backtrack to find her.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tcmary
I just found your TR and read it from the beginning. I have always enjoyed your writing style and all of the pictures you share. As others have said, I can't believe how grown up Abby is looking! She did a great job acting more grown up by not panicking when she lost you. I can imagine how proud you were of her.
I smiled while reading about SW - it's been 30 years since I've been there - and had happy memories.
Thanks for sharing the good and not so good with us. I think every family has its ups and downs while traveling together - and in life! I know we certainly do......and I somehow have become a master at knowing what circumstances will trigger certain behaviors in our crowd. We just returned from our annual trip to the coast and after 28 years together, I finally figured out that my husband always becomes grumpy the day before we travel home.
I can't wait to read more.
Thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying my TR and that it's bringing back good memories. I can tell you if you ever go back to SW, you won't recognize anything. My last visit to SW (if you don't count 2 years ago) was about the same time - 30 years ago I didn't really recognize anything - maybe the "new" Shamu Stadium. Everything else has changed greatly. Abby has her typcial kid moments where I just have to shake my head but yes, I am proud of her and amazed at how she's grown. As for Lenny and his grumpiness, I can never figure it out. I've only been with Lenny 14 years so I guess that means in 14 more I'll figure out what his problem is
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie97
I just caught up Darlene; and I must say, it started off bumpy but more seems like it's going smooth. I like the photos, and was glad to hear Abbey followed your advice when lost. Looking forward to reading more.
Thanks Carlos. It did start off bumpy but it really did smooth out as the week went on. I always hope Abby does what I tell her in certain circumstance and in this one instance, I was so relieved to know she did it. Other times I don't get why she doesn't do what I tell her but she did it when it really "mattered" (other times it matters too, just not so much if you KWIM).
Sunday morning, I was up bright and early at 5 am to do laundry and to wash our mugs .
I took this on my way to the laundry room. It’s pretty much the only picture that came out from that morning.
When I was done with that, I woke up Lenny who was cranky again. I don’t know why but he was. After Abby got up and we were all ready, we headed to the Polynesian for breakfast. It was the best Ohana experience we’ve ever had.
The characters were fun and the server was really attentive. We even were offered Mickey waffles several times - in the past we’ve either not been offered them at all or only been offered only 1 waffle (to Abby). The meal even seemed to help Lenny be in a better mood. During breakfast however, my camera batteries started to die - and I didn’t have any extras with me. We had discussed at some point in time - probably on the way back to the hotel Saturday night - going to play mini golf before going back to SW. Since I needed batteries for the camera, we decided to go get them and then play mini golf .
By the time we got to Winter Summerland, Lenny’s knee was really bothering him. He didn’t really care if he played or not and neither one of us felt like getting the scooter out of the car so Abby and I went to play. Lenny stayed back in the car to nap . Despite being early in the morning, there was a wait time to start - only 15 minutes or so - but it was still a wait. I guess adding the mini golf to the WP&M option was a good thing as that seemed to be how others were "paying" as well. Between waiting to start and then waiting for parties in front of us to finish, it took Abby and I about an hour to play the one round. While we played, one thing I noticed was other families were playing the way Abby and I do - she plays through first and then it’s my turn so I guess it’s not that unusual (do we all remember from before Lenny was saying that’s not a normal way to play?).
I got one hole in one - the rest were "spoiled" by my ball stoppping here on several other holes
We finally made it to SW about noon time and with tickets in hand, we got right through the turnstiles. Our first stop today was Blue Horizons. We had to wait a while so I decided to get us some sodas to drink. Instead of having to leave the theater for the stand at the bottom of the ramp, I noticed a coke machine way over on the left of the theater. I went over and all they had was bottles but that was okay. I bought 3 orange sodas and figured with our cooler of ice, we’d put 2 in there to stay cold and share one until it was gone. That worked out well and having both ice water and orange soda to drink helped. I can’t drink water all day long so at least this way I had a choice - sometimes I would feel like the water, sometimes I would feel like the orange - and we did this almost all week long. As for Blue Horizons, the show was okay - I preferred the ones we had seen the day before better - and it was difficult for me to get pictures. With the scooter, we sat way up in the very back row so I had a hard time judging where the dolphins would be for me to snap away.
When the show was over, we went to Turtle Trek. The wait wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be - probably only 10 or 15 minutes - and we were able to get a few pictures beforehand of the manatees and turtles.
I also used that time to "warn" Abby of what the movie would be like. I had watched it on YouTube a while ago and I knew there were a few spots that were pretty intense (the crabs and birds) and I didn’t want Abby to be bothered by it. During the show, Abby wore her headphones because it was so loud but she seemed fine with the show itself. I, on the other hand, got very dizzy within seconds of it starting so I basically had to spend the entire time staring at the floor.
Abby loves the show Pets Ahoy so much that we made that our next stop. Even though it is the same show every time (sometimes the actual animals change but not what they do), it was still enjoyable the second time around - not to mention a nice cool spot to spend some time as it was really hot again. We checked out the dolphin nursery but it didn’t seem to hold any interest for Abby so we went to do Wild Arctic again. The day before we didn’t have much opportunity to linger. We kind of rushed through because Abby wanted to see a show and then we couldn’t find her so it wasn’t that much fun. Today we spent more time inside.
We even got to see a Walrus training session but my pictures didn’t come out very well. We lost track of time and like the day before, Abby wanted to see Alure so we had to rush out of Wild Arctic to get to the show (it was the last one of the day). We got there with only a minute or two to spare and the theater wasn’t nearly as full as I thought it would be - there was plenty of seating left.
Some of the performers came out at the end of the show but they didn’t stay for long. These are the only two pictures we were able to get
We enjoyed the show again and from there, we did some souvenir shopping before leaving.
For tonight’s dinner, I had planned on us hitting the AoA food court, so that’s where we went.
We of course had to stop for the pennies first once we found the machines which were hidden in the wall.
The food court was smaller in size than we expected but the size didn’t reflect in the selection of foods -there were lots of those. Lenny and I got the open faced steak sandwich and Abby got some sort of kids chicken meal. All the meals were good with the exception of the rice. We ate the rice but we didn’t enjoy it. My only other complaint was the size of the meal - we both got one small piece of bread, one small steak and a little scoop of rice. When we were done, both Lenny and I were still hungry so we left Abby at the table and went to see what else there was to try. We decided on a Caprese sandwich with house made chips and we split it. It was okay. For me, the basil was too much, but Lenny and I agreed it wasn’t good enough to get again. Then because we were there, we checked out the desserts. We got a Mickey cupcake, which Abby didn’t share with us, an everything brownie, which was really good and rich (and enough for all 3 of us to try) and a Mickey tart, which was taken back to the room for later (I ate this before Lenny could). Here I’ll also add that we had our mugs with us and they worked just fine. It told us our last available day to use it and when I had to go from one machine to another (the Fanta was out in one) it told me how much time before my next fill (it was one minute between fills).
After dinner, we decided to explore the resort a little bit and by little, I mean exactly that.
The sign looks strange without the numbers I know use to be there
We stuck to the main path, walked by the pool and continued over the bridge to Pop where we were in search of 2 new pennies.
There we once again stuck to the main path, entered the food court, got the pennies and then turned around to leave. My feet were killing me already (even though it was early in the vacation) so we just retraced our steps. Once back at the bridge though, I noticed a pretty little sitting area on the edge of the lake. At first I thought it might be a smoking section but there were no ashtrays to be seen. It was quiet and would have been nice to sit for a while but I knew I wouldn’t get moving again if we did. Abby was tired too and wanted to go so I just snapped a couple of pictures and we went back through AoA to get to the car.
Illuminated signs for AoA - the first one is by the bride to Pop. The second is in the lobby by the front doors.
We got back to ASMu about 9 and Abby went right to bed. I made notes of the day, organized my receipts and then made it to bed by 11.
Sounds like your trip is off to a great start! I've yet to visit Sea World, but it is something my oldest son really, really, really wants to do.... I just always find it difficult to fit into our schedule.... *How long of a drive is it to Sea World from the Disney value resorts (which is where we usually stay also)?