TR: No, It's Not a Nice Wave Pool, It's Called Typhoon Lagoon. No, Like TYPHOON!

[IheartDDuck]

So we're back from our trip. :sad1: It's a sad, sad day for me. If you need other information about my pre-trip report, please see the link in my signature. Boy, did we have a good time. The title of the TR will be explained later because it does have relevance for our trip in general. I am starting the uploading of photos, and hopefully photobucket cooperates with me.

I will explain our cast of characters soon in another post, but in the meantime feel free to check the PTR for those details as well.

[MEK]

Just read your PTR. Looks like this is going to be an interesting TR. Can't wait for it to start.

[IheartDDuck]

Hello everyone!
As promised, I am going to do a brief rundown of the players of our trip and the plans that we originally had (I say originally because things changed along the way, but we'll discuss that later).

Me: Danielle. Trip planner and overall a little crazy about Disney. Love it, and have been about 18 times. I just turned 28. Below is a picture of me and my mom.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/CIMG2179.jpg

Mom: Jackie. My favorite person in the whole world. People can definitely tell that we are mother and daughter. Love taking trips with her and we try to go with just the two of us periodically. She is just as crazy about Disney as I am (I actually think a little more so). There are not many pictures of her because she hates them and she doesn't like to smile in them either. :confused3

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/CIMG2180.jpg

Dad: Rick (actually Rickey and trust me, we do make that a joke...R-I-C....K-E-Y...). He is not as crazy about Disney as my mom and I, but it is his favorite vacation destination still. He loves golf too and he's always trying to figure out a way to combine Disney and golf.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/IMG_0581.jpg

Jason: My older brother. He has slight center of attention sydrome problems, but I love traveling with him. He came on this trip with his son at the last minute, so they weren't there for the entire trip. He's 32 years old, doesn't look it, doesn't act it, and when people find out he's older then me, the response is always "noooooo, really?"

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/CIMG0242.jpg

Joaquin: Jason's son, my nephew, 21 months old. Oh my god, this child is a ham all the way. He loves everyone and as you will find out, basically made friends everywhere he went. He's unstoppable, but we love that about him.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2414.jpg

So the only thing that we tend to plan is where we're eating. We love food and one of the main reasons that we go back to Disney is to keep eating. :laughing:

Jason and Joaquin were not set to show up until Monday 10/12 and we were there from 10/10 to 10/17. Here were our dining reservations:

10/10 - Grand Floridian Cafe at 8pm
10/11 - Marrakesh at 2pm
10/12 - Kona Cafe at 7:55am, Chefs de France at 5:10pm
10/13 - Tony's Town Square at 11:40 am, Le Cellier at 7:20pm
10/14 - Ohana at 9:30am, Liberty Tree Tavern at 4:30pm
10/15 - Prime Time Cafe at 2:55pm
10/16 - Yak and Yeti at 3pm

Many things changed along the way. Oh, I forgot to mention that we were staying at the Grand Floridian this time around for the entire trip. My parents are DVC members, and they decided to splurge this time around to stay there since we had never done it before. Let me tell you, being at a monorail resort was so handy with Joaquin since you don't have to fold the stroller on the monorail. I was sooooo happy about that. All right kiddies, everyone ready? Here we gooooooooo.....

[IheartDDuck]

OK, let me start this by saying that OMG, 4am comes sooooo early in the morning. I am not a morning person. I start work at 8:30am every morning, and even that's a stretch for me. It was very difficult for me to get up in the morning. My mom and dad are incessant morning people and they tend to be up and going right away. I don't do cheery mornings. I just don't. They make me crazy.

Well, I had made sure to crawl into bed around 9pm the night before, and it still felt like 4am came in an instant. Of course, mom came in all super chipper. Did I mention I hate morning people.....with a passion. I think the exchange went something like:

Mom: Good morning sweetie! Are you ready to go? I am.

Me: *grumble*

Mom: Aren't you excited? Don't you want to get out of here.

Me: *grunt* early

After this exchange was completed we were on the road by 4:40 am. We made it to Milwaukee Airport by about 5:30am. We prefer Milwaukee to O'Hare because it's easier to get to and there always less traffic along the way. This time was no exception, except there was a minor detour for us along the way, but it didn't really take much longer that way.

Check in was very smooth. I had upgraded us to business class the night before on AirTran and we were very excited. We always try to set aside some extra money for the upgrade. We took the stroller to the gate for check in. Even though Joaquin isn't with us yet, we explained to the lady that checked us in that Jason would be meeting us there and that he wouldn't be able to travel with Joaquin, the stroller, his luggage and the car seat by himself.

We made good use of that stroller. We popped that sucker open and put our carry on bags in it. Wooeee, let me tell you that people look at you like you are all kinds of crazy when you push around a stroller that way. They looked at you like they really think there could be a child in that stroller underneath all of the bags. Really people, really? Who would do that?

It was now time to eat. For some strange reason the earlier that I get up in the morning the hungrier I am. Doesn't make sense, but whatever. Let me say though that this is the exact reason that I don't like Milwaukee Airport. Food....selection....sucks! At least at O'Hare I have so many different options to choose from. Milwaukee? Nuthin. Just Burger King and pre-made BK at that. What happened to your way right away? I suffered through a croissonwich that was kind of gross. I'm really a McDonald's breakfast girl. I think Milwaukee Airport is the only place in the U.S. without a McDonalds. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing is up to you.

I have no pictures during this part of the Trip Report. Because I'm not a morning person, my brain wasn't really functioning all that well.

Okay, that's all I have for now. I have to go pick up my pup at the kennel, but I will post more when I return. The question at this point will be how did security go? Did we get the rental car we needed? Stay tuned to find out.

[IheartDDuck]

OK, last time we left off we had just had some bad Burger King at the airport. After we ate, we headed to security. There was a wicked long line for TSA for some reason. I've never seen it this bad before, even when I flew out to Vegas on New Years Eve. However, seeing as though I notice everything (I'm not bragging, I'm stating fact. One of my strengths is my power of observation. One of my biggest irritations in life too is an aggravation for people that don't read signs. Really folks, they're there as a benefit for us all, just open your eyes and read them).

Anywho, we're standing and there's a sign to the right of us saying "Business Class Passengers. Oh, now I'm relieved. We didn't have to kep waiting in this long line. We went down this aisle and got through security in 5 minutes. Once we were at the gate, I barely had time to go to the bathroom and they were already boarding. My mom and I came out of the ladies and there's my dad frantically waving us down to get on the plane. We boarded in the first group and took our seat.

My mom and I were together and my dad was sitting with someone else. He immediately began to chat up his neighbor. This is my dad's big thing and my mom and I simply don't understand it. He can strike up a conversation with someone anytime, anywhere and find something in common with them. My mom and I on the other hand are not so good at this.

Overall the flight was good. The only downfall to AirTran business class is that there's no food, just snacks. Oh well, it's no big deal. I just basically tried to snooze, another thing I can't do on planes, and I read my book. In no time we were making our descent into Orlando. :banana:

We landed around 11am and we were able to get our baggage very quickly. After that we headed to the car rental. I went through Thrifty because I get a corporate rate through them. Originally we had a full size car picked out, but with Jason and Joaquin added on at the last minute, we were going to need something more like a minivan. I checked the rate for a minivan and it was around $450.

My parents got in line while I waited with the baggage because I put the ressie in my dad's name. Here is a photo of them waiting:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2303.jpg

This manager comes up to them who works for Thrifty and says to my mom:

Manager: You have a reservation with Thrifty?

Mom: Yes we do.

Manager: Well I just wanted to let you know that it's going to be about a 4-6 hour wait for a car right now.

Mom: *utter silence and a look of horror* (I wish I got this picture, but I wasn't quick enough)....Are you serious?

Manager: No, I'm just pulling your leg.

Dad: You know one of these days you're going to get popped when you say that.

Excellent observation Dad, I couldn't put it better myself. Well, after this exchange, they try to tell my dad that a minivan will be $900. Come again? I mean, I know Orlando is the land of suck you dry of money, but what? When I checked the rate before we left it was $450. Then the manager comes (the one who will one day get popped) and drops it to $700, then to $450. The entire time I'm waiting to the side, I'm telling my mom "That's crazy, is that the corporate rate? I have a corporate rate".

Here is my theory on this situation. I think what they do is quote and exhorbitant price and then they "come to the rescue with a good price". Kind of like making themselves look better. Yeah yeah car rental places, I'm on to you.:snooty:

Since we were only partially sucked dry of money at this point, we were pretty happy. Getting the car after that went without incident and we were on our way.

Up Next: Pick up Jason's ticket and check in.

[IheartDDuck]

Oh man, I didn't realize I took so many notes in the first part of the trip. I have less and less notes the further we get along, so while these are really detailed, my others tend to be more like, woke up, got on monorail, rode rides, ate, went to sleep. :lmao:

So now we're finally in the car and on our way, yeah!

On our way out of the airport:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2306.jpg

Dad driving:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2307.jpg

Mom and I:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2309.jpg

Dad's happy face:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2310.jpg

There are even loser Bears fans in Florida (sorry only Packer fans in this family). No offense to any Bears fans out there.
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2312.jpg

I love the cheesiness of this place, but the picture didn't turn out so good. No, it wasn't the waffle house I was taking a picture of...
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2313.jpg

Yeah, a Disney sign!
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2314.jpg

We had to stop at Orlando best tickets to pick up Jason's 5 day pass, because we purchased it through my corporate website so I could get my corporate discount on it. This only took a few minutes at best. Next we saw this sign:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2315.jpg

The picture didn't come out that well because my dad drove in the back way through DTD, plus he was taking his turns kind of fast. My dad is typically the slowest driver on the planet, except when he is in Disney World. Then suddenly he's Richard Petty or something. I took a few other pictures along the way:

RCFD
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2316.jpg

Fort Wilderness
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2317.jpg

Finally, we arrived.

The Grand Floridian:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2318.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2319.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2321.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2322.jpg

Check in was not as smooth as normal. Originally when we made our reservations we had wanted to stay at the GF for part of the trip and we were going to attempt to get into Bay Lake Tower or the Treehouse Villas for the other part of the trip. We coudn't get Bay Lake Tower or the Treehouse Villas, but like idiots, we had made our GF ressie first, and then tried to make the other one. Bad idea, should have reversed the order. So we decided to make the ressie at the GF the entire time. Well, instead of cancelling the original ressie and making one long one, they made us two separate ones, which I didn't quite understand. It makes no sense to me, but whatever.

So we're checking in and we tried to find out if we could merge them somehow. We can't. At first she couldn't even find our second ressie. Good thing my mom is OCD and packs all of this information for just these times. She had the ressie number all ready to go. She finally found our information and said that our room was ready, and that we would be staying in the same room the whole time and that they would drop our new room keys off to us on the day that we "check out" from the first ressie. That's a nice touch. The only annoying thing was that we couldn't pay for the DDP in full. We had to do it in two installments at two separate times since we had two ressies. Ugh.

We were in Big Pine Key or building 9. I swear, I thought I had a picture of this, but I don't. Bizarre.

Continued in next post.....

[IheartDDuck]

Oh my, I forgot my one little check in rant. I have personal space issues. I don't like people that I don't know to get close to me. It makes me panic. I know that it's weird that I like Disney so much, but typically I can deal with it in that kind of environment. You have to expect it. I have issues when there is no clear reason for the violation of personal space and it makes me very uncomfortable.

So my mom and I are checking in and these two guys were right behind us. I mean right behind us. One wrong move and they would have been all up in my grill. I was like :scared1:. Then, to make matters worse, they were acting all frustrated, like we were holding something up. Ummm, I'm just checking in and you're invading my personal space buster. Then, my snarkiness got the best of me and I simply said, loudly I might add "personal space". They were heading away to check in at that time, but I was getting the evil eye the whole time. Really though guys, I'm sure you don't want to smell me, and I definitely don't want to smell you. OK, rant over.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2323.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2324.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2325.jpg

Awwww
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2326.jpg

Our room:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2327.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2328.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2328.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2329.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2330.jpg

We were this close to the pool:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2332.jpg

Finally we were on our way. We had to go to the TTC first because Dad needed his annual pass picked up at willcall and we wanted to go to the MK anyway. Here's our first monorail pic:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2333.jpg

Finally at the MK:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2334.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2335.jpg

Cosmic Ray's for lunch. My favorite counter service restaurant:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2336.jpg

For lunch my mom and I both had sweet tea, chicken nuggets and fries and carrot cake and my dad had orange something to drink, a bacon double cheeseburger and chocolate cake. We were all satisfied because at this point we were starving!

We wanted to go on some rides, but the park was hella busy at this point. Plus, we were all really tired (4am is early man!), so we decided to just do the Hall of Presidents and then go to the room. Even the Hall of Presidents was packed, which is something I've never seen. I really have to say though that I enjoy the changes that they've made. On our way over, I saw this guy:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2340.jpg

On our way out of the Hall of Presidents it started to rain, so we got a little wet. Here's our drowned rat pictures on the monorail:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2344.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2346.jpg

More resort:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2347.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2348.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2351.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2352.jpg

We were back to the room by about 5:30pm, so we just relaxed until our ressie at the Grand Floridian Cafe at 8pm. We snoozed a little, read and relaxed. We were at GFC by 8pm and were seated almost immediately. We had a server named Lacey who was so cute! She was very sweet and called us her sweeties.

For drinks I had coke and a sweet tea-ka (sweet tea vodka). Ohh, that drink was good. Mom had pomegranate lemonade and an acai blueberry martini and dad also had pomegranate lemonade and a wildberry margarita. The drinks were very good.

Dad and I both had the New York Strip for dinner with mashed potatoes and vegetables. My mom had salmon with asparagus. For dessert I had chocolate fondue and mom and dad shared the sampler that had tiramisu, cheesecake, key lime pie and chocolate mousse. Everything was really good and we'd totally go back.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2354.jpg

On our way back I attempted to use the fireworks setting on my camera for wishes. The first one came out bad, but I think it's really cool looking.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2355.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2356.jpg

It was about 10:30 by the time we were ready for bed and I was totally ready for it because it was such a long day.

Next up: Day 2 at Epcot, lunch at Marrakesh, DTD shopping and dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express.

[IheartDDuck]

OK, I'm finally back with another update. Hopefully I'll get some readers this time around. Need to make things more interesting I guess.

When we left off we had just finished our first full day. Jason and Joaquin weren't coming until Monday the 12th, so it was still a full day with just my parents and I. I woke up around 8am this morning. My mom was already up, which she always is. She's always the first person out of bed. Dad was still sleeping when I got up, which is another thing that's par for the course. Let me start this by saying that we vacation in Disney differently then we used to. Before DVC we didn't go very often at all, so we would hit the parks commando style. Now that we go at least once a year, we take a more relaxed approach.

While Dad finally decided to get up and join the living, mom and I took the mugs to Gasparilla Grill. We filled our mugs and a the same time we ended up picking up some pastries with our snack credits. Mom and I got cheese danishes (I lllooooovvvveee these! They are very much a staple of my trips) and we got Dad a cinnamon roll. We were out of the room around 9:30am. We decided that we would head to Epcot since we had our lunch reservation there at 2pm.

We headed to the monorail and along the way I got some more pictures.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2358.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2359.jpg

We got on the monorail quickly. We transferred to the Epcot Monorail at the TTC after that. I snapped a couple more pics on the ride through Epcot.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2360.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2363.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2364.jpg

Once we got into the park we went over to the Land so we could get fastpasses for Soarin'. By now it was around 10:30am and the return time for fastpasses was between 2pm and 3pm. We grabbed some drinks and relaxed because we wanted a return time after 3pm to coincide with our lunch reservation at Marrakesh at 2pm. The time came and I went up to get the FP's with my mom. Ironic, a line to get a pass to skip the line. Fortunately, this was the worst fastpass line we would see all week.

Of course, in true Danielle fashion, I totally pick the wrong line. This woman was having problems. Because again, I have issues with being snarky, I tell my mom that it's typical, and that everyone must have taken their stupid vitamin this morning. I know, I shouldn't say it, I just sometimes say what I know everyone else is thinking. I'm working on it. Lo and behold, when I get up there, she was having trouble because the machine is broken. So I said my internal apology to the woman who was having problems for saying that she took a stupid vitamin.

We got a return time for 3:09pm, but by now we were starting to get hungry cause, let's face it, a pastry just doesn't last that long. We were planning on heading into WS, so we figured we would see if we could get into Marrakesh early. First though, we road Journey into Imagination! Let me say, I always ride this ride, because I love Figment. My first visit I was four, and Journey Into Your Imagination was my absolute favorite. I never went on it when they had removed Figment, but note to Disney. Simply adding Figment back did not make this ride better. Pretty, pretty, pretty please bring back the original!

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2365.jpg

I love my mommy!
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2366.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2367.jpg

My favorite part
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2368.jpg

After that, we headed into WS to stop at Le Cellier. We were going to attempt to plead our case for adding Jason and Joaquin to our ressie. When we got there the CM Ryan went to ask the head of hosting. They told us that it shouldn't be a problem because we would be at a 4 top anyway and Joaquin will be in a high chair. Great success!!:thumbsup2

After that we began to wander over to Morocco. I took a few pictures of the F&W festival booths along the way. Oh booths, we will be together very soon. :rotfl2:

This turned out to be my favorite booth..
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2369.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2370.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2371.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2372.jpg

OK, in all my years in WDW, I NEVER noticed this before. What a dee dee dee!
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2373.jpg

Yes, I would be visiting here soon to have escargot.
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2374.jpg

MMMM, beer....
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2375.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2376.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2377.jpg

Yeah we have arrived!
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2378.jpg

We got to Marrakesh around 12:30pm and they told us they could seat us right away and cancelled our ressie for 2pm. I am always amazed that there are no people in this restaurant. The wait staff is so pleasant and the food is really good. It's by far one of my favorite restaurants in the World. Never had a bad experience. Oh well, everyone else is missing out I guess. I can't remember the name of our server, but she was so sweet and seriously one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen. Makes you feel a little self conscious. :laughing:

A restaurant shot with an unaware mom.
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2379.jpg

The belly dancer
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2380.jpg

I got the mint iced tea, the Sultan's sampler with beef, mom got mint iced tea, the Sultan's sampler with chicken and Dad got Sprite and the Lamb Couscous. Everything was soooo yummy. I had made a plan to take food porn this trip, yet every time we ate I was so distracted by the food I completely forgot! When the belly dancer came out, in normal fashion we had to pick my dad's tongue up off of the floor.:rotfl2: We all got the Moroccan Symphony (assorted pastries) for dessert. Yum. Love these pastries.

Continued in next post...

[crgfsu1]

Great start! I'll tag along for the trip.

I'm with you - I ate at Marakesh (whatever) once and loved it, but cannot convince my DH to try it. Oh well....

Looking forward to more.

Cathy

[IheartDDuck]

Continued from previous post.

So we finished lunch and headed back out into WS. Bye bye Marrakesh, I will see you again.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2381.jpg

I decided after we left that I wanted to get some Henna done. Every time I've gone I've said that I was going to get it, but then I don't. I don't have any tattoos and don't plan on getting any in the near future, so this will have to do. Here's the conversation we had on the way to the Henna place.

Me: Mom, you want to get some?

Dad: She's too old for that.

Mom: What?

Me: She's not too old!

Dad: OK, she's not too old, I'm just too cheap!

Mom: Like that's any better!

Anyway, I got the henna and will post a picture of it later once it had set. But there was one small catch. I couldn't get it wet at all for one day. Well that kind of ruins my pool plans for later! :sad1: Well, this is only our second day, so I've still got time. We began to walk through the rest of WS when my dad says:

Dad: I say it's time for a margarita!

Me: Not at the cart outside! They don't even qualify as margaritas!

Dad: No, at the tequila bar. I owe you a drink from last night.

Well, you don't have to tell me twice if someone else is buying! We headed in and there were A LOT of people in La Cava. There was this lady who was being totally indecisive about which tequila shot she wanted. The bartender was nice and was letting her sample some. She was going on about having her tequila here and her lemoncello in Italy. At this point, Im thinking "lady, some of us want to get some too!" She seriously took almost 20 minutes. She FINALLY choose a tequila that was $50 a shot. Holy moley! I mean, I know not all tequila is created equal, but wow! A little much for me.

Finally, we were up. Dad and I got Fruta de la Pasion and mom got the Pepino. They were all very good and let me tell you, it would not take many of those to get me schnockered! Woooeeee. Definitely going back though. Our FP time for Soarin' was fast approaching. Since we had a little time left we went to Spaceship Earth first. There was a little girl around 6 years old that decided she didn't want to ride and basically turned away and ran from her family in the queue. She's pitching a fit, running away and her Dad jumps out of line to catch her. Then her older brother is yelling to her "come on, it's fun". Her Dad finally catches her and drops to her level to give her a talking to. She then proceeds to yell at the top of her lungs "but I want to go on the ride". Now my mom turns to me and says, "If you would have done that to me, there's no way I would have let you ride after that episode". Well, then her mom gets back involved yelling to the Dad, "come on, bring her on", completely negating the fact that her Dad just told her she wasn't allowed to ride after that running away debacle and was trying to remove her from line. So they go on, while the little girl is still carrying on screaming, yelling and so on.

Again, my mom in all her wisdom says to me "united front", meaning that you have to agree with each other in front of your kids. She also says to me "that little girl was pushed beyond her limits. You could tell she was absolutely exhausted, which is part of the reason she had a meltdown. That being said, if your kid has a major meltdown, make them understand why meltdown's of that nature are not acceptable. I always headed meltdowns off at the pass by making sure you had plenty of rest times by going back to the resort. If WDW makes an adult tired, think about how a little one would feel". Mom, I love you and all of your wisdom! She's like a WDW sage!:hug:

Mom and I went on SE together and I tried to capture our pictures a the end.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2382.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2383.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2384.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2385.jpg

After SE it was time for Soarin'. I have loved this ride since the first time I rode it in California Adventure in 2003 before its debut in WDW. After we Soared over California, we decided it was time for a rest so we went back to the Grand Flo. My dad has a lot of trouble with his knees from an injury he sustained in the Vietnam War and various other injuries while in the army. Basically one of his knees is plastic. They give him trouble, although he will never admit it. My mom and I just know his limits and know when he's had it, and he was done at this point. He also told us that he wanted to make sure he didn't go too far, because if he did he would basically be useless the next day.

After getting back to the resort Mom and I grabbed the mugs from the room and went to Gasparilla Grill to fill them. After our return to the room Dad took a nap and Mom and I read our books (I was reading Dan Brown's the Lost Symbol and I recommend it!). After chilling for a while, we headed out at about 6:45pm. It was so hot this day (and every other day in the rest of the trip!) so it was nice to relax and refresh ourselves.

We got the car from the valet and headed to DTD. They too were crowded (hopefully not a trend for the rest of the week). We went to the Design a Tee store and mom and I both got a shirt for Joaquin. They said about an hour, so we went to WPE for dinner. By far, this is the best CS value on the dining plan! I can't believe it's considered a CS. I got sweet tea, chicken alfredo and creme brulee, dad got the same, and the only thing different for mom is she got the bolognese.

What little food porn I got:
Chicken Alfredo
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2386.jpg

Bolognese
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2387.jpg

Oooo, creme brulee
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2388.jpg

I always seem to catch mom at bad moments
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2389.jpg

And dad is always a cheeseball
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2390.jpg

Our server was a cutie named Nat. He was very good and was always there for us, before we even need him. My dad gave him a 20% tip, and he was so surprised by it. He was so cute and said "is there anything else you want for dessert? Frozen yogurt?" We said no, we were too stuffed and that was why we were bringing the creme brulee to go.

Dad went to the car after that so the creme brulee wouldn't melt. Mom and I went to pick up the shirts since they would be ready. We also bought some vinylmation figures. We found dad at the car (however, on the way I almost got hit by a car in a crosswalk. Nice), then went back to the GF. We had an early breakfast scheduled at Kona, then mom and I get pampered at the spa while Dad picks up the boys at the airport.

Here is the shirt I got for Joaquin
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2391.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2392.jpg

And the shirt mom got
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2393.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2394.jpg

And here are the vinylmation figures I got
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2395.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2396.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2397.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2399.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2400.jpg

Next update: Pampering at the spa, the boys arrive and Joaquin's first visit to WDW!

[IheartDDuck]

Great start! I'll tag along for the trip.

I'm with you - I ate at Marakesh (whatever) once and loved it, but cannot convince my DH to try it. Oh well....

Looking forward to more.

Cathy

Hopefully one day he will try it! Welcome to my TR. :thumbsup2

[IheartDDuck]

Today was the day that Jason and Joaquin were arriving. I was very excited, because this is the first time I am going to be able to see Disney through the eyes of a two year old. Our original plan was to go and eat at Kona at 8am. However, the night before we decided that we were not going to opt to go to Kona in the morning. This was an OOP ressie, not one that was going to be from the DDP. We have been so stuffed so far that we decided we would not do this one OOP.

We slept until around 8:15am. Mom again was up and showered already before I got up. We all went down to Gasparilla Grill at 9am. Mom and I had our appointment at the Spa at 9:30am, so we didn't have long to eat. We all got pastries again (hellllloooooooo cheese danish!). We were done eating around 9:20am so dad headed up to the room to relax for a while before he had to leave for the airport to pick up the boys and mom and I began our walk to the Spa. Here is a picture I forgot to show of the henna that I had done the day before.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2401.jpg

Here is the Spa at the GF
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2402.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2403.jpg

Let me tell you that I love this place and when we come back next year, I think my mom and I are going to opt to do one of those bigger packages. So far, all I've had done is a manicure and a pedicure. I think an all day package would definitely be worth the money. My technician was named Neci and she was so awesome and so sweet. She worked on my hands and my feet for two hours. We chatted on about everything, from the weather back home in Chicago (boo!), to our disappointment that Pleasure Island is no longer around, to their closing of the Virgin Megastore. It was a very relaxing experience.

After we were finished, mom paid for both of our treatments. Thanks mom!:hug: Have I mentioned before I have the best mom ever??? It was about 11:15am when we left and I snapped a few shots on our short walk back to the resort.

Wedding Pavilion. Would love to get married here some day. :cloud9:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2404.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2405.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2406.jpg

This was waiting for us back at the room.
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2407.jpg

As soon as we got back to the room I noticed that I had a text from Jason. He was letting me know that they had landed already and that he needed dad's cell phone number because he wasn't sure if he had a new one. I gave him a call and he immediately told me that they were already in the car and on the way and that dad found them right away. He also said that they were going to stop off somewhere quickly to make sure to pick up the diapers and the wipes he needed for Joaquin, because he wanted to pack minimally on the plane.

Mom and I decided to head down to the lobby then so we could meet them there. We read our books while we waited, so it really didn't seem to take a long time. They arrived around 12:30pm. We all went to the room so Jason could change into shorts (remember it's 30 degrees back home).

Here's Joaquin's first look at the room
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2408.jpg

Trying to climb on the ottoman
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2409.jpg

After Jason unpacked quickly and changed, we went down to Gasparilla Grill for a quick bite. We obviously visited this place often during the trip. Mom and I got nuggets, and carrot cake, dad got a chicken sandwich and chocolate cake and Jason got a bacon double cheeseburger and carrot cake. Joaquin had nuggets and fries from mom and I.

He obviously was too hungry to care I wanted to take pictures.
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2410.jpg

Jason trying to mug, but again, he was hungry!
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2411.jpg

After that we decided to head over to Epcot since our dinner ressie was at Les Chefs de France. We got delayed at the GF monorail station because apparently monorail orange was having problems and needed to be towed off the track. We waited about 30 minutes before we started moving. Joaquin was in a very happy mood (he always is actually) so I snapped some pics while waiting. This TR is full of Joaquin pictures because he's so much cuter then we are to take pictures of!

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2412.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2413.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2414.jpg

We didn't end up getting to Epcot until almost 3pm due to the delay. We had to get Joaquin some sunglasses, because Jason couldn't find the ones he brought and boy it was sunny! After getting his sunglasses we headed over to the Seas with Nemo and Friends for Joaquins first ride. On the way over, we wanted to stop in the Character Connection, but they had an 80 minute wait!:scared1: Instead we kept walking and who do we run into? Chip and Dale and they had just come out, so we only waited about 5 minutes to meet them. This was Joaquins first meet and greet, so I was a little nervous.

A little hesitant
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2417.jpg

Cheesin'
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2418.jpg

Finally meeting them and asking Dale to Pound it (note the little fist)
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2420.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2421.jpg

Walking to Nemo with Ommi
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2422.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2423.jpg

Very fascinated with the seagulls (mine, mine, mine)
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2424.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2426.jpg

Continued in next post

[IheartDDuck]

Continued from previous post:

We got on The Seas without having the wait at all. I don't typically take pictures on the ride because my camera isn't the greatest. I am going to upgrade before my next trip though.

Here is Joaquin in the clammobile a little nervous
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2427.jpg

He did really well on the ride and had a good time. He kept saying "wow" throughout and "Ohhhh", so I think he liked it. After, we made a stop in the aquarium area. Joaquin really liked this.

Look Dory! This fish was freaking out because of the bubbles and that too made me think of Finding Nemo
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2428.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2429.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2430.jpg

Let me comment again that it has been sooo hot this time around. I was glad to be away from the premature cold weather back at home, but man it was hot. We headed into club cool on the way because it was so hot. Plus, we had ulterior motive and wanted to have Joaquin try Beverly. Mean, I know. But wait....

Trying Beverly
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2431.jpg

The reaction
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2432.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2433.jpg

Back for more!?
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2434.jpg

Officially the strangest kid ever. Didn't flinch at trying Beverly. Not once. Maybe that's a sign that he comes from a weird family?:dance3:

We kept heading into WS after this for our ressie, but not without stopping at the water play area for Joaquin to cool down.

Don't get too close Jason!
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2436.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2437.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2438.jpg

Ohhh, he made a friend!
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2442.jpg

We made our way over to Les Chefs de France after this. I was very excited because the last time my mom and I ate there, we ate there on a Sunday, and Remy wasn't there. When I found out they extended Remy's time there, I was very excited at the possibility of seeing him. They checked us in right away and we were seated within about 5 minutes. We had a really nice server named Lidio. He really loved Joaquin and said that he reminded him of his granddaughter with his chubby cheeks. We all selected something from the Prix Fixe menu so we could get an appetizer, entree and dessert. I had french onion soup, and every else got lobster bisque. Dad and Jason had beef short ribs, mom had the chicken and I had the macaroni made with gruyere cheese. Joaquin basically ate something from everyones plate. This child, as proven by the Beverly, is not a picky eater at all. If it's food, he'll eat it. He only has some moments. He loved the macaroni with the gruyere. We all opted for the creme brulee for dessert.

We got a visit from this guy
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2443.jpg

So like an idiot, I totally thought I was filming Remy when he came to the table. Yeah, um, I had a blonde moment and completely forgot to actually start the video. OMG, how stupid!:upsidedow

So when the creme brulee came, Joaquin was so excited. This child literally has a mini heart attack anytime food comes to the table. I gave him a bite and was always met with mouth open and him saying "ready?", meaning more. :laughing:

I put my glasses on him so he could mug a little bit and got this shot
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2446.jpg
:rotfl:

Jason and I say he looks like Elton John. This shot resulting from me putting my glasses on him and saying "let me see". Well, in Joaquin's world, let me see means let me see how much food you have in your mouth. You see, this kid has a tendency to put way to much food in his mouth and continue to put in more, so Jason has to ask him to see so he doesn't put too much in.

Really excited about that creme brulee
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2449.jpg

After we left the restaurant, I decided I wanted a Grand Marnier slush, which no one complained about, they wanted something too. Jason and I got the Grand Marnier, and my dad got the Grey Goose, everything my treat. It was really good and this was the first time I had tried it. I will definitely be returning for more. The only disappointment I had is that they didn't put it in the nice cups, they put them into coffee cups. Huh? Oh well. It tastes the same.

We headed out of the park at this time, because Joaquin was needing to wind down after a long day. He still had not slept, but he was still raring to go. We made it to the monorail around 7pm. We gave Joaquin a glow stick and he was having a good ole time with it.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2450.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2451.jpg

We made it back to the hotel at about 7:30pm. Jason was tired because his weekend was long (he moved into a new apartment before he left for WDW) and their flight was very early. We decided to take Joaquin into the pool for a while. Put that boy in floaties and a life vest and he just floats around the pool. We got out to put Joaquin to bed, because he definitely needed it. Our plan was to return to the hot tub after he was in bed in the room with Ommi and Poppy. I dried him off and was holding him and asked Jason to hold him while I wrapped my towel around myself. Jason looks at Joaquin and says come here, and Joaquin looks right at him and says "no". I thought that was awesome. That's right boy, TeeTee is better than Daddy! :rotfl2: Jason laughed and called him a turncoat.

We put him to bed and then ran out to take a soak in the hot tub. That was a nice way to end the day. We ran back in after that and grabbed everyone's mugs and got everyone drinks after that. Joaquin was out like a light in the crib the hotel provided. We relaxed a while and then off to bed for the rest of us.

The next day: Magic Kingdom, Tony's Town Square and Le Cellier. Woo hoo!

[Amy&Dan]

I am really enjoying your trip report! You write well, but I also love reading about you and your mom and the fun you have. I lost my mom almost two years ago and now I always love mom/daughter trip reports to bring back my own good memories!

Love Marrakesh, my husband hates it. Go figure.:confused3

Your nephew is adorable, what fun to have that experience with him!

Can't wait to read more!

[IheartDDuck]

I am really enjoying your trip report! You write well, but I also love reading about you and your mom and the fun you have. I lost my mom almost two years ago and now I always love mom/daughter trip reports to bring back my own good memories!

Love Marrakesh, my husband hates it. Go figure.:confused3

Your nephew is adorable, what fun to have that experience with him!

Can't wait to read more!

Welcome to my TR! I am sorry to hear about your mom, but I am glad to know that you have a lot of good memories! I consider my mom to be my best friend and she and I always have such a good time together. We try to take mother/daughter trips often.

It was a lot of fun to have that experience with my nephew. Man is he a ham though. Friends galore were made along the way!

[Disneymoon09]

I'm loving your report! :)

[IheartDDuck]

I'm loving your report! :)

Thanks! Hopefully I can keep things interesting for you.

[IheartDDuck]

This day we had to change some of our plans. We had made a lunch ressie at Tony's Town Square and wanted to keep that. However, our original plans were to go to Typhoon Lagoon this morning. But, with the lunch ressie at 11:40am, we would have a difficult time making it the the ressie and enjoy the morning at Typhoon. So, we decided to go to Typhoon tomorrow and to just start the day at the Magic Kingom this morning. That was fine with me, because the Magic Kingdom is my favorite park and I knew we would have fun with Joaquin there.

We were out of the hotel room at about 9:30am. One of the things that tends to be a trend in any of the trips with Jason is that he is slow as molasses. We never get out of the room early with him. Oh well. Nothing I can do about it, but it is still frustrating to sit there in the morning while we're waiting for him to primp and polish so he looks :cutie:.

We headed down to Gasparilla grill so we could use some of our snack credits again. We just got a selection of bagels and pastries, which was fine with me, since we would be eating a heavier lunch soon. Soon it was off to the monorail station. I snapped these photos of my dad and Joaquin which I thought were absolutely priceless.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2452.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2453.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/daniellevoss/WDW%201009%20with%20Joaquin/CIMG2454.jpg

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The monorail came within a matter of minutes. Other then then time the day prior where we had a 45 minute wait because of the issues with the monorail, we were pretty fortunate this trip. Every time we would get up to the station the monorail would be close to approaching for us. As soon as we got into the park, we headed over to city hall to get Joaquin one of these.

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After we got him his first visit button (a little side note on this. I wish they had come up with these things earlier, because I would have loved to have a picture of myself with one of these, but that was many moons ago. Our first trip was in '85 when I was 4), I decided to go over and get Joaquin a hat. You see yesterday his hat got soaked when we let him run through one of the water play areas, and it still hadn't dried. We needed a hat because he's not a big fan of his sunglasses and it was very sunny. So I got him this hat.

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Then we had to take the picture of Jason and Joaquin in front of the castle. This is my one frustration with trips. I never get pictures of myself because no one else ever thinks to take pictures of me. They never volunteer to take the camera. Oh well, Joaquin is a cute enough subject. Jason, I'm not so sure:laughing:.

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We wanted to head over to Buzz Lightyear first thing. Jason and I are very competitive, so we always head here first. One thing I should mention is that I'm a very sore loser. Very. Very. Both of the guys were holding Joaquins hand through our walk, so I had to snap a pic, because I thought it was adorable to have three Voss' generations together.

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Finally, we arrived

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Jason was excited
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Joaquin was fascinated with Buzz
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Joaquin sat with Ommi and Poppy for this ride, because Jason is that competitive. Yup, he didn't want Joaquin as a hinderance to his beating me. Well, he beat me this time, but he wouldn't beat me again. We figured we would stick Joaquin in with Zurg for a while.

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After we freed Joaquin from prison, we took a ride on the TTA (that's still such an awkward name for me. It's the Wedway people mover!) Joaquin was a little tired.

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Totally trying to snap Space Mountain pics
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Couple of Tomorrowland pics
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Joaquin had fun
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Up next:
Joaquin meets Buzz. Is his meeting ruined by a screamer?

[IheartDDuck]

We interrupt this Trip Report with a special announcement.....I just made plans to go to the World from 12/31-1/6/10!!!! OMG I'm so excited! This is completely last minute for me, but I really wanted to go somewhere over New Years and I have an annual. Well, I mentioned this to my Dad and he wanted to come along. So there you have it. I'll be in the World for New Years, something I've never done before. We'll be staying at Port Orleans French Quarter, because we were unable to get any DVC resorts. That's fine with me though. Now, I'm off to attempt to make dining reservations. Hopefully I'll be able to get something. Woo hoo! :cool1:

[IheartDDuck]

So we left off just finishing up on the TTA. We saw Buzz Lightyear out for his meet and greet and figured this would be a good time to bring Joaquin over to meet him. So we get in line to meet him and Joaquin was very excited, already pointing to Buzz.

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Now this is where my mention of the screamer comes in. We line up and there is a kid that is about 3 years old behind us with his mom. He was all over the place, grabbing the chains on the queue, rolling around on the floor, climbing all over his stroller. If there was a place for him to climb, he was on it. He had on one of those backpack leashes too. I'm not against the leashes, so let me begin with that. However, I am against them from perspective of using them only so you don't have to pay attention to what your child is doing. Joaquin does not wear a leash, because he listens to us very well. Well the little boys mother comments to him "look how well behaved he is. He's younger then you and he doesn't even need a leash!"

At this point the little boy starts to throw a temper tantrum. Whenever kids throw fits, Joaquins face tends to do this. :scared1: He just doesn't know what to do with himself. So the little boy is screaming, throwing a tantrum, yelling at the top of his lungs "BBBUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZ!!!!". His mom proceeds to look at him and say "throw another tantrum and you won't see Buzz". Well, three more tantrums in (literally in the span of 15 minutes) and she didn't keep her promise that he wouldn't be seeing Buzz if he continued. Just kept up with the same empty threat. Jason leans in to me and says "FYI, it doesn't work if you don't follow through. I have a feeling Joaquin's moment with Buzz is going to be ruined somehow". I know how he felt. I think he was nervous that the little boy was going to continue screaming and shouting. I know that if I was filming this, I wouldn't want to hear some random kid yelling "BBBUUUUUUUZZZZZZ!!" in the background of the video of my childs experience.

So Joaquin gets up there and keeps yelling "BBBUUUUUUUUZZZZZZ!", but at this point Joaquin was ignoring it, so overall the experience was okay, albeit a little louder then we anticipated. He was a little scared of Buzz. He is a big guy.

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But then he wanted to "pound it".
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He wasn't scared in the end, and this was the only character that he was a little hesitant with. I have to remember to tell the characters what Joaquin's fist up means. :laughing: I remembered later on though, so we have some good pictures.

We decided after this to get FP's for Winnie the Pooh that would be good to use after we had lunch at Tony's Town Square. While Ommi and Poppy got the FP's, Jason and I hopped in line for Joaquin to meet Tigger and Eeyore. However, the line was taking forever and the time for our ressie was fast approaching. We were making some progress, but then we got the announcement from the CM that Tigger and Eeyore would be going back inside but that Pooh would be coming out shortly after that. Jason and I decided to bail at this point so we could make it in time.

We headed down Main Street and made it to Tony's in time. We were seated pretty much right away, which was nice. It was another very hot day, so being inside with the A/C was really nice.

Such a cheeseball, I tell you!
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We got Joaquin the salmon meal and he loved it.
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I really like Tony's and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite places. I do prefer the lunch menu though. I had the Tony's Flatbread, Jason and Dad has the spaghetti with italian sausage and mom had the chicken florentine calzone. It was all very good and we had a nice relaxing meal. This is the part of the trip when Joaquin started something new with his shoes. I had bought him a pair of mickey crocs on his first day. Well he likes to kick him off, which is something that all kids his age do. However, Joaquin always warns you that he kicks his shoe off by saying "whoa my shoe!". Hence the fact that he's cheesing in the picture above. He just got busted for kicking off his shoe. Well, I have to give him this much. At least he warns you that he kicked off his shoe. :laughing:

After we finished our lunch at Tony's it was time for us to head back so we could make our FP time for Winnie the Pooh.

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Joaquin had a lot of fun on the ride and was pretty much just saying "whoa!" the whole time. It was very cute. Joaquin needed his daily cool down at this point, so we took him into the Winnie the Pooh play area.

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After Joaquin was thoroughly cooled off, we decided that we wanted to cool off as well, so we headed over to Splash Mountain. Mom opted not to go on, so she watched Joaquin rather then doing the child swap. While she is a great fan of Splash Mountain, she has to be in the mood to get wet. Jason and I ended up in the front and Dad was right behind us. Jason and I got soaked. I don't think I've ever gotten that wet on Splash Mountain before. I don't have good luck with water rides. I always end up getting soaked, which you will learn later with my experience on Kali River Rapids.

We found Ommi and Joaquin very quickly after that. We thought for sure he would be asleep, but he surely wasn't. He was way to interested in everything else that was going on. She said that she just pushed him around and he was just asking "wazzat?" to everything. We decided that after Splash Mountain we would take our chances with some pirates. pirate: Joaquin very much liked this ride as well. I love Pirates of the Caribbean, but I really like the one in Disneyland better. But I do love this one too. We considered leaving Joaquin with the naughty pirates.

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After this, we had to get our Dole Whips because we were in Adventureland after all! Joaquin could not get enough of what we gave him. Gotta love the Dole Whip! I was still pretty wet from Splash Mountain, and it was a good time to head back so Joaquin could get his afternoon nap, so we headed out of the park and got on the monorail. I tried to catch Joaquin making his silly face, but only got the end.

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We got back to the room in no time and relaxed for a while so Joaquin could nap. We had to get our rest because we had our most sought after ressie that night....Le Cellier!

Up next: Dinner at Le Cellier and OMG where is my camera!?

[IheartDDuck]

So after a nice relaxing nap for Joaquin, it was time for us to head out so we could get to Le Cellier for our dinner ressie. We were on the monorail and to the park in no time. Jason wanted a good picture of Joaquin and himself walking through the entrance of Epcot.

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Trying to take a picture of the food and wine festival display
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Joaquin didn't want to walk anymore and wanted to be lazy, but he didn't want to get in the stroller
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Oh yeah, he knows he's cute
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More display
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Before heading over to Le Cellier, we headed into Innoventions. We spent a lot more time in there then we had anticipated we would. Joaquin loved the fire truck.
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Well, because we spent a lot more time in Innoventions then anticipated, we had to head over to our 7:25pm ressie for Le Cellier. We got there and checked in and waited. And waited. And waited. I know that ressies only guarantee that you will get a table when one becomes available for your party size, but holy cow! We didn't get seated until 8:30pm. We waited over an hour! Now, I love Le Cellier, but an hour? Joaquin was really good during this time, but he was hungry and he could smell the food in there, so he was more then ready to go in.

We make it in and were seated. We had a really nice server. I can't remember what area they seated us in, I was too distracted by the pretzel bread. So we order. We all got the Cheddar soup for an appetizer. That was good as always. Jason and Dad ordered the New York Strip with mashed potatoes, mom order the Roasted Chicken with mashed potatoes, I ordered the Filet Mignon with the mushroom risotto, and we got Joaquin the child's steak and mashed potatoes.

So we're waiting for our food and I wanted to make sure I had my camera out to take pictures of dessert and to check the pictures that I had taken throughout the day. Jason had the camera last when he was taking pictures of the fire truck, so I ask him for my camera out of his bag. He looks and goes, "I don't have it". I said "what?!" You were the last person with the camera. So my thought is, okay, Jason put it in the stroller. So he goes out to the stroller to retrieve it, comes back in, and no camera. Now I'm officially freaking out. I don't care about the camera, I care about the pictures. My mom had double checked the diaper bag and didn't see it. At this point I empty out my bag and it's not in there. So, I go outside one more time to the stroller to see if Jason missed it. Nope, he didn't miss it.

Now I'm in full on panic mode and not too happy with Jason. I love my brother, but he is forgetful and loses things often, so it doesn't surprise me that my camera is gone. I head back into the restaurant to ask them at the host station if they had a camera turned in. They didn't have anything and advised me to check the main lost and found area at the Magic Kingdom for it the following day. As I get back to the table, Jason is holding up the camera. Now I think I've lost my mind. Nope, I didn't lose my mind. Apparently Jason and my mom didn't look in the diaper bag thoroughly enough, because it was there the whole time. Crisis averted. My mom says to me when I get to the table "I was so happy we found it because you were trying so hard to stay calm, but I could tell you were not happy". I told her, no I wasn't too happy, but that I was trying really hard not to panic. Jason then tells me that he's not allowed to keep the camera anymore and I agreed with him completely. I'll lose the camera myself, thank you very much.

Once this episode was over, we enjoyed our dinner in peace. It was all very good. I love this Filet. Joaquin didn't like his steak very much (it had no seasoning at all and was overall very bland), but boy did he love mine! Jason, Mom and myself got the chocolate "moose" for dessert.
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And Dad got the S'Mores. That dessert was awesome!
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When we were finished, Illuminations had ended and everyone was heading out of the park. We went to the monorail station, which was packed. However, they were very quick and we only waited for about 15 minutes tops. Once back in the room, our food coma took over! I had considered going in the pool, but man, I couldn't move after all this! Jason called Joaquin's mom so he could have his nightly chat and say nite nite to her.

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After this, it was bedtime for all.

The next day: Typhoon Lagoon and where the title of my trip report comes from.

[praisehisname]

Just wanted to let you know that I'm enjoying your report so far!

[Amy&Dan]

We interrupt this Trip Report with a special announcement.....I just made plans to go to the World from 12/31-1/6/10!!!! OMG I'm so excited! This is completely last minute for me, but I really wanted to go somewhere over New Years and I have an annual. Well, I mentioned this to my Dad and he wanted to come along. So there you have it. I'll be in the World for New Years, something I've never done before. We'll be staying at Port Orleans French Quarter, because we were unable to get any DVC resorts. That's fine with me though. Now, I'm off to attempt to make dining reservations. Hopefully I'll be able to get something. Woo hoo! :cool1:

Good for you! We stayed at POFQ during that same time frame in 2005 and had a fabulous time. Its a very peaceful resort. What a great last minute thing for you and your dad!:goodvibes

Hope you got your dining reservations!


I would have flipped out had my camera gone MIA. Like you say, its the pictures not the camera. So glad it all worked out!

[IheartDDuck]

Just wanted to let you know that I'm enjoying your report so far!


Thanks! I'm hoping to have another update this weekend. :)

[IheartDDuck]

Alrighty then! We left off last time where each one of us suffered from a food coma the day before from eating at Le Cellier. I say to that, what better place to go after a food coma then Typhoon Lagoon. Right? Right?

So on this day the plan was Typhoon Lagoon. As I've mentioned before, the weather was obnoxiously hot, so what better place to go. Since Typhoon Lagoon doesn't open until 10am, that gave me the opportunity to sleep in a little bit. As I mentioned, my mom and I are typically up and going, and Jason sleeps and sleeps....until someone either throws water on him or he "accidentally" falls out of bed.

We were up and out of the room by around 9:15am. We wanted to try to get to Typhoon Lagoon early, because I wanted to score some chairs, which we normally don't do. The other thing I love about it is that I don't have to worry about how I look, because I'll only be getting wet shortly anyway, so no need to do hair or makeup. :banana:

We headed down to Gasparilla Grill (seriously, was this like our new hangout?!) for breakfast. We all got the bounty breakfasts, which is like eggs, bacon, sausage, side of cow, pancakes, waffles, the kitchen sink....the list goes on. We all enjoyed our breakfast and were on our way. We headed out of the Grand Floridian to the valet to have them get our car.

Joaquin is ready to go
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I saw Characters in Flight up in the air so I snapped some pics
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Then we arrived
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I love this water park
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This is my favorite water park by far. I enjoy Blizzard Beach, but there's something about Typhoon Lagoon that I just can't get enough of. Maybe I'm a little deprived, because we never used to go to the water parks.

We headed in and got two lockers because we had an ungodly amount of stuff. After we got our stuff put away, we were able to find a seat right by the wave pool, so we snagged those just in case. I left my camera in the locker, so I don't have very many pictures. Jason bought a waterproof disposable, but knowing him I'll probably have the pictures by the end of next year.

So here is where Joaquin's one and only tiny (and I mean tiny) meltdown happened. He was having a good old time already playing in the area where on an adult the water comes up to our ankles. We got him all ready with his life vest and floaties and proceeded to try to take him in the wavepool. He didn't understand. He was like "YO! You're trying to take me away!" So, he fell down, sat, and cried. So I picked him up and took him to the wavepool lickity split. Once he was in the water again, he was fine.

He loved that wavepool! The wave would start coming (we were in the shallow, shallow, shallow end. We're not those people, I promise) and he would point and start saying "here it comes! Here it comes!" Then we would bend down while holding him and let him get hit by the water. He loved this game and we played at this for about 45 minutes. During this time, we would switch places with each other and go into the wavepool ourselves. Well, because he wasn't paying attention when he was in the deeper end, my Dad got completely plowed by the wave and washed up to shore! :rotfl:

After this, we decided to take Joaquin to the lazy river. That kid in the lazy river was priceless. Here he was, lounging on a little kids tube, sleeping! I kind you not, he fell asleep. I guess it really was lazy!

After our one trip around the lazy river, Jason and Dad decided that they wanted to go to Shark Reef. I opted out. I am not a pansy by any means, but something about Shark Reef was not appealing to me. So, mom and I took Joaquin up there to watch Daddy and Poppy swim.

So, if you haven't done Shark Reef before, the one thing that they tell you is that you can't kick your legs, that you need to float on your stomach and simply move your arms. Well, apparently Jason doesn't listen too well. As soon as he was in the water, he was kicking away. The lifeguard kept tapping his leg and saying "sir, don't kick your legs". It was pretty funny, because she'd tap him, say "sir, don't kick your legs", and Jason would continue to kick. I was thinking, oh man, only my brother would get kicked out of Shark Reef. Again, this also solidified why I didn't go in Shark Reef. Why don't they want you to kick your legs? BECAUSE A SHARK MIGHT NOT LIKE IT! :rotfl2: J/K.

After this, Joaquin was losing energy quickly, so we decided to take one last dip in the wave pool and head out. But not before we got these pictures!

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We got our car and drove back to the Grand Floridian. Remember how I said Joaquin was tired? Not so much anymore. We had an early dinner reservation, but it was around 12:30pm, and we decided to get two counter service meals and share them so we could be held over. Mom and I got nuggets and fries and shared with Joaquin and the boys shared a bacon double cheeseburger from Gasparilla Grill. Eventually though, Joaquin got tired again and fell asleep.

We woke him up at around 2pm to start getting ready to head out. We had a dinner reservation at Liberty Tree Taverns at 4:30pm, so we wanted to give ourselves enough time. Plus, my mom wanted to stop at the Contemporary and see if she could swing a look at Bay Lake Tower.

We got Joaquin ready. He has some obsession with my glasses
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And we were off. We headed to the monorail and it came very quickly. In no time, we were off to the Contemporary.

Next installment: Would they let us in Bay Lake Tower?

[praisehisname]

Sounds like a relaxing day at Typhoon Lagoon. We did Blizzard Beach and everyone except me also did Typhoon Lagoon. They all agreed that TL was better.

[IheartDDuck]

So we left off heading out of the Grand Floridian on our way to the Magic Kingdom. My mom decided that she really wanted to try to get a look at Bay Lake Tower on the way, so we figured we would bypass the Magic Kingdom briefly on the Monorail and head over to the Contemporary.

The trip was quick and once we arrived at the Contemporary we headed down one floor. Once there, we noticed the DVC booth, so my mom headed over to chat them up. She wanted to know if it was possible for us to get a peek at Bay Lake Tower. He said that it is possible, but that it's a very generic look and that he would give us something a little better. He also asked if all of us were members. Jason and I mentioned that we weren't, so he asked if we wanted to set up a time to tour the models. I wanted to, because I wanted to get the current information on the pricing, because I am interested in buying into the DVC in the future. They set up a time for us to be picked up at 8am on Friday the 16th, and we would be able to see the models for BLT.

He then led us over to the entrance to the tower on the 4th floor. He opened the door with his key and told us to go ahead and look around. He made a joke to make sure we weren't acting like we didn't belong there. He also advised us that we wouldn't be able to get into the pool area without a key, so he let us know what our boundaries were. So off we went down the walkway that connects the two buildings.

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I have to say before I post the rest of the pictures that I really like this building. I know that some of the concern with people was going to be that it wouldn't be warm because of the modern feel, but i thought it was beautiful and I felt that the ambience was very warm. I would definitely love to stay there in the future!

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After spending a few minutes snapping pictures, we decided that it was time to head over to the Magic Kingdom so we could make our dinner reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern. We opted not to go back in the main building and wait for the Monorail, instead we walked the 10 minute walk down the path from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom.

We were there in no time flat, so we decided to go over the Buzz Lightyear for one more ride. Remember, Jason is competitive and always wants to make sure he can beat me. Well....he didn't this time! Ha ha Jason! However, we ended up getting a little bit delayed because right before we got on the ride it stopped briefly. We didn't want to leave, because we were steps away from getting on, so we figured they would hold our reservation for the 5 minutes we were going to be late.

After we got off the ride we hustled over the Liberty Tree Tavern. My mom was panicking a little bit because we were going to be late, but I assured her that people being 5 minutes late is very likely the norm in Disney World, and that I was sure they were going to let us in. We got there, and they did. We were seated right away. I still love this restaurant, but I really miss the character interaction, and I had hoped that it would be there for Joaquin. The food was still good though. While we were biding our time, Jason gave Joaquin a lemon. Now, let me explain. My mom's side of the family loves lemons. All of the members of that side eat them, and have eaten them since they were young. Jason can eat them. I can't, so I personally don't understand it. Joaquin is the same way. You can see in the pictures that even though he's making the funny face, he keeps on going back for more. Go figure. :rotfl:

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What a strange child! Dinner was very good. My favorite part about this meal is always the dessert. I love the warm apple cobbler and the ice cream. It's sssooooooo good!

After this, my mom mentioned to me that my dad's knee was hurting. She explained to me that when we were at Typhoon Lagoon and the wave knocked him over that it knocked his knee as well. Remember that my dad has a fake knee, so things like this can hurt him. Well, he was being stubborn at this point and was going to continue to press on, which was something that my mom didn't want him to do. I talked some sense into him, and eventually he backed down and said that he would go back to the room. Jason and I decided that it was still early, so we would stay with Joaquin.

This part I don't have many pictures of, so I apologize.

We decided that we would attempt to take Joaquin on the Haunted Mansion. We figured that he's too young to understand at this point that it could be scary, and Jason kept on with his motto of "if he doesn't like it, he'll let me know after he tries it". There was no line, so we were in the building in no time. This is my favorite attraction, hands down and has always been my favorite. Joaquin was very take with the ambience and kept on saying "whoa!"

We were in our doom buggies in no time and Joaquin handled this like the pro that he is. I don't think anything really fazes him. After that, Jason decided that instead of hang around the park that he wanted to do some shopping for a while. I told him that was fine with me and that we could do whatever. Our first stop was Tinkerbell's Treasures. He wanted to get something for Joaquin's mom since her favorite character is Tinkerbell. There were a lot of cute things, but I mentioned to him that he would find something at Downtown Disney too if he wanted to go there.

We decided to head out of the park then and go over to Downtown Disney. We hopped on the resort monorail line and got off at the Contemporary. After departing the monorail, we went downstairs to the bus area to wait for a bus to Downtown Disney. It was during this time that I thought Joaquin had left a pretty big present. We got to the stop to wait, and he surely did! I though, oh man, I'm not getting on the bus with Joaquin in a stinky diaper! How horrible would that be for the rest of the passengers? Jason took matters into his own hands. He ran in, changed him literally in 1 minute flat, came out, and the bus was pulling up. Woooeeee! That takes talent!

We were on the bus, but our trip took some time because we had some other stops along the way. Joaquin was pretty entertained by the bus (this was his first ride so far). We got off at the Marketplace and headed in for some shopping. Let me preface this by saying, Jason is the worst shopper I've seen. He takes longer then any woman I know! Our first stop was Once Upon a Toy. We spent a good 45 minutes in this store. It was during this time I taught Joaquin something I didn't intend to do. To keep him entertained, I would stick my head around his stroller and say "BOO!". He liked this, but instead what he decided to do was take boo and say "BBBBOOOOOOOOOO!!!" while he was being pushed around the store! He was doing this so earnestly that he had everyone, and I mean everyone, laughing.

Jason bought Gavin, Joaquin's older 1/2 brother some things and he bought some pirate toys to decorate his room. After this our next stop was World of Disney. We bought Joaquin some more pirate things for his room, and I bought a few gifts for some people at home. It was getting late by now, so we decided to head back to the hotel to we could have some pool time. This is where the title of my trip report comes from. Jason gave Joaquin's mom, Jeni, a call. He was recounting the days events, and told her how my dad got his knee hurt in the wave pool, which is why he wasn't with us at that moment . So she proceeds to ask him, "is it a nice wave pool?" To this Jason said "No, it's not a nice wave pool.....it's called Typhoon Lagoon....no, like TYPHOON!" I guess you had to be there, but it was so funny how he explained it to her.

I figured at this time Joaquin would be losing steam, but he sure wasn't. Once we were back on the bus waiting to go to the Grand Floridian, he was happy as a clam, having a good old time. The trip back to the hotel seemed to take forever though. This is why normally I don't like taking the bus to Downtown Disney, because for some reason it takes forever. Once we were back to the room we decided to head into the pool for a dip and relax for a while in the spa. My dad's knee was a little bit swollen, but my mom said it was better then it was earlier. Hopefully he was going to be okay for the following day. I told him that relaxing in the spa would have been a good idea, but he didn't feel like it.

Up Next: Breakfast at Ohana, the Animal Kingdom, and a whole lot of German food!

[praisehisname]

Great update! Do you have pics of the things you bought in DTD?

[IheartDDuck]

Great update! Do you have pics of the things you bought in DTD?

No, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. I started out really good at the beginning of the trip, and then I slacked in my duties! I remember what I bought though, LOL! I bought my best friend the Minnie Mouse bride ears, since she's getting married in May, my niece a Minnie Mouse cutie necklace with her initial, and Joaquin a shirt. The shirt you'll see him wearing in the next days pictures. Oh, and I bought Joaquin's 1/2 brother Gavin two cars. :)

[IheartDDuck]

So this was the day that we had to "check out" and "check back in". Because we weren't able to get one full reservation at the hotel, we had to get our new KTTW cards this morning. Fortunately, we didn't have to move rooms, which was very nice. So, mom and I were up early to get this taken care of. We're such nice people letting the boys sleep in! :lmao:

When we were heading down I tried to see if we could make some changes to our ADR's that day. The original plan was to go to the 50's Primetime, but the time wasn't very good, it was a 2:55pm ADR. Also, the ADR we had the following day was for Yak and Yeti at 3pm, but we wanted to spend most of our time at Hollywood Studios tomorrow, and Animal Kingdom today (well, that's what the boys wanted). So, we got our new KTTW cards at the check-in desk, paid for our new dining plan and were off to concierge to see if they could help with some dining options. We were also hard pressed today to use the rest of our counter service credits that were on our old cards since they expired today.

I headed over to concierge to see if maybe we could switch our 50's Prime Time ADR for later. I knew it might be difficult, but we would see what we could get. He did have something open, but it was for 9pm!:scared1: That would have been fine, had we not had a 2 year old along. Joaquin would not have lasted that long, and we didn't want him eating that late. We asked what other options they had. Really, the only thing he said he had was the Biergarten at 7:15pm. Well, that time was much more reasonable. I didn't love the idea of being back in Epcot again for dinner, but what could we do? We took it, because I also knew that Jason loves this restaurant. I then asked about the next day. Since we were no longer planning on the Animal Kingdom, we asked to see if there was anything in Hollywood Studios. I was really hoping for the 50's Prime Time, but they didn't have anything. What they did have was Hollywood and Vine Play 'N' Dine at 12pm. I booked that and cancelled Yak and Yeti. That ended up being and awesome decision, something you'll see soon.

So, we were ready to go so we went back up to the room to collect the boys. We had a breakfast ADR at Ohana at 8:30am, so we headed out to the Valet at the GF and got the car in no time. We opted for the car because we liked this option for getting to and from the Animal Kingdom since it's such a long trip there on the bus. We made it to Ohana in the nick of time, and we were seated very quickly. We had a nice seat right by the window, which was a pleasant surprise. Our "cousin" brought us our bread and fruit right away and boy was Joaquin ready to dig in!

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Joaquin is wearing the shirt that I bought him the day before at DTD. Right away, we were visited by a friend!

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Here's the trend...pound it!
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Then it was time for Lilo!
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Awww, she loved Joaquin!
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Then the big cheese himself. I asked myself many times, what kind of face am I making in this picture!? I don't know what my deal was! :rotfl2:
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Joaquin was super excited!
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This is by far my favorite! So adorable!
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Breakfast came after this. It was very yummy. The food at Ohana for breakfast is nothing earth shattering, but it's always very satisfying. Plus, if you mention anything about all you can eat to my family, well, that's enough for them! Then it was time for the kids to party around the restaurant. Our server was kind enough to bring a maraca for Joaquin.

He's like.....what?
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I have to mention that I didn't get a picture of Stitch at this breakfast. Oh, he totally came to our table, that wasn't the problem. The problem was my camera kept telling me "memory card locked". Well, I had never seen this before, so I had NO idea what the problem was. It was kind of funny because Stitch kept looking at me like, "lady, don't you know how to use your camera"? Yes Stitch, I know how to use my camera. However, I made the poor decision of buying a cheaper memory card, because I could get more space for less money. Well, I'm never doing that again! I have had nothing by problems with this memory card since I bought it! Jason was able to figure it out though, which is why I have pictures of all the other characters. We were done with breakfast, so now it was time for us to head to Animal Kingdom. Not before I bought my friend some Kona coffee though. Oh, and remember how in my last update, Joaquin was going through DTD yelling "BBBBOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"? Yeah, he kept that up. I just happened to get pictures of his face when he did it this time....

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Up Next: Why I always said I would never go on Kali River Rapids again!

[mrsksomeday]

This report is wonderful. It is great how you go with your family and how close you are to your mom. I am in love :love: with Joaquin, he is gorgeous and such a sweet soul! I have really enjoyed reading this. I can't wait to read more.

[IheartDDuck]

This report is wonderful. It is great how you go with your family and how close you are to your mom. I am in love :love: with Joaquin, he is gorgeous and such a sweet soul! I have really enjoyed reading this. I can't wait to read more.

Thank you so much! Joaquin has been a welcome addition to the family and I would not trade him for anything. I am blessed to have a family like I do and I'm thankful for them everyday.

[crgfsu1]

Gerat update as usual!!!!

[praisehisname]

Mmmmm, I love Ohana breakfast! Next time I want to try dinner, but we did love the breakfast!

[IheartDDuck]

So it's been a little while since my last update, so I apologize. But here we go!

We left off having just had breakfast at Ohana, and were going to be on our way to the Animal Kingdom. I don't have any pictures for the Animal Kingdom part, and I'll tell you why. I have a massive amount of pictures of the AK. I mean, it's crazy how many I have. Most times I spend most of my time in that park taking pictures, rather then simply enjoying the scenery. This time around, I figured I would just enjoy the time there.

We hopped in the car and were on our way. We ended up getting there around 10am, which wasn't bad considering we had taken the morning eating at Ohana. WE were in the park in no time, and figured that the best thing to do would be to go to get fast passes at Expedition Everest. We got our fastpasses and had some time to spare. We started to walk around and made it to Finding Nemo the musical right before they were closing the door. We parked the stroller and were in the door. The show had just started, but we got some okay seats. The one nice thing was that we were right by the door, so we would get out of the theater faster that way. Joaquin was in love with the show. I was worried about him being able to last, since the show is a little on the long side, but he didn't get antsy until right at the end. He was very caught up with all of the bright colors.

I have to say that I love this show. I know that some people don't, but I love the music and the whole show. I always find myself humming the music when I leave, and yes, I have the soundtrack!

We headed out and it was about time for our fastpasses for Expedition Everest. My mom opted to wait this one out. She loves EE, but this time around she had a headache and neckache. She has problems with her neck from a car accident many years ago, so she always know when it's best not to push it. She stayed with Joaquin and Jason, Dad, and I went on the ride. We got on in no time, and of course the ride was fun! The Yeti was in mode 2 this time around, so he wasn't actually moving. Oh well.

After that, I putzed around the shop and found a really cute shirt. I bought that, and then decided to walk around. The next ride we decided to do was Kali River Rapids. The last time I rode this was I think 5 years ago, and I said I wasn't going to ride it again. Well, it was hot as all get out at this time, so we decided to go on it. My mom stayed with Joaquin again and sat in the seating area for the Yak and Yeti counter service restaurant. She sat in the shade with Joaquin and had a drink.

We were on the ride in about 20 minutes....and again it solidified why I don't ride this ride. I was soaked! I'm talking there was not a dry spot on my body. Not one. We headed over to Yak and Yeti to find mom and she was pretty shocked when she saw me. We were hungry at this time, so we figured since she had a table already, we would eat at Yak and Yeti. Mom and I got everyone's order and headed over there. Here is where another frustration occurred during the trip. It always seems that the boys find the table and mom and I go and get the food. It never seems to end. This particular time I was very frustrated, because the trays were so heavy because of everything they piled on there. Of course, I get all the way to the table and Jason goes "oh, did you need help?" Ummm, little late now, I've got it.

We sat down and at. Dad had Kung Pao beef, I had Shrimp Lo Mein, Mom had Honey Chicken, and Jason had Sweet and Sour Pork. Joaquin basically ate from us. I was a little bit underwhelmed by this food. I was by no mean bad, it just wasn't as good as I would have liked it to be. However, I also contribute this to the fact that I was still pretty crabby from Kali River Rapids. You see, I was so wet, that I created a puddle under my chair! :rotfl: It was actually kind of funny in the long run, that I was thinking that people would think I couldn't contain myself!

At this point, we decided it was time to head out of the park. I had made the executive decision on my own that I would head back alone and change my clothes, and that everyone else could stay if they want to. I didn't want my crabbiness with how wet I was to affect everyone else. However, when I mentioned the option of changing, my dad and Jason were up for it as well. Plus, Joaquin was getting pretty tired at this point, and we figured it would be a good time to get him in for a nap. Animal Kingdom was pretty crowded at this point, and I think we ended up leaving the park around 2pm.

We got back to the room and put Joaquin down for a nap. He went down right away, and we had the chance to change out of our wet clothes and get refreshed. Before we knew it, it was time for us to head out for our reservation at the Biergarten. It took us longer to get to Epcot then we anticipated. I had wanted to get a margarita from the tequila bar, and I wasn't going to let time stop me! On our way into World Showcase, mom and dad stayed with Joaquin, while Jason and I ran into Mexico. We got our margaritas, and were out in about 5 minutes. Score! I got the Durazno, which was so good! This was the best one I had on the trip. However, we were approaching our reservation time, so Jason and I had to finish our drinks before we got to the restauarant. Yup, that wasn't hard to do. :drinking1. Finally, we were at the Biergarten. This was one of my favorite meals of the trip, because Joaquin had such a good time.

We were seated very quickly and had good seats. Here was our view from the table.
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Joaquin was ready!
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We ordered our drinks and headed in to the buffet. Here was my beer. Oh dark beer, how I love thee. See how much was gone already? :rolleyes1
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Then the band came out
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Joaquin was enamored with them
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This is why this dinner was the best. Joaquin was having such a good time!
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Pudding time!
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After a very tasty dinner, we headed out and Illuminations had just started. I didn't get any pictures, or at least any pictures that turned out good. You see, the fireworks setting on my camera requires that you hold very still, because the pictures hold the exposure a little longer. Well, remember, I just drank a strong margarita and a VERY LARGE beer. You can probably figure out why I couldn't hold the camera still! Because of this, my mom was basically laughing at me the rest of the night. I admit freely that I can't hold my liquor. It doesn't take much. Now, I wasn't stumbing drunk, I was just having a little bit of a hard time....and I was very happy.

We headed out of the park and waited for the monorail. We actually didn't wait for too long and were back to the Grand Floridian in no time. Joaquin was tuckered out, so he went down right away. I was ready for a dip, so I changed into my swimsuit and headed into the pool. My mom came along and Jason followed soon too. Dad stayed in the room, which is par for the course with him. He's not a pool guy. We swam for a while, then hung out in the spa. Then off to bed. We had an early day the next day, because we were heading over to the DVC preview center.

Up next: Oh Joaquin, how many times can you poop in one day!

[praisehisname]

Great update! The title of your next chapter has me scared! :scared1: