There's No Crying in Disney! ***Completed

[LurrrvtheDuck]

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Let's Get a Move on People
Follow the Purple and Magenta Route Markers
Getting Lost in the ASMu Parking Lot
Oh No! Raglan Road!
Where in the World is Carmen San Diego
Testing the Track
Shop Shop Shop
Duuuuuude
We're Late We're Late for a Very Important Date
What's Kjottkake?
A Dragon, a Princess, and a Miracle
Guten Tag!
Communing with Nature
The Rest of the World
I Really Need a Margarita
Happy Birthday to ME!!
Happy Birthday to ME!! cont.
Happy Birthday to ME cont.
Happy Birthday to Me: Part 2: Aoooga! Aooooga!!!
Happy Birthday to Me Part 2
Happy Birthday to Me Part 2 cont.
Happy Birthday to Me Part 2 cont.
Happy Birthday to Me Part 2 cont: Luau!
Happy Birthday to Me Part 2 cont: Luau!
GNO!
We're Heeeeere!
Breakfast with Pooh and Friends
Dead Men Tell No Tales
Schmoozin and Cruisin'
Getting Our Ride On!
Parade Time
Fantasyland and Toon Town
Taking a Nap in MK
The End of MK
I'm Ready for my Close-Up Mr. DeMille
Fantasmic!
Stuck in The World
In the Jungle the Mighty Jungle
Date with a Yeti
Last Night in Disney
This is the End, The End my Friends


to my long overdue TR. For those of you who haven't read Panic! At the Pre-Trippie, lemme do a little catching up for yous.

Sometime last year I decided that for my 28th birthday I was going to Disney. It was going to be the annual cousins trip that my 2 cousins (who are the only girl cousins from the women in my mom's side of the family) and I originally started when we made an impromptu weekend cousins getaway for the very first time 2 years ago and made plans for a cousin trip every year. So last year it was to be a cruise that only 2 of us actually went on because the other cousin supposedly had a blood clot and couldn't fly. So then this year it was supposed to be an Ultimate Disney Trip for my birthday since they other two fell on the other cousin's birthday, but the same cousin that bailed on us last year decided to bail on us again. So it then turned into an all Girls trip to Disney between some co-workers of mine and my other cousin (the one that doesn't bail). Got that? Kinda? Maybe? Not important.

Lemme introduce our cast:

There’s me (28)

-- My name's Li (pronounced Lee) which is short for Zorylee. I am the only Disney Freak in my family. I lurrrve Disney, I grew up on the Classic Disney channel (by classic I mean they played actual non-computer generated cartoons and Disney movies with a few live-action shows—as opposed to the horrible looking Clubhouse Disney and the five-million live action shows with little to no cartoons…very sad ). I am single (never married), no kids, mom to 3 wonderfully spoiled mittow kitties. Currently working at a hospital with a communications degree that is 1 year old and doing absolutely nothing for me because I "lack experience" or so I've been told. Ok mini pity party over. Also Scrapbook extraordinaire that basically scraplifts to save time and already spent a nice chunk of money on Disney scrapbooking stuff for the upcoming trip. Plus I lurrrve Donald.

DC(cousin) (19)

– She’s the next closest Disney freak to me, but not as obsessed as I. She loves to eat and is very excited about the snack credits and desserts from the DDP. She recently graduated HS and lives with us, so I’m dragging her along on the trip since she was originally supposed to go anyway (she's the non-bailing cousin) and will be referred to as Cuz or Alex in the TR.

DF(Friend) Yani (26)

– Co-worker and quite possibly my best friend in this point in time of my life. Yani had decided not to go, but then later on decided to withdraw from college classes and once again rejoined our rag tag team of Vacationers. She loves all things Jack Skellington and hasn't been to MK in like 10 years, and never visited Epcot or MGM, but knows AK like the back of her hand and maneuvers it with her eyes closed and no need for a map. When we visit AK she'll be referred to as The Expert.

DF(Friend) Collette (40ish)

— She’s my lovely 40-ish co-worker who’s never been to Disney. She’s originally from NY by way of England and Jamaica. She’s a wonderful mixture and has the spirit of a 20 y/o. Very excited to be getting away from her husband and kids to come with us on this all girls trip.

Collette's DF(Friend) Monica (30ish)

– She’s actually a friend of Collette’s, that I’ve recently met. Another Disney virgin who is also excited to get away from her kids to come with us. Another spirit of a 20 y/o. She and Collette have an amazing energy that rivals mine and my cousin’s put together and they will be a force to be reckoned with. Collette invited her to join us.

Okay onto the TR!


Days before the trip and I still hadn’t even packed yet. Can you believe I was even still making ADR changes Friday night!

Ok so we were to leave Sunday April 15th. One of my friends Yani and I were working the night before (we work graveyard at a hospital) and the plan was to leave at 7am on the dot and go home and nap for a few hours, my other friend Collette was to pick my Cuz and I up between 11am-11:30am so we could be at the airport car rental by 12pm, and then pick up Yani at her house and be on the road by 1pm. Can we do it? I still hadn’t even finished packing!

Nap? What is that? I don’t nap when I get home because I'm on Disdrenaline, plus I'm still packing. Collette arrives with her friend Monica, who's coming along right at 11am on the dot all excited. Talk about punctual!
My cousin and I are still not ready, so we give Collette some of our food that we had purchased (sodas, chips, cookies, water, juice, cereal, rice krispies, microwaveable foods etc) because I panicked and wasn’t sure if the DDP would be enough food to keep 5 adults full (yes I know, why don’t I pay attention to the DIS ) and she loads that and the suitcases in the car. I ask her if they’re hungry and if they want to grab something to eat while we finish getting ready. They say they're not hungry and wait for us. (Remember this) Cuz and I finally finish and we’re out the door by 11:45am. Off to the airport we go!

We got to the airport around 12:30, we made a stop to pick up Collette’s husband who would take their car back plus we spent some time actually finding the rental car place. I go in with my Cuz and my trusty reservations to get our car. The lady was lovely and she informed me that the car that I reserved (Dodge Caravan) wasn’t very big. Now me, I thought I had reserved the Grand Caravan and she told me that no they didn’t have that car, so she asked me if I wanted to upgrade. Well I don’t know what any of these cars look like inside except the Grand Caravan so I ask if I can see them. So I went out to their lot and looked at the 3 cars in the same category and decided to go for the upgrade, so we ended up with a Chrysler Town & Country. So I drive the car out of the lot, and we unload Collette’s car and load everything up in the T&C.

We're off we go to pick up Yani and be on the road to Disney. Or are we…..

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

As soon as we pick up Yani, Collette decides she’s hungry and wants to eat. Now do you all recall when she came to pick me up that I asked her if she was hungry she could go get food while my Cuz and I finish up and she said she wasn't hungry? Well now she's freakin' hungry. By this time we’re about 30 min. behind my 1 pm leave time schedule, granted it's mostly my fault for not being ready, but now I'm back on track and am ready to get on with the plan and drive into the wild blue --er, actually gray on this day, yonder to get to Disney. So we hit up a Wendy’s, Collette forms a mini scene because they didn’t have any baked potatoes. I ask if she wants to go to McDonalds which is right across the street, but she’s hard headed and says no. Meanwhile I’m thinking, OMG I hope this doesn’t happen in WDW.

So we finish eating and FINALLY head out and are on the road around 2:45pm. We’re so behind schedule though. But we’re going to Disney!!!


Around 3:45pm I tell my cousin to call the hotel and tell them we’re going to be late just in case because the check in time is 4pm and we wouldn’t be arriving ‘til about 6pm. She calls and they tell her that it’s fine. So on we drive.

We get to the WDW exit around 5:45pm Woooohooooo!!! I follow the signs toward the resorts until we finally see the loverly purple and magenta colored signs which mean we’ve finally arrived in the World!

Now how do I get to All Star Music?

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

I follow the signs towards AK because I know the All Stars are near that park thanks to my beautiful map that my loverly TA sent me. My co-pilot (DC) sees the sign for the All Stars and we keep on keepin on.

We finally see the sign to All Stars Resorts and I get to the gate and proudly announce to the guard that we have reservations to ASMu and he directs me to the resort. We see it quickly after the gate check and in my excitement make a quick turn and almost collide head on with a Disney bus that is pulling out. I quickly veer the T&C back into the correct lane and properly turn into the check-in parking. Everyone hops out of the van and treks across the street towards the larger than life All Star Music letters and into the check-in area. My cousin and I head to the front desk check-in line while the rest of the crew decides to hit the gift shop and wander around.

I’m finally called and give my name and and am quickly and efficiently checked in, given our Keys to the World and our Welcome packet with directions to our room. I ask if there’s a package waiting for me because I’ve decided to adopt a croc from the DIS to be on vacation with us. Sadly I’m told that I have no packages waiting for me, but to try concierge, which I do and nothing there either, I figured it hasn’t arrived yet. I'm kinda bummed that my little croc isn't there, but figure it hasn't arrived yet. I call the rest of the gals over and pass out the keys, give them the rundown of the keys:

Me: These are your room keys. They also are your tickets to enter the parks, and they also hold all your credits for when we eat.
Monica: So we bring this with us when we go to the parks?
Me: Yes, this is your park ticket. They won't let you into the parks without this.
Monica: What do you mean by credits for eating?
Me: We are on a meal plan that gives everyone credits. You get 3 credits a day for 1 meal, 1 lunch and 1 snack for each day that we're here.
Monica: There's only 6 credits for the whole time we're here?
Me: No, everyone has 18 credits each, 90 total for the group. You get 2 meals and a snack each day.

Now keep in mind that prior to coming to Disney I explained the DDP to everyone and told them we would have 1 sit down meal each day.

Here we are at the check-in counter (From L-R Cuz, Me, Collette, Yani):

So we all pile back into the van and head on over to the Calypso 10 building.

Next up how to get lost in the ASMu parking lot.


Getting Lost in the ASMu Parking Lot

 

[tinkercat]

I'm really enjoying your TR so far! Keep it coming!

 

[Gregory]

I love your TR so far. Thanks for posting and keep it coming.

 

[disneyaddicted]

Sounds good so far. you put alot of work into this trip. I'm looking forward to reading how it all comes together.

 

[twob4him]

Well well well well....look who is finally gettin around to her Trippie! And so many installments already...absolutely loving it! Great pic of the three of you too.
OK, so far so good. Oh and about getting lost....its no better faring on foot. We got lost getting to our room too!

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Oh wow! So many have posted! Thank you all for coming along to read my TR! This is so exciting!

I'm really enjoying your TR so far! Keep it coming!

Thank you Tinkercat! Are you doing a TR? I wanna hear about your stay at the Castle Suite, how exciting!!!

I love your TR so far. Thanks for posting and keep it coming.

Thanks for stopping by and reading Gregory!

Sounds good so far. you put alot of work into this trip. I'm looking forward to reading how it all comes together.

Thanks disneyaddict! It was really a fabulous trip, can't wait to share with all of you.

Well well well well....look who is finally gettin around to her Trippie! And so many installments already...absolutely loving it! Great pic of the three of you too.
OK, so far so good. Oh and about getting lost....its no better faring on foot. We got lost getting to our room too!

Hi Cathy! I'm glad you made it! Yes I've finally gotten around to it, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far.

I'm uploading pics as we speak for some more reporting soonish.

 

[smidgy]

ok .. a drive from miami, and a bit behind schedule? try driving from 40 miles NW of chicago!!!! colette would be dead meat in my hubby's car! there's NO stopping, for food, drink, not even bathroom (unless the gas gauge is on empty). ok, forget the drink, who wants to drink, if you can't stop!

great trip report so far!! sounds like a fun group. ok, you let a 40 year old married lady in. how about a 50 year old? nah, guess I couldn't imagine Disney without my NEBO (has 3 trip reports online). well, maybe, with a fun group like yours!

don't those purple signs just drive you crazy? so hard to read! but now, it wouldn't be disney without the purple signs! you see those.. you know you're ... home!

i've only known disney with 2 teenage boys and numerous times with me and hubby. can't wait to hear about a GIRL'S TRIP woo hoo!

 

[minnie61650]

I love the photos of you and your co-travelers.
Sounds like a fun and interesting group.
I feel your excitement.
keep em coming!

 

[smidgy]

addendum: what is it like to not be ready to leave at 3:30 AM?

who is Jack skellington?

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

colette would be dead meat in my hubby's car! there's NO stopping, for food, drink, not even bathroom (unless the gas gauge is on empty). ok, forget the drink, who wants to drink, if you can't stop!

great trip report so far!! sounds like a fun group. ok, you let a 40 year old married lady in. how about a 50 year old?

don't those purple signs just drive you crazy? but now, it wouldn't be disney without the purple signs! you see those.. you know you're ... home!

Welcome Smidgy! Yes I know I was dying to leave, but I was outnumbered by hungry people. She and everyone else were good on the way up, absolutely no stops were done so we made good time considering we hit a huge rainstorm somewhere near Jupiter, FL.

Of course I would've allowed a 50ish in my group! The only rule was it was only to be us Gals. No kids or hubbies her allowed. I actually wanted my mom to come (she's 50ish) but she only wanted to go with family. Oh well.

I don't know who picked those purple signs, but yes it's not Disney without them.

I love the photos of you and your co-travelers.
Sounds like a fun and interesting group.
I feel your excitement.
keep em coming!

Hi Linda! Thank you for joining! Ladies and germs Linda is the lady responsible for our luverly room at ASMu because she saved me when my original group of 4 became 5.

addendum: what is it like to not be ready to leave at 3:30 AM?

who is Jack skellington?

I don't know. I've never left for Disney at that hour. We've usually driven up the night before or the morning of. This was my first time having a True Disney vacation because the other times we always did 1 day visits or stayed offsite.

Jack Skellington is the character from Nightmare Before Christmas. If you look at Yani's pic in the intro it's the guy on her hat.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Of course I get lost in the parking lot trying to find our building. I always get lost driving to new places. I swear I paid attention to the CM who checked us in and gave me directions to the Calypso building. I turn wrong though and end up on the other side of the resort at Calypso 1 instead of Calypso 10. So I head back to the beginning where we started and head in the right direction with my trusty co-pilot directing me properly. Yeah!!! We found the right Calypso building! We get a nice parking spot in front of the humongous conga drum and take a few of our belongings with us on our way to our room.

Here we are on the way to the room:

Our room is on the 3rd floor so we follow the signs and see our lovely pool view. This is the View from the pool towards our room (it's the 2nd to the left on the third floor):

and finally find our room.

My Cuz gets the honors of opening the door and we all follow, ooing and ahhing and jumping around like little kids as we explore our room/suite. It’s wonderful and the best thing about it is there are Donald pictures all over! Yeah!!! It’s as if ASMu knows I lurrrve Donald and decorated the room just for me (in reality that’s just the way it’s decorated, but I like to think it was for me). Here we are around the room/suite:

Look at the Donald picture on the wall!!

And another Donald pic in our room:

***Now a special service announcement on behalf of Disney's All Star Music Resorts sponsored by Minnie61650's Thread****
For more pictures of our loverly spacious room please visit my pictures here post #359 on page 24.

Back to trip.

Collette, Monica and Yani decide to head back to the van and unload the suitcases and stuff. I do the obligatory call to my Mommy to let her know we’ve arrived and then we head out to get stuff out of the van too. The girls snagged a bell hop luggage cart from somewhere and were on their way to the room as we headed down. We suddenly became the Loud (shout out to Sorul82) family as we unloaded all our stuff, but we didn’t care ‘cause we were at Disney!!!!

After all the stuff was unloaded from the van we all started unpacking and settling in. Clothes were hung and folded with care, toiletries were unpacked, and the food was all put away in our cute kitchenette in hopes that Walt Disney soon would be…..uh sorry wrong story.

The room was very comfortable for us and I’m thankful for the DIS and Linda on the DIS for leading me to it. I informed everyone that we had dinner reservations at 9 pm so we had to be out the door no later than 8:15 pm to head over to DTD.

This is the first of me stressing over whether or not we’ll make our ADR time.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

In true girl fashion Collette and Monica take FOREVER to get ready to leave.

We finally pile into the van to head over to DTD around 8:40pm.

Can we make it? I don’t even know how to get to DTD because the one other time I’d been I wasn’t driving.

I know by the fuzzy Disney map in my head that it was near Epcot almost on the other side of where our resort is. So I follow the purple/magenta signs towards Epcot and my trusty co-pilot (my Cuz) until they finally start saying DTD and then I follow those. It took us about 15 min. to get to DTD (me speeding? No!) and now we had to find our restaurant, which I didn’t know where it was either, all I knew was there was water around it.

How do I know there's water around it you say? Well in my endless research to pick restaurants for this trip and my endless perusing of the menus on WDWinfo.com I saw this picture here:


See the water? Ok keep that in mind for later. You will be quizzed.

So we get lucky and find a good parking spot

which was amazing because it was a Sunday, at night, during Spring Break in Orlando and on top of tourists we're battling the locals who actually do frequent DTD. We head towards Cirque de Soleil and Disneyquest in the freezing (for us Miamians) cold that has fallen on Orlando, OMG was it cold (later we found out it was 30 degrees...which is cold for us Miamians).

Cuz and I are on the lookout for a directory and thankfully there is one straight ahead. Of course our restaurant was alllllll the way on the other side. So we power walk through DTD west through PI and come upon our restaurant Raglan Road. Now remember the water and all that from the lovely pic that I had in my head. Well it was nowhere around. Apparently that is the back part of the restaurant. We got this (luckily it was in red)

I go up to the lady at the podium with my confirmation number in hand and inform her we have 9 pm ressies (it was like 9:05 at this time). She asks for my name and proceeds to hand me a beeper tells me to wait for it to beep when our table is ready. I say ok and let everyone else know and was kinda bummed that I didn’t get asked for my confirmation number.

Conveniently Raglan Road has a little gift shop connecting to the restaurant so we explore that and meet our new statue friend outside on the bench until the beeper buzzes and does it’s little light show thing. We’re then taken through the restaurant and to our booth which was nicely secluded. It was so cool, it was like being in our own private little seating area.
Here's my Cuz and I:

The only bad thing was we didn’t get to see the Piano guy’s show, but we could hear it just fine. So we settle in, meet our waitress, I ask her a few questions about the DDP and if anything was excluded, nothing on the menu was (except alcoholic beverages) and she gets our drink orders and we peruse the menu. Collette orders a Chocolate Martini and Yani decides to order a Guiness for both of us. When in Raglan do as the Irish right.
Here we are with our Guiness:

And now we invite you to relax, pull up a chair as the dining room proudly presents....Our Dinner!

Be Our Guest! Be Our Guest!.....uh sorry. Got carried away there.

For appetizers we had...
Drunk chicken which were Marinated whiskey glazed chicken kebabs served with romaine and lime dressing (courtesy of wdwinfo.com).

And DC and Monica shared the Calamari City which were Salt and pepper calamari and mixed tempura vegetables served with a spicy remoulade. Great for sharing!<~~~ If you're on the DDP this counts as 2 appetizers so 1 person orders this and 2 eat but they use 2 of the people's credits. FYI

For Entree we had...
4 of us had the Serious Sirloin Steak which was 10oz sirloin topped with Irish whiskey glaze, and drizzled with fresh basil oil. Served with mashed potatoes and topped with crispy fried onion strings.

Collette had the Salmon of Knowledge- Fresh salmon fillet topped with smoked salmon, baked and served with a maple glaze.

And now Dessert....Mmmmm
Monica had the Bailey's Creme Brulee Tart - Creme brulee Irish style

Yani & Collette had Me Ma's Apple Pie - Cooked apples, mouth watering pastry & ice cream.

My Cuz had the Dunbrody Kiss - Chef Dundon's gift to America. Chocolate, add chocolate, and then add some more.

I had the Raspberry Riot - Frozen raspberries surround vanilla ice-cream on a shortcake base and coated with warm white chocolate.

Our food was delicious and everyone had a good time. I was happy, because Raglan Road was a last minute change that I didn't find much about but the little I did find was positive and now I know why. Originally we were going to go eat at California Grill, but I had read some stories on the DIS about people waiting a long time to be seated so I made the change to Raglan Road.

We left the restaurant and this time took our time to stroll through DTD, sort of ‘cause we were freezing again. There were a few shops still open; we hit the magnet store and the virgin megastore. Then made our way back all huddled together ‘cause it was cold out, piled back into the van and went back home to our room. We ran loudly (so if you were staying at ASMu 4/15/07 and heard 5 loud adult females around 11pm, that was us...sorry) to our room. We gawked at the crazy people who were swimming in the cold weather. I informed everyone of where we were going the next day and what time we had to be there. We got ready for bed and fell asleep, our Disdraline (Disney Adrenaline) finally running out.

Up next, which park do we hit first!

Here's a clue

Where in the World is Carmen San Diego

 

[Momof2J's]

We're staying at ASMu family suites in January 08. Can't wait to hear more

 

[Disneyolic]

Okey dokey....I'm in. Now onto the next installment!!

 

[Goofster57]

Great beginning to what appears to be a really fun trip.

Looking forward to more fun.

 

[jcc0621]

I'm in. I have to live vicariously through everyoine else since I am not going until August. More please

 

[disneyaddicted]

Nice update. I love all the pictures. ASMU looks like fun, I like brite gawdy colors.

Laughed my hinde end off with your Be my guest song.

It's funny that you say "lurrrv" we have always said "Larv" SO any way I larv this TR it's making me laugh!

 

[ILMICKEY]

I am soooo jealous. I want an all girls trip to WDW. I don't think my husband and kids would understand. Sounds fun!!