FRIDAY 12/9/11:
Ever since the end of daylight savings time, I had trouble sleeping. It might have just been my mind's preoccupation with the trip and everything I wanted to do before leaving , or maybe I just never adjusted to the new time. But it wasn't any better by the time we left for Disney. So I wasn't surprised when I woke up early the next morning around 6:15. That's about 5:15 central time, the same time I'd been waking up for weeks. Yuck.
This was our 5th time staying at the Pop Century. Every time I go home regretting not getting a better look around the resort and taking pictures. Since I was up early and didn't want to wake Drew and Katie, I grabbed my camera and ducked outside. My first sight was of the window a couple rooms down from ours. It was taunting me......
IMG_3451 by
mom2rtk, on Flickr
I had things along to decorate our own window, but it was in the suitcases we didn't have yet. This displaly didn't photograph well, but it sure looked cool. They had taken their room table and put it in under the curtains. Their tree was on that table and was topped with a holiday Belle. I had my work cut out for me!
I decided it would be a great time to tour the grounds and take some photos. It was pitch dark of course, and I didn't have my tripod yet, so I'd have to go for some high ISO shots. I wandered down to the Generation Gap bridge, but without my tripod, I as pretty limited in what I could do.
IMG_3457 by
mom2rtk, on Flickr
IMG_3454 by
mom2rtk, on Flickr
IMG_3455 by
mom2rtk, on Flickr
IMG_3474 by
mom2rtk, on Flickr
IMG_3483 by
mom2rtk, on Flickr
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mom2rtk, on Flickr
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mom2rtk, on Flickr
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mom2rtk, on Flickr
IMG_3481 by
mom2rtk, on Flickr
IMG_3485 by
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Closer to 7 AM, I decided to wander up toward Bell Services and check on our luggage from the Magical Express. I had called down the night before and asked for it to be held until morning so they didn't wake us in the night. Well, somewhere in the wee morning hours the phone rang. I was pretty sure it was about the luggage so I just took it off the hook and went back to sleep. I'm SO glad I called so they wouldn't wake us.........
When I got closer to Bell Services, I saw someone pushing a cart full of luggage our way and recognized it as ours. So much for letting Drew and Katie sleep. I led them back to the room to deliver the luggage.
We were heading for the Magic Kingdom that day. While I knew we'd be tired and hadn't planned to make rope drop, once we were up we decided to go ahead and go. There were a lot of last minute park hour changes to some of our days, and somewhere along the line I got it in my mind it opened at 8 that day. Really I knew better, but I was tired too. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
A newbie mistake to be sure.
Anyway, we left our room around 7:35 and headed for the bus stop. The plan was to get a bite to eat at the Main Street Bakery, so we didn't even stop in the food court. We headed straight for the bus stop.
Soon enough we had this in our sights:
IMG_3491 by
mom2rtk, on Flickr