Tears, Treats, Tumblr and Tropical Storm Isaac

[Victoriasmom98]

Tears, Treats, Tumblr and Tropical Storm Isaac​

Yes, we are back from our wonderful trip to Disney World. We were there from August 17th through August 28th 2012 at the Carribean Beach Resort with the Free Dining Plan.

I have over 800 photos to add to photobucket so once those are uploaded and I get a bit of time, I will start this trip report. Be patient folks.....I will get there!

So, here we are......

 

[Victoriasmom98]

POST LINKS


Introductions
And we are off
Resort review and Animal Kindgom Day
Cont'd
Magic Kingdom
EPCOT
EPCOT cont'd
Hollywood Studios Day
Break Day
Break Day cont'd
Magic Kingdom Day 2
Hollywood Studios Day 2
Universal Studios Day
Universal Studios Day cont'd
Choice Day which ended up being EPCOT #2
EPCOT AGAIN.....is there anything left to do?
We're Going Home, We've Done our Time

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

I'm first! I'm first!


What is this thing you speak of?..."patient"???

 

[megveg]

Im hereee! Im ready for the rideee!

 

[Tink-erin-belle]

I'm here! That picture of you guys is so cute!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Yay! You've started! I can't wait to hear all about it.

 

[MissTink]

Count me in!

 

[Victoriasmom98]

I'm first! I'm first!


What is this thing you speak of?..."patient"???

Oh dear, dear Karen.....patient is when you have to actually WAIT for something! Hard to believe but some people actually can do this!! And

Im hereee! Im ready for the rideee!

HI!!! And welcome! Glad to have you along!

I'm here! That picture of you guys is so cute!

Thanks.....that was one of the early days when we all still liked each other!

Yay! You've started! I can't wait to hear all about it.

My reports will never live up to yours, Lisa! Oh, and btw ---- I never even touched the iron that was in the room!

Count me in!

I hope I don't bore you to tears.

 

[tygrrlily]

Great pic and love the title! Can't wait to read about your trip

 

[micandminforever]

Joining the fun.

 

[Victoriasmom98]

So, let's start with the cast of characters.....
I hope you all don't mind, but I'm going to copy and paste the introductions from my prior report. I mean, our backstory doesn't change from year to year, right? So, for those of you who know me and my family, you can skip this part, unless you are a glutton for punishment...

My DD 14 Victoria......
She and I have been the 2 peas in a pod since I divorced her father when she was 4. It's been she and I against the world since then. She's not as much as a Disney fanatic as I am but I'll get her there!!! hee, hee. She's had her share of trials so far in her 14 years so I tend to spoil her and try to "make up for it". She was born with infant torticollis which basically means her head and neck muscles didn't develop as they should have while I was pregnant. She wore a head cast for 6 months to shape her head properly and had physical therapy for the first 2 years of her life. When she was 5, we discovered she had a tethered spinal cord which required surgery to fix. Her tethered spinal cord made potty training extremely difficult (as she didn't feel when she had to go) and it has caused recurring UTI's which have continued to this day. She does she a Pediatric Nephrologist in Portland, Maine so we are working on it. After her surgery she had an additional 2 years of physical therapy. She's doing great, though, even though she will never be great at team sports or any activity that requires lots of balance. It was also around the time she was 5 when my dad, her beloved Pepere passed away of a massive heart attack. That prompted me to realize that life is too short to be miserable, so I divorced Victoria's father that same year. She is currently facing a diagnosis of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. We go to see an endocrinologist in Portland in October for more testing.

Then there's me......a 44 year old cancer survivor, diabetic, and mother extrodinairre...(yeah, seriously I don't think that highly of myself, really!!!).....I work full time, enjoy scrapbooking, tending to my menagerie of pets and stalking the Disboards..

Finally, there is my husband Peter.......
As a little background here--- I had a pretty bad first marriage and I definitely was NEVER, EVER going to get married again or ever let anyone have control over me and my life again. I had dated, but nothing too serious as my first priority was and is Victoria. I was certainly not going to bring someone into our lives who I had no intention of remaining with. Then I met Peter.......yes, online.......Now I know what you all must be thinking ----ewwww! And I really didn't think anything would come out of it either. But, here I am. He's from the same type of French Catholic background as I am and we have so many things in common. He actually does the same type of work that my Dad did. (My Dad passed away in 2002). He's really an amazing man and he's taken to Victoria like she was his own child. Victoria loves him, too.

Other family members not going on the trip are our yellow lab, 2 cats (we just lost our beloved Rusty kitty at the age of 14 a week before we left for our trip), 5 mini-lop bunnies, 2 teddy bear hamsters, 2 guinea pigs and now 6 chickens!!! I am a huge animal lover, if you couldn't tell. Usually when we go to Disney the dog goes to the kennel and my wonderful Mom comes over to tend to everyone else.This year Cutie is staying with my coworker/friend Jane and her 2 German Shepherds.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Ooooh, and you have your ticker for next trip up already!

 

[LarryFmScotland]

Can't wait for the rest.

Cheers Larry

 

[Tink-erin-belle]

I love that you added your chickens to your family members! I don't know why I am so obsessed with them! I must've lost count, though, because I didn't remember that you had six. I guess you guys still liked each other in those pictures, too because you all look like you're having fun

 

[Victoriasmom98]

Friday, August 17th

Well, today is the day! We were leaving for Disney! Will we make the plane on time? Will Peter’s interview go well? Will I get over this anxiety attack? Let’s read on and find out, shall we?

First of all, lets take it back to Thursday night when Jane came to pick up Cutie. After losing Rusty earlier this month, it was really hard to see Cutie go, even though I knew she would be back. I knew she was going to be spoiled rotten with Jane, but I still cried a bit. I packed up her blankie and 2 favorite toys and her dog food. I brought her to Jane’s car and she hopped in seeming very excited to be going on a ride. Good. I’m glad it was easier on Cutie than it was on me!

Friday morning we were all up be 6am. Peter’s interview with the Dept of Transportation as a Transportation I worker was at 7am. He actually left the house by 6:30am in the hopes that they may take him early and he would be home by 8am. It was exactly 8am and I was getting nervous as he wasn’t home yet. Everything was done – animals fed, car packed – we were just waiting for him.

Peter pulls in the drive at 8:10am. He made a quick change into shorts and off we go! Will we make it to NH in time? I don’t know! It takes 3 hours from our house to the Manchester airport, so we were going to be cutting it close. I knew we were going to make it (I assumed) once we saw this:

The middle of this bridge is actually the state line between Maine and NH. It was around 11:15 when we saw this:

Yay!!! The airport!! Now all we have to do is park, get on the shuttle, get pass security and get to the gate area. Simple, right?! Oh, c’mon now folks…..you must know us better than that by now. We checked our bags in at the curb and we headed to security. Oh, guess who had to have the full body pat down? You guessed it, ME! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! WHAT THE HECK???!!! So, I was stopped last year for the roll of pressed pennies and I’m stopped this year? Apparently my shirt had sparkles in it and the body imager doesn’t like those. Um….airlines ---- please post that warning on your sites so innocent people like me don’t have to get felt up in the middle of the airport when they are already running late in the first place? A little heads up might be nice. After a nice pat down, I was free to go, but then they needed to have me go over to the side so they can go through my carryon. No one ever told me what seemed to suspicious to them. Yeah, I really look like a security risk, don’t I?

Now it was 11:45am and Victoria was hungry for more than just a snack. Ugh! Really? There’s a ½ hour before the flight is scheduled to leave and she wants to eat? There was only one real place to order anything from, so we ordered chicken nuggets and fries and got them to go. She’ll have to eat them on the plane! Would you believe they started boarding right as her food was ready? Unreal! We got on the plane and sat in Row 7 with Victoria on the window, Peter in the middle and me on the aisle.

It was a pretty uneventful flight until the last half hour when we hit turbulence. The plane had to fly around this so we were about 20 minutes late in arriving. OH NO! We had ressies at Paradiso37 at 6:15pm. I was cutting close making that ressie IF everything worked out ok. This was just not going to happen! We headed to the Magical Express area, got into Line 6, and hopefully weren’t going to wait long.

We actually didn’t wait that long and were able to sit all in the same row. Why couldn’t we be the first stop? Well, because that just wasn’t the way this trip was going to work out for us!

Here is the obligatory picture of arriving at Disney!

The bus first stopped at Art of Animation and then Pop, and finally CBR!! We got to CBR around 5:35pm. We didn’t really have the time to dilly-dally. It was going to be find the room, put the carryons down, get to the bus stop and hopefully a bus to DTD would be coming real soon. Thankfully, one did and we were on our way. I did make sure that the bus driver stopped at both the Marketplace and Pleasure Island as we didn’t want to have to run across the whole place! It was about 6:40pm when we finally arrived at the restaurant. It turns out it wasn’t a big deal to be late as the place wasn’t even full. Phew. I asked to be seating by a window (I didn’t specify looking over the water) and we were seated by the back door, by the window which looked out to the store across the pathway. This is the door where the servers go in and out to serve the people who were dining outside. After about 20 or more times that people were going in and out, it was getting a bit old and annoying. I did get what I asked for. I do need to be more specific in my requests!

The food was awesome, though, I must say!!!

Did I mention that I FORGOT to bring my camera to DTD??!!! I tell you guys this is a theme throughout the entire trip ---- THINGS JUST GO WRONG NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU PLAN SOMETHING!!! Thank goodness I had my iphone and could take pictures with that!

We walked around for a little bit, bought a few things and then headed back to the resort. It was going to be an early day at the Tusker House with Donald in the morning!!!

 

[mommytocalliesue]

Yay!!! The airport!! Now all we have to do is park, get on the shuttle, get pass security and get to the gate area. Simple, right?! Oh, c’mon now folks…..you must know us better than that by now. We checked our bags in at the curb and we headed to security. Oh, guess who had to have the full body pat down? You guessed it, ME! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! WHAT THE HECK???!!! So, I was stopped last year for the roll of pressed pennies and I’m stopped this year? Apparently my shirt had sparkles in it and the body imager doesn’t like those. Um….airlines ---- please post that warning on your sites so innocent people like me don’t have to get felt up in the middle of the airport when they are already running late in the first place? A little heads up might be nice. After a nice pat down, I was free to go, but then they needed to have me go over to the side so they can go through my carryon. No one ever told me what seemed to suspicious to them. Yeah, I really look like a security risk, don’t I?

I feel your pain! I went to Denver this summer...and had some sparkles on my...rear end!! I ended up getting a full pat down...especially around my behind area! I was with my girl friends who thought it was quite humorous...I did not! Let's just say, I wore NO sparkles on the way home!

Looking forward to reading more on your trip!

 

[Tink-erin-belle]

Whew! I was really feeling the anxiety with you when you were describing your morning! I hope Peter's interview went well! Thank goodness you made it to the airport on time, but when you said you were stopped for a pat down, I got anxious all over again! I felt better once I saw the Disney sign I'm so glad you made the connection to the bus. When you said you forgot your camera, I said to myself, "Oh no! No food pics!" but your iPhone takes great pictures Your meal looked fantastic! What was that shrimp dish? Yum!

 

[Victoriasmom98]

Great pic and love the title! Can't wait to read about your trip

I hope you enjoy it!

Joining the fun.

Awesome!!! Love having you here!

Ooooh, and you have your ticker for next trip up already!

Of course I do!

Can't wait for the rest.

Cheers Larry

Thanks Larry and

I love that you added your chickens to your family members! I don't know why I am so obsessed with them! I must've lost count, though, because I didn't remember that you had six. I guess you guys still liked each other in those pictures, too because you all look like you're having fun

Of course the chickens are my family! I love those birds!

I feel your pain! I went to Denver this summer...and had some sparkles on my...rear end!! I ended up getting a full pat down...especially around my behind area! I was with my girl friends who thought it was quite humorous...I did not! Let's just say, I wore NO sparkles on the way home!

Looking forward to reading more on your trip!

It's embarrassing as all heck, isn't it. I really think they need to let you know this kind of information!

Whew! I was really feeling the anxiety with you when you were describing your morning! I hope Peter's interview went well! Thank goodness you made it to the airport on time, but when you said you were stopped for a pat down, I got anxious all over again! I felt better once I saw the Disney sign I'm so glad you made the connection to the bus. When you said you forgot your camera, I said to myself, "Oh no! No food pics!" but your iPhone takes great pictures Your meal looked fantastic! What was that shrimp dish? Yum!

Believe me, Erin, your anxiety is nothing compared to what mine was. I think I calmed down by day 4! Yes, I had a surf & turf type of meal! It was soooo yummy! I couldn't believe how yummy it was!

 

[momjeeps]

Subscribing. Yum dinner looked good!

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[JDailey]

YAY you are back!!! I'm so happy you guys made the plane, I was a little worried about that. Can't wait to hear ALL about it.