[kittylady1972]

We arrive at the airport and head to get the luggage. While the rest of the party waits there, I head over to the rental car place to pick up our minivan with the youngest child. I am very glad to be a Dollar EXPRESS user after seeing the long line there...but I am in and out of there in no time with the key to the shiny new Dodge Caravan in my hand. It doesn't take long for the rest of the party to catch up to us, we load up into the van and drive to Beach Club Resort.

We arrive at Beach Club and head inside to check on our room. I had done the early checkin for both of us, so we find that area and our keys and package are all waiting and the room is ready for us! Yeah! We head back out and decided to just have them Valet Park the car (it's a DVC Free Perk after all...may as well use it) and then go up to our room, leaving the luggage to bell services. I check at the bell service desk for both the wheelchair and stroller I had requested from off-site companies. The wheelchair has arrive, but not the stroller, so we grab that, throw Noah into it (it's for my MIL, but so far she's good with walking with the cane) and we head up to the rooms.

Now my only room request was a room close to transportation...as it turns out we are on the far end of the farthest building...but also the CLOSEST room to the walkway over to EPCOT! So if by close to transportation they meant being close enough to walk right over to EPCOT, they got it right I guess! HA! It's a nice view of the water overlooking the Boardwalk and Dolphin/Swan though.

We had promised the kids the pool when we arrived, and it's certainly hot enough, so we all get into our bathing suits and head down to the pool. First order is lunch though, as it's after 1pm now and we have not had food! I really want to try Beaches and Cream, so we go there first. Of course, there are cries and complaints about wanting to do the pool first (oh, from the kids too) and once the wait is designated 20 minutes my DH is just not happy. I try to appease him, and end up telling the seating person we'd be happy to be seated at different tables if it gets us in faster since my husband is quite impatient! Yeah, I said it. Soon we are inside, my husband heads to the counter with the 2 older kids and I sit at a table with my in-laws and the youngest.

DH and the kids must have ordered pretty quickly, because I swear after the waitress took our order I glanced over to see DH and the kids eating their food! They also had milkshakes, and I send the youngest over to snag a few sips since he's outwardly complaining about how HUNGRY he is at the table.

Eventually our food arrives...I got a burger to share with the young one, and the in-laws each got turkey sandwiches. My FIL got a MALT which he just LOVES! The burger I get is INCREDIBLE...well that is when I get to eat it. As I am cutting it to split and about to take a bite, daughter comes wandering over from her place with daddy and needs to use the restroom. Why daddy can't take her, I don't know...but I do know that you have to go outside the restaurant and down to the Beach Club Lobby area to use the restroom, since the ones right outside the restaurant were closed. GREAT! Did I mention DH and the kids have already eaten and I'm STARVING? No matter, off I go with daughter to the restroom.

I return and finally sit down to enjoy my burger. Before long, DH and the other kids are done, so since we are still eating I send him off with the kids...all THREE of them...to the pool while I finish eating. FIL goes with them, so MIL and I sit and finish eating...and order dessert to share as well! We split the banana split...SO GOOD! After that, we head out to meet the group at the pool. So yeah, no kitchen sink as planned...we see some of them come out and there's just NO WAY we can finish it by ourselves without help from the family. Now I have a goal for the next visit I guess!

We spend a few hours at the pool and have a great time. Noah insists he does not know how to swim, but in his defense he learned how to swim without floatation at the end of August last year...and two weeks later all the pools were closed so I'm sure he's just forgotten! I spend a lot of time with him in the kiddie area, DH wanders off and ends up renting a tube for a little while so he can take the kids on rides in the lazy river, so he alternates switching off kids in the tube and taking them on laps around the lazy river. We do the slides a few times, I end up with the kids in the main pool area enjoying the games going on there. Noelle and I decide to play Disney Name That Tune where I score pretty poorly on that due to my lack of more recent Disney tunes...I RECOGNIZE the songs, I listen to Radio Disney in my car all the time, but I can't come up with names or artists for many of them. We don't win of course.

Around 5:30pm or so we head back to the rooms to get cleaned up for dinner. While getting ready, I send DH and FIL over to EPCOT (after all, it's so close) to guest relations to get our annual passes that we have preordered, as well as get a Tables in Wonderland card for us to use. He is successful, but strangely they allow DH to get all the passes and activate them, yet for my FIL (who has somebody else helping him) they won't activate MIL's pass for him...so she'll have to do that later. Weird.

We have a dinner reservation for Spoodles that night but honestly we decided we'd really like to give Captains Grill a try. DH and I loved it for dinner back in October, and it's MUCH closer. We walk over there YES WITHOUT AN ADR and wait only about 10 minutes or so before we're seated. While sitting there, Noah falls asleep on the bench at our table, the other two kids eat a little bit, and we enjoy a fabulous meal there. It does not disappoint...everybody loves their food. Score!

Now it's closing on evening and everybody is pretty tired. We get everybody ready for bed. The kids had really wanted to do the campfire or the evening movie, but DH does not want to run them ragged on day one, so we put them all to bed instead.

Oh, and I discover after being in my pocket since dinner, my phone has been resurrected. Yeah, failed to mention that while at the pool, I took my cell phone to snap photos of DH and the kids, and Noah decides to splash me and even though the phone is in a protective case and does not get very wet at all, it completely STOPS working right then and there at the pool. I am devastated! After all, I was expecting a call that evening to meet up with a high school friend and her family who live in Florida, and her only contact information is IN THAT PHONE! I have no way to reach her! Thankfully the phone came back partially when we got back to the room after the pool. I could dial and answer but I could not view the screen, and during that time she called me and I wrote down her number and gave her DH's phone number as well. We made plans to meet the next day since it was already so late and she hadn't heard back from me. So that night I get back use of the screen (hooray) but soon will lose use of the number "8" key. I can call any contacts already in my phone with "8" in their phone number, but I can't call any new numbers and texting using the letters "t, u or v" is pretty insane. I'm updating my Facebook and blog with updates using the plus key for the letter T and using a "*" for the letters U or V, so all week people think I'm cursing!