Going from Friday the 13th to Enchanted- Day 9: 'Round Midnight update 7/19/11 - The DIS Discussion Forums

Moira222 · 05-26-2011, 11:08 AM

HERE WE GO! I had such a fun time doing my PTR I am following up with a TR!

The rest of this post is saved for adding chapter links.

WELCOME!

KatMark · 05-26-2011, 11:20 AM

I'm here.

All7OfUs · 05-26-2011, 11:26 AM

No better place to start than right at the beginning! Glad to be aboard!

Moira222 · 05-26-2011, 11:42 AM

OMG you guys are FAST! I was just playing with my signature and saw you beat me to the first post LOL too funny!

Moira222 · 05-26-2011, 11:46 AM

In case you haven’t read my PTR, let me introduce my little family to you:

Joe, aka Dad, Shrek, Grumpy, or Prince Charming (Or Officer Joe when he’s working) – depends on when you catch him! This is his “BIG TRIP”. We were originally going to travel to WDW in October 2011 but a few things in life changed, and in mid-January I did some math, some weather & crowd comparisons and realized that we could go in May for Joe’s birthday. He was SO thrilled and excited to be going for his birthday. His family has always been on the dull side when it came to family travel, celebrations, anything cool like that. You know how you’re doing something silly and child like, and you say to your spouse/SO “remember when you were a kid and you …..” (fill in the blank with anything fun like block chase, long bike rides in the rain, water balloon battles with your whole family, family day trips to a lake, etc.) and his answer is always “No, we never did that”. Seriously. EVERY TIME. Very annoying, and almost like a joke now that we have a 7 almost 8 YO and I am forever trying to give her crazy funny memories like the ones I have from my childhood.

So I just loved being able to say yeah, let’s go to Disney for your birthday. WAHOO!

Katie, aka Princess and also Minnie-me. She is 7 ¾ -- turning 8 in July. She is very much in the middle of being a little girl and trying to be a big girl. Secretly still loves the princesses, but also wants to rock out with Hannah Montana and the Lemonade Mouth crew. Add to this that my “little girl” is about 55” – so she towers over most kids her age and is frequently mistaken for being closer to 9 or 10. She is our only child, and after many prayers and tears, we were blessed with her presence right after our 11th wedding anniversary, so heck yeah we spoil her. But just because we spoil her does not mean we accept spoiled bratty behavior. It’s a constant battle. UGH!

Mary Ellen – ME! Aka Moira22 here on DISBoards and many other boards. If you have seen moira222 as a sign on, there’s a really good chance it’s me! I wanted to go to Disney World when I graduated from college in 1994, but Joe wouldn’t commit to taking vacation time and it ended up being a weekend in the mountains of PA. When Katie was born I started a Disney Savings account – every other week $10 goes into it automatically. We were going to go for the first time in 2008 when Katie was almost 5, but well 2006 was such a monumentally crappy year that we decided we weren’t going to wait, and went in January of 2007 when she was 3 ½. WE LOVED IT! Literally on the plane on the way home from that trip, Joe apologized for taking so long to come around. We went again in January of 2009. It was the Celebrations year, and it was one month prior to my 40th birthday so yeah, I mentioned we were “pre celebrating” my birthday. It was so cool – I got a birthday pin and everyone wished me Happy Birthday. I received a 5 x7 glossy of Mickey, autographed, in a card/frame and a very nice print, sort of like the ones that you see in the Contemporary’s lobby. (remember that later) I have been impressed from the beginning with the way Disney has truly mastered Customer Service and goes over the top to ensure customer satisfaction (well, usually…) I totally enjoy planning out all the different aspects of a DisneyWorld trip, and even though I plan things pretty thoroughly I am a “roll with it” sorta chick. I rarely stomp my foot to get my way, and follow the philosophy of “Don’t sweat the small stuff” and really, it’s ALL small stuff in the big picture right? If it won’t matter 50 years from now, well then it really shouldn’t matter 5 minutes from now either. (usually) It’s not that things don’t bother me, it’s just that I try to blow them off—as my Pop-pop would say “like water off a duck’s butt”

We have one more family member who didn’t make the trip with us: Thor. He’s our furry child – a 5+ year old German Shepherd 100lb lap dog. We missed our baby on our trip, but had a most awesome house & dog sitter who was kind enough to drop us off at the airport & pick us up when we returned.

You'll get to know us soon enough, Let's get this party started!

KatMark · 05-26-2011, 11:49 AM

GREAT introduction Mary Ellen. I'm really looking forward to this after your fun PTR. As you said, let's get this party started.

Moira222 · 05-26-2011, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KatMark

GREAT introduction Mary Ellen. I'm really looking forward to this after your fun PTR. As you said, let's get this party started.

You're killing me!

Its like having a part time job writing out all the good stuff and then figuring out what pictures to put in!

You'll have to let me know if I have too much or not enough. I took about 100-200 pictures a day

Moira222 · 05-26-2011, 11:54 AM

Finally finally finally we get to the last loop on our countdown chain…the one that says WALT DISNEY WORLD!

Wahoo! Of course it’s still a regular school day for Katie who has to keep her excitement in check until we pick her up at 3:25 pm.

After dropping Katie off at school,

I head to CVS for a few personal items, back track to the bookstore to buy her Diary of a Wimpy Kid book 2—she is halfway through her book from the library but we refuse to let her take a library book on vacation. sheesh. I should have let her – the book store only has these in $14 hard covers, as opposed to the $6 soft bound book the library has. Head up to the liquor store

for a bottle of rum then home for the rest of my to do list. No rest of weary

finish up packing, cleaning bathrooms, remaking beds, change my purse around, all sorts of good stuff then shower and off to get my nails done. YEAH. I got the new gel colors – have you heard of them? they go on nice and thick, dry quickly and really, its 13 days later and my nails still have not chipped. of course now I have a ridge at the bottom where my nails have grown, but ya can’t have everything can you? lol. Nails done, I picked up subway sandwiches for dinner at the airport, and headed home.

Our house/dog sitter arrived a few minutes before me so we chatted, got her set up to check her email using our laptop (the desktop area was just a mess though Joe did show her) and Joe packed up the car. tick tick tick tick..yippee 3:10. Time to go get Katie and head to the airport… WAHOOOO

We get to the airport without a hitch. Check our bag, rearrange a few things to get it below 50 lbs, and head to security. love it when a plans comes together, don’t you? Except…. going through security I do a carry on bag check.

Uh oh, where is Katie’s back pack? Joe has no idea and is not very happy that I realize it is missing now.

grr. he is always stressed out when he had to fly and I am not making it better! So I get Katie and Joe up to the gate, then head back downstairs, calling Sharon to explain what the bag looks like that is still in the office.

She is a doll and grabs it, turns around, and drives it up to the airport. THANK GOD for flying locally!

Joe and Katie are done eating (well Katie saved half of her sandwich for later). Lesson for the day: toasted subs don’t get soggy. I’ll remember that one!! Katie sat on the floor and started on her homework journal, when I see a certain text message on my phone. I reply back and within a minute my phone rings. I tell Katie to answer it and she is so EXCITED because its Tinkerbell!!!

She chatted very happily for a few minutes with her but had no idea what they talked about other than Pixie dust everywhere. but she was so cute and funny and thrilled that she got a phone call from Tink.

We have a very nice flight but have a delay once we get to Orlando.

there is a storm and we have to circle for about 20 minutes or so, stressing Joe a bit. Once we get off the plane its straight to the ME with only a brief hello to Goofy on the way.

We get on the bus right away and AWAY WE GO yeah!!!! Can you see I get all teary eyed with excitement? I’m such a mush!

Finally we arrive at the Wilderness Lodge about 9 pm. YIPPEEE!

Only this is where its not so yippee. I had done online check in, so we go to the online checkin section, right behind another family. and we wait. and wait. and wait.

Whaaaaat? after about 10 minutes a cast member comes to take care of the family in front of us. Then its our turn. I get our packet and room keys, and Joe gets a birthday pin.

We’re on the first floor - great I say, so our balcony walks right out to the pool, right? Oh, no. when I get there we have a view of the walkway behind the building

oh. and king sized bed.

yeah, for three of us. Clearly not the courtyard view with two beds that we had reserved. sigh. back to the lobby to the front desk. Joe is annoyed so he goes to watch cartoons. After disappearing for a little while – two or three times – and about 20 minutes later, the young lady at the desk comes with a new room key – 6013 – she says it a “water wheel view” …we still have no idea what this is (has anyone ever seen a water wheel at WLR?) but the way she is apologizing says it’s not a courtyard view. (OK I looked this up – 6013 is a water view, of the bay, but you can only see the water if you stand on the balcony- there is a wall that blocks about half way up.) Plus it has bunk beds, which really make the room feel much smaller.

She tells me we can keep this room for our whole stay, or we can just stay the night and request a room change the next day. Are you kidding me? By now, Joe is coming over to see what the delay is. When I explain it, he is TICKED

. He actually took his birthday pin of and flung it across the counter telling them that they’ve pretty much ruined his trip for him with all this room mess up. He asks them “What is the purpose of making a reservation and checking in online if it doesn’t reserve your room for you?” silence. no answer to that one. He asked for a manager and a young woman came up. I went over to stay with Katie and let him deal with her. He’s pissed and I know this attitude and there is no good to come of me being over there. When he finally comes over he tells me we have yet a new room number (room three now) that is just for the night, and we will be moved the next day to our “right” room. The manager also comped our room fee for that night, so we would have about $200 credit on our room (they would have taken it off of our Visa card but what’s the difference? we just charged things back to the room). FINALLY we get to a room

and, because we promised Katie weeks ago that she could swim the first night, we dig our swimsuits out of our carry on luggage and head to the pool. Its now 11:45 pm so I make a pitstop at the roaring forks to get mugs and drinks for us and meet up with Joe and Katie at the pool and hot tub. sigh. that was much more work and aggravation than I ever expected from a Disney resort.

Up next: Just how many rooms did we go through???

Lidian · 05-30-2011, 09:20 AM

Ooo! I'm here!!! Now I gotta go read up on what I missed!

EDIT: Sorry to hear about the issues with the room.

That doesn't make for a great start for any trip! Glad they did fix it in the end, but I still wish they had sprinkled some pixie dust your way to make up for their mistakes.

Totally loving the photos! Go crazy! I'm game for more pics!

jm106 · 05-31-2011, 09:44 PM

I am enjoying hearing about your vacation. Sorry about the room issues and the bag breaking. Ill be around to read more about all of the fun!

KatMark · 05-31-2011, 09:49 PM

Sorry I'm behind on updates (computer issues and trying to update my PTR with changes made).

We ate at WCC for dinner and absolutely hated it, but your breakfast looks really good (my DH would really like that french toast).

Glad you liked TOT -- it is my all time favorite!

We had Donald Duck in our animation class last year as well.

Love the pictures of Katie and the Eveil Stemother and sisters -- very nice.

Moira222 · 05-31-2011, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KatMark

Sorry I'm behind on updates (computer issues and trying to update my PTR with changes made).

We ate at WCC for dinner and absolutely hated it, but your breakfast looks really good (my DH would really like that french toast).

Glad you liked TOT -- it is my all time favorite!

We had Donald Duck in our animation class last year as well.

Love the pictures of Katie and the Eveil Stemother and sisters -- very nice.

We were not impressed with WCC for dinner either but breakfast was good. that french toast was awesome.

hard to find time to read and update and then do things like, Oh I don't know, work, cook dinner, get to bed at a decent hour...

Moira222 · 05-31-2011, 10:22 PM

(Note: some of these photos I borrowed from the internet as in our morning rush I didn’t think to take photos. hmm this trip reporting really take a lot of thought!)
Sunday morning was definitely an alarm day – we were going to our favorite character meal – Breakfast with the Princesses at Akershus Hall!

We get dressed and ready for a full day at Epcot – yes, we are a little crazy planning a full day no breaks! We headed out for the bus and waited. and waited. and waited. ( are we seeing a theme here?)

After about 40 minutes (there goes my plan for a leisurely walk to Norway to take in all the Flower & Garden scenes unhurried) we as a group (and there are a lot of us now) ask the driver of the fourth DHS bus that came through what the deal is?

Apparently some marathon or something (Iron man perhaps???) has traffic all messed up. GRRR. Joe Katie and I high tail it to the docks along with one or two other families where happily a blue ferry is waiting that is going right to the Contemporary

Three minutes later we arrive at the Contemporary, hop the monorail to the TTC, then change over to the Epcot monorail. So now its 9 am and we are pulling into Epcot. drat. we have a 9:15 reservation so now we have to hustle.

Of course Katie wants to stop and trade pins with someone. Joe won’t stop

– when the man has a destination and an appointment in mind, don’t mess around! So no dawdling. no photos, no getting KimPossible or Soarin! FastPasses, we power walk through to Norway.

We check in pretty much at 9:15 and by the time Katie and I finish washing our hands Joe is already in line for her to see Belle and not so nicely tells me that he’s already let 4 families ahead of him. sheesh. what’s the big deal?

Its our turn and Katie gets her hug and photo with Belle. Such a big difference from our past photos - instead of a princess dress, Katie has chosen to wear a Nightmare before Christmas tank top and Mickey Mouse antennae. So funny!

We are seated right next to the buffet and promptly dig in.
Katie came back with some fruit and a lot of pastries (big surprise), Joe came back with yogurt, fruit, and some cheese. This is my favorite buffet actually and I had yogurt with almonds and granola in it, lots of cheese (I LOVE cheese and had to cut way back on it once I realized all the fat and calories. Luckily all food is “free” at DisneyWorld, right?) and fresh fruit. I think I passed on the sweet breads. Our server was very sweet – Joe and Katie wanted cranberry juice, but our server thought it was a bit strong so she mixed theirs probably with a bit of sprite, and the two of them loved it. I had OJ & and Joe and I both had coffee. leaded. a must!

Before long our hot breakfast was also served: scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and cheesy breakfast potatoes. MMMMM I LOVE the cheesy potatoes here. I mostly ate potatoes and sausage (another food I indulged in after almost a year of skipping it) and a bit of scrambled eggs. I went back to the cold buffet for more yogurt and cheese, too. It was bad to be so close to the buffet because Katie kept popping over for cinnamon rolls for herself and Joe. ;-) he enjoyed himself too with all the “free” foods!

The princesses parade around the restaurants now (I don’t remember this from past visits) and when they announced the parade, Katie looked hesitant.

All of the little girls around us were all dressed in fancy princess clothes – Katie wasn’t sure at this point if she was a “big girl” or a “little girl” but with a little enjoyment she happily joined in the Princess Parade. Twice actually as they did it again when we were enjoying our last cup of coffee.

I love seeing the princesses here, and this time we even got to see Cinderella, whom we’ve never seen at Akershus (this is our must do every trip). This trip we saw Belle (of course!), Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. I missed seeing Jasmine and Mulan, but I guess Disney has to “mix it up” and change the line up, right?

Breakfast finished and bellies full, we headed back toward Future World - World Showcase didn’t open for another hour and half of so. We stopped to get a Kim Possible mission but it didn’t start till 11:15 and we never got back there to start it. drat one more trip where we have not achieved spydom!

I did manage to bring the pace down a bit and take a few photos as we wandered down.

and some time for cooling off for Katie

and a few flower and garden pictures (can you tell that I just snap pictures as I am walking? its the only way I can keep up with Joe!

continued next post

pinkxray · 05-31-2011, 10:40 PM

All caught up.

The ironman competition that took place that Sunday morning is a 1.2 mile swim in Bay lake, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.2 mile run. Why do I know this? DH made me googe it and find out. He is convinced he will do it one day

I don't know how someone can make it through that, but hey if he wants to do it I get to go to Disney again. I think he just wants to do it b/c I told him you aren't allowed to swim in the lakes and he wants to prove me wrong.

Sorry about the room situation in the beginning. How nice of them to upgrade you to a courtyard view. Oh wait, you paid for a courtyard view.

I loved the food at Akershus. I didn't realize it would to so long to get to Norway from the International gateway and didn't get to enjoy the nice stroll through an empty WS.

Caitlin was sad she didn't get to meet Katie. We only spent 3 nights at WL and since it was a bit chilly we didn't get much pool time in. There was one night we were in the pool and a little girl came up to us just as Caitlin left to go on the slide and asked if she could play with Caitlin. DH told her Caitlin had just left for the slide but she could when she was done but I guess she did want to wait. Don't think that was Katie but I would feel pretty awful if we missed the chance to meet you. I did keep an eye out since I thought I would recognize Katie if I saw her. We saw the little girl later and she did find a few other kids to play with.

WCC look pretty good for breakfast. It's so cute that Katie still wanted to do the pony races and the princess parade. It funny how Disney brings back the little girls in them. Caitlin never joins the parades at character meals. I think she is just too shy though.

Moira222 · 05-31-2011, 10:49 PM

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