The Princess and the Knave take on the World! Complete with pics!

[GoofyBaby]

My best friend and I spent a wonderful two weeks in The World last month and while I've never written an official trip before, I do hope you will enjoy this one!

UPDATED: I added links so you can now search by each trip day if you want!

Day 1 – Monday, May 14 – Checking Into the Pop Century Resort!

Day 2 – Tuesday, May 15 – Magic Kingdom

Day 3 – Wednesday, May 16 – Magic Kingdom

Day 4 – Thursday, May 17 – Epcot

Day 5 – Friday, May 18 – Animal Kingdom

Day 6 – Saturday, May 19 – Downtown Disney

Day 7 – Sunday, May 20 – MGM

Day 8 – Monday, May 21 – Epcot

Day 9 - Tuesday, May 22 - Checking Into the Polynesian Resort & Rest Day

Day 10 - Wednesday, May 23 - Magic Kingdom

Day 11 - Thursday, May 24 - MGM

Day 12 - Friday, May 25 - Epcot

Day 13 - Saturday, May 26 - Epcot

Day 14 - Sunday, May 27 - Animal Kingdom

Day 15 - Monday, May 28 - Magic Kingdom


Here's the cast:


The Princess (me, Carol) - 34 years old, just graduated from college with my Liberal Arts degree, future elementary school music teacher. Ready to take on the entire World for the first time! While I've been to the Magic Kingdom several times previously, I have never seen Epcot, MGM, Animal Kingdom or any of the resorts. Packing several tiaras (a princes has to have her options), I am ready to go!


The Knave (my best friend, James) - 43 year-old Italian, high-ranking employee of a major refrigerator-manufacturing company, all around great guy. He knows he's gonna have to keep up with me wanting to squeeze in as much activity as possible into this trip! And he does it with complete patience. What a great best friend!

Okay, here we go!

Day 1 - Monday, May 14, 2007

Ugh, I am NOT a morning person, but wanting to spend as much time in the World as possible, I scheduled us on the first flight out of DFW International Airport. That meant we had to get up at 4:30 in the morning. Being the procrastinator that I am, I had not even finished packing the night before and hadn't even got into bed until 1:00 a.m.! So I am working on 3 hours of sleep, trying to cram the rest of my clothes into an already too-full suitcase when, DING-DONG! It's James at the doorbell, all chipper and ready to go. I could slug him! I don't know ANYONE else who is as chipper as he is at 4:30 a.m.! Nonetheless, he helps me finish packing and we are on our way. Thank goodness, we were ready for TSA and made it through security without any delays and made it to our gate! Being that we just purchased a new Canon S3 IS camera (which I just love), I decided to snap a few pics while we're waiting to board. . .

First thing I did after security was head straight to Starbucks! I needed my fix! I am still very groggy from lack of sleep, but very excited! We're going to Disney World! Woo-hoo!


Goofing around with the camera, waiting for our plane. . .Oh, I forgot to mention, today was James' 43rd birthday! He is enjoying the iPod Nano me and my family bought him as a gift. . .


Here it is! De plane, de plane! Yep, that shadow is me!


Yes! We finally boarded and we're on our way!


I was so tired I crashed on the plane and woke up about the time we were descending into Orlando and I could feel the excitement building! We're almost there! All of the sudden I lost about 25 years and I was a 10 year old little girl all over again. We're about to spend the next two weeks in the World! Once we arrived at MCO, we were greeted by Bob with ****** Transportation, who picked us up in a VERY nice black GMC SUV. I HIGHLY recommend ****** Transportation and will never use anyone else. He waited for us at the bottom of the escalator with our name sign and was very pleasant to talk to the whole trip! He allowed us a grocery stop at Publix and dropped us off at Pop Century - our very first time staying at a Disney Resort! We said our goodbyes to Bob and went straight for the street chalk Pop has for you to decorate the walkway leading to the lobby. . .here is my creation!


It says, "We're here!" For those of you wandering what the smiley face and paw print are for, I love smiley faces and James loves dogs, so there you go!

More to come for Day 1, so stay tuned!

[rentayenta]

Yay I'm the first! Can't wait to read more.

[tinkerbell87512]

Carol what a great first instalment! I'm so excited to read all about your trip. I can't believe you took over 4000 pictures thats awesome! Can't wait to read more!!

[soxnation]

2 weeks!! can not wait to hear what 2 weeks brings in the world!!!

[jnjusoioa]

Signing in to read my very dear friends trip report!!! YAY!!!

[Avivasmom]

I'm in....love trip reports with pics.

Congrats on graduatiing!

[Tinkerbell's Mom]

Yay getting in on the first leg of the trip report, can't wait, 2 weeks, you are so lucky!!!!

[bentleygirl22]

can't wait to read more

[GoofyBaby]

Awwww, I have readers! Hey Jen, my sweet, wonderful friend! I finally got it started! I have to tell you all, it was the most wonderful two weeks I've ever had. But it went by so fast, it only felt like we were there 2 days! I don't think any amount of time at Disney is ever enough because you're having so much fun that the time just flies. . .

With that said, let's continue!

Day 1 - Monday, May 14 (continued)

After leaving our mark in chalk, we went into the lobby to check in. It was around noon and we were pleasantly surprised to find no line! We went right up to the desk and were happy to find out that all three of our room requests (which we had faxed in 5 days earlier), would all be honored! We were placed in the 50's section (Tramp building), facing the lake, on the top floor, in room 3417. Of course, I had to immediately jump on the bed when we walked in, when to my surprise, I find a cute little towel animal! Not sure what he is supposed to be (maybe a dog?), but he is a cutie anyway!



Here's a closeup. . .


Tired as I was, I was not about to waste any time sleeping. . .we were finally in Disney, after all! I went to work decorating our window and door and I was pretty pleased with the results. I had made a couple of sign-in sheets for people to sign as they passed by and it worked very well! We wound up with over 15 signatures before we left the Pop! Here is a picture of our decorated window and door. . .I had gotten the Mickey Heads from Home Depot and I made the two big lime green Mickey Heads myself from posterboard.

The window!




And, the door! I am also modeling my lovely lime green baggallini that my very dear friend Jen so graciously gave to me (thank you so much Jen! ). I am looking forward to hitting the parks!



And, here are a couple of pictures of the view from our room. It was very nice and peaceful, just what we wanted! We never had a problem with noisy neighbors, loud toilets (except the one in our own room), or kids running the corridors late at night. Yay! Also, since I have a thyroid condition, I get very hot at night. . .the Pop's thermostat doesn't go below 68 degrees and that wasn't cold enough for me, so we went to the front desk to ask them to lower it to 62, which they did within an hours time. They were so wonderful to do that for us!

Looking straight out. . .


And looking to the left. . .



Since we purchased Annual Passes but hadn't activated them yet, our first stop in the World was Downtown Disney. Of course, I headed straight for the World of Disney Store, where I went straight for the pins. I am really into pin trading and pin buying! After restraining myself from buying the whole wall of pins, we made our way over to guest relations, where we activated our Annual Passes and James was given a birthday button. We had a great lunch at Earl of Sandwich and then we were off to see more of Downtown Disney. We were walking around when all of the sudden, we stumble across a Christmas setup with my favorite character, Goofy! For those of you who don't know, I am very silly and I love taking silly pictures, so here's the first of those!



By this time, my body was really starting to give out from lack of sleep, so even though I didn't want to "waste time sleeping," James talked me into catching a bus back to the Pop for a couple hours rest before dinner. On the way to our room, I managed to snap a few photos of the grounds. . .





A few hours later, we took what was our only trip off-site to eat at Ming Court on I-Drive. We had eaten here last year while James was on a business trip and we loved it so much we wanted to come back. I highly recommend it if you love both Chinese and Japanese food. It has a very upscale feel, but you can dress casually. The staff treats you like royalty and they offer live music on the zheng, which is an ancient Chinese instrument and its music is just peaceful and relaxing, perfect for dinner! They also have beautiful waterfalls flowing into lovely koi ponds that really just add to the peaceful atmosphere. If you're looking for a beautiful, peaceful place to dine, Ming Court is it!



By this time, we were ready to get back to the Pop for a good night's rest. . .after all, we had a long day at the Magic Kingdom planned for tomorrow, starting with a lovely breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table! Ooooh, I am just so excited - I am going to be dining with the princesses! Woo-hoo!

That concludes Day 1! I hope you have enjoyed reading it! Stay tuned for Day 2 at the Magic Kingdom!

[srandsr76]

Subscribing!!

Cannot wait to read more!

[rentayenta]

I love the hotel pics.

What's all this about decorating the window and door? It looks really cute and what a neat way to identify other DISers!

[GoofyBaby]

Originally Posted by rentayenta

I love the hotel pics.

What's all this about decorating the window and door? It looks really cute and what a neat way to identify other DISers!

Glad you love the photos! I learned about window & door decorating right here on the DIS boards! And you got it right - it is just a way for DISers to identify each other. If you do a thread search for 'window decorating' several threads should come up. . .I know at the Pop Century, there used to be a couple of boxes of decorating materials that was passed from DISer to DISer and it lasted about a year, but they somehow got lost. I just made my own decorations and really enjoyed coming back to the room at night to see that people had signed my posterboard!

[GoofyBaby]

Originally Posted by Avivasmom

I'm in....love trip reports with pics.

Congrats on graduatiing!

Awww, thank you so much! It was a long time in the making.

[rentayenta]

Originally Posted by GoofyBaby

Glad you love the photos! I learned about window & door decorating right here on the DIS boards! And you got it right - it is just a way for DISers to identify each other. If you do a thread search for 'window decorating' several threads should come up. . .I know at the Pop Century, there used to be a couple of boxes of decorating materials that was passed from DISer to DISer and it lasted about a year, but they somehow got lost. I just made my own decorations and really enjoyed coming back to the room at night to see that people had signed my posterboard!

It's really a neat idea and very clever. Do all DISers decorate or just ones staying at the POP? I might put a little green Mickey head in the corner of my window. Any more than that and DH will never let me live it down.

[Goofyluver]

I'm in!!! I'm in!!! We did our window too!!! It was soooo fun! I wish we would have had a sign in sheet!