"A Fresh Start" WDW Vacation with a Newbie and the Boyfriend!- Nov TR COMPLETE 2/16!

[rachel09985]

Hello old friends and new friends!!

I just returned from a WDW Trip from Walt Disney World on Tuesday. Our dates were Oct 31st through Nov 6th. We stayed at Art of Animation with the Disney Regular Dining Plan!

My name is Rachel and I am 27 years old. Corey and I live together in Eden Prairie, MN with a 4 year old Cockapoo named Lola. We love her! I work in the CPG Industry, which is really fun!

The cast of characters is my boyfriend of 10 years, Corey(27)! Yikes, 10 years is a lot. A ring better be coming soon We have been dating since high school! Luckily, Corey loves Disney World just as much as I do!


The other character is my best friend Emily(26). We have known each other since Kindergarten. We graduated from Ohio State together and lived together all throughout college. She still lives in Toledo, Ohio as a manager of a grocery store. She has never been on a genuine WDW Vacation. She went to MK for one day when she was a sophomore in High School, but I don't count that because she didn't even do a lot there.

This is us with our good friend Karyn, who just got married in July.


You may ask why is this the trip of Fresh Starts???

Wellll...2 Weeks before we were to leave I found out I was offered a job at Pepsi as a Category Analyst, working on the brand Tropicana!! I then put in my two weeks at my current job and my last day was the day before we left!

It was so exciting to not have to worry about a job on my vacation. Actually, I don't start my job until Monday. So it is great to have three days off after our trip. Because after all, every WDW vacation needs to end in another vacation! Haha!

This is my first trip report EVER. I have done dining reports. So please bare with me. This is going to be a learning experience. I might not have taken good notes and I might not have pics for everything.

So thanks for reading along and hopefully it will be interesting!

[rachel09985]

Reserved for Chapter Links.

Wednesday October 31st
Chapter 1 MSP to MCO
Chapter 2 MCO to AoA with First Thoughts
Thursday November 1st
Chapter 1 Boma Breakfast
Chapter 2 First Safari of the Day
Chapter 3 The Beautiful DeVine
Chapter 4 Second Safari of the Day
Chapter 5 Closing down AK
Chapter 6 Sushi Rolls and DTD Fun
Chapter 7 Treats and 4th Meals

Friday November 2nd
Chapter 1 Friends in Tower of Terror
Chapter 2 Where is Perry Anyway?
Chapter 3 Walt, Betty, Rachel, and Emily
Chapter 4 I'm Gonna Wreck It!
Chapter 5 One Man's Dream
Chapter 6 Getting Gypped out of Indiana Jones
Chapter 7 Killing Time Before Dinner
Chapter 8 'Ohana Dinner

Saturday November 3rd
Chapter 1 Walking Down Main Street for CRT
Chapter 2 Cinderella's Royal Table Breakfast
Chapter 3 Beginning of the Storm (AKA MK!)
Chapter 4 Foot Pain, Crowds, and Heat
Chapter 5 Heading to Dinner
Chapter 6 The Wave and MK Nights

Sunday November 4th
Chapter 1 Late Start at Epcot
Chapter 2 Le Cellier Lunch
Chapter 3 France and Photopass Goofs
Chapter 4 Drinking Margs before Mission Space= No Bueno
Chapter 5 Seminar for the Drunks
Chapter 6 Via Napoli and Illuminations

Monday November 5th
Chapter 1 Another Day in Paradise AKA Epcot
Chapter 2 Walkin', Eatin', and Drinkin'
Chapter 3 One Last Walk Around the World
Chapter 4 AoA Cars Tour
Chapter 5 AoA Finding Nemo Tour
Chapter 6 Cape May Dinner

Tuesday November 6th
Chapter 1 Last Morning at Disney World
Chapter 2 Where is Everybody??
Chapter 3 Being Goofy on Splash!
Chapter 4 More Storybook Circus
Chapter 5 More Frozen Treats
Chapter 6 Photography Fun
Chapter 7 Dream Along with Mickey Post 1
Chapter 8 Dream Along with Mickey Post 2
Chapter 9 Our Last Lunch at Magic Kingdom
Chapter 10 See Ya Real Soon!

Random
Chicago for Work Part 1
Chicago for Work Part 2
Christmas Pictures

[MEK]

Congratulations on your new job and I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip. Sounds like you had a blast. Writing about WDW is always a great way to relive a fun trip. Nice introduction.

[xkaittloveex]

Joining in!

[rachel09985]

Let's get this show on the road!

Our flight out of Minneapolis left at 7:10pm. We were flying Delta and it was a straight shot to Orlando landing at 11:22pm.

We left our apartment at about 3:50pm. Even though it only takes about 20 min to get to the airport with traffic we knew it would take about an hour. A friend from work took us to the airport. We like to get to the airport early because we like to relax once we get there. Also, I have a lot of anxiety when I travel so I need lots of time to relax!

We got to the airport about 5:30pm and checked in. It was a breeze. We got through security in 10 minutes. There was no one in line! It was kind of funny flying on Halloween because a lot of people were dressed up. Also, it was dead!

Corey and I decided to get the infamous Chick-Fil-A. This is the only Chick-Fil-A in the area so we knew we had to eat here!



We also got black raspberry chocolate chip gelato! YUMMY!


Before we got to our gate we decided on some reading material. I got the People magazine with Justin and Jessica's wedding on it and Corey got the NY Time magazine which had a huge section of the Sandy devastation.

I hated Jessica Biel's dress!! It was basically a tie dyed pink dress. It wasn't wedding-ish at all! Anyone agree?




I absolutely love non stop flights to Orlando because half of the plane is going to Disney World! I love people watching and hearing them talk about Disney World and how excited the kids are! I love kids but obviously don't have any yet. The excitement on kids faces is one of my favorite things about Disney!

Flying on Halloween was exceptionally funny because a lot of the children(and adults) were dressed up. We had an adult dress up as a baby in footed pajamas; how comfy would that be on the plane!??

Here is our wonderful view.


I couldn't wait to get out of the dreary cold weather into the bright and warm Florida air!

On our flight we sat next to a guy about our age in chiropractor school. He was nice but was LITERALLY on his phone texting the entire time. Isn't that not allowed?? It was kind of weird. You don't want to mess with flying rules.

We also had a mother in front of us changing her poopy baby on the seat. All of a sudden I asked Corey, "Do you smell poop!!!?" It was horrible. The guy next to me told us the woman in front of us was changing the baby's diaper and it was all over. Appetizing...

We had really nice TVs in front of everyone's seat. Corey and I had plans to watch a Disney movie on the ipad but he ended up watching Live TV. I ended up listening to music and playing games on the iPad!

Before we knew it we were in Orlando!! I was soo excited to finally get on Magical Express.
[

Oh yes, I guess I should mention, Emily was meeting us the next morning. Her flight landed at 11:30am so Corey and I were going to have a few hours by ourselves.

[rachel09985]

Originally Posted by MEK

Congratulations on your new job and I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip. Sounds like you had a blast. Writing about WDW is always a great way to relive a fun trip. Nice introduction.

Thanks! I have always enjoyed your trip reports!!

Originally Posted by xkaittloveex

Joining in!

Glad to have you!

[MEK]

It never occurred to me that people would actually dress up and come to the airport in costume. I'm not sure if I could get on a plane full of people dressed up like a baby.

Speaking of babies - yuck to the poop diaper, but I guess she couldn't really change the baby in that bathroom. I never flew my kids when they were so little, so that never even occurred to me.

I usually fly SWA so no TVs. I would love to have one on one of these trips!

Yeah for arrival!

[rachel09985]

Originally Posted by MEK

It never occurred to me that people would actually dress up and come to the airport in costume. I'm not sure if I could get on a plane full of people dressed up like a baby.

Speaking of babies - yuck to the poop diaper, but I guess she couldn't really change the baby in that bathroom. I never flew my kids when they were so little, so that never even occurred to me.

I usually fly SWA so no TVs. I would love to have one on one of these trips!

Yeah for arrival!

Yeah, definitely couldn't change the baby in the bathroom! That would be a little difficult! Lol! It was right when we got on and the plane was sitting at the gate. You would think she would change him/her before but it must have been an accident. It was kind of funny yet stinky!

[wishing4PA]

I'm liking the report so far!
But where's a picture of Lola? I realize she didn't get to go along on this trip - or at least I assume so - but I still want to see her. With a name like that, she's got to be adorable!

[wigeboo]

can't wait to read more

[rachel09985]

Originally Posted by wishing4PA

I'm liking the report so far!
But where's a picture of Lola? I realize she didn't get to go along on this trip - or at least I assume so - but I still want to see her. With a name like that, she's got to be adorable!

Haha, she is adorable! I included her in my PTR but forgot to put her picture in this one.

Here is a collage of her too.

Originally Posted by wigeboo

can't wait to read more

Thanks so much for reading from Wales!

[FancyNancy]

I completely agree with you on Jessica's dress. She looked like she was going to prom or debutante or something like that. Not very weddingy!

Looking forward to reading more!

[marDgreen88]

Hi! I'm joining in, first trip reports are always fun. Can't wait to hear about it!

[rachel09985]

We landed about 20 minutes earlier than what we were supposed to.

Because we were arriving after 10pm we had to get our own luggage. It didn't take too long to get that and then we headed to Magical Express. We were led right on the bus, even though the bus was pretty packed!


Luckily, Art of Animation was the first stop. I think we got in around 12am. We checked in right away with no problems. I was secretly hoping we would get upgraded to a suite but no such luck. Our first night was a room only and then the package started the next night. I requested a top floor, non connecting room in building 9. We got all requests except for Building 9. We were put in Building 8 and our room was literally the FURTHEST room from the main building. It took about 8-10 minutes to walk there and I was surprised at the distance. I think it is further than the furthest room at Pop.

First impressions of lobby, Beautiful!!! The pictures do not do it justice. It was so bright and classy (unlike other values). It was very pretty and the colors were great. It was modern in a minimalistic way. I liked the separated desks!

We finally got to our room (#8837) and it was HOT in there!! I turned the air down but it never did get really cool. You can't turn the thermostat past 68 and even that didn't feel like 68.

Don't mind my weird looking photos. I was still getting used to my camera.

First Mickey head towel ever








Don't mind my goofy face..


I loved all of the curtains in the room.


First thoughts of the room.
Comforters are awful! They are new so still really stiff. They were unusable.
Beds are not too uncomfortable just noisy when you move.
Bring a pillow if you can. Value pillows suck. Luckily I brought my pillow so I slept good.
Bathroom is pretty dark. The tiles that depict a scene from LM are very dark.
Nice bright cute room. I don't see myself staying at Pop Century again if I can get a similar discount at AoA.
I really liked the new safes with no key, just type in your code and lock it.
The fridge was nice although we didn't even use it.
Drawer space is very small. Luckily, I live out of my suitcase

We went right to bed because we had to be up at 6:30!

Next up: Breakfast at Boma

[tinawv]

Looking forward to reading more about your trip. My husband and I had reservations at AOA Little Mermaid Room in January, but I changed it to the CS when I saw how far it was from the foodcourt. I don't mind a little walk, but didn't want to hear my husband complain the whole time we were there.