2 Disneymoons (Oct. and Dec. 2007) and 1 Anniversary Trip (Sept. 2008)--Updated 2/20

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So, I guess after this we had decided to go and find a place to sit for the parade. I think it was WAY before the parade was supposed to start, but after the fiasco from MVMCP, we wanted to find a spot while we could, and hopefully a good one in the shade. So yeah, we walk up towards the front of the park and no one had bothered to start finding a spot yet. But we decided to sit anyway, well, not after talking to a Photopass photographer and getting a few more pictures:

While we were sitting, we started messing around with the camera, and I was finding new settings on it that I didn’t know I had, like a self portrait setting. So we were trying that out, when a security guard asked if we wanted him to take a picture for us. We told him that we were just messing around with the camera, but what the heck, why not. So he called out to the other security guard he was with to go stand out in the street so he could take a picture. Turns out the guys name was Roy, so I told him, funny that was my husband’s name too.

So we took a picture with Roy, the security guard:

Then I kicked Roy out cuz I needed a picture with just Roy….but it was my Roy that I kicked out and got a picture with my new friend Roy:

Then I finally decided to take a picture with my Roy too:

Soon after that, people started trying to find spots for the parade. I think its because they saw us sitting and thought they better sit too. It was pretty funny. The Streetsmosphere group came out, and we started getting attention because of my ears and our Just Married pins.

This guy:

decided that we would be perfectly cast in his next romantic comedy love story movie. Then someone else had come by and commented that we needed one of those Hollywood nicknames, like all the hot couples, so he asked us our names. When we told him we couldn’t decide between Toy and Rish. Our director came back up and gave his opinion, and then we were finally pronounced “Rish, the new Hollywood It Couple”.

Anyway, the parade started, and I knew that this was going to be our last time seeing all these cars because they were getting rid of the Stars and Motor Cars parade, so it was nice to see them one last time, and it was nice to see everything done up for Christmas!

I was excited to see Giselle from Enchanted come out first:

Hi Pluto!

Woody and Buzz:

Mary Poppins….she said congratulations to us, I loved it!

Sweetums:

Roy’s favorite…Kermit the Frog:

My favorite monsters—Mike and Sulley:

Jasmine and Aladdin:

The Queen of Hearts says No Ho Ho:

Holidays gives Hades Heartburn:

Cute Dopey:

 

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After the parade finished, we needed to start making our way over to the restaurant for dinner:

We checked in and only had a to wait a few minutes to be seated. Since we were doing the Fantasmic Dining package, we had our choices of appetizer, main course and dessert. I wish I could remember what Roy had, I think he did a Caesar salad for an appetizer, but I have no clue what else. I did the bread tray thing for my appetizer, had pork marsala for my main course and chocolate gelato for dessert. Honestly, we were not impressed at all with our meals. The service was good, but the food was just not that good at all. But at least we tried it once.

After we got our stuff for the entrance to Fantasmic, we decided to head that direction, and maybe look into some stores on our way. After walking around for a bit, we made it back to the theater and found seats for Fantasmic.

Here’s my major vent about doing the Fantasmic dining package. I know that at some point that the seats in that section are opened up for overflow to the other seating, that’s not a problem. However if they are going to do that, they need to make sure they have someone watching the roped section and making sure that no one is hopping over that rope to sit in the reserved section before it is opened up. I don’t know how many people we saw jumping over, and I know they weren’t joining family already there, they saw open seats and decided to sit there, climbing over the rope. It was so frustrating to me, made me wonder why we paid all that money out for dinner (and one that we didn’t really enjoy at that) to make sure we could see Fantasmic if all we really had to do was show up and jump over the rope. So frustrating. We had someone try to jump into our row and wanted to sit next to us. We wouldn’t let them past us since they were obviously not part of having the dining package. It was just really irritating. Like I said, I know they open up the section eventually, but they needed to make sure that it was only Fantasmic dining package people until then.

Anyway, loved Fantasmic, got it on video, the pictures were not turning out at all. This was the only picture that we got from the show:

After we left there, we had to head over to see the Osborne lights…that was one of the things I was most looking forward to seeing. I love Christmas lights!

We got over there and it was packed! We got in a line so we could get some Photopass pictures done, I figured those would be the best pictures we would get of the lights:

Then we wandered around, just looking at all the pretty lights….I loved it, even if it was packed!

We walked around for a bit, looking at the lights, watching them dance, and then decided it was time to leave. We headed towards the front of the park, which seemed almost empty now. I guess everyone was over at the lights!

We stopped to get some last Photopass pictures on our way out:

Took the tram to our car and headed back to our timeshare for the evening. I tried talking Roy into heading over to Epcot to see Illuminations since we would have had time to make it there, but he declined. I think he was just ready to go back and rest.

We discussed what we might do on Friday, which was our last full day down in Florida. Since I had planned so much of the trip, I told him that he could pick what he wanted us to do that day. I had wanted to go to Animal Kingdom, so I gave him that option. I told him we could go and do Magic Kingdom for the day. I also suggested going over to City Walk and having lunch at Hard Rock Café. He said he would think about it and let me know in the morning.

 

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Friday, December 14, 2007---

In the morning, Roy decided he was over the crowds at the Disney parks and just was not in the mood to do a theme park at all that day. So we decided to go to City Walk at Universal and have lunch at the Hard Rock Café. That’s one of our favorite places to eat at when we go to Orlando.

We took our time getting ready in the morning and eventually headed over to City Walk. We went through some of the stores and such, just looking around.

Headed towards the Hard Rock Café and took some pictures:

Went to have lunch and after we ate, we wandered around the Hard Rock, looking at some of the memorabilia there. We love looking around. When we left there, we walked around City Walk, did some shopping on our way out.

We had to check in at the 24 hour mark for our Southwest flight home. I had my sister that was going to check us in, but I called and told her that we’d be able to do it. So when we left City Walk, we headed back to the timeshare really quickly to check ourselves in. Once that was done, we decided to hit the outlet mall by our timeshare one last time, and then went to the Target to do some more last minute shopping. I’m not sure what we did in the evening, what we had for dinner. It was a pretty low key evening, we started packing our stuff to head home the next day.

 

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Saturday, December 15, 2007

Our checkout time was 10 am. We got up and started getting ready to go. I guess they had let the people who had the whole unit check in and they were in the lock out part of what we had for the week, and they were itching for us to get out. We had the cleaning people knock on our door and try to usher us out earlier. We reminded them that we had until 10 am to get out, and we did not leave one minute earlier. We actually had to move their cleaning supplies out of our way to get out, since they had it blocking our door. So rude!

Our flight didn’t leave until around 3 that afternoon, so we had some time to kill before we had to get the car back and check in. Plus we had prepaid for gas, so we decided to just drive around. We ended up driving past the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum and Roy decided he wanted to go check it out, so we went and did that. Nothing too exciting, but it killed time, so that was the main point. After we left there, we drove some more until we saw the gas was getting really low, so we pointed the car towards the airport and off we went.

Returning the rental car was a breeze, got our bags checked at Southwest with no problems. Went and walked around for a bit, looking in the shops, then went through security. Went to get lunch at McDonald’s, then headed to our gate to get ready to fly home.

I was pretty sad that our honeymoon was over, but I was glad that night to be home and in our own bed!

Our flight got home with no issues, and ended up getting in a bit early. My SIL was supposed to come get us and had some issues getting there, so she was a bit late picking us up. At least it gave us time to get our luggage and all of that. She dropped us back at our house, and we pretty much threw our bags in the house, grabbed the laptop with all the pictures on it and then headed over to Roy’s aunt’s house for a birthday party for Roy’s brother, his cousin and the SIL that picked us up at the airport. Nothing like coming home from vacation and being thrown back into reality! But it was fun, and we got to share all our vacation stories with the family, so that was even better!

Overall, it was a good trip, there were some frustrations, like it was more crowded than we thought it would be, the fiasco that was our evening at MVMCP, the frustrations at Fantasmic, the issues we had at the timeshare. I don’t even know why there were the problems with the timeshare. We stay there every year and we have never had the problems like we did with that trip. We’ve been there since that trip too, and no issues. I guess we caught them at an off week.

With the concerns we had at the MVMCP and Fantasmic, I had written an email to Disney, just to let them know we were not satisfied with those portions of our trip. I wasn’t trying to be a pain in the butt or anything, just wanted my voice to be heard even if they didn’t respond, I didn’t care. I just wanted them to know those few things that I found unacceptable about our trip. I was shocked when I got an email back, telling me how sorry they were that my trip was not as great as I had wanted it to be and could I send them copies of my tickets for investigation. I did that, and about a week later, I had a missed call, listened to the voice mail and it was the girl from Disney I had heard from, apologizing again for the issues we had and they were sending us one day/one park tickets to hopefully make it up to us. Awesome! I was so not expecting anything, and that certainly was not my intent to write them with the expectation of them sending me something for free. So that just showed me that Disney really does listen to their guests and cares!

Anyway, originally Roy and I said we would never go back at Christmas again. But with a little time, and the fact that I have an awesome new dSLR camera that takes amazing pictures, I keep saying that maybe we should try it again, maybe just pick a different week to go or something. So who knows, we may go again in early December.



Our latest trip was in September of this year, and I am going to add that on to this trip report. The trip was just before our first anniversary and so that was our anniversary trip. We stayed in the same timeshare, and with us on this trip was Roy’s mom and stepdad, as well as Roy’s 16 year old daughter Brittany.

So I’ll start on that one as soon as I get myself organized on Photobucket with the pictures!

 

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Hey there neighbor from Va Beach. I have been keeping up with your TR...love the pictures.

 

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Hey there neighbor from Va Beach. I have been keeping up with your TR...love the pictures.

Hey neighbor! Thanks for keeping up with my TR and posting! I really appreciate it!! I'm glad you love the pictures!!

 

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So I decided to go with a new way of doing my TR. I have spent my spare time typing it up in Word so that way all I have to do is post it!

So here's the September 2008 part of my TR!

So a little background on the next portion of my trip report…

Since my MIL has the timeshare down in Kissimmee, we always stay there, and this year it was time for another September trip. We so much more enjoy the September trips since they aren’t quite as busy as when we go in October, or during our previous trip in December. My MIL has also agreed to give my DH and me her timeshare, all we have to pay is the yearly fees and taxes for it and we’ll have to pay to get it switched over to our names. But yay, we’ve got our own place to stay at and can plan yearly trips to Florida and see Disney once a year!

Also, last May, my wonderful husband decided to buy me DSLR camera. I had a film one and had been itching to get a digital one forever now. He had actually bought me a tiny little point and shoot camera for my birthday last March and I was happy for that. The main purpose of getting that camera he said was for when we have a baby, I can have a camera with me wherever I go. Then I really wanted a DSLR and we saw one on sale at Circuit City. We had gone up there to look for something completely different and I was checking out the cameras and fell in love with the Sony Alpha, and next thing I knew, he was buying it (along with the extra lens) and said it was my Mother’s Day gift from him and his kids. Nice! I couldn’t wait for our trip now so I could play with it, but first I had to learn how to use it. Still haven’t figured out how to use it to its fullest potential, I guess I’ll get there one day!

Anyway, the first decision we had to make for our trip to Florida was how we were going to get there. Well that decision got made for us when I got an email from Southwest saying I had earned enough Rapid Rewards credits and had a free ticket in my account. Score! We had been toying with the idea of flying before that, but now we were sure that’s what we were going to do! So I patiently waited for tickets to go on sale for the time we were going, and got our tickets right away. When we told my MIL and FIL about our plane tickets, they started thinking they wanted to fly too, so I became the family travel agent and booked for them too.

We needed a hotel for one night too, since our timeshare is Sunday to Sunday, and we were flying down on Saturday. So I did some searching around and found rooms at the Best Western Kissimmee Inn on 192, just down the street from our timeshare. They were $56 a night with taxes….for one night sounded good to me. I was worried about how the hotel would be inside, we have driven past it a bunch of times on our trips and it looked fine from the outside, but then like I said, for one night, I’m sure we could handle it.

Then there was the great search for a rental car. I had originally reserved with Dollar, but was hoping for a good deal with Budget. We had rented with them on our honeymoon and had no problems with them and wanted to stay with them if we could, but when I first started looking, Dollar was cheaper for us. I finally found a good deal with Budget, booked with them and cancelled with Dollar. Then through Southwest’s website, found the same deal we had gotten for our honeymoon, which was 40% off for the week I think. So I changed our reservations again and we were set!

Now all we had to do was wait for September 20th to get here!

This time on our trip, it was me, and my DH. We took his daughter Brittany this time. We rotate his kids and take them one at a time. Some people might not agree with this way of doing it, but it works for us. We get to spend quality time with each of the kids, and by just bringing one at a time, we can afford to do more with them.

Also on the trip, like I said, was my MIL and stepFIL. No one else in Roy’s family was able to make it for the week, so it was a nice, small group this time.

 

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Saturday, September 20, 2008

Travel Day!!

First, I had arranged for my brother and his kids to stay at our house for the week while we were gone. He’s had some problems in the last year and he had to move in with my parents until he can get back on his feet. So I figured that at that point my brother, his kids, and my parents could probably all use a nice little break from each other for the week. So they were coming to stay at my house to housesit for us, as well as he was going to bring us all to the airport. They came over the night before to stay the night, partly because I wanted to know where my brother was at to make sure he wasn’t late bringing us to the airport. He’s always late, I had to make sure he wasn’t going to mess us up!

Our flight wasn’t until 1:35 and we live just around the corner from the airport. We wanted to be there around 11:30, maybe a little earlier. It’s a tiny airport, getting through security is not a big deal, but we wanted to grab some lunch before and just not take any chances.

We got up at 8 that morning, made breakfast for everyone—an awesome recipe that we had for donuts from Paula Deen’s cookbooks. After we finished breakfast, Roy and I got cleaned up and did our last minute packing, as well as checked in with his mom to see where they were at. We had to run up to the Target by our house because the book “Brisinger” came out that day and I had to get it, my reading material for the plane! We also picked up luggage tags and locks for my MIL and FIL’s luggage since we were pretty sure they didn’t think to do that. We got home, and made sure again that we had everything together. I got online to check our flights and see that everything was fine. At that point it just felt like we were killing time, doing nothing, so we decided to head to the airport. That was just after 11, and the in-laws were going to meet us there. Roy’s older brother was dropping them off and keeping their car for the week at his house. As we were driving the road around the airport, we happened to pass Roy’s brother, who must have just dropped the in-laws off. Awesome, I didn’t have to worry about them not being there on time. I had all their flight information to check in.

Anyway, we decided to do the curbside check in. I didn’t want to do it at first because I didn’t want to have to tip them, but Roy said we should just do it, so that’s what we did. The skycaps helped us and then they irritated me. While he was putting tags on our luggage, I quietly asked Roy how much we should tip the guy. Since I was the one with the money, I was needed to figure out how much to give him. So after he finishes with our bags, he’s standing in front of Roy with his hand pretty much out, saying that all tips are appreciated, no matter how much it is. Um, yeah buddy, we were going to tip you, but I’m the one with the cash, not my husband…you should be talking to me! We also had them check in my in-laws, and we quietly told MIL to make sure she had tip money as well. I get they work for tips, and were definitely going to tip them, but there has to be a nicer way of doing this and not sticking your hand out and demanding money.

Anyway, bags checked and we are ready. We head upstairs to get something to eat for lunch before our flight. I’m the type of person who has to eat or I get headaches. Added to that, I always get a headache when I fly. I was trying to do everything I could to prevent getting a headache this time. I had done a few sinus cleanses during the week, bought Ear Planes ear plugs, took some Sudafed before getting on the plane. I have a sensitive stomach, so I hate eating before I fly, but at the same time if I skip a meal I get a headache, so I figured eating would be the better idea. We grabbed something quick to eat, walked around for a bit, potty break, then went to go through security. Since it’s a small airport, it took no time at all to get through security. We made our way to our gate and just hung out there. Another quick potty break and our plane showed up, and before we knew it, we were ready to board. Since we had 3 different sets of confirmations numbers, when I checked us in online, we had 3 different numbers to line up at. Roy and Brittany had the first set of numbers, then me, and then MIL and SFIL. When they got on the plane, Roy picked one row, and Brittany got in the row across from him. I came on next and sat next to Roy, he gave me the window seat. Then MIL & SFIL got on and they sat with Brittany. She decided to stay sitting with them so she could have the window seat as well.

They got everyone on the plane and the plane actually left the gate a few minutes early. Awesome! Our flight was good, pretty uneventful. We ended up going around some bad weather around the coast of Florida, but we still managed to get to Orlando about 10 minutes early, which was really nice!

Pictures from the plane:
Roy on the plane:

Me:

SFIL, MIL and Brittany in their seats:

Looking out the window:

The Florida coastline, heading back towards it after going around some bad weather:

Yay, we were finally in Florida! We got off the plane, got our luggage no problem, went and got our car from Budget no problem, it all went so nice and easy. I should have known something would mess up soon!

When we left the airport, Roy wanted to avoid the toll roads and wanted to find the road we took back in December by the Florida Mall (I believe its Sand Lake Rd.) where we didn’t have to pay any tolls. Too bad he couldn’t remember the name of the road. I told him to just follow the signs to Disney/Sea World/International Drive, we had the money for the tolls, no big deal. I knew if we got going that direction, we’d be fine. But nope, he kept on going, we had his mom and stepdad following us and we ended up losing them at one point. We just kept going and going, and he was getting mad at me because I didn’t know where we were at and which way to go. I kept telling him at this point to find I-4 and we’d be able to get going in the right direction then. He finally stopped and bought a map, and then again got mad when I couldn’t find where we were at on it…um…huge map, give me a minute! Finally he started driving and we came across I-4 and I made him take that. We were so far on the other side of Orlando! Like even past Universal! We were way out of our way!

Once we got pointed in the right direction, we were good. Got to 535 in no time, followed it to 192, no problem, got to the Best Western finally! Called to check and see where MIL and SFIL were at, they had gotten lost too, but were close by finally and would be there in no time. Since both hotel rooms were in my name, I went ahead and got us checked in, and they showed up while I was doing that. I was pretty proud of the rate I got for our hotel room when we were being checked in and the girl working the front desk wanted to know how I ended up with such a great rate.

The hotel for the night, as I had mentioned, I was very worried about. Turns out I worried for no reason. It was really nice, especially for one night. If we ever need a room again for a night, I know where we’ll go back to again!

Anyway, after we got to our room and unloaded our luggage, it was probably around 6 and we were all hungry. So we headed up the road and went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. It’s a tradition with the family, we always eat at Cracker Barrel when we are traveling. After dinner, we headed down to Old Town. One of the things SFIL was looking forward to the most was the classic car show. Since we normally are driving to get to or from FL on Saturdays, he never gets to see it. So he was thrilled we were flying and got there in time to see the car show! It wasn’t really my thing, but it made him happy so that was good. After looking at the cars, we walked around and looked in some of the stores and then headed back to the hotel for the evening. I think we were pretty beat after all our activity that day, we all just headed right to bed.

Oh yes, and I am happy to report that I did not get a headache! First time I have ever flown and not had a headache when I got to my destination!

 

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Sunday, September 21, 2008

Today we were meeting a friend of mine from another message board down at Downtown Disney. She and I have been trying to meet up for a while now, with all my different trips down there, but this was the first time it finally worked out for us! I was so excited!

We had to check out of the Best Western by 11, so we got up and started getting ready. They offered a free breakfast downstairs, so after we got cleaned up, we headed down for breakfast. It was a very nice set up, I think I had a waffle, some fruit and an orange juice. After we ate, we went up to see MIL & SFIL and see what their plans for the day were. They said they weren’t sure. We let them know what we were doing and they could join us if they wanted to. They ended up going to some thrift stores and flea markets and do some shopping. They love doing that stuff.

We had to meet my friend at DTD at 11, so we got our stuff together, checked out and headed that direction. It was pretty quiet when we got there! We parked by Planet Hollywood since we had a little bit of time before we had to meet Sarah and her family over at the World of Disney store.

I love this picture that I took of Roy and Brittany:

We went right over to Guest Relations so that I could get our Happy Anniversary pins! I’m not sure Roy was all that thrilled that I wanted to get them, but oh well! He was a good sport and wore his so that made me happy.

Look how empty it was there that morning:

We headed to the spot that I insist we take pictures at every year:

We walked around for a bit more and decided it was time to head towards the World of Disney store. We decided to go back to the car and drive over that way to park.

 

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When we were trying to arrange a place to meet up at, we had decided on the main entrance to the World of Disney store. It didn’t dawn on me until we got there that maybe her idea of the main entrance might differ from my idea of the main entrance. So I just went and stood in that corner where I could see all the entrances to the store and waited to try and spot her. Brittany had decided she needed to go to the bathroom, so Roy went off with her to help her find the bathroom and I just looked around. I finally spotted Sarah, well it was her little girl Kelly that I saw first. They were down by the entrance where the princess statues are at. So I headed down that way, and Roy found us there a few minutes later. I was so happy to meet my friend finally, and meet her family! I’ve been a part of that message board for years and years and I feel like I know her so well, so it was exciting to get to meet them all!

We decided to walk around the World of Disney store for a bit, which I love walking around there, sounded good to me!

We had to try on some hats and ears of course!

Had some fun with some pirate treasure chest eyes:

Walked around some more, and then it was time for lunch. We decided to just head over to the McDonald’s because it was easy. Roy & Brittany got in line to get our food, and Sarah’s husband Matt got in line to get their food. Sarah and I went to find a table and chatted. Roy came back first with our food, and I quickly learned the way to Sarah’s daughter’s heart was French fries! I was more than happy to share mine with her while she was waiting for her daddy to get back with their food. We enjoyed lunch and chatting, and after we found a nice spot to take a few pictures. Then they said goodbye to us as they have annual passes and wanted to head over to Magic Kingdom to do a few things before heading home.

 

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We walked around some more, went into Once Upon A Toy, the Christmas store, and the scrapbooking store. As soon as I got my new DSLR camera in May, I knew when we went back to Disney that I had to get the camera strap they had for sale. I needed it! I know when we were checking out, we had a nice chat with the guy that worked the register, although at this point, I have no memory of what we chatted about. I think part of it was where we were from.

We took more random pictures in some of the places we went in, and tried on stuff. That’s always so much fun! I also finally got my picture taken with Pooh and the gang outside of the Pooh Corner store….first time in all my trips I got the chance to do that because there’s always tons of people there getting pictures!

After a bit, we realized it was getting late into the afternoon and thought maybe we should head over towards Star Island and see where MIL & SFIL were at and try to check in. We called them when we got to Star Island and they were around the corner checking out at Target, and would be there in a few minutes, so we just hung around and waited for them…

They showed up soon after, we got all checked in and went to our unit for the week. Got all our bags unloaded and decided to head out to Target to get some groceries for us for the week. We don’t usually get much, just some milk, breakfast stuff, water. We are gone all day so we didn’t want to buy things we wouldn’t need.

I am a member of MyPoints, and I click all those silly emails I get to earn points to cash in for stuff. I always cash mine in for Target gift cards that we can use when we go to Florida. I think this time we had $35 worth of gift cards that I had gotten. So we got our few groceries and a few other random things and we only spent $6 out of our cash for our purchases. Not bad at all. I’m hoping to have more in gift cards for our trip this year. Makes clicking all those silly emails worth it!
After we got back, we unloaded our purchases and decided to go get in the pool. Normally we go to the welcome party, which I find completely boring. The food is never that good and it’s the same entertainment year after year, so I am so happy we decided to skip it this year. It was nice and quiet in the pool too, since the party was going on. We had a nice relaxing time, it was wonderful. I love that feeling when we get to our final destination for the week and I just have this big sense of relaxation come over me. Nothing like it!

We decided to order a pizza for dinner, and we got it from our favorite pizza place down there, Flippers. We called the order in, and then went to pick it up. We didn’t realize there were 2 locations, so we drove down to the Old Town one and our pizza wasn’t there. Oops…they found it for us and we headed to that location. Who knew there was a Flippers at the corner of 192 and 535….we certainly didn’t realize it! We know now!

We spent the rest of the evening just relaxing and hanging around, and Roy watched football while obsessing over his fantasy football scores. Fun times!

 

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Monday, September 22, 2008

Disney’s Hollywood Studios day! Although I still call it MGM…I can’t get into the habit of saying DHS yet!

We got up around 8 and got ready, then headed out. For all our trips there, we’ve been trying to go through the main entrance and not the small little back entrance, I don’t know why, but Roy’s wanted me to see the main entrance. Well this trip, I don’t know how we managed it, but we went through the main entrance:

We went through all of that, and they ended up parking us at the same area we always park at when we go through the back entrance! I thought it was pretty funny, Roy was not as amused, and said next time we’ll just go whichever way and not worry about it.

All the way to the park I kept telling Roy that once we get in, we need to head straight over to Toy Story Mania before it gets too crazy. Do you think he listened to me? Of course not! Once we got through the gates, he decided that Brittany needed to see that store we had checked out on our honeymoon, the one with all the signed memorabilia and such. We looked around for a little bit, and finally decided to head more into the park.

Even in my haste to get to the Toy Story Mania ride, I had to stop and get some Photopass pictures:

Took a few pictures as we headed towards Toy Story Mania:

And finally we were outside of Toy Story Mania, I believe the wait time was 45 minutes. I suggested we get Fastpasses so we could go back later and ride again, Roy said we didn’t need to bother. One day he’ll listen to me!

I took a bunch of pictures while we were in line, but for some reason I didn’t upload them to my Photobucket account. Oh well. I did get Mr. Potato Head:

We all loved the ride, we at least Roy and I loved the ride. Brittany was having one of her teenager moods kick in and last for a few days. I wish I had thought to take a picture of our scores at the end of the ride, but I didn’t. I do know that Roy did a lot better than me in the ride. Regardless, we loved it! Might just be my new favorite ride at the parks!

 

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I’m not sure the order we did things after that. I know we went on the Backlot Tour:

 

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When we got out of that ride, I found the new place that they are doing the Monsters Inc meet at, so we had to go see them. Monsters Inc is one of my all time favorite movies!

I finally found the spot where you take the Singing in The Rain picture:

We took a picture in front of the big Kermit, since Roy’s a huge fan:

 

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Played around with some ears:

I think at that point, we went and had lunch. If I remember correctly, we went to the Backlot Express. We had to find some place that offered vegetarian choices, since Brittany is a vegetarian. I did a lot of research to make sure I knew every place that offered vegetarian choices for her while we at Disney. I don’t know how much she appreciated all my efforts in trying to accommodate her dietary choices, but at least I know I tried.

I think after we ate lunch, Roy and Brittany decided to go on Tower of Terror and then the Rock & Roller Coaster. I headed that direction with them to get some Photopass pictures. I think you can see the teenager attitude kicking in on Brittany in these.

 

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After we took the pictures, they headed off to go on Tower of Terror….

while I wandered around and took some pictures, playing with my camera:

The Wizard of Oz is my all time favorite movie, so I had to get a picture of this…

 

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They had been on Tower of Terror and radioed me to let me know they were going on the Rock & Roller Coaster next, and after awhile, I decided to head that direction, and went to wait for them, in the store by where you exit the ride.

Found this Hidden Mickey that I had to take a picture of…do you see it?

When they got off the ride, I handed Roy the camera and he tried to take a picture of their ride photo, didn’t work out all that well:

At this point, we decided to go find a spot for the Block Party Bash parade. We got to talking to some of the cast members and they told us a good spot to watch at, where they would be stopping at, and we stayed there. Another cast member got to talking to us for a little bit, he was really nice, although I don’t remember much of what we chatted about. Brittany sat off to the side because parades weren’t her thing and she was bored that we wanted to wait and see it. Right before it was supposed to start, it started raining a little bit, but we were hoping it would blow over. It kept raining and they ended up canceling the parade. I was disappointed, this was one thing that I was really looking forward to seeing. Guess this just means I’ll have to go back!

Since it was cancelled, we decided to see what else we wanted to do. Thought maybe we’d head over to the Indiana Jones show, but it was packed and standing room only. No thank you! We headed into the store next to the show since it was starting to rain harder and looked around.

Took this picture from the store:

 

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We thought maybe we would head over to The Great Movie Ride, so off we went. Started to get in line and it was really long wait, and we just didn’t want to wait that long for that ride, so back out of line we went. We decided to head over to the Animation Tour area, went in through the gift shop and headed over to see who we could get pictures of. I was happy to see the Wall E picture area…he’s my new obsession, I just love that little robot!

Then we headed over to see the Mouse himself!

 

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After we left there, we decided to head over and catch the Beauty & The Beast show, since they are my all time favorites, and I love this show!

Gaston was amazing! This guy did a fabulous job!

Not too bad for being in the back of the theater! Love the longer lens for my dSLR!

After this, we were hoping that maybe the rain would be slowing down or close to stopping, but no such luck! Looked like the rest of the day was going to be a huge washout. We thought we’d try and see what the wait time at Toy Story Mania might be, and as I suspected, it was over 90 minutes I think. I’m guessing at that moment, Roy was wishing we had gotten the Fastpasses earlier in the day like I wanted!

So at this point, it was about 5 and we just decided to call it a day. We had done pretty much everything we wanted to do anyway, so we were ok with leaving early. We stopped in some of the stores on our way out, then headed out to the tram, found our car, and headed back to the timeshare. The in-laws were there, they had spent the day shopping at thrift stores and flea markets again. We decided to all go out to dinner together, and headed to the Chili’s up the road from us for dinner. We were pretty happy because we were back in time to watch the season premiere of Heroes that night.

 

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Tuesday, September 23rd—

We had planned on sleeping in that morning because we were going to MNSSHP that night. But at 7:30, my cell phone rang and I answered it, and heard my very excited 3 year old niece Jessica say very happily “Hi Aunt Tricia!!!” Then she told me very excitedly to “Tell the princesses I said hi” and then “Tell Cinderella and Jasmine that I Love them”. So cute! Obviously my niece takes after me with her love of Disney! Funny thing was they were supposed to go on this trip with us, but some other things came up and they couldn’t make it. Hopefully we’ll get to plan another trip with my sister and her family! Anyway, that morning, my sister had told Jessica that her Aunt Tricia and Uncle Roy were at Disney World and she said “Oh mommy, I have to call them right now” My sister didn’t want to call and wake us up, but Jessica was insisting they had to call. My sister figured we might have been up anyway, getting ready to go to the parks. I didn’t want her to feel bad, so I didn’t let her know that we were sleeping in that morning. And seriously, how can you be upset with a cute little girl who loves Disney and the princesses as much as her aunt does?!

Luckily I was able to fall back asleep for a little bit after I got off the phone with them. After we got up and got ready, we decided to head over to the Lake Buena Vista outlets to look around for a bit, went to the Old Navy outlet, the Converse outlet and the Disney outlet, and then decided we should go grab some lunch and get ready for the party that night. Headed over to Taco Bell by the timeshare to eat, and while we were in there, it started pouring! I was nervous, but luckily this was just one of the brief, passing showers and it was over in no time at all!

When we got back to the timeshare, Brittany went to the game room, Roy went to relax, and I went with MIL over to the model for the remodels they are doing for the whole resort. Since we are taking over her timeshare, MIL figured we’d want to see it. Roy didn’t want to go, so I went instead.

Here are some comparisons of how they look now and how they will look….although I don’t have pictures of the efficiency part, just the bigger part. For the efficiency part, when you walk in, there is a living room type area room with a couch that pulls out into a queen size bed, a table and a small refrigerator and microwave, with a sink. Then there is a full sized bathroom, and a room with 2 double beds in it.

When they remodel the unit, this part will still have the living room with a pull out bed and instead of the efficiency kitchen it will have a bigger kitchen area:

The bedroom with the double beds in it, its being painted, new bedspreads, new dresser, all new carpet