4th family trip to Disney, 1st in 4 YEARS! AUG 2013(we leave August 9th!!!)

Very exciting, we have 2 days until our drive starts back to Disneyworld. :cool1:

Work seems to be going smoothly. Laundry was done last night. Some minor items to pick up during lunch. Tonight, I do some cleaning in the house and then I can setup my suitcase. Then tomorow, we have a minor load of laundry and final packing. Then Friday night we are on our way!


We are all getting very excited. :yay: :yay: :yay: :yay:
 
I am very excited that our trip begins tomorrow night but the adventure begins today.

I leave work in an hour, then we go see the new Percy Jackson movie. We get home around 6:30-7pm, then eat dinner, then have everyone get dressed into PJ or old clothes for the night so we can do another load of laundry to finish packing. Then after we start that we get all dvds packed all things that need a charged set to go for tomorrow.

95% of our bags are packed, just the kids are not packed which will happen tonight.

Food and drinks will also be put in bags for our trip.

Tomorrow morning. I take pets to family to take care of them for us. Then I come home, pick up some pizza for the kids and then I take a nap. When I wake up I can pack up the van and wait for my wife to come home so we can leave at 6pm. More later. I will post more later.
 
Happy Trip Day!

We will be leaving 2 weeks from today, and we have some similarities. We will also be driving through the night to get to our favorite place! :drive: We have always flown in the past, but drove for the first time last year. Our drive is a little longer - about 18 hours with stops - coming from Michigan.

We are also staying at a value resort - Pop Century. And I'm contemplating getting a rollaway bed or bringing a blow up mattress. We have 2 boys, but they are both in middle school now, and I remember them complaining a bit to each other last time because they were encroaching on each others sides. I'd be interested to hear how the air mattress works out. It seems like it will be hard for us to do either with the rooms the size they are. So I look forward to hearing how it works for you.

Have a great trip!!!! :cool1:
 
Cool we stayed at Pop In 2009 and loved it there and I guess you can test the new system. We leave in 3 hrs. 18 hrs is a haul. Ill post an update and see how things work out sleeping wise in the room. We are all set to go, just need to throw stuff in car, eat dinner and we go at 6pm.
 


Oooooh how EXCITING!! Happy trip day!! :)

Cant wait to hear all about it!:goodvibes
 
Ate dinner waiting for my wife to come home. We are counting down to 6pm

Ill post from time to time tonight
 
We r on pace taking a Break in Virginia we've had a little stop and go traffic wise but overall not too bad we are about 40 minutes from Richmond
 


We stopped at the Florida welcome center, it was closed till 8am so no free OJ. We r at exit 341 for Denny's for breakfast. 2.5 hrs drive remaining. Traffic has been nonexistent.
 
I have really enjoyed the enthusiasm of your pre-trip report!
Looking forward to reading how the trip goes!
 
Yeah! Now you should be there and having fun!! Can't wait to hear more!
 
Sorry for the lack of posts. We are recovering to the cold air. :-(

First the rooms. The said the fridge was unplugged and unusable. Ours was plugged in and worked fine, we just ignored the note. We didn't use our blowup bed, kids were fine sleeping together. but you can do it if you move a table around but it's not an easy thing to do so we opted not to do it.

I have just returned to work today. Our trip was great. Expect more details later today for a wrap up.
 
Trip to Disney 8/9/13:

Left house 6:03pm
Stopped at bottom of hill to check if Luke had golf balls, 1 min.
Stopped for gas at local Hess,
6:10-6:15
On road again...
MD at 6:27pm
Entering VA at 8:14pm
Hitting the wonderful off and on traffic in Northern VA from dumfries to Fredericksburg...
Stopped McD at 9:25 thornburg, VA for snack/restrooms, then got gas because it was $3.18/gallon, back on road at 10:04pm.
Richmond at 10:40pm
NC at 11:48pm
South Carolina at 2:17 ??
Gas stop 4am, st George, SC
Switched drivers, back on road at 4:10am
entering GA 5:10am
entering FL 6:44am
Welcome center 6:48a m
Too early for OJ :-(
Back on road 7:01am
Stopped Denny's in Jacksonville around 7:40am (not exact) for breakfast!!!
Left 8:25am
Got onto I-4 at 9:32am (Daytona beach area)
Arrived all star sports at 10:37am!!!
Bus to MK, arrived @ 12:20pm
Grabbed fp splash
Lunch pinocchios
Small world
Got fp for big thunder
Fp return splash
Pirates
Thunder mtn fp return
Grab fp for space
People mover
Buzz, Luke got 128,500, he won...
Speedway
Tea party
Met goofy & Donald
Used fp for barnstormer & dumbo
COP
Space mtn fp return
Dinner cosmic rays
Left MK at 8:10pm
Matt, Luke and I went swimming before bed at home run pool.
 
Epcot, Day 2:
Test track
Mission space
Grab fp for soarin
TT
Checked SOAT but too long
Spaceship earth
Club cool
ice cream
Figment
Soarin w/ fp
Lunch electric umbrella
The seas
Mexico boat ride
Maelstrom
Friendship boat
Got fp for mission space
Univ of energy
Mission space
Sum of all thrills
Living with the land
Soarin w/ fp
Garden Grill(awesome dinner- they separated Chip and Dale here but it was still fun)
Character Spot
Illuminations(not awesome seemed average)
Left 9:20
 
Animal Kingdom, Day 3:
Emh hour arrived @ 7:50
Rode Everest twice, front row(just ask and they will put u in special line)
Safari
Pangani Animal trail
Kali
Maharaja jungle trek
Kali w/ fp
Tough to be a bug
Dinosaur w/ fp
Lunch restaurantosaurs 1:40pm
Primeval whirl w/ fp
Got fp Everest
Flights of wonder
Everest w/ fp
Left 4:30
We all went swimming at pool
Ordered room service pizza at 7:15pm, ate in room & relaxed
 
Blizzard Beach/DQ, Day 4:
Arrived @ 9am
Teamboat Springs family raft ride
Chairlift
Teamboat Springs
Runoff rapids single enclosed slide (twice?)
Cross Country Creek lazy river
Snow stormers (purple) Luke and mom single run on a mat slide
Ski patrol training camp area with zip line drop etc (Luke), Matt & Dave in lazy river
Melt away bay (main wave pool)
Getting very crowded...
Lazy river
Lunch lottawatta lodge
Crowds insane, looked like 45 min. for family raft ride, 1hr.,30min for summit plummit, walked back down, did lazy river, nothing else to do with the horrendous crowds.
Left around 3:45/4pm
Back to resort to change
Then drove to DisneyQuest... kids loved it, had fun. (arrived @ 5pm)
CyberSpace Mountain (twice)
Pirates of Caribbean
Ride the Comix (kids & Dave)
Buzz lightyears astroblasters
FoodQuest for dinner @ 7:45pm
Various classic arcade games mixed in at times... (Found Qbert!)
Left @ 9pm, back to resort...
 
Hollywood Studios, Day 5:
arrived @ 8:40am, they let in around 8:45... Fp runner got toy story fp for 10:45 while I signed Luke up for Jedi training at 12:30
Rode Aerosmith w/ 20min. wait at 9:10...
Tower of Terror
Star Tours
Pretzel/ice cream/muffin break
Got fp for Aerosmith
Rode toy story mania w/ fp
Star tours
Jedi training (Luke) 12:40 show
Got fp for Aerosmith
Lunch pizza planet 1:15
Rode Aerosmith w/ fp
Animation academy
Grabbed fp for TOT
Great movie ride
TOT w/ fp
T-storms
Got ice cream at Scoops
Aerosmith w/ fp
Backlot tour
Star tours
Build your own lightsabers (kids)
Fantasmic! 9pm (let in @ 8:15 because of storm threat)
back to hotel @ 10:15pm
 
Epcot, Day 6:
arrived @ 8:40 in line
Grabbed fp for TT for 10:05-11:05
Test track 9am
Grabbed fp for soarin at 1:05
Mission Space
TT
Ice cream/pretzel
Figment
Captain EO(only watch once - painful didn't age well)
Soarin w/ fp
Characters!!! (Matt and Melody)
Lunch at America
More characters!
American Adventure
Met Donald
Mexico boat ride
Matt & Melody met Alice in the UK
Luke & Dave Figment (2X)
Club Cool, met Mr. Smee
Mission Space
Spaceship Earth
Shopping
Left @ 8:05pm
Dinner/pizza in room
 
Magic Kingdom, Day 7:
Opening show
Fp space
Rode space
Astro orbiter
Met stitch
Buzz
Mel run to voyage mermaid fp
Dave & kids blue line tta
Rode space w/ fp
Stitch's Great Escape
Ice cream break
Voyage w/ fp
Grabbed Peter Pan fp
Philharmagic
Peter Pan
Lunch at pecos bill
Splash w/ fp
Grabbed splash fp
Hall of presidents
Jungle cruise
Pirates
(Rain storm)
Everything closed, waste of 2 hours trying to find stuff to do because thunder mountain had techincal issues after the storm.
Monsters inc laugh floor
Tom Sawyer Island
Splash w/ fp
Big Thunder mtn w/ fp
Train ride to Main Street 8:15pm
Late dinner Casey's for hot dogs
Main st electrical parade(the ropes are annoying and hard to deal with getting everyone to see the parade correctly)
Castle light show
Wishes
Left 10:20, got on first bus 5 min. later, poured again, home by 10:45.
 
Hollywood Studios, Day 8:
Emh, arrived @ 7:35
Got fp for toy story
Toy story mania standby
TOT
Grabbed Aerosmith fp
Met Donald & Daisy
Toy story w/ fp
Met Buzz & Woody
Ice cream/pretzel break
Aerosmith w/fp
Indiana jones stunt show
Star tours
Pizza planet lunch
Met mike & sully monsters inc
Rode Aerosmith w/ fp
Animation courtyard met wreck it Ralph & Vanellope
Rode toy story w/ special fp
Snack/shrunk the kids play set
Lights motor action show 4:30
Rode star tours (2X)
Shop/leave @ 6:45pm
Dinner at all star music food court
Matt & Melody went swimming @ 9pm
 
Chef Mickeys/Typhoon Lagoon, Day 9:
Chef mickeys 8:05am
arrived typhoon lagoon at 10am
Luke & I did shark reef, once with Dave, then Matt & Dave hung out in lazy river...
Luke and Melody did crush n gusher
Shark reef (3X)
Lazy river
Wave pool
Humunga kowabunga
Storm slides (2X)
Shark reef (5X)
Crush n gusher
Mayday falls (2X)
Snack - funnel cake
Shark reef (2X)

Got to Disney quest 5:30
Dinner there at FoodQuest
Left @ 9pm, were going to walk to marketplace but massive t-storm so we left for hotel @ 9:45pm.
Got a few things at resort gift shop.
Packed up most things... :-(
 

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