The AutoTrain, Disney World, and MORE report! Picture-heavy. **Final Update 1/5**

[ddstratton]

What a nice way for the mousekeeper to leave the soaps. I am always amazed at the magical Disney touches to something so simple.

That is one smart kid you've got there. I love the outfits that she chose for her dino. The flip flops are adorable.

It was a cute way to leave the goodies for DD. We love all the little touches they do!

She knew what she was doing. She could get more accessories this way!

 

[ddstratton]

When we last left off, DD had just finished building a Dino. It was now about 6:30. After some chatting, we decided to see if there was any way we could get in to T-Rex before our ressie time of 8:00. Hmm.. Our ressie wasn’t in their system!! She looked by number and by last name. Oh, well. No worries. She took our name and told us to go wait in line. It would only be a few minutes. And she was right! We waited about 5 minutes to be called!

Pictures just do NOT do this place justice!

Ladies room.

Signs on Mens and Ladies room doors.

Mom was pretty well in awe of this place.

DD got a shark water (basically sprite with coconut syrup, blue). Mom had a taste. Don’t think she cared for it.

We ordered the Megalosaurus Mozzarella as an appetizer. This was some mozz sticks and some breaded melted mozz. Yummy!
(Just pretend that you see several more mozz sticks and a patty of melted mozz… Was too hungry to remember to take pictures before devouring.)

Actually, here’s a tiny piece of the patty.

It was DELICIOUS!!! I’m drooling just remembering it. And that was just the start of the meal.

DH had the Boneyard Buffet.

DD had the Layers of Earth lasagna.

Mom had the rotisserie chicken.

I had the chicken fried steak.

If you can’t tell by these pictures – the portions were HUGE!! OMG – that steak was about the size of my head! This food was beyond good. Each one of us absolutely loved our meals.

Nope. Don’t think DD liked her Build-A-Dino. . .

Yup. We had left-overs.

Our waiter brought us two ice cream sundaes, for our anniversary. Didn’t get a picture of them, but it took all four of us to even put a dent in them. We were just so full from our dinners. For the appetizer, four entrees, 2 iced teas, 2 Cokes and a Shark Water, our total came to $115 plus tip. Luckily, I had $75 worth of gift cards from doing MyPoints. That brought the bill down a touch. ;D

After dinner, we stopped back in to Build-A-Dino and got a couple of accessories for her dino. She got a baseball hat, sunglasses and sneakers for a grand total of $17.04.

Continued in next post -- too many pictures.

 

[ddstratton]

We were wondering if we would get rained on. The sky was a little threatening. There’s a bit of lightning going on in that cloud.

We wandered Downtown Disney for a while again. We loved looking in the shops. In Once Upon A Toy, we let DD do the Build A Light Saber. Total here was $21.25.

We had some fun looking around in different shops.

Seriously?? $50 for a rice crispy treat with a little frosting???

In Disney’s Wonderful World of Memories, we got DD a new Mickey Ears hat, with a Pluto patch and fireworks ears. Total $15.87.

I took the bar codes off the back of the ears and stuck them on DD. She didn’t really appreciate it!

It was almost 10:00 pm by the time we got back to our room. I’m very glad we got in early at T-Rex. We would have still been eating at 10:00 pm if we had kept the 8:00 pm ressie!

We just vegged in the room and finished packing up. We had to leave early the next morning.

Up next – we leave Disney – but the vacation isn’t over yet!

 

[debf]

Great update. Cute dino your DD made. We ate at T-REX last year and the portions are huge. We really enjoyed the restaurant. DS thought it was so cool. Actually we all did. $50 for the rice crispy cake seems a bit much. Although I am a frosting loving gal so that part looked really good. Oh yeah, I loved your moms faace after trying your DD's drink. I'm looking foward to another update. I've really enjoyed your trip report.

 

[mrsksomeday]

Great installment!! The dino is adorable.

Thanks so much for all the T Rex pictures, it is on the agenda for our upcoming trip. Bill is DYING to go there.

 

[rndmr2]

I just found your TR today, I am only on page 5 but I didn't want to wait any longer to comment. Really enjoying the TR, it was neat to see the pics from the auto train. DH and I were there the week before you and it was HOT! More crowded than I was expecting, too. We were at POR. It is really beautiful there (in Magnolia Bend).

I have stayed at POFQ a couple times and it has always been a fave, lots of family memories there too. Funny story, my sister Linda was taking advantage of a photo op and backed up into that fountain in the lobby there! We got a good laugh from that one, she didn't think it was too funny at the time but she eventually could laugh about it. My mom wasn't thrilled-Linda was using Her camera to take the pic and it went into the fountain with her, this is the days before digital cameras. That camera was done for after that, about half the pics on that roll came out somewhat, though, strangely enough. She passed away in 2000 but I think of her obviousy a lot but especially when I see that fountain in pics, etc.

We are sort of neighbors, too, I am just north of Canandaigua in Farmington. About 20 miles south of Rochester. We came home from our trip to the cold and light snow (the 9th).

 

[ddstratton]

Great update. Cute dino your DD made. We ate at T-REX last year and the portions are huge. We really enjoyed the restaurant. DS thought it was so cool. Actually we all did. $50 for the rice crispy cake seems a bit much. Although I am a frosting loving gal so that part looked really good. Oh yeah, I loved your moms faace after trying your DD's drink. I'm looking foward to another update. I've really enjoyed your trip report.

Thank you! The T-Rex portions ARE huge! I would have loved the rice krispy treat, but wow. $50... Yikes. Another update will be coming soon.

Great installment!! The dino is adorable.

Thanks so much for all the T Rex pictures, it is on the agenda for our upcoming trip. Bill is DYING to go there.

Thanks! I'm pretty sure I have more T-Rex pictures in my Flickr account. On the right-hand side, click on May 2010 Disney Trip.

I just found your TR today, I am only on page 5 but I didn't want to wait any longer to comment. Really enjoying the TR, it was neat to see the pics from the auto train. DH and I were there the week before you and it was HOT! More crowded than I was expecting, too. We were at POR. It is really beautiful there (in Magnolia Bend).

I have stayed at POFQ a couple times and it has always been a fave, lots of family memories there too. Funny story, my sister Linda was taking advantage of a photo op and backed up into that fountain in the lobby there! We got a good laugh from that one, she didn't think it was too funny at the time but she eventually could laugh about it. My mom wasn't thrilled-Linda was using Her camera to take the pic and it went into the fountain with her, this is the days before digital cameras. That camera was done for after that, about half the pics on that roll came out somewhat, though, strangely enough. She passed away in 2000 but I think of her obviousy a lot but especially when I see that fountain in pics, etc.

We are sort of neighbors, too, I am just north of Canandaigua in Farmington. About 20 miles south of Rochester. We came home from our trip to the cold and light snow (the 9th).

Welcome!! Good story about the fountain pictures. I love when pictures bring back memories...

We are sort of neighbors! Small world, huh?

 

[ddstratton]

We were leaving Disney World this morning. We knew we had a lot that we wanted to get done today, so we were up fairly early this morning. We loaded up the last of the stuff in the truck and headed off Disney World property for the last time this trip.

We went to IHOP on Apopka-Vineland Blvd for breakfast, arriving right around 7:15 am.

Our total here was $46.24.

DH had the Colorado omelet with pancakes and OJ.

Mom had stuffed french toast with eggs, bacon, hash browns and coffee.

DD had a cheese omelet with hashbrowns and toast with chocolate milk.

I had a ham & cheese omelete with fruit and a Coke.

We spent about an hour here, leaving at 8:35am. We didn't hurry over our food, as it was really very good. We took a little time to enjoy it. We were full and happy by the time we left. And we were heading to GATOR LAND!!!! Redneck paradise!

After paying $1.25 in tolls, we arrived at Gatorland at 8:50 am. They open at 9:00 am, so we took a few pictures and made a pit stop at the restrooms.

Three adult tickets, one child ticket and four all-day train passes came to a grand total of $97.94.

This place was really neat! There was a lot to see, but you could see it at your own pace. We didn’t see a couple of the shows they do. If you want to see those, I’d plan on a full day here. We had allowed the morning and very early afternoon.

Shortly after we entered, my camera batteries were starting to die! I had extras in the truck, and DH ran out to get them. We just hung around the front of the park, near the smaller alligators while we waited for him to return.

There was so much to see.

This sign amused me.

Brave turtle.

DD got a pressed penny to add to her collection.

Uhh.. Yeah. It’s fake.

One of my fave’s. It’s my desktop wallpaper now.

I’m just glad there was nice thick glass between me and this dude.

I think we'll stop here for now, just because of the sheer number of pictures. I'll post more shortly.

 

[mermaid764]

I'm finally all caught up!

Great updates, but i'm sad to see your trip coming to an end

Looking forward to hearing how the rest of your last day went

 

[eeyoresnr]

awesome update1 can't wait to see more from here!

 

[ddstratton]

I'm finally all caught up!

Great updates, but i'm sad to see your trip coming to an end

Looking forward to hearing how the rest of your last day went

Thank you! We've still got a couple days to go though. We drove back from Florida to New York.

awesome update1 can't wait to see more from here!

Thanks! More is coming up soon!

 

[ddstratton]

We left off just starting our tour through Gatorland.

The white alligators were interesting.

Now for one of the big fellas. . .

We stopped at a little covered deck area. There were large gators off one side, and flamingos, turtles, ducks and fish on the other side. They had some machines you could buy some food pellets from for a quarter. The fish LOVED those pellets! So did the ducks and turtles.

These big white birds weren't afraid of anyone.

After looking around in this little section, we came upon a little petting zoo. It was fun, but didn’t really fit the theme. . . DH, being the smart-alec that he is, said that this wasn’t a petting zoo. It was the snack bar for the ‘gators.

We caught the very end of one of the shows. Like the last 2 minutes. Then they would allow people to come out with the gator to sit on it and get a picture. However, this gator wasn't really into it. He wouldn't stay still.

We then went on the Swamp Walk. This was a neat little walk on a boardwalk through the swamp. We didn’t see any wildlife, but the walk was really very pretty.

After our swamp walk, we stopped for some drinks. We got a snowcone, a coke in a souvenier cup and 2 large cherry icees. Total cost here was $11.89.

We then started walking on the trail that would eventually lead us to the train ride.

This is when we really started seeing some of the big guys.

Again, we'll leave off here and pick up again soon!

 

[ddstratton]

When we last left off, we were walking the trails. We found the train ride!

Yes, that’s a live cow. They have a herd of them on the property.

Cute little cabin along the train ride.

I really didn't take too many pictures on the train ride. I was too busy relaxing and enjoying the ride!

DD looks far too thrilled here, doesn’t she?

After getting off the train, we walked around some of the trails again and made our way back to where we started, basically. We stopped at the snack bar again and got a refill for the coke and a bomb pop (ice pop) for DD. Total here was $3.51. We stopped in one of the gift shops to look around. I bought DD a pin for her hat for $5.36. Mom bought a couple of gifts for family at home, and a stuffed white alligator for DD.

On the way out, DD got to pet a small alligator.

Another brave turtle.

We exited through the gift shop, browsing around there a little bit.

Ewww.

It was about 12:45 when we finished up here. We loaded into the truck and were headed off to St. Augustine. Here’s the temp as we were driving. . .

We stopped at a gas station shortly after leaving Gatorland. $39 in gas. We also bought a burrito for DD and a bottle of Naked Juice. The rest of us were still full from breakfast, so we didn’t worry about lunch yet.

We stopped at another gas station/McDonald’s at around 2:30. I don’t have it in my notes as to why we stopped. . . Not sure if it was a gas stop (I doubt it – we just stopped about an hour earlier) or if we stopped to use the bathroom or just to get some food. Either way, the only receipt I have shows 2 buck-doubles. Hmm.. I’m sure we bought more than just that. I just don’t remember and don’t have a receipt.

We got back on the road and finally found the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in St. Augustine. We got there right around 3:15 pm. Tickets for 3 adults, 1 child and a guidebook came to $58.26.

We stopped in the gift shop on the way out. DD got a fold-up travel brush & mirror and a switchblade comb. Total was $4.72.

Outside, they had a log house that was made from hollowing out one big tree.

We left Ripley’s shortly before 5:00 pm. Our hotel was not too far away, and we were looking forward to stopping for the night.

 

[always]

Great pictures! I love the one of the close up of the snout (?) of a gator.

 

[LisaKeys]

Thanks for another interesting TR. The train looked like it would be a nice break from all the walking. (Wasn't fond of the alligator heads... eww LOL)

I loved the log house made from the large redwood. How ingenious!

Read you soon.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I was going to post last night but then my laptop battery died and I was too lazy to get up and plug it in.

Gatorland looks like a pretty cool place to visit. I probably missed it but how long did it take you guys to tour the park? We've thought about going to Gatorland before but just haven't done it yet.

 

[ddstratton]

Great pictures! I love the one of the close up of the snout (?) of a gator.

Thank you! This place was really fun to visit.

Thanks for another interesting TR. The train looked like it would be a nice break from all the walking. (Wasn't fond of the alligator heads... eww LOL)

I loved the log house made from the large redwood. How ingenious!

Read you soon.

Thank you! Yeah, the alligator heads were kinda ewww...

I was going to post last night but then my laptop battery died and I was too lazy to get up and plug it in.

Gatorland looks like a pretty cool place to visit. I probably missed it but how long did it take you guys to tour the park? We've thought about going to Gatorland before but just haven't done it yet.

We spent the morning at Gatorland. Got there when they opened at 9:00, and left just before 1:00. So about 4 hours. We did NOT really see any of the shows they offer, though. We just caught the tail-end of one of them.

 

[ddstratton]

When we last left off, we were leaving Ripley's Believe It Or Not! in St. Augustine, Florida, and heading toward our hotel. We were staying at the Comfort Suites at Golf World Village, in St. Augustine. We arrived there at about 5:15 pm. Our room was on the 6th floor. Again, I had asked for 1st floor, near the pool. We were on the 6th floor, but still near the pool as the pool and our room were both close to the elevator. Perfect! Cost for the room was $117.59.
I actually took this photo the next morning. . . Forgot to take one as we were pulling in.

View from our room.

This photo makes the room look smaller than it was. There were two beds in the room. I was standing at the end of one when I took this picture.

We got our suitcases to the room and decided to head to supper. We really hadn’t had much since breakfast, so we were ready!

We headed to a nearby Cracker Barrel.

This was so yummy. I had the raspberry lemonade.

Or two.

I also had the Ribeye steak, with mashed potatoes, mac & cheese and corn. It was really very good.

DH had the haddock with green beans and corn.

Mom had the chicken salad plate with cole slaw.

DD had the grilled chicken tenders with mashed potatoes, mac & cheese and applesauce. She was a little hungry and was growling over her food. Eejit.

DH even had room for dessert – the bottomless pit that he is.

We all really enjoyed our meals. I’m not sure if it was just the fact that we were so hungry, or that the food really was that good. None of us could find anything wrong with our meals. Yummo. On the way out, we bought DD some gum and a book on outer space. Total cost for gift shop and meal was $56.40. Can’t go wrong, really.

We headed back to the hotel and decided to hit the pool for a while. This hotel has an indoor and outdoor pool, as well as an outdoor hot tub.

Mom took up residence in the hot tub.

This is the deepest hot tub I’ve ever seen! Mom’s not sitting in the first picture! When you sat on the benches around the edge of the tub, the water was shoulder-high. And the water was delightfully hot. It felt good on tired, sore muscles.

DD loved the pool, of course.

The pool area was really nice. It was not busy at all, either. There was one other family there when we arrived. As it got dark, they left. We just went to the indoor pool.

After some time in the pool, we were all pooped. We knew we had a fairly long day coming up, so we all just vegged a bit then hit the beds.

Up next – our first visit to the ocean.

 

[Rozz]

You do a great job combining descriptions and photos! Your pictures are so good too!

I remember visiting the Alligator Farm about 25 years ago thinking it would not be much fun. We really enjoyed it! I loved the walkways that went out into the swamp-walking the planks I called it. Reading about your experience at the AF was a fun time warp for me!

 

[mermaid764]

Awesome updates!

That hotel looks really nice...especially the view

Can't wait to hear about the ocean