14 days around the world with IL's Oct 8-21 '06

[BitsnBearsMom]

Had to start this while it's still fresh in my mind! Had a great '1st trip home'

Cast consists of myself, dh, ds 12yo, ds 6.5yo, gramma and papa - 2 weeks and did the DVC dining plan - more about that later.

Oct 8 - kids (including gramma) were up super early - limo came at 7:45am and whisked us off to the airport where we jumped through lots of hoops to be able to get on the plane then hung around waiting foreverl. Planed landed in Orlando at 1pm and we headed down to the magical express area. Loved magic express - was so much easier not having to get our luggage.
Got on the bus - driver went to back out and ..... hit another bus. Sigh. Sat there for a long time waiting for them to make sure everything was ok then left on our way to stop #1 OKW.
checked in and had a wonderful WELCOME HOME - 2 bedroom was ready so we walked over - we realized what a long walk it was wearing jeans from the check in to building 36!! Room was great so we took off to Chef Mickey's to start the vacation! had a great dinner - well as great as any buffet can be - and kids (we always include Gramma in 'the kids') were thrilled to get a first hug from Mickey and the gang! Was nice not to have to worry about pulling out cash for dinner - my 12yo paid with his dining plan card!! We WERE planning on heading to MK after for EMH and parade and fireworks but the ridiculously huge crowds were pouring in so we decided to skip it and go back to bed - we were all tired. Got back to the room and there was a nice card and balloons left there for my IL's from Cinderella wishing them a happy anniversary. Nice touch from the cast members!!

Oct 9 - Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! we were supposed to go to MGM but changed our plans and headed to MK instead. Crowds weren't too bad and we managed to get on most rides with little waits. Counter service for lunch - was terrible food and got our first taste of 'junk food' deserts - blech! Did Crystal Palace for a late dinner and ds' paid again got in with no reservations and about a 25 min wait. Buffet was OK - not a whole lot different then the one at Chef Mickey's though. Did more rides and watched Wishes and Spectro - I sure do love Wishes!! Home to bed

Oct 10 - SHOPPING!! We hopped over to the Dolphin to grab a rental car and DUH we forgot to bring our credit card over with us - quick call to the room and gramma and papa grabbed a cab over and brought it to us - on our way shopping. Did several malls and bought lots - enough that we ended up buying another suitcase Had dinner/lunch off site and it was super late when we got in. Off to bed again!

Oct 11 - AK - We discovered that travelling with other's is a difficult thing to do - we had great plans to get off to AK for opening but by the time you haul gramma out of bed and get her going (she HAs to have tea and cereal before leaving )you don't end up at the parks until after 10am. Was frustrating considering the rest of us were all ready to go by 8am but what can you do!!
Got to AK and made ressies for a late lunch at Rainforest since it's one of FIL's fav places to eat. Did most of the rides - Loved everest however only the 12yo and I liked it - the rest were not impressed as they just aren't rollercoaster type people . Got to take some time just sitting and people watching (while gramma sat to eat again - never realized one person could stop to eat so many times in one day) After our great dinner at Rainforest (we paid out of pocket for this one) we headed back to the room b.c everyone was exhausted and we took the boys swimming and went to bed early.

Oct 12 - Slept in late and had a free morning today. Took the boys to the main pool at OKW and my 6.5yo decided he loves water slides. Was a joy to watch and listen to him scream while he raced down. Went back to the room after that to rest a bit and get our costumes ready for the halloween party. We headed downtown Disney for a bit then off to WCC for a late lunch - were late and all they would serve us was the skittle which was fine as that's what everyone was ordering anyway. Wandered around WL after eating - that really still is my fav place to stay!! Put our costumes on (12yo was one of the 3 muskateers, 6.5yo was Prince Philip and the rest of us all wore orange T'shirts that had pumpkin faces on them) took the boat to MK to the halloween party. Got in at 4:25 with our tickets - wrist banded and halloween bagged and ready to go. Walked onto buzz - 2 times, pirates, haunted mansion, speedway and most other rides before party start time with no waits. 7pm came and we started hitting the candy lines - lines were fairly short for candy but huge for characters - didn't stand in line for too many of them but we DID go see my 6.5yo's hero Prince Philip. Was funny when we finally got there b/c he told Princess Aurora that PP had to sign his shirt first and she had to stand aside so they could get a picture together. He was very polite about it too. he got a picture with just P.A too and he had stars in his eyes when she kissed him on the cheek and left a lipstick mark. Was one of the highlights of the evening.
Parade and fireworks were amazing - had great places for both and were there in enough time to see the headless horseman ride.
After parade we headed over to the villian show where my 6.5yo ds' got to meet Maleficent - another funny greeting. He got to the front of the line and she asked him in perfect character who he was supposed to be and when he told her she informed him that she just didn't like him at all. The poor guy was on teh verge of tears but stood for a picture with her then told her as he was leaving that he was going to tell the other Prince P. That she was a terrible person. Had to explain to him that she only told him that b/c he was PP and had killed her with his sword in the movie!!

More later - off to try and help my 12yo cram 2 weeks of homework in to one morning!!

 

[BitsnBearsMom]

And the story continue's!

October 13 - moving day. Checked out of OKW at around 11am - we had slept in from the late night at the halloween party and headed over to Boardwalk villa's - decided that morning that it was wayyyyy too much work to pack up and change resorts and we would not do it again unless we had to.
Room wasn't ready at Boardwalk so we hopped over to Epcot to have some samples for lunch and we headed over to the DVC Nemo preview to check that out - had no wait for it and my youngest ds' loved it. So did I - don't want to spoil it for anyone but loved the way they made nemo and the gang look like they were in the tank with the 'real' fish. When we got back at 3 the room was ready. it was a 2 bedroom and was quite a hike from the elevator but room was clean and worked for us!
left Boardwalk to head to FW for the Hoop do doo - loved loved loved it. great show and food was good too. Really enjoyed that and will definatly do it again! After the HDDR we went to check out the campfire program which was ok but kids were bored. Didn't stay for the movie.

Oct 14th - Epcot - yet another sleep in day... it's tough travelling with people that sleep in when I'm always ready to go early! Epcot was a zoo - way too busy for me but we pushed on anyway. Got all but the world showcase, turtle talk and test track done. Had a few samples but most of the lines were way too long so we skipped them. Le Cellier for dinner was great - good meal and was nice to talk to the Canadians working there - they even knew where Guelph was!! Went back to the resort to swim after illuminations then off to bed.

Oct 15th - decided to take it easy today - went to O'hana's for breakfast - was ok but food was cold and eggs were under cooked. Next time we do a sit down breakfast. Went into Magic Kingdom for a bit then back to the resort to swim. Spent the evening in Epcot to see the Beach Boys - caught 2 of their concerts as both were different. While we were walking to the beach boys my dh struck up a conversation with a nice CM that was 'guarding' the roped off areas for illuminations. She put our name on a list for us to be able to enter there and we had an amazing view of the show. Front and centre. Big thanks to her for making our night!! Sure was a different perspective from down there in the front.

Oct 16th - MGM - again we didn't get there till 10am - I was starting to get frustrated with the late mornings but oh well.... saw lights motors action and enjoyed that - checked out most of the other attractions and rides also - saw the parade - got there in plenty of time and had a good spot until people started pushing their kids in..... got frustrated and told one family that kept pushing their kids into me that they should have planned ahead and been there in enough time to get a spot like we did!! Had a fantasmic dinner package at H&V for 5pm - let me say I will never ever ever eat at that restaurant again - food was worse then terrible. was not worth the price we paid!! Fantasmic was good though - rained through a bit of it but we perservered and kept watching! Gramma and papa went home and we stuck around for emh - didn't find a whole lot of stuff open for that and wouldn't do EMH at MGM again. we did get to do Rock n rollercoaster during the 2nd fantasmic with only about a 20 min wait. Went back to pack up to be ready to leave early the next morning.

Oct 17th - Dh had a web meeting for work this morning so the kids and I left around 8:45am to go finish MGM - my oldest wanted to do the animation academy again and my youngest wanted to see Beauty and the Beast. Did that then left to meet dh at Epcot. He had gone from his meeting at 11am over to SSR to check in but room wasn't ready for us yet (only request again was a no smoking room due to my asthma) Epcot was much less busy so we had samples for lunch - yummmm love that salmon from Canada and the cheese soup! Left for SSR at around 4:30 figuring our room would be ready by then and boy were we wrong. We stood around in the lobby until about 6:20pm waiting until dh finally got frustrated and told them to give us another 2 bedroom. You would have thought they could have done that at 5pm when we showed up rather then wasting our time. So far not impressed. The bell people took us and our luggage to the room in Congress park areaand room was clean but shabby looking. carpets looked dirty with pulls in them and the couch in the main room really needed replacing. HAd a great view of DTD though. Started unpacking to find the suitcase we had packed breakables into - packed really really well with clothes around them so they WOULDN'T break had 2 canisters and lids smashed as well as our DVC mug smashed. Back to the main desk with broken stuff in tow - they said they'd deal with it and would leave us a message in the morning. Headed to the poly as the kids were going on the haunted pirate cruise - they had a great time and came back with lots of stories and mom, dad, gramma and papa had the best meal of our stay at Kona Cafe. I know I'll definatly go back there for a meal next trip!! Food was amazing!!

 

[BitsnBearsMom]

One last post should finish it up!

Oct 18th - bus roulette day - no message from the front desk about our broken items yet. Took off to downtown Disney - can't really call it bus roulette as we walked. wandered, spent money, ate lunch and came back to the room about 2pm. Took the kids to the congress park quiet pool and was it ever quiet!! went back to the room and got ready to leave for the Spirit of Aloha show - we were doing the early one and had to stop at the front desk first to get our tickets. Got to the front desk at 3:30 figuring we would have plenty of time and the concierge person had no clue what she was doing. We waited and waited and waited. Finally at 4pm told her to call someone else as if we didn' tleave soon we would miss our show time. She called and finally informed us we had to get our tickets at the front doors of the show. By that time we were getting incredibly frustrated. It was 4:20pm and we had to be there by 5:15. Went out to grab a bus and we waited and waited and waited some more. We were about to go in and call a cab so we wouldn' tmiss the show at about 4:45 when the Epcot bus showed up so we hopped on. The waits for the busses at Saratoga were terrible. We did manage to get to the show by 5:27 and were seated just as the show was starting but we were all frustrated by that point. Show was ok (perhaps just ok b/c we were frustrated) and the fire dance part was cool.
Left from the show to go to MK to see Spectro and wishes since it was to be the last night to see it on this trip and ended up watching Hallowishes instead. Wasn't a halloween party night so not sure what happened but we still enjoyed it. Waited forever again for the SSR bus to show up to take us back home!

Oct 19 - Left really early to go to MGM to finish all of that up - waited forever for a bus again - did the learn to draw a character again and the baclot tour. Got a few more character signatures on the kids T-shirts and went to Sci Fi for lunch. Headed over to Epcot to finish the world showcase. Were back at SSR early enough to swim, put the kids to bed and go off to downtown Disney on our own - no kids!! There are huge benefits to having gramma and papa with us!!

Oct 20 - Before anyone else was up we had a meeting with our guide to talk about possibly adding points - not sure what we are going to do about that yet but we did get to express our concerns about the bus service, concierge not knowing what they are doing, and the broken items and constantly having to go to them rather then them coming to us - back to the room and it was the kids pick day - they got to choose what to do and the youngest wanted to go to AK to get Jiminy Cricket's signature on his shirt as then he could show our dog Cricket (aka Jiminy Cricket) when he got home! Older ds' wanted to try out the main pool and I wanted to go see the pirate tutorial since we only got to see it from the back of the line. So we did AK and wow was it ever busy - wall to wall people!! Not sure why it was so busy but we didn't last long there. Left for MK and saw the tutorial and rode pirates again. had lunch at cosmic ray's and went back to the resort to swim. Kids loved the slides but boy that pool was warm - was more like a bath then a refreshing swim - dh loved it!!! Went to the Turf Club to use up our last sit down meal credit and food wasn't very good. Ended up at the front desk AGAIN as they still hadn' tcalled to let us know what they were doing about our broken items. They informed us they were going to replace them but needed to wait until stores opened at 9am - dh informed them the internet where we ordered the canister set was open 24/7 so it should have already been ordered. He was not impressed with the customer service - felt they should have come to us or left us a message rather then us always chasing them down for the info. Went swimming again after dinner and back to pack.

Oct 21 - finished packing up and bell services came at 7:45 - had a nice leisurly stroll to Artist Pallete to grab some breakfast before leaving and it was very good for a counterservice meal! Caught the ME bus at 9:30am and said our goodbye's to Disney. Flight to home left Orlando at 1:45pm and my older ds' was getting teary when he was waving out the plane window to say goodbye to Disney! Reminded him we would be back again next August and the tears disappeared.

All in all it was a great trip - a few 'speed bumps' at SSR but nothing major - was not impressed with the bus service AT ALL as it's slower then molasses in Ontario in January but we did tell our guide about it and our other issues when we met with him. I think the biggest issue with SSR is the lack of communication - they need to have a bus schedule posted so people know when to get there for busses and aren't waiting forever for them - we were not the only ones frustrated with them.
Can't wait to get back next August with my brother, sil and neice. Can't wait to show them around the world. Thinking we might try for WLV for next year.

 

[mbb]

Ahhh.

That was good Thanks Dianna!...and chuckling at your 12 year old paying for the meal!!

 

[madonna31]

GREAT report!

Very informative, thanks for sharing.