1st Trip Ever - Over 2000 Pictures!!!

[budafam]

No, I'm not posting all 2000 pictures but there will be a good chunk of them... Welcome to our first trip report on our first trip EVER! We had originally planned on a trip in September 2010 but had to cancel when my mom unexpectadly passed away in November 2009. I just knew I wouldn't enjoy myself. We rebooked for May 15-20th 2011 at Pop Century. We had originally planned to drive straight through but later on decided to add another day onto our vacation (the 14th) and be able to stop the day before on our way down. This worked out perfectly.

Weather was looking awful prior to our trip. It showed rain everyday but slowly started looking better. We ended up with no rain during our park days and low temps/humidity for May. Perfect.

Here are our introductions:

Mommy (Kristy). I'm 28 years old (as of yesterday actually) and a SAHM to my 2 beautiful children & 3 puppies. I LOVE to plan things, coupon, rummage, scrapbook & decorate cakes. My favorite thing to do is create memories with my family. I've been married to my wonderful husband for almost 6 years now. More about him below

Daddy (Nick). He is 28 years old as well and works at a mobility company installing handicapped lifts & other aides for driving. He is absolutely amazing and can do anything he puts his mind to. He loves to remodel our home and work on his fast car (also drive it of course). He is a great daddy & loves to spend time with us. He is also the pickiest eater you will ever meet. No fruit, veggies or meat. He literally lives on cheese pizza, mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, mozzarella sticks, cereal, french fries, pancakes & french toast. This made for a challenge with booking ADR's at WDW.

DS4 (Dominic). This awesome little guy is full of energy and very goofy. He loves to play with dinosaurs, cars, blocks and crayons. He has quite the Disney movie collection and knows every one by heart. His favorite characters are Woody & Buzz (and Mickey).

DD2 (Lucy). This cutey pie of a girl loves to smile & laugh. She loves dolls, jewelry, stuffed animals & books. She loves to watch Playhouse Disney & anything with Tinkerbell. Her favorite character is Tinkerbell.​

Now, let's get on with the show! Feel free to comment, I will try my best to keep up with this and finish as quickly as possible but please understand there are LOTS of pictures. I am a bit camera happy which is a good thing, right? Thank you for reading!!!

-A collection of pictures from our Disney Movie Nights prior to the big trip!

Friday, May 13th - Departure Day

-Countdown to Disney is at ZERO!!! Here we go!

Saturday, May 14th - Arrival Day

-Florida, the sunshine state?
-Pop Century exploration

Sunday, May 15th - Magic Kingdom Day

-Pixie Dust to start off the day
-I've been waiting my whole life for this...
-Let's make the kids cry on their first ride
-BOO! DS4's favorite ride.
-Off to Neverland & then to the Mountain
-mmm... honey... mmm...
-Tinkerbell's best friend & the Fairy Godmother
-lunch at Crystal Palace with Pooh & Friends (food pics)
-Celebrate a Dream Come True parade
-Buzz Lightyear & some "other" characters
-Intermission & then the BIG show & a surprise from DH that I will never forget
-End of first day & Mickey gifts

Monday, May 16th - Epcot Day

-launch morning & the Soarin' dash
-Nemo & Friends
-Soarin' & then a greenhouse tour
-zoom zoom
-thirsty?
-Figment
-walk around the world
-Pixie Hollow - DD2's dream come true
-Fab Five
-time to swim & freeze

Tuesday, May 17th - Animal Kingdom Day (Epcot at night)

-Welcome to rope drop!
-it's safari time
-Stitch was hungry for pineapple
-time for bugs
-rawr dinosaurs
-lunch at restaurantasaurus & pizzafari (food pics)
-timon gave me five!
-let's take a walk to see everest
-find a tree to take pics by... this one will do
-Intermission back at Pop (food pics)
-$350 for a ball!?!?
-Illuminations
-more Mickey gifts

Wednesday, May 18th - Hollywood Studios Day

-first in line for the TSM dash!
-let's ride this thing
-random characters
-Miss Piggy & that green frog
-hot diggity dog - showtime
-back to TSM to use FP's
-more character meeting
-Sci Fi Dine In Theater (food pics)
-The Great Movie Ride was not so great & a little rollercoaster that rocks
-Pixar Parade
-Intermission back at Pop
-Fantasmic
-the studios at night

Thursday, May 19th Contemporary & Magic Kingdom

-Chef Mickey's (food pics)
-back to Magic Kingdom to find pirates
-get some princess autographs
-dancing in the streets with Woody & Jessie
-Jungle Cruise & Dole Whip time (food pics)
-Country Bears & a little Fantasyland time
-statue posers
-Richard Petty experience
-Pop pics & the arcade
-Mickey was here AGAIN?!?

Friday, May 20th Grand Floridian & Time to Leave

-Fancy, fancy - 1900 Park Fare breakfast with Alice, Mad Hatter & more
-See You Real Soon!

Saturday, May 21st The Drive Home

-White Castle
-Mickey was here!

 

[DizFan101]

Hello.
I am sorry to hear about your mom. Even though it has been a few years, she is in our prayers.
I am looking forward to your trip report. . First times are always amazing since everything is
new.I think in my opinion, Pop Century is the best (value) resort on property.

 

[catinthehat35]

Loving your trip report!! I hope you had a simply magical vacation!! I can't wait to hear (and see) more! Bring on the pictures! I am such a picture junkie- I guess that's the scrapbooker in me! LOL!

 

[budafam]

Here is a hodge podge of our movie nights we did leading up to the big vacay

Finding Nemo:

The Lion King:

Peter Pan:

Dinosaur:

A Bug's Life:

 

[budafam]

Hello.
I am sorry to hear about your mom. Even though it has been a few years, she is in our prayers.
I am looking forward to your trip report. . First times are always amazing since everything is
new.I think in my opinion, Pop Century is the best (value) resort on property.

Thank you! Pop Century was fantastic. I was leary of the value resort but pretty sure we would return again and stay there. The kids loved it.

 

[budafam]

Loving your trip report!! I hope you had a simply magical vacation!! I can't wait to hear (and see) more! Bring on the pictures! I am such a picture junkie- I guess that's the scrapbooker in me! LOL!

Thank you!!! I try to do scrapbooking but I am sooo behind. Luckily I got both my kids' books done before their first birthdays but since then I've been slacking. Now I want to do a Disney one more than ever.. lol!

 

[Minnie824]

Great start! Looking forward to your 2000 pictures and hearing more about your trip!

 

[ChattaAlley]

What a fun and cool idea! Can't wait to read your report. Your kids are so cute.

 

[Antigua08]

Wow your son does have quite the collection! And what a great idea for movie night. My DD currently doesn't sit still long enough to watch any of the films but l'm hoping that'll change before our trip.

I too am very camera happy so l say it's never a bad thing, although my DH tends to disagree!

Looking forward to your trip

 

[budafam]

Before we get to the day we leave... here are a few pics of shirts I made (eh, first time - I learned a lot) and Mickey surprises awaiting the children:

Dominic had to bring a treat to school the day before we left so naturally, it had to be Mickey cookies!!!

I also let them decorate their own:

And now, WE LEAVE! The morning we left it was around 50 degrees and FOGGY. Ew, glad to be going! I had everything packed for weeks already (everyone thought I was crazy but I still ended up forgetting a few things - go figure!)

We brought along our mini fridge and even though DH had tested it in the van prior, it refused to work the morning we left soooo we had to stop to get some bags of ice and used it as a giant cooler on the way down. Here's a pic of how loaded our minivan was:

Our final countdown:

Getting in the van... Mickey has been here already? What!?!? They got goodie totes full of stuff to do for the trip... travel bingo, fans, bibs, crayons, coloring books, Leapster games & more. It kept them busy even though the crayon boxes got dumped numerous times.. lol. They also got new blankets (Toy Story & Tinkerbell) to keep them warm.

We took off around 7:30 hoping to miss rush hour in Chicago (3 hours away). It worked out perfectly. We did lunch in the van with sandwiches & lunchables and then we stopped at Denny's in Tennessee for dinner and a nice truck driver playing the claw machine won both of the kids stuffed animals. People you would never think of being nice are sometimes the sweetest ever! The kids were amazing the whole drive. I thought they would have issues but thankgoodness for that Leapster & the dvd player. I even played the Leapster for awhile... it was quite fun! Here are a few pictures from the road:

We stopped at a Super 8 right before Chattanooga, TN for the night at 9pm. Free wi-fi & a mini fridge in the room sounded good to us. It stormed a little bit that night but all in all, we had a good sleep. I was up by 5am knowing that would be the day we got to Disney World. I was too excited to sleep!

Next stop, ummm.. oh yeah, DISNEY WORLD!!!







​

 

[budafam]

Wow your son does have quite the collection! And what a great idea for movie night. My DD currently doesn't sit still long enough to watch any of the films but l'm hoping that'll change before our trip.

I too am very camera happy so l say it's never a bad thing, although my DH tends to disagree!

Looking forward to your trip

haha.. my DH is the same way! We've had a few people over since returning home to see pictures (we put them up on our big screen tv) and it literally takes us 90 minutes just to flip through all the pics (not including the 3 hours of video we also have)

 

[budafam]

Great start! Looking forward to your 2000 pictures and hearing more about your trip!

Welcome!

 

[budafam]

What a fun and cool idea! Can't wait to read your report. Your kids are so cute.

Thank you!!!

 

[budafam]

We left our hotel around 7am. I was very worried about going though Atlanta's traffic but it really wasn't too bad. We saw some tornado damage along the way and passed a giant airplane being transported.

Then we finally got to Florida! Where's the sun Florida? All we saw were DARK skies and then the rain started. We have never seen rain that hard... the roads got hard to drive in so we pulled off once. Eventually it stopped, then it started again, then it stopped just long enough for us to pull into Pop Century and once we got out of the car, it started down pouring AGAIN.

Next up, Pop Century Explorers.​

 

[budafam]

Once we checked in, we never saw another drop of rain for the ENTIRE time. We were so lucky! We spent the rest of the night exploring Pop Century and all it has to offer. I loved this resort. Everyone was very friendly and the room was always clean & quiet. We had a request in for a ground floor & the 50's building (as well as a preferred room). We ended up getting put in the 60's building but we were happy. It was wonderful. Here are some pics from the hotel:

Nachos (absolutely delicious!):

DH's pizza & breadsticks:

Tie Dye Cheesecake (I had to try it! I was not very impressed however):

Next up, first day at the parks - Magic Kingdom - Castle here we come!​

 

[caitty13]

Can't wait to read your trip report, we were there the some time. We stayed over in the 80's building though. The weather was perfect, we had a flight delay due to the rain on the 14th. Thought it was funny that they said they were hving a cold front.

 

[Meetmeinmontauk]

Just came in to say that I just took my first trip: May 16-May 23 & we stayed at the Pop Century as well

 

[Bethislucy]

Sounds like a great trip. I can't wait to hear all about it.

 

[Tinkergurl20]

Hey, just found your report and I'm in!!! We are going in July, and taking my 2 cousins who are the same ages as your children (Solomon is 4 and Abigail is 2). Love your pictures and detail so far!!! Can't wait to read more!!!

 

[mickeymouse108]

Hi joining in to hear all about your trip, so sorry to hear about your mom I lost my mom when I was in my twenties also so I know how hard that is. Gland to see it looks like your first trip looks like you and your lovely family had fun.