1st Trip Report, I just can't stop myself! (April 17th - April 25th) POP

[kimiza]

My first Trip report!!! I just can’t stop myself! (April 17th – April 23rd)

Let me introduce myself. I am Kimiza single mom with a passion for traveling, I haven’t made it very far yet, but I have dreams of going all around the world with my DD.

DD – My daughter is 8 and is the light of my life. She can be a bit high maintenance, but what princess isn’t. I want to make sure she sees the world, and she is happy to come along! Road Trips are our specialty.

DN – OK my niece is hysterical. She keeps me on my toes. She is into boys, boys, and boys. I tried to explain to her that it shouldn’t take 2 hours to get ready in the morning, but she just won’t believe me. I learned on this vacation that she has a fear of bridges, this has provided much amusement for our trip.

Guest stars on the trip – Lori – my best friend that lives in Atlanta and her parents came down for a day to visit with us.
Lisa and family – Best friend from Rochester who was down at the same time we were.

My dad – he was our hotel on the way down and back for our road trip. He lives in Charlotte, which was a great spot for us to split our road trip.

This was a surprise trip for my DD, more details on that to come.

Itinerary:
April 17th – Start road trip from Rochester, NY! Stay at Dads overnight.
April 18th – Get to WDW check in at POP and head straight to MK to ride Space Mountain and People mover
April 19th – MK and reservations at Whiserping Canyon Café
April 20th – AK and reservations at Chef Mickeys
April 21st – Epcot – reservations at Le Cellier
April 22nd – HS reservations at Prime Time Café
April 23rd – girls decide morning park – reservations at Kona Café for breakfast – start the trip back home. Stay at Dad’s
April 24th – Carowinds amusement park
April 25th – Home

THE RIDE DOWN

Check In and The Mission

DID WE MAKE IT??

HMM WHAT NEXT?

1st Full Day small update

1st Full Day update

 

[meloneyb21]

Happy to be the first! Can't wait to read! I'm only into roadtrip TR's right now...lol.....because I'm waaaaay excited about ours coming up.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Signing on for more! Our drive to WDW is 14 to 16 hours depending on the weather and traffic. This year, I intend to document each and every minute (like I haven't done that every other year) and then come back with a trip report with lots of pictures.

Can't wait for the next installment.

 

[DisneyAsh32]

Sounds like a lot of fun. Can't wait to hear how your trip went!

 

[kimiza]

Hey Guys,

I am still here, thanks for visiting my trip report. It is taking longer to go through all the pictures and get everything in order. I am hoping to do a few days worth this weekend!

The road trip was great, lots of fun stuff happened. I can't wait to relive it.

 

[luckylady]

I'm in. Charlotte it's a big city. I"m three hours SE of there, but lived there for 3 years. Hope you had fun at Carowinds, but after disney....... It's still a fun place to go.

 

[kimiza]

My Trip report is finally starting! I am currently uploading some pics to photobucket and should have my first installment up in the next hour!!!! I am so excited.

 

[kimiza]

Day 1:
I had the day off so I walked my daughter to school instead of the normal driving her. It was a nice way to start off the morning. Went home and did lots of last minute errands. Then it was 11:10 before I knew it, and I had to go get DD from school. Picked her up and we headed to DN school. Text messaged her we were on our way to get her. (she is 14 and quite into her friends and boys, so I had to get her enough time to say last minute good byes to her friends and boy friend.) She was waiting for us at the front door. I was smart and picked her luggage up the night before. So we were heading to our next stop.
Lunch:

Be warned picture below I have no makeup, that is how I travel.. scary I know.

That’s right we first stopped at Subway to start out fairly healthy. The girls had turkey subs I got a sweet onion chicken teriyaki. YUM. We began eating and DD still had no clue where we were going.. so I broke out the Hang Man sheet I made and made her play while we were eating in the parking lot. After guessing some odd ball letters… how could she not know!!!!!! Let me back up a minute here… She only knew we were going on a road trip. The place started with a “P” and ended with a “T”. She had many guesses over the months but never guessed right. So she knew some definite letters at least. She finally guessed where we were going!

I then gave the girls their gift bags I made them… (no pictures not sure why) DD’s bag had gel clings camp rock and Belle. The kids guide to Disney, the new release of Lilo and Stitch, disposable camera, high school musical hand sanitizer, I had pre sorted quarters and pennies for the penny press machines, and had her pin lanyard in there too. I also included a matte for autographs, frames were safe in my house. I think that is it. DN had Disney pocket guide, Girls just wanna have fun the movie, high school musical hand sanitizer, disposable camera, and new beach towel for the pool, and of course the bag and a matte for her. DN showing off her matte.

Now we can finally leave!!! We were officially on the road by 12:20pm. Slight issues with the DVD player

Our first half of the drive took a little under 11 hours, arriving at my dad’s house by 11:05pm, promptly saying hello and I love you, and where’s our beds! Here are some pics from the arrival and morning breakfast, check out my kids hair in the morning picture!

I am not sure why my DN has to stick her tongue out all the time. Get used to it in the pictures.

My dad refilled our cooler with ice and made us breakfast and we were on the road at 7:10 am I believe. A kiss and I love you see you next Thursday night! Notice the gel clings on the window.

View or our back seat! – FYI – purple thing, more trouble than useful, just got in the way because it didn’t fold down.

Palm trees at the Florida welcome center. Apparently we only cared about the palm trees.

Some interesting things that happened on the road trip, I found the license plate game online and printed out a few copies and we played that. My DN kept me entertained by reading texts from her friends. A few things concern me about her, first off let me start by saying my niece is a straight A student and her school district is one of the toughest in Rochester… but while texting she asks me questions like Aunt Kimmy do you spell Virginia like “V E R G….” I was about floored LOL then a little while later. Aunt Kimmy, you spell alien like “A L I A N right???” Seriously she is 14 and a straight A student I swear. I have never laughed so hard in my life. There were also a few questionable instances where I pointed out a few farms with cows, and she insisted they were horses. Until we got a little closer that is. She really had be laughing the whole trip which made the Road trip seem that much faster. We also found out that she has a fear of bridges so of course my 8 year old made sure to point them out to her every time we drove over one.. I even went a little slower over them.. it was quite amusing!

So while driving in Florida I look over at DN and what does she see?

We are home!!!!!!!!! 2:52 PM

Goal Check in and get to Magic Kingdom to ride Space Mountain and People Mover Saturday night then head to DTD To meet up with some friends for dinner. Do we make it to SPACE MOUNTAIN??????

 

[disneyaddicted]

Hi there, my name is Ty, This sounds like fun, I am in. I'm looking forward to the next installment.

My DD Reese is 15, I hear you and am just as perplexed that it could take somebody 2 hours to get ready. Seriously how many times a day did your DN change her outfit? Reese will change 3 to 4 times before leaving the house.

 

[burly]

I'm in. Could you finish before i go on my trip? May 27th.
shouldn't be that hard right?
Starts off like a lot of fun.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Lovin' the report so far. Anxiously awaiting the next installment.

 

[kimiza]

We have arrived! Pop Century is our resort for the next 5 nights. Check in was a breeze. We were in the 80’s building room 7255. So we got back in our car and drove around to find out we have a rubix cube for stairs. I let the girls out to find out which building was ours… It was the blind leading the blind, I was trying to figure out where best to park, they were no help. So I parked and off we went with our luggage. We brought in most of our stuff. My DN had to organize all of her bathroom necessities. Seriously, did she not realize we had to make it to Magic Kingdom!!!!! HELLO!!!! So I breathe and take it all in and count to 3.

Ok we are now ready to get on the bus. Once we got on I checked the time 3:55! I can’t believe it! We did it! Off to Magic Kingdom. I will have to say this was the worst bus ride of the whole trip, and it wasn’t bad at all. We did have to stand, but what did we care we were on our way to Magic Kingdom! We get to the gates and I am on a mission. Get to Space Mountain.
OK Picture first!

Well we get to Space Mountain and 60 minute wait, so we get into line. I then speak with some of my friends whom we are meeting in DTD, and tell them they will probably see us around 6ish and since it was a Saturday night they might want to think about getting our names in somewhere to eat. They were thinking T Rex. My niece and I had a conversation and we decided to skip Space Mountain and grab Fast Passes because we were exhausted. We hop out of line and grab Fast Passes for 9:20pm. No big deal we will make it back after dinner and visiting. Right.. no problem! So I put my KTTW card and fast pass in my bag (great animal kingdom backpack I got in October when I went on a land sea vacation) My DD put hers in her Landyard card holder. My DN put hers in her wallet. We decide to ride the people mover. Ahh that is what I needed. Just to relax and soak in Disney!

After the People mover we decide to head out and take the monorail to Contemporary then bus it to Downtown Disney. On they way out, there were doing the flag ceremony. I have never seen this so we stopped and watched. It was really nice. I am glad I got to see this.

After that we headed out. The monorail was in the station when we got there, standing room only, no big deal I am at Disney and it is my first day. Yes there are smelly people.. but hey I am in Disney right. Well they leave the station and go about 5 feet because they have to wait for the next station to empty. SERIOUSLY don’t they know I have to get to DTD for dinner! While I am on the monorail my friend Lori calls. “We put our names in at T Rex and the buzzer just went off” , I said well eat without us, I am stuck on a monorail! She said no way, we will start with drinks and wait for you. So after the monorail cleared it was safety check time.. oh yea this just keeps getting better. Finally we move. Ok I am doing good we get off at the Contemporary and my goal is to find their buses. Well I have never been off the monorail at the Contemporary. I have no clue where I am going. Finally after 30 escalators I see the bus stop signs. And what happens, the DTD bus is waiting. I love when pixie dust comes my way! We get on and make it DTD as they are getting their second round of drinks and they are not even annoyed at me! I love it. Here we met up with Lori and her parents Ann and Don. Lori lives in Atlanta now and her parents just retired from Rochester and moved to Ocala FL. We also had Lisa and Chad and their family from Rochester as well. They flew down on Friday and were staying at the All Star Sports, the surfing building I believe. This will be important a little later in the story. We had a nice dinner with everyone, I had a burger, my DD had pizza, and my DN had chicken fried Steak. It was OOP but no big deal because I knew the rest of the week would be covered by the DDP.
Here is a pic of DD with Lisa’s DD at T Rex. Keep in mind we had been on the road since 7 AM my DD is a little loopy by now.

Lori’s parents left after dinner, we gave hugs and kisses and off they went. Lori’s plan was to stay with us at POP for 1 night and go to Magic Kingdom with us on Sunday. Well because we got fast passes for SM the 3 of us needed to get back to MK to ride SM tonight, because it was closing for refurbishment.. WE HAD TO GET THERE!!! So after dinner we decided to head to Goofy’s Candy Co, to create some masterpieces. Well we had a blast in here! I made a rice krispy treat with oreo and m & ms with milk chocolate and drizzled milk chocolate, my DD got Rice Krispy with chocolate and and all M & Ms. YUMMMYYYY. Sorry no pictures I had a mission and pictures were not included. So we all made treats then the 3 of us decided to head back to MK. Lori was going to drive Chad to get some beer and bring him back to their hotel at All Star Sports. Then when we were done we were going to take a bus back to All Star Sports and have Lori drive us back to POP for the night. Yes I realized I drove 19 hours in 2 days and we have not had any kind of nap, but SM was closing guys… Stay with me here!
So we head to the Contemporary bus stop so we could take the monorail to MK. Well as we are standing in line I ask DD and DN do you have your KTTW cards and fast passes? DN says yup right here, I check I got mine, and DD has her fast pass and ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………NO KTTW CARD!!!! It fell out of her card holder. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I believe fire was coming out of my ears at this point. We then go to POP bus line and I give the if I was not in public I would kill you look to DD. I need to ride SM!!! Does she not understand this??? I also found out my DN had never ridden it before. HELLO??? Ok breathe. Back to the Resort we go…. The question is did we get to ride?

 

[mickeystoontown]

I hope you don't leave us hanging tooooo long!

 

[onejellyshelly]

Okay, now you have me wanting more. Space Mt. will be closed when I am there

 

[luckylady]

More please soon. I have to know if you made the ride

 

[meghanlea]

I'm hooked! I love your writing and details. Your girls are BEAUTIFUL btw.

 

[burly]

Ooooooo.....cliffhanger.

 

[kimiza]

Hi there, my name is Ty, This sounds like fun, I am in. I'm looking forward to the next installment.

My DD Reese is 15, I hear you and am just as perplexed that it could take somebody 2 hours to get ready. Seriously how many times a day did your DN change her outfit? Reese will change 3 to 4 times before leaving the house.

My Niece is the worse, she actually got up at 6:30 am, and we got up at 7:30 and I showered and got ready, and she still wasn't dressed some mornings. She was good with outfits though, only 1 or 2 a day, only because we didn't got back to the hotel room until it was time for bed!

 

[kimiza]

I'm in. Charlotte it's a big city. I"m three hours SE of there, but lived there for 3 years. Hope you had fun at Carowinds, but after disney....... It's still a fun place to go.

My dad has been in Charlotte for about 12 years. I love visiting him there. It is a beautiful city. This was the first time in like 6 years since I have been at Carowinds, we were lucky enough to have a day where we could walk on to any ride, there were no lines at all!

I'm in. Could you finish before i go on my trip? May 27th.
shouldn't be that hard right?
Starts off like a lot of fun.

I will try my best, I thought I would be done with the report by now, but when I start typing I keep remembering more about the trip! You should be able to read about most of it by then!

I hope you don't leave us hanging tooooo long!

I won't be home till late tonight, probably won't be able to update till tomorrow!

Okay, now you have me wanting more. Space Mt. will be closed when I am there

When I found out about Space Mountain I re arranged my trip to make sure I was going to be there by Saturday just so I could ride it, so when my DD lost the ticket i was slowly seeing my plans slipping through my fingers!!! Hopefully I will get the update tomorrow so you will know if I made it on or not.

 

[kimiza]

I am happy to say, i finally ordered my photopass CD and photo book! I can't wait till they come in!