We're back!!!!!
Well we're back from our marathon Disney vacation!
It was wonderful. You know how some people post the good,the bad and the ugly about their
Disney vacations? Well in all honestly there wasn't any bad or ugly! (although 2 scary parts).
As everyone knows our whole planning was a nightmare. Air Tran was the biggest part of the nightmare and they kept true to form. The day before we were leaving DH kept trying to check in to print our boarding passes and check in our luggage. The system was down - it would let you get so far and then a message would come up to try later the system was down. Even when we got to the airport hotel that night DH tried one more time. We figured we would just leave a little earlier and do it the next morning. We took the 4:45 am shuttle over and were in the airport by 5:00 am.
Now the nightmare part - apparently (and lots of people were having similar problems) when we tried to check in the day before it recorded the luggage as being six pieces for one person instead of 1 piece for 4 and 2 pieces for the 5th. So the luggage fees were more than doubled. They acknowledged the system had problems but said there was nothing they could do. Dh asked to speak to a manager. This was at 5 am - we had a 7 am flight. We waited for over an hour and a half and they kept telling us the manager was busy. Finally at 6:40 am Dh said fine just charge it and we'll dispute it with the credit card company when we get home. It seemed like lots of people were doing the same thing so I wonder if a manager was ever really going to show at all. We got to the plane at 6:50 and the employee at the gate told us "well you really should have been here earlier". I thought DH's head was going to blow - I told her we had been there since 5 but because Air Tran's system was down everyone was having problems. The employee denied the system was ever down! Fine - whatever - just get me on that plane! We made it with about 2 minutes to spare - so the kids didn't have any breakfast (as we usually buy something at the counter service place right before we board). I'm really hoping that everyone who reads this will make a vow NEVER TO FLY AIR TRAN!!!!!
Anyway after that not so magical start the rest of the trip made up for it.
We were able to board the ME bus about 5 minutes after we got the ME line. It was a different route this time. Boardwalk, YC, BC and then POR. Every other time we've used ME it was CBR, BW, YC and BC.
We had a great gv cl room - 5682. It overlooked the back courtyard and had a wonderful view of the Boardwak and lagoon! I sat out there many mornings while DH was running and it was so relaxing and I thanked our lucky stars that we hit the jackpot of gv cl rooms!
CL offerings were fantastic!
I'm sure I'll forget some but this is what I remember:
Breakfast: oatmeal (with lots of toppings) fresh fruit - cut up and whole, bagels, croissants, specialty bread, pastry, muffins, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, cereal and juices and coffee.
Snacks: soda,s lemonade, cranberry juice, water, yogurt covered raisins, trail mix, homemade chips and dip, gummy worms or sweedish fish, three different kinds of cookies.
Evening appetizers: Here's where we really noticed an improvements: 2 hots foods (such as chicken skewers, crab ragoons, bacon wrapped scallops, mini egg rolls, potstickers, duck quesedillas), two cold appetizers (such as lobster salad, shrimp salad, tuna tartare, rice salad, olive salad, tomatoes and mozzarella), cheese and crackers, small rye bread - two dips usually tomato pesto spread and a hummus, small rolls, little peanut butter and jelly cups, vegetables and dip. Beer - wine - soda, etc.
Desserts - we didn't really utilized the dessert offerings and that is the only thing that I thought looked a little skimpy. DD loved the oreo bonbons though and ds loved the mini cupcakes. It looked like two or three mini desserts, cookies, cordials, soda, etc.
We had wonderful service from all the cms'. BC CL staff was fabulous - mousekeeping really was wonderful. We had a super nice mousekeeper, Gloria, who did turndown for us most of the nice and she was so nice. She would knock on the door around 5:00 and ask us what time we wanted turn down service. We never lacked for any toiletries and she kept us supplied in chocolates! Everything was super clean and in all honesty I never saw one cm who wasn't smiling and just into the whole Disney spirit!
Here's the scary part - The one day we were sleeping in we were awakened by the smoke detectors going off and an announcement saying there was a fire in the building the to proceed to the nearest exit and not to use the elevators. It was really scary. I got the kids and Dh up and we left so quickly one dd didn't even have shoes on and DH had shorts, but no shirt. My heart was really racing. It appears there was a small fire, no where near our room, but it makes you realize that quickly things can happen. I will definitely be paying more attention in the future to where our nearest exit is and to have a better plan than me standing in the middle of the room screaming fire, fire, fire, get up, get up , get up!
The other scary part for me (who is petrified of snakes) was seeing two water moccasins in the lake when we were on the boat to DHS (not hear us but still creepy) and seeing a black racer snake right in front of walking from the International Gateway to BC.
One of the best part of the trip was our Disser meet! I haven't gone back and ready the end of the old thread or the start of the new one (too much laundry today), but I'm sure you guys heard all about it. It was so good to be able to put faces to names! Natebenma - what a hoot with your flat Stanley! jjohnson so sorry you couldn't make it since you put the time into organizing the meet.
We were lucky enough to see Teena a lot on our trip since she was working extra days.
16 nights/17 days seemed like such a long time before we went but it flew by!
We'll be back in February for a week but we all agreed we wanted to do the really long summer trip again on 2011!
Any questions?
who probably leads a pretty miserable life).
, DS9 
, DD7 
and DS3 
. I write this here b/c darned if I can figure out the timeline/signature thing, even though I'm not horrible on the computer. 
My computer tends to temperamental, though, so... 
, but Illuminations is over at Epcot every night, so that might be a possibility as well.
You just go--you never know...
DH and I always use the TIW now and for just the two of us we usually save few hundred dollars over using the DDP.
