5th annual trip for 5th birthday! 10/15-10/22, 2005

[bowsi]

Well, I thought I'd try my hand at composing a trip report. I've gotten so much information from the reports I've read here and the message boards that I thought I'd try and summarize our trip for anyone who might be interested in reading.

Now, the particulars:

Husband: 46 year old man who really, really loves DisneyWorld
Me: 43 year old wife and mother of:
Son: 5 year old who's birthday we're celebrating on the 19th.

Accomodations: We stayed October 15 - 22, 2005, for the 5th year in a row, at Port Orleans Riverside. Something about the comfort level of knowing where everthing is at really appeals to us.

About me: First off, I tend to be fairly high strung. I don't relax really easily and even though this is our eleventh trip since the early 1990's to Disney I still can fall into the "commando" mode of "keep going, keep moving, got to see....". This trait, which suits me quite well professionally, made for a miserable couple of days for all three of us last year at Disney. I decided I aboslutely, positively did not want to repeat that fiasco this year. So, you need to know that my mantra for MONTHS going into this trip was, "remember to relax. Enjoy your son enjoying himself". Well, you can make your decision on how well I accomplished that by the end of this report.

Also, FYI, I'll be adding to this report on this same thread - I won't be posting new threads titled "day 2" etc. I find it easier to read reports this way.

About our son: Lover of Power Rangers, Thomas the Tank Engine, Simba and all things mechanical. We've celebrated his birthday every year at Disney.

About my husband: Laid back and quiet - inversely proportional to me.

Ok, here we go!

Saturday, October 15, 2005
Our flight left Chicago O'Hare at 7:00am which meant we were up at 4am. Luckily everything was on time and we actually pulled back from the gate a couple minutes early. Now, Ted rearranged our seating assignments. Instead of the three seats together that we had when I purchased the tickets last May, my son and I were in one row with my husband in front of us. We had the window and seat next to it with a woman occupying the aisle seat. She definately was not in the Disney mood. "No matter", I thought. Well, Nicholas (son) was his usual playful self which she found annoying and expressed herself with deep sighs everytime he said something. Things came to a head (for her, at least), when Nicholas announced in his loud voice, "Mommy, I've got a bad crank!". That's what he calls a stomach cramp. You can guess what that meant. Well, the lady in the aisle seat didn't want to get up. She finally did after I nudged her and Nicholas bounced around. After I got that situation taken care of she allowed us to sit back down. I was really glad when we got to MCO.

We rented an unremarkable car from National - everything fine there, no problems and the rental process went very smoothly. Hooray! It's onward to Riverside!

We got to the resort with no problems - I will confess that when we went under the Magic Kingdom arch I burst into tears. Me - a fairly cynical adult weeping at being back at DisneyWorld. My husband just looked at me and laughed and said, "glad to be back?". Oh, yes.

I went in to check us in - I was hoping that a room would be ready so that we could get changed - it was hot! The line wasn't very long and there was a very nice CM handing out folders with the newsletter, park hours and other information to look at while waiting. I thought that was a nice touch. At this point, my husband and son came in. I suggested they go to the arcade and play a couple of games while I finished up. Happy faces all around. Well, a room was ready - Oak Manor, second floor, room 9232. I had made no requests this time - remember my mantra? Just enjoy the moment....So it came as a nice surprise when the CM asked me at checkin if I had any preferences. I told her "no, just not the first floor" and "mansions, please".

So, cards in hand, I walked into the arcade (about 20 minutes after I sent them in there). My husband is ready to go to the room, I'm ready to go to the room, but you guessed it, Nicholas definately is not ready to go to the room. He wants to stay and play. "No", I say. "It's time to go". Well, we basically had to pull him out of there. Here's where really the worst part of the week happened, and if anyone reading this witnessed the event, please let me apologize. I'm pulling Nicholas through the lobby with my husband trailing with a bag. We get outside, where the buses and cars pull up and Nicholas yells out, "This stinks!" "I want to go home!", as he pulls at my arm and flings himself on the ground. My husband then begins to comment about "all the money we're spending on this vacation and it's unappreciated" (or something to that effect). Now, you have to know that I have a vision, a desire, a dream, if you will, of the three of us holding hands, Nicholas between us, laughing and skipping as we experience the joy that can be Disney. It's never happended exactly like my dream and it definately wasn't happening at that moment. So what do I do? Am I calm? Am I enjoying the moment? No. I look at the both of them and say "shut up, both of you." This, in my family, is the ultimate no no of things to say. Both of their mouths dropped open and I ground out to both of them to get in the car and drive to the room. Well, when we got over to Oak Manor and got out of the car, I felt horrid about what I said. So, while we were pulling all the bags out of the car, I apologized to them and reminded everyone that we were there for a fun week and there would be lots of time to do everything that we wanted to do. Really, I think that was more for myself than for son or husband...

After we got unpacked we decided to go have our annual lunch at Planet Hollywood. I know a lot of people don't like this place but we, for some reason, really enjoy it. It's a fun restaurant with lots of things to look at while waiting for tables and food. As usual, it didn't disappoint us. After lunch, we went to Goodings (I know, I know, stuff is cheaper other places but for some reason, I just gravitate to this store) for snacks and drinks and adult beverages.

After snack shopping, we went back to Riverside to go swimming at the "Loud Pool", Nicholas's term for the main pool with the slide. We spent a long time there and then decided to just go to the food court for a snack and call it a night. After Nicholas got to bed my husband and I pulled our room chairs outside our door for what would become a nightly tradition and had a couple of beers, toasting ourselves for being back again!

Onward to Day 2 and Magic Kingdom....

 

[Alice Sr.]

I hope that is all the drama you had to deal with on your trip. It's not unusual for little ones (and big ones) to have a melt down early on. The excitement of finally being there can be overwhelming. We took my oldest DD's dad and his wife and their young son and infant DD (my DD's 1/2 brother and sister) with us to BWV for my DD's 13th Birthday celebration. Her little brother (was maybe a year younger than your son) had an issue in the lobby/front entrance of the BW and he threw his stuffed Mickey down and started jumping up and down on it. Talk about mortified looks, it was like he had committed a sacrilege I look forward to reading the rest of your report, thanks for posting.

Edited because I forgot to ask how you liked TED we are using them for the 1st next month. I hate that they split you up. I'm sure everyone would have survived if they left your seats as booked.

 

[bowsi]

How did we like TED? Well, it got us back and forth on time. The plane itself seemed older and a little beat up. The flight attendants did offer "picnic style" boxed snacks for purchase. If you know O'Hare, TED flights seem to use the B concourse with the gates in the 30's and up. It's a walk.

Ok, so here's Day 2 - October 16, 2005

The plan today was to do Magic Kingdom for the day and then over to World Showcase for dinner at Biergarten at the Germany Pavilion. So, after a delicious (heehee) breakfast at the food court at Riverside, we were off to the parking lot at Magic Kingdom.

Side note - driving to the parks works better for us, it seems. We like being able to go right to our car and drive by ourselves wherever we need to go. I definately don't like waiting for buses.

Side note #2 - today was the first day that I really took a good look at our room at Riverside. Now, you need to know that I'm usually the one laughing at the posts of people complaining of miniscule (in my mind) faults in their rooms. However, I have to say, as much as I love Riverside, the room this time just didn't seem up to the usual standards. Quite frankly, it was dirty. Not the sheets or towels but it just seemed dusty, run down and, well, a little dirty. Will it stop us from going back? No, not at all but it was a little disappointing.

Nicholas wanted to take the monorail and I wanted to sit up front with the driver. No problem, we just waited while two other families ahead of us got on. Nicholas was bouncing around, wanting to ride Buzz Lightyear. It was fun watching him be so excited. After receiving our pilot licenses and going through bag check we were finally using our tickets! Also great this year were (or so we thought), no plans for renting a stroller. As we walked up Main Street, we saw the first of many PhotoPass photographers. It's fun to do - something I really recommend to everyone. So, of course we got our picture taken in front of the castle. After checking the tip board I decided to walk quickly over to Peter Pan for fastpasses since the standby time was already 40 minutes at 11:00am.

This was a bad move on my part. Remember my mantra? Enjoy the moment? Well, here I am moving high speed through the crowds intent on nothing else but getting those fastpasses and getting back to my son and husband and getting on Buzz Lightyear. That done, I march everyone over to Buzz where we ride to the great delight of Nicholas. Then we walked up to the Indy Cars and Nicholas and my husband rode after about a 25 minute wait, all the time me tapping my toes thinking "we've got to get going", "we've got to get a plan together...". After they finished this ride the (my) plan was to go to the Carousel, Dumbo, Small World then fastpass time for Peter Pan. Horrors of horrors (in my mind) was Nicholas wanting an ice cream after the cars. Well, I bought him something called "Itsakadoozie" (I think) and was trying to make him walk and eat it. We made it up to the teacups when he sat down on the curb (after me saying for the tenth time, "come on, let's go..."), looked up at me and said, "can't I just take a break?" Well, that stopped me in my tracks. Honestly, for the rest of the week I was A LOT better at going with the flow. It took my five year old son asking me for a break that got me to slow down.

We did the rest of the rides I detailed above in the same order, just slower with the addition of Philharmagic. After Peter Pan, which is a nice ride, but I don't get people willing to stand upwards of an hour for this one, we went over to Columbia Harbour House for lunch. My husband and I split the ham sandwich and Nicholas had the macaroni and cheese. Good lunch. Afterwards, we stayed until about 5pm and rode all the usuals. I went on Aladdin for the first time - really fun! I didn't expect getting spit on by the camel, though.

We fit in a quick swim at the quiet pool at Riverside and then were off to World Showcase for dinner. We really enjoy the Biergarten - the food is good and the entertainment is fun. We were seated at a table with another family of three and then a party of four adults. Unfortunately, we ended up at the second to the last tier of tables all the way over by the service area. Nicholas loved the German music, my husband liked the food and we both loved the big beers! In fact, when we were ready to go, the waiter even brought me a "to go" cup for the rest of that huge stein. After dinner we walked a little around the lagoon and then saw our first showing of Illuminations.

The weather this day was great and the parks didn't seem horribly crowded. All in all, a perfect day for the three of us.

Again, after an uneventful trip back to the resort and bath for Nicholas, we were outside our door having snacks and drinks. Good, good times.

Day 3 comes next - MGM

 

[bowsi]

Monday, October 17, 2005

The plan was to go to MGM for the day. Again, the weather was nice - warm and just a little humid. While entering, I picked up the daily show time guide and was looking at it when I saw Power Rangers listed in the Character Interaction section. Nicholas absolutely adores Power Rangers. See, I didn't know that Power Rangers had a meet n greet so I don't know if it's something new or just something I haven't paid attention to in the past. My touring plan went out the window when we realized that we had 15 minutes to move to the New York Street. My husband told Nicholas that he would be able to meet the Rangers and was he excited - husband or son, you may ask? I think my husband was about as excited as Nicholas was! So, off we marched to meet the Power Rangers. All were there - Red Ranger, Green Ranger, Pink Ranger, White Ranger and (I think) Omega Ranger. Nicholas wanted to meet Red Ranger first. He was so excited he couldn't even give RR a high five. After about 30 minutes of meeting and getting pictures we decided to move off to the Great Movie Ride - a walk on for us.

After lunch at SciFi - another must do for us, we went and saw the Stunt Show. It is a good show but I'm glad we didn't have to wait to get into the seating area. It must be brutal in the summer. There is no shade just hot, hot pavement.

We went to see Playhouse Disney and it was kind of sad to realize this was probably our last time going there with Nicholas. He just seems to have moved beyond Bear and Jo Jo. I still remember the first year we went to this show and Nicholas was so excited when he saw Bear and the bubbles come down from the ceiling. This year, not so much excitement at this.

After another swim at the quiet pool we went back to Epcot and World Showcase. The three of us really enjoy walking around the countries. We decided to eat at Tangerine Cafe in Morroco. I recommend this CS to anyone. We watched Illuminations and then went back to the resort, got Nicholas to bed and once again, pulled the chairs outside the door for snacks and drinks.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

This day was a "no theme park" day. We decided to go to Typhoon Lagoon for the morning to mid-afternoon then back to Riverside and rent one of the boats before dinner. The weather was perfect. We did a few slides, Nicholas played in the kids area and spent the rest of the time in the wave pool and laying on loungers while Nicholas played in the sand. One nice feature of the kids meals there is that they come in a plastic bucket with shovel. Nice surprise. In fact, we were having such a good time we decided to scrap the boat rental plans and just stay at Typhoon Lagoon. This is where the strangest/oddest thing happened all week. A group of people were sitting next to us. Two upper-teen (at least) boys, a teenage girl, an older woman and man. Well, they were packing up to go and I wasn't paying much attention to them until I heard my husband make a noise. I looked up and over and the woman was standing there, in the sand with her one piece bathing suit around her waist and fastening on a large black bra. I looked at my husband and said, "she's not planning on changing here, is she?". My husband said that if she was going change he was going to watch (hey, I'm just doing a trip report here and telling it as it happened!). Well, she wrapped a towel around her waist and proceeded to struggle out of a wet bathing suit. Of course, the towel gaped open and fell a little bit and everyone, including her group, the people sitting around and yes, my husband, got a good look. We were probably not more than 100 steps away from a bathroom so I don't know why she chose to change in the sand.

Dinner this night was Mickey's Backyard BBQ. We have done this event several times in the past and have enjoyed it. This year, the menu included hamburgers along with the chicken, hot dogs and ribs. Also, the characters don't queue up anymore on the stage area - they go table to table. It was crowded and we had the pleasure of having a family from Scotland join us. It was their first time in DisneyWorld and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. After a few beers, Derrick (the Scottish husband), my husband and me got into the respective merits of baseball and Kaber (I think) tossing. We left with Nicholas holding Derrick's hand and me teasing their oldest daughter that she was going to be babysitting the next night for us.

 

[bowsi]

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

My husband decided to take Nicholas for the day to Kennedy Space Center. It was a last minute decision but turned out to be a very good one. Nicholas absolutely loved looking at the rockets - in fact, yesterday when he went back to preschool and the teachers asked him what he liked best - he said the rockets at Kennedy Space Center.

I spent the day at Riverside battling a broken washing machine that flooded the laundry room while I sat outside by the pool. Actually it was a good day - I got to read my book, get some sun and relax.

In the evening we went to Magic Kingdom for EMH. This was our first time doing this and we absolutely loved the feature. We watched Wishes and then had dinner at Pecos Bills. This is a CS restaurant that we haven't been to in years and it will be years before we go back. Yes the fixings bar was good, but the chicken wrap sandwich was not and the kids selections were very poor. I'd rather go to Casey's and get hot dogs than fight the lines for Pecos Bills. Really, I can't say enough about EMH. Great, great feature which allowed us to go on all the rides we wanted to and get out by 11:30pm.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Animal Kingdom day and the first really, really hot and humid day for us. In fact, Nicholas decided he wanted a stroller which we rented and he actually sat in. We went on the Safari Ride, saw It's Tough to be a Bug and The Lion King Show, had a late lunch at the pizza place and then left for the quiet pool.

After swimming we went over to Epcot and went on Soarin' for the first time. Nicholas was scared at first but it became our absolute favorite ride. Again, we saw Illuminations and stayed for EMH. We also got some sandwiches and desserts at the Patisserie in France for dinner while we watched the fireworks.

Friday, October 21, 2005

This is the day of major drama. Prior to our trip, I purchased MYW Premium 5 day tickets from the local Disney Store for all three of us. On Friday morning, while I was going through the receipts of the week, I came across the ticket receipt. I figured I didn't need it anymore so right before we left for Epcot I threw it away in the room. Big, bad mistake. We got to the ticket gate, I went through then it was Nicholas' turn. Nope, according to the CM, he had a 4 day ticket that was used up so we were sent to guest services. The CM there did a fantastic thing. After hearing my story, listening to me ask her to call Riverside and not let them empty our room garbage because I'd drive over and retrieve the receipt she simply gave me another one day park hopper ticket for Nicholas. Great recovery and something I won't forget. Thing is, I really want to know what went wrong. Did I purchase a five day ticket and it was coded wrong? Did the CM at the Disney Store inadvertently code a four day child's ticket? I don't have the receipt so I can't reference that. According to guest services, they couldn't tell me the breakout from the $809.45 that was charged to my American Express for tickets because of the prepurchase discount. Actually, the ticket prices listed at allears.net don't add up to what I paid either. Ah well. All's well that ends well.

After Epcot we went back to go swimming one last time when the monsoon rains ocurred. Since it wasn't lightening or thundering we decided to swim anyway - something that Nicholas loved.

Dinner that night was at ESPN Club at the Boardwalk after seeing Fantasmic and then back to the resort for one last sit outside our room.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

What's there to say? Packing, packing, packing, breakfast at Perkins then over to Disney Quest for a couple of hours. We returned our rental car, got on the plane and were home in Chicago by 7:00pm - to 45 degree temps!

Wrap Up

Well, it's been a fun experience putting this together and bringing back some good memories. I hope you enjoyed reading this and, if anyone can assist and cares, I can attach some pictures. I tried last night but for some reason can't seem to figure out the process.

We're already looking forward to our trip in 2006.......

 

[Alice Sr.]

If you know O'Hare, TED flights seem to use the B concourse with the gates in the 30's and up. It's a walk.

I usually fly AA but I thought the bonus about flying UniTed would be the convenient concourse location, I guess not.

I looked up and over and the woman was standing there, in the sand with her one piece bathing suit around her waist and fastening on a large black bra.

We were at the Beach Club pool a year ago and a Dad (he was with his wife and two sons) stood up completely dropped his shorts without the benefit of a towel and put on his swim trunks (no undies mind you). My two DD's (16 & 13) and I broke out laughing. The guy next to him asked him where he was from (he was from Europe) and told him in America we keep our pants on in public!

On Friday morning, while I was going through the receipts of the week, I came across the ticket receipt. I figured I didn't need it anymore so right before we left for Epcot I threw it away in the room.

I'm sure I keep every receipt but the one I really need.

Glad you had a good time, I'm hoping our Ted adventure is not bad and I'm glad you guys had a good relaxing time.