8 Nites Of Practically Perfect Pop!!! NEW PICTURES, PAGE 13!!!

[DonnaW]

Part one, the journey


The idea for this trip started way before last September, when my DH, Mark, and I wanted to go to Disney World to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Due to a number of events, including hurricanes and gas shortages, we decided to postpone the trip until this May. Because the decision to cancel was kind of made at the last minute, I didn't want to get too excited about going this year, since we all know that LIFE is what happens when you're making other plans!

Well, golly gee wizz, it became mid-April and nothing seemed to be looming that was gonna cause us to have to reschedule! Resort reservations were made at POP Century, ADR's were booked for places we wanted to try and some that we were trying again, maps were consulted for the drive down (from Chicago!), and $$ were set aside for the trip.

After packing tons and tons of stuff (remember this is just for two of us, how do you people manage to fly and pack for whole families???), we loaded up the Escape with gas & dreamed Disney dreams. You know that commercial where the whole family is "too excited to sleep"?? That was me!

We got up before the crack of dawn on Friday morning and low and behold, after all the planning, wishing, waiting and hoping, we actually left Chicago, headed down to Florida!!! YIPPEEE!!!

Our first "rest stop" was barely past the Illinois border...we had to have a meal at Cracker Barrel, since the one close to our house has recently gone out of business. I love, love, love the cheesy hash browns they have at CB, and of course, I had to browse the shop a bit. Hey, we're on vacation, we have no schedule to keep!

After our great meal, we zipped on thru Indiana, & passed over the bridge into Louisville, KY. Mark's family all lives in Louisville, so we have driven this far quite a few times, so I could NOT wait to get past there! He called his mother, with a promise we would stop in on the drive back home, and at last, I felt we were REALLY on our way to Disney!

After getting thru KY, we stopped in TN and took some pictures of the TN River area (who knew a rest area could be so scenic??) and then drove just a bit further into Georgia until we stopped for the evening at the Country Inn and Suites in Dalton, Georgia.

I love Country Inn & Suites hotels...they are just so cozy, with their little fireplaces, and winding staircases! This one is kind of at the foot of the mountain area, so it was quite beautiful. In the morning, we had the complimentary *expanded*....(that's what all the literature said!) breakfast. This was actually much more than a normal continental b'fast...there were also hot items like waffles and eggs!

That Saturday morning, we both put on our Disney shirts...and left the hotel fairly early to continue our drive southward! I was beyond excited...after waiting all this time, it was the day we were FINALLY going to get to Disney World!!!!! Again, YIPPPEEEE!!!!

 

[DonnaW]

Saturday, April 29th

This is IT, ladies and gentlemen...THE day has arrived!!! TODAY we will check into Walt Disney World!!!! I was beyond happy....I was thrilled, I was overjoyed, I was elated...well, you get the picture!!

But, first, we had to finish that drive down. We continued on thru Georgia, and passed thru Atlanta, and had to snap a picture of the Olympic torch they have. Finally, we slid over the border into Florida! FLORIDA!!! Wow! We were actually in Florida...I could NOT believe it! YIPPEEE, again!

Looking at the handy, dandy trip-tik that was so thoughtfully provided by AAA (well, I had to have a membership and call them to get it, but you get the picture), I tried to calculate how much longer it was going to be until we actually got to Disney. Sigh...too, too long! But, wait! I realized looking at the strip map that the destination listed was Vero Beach! Last September, we were considering Vero Beach, so when I ordered the trip-tik, I had them route us to Vero Beach. Ah, ha!!! Subtract about 100 miles off our drive today!!!! Did I mention YIPPEEE????!!!! That was one of the highlights of my day, to realize we were even closer to starting the MAGIC than I thought we were!!!!

 

[DonnaW]

After a few more hours thinking "are we there yet"??, we finally got off the main freeway and headed towards Disney World!!!

I was driving at this point and Mark was busy taking pictures and lo and behold, what to our wondering eyes should appear, but that awesome, magical, can't believe it's actually in front of us.....HAPPIEST CELEBRATION ON EARTH...WALT DISNEY WORLD...sign!!!! Oh my gosh, I couldn't believe it!!!! We had made it!!! Tears of joy filled my eyes...literally...I was just so delighted to *finally* be on Disney property and to see those ever-so-cool purple highway direction signs. (Helps that purple is my favorite color..thx, Disney!)

So, we are on Disney property...I am driving and crying...Mark is taking pictures...but, ummm...where is POP Century???

 

[ENSOCK]

Great start! Please don't stop now!

 

[DonnaW]

Okay, this is NOT good. We have no clue where POP is. I'm thinking okay I know it's near the Caribbean Beach, and I think that's an EPCOT resort, so let's look for EPCOT signs. Mark wants to go back on the main highway and start over and I say ummm...NO WAY...I refuse to leave Disney now that I finally am here!!! So we follow the signs for EPCOT and guess what...the signs for EPCOT actually get you to EPCOT. What a concept! We drove up thru the bus lane and turned around and somehow actually managed to figure out where we were going (well, Mark did...I pulled over and let him drive...may have been those tears in my eyes that made it harder for me to figure all this out!)

Anyway....there it finally was....Disney's POP Century Resort!!! After seeing tons of pictures of it on-line and thinking I was going there last year, we were finally, finally pulling in to the drive and passing all those signs. I totally cracked up when we passed the "are we there yet" sign...since that had been my theme song for most of the day!

 

[FionaLovesShrek]

Subbing, you've got me hooked!

 

[DonnaW]

We stopped at the ever-so-cute little security area and happily told the woman there we were "checking in!" YIPPEEE!!!

She did all that "security" stuff she had to do and then said "oh, you're from Illinois...so am I"...she said she lived in an area that wasn't too far from us. She KNEW how loooooooonggg our drive was, and told us she hated doing that drive, but was glad to see we had made it safely. She had such a big, bright smile, and was such a pleasant "greeter"...I felt that the magic had started already and we hadn't even checked in yet!

We went to park in the "check in" area and skipped delightedly into the lobby (well, I did...Mark is a bit more sedate than I am!) Lo and behold, there was a whole crew of check in folks waiting to help us...and no real line to speak of. More magic!!! So the check in lady says "welcome", gives us all kinds of reading material, and tells us where our home for the next 8 nights is gonna be. I asked if my requests of ground floor, 70's...possible king sized bed had been honored...yep, ground floor, yep 70's, no luck on the king bed...oh, well, we will manage!

The POP Century lobby is very cute...shadow boxes on the walls, the check in area, a small area for little ones to be kept amused if check in takes awhile, and then the concierge area. This is where we headed next to get our tickets for the parks and check to make sure all those ADR's I had scheduled were actually in the system.

We went ahead and got 8 day park hopper tickets, even though I thought we would probably only use 7 (the extra day was like $2, so I figured what the heck, we're on vacation!) and had the guy check the ADR's I had booked like the good little DIS planner I am. He printed me copies of all of them and noticed I had the Crystal Palace scheduled for two different days. He canceled one of them and then said, "I see you have Whispering Canyon down here for today at 5:15". My eyes must have bulged out of my head, cuz...ummm...it was five o'clock at this point and ummm.I *thought* ..my ADR was for like 7ish!!! He laughed and said, "nah, just kidding..." and prevented my heart attack from happening!!! WHEW!

 

[Sneezie]

DonnaW, can't wait to read the rest of your Practically Perfect Time at POP.
My sister and I are going to be there the second week of Sept. We've stayed at the CBR and Poly, so we're kind of nervous about POP. But that's all we could afford right now and we just HAD to get there this year!

 

[Sneezie]

Deleted

 

[DonnaW]

Okay, still with me? We've driven to Disney, two long days on the road, finally found POP Century, checked in, bought our tickets, confirmed our confirmed ADR's and now we're off to see the room we will call home for the next 8 nights!

I felt like humming "follow the yellow brick road" as we walked out of the lobby area armed with all our paperwork and maps and tickets, and walked out into the bright Florida sunshine and saw the palm trees and the Hippy Dippy pool area and heard the music playing!!! WE HAD ARRIVED!!!!

So, we trek past the pool, past the Goofy Pop Jets area, on over to the 70's section where the big wheel (and I'm talking BIG, big wheel, that baby must be like 10 feet tall) sits, and scan the numbers looking for ours. I realized that our room was in one of the "back corridors", not facing the inner courtyard, and at first, I wasn't sure I was gonna like that, but actually, it was a perfect location. (I did title this thread practically perfect POP for a reason!) We get to the room and oh, thrill of all thrills, in our window, what do I see??? Yep!!!! Towel Animals!!!!! I felt like I had won the million dollar lottery!!!!! I was SOOOO excited. We put the key in the lock, walked in and I just jumped up & down on the bed I was so happy!!! Well, not really, but you get the picture!!!

After deciding the room was gonna work for us, we went around the resort and took some pictures and then headed off to Everything POP which is the food court/gift shop area to buy....the oh so popular on the DIS boards refillable MUG!!!! (Yes, we bought two of them and only refilled them at POP and have no plans to bring them back on a future trip, okay? Okay! )We were in the food court around 6ish and got to actually see the cast members do "The Hustle"!!! That was quite amusing and such fun! I love POP Century! We brought in the eight hundred and fifty million things we couldn't live without for the next 8 nights from our car and by then it really was about time to head off to the Wilderness Lodge for our dinner.

 

[DonnaW]

Okay, so having left the car after driving in it for what seemed like forever, it was time to get back in it, cuz I didn't really want to do the bus thing to go to the Wilderness Lodge. Remember all the trouble we had finding POP Century? We made sure we had the oh-so-thoughtfully provided by Disney map with us (actually, I forgot it in the room and had to run back in for it!) and managed to get over to the WL without any unforeseen drama!

The Wilderness Lodge is a beautiful resort and I often think I might like to try staying there someday, but then we live kind of close to Wisconsin, and there are quite a few hotels up there that are kind of similar (just not on as grand of a scale). Again, I thought to myself, I LOVE POP Century, where else but Disney?? We have done Whispering Canyon Cafe before, and it's one of Mark's favorite places to eat at Disney (for the food, not the hoopla!) Why do they call this place Whispering anyway? Ain't nobody doing no whisperin' ! We stuffed ourselves on the all-ya-can-chow-down skillet, and waddled over to the lobby area to take some pictures. We moseyed (yep, at the Wilderness Lodge, ya gotta mosey!) on outside, and just walked around, breathing in the Florida/Disney air. (I think Disney World has special air brought in...there's just something about the way it all smells, ya know what I mean?) We wanted to watch the Electrical parade, but it was really windy and kind of cool, so we weren't sure if it was happening or not, but due to Disney magic, it did! And it was great! And it made me smile from ear to ear!!! (Mark kept accusing me all week of having a "Disney smile"--- and I am proud of it!) It was the perfect end to our first perfect day, and we headed back to our practically perfect room at POP to settle in and dream of the vacation days that were still to come!!!

 

[DonnaW]

ENSOCK & FIONA...thx...good to know someone's reading this!!!

 

[DonnaW]

SNEEZIE..I really hope you *love* POP Century as much as we did! It is a really fun place to be! It's not a deluxe like the Polynesian, but it's so cool to have all the music around you and there's the lake to go sit by if you want it to just be a bit quiet, and the cast members there all seemed so happy to be there! For a Disney place to say, I really think it's great!!!

 

[lauren_elizabeth]

We're staying at POP CENTURY at the end of August this year & reading this trip report has gotten me SO excited! Can't wait to read the rest of it & to hear all about the wonderful POP!

 

[DonnaW]

Part two...the first *full* day, Sunday, April 30th

Our two travelers have made it safely over the hills and thru the woods to Disney's place and have experienced the delight of the Whispering Canyon. They have headed back to POP and been greeted once again by the ever-so-friendly "security" lady at the guard place..."welcome home" says she...awwww! How sweet was that!

Setting up the "white noise" machine for the evening, we drift off to sleep, promising ourselves that after the days of traveling, we will "sleep in" in the morning. Ummm...yeah, right...hello...this is Disney World we're talking about here! I woke up kind of early and Mark woke up shortly after I turned off the "white noise" thingie...It does make ya want to keep on dreamin'.

Today it was off to the Magic of the Magic Kingdom! I could NOT wait to get over there. The weather could not have been more perfect for this our first full day in Disney's World! The sun was shining, it was warm, there was a slight breeze blowing. Mark had been kind enough to fill up my refillable mug (he sends out a wave to the mug-men of the world! ) and we got ready for our day!

We went past the Stayin' Alive music of the 70's area to find the "Disney Transport" bus stop for the Magic Kingdom. I really like that they have all the gated thingies at the bus stop,(I do know there's a word for those, but I don't know it??) it keeps things very organized in the bus lines. And I love that POP doesn't share the bus with any other resort, and that there is just the one bus stop. In just minutes, we have ARRIVED at the Magic Kingdom! Not the transportation & ticket center, folks, but the actual, honest to goodness entrance to the Magic Kingdom!!! YIPEEE!!!!

Of course, before we can enter and experience all the joy and magic of the Magic Kingdom, we have to get thru the dreaded security line and the finger-reading do-hickey. There is, of course, a line for those without bags...but, come on, remember, we *don't* know HOW to travel light, so we have to wait in the security line for them to inspect our backpack, camera bag, fanny pack, purse, etc. Although it's a nice thought and all, do those security people ever stop anyone?? That over, it's time to go to the ticket area, put our fingers in the "read me" slot and begin the magic! Mark got in just fine, but no, not to be for me! My card didn't read right!!! What the heck?? Hello, I drove over 1,000 miles to get here, I slept on cloud 9 waiting for this, I paid my $$, I am standing outside the Disney pearly gates and you're telling my card doesn't work???!!! With apologies to the folks that were behind us that morning, I watched as the guy who was manning this station meandered off to some mysterious place and made phone calls or whatever he had to do (Mark is telling everyone waiting, "sorry, her card didn't work", thx, dear!) and the guy finally came back and gave me a special pass to use for the day, saying I had to check back at POP to get it fixed. ( He was NOT a happy guy, so I will NOT call him a cast member. Hmmmfff!!! But he will NOT erase my Disney smile!!!
Finally, the ticket was fixed and I was IN!!!! Welcome to the Happiest Celebration on Earth!!! Welcome to the Magic! Welcome to the Magic Kingdom!!!

 

[KatelynnsAuntie]

I don't normally read trip reports but this one has me hooked!! And I'll be staying at Pop 9/2-9/9!!

 

[goofymom23]

Great trip report. keep them coming, we need the magic.

 

[DonnaLeah]

Really enjoying your trip report. Don't leave us hangin' here!!!

 

[DonnaW]

We walked into Main Street USA and heard that upbeat, happy music, and looked down the street and saw IT....the castle!!!! The castle, I tell you!!! The symbol of all things Disney! And it was there...it was right in front of me!!! Words just can't describe that first glimpse of Cinderella's Castle right at the end of Main Street. It is beyond awesome, it is incredible, it is magical, it is wonderful....just add in whatever adjective you prefer, that's what it was!!! And it was decorated just beautifully for the Happiest Celebration on Earth.

Since I had read on-line that today was the last day that Pirates of the Caribbean was going to be open before it shut down again for rehab, we decided that is where we would head to first. I honestly thought the line would be long, but there really was hardly any wait at all. The cast member at the entrance, though, handed me a lanyard-looking thingie. I thought I had won some sort of lottery (insert big Disney smile), but he told me that I should just hand it to the cast member at the end before we boarded our boat. Apparently, that's how they track how long the "wait time" is that you see outside of attractions. Having survived our first pirate attack, we decided that since it was gonna be closed the rest of the week, we would tackle it again! What the heck, we're on vacation, so why not?? I LOVE PofC and would have been so disappointed to have missed out on it; I was really glad we had a chance to ride it. What are they gonna do it, anyway? I hope they don't miss with it too much, it is one of the original attractions and I think those are some of the best ones!

After surviving not one, but TWO pirate attacks, we decided to do something a bit tamer...yep, we went to It's a Small World. Now, ya gotta know, I LOVE Disney "cute". I am so not a roller coaster person, and Mark isn't either, although he did the father thing and took our sons on the coasters a few times when we went with them to Disney when they were younger. So, even though some people may want to wear ear plugs in IASW, I love, love, love that ride! The little girl in me just loves all those cute little dolls. And, I even like the song, neener, neener! Told ya, I love Disney "cute"! (sorry).

It was just about time for our lunch seating at the Crystal Palace. Eeyore is my all-time favorite Disney character...you know, he's gloomy, but loveable, kinda like me...so I always really, really look forward to CP. We got seated pretty quickly. The restaurant is absolutely beautiful, all glass, lots of planted greenery, and of course, the characters from the 100-acre woods mingle with the guests like they are all at a big party! Oh, yeah, and the food is also good, too! When Eyeore came to our table, we took pictures, of course, but then I felt I needed something else to "capture the moment"! So, napkin to the rescue!!! Yep, I used the napkin that said "Magic Kingdom" on it and sheepishly asked Eyeore if he would sign an autograph for me. And, you know what? He very graciously did!!! YIPPEE!! And then when Tigger came by, guess what? He saw that Eeyore had signed my very expensive autograph book (read napkin) and signed it, too!! How sweet was that!!!

After waving good-bye to our friends from the woods, we wandered out near the castle and realized that the parade was going to start pretty soon. Now, I realize that some people LOVE parades and some people could care less, but fortunately for both of us, Mark and I both really love parades, especially Disney parades. We pulled up a spot of curb and settled in to wait on the "Share a Dream Come True" parade. What a GREAT title for a parade, especially on this particular day, because my dream of being in Disney World and at the Magic Kingdom had *actually* come true!!!

 

[DonnaW]

We had an absolute perfect spot for viewing the parade (do you realize how often I use the adjective "perfect" when describing this Disney trip?? You would think it was a practically perfect trip or something!). We took tons of pictures of the different floats floating on by and the characters waltzing on past...Eeyore, Tigger and our other buds must have been finished with the lunch duty by then, cuz they were front and center in the parade!! What fun this was!

After the parade, we decided to watch the Cinderellebration show in front of the castle. I gotta tell ya, this I didn't think was all that perfect. I usually really enjoy the shows with the characters, especially the ones involving the princesses, but this one just didn't do it for us. 'Nuff said.

We decided that it was time to get an adult sort of beverage (this was our delayed anniversary trip, after all), so we decided to take the boat from the MK over to the Polynesian. This was a new experience for us, and one we really enjoyed as we sailed past the Grandness of the Grand Floridian and the coolness of the Contemporary and docked at the Pleasure of the Polynesian. I had seriously, seriously considered booking the Poly for this trip, because again, this was kind of a special one, so was really looking forward to wandering around over there. We went in and looked around the lobby and the gift shop and with apologies to all of the fans of the Poly I know are on this board, it just kind of left me with an "eh" feeling. We have some gorgeous hotels/resorts here in Chicago, and I felt I could have been at a few of them, especially one called Indian Lakes that is only about 20 minutes from our house...same greenery in the lobby, same little seating area, was built about the same time. So, again, YIPPEE, I LOVE POP Century. Where else but Disney??? We enjoyed our drinks and took the return trip back to the MK. By this time, I think the drive/excitement of the day/Magic Kingdom/or could it be the adult beverage?? had caught up with us and we were ready to head back to POP.

I thought we would have dinner and head back to the MK, since it was open late for resort guests only that night. What actually happened it that we got back, filled up our handy-dandy refillable mugs, got a good meal from the POP food court, which we enjoyed outside sitting by the Hippy Dippy pool area. I LOVED hearing the music while we ate dinner and afterwards, I think we both just decided that it was time to just kind of relax for the night.

Tomorrow would be yet another magical Disney Day!!! Stay tuned for more...