~ A 21 month old, a celebrity sighting, & a whole lotta food~2 week trip~ 2/28 update

[Sunset Cliffs]

The car service sounds very nice! I haven't considered renting a car at a hotel, but may look into it for our upcoming trip.

Sorry about the room. I HATE the smell of cigarette smoke so that would have made me very upset. I hope you get a new room.

I couldn't believe that there was such a cost difference to just rent from a hotel instead of the airport. Like I said, the difference of $400 was crazy to me. Avis will even come pick you up and take you to the Hilton, as well as drop you off after you return the car. So you don't need to take a taxi to get there.

Wow good thing you were still on CA time. That is one late night for a little guy. The car service sounds amazing. Leaving the airport with all of your baggage that quick sounds ideal

It was literally 5 minutes from walking out the doors from baggage claim to driving away. It doesn't get any faster than that. I couldn't believe how easy it was. It was nice to have them pick us up for our return flight as well because we left very early in the morning and we didn't have to worry about returning the rental car.

I'm still with ya and enjoying every word!!!
Wow, two weeks..glorious!!! Can't wait for
more!!

Thanks for sticking around!

Great trip report so far! Your little guy is too cute! Happy to hear he was so well behaved on your flights! We're taking our baby girl on her frist trip in 3 short weeks - she'll be almost 11 months when we travel - and I'm a bit nervous about the plane rides! LOL We're definitely bringing some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD's for her to watch & I'm hoping she sleeps some, too.

Can't wait to hear more about your trip & I really hope you guys get moved!! There's nothing worse than a smokey smelling hotel room - I'm also very sensitive to it & would have to be moved.

How long is the flight that you are going on? I think that Dylan was a little easier to control when he was your daughter's age than he is now, just because he knows how much freedom he normally has. Back then, he didn't understand as much. I'm sure your flight will be fine, but I highly recommend DVDs because it helps stretch out the time that they are doing an activity. I hope your flight goes well.

What a very ong day you had for sure. Hope tomorrow is a better one and you get your room switched with no problems. I would have a hard time iwth cigarette smell in my room as well. They just have to bring those ionizers in and run them for a couple of hours to get rid of it. One would think places would do that automatically.
Anxiously waiting for more.

Ginny

I have heard of those ionizer things and they sound like a good idea. On top of the smoke in this room, you could smell a really strong cleaning solution smell. It was like they were trying to cover up the smoke with a cleaner, but it almost made it worse. I hated to complain but it was pretty bad.

 

[OneTreeHillAddict]

Rental cars have went up like crazy! You guys scored with the town car! I never even call the airports anymore, they're way too high. So...did you change rooms???

 

[SunnieRN]

Stylin in a town car sounds like a much nicer way to travel after being in the plane for such a long time! Having to find a rental car, figuring out directions in the dark and spending an extra $300 made it even better!
It's too bad you started out with problems, but I hope they all get cleared up the next morning!!

 

[xoktenox]

Hey I'm here! Sorry to be late!

Just got all caught up, what a crazy busy first day! Let me just say you guys are a beautiful family! Dylan is adorableeeee and kind of reminds me of my brother when we were little. And I love your hair, its so pretty.

I hope all your toilet problems ended up working out alright and you got the room change. I'm so sensitive to smoke too so I can understand why it would bother you so much! Can't wait to read more

 

[stace208]

Yay! You're in Orlando with barely a bump in the road! Dylan seems like a little trooper through all of it. I hope you get your room moved-the smoke smell would not sit well with me at all!

Have fun with your family and looking forward to the next installment!

 

[ladybugmom]

Great update! What a nice ride to your resort!! So sorry you had to deal with a smelly room and broken toilets! Can't wait to read more!!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Lovin' the fact that you saved $300.00 by using a car service. That's just $300.00 more you have to spend on souvenirs!

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

Rental cars have went up like crazy! You guys scored with the town car! I never even call the airports anymore, they're way too high. So...did you change rooms???

I couldn't believe how expensive rental cars were. I wish we didn't even have to deal with them at all.

Stylin in a town car sounds like a much nicer way to travel after being in the plane for such a long time! Having to find a rental car, figuring out directions in the dark and spending an extra $300 made it even better!
It's too bad you started out with problems, but I hope they all get cleared up the next morning!!

It was so nice to have someone help us out with getting the bags, and then just letting them figure out how to get to the hotel. We always get mixed up leaving the airport and we didn't have to worry about that this time.

Hey I'm here! Sorry to be late!

Just got all caught up, what a crazy busy first day! Let me just say you guys are a beautiful family! Dylan is adorableeeee and kind of reminds me of my brother when we were little. And I love your hair, its so pretty.

I hope all your toilet problems ended up working out alright and you got the room change. I'm so sensitive to smoke too so I can understand why it would bother you so much! Can't wait to read more

Thank you so much for all of your kind comments. And thanks for coming over to check out my TR. I'm assuming that you and your brother both had the blonde hair when you were young too? All of the kids in my family had hair blonder than Dylan's until we were in high school.

Yay! You're in Orlando with barely a bump in the road! Dylan seems like a little trooper through all of it. I hope you get your room moved-the smoke smell would not sit well with me at all!

Have fun with your family and looking forward to the next installment!

Dylan was a real trooper. I was so happy to get the plane ride out of the way with just a few uncomfortable moments. I call that a successful flight!

Great update! What a nice ride to your resort!! So sorry you had to deal with a smelly room and broken toilets! Can't wait to read more!!

We were so happy with the car service. And really, the room was not as bad as it could have been. I just knew that the smoke smell wouldn't fly with my mom. She is way more sensitive to it than I am, and I didn't want to have her complain about it the whole time we were there.

Lovin' the fact that you saved $300.00 by using a car service. That's just $300.00 more you have to spend on souvenirs!

I know! It blew my mind how much the airport is charging for their cars. The reward for us was getting a nice ride to our hotel!

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Dylan woke up at 9:15 am and he had no problem sleeping all night long. We had his crib in our room so he stood up and yelled to wake us up. We had a quick breakfast in the room and decided that Todd was going to go over to the lobby to see if they would switch our room. Then he was going to catch a cab over to the Hilton to pick up our rental car. I took a quick shower and then he left.

I turned on the Disney channel so that I could get Dylan to watch a show and have some time to dry my hair and get dressed. He decided to go into hyper mode again. He has this thing when we are in hotels rooms where he really likes to jump on the beds. He never does this at our house, just when we are in hotels. So he is jumping on the bed, climbing on the couch, etc. One time I found him standing on top of his high chair! Not sure what was going on with him this morning but I had to keep chasing him all over the place instead of getting ready.

One time it got very quiet….so I realized that he was up to something. I couldn’t find him anywhere, and I saw that the bedroom door to the other bedroom was closed. I found him in there on the phone that was on the nightstand. He was having a full conversation on the phone, just chatting away. So I took the phone and listened and there was no one there, thank goodness. I got him out of the room, but he kept going back to do it again. He would pick up the phone and dial numbers (!), then start talking away. At first it was kind of funny because he would pick up the phone and say, “Hi Dada,” and then nod his head while saying, “Uh, uh….NO……” then he would start laughing and say bye, then hang up. He would do that routine over & over, and this would become a pattern throughout the whole trip. I’m not sure how many people he actually called throughout the whole trip, but he would always sneak off and want to get on the phones.

Since I was trying to rush to get ready, it was a pain chasing him all over the room. Then he just started being a bad little boy in general. He had to take a few time-outs and had a few tears before he finally calmed down. I don’t know if it was because he realized we were in a new environment, but he decided to test me this morning. Of course I want him to have fun, but I’m not going to let him get away with things that he wouldn’t get away with at home.

By this point I was a little frazzled, and Todd called to say that he had asked the concierge guy to call a cab for him to go pick up the car. The guy offered to get us a car for less than we were getting it through Avis, but it would still be a mid-size car. He said it would save us $50 from our Avis reservation, so I said to go for it. He also said he was still waiting to see if they would move us to a new room.

About a hour hour later he called and said they were moving us, and our new room was in the newly remodeled section – The Fountains. Yipee! I said I couldn’t believe that they were doing that for us, and he said that he used his charm on the girl at the front desk. That would have been interesting to see! He was going to pick up the car right now and then he would be back to get us moved. I start rushing around to get us all packed up and he called back 20 minutes later to say that the new car place was going to give us a Toyota Corolla. I told him that was not going to be big enough to fit the 3 of us plus my parents in it. He agreed and asked if they had anything else and they said no.

At this point I was getting annoyed. This company had driven over to pick Todd up and take him to their lot before they confirmed that they had the right type of car. So he had just wasted an hour with them and had no way to get to the Avis lot. I asked him where he was and he said he was over by the Crossroads area, so he was just going to walk to the Hilton. A person overheard him and offered to drive him over. So he was on his way.

He got back about 45 minutes later and Avis had upgraded him to a Hyundai Santa Fe SUV for free. Not sure why they did it, but it was a very nice car with plenty of room. In the end, I understand that the concierge person probably gets a commission for booking car rentals, but I feel like he just wasted a lot of our time and sent Todd over to this place without confirming the information.

So at this point it is after noon and we loaded up all of our stuff and moved to our new home in the Fountains section. Um, yeah…..can you say UPGRADE!!! This place was beautiful!!! We were on the ground floor and our door was right in front of the parking spots. This is our door on the right.

This was completely new…it had dark woods, a nice tropical feeling, granite counter tops in the kitchen & both bathrooms, all new appliances. It was also probably twice the size of the place we stayed in last night. There was much more room to spread out and for Dylan to run around and play.

Here are a lot of pictures, but you just have to see how beautiful it is!

View from the front door

Living room TV area

Outside patio area

Looking back at front door and kitchen

First bedroom & bathroom

Master bedroom & bathroom

View from our patio

We couldn’t believe that they upgraded us to this for no fee and we kept waiting for them to call us and say that they made a mistake. They never did, so this was our home for 2 weeks! We took pictures and Dylan ran around to check out all of the rooms. Then we hauled all of our stuff in from the car.

We were both starving and realized that we were supposed to go to Walmart this morning to get all of our groceries, etc. We were running low on diapers and had planned to buy a whole box once we got here. I remember saying, “It is after 1:30 on our first day and we haven’t had any fun yet.” It’s hard knowing that you are so close to WDW and you have spent the whole day doing errands. We loaded up Dylan in the car and headed out.

More of day 2 to come!

 

[xoktenox]

Thank you so much for all of your kind comments. And thanks for coming over to check out my TR. I'm assuming that you and your brother both had the blonde hair when you were young too? All of the kids in my family had hair blonder than Dylan's until we were in high school.

Yeah, my brother and I both had blonde hair as kids. I still have it, I just hi-lite it to keep it real light like its always been but its still blonde. My brother's is like light brown now. I love little blonde kids...actually I just like all people with blonde hair, as long as it doesnt look fake!

 

[aaaateamsgrandma]

Wha a nice place. Beautiful rooms. So nice and big. I'm sure it was nice for Dylan to have so much space to run and play in. Good score. The pictures were really nice.
Ginny

 

[wishspirit]

I'm aboard!

We have been looking at rental car prices too, and they are just extortionate! Its good to know we could make it cheaper by hiring from the Hilton, I will have a look. Which website did you use?

 

[cjackearl]

Oh wow, GREAT upgrades!! Score! I love all of the beautiful pictures with Dylan whizzing by in them. I bet Dylan loved that tub. I know I would, after a day in the parks.

I know it was probably frustrating to spend the day doing errands, but look at the outcome!! Woo-hoo!

 

[heaven2dc]

What a beautiful upgrade! I would be torn to be wanting to stay at a WDW resort and staying at such a beautiful hotel if the price were right. We've only rented a car once on our first trip in 1997 (there were 12 of us & we stayed 10 days) but we only used the cars to get back and forth to the airport and maybe a couple times to gas station for my bro-in-law cigs It was less expensive to rent 2 cars than pay for Mears shuttle service back then.

My kids are spoiled by staying at BWV so don't think I could convince them to stay off property (it has come out less expensive to rent points the last 2 trips.)

Your little one Dylan is adorable - my GS is going to be 21 mos old this month and not sure when we will take him again to WDW (last visit was in December 2008 and he pretty much stayed in stroller and had just started walking then - late bloomer, I guess.)

Hope you got to go to the parks finally that day! Can't wait to read next installment

 

[tinkgurl]

Wow, that upgrade is nice! I could easily live there!

 

[Raecheal]

I love that Dylan just decided to stand up and yell at yous to wake you up..

I"m glad yous got a newly renovated room (even if charm was used).. it's absolutely beautiful and great how conveinant it was on the first floor and parking near by.

Great update...

 

[ladybugmom]

WOW!! Your room is beautiful!! How nice that you got an upgrade on the room AND the car!! Can't wait to hear more!!!

 

[xoktenox]

Wow that upgraded room is gorgeous! I actually think we stayed at Vistana Resort (before Sheraton bought it) the first time I went to FL. Obviously a lot has changed since I was there in 1994 LOL It so pretty!

Thats so funny Dylan kept sneaking off to the phone...okay I could see how it wasn't so funny to you though! He's cute so he thinks he can get away with things

 

[stace208]

That upgraded room was beautiful! You guys were very lucky

Can't wait to read more!

 

[DreaGirl]

OMGoodness! That is an awesome home to have for 2 weeks! I'm glad you were able to switch and a bonus that it was a free upgrade.

A. gets the same way in a hotel. She gets so hyper for some reason and really tests her boundaries that first day.

I'm like you, I get so annoyed when we have to run errands when we get there, but it has to be done. Can't wait to hear about the rest of the day.