A Magical Thanksgiving Week at the World 11/20-11/27

[cheshirecat74sc]

Who: Me, age 30 (obsessive planner with spreadsheets and itineraries in hand), DH33, DS11, and DS9
Where: Pop Century Resort
When: 11/20 – 11/27
Scenario: Our first “complete” visit to Disney as a family, using the Silver Plan – staying on property and going to all the parks. We went in 1999 when the kids were 6 & 4 to MK and AK for 2 days, but had stayed off-site.

Day 1, Saturday Nov 20th –

We woke up late the morning of our trip after a whopping 4 hours of sleep, and rushed around to get ready before our friend picked us up to drive us to the airport. We were all a bundle of nerves and couldn’t wait to arrive at our destination!! The airport wasn’t crowded at all and our flight left on time at 7:15 am. My boys were nervous about flying – DS9 had never been on a plane, and DS11 hadn’t been on one since he was 1 year old, so they weren’t sure what to expect. I am afraid of flying and tried my best to hold it together so I didn’t scare them to death! Needless to say, they loved the flight and are over their fears! I, on the other hand, still hate to fly! In fact, we took a train home...which is a story for another day...

My big surprise at the airport was having Happy Limo pick us up to take us to the resort (thanks for the tips on the Dis board!) The driver was so nice and the limo was beautiful – a white stretch that was only 2 weeks old! They had Lion King 1 ½ playing on the TV inside and it was stocked with sodas. The kids were in awe of the sparkling ceiling and we all kicked back for the 20 minute ride and felt like movie stars. I would definitely recommend this service to anyone who is considering it! During the ride, we saw many trees down from the hurricanes and quite a bit of left-over damage on some roofs and buildings. It was sad to see.

At around 11:30 am, we arrived at the resort. As soon as I saw Pop Century, I absolutely loved it! It was so bright and cheery, with geometric modern shapes (which was right up my alley – it reminded me of the way my house is decorated!), and colors that just shouted Disney! I would definitely stay there again. I was surprised to see that they were already decorated for Christmas. The shadow boxes on the walls were filled with all sorts of memorabilia from various decades, and I wished I had more time to browse through them all. It wasn’t too crowded at this point (wish it stayed that way!) Check-in went smooth and the lady at the desk was nice, and I was relieved when she handed me the key for the room, which was ready early. We lugged our many bags to the room, which was a little confusing to find at first. We were in the 60’s building, right near the food court and the Hippy Dippy Pool. The room was small but worked great for what we needed (sleep!) and was very clean and had a “new” feel to it. I’m quite germaphobic (sp?), so if I can take my socks off in a hotel, that’s a good sign! The view from the room was great - a balcony overlooking some water - very private!

After unpacking our things, we headed to Everything Pop (the food court and gift shop) to grab some lunch. Again, I had no complaints and I thought the food was quite good and the décor was awesome! I picked up some refillable mugs and we had pizza and grinders.

Then it was off to Fantasia Mini-Golf near the Swan hotel! This was our first encounter with Disney transportation, and I was quite impressed with the efficiency of the buses. We had to take a bus to MGM, then a boat to the Swan, then had a heck of a time finding the golf course from there. The Swan looked like a beautiful resort, but perhaps not as kid-friendly as where we stayed. After bathroom stops in the Swan and some unwanted detours, we finally found the course. I have never seen it before, and it did not disappoint! Since we had the Silver Plan, it was included in our package, which was a pleasant surprise because I had planned this without realizing it would be prepaid. The course had a fun, musical, flowing appearance to it, and I really enjoyed myself - although DS9 was officially overtired from the early morning plane ride and getting cranky about losing, which put a slight damper on things. Next time I’d like to try the Summer-Winter mini-golf course!

We finished up and attempted to head back to our hotel for a swim. We got on the boat from the Swan, got off at Epcot, and had to walk halfway across the park to get to the Epcot buses to take us to our resort. I was bummed about this because I wanted Epcot to be a surprise for Wednesday – I hadn’t been there since I was 12 years old! I joked with the kids about not looking around at anything, but when we passed by the Ice Station Cool just as they were saying they were thirsty, I told DH about the free soda and we couldn’t resist! Boy, some of those sodas are nasty! We got a kick out of tasting them all though!

We exited Epcot as quickly as possible, so as not to spoil “The Plan” – more on that below –and took a bus back to Pop Century. The kids and DH went for a swim in the pool, and I walked around with camera in hand to get some shots of the resort.

“The Plan” had been in the works for about 9 months...I had a daily itinerary, tons of reservations, and details even down to the order of the rides we would go on! Thank you, Unofficial Guide! Can we say “obsessive-compulsive”? I’ll tell you, though, it worked great because otherwise we would’ve been totally overwhelmed with the park crowds and we probably would’ve ended up seeing half of what we did. On the other hand, we paid for it by being exhausted at the end of every day.

So the next thing on my Plan was the Spirit of Aloha dinner/luau at the Polynesian resort. This was a beautiful resort and was originally where we were going to stay before downgrading to PC due to cost. The Poly had a dark, relaxing feel to it and would be great if I was going with DH alone, but I think the kids were happier with the bright & cheery feel of PC. The food at the luau was delicious! The coconut bread was yummy, and we all loved the pork, chicken, ribs & rice, but the kids had no interest in the dessert. The show was so-so...a little long & corny, but it sure was fun to watch the muscular men doing their hula dances! Woo hoo! And the end was great with the fire twirling/fire eating guy. DS11 was practically falling asleep in his food so we high-tailed it out of there as soon as it was over. We got back to the room, put in for a wake-up call from Mickey, and fell asleep.

Day 2 to follow...

 

[Marla Hellwig]

Your adventures are off to a good start - thanks for posting!

 

[cheshirecat74sc]

Day 2, Sunday Nov 21st –

The plan for today was to head to Animal Kingdom first thing in the morning, go back to the hotel for a swim after the park closed at 5:00pm, then see the Hoop Dee Doo Revue at 9:30pm (the only time slot available). DH answered Mickey’s wake-up call and got a kick out of Stitch “taking over” the phone call!

Now, this is the first day I’d really be able to test out my UOG plan and I was curious if I could pull it off and see everything on the list by closing at 5:00pm. We filled a backpack and were out the door by 7:40am. I was surprised at how long the lines were at the bus stop. Was this a foreboding of things to come?....
We arrived at AK a little after 8:00am, and were one of the first families at the gate. They let us in 10 minutes early, at 8:50. I looked in back of me and the crowds that had formed were immense. I was disappointed that there were no characters waiting at the inside entrance like there were in ’99, but the lush plants and the sound of jungle music as we walked inside put me right in the mood! I just love the atmosphere of this park – it is SO well done! Well, in my Unofficial Guide zeal and thoughts of running to Kilimangaro Safaris, I didn’t realize that just because we were let in the gate, it didn’t mean that we could start going on rides. My son had to stop to tie his shoes, and when we walked a little further, all the crowds that were behind us were now in front of us. Silly us, thinking it was a line for Bug’s Life, walked right past the crowd and right past the ropes!! I heard someone yell “Stop them!” and I yelled to DH and DS9 to come back and we sheepishly walked to the back of the crowd to wait for the ropes to drop. Oops! I wanted to sink in a hole! But a little before 9:00am, the characters appeared on a big caravan, and I grabbed my camera for some pics, and my embarrassment subsided. The ropes dropped and off we were! I was really in the Disney spirit now!

I grabbed my Passporter map and we headed to KS. We were on the ride within a couple minutes – we really beat the crowds on this one! A lot of animals were out and about this morning, and everything was going great until the truck stopped. And we waited. And waited. Apparently, a giraffe had decided to have his breakfast in the middle of the truck path a little way down, and we sat for about 20 minutes until he moved! Well, we had a mommy and baby elephant to entertain us while we waited, and we watched them drink water and munch on leaves. It was quite a sight to see! We finally started moving again and as we passed by the scene when the poachers were caught, I noticed that the guard holding a rifle at the poacher’s truck, which was there in ’99, was gone. Guess it wasn’t P.C. enough! LOL

Next we headed to Dinosaur. None of us had ever seen this ride, and I loved it! It was definitely one of my favorites! Unfortunately, DS11 didn’t!! It gave him such a scare that when we got off that he really got an attitude that lasted longer than it should have and put a damper on the morning. After Dinosaur we headed over to the 3-D Bug’s Life show, and there we found out that DS11 was also totally afraid of 3-D shows. *sigh* That added to his mood, so we decided to stop at The Boneyard to give him a breather. When we went in ’99, the kids were 4 & 6, and we spent about an hour there and had to drag them away from the place. I was very surprised that they only wanted to stay for about 10 minutes and didn’t have much interest in playing this time around. We walked around for a while and checked out the “new” area (it’s new to me!) that has the kiddie section. I tried to convince everyone to go on Primeval Whirl, but they were all being whimpy (DH hates spinning rides & the kids weren’t brave enough yet to try the roller coasters, which would change…). As we were standing there, I felt something on my head and saw some people start giggling. One of the dinosaur characters had come up behind me and chomped down on my head! I got such a kick out of that. I asked DH to pull out the camera, but there wasn’t enough time for him to snap a picture, and the dinosaur took off to go bother some other people. Cute, cute!! I love Disney!

It was about 11:00am at this point and the schedule was pretty much on target, but only because we skipped Primeval Whirl and Triceratop Spin. The 20-minute delay at KS had thrown us off. The next showing of Tarzan Rocks was at 12:00pm, so we decided to grab a snack and have lunch after the show. We didn’t have any set reservations for lunch at this park. DS11 got the infamous Mickey ears ice cream, which I was thoroughly pleased about! DS9 didn’t want it, though, and got an ice cream sandwich. I got the frozen banana – yum! We headed to the Tarzan show at Theater of the Wild. I had NO clue what to expect, but assumed it would tell the story of the Disney movie like some of the other shows do. LOL…a rock band?! I guess since it’s called “Tarzan Rocks” that makes sense…it wasn’t what I expected, but I enjoyed the part with Jane and Tarzan, and it was very entertaining. I may skip this show next time around, though. And the person who played Tarzan – Wow! His body looked almost fake, it was so perfect.

After that eye candy, it was time for lunch. I wanted to go to Restaurantosaurus and grab a quick bite, but DH and the boys begged to go to Rainforest Café, which ate up about 2 hours of the day. We love that place though. It has such a great atmosphere and brought back memories of our last trip to AK. I think that will be our AK tradition from now on! Next trip, I’d like to do Donald’s Breakfast in the a.m., and then Rainforest for lunch. We bought the kids some stuffed animal souvenirs there, and the food was very yummy. They have the best desserts! DS11’s mood lifted and all was well.

So now The Plan was thoroughly messed up, and we had to make some decisions on what to see and what to skip. I really wanted to see the Pocahontas show since it’s one of my favorite Disney movies. To DS9 and DS11’s embarrassment, I dragged them to the show, which was clamoring with little girls, but I loved it. I thought the lady who played Pocahontas’ character was wonderful - she had an awesome singing voice and I was impressed at how brave she was to get up on stage by herself like that. The boys were not as appreciative.

Unfortunately, we just didn’t have time for Festival of the Lion King or Flights of Wonder shows, which I was not happy about at all. We had seen the LK show in ’99, and I’m sure it’s changed a bit since then. We also didn’t have time for the Pangani Forest Trail & Rafiki’s Planet Watch. We rushed through the Maharajah Jungle Trek in order to catch the Jammin’ Jungle Parade at 3:45pm. The apes are so adorable! Because we had made reservations for Preferred Viewing with the Silver Plan, we were in this little roped-off area which really wasn’t necessary because there were so many spots to view the parade from. Well, the parade was Disney at its best, of course, and DS9 got quite a few handshakes from the characters – and I got lots of pictures! This was probably my favorite parade other than Spectromagic. Definitely a must-see!

The last thing on my list (purposely) was Kali River Rapids. I had read about how wet you can get on this ride, and I figured we could go straight back to the hotel and swim after. I was so glad I planned it that way! The line was very short, too, as the UOG predicted. We had never been on this, so we were not expecting the drop…what a fun ride! And we did get soaked!! We left with a happy Disney feeling and an anticipation for lots more fun ahead of us for the week!

We went back to Pop Century and the boys and DH went right into the bowling pin pool. I wanted to take more pictures of the resort and check out the gift shop before getting ready for the Hoop Dee Doo. At around 8:30pm we took a bus to MK and then grabbed the boat to Fort Wilderness. This was all new to us because we had never used Disney transportation to get from place to place like this…I was nervous because it took longer than I thought it would, but we arrived a little after 9:00pm and the show didn’t start until 9:30pm. Check-in for reservations was a little unorganized…there was a lady with a microphone that didn’t work too well, yelling for people to come to the front of the building for check-in. It looked like such a quaint Western house, but the inside was surprisingly large with a whole second floor up above for seating. I had made early reservations, and we were totally hooked up with a table one row back from the front, and center to the stage! Yee haw! The show was AWESOME and the characters were so endearing!! I laughed so hard my stomach hurt and there was a lot of improvisation from the actors which made it even funnier! The kids loved it and the food was delicious. It was served family style, which I discovered I preferred to ordering off a menu anyway. This is a MUST-SEE, and it will be one of the very first reservations I make if (when!) we go back again!! They had the audience clapping and cheering, and everyone was having such a great time! A couple of the actors interacted with my kids and made them laugh. Transportation back to the hotel was provided after the show, and we slept like rocks back at our room.

Day 3 coming soon…