A quick girls weekend- 4th of July!

[Vicksterp33]

So I had this all typed out and the DIS told me to log in again and I lost it! So, here's a quick one:

My best friend and I took a last minute trip to Orlando over the 4th of July weekend and had so much fun! Her husband had to go to England for work and They couldn't afford to bring her to England too. So, it was Disney for the girls!!

We stayed at the brand new Hilton Bonnet Creek, which was a new choice for me as I've always stayed on property before.

We flew from NYC on that Friday morning and had a great flight on Delta. Took our carry on luggage and then went to the Mears shuttle. We had a great driver, Angel, who was funny, nice, and down to earth. We had a few other folks in our van but were the 2nd stop.

We got to Hilton Bonnet Creek and 2 employees welcomed us warmly. We walked into the gorgeous lobby and the folks behind the desk basically asked us where in the hotel did we want to stay. It was great! We checked out the room (beautiful!!) and dropped off our stuff.

We hadn't had lunch, so we went to BEECH, the outdoor bar/restaurant right by the pool. We had some drinks and nachos and decided to go to Downtown Disney after we ate. Took the free shuttle bus (which was really nice, it was a bus like the Magical Express bus not a city bus) and got to Downtown Disney in about 8 minutes.

Decided to take the boat to the other side of Downtown Disney and walk our way back. Looked in all the shops, loved trying the sugar scrub in BASIN, and decided to go to House of Blues for dinner as I had a restaurant.com certificate. We waited about 15 minutes and were seated. (while we waited, we sat outside and had a beer and listened to a singer, he was very good.).

The food was great! I had a salad with pecans, bleu cheese, blackened chicken and a vinegarette. so good. We split the crab dip and ordered some fresh green beans. And saved $25. so it was even better.

Then decided to walk over to Ghiradelli for an ice cream for dessert. On the way we looked in all the shops we skipped on the way over. And ended up at a Dance party that they were having with a bunch of kids/parents. We ended up dancing in the back and getting some of the parents to dance with us. So much fun! We laughed, sweated, and worked off our dinner!

Got the ice cream and decided to take the boat back to the other side so we could get our bus back. Well, it was so crowded at the boat launch we realized we would never make it back. so we took a disney bus to the middle of DTD and ran the rest of the way. We missed the bus by about 30 seconds. Crazy!

Ended up taking a cab back to the hotel. At this point it was about 10:30pm and we were hot and sweating! So, we took showers and decided to just chill and plan the next day. All of a sudden we heard big banging sounds and Heather opened the curtain where we saw a huge fireworks show! We think it was from Epcot. It was beautiful!

Up Next:

Day 2!

 

[Vicksterp33]

Day 2-

Our friend, Cathy, lives in Orlando, so we had planned to meet up with her and spend the day. She picked us up and we went to Bahama Breeze for lunch. Food was great and really inexpensive. She then took us to a CVS so we could get some snacks, yogurts for the next day, and some drinks.

We got back to the hotel and planned to spend the afternoon lounging by the pool and swimming in the lazy river pool. When we got there, the pool was closed for some reason but we got some seats and drank some drinks. When they announced we could all go in, we jumped in. It was fantastic! The lazy river was so much fun. They had a live dj out there too. We just laughed and floated around the river. So relaxing and fun!

But then it started raining and lightening. The employees came by and told us we all had to go back inside as there was lightening less than 5 miles away. So it was closed down until it cleared up. Bummer!

So we decided to go back to Downtown Disney and catch a movie as it was really raining. We saw "Knight and Day" and had a great time. Much better than expected.

After that Cathy had to head home but she took us to Chik Fil A for take out dinner before dropping us off!

We ate outside on the upper patio that overlooks the pool. It was so nice. After dinner we thought going back in the pool would be the best! So we jumped in and it was awesome! We went in the hot tub for a bit and then went back in the lazy river. And then, a huge fireworks display over the pool! So surreal to be swimming and having the fireworks right overhead.

They were supposed to show Kung Fu Panda outside at the pool but they were afraid it would rain again, so they did the movie inside one of the conference rooms. We passed on the movie and went to bed as we were going to Disney the next day!!!

Up Next: Day 3!

 

[Vicksterp33]

Day 3- Magic Kingdom.

We took the first bus from Hilton Bonnet Creek to MK. It left at 8am and we got to the TTC about 15 minutes later. We bought our 1 day tickets and hopped on the monorail to MK.

No line to get our bags quickly checked and as we were almost done we kept hearing cheering. We looked back and saw all these kids in the same colored shirts cheering. We said to each other "Must be a big cheerleading group today." and the guy working at bag check said, "No, that's a tour group, it's the season for that." We saw them for most of the day but it was usually when we were getting off a ride.

We got inside the park and just started smiling! We laughed and skipped out into the town square. (Both Heather and I are HUGE Disney fans! We were like little kids, just excited and giggly.)

We both saw the castle at the same time and teared up. It was funny/touching at the same time.

Our morning was great. We went straight to fantasyland and rode all the rides there with no waiting!! There was no one there that early!

The other thing that was great is that we saw so many characters tucked into little alcoves for pictures and many characters I've personally never had the opportunity to see in person! We saw the Fairy Godmother, Alice and the White Rabbit, Peter Pan and Wendy, Mary Poppins and Bert, and the Stepmother and Stepsisters that morning. We got our pictures with all of them.

We had lunch at Columbia Harbour House (I'd never been there either and loved it!) I had the hummus sandwich, Heather had the tuna sandwich, and there were hardly any people upstairs. We were right by a window and did some people watching. We ate fairly early to beat the crowds.

Then we did the haunted mansion, again, no line. Went to get a fast pass for Splash Mountain and got in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. When we got off that ride, it was time for Splash. We rode that and then saw Donald Duck in his Davy Crockett outfit. Got a picture with him. Then saw Woody and Jessie! Got in a long line for that and waited in the hot sun. It was worth it though.

Decided to get an ice cream and go to the Tiki room to cool off. Then we rode the train all around the world. At this point it was really, really hot and starting to get crowded. So we decided to go to the Poly for a drink at the bar and sit in the AC.

We took a boat to the Poly and got seats out in the lobby by the bar. The waiter we had was so much fun. He brought us our foo-foo tropical drinks (Pina Coladas) and told us we were cool ordering those kinds of drinks in that hotel and we all started laughing. He came by 5 minutes later and the drinks were gone. Heather said "Something's wrong with my glass, it's empty! I think it has a hole in it, that went to my stomach." The waiter started laughing and said "I like you guys! I'm bringing you another round, hope the glasses aren't full of holes again."

We had our next round and then decided to go to the downstairs lobby (as a bunch of folks were coming in for Ohana and we wanted them to have the seats while they waited. We got seats downstairs and just rested for about an hour. Checked out the gift shop and then headed back on the monorail for MK.

When we got back to MK, it was very crowded. We rode on Transit Authority, and went to go on Space Mountain but the line was 2 hours long and they were out of fast passes. We skipped it.

Saw another dance party and watched it for a little bit. Then decided to walk to Toon Town. We walked over to Liberty Square and Heather wanted to go to Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner. I told her we would have had to have made a reservation months ago but that we should try anyway as it was already 8:30pm.

Up Next: Will we get in for dinner!??

 

[Vicksterp33]

When we last left off, we were going to try to get a table at Liberty Tree Tavern.

We walked in and asked if they might have a table for 2. The guy behind the desk said that they didn't...BUT if we went next door to the Golden Horseshoe and asked for Jillian, she could probably get us in there and that it was the exact same menu. We thanked him and went next door.

We asked for Jillian and she said she could fit us in but we would have to wait about 15 minutes. We cheered and sat down to wait. Not 5 minutes later they brought us to a table and Russell (our AMAZING waiter!!) came by. He really was awesome and one of our favorite memories about our trip. Since it was near the end of service, he had time to chat with us and was just so nice!

We had our dinner and right in the middle the fireworks started. Russell told us to go out and watch and he'd watch our stuff. But we told him we had already seen 2 days worth of fireworks and we were fine finishing our meals. It was great!

When we were all paid and about to go, Russell brought us over big paper cups of diet coke to take with us out to the parks. So thoughtful.

We walked out on the porch and there were TONS of people waiting for the parade to start. So we just stayed where we were as we would be able to see everything right from there.

The parade started and it was great! I hadn't seen the main street Electrical parade before and I loved it. So much fun.

After that we figured we would have to go to get on the bus back to the hotel. It was obviously a madhouse and we cut through all the shops to the main gate. We got out and the monorail line was HUGE, the boat line also HUGE, so we walked to the bus area and got right on a bus to the TTC. When we walked over to our parking spot, we saw we had just missed our bus by about 1 minute.

So we waited, and waited, and waited a bit more. We made friends with a family that we had talked with on the bus that morning and we were all joking about the bus never coming. It finally arrived and we got on. There were so many folks that some had to stand. A lady and her husband with 2 young girls got on and Heather and I gave them our seats. We made friends with some of the Dads who were standing up too and the traffic was so bad we were all joking that they had moved our hotel to Georgia as it seemed to take that long to get back.

When we got back to the hotel we had to pack/shower and rest for only about an hour as the Mears bus was picking us up at 2:40am since we were on a 5:30am flight. So early to be picked up!!

We got to the airport and it was like a surreal movie since we were the only ones there that early. No stores open yet, only ones in the security line, no one behind the airport counters, so weird.

We tried to sleep while we waited but it was impossible to get comfortable. Crazy!!

So we ended up on the flight, slept to Atlanta, ran down the way to get to our next flight and got on board. Great flight and we got to sleep!

Overall it was a great quick trip! We loved the Hilton Bonnet Creek and we had so much fun. I definitely like staying on property more but would stay here again if the opportunity comes up.

Can't wait to go back in Sept for WL!!!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Señor DonDuck]

I really enjoyed reading your trip report!

 

[Vicksterp33]

Thanks for reading! This was my first trip report!

I never realized how time consuming it is to do a trip report. And this was only for a few days. Insane!

We haven't gotten the film developed from this trip, but I'll post them when we get them. (We had to buy a disposable camera as we forgot ours.)

PS- Love the Donald Duck orange soda cap!!