A Smile in my Heart–Magical Week of Friends,Fun & Freezing-10/28-COMPLETE!

[Stasieki]

Great update! Last days are always fuzzy to me. I think too hard that it is the last day so never get into a groove

I love the Grey Goose slushies - we are going end of Feb and that is what I am thinking about the most (besides the kids seeing thier beloved characters of course - hahahaha).

 

[mom2mek]

Great update! Last days are always fuzzy to me. I think too hard that it is the last day so never get into a groove

I love the Grey Goose slushies - we are going end of Feb and that is what I am thinking about the most (besides the kids seeing thier beloved characters of course - hahahaha).

I think you hit the nail on the head....last days are always hard to remember, because we are already deep into Disney depression knowing we have to go....

Ahhh....GGLCS......

Sara

 

[BippityBoo]

GREAT start to an Epcot day!!! We sat on that same bench with wine Just love it!! Also, glad you liked Pick A Pearl. Can't WAIT to do that! DYING to hear about your Le Cellier experience!!!

 

[*dreamit*doit*]

Love Emily's reaction to trying the Beverly...again.

GGLCS!! Hope to be having one of those in a few days. And I'm going to look for that cosmo one you mentioned.

So you guys saw Marie, too? That was the first time we had ever seen her. I had to peel Nerea off her leg.

Well, I already said it on my TR, but I'll tell you again here: woohoo!!!!!! on a spring break trip!!! So when do we get to hear the plans?

 

[mom2mek]

GREAT start to an Epcot day!!! We sat on that same bench with wine Just love it!! Also, glad you liked Pick A Pearl. Can't WAIT to do that! DYING to hear about your Le Cellier experience!!!

Oh yes, we love doing the Pick a Pearl. I didn't think Michael would be that into it, but apparently when the girls did it on our other Epcot day, he decided he wanted to try it next time. I hope to get our Le Cellier update soon!!

Love Emily's reaction to trying the Beverly...again.

GGLCS!! Hope to be having one of those in a few days. And I'm going to look for that cosmo one you mentioned.

So you guys saw Marie, too? That was the first time we had ever seen her. I had to peel Nerea off her leg.

Well, I already said it on my TR, but I'll tell you again here: woohoo!!!!!! on a spring break trip!!! So when do we get to hear the plans?

Oh man - that Cosmo one sounds right up my alley, I hope you report back if you have it. I still don't know if it's there just for F&W or if it is a permanent thing....hoping it's permanent so I can get one in April!

Katie loved seeing Marie - it was our first time ever seeing her so she was over-the-moon!

Hope to have this thing wrapped up so I can start some planning updates for the April trip soon!

Sara

 

[stinkerbell007]

Woo Hoo!! Another trip to plan and report on.

Cool.

 

[mom2mek]

Woo Hoo!! Another trip to plan and report on.

Cool.

Thanks Linda - I'm very excited!!!

(Really hoping you do a report on your trip with sister!!! Pretty please!!)

Sara

 

[kaysmommie]

Hi Sara,
Loved you update and pics! LOL about the kids tricking the Grandparents into drinking Beverly . Even this was a busy Epcot day looks like you had fun! i love the pics of Katie with Marie so cute! I'm glad I'm not the only one with a boy who wants to pick a pearl . Thomas watched Kaylee on our last trip and he said he wants to pick a pearl. I was surprised by that. But I guess he is in good company. All I can say is on the new ticker and upcoming trip!!!

 

[anl]

Marie is so cute! We have yet to see her.

You are very lucky to have a husband that will join in the Disney obsession!! Mine says he wants to go other places. I'm just glad I will have another one of your TR's to read. I don't think Spring Break will be too bad. After all, you have done Thanksgiving. In Texas, most Spring Breaks are the first two weeks of March, some the last week of March. Everyone has the same Thanksgiving...Spring Break is spread out...ya know.

So point us to your PTR.

 

[ladybugmom]

Hi Sara!! I just spent the afternoon catching up on your TR (boy was I behind) and I loved every minute of it! You put so much thought and detail into your reports! I'm in awe that you can remember so much about your trip when it was 8 months ago! I'm sad to see it drawing to an end but soooo very excited to hear of your Spring Break trip!!

 

[mkluvsmickey]

How did I not see you had an update? Sorry, but all caught up now.

Love the Beverly pictures. Those are always good for a laugh.

So glad you and your mom got the GGLCS's. Looks like such a pretty day and that makes it even better. And Marie Kitty! What more could you want!

So what did Michael do with his pearl? I'm assuming he didn't have it made into a necklace. Is he going to save it for his first girlfriend or somthing? Glad he had fun doing it, we love it too!

 

[mom2mek]

Wow!!! Not only am I bad at updating this thing, I'm getting really bad at responding to comments! Please accept my apology! I hope to put this report out of it's misery here very soon!!! This last day is proving to be quite the challenge for me, but like I said, I WILL finish this!!

Hi Sara,
Loved you update and pics! LOL about the kids tricking the Grandparents into drinking Beverly . Even this was a busy Epcot day looks like you had fun! i love the pics of Katie with Marie so cute! I'm glad I'm not the only one with a boy who wants to pick a pearl . Thomas watched Kaylee on our last trip and he said he wants to pick a pearl. I was surprised by that. But I guess he is in good company. All I can say is on the new ticker and upcoming trip!!!

Yeah, I love those Marie pics - Katie was so excited to meet her! And now Emily (who was being her infamously shy self at the time) has said she really wants to meet her too now! Michael was all about the competition for the biggest pearl - that was his primary motivator, I'm sure!

Marie is so cute! We have yet to see her.

You are very lucky to have a husband that will join in the Disney obsession!! Mine says he wants to go other places. I'm just glad I will have another one of your TR's to read. I don't think Spring Break will be too bad. After all, you have done Thanksgiving. In Texas, most Spring Breaks are the first two weeks of March, some the last week of March. Everyone has the same Thanksgiving...Spring Break is spread out...ya know.

So point us to your PTR.

Thanks Amber! That's what I was thinking too - we have done Thanksgiving and had a great time and not too much trouble navigating around thicker crowds, so I think early April (when Easter is at the end of the month) will be manageable! Thanks for the vote of confidence!! Shawn does want to go other places too - he loves Disney, but believe me, I hear it all the time about going other places. I'm not in disagreement, I just want to do other places while keeping a trip to WDW in sight too! Sounds reasonable to me!

Hi Sara!! I just spent the afternoon catching up on your TR (boy was I behind) and I loved every minute of it! You put so much thought and detail into your reports! I'm in awe that you can remember so much about your trip when it was 8 months ago! I'm sad to see it drawing to an end but soooo very excited to hear of your Spring Break trip!!

Hi Becky! Glad you are back DIS-ing!!

I seem to have a lot more thought and detail at the beginning of my reports and now that I'm at the end of the report, the details are very sketchy! I will try to scrounge enough together to make a couple more installments, and then it's on to a PTR hopefully!!

How did I not see you had an update? Sorry, but all caught up now.

Love the Beverly pictures. Those are always good for a laugh.

So glad you and your mom got the GGLCS's. Looks like such a pretty day and that makes it even better. And Marie Kitty! What more could you want!

So what did Michael do with his pearl? I'm assuming he didn't have it made into a necklace. Is he going to save it for his first girlfriend or somthing? Glad he had fun doing it, we love it too!

Tsk tsk Michelle....you are faltering....geez, I have no idea why!!! Not like you have anything going on lady!

That day was a gorgeous day! Chilly still, but very pretty!

Michael didn't do anything with his pearl - it is still in the little bag. I guess he could save it for Samantha later...hehe....

As a matter of fact, the girls' pearls are still in their baggies too! But I have plans for theirs! I am going to get two of those Cinderella pendants (like Becky has in her TR) for them - just haven't gotten around to doing it yet! Maybe for Christmas???

Sara

 

[mom2mek]

Day 7 - February 13, 2010
Epcot
Chapter 3

So at this point in the day, we were all still separated and making our way through a very crowded Epcot….doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I myself was trying to avoid getting too saddened by our impending departure that night. The yummy chocolates, wine, and GGLCS were NOT helping with that sadness! LOL!

We had an early dinner ADR at Le Cellier at 4:45, so Mom and I headed back that direction with the girls. We stopped again at a few stores, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what we looked at or bought. Before too long, we were here:

Our first Le Cellier dinner reservation! I was very excited (and I’m not even that big of a steak eater). We waited until we knew the guys were close by (passing Mexico) before checking in, but when we did, she said they could take us back right away. Oops…sorry! Thought we would have the obligatory 5 or 10 minutes beforehand. I told her that 3 were on their way and would be there any second. They showed up about 5 minutes later and we went down the curvy sidewalk through the beautiful gardens and towards the entrance of the restaurant.

So Charming!!!

We were seated right away in a mostly empty Le Cellier. I loved the warmth of the restaurant. Our server was great and got our drink orders right away while we looked over the menu. The kids were so excited that they could get a shake as their drink! Shawn ordered the NY Strip and the rest of us ordered the Mushroom Filet Mignon. Now, I am NOT a fan of mushrooms (yuck) but because it has such an awesome rating from pretty much everyone, I felt it my duty to order it. Plus, I’m a big fan of risotto. I of course asked the waitress if the mushrooms were big enough to be picked off (or if they could be totally left off) and she said that in the risotto they were chopped tiny but the actual meat had large enough mushrooms on the top to be taken off easily. Yay!

Michael got the kids steak (he was thrilled and luckily his tooth was no longer giving him trouble) and the girls got noodles with butter. I think. Katie may have gotten pizza now that I think about it. Either way, one of them got a meal that came with a small cup of the cheddar cheese soup – woo-hoo!! I knew they wouldn’t eat it, so it was purely selfish on my point for pushing them to try it, since in actuality, it was ME who really wanted to try it without having to order a huge bowl of it for myself before my steak dinner!

With the yummy bread they brought out dipped into the soup - that little cup of soup was delightful!! Yummo!!

The food, as expected, did not disappoint. My parents and I all LOVED the mushroom filet!! For someone like me, who doesn’t eat a lot of steak, it was as close to perfect as you could get. Ruth’s Chris is by far the best I have ever had, but this filet was close. Tender meat, rich risotto, mushrooms I could pick off the top (LOL), oh man, it was good!

(Katie decided to “write” a song while she was waiting….so cute….love her little eighth notes)

For dessert, I ordered the chocolate “moose” and Shawn ordered the maple crème brulee, so we could share them both.

They were both really good. I’m not sure what my parents ordered for dessert and the kids of course all got sundaes. This meal was heavenly. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and because we were on the dining plan, it was a bargain for sure. Not quite sure I would use 2 credits for it like it is going to be soon (seems more like it should be like 1 ½ credits based on prices. Either that or include appetizers)

But for lunch, paying out of pocket, we will be back for sure!!

With full bellies, we exited to a seemingly even more crowded Epcot! We headed towards Soarin to take a ride over California with our FPs obtained that morning.

Again, this ride never disappoints. By the time we left from there, Mom and I decided to break away from the kids and guys to head back over to France to pick up the girls parasols that were being hand-painted, and then meet them back at Test Track.

Honestly, I’m not sure what they did while we were gone, because it would have had to have been a ½ hour or more by the time Mom and I walked all the way back to France and then all the way back to TT. Hmmm….I’d ask Shawn but his memory is worse than mine.

The sky was looking very pretty tonight but we were getting closer and closer to departure, so I was getting filled with that dreaded "Disney departure-itis".

When we arrived to Test Track, the FP line was all the way outside the door and past the “Wait Time” signs. It was crazy looking. (I think in the picture above of Katie with her parasol you can kind of see it off to the left side of the frame). The standby time (I think) said 60 minutes, but the FP line was WAY longer than the SB line. This was a problem we ran into a couple of times on this day – Tour Groups. They can all jump into the FP line at the same time, and BOOM – the wait time goes from something manageable, like 10 minutes to something crazy, like 60, just like that! Ugh! Unfortunately, we had to pass on TT, and leave Epcot without that final ride around the track! Oh well. We managed to find a family of 4 and a group of 3 to give away our FPs to, but I don't know at that point if that was really "spreading the pixie dust" considering the FP wait time! LOL!

As a consolation prize, we decided to hit up Spaceship Earth as our last ride instead.

We were able to go inside using the side entrance due to Pop Pop’s ECV and bypass the line (which for Spaceship Earth was pretty bad at 20 minutes! Have you ever seen a line at SE? I hadn’t – not even over Thanksgiving). Shawn decided to just meet us in the after show area because he had to use the restroom, so Pop Pop rode with Michael, Grandmommy rode with Emily, and I rode with Katie. Great fun!

Not exactly as thrilling as a spin at 65 mph around Test Track, but fun nonetheless!!

It was about 7:30 or 8:00 at this point and we knew we had to get to Jacksonville that night for our hotel reservation (it was Daytona weekend for Nascar, and our reservation was one of those “need to cancel by 4:00 on arrival night”, so we were pretty set on getting there). We reluctantly boarded the monorail for our trip back to the Poly.

Up next…how many meal credits do we still have to use up? Departing for home, final thoughts, and future plans.

Soon (I hope)!

Sara

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Disney departure-itis....I hate that!

Le Cellier sounds heavenly. I'm a big fan of both steak AND mushrooms! YUMM!!

 

[mom2mek]

Disney departure-itis....I hate that!

Le Cellier sounds heavenly. I'm a big fan of both steak AND mushrooms! YUMM!!

Have you ever been there, Missy? It is indeed very good!! The thought of that filet has my mouth watering right now!

Sara

 

[*dreamit*doit*]

Sorry about that departure-itis. Right now though, I have arrival-itis!!!! We will be there tomorrow! I'll definitely think of you and look for that cosmo slushie! If you PM me your number, I'll text you a picture of it.

I'm glad you loved Le Cellier as much as we do! I just wrote about it in my TR, too. We had the same thing, but I do like mushrooms, though.

Have a Happy Halloween!! What are the kids dressing as? Share pics, please!

 

[mom2mek]

Sorry about that departure-itis. Right now though, I have arrival-itis!!!! We will be there tomorrow! I'll definitely think of you and look for that cosmo slushie! If you PM me your number, I'll text you a picture of it.

I'm glad you loved Le Cellier as much as we do! I just wrote about it in my TR, too. We had the same thing, but I do like mushrooms, though.

Have a Happy Halloween!! What are the kids dressing as? Share pics, please!

Woo-hoo!! Have a great time Nathalie!! I can't wait to read all about it! (I hope the cosmo slushie is as good as it sounds!)

I hope you have a great Halloween too! My kids are going as Harry Potter, Dorothy, and Jessie! Can't wait!!

Sara

 

[mom2mek]

Day 7 - February 13, 2010
Epcot
Chapter 4

As we disembarked from the monorail, Shawn got in his ‘we-need-to-get-on-the-road mode’ and walked quickly ahead of us back to the Poly. The kids were playing around with Pop Pop and the ECV and I took out the video camera to get it on camera - it was so cute! They were having such a good time doing doughnuts and singing and skipping all around him, taking turns riding with him on the ECV. I didn't want it to end.

We got back to my parents room and emptied out the Orlando Stroller Rentals stroller. I left with Mom and the girls to go down to the GCH and drop the stroller off with the concierge desk and to check out Captain Cooks to see about using up the rest of our CS credits. We rolled the stroller down to the desk and they took it behind the counter to wait for OSR to come pick it up - I can't recommend OSR enough. This was our 2nd time using them, and the service was superb both times!

My Mom left with the girls to go do a little last-minute shopping (apparently Katie had been promised another one of those princess dress up sets with the teeny, tiny dolls and the clothes that no child could physically take on or off themselves.....this one was the Jasmine set), and I went to Capt Cooks.

We had 3 CS meal credits left so I thought I could go find something for us to take with us for the trip home. As much as I would have loved an Adult Grilled Cheese or a Flatbread Pizza, I wasn't remotely hungry and I was pretty sure Shawn wasn't either. At that point I was not aware of the fact that you could use CS meal credits on snacks. I think it's 2 or 3 snacks per CS credit. That would have been better. Oh well. Consequently, I ordered up 3 Multigrain Turkey Club sandwiches figuring that if we didn't eat them that night, we could store them in the fridge at the hotel in Jacksonville and eat them the next day on our way home. I definitely didn’t want those CS credits to go to waste!!!

(We did eat a lot of the Polynesian chips that night and saved the sandwiches for the next day - it worked out pretty good and certainly beat the greasy McDonald's that we stopped at for lunch the next day).

With it, I grabbed 3 chocolate dipped rice krispy treats for the desserts. Yum!

I got 3 drinks and checked out, and then met Mom and the girls to head back to the room where we said our goodbyes. My parents were staying one more night, going to the MK the next morning, and leaving on Magical Express back to the airport around 1:00 the next afternoon.

So that was it.
We were leaving.
How completely sad.

I tried to keep it together, but I think I probably shed a tear as we passed under the Walt Disney World sign that last time.

Ok, maybe a few tears...

The kids felt the same way!

We drove a couple of hours and the kids finally fell asleep, and we stopped right after midnight at our reserved hotel right near the Jacksonville airport.

Our drive home the next day (Valentine’s Day) was about 8 hours and went off without a hitch except for the fact that Michael got sick in the back seat after playing his DS for too long without a break. Lovely.

We all felt a little like this once we got home:

I did get Michael a dentist appointment for the next day and come to find out he had an abscessed tooth. Yikes. The pain had subsided though for the 2nd half of the trip which was weird considering what was actually going on. The tooth was a baby tooth that was getting ready to fall out within the next few months according to the dentist, so he pulled it. Michael was a champ.

That is the anti-climatic conclusion of the trip portion of this trip report. My details and memory started off with a bang and kind of ended flat, but the details of that last day were just not nearly as vivid as the other days for some odd reason.

I hope to be back soon with my final thoughts, my opinions on the Poly, how we enjoyed staying onsite vs. offsite, our thoughts on the dining plan, the weather, and the crowds.

So I hope you stick around for that (then you are free to run for the hills)!!

Sara

 

[ladybugmom]

How sad that your TR is coming to an end--I always enjoy reading your TRs, Sara! Love the Epcot post--Le Cellier is one of my favorites--soo YUMMY!! But not sure if we'll get back as often when it goes to 2 TS credits. The Canda pavillion is sooo beautiful!!

 

[vamassey1]

Sorry I'm a few updates behind, I'm behind on all the reports I read.

Don't you just hate the last day? Although it was crowded it was a beatiful day! I still need to try one of those drinks. Yeah for Katie meeting Marie. I tried to get Danielle to take a picture with her but she wouldn't do it, and she use to love Marie. Sounds like Michael has a blast with KP and picking a pearl. Danielle loved doing both of these too. Dinner at LeCellier. We ate there in 2007 and loved it! I've been trying to get back there but I've had no luck. The mushroom filet was the best. We love Spaceship Earth, I think it's a great ride to end your trip with.

You're so lucky that you now know when you're going back! I'm so jealous. I have no clear idea when we'll make it back.