A truly wonderful but HOT vacation!

[princesshannahsmom]

Well, I started a pre-trippie, but really didn't do much posting because I said everything in the first few posts.

We just got back on May16th, after spending 8 days at the World! We had a fantastic time, but, it was HOT and we had a major snag at the end of the vacation which you will hear about a little later.

The cast:

Me - 34 (turned 34 the day after Mother's day) HUGE fan of WDW and pretty much all things Disney. Favorite character, Figment. Favorite Princess, Belle. Favorite ride, toss up between Splash Mountain and Spaceship Earth. Been to WDW more times than I can count, and always planning the next trip!

DD - 9 Another HUGE fan of the "World". Favorite character, probably Figment. Favorite princess, Ariel. Favorite ride, Spaceship Earth. She's been to WDW about 12 times, and always wants to return.

Not on this trip, DH - 36. He was originally supposed to be joining us, but, they told him they couldn't do without him for that long at work, so he sacrificed and stayed home taking care of our furbabies!

DBro - 29 Not a HUGE fan of WDW, but enjoys seeing his DS having fun with the characters. Not sure who his favorite characters are, but his favorite ride is Living With the Land.

DSIL - not sure how old. Becoming a HUGE fan of WDW. Not sure what her favorites are either.

DNephew - 3 Lover of all things Cars and Toy Story. Favorite Character, he says Goofy. Favorite ride, Toy Story Mania. This is his second trip to WDW and he was such a joy to watch!

Our trip dates were May 8th through May 17th, but we left on the night of May 16th because of a bump in the road.

I had the days planned to a "T" but we didn't even follow those plans! The only thing we followed were the ADR's, which were as follows:

May 9th Chef Mickey's
May 10th Whispering Canyon
May 11th (my birthday) Le Cellier
May 12th (Mother's Day) Prime Time Cafe
May 13th O'Hana's for breakfast
May 13th Teppan Edo for dinner
May 14th Garden Grill
May 15th Coral Reef
May 16th Akershus for lunch.

DAY 1 (travel day)
So, on May 8th, I had to work, so we left Panama City Beach at around 6:00 p.m. We stopped for a quick to go meal at Taco Bell and headed towards I10Well, I had my plans mapped out, so we were going Highway 79 to I10 then I10 to I75, then I75 to I4 and straight to WDW. Well, DH called me when we were just about to approach I75 and said he found a much faster route. So, we wrote down the directions (well, DD did, I was driving!) And when we got to the turnpike (new part of the directions) we thought this is awesome this should cut about an hour and a half off of our drive time. YEAH RIGHT! DH led us through some high priced neighborhoods right to the Cast Member only entrance. From there we didn't know where to go, so DH sat on Google Earth and on the phone with me and led me on to WDW property. Once on WDW property we got turned around numerous times until I finally pulled into Port Orleans to get directions to POP! Needless to say, we didn't check in until 3:00 a.m. Disney time! We were exhausted!

Check in went swimmingly, as there wasn't a soul in site. She asked my name handed me a package and we were on our way. We were in a preferred room, so she told us to just stay parked in check-in parking as it would be closer. So, we went and grabbed our luggage, and out the back door of the lobby to the first building on the left. Room 5363, 3rd floor overlooking the Hippity Dippity pool. The room location was AWESOME, we loved it! We unpacked, rather quickly, set a wake up call, and zonked out as soon as our heads hit the pillow!

Day 2 in the next post!

 

[princesshannahsmom]

Day 2 - First day in the parks.

So, I left you off with DD and I crashing in bed around 3:30 in the morning. We had a wake up call set for 7:30. The phone rang and I wanted DD to answer it, but she would not budge, so I picked it up, listened to Stitch and Mickey and contemplated falling back asleep, but I pushed on and jumped out of bed! We are in Disney, no time for sleeping! I jumped up, showered, got dressed, got the park bag ready and woke up DD. She reluctantly rose and took her shower, quickly I might add, got dressed and we walked out the door at 8:15. We grabbed our breakfast, along with a refillable mug, and we were off.....to Animal Kingdom. We arrived shortly after rope drop, jumped in the line to upgrade our tickets to Seasonal passes, and after about 10 minutes we were on our trek around the park. We started by grabbing fast passes for the Safari and then headed over to Camp Minnie Mickey for the first showing of FOTLK. We love this show, and it didn't disappoint. We were in the giraffe section. But when the show started, the tears started falling, because this is DH's favorite show in all of WDW, so I was already beginning to miss him! We headed out of the show, and took in some of the shops. DD had a $200 gift card, $20.00 from my mom and $20.00 from my grandma and she was on the lookout for the perfect souveniers! We jumped on the train to Rafiki's and spent about an hour over there enjoying the exhibits and taking in the petting zoo. We headed back to the "mainland" and jumped in the fast pass line for the Safari. We thouroughly enjoyed our 2 week trek through Africa and the animals were out and about, so it was very enjoyable. After the safari, we jumped in line for ITTBAB, laughed at all the screamers and headed to get some photopass pictures made. We took a couple in front of the Tree of Life and DD did the baby simba shot! At this point we decided we were done with AK for the day because it was really starting to get HOT! DD doesn't do thrill rides, so Expedition Everest and Dinosaur were out. We stopped and grabbed an ice cream and sat on a bench and called DH. DD did some more browsing, and we headed toward the front of the park. DD decided on a safari Minnie as her souvenier from AK and we were off to POP. We called Dbro and Dsil as they were arriving today. They were in Epcot and we briefly considered a detour over there, but decided a swim at POP was more up our alley! DD took a little swim while I lounged on a chair. We headed back up to the room, showered, changed clothes and just relaxed for a short while. We had a date with Mickey tonight, Chef Mickey that is! We called Dbro and found out they were in the room right next door. So, we went over to their room while they finished getting ready, and we headed out to the bus stop to MK. We hopped off the bus and straight to the monorail over to the Contemporary. We had a little snag in the road when we accidentally got off at the Ticket and Transportation Center. Dsil checked us in, and we waited about 20 minutes for the table. Food was interesting, I guess, standard buffet fare. Character interaction was OK, but I guess I expected a little more. The kids had a great time! It seemed like the meal took forever though, waiting on the characters and waiting on the server to finally bring our checks. We were on the DDP, but of course we were separate, so that took a few minutes for the server to work out. Our reservatin was at 7:00 and we were on the monorail at 9:00. We were back at POP by 9:45 and the kids decided a quick swim was in order. Dsil got in the pool with DD and Dnephew, and I again lounged in the chair and took pictures. We headed back up to the room and DD and I were out by 11:00.

Straight from the PassPorter:

The weather today was....Sunny and HOT!
The best thing today was....Chef Mickey's
The worst thing today was....getting off the monorail too early!
The funniest thing today was....DNephew dancing at Chef Mickey's
Today we tried....Chef Mickey's and the result was....excellent!

Next up...Day 3