A VERY, Make that EXTREMELY late Trip Report

[Eyore4Ever149]

Okay,
Before I start. Let me say that these boards have made me get excited about Disney. Ill explain more as I go.

Let me start with the planning stage.....We were getting married in August. I am a detail-oriented person (read anal) about certain things. I did the details myself, adding seashells to tables, making all my own programs that looked so professional, did my own calligraphy. Anywho thats what I was focused on when someone suggested Disney World...me- "Oh, FL, oohhh I LOVE the ocean!" them-well its not near the water me- "Then forget it, Im not going" Then my fiance started reading up on it. Pointing stuff out to me, sending me links on IM. I started doing a little searching, cause fiance wasnt booking the trip in a timely fashion (he was suppose to be in charge of the honeymoon) I started reading about the boating activities at CBR, I saw all the photos on the website-hmmm, pretty sail boats, white sand beaches, hammocks. I pictured sunning myself and going in for a cool dip (not being a people person I opted to skip the pool scene) I wanted romance and relaxation, and fun, plenty of that too.
I am a member of AAA, fiance was not. I called AAA and what do you know...it was in our price range. I put it on hold. Told fiance about it. He was thrilled, agreed thats where we should go. I told him it was just a hold with my AAA, but it would be him who booked it. He did, with a 6am flight out the day after our wedding.

I thought, well, we dont want to waste a perfectly good day off from work traveling, so that seems a little early, but sound reasoning, we will get there early to enjoy our honeymoon!!!

A week or so went by someone told me about alligators in the water there....and no swimming. My heart sunk. Well, it cant be true, I mean I SAW the photos of the sailboats, how can you sail in water you cant swim in?? I grew up in a aggressive boating family, we tip boats, we fall "in the drink" we right the boat and have a blast!!! So why no swimming, what about the hammocks, whats the point of hammocks if you cant get wet first and then lay there to dry off. I didn't believe this person. I stayed excited aobut our Caribbean themed resort and trip. Fiance was reading The Unoffcial Guide, I read some, but figured Id wing it, I wasn't fallowing some military-like itenerary. I wanted to take my time, if I missed stuff, so what. Right?

The wedding arrived, it went by fast! It was stressful, we had taken dance lessons, so we danced, and danced and danced. I was exhausted. I cant remember what time we went to bed, but when the alarm went off at 4am I was ready to shoot my new husband for scheduling a flight at 6:30am. But, the planner I am I got up and put my Cinderella t-shirt on and grabbed my new Eyore faced back pack, and put my bride/mickey ears on. Which I quickly found out does not STAY on my head. But hubby told me he read stories of couples getting upgraded to first class even on the airlines-no such luck, just lots of stares-I felt stupid and at 5am was not in a good mood, when we boarded the plane I wasn't feeling well. I decided to try and sleep. maybe that would help.....

We had a layover on Charlotte, NC. Hubby got off the place to get us some breakfast, he said I could keep sleeping. Next an airline steward came and woke me and explained they would not allow him back on the plane until re-boarding....in 40min and that my hubby had sent for me to come get my breakfast....it was a decision I will forever regret.

I went out. ate, felt much better, I was ready for WDW, but very, very tired. We reboarded.
We landed in FL...WDW here we come!!!! (me= wheres my bed?) Mears took a while, but I saw lots of people getting off the Mears buses with Disney bags and Disney hats, and Disney t-shirts. All with content faces. We waited some more. We finally got on our bus. I tried to sleep again. The bus driver gave us lots of misc info on WDW. THen we crossed over to WDW property......holy moly this is ALL WDW land????? WOW!!!!!! Okay, wheres my bed?
We arrived, we got out of the bus, someone took my bags and cheerfully asked "Will you be going to the parks today?" Me-no, I want to just check in and go to sleep (its 10:30am about now) "Im sorry check in is not til 3:30" What! Tom! Did you KNOW about this???? We went in and stood in a very long check in line. There were some people who were really upset about the line. Oddly enough I didn't mind. I liked the building and gave me time to get my bearings. We checked in the. The guest relations person was wonderful. We got excellent seats for Cirque, they encouraged us to sign up for Chef Mickey, and Hoop De Doo Revue and something else, I forget. Oh and they had a room ready NOW! Whoopee!!! I can nap!!!!!!!!!

We had a great driver who used to be a chef take us to our room. Our room was ready alright, so clean the rugs they just washed were still soaking wet, and stayed that way for a good 2 days. note: wet socks when not paying attention.

Well, they still had the huge blower in there so we could't stay. Our guy offered to drive us where we wanted to go on the resort, we agreed food would be good. Okay, super, I can be up for this, let me just get my brand new digital camera from the top of my backpack.......GONE!!!!!!! It was a gift from hubby on our "1 year of dating" anniversary, the only camera we brought with us because it is so awesome and so expensive. The only time it was alone was when I went to get my breakfast on that layover, it was in the backpack.....
We tore apart every piece of luggage..nothing. No camera. It was such a pivotal item for our trip.
We slumped over to Port Royal where I cried over the lost camera.
We had the cell and called the airline, called my parents, called the limo we went to the airport in-just in case.

I bought my resort cup-ohhh what a cool idea. I bought a mickey head rice krispey treat...that helped too. I bought a cheeseburger and fries.
We decided that with only part of the day left we would go over to Epcot since it was so close. I was expecting "walk-to close"...we had to figure out where the bus stop was. after standing in front of PR we realized our error and ran pel-mel for the bus about to take off, the driver saw us and waited, wow! Very un-New Englandy of him, in fact down right nice. Gosh I hate to make others wait, we continued to run....Whew! We got on!!! Off to Epcot we went!!! My very first park, on my very first day of my first trip to WDW!!!!

 

[MAGICinMYHEART]

Thanks so much for posting I'm loving your trip so far except the backpack..Did you ever see Eyore again...(sniff, sniff)

 

[Eyore4Ever149]

Okay, I realized I missed a couple things.
1. I had 2 bags, one a real backpack, in which camera was in. and the second was my "Eyore head"-which I still have today

2. I left off the date we went...August 24th 2003, so almost exactly 6 months ago.


On with the story......

The bus trip to Epcot was longer than I expected, especially since I thought CBR was within walking distance. But I stepped off the bus and down the walkway to the entrance and Pal Mickey (our very first purchase) started to vibrate, all excited about the park. We made it to Mission Space where we stood in a looooong line and leared the value of fastpass, never to be lost on us again....My husband just loved this ride. There was a girl who backed out at the last minute- wimp, so we had to reach over to push buttons for the empty seat....wonder if it would have made a difference if we didn't. Hmmmmm?????
I sat there very calm, thinking okay, well maybe its a room that spins and gives the feel of cintrifgal force. Hubby got off and said No way! That was all underground or something! (hes been dying to go back ever since for another ride) It was good, but Im a tad clausterphobic, and Id not skip it, but like my roller coasters. So after that we just kind of wandered around, checking everything out. Pal Mickey lead me to a drinking fountain that cracked jokes while you drank. He pointed out theses really cool little lights in the ground that i just loved. Then we sampled the counter service. I liked eating junk food. It got to be evening very quickly, Im not sure where we lost the day. But while we were eating Illuminations started going on, we caught a little bit of that when we walked outside, I was still terribly upset about the camera and tired and my feet still hurt from dancing, and the parks were closing fairly early at that time. We headed back and went to bed. The Mission Space Bug had bitten my husband and I got to see a little of Disney World.

Day 2
Seaworld. Now, had I had my druthers I'd have chosen to do a Disney park my first day, but my Godfather has connections at Seaworld and made a reservation for us for Monday, our first full day in FL. We had to get up early, we caught the Mears shuttle over, very affordable. We has reservations for Swim with False Killer Whales Program- with very limited availability, only about 12 people a week get to meet these animals, it was still relatively unknown at the park we learned..First a greeter told us the "swim with encounters" were at a different enterance, we needed to back track and get on a van to go to this other entrance. We did. After going through a bag check and checking in and finding that they did not have our name I was ready to pull my hair out. I called on my cell to CA to my Godfather's secratary to see where things had gone amiss. In the meantime the sevurity guard was raving about my Eyore head backpack.

Well we found out we were at the correct enterence the first time, and now we were late, the reservation said if you're too late you miss the whole thing!!! I was worried. The driver happen to be a trainer getting extra hours and was very impressed that we had an appointment with the false killer whales (also called Sedorcas) They rushed us personally over to the main park and rushed us through the turn styles with the girl waving her ID (we had passes for the day pre paid for us) We rushed and rushed, and found our group, of 2 other people waiting for us. WHEW!!!

I squeezed myself into a wetsuit, knowing we had held up the group, and feeling bad, but it seemed no one seemed to care. We got to climb right in the pool with these animals. There were HUGE smaller than a killer whale, but waaay bigger than a dolphin. They pulled us through the water, I put my foot on each flipper and hugged her and she stood straight up and spun me around, I hugged her and felt her heartbeat and hugged her and made lots of eye contact- they like that.
Then they took us to a second pool and we got to pack fish in a barrel and then feed 2 males and see them do tricks and act like people and learned all about them. I had a grin from ear the ear the whole time!!!!

I was so sad to say goodbye. We had a free lunch coupon on the other side of the park and a free t shirt from out adventure. Such a shame...only outrageously priced prof photos- we only bought 2. Lunch was good, but a really long walk over to the other side. Im not thrilled with the layout of this park. But I love the animals. We visited the sharks and saw horses and then went on the Articadventure ride, they're lines are shaded and have fans, so it keeps you cool and the ride itself was fun.
Then it was off to our first roller coaster...The Kracken which we had seen lots of promos about on TV. We got it line, it moved pretty quickly. They do force you to leave all belongings in a locker, which you must pay for.
But all was well, I was excited, still missing the camera, Id just gotten off the phone hearing my parents had made no progress with the airlines or airport police. The airline said they basically dont even try to get stuff back to people and they couldn't help. $1200 camera...ugh!
So im pumped about The Kracken!! The seamonster- a cool theme. We were next in line, for the front row car!!! WooHoo!
We got in!! The safety bar came down and locked, we moved -then a dead halt. "The Kracken has temporarily closed due to severe thunder storms coming into the area" as if on cue the rain came pouring down 2 feet in front of us where the covering stopped. The bars unlocked. Please step off the ride....Oh NO!! Well, we'll just wait, we HAVE to wait! The clock ticked. 30 min. They sent it out for a test run, I guess they had technical difficulty. THey had to keep it closed for a little longer. I looked at my watch. We have to make a decision abnout dine with shamu, which had also been arranged for us.....We opted to wait for the ride. A total of 1 hour and 15min later we were treated to a very fun, but disappointly short ride. But, still we stuck with it and we DID ride The Kracken!!
Where to now? Well, I did noticed the tan shorts I had on had yellow and black smears on them...what the????? Turns out the laundry/dry cleaning bags from the resort have printed color on them and in lots of heat mixed with rain, it comes off on clothes!!! And stains!!! sigh...this trip is not going the way I thought it would. I like SeaWorld, but its spreadout and theres too much walking for my liking. We buy some neat stuff at a gift shop, pick up our photos and dash to the taxi to make it to our California Grill reservations......Im very excited about this, the CM helped me get a time, about 15 min before Wishes starts.....I cant wait......

We get back to the room, no time to nap, I shower and jump into a nice summer sexy dress and my open toed heels and we jump on a bus to MK, then walk to The Contemporary, they gave us an awesome seat by the window, knew we were on our honeymoon, treated us like royalty- Then they cut the lights and music was on speakers everywhere, I thought I would feel detached, but no sirree, they know how to do it right! The show was so fun, but I didn't see tinkerbell, how did I miss her? Was she on the other side of the castle? Oh well, I felt like a Princess A good end to an up and down day. Our food was wonderful, service great, fireworks perfect. I still felt tired.

We made it back to our rooms and crashed. Oh! I almost forgot, Yesterday I had a big snack basket delivered to the room as a surprise, with nuts, pretzles, fruit, water bottles, Mickey ears, everything. Husband had his own surprise for me when we returned.....a big arrangement of hudrangeas and Irises that had been sprinked with pixie dust- a most special and wonderful treatment for the flowers and they brightened the room the whole week!!! There was even a special bottle of lotion in the scent of "rain" I still have and use and it brings back memories of that special flower delivery!!

I admire the towel animals and make a note to leave a tip tomorrow when we go out. I love the little bottles of shampoo with sayings....."Everybody sqeaky clean? Then on with the Show!!!" I still have a bar of soap I treasure with Mickey's profile.

Im tired and my feet hurt, so Im ready for bed. I have agreed to go to Epcot tomorrow.......night night Pal Mickey, see you in the morning....

 

[MAGICinMYHEART]

Glad Eyore is safe...sorry about the camera would love to see your Seaworld adventures...I have never heard of the False Killer Whales Program, sounds like fun...can't wait until your next report.