adamsup
Adam
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2009
- Messages
- 168
So, did we make it to Crystal Palace!?
Let's find out.After the Magical Express pulled into the CR parking lot and everyone was done cheering, we all got off the bus (most of the passengers that originally got on this bus got off at CR). It was 1:54pm (the datetime stamp on the pics is handy for story-telling!) and by now we were very concerned about our reservation.
In the interest of time, I set up one of the strollers and Traci took Max to check in, which left me with the two girls to wait for the driver to unload our bags. This isn't a great picture of us but here we are waiting for our bags to be unloaded.
Check In
Once everything was unloaded, I thanked the driver, loaded all our bags onto our double stroller, took a minute to recognize we were officially at the CR
, and then headed off to find Traci and Max.By the time I found her, Traci had checked in (with no problems thankfully - we had checked in online a week prior) and the concierge was showing me a map of how to get to our room.
Before we set off for our room, Traci spotted a Kids Check In area. By now were way late and even past the 20 minute grace period and almost forwent having the kids do their little check in.
** Right at that moment we stopped ourselves though and recognized that we didn't want to be one of those stressed out families we have all seen by now that are barking orders at their kids to walk faster or hurry up. We had decided from the beginning that we wouldn't rush because it's not fun for us and certainly not for the kids. **
So we stopped and let the kids check in, and we're so glad we did - especially now that our vacation is over and all we have are our memories and pictures.
Finding Our Room
After that, we headed off to our room to drop off our bags. We knew that we could leave bags at the concierge desk but for some reason we didn't think about doing that. We left the Tower and headed to the Garden Wing. I was trying to follow the map that I had clutched in one hand while also pushing a stroller laden with bags! Trust me, there was no point in letting Traci read the map, right dear?
hehe anyhow, we made it to our room finally. I later realized we were pretty much at the furthest point on the 3rd floor that we could be. The hallways were pretty stuffy, or maybe that was just me because I was flustered about the distance and the time etc.
We got to our room, threw our bags down and then headed out. We would admire our room later. I'll post pics of it when I get to that point in the trip report. I did notice that there was no towel art
and was slightly disappointed because I was fully expecting to see something considering all the picture posts I have seen of all the towel art people have received.Where the heck is the monorail!?
So, back to the Tower we headed to find the monorail. That's all we knew about getting to Magic Kingdom - that the monorail was "somewhere" in the main building. We passed the pool on our way to the Tower - it looked very tempting.
We saw a sign for the monorail that said to head for the 4th floor, so we did. This was our first CR elevator experience and it wasn't a great one! Future elevator rides were not as bad but for some reason we must have walked into a rush because it was very crowded as we waited for the elevator to arrive. People pushed and hustled to get on and we just stood back and let everyone squeeze into the overcrowded cube while we waited for the next elevator to arrive. We noticed that the elevator was very stuffy and the sensors must have been broken or something because sticking my arm out would not stop the door from closing. In fact, it took my full body weight to stop it!
We finally got to the 4th floor fully expecting to easily find the monorail. After all, they're massive and noisy - how hard can it be!?
Pretty hard as it turned out! We walked in a couple of circles around the elevator shaft trying to find the darned monorail! We saw signs for the monorail but they pointed us towards an escalator going upto another level. Didn't the sign say we needed to be on the 4th floor for the monorail?!
Around the elevator we went again
passing Chef Mickey's and the Contempo Cafe . We finally spotted a hidden away little elevator in a corner so we went over to it and thought to ourselves - what the heck - let's go to the 5th floor! Up we went and when the door opened we faced a sea of people who were not about to budge. One of them pointed over my shoulder and I realized that we're supposed to get off the other way (who'd have known!) So we had to do a zero-turn 180 to get off. See, it's little things like positioning yourselves on an elevator so you're facing in the right direction to get off that we didn't know about since we were WDW and CR noobs.So we managed to get off on the correct side of the 5th floor elevator and then, yep, you guessed it... went the wrong way down the metal railings until we got to the top of the escalator that was bringing people up from the 4th floor
Surely all CR newbies make these same mistakes?? Or was it just us!? To our defence, there are no signs as you get off the elevator plus it's not natural to get off an elevator and make a hard right turn. Usually you get off an elevator and walk forwards.
So, a quick 180 again in the face of the people coming up the escalator and we were headed in the right direction for the monorail gates. A monorail was just pulling up and we scrambled aboard without another incident thankfully
We cherished our first monorail ride. It was awesome and we loved riding on it every single time
We admired some of the resorts as we travelled to Magic Kingdom...
We made our way off the monorail and down the slope to the MK entrance. This was our first experience trying to get into the park and we weren't prepared. We brought a bunch of bags with us - we would consolidate in the future just to make the bag check smoother. We also had to search for our KTTW cards because we didn't have them at the ready (how did we think we were going to get in??). By the time we got inside the gates, it was about 2:30pm - only an hour late for our ressie
We had previously studied the park maps so we knew Crystal Palace was up Main Street on the left, so off we went, admiring the castle and everything around us as we went.
Crystal Palace - there it is!
(The more observant/fanatics
among you will notice this is the wrong angle to have been taken while walking up Main Street! I actually took this pic during the 3pm parade but it worked better to insert here for the purposes of the story!)Back to the trip report... Traci went up to the check in and was apologizing to the girl for being so late. She said not to worry and that because we had a reservation we would be given priority seating for the next available table. By this time, Maxwell really needed to be changed so Traci took him while the girls and I went exploring in the direction of the Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade.
Here's my best picture of the vacation - taken with my iphone! This was a great photo op spot because there are no other people in the picture ruining it! It's right outside the CP entrance.
We found the parade and stayed for a few minutes before heading back to CP.
We found Traci and sat down outside waiting for them to call our name.
Notice the girl in green - for some reason she looked really repulsed by our children!
Finally, we heard our name being called and into the cool air conditioning we went. Ahhh a welcome feeling after the humidity outside.
So no we didn't make our ADR but we still got to eat there!
Up next - lunch at Crystal Palace
(why isn't there a Piglet smiley?) 
