Anabelle's 9/22 - 9/30 TR - What I learned on Vacation..

[anabelle]

Players: Me, DH, DTS (Disney Teenage son), DNTS (Disney Non-teenage Son) and DD9

Arrived at 10PM to MCO. Decided to claim luggage and take to ME. That process took 1.5 hours because we had to wait until the bus was full. We got to OKW at midnight.
Lessons Learned: Rent a car

First Day: MK
Rode everything that we wanted ride and were out of MK by noon. There were love bugs EVERYWHERE. I swallowed 2 because I am a mouth breather. Went to pick up rental car at Dolphin and drove around trying to find a camera store open because DH lost his lens cap in HM. No luck. Went to O'Hana for dinner. The meal was excellent and we had excellent service. Went to Walmart to but breakfast stuff. Then back to OKW to swim
Lessons Learned: Get nasal surgery so I can breath through my nose.

Second Day: MGM
Rode RRRC, TT, LM, and saw LMA and Muppets. Did not see RLA or Beauty and the Beast. Ate at Pizza Planet. YUM ! Returned rental then back to MGM for dinner at H and V. The meal was ok and service was ok. Nothing memorable. We got to ride RRRC before Fantasmic. I love that Fantasmic Dinner package. We did not have to waste time sitting.
Lessons Learned Book Mama's for FDP instead of H&V

Third Day: EPCOT
Rode Soarin then LWTL. I am not sure I like them not having a live body doing the Land tour. Went over to Living Seas and the line was really long for Turtle Talk and it was only 9:45. I tried MS the whimpy version and the boys rode the spinning version. DNTS didn't feel the best after, but said he loved it. I thought the whimpy version was boring. We left at noon and went to BB. BB was great. I love that park. We left at closing to OKW and then headed to EPCOT for Le Cellier. I expected it to take forever and it did. I got the Mushroom Filet and the cheese soup as did DH. DTS got the New York strip. DNTS didn't eat anything because he didn't feel good after MS. DD got spaghetti. It was yucky!. The Mushroom filet was ok but the strip was excellent. We all helped him finish. I did not like the pretzel bread. It was hard. DD had the smore thing and she really liked it. I had the Lemon cake (plain) and DH had the Creme Brule (yummy). We got out too late to get a good seat for Illuminations so we went to Soarin and had no wait.
Lessons Learned Book LeCellier a little earlier. It takes forever


The rest of the days to follow

 

[Cass]

Great report, you sure finish early at the parks! Sorry about ingesting those love bugs - but they are free on the dining plan

 

[anabelle]

Great report, you sure finish early at the parks! Sorry about ingesting those love bugs - but they are free on the dining plan

Maybe that is why I gained a couple of pounds on the trip. I thought it was due to all the mickey bars!

FYI, we mostly left the parks early because DTS was CONSTANTLY whining about the injustice of not being able to dictate the touring plan. If the plan said MGM, he wanted BB. He drove me crazy.

 

[anabelle]

Fourth Day - AK
Now I should know better that to take my kids to AK, but we did anyway. There are always a variety of complaints as to why the park is inferior to all the rest (not exactly their words).
The morning started with arguements from DTS about how the park is the hottest due to the vegetation. He remembers when I told him last year. But that was June, this is September. Anyway, my DH decides to pull rank and force them to at least try the new ride, EE. Even my ever so complacent younger children were refusing to get on the bus to AK. They did after some encouragement from my DH. DD was actually crying in the parking lot because she said we were going to boil in the park. Never the less, they entered and we rode the following,
EE, Primeval Hurl, Dinosaur, the Flick Show, Lion King, and the Safari before 1PM. We ate lunch at Tusker House and I let the boys stay behind after lunch, and DD, DH and I rode the Safari. We did not attempt any of the trails or Kali. We did use our EE fastpasses before we left and found the right side to be much better of a ride than the left side. I don't know why but they really enjoyed it better. DD declared to be her favorite ride. We then went back to the hotel to swim before we headed off to Boma's. DTS's comment was that the food was ok there, but the atmosphere was awesome (his words)

The Lessons learned for this day actually belong to the kids. Here goes

Lessons Learned Animal Kingdom is actually a very nice park to visit as long as it is below 90 degrees F.

Rest to follow
Ali

 

[anabelle]

Fifth Day - DTS takes over = MGM
Now I am a control freak, I admit it. I had my binder with all the necessary Stuff. I made up manila type Passporter style envelopes with the day's touring plan on the front of each envelope. Each park and day had their own envelope. I also had a main envelope with the whole week's plan. That one had best picks and parks to avoid, ADR's, and such. It was a nice concise view of our vacation. Today DTS gets wise and takes my envelope. For the sake of the rest of our vacation and my sanity, I decide I will let him talk it over with his siblings and they will decide what we do. Now by this time we had been at every park so I was ok with this plan. He chooses MGM at 8:30 AM. Now I am used to leaving at exactly 8:10 so we can be there at rope drop. My DH tells me to chill, it is not busy so we will be ok if we get there late. We get to the park at 8:55 and right as we are going in, a CM asks us what we plan to ride first. We shout RRRC. It turns out we are chosen to open RRRC. We go through the back area to arrive at RRRC before everyone. We get to ride all by ourselves and got two 8x10's of us on the ride. WAY COOL
That put us ahead and we proceed to ride again, then off to ToT. DD and I catch Mermaid again and then we meet up for GMR, M3D and off to Pizza planet. Love that Pizza. We leave the park at noon and head to Typhoon Lagoon. Now the high is supposed to be 86, but in the water it feels like 40. We have fun but is feels cold. I did manage to find a latte for me and Hot chocolate for DD and that warmed us up. We leave at closing to OKW and off to Hoop De doo. We barely catch the boat to FW and have to run in order to make the 7:15 show. I wish we had a car !!!
We are seated right at the stage. I nearly get kicked in the head several times but the show is incredible. I thought it was going to be boring but even the kids came out singing the Hoop De doo song. Awesome. That doesn't often happen with teenagers. They had a bus for our resort directly outside after the show so I was ok with Disney Transportation after that. It would have been a drag to have to drive at this point.

Lessons Learned Let the kids have a say in what you do, you might just get a surprise and we love Hoop De Doo !!!

 

[midge3426]

What fun---you got to open a ride. That is too cool. If I knew that, maybe we would have got up early. We slept late every day and were up at the crack of noon. This was our thirteenth visit so we take it easy.

I was there 9/23 to 9/30 at POFQ and I too was assaulted by the obnoxious Love Bugs. One day they were so bad under the bus shelter that I had to go stand in the sun. They were in my hair and all over my body. I guess they do not like the sun as much as the shade. I hate Love Bugs.

 

[lexmelinda]

Anabelle---So cool that you got to open RRC! And isn't love bug such a cute name for such a gross creature/s? Can't wait until my youngest is a little older so we can go to the water parks but my experience in the hotel pool in the latter part of the week was the same as yours.....BBBBRRRRRRRRRR!

 

[anabelle]

Yes, it is strange to say that 86 degrees is cold to swim but it was and good lattes are so hard to find at WDW. I wonder if they would let me open a couple of Starbucks on site. Do you think Nestle would mind?

 

[pumba]

thanks so much for your report.....sounds like the kids had a fab time...oh yah the adults too.....We have been to disney for Love Bug season too....YUCK...talk about gross.....
I love Typhoon Lagoon and those HOT little donuts.....they are so good....Our resort had 40 degree water and it was 90 out too.....we were frozen....but the cm kept on assuring us the water was at the correct temp.....yah right..
Thanks again