And I think to myself: "It's a wonderful World!" UPDATED: (post 238 & 239)

Yeah another update :goodvibes


Loved the photos again, Tove with her ice cream, and great picture with her doing the hoola hooping.

The towel animal is cute, we only had one or possibly two during our whole three weeks there :sad1:

Looking forward to more.
 
When we were last at POFQ, we left our room early in the morning, my DD was in front of me and I saw that there was a black snake coming out of the bushes, my DD was just about to stand on it :eek: I had to grab her tshirt and pull her back as she would have stood right on it with only her flip flops on. She wasn't impressed. My youngest DD has a real phobia of snakes, so i had to say that I though DD was about to stand on a lizard :rolleyes: I told my older DD later all about the snake, but I don't think she really believed me!
 
Another great day in the parks. What is it with snakes - someone posted on that they found one in their villa (in the bathroom of all things) & took a picture :scared1:

We have been going for quite a while now without a sighting - I only hope it continues (not that they scare me or anything........)
 
Loved the photos again, Tove with her ice cream, and great picture with her doing the hoola hooping.

The towel animal is cute, we only had one or possibly two during our whole three weeks there :sad1:

Thanks. The icecream photo was quite comical. I had a compact camera in a waterproof camera pouch so it was fiddly to work with. I had DD stand with the icecreams and realised trying to take the picture the first time that it was set on movie mode :upsidedow She was stressing about the icecreams toppling over as they were so big and was not amused with me at all - you can see it in her face :laughing:

When we were last at POFQ, we left our room early in the morning, my DD was in front of me and I saw that there was a black snake coming out of the bushes, my DD was just about to stand on it :eek: I had to grab her tshirt and pull her back as she would have stood right on it with only her flip flops on. She wasn't impressed. My youngest DD has a real phobia of snakes, so i had to say that I though DD was about to stand on a lizard :rolleyes: I told my older DD later all about the snake, but I don't think she really believed me!

My daugher was right behind me, but slightly to the left (the side where the bushes were). When I stopped it would have been quite normal for her to squeeze by me on the side of the shrubbery. Funny how you have a split second to react yet so much seems to happen in that brief moment. :eek:

What bothered me most was not that there was a snake, but that I am not familiar with the ones in Florida so I had no way of telling whether we should be careful or not. We did see another on the next week and someone said it was not venomous because, and I quote: "It's teeth are too small." Teeth? I wasn't very reassured :rotfl2:

What is it with snakes - someone posted on that they found one in their villa (in the bathroom of all things) & took a picture :scared1:

We have been going for quite a while now without a sighting - I only hope it continues (not that they scare me or anything........)

We have never seen one there either but I know they are all over the place. They generally keep out of high traffic areas. I think POFQ with all its bushes gives them somewhere to 'hide' so it wasn't a total surprise, but you are never expecting to see one when you do, just like you never expect to lose your footing and trip somewhere when you do. They were around where we lived when I was a child, and there are just some basic rules you follow: Keep on the paths, watch where you put your feet, don't stick your hands into bushes or long grass, keep ground floor doors (safety screens) closed .... so DD had been well briefed on behaviour in Florida. Yet having not seen them previously you do relax a bit.

It wasnt a big issue, but memories of almost stepping on a night adder (highly venomous) when I was about DD's age did pop into mind in the moment and in a delayed reaction, I felt quite shaken a little later, but we got over it. :) I never let on to her of course, but used it as an opportunity to reiterate about proceeding with caution at all times.
 


About time with the update Lee, I was imagining this continuing straight into the 2011 report :rotfl::lmao::rotfl2:
We love the ice cream cones at TL, just leaning over the fence watching the people on the tubes getting squirted
Great hula hoop pics and I can just imagine the CoP still going round when the park had closed :rotfl:
Glad you enoyed the parade, but disappointed you missed the snake photo :scared1: :laughing:
 


Just caught up (I was very behind :laughing:)

I love your TR, it sounds like you had a wonderful time and your photos are great :goodvibes
 
All caught up Lee !! Love your trip report x

Good to have you back Louise. :goodvibes You may have caught up on my TR but as you can see, I haven't. I took some time off last week to decorate the house for Christmas, paint the walls that were replastered, do all my Christmas shopping and allocated a whole chill out day to .... finish my entire trip report.

What actually happened? Snow. Schools closed. Burst water pipes and flooded bathroom. Central heating broke down. :headache: So I didn't do anything I intended to. I so badly want this wrapped up by Christmas. Nigel joked about the TR running right into the next one - it is looking a bit more likely with each day that goes by.
 
Just seen you post Lee,

Hope you have got your mis-haps sorted and it didn't wreck xmas too much
 
Just seen you post Lee,

Hope you have got your mis-haps sorted and it didn't wreck xmas too much

Thanks Nigel. A belated Merry Christmas to you and your family. :goodvibes

It did eventually all get sorted in time for Christmas which turned out to be a lovely few days :) Nothin' like a bit of pressure though -thank goodness for 24 hour shopping to help wrap things up at the last minute :rolleyes1 Only realised how tired I was today when I slept until noon :scared1: Working on the next post now so hopefully more updates to follow soon. :woohoo:
 
Back to nag some more !! :lmao::lmao:

Come on girl you know you can do another tiny installment ;)
 
I am really enjoying reading your trip report!My DD age 11 and myself went to disney without my DH.It is so much fun to read about another mother daughter trip!We took our 1st trip to Disney June 2010 for 10 days and it was sooo magical!!I am planning a trip in May 2011 and it will be a surprise to my DD!
 
I am really enjoying reading your trip report!My DD age 11 and myself went to disney without my DH.It is so much fun to read about another mother daughter trip!We took our 1st trip to Disney June 2010 for 10 days and it was sooo magical!!I am planning a trip in May 2011 and it will be a surprise to my DD!

I have been feeling worse and worse about not finishing this TR :guilty: I really need to hurry it up now. Your post reminded me that I intended writing an overview of my thoughts of a surprise trip, which you may find helpful. I will get to work on it, now that the house issues, bad weather and hospitalization are all out of the way :rolleyes1
 
Another glorious morning: sun shining, not a breath of wind (I can’t stand wind) and we were off to Ohana for a late breakfast. We got up just after 7 am and set about getting ready. The ADR was set for 10h50 and I knew DD would never get to that stage of the day without eating so I gave her a mini box of cereal and we fetched something to drink from the foodcourt.

We went to wait for the MK bus around 9 am and took the monorail through to the Poly. We arrived over an hour early for our ADR so we went for a stroll around the grounds. I love this resort. You can't tell me it's not beautiful!

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At 10h05 we went back up to check in. The apparently long queue moved very quickly and we were issued with our pager within minutes and directed across to have our pictures taken. The photographer didn’t even have time to get us into position when our pager buzzed so he snapped through the pics and we went to be seated, nearly 40 minutes early.

Service was prompt and efficient and the characters were on top form, Lilo and Stitch making a few stops at the table. Our server looked quite amused when I told her to leave the bacon and eggs off our platter, but she quickly returned with extra fruit for me.

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I think I ate pretty much all the pineapple bread – oh that is good stuff!! :worship:

After our meal and another walk around the resort we took the monorail to the TTC and transferred to the Epcot loop, arriving at Epcot shortly before noon. After a brief meet and greet with Stitch (again!) we collected FPs for TT and set off for the World Showcase.

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I had made DD a passport and this was the day for getting it filled up with stamps, autographs and messages from the CMs. We spotted Donald at the Mexican pavilion and went for more autographs and photos. I think Donald is so funny and he was up to all his usual antics again. I think the Mexican look suits him!

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I had the Times Guide and was trying to time our WS circle to coincide with the somewhat random character greeting times, but I did an awful job of it as we kept being sidetracked by other things going on at the various pavilions. DD decided when we got to Japan that she was VERY thirsty (all of a sudden) and HAD to have something to drink there. Of course they don’t take the DDP at the little shop there so I paid $5 for a rather tasteless ‘juice’ bottle. I didn’t mind the 5 bucks as much as I was bothered that we had over 50 snack credits left for the two of us and could have walked a little way to get her something with one of those. Never mind. I took comfort in the fact that she spent 15 minutes playing some little game with the bottle top and a pebble while I sat in the DSA nearby and I figured $5 for a toy at a Disney park is probably good value..... Talk about the rubbish I can use to justify bad budgeting! :lmao:

DD was easily distracted by all the lovely details between the various pavillions

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By 4.30 pm we had done the whole World Showcase except for Germany, which we had skipped trying to get to Morocco for a meet and greet, which they closed off as we got there. We stopped at Refreshment Port for a strawberry smoothie and a chat to a French Canadian couple who were delightfully entertaining. The husband was commenting on how well Disney had put together the Canadian pavilion, keeping it true to the Canada it represents. They were very impressed with it, which somehow gave me a greater appreciation of it.

Our FP window had opened a while earlier for TT so we headed in that direction and quickly made a retreat when we noticed that a tour group had just arrived at the PF line. :eek: We decided (“we” being DD) to ride Figment for about the 50th time this trip .... Of course it wasn’t just one ride and every time you exit, as planned, we had to walk through the shop area so I had the constant “Please, please can you buy me a Figment?” :rolleyes: I couldn’t help chuckling, thinking how that question would sound to someone else anywhere outside of Disney (like Tesco for example).

By this time we reasoned it would be safe to return to TT, which it was so we finally had our spin around the track for the day. I was getting hungry and we popped into the Mexican CS again for dinner. I have always been fascinated by the churros, which are supposed to be so delicious and never order them because the size of them had always put me off. (I tend not to eat food when the portion is a similar height to my child). However DD has grown taller and the churros were now being served as 3 respectable sized pieces, as opposed to one huge one, so we decided to get a portion to share. What was the verdict? BLECH!!! :sick: The oil just seemed to ooze out with the first bite. I thought they were tasteless, doughy and greasy. DD didn’t care for them either but used a spoon and ate the caramel sauce straight out of the cup. She said it was worth the credit just for the sauce – go figure! Oh, I did warn you I can be a bit boring with my meals so I had the same as last time, chicken tacos and DD ordered the kids chicken. We didn’t really get to eating the tortilla chips as the food was so filling but (churros aside) we really enjoyed our meal.

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It was starting to get busy and we still wanted to get to Germany before it got dark so we made that our next stop and finally exited the park at around 8 pm.
 
Back at POFQ we went up to the room for a shower. We nipped downstairs to put a load of washing in the machine and then came back to our room. DD wanted to sit and draw pictures and I used the time to transfer the day’s pictures onto the laptop. Imagine my surprise when I came from the shower to find DD tucked up in bed and fast asleep. :eek: She never says a word about all the walking but we circled WS a couple of times that day and I think she was truly knackered. :flower3: I wanted to go to MK though as they were open for EMH until 2 am so after I had snuck down to collect the laundry, and being the good, considerate and responsible parent that I am (come on, we don’t want to deprive our kids of an experience), I woke her up :rotfl2: and we headed to MK around 11.30 pm.

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We rode the carousel (it’s an EMH tradition now) and had a few rounds on Buzz, where DD whipped my butt every time!

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I have no idea what ludicrous time of night it was by now, but again, being a responsible parent, it seemed like a good time to feed the family (and myself). We opted for Cosmic Rays as it was the closest and there was plenty of variety in there. I had a veg burger (my first burger at Disney and the first I think I have had in about a decade), while DD ordered the kids turkey sandwich. We got a carrot cake and sodas to have with it and I must say, it was a pretty good meal. As you can see, DD liked it before she even tried it ;)

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I decided it was my turn to beat DD so we went back to Buzz Lightyear, but after another 4 rounds of losing I decided to keep what little pride I had left and crown DD the champion of the day. :upsidedow

We moved along to Frontierland, stopping for a spin on Aladdin’s carpets on the way there, and then proceeded to ride BTMR more times than I cared to count. By the time we were done with that the park was closed and we took a leisurely stroll to the bus. The driver asked if he should stop at POFQ or Riverside first. There were plenty POR guests there and they all shouted “Riverside!” DD looked at him and said, “French Quarter please.” He smiled and announced, “Good manners take preference to majority so it’s POFQ.” She was delighted! :)

When we got back we were the only ones who got off at our resort and it was soooooo quiet! We sat outside in the pool area making plans for the next day and chatting about all the fun we had had so far.

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It was after 4 am when we headed up to bed.



Got it right

Booking a late breakfast allowed us a leisurely start to the day. Checking in early worked in our favour in this case so there was no wasted time standing around.

Could have done differently:

We should have left Epcot a couple of hours earlier and had a short nap in the early evening. I think we did some relaxing there which could perhaps have been more productive in our room, resting up for our late night. It didn't ruin the day in any way, but in hindsight it may have worked a little better.

Next up: Day 10 – Cape May breakfast and DHS
 
oh my you are braver than me to wake a sleeping child !!!

Glad you came back to finish this trippie :-)
 
oh my you are braver than me to wake a sleeping child !!!

Glad you came back to finish this trippie :-)

:lmao: There were quite a few years where I would NEVER have done it, but as she has grown up a wee bit and is also my only companion, it is a bit different. I can assure you I would not have woken more than one! ;)
 

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