ANOTHER WDW trip- Presidents Week at Pop! FINALLY finished 5/10- post 71

[WDW Poly Princess]

(I wrote this pre-trip bit before the trip, but I am in fact home now! I promised myself I wouldn't start this trip report until I finished my lastone, but pretrip doesn't count, right?)

Important-type info!

Trip Dates: Feb 18-25, 2006
Resort: Pop Century (Oh my gosh, I'm not resort hopping!!)

The Cast:
Me- Again. Yeah, I just went in December. This time I'm traveling with actual humans!

The Actual Humans:

The Sister- The one paying for the trip! Her name is Thelma, but she goes by her middle name, Christine (well, by Chris.), but having a Chris and a Crystal gets too confusing, so we'll just call her The Sister!

The Nephew- Jesse, nicknamed "El Nephew" by me a few years ago for no particular reason. 15, son of The Sister.

My pre-trip reports always end up terribly boring and full of too much info, so this one is going to be short!

Only about 6 weeks after I came home from my Nov/Dec 2005 trip, my sister (she's the middle sister of 5 girls, I'm the youngest) called and said she was thinking of going to Disney World, and wondered if I wanted to go. Um, yes, of course I do! I was a little bummed when she said the week she had off was President's Week, because I usually do everything possible to avoid crowds, but even a crowded free Disney Trip is a good trip! She left the planning in my hands, since they have never been, and I am a weirdo with half a bookshelf of guidebooks.

Guess what? It is hard to plan for other people! Especially if you have been going solo for the past 4 years!

We finally came up with a basic plan:
Rent a car (so that we don't have to leave one of ours at the airport for a whole week and drive to St Louis (flying out of there instead of Springfield, where I usually fly from, because leaving from STL instead saves us about $500!) Because our flight is at 7:45am on the 19th, we decided to drive up on the 18th and get a cheap hotel for the night. This became slightly complicated by my dance troupe having a performance on the 18th at 5pm, which means we probably won't be on the road until at least 6:30.

We're booked for 5 nights at Pop Century, a new resort for me. (I showed them pictures of the values and let them pick. We really like the pac man theme on the 80's building, so we're secretly pulling for that one.) I am a tiny bit concerned about sharing a room at a value for five days with two other people (Sister and 15 year old nephew. Her husband won't be joining us because he had knee surgery last year, and isn't really up for all the walking). I've grown so used to having lots of space to myself from traveling solo that it is going to be weird to be sharing a small space, not to mention just one bathroom, with two other people!

We have 6 day Park Hoppers w/ plus options for them, and I'm getting a new Annual Pass. I had actually decided to *not* get an AP this year, because I was so frustrated with the Best Rate program, but then right around when this trip came up, they got rid of it! I sang songs, did dances, and called up to check room discounts. Oh, old AP discount format, I missed you so much! *sings* Reunited and it feels so gooooooood....

Um, but I digress. We were hoping to get a room at AKL for a couple of nights of the trip, and spend the rest at Pop, but all AKL had available was a 2-bedroom suite, which would cost us $8000 for the five nights. HAH! We'll stick with our giant can of play-doh and bowling pin shaped pool, thanks.

So, that sums up the pre-trip stuff, I think! I am so proud that I kept it under fifty pages! Let's sum up with:

Goals for this trip:

I will...
*Eat my weight in zebra domes
*Try something from the Boulangerie Patisserie other than the chocolate mousse. (I need a Chocolate Mousse 12 step program or something!)
*Remember that it is their first trip, and therefore be patient when they don't know/understand things (such as that we can not just walk on to Soarin at 6pm)
*Per request of my friend Tina, "eat an actual meal in a restaurant, not just pizza!"
*Search far and wide around WDW for a substitute for my beloved Wilderness Lodge brownies, since Roaring Forks will be closed (they make the best brownies there, with a ton of yummy frosting. But back off, they're mine!)
*Have the camera ready when they try their first sips of Beverly
*Try my best to share some of the history, the hidden details, and the magic, without turning into Tour Guide Barbie

I will not...
*get frustrated by the crowds
*try to sell the clothes off my back/vital organs/the promise of my first born in order to bribe the staff at the Polynesian into giving me a room
*Eat corn on the steps of town hall
*Punch out a dwarf
*Hold a sit-in for emu rights in front of the turkey leg stand
*Stick a party hat on Lincoln at the Hall of Presidents.

Okay, I just might do that last one, if I only had the nerve.

The real report and photos coming soon!
(Must finish old report first! Must!)

 

[Montana Minnies]

Looking forward to reading the rest!

 

[DisnyMama]

I just discovered the Chocolate Mousse this last December! I must have had at least four of them. Also, those WL brownies are excellent but I make special trips to WL just to get their Magic Cookie Bars. I agree that we do need some sort of 12 step program!!!
Shannon

 

[Disney owl]

Great report thanks for sharing

 

[IlluminationsUK]

Great as usual, looking forwards to reading the rest.

 

[pinseeker11]

Cant wait to read the rest! I am from Springfield!!!

 

[Cinerama]

I'll be waiting for more. Can't believe you didn't eat corn!

 

[OhMari]

Thanks for sharing, I hope you met all your goals.

On a side note: I hope you are okay with the terrible storms that just went through your area. Hope you post soon to let us know you are okay.

Trip Moderator
OhMari

 

[DisneyDreamer2]

"I wil not...eat corn on the steps of Town Hall." Ahhhhh, if that doesn't bring back memories of the first trip report I ever read by Beth C, all those many years ago that started my complete obsession/addiction with WDW! Everyone must eat corn , from a can, at least once on Main Street! (we need a smilie with mouseears that eats corn.)

 

[Minniespal]

Can't wait to read more

 

[poohfan]

your last trip report was great... can't wait to read this one

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Woohoo, I finally get to start this report! This one is probably going to end up being a lot shorter than my last one for several reasons. First, the trip was only about half as long. Second, I only took about half as many photos. Third, we were running around so crazily the whole time, I took almost no notes, and didn’t get any time at all to type anything up at the end of the night!

So, just to recap the pre-trip part, I’m going to WDW with my sister and nephew (15) during President’s week, Feb 18-25, staying at Pop. Got it? Good!

Our story starts on the night of February 17th, right when the snow starts. I glared at the sky, and told it that it had better not snow much, because I had a lot to do tomorrow!

Not only was the 18th the day we were driving up to St Louis, but I also had a dance performance that afternoon. Snow was not allowed!

So, of course, I woke up about 5am to this:

My 10am, the roads were only looking slightly better.

My cat Tallulah and I spent a lot of time sitting by the windows, watching the snow melt, trying to tell it to melt faster. Faster!

Around noon, I started getting worried. If the roads were all like this, there was no way I was going to make it the hour and a half drive to Springfield, where my performance was and my sister lives. My mom suggested calling a shuttle company to drive me up, so we started calling a few places. Well, long story short, a few hours later, we had called EVERY shuttle service in the phone book, and NONE of them could take me! They were either closed because of the weather, didn’t come t my area, or all of their drivers were already busy. D’oh! We finally decided that my mom would drive me up, since her car is better than mine in snow, and if she drove, I wouldn’t have to leave my car in Springfield all week while I was gone. We somehow managed to squeeze all of my luggage PLUS my dance costumes and stuff into the car, and slowwwwly made it to Springfield in about two hours.

Our performance went pretty well, except for that during the first song, the DJ accidentally played the music double-speed! I’m amazed that we didn’t fall over trying to do it so fast! Plus, during the same song, I had an interesting wardrobe malfunction that I won’t really go into here! Luckily I was wearing a costume that covered most of my body, since it was a folkloric dance, but let’s just say that if it had been a skimpy one, the audience would have been seeing a LOT more skin than they had bargained for!

Dance performance survived, I grabbed my stuff and ran out to the car. (This was a little sad, since we were performing at a convention, and my ticket to perform covered admission, and I would have liked to have stayed for a while, but I had a Mouse to visit!)

My mom dropped me off at my sister’s house at about 7pm, and my nephew answered the door. It turned out that my sister and her husband were on their way to MY house to drop off a bed they had sold my mom.

Wait a second.

They are DRIVING to our house with ice on the road? In the dark?

Wait another second!

I just spent ALL morning freaking out about how to get up here, and then they end up driving to my house?

ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

Jesse and I had a few hours to kill until they got back, so we looked at some Disney stuff online, and basically danced around all excited.

My sister FINALLY got back at about 9, and still had to get her stuff together. THEN we had to go pick up their van from a friend’s house they’d left it at. THEN we were finally able to leave (YAY!)

We took a cab to the airport, where we were picking up our rental car.

I’d looked around online, and Alamo seemed to have the best price, a Premium car for about $90. However, they wouldn’t let us rent it in my sister’s name since we were paying with my debit card (she’d put most of the money for the trip into my account so I could make reservations and such), and since we had to put it in my name instead, and I’m under 25, there was an extra $25 fee. Boooo! Then, they asked if we wanted to upgrade for $10, and she decided she did. Okay, now we’re up to $125. Then she wanted to add on the insurance… long story short, it ended up being $171 for a one day car rental! Technically about a five hour car rental! If I’d known we’d end up spending that much, I’d have just had us fly out of Springfield, since with the extra car expense both ways, we were now only saving about $300 instead of $500 by flying out of STL.

Our car was really cool. So cool that we started wondering what the heck kind of car it was, since none of us had been paying attention. We searched the inside of the car for the name (Don’t most cars have the name on the inside? Mine just has the pretty horsie on the steering wheel, I think, but that’s the same as a name.) but couldn’t find it anywhere. We looked over our rental documents, and no name there either! When we stopped at The Sister’s work to drop something off, we looked at the outside of the car for the name, but it was covered in snow! Thus, I named it the Chrysler Anonymous.

“While we are in the Chrysler Anonymous, we are anonymous! Nobody knows who we are!” I announced. “From now on, my name is Cinnamon Manhattan.”

“And I am Crispy Llamafingers.” The Sister added. The Nephew never came up with a conclusive alias. Very tricky, that kid.

(We did eventually give in and call the car rental place to ask what the heck kind of car we had- it was Chrysler 300. We decided that 300 was a stupid name, and we liked our name much better, so we just stuck with it.)

The very coolest feature of the Chrysler Anonymous? It has ESP! And, if for some reason, you *don’t* want to know what will be happening next on your trip, you can turn it off!

What the heck is this button really for? Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to ruin the illusion.

So, now we drove. And drove. And drove and drove and drove. Luckily once we got out of Springfield, there was no more ice on the roads, so the drive went smoothly. We stopped at a Waffle House near Ft Leonard Wood for foooood. Sadly, I have no photos of this- I wasn’t yet back into the mindset of always taking my camera into restaurants. Anyway, I had the best grilled cheese sandwich EVER for $1.70, the sister had a really yummy pecan waffle with blueberry stuff on top, and I have no memory of what Jesse had, except that he got a cherry lemonade with it.

And now we drove some more. The kid fell asleep, and we talked for the eighty thousand hours between Springfield and St Louis.

Somehow, we got there!

The Sister shows off the Chrysler Anonymous at the gas station in St Louis.

We had originally planned to drop the car off at the airport, and take the shuttle to the hotel, but then we saw the hotel before we even saw the airport, so we decided to just stop. The good thing about this hotel was that the Alamo car return was RIGHT across the street- score! We decided we were too tired to unload all of our junk now, so we made plans to just drop the car off in the morning, since we had it for 24 hours.

As soon as I walked in, I heard a man yelling at the guy at the front desk. Oh, poor front desk guy! I feel your pain! (I work front desk at home.)

The guy was yelling because they had reserved a certain kind of room, but some of the heaters had stopped working, making those rooms unavailable. I’ve soooo been in that exact situation! They offered the guy a different kind of room, but he didn’t want that, so he just kept yelling while I made sympathetic faces at front desk guy. Finally, after enough yelling, Yelling Guy left. Front Desk Guy sent Maintenance Guy off to see if a certain room was ready for us, and after about five minutes, Maintenance Guy said that yup, that heater was working- yay! I asked if it had two beds, since there were three of us, and front desk guy said that it did. YAY, sleep!

We finally got to our room at about 3am, and guess what- it had just one King bed! Of course now we’d just hauled our bags up three flights of stairs, and it was 3am, so we just set the alarm for two and a half hours later, plopped down and went to sleep. Let’s hope the rest of the trip doesn’t involve quiiiite so much “family togetherness”

 

[lauren_elizabeth]

Excited to read the rest of this report!

 

[pixiedust23]

excited to read another one of your reports!!! o and i feel your pain on the rental car. I'm going down with my bf for our birthdays. He'll be turning 25 on our last day there...aka we have to pay the stupid surcharge!@

 

[poohfan]

Cinnamon Manhattan... loved it!!!

 

[Philadisney]

yeay, another Crystal report! I loved your last one.

 

[dawnrose]

great report so far can't wait to hear more...

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Just wanted to let you guys know that I haven't forgotten about this report, the next part (where we actually get to wdw!) is coming soon! My nephew will be at my house tomorrow, so I'm going to look through all of his pictures, share some memories, and then I'll feel more prepared to tackle the rest of the report!

A preview of things to come: on the first day of our trip, Magic Kingdom is open until THREE AM!

 

[OhMari]

Wow, how was MK open till 3:00 a.m., what were the dates you were there.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Day 1

Day One is seriously long. Seriously. You’ve been warned!

Do you know what is not a fun time to wake up in the morning? 5:30 am. Do you know what is an even less fun time to wake up? 5:30am when you just got to sleep at 3:30am! Unfortunately, this is how our (LONG!) Day 1 begins!

Our flight from St Louis to Orlando was at 7:45 am, so our goal was to get to the airport around 6am. We got our things together as quickly as possible, dropped off the rental car, and took the hotel’s shuttle to the airport. Did I mention that it was stil around 10 degrees outside? BRR! We wanted on that plane, now!

At the airport, we used Southwest’s baggage check machine thingey, which involves some typing and pushing a lot of buttons, which is really not the kind of thing I am good at after two hours of sleep and before coffee! I crossed my fingers, hoping I didn’t just send my luggage to New Mexico, and we set off through security in search of breakfast (read: COFFEE!) There weren’t many places to eat past security, but we found the most amazing bagel place ever! My bagel with cream cheese was something like $5, but it was SO good! I want to go back to the airport just for another bagel. Yum!

We sat by the window watching planes take off while we ate, and in my case, drank some sweet, sweet Starbucks-in-a-bottle, which is the main ingredient it takes to turn me into a human in the morning.

We got to board in the first group, since I’d printed our boarding passes early yesterday. (everyone say Thank You, Crystal!)

It was Jesse’s first flight ever, so he was a little nervous, but got over it quickly. The flight did that thing that all flights to WDW do, where time pretty much stops, and you’re sure you’ve been on the plane for 18 hours, even though the clocks claim it has only been two. Thelma and I even got the kids’ packs from the flight attendants for amusement (If you fly Southwest, ask for one! They even come with little wings! SO cute!)

Nine million hours later (or around 11am) we touched down in Orlando. Welcome to my second home, dear family!

We picked up our luggage from baggage claim, and I had to drag my sister away from the shops- we have a Disney World to get to, woman!! You can shop later!

The line for Magical Express was HUGE- a trend that would continue on this trip! They didn’t have my name in the computer, probably because I’d only made the DME reservations a few days before, but the CM at the desk (Who checked me in on my last trip, too!) made a quick phone call and confirmed that we did have reservations. We only had to wait about 5 minutes for the bus, and we were finally off! We had landed just after 11am, and were on the bus by noon!

Enjoy these very blurry photos of my family on the bus!

The ride from the airport to WDW is about half an hour, but of course feels like 99 hours. Pop Century was the first stop- yay! We got our luggage from the bus, and inside the lobby, I let the others sit down while I got in the Check In Line Of Death. As I’ve mentioned, I work front desk at a hotel, and I would CRY if I had to deal with lines like this! I waited in line almost an hour- that’s longer than I’ve ever waited for anything at WDW! The Pop check in line totally needs FastPass!

Since I’d just signed up for Magical Express a few days before we left, they wouldn’t be transporting our luggage to the room for us, so we went in search of bell services. (I think I may even opt for carrying my own stuff if I did book ME on time, just since I’ve heard it takes them several hours to get your stuff to your room sometimes.) I was surprised that bell services wouldn’t take our luggage to our room for us, instead they loaned us a cart (after signing a paper saying we’d be charged $250 if it wasn’t returned- yeesh!) I’ve stayed at several values before, but since it’s just been me, I’ve always lugged my own luggage, but I always just assumed that bell services worked the same there as everywhere else. Nope! Lesson learned!

If you’re looking at the 50’s area from the end closest to the lobby, it makes an upside down U shape. Well, more of an upside down [__]. Our building was the one that made up the bottom of the U, and our room was all the way over by the bowling pin, on the back side of the building, facing the parking lot.

We wheeled our stuff out to our room, dropped it off, and sent Jesse to take the cart back.

Check out our fab view!

Yeah, okay, the view isn’t exactly looking across the lagoon to the castle, but I’m sure we’ll live. Besides, I just had big rooms with pretty views two months ago, anything that happens on this trip is just a bonus!

While the view was easily overlooked, we suddenly discovered something that wasn’t- the beds here are TINY!!! Are the beds at All Stars this small? I’d almost bet my mickey ears that these are way smaller than the All Stars ones, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in the 2 Queen All Stars rooms. Jesse didn’t really want to share such a small bed with his mom, so we called to ask about rollaways or cots, which Pop doesn’t have. (I don’t know where we would have put it, anyway, since there isn’t much spare room. How can someone who does as much crazy Disney research as me miss the fact that a) the Pop beds are tiny, and b) there are no rollaway beds? I think this made the family doubt my Disney knowledge for a minute! So, what to do? We couldn’t afford to move to a bigger resort, and since it was such a busy part of the year, there probably wouldn’t be a ton of availability elsewhere anyway! We decided to build poor Jesse a bed on the floor out of extra pillows and blankets that we asked mousekeeping to drop by. I should seriously get the poor kid a t-shirt that says “I went to Disney World, and they made me sleep on the floor all week!” Sorry, Jes!

I wish I had a picture of me *in* the bed, so you could see how tiny it is!

By now it was about 1:20, so we decided against our original idea of napping in the room in favor of just going straight to the parks. We were running on almost no sleep, but we were still standing, so that meant Magic Kingdom!

This is where we first discovered that it takes The Sister waaaay longer to get ready than the rest of us. Jesse and I sat with our feet in the pool while we waited, which we decided was a way better use of time.

As you can see, it was pretty overcast today- kind of chilly for Florida! Still, it was way better than the -7 degrees we left at home!

She emerges!

We were all starving, so we went up to Everything Pop to grab some lunch. Some of you have lectured me on my eating habits on vacation, since I tend to eat a lot of pizza and other junk food. Well, be prepared to be totally disappointed in me once again! I present to you my fabulous Pop Century Day One Lunch!

Hey, at least it isn’t pizza, right? Right? Great. You’re probably going to start hunting me down at WDW and force-feeding me green vegetables.

Our lunch was my first glimpse at how expensive things become when you’re traveling with other people! Thelma & Jesse both got the refillable mugs (I passed, since I don’t drink soda.), I got the fabulous cheetos/cheesecake/juice lunch, Thelma got a sloppy joe and the worms & dirt (gummy worms in pudding/oreo crumbles), and Jesse got the chicken strip basket. Total bill was $44.99! …and looking at the receipt to write this report, I just realized that it didn’t include my juice or cheetos! Did I buy those separately? I’ll have to look through my other receipts! Anyway, I’ve gotten so used to traveling solo and the lunch bill being about $6 that I nearly fell over at the $45 price tag! Granted it did include two refillable mugs, but yeesh! We’d just spent more on one meal than I usually spend on food in two days!

Poor Jesse was going to explode if we didn’t get on some rides soon, so we went out to catch the bus to MK. Of course, since the other two of us are female, we had to stop in the gift shop on our way to the bus. This is where we discovered that Pop Century is all about the tie-dye, and Jesse totally matched!

We put off our shopping, and went out to the bus stop before Jesse exploded. On the ride over, Jesse got his first glimpse of Tower of Terror, one of the main things he was excited to ride. His excitement was totally contagious, I loved it!