Best Friends and New Friends - a MAGICal Tale

[Kimberly815]

I headed over to the desk and explained my situation to the CM. I was assured by the CM at CBR that everything should be ok but she lied. My info wasn’t in the system yet at SSR so it took the CM about 15 minutes to enter everything in and confirm that this was a complementary, no charge, upgrade. My credit card was already stretching at the seams, I didn’t need anymore charges.

Before we left the lobby though, I wanted to verify that Magical Express would be picking us up and not heading over to CBR to wait for us. Things like that happen to me. So I headed over to the concierge woman and asked if she could look it up for me. She wasn’t sure exactly what to do so I gave her my ME confirmation number and told her that we got moved from CBR to SSR and we are scheduled to have ME pick us up on Sunday. She was a bit confused so I had to explain it 2 more times before the light bulb turned on and she called her handy dandy ME phone number.

Kind of annoying with all the confusion moving resorts. But good thinking on your part about the ME pickup- that would have been much more annoying the next morning! At least you got a sweet upgrade with it! That was one nice room!

 

[Jennifer48]

Our room at SSR was beautiful! There was just so much room compared to the value resorts I was used to staying in! We unpacked again and I turned my phone on to hear one missed voicemail from Kim. They had landed already at MCO and were getting ready to eat lunch. Dan and I were starving so we decided to hike it over to Downtown Disney for some grub ourselves. I called Kim back and left her a voicemail that that’s where we’d be.

Once we were outside, we realized that we were too tired to walk to DTD plus being new to the resort we didn’t know where the path was so we decided just to pick up a bus. Probably would have been quicker to walk! We stopped at every bus depot at SSR before finally heading over. Not to
mention, the drop off at Marketplace was being refurbed so we got kicked off at Pleasure Island and we had to walk. Oh well.

Earl of Sandwich was on our radar for lunch. We walked in and it was wicked packed! Our stomachs rumbled so we decided to find something else to eat. Since we were going to the Hoop Dee Doo tonight, we didn’t want to eat too much and spoil our dinner. When we first made our reservations for the Hoop De Doo, I informed Dan about it and every time after that he referred to it as the Hoop De La!

Here’s a shocker, I’ve never eaten a Mickey bar. GASP! Yes I have no idea why but I haven’t so we decided to each eat one for lunch. Dan had never eaten one either so it was a fun first time for both of us.

We headed into the World of Disney store next in hopes of picking up some new postcards for me but no luck, I had them all so we made our way over to the pin station. I certainly didn’t have all of those! I like to buy pins that mean something so I’ve been trying to get the resorts I’ve stayed at and any special shows. So this trip I purchased a SSR one and a Hoop Dee Doo Revue one. They didn’t have a Caribbean Beach one! At least not one that I could find at CBR, WoD, or the pin station.

I missed another call from Kim so I called her back and left her another voicemail. Apparently our phones don’t work well at DTD! I let her know where we would be so we could meet up. We sat outside of Ghirardelli’s Chocolate Shop. That was a mistake. Imagine being hungry and seeing people walking out with these massive sundaes. Painful! Finally we saw Kim, her husband Joe and Kim’s sister Jen walking by so I flagged them down. She didn’t get my last message, good thing we were watching for them! We filled them in on our cruise and they filled us in with the current events back home.

Well, our prediction was right. Guess who showed up? MICKEY MOUSE! of course I’m kidding and you are correct. It was Glenn and Donna! I can’t remember if they were on their way to Raglan Road for dinner or had just left there for lunch. Either way, we saw them, again. Anyone else singing “It’s a Small World?!”

Without much further ado, we headed to Fort Wilderness for our Hoop Dee Do ressies. I was so excited to see this show and none of us have seen it before. Another first!

I think we only got lost once on our way to Fort Wilderness but that’s why we made sure to leave early to allow extra time. Upon arriving, we had to park about 4 miles away from Pioneer Hall where the Hoop Dee Doo revue is. So we hopped on a bus over. It was actually a confusing bus system and we weren’t sure which color went where. We obviously figured it out and jumped on the next available bus. We were about 45 minutes early I believe so we headed over to the Settlement Trading Post to see if we could find any good souvenirs. I bought another pin. A little advice to my readers, all 4 of you, don’t get involved in pin purchasing/trading. It’s horribly addictive and you have no control over yourself whenever you find a pin you like!

Kim checked us all in and we hopped in line since there was not much time to venture out and round. Someday I would like to stay and camp there. The cabins looked cozy too.

Aunt Bee came out and had a volunteer ring the triangle to call us all to dinner. We were seated in the category 1 section because we booked a little late and that’s all that was available. We ended up about 2 tables from the stage. The food was deeeeeeeeeeeeeelicous! All you can eat family style with Ma's delicious fried chicken, smoked barbecued pork ribs, mashed potatoes, country style baked beans and corn bread. Mmmmmm the corn bread! I wish I took pictures of the food. I think Joe did. Maybe he’ll post some here.

The view from our table

The show began and we all loved it! It was so fun. For those that love corny jokes and puns, this is the show for you. I’m so glad I got to see it once and for all. At the end, our waitress brought out a washboard for me to play along!

Jammin' on the washboard!

After the show, we were all pretty tired from getting up so early so we decided to head back home. They dropped us off at SSR and they came to see our awesome room and we had bottles of water left over from the cruise that we never drank so we gave them to them for their week at WDW. My cold was getting to me so I took some medicine; we put the Red Sox game on and fell asleep.

Up next: Now its time to say goodbye….

 

[Jennifer48]

Sunday September 23rd

We had set the alarm for 8am because we had to catch our Magical Express bus at the Carriage House at 10:30am. All the non-fun stuff occurred, you know, showering, packing, saying good byes to everything around you and making sure you grabbed all the free items ;-) Unfortunately Glenn and Donna were no where to be found so we had to walk over to the Carriage House with our luggage. Just as we arrived, there was an ME bus loading passengers on so we hopped on as well.

At MCO, we checked in and ate a pathetic lunch at McDonalds and then sat by our gate for boarding. I checked my work email and basically just deleted all nonessential spam and checked the DIS! To my surprise, some of my fellow Mickey’s Magical Gang friends had already posted that they were home. Actually I wasn’t really surprised because here I was in the airport terminal checking the DIS so who am I kidding?

They began boarding at 1:15 for our 1:30 flight. We flew JetBlue and the only thing that I kept thinking about were those horror stories of passengers having to sit in the plane for hours because of delays and how the toilets were all backed up. I quickly erased that from my mind and sat down. I took out my notebook to take notes as we were taxiing out when we stopped. The pilot came over the loudspeaker and said that we had been delayed due to a thunderstorm nearby. Sure enough, it got extremely dark and the skies just opened up and it poured. A normal afternoon thunderstorm in good ole Orlando. Thankfully it was relatively quick and we had only been delayed for 1.5 hours. I had booked this flight in the early afternoon so we could get home at a reasonable hour to settle in and unpack before worrying about dreadful w-o-r-k the next day. It’s a 3 hour flight to Boston, then we have to get our luggage, then we had to wait for the Logan Express shuttle to take us to our lot then from there we had to drive home. Needless to say, we were home around 8-8:30 which didn’t leave us much time to relax and share vacation stories with my parents. Plus Dan had to do laundry because he had nothing to wear to w-o-r-k the next day! Ah the fun times from returning from the best vacation ever. And it really was.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Kimberly815]

Thank you for sharing your tale. I am glad that you had such a wonderful time.

 

[CruisinEars]

I agree! Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I really enjoyed reading it especially since I had just read Becky's (ReAnst) report. Glad you had a fun trip. Just over 3 more months till I get to experience the Magic.

 

[CruisinEars]

I agree! Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I really enjoyed reading it especially since I had just read Becky's (ReAnst) report. Glad you had a fun trip. Just over 3 more months till I get to experience the Magic.

 

[CruisinEars]

Sorry, Double post

 

[naner]

Great report!

 

[Jennifer48]

I agree! Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I really enjoyed reading it especially since I had just read Becky's (ReAnst) report. Glad you had a fun trip. Just over 3 more months till I get to experience the Magic.

Thanks for reading CruisinEars! I hope you have a fabulous time! I hope you write a trip report too so I can relive your fun!

Great report!

Thanks for reading naner! And the , is very much appreciated!

 

[PizzieDuster]

I have slept all day, sick with the flu. Reading your trip report this evening made me feel so much better! I love all your pictures!

Last year we sailed the Freedom of the Seas. From your pictures I could see the Flowrider area which was the best part of the ship - for me and my teens. But, Disney is a entirely different experience - I have a DCL mother/daughter cruise coming up 6/08 - out of San Pedro.

My DD9 loved looking at all your pictures too.

Thank you!

 

[Hixski]

Jen: Where is your ticker for the new cruise?? Gotta have those new tickers. As you can see I just had to put mine on there.

 

[Jennifer48]

I have slept all day, sick with the flu. Reading your trip report this evening made me feel so much better! I love all your pictures!

Last year we sailed the Freedom of the Seas. From your pictures I could see the Flowrider area which was the best part of the ship - for me and my teens. But, Disney is a entirely different experience - I have a DCL mother/daughter cruise coming up 6/08 - out of San Pedro.

My DD9 loved looking at all your pictures too.

Thank you!

Sorry to hear that you are sick PizzieDuster. Here's some to make you feel better. Thank you for reading and your DD9 also! I'm sure you'll have super time in June.

Jen: Where is your ticker for the new cruise?? Gotta have those new tickers. As you can see I just had to put mine on there.

I did put one one. Looks like my siggie is a little to big. I'll have to try to squeeze it all in there!

 

[Disneygrl36]

Jenn..........
I finally finished your trippie....one thing & another, but it was nice to be able to come back & get a DCL fix & look at all your beautiful pictures.
Have you kept in touch with your " stalkers " ??????? Sounds like you guys are meant to be life long friends.
Thanks for sharing your story with us.

 

[Jennifer48]

Jenn..........
I finally finished your trippie....one thing & another, but it was nice to be able to come back & get a DCL fix & look at all your beautiful pictures.
Have you kept in touch with your " stalkers " ??????? Sounds like you guys are meant to be life long friends.
Thanks for sharing your story with us.

Hi Mel, thanks for coming back to finish reading!

I have kept in touch with my stalkers, um I mean new friends. We are trying to get together this summer for some baseball but if we don't, we have all rebooked on the Eastern Tortola cruise in 2009!

 

[Hixski]

Hi Mel, thanks for coming back to finish reading!

I have kept in touch with my stalkers, um I mean new friends. We are trying to get together this summer for some baseball but if we don't, we have all rebooked on the Eastern Tortola cruise in 2009!

It is debatable on just who was stalking who!!!

It does seem like fate stuck us together with each other. We would even run into them just getting on the elevator.

 

[Jennifer48]

It is debatable on just who was stalking who!!!

It does seem like fate stuck us together with each other. We would even run into them just getting on the elevator.

Who showed up at DTD while we were sitting there talking to our friends?? YOU! Don't deny it. You love our company and couldn't get enough.

 

[Hixski]

Who showed up at DTD while we were sitting there talking to our friends?? YOU! Don't deny it. You love our company and couldn't get enough.

Ok, you got me there!! You guys did get there first!!!

 

[Disneygrl36]

I hope all of you have a wonderful time on the Tortola cruise!!!!!!!!!!!! Great friends brought together by DCL what could be better.

 

[Jennifer48]

I hope all of you have a wonderful time on the Tortola cruise!!!!!!!!!!!! Great friends brought together by DCL what could be better.

Thanks Mel! And you have a super time on your ABD trip. I hope you write a trippie!

 

[scottishwee35]

Hi Jennifer

I have not heard from you a while.

Hope you are keeping well.

It is 3 months to go for my Westbound Panama Canal Cruise

Had a hard times with school for taking the kids out of the school. But glad that I sorted it out. As new rules came out last month and lucky I asked head teacher last year before we booked it.

Scottishwee35