Best Holiday ever - DTD,Water parks,ASMo, general*2*more added Tuesday 20th February

[lorapinky]

Hello

This thread is basically everything outside of the 4 main theme parks at WDW.

Therefore it covers the water parks, DTD, ASMo, transport etc…

Enjoy!

Downtown Disney

We enjoyed going to DTD on nights where we had had a more relaxing day. I loved looking through all the shops, you would always find something different in each one. The only problem with shopping in WDW is some stuff does start to become very familiar. However from a Disney shopaholic DTD was pure bliss.

Before going to WDW we had read both the unofficial and official WDW guides, we were really excited about going to Disney Quest (DQ). We had a lot of fun there, though it wasn’t what I thought it was going be.

We maybe didn’t spend enough time at DQ, though I have to say for the short time we did spend there we had some fun. I really enjoyed designing my own rollercoaster and then getting to ride it. I had never done this, or anything like this before. Mark decided that it wasn’t for him (aka he chicken out) so went and investigated DQ some more. Whilst I went ahead naively added in lots of hoops and mad things thinking it wouldn’t really feel like a real rollercoaster. Boy was I wrong. I was shown to a booth and went inside a pod type thing, I was then asked to put my seatbelt on and the door was shut. I suddenly felt a bit nervous. The ride started and I was getting rolled around everywhere! I closed my eyes through pure terror! What a baby. Once the ride was finished I staggered to see Mark. I decided I wouldn’t be in a hurry to buy the DVD of the ride as I can imagine what I looked like! Looking back now I wish I had.

Another good memory were the drawing classes that are held at DQ. We did 2 classes in one day as we enjoyed it so much and we were tipped off! I will explain what I mean. On our first class we got to draw Pluto.

Here I am with my friend Stitch drawing Pluto (Yes I am wearing a stitch top and yes I am wearing stitch earrings and yes I know I aren’t 5 years old, but hey I am in WDW where else can you get away with acting as a child!?)

This is Mark concentrating on drawing!

At the end of the class they show everyone’s work on the screen which is fun! Once the class was over we were collecting our things together when the person who taught the class came over and ushered us over to a corner. Mark was looking very worried. He told us that after each class some wins a best art student award. I was suddenly very intrigued. He said that when he was showing everyone’s art work on the screen that mine stood out. I held my breath could it be that Disney have finally spotted my talent and are going to employ me to make Disney movies…umm no. However I was the best artist of the class! And with that you get to have your picture put in a frame and put on show on the counter.

Don’t I look very proud of my handiwork?! (ignore the bad hair we had been to BB that morning and my hair had gone very frizzy!) We also got a special Disney pin, and got both of our pictures that we had drawn printed and framed for free! WOW!

And to make things even more Disney special he whispered to me that at the next class they would be drawing someone who I clearly loved and to ensure that I was there promptly to get a seat (we were).

Yes you guessed it was to draw stitch! How did he know that I loved Stitch???

To be continued…

 

[natalielongstaff]

great pics i wish i could draw

 

[Cyrano]

Great report and photos

 

[Minniespal]

Fantastic piccies

 

[CustardTart]

How fab! I wanted to draw Pluto when I was at DQ but missed the time slot... Oh well, there's always next time!
I love the rollercoaster bit - DH and I did a level 5 pre-designed one (more hard-core than our kids ) which was amazing...

PS: Love those earrings!

 

[florida sun]

Wow well done to you, fantastic day

 

[wicket2005]

That was very interesting. We didn't think much of DQ when we went probably because we had to line up for 45 minutes for the pirate thing and everything else we couldn't get on but it was interesting reading about your drawing class and the coaster. Thank you.

 

[lorapinky]

Continued…

Hi again

I am glad you are enjoying reading these trip reports, thank you for being patient with me as I can only do a few bits a week. I hope you like this next part!

We enjoyed playing crazy golf at the miniature golf parks at Blizzard Beach. We had had a discount voucher from when we checked in at out hotel which allowed us to play on both the summer and winter golf course at a cheaper rate. We decided to play on both courses because a) it was a good offer and b) it was nice to do something at a slow rate and have a little break from the 4 main parks.

This is me concentrating whilst playing crazy golf.

There were loads of those little lizards (I think that’s what they are???) that are everywhere in Florida. They seemed to be scared whenever we usually saw them but not on the golf course. We had to keep trying to shoo them away as we didn’t want to hurt them. We soon learnt the trick to get rid of them and that was to get my camera out! The second I did that they scampered, I guess they must be camera shy?

This is my lovely DH securing his victory! Yes he won both rounds, even with his eyes shut! But I was the only one to get a hole in one! Wahoo!

I liked the lay out of both the courses, though my favourite would have to be the Christmas one, purely because I am Christmas mad! Other then that to me both courses were fun to play on and had that special ingredient – a Disney touch!

We did a lot of posing on both courses and I got a bit camera happy! My poor DH had to pose before every shot, he argued I was trying to put him off! Would I do such a thing?...

Here I am posing (I forced him to get camera happy too)!

You just have to do it, yes I know there not real surf boards but I couldn’t resist posing which meant…

…Mark couldn’t resist posing too (Yes I made him, but from his pose cant you tell he looks happy to oblige?). As you can tell from the above picture on me with the surf boards stitch came to play with me to for moral support and to watch my back to make sure Mark wasn’t altering any scores!

This is Mark and Stitch posing with the sand castle that is in the summer golf course.

Overall we both really enjoyed playing golf and will defiantly be playing it in 11 months time! Yippy for us! There were refreshments available on the course so we both sat down afterwards and had a drink and pretzels!

To be continued…

 

[jns]

Thanks for sharing

great photos

we always play crazy golf on our last morning

 

[lorapinky]

Continued…

Hi again, here is a little bit more of a trip report for you

We enjoyed the water parks; both were good though our favourite was Typhoon Lagoon. We went to Blizzard Beach the day after we got married in WDW, we are both very pale and thought to ourselves that ‘hey we haven’t been sun burnt yet and it looks like a misty day lets not wear sun cream….’ Need I say anymore! Yes we got burnt and the worst part of it was we had a photo session the next day at the castle in MK in our wedding attire, we looked like tomatoes! The shame. We have 100% learnt our lesson and will never do anything so stupid again…

Anyhow back to the water parks. We found that by going to them either in the morning or afternoon made a nice change to the parks and we found it relaxing and refreshing

This is me going down the one of the slides at BB.

The only problems we found with the slides at the watermarks were the fact that you had to go up all those stairs! We were close to collapsing every time we got to the top

DH enjoying the slides!

I had a delicious chocolate thing at BB, it was really tasty but very sickly, I only ate half which is really unlike me. They had like a powder chocolate thing that was so sickly after a few mouthfuls! I stuck to the ice balls in a cup (sorry cant remember what the official name for them are?)

We both wimped out of doing the summit plummet! Mark however did do the one to the left of it which is still steep and I still didn’t dare do it. His back was red raw when he came of it and he actually lifted on the slide whilst coming down! Too scary for me.

Whilst waiting for Mark to go on the slide I was watching people doing summit plummet and was amazed when a man got to the bottom of the slide and was in a blind panic to get all his money. Yes you read that right, he has money (the paper kind!) in his pocket and it had all come out on his journey down the slide! I am sorry if you are the man that did that and you are reading this now but honestly dollar notes in your swimming trunks at water park! Not very clever, but very amusing to me and few other onlookers!

This is Mark posing in the entrance for BB.

At TL we enjoyed the new slides in which you can go on together – Slusher Gusher or something. This was our favourite ride. The first time we went on it we weren’t told by the workers that we had to lift out bums up. Typical the first time we go on, which is the most important and we don’t get told that information yet every other time we go on we are told. Our poor bottoms got bruised as they crashed on the slides! We were both in so much pain after, yet like fools we went straight back on! And yes we remembered to lift out bums on the slide to avoid inevitable bum slams all the way down the slide!

Whilst we were waiting for another go on the slide, we were at the top and literally only had a few minutes to wait we noticed a young boy talking to a Disney worker crying. When it came to our go we were sent to the slide in which all this commotion was going on next to it. The worker informed us that the boy was too scared to go on by himself and therefore we go ahead and have our go. Mark the lovely chap he is offered instead to go on with him. The worker was very thankful and said that I could wait at the top and save our spot so that we wouldn’t have to wait again. Mark told me that once he and the boy got to the bottom all his family were there waiting for him and he was shouting ‘I did it, I did it’, bless him

Here are a few pictures of the entrance of TL.

Me posing!

Mark getting blinded by the sun!

To be continued…

 

[jen_uk]

Great photos!

 

[natalielongstaff]

i agree TL is a better park than BB i didnt like all the sand

great photos

 

[ely3857]

Great stuff

I love the water parks!



Jodie

 

[KayleeUK]

Great reports

 

[Chilly]

i agree TL is a better park than BB i didnt like all the sand

I prefered BB slides although TL is a very pretty setting but I thought the sand at TL was worse.

 

[angel659]

Hi

Lovely photos and I love your bag I wonder if we can get them over here?

Great trip reports

 

[Cyrano]

Great to see the update

 

[arieljasmine]

Thanks for sharing your reports with us, Lora. Well done with your picture, what a lovely surprise. I love the Christmas golf course too.

ArielJasmine

 

[lorapinky]

Hi again,

Here are some more general bits about our trip:

A picture of the virgin airline food. We didn’t really like the airline food though this isn’t a bad thing against Virgin we are just very fussy eaters. We flew out PE and we preferred this as we had lots of sweets during the flight that filled the gap perfectly so I can’t complain!

When on our flight I noticed a couple taking loads of photos, I was very nervous about doing this as I thought for security reason that you maybe weren’t allowed? After I saw others start to take pictures I nervously got out my camera, and snap that window and quickly popped it away, my DH was furious as he hates being the centre of attention for any reason, especially if it’s the result of me doing something that I shouldn’t, luckily no flight attendant came and told us off. So after a few more sly pictures I started taking them a bit more causally, though I still don’t know if you are meant to take them or not?

Here is a sly picture of my DH, he enjoyed the movies on the plane, he had never flown before and he had a big phobia about flying. In fact a year before we went to WDW we were stuck in traffic near an airport in which we could see planes landing clearly. He was gripping the steering wheel and honestly went white as a ghost. I asked him there and then if he could actually go through with the flight, in which he said that he would do anything to marry me and turned back to watching planes land shaking like a leaf. Now don’t think of me as being cruel for making him fly, as once he did it he actually didn’t mind it and in fact he said we should book our next trip to WDW (I did straight away) so in fact it was a good thing. Though I must confess I felt guilty when we set off and he clutched my hand so tightly I thought it would drop off!

When we arrived we were one of the first people off as we had flown PE, this was great as we were one of the first people to go through the passport checks etc. However our luggage seemed to take forever to get to us! Once we had our luggage we had to keep giving it away whilst going through more checks etc, we were surprised to see how rough people are with luggage! Once we did all this and got the monorail to the other part of the airport we looked for the rep. She was a lovely women but when she saw us she looked panicked! ‘What factor sun cream do you have?’ she asked, ‘ummm 30’ I replied, ‘oh no love you will need at least 40 as you are sooo pale’. Yes I know this thanks for reminding me. She checked everything was ok and gave her number etc and then led us to out driver.

Now when we go to WDW we always like to be picked by a limo, that’s just our preference, it actually isn’t that much more costly then paying for a shuttle, taxi etc. Its nice to have all the luggage taken from you by the driver treated to a cold drink whilst you relax in the limo seeing signs for WDW on your journey. That always gets me excited as you know you are now close to the magic! As this was our first time going to WDW we really didn’t know what to expect, I remember when he dropped us off and we saw the front of the ASMo resort and we were just so excited. Check in was really easy, the guy behind the desk who booked us in said he was happy to speak to two people who seemed genuinely happy and excited to be there as all day he had had people moaning apparently. Once he gave us our room key and the little pack they give you he then circled on a map where we were and off we went! Our luggage had been taken of us when we arrived we found this a little weary but we needn’t had worried. We wandered to all the rooms and we saw for the first time the large Dalmatians statues! Gosh that is so exciting. We then tracked down our room and tried the key. It didn’t work! Grrr. After a few more attempts we managed to open the door. We raced in and were happy with what we got for our money. We put all our bags down and went for a wander around the resort. We took plenty of photos of the toy story figures, we then went back to our room for a short break and to phone home to let everyone know we had arrived safe etc.

This is me standing outside of our hotel; it’s a lovely hotel if you want something cheap. Some people I know would not want to stay at the ASMo but for us it was more then perfect. We spent very little time in the resort as we often got up around 7:00am and never really got back before 10:00pm! We only went to our room in the afternoon after we had been swimming, so for us to pay anything more then the basic for a hotel room would seem pointless. It is also the fact that it has 101 Dalmatians running around that makes it the hotel for us as I just happen to be the world s biggest 101 Dalmatians fan!

This is my DH waiting for a bus outside the ASMo resort.

I always found when going for a bus that the one you want just left and you had to wait for about 10 minutes for another!!! (Now before you think 10 minutes isn’t that long, well it is when you are so excited about going to a park and every second feels like an eternity!!!) We found the bus service very good when we were there; I was surprised by how easy it was to get about in WDW. My DH was very impressed and in fact last night commented on how efficient he felt the service was (this is a big compliment if coming from him!)

Here is another picture for you all of the front of ASMo.

We then changed out of our travel clothes and headed to DTD. Going on the Disney buses for the first time was just so exciting; we had no clue as to what to do but it’s really easy (if we can figure it all out then anyone can). Whilst on the bus we started to see the tops of rides and water parks from the window, I remember feeling just so happy finally being in the world after 2 years of NOTHING but planning! When we got to DTD everyone piled off the bus and walked towards to entrance to DTD, we just followed everyone as we had no idea where we were going. When we got it we went to a shop that is on your left (not sure of the name) and looked at the Christmas ornaments and Disney wedding hats (I bought 2 for my DH and me to wear must to his annoyance!). We then started to feel peckish so we grabbed a hotdog each from a stand and sat down on a wall. We walked around for a bit longer and then decided to go back to our room and sleep as we had a busy day ahead of us!

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and were getting married on the Monday, so the only day we could get our marriage licence was on the Friday (shut on Saturday and Sunday). As we only had one day to get it I was determined that nothing was to go wrong as we had no time to play with.

We woke early on the Friday as Mark and a suit fitting and my wedding dress was to be steamed. I had taken all his measurements before coming very carefully and twice to ensure accuracy, were my measurements right? No they were not! Eak! The lovely lady didn’t seem to mind that his sleeves were too short and that his trousers looked like shorts! She simply measured him correctly and said she would be back tomorrow with the correct sizes! I guess my changes of being a tailor are long gone!

With that over we set off to Kissimmee, we decided to get a taxi to the court house as we were new to WDW and Orlando and didn’t fancy finding our way on buses etc. The Taxi was $60.00 which was a lot, but I enjoyed seeing all the signs for WDW on our way out of the world. That made me realise how big WDW is as it took us ages just to get away from all the official WDW signs. We passed all sorts of interesting things so for me the journey was very exciting, though I was very nervous about the courthouse. Once we arrived we paid the cab driver and tipped him $20.00 (was that too much???).

We walked in and was surprised to see that there was a queue for once of those x-ray machine things that they have at airports that scans you for anything metal. Gosh this was serious stuff. We walked to the queue suddenly feeling very guilty. Once we got to the front I was asked to put all my things in the dish and walked through the machine, I was so nervous but it turned out that I walked through without a hitch and so did my DH. We noticed signs for the marriage certificate room and headed there. Once we got there we join the queue. We had picked up a leaflet whilst waiting which listed everything that you are meant to bring with you in order to get a marriage licence. We just read it out of curiosity.

Passport…check
Birth Certificate…check
Employment Card…what!!!

We started to panic, did this mean we needed our national insurance card too. We re-read it all and it said that without this you couldn’t get married. But that didn’t apply to us right? We had spoken to out travel agent, Disney and the courthouse prior to this and they hadn’t mentioned this at all. I started to get really worried. We had emptied our wallets / purses prior to the trip and had left that behind. My DH search frantically through his wallet muttering that I should have known this, whilst I searched my purse praying that it was there, it wasn’t. DH was still searching and looked helpless too, but then he cried ‘I have it’. For some reason this got me cross, well he told me to empty my purse before the trip of everything that I didn’t need and that I didn’t want to risk losing so I did. I guess he hadn’t! I muttered something along the lines of ‘well you can’t get married if I don’t have mine’ and then proceeded to sulk.

The queue showed no sign on moving so I ran to the payphone and tried to ring my employee to ask them for my national insurance number. I got put on hold and then cut off! Grr I have no more coins, I run back to Mark praying that we don’t need the card. When it comes to our turn we hand over everything we have, the lady examines all the paperwork and then walks off, she comes back and smiles at us and asks us to sign some forms. Phew it looks like we don’t need the card after all, panic over.
We then had to put or right hand in the air and repeat after her a load of legal stuff, I felt like I was on trial and we were in a room of people who were watching, we both went bright red. Once this was over she gave us a copy of the marriage licence that needed to go to our rev and then we left the court house. End of drama right…wrong!

We decided seems it was such a nice hot day that we should walk into Kissimmee before going back to WDW. After walking for seemed like forever we started to get a bit scared (did I mention we are cowards). We saw no shops, houses or anything other then roads. We decided to head back to the court house and get a taxi. Only when we got there we had no taxi numbers/ I bravely went into the courthouse and asked for some whilst my DH waited outside (again to us this is brave). I came back with some and went to the phone box. Oh no I have no coins I had used them all on the payphone in the courthouse trying to ring my employer! I started to panic big time! We had a $20.00, but that was our smallest note. I went back to the courthouse and pleased with some workers who took pity on me and gave us some coins. I phoned for a tai and waited outside on the courthouse. We just wanted to get back to WDW, after waiting for about 20 minutes lots of taxis started to come but none were for us, then a posh car came and asked if we were expecting him? Were we? It turned out that I had ordered a fancy taxi…ooops! I t was a lovely car with leather interior and tinted windows, mark wasn’t so convinced,. But before you knew it we were heading back to WDW, once we got in we decided to head to our first Park, but as we didn’t want to go to MK yet as a full day is required for this we decided to check out MGM.

I will post a MGM link soon and there is already a wedding one on here for those of you who want to read any more?

 

[Chilly]

Sounds like a very stressful start to the holiday but you got married so I know it turns out ok!