bobcat
<font color=magenta>I had a horrible case two year
- Joined
- Aug 19, 1999
- Messages
- 4,158
Sunday July 18th - Arrival at Pop Century!
After being rudely awakened by cussing neighbors in the Bates motel I kicked the kids out of bed. No Mickey call yet except in my head. We had donuts and the most digusting OJ wannabe juice. I took my medicine and dumped the rest. Yuck! I can tell we're not in FL yet! We were on the road by 8:30 or so and ready for some good FL OJ at the welcome center. Made a quick stop here and picked up a couple of Florida maps since my book ended at the FL border. I think I know how to get to WDW from here but the map will help.
Just an aside but why are the people who work in the FL welcome centers the most unwelcoming people?! Every time we have stopped at one and had any questions they act like its a bother to answer. Hello! You picked this job! Not even a smile this morning from the travel desk but the OJ lady was very pleasant.
It seemed like a longer drive to Ocala than I thought it would be, but then it always seems to take a long time to get to the Mouse. I was suprised at all the horse farms between Gainsville and Ocala. It looks like a pretty area. We wanted to stop at the Ocala Disney welcome center and finally had our first magic of the day. Smiles and pixie dust at last! A CM was very helpful with a map to Pop Century since none of the online map programs seemed to have it available yet. We only made a short stop here because we were eager to be on our way. The toll road was nice and we actual had a substantial hill in Florida. LOL
With the help of our handy dandy map we found Pop Century easily and were soon handing over ID to the guards. We're on the list so off we go! Our first sight of Pop didn't dissapoint. We stay at the All Stars frequently so we like the over the top Disney themes. This resort felt even better. I did a through review on the resorts board so I won't bore you with too many details here.
It was arround 1 pm and we had a very pleasant college CM check us in and even better our room was ready. Wait it gets better as we were in the 50's section close to the main building. Yipee! We dropped off our luggage and moved the car to the 50's parking lot. 60's ended up being closer to our room so I would move it later but they still need more parking. I didn't have a probalem finding a spot since it was afternoon so we took our bathing suit bag and found our room. After a wrong turn we foudn it easily enough and it looked just like all the pictures I had seen. I really like the theming of these rooms. We headed out to explore the resort a little and when we came back our luggage was in the room. Perfect timing because we wanted to get cleaned up for Chef Mickeys.
We had a 5:20 PS for Chef Mickeys and since I didn't want to drive any more we caught the bus to MK and the monorail to the Contemporary. We had a short wait for the bus and a short wait for the monorail but arrived right on time for dinner. I also did detailed dining reviews on the restaurant board so check those out if you are interested. Previously I mentioned that DD loves Donald. This is the main reason we visited at Dinner so he could see him. Even though he tried to act like he didn't care too much about the characters he still got excited when he saw them and gave them hugs. Here is one of my favorite pics of him with Donald.
We looked in the shops a bit and taked to great CMs. After dinner we asked to ride in front of the monorail and were joined halfway around buy a nice boy about my sons age. I tried to take a picture of my kids up front but this began the first of my DD attempts to get out of the pictures.
Is she nuts! I just bought a new digital camera and she will have her picture taken. If she looks goofy all the better because then I have blackmail. HEEEHEEEE!
After riding the monorail we headed back to Pop for some swimming and unpacking. We had EE at AK in the morning so we wanted to be rested.
Tomorrow - the beginning of the revolt against mom.
After being rudely awakened by cussing neighbors in the Bates motel I kicked the kids out of bed. No Mickey call yet except in my head. We had donuts and the most digusting OJ wannabe juice. I took my medicine and dumped the rest. Yuck! I can tell we're not in FL yet! We were on the road by 8:30 or so and ready for some good FL OJ at the welcome center. Made a quick stop here and picked up a couple of Florida maps since my book ended at the FL border. I think I know how to get to WDW from here but the map will help.
Just an aside but why are the people who work in the FL welcome centers the most unwelcoming people?! Every time we have stopped at one and had any questions they act like its a bother to answer. Hello! You picked this job! Not even a smile this morning from the travel desk but the OJ lady was very pleasant.
It seemed like a longer drive to Ocala than I thought it would be, but then it always seems to take a long time to get to the Mouse. I was suprised at all the horse farms between Gainsville and Ocala. It looks like a pretty area. We wanted to stop at the Ocala Disney welcome center and finally had our first magic of the day. Smiles and pixie dust at last! A CM was very helpful with a map to Pop Century since none of the online map programs seemed to have it available yet. We only made a short stop here because we were eager to be on our way. The toll road was nice and we actual had a substantial hill in Florida. LOL
With the help of our handy dandy map we found Pop Century easily and were soon handing over ID to the guards. We're on the list so off we go! Our first sight of Pop didn't dissapoint. We stay at the All Stars frequently so we like the over the top Disney themes. This resort felt even better. I did a through review on the resorts board so I won't bore you with too many details here.
It was arround 1 pm and we had a very pleasant college CM check us in and even better our room was ready. Wait it gets better as we were in the 50's section close to the main building. Yipee! We dropped off our luggage and moved the car to the 50's parking lot. 60's ended up being closer to our room so I would move it later but they still need more parking. I didn't have a probalem finding a spot since it was afternoon so we took our bathing suit bag and found our room. After a wrong turn we foudn it easily enough and it looked just like all the pictures I had seen. I really like the theming of these rooms. We headed out to explore the resort a little and when we came back our luggage was in the room. Perfect timing because we wanted to get cleaned up for Chef Mickeys.
We had a 5:20 PS for Chef Mickeys and since I didn't want to drive any more we caught the bus to MK and the monorail to the Contemporary. We had a short wait for the bus and a short wait for the monorail but arrived right on time for dinner. I also did detailed dining reviews on the restaurant board so check those out if you are interested. Previously I mentioned that DD loves Donald. This is the main reason we visited at Dinner so he could see him. Even though he tried to act like he didn't care too much about the characters he still got excited when he saw them and gave them hugs. Here is one of my favorite pics of him with Donald.
We looked in the shops a bit and taked to great CMs. After dinner we asked to ride in front of the monorail and were joined halfway around buy a nice boy about my sons age. I tried to take a picture of my kids up front but this began the first of my DD attempts to get out of the pictures.
Is she nuts! I just bought a new digital camera and she will have her picture taken. If she looks goofy all the better because then I have blackmail. HEEEHEEEE!
After riding the monorail we headed back to Pop for some swimming and unpacking. We had EE at AK in the morning so we wanted to be rested.
Tomorrow - the beginning of the revolt against mom.
