Bumps, bruises, too many teenagers & swimming with sharks! NEW 11/17 pg. 32

[Charleston Princess]

Zach captures some very interesting angles. I like the ones of the boat getting closer and closer.

 

[natebenma]

Zach

I really, really, really like that first picture of the slide, with the stairs framed by the boat and the mast!

The pictures of the Friendship boats are really good too!

I love when kids are enthusiastic and excited about taking pictures.

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Great photo tour so far! Zach took some interesting pics. I think my favorite is the one of the water fountain! Cute!

 

[DisneyCrafter]

Zach's quite the budding photographer! I bet you can make him the cutest scrapbook as a memento and I'm sure he'll love it!

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

Zack's pictures of the baot getting closer to the dock remind me a lot of the picture I took from the Magic as we arrived at Castaway Cay I took a bunch of pictures as we approched. If you look at the one linked to and then at the next 100 (yes I said 100) that I took over that hour. Castaway Cay approach

 

[JPFamilyMom]

Zach's pictures are great, what kind of camera did you get him? I can't remember if you posted that. Is it kid proof durable? I'm thinking Jack would love to have his own camera on our next trip.

Glad you all made it to MK that evening (I thought I posted before but it's not there). Looked like a fun evening

 

[DisMomAmy]

What great great Jedi pictures! I love them!!!!!

Thunderstorms make me crabby in FL, they have been the bane of more than one day for us for sure.

That is HYSTERICAL! So cute.

Thanks Cynthia - Alex had fun with the Jedi training. I'm glad they have a PP photographer there.

We usually get great weather in Florida and really we only had a few wet ones... they just happened to be the days we were at BC!

Did Zach take those scenery pictures? If so, he has a VERY good eye!

Zach did take those pictures! I'm going to try to post the rest of his pictures from Day 2 now.

I remember the rain when we were at AKL waiting for our ADR at Boma. It was coming down good!!

Glad you got some things done at MK that night.

The lounge was not open 24 hours.
I have the sheet we got when we checked in & here is what it says


Food & Beverage Offerings

Coffee 6:30 am to 7:00 am
Breakfast 7:00 am to 10:30 am
Light Snacks 11:30 am to 4:00 pm
Hors d'oeuvres & beverages 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Desserts & Cordials 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm

So it closed between 10:30 & 11:30 am & 4:00 pm - 5:00pm, 7:00pm to 8:00 pm and it closed for the night after 10:00pm.

Thanks for the lounge info! I couldn't remember.

Yes - there were some major downpours for sure!

Don't know how I missed the start of your TR but I love it so far. The view is fantastic. I love Zach's photo tour, it is fun to see it through the eyes of a kid.

Looks like DHS was a fun time and you were able to get quite a few attractions done. The pictures of the Jedi training are great and it looks like he had fun!

Glad you found me! I've been a bit slow to start with all of the end of school year craziness!

I'm really enjoying seeing Zach's pictures - I haven't looked through them so I'm seeing them for the first time when I post them.

Jedi Training was fun!

Zach captures some very interesting angles. I like the ones of the boat getting closer and closer.

Zach took a lot of pictures of the same thing from different angles! There's a nice lizard montage coming up!

Zach

I really, really, really like that first picture of the slide, with the stairs framed by the boat and the mast!

The pictures of the Friendship boats are really good too!

I love when kids are enthusiastic and excited about taking pictures.

Thanks Dee! I passed your comments along to Zach and he thought it was pretty cool that grown ups liked his pictures.

Great photo tour so far! Zach took some interesting pics. I think my favorite is the one of the water fountain! Cute!

Thanks Missy!

Zach's quite the budding photographer! I bet you can make him the cutest scrapbook as a memento and I'm sure he'll love it!

I'd love to make him a scrapbook... if I could ever find the time! Although I seem to find more time for things like that when they are for other people.

Zack's pictures of the baot getting closer to the dock remind me a lot of the picture I took from the Magic as we arrived at Castaway Cay I took a bunch of pictures as we approched. If you look at the one linked to and then at the next 100 (yes I said 100) that I took over that hour. Castaway Cay approach

That's so cool!

 

[DisMomAmy]

Zach's pictures are great, what kind of camera did you get him? I can't remember if you posted that. Is it kid proof durable? I'm thinking Jack would love to have his own camera on our next trip.

Glad you all made it to MK that evening (I thought I posted before but it's not there). Looked like a fun evening

It's not a kids camera - it's a regular digital camera. I looked for one that was inexpensive just in case he broke it. I ended up with a Polaroid i1237. I bought it because it's red. It has 12 megapixels, 15X zoom. It also has that anti-shake feature which is probably helpful for him.

We used to have some of those kids cameras but they took awful pictures.

I hate when you post (or think you posted) and then it's not there later...

 

[DisMomAmy]

Hopefully photobucket will cooperate so I can get the rest of Zach's photo tour posted. I'd like to get our day 3 posted on Monday.

Continuing on... we were on our way to DHS on the Friendship Boat.

While Alex & I were in signing up for Jedi Training, Zach found this guy to model for him:

 

[DisMomAmy]

 

[DisMomAmy]

Wheeeewwww... I made it! PB wasn't being totally cooperative, but I made it through. And that ends Day 2.

Up next: Day 3 - Our resort day. How much of the resort will we actually see?

 

[MeMom]

I like this one. He really is concentrating on something!

 

[Charleston Princess]

Great lizard montage!

 

[JPFamilyMom]

I love that he took pictures of the little lizard like thing, I was obsessed with them on our honeymoon 8 years ago and also took pictures of them

he is very good, maybe a future photographer

 

[ddluvsdisney]

I can't believe how many pics he took in such a little amount of time. They were great. Love the pics of the lizard.

 

[eandesmom]

Fun pictures! It's so fun to see what they come up with

 

[brookelizabeth]

Zach got some great shots! There are some really nice ones of the boat approaching the doc and the family shots in front of the Beach Club too! The random one of the drinking fountain made me laugh!

 

[DisMomAmy]

I like this one. He really is concentrating on something!

Alex loves his "Guide to the Magic" book!

Great lizard montage!

Zach went through a phase where he was obsessed with lizards. We almost ended up with one as a pet.

I love that he took pictures of the little lizard like thing, I was obsessed with them on our honeymoon 8 years ago and also took pictures of them

he is very good, maybe a future photographer

I know I'm in Florida when I see those little lizards!

I can't believe how many pics he took in such a little amount of time. They were great. Love the pics of the lizard.

Zach tended to take a million pictures in a row, then put the camera away for a while.

Fun pictures! It's so fun to see what they come up with

I'm loving seeing Zach's pictures!

Zach got some great shots! There are some really nice ones of the boat approaching the doc and the family shots in front of the Beach Club too! The random one of the drinking fountain made me laugh!

The random ones are so funny! I was showing Tim the fountain picture yesterday - so funny!

 

[DisMomAmy]

Day 3: Saturday 4/21 – Original plans for today were to sleep as late as we wanted, get breakfast in the lounge, then enjoy the resort/SAB until lunch. We would walk over to the Boardwalk for lunch at ESPN, then possibly ride a surrey bike before spending more time at the resort/SAB. For dinner we had an ADR at Cape May (a first for us). I was also hoping we would be able to go to the campfire on the beach since we had missed it on our first night due to rain.

And here’s what really happened… (And I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures today.)

We woke up around 8:00 (I think?) and got breakfast in the lounge. Tim went down to the Marketplace for a breakfast sandwich. The receipt shows that he also bought a Triple Blast popsicle… looks like they’d restocked & Tim decided to treat Alex! Unfortunately, the weather didn’t look good for today – 80% chance of rain all day. We hung out in the room for a while but planned to be at the pool right at 10:00 since we’d been rained out the day before and we were worried about that happening again.

Today is one of the days that made us feel hostage to our park tickets. I had an AP but Tim & the boys had six days left on 10 day non-expiring waterpark+ tickets that we bought in November. It was a great way to get those 10 WP tickets, that we’ll use for years to come, but limited us on the number of days we could visit parks. Had we not been limited, we probably would have gone to a park after swimming today. But that wasn’t an option… so off to the pool we went at 10am. There was almost nobody there. We swam for about an hour. Originally Tim & I parked ourselves near the slide exit and watched the boys slide. Then Zach wanted to check out the lazy river. I’d finally remembered to pick up the noodles the day before so we grabbed those and I took him over to the lazy river area. Then he wanted to sit in the hot tub so I followed him there. At some point, Alex joined us and thought it would be fun to swim laps around the lazy river – in the reverse direction! Luckily there was nobody else in there. At some point, I went over and got Tim & our stuff and move moved over closer to where the boys were now. This was the one thing I didn’t like about Stormalong Bay… It’s so big! Luckily it wasn’t busy because I understand that it can be hard to find good seats when it’s busy. It wasn’t very relaxing for the adults as we had to move to where the kids were swimming. We really liked the pool for the little bit of time we swam there, but I suspect I might have gotten sick of it after too much more time. I think we’ll wait until the kids are both teenagers to go back.

After swimming for about an hour, we went back up to the room to shower & get dressed for lunch. We headed over to ESPN to be there when they opened at 11:30. We were first in line! The lunch was OK but the kids were pretty grumpy today. I’m not sure if it was that we weren’t going to a park or the weather or what but they didn’t really LOVE ESPN as we thought they would. While we ate we thought of our other options for today. We decided we’d take a surrey bike ride after lunch if it wasn’t raining yet. After the bike, we would head to DTD for a little while, and then see a movie. The boys were supposed to go on a field trip on Friday with their school to see “Chimpanzee” but since we’d pulled them out Thursday & Friday, they missed it. So that's what we decided to see!

After lunch, we headed over to the surrey bikes. Unfortunately the boys were too short to pedal! So they had to sit in the basket on the front of the bike (which they could barely fit in) and mom & dad got to do all the work! And it was ugly! We are not in very good shape. We made one lap (and had to walk up the hill between the YC & the Swolphin (just before you turn left under the Boardwalk sign). We’d paid for 30 minutes, but the 10 minutes it took us to make one lap was more than enough.

We headed back to the BC to get ready for our afternoon. I stopped at the BC Marketplace and picked up a couple paintings, a BC magnet & a BC pin.

Currently hanging in our bathroom:

I’ll post the other pictures later once I’ve uploaded the souvenir pics!
Once we were ready to go, we headed to DTD. We parked at the Marketplace (it was packed) and went to the Lego Store & Team Mickey. Zach was unhappy because they were sold out of the two things he wanted. He did manage to find something he liked. No, these aren't what he bought...

At Team Mickey, Alex bought two Vinylmation sports guys from three different basketball teams (NY Knicks – his favorite team & the Boston Celtics – Zach’s favorite team). I’ll post a picture later because he bought more on another DTD visit. After our brief visit to the Marketplace, we headed to the movie.

It was a very cool theater & a cute movie! The only problem was that we filled up on popcorn & candy and had an ADR at Cape May, that had required a CC hold.
We got back to the BC with time to regroup in the room before heading to Cape May for dinner.
Pictures on our way back in from the car:

It never really rained hard today... unless it did when we were in the movies? But it was threatening & overcast all day.

I had expected that Tim & Zach would really enjoy this meal. I suspect the popcorn & candy had something to do with it, but nobody really liked it. They didn’t even have chicken nuggets… they had fish nuggets instead. They did have chicken drumsticks but Alex would NEVER eat with his fingers so I had to perform surgery before he would eat any of that chicken. Everyone was also pretty tired.

After dinner we headed back upstairs. The boys got ready for bed while I did some packing. This would be our last night at the BC. After packing, Tim & I sat on the balcony while the boys went to sleep.

At some point, I tried to connect with Doreen to pass the BC noodles along to her family but they were out at a park. Luckily one of the concierge CMs took them and put them in Doreen’s room for me. We got desserts from the lounge at 8:00, and got to see some of the Fantasmic fireworks.

I could hear Illuminations but never saw any of the fireworks.

BC Summary: While I really liked the BC and loved staying CL, as a family, we decided that the money would be better spent on a villa. Once we figure out our plans for next April (which will involve 7 nights off-site again) we will probably have three nights to play with. I’m not sure if we’ll stay at DBIL’s house, Universal or Disney… but if it’s Disney, it’ll most likely be a 1BR villa. Maybe Kidani?

We also really liked SAB even though we didn’t get to swim there very much. I’d love to go back, but probably when the kids are older.

 

[Native NYer]

Loved your SAB review. We're staying at BCV for 3 nights in August and I know we'll have to follow my nephews around too.

It's so hard to stay in a standard room after staying in villas.