Chaos in the Caribbean - Our first Spring trip!

[AshleyAnn]

Welcome to my first Trip Report ever! We just got back last week from 10 days at our favorite place in the world, Disney World of course! This vacation started off as a total surprise for me. For the last two years, we have gone to the World in December, and had decided to go annually in December. My husband and I both love Christmas, so it just made it extra magical for us. We also always take a Spring vacation, and I had been itching to go back. Earlier in the year the hubs and I had talked and decided there wasn’t going to be a Spring Vacation this year. We were going to save money and take care of some other things. LITTLE DID I KNOW, this was just a ploy for the best surprise ever!

Fast forward to my birthday in March. We were out the normal birthday dinner at the cheesecake factory, I got the Chocolate Mouse Cheesecake if you were wondering, and I was talking about our next trip. I’d been bringing it up a lot lately. Apparently he got tired of me babbling about our December trip because he blurted out that we were going in April…a month away. I cried. I’m a big crier. So turns out, he had taken care of everything! Spoke with my bosses at work to get me time off, booked the tickets and the hotel! What a great guy I have huh!

Where: Disney’s Caribbean Resort
When: April 21-30
The Main Cast:
Well first there is me, Ashley! I work for a franchise of a national moving company as a CSR supervisor. I am obsessed with photography and taking pictures. About two weeks before this trip I got my first “fancy” (DSLR) camera, and Nikon D3100.
Favorite Ride: Kilimanjaro Safaris
Favorite Movie: Tangled
Favorite Park: The Magic Kingdom

DH, Chuck, owns his own painting and landscaping business. He works very hard during the summer months to give me an awesome trip each December. He’s my soul mate and best friend. There’s no one I’d rather be in Disney with!
Favorite Ride: Expedition Everest
Favorite Movie: The Lion King
Favorite Park: The Magic Kingdom

Guest Appearances by:
Ingrid and Elmer! Our dear friends that we met year ago across a MMO, multiplayer video game. When we went to Disney in 2011, we met up with them for the first time, as they are as Disney obsessed as we are. They are lucky enough to live in Florida and have annual passes. This trip, they were about to come see us for 2 ½ days of fun!

Up Next: The longest flight ever!

 

[Mkbnoc]

Great start, looking forward to hearing more. Love all the pictures.

 

[AshleyAnn]

So we like to get to Disney as early as possible, so that we can still hit a park on our first day there. Well Chuck happened to find a flight that required me waking up at 2am so that we could be at the airport by 4:00. We arrived at the Caribbean Beach Resort around 11:00am. Since everyone was checking out we had to wait in line quite a bit to check in, but the wait paid off as there was a room ready for us! We had an odd lady checking us in, but I can say she was the nicest person we met at the hotel during our stay. She gave me a birthday pin and told me to wear it as much as possible. We were then instructed to go wait at a special bus terminal for the internal bus. This bus runs all day long and hits all stops since the Caribbean is so large. Our bus driver on the internal bus was very strange. He mumbled to himself a lot, and then right before we left the check in building, he gave us a speech about 9/11 and bombs in peoples luggage. It was very…strange.

We were glad to get dropped off at the Aruba bus stop and head to our room. I was able to snap one photo of the room before Chuck plopped down for a nap lol.

While Chuck slept I unpacked us and got freshened up for our ADRs at Ohana. Ohana is our top favorite restaurant, and while we usually like to eat at the Liberty Tree Tavern on our first night, this was the only night we could get ADRs for Ohana. So we took a bus to the MK, and monorail it over. At the bus stop we took our traditional bus stop pic we always take on our first night.

Ohana was great as usual. The dessert was everything I remembered. They even brought me a cupcake for my birthday and sung Happy Birthday to me. The whole time we were eating it was pouring outside. We were a bit worried about our evening plans at the MK, but luckily, as soon as we boarded the monorail to leave the Poly, the rain stopped!

I didn't take many pictures this night because I left my new camera back at the hotel since it was rainy when we left. We went over the the MK and rode a few rides. I rode Dumbo for the first time ever in all the times I have been to Disney. And then we watched Wishes.

Next: Our friends arrive!