Coming from the Great White North in August WE'RE BACK.2nd DAY PTs1&2POSTED PAGE 23

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I had a drink “something sunset” it had mango puree and was sooo good. Geodoc had the caveman punch and he said it was very good too. I had the Omnivore salad with roasted chicken and Geodoc had a t-bone steak. The kids had mini corn dogs and chicken dinos and shrimp. They got to order two sides and Snow White ordered two fruits! I was impressed. The kids suggestions there were very good. Snow White lost a tooth at dinner. She had been wiggling it all day hoping it would come out because she had been to the dentist about two weeks before we left (both girls) and the dentist told them if they lose a tooth at Disney World Tinkerbell comes instead of the Tooth Fairy! Thanks Dentist! Mini Montana lost hers the night before at home and we gave her a choice to wait for Tink in WDW or have the Tooth Fairy visit at home. They both have had loose teeth for a while and he was trying to get them to wiggle them out. We were getting very tired and had gone to the bathroom about 4 times between the two of them! The waitress was awesome but everything seemed slow. It was probably because we were so tired. We went back to get the bus about 6:30. They had texted us about 4:15 to say our room was ready. We waited about 10-15 min for the bus and then stopped at TL first and then back to “home” Now we hadn’t taken the bus and had no idea how we would figure out where our stop would be. We should have known Disney would announce the bus stops.

Omnivore salad

T-bone steak

mini corn dogs.

a young wooly mammoth..I mean Mini Montana!

some big bug's hiney!

Hidden Mickey

Lady bug

Our Transportation "home"!

After we arrived and got to our room it was in the Grandstand and about 30 seconds from the bus stop and 30 seconds from the Grandstand pool! I took a bunch of pictures of the room before we destroyed it’s loveliness and then had to run over to AP for some juice and snacks and some “Tink” presents (darn dentist)!

Several pictures of our 2 br villa. I know you've probably seen them before but I'm sure you haven't seen the ones I've taken (lol)

Too many pictures! See next post.

 

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On the way to get juice, etc. I found the pool!

The luggage had been delivered from bell services by the time I got back and Geodoc had put most of the clothes away. The only problem was we couldn’t turn on the lights in the bedroom! We fiddled with switches we did everything we could think of and had to call maintenance! Turns out it was a GFCI outlet and it needed reset! It was behind a night table and we couldn't see it except to note the lamp was plugged in and now we had lights! Snow White wanted a bath in the Jacuzzi and it was going well until she moved, sloshed the water and the jets were pointing up out of the water so there was water everywhere!!! We had to wait until maintenance had come before Mini Montana could have a bath since the bathtub isn’t separated by a door from the bedroom. By 9 pm I was so done and so tired I went to bed and figured everything else could wait until tomorrow. Of course then I had to wait until the girls fell asleep because Tinkerbell had to visit! Thankfully I didn’t fall asleep and everything was set.


Tomorrow:
A man with a hat and a steak dinner.

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

Saratoga Springs looks beautiful!

I am glad you enjoyed your Dinosaur dinner and great pics of the restaurant!

 

[DisneyMomLiz]

Wow, amazed that you lasted so long that day, but you're right, being in Disney does give you that extra energy!

for the CM at SSR, I hope I don't get her when we arrive in 13 day! The pictures of SSR are great, thanks for sharing, I can't wait to see it in person

T-Rex looks cool, my DS might like it, perhaps we'll have to squeeze it in this trip?!

looking forward to the next update!

 

[Queenofallthings]

Wow, those are great pictures of the rooms!! Oh to be back Great update....

 

[purplepeg]

Saratoga Springs looks beautiful!

I am glad you enjoyed your Dinosaur dinner and great pics of the restaurant!

Thanks so much! We had fun there and it's quite amazing to see.

Wow, amazed that you lasted so long that day, but you're right, being in Disney does give you that extra energy!

for the CM at SSR, I hope I don't get her when we arrive in 13 day! The pictures of SSR are great, thanks for sharing, I can't wait to see it in person

T-Rex looks cool, my DS might like it, perhaps we'll have to squeeze it in this trip?!

looking forward to the next update!

I can't believe I lasted that long either!
I'm sure that CM was an exception to the rule there! It is such a beautiful resort. We loved it there T-Rex is pretty cool, if you can't make dinner mayb you could just go to the gift shop, there's so much to see.

Wow, those are great pictures of the rooms!! Oh to be back Great update....

Oh thanks for your wonderful comments

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

Oh man, when it rains it pours!!!

Hopefully the visit at AKL is more magical!!!

...as I was reading/looking at pictures, the commercial for WDW free dining came on, how exciting!!!!

 

[Charleston Princess]

So glad the situation with Geodoc's missing name was fixed, but I cannot wait to see how the CM gets her comeuppance.

T-Rex looks like a lot of fun, and the food looks very yummy!

Your 2-bedroom villa is lovely! What a great place to live for the week!

 

[Diamondintheruff]

I do so love doing laundry at WDW. Of course I haven't had a washer and dryer in my room yet. Perhaps that would take away from the "escapism" aspect of it.

T-rex looks great especially geo's garlic mashed potatos. I could really go for some of those right now.

What a super long day you had. I don't know if I would have been able to stay up to wait for tink. I always do too much on arrival days-even if I mean to just relax. I always get a second wind but then when I come down from it I totally crash.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip.

If you notice my new ticker I managed to talk Dh into another next month. Oh the planning I still need to do for it.

 

[purplepeg]

Oh man, when it rains it pours!!!

Hopefully the visit at AKL is more magical!!!

...as I was reading/looking at pictures, the commercial for WDW free dining came on, how exciting!!!!

How fun with the timing of the commercial!

So glad the situation with Geodoc's missing name was fixed, but I cannot wait to see how the CM gets her comeuppance.

T-Rex looks like a lot of fun, and the food looks very yummy!

Your 2-bedroom villa is lovely! What a great place to live for the week!

T-Rex was great and the food was very good. It definitely worked in our favor but I don't know id she realized it..you'll have to stay tuned

I do so love doing laundry at WDW. Of course I haven't had a washer and dryer in my room yet. Perhaps that would take away from the "escapism" aspect of it.

T-rex looks great especially geo's garlic mashed potatos. I could really go for some of those right now.

What a super long day you had. I don't know if I would have been able to stay up to wait for tink. I always do too much on arrival days-even if I mean to just relax. I always get a second wind but then when I come down from it I totally crash.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip.

If you notice my new ticker I managed to talk Dh into another next month. Oh the planning I still need to do for it.

Yeah I didn't get to laundry with a book and coconut rum, It was thrown in and I was either bathing children or folding and putting away laundry or getting snacks or something. Sometimes it was Dis-ing. The only downside was the washer was really noisy so we really couldn't do a load when we went to bed.

I was surprised I even survived my long day! That's what takes me so long to recover from.

Is your next trip just a couples only again?

 

[declansdad]

By 9 pm I was so done and so tired I went to bed and figured everything else could wait until tomorrow. Of course then I had to wait until the girls fell asleep because Tinkerbell had to visit! Thankfully I didn’t fall asleep and everything was set.

That sounds very familiar to me. I wonder if that happened on our trip too. Hmmm.

 

[purplepeg]

That sounds very familiar to me. I wonder if that happened on our trip too. Hmmm.

Hmmm, I wonder...guess I'll just have to saty tuned!

 

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I woke up after having a terrible sleep. Here we are in this beautiful resort, in WDW , and I’m waking up in the night because I’m dreaming that H-e-double hockey sticks Angels are shooting at Mini Montana from 1950’s style hearses!!!!!!!!!!!!!What the heck is that all about? Anyway, we came a couple of days earlier than Queen so I could recuperate from the travel day and relax for a couple of days before the onslaught of the parks began. Well because we had so many extra table service credits to use because, #1 we ate at T-Rex last night (not on the dining plan) and #2we were paying for Jas and Queen when they weren’t here, I decided to book us a character breakfast at 1900 Park Fare for 10 am. That meant up at 7 and out the door by 8:30. Now the girls were easy to get up again today because Tinkerbell had come during the night and left them each a Tinkerbell key ring and a Tinkerbell charm for their add a charm bracelets they have. They were so excited. We waited 5 min for a bus, and we waited on comfortable benches, in the shade. Those of you at Value will know what I’m talking about! Wow, we never knew any different, but I could tell this was obviously going to be a very different vacation from past ones. It took 10 min to do a loop of the resort to pick up other passengers and we were off to Magic Kingdom. It took about 15 to arrive at Magic Kingdom. I talked to some families on the bus who said the crowds in the parks were really bad. I started to feel “oh no!” And then I thought, “Well maybe they’ve never been here before or maybe never been during a busy season”. I figured when we got to the parks we would be fine with the plans we had. We know how to use FP and make the most of our time here. We headed over to the monorail and enjoyed how all the busses and monorails have the celebration balloons all over them.

A steamy morning.

Geodoc was committed to getting me in some of the pictures, because I am usually the photograper.

I missed adding this picture in my last post. It's a nice picture of the building we were in.

We ended up at GF by 9:30. We looked in the shops a bit and took in the beautiful lobby and then headed down to check in.
Gee the flowers are beautiful here.

We thought maybe we would get in early. We were called within a couple of minutes and had our photo taken. I didn’t realize they did this here. We were seated and had a lovely person seat us and she explained what direction the characters come and that since Mary Poppins was very close to our table we should wait for her before we headed to get breakfast. We had an amazing waitress and I forgot to write her name down, we had endless juice and coffee and she was very attentive without being too much. Mary came quickly and the girls are very quiet with the characters so I said “Mary we just watched your movie again just the other night.” She replied to the girls, “then you know my special word”......they never said anything, just stared at her. Then she said “supercalifragilisticexpealidocius(?sp).

After Mary, Tigger came around being super bouncy.

Between them we grabbed some breakfast. Boy the food is great here. We became very full very quickly. I tried the lobster eggs Benedict that were fabulous, and the citrus syrup for the French toast was amazing! Pooh bear came around and was being very mischievous. I had brought a small mat for a picture for Mini Montana to have signed by the characters and Pooh put it on his nose and started to walk away. The girls thought he was so hilarious, actually we did too! We were just so excited to be there and see the kids faces and interactions with the characters, I got misty eyed. Pooh was so great, he gave everyone hugs, including Geodoc and I as well as the girls.

A great BIG bear hug! You can't even see Snow White but that's her hand holding the autograph book. I absolutely love the look on Mini Montana's face in this shot.

Pooh being silly with the mat on his nose!

I'm going to tickle your neck!

After we saw Pooh we had a few minutes to wait before Alice came and the girls grabbed more food, especially dessert! While we were eating and enjoying the antics of the characters we were enjoying the Mad Hatter. He was hilarious this day. When he was at the table beside us he was yelling KEVIN!!!!! At the top of his lungs. I assumed he was calling a cast member to take a picture or something but it was actually a teenage boy that was getting his food and wasn’t at the table. He yelled and yelled until he came back. We laughed so hard. When he came to our table I think the girls were scared because they hardly spoke, especially Mini Montana. Snow White handed him her autograph book, which was a princess one, and he said princesses were so boring, sing, fall in love, get married....BORING! Then he asked Snow White why they were so quiet, he said it was scary and kept making funny faces. Geodoc and I loved every minute of this. Then I said to the Mad Hatter “mini Montana thinks you may be louder than she is” He says “oh I don’t think so, let’s try 1-2-3-aaaaahhhhh” at the top of his lungs he screamed and Mini Montana, at first just looked at him like “you’re allowed to do that?” and then she joined in with him. We had so much fun.

Alice

The Mad Hatter wondering what was wrong with the girls.

Being silly!

After us the table he went to near us had a teenage boy that the family and the Mad Hatter were harassing and then he called for Alice at the top of his lungs to come over. When she got there he told her the boy needed a girlfriend so she sat in his chair with him and then gave him a kiss that left lipstick on his cheek! I am sure that boy was purple from embarrassment and the family kept egging them on while videotaping the whole thing. It was quite entertaining to see.

We finished up by 11 and were back at the hotel by 12. We had about a 15 min wait for the bus. When we got off the monorail we had been talking to girl who was celebrating her first visit and her 10th birthday. She had pins stating that all over her in addition to her very large balloon she had with her. We wished her a magical day and asked what she was going to do first. She replied “Space Mountain!” I hated to burst her bubble but felt the need to let her know SM was down for rehab. She looked disappointed and then her bubbly-ness came back and said “well I’ll still have fun!” Way to go kid, that’s the spirit!

The menu for breakfast, I was so misty eyed about the characters, I forgot to take pictures of the food!

I had to take this picture. It's a window in the lobby of GF talking about Fairy Tale weddings. I said to Geodoc, maybe we'll have one of those....better start saving now!

Our bus stop number at MK..not to rub it in or anything! We could hardly believe it ourselves.

We had an empty bus on the way back. Once back at the hotel, Geodoc took the kids for a swim and I finished organizing. They came back about 1:45 and had snacks. Garden Grocer order was supposed to come between 1 and 3 so I stayed in the room and when it still wasn’t there by 3:10 I phoned down to bell services and it was there. When bell services came up with the order I asked about it saying I was in the room and he (again, not such a nice tone) said “well you have to phone down we don’t know when you’re in your room!” I had no idea. No one ever mentioned that on the boards before so note to self....remember that in the future!

I had to try this with the Mickeys.

Kids enjoying the balcony.

Continued in next post.

 

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We quickly put everything away and we were back out the door by 4pm for our dinner at the Yachtsman Steakhouse and the kids were going to the Sandcastle Club.
We had never been to Beach Club or Yacht Club. We thought the quickest way to get there was to take the boat to Downtown Disney and then take the bus to Yacht and Beach Club near Pleasure Island. We had a 5:30 reservation for the kids at the Sandcastle Club and then our dinner at Yachtsman was at 6 pm.

Views of Downtown Disney from the water side

We'd be eating here tomorrow evening.

On the bus, don't they look tired?

We loved the decor in both resorts. We got to Beach Club about 5:20 and followed the signs to the Sandcastle Club. We had never put the kids in a care area before and we were very impressed. The kids got to choose what they wanted for dinner from the usual kids fare so they chose mac and cheese. They had a choice of beverages and times the food could be served. They really didn’t eat lunch after our huge breakfast so they were hungry. We left with a pager and a map to the Yachtsman Steakhouse! The kids didn’t seem too sad to see us go as there were two very large TV screens for the Wii they had there as well as lots of other cool playthings.
I had to stop along the way and take in the sights and take some pictures of the resorts.

We ended up at the Yachtsman by 5:30...we were hungry too! We were seatd almost right away and had the most amazing waitress named Vicki. She talked to us for a bit and I had been leaning on the table and when I sat back the table moved and she was ready to move us to a different table. I said “no, no, it’s fine.” Off she goes and comes back with a napkin, figures out where the table is off balance and puts the napkin under the appropriate leg. She was just amazing!

Geodoc ordered the 24 oz Porterhouse and I had the filet. I wasn’t sure what to get but it came with creamy mashed potatoes and that just really appealed to me. We ordered a side of rainbow carrots that were just heavenly. We had onion bread to start. We also had a nice White Zinfandel wine too. We took our time over dinner and then dessert. They show you the desserts as you come in, I think that’s so you save room

Onion bread

Porterhouse

Filet

Rainbow carrots

Geodoc had Banana Napolean and I had sorbet one was pomegranate-blueberry and the other was lemon-basil, different flavour with the basil but very light and refreshing.

I see as I post this I had another flavour too..maybe raspberry or strawberry?

I'll have to finish this later. Apparently the children want to go to the park. Since we've had a nonexistant summer I'd better go before the weather turns. Of course the mosquitos may carry the children away when we're there! I'll finish later today, I promise, it's all typed out and pictures are loaded, just a matter of putting it all together.

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

The Yachtsman steakhouse looks good!

I am glad your second day is off to such a great start!

Can't wait for more!

 

[DisneyMomLiz]

Ooh, aah! Love all the pics. Thanks for all the details about the wait times for buses at SSR and from parks to SSR. That's my only "concern" for this trip...yeah right, I'll be at WDW concerns don't exist, right?!

Yachtsman looks yummy...Sandcastle Club sounds cool, too bad DS is only 3, he might like that...always next year!

 

[purplepeg]

The Yachtsman steakhouse looks good!

I am glad your second day is off to such a great start!

Can't wait for more!

It was sooo good! More coming soon.

Ooh, aah! Love all the pics. Thanks for all the details about the wait times for buses at SSR and from parks to SSR. That's my only "concern" for this trip...yeah right, I'll be at WDW concerns don't exist, right?!

Yachtsman looks yummy...Sandcastle Club sounds cool, too bad DS is only 3, he might like that...always next year!

That's right, once you're in Disney, nothing mattersWe absolutely loved the bus service at SS. Yachtsman was sooo yummy. Perhaps next year for ds, the kids had a blast!

 

[purplepeg]

So I last left you with pictures of dessert.

They also have a butcher you can see through the glass when you first come in. She was gone when we left so I was just able to take pictures of the steaks she had left. I would highly recommend this restaurant. We felt really pampered and the food was excellent as it should be when it costs you two table service credits!
The butcher was gone but this is what she left.

We wandered into the gift shop at the Yacht Club and bought some gifts for people at home and a shirt and tie for Geodoc. We bought a magnet for my mother-in-law that made me laugh it said “there are lots of things to be serious about...I seriously need a glass of wine”

Around the lobby.

Then we headed over to the Beach Club gift shop and looked and took in the sights and then decided since we were going to Blizzard Beach in the morning we should get the kids and head back to the hotel because it would take a while.

More gorgeous flowers.

Hope to be on here again soon.

I think it was about 8 pm, the kids were doing a craft so by the time we were done checking them out they were almost ready to leave. The CM gave us two cups with cookies in them for later. I guess we were leaving before the snack was given out. It turns out there were 4 full size oreo cookies in each cup! We took a bus to DD and then another bus back to SS and were back by 9:15. We were all really tired again, Snow White looked especially tired. The girls had to leave thank you notes for Tinkerbell knowing she would leave them a note back (thanks again Dentist!). The first night Snow White slept in, what would be Queen and Jasmine’s room and Mini Montana slept on the pull out. Tonight they both slept on the pullout couch. Thankfully they fell asleep quickly, notes were left and collected and we all settled in to a nice sleep.

Tomorrow: Blizzard Beach and Queen and Jasmine arrive...do they survive the plane trip?

 

[Hypermommy]

Woo hooo!!!! What a great start!!! Loving all the pictures!!!!

Can't wait to hear how it bit the counter girl in the butt. Oh, girlfriend... you definitely need to take me on a trip with you. Hating confrontation indeed... my dear... it's what I LIVE for!!!

You'll love that picture of them with the Pooh characters as they grow. I wish mine were young again so I could do that. But then again, that's too much work. Eating Machine #1 is 16 at the beginning of October and EM#2 is 14 next week and they're both pushing 6' so hopefully they won't grow too much more.

I'm looking at the pictures of the rooms and thinking, hmmmm, maybe we need to get something with a kitchen for next time we go and then I stop and think.... oh yeah... my kitchen's gonna be only 45 min away. LOL

Great shot of MM with Pooh! The Mad Hatter sounds great! Might just have to eat there one day!!!! LOL about the poor embarrassed boy at the next table.... what fun is it having kids if you don't mortify them now and again, huh?

Cool picture with the Mickeys in the railings.

I'd heard about the Kitchen Sink and the No Way Jose... great to see what they include. Thanks for the picture there!!!

Gotta run and get the eating machines up for church. So glad I got a chance to catch up. The pictures are fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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Woo hooo!!!! What a great start!!! Loving all the pictures!!!!

Can't wait to hear how it bit the counter girl in the butt. Oh, girlfriend... you definitely need to take me on a trip with you. Hating confrontation indeed... my dear... it's what I LIVE for!!!

You'll love that picture of them with the Pooh characters as they grow. I wish mine were young again so I could do that. But then again, that's too much work. Eating Machine #1 is 16 at the beginning of October and EM#2 is 14 next week and they're both pushing 6' so hopefully they won't grow too much more.

I'm looking at the pictures of the rooms and thinking, hmmmm, maybe we need to get something with a kitchen for next time we go and then I stop and think.... oh yeah... my kitchen's gonna be only 45 min away. LOL

Great shot of MM with Pooh! The Mad Hatter sounds great! Might just have to eat there one day!!!! LOL about the poor embarrassed boy at the next table.... what fun is it having kids if you don't mortify them now and again, huh?

Cool picture with the Mickeys in the railings.

I'd heard about the Kitchen Sink and the No Way Jose... great to see what they include. Thanks for the picture there!!!

Gotta run and get the eating machines up for church. So glad I got a chance to catch up. The pictures are fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for checking in on the report. Glad you had a great first week at work. the bite her in the butt doesn't come for almost a week but I'll let you know for sure. Boy, you're going to need a second job just to feed and clothe them!(your boys)

45 min away, how awesome is that?

I do treasure our time with the kids, seeing Jasmine gow up so quick helps reinforce that!!

We've never been to Beaches and Cream but when we walked by I decided that we needed a picture and make sure we get back there one day.

We wished we had our video camera to capture the Mad Hatter's interaction with the girls but it was one more thing to carry!

Have fun at church!