CRYSTAL PALACE on 4/19 PICS 10 days in the World: 22 years old! Pop/Jan2009

[SnowandMittens]

Hey guys! Look for a trip update later today... !!!!

 

[SnowandMittens]

Day #2 - January 8th, Thursday

Hey guys! Sorry about the long waits in updates, but finals are coming up! (eek!)


After repacking everything in our suitcases and leaving a last minute pair of shoes in the car, we called the front desk of the hotel to request a shuttle. We were told by a very perky person (no one should be speaking that high and cheery at this hour in the morning. it was ungodly.) that a shuttle would be there in about fifteen minutes. There was a Starbucks downstairs, so we lugged everything into the elevator, went downstairs, and I bought the biggest size of a vanilla latte that I could.



Heaven in a cup:

My boyfriend was mildly disgusted that I drank it that fast.

The hotel was also nice enough to print out our boarding passes at the hotel. Armed with our paper boarding passes, the unnecessary amount of luggage, and the knowledge that we would be in Orlando by nightfall, we got into the shuttle.




Bye bye hotel! (Swiped this off of the website, but imagine that there is snow EVERYWHERE!)

Side note: The day after we left Chicago, it was blasted by one of the worst winter storms of the winter. The steps between the hotel and the shuttle was literally cold enough to make my fingers numb. It was ridiculous.

The shuttle was more like a van, and the driver was really nice. He loaded our massive luggage and offered us free bottled water. (Score!) He was really nice and asked us where we were going. We told him that we were celebrating the 4th anniversary, and got the first Congratulations of the trip! Yay! The entire ride took maybe 15 minutes.

I had booked a flight with Jet Blue about five months ago. The first time we flew down to Disney, we paid an insane amount of money for our airfare, so when I saw that Jet Blue had round trip tickets for $480 after tax (for both of them) I bought them. They lured me in with the promise of all you can eat snacks and personalized tvs in the seats in front of us.

Blurry, but you get something like the choice of 47 channels:

Very spiffy.

I wish I would have booked a direct flight though. There really was no reason for the layover. We had a depart time of 11:10 AM and an arrival at 2:21 PM so we decided to grab some more coffee and a bagel before we got on the plane.

After a fairly non-eventful flight, we got to the JFK airport, only to have to wait for about 2 hours to reload the plane, this time to ORLANDO!

The Jet Blue terminal in JFK is really really nice; probably because they just re-did it.

This is a promo pic:

We were starving when we got off of the plane. One thing that's horrible about the T5 terminal at JFK is that it is totally dominated by UBER expensive food places that, well, really aren't that good.

We ate Chinese; as in take out Chinese for about $38 for the two of us....

Disney prices already!

A side note: I had managed to make the super smart decision that instead of a wheely carry on, I would prefer to carry my backpack and a duffel bag around with me.

BAD IDEA.

The duffel bag, while holding a TON of stuff, was HEAVY and I mean, really really really heavy. My shoulder hurt the ENTIRE vacation because it was bruised. My boyfriend was already carrying around the pink bag enough, so I tried to carry it myself, but it really made the long walks through the airport miserable and un-fun.

After forever, we loaded the plane, and were
Here is our plane!!!!!!! DISNEY HERE WE COME!

The plane ride was, once again, pretty uneventful. EXCEPT for the little girl that was sitting across the isle that kept looking at me and saying "Hi Sir!". Nope, not my boyfriend. Just me.

Aparently I look like a man.

The free unlimited snacks were delivered as promised, so we chowed down.

As soon as we got off of the plane, it was straight through to magical express!

The line was HUGE, but I didn't realize that all of the marathon people would be there. I will say, to the parents who decided to leave a parent in line, and take the tired, cranky, grumpy children and their luggage over to the waiting area with mom or dad, THANK YOU! It was such a relief to see that these poor kids didn't have to lug their heavy bags through the line. The family in front of them, bless their hearts, took all five of their kids, (I don't think the eldest was over 9, so these were some small kids) and their bags through the line. The lady in front of them told them that only one of the adults had to wait in line, but they snapped at her to mind her own business! I was shocked! These kids all had suitcases and backpacks on, and the littlest girl kept running away. We had to tell the mom at least twice that her daughter had taken off and was getting really far away. (those kids move fast!!!!)

I mean, I didn't know this family, and wasn't exactly in the position to wrangle their children for them; but if you have that many kids, wouldn't it make sense to let them go blow of steam in the waiting area?



I did have some of my disney pins in my bag, and gave the kids one each, they seemed distracted by those for a second; so there's the disney magic!

We finally got onto the bus, after forever, and had a very cool looking bus driver.

After we started driving, the bus driver stopped at a red light for a semi-long time. My boyfriend and I were sitting in the front of the bus, and it looked like he couldn't get the video to play on the overhead monitors. I did hear a few F-bombs dropped and he hit the machine pretty hard.

After he took off, with no video, he turned the easy listening radio station on. That's right folks, we had to listen to easy listening on my way to Disney. It was like someone died.

To be honest, I could semi-understand the guy losing his cool over the video, I mean, that has to be frustrating, but what happened next was just freakin weird.

The bus driver started adjusting the mirrors and the shades on the bus... he honestly looked like a crack addict. It was the twitchy, compulsive, fidgety behavior that just caused my bf and I to look at each other.

About half way through to the hotel, he stops at a red light and grabs the microphone and starts YELLING at the people on the bus to be quiet and to respect the other people on the bus by shutting up.

Ok, here's the deal.

The bus was loud.

BUT THIS IS DISNEY!!!!! I mean, there are kids who have probably been traveling all day to go to Disney and now, they're almost here! They're excited! They're kids! They wanna talk!

And on top of that, everyone has probably spent a large amount of money to be there; and they want to get excited!

We were just in such a state of shock, that we just sat in silence for the rest of the entire trip. It totally killed my Disney buzz.

It stunk.

Thank god our first stop was here:

I don't think we've ever jumped off the bus so fast in our lives!

Next update: Do I have to ask for EVERYTHING around here? Hahaha!

 

[SnowandMittens]

Day #2 - January 8th, Thursday

Hey guys! Sorry about the long waits in updates, but finals are coming up! (eek!)


After repacking everything in our suitcases and leaving a last minute pair of shoes in the car, we called the front desk of the hotel to

request a shuttle. We were told by a very perky person (no one should be speaking that high and cheery at this hour in the

morning. it was ungodly.) that a shuttle would be there in about fifteen minutes. There was a Starbucks downstairs, so we lugged

everything into the elevator, went downstairs, and I bought the biggest size of a vanilla latte that I could.



Heaven in a cup:

My boyfriend was mildly disgusted that I drank it that fast.

The hotel was also nice enough to print out our boarding passes at the hotel. Armed with our paper boarding passes, the

unnecessary amount of luggage, and the knowledge that we would be in Orlando by nightfall, we got into the shuttle.




Bye bye hotel! (Swiped this off of the website, but imagine that there is snow EVERYWHERE!)

Side note: The day after we left Chicago, it was blasted by one of the worst winter storms of the winter. The steps between the hotel

and the shuttle was literally cold enough to make my fingers numb. It was ridiculous.

The shuttle was more like a van, and the driver was really nice. He loaded our massive luggage and offered us free bottled water.

(Score!) He was really nice and asked us where we were going. We told him that we were celebrating the 4th

anniversary, and got the first Congratulations of the trip! Yay! The entire ride took maybe 15 minutes.

I had booked a flight with Jet Blue about five months ago. The first time we flew down to Disney, we paid an insane amount of money

for our airfare, so when I saw that Jet Blue had round trip tickets for $480 after tax (for both of them) I bought them. They lured me in

with the promise of all you can eat snacks and personalized tvs in the seats in front of us.

Blurry, but you get something like the choice of 47 channels:

Very spiffy.[/B]

 

[SnowandMittens]

I wish I would have booked a direct flight though. There really was no reason for the layover. We had a depart time of 11:10 AM and

an arrival at 2:21 PM so we decided to grab some more coffee and a bagel before we got on the plane.

After a fairly non-eventful flight, we got to the JFK airport, only to have to wait for about 2 hours to reload the plane, this time to

ORLANDO!

The Jet Blue terminal in JFK is really really nice; probably because they just re-did it.

This is a promo pic:

We were starving when we got off of the plane. One thing that's horrible about the T5 terminal at JFK is that it is totally dominated by

UBER expensive food places that, well, really aren't that good.

We ate Chinese; as in take out Chinese for about $38 for the two of us....

Disney prices already!

A side note: I had managed to make the super smart decision that instead of a wheely carry on, I would prefer to carry my backpack

and a duffel bag around with me.

BAD IDEA.

The duffel bag, while holding a TON of stuff, was HEAVY and I mean, really really really heavy. My shoulder hurt the ENTIRE

vacation because it was bruised. My boyfriend was already carrying around the pink bag enough, so I tried to carry it myself, but it

really made the long walks through the airport miserable and un-fun.

After forever, we loaded the plane, and were
Here is our plane!!!!!!! DISNEY HERE WE COME!

The plane ride was, once again, pretty uneventful. EXCEPT for the little girl that was sitting across the isle that kept looking at me and

saying "Hi Sir!". Nope, not my boyfriend. Just me.

Apparently I look like a man.

The free unlimited snacks were delivered as promised, so we chowed down.

As soon as we got off of the plane, it was straight through to magical express!

 

[SnowandMittens]

The line was HUGE, but I didn't realize that all of the marathon people would be there. I will say, to the parents who decided to leave

a parent in line, and take the tired, cranky, grumpy children and their luggage over to the waiting area with mom or dad, THANK

YOU! It was such a relief to see that these poor kids didn't have to lug their heavy bags through the line. The family in front of them,

bless their hearts, took all five of their kids, (I don't think the eldest was over 9, so these were some small kids) and their bags through

the line. The lady in front of them told them that only one of the adults had to wait in line, but they snapped at her to mind her own

business! I was shocked! These kids all had suitcases and backpacks on, and the littlest girl kept running away. We had to tell the

mom at least twice that her daughter had taken off and was getting really far away. (those kids move fast!!!!)

I mean, I didn't know this family, and wasn't exactly in the position to wrangle their children for them; but if you have that many kids,

wouldn't it make sense to let them go blow of steam in the waiting area?



I did have some of my disney pins in my bag, and gave the kids one each, they seemed distracted by those for a second; so there's

the disney magic!

We finally got onto the bus, after forever, and had a very cool looking bus driver.

After we started driving, the bus driver stopped at a red light for a semi-long time. My boyfriend and I were sitting in the front of the

bus, and it looked like he couldn't get the video to play on the overhead monitors. I did hear a few F-bombs dropped and he hit the

machine pretty hard.

After he took off, with no video, he turned the easy listening radio station on. That's right folks, we had to listen to easy listening on my

way to Disney. It was like someone died.

To be honest, I could semi-understand the guy losing his cool over the video, I mean, that has to be frustrating, but what happened

next was just freakin weird.

The bus driver started adjusting the mirrors and the shades on the bus... he honestly looked like a crack addict. It was the twitchy,

compulsive, fidgety behavior that just caused my bf and I to look at each other.

About half way through to the hotel, he stops at a red light and grabs the microphone and starts YELLING at the people on the bus to

be quiet and to respect the other people on the bus by shutting up.

Ok, here's the deal.

The bus was loud.

BUT THIS IS DISNEY!!!!! I mean, there are kids who have probably been traveling all day to go to Disney and now, they're almost

here! They're excited! They're kids! They wanna talk!

And on top of that, everyone has probably spent a large amount of money to be there; and they want to get excited!

We were just in such a state of shock, that we just sat in silence for the rest of the entire trip. It totally killed my Disney buzz.

It stunk.

Thank god our first stop was here:

I don't think we've ever jumped off the bus so fast in our lives!

Next update: Do I have to ask for EVERYTHING around here? Hahaha!

 

[Hallowishes]

NIIICE! Im really enjoying the beginning of your trip report! Congrats on your 4 year anniversary it is a very big deal! ive never flown jetblue ... the planes look very nice! i cant wait to hear about your time at POP i always stay at all star music when i stay at values.

 

[SnowandMittens]

Ok, first to finish off Day 2!

We ended up checking into the hotel, and although I had all of the reservations noted with the anniversary, I still had to ask for the buttons. My bf looked at me like I was insane (he thinks that the button makes him look like a dork: I have explained that the button means free desserts and free champagne, but he doesn’t listen to me. Haha.)


The woman at the check in desk looked surprised when I asked if there was a $200.00 disney gift card, like we had been promised. She had to go and look over a few different lists before we finally got it... I wonder if everyone remembered to ask for it? We had requested a king bed, 50’s area, top floor and instead we were given two double beds, 80’s section, 3rd floor. Kind of a far cry from where we wanted to be, but we had a pool on one side of the building and the bus stop wasn’t that far away.

I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to make it into any of the parks that day, and sure enough, I was right. We decided to grab some food at the food court (we had pizza and Parmesan chicken… pretty standard) and grabbed our first refillable mug. I wanted a new design, but all of the mugs that were out were the year of a million dreams promotion. (And it just reminded me how sad it was that we never won a dream the last year.)

We checked into the room and I started taking some pictures. We had some towel animals, which were cute, and the room looked pretty clean.

We were kind of weary about staying in a value. The trip before, we had splurged and stayed for a week at POFQ (which is still one of my favorite hotels on property.) for about the same price that we were staying for 10 nights now. So we took the hit for the value resort and crossed our fingers.

Overall impression: the room wasn’t bad. A little small, but manageable, we were only in and out of it a little bit. The location was nice, near the pool, laundry, and not too far from the bus stop. The lines for buses, leaving for the park, leaving the park, in the cold, was, well, less than thrilling.

Like I said, it probably had to do with the fact that we had stayed at POFQ which is a smaller resort, by a long shot, and did not have guard rails to form a line. When we got off of the bus and saw those, we prepared ourselves.
However, as far as the amount of people and the quickness of the busses, we never waited for more than 20 minutes, with the exception of 1 hour for downtown Disney.

So… if money is tight, and we all know it is now, go for the value. You can keep writing down the couple hundred dollar you are saving figure if you want to, to feel better, and the hotel, by itself, was extremely charming and cute. It felt like Disney, it smelled like Disney, and it was a really really good way to stay on site and be able to afford it. I could totally see why this might be the favorite hotel for some people, because like I said, the only drawback is the amount of people, and you are in a HUGE hotel, so it’s to be expected. (We have resigned ourselves to value hotels for now on because they are such a good deal for what they are… we’re converted. And the Dbf keeps showing me the money we’re saving, which is exciting! )

Up Next:

Our FIRST full day in the parks! ADR at Crystal Palace, a squirrel that is HUGE and we're the second family on Space Mountain!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Still reading along. I am glad that you were pleased with Pop. We are used to staying in a suite offsite or at the Caribbean Beach Resort so we, too, are leery about staying in a value resort. But, we are hardly ever in our room so I am sure we'll be okay.

 

[saratogadreamin09]

Great TR

 

[lindsayjs]

Great TR! I look forward to hearing more about your adventure!

 

[SnowandMittens]

So today was the first full day in Disneyworld. At first, I had planned on eating at Teppan Edo, in Epcot at the Japan pavilion, but after some lurking around on the Dis boards, I found out that the only way to get that picture of you and the castle; and ONLY you and the castle, was to make an ADR for breakfast before the park opens.

Honestly; one of the BEST decisions on the trip. We are not morning people, but we had an ADR for Crystal Palace at 8:25 am, with a park opening at 9:00 am. We aren’t big breakfast people, and the thought of having Winnie the Pooh and friends make the rounds to say “Hi!” was amusing at best. We aren’t big character people, and I tend to talk to the characters inside the costumes as if they were really people. I don’t go: “Omigod! Pooh! How’s the 100 acre woods!” I go: “Hey Pooh! The kids being nice to you today?” Most times you get a FAR more interesting reaction to that question, such as a giant hug for not kicking Pooh’s leg, or a nod and a high five. Sometimes you get a yes, and then the paws go over the eyes and Pooh starts to cry. And then we’re mean and laugh.

So we got out of the hotel room at 7:45 am and walked from our Rubix cube staircase to the main lobby desk. I was fully expecting to have to pay for a taxi to get us over there early enough, but the lady behind the desk pointed out that the busses for the marathon were running. Yay! Thank you marathon runners! You and your busses saved us about $25.00 on a cab!

We got into the park and there were already people waiting to be let in for rope drop. We got there at about 8:10am, and were trying to find a turnstile that was letting people with ADRs through. The only negative experience that we had about this part of the trip was the mass amount of people that yelled out “Cheaters!” “Line cutters!” “Don’t worry kiddo, those people just think that they’re better than us.” And so forth.

We got into a line where a few families with kids were trying to get in without ADRs. The cast member was trying to get them to move to the side, but they wouldn’t. Finally she just ignored them and opened the gate next to her and called out “Any ADR’s for this morning?” I walked around the people and went up to her to give her the confirmation number. The verbal abuse she got was ASTOUNDING. I was shocked. I just turned to these people and said, “Look, we called ahead and got a reservation that allows us into the park early, it’s not her fault.”

One of the dad’s said, “You think you’re so mighty because you have money for the breakfasts. You think you’re better than us.”

“No,” I said, “I’m just a better planner than you are.”

And my boyfriend very nicely guided me away from this man with the scary goofy hat on and we started down main st.

I didn't let it get to me because it was AWESOME having almost no one in the park!

 

[SnowandMittens]

 

[SnowandMittens]

 

[SnowandMittens]

Still reading along. I am glad that you were pleased with Pop. We are used to staying in a suite offsite or at the Caribbean Beach Resort so we, too, are leery about staying in a value resort. But, we are hardly ever in our room so I am sure we'll be okay.

We're thinking about staying at the CBR for our anniversary trip in Jan, so I don't know... like I said, if money is an issue, then the Value resorts really are the better deal, by far!

Great TR

Awwww! Thanks for reading!

Great TR! I look forward to hearing more about your adventure!

Thanks! Hopefully after finals week the updates will be in a faster succession!

 

[kadesha]

Wow! I can't believe people were acting like that to the people with early ADR's! That is astounding.

 

[GBShorts]

Can't wait to see how your trip turns out!

 

[crgfsu1]

I just found your trip report - I look forward to more!

Cant wait to hear how you liked CP - we really enjoyed it.

Cathy

 

[SnowandMittens]

After getting into the park and seeing how magical it really is empty, we made our way from the castle to Crystal Palace. On the way over we saw this guy:

He was the tamest thing I’ve ever seen. Look how close we got to him, and none of these are zoomed in:

 

[SnowandMittens]

We got to Crystal Palace and checked in.
Here is a view of the outside:

The woman at the front of the counter was really sweet and saw my anniversary button. (Remember, the Dbf thinks he’s too cool for this stuff.) She gave him a hard time about not wearing it. We waited for a few minutes, less than five, and were seated.

I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it, but they had little Mickey confetti sprinkled like a heart on our table. I was so excited, and the Dbf was playing with it as soon as we sat down.
Now don’t kill me, but this is the only meal that I took pictures of food at. I don’t know what happened to me, but I totally spaced the rest of our trip. So enjoy the few food pictures:

 

[SnowandMittens]

More food pics:

The food was pretty amazing! Everything was hot and fresh, and I think I drank my weight in coffee (it doesn’t taste like Nescafe… can anyone confirm if it is?)

We had a lovely server named Pam who was sweet as all get out! I traded a few pins with the character wranglers. Pooh came by and gave us a little attention. We were at the end of the rounds, so we let him go.

Piglet came by and kept hiding from my Dbf, which was hysterical. A little girl from the table behind us kept screaming “LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT!” every time Piglet started to hide.

Eeyore was HYSTERICAL. My Dbf was like “Eeyore, why are you so sad?” and Eeyore pointed at him! I was cracking up.

Tigger, on the other hand, bounced around for a little bit, but kept returning to the table of teenage girls a little behind us. That was pretty funny as well.

I had gotten some postcards from the airport that were of Disneyworld and had all of the characters sign those. We then sent the postcards home to our little sister. If you're a grown up and aren't doing this with kids, it gave us something to do when they came by, and my little sister was SO impressed when she got the postcards that had been signed. Much cheaper than an autograph book!

My super grown up too cool for anniversary button boyfriend then proceeded to spell out the words "Thank you!" in confetti.

We paid our bill and left, and were greeted with this: