Chellymouse
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2007
Welcome friends! This is the first of 3, yes 3 bottomless pit tales this year!! 
So this trip was planned about a year ago as a result of an 11 day trip we took last year with DH's family as our guests and my DSIL and family now and forevermore refer to me as "the bottomless pit." DH was bummed we missed SWW last year by a mere few days and was still ranting about not getting his pic with Donald as a stormtrooper (I will spare you the drama of that tale). So, being the awesome DW, I planned a trip, as a surprise, to give to DH for Christmas. Everything worked out, got BCV at 7 months, got BOG for dinner then 4 days after Christmas, disaster struck. DH had to come back a day before we'd planned due to his job. After a huge mess and a nightmare with the airlines (long story short) we had to rebook everything. We lost BCV (no biggie, we love SSR and just stayed "home"), lost BOG for dinner (no biggie, scored a ressie for the Oct trip) and lost our Ohana for dinner (given that we will have dinner there in Oct and Dec, not going to whine too much!) At least we were still going! As usual, there were a few firsts this trip with the biggest being our first time in a studio (we learned this trip that we are VERY spoiled) and our first trip that we less than 7 nights ever since we've been going to WDW. So now that you're up to speed, let the TR begin!
Tuesday May 14th. I REALLY wanted to go to Cedar Point yesterday (yes, I'm nuts) to ride the new record breaking roller coaster, however, it was 50 degrees and I was not about to dig out the winter gear to ride roller coasters all day. Probably was a good choice! So DMIL came over Monday night so we could take her out for dinner for mom's day and to graciously haul us to the airport so we didn't have to pay to leave one of our cars in long term parking. We were up at least half an hour before the alarm clock, out the door in time to hit up Starbucks and at the airport in plenty of time. First dose of
(or as DH says...the force was with us) of the day, plane was fully boarded and took off nearly half an hour early! 
Landed at MCO at 10:20am instead of 11am and we actually pulled into SSR at 11:00am!! Had done online check in so we breezed over to the desk, heard the beautiful words "welcome home" and now our next dose of , our villa was ready! Can't remember the last time we arrive before noon and could get into our villa. We decided to go ahead and head to the villa before MK so we grabbed our groceries and our new friend Greg from bellservices who graciously gave us a ride in his souped up golf cart to our beloved Congress Park. 2612 CP to be precise! We were a little surprised at how small our studio was (we really have gotten spoiled), put our groceries away, repacked the park bag and found the safe was broken. Quick call to the desk to have the safe repaired and while we were walking out the door, the phone rings. I answered and the person calling wanted to know if we wanted the safe repaired today or if could wait. Uh...no, I want it fixed now! Hung up the phone and out to the bus stop where we waited about 10 minutes until our pristine motor coach reading Magic Kingdom pulled in and opened it's oh so inviting doors to whisk us off to my favorite park! The line to eat at BOG for lunch was ridiculous and since there are no FP available, we stay true to form with corn dog nuggets for the pit and 2 dogs for DH from Casey's, pit stop for a Dole Whip and off to POTC! 
Personally, LOSE the mermaids! They do nothing for the attraction. Lose the mermaids, give me my dead men tell no tales/yo ho in slow mo and Davey Jones back, please and thank you! After POTC, we snagged FP for Splash then went over to visit the 999 happy haunts. DH swears HM loses something outside of Halloween. I think he's nuts! We stopped to check out the new Rapunzel attraction (ha ha!)
and snapped our first pics of the day.
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We made our way onto IASW and the carousel. Time to get wet so walked back over to Splash and BTMRR was actually walk on (parade was going on) so we rode BTMRR and then Splash! Took a walk back over to the other side of the park and grabbed a box of popcorn for the pit (hey, it's a long walk) and Space Mtn actually had a humane stand by (20 Min) so we rode Space then it was about time for the Pit's evening meal so we made our way over to the monorail and hopped aboard (Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantagenase alejardo des las puertas) music to my ears and a few minutes later, we were exiting at the Poly for our ressies at Kona. We now love Kona and it's in our permanent rotation. I had the adult beverage that included my beloved Stitch juice with a good bit of adult beverage added and DH had a Kona on tap (he was very excited when our local store started stocking Kona at home!) DH had the noodle bowl with chicken while the pit made quick work of a very large pork chop with savory bread pudding (really? It's stuffing people!) DH wolfed down the pineapple upside down cake and the pit hovered the chocolate/banana crème brulee! Well fed, we hopped back on the monorail, hopped off at MK and grabbed a bus back to SSR. It was actually a little cool so we stopped by the villa to drop our park gear and grab hoodies then walked over to DTD to do some shopping. We were blessed with a new niece in January from my DB/DSIL and we wanted to have her baby's first ornament personalized. After the Christmas store, we wandered around and of course, made it into World of Disney. Mostly just windowed shopped until the pit smelled Ghiradelli so after some ice cream treats, we headed home for the night. It had been a long day and we had early ressies for breakfast with Stitch in the am. Light day for pics today so I promise there will be plenty more pics in future installments! Up next, our first full day and the pit has round 1 with F&G!!
So this trip was planned about a year ago as a result of an 11 day trip we took last year with DH's family as our guests and my DSIL and family now and forevermore refer to me as "the bottomless pit." DH was bummed we missed SWW last year by a mere few days and was still ranting about not getting his pic with Donald as a stormtrooper (I will spare you the drama of that tale). So, being the awesome DW, I planned a trip, as a surprise, to give to DH for Christmas. Everything worked out, got BCV at 7 months, got BOG for dinner then 4 days after Christmas, disaster struck. DH had to come back a day before we'd planned due to his job. After a huge mess and a nightmare with the airlines (long story short) we had to rebook everything. We lost BCV (no biggie, we love SSR and just stayed "home"), lost BOG for dinner (no biggie, scored a ressie for the Oct trip) and lost our Ohana for dinner (given that we will have dinner there in Oct and Dec, not going to whine too much!) At least we were still going! As usual, there were a few firsts this trip with the biggest being our first time in a studio (we learned this trip that we are VERY spoiled) and our first trip that we less than 7 nights ever since we've been going to WDW. So now that you're up to speed, let the TR begin! Tuesday May 14th. I REALLY wanted to go to Cedar Point yesterday (yes, I'm nuts) to ride the new record breaking roller coaster, however, it was 50 degrees and I was not about to dig out the winter gear to ride roller coasters all day. Probably was a good choice! So DMIL came over Monday night so we could take her out for dinner for mom's day and to graciously haul us to the airport so we didn't have to pay to leave one of our cars in long term parking. We were up at least half an hour before the alarm clock, out the door in time to hit up Starbucks and at the airport in plenty of time. First dose of
(or as DH says...the force was with us) of the day, plane was fully boarded and took off nearly half an hour early! Landed at MCO at 10:20am instead of 11am and we actually pulled into SSR at 11:00am!! Had done online check in so we breezed over to the desk, heard the beautiful words "welcome home" and now our next dose of , our villa was ready! Can't remember the last time we arrive before noon and could get into our villa. We decided to go ahead and head to the villa before MK so we grabbed our groceries and our new friend Greg from bellservices who graciously gave us a ride in his souped up golf cart to our beloved Congress Park. 2612 CP to be precise! We were a little surprised at how small our studio was (we really have gotten spoiled), put our groceries away, repacked the park bag and found the safe was broken. Quick call to the desk to have the safe repaired and while we were walking out the door, the phone rings. I answered and the person calling wanted to know if we wanted the safe repaired today or if could wait. Uh...no, I want it fixed now! Hung up the phone and out to the bus stop where we waited about 10 minutes until our pristine motor coach reading Magic Kingdom pulled in and opened it's oh so inviting doors to whisk us off to my favorite park! The line to eat at BOG for lunch was ridiculous and since there are no FP available, we stay true to form with corn dog nuggets for the pit and 2 dogs for DH from Casey's, pit stop for a Dole Whip and off to POTC! Personally, LOSE the mermaids! They do nothing for the attraction. Lose the mermaids, give me my dead men tell no tales/yo ho in slow mo and Davey Jones back, please and thank you! After POTC, we snagged FP for Splash then went over to visit the 999 happy haunts. DH swears HM loses something outside of Halloween. I think he's nuts! We stopped to check out the new Rapunzel attraction (ha ha!) and snapped our first pics of the day.
We made our way onto IASW and the carousel. Time to get wet so walked back over to Splash and BTMRR was actually walk on (parade was going on) so we rode BTMRR and then Splash! Took a walk back over to the other side of the park and grabbed a box of popcorn for the pit (hey, it's a long walk) and Space Mtn actually had a humane stand by (20 Min) so we rode Space then it was about time for the Pit's evening meal so we made our way over to the monorail and hopped aboard (Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantagenase alejardo des las puertas) music to my ears and a few minutes later, we were exiting at the Poly for our ressies at Kona. We now love Kona and it's in our permanent rotation. I had the adult beverage that included my beloved Stitch juice with a good bit of adult beverage added and DH had a Kona on tap (he was very excited when our local store started stocking Kona at home!) DH had the noodle bowl with chicken while the pit made quick work of a very large pork chop with savory bread pudding (really? It's stuffing people!) DH wolfed down the pineapple upside down cake and the pit hovered the chocolate/banana crème brulee! Well fed, we hopped back on the monorail, hopped off at MK and grabbed a bus back to SSR. It was actually a little cool so we stopped by the villa to drop our park gear and grab hoodies then walked over to DTD to do some shopping. We were blessed with a new niece in January from my DB/DSIL and we wanted to have her baby's first ornament personalized. After the Christmas store, we wandered around and of course, made it into World of Disney. Mostly just windowed shopped until the pit smelled Ghiradelli so after some ice cream treats, we headed home for the night. It had been a long day and we had early ressies for breakfast with Stitch in the am. Light day for pics today so I promise there will be plenty more pics in future installments! Up next, our first full day and the pit has round 1 with F&G!!
As much as we'd have loved it, there was no way we were spending that amount of time waiting to eat a sandwich, especially with a short trip! I did manage a Dole Whip and a box of popcorn for the monorail ride over to Epcot (needed a snack to hold me over until lunch!) It was after 1pm, so we decided to head over to Epcot for the rest of the day. 
then it was off to Mexico for a pork carnita that was also very tasty! After the carnita, it was a quick stop at the Florida fresh stand for some strawberries and angel food cake. We continued to make our way around the WS and stopped in France for some ratatouille (which was awful! I don't think Remy had a hand in that one!) and a wonder glass of sparkling muscat! Oh yum! We went into the wine cellar in France and was it available for sale to take home? No, no it was not!! 
DH wanted another beer from the farmer's market so we stopped for a sampler for him. The pit was getting full but could not stop thinking about those wonderful candied strawberries from yesterday so we stopped for more along with another kung fu punch! I will have to remember to take some pics of the food in November. The pit was now happily fed, both of us were hot and we still had about half an hour before our FP for TT so we jumped on the golf ball for a nice break in the AC. After our silly video, courtesy of Siemens, it was time for TT so we took our last spin on the new TT. The jury is still out. DH really likes it, I'm still not so sure. We both had fun making our "commercial" at the end. That was entertaining! It was now going on 4pm and we were having a quandary. Only minimal dining ressies were made for this trip so we had no real plan for dinner, neither of us felt like walking to DHS (the boat takes forever so we usually hike it...yes we have issues! Now you all know why the pit needs fed so much) and we really just needed a break so DH says "I have an idea" I say, "I've got a bad feeling about this!" We decided to head home to the pool for a bit, go to EOS for dinner then head over to DHS for F! We stopped at AP to pick up our purchases and found one of our ornaments was broken. I wasn't too pleased when the CM suggested we return it ourselves and thankfully a manager was nearby to help out. He made arrangements to have our ornament replaced and we were on our way to the pool. We just hung out in the quiet pool for about an hour and it was just what we needed. We headed home, showered up and as we were leaving, received a call that our replacement ornament had arrived and was ready to be picked up. We made our way over to DTD and our beloved EOS! Oh heavenly holiday sandwich, how I missed thee! After thoroughly enjoying our sandwiches, we walked back home to CP and grabbed a bus to DHS. We actually managed to get a ride on ST2 and TOT before heading into the Hollywood Hills to grab our F! seats. Boy did we get an unpleasant surprise! I can certainly understand guest complaints about the dinner package seating, but they went from the worst seats in the house to the best seats. I will keep my rant to myself as I can understand why, but it would have been nice if they would have kept the Mickey section for everyone crazy enough to wait it out. After enjoying my favorite show on property, we headed out as we knew we had a long day ahead. We were leaving the park around 9:40 and could not believe that people were actually camping/lining up for the merchandise line and the celebrity signing line! Ok people! That's a little nuts. (I also have NO ROOM to talk...I'm a seasoned black Friday shopper!) We got a bus pretty quickly and the bus promptly drove us all to OKW! 
As a CM had mentioned to us earlier, they did indeed begin letting people in at 7:30am. We joined the line and got the know the couple behind us. Our "line friends" home resort is also SSR! We finally got up to Darth's Maul and this is what greeted us! 
