Embracing Our Inner "Them" - A January TR

[Colleen27]

Day 8 - Jan 31

Our last full day in Florida. My original plan had been to go back to the Magic Kingdom, but since the weather was looking wonderful we decided to hit Blizzard Beach instead.

My mom stayed at Pop and did laundry. She's a little odd that way - she doesn't like having a suitcase full of dirty clothes when she gets home, and since she doesn't swim or go on waterslides she often spends our waterpark days doing laundry and reading by the pool.

The rest of us headed out around 10am and got to Blizzard Beach just a few minutes after they opened.

Forgive the so-so pics in this installment - I don't take my SLR to the waterpark for obvious reasons and didn't think to grab the point & shoot from my mom, so these are all from my phone.

The place was dead. No lines for anything and for the first few hours Boo was the only kid in the little kids' play area.

I mostly hung out with her, sitting in the shallow water and reading on the Nook app on my phone. The water in both the toddler area and the bigger kids' play area was warm, but the lazy river was cold so we skipped that even though she usually likes them.

Boo didn't want to go on any of the slides at first, but then Pocahontas convinced her to try the tube slide in the bigger kids' area and she was hooked. She spent the rest of the day going on all the slides in both kids areas, and she made friends with another little girl with the same name that joined her in going round and round the slides in the toddler area for a while.

Stitch and my brother went off together to hit the really big speed slides. Stitch really liked having Uncle B along because it let him do more at his own pace, including chatting up cute girls. The two of them ended up spending a good part of the afternoon with two Chinese girls, both college program CMs on their day off. At home Stitch is still too shy to talk to girls he thinks are pretty.

Ken & Pocahontas ran around to all the slides for a while, then took a break to hang out with Boo while I went on the big tube slide. We also traded off so we could all ride the family raft ride - first DH & Uncle B took the big kids, then Uncle B took Boo to get some lunch while Ken & I & the big kids rode.

It was about 4 when we decided to call it a day.

Pocahontas wanted to be back to Pop for the afternoon pin trading at 5 and 5:30 because there was a Muppet she was still missing, and we all wanted to shower and change into proper clothes before dinner.

Pocahontas never did get her Fozzie but she did find one of the old guys from the balcony to add to her collection, and Boo picked up yet another Figment pin. The big kids each gave her a few of their "traders" to get her started and by the end of the trip she'd traded every one of them for Figments.

Dinner was at Ohana at 8:20. Rather than take the bus to the Magic Kingdom, which is the longest ride from Pop, and then deal with the closing-time crowds on the monorail or boat to the Poly we took a bus to Epcot and rode the monorail over. I'm not sure it was significantly quicker but it was relaxing - a nearly empty bus and a monorail car all to ourselves, and then the nice walk from the TTC to the Poly main building. Wishes was going off when we checked in for dinner, and we had a little bit of a wait to be seated, maybe 20 minutes or so.

Dinner was great. I wasn't looking forward to it all that much because I'm just not a big meat eater and wasn't wowed by our first visit to Ohana in '08, but this time was much nicer. The salad was excellent and I could have made a meal of the wings and pot stickers. I didn't have much of the main course meat actually, just one piece of each to get a taste. The chicken was a little on the dry side and I hate how messy peel & eat shrimp is, but the rest was was really tasty. And dessert was absolutely fabulous! I don't think the bread pudding was the dessert when we were there the first time because I can't imagine I'd have forgotten that! The service was good too, and Boo had a lot of fun with the little parade and maracas.

It was nearly 10pm by the time we were leaving the Poly so we hopped a cab back to Pop rather than transferring at Downtown Disney. It is well worth the $20 to save the hassle of transferring if there isn't a nearby park still open! It hadn't been an especially long or busy day, but we were all pretty wiped out. Waterparks always do that to us - all those stairs and the sun & water are far more tiring than walking the parks! So I put Lion King on the iPod and we all crashed pretty early.

 

[Colleen27]

Day 9 - Feb 1

As a rule I don't plan anything for departure days, and this was no exception. The plan for the day was to lounge around the resort or maybe head over to Blizzard Beach for a while before our 3pm ME pick up.

However I found myself up early and had one day left on my ticket since we didn't spend a second day at the Magic Kingdom, so I decided to head over to Studios on my own to pick up a t-shirt that I regretted not buying for Stitch.

I got there about 8:30, the turnstiles opened at 8:45, and by 9:30 I'd ridden Tower of Terror and Rock N Roller Coaster, bought Stitch's "Lord of the Strings" shirt from the RnR gift shop, stopped at Starring Rolls to burn a couple of counter service credits on muffins for breakfast and sandwiches to pack in our carry-on for the long afternoon at the airport, picked up a few goodies from the candy shop, and was on the bus on my way back to Pop. Everyone else was just getting up when I got back.

I love being in the parks solo, even for just a little while! One of these days I'm going to fit in a solo trip...

Uncle B and Stitch went over to the waterpark for a couple hours right when they opened, but the rest of us decided just to hang out around the resort.

Boo & Pocahontas swam and did a little pin trading in the lobby, then we used up the last of our snack credits on the movie-theatre style boxes of candy that the kids like, and had lunch at the food court. I also picked up a couple more to-go items, sandwiches for the adults and chicken strips for the girls, and packed it in my new Mickey tote bag for the flight and we headed out.

Since we got in too late on arrival day, the girls decided to play with the toys out front while we waited for the bus.

ME got us to the airport plenty early, as usual, and our flight home was uneventful except for a stalling problem when pushing back from the gate that was enough to have me on edge for the whole flight home.

 

[Colleen27]

A few more pictures from my phone...

On Magical Express on the way to Pop, excited even though it is the middle of the night.

My favorite warning sign in all of WDW. "May" get wet?

And the view from the top. A decent waterproof camera is high on my Christmas list!

 

[Colleen27]

Some final thoughts...

All in all it was a good trip. Traveling with my brother took some getting used to and it really isn't something I'm in a hurry to do again, but the kids enjoyed the experience and so did he. I learned some things too, in the course of relaxing my usual over-planning approach and taking each day more as it came. My brother will never be a Disney person; he just doesn't appreciate the attention to detail and prefers parks where he can run from ride to ride, but he does want to join us whenever we get around to doing Universal.

Pop Century was nice enough for our girls' trip in March but I won't stay there again with DH. We don't sleep well in a double and he really hated having to trek down to the food court for his morning coffee, not to mention having to settle for what passes for coffee from Disney's dispensers. At least at a moderate or better he gets that one small pot of brewed coffee, not great brewed coffee but better than Nescafe or whatever it is that the food courts serve.

We had great weather all week but I'm still not sure I want to go back in January. That'll probably be a moot question, though, because at this point there are so many things limiting and influencing our choices in travel dates that my personal preference falls way down the list of priorities.

The parks were much more crowded than on our last January trip and the Brazilian groups more noticeable, though not as bad/rude as I'd gotten the impression that they'd be. The group staying at Pop was quite friendly and polite, offering to stand on the buses and other common courtesies that I don't see many American teens extending without a parent's prompting, and they seemed to be having such fun. Loud at times, sure, but I'll take loud & excited over the spoiled brats that walk through the parks texting and oblivious to the people they run into!

Flying in so late was horrible and not an experience I plan to repeat, but like our travel dates sometimes other commitments make that the best choice so I can't really say "never again" with any confidence. I'll do my best to avoid it, though!

The dining plan really didn't work for us this trip. We've used the deluxe plan for so many in a row until this one, but I don't think that'll work in the future either. Between the credit card policy on signature dinners and the fact that neither of my girls want to eat according to their age level we've decided we're going to skip the plan altogether next time unless it is offered for free. We ended up leaving 6 counter service credits unused between the 2 rooms, and paid out of pocket for a couple of appetizers here and there.

The YES program, on the other hand, was such a hit with Pocahontas that she wants to plan all our future trips around taking classes. The ticket discount is a great perk too - we saved about $800 on what comparable tickets would cost at normal prices, and about $550 compared to the tickets we'd have bought without the program (WP&M but no hopper). Meeting Ridley Pearson was great, the presentation was awesome, and she thought the class was even better.

All in all it was a really fun trip. There were some bumps here and there but we all had a really good time. I can't wait to get back!

 

[Colleen27]

So, what's next?

We're not planning another big family trip to Disney World for a while. I'm not even sure when yet... Maybe 2013 but more likely 2014. I'd like to take 2013 to hit the west coast one way or another - either an extended trip starting at Disneyland and driving up the coast, or the May Los Angeles to Vancouver repositioning cruise with a few days pre-cruise at DLR.

Ken started a new job recently and we're still adjusting. It was one of those opportunities that just falls in your lap and is too good to pass up - he applied for sub-contractor work that would have been 1-2 days/week winterizing foreclosures, not exciting work but a big help in getting by with work so slow the last few years. Instead they offered him a full time position as a building inspector; it is about the same pay as his business earns in a moderate-to-good year, but with full benefits, paid vacation, and a company truck. Since health insurance is our single largest bill every year that alone made it a no-brainer. He'll have 2 weeks of vacation/personal time after a year, so next summer's plans are safe. And his "weekend" is Sunday & Monday so we're going to be doing a lot of short one & two night driving trips to take advantage of the cheaper Sunday rates at weekend destinations around here this summer.

But that doesn't mean I'm staying away from Disney that long! A big part of the reason it took me so long to get this trip report finished up is that I'm in foll-out planning mode for our May trip, which isn't a maybe any more and is expanding like all of our Disney adventures seem to do.

It started out as just me and Pocahontas for the Girl Scout Bridging into the Next Century event at Epcot. Then DH took this job and suddenly leaving Boo home became much less practical. But we're doing another YES class associated with the event, so I needed a second adult to come along to watch Boo during the class. That's how my mom decided she should join us too. So now it is Girls' Trip 2.0 and I'll be starting a very short PTR sometime in the next few days.

I'd really wanted to surprise Pocahontas with the trip but a friend invited us to go to Rock the Mall, the DC-area Girl Scout 100th anniversary event, which is just two weeks after the Epcot event. Since we can't do both I spilled the beans to get her opinion and Disney won. But Boo still doesn't know we're going! We're planning on surprising her when we land in Orlando. Until then, all she knows is that we're taking Pocahontas to a Girl Scout event... an event that just happens to be on my birthday!

 

[jenseib]

Wow, you were on a mission to get this finished!
I'm glad you had a good time.
I have to ask, and maybe you mentioned it and I don't remember, but how did you get the dining plan with the yes tickets?
I'll have to check out your new ptr.

I'll be traveling with extended family in Nov. and I have decided to make our own plans and if they want to join us then they can, or we can meet up, but I am not going to plan on hanging out all day and trying to please others. My sister is one of the families joining us, and she has the same attitude. We want to do what works best for us and our kids...and traveling in a big group can be a pain.

 

[Colleen27]

Wow, you were on a mission to get this finished!
I'm glad you had a good time.
I have to ask, and maybe you mentioned it and I don't remember, but how did you get the dining plan with the yes tickets?
I'll have to check out your new ptr.

I'll be traveling with extended family in Nov. and I have decided to make our own plans and if they want to join us then they can, or we can meet up, but I am not going to plan on hanging out all day and trying to please others. My sister is one of the families joining us, and she has the same attitude. We want to do what works best for us and our kids...and traveling in a big group can be a pain.

I was determined to finish before starting my May PTR!

We got the 2 day base tickets for free dining and stashed them for a future trip. The room only discount for our dates just wasn't great and everyone agreed that having our food pre-paid would be easier with all the splitting up we were sure to do.

Traveling with extended family can be an adjustment for sure. My brother's medication issues were a pain, and I felt bad because I knew he wasn't feeling well some of the times he was with us but he kept pushing on because the kids were so excited to show him this or that. And my mom and brother can add drama to just about anything; this was his first vacation with her since we were kids and at times I had to pull her aside and remind her that not only is he an adult, he is a single 30-something used to being around the kids in much smaller doses and probably needed the break from all-Disney, all-the-time when he went off to meet up with friends. I'm glad we included my brother in the trip, but at the same time I'm looking for a lower drama, more according to plan trip in May!