EVERYONE remembers their "FIRST TIME"TR by Timandlesley 11/27 Day5 pg.18

[timandlesley]

The start of our FANTASTIC trip of “First Times”
So, as you probably already know from following our previous reports, I am a special education teacher so our trips have always been in the summer. I used all 3 of my personal days so this trip could happen and it was SO worth it.
Our adventure began on October 22nd, we drove up to Columbus and spent the night in a wonderful hotel (the Staybridge Inn and Suites). They provided free dinner AND breakfast and a great shuttle to the airport on the 23rd as well as parked our car included in the low rate- HIGHLY recommend this if flying out of Columbus.
So we headed to the airport around 8:00 for our 10:00 flight. As we waited for our plane we were just GIDDY. Lauren literally DANCED through the airport:

Halarious huh!?! We were soooooo excited to be returning to the happiest place on earth!
The flight went well and before we knew it we were at the Orlando airport. It’s funny, we’ve been there so much it was like going back home. We navigated through the airport easily and went right down to the Magical Express line. Tim and I were VERY happy to be “home”

We immediately boarded the Magical Express bus:

Happy Lesley on the bus (Luke took this of me):

Well the Magical Express bus was PACKED and they made an announcement that the stops would be as follows:
Polynesian resort, then Grand Floridian resort, THEN Wilderness Lodge, THEN FINALLY the Contemporary resort. I just wanted to be on Disney property NOW. So I convinced the family to bail at the Poly and we took our carryon’s upstairs to the monorail and just rode the monorail over to the Contemporary resort, worked out great and it felt SO good to be on the monorail again:

When we got to the contemporary Tim and the kids shopped around in the gift shops while I headed downstairs to check us in. The front desk here ran so nicely. A very professional gentleman in a suit met me in the line and asked me where I was staying and my last name and then escorted me over to the check in lane. Our room was ready (it was around 1:45 at this point) so I was thrilled. I took my “welcome home” documents and headed up on the elevator to meet Tim and the kids so we could go check out the room.
I WAS SO EXCITED. I took this picture of me in the elevator on the way up, can you tell I was walking on air!?!

I met up with them in front of the stores and told them the room was ready so we headed to the Bay Lake Tower Walkway (which is located right behind the stores):

We walked through the doors to the walkway and I saw this sign:

That just made me all warm and tingly inside : )
We headed across the bridge (the weather was PERFECT, 80 degrees and sunny…… well……….. look for yourself):

The kids excited to be crossing the bridge for the first time:

First view of the castle:

We were on the 14th floor, so we took the elevator upstairs. Even the elevators are cool, the door shut and it spoke to us “GOING UP”, COOL!!! We excited the elevator and were thrilled to get to the room. The kids and Tim let me do the honors, so I walked ahead of the pack. Here was our room number:

We opened the door and were instantly impressed. The rooms are just so modern and “cool”. Here are the pics of the room (we were in a studio Bay Lake view):
View from the balcony:

Nice little table area by the balcony:

The vanity/sink area is actually in the kitchen area OUTSIDE of the bathroom, I didn’t mind this and thought it worked well:

Kitchen area (opposite the sink that was pictured above):

The bathroom was beautiful, just loved the color scheme, my pictures don’t really do it justice:

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[timandlesley]

There was a sliding door that closed off the bathroom, this was my attempt to capture that:

Our wonderful view:

Artwork above the bed (wish I could buy this):

Happy Luke on the balcony:

Happy Lesley and Luke on the balcony:

More artwork:

So now that we had explored the room we were READY to hit the parks. So we headed back to the magical talking elevator to take the bridge back over to the monorail and head to Epcot.
Tim waiting for the elevator:

Tim just a LITTLE happy to be there, soaking in the Florida sunshine on our walk over on the bridge:

And I was just a LITTLE happy still too:

We took the Epcot monorail over to the transportation and ticket center and then waited for the Epcot monorail:

We were at Epcot before we knew it, the beautiful ball welcomed us:

First glimpse of the Food and Wine festival icons, it felt so good seeing them in person and not online for once:

Here was Luke soaking in the Epcot air:

We checked the times board and unfortunately there was a long wait for Soarin’ and Test track so we grabbed Fast Passes for Test Track for later and headed to Mission space and literally walked on:

Tim was ready for his mission:

What a great ride (we did the easier green side in case you were wondering : )
Tim and Luke messed around in the gift shop:

Then we ducked into Innoventions and stumbled upon Sum of All Thrills the BRAND NEW attraction. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! You get to design your very own roller coaster and then ride it in the simulator in the insane robotic claws. It is INCREDIBLE.

You go in the briefing room to get the run down and directions:

I decided to pair up with Luke since I don’t get motion sickness and Luke wanted to do a rougher ride. Lauren JUST made the height restriction of 48 inches to ride (You need to be 52 inches to do the more intense stuff which Luke made). Tim stuck with Lauren due to his motion sickness tendency and they designed a more mild ride. Inside of the briefing room they give you these handy dandy swipe cards:

Those cards allow you to put the design you create on it and it tells the simulator what ride to do but what is also cool is you get to take them home with you and do further designs and experience your ride again online.
Here we were designing:

Then you get to name your ride. Here was ours:

Luke was a teenie nervous about what we had just created and were going to ride:

Here is a look at the robotic claw (they are SO cool):

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[timandlesley]

Here are Tim and Lauren getting ready to ride (the Cast members at this ride are SO incredibly nice) they let us hang out and watch eachother ride, very accommodating).

Here they are in the ride:

The hood completely covers you and you can’t see the person you are riding with but there is a little computer monitor at the top right of the ride where you can see their faces, and you can talk back and forth to eachother. There is also a “panic” button you can hit to stop the ride if it gets too intense for you.
Another pic of Tim and Lauren on their ride:

What’ s fun is, while your loved ones are riding, you can see their monitors too (they are by the CM’s running the ride) so we could watch Tim and Lauren’s faces on the monitors. Luke and I loved our ride too and Tim and Lauren loved their ride. It’s very real feeling and I didn’t feel it was that intense, just super fun. Give it a try next time you are at the parks if your kids are tall enough, SUCH FUN!!!! So, if you are keeping track of our Disney “first times” so far this trip:
1). Staying at Bay Lake Tower
2). Riding Sum or All Thrills
3). Being at Disney in the fall experiencing BEAUTIFUL weather!
4). Seeing Food and Wine Festival displays in person for the first time.
(don’t worry, we’ll just keep adding to that list throughout the trip report.)
After sum of all thrills we headed into Mousegears, Tim needed sunglasses, he realized he left those at home. He found some shades and I found a new purse (talk about quick shopping). We also saw our first Halloween display (another FIRST)

I was stunned when I saw one of the Mousegears doors open and I saw a HUGE poster that said “congratulationos Mousegears CM’s, another Million dollar week last week!” WOW, they sure do make a lot of money in that store! I questioned why they had that poster in plain view for all to see when the door opened, but I digress.
We headed over to Club Cool for some yummy coke samples from around the world. Look at Luke’s devious grin he gets trying to trick people to try the Beverly for the first time:

Lauren enjoying her coke:

I loved my Mezzo Mix from Germany, MY FAVORITE! Tim took one for Luke and sucked down a Beverly:

With our bellies full of coke samples we headed to the World Showcase. We saw more Food and Wine festival icons (they were beautiful):

The kids were begging to do a Kim Possible Mission, so we headed to get a Fast Pass on the way over:

Our first view of a kiosk:

Found a tshirt I loved : )

We were headed towards Japan because we had a Teppan Edu reservation for dinner (early dinner at 5pm).
As we entered Japan we saw the drummers (they were great):

Tim just had to give a food booth a try, here he is in line:

I snapped a pic of the sign, he ordered the gumbo:

Happy Tim with his gumbo:

I had a couple bites, we both thought it was yummy : )
We still had some time to kill before dinner so we decided to let Lauren spend her birthday money to pick a pearl in the Japanese store, she was so excited to do this for the first time. Here she is picking her oyster;

Opening up the oyster to see what’s inside:

She got a pretty one with pink accents, here they are measuring her pearl:

Then they banged the drum and celebrated with Lauren about her great find : )

We picked out the cheapest setting for a necklace we could find and then headed upstairs to dinner.

Lauren getting in the mood for dinner:

We were seated pretty quickly and I couldn’t wait for one of my favorite meals, neither could Lauren:

My life was complete as my Tokyo Sunset (best drink on property, I SWEAR) arrived at the table:

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[timandlesley]

Our chef was SO entertaining and fun, this picture proves it:

We had SUCH a fun/ wonderful meal, it was so delicious. Just love that meal and the service was outstanding!
We headed back outside as the sun was starting to set around the world Showcase, I took this self portrait of the happy couple:

We went back into the store in Japan and picked up Lauren’s pearl and Luke spent his money on a Mario shirt . We headed over towards Germany because that is where the kids were going to do their Kim Possible Mission and we passed by the Eat To The Beat Concert, Taylor Dayne was performing, she sounded great:

As we walked over to get the kids KimMunicator for the mission we passed several custodial Cast Members getting creative with their brooms and water in their broom pails, check out these awesome designs they were drawing off in a corner, I just had to take a pic:

The kids got their KimMunicator and the mission was ON:

It took us to the Christmas shop in Germany:

And all over Germany:

It was SUCH a beautiful night, I can’t even describe it and this photo doesn’t do it justice:

Tim and I just soaked it in as the kids completed their Kim Possible Mission. We dreamed of moving to Orlando and being able to hop to the parks at night and just relax in the World Showcase (ahhhhh that would just be HEAVENLY).
After the world was saved by Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Luke and Lauren we headed back to use our Test Track Fast passes. On our way we passed by Poland and Tim had Perogies calling his name (Tim is Ukranian and his mom always makes home made Perogies):

Tim loved them and said they tasted like his mom’s, I tried them too and they were REALLY good!!!
We used our Fast Passes at Test Track and walked on the ride:

LOVE LOVE LOVE that ride!
Lauren test driving cars at the exit, boy am I in trouble when she can drive:

Tim playing in the gift shop:

We headed out of Epcot after a wonderful first evening.

We had the monorail completely to ourselves!!!

We grabbed some snacks at the Contempo Café and headed up to our room. We were thrilled to see our suitcases made it so we unpacked quickly and the kids were asleep quickly:

While Tim and I were laying in bed around 10:10 we heard music coming from outside, we went out and got to see the entire Electric Water Pageant from our balcony, it was great!

Here was our view of the pool at night from our balcony:

WHAT A GREAT first Disney Day. I was already in love with Bay Lake Tower, just LOVED it, such a beautiful resort and being on the monorail was just wonderful. The weather was outstanding, it was our first time being in the parks at the peak heat time of the day and not breaking a sweat which does wonders for your overall experience and energy level.
COMING UP NEXT ON OUR TRIP OF FIRSTS:
-Rockin’ the Coaster as a Family First!
-We’re off to Neverland
-Drinking our way around the World

CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=34212689#post34212689

 

[natale1980]

I can't wait to stay at BLT in January!!! I've been to the models 100 times at Doorway to Dreams - but it's fun to see them 'for real' Great Pictures!

 

[Charleston Princess]

I'm here for all the fun!!! I must admit I had goosebumps looking at your pictures of Bay Lake Towers! What a wonderful room and a gorgeous view!!! So glad you got to take this trip and share it with us, Lesley and Tim!!!

 

[LMO429]

subscribing love your tr!

 

[cmskok]

I'm Here! Subbing In!!!

I love that you got to go to Disney again! I also love that your kids are so into Disney...mine are too!!!

Cannot wait to see how the RnRC turned out!

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

Yeah!!!! You started! I know I've said it before but I really mean it, I can always feel the excitement and enthusiasm in your reports!

I love the BLT pictures and would absolutely love to stay there - just a dream of course!

Love all the pictures and glad you guys had so much fun on your first day/night!

Heather

 

[ampc3]

LOVE IT!!!! The room looks soo cool retro/modern! You all are soo lucky!

 

[Disneymoon09]

I'm in! GOOOO BUCKS!!!

 

[nateryan]

Yay! Awesome first day. Is it ok to be a bit jealous?! LOL. The roller coaster simulator sounds awesome! They have a similar one at Disney Quest but we never make it there...I'm definitely doing the one at EPCOT next year. You guys make your days seem so easy. BLT look awesome! Can't wait for more!

 

[pmama]

Lovin it! It's great to see all the pics of BLT! How great that you could watch the electrical pagaent from your room. It really does seem like a trip full of many firsts. Looking especially forward to hearing about MNSSHP.

 

[IluvXU]

Lesley

Love the start. I think the Contemporary is great and can't wait to stay at BLT. (This makes me wish we had bought there).

That Mickey print was in our room when we were at the Contemporary... I thought they were still giving them out in the rooms there and at BLT.

I hope we do a long weekend some fall when my Luke is older... can't wait to read all about the rest.

Laura

 

[eemmie1]

I swear you get can so much more done in the fall because of the milder weather. I can't wait to hear about MNSSHP. My DH and I had the best time and LOVED the parade and fireworks.

 

[CW4DW]

I'm here and am loving the trip so far... Can't believe that I'm here at the very beginning~hopefully I can keep up this time! Bay Lake is beautiful, we are thinking about DVC, but haven't taken the leap so any thing you think would be helpful to know I appreciate all insight!

I can't wait for more ~ loving it so far! We will be back in December for 14 days (longest trip yet)! Already your report is getting me more excited about going!

 

[lindseynleah]

Love it!!!!!! Can't wait to read more!!!!!

 

[jenbear123]

Subscribed to your TR and along for the ride! Great start so far! Can't wait to read more

 

[MAJ RN]

What a wonderful first day!! I love WDW in the fall/winter, it is the only time we go. Can't wait to read more about your first experiences!

Melissa

 

[LMO429]

I had a quick question for you. We are debating between Bay Lake Tower or Animal Kingdom Villas for our oct 2010 trip ...which did you like better and why? I appreciate any feedback especially since you got to experience both first hand I am trying to make a decision on where to stay very soon. TIA