F&W: FULL is more than a reading on your gas gauge! Girls-Only Trip! Updated 3/2,p.9

JenSop

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 17, 2007
It's time! Time for my new Trip Report!!!!:banana:

And this one is special! (Not that ALL my Disney trips aren't special!;))

This one is for my Girls-Only Trip from October - where we did Food and Wine Festival at Epcot AND Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. ("F&W" and "MNSSHP" respectively!)


Let me first introduce our cast of characters and give you some info!

Photo0153FourBySix.jpg


From Left to Right, we have:

Jen: (ME!) This is my third full Trip Report and I'm so excited to be sharing it with all of you! I've been going to Disney since I was a little girl and I just LOVE it! I'm a singer (mostly classical, but other stuff too), voice teacher, travel agent (Disney specialist), and part-time retail worker. (This is what one must do when they have two degrees in music! :rolleyes:) I have been DVC since 2007 and love it! Consider me the "big-sister" of the group on this trip, as I'm the oldest.

Megan: I've known Megan since we started working together at one of our various retail jobs a few years ago. Megan and her DH are also DVC (referred them!) and even though Megan doesn't go back to her childhood when it comes to WDW, she has become a huge WDW lover! (She got engaged at Disney Land!) Megan currently works for an insurance company. She went to school for English and Psychology and is starting work on her grad degree in Education! Megan is also our expert photographer!

Andi: Andi is the baby of the group - she just turned 21 less than two months before our trip and was super excited to go to Disney as a 'legal adult'. Andi and Megan go way back, and that's how I know her. She currently works with Megan at the insurance company. She has training in hair and beauty and is a big theatre-person too!

Here are the details of our trip.....

We went from Friday, October 1st, 2010 to Tuesday, October 5th, 2010.

We stayed in a Savannah View Studio at AKV (Animal Kingdom Villas) - Jambo House.






What fun stuff (and not-so-fun stuff) lies ahead?

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in our AWESOME costumes, Food and Wine Festival, Drinking! :drinking1 And Mother Nature's plot to foil our trip! And food. Lots and lots of food. And the best Photopass trip ever!!! (Seriously.)


So my next step is to find my Trip notes..... Hmmmm......

Once that's accomplished, we'll get this TR started!!!!:cool1:
 
FINALLY!!!! It's only been about almost 3 months before you got the second of time to start constructing this beast!!! :wizard:
 


FINALLY!!!! It's only been about almost 3 months before you got the second of time to start constructing this beast!!! :wizard:

Yeah, yeah, yeah! ;)

(By the way readers, Sparkles2613 is our lovely Megan who went on the trip. She'll be weighing in along the way!)
 
Update Number One - "Why does Nature not want us to get to Disney?!"

Let me start by saying that this particular Disney trip had been YEARS in the planning. Years!!!

Back in early 2008, Megan and I had been talking and thought that it would be SO MUCH FUN to do a Girls-Only trip. We randomly picked what we thought was a good future time - the fall of 2010. I would use my DVC points and we would invite lots of friends.

Well, over that time, we found it difficult to get some people to commit to a Disney trip without their families. :confused3 But Megan said Andi would be thrilled to go, especially that close after her birthday.

We spent the next couple years planning and discussing the various aspects of what we would do on the trip, etc. Plans were made, tickets were booked!

I was excited to be going on my first non-summer trip since high school. And I was super excited about Food and Wine AND Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. MNSSHP is the one time that adults can dress up in the Magic Kingdom, and we were going to go all out!!!! :yay:





That is, if we could get there....:scared1:








Our flight was scheduled to leave out of Philly at 8am. We were going to go to my parents' house and leave there by 5am, as my dad was going to be our airport transportation.



Well, it just so happened that we had the worst flooding in years over night that night. I'd never seen it this bad. My parents live less than 15 minutes away, just above Quakertown. I think I left my house around 4:30 and it wasn't long before I hit my first closed road. Hmmm....

So I called Megan and Andi (Megan's DH was driving them) to let them know to find me and follow me as I tried alternate routes.

The first alternate route - road closed.

I realized that this was not going to be easy...

We met up and loaded everyone into my car so I could find a way to get to my parents'.

I took the LONG way around - for those of you near our area - instead of taking the back roads to Qtown from Hellertown, we headed to 378 to 309.

We were ALMOST to the road my parents live on, when we hit a spot where the highway was closed. They had boats out - BOATS! The intersection was under 5 feet of water!

The emergency worker was a guy I went to high school with and suggested going back and trying more back roads.

I took a chance and got us there! But there is a creek right before my parents house. It was bad. But I floored it. My little Honda Fit almost got stuck, but we had the pixie dust with us and got through it.

Fortunately, my dad has a full size pick up truck with four wheel drive. We were home free! *crossing fingers*

It took us an hour to get to my parents, but fortunately took the regular hour to get to Philly, as we had no more problems. (Can't say the same for that sports car on the back road that thought it could make it through a bad spot. :sad2:)

We made it to the airport with time to spare and with a special perk. Because of my most recent flight the week before that, I had been upgraded to Silver Preferred Status! :thumbsup2

We got to go through the special security screening with no line, AND got to board the plane with the first class passengers. Totally made up for the flooding!

We finally got up in the air and when the sun came up, here was our view from the sky:
IMG_0019.jpg


When we got to Jambo House for check in, our room was ready! Yay!!!!!

We were at the END of the Kudu Trail with an Arusha view. The VERY end of the trail. That walk to our room felt like a mile!

Our room was great, though, and we were just SO glad to be there!

IMG_0026.jpg


IMG_0027.jpg


IMG_0034.jpg


IMG_0035.jpg


IMG_0036.jpg


And it was apparently love bug season. I only knew about these little guys from the disboards, but thankfully I DID know about them and wasn't freaked out. They basically look sort of like lightning bugs that don't light up and that are constantly attached to each other, copulating.

continued......
 
continued.....

So once we got settled into the room, it was pool time! Since we were only going to be here for 5 short days, there wasn't much time for the pool. We headed down to the Jambo House pool and relaxed for a bit.

37127_517117501051_83001048_30714633_1608704_n.jpg


But we had to choose our relaxing spot carefully. There were some serious love bug issues at the one end of the pool. Ick!:eek:

Relaxing is boring, so let's skip to the good stuff!

We had dinner planned for Sanaa over next door at Kidani Village. I'd been to Sanaa twice already and was SO excited to go again. I LOVE it there!!!

We got ourselves ready and headed over.

Our table was right near the far wall by all the big windows. What a view!

IMG_0053.jpg



And the restaurant itself is just so pretty!

IMG_0061.jpg





Megan and I got a delicious Mango margarita concoction...

IMG_0043.jpg


Andi got the African Star Mojito...

IMG_0044.jpg


Of course we had to stop to pose for pics!

IMG_0047.jpg


IMG_0045.jpg


I wanted the girls to try the bread sampler, so the appetizer was on me!

We had the Naan bread, the onion paneer, and one of the other breads - for toppings we chose red chile sambal, green mango pickle, and red pepper hummus.

IMG_0048.jpg


IMG_0049.jpg


YUMMYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! I especially liked the spiciness of the red chile spread!

We also made things really easy for our server by all ordering the same exact dinner: Green shrimp curry, basmati rice, and beef short ribs.

IMG_0054.jpg


Again - SO. GOOD. This restaurant is amazing!

Since it seemed we were all still on the same wave length, we all ordered the dessert sampler: chocolate cake, chai cream, and kulfi (which is like ice cream.)

IMG_0062.jpg


The chai cream is my favorite. It's like a light weight mouse pudding that tastes like a chai latte. Heaven!

We would have LOVED to have taken a longer time at dinner, but we had tickets for MNSSHP that night! We were ready to kick some Magic Kingdom butt and show off our awesome costumes!!!!!

It was time to get ready!!!


Up next:

My first MNSSHP! Tons of MK fun! Boo to You Parade!!

Stay tuned!!!
 


You are making me hungry, and thirsty showing me that Mojito. I had a real nice one last Thursday at Martha's Vineyard. It was a girls trip that my wife and three of her friends took to NYC that led to our 4 night trip to the BC. Check out the TR I just started to post.
 
You are making me hungry, and thirsty showing me that Mojito. I had a real nice one last Thursday at Martha's Vineyard. It was a girls trip that my wife and three of her friends took to NYC that led to our 4 night trip to the BC. Check out the TR I just started to post.

Welcome on board! What's the name of your TR?
 
Ok Jen I read your "No Sleep Till Disney" report,(loved it!) so I'm on board for this one too. :thumbsup2 When we go back in 162 days I'm going to take alot of pictures to add to my first trip report. Might do a Food report too. popcorn::
 
Ok Jen I read your "No Sleep Till Disney" report,(loved it!) so I'm on board for this one too. :thumbsup2 When we go back in 162 days I'm going to take alot of pictures to add to my first trip report. Might do a Food report too. popcorn::

Yay! Glad you're on board! :)
 
I'm super excited to share our amazing time with everyone and follow along with the trip report! :)
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top