BrerMama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2000
- Messages
- 2,205
To read Day 1, our travel day, click here
Cast of characters:
Kim , 33, trip planner, mom,etc.
Dan , 35, thrill rider
Brady, 9, almost 10, beginning to get a bit more daring, but still very cautious
Mykiah, 8, my go-to girl
Chesney, 4, everything is an adventure
Dates: June 2-11, 2004
Resort: Port Orleans Riverside
Day 2, Thursday, June 3: The One Where We Discover Magic
Once again, the alarm was set for 5:45 AM. Way too early, but we did it anyway. Dan and I showered while we nagged the kids to get up and get dressed. We were dressed and out the door for continental breakfast at 6:15 am. The Sleep Inn's continental breakfast is your typical bagels, bread for toasting and stale donuts type of thing. Nothing special, but it was fuel for the day. Mostly we were too excited to eat. When the kids woke up, they had discovered a strange box in the room. Upon opening it, they found gifts from Mickey, Minnie and Tink in the box. Mickey gave Brady a Figment lanyard and 2 pins to start his pin collection and Minnie and Tink left sequin Minnie ears for the girls. During breakfast all 3 were wearing their new gifts and it was clear that we were ready to go.
Our tummies full, we ran back up to the room to grab our luggage so that we could be in the lobby for our Happy Limo pick up at 7 am. I knew that they usually try to arrive 15 minutes early, so I wanted to be ready. 7 o'clock came and went, then 7:10. I dug out my cell phone and while I was on the phone with Happy Limo, the front desk took a call from our driver asking for directions. This irritates me because I had included the street address and directions in my email with the new pick-up information but had noticed that it hadn't gotten added to the new confirmation. So our driver finally arrived at 7:20 am, apologizing profusely. I had spotted a convenience store across the street so we used that for our grocery stop; I bought 48 cans of pop and 48 bottles of water. Oh, and 2 bags of M&Ms. Gotta have my chocolate.
Finally.... FINALLY... we were on our way to Walt Disney World. Our driver was competent, if not too talkative, and took us on a really strange route that involved an industrial area. I was thrilled when I started to recognize landmarks, however. It wasn't long and we were pulling in to Port Orleans Riverside. Our driver unloaded our bags for luggage services and then it was off to check in. Dan and the kids went to the little TV that was playing Disney cartoons while I walked up (no line at 8 am!) and started the check in process. I had a great cast member checking me in and he made sure to explain everything thoroughly since we were a first time on-site family. Our check in was pretty involved because we had the Prince/Princess Add-on to the dreammaker package, which gave us several vouchers for seatings at shows and a breakfast, as well as $150 Disney dollars. I had to initial that I received everything before I could receive my room key/park pass. Because it was so early, I had been expecting that we would just leave our luggage in storage while we went to a park, but I was happy to find out that not only was there a room available, it was a "great room." OK, so the CM who was checking me in told me it was great, but when I heard it was number 1507, I knew it was in building 15 and had to be well located. Before we left, I bought e-ride tickets for the next night and handed over my debit card so that we could have charging privileges on our room key. We had no intention of using the debit card to pay the bill, but this option was much easier for us. We just charged everything to the room and then every 2-3 days Dan went over, had the cast member at the front desk print off a list of charges and then used traveler's checks to pay off the balance.
While I was checking in, I was laughing because I could hear Chesney rolling with laughter at the cartoon playing. So she was a bit disturbed when I walked up to tell my family I was done checking in and that we could go put our stuff in our room. We got into a golf cart with a luggage services person, who also told us that we had a great room. Our only requests on our reservation had been for close to the bus stops and second floor and I already knew that we were first floor, so I wanted to see for myself. Honestly, we got what we requested. We almost couldn't have been any closer to the main bus stop (South Depot). We were on the ground floor and had a parking lot view, but the noise only bothered me twice in 8 nights and we weren't looking out our window much so the view wasn't meaningful. We were also very close to the food court, as we would discover later that day.
For now, however, we just threw everything into our room and used the bathroom. Why has no one mentioned the strange toilets at this hotel? I've read tons about Riverside on the internet and no one has mentioned the push button toilet flushing mechanism. Do you know how hard it is for a 4 year old to operate? I helped her over that hurdle and we grabbed the stroller, walked out the door, across the parking lot and up to the bus depot. We weren't there long when a Disney-MGM Studios bus arrived and we were off on our first Disney bus of the trip.
Our timing was perfect and we entered the Studios just after the park opened. I didn't have any real plan for the day, so we went with the Great Movie Ride because it was there, right at the end of the street, waiting for us. We had a female Gangster hold up our ride vehicle and Ches was a bit frightened during most of the ride but she just buried her face in my side and we survived. After GMR, I thought maybe we should tone it down a little, so we walked over to Muppetvision 3D, arriving just as the preshow was starting. I like this one but I think everyone else in the family could take or leave it. One of the reasons we went, however, was because we wanted to ease Chesney into the whole 3D movie thing and we knew that compared to the movies at AK and Epcot, this one was fairly tame.
We still had time before our lunch priority seating, so we walked over to Little Mermaid. We were able to get in without a Fastpass and waited 10 minutes or so for the show. Chesney was sitting beside me and I got all teary watching her face as she saw Ariel for the first time. Fortunately for Ches, she didn't notice that the cast member playing Ariel was less than perfect. She didn't know the tunes and at one point, I caught her looking at a cheat sheet with the words. Even Dan, who usually doesn't notice details, said something about the fact that she wasn't able to keep time well. I'm sure the kids didn't notice and maybe I'm just picky. But is it too much to expect Ariel to know the words to her songs?
By now it was close to time for our Sci Fi Dine In Theater priority seating, so we walked over and I checked us in. There was already quite a number of people waiting, but we were among the first seated, so it's possible that most of the group didn't have priority seatings. When we first started planning our trip, I gave Brady a list of places where we could eat and told him to pick one and we'd call it his birthday dinner. Sci Fi was his choice and we were lucky enough to get a car right in the front row. Seating was a problem, as it always is with 5 people, but we ended up with Mykiah in front by herself, Dan and Brady in the middle and Chesney and I in the back seat. Our waitress was very good with Mykiah and really involved her as the "driver" of the car. For lunch, the girls both had corn dog meals, Brady ate a kids burger meal, Dan had a burger and I had a chicken sandwich. It was decent food, but we really came for the atmosphere. It was a great break from the park and a wonderful way to start our Disney dining experience. Total for the meal was $47 plus tip. We did manage to resist those fun drinks with the glowing ice cubes -- those things are $6 each! That adds up with 3 kids so we just didn't even go there.
By noon, we were done with our meal and on our way back to the hotel to explore. Our first priority was swimming. Frankly, after all the traveling yesterday and then spending our morning at a park, I just needed to get refreshed. I dug through the bags enough to grab our swimsuits and then it was off to Ole Man Island to swim. Again, this was really close to our room and although the quiet pool between buildings 16 & 18 was probably closer to the room, it wasn't that much farther to just go to the main pool. When we arrived, we found this little area tucked to the back of the pool where there were enough empty lounge chairs for our family and then jumped into the pool. It quickly became apparent to me that Chesney was going to need a life jacket. She's had swimming lessons and is fairly competent in a pool, but it was much deeper than we expected and I didn't want to have to spend my entire pool time worrying about her. While Dan swam with the big kids, I took Chesney off to the boat rental building, where I was quickly given a life jacket in exchange for information on my room key. It was ours to use for free for the duration of our stay, as long as we returned it at the end of the trip.
Much happier now, Chesney went down the slide with her brother and sister a couple dozen times while Dan and I stood near the bottom of the slide in case we were needed. I couldn't believe the number of kids coming down struggling with no parent near to help them. And there's only a life guard at the bottom of the slide, not the top, so sometimes kids were coming down way too close. The lifeguard at the bottom would scold them, but by then it's a little late, isn't it?
We didn't stay in the pool long as we were all anxious to get back off to a park. We went back to the room and changed into our clothes and then hit the bus stop for Epcot. Again, I didn't have a lot of expectations for touring Epcot this afternoon. Brady had loved Spaceship Earth last trip, so I had thought we'd take a ride upon entering the park, but the line was pretty long, so we skipped it and went off to the Imagination pavilion to have what would be the first of many rides on Journey Into Your Imagination with Figment. How was I to predict that Chesney would absolutely fall for Figment? She laughed at him so much that she had the rest of us laughing. On the way out of the ride, we bought her a stuffed Figment ballet dancer beanie, since she takes dance lessons. Then it was off to see "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience." On our last trip, the big kids didn't wear their 3D glasses during this show but they really wanted to give it a try this time. Ches wore her glasses, but spent most of her time curled into my body. She survived, though, and I thought it sounded like a great time for a Mickey Bar. We bought one for each of us... because I have a hard time figuring out how to share a Mickey Bar. The kids can't really eat an entire bar before it melts, but there's that whole sharing issue, so we just bought 5.
After we finished our dripping Mickey Bars, we walked over to Mouse Gears. Since we booked this trip in November, we had forced the children to save all their gift money for the trip. Each of them had $100 burning a hole in their pockets, so it was time to spend. First stop -- the Mr. Potato Head parts. I got out a box and we stuffed it as full as we could, and then Dan came over took a look and restuffed it. I closed the box and took it up to pay for it. With an amused tone, the clerk remarked that she'd never seen a box closed before. When I said that I thought it had to be closed, she told me that it did, but usually she has to tell a guest that and then they fight to get it closed. So I suppose I made her day a little easier. In addition to the parts, the girls started charm necklaces and Brady bought a pin with Walt Disney's picture on it.
By this time, the line for Spaceship Earth was manageable, so we walked over. Brady had a minor freak out in line. He knew that the ride went up into the ball but couldn't remember how it came down and he didn't want to do any drops. I ended up telling him that he could sit with me and Mykiah so that he could hold my hand. I found out after the ride that Chesney had curled up in the ride and fallen asleep, waking up just as we return to the exit. I'd grow to admire her cat-napping abilities.
After SE, which seemed older and less interesting to me, we went back to our resort. Amazingly enough, we were getting hungry again. First, we bought our refillable mugs and went off to refill them. About a week before the trip, Dan decided we should get the mugs. At this point, I tried to convince him that we no longer needed a grocery stop, but he thought we'd need pop in the room as well as the mugs. For the record, I was right, we didn't need the grocery stop, but it's not like it's a huge deal. We used the mugs a lot and I was constantly running down to fill mine. One of the first things the kids noticed when we were first filling them is that Disney has caffeine free Diet Coke on tap. Nothing could make me happier! I like to drink pop before bedtime, but if I have caffeine after 3 PM, I'm up all night. What a great vacation to be able to have my pop and still sleep at night!
With our mugs full, it was off to choose our meals. Dan went for the pasta station where he ordered a child's spaghetti for Brady and adult spaghettis for the two of us. The girls got chicken nuggets with corn from the Mexican station. The grill station offered nuggets with fries for kids, but they had fries for lunch and Chesney loves corn, so I went with that option. I love the set-up of the food court. By the time Dan got the pasta, I was ready with the kids meals and we were able to meet at the cashier and just pay once. Our total for the mugs was $64 and our total for dinner was $28.
We stopped at the gift shop on the way out of the main building and picked up our free lanyard and pins that were part of our package. Then it was back to the room to finally unpack and settle in. The kids played Mr. Potato Head while I did this, and Dan played budget police. It started raining and we just decided to call it a night. We were in bed soon after 9, with the kids going to bed closer to 8:30. What a wonderful way to start our trip!
To read Day 3, click here
Cast of characters:
Kim , 33, trip planner, mom,etc.
Dan , 35, thrill rider
Brady, 9, almost 10, beginning to get a bit more daring, but still very cautious
Mykiah, 8, my go-to girl
Chesney, 4, everything is an adventure
Dates: June 2-11, 2004
Resort: Port Orleans Riverside
Day 2, Thursday, June 3: The One Where We Discover Magic
Once again, the alarm was set for 5:45 AM. Way too early, but we did it anyway. Dan and I showered while we nagged the kids to get up and get dressed. We were dressed and out the door for continental breakfast at 6:15 am. The Sleep Inn's continental breakfast is your typical bagels, bread for toasting and stale donuts type of thing. Nothing special, but it was fuel for the day. Mostly we were too excited to eat. When the kids woke up, they had discovered a strange box in the room. Upon opening it, they found gifts from Mickey, Minnie and Tink in the box. Mickey gave Brady a Figment lanyard and 2 pins to start his pin collection and Minnie and Tink left sequin Minnie ears for the girls. During breakfast all 3 were wearing their new gifts and it was clear that we were ready to go.
Our tummies full, we ran back up to the room to grab our luggage so that we could be in the lobby for our Happy Limo pick up at 7 am. I knew that they usually try to arrive 15 minutes early, so I wanted to be ready. 7 o'clock came and went, then 7:10. I dug out my cell phone and while I was on the phone with Happy Limo, the front desk took a call from our driver asking for directions. This irritates me because I had included the street address and directions in my email with the new pick-up information but had noticed that it hadn't gotten added to the new confirmation. So our driver finally arrived at 7:20 am, apologizing profusely. I had spotted a convenience store across the street so we used that for our grocery stop; I bought 48 cans of pop and 48 bottles of water. Oh, and 2 bags of M&Ms. Gotta have my chocolate.
Finally.... FINALLY... we were on our way to Walt Disney World. Our driver was competent, if not too talkative, and took us on a really strange route that involved an industrial area. I was thrilled when I started to recognize landmarks, however. It wasn't long and we were pulling in to Port Orleans Riverside. Our driver unloaded our bags for luggage services and then it was off to check in. Dan and the kids went to the little TV that was playing Disney cartoons while I walked up (no line at 8 am!) and started the check in process. I had a great cast member checking me in and he made sure to explain everything thoroughly since we were a first time on-site family. Our check in was pretty involved because we had the Prince/Princess Add-on to the dreammaker package, which gave us several vouchers for seatings at shows and a breakfast, as well as $150 Disney dollars. I had to initial that I received everything before I could receive my room key/park pass. Because it was so early, I had been expecting that we would just leave our luggage in storage while we went to a park, but I was happy to find out that not only was there a room available, it was a "great room." OK, so the CM who was checking me in told me it was great, but when I heard it was number 1507, I knew it was in building 15 and had to be well located. Before we left, I bought e-ride tickets for the next night and handed over my debit card so that we could have charging privileges on our room key. We had no intention of using the debit card to pay the bill, but this option was much easier for us. We just charged everything to the room and then every 2-3 days Dan went over, had the cast member at the front desk print off a list of charges and then used traveler's checks to pay off the balance.
While I was checking in, I was laughing because I could hear Chesney rolling with laughter at the cartoon playing. So she was a bit disturbed when I walked up to tell my family I was done checking in and that we could go put our stuff in our room. We got into a golf cart with a luggage services person, who also told us that we had a great room. Our only requests on our reservation had been for close to the bus stops and second floor and I already knew that we were first floor, so I wanted to see for myself. Honestly, we got what we requested. We almost couldn't have been any closer to the main bus stop (South Depot). We were on the ground floor and had a parking lot view, but the noise only bothered me twice in 8 nights and we weren't looking out our window much so the view wasn't meaningful. We were also very close to the food court, as we would discover later that day.
For now, however, we just threw everything into our room and used the bathroom. Why has no one mentioned the strange toilets at this hotel? I've read tons about Riverside on the internet and no one has mentioned the push button toilet flushing mechanism. Do you know how hard it is for a 4 year old to operate? I helped her over that hurdle and we grabbed the stroller, walked out the door, across the parking lot and up to the bus depot. We weren't there long when a Disney-MGM Studios bus arrived and we were off on our first Disney bus of the trip.
Our timing was perfect and we entered the Studios just after the park opened. I didn't have any real plan for the day, so we went with the Great Movie Ride because it was there, right at the end of the street, waiting for us. We had a female Gangster hold up our ride vehicle and Ches was a bit frightened during most of the ride but she just buried her face in my side and we survived. After GMR, I thought maybe we should tone it down a little, so we walked over to Muppetvision 3D, arriving just as the preshow was starting. I like this one but I think everyone else in the family could take or leave it. One of the reasons we went, however, was because we wanted to ease Chesney into the whole 3D movie thing and we knew that compared to the movies at AK and Epcot, this one was fairly tame.
We still had time before our lunch priority seating, so we walked over to Little Mermaid. We were able to get in without a Fastpass and waited 10 minutes or so for the show. Chesney was sitting beside me and I got all teary watching her face as she saw Ariel for the first time. Fortunately for Ches, she didn't notice that the cast member playing Ariel was less than perfect. She didn't know the tunes and at one point, I caught her looking at a cheat sheet with the words. Even Dan, who usually doesn't notice details, said something about the fact that she wasn't able to keep time well. I'm sure the kids didn't notice and maybe I'm just picky. But is it too much to expect Ariel to know the words to her songs?
By now it was close to time for our Sci Fi Dine In Theater priority seating, so we walked over and I checked us in. There was already quite a number of people waiting, but we were among the first seated, so it's possible that most of the group didn't have priority seatings. When we first started planning our trip, I gave Brady a list of places where we could eat and told him to pick one and we'd call it his birthday dinner. Sci Fi was his choice and we were lucky enough to get a car right in the front row. Seating was a problem, as it always is with 5 people, but we ended up with Mykiah in front by herself, Dan and Brady in the middle and Chesney and I in the back seat. Our waitress was very good with Mykiah and really involved her as the "driver" of the car. For lunch, the girls both had corn dog meals, Brady ate a kids burger meal, Dan had a burger and I had a chicken sandwich. It was decent food, but we really came for the atmosphere. It was a great break from the park and a wonderful way to start our Disney dining experience. Total for the meal was $47 plus tip. We did manage to resist those fun drinks with the glowing ice cubes -- those things are $6 each! That adds up with 3 kids so we just didn't even go there.
By noon, we were done with our meal and on our way back to the hotel to explore. Our first priority was swimming. Frankly, after all the traveling yesterday and then spending our morning at a park, I just needed to get refreshed. I dug through the bags enough to grab our swimsuits and then it was off to Ole Man Island to swim. Again, this was really close to our room and although the quiet pool between buildings 16 & 18 was probably closer to the room, it wasn't that much farther to just go to the main pool. When we arrived, we found this little area tucked to the back of the pool where there were enough empty lounge chairs for our family and then jumped into the pool. It quickly became apparent to me that Chesney was going to need a life jacket. She's had swimming lessons and is fairly competent in a pool, but it was much deeper than we expected and I didn't want to have to spend my entire pool time worrying about her. While Dan swam with the big kids, I took Chesney off to the boat rental building, where I was quickly given a life jacket in exchange for information on my room key. It was ours to use for free for the duration of our stay, as long as we returned it at the end of the trip.
Much happier now, Chesney went down the slide with her brother and sister a couple dozen times while Dan and I stood near the bottom of the slide in case we were needed. I couldn't believe the number of kids coming down struggling with no parent near to help them. And there's only a life guard at the bottom of the slide, not the top, so sometimes kids were coming down way too close. The lifeguard at the bottom would scold them, but by then it's a little late, isn't it?
We didn't stay in the pool long as we were all anxious to get back off to a park. We went back to the room and changed into our clothes and then hit the bus stop for Epcot. Again, I didn't have a lot of expectations for touring Epcot this afternoon. Brady had loved Spaceship Earth last trip, so I had thought we'd take a ride upon entering the park, but the line was pretty long, so we skipped it and went off to the Imagination pavilion to have what would be the first of many rides on Journey Into Your Imagination with Figment. How was I to predict that Chesney would absolutely fall for Figment? She laughed at him so much that she had the rest of us laughing. On the way out of the ride, we bought her a stuffed Figment ballet dancer beanie, since she takes dance lessons. Then it was off to see "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience." On our last trip, the big kids didn't wear their 3D glasses during this show but they really wanted to give it a try this time. Ches wore her glasses, but spent most of her time curled into my body. She survived, though, and I thought it sounded like a great time for a Mickey Bar. We bought one for each of us... because I have a hard time figuring out how to share a Mickey Bar. The kids can't really eat an entire bar before it melts, but there's that whole sharing issue, so we just bought 5.
After we finished our dripping Mickey Bars, we walked over to Mouse Gears. Since we booked this trip in November, we had forced the children to save all their gift money for the trip. Each of them had $100 burning a hole in their pockets, so it was time to spend. First stop -- the Mr. Potato Head parts. I got out a box and we stuffed it as full as we could, and then Dan came over took a look and restuffed it. I closed the box and took it up to pay for it. With an amused tone, the clerk remarked that she'd never seen a box closed before. When I said that I thought it had to be closed, she told me that it did, but usually she has to tell a guest that and then they fight to get it closed. So I suppose I made her day a little easier. In addition to the parts, the girls started charm necklaces and Brady bought a pin with Walt Disney's picture on it.
By this time, the line for Spaceship Earth was manageable, so we walked over. Brady had a minor freak out in line. He knew that the ride went up into the ball but couldn't remember how it came down and he didn't want to do any drops. I ended up telling him that he could sit with me and Mykiah so that he could hold my hand. I found out after the ride that Chesney had curled up in the ride and fallen asleep, waking up just as we return to the exit. I'd grow to admire her cat-napping abilities.
After SE, which seemed older and less interesting to me, we went back to our resort. Amazingly enough, we were getting hungry again. First, we bought our refillable mugs and went off to refill them. About a week before the trip, Dan decided we should get the mugs. At this point, I tried to convince him that we no longer needed a grocery stop, but he thought we'd need pop in the room as well as the mugs. For the record, I was right, we didn't need the grocery stop, but it's not like it's a huge deal. We used the mugs a lot and I was constantly running down to fill mine. One of the first things the kids noticed when we were first filling them is that Disney has caffeine free Diet Coke on tap. Nothing could make me happier! I like to drink pop before bedtime, but if I have caffeine after 3 PM, I'm up all night. What a great vacation to be able to have my pop and still sleep at night!
With our mugs full, it was off to choose our meals. Dan went for the pasta station where he ordered a child's spaghetti for Brady and adult spaghettis for the two of us. The girls got chicken nuggets with corn from the Mexican station. The grill station offered nuggets with fries for kids, but they had fries for lunch and Chesney loves corn, so I went with that option. I love the set-up of the food court. By the time Dan got the pasta, I was ready with the kids meals and we were able to meet at the cashier and just pay once. Our total for the mugs was $64 and our total for dinner was $28.
We stopped at the gift shop on the way out of the main building and picked up our free lanyard and pins that were part of our package. Then it was back to the room to finally unpack and settle in. The kids played Mr. Potato Head while I did this, and Dan played budget police. It started raining and we just decided to call it a night. We were in bed soon after 9, with the kids going to bed closer to 8:30. What a wonderful way to start our trip!
To read Day 3, click here
