Fay, Fay, Go Away... and don't come back!! A soggy TR - Day 3 *updated 9/15*

[kimisabella]

Hello everyone - you will have to bear with me since it my first real trip report. I've done a couple of dining reviews, and resort reviews, but, never all in one thread, an in sucession!

First we will have the standard introductions:

Me - I'm a 35 yo wife and mother of 2 dd's - I work part time for my bil's business. I love Disney, always have, always will. When Dh and I got married in 1998, we went to WDW for our honeymoon - it was his first time ever being there (poor deprived child) and we've been back almost every year since our honeymoon, with the exception of one year.

DH - he's a 35 yo Police Sgt. for the NYPD, he's not as "disney crazy" as I am, but after going on all of these trips over the last 10 years, he really does enjoy it and wants to join DVC. He is most like Grumpy, but, surprisingly he was actually the most positive, upbeat person during the bad weather on this trip (and there was plenty) and he actually pulled me out of a funk a few times!

DD#1 - "K" - 8 yo, lover of all things HSM and Hannah Montana of course. Loves Philharmagic and any of the 3D movies, not into thrill rides, she's getting away from the princesses

DD#2 - "I" - 4 yo, also loves HSM and Hannah Montana, but LOVES the characters, doesn't matter who or what they are, just goes crazy for them.
Loves parades, princesses, also not into the big thrill rides/coasters.


As I said earlier, we have gone almost every year for the past ten years, we've been lucky enough to snag free dining three times. Last Sept,we went during free dining, stayed at POFQ, my parents came with us, were in the next room over from us and received the "bounce back" flyer in their room, nothing in our room, hump, I said..... Of all people, they forget us ?????
At the time, we weren't sure of DH's schedule so I wasn't too worried about it.

Fast forward to January 2008 - all the buzz on the resorts board was about the postcard that was being sent to people with 40% off rack rates for the resorts. Low and behold, my dsis calls me and tells me her DH gets one of these post cards - he's only been to WDW 2x, and the reservation was always under my dsis's name. Now I'm mad, someone at Disney has put us on the pay me no mind list.... How could they keep overlooking us?? (DH has a theory that they will NEVER send us any kind of pin/postcard/flyer because they know we will be back, they don't have to give us any kind of incentive - I don't know if that's true or not, but he's convinced)

Dsis says she wants to go in August and that we should book together so we could get the 40% off as well. So that is exactly what we did - we both booked for August at the Poly and I got the discount as well, all was well with the world .

Turns out, dsis had to cancel her part of the reservation, as I said earlier, her dh owns a company and this year it just got so busy that taking time off during the busy summer months was not really an option. So she cancelled.

It ended up just being the 4 of us, which actually my dh prefers - when we go w/my parents or another family we always feel that we have to wait for them to catch up.... or wait for them to make decisions on what they want to do or not do - this way we could come and go as we pleased!!

The date was set for August 18 - 25. We decided to fly into West Palm Beach airport since my uncle lives in Jupiter, FL and he's basically alone there, my aunt died a couple of years ago from cancer and we have no other family there. We only see him every 6 months or so and he's thrilled when we are able to pay him a visit. We planned on spending most of the day with him, then taking the 2 1/2 hour drive up to WDW.

I booked the flights with JetBlue (love them), booked a rental car - even though we were on a monorail resort, dh REFUSES to take Disney bus transportation - I think it's because he goes into Manhattan every day and has to take mass transportation (train, bus and subway) and just the thought of having to do that on vacation makes him upset.


I made adr's at the 180 mark, not knowing the park schedules, but we were going to get park hoppers, so, I wasn't too worried.

We were set, all we had to do was wait ....... but the time went fast, too fast, and before we knew it the summer was just about over and it was time for us to leave for WDW!!!

 

[Villainess]

I'm in!

 

[castmemberb4]

I'm in!

Me too ! I love tropical storm trips !

 

[kimisabella]

Seeing that DH has school tonight (he's going back to college so he can become a CPA) I figured I'd jump right into the first installment.....

So, as in the immortal words of Peter Pan, "here we goooooooo......."


We woke up the morning of Monday, August 18th at 3:30 a.m., we had a 6:35 a.m. flight out of JFK into West Palm Beach. I had arranged for a private car service to come pick us up and drive us to the airport since I wasn't going to ask my father (who usually does these tasks) to wake up that early on a work day to take us to the airport. When I called for the car, I told them it was 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 suitcases and 2 carry on's - the man said a Town Car would be fine for us - OK, a Town Car it is.

As we were bringing out our luggage onto the front porch at 4:00 a.m. that morning, I started to think I made a HUGE mistake - not only did we have 2 suitcases, 2 carry on's - we had a stroller, a booster seat, 2 kids backpacks and a partridge in a pear tree.. Oh boy, how was this going to work out????? I looked at DH and told him I really tried to cut down w/the luggage this year, but it seems to have grown .

Just then, the car pulls up in front of the house, and I was relieved - the driver didn't come w/a Town Car, he came w/a HUGE Lincoln Navigator - not only did it have the third row seating, it had a HUGE trunk that fit everything we had and more, if that was even possible. Major pixie dust floating in my head, and I'm thinking, we didn't even leave the house yet and we're off to a great start!!!

We get to the airport in no time - about a 30 minute drive from our house on LI to the airport - we manage to get all of our junk out of the car, pay the driver, walk into the terminal and are shocked - it's not even 5:00 a.m. and there are so many people in this terminal you would have thought the whole state was going somewhere. We finally check our bags and are off to checkpoint #1 - the TSA agent has everyone stand in lines and checks the boarding passes & licenses - he uses some kind of special light and is really scrutinizing our licenses, I mean to the point that it became comical.... I'm all for security checking, but, this guy was over the top.... He kept looking at the licenses, looking at us, the license, his light thingy - I've never experienced anything like that before, but, he was doing it to everyone, so I didn't feel too self-conscious. Satisfied we were OK, he let us through to checkpoint #2 - the dreaded xray machine...

When you see us go through the xray machines, we look like a comedy act, I'm trying to fold the stroller, take the girls shoes off, take my shoes off, take my keys, phone, ect.. out of my bag - dh is taking his laptop, keys, his phone ect. out - we use up about 5 of those tray things with all our stuff and pray that our bags go through without someone pulling us aside.

When everyones stuff goes through with no problems, we are frantically trying to pack up all our stuff, put shoes on, jackets back on, keys, phones, computers back where they belong - all with other people behind us passing us up, it is just pathetic, we have so much stuff.

We walk to our gate and dh realizes he forgot his watch in one of the numerous trays we were using - by this time, it was a good 10 passed, and I tell him to run back over and see if he can sift through the trays and find the watch - it wasn't a "good" watch, just one he could wear to work and not really care if he lost it, BUT - he had just bought the watch a couple of days prior. Starting to lose the pixie dust.

DH comes back a few minutes later and is wearing the watch - I couldn't believe it, we WERE in NYC of all places, I would have thought the watch was LONG GONE - he said it was just sitting on the ground, right where we had our final comedy act of trying to put everything back in it's place - it was a miracle that is all we left behind.

So, we get something to eat and drink, and wait for the plane to board - the plane was supposed to leave at 6:35 a.m. - but when the clock struck 6:15a.m. and there was no activity going on at the litle desk at the gate I started to worry, apparently the plane was coming in from San Fransico and was late - it finally arrived and by the time we got on it and took off we were already a good 45 minutes behind schedule - not to worry, I thought - it's still very early and we'll be fine...... The pixie dust is slowly slipping away.

The flight was uneventful - JetBlue is a savior since they have a TV at every seat which means the kids are quiet for the entire flight. It was such a smooth flight, things were going so nicely, the captain comes over the loudspeaker and informs the passengers and flight crew to sit as we were making our final descent. The plane gets lower, and lower, and lower, and I can see the ground and it's so close, and...............the plane then makes a huge upward swing and we're going higher, and higher, and.....not landing.

Everyone is looking around, no one is saying anything, and the pilot keeps cruising higher and further away from WPB - the thing about JetBlue is that they have a specific channel on their television called the "Live Map" and it shows you exactly where you are, what speed your going, and how high in the air you are. According to the map, we were no where near WPB anymore.

After about 20 minutes, still, no word from the pilot, crew, nothing, the plane lands, the Pilot gets on the intercom and says, "Hello everyone, welcome to...............................Fort Meyers, FL. FORT MEYERS????? WTH? I didn't sign up to land in Fort Meyers - the captain goes on to say that the WPB airport was temporarily closed due to bad weather, and the plane couldn't land - bad weather? I was looking out the window of the airplane and all I saw was blue skies. Now, I know weather changes within minutes in Florida, but, we were thisclose to landing in WPB and now were are on the other side of the state. The pixie dust has officially left.

The pilot comes on to say that he is watching his weather radar and we're going to sit on the plane for a while to see if the weather changes - OK, we'll sit, as long as they keep those TV's on!!! Pilot comes back on 1/2 hour later or so and says there's a band of good weather coming in with a band of bad showers behind it and he is going to time it so he lands the plane into WPB within the band of good weather - but advises us it's going to be a bumpy ride - he then goes on to say if he gets near WPB and he is flying into the bad weather he is not going to land the plane and either come right back to Fort Meyers or land in Sarasota or Orlando.

Now, I am secretly praying that he can't land the plane in WPB and has to land in Orlando, but it seemed that 99% of that plane lived in the WPB area and they all wanted to get home in the worst way - no one on that plane wanted to go to Orlando. We had to wait some more for this "good weather" band and then we were off, back up into the sky headed for the other side of FL - he lands the plane 20 minutes later in WPB after a pretty smooth flight and the airplane errupts in claps and cheers.

We finally deplane, get our bags and suitcases and head for Dollar Car Rental. When I made the reservation, I signed up to be in their Dollar Express club - it was free and it enables you to basically cut the line, so I was all for saving some time - and we were now over 3 hours behind.

We get to Dollar and there are a few families already waiting in line, and 1 employee checking people in. We get in the "Dollar Express" line as the employee is just finishing up w/his customers. He looks over at us and says, "Dollar Express?, come right on up" - now this enfuriates the lady who is waiting on the regular line, and she starts to make a stink - he explains to her that we are express members and we get served first, there was literally steam coming out of her head - she was going on and on about us cutting the line, like we weren't even standing there. Being from NY, I usually don't let someone get away with acting like that towards me or my family, but, I let it roll off my back and decided I wasn't going to make a scene.

At the WPB airport you have to take a shuttle to all rental cars, which I hate, so we get on the bus, now loaded with the full amount of all of our junk, and the driver lets us off at our car - a nice shiny black Chrysler Pacifica. We drive out of the lot and my phone rings, it was my uncle telling me to not worry about coming to visit him since he heard from my mother about the fiasco w/the plane. (The captain let us use our phones since we were waiting so long on the plane)

Since we were only 20 minutes from my uncles house, I told him not to be silly and of course we would still come to visit, but we would't stay long. I would feel terrible just bypassing a visit w/him so I could get to WDW a little quicker.

We got to my uncle's house, and it just lightly raining at that point, nothing too terrible. We go inside and he says he feels so bad, he wanted to take us out for lunch and now the plans were all ruined - I told him not to worry, and we made the kids some sandwiches to eat.

Now my uncle's house is like a museum - he never had any children, it was just him and his wife, so let's just say his house is not "child friendly" He has white rugs - expensive cream colored couches w/beadwork, a lot of old expensive knick knacks and everything is so squeaky clean thanks to his house cleaner that no sane person would want to even walk into the house or attempt to use the bathroom for fear of not knowing which little beaded hand towel to dry their hands on. My girls were finished eating their sandwich's and were starting to play around a bit, I gave them the "stop right now" look, but, they ignored me, and the inevitable happened......

DD#1 knocked over a glass topped table - not only did she knock over the table and all the knick knacks onto the floor, but, the glass top of the table hit into the glass wall that seperates his bedroom from the lanai - I was paralized with fear - I couldn't move, I felt like I was glued to the chair, my dh goes over to survey the damage and I couldn't believe it. Nothing broke, nothing. I still don't know how that is even possible, but everything on that table was in one piece, along w/the glass top of the table that hit the ground w/such force it made me cringe - of course all along my uncle was saying not to worry about it, but, I did a silent sign of the cross thanking my lucky stars that nothing broke.

OK - we were there 1 hour and almost wrecked the place so it was time to leave - we had a 2 1/2 hour drive up to WDW and it was already after 3:00 p.m.

As soon as we walk out the door to our rental car, it starts to pour, and I mean POUR - like crazy.... We drove up to WDW in a monsoon like rain for about 1/2 an hour, then it stopped and when we got to WDW it was sunny and very nice.

Next up .....................FINALLY checking into the Poly after our horrendous travel day. There are pics in the next installment, I promise

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Hey there! Followed your link over from Kat's report.

I am really enjoying your writing.

That flight sounds horrific, glad you finally got to land in your destination.

My grandparents have a museum house, my brothers and I were never allowed to play in any of the room except for one growing up for fear we would break something. Even now I am terrified I will break something when I visit them.

 

[kimisabella]

I'm in!

Me too ! I love tropical storm trips !

Thanks, glad to have both of you along!

Hey there! Followed your link over from Kat's report.

I am really enjoying your writing.

That flight sounds horrific, glad you finally got to land in your destination.

My grandparents have a museum house, my brothers and I were never allowed to play in any of the room except for one growing up for fear we would break something. Even now I am terrified I will break something when I visit them.

Thanks for popping over!
That's exactly why we don't stay over his house - for fear of breaking things - it's just an uncomfortable situation to be in, and the kids were a little antsy from being up since 3:30 a.m. and they knew they were on their way to WDW!

 

[KatGarcia]

saving my place...i'm going back to read!

 

[KatGarcia]

Great start!!!!! See you can do it?! Sorry we didn't run into each other at the airport!

 

[brandi~momof3]

great start, can't wait to read more and see your pics.

on a side note, my dh is a SGT. in the MD State Police, he never went to WDW as a kid. His first trip was when we were dating and we have been 6 times in the 11 years we have been married. He loves Disney as much as I do, thank God! LOL Our 3 kids love it too

 

[kimisabella]

Great start!!!!! See you can do it?! Sorry we didn't run into each other at the airport!

Hi Kat - glad you found it - actually you gave me the encouragement to start the report!! And, after all, you do have a starring role in it.....coming soon!

great start, can't wait to read more and see your pics.

on a side note, my dh is a SGT. in the MD State Police, he never went to WDW as a kid. His first trip was when we were dating and we have been 6 times in the 11 years we have been married. He loves Disney as much as I do, thank God! LOL Our 3 kids love it too

That's so funny how similiar our stories are!! I think I would have taken DH to WDW when we were dating, but, I have strict Italian parents and wasn't allowed to go away before I was married - we couldn't even go away to the Poconos when we were engaged!!!! Glad you could join in!

 

[teruterubouzu]

Hi, you flew in the day we left. I just started my trip report too. We had similar issues with our flights, but in reverse. The first 45 minutes or so when we left Orlando on the 18th were SCARY. I'm looking forward to reading about your stay at the Poly. After visiting it on my last trip, I definitely want to stay there sometime.

 

[kimisabella]

Hi, you flew in the day we left. I just started my trip report too. We had similar issues with our flights, but in reverse. The first 45 minutes or so when we left Orlando on the 18th were SCARY. I'm looking forward to reading about your stay at the Poly. After visiting it on my last trip, I definitely want to stay there sometime.

Hi! Thanks for reading, our stay at the Poly was very nice - I'm going to go into that in the next installment - we try to stay at a different resort each time we visit wdw - we've only stayed at 10 different ones, I believe, so we have a ways to go!!

 

[kimisabella]

Day 1 - Part 2

We survived the drive from West Palm Beach to WDW and arrived around 6:00p.m. to the Polynesian. We parked the car and went into the lobby to check in - that is the most wonderful part of the trip. We only waited about 10 minutes to check in. The cm checking us in was nice, but not overly "disney" it's a good thing we know almost everything about tickets, transportation, and dining since she offered no information regarding any of them.

She gave us our packet and sent us on our way. We were in room 3119 in the Rapa Nui longhouse. I didn't request any specific longhouses or locations because I felt that I wanted to roll the dice and see what we would get.

We went to our car, and using the map, found the small but empty parking lot for Rapa Nui - the nice thing about this longhouse is that the parking lot is so close to the building and it was usually empty. It also has a nice drop/off, pick/up lane in front of the building which was very handy when it was raining, or when we checked in and out. No lugging suitcases around.

We used the elevator to get to the third floor and got into our room. The room was very large, much larger than any other disney resorts that we've ever stayed at. It also had a nice balcony that looked out into beautiful lush gardens and trees.

I was disappointed somewhat because we like to be near to the "action" - the food court, pool, ect. and this was probably the furthest longhouse away from everything.

The big positive about this location is that it is literally thisclose to the TTC. We would walk out of our longhouse and be on the monorail to the MK or epcot within a minute.

Here are some pics of Rapa Nui - or, as my DH kept calling it, "Roopie Nooie"

Outside the longhouse

In the lobby

"I" on the balcony

View from balcony

After we checked in, we were hungry so we decided to go the MK to get something for dinner. As I said, it was just so easy to get to the MK from where we were located - we got into the MK around 7:15 and were catching the end of the dreams come true parade. We walked around for a little while and ended up at CHH for dinner. It was completlely empty in there and was so nice just to relax, eat, and not be rushed. We didn't do any rides as we were so tired from the day, we were just happy to walk around and enjoy all the sights and sounds. It was a beautiful night and I wanted to enjoy it since we all knew Fay was on the way. We were tired and wanted to go back to the resort, but, DH was looking for something sweet to eat (when aren't we) and I suggested we go to the main street bakery for a ice cream cookie sandwich that everyone talks about.

We entered the bakery, is was also empty and asked for two since I figured we'd just split them between the four of us. Well, the CM starts to make the sandwiches and my dh looks over at me and keeps raising his eyebrows as he is watching the cm make this creation. The cm literally kept plopping on so much ice cream that it became comical and we were starting to laugh at the amount of ice cream he put onto one cookie, then topped it with another. I swear, that ice cream sandwich must have weighed 3 lbs. He then tried to put it in a big plastic to-go container, but it was so big it wouldn't close. We were hysterical when we left the bakery and everyone that we past was staring at us and these two HUGE sandwiches we were holding. It was actually quite embarassing - all four of us could have eaten one of them and there would have been some left. Of course, I took my camera out to take a pic, but, I left the battery in the battery charger back at the resort .

We came back to the Poly, changed the girls into their pajamas, and went to the food court so DH could get some coffee, and the girls could play in the arcade for a little while

Lobby of the Poly

Inside the food court

So that ends the first day of our vacation - we went to sleep excited for the week ahead, but nervous about the coming storm.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Good to know about the parking lots at the Poly being close to the building. I plan on staying there in the future and we always rent a car.

At the ice cream sandwiches, those things are huge!

 

[KatGarcia]

That ice cream sandwich is something I always forget is there! I gotta get one next time.

 

[dlwharp]

Day 1 - Part 2

We came back to the Poly, changed the girls into their pajamas, and went to the food court so DH could get some coffee, and the girls could play in the arcade for a little while

Lobby of the Poly

.

Hi just found you - I'm subbing! The girls' pjs are just beautiful! I love them!

 

[teruterubouzu]

Day 1 - Part 2

Sorry you didn't get as close to the action as you wanted, but what a gorgeous view. I just have to stay there someday!

 

[kimisabella]

Good to know about the parking lots at the Poly being close to the building. I plan on staying there in the future and we always rent a car.

At the ice cream sandwiches, those things are huge!

I don't know if all the parking lots are as close in the other areas, but this one was great if you had a rental

That ice cream sandwich is something I always forget is there! I gotta get one next time.

You definatley have to get one next time, but there is NO WAY you will be able to finish it alone, you will have to share it w/your dh

Sorry you didn't get as close to the action as you wanted, but what a gorgeous view. I just have to stay there someday!

The view was really great, but, having 2 dd's that LOVE the pool and are always going for drinks and stuff at the food court, I would have traded the view to be closer to the GCH

Hi just found you - I'm subbing! The girls' pjs are just beautiful! I love them!

Thanks for joining in - I got those PJ's at the Disney Store when they were having a big sale a few months back, I saved them for the trip and the girls would wear them around the resort at night

 

[kimisabella]

Day 2 - Part I - Tuesday, August 19th

This was our first full day at the parks, we woke up and saw that the weather was OK, but we knew what was coming - I decided that we should go to DHS because my girls were going crazing wanting to ride TSM. Before we left, they would show a preview of TSM on the disney channel on one of their "Disney 365" episodes and we would get excited knowing we would be able to ride soon.

We got to DHS about a half hour after rope drop and went right to TSM - we got fastpasses first, then got on the standby line, which was about a 40 minute wait. DH wasn't feeling well so he decided to wait outside while we went on the ride. We finally rode and it is a GREAT attraction, so fun!!

After we rode we were hungry so we went to Starring Rolls Bakery and had some bagels/ muffins for breakfast - while we were eating they started the first show of HSM 2 - my dd's are HUGE HSM fans so we had to choke down the rest of our food so we could see the show (we already had seen this version a couple of times last year, but, that made no difference to them)

Next we went to see "The Little Mermaid" show, very cute, and Ariel is "I"'s favorite princess. We then went into the Magic of Disney Animation, we've never been in there before and it's really cute - there were characters and I really wanted to do the drawing class but "K" didn't want to do it, I should have insisted as I knew that no one would want to sit through that movie again just to get into the attraction. It's one of those things at the time I didn't feel like arguing w/her, but on the other hand I didn't get to do something that I really wanted to do - oh well thats the joys of being a parent!

We then walked around a bit and went into the Muppet 3-D movie, it's always funny and I love those old guys that sit up in the balcony. I remember when I was young they had the Muppet Show on at night, loved it! That was a long time ago!!

It was time to use our fastpasses for TSM so, we went into the fastpass entrance and this time DH came w/us - we all had a good time - that ride can be addicting!!

At that point, it was time for lunch, and we decided to go to Toy Story Pizza Planet - it was close, and everyone likes pizza. The pizza isn't exactly the same as we get at our local pizza place, but, hey - what are you going to do, it's a theme park. I do like the fact that they give you a nice salad w/the pizza (we were on the dining plan) - the meal is really enough for 2 people, or 1 REALLY hungry person - there is no way to eat one of those pizzas, salad, a huge drink, then dessert. My dd's usually shared meals - not to save credits or anything, just for the fact that it was just too much food and it was really a waste to order something for my younger daughter who eats barely anything.

After lunch, we walked around a bit and I believe that is when it started to rain, so we left and went back to the Poly. We had dinner adr's for Le Cellier that night.

We came back into our room and took some silly pics

We stayed in the room for a while and played on the internet - and I was getting worried as I ordered something special for my DH through room service and it was supposed to be delivered at 4pm, but it was almost 5pm at that point and we had to leave for our adr's at Le Cellier.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

I agree, we could never finish off the whole meal when on the dining plan, way too much food!