First Visit to the World - 5/27 - 6/ 6 - Pop Century

[Shadowcat70]

Me , hubby , ds 10 , and dd 7

This is our first WDW trip. We're seasoned veterans of Disneyland and know this is gonna be waaaay different!

Arrival - 5/27...
We left the house very early to catch our 8am flight from PDX. The kids were super excited about their first plane ride and I was a nervous wreck. I hate flying. We flew United and the kids were very well behaved on the flight, which was thankfully uneventful. ;-) Due to the size of the planes (one was an Express commuter and the second a 737), we had to check one of the carry-ons, which we were able to retrive coming right off each plane.

We touched down at MCO around 6:30pm and proceeded to the Magical Express area. It was a bit difficult to find at first, but when we did the rest of the process was simple. They have roped-off queues dedicated to the resorts. You find your resort and follow that queue. We were the only ones there for Pop and were worried about how long it would take, but as soon as we reach the beginning of the line, a cast member hurried right over and guided us to our bus. They put our rolling carry-ons under the bus, and we boarded the Cruise Line style bus with the portal windows. The seats were VERY comfortable compared to the Magical Express bus we ended up taking to the airport on the way back.

By now, our whole family was super excited. The ride to the resort seemed so long because we were anxious to get there. We stopped off at the Caribbean Beach Resort first to drop some folks off there, and then we were on our way to Pop Century. When our bus arrived, there were cast members at the red carpet with a variety of buttons. We each got a "First Visit" right off the bus. It was a great and got our vacation off to a wonderful start. We had checked in on-line, so the process was very speedy, although I did have a bit of trouble understanding the cast member because of their accent and they seemed to speak softly. With our packet in hand, we headed off to find our room.

We had requested either the 80s or 90s because our son is really into computers and thought that was the coolest area of the resort. Luckily, we got a room on the second floor of the 80s building facing group of trees. It was on the opposite side of the pool, so it was quiet. The room was a bit smaller than what we have experienced, but it was fine for us. After unloading the carry-ons at the room, since our luggage hadn't arrived of course, we headed over to the Pop food court for dinner and to pick up our refillable mugs. A thunderstorm had moved in, which was very nice, since in the NW we don't get many of those at all. It had started to rain a bit too (which we get A LOT of here).

It was around 7:15pm and the place didn't seem too crowded. Hubby got in the line for our son's adult chicken nugget meal, and I got in another line for a beef & broccoli, shrimp lo mein, and a kids beef & broccoli. The beef & broccoli was ok, but a bit on the salty side. Hubby said the shrimp lo mein was "meh" (the shrimp didn't have any flavor to it). The highlight of the meal however was my son's chicken nuggets and fries. They were great! Hubby said he noticed in line that the "adult" nuggets where different from the "kids" nuggets. The ones in the kids meals were small, processed and compressed (cheap!), while the "adult" nuggets were obviously real chicken. I'm not sure why that is, but we made a note not to order a nugget meal for my daughter at any time on the trip.

After dinner we kept with our Disneyland trip tradition, and decided to head to DTD. At Disneyland, we just walk on over, but at WDW we knew we had to take a bus. I read somewhere that the DTD bus can take forever, and that info was right! We waited a very long time before one came. We wandered around DTD in the rain, and then headed back to the hotel for bed. A note on the bus service at DTD. There appear to be actually 2 drop-off points. There is one at the Pleasure Island area that would have made it a much shorter walk on the way back from DisneyQuest.

It was around 11pm when we got back, and our luggage was waiting there for us. Hollywood Studios was going to be our first park, and it was Star Wars Weekends, so we were a bit too excited to sleep. Hubby used the room phone to order us up a wakeup call at 6:45am, and to bed we went.

 

[princesslily]

Sounds like a great start!

 

[Belle83]

I'm from the PNW and have always considered myself a disneyland person too Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Shadowcat70]

5/28
This was our Star Wars Weekend day!

I woke up around 6:30am and started to get ready (for some reason, this is my "thing" on family vacations - the early riser!). While I was in the shower, our wake-up call came from Stitch, which the kids nearly slept through. While the rest of the family was getting ready and lathering on the sunscreen, I walked over to the food court with two of our refillable mugs and a couple of packets of Starbucks VIA Mocha. It was a long walk there and back, but by the time I returned to the room the family was just about ready to go. The kids were munching on some pop-tarts and bottled juice, and hubby and I didn't quite have time to finish our coffee.

We cut through the parking lot to get to the buses quicker and didn't have too bad of a wait. I don't remember if we were sitting or standing, but over all on the trip it was about 50/50 for sit/stand. We got to DHS right around 7:45am and there was a crowd, but not as many people as I was expecting. The Stormtroopers and Boba Fett were above us at the entrance gate doing a great job of entertaining the crowd. A bit before 8am, Boba Fett asked the crowd if we wanted to get in. Of course we cheered loudly. He then said he was "lowering the force field" and that we weren't going to tell anyone or he would find us. The schedule said the park wasn't suppose to open until 9am, so as you can imagine the whole park seemed empty. We walked on to Star Tours first thing, but there was something wrong with our vehicle and we had to be moved to another transport. I also wanted to point out that there is wonderful details below the walkway right between when they open the doors to the ride, and the actual ride vehicle. We experienced the opening with Darth Vader trying to use the force to stop our transport, then we were on Hoth! A fight with Boba Fett and Slave I followed. It was AWESOME! I was worried about getting motion sickness from the 3D but oddly enough it wasn't as bad as the older version of Star Tours. As we exited, we grabbed a Star Tours fastpass and hurried over to Toy Story Mania. The was only a 15 minute wait, so we got in line for that.

Looking at a previous post here on the boards, we were on the hunt to find three R2D2 popcorn buckets. One for our family and two more for a few friends. We asked a cast member at the popcorn stand by the Sorcerers hat, but they didn't have any and said they might be getting some in a bit. There were only 3 popcorn locations to get them at, and neither of the other two had them either. After riding TSM and looking for R2, we walked over to the Clone Wars area to look for characters. By this time, it was getting really HOT, and there wasn't much of a breeze at all. I had brought a pump mister from Target with us and was spraying the kids quite a bit to help cool them off. We were standing in line for Commander Cody and it was almost unbareable. I don't know how the costumed characters do it. About halfway through the line, Commander Cody was switched out with Captain Rex, and our daughter promptly told us she wasn't going to get a picture with either of them. Captain Rex and Commander Cody are two of her favorite Clone Wars characters and she was being SUPER shy. I kept telling her that she might not think so now, but she would regret not getting her picture with them later. A bit later Captain Rex switched back out with Commander Cody again and I managed to talk my daughter to go with her brother for pictures.

As we were leaving the Rex/Cody picture area, we saw they were seating for Behind the Force, so we ducked into that building. It was cool inside, with comfy seating, which is what we needed from the heat. The show itself was fantastic! Very, very entertaining and one of the highlights of the day. We also got to see a sneak-peek of the next season. Can't wait!

By this time, the park was getting very crowded and even more hot. We rode The Great Movie Ride, and then figured we would pick up lunch next just to sit down for a bit and cool off. DS and I went to Fairfax Fare for ribs and a PB & J Crustables, while hubby took our son to Rosie's All-American for nuggets. Both lines long and in the sun. By the time we sat down to eat, we were all miserable. The ribs at Fairfax were odd. They were meatly, but almost perfectly square, and the sauce just didn't taste right. Of course the son's nuggets were awesome again, and the daughter's PB&J, well it's hard to ruin that. After lunch, we wandered over to Jabba's Hut to take a look at the merchandise and bought a few shirts and some vinylmations. Afterwards, we took a family vote and decided to go back to the hotel to cool off.

We planned on taking a nap at the hotel, but when we got there it was only the hubby and I that wanted to lay down. lol! The kids had a ridiculous burst of energy. They opened their vinylmations and ended up with Darth, Boba Fett, and Yoda. We hung around the room until late afternoon and then headed back to DHS. It was still very crowded, but no where near as hot and the Hyperspace Hoople was about to start. Still no luck on the R2D2 popcorn bucket either. No one else seemed to have gotten them, and we began to wonder if they had sold out of them the first weekend. The hyperspace hoopla was very funny. We didn't have the best seats, but the kids could see pretty well and that was the most important thing. At the end of the Hyperspace Hoopla, both hubby and I spotted a lady walking around with the R2 bucket!! She directed us to the nearby popcorn cart and they HAD THEM! We were first in the line and bought three (when we asked for three the cast member behind the counter was a bit shocked, hehe). They only had maybe 20 (they were pre-filled with carmel corn) and ran out shortly after we bought ours. We had people throughout the evening asking us where we had gotten them.

We walked over near the Indy Stunt Show, but noticed it was closed for the day, so we ate at the Backlot Express. Hubby and I split the Grilled Turkey & Cheese, which was great, son had his usual perfect chicken nuggets w/fries, and daughter had the Meaty Macaroni, which she gave two-thumbs-up.

We took it slow after dinner, did some pin trading (hubby manage to get the new Boba Fett pin from the Star Wars lanyard set) and took a few photopass pictures. There seemed to be photopass photographers at every Star Wars character meet & greet, but we only saw 2 more down the main street of DHS. Son really wanted to see Fantasmic's second show of the night, so we headed for the venue about an hour early. Three quarters of the street was sectioned off and packed with people. It was night time, but still very warm and being crammed so close together with a huge crowd was miserable. When we finally started to move, it was to another area where we were crammed in like cattle. As this is our first trip, I wasn't sure if this was normal or if it was due to Star Wars Weekends. It was crazy. When we were finally seated it was a great show. We headed back to the hotel after that to get some rest.

Next day - Animal Kingdom!

 

[Shadowcat70]

Set the alarm for 6:45 again, although I was the only one getting up to answer it this morning. We were all a bit tired from the late night at DHS. Breakfast was pop-tarts and juices/extra waters from the QSDP. I skipped the walk to Everything Pop for coffee this morning for two reasons. One, we hardly had time to finish the coffee from yesterday. Two, my normally ever-so-comfy flip-flops were not responding well to the humidity and getting wet on arrival day. My feet were hurting, mostly from the semi-wet straps rubbing the tops of my feet. I tried not to focus too much on them because I didn't want to spoil the trip.

The wait for the Animal Kingdom bus was not to long, the trip itself seemed a bit longer than I was expecting, but our driver was wonderful.
I don't remember her name, but she had so many tips for us! Like if we are waiting for the return bus and the tree line is not behind us we are in the wrong place. Also that is we are in a line at the posted park closing time, we would still be able to ride, etc... she was a joy to ride with.

Getting to the park, the sun was already feeling hot because the lines forming to enter were in the direct sunlight. The kids started to get cranky, so I brought out the Target pump misters early. There was a really cute "opening show" with Mickey and the gang and then they let us loose. We followed the map directly to Expedition Everest. The ride was pretty much a walk-on, but there was one thing about it that was annoying. The entrance to the stand-by line was roped up to the fastpass machines, so people would get their fastpasses and cut directly into the line of guests already waiting. I was amazed at the number of people that did this. Other than that, EE was awesome! The part in the dark going backwards certainly felt like an inverted loop even though I know it wasn't. I also appreciated the "break" at the yeti's shadow between the going backwards and going forwards again because it eased the slight motion sickness I got from the backward part. When we got off the ride, the kids were so excited about going on it. I made them pause a moment so I could take a short video with my phone to try and capture their excitement. As we left the area, hubby grabbed FPs for later.

Next we headed to Kali River Rapids. It was another practical walk-on that early in the morning. We had gone on Grizzly River Rapids at California Adventure, and it was one of the families favs, so we were all excited for Kali. We liked the nice touch of being able to put our "gear" in the center covered part, and boy did we get wet! The downside was that Kali only has one small drop in the middle of the ride, so Grizzly gets our vote for drops. However, Kali was much, much wetter and gets lots of thumbs up for that. We liked Kali so much that we wanted to get FPs for that, but we had already gotten them for EE. =( Too bad we couldn't trade.

Since we heard that Kilimanjaro Safari was one of those attractions with a long line the later it got in the day, we headed over there next. It was about a 30 minute wait by the time we walked over there, and the family was a bit hesitant to wait, but I did my research and explained that the line wasn't going to get any shorter. As we were waiting, cast members were repeated telling guest to make sure we kept up with the person in front of us and take up all available space. Coming from Disneyland, just about every ride I can think of was in a line that was usually no more than 2 people wide. We were finding the lines here were more of holding areas. This confused the kids a bit because of what they have been used to at Disneyland, and they thought people were cutting a lot as the "line" shifted around corners and whatnot. It also made it a lot hotter to be ins such closer quarters with a lot of people. The safari ride itself was nice. Our son didn't seem interested at all until we went over the bridge. That woke him up! There were a lot of animals out and about, and hubby took a lot of good pictures.

After the ride we decided to get some lunch. Our son, who is autistic, will only eat chicken nuggets (in case you hadn't notice so far, lol!), so I had mapped out each place that sold an adult chicken nugget meal at each park. Here at AK, that was Restaurantasorous. We wanted Flame Tree BBQ. So we walked over to buy his and then walked back to Flame Tree for ours. At this time, we were all feeling very, very hot. I had to mist the kids a lot on the walk between food places because they were feeling miserable. But we found a beautiful, quiet, shady and cool table on the water down from Flame Tree where we could see EE in the distance. It was a fabulous spot, and the food was delicious. Both hubby and I had the ribs, daughter had a hot dog kids meal, and son had he usual. The food was fantastic. Ribs were much better than what we had previous at DHS. The rest in the cool shade was just what we needed too. It was a great lunch.

We decided to stop at one of the kids' areas on the way to Dinosaur which started our kids on the trek to get stamps at each kids area. I didn't know they had such a program for the kids, so it was a pleasant surprise. At this point, our boy started to beg us to go back to EE for our FP time, but it was so hot that hubby and I knew we would get motion sickness if we went on it at this time. I tried to explain to my son that Dinosaur was the same type of ride as Indy in Disneyland, and he perked right up and forgot about EE for the time being. Everyone liked Dinosaur. My daughter hadn't gone on Indy as Disney, so Dinosaur was a new ride experience for her and she loved it.

We spent the next part of the day wandering from kids exhibit to exhibit getting stamps and stopping for frozen snacks along the way when we needed to. We saw just one photopass person along our way, but she was very nice and pointed out a gorilla sitting in a nearby stream near a waterfall. On this hot day, I would be there too! One of our last stops in the quest for kids stamps was taking the train to the Conservation Station. By this time, my feet were seriously killing me and I was having a hard time keeping up. The train ride was a welcome break. On the train, a cast member was repeatedly explaining that this train was transportation only and that we would be getting off at the station. She was almost borderline rude about it and repeated the message throughout the whole ride. At the end of the ride, I realized why. Even after all that, there was a number of people that didn't want to get off the train and wanted to ride it back to where they came. They didn't seem all that happy when she told them they had no choice but to get off. We didn't get all the way to the Conservation Station since the kids stamp area was a short walk from the train station. At this kids stop, they had to see if they could identify wildlife in their own backyard. This was by far the most enjoyable of the kids spots. Each kid got a different laminate list of creature to find in the display, and a crayon to mark them off with. Our kids had a blast finding all the different animal hiding around the area. We boarded the train back to the main part of the park after that, and headed to Camp Mickey/Minnie for the last stamp. There, our kids had to take a pledge to protect animals and got an activity book as a completion reward. It was a nice, unexpected souvenir and they enjoyed the activities a lot.

By that time, we were all hot and tired, so we decided to leave the park before closing and head back to the resort. In front the Tree of Life, we spotted a second photopass person and got a few pictures taken. We noticed we didn't see hardly any of them at all throughout the park. Might have been that we missed them in the crowds and the heat, but we were expecting a bit more. I don't remember much about the bus to the resort, other than I was happy to be sitting down in the AC. By the time we got to Pop, we headed to the food court for dinner.

This is where some unbelievable Disney magic happened to me.

Now this isn't the type of magic you might be expecting to read, but let me tell you - it is MAGIC!

Son got his usual nuggets, which tasted great. Hubby got a beef and blue sandwich, which he very much enjoyed, and daughter got a hot dog. I decided I wanted to try the Mom's Night Out meal, which was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn bread and green beans. Now anyone that has known me for an extended period of time knows that I despise green beans. I have hated them all my life. I have hid them under other food growing up. Never EVER cooked them since I left home except for last Thanksgiving as a favor to my hubby and father-in-law who loves them. So here I was with my foil compartment of food and I decided to try a green bean. I LOVED IT! I gobbled the whole serving down before anything else and was craving more. They were soooo good! Hubby was in shock. The kids were in shock. I think they thought I was ill.

So after my miracle green bean magic, we filled up our mugs to take back up to the room and hit the sack for another big day.

Next stop - Epcot Day 1!

 

[Shadowcat70]

May 30 Epcot.

Another 6:45 wake up call from Stitch answered by me, lol! Hubby and I decided to skip breakfast in the room, but we encourage the kids to at least split a pop-tart and then we were off to Epcot. Feet were feeling horrible. Hubby had broke down and bought a pair of crocs at the Pop gift store the night before because his shoes and socks were just too hot. I was thinking about this as well, but figured I'd try one more day, since Pop only had kaiki and navy blue crocs for women.

Got to Epcot early and had to wait in the sun once more. The temp wasn't too hot, but the sun and the concrete made it seem like it was. After we entered the park, we headed straight to Test Track. The ride was basically a walk-on and it was a lot of fun. The whole family really enjoyed it, and it didn't give us any motion sickness so the repeat factor was high for us. As we exited, we grabbed FPs for later. We headed to Sunshine Seasons for breakfast, sharing a breakfast platter and one of the thick wedge style breakfast sandwiches. So yummy!!! We decided to ride Living with the Land after breakfast to let the food settle. We found it nice and relaxing and I was surprise that the kids were really asking a lot of questions about the plants and whatnot. They found it very interesting.

Next stop was Club Cool, which started my son's obsession with trading for Puffle Pins. =)
We also tried all of the soft drinks from the other regions of the world, even the Beverly! We all agreed it was disgusting, lol! The favorites were the Vegi-Beta from Japan and our daughter really liked the one of the far end that had a strong watermelon-like flavor. I will have to research which one that was. We cut through Innoventions and grabbed a time for the Kim Possible Mission. It was marked for noon but it didn't really say where.

We headed to the Seas with Nemo next. My daughter, who dislikes the submarine ride in Disneyland, thought it was great. Of course I didn't mention to here it was a lot like the one at DL, lol! We wandered through the aquarium after the ride, with both the kids getting a kick out of seeing Dori and Nemo's real life counterparts. Our boy really loves watching fish. He could have stayed there for a few hours to say the least. By this time, our FP for Test Track was up, so we headed back. Son spotted a hidden mickey in the line - three gears on a workshop table. This time when we rode Test Track, the sound in the vehicle did not work, so we didn't get the speed increase countdown or anything like that. It was still a fun ride though.

Stopped at the gift shop right as you enter World Showcase, we picked up passports for the kids.

We decided to try to find our Kim Possible Mission next. We stopped at one of the mission locations and they directed us to the UK, where we picked up our phone. Tummies were rumbling so we headed to Japan's Yakitori House. The place was PACKED so we took the food to Liberty Inn where we were getting chicken nuggets for our son anyway. There were plenty of tables in the AC. Hubby and I had the Tonosama Teriyaki Combination with ginger cake, and our daughter had the teriyaki chicken kids meal. He even picked me up a iced green tea for my beverage, which was very refreshing and hit the spot. Lunch was delicious and we all finished every bite. The Kim Possible phone went off twice while we were eating, so hubby press the button on it that indicated he needed more time. After lunch we walked back over to the UK ready to start the mission, but the phone was telling us we were done. I had no idea there was a time limit to when you could complete the mission. I understand this was most likely to make sure no one was hogging the phones, but if we would have know, we would have done the mission before grabbing lunch. We took it back to the cast members at kiosk and they were very helpful. They reset the mission for us and away we went. It was a lot of fun. The kids of course had a blast, and there was a nice surprise that wasn't actually part of the mission. The last part right calls you to a flat at the end of one of the streets, well right around the corner from that, inside the building, was Pooh and Tigger! There was no line at all and their was also a photopass person there taking pictures. It was air conditioned and decorated nicely. I think because it was so out of the way that people don't know it's there.

We made our way to France, and saw one photopass person on the bridge. He set us up to pose so that the Eiffel tower would be in the background (later when we saw the picture, the top of the tower was hidden behind tree branches in every picture. If only we would have moved to the left a few feet! Bah!). He also did a really cute magic shot of the kids holding balloons! Marie was out, which is one of my daughter's favorites, and there was a photopass person there at first, but they left at some point before we got to the line's front. We stopped at the kidcot stops along the way, which was a lot of fun. We didn't see any photopass people in Morocco at all, but I did manage to snap a picture with my phone of hubby in a fez (fezzes are cool!). In Italy we found a photopass person and got some really good pictures in front of the tower and the fountain. She said she had some magic shots too, and took pictures of our daughter slightly turned, and our son waving on a bench (when we checked the pictures back at the resort, nothing had been added to them. I was guess my daughter's pic was going to be wings, and I have no idea what my son's was going to be, but nothing magical was added to them at all. It is frustrating.)

Japan was a dangerous place for us. Too many goodies we wanted to buy! Hubby bought me a pearl, which turned out to be a 7.75mm pinkish-cream. The experience was very exciting and while we waited two people ahead got the silver colored type. They were super happy! lol! Outside of Japan, there weren't any photopass people at all. Very disappointing. We did get the shaved ice in Japan, rainbow of course, and it was delicious! Definately a favorite snack credit for us! On our way to the other countries, we didn't notice a single photopass person. We did notice the heat though, and my feet were simply killing me at this point. I had to take a ton of rest stops along the way just because I was moving so slowly. We managed to go on Maelstrom with about a 15 minute wait, and then we decided to call it a day. We had planned to stay for Illuminations, but just couldn't make it. Along the way to the exit, we saw two photopass people at main walkway up to Spaceship Earth, so we did stop for a few pictures. Once we were out of the park, I took off my flip-flops to walk on the bare cement. It felt awesome. My feet were hurting so badly, I didn't care about walking barefoot. Luckily because we were leaving the park at an odd hour, we got to sit on the way back. Off the bus, my shoes came off again until we went inside to eat at Everything Pop, then on the walk back to the room they came off again. Tomorrow was our waterpark/DTD day, and I told myself I would look for new shoes at DTD, otherwise I wasn't going to survive the week.

We ate once again at Everything Pop, and I had to have another Mom's Night Out with the green beans! So crazy! It wasn't crowded at the food court and the place was relatively clean. The kids liked the TVs on each end of the eating area (was showing Disney channel). Lots of nice guests and helpful cast members there as well. We were really liking the theming of this resort. Pop definitely was a good choice for our family. We had to take the desserts back to the room (this was going to be a routine before we knew it!). We decided not to set the alarm for the next day because it was our off day and we would get to the waterpark when we got there. Off to sleep we went.

Next Day - Blizzard Beach and DisneyQuest.

 

[Shadowcat70]

We woke up around 8am without the alarm and grabbed our bathing suits from the retractable clothsline in the bathroom. I had brought clothes pins with us from home, which really made hanging the wet suits up to dry a breeze. The wait for the Blizzard Beach bus was fairly short, and the bus itself was pretty empty. We also found the park to be relatively crowd-free. Heading to the lockers first, we rented a small one for $13 (with a $5 refund - or a souvenir mug - when you returned the key). The small locker fit a regular sized backpack, 2 pairs of adult shoes, and 2 towels comfortably. We carried our other two towels with us hoping to find a few lounge chairs to put them on. We found an area near the pre-teen activities that would make a good homebase, and found a few regular chairs to put our towel and water bottles on.
Our first stop was a float in the lazy river. Our family could have spent the day just floating around and we would have been happy. Feet were feeling awesome walking around bare. It was very relaxing. We exited the river as close to Teamboat Springs as we could get, and made the climb up the stairs to the top. To our surprise, there wasn't a wait. The loading area for this attraction was very clever. You stepped onto a conveyer that contained the large family tube and by the time you got seated, it rolled you off into the flume. It was a great ride and we had a blast. We went on it lots of times throughout the day and notice there never was more than a 5 minute wait for it. Most likely because of the very clever way the tubes were handled. It was about this time we noticed my daughter's arms were getting some sort of rash on them. We knew it wasn't sunburn because we had been making sure to put on the sunscreen every morning at the resort. I started getting concerned because she said it was itching too. I suddenly wondered if she was allergic to the sunscreen. My mother is allergic to various suncreens that contain chemicals ending in "cane" (like lanocane for instance). I checked the bottle of sunscreen we had brought with us and sure enough, it contained that ingrediant. We went to the nearest gift shop to look at sunscreens and I explained to the cast member there what our issue was. She was extremely helpful and mentioned that she heard something about that, and also heard that Coppertone products had removed that chemical from their product line a while ago. I grabbed a bottle of Coppertone for sensitive skin and sure enough it was "cane"-free. We had the spray on Coppertone at the resort room, but I needed to buy more here because my girl was suffering. Thirteen dollars later, I had her in the restroom trying to gently wash off the old sunscreen and put on the Coppertone. She said it felt good right away, which alone was worth the price. Since we had to go to the locker for money, we decided to eat lunch too. The food was great and my daughter got a pail with hers. On a side-note, hardly any of the snack carts at the waterpark too the dining plan for snacks.

We made an interesting observation while eating. The exotic looking birds that they tell you not to feed at AK seemed to fly over to Blizzard Beach to get fed there. LOL! Smart birds.

On the way back to the locker, hubby realized he didn't have the locker key. Panic set in because we still had valuables in the locker. The key was still in it when we got back to the locker. In a panic we checked EVERYTHING to make sure nothing had been taken. Everything appeared to be there and just the way we left it, thank goodness!

We hung around for a few more hours, floating in the river, riding various flumes and basically having a very relaxing time. My feet were feeling wonderful not to be wearing any shoes, but it was time to put them back on and take the bus back to the resort to change so we could head to DTD. Knowing DisneyQuest was only open until 10pm, we wanted to head over and get our game on ASAP. Along the way there, we stopped in The World of Disney where I broke down and bought a pair of black crocs. They felt pretty comfy when I put them on and I was hoping this would solve the shoe issue. We made the long trek to Disneyquest and started to make our way around the floors. A lot of the games the kids wanted to play were broken, and some of the virtual games were dark, as if they were out of service too. We did have a lot of fun on the Racing section though. Good times! Feeling hungry, we wandered over to the counter service place they have there and saw that it was only open until 7pm. Seriously? Our whole family are gamers, and gamers pretty much stay up late and eat late while they game. Why is the only place to get a meal closed at 7pm? It made no sense at all. We weren't sure how late the places in DTD stayed open, and we HAD to get chicken nuggets for our son. The only place that had them in DTD was the FoodQuest place in DisneyQuest, and the new Pollo Campero which was quite a walk away from where we were. Better being safe than sorry, we had to leave DQ much earlier than we planned to make sure our boy got fed. When we got to the Pollo Campero, we saw it was open until 11pm, which would have meant we were safe, but none of us wanted to walk back to DQ at the moment. After buying chicken for him, the rest of us got meals at Earl of Sandwich. For some reason when we gave them our room card for the QSDP, they told us there was no charge for our meal. Not sure why there wasn't, but it was a wonderful surprise! Daughter had the kids pizza sandwich, I had the The Full Montagu, and hubby had the Earl's Club. It was all super delicious. For dessert, hubby and the daughter had some sort of strawberry parffet and I chose the chocolate brownie sandwich. It was so rich and yummy that I could only take a few bits before having to take the rest back to the hotel with me.

We then lugged our tired and stuffed bodies back to the resort. On the bus ride there, we heard a very entertaining mix of songs.

Next day - First Magic Kingdom Day!

 

[Corrine 1973]

I had to come over because we were at pop at the same time. We were there May 29th- June 3rd. We were by the flower pool in the 60's section. Were also at Epcot on May 30th and did a lot of the same things. We probably saw each other. We got there at 8am but when the main gates opened everyone ran infront of us. We also went to MK on June 1st.

I know that this was your first trip to WDW, but you should consider a GAC for your son if you go back (Guest Assistant Card) I think for autism they allow you to go to alterant entrances such as FP or wheelchair entrances that are alot less crowded.