From Kick'n It at Kidani to Play'n It at Pop adults only p62/63 last thoughts&request

[Mr. I Won't Rent Car]

The only changes we made to our original plans were1) a rental car and (2) an upgrade to the deluxe dining plan!

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[PrincessCaitlin]

I'm in can't wait for the first update!

 

[kschafer]

I had 5 lbs to play with and I made really good use of them.

OK, that seriously made me LOL!

for starting with food porn!!

 

[annnewjerz]

Hi there!

I'm in for this one. I lurked on your Kickin it at Kidani thread, so I figured for this one I was obligated to say hi.

I'm SO GLAD to hear that BWI is better than PHL. We are from around exit 6 on the NJ Turnpike and couldn't find anything super cheap out of PHL for our October trip, so we booked BWI. It's a little over 2 hours from our house---but for $49 each way flights on Southwest, I'll take it!

I was so worried that the BWI airport would be some dumpy little hole in the wall airport and would hate it, but from a few reviews I've been getting recently it seems I'll love it!

Looking forward to hearing more about the trip!

 

[faerieprincess]

LL got in on the first page and felt late - i'm excited to have made it before the second page finished! i'm here!

Sorry you had to deal with the boys' drama (and trauma!) before you left. That's not a great way to start your vacation i'm glad it turned out ok in the end.

 

[disneyfanatic101]

Just found this board/threads.. Very cool idea! Keep them coming

 

[MEK]

Allow me to remind you of Wigd's office........

The funny, but sad, thing is my DH's office does bear a close resemblance to that picture. Ok, maybe not THAT bad, but close, very close.

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I named the rental car the "ADR Car". I got it so we could procrastinate before every ADR and still get there on time. Plus my DH gets nervous if he doesn't have his OWN transportation. When I go solo or with the kids I never rent a car.

I'm in can't wait for the first update!

Hi Caitlin and Welcome!!!! Are your parents back yet? I bet they had as great a time as we did. First real installment coming up tonight!

OK, that seriously made me LOL!

for starting with food porn!!

Food porn starting tonight, except my DH's first entree is pretty weird looking...just wait!

Hi there!

I'm in for this one. I lurked on your Kickin it at Kidani thread, so I figured for this one I was obligated to say hi.

I'm SO GLAD to hear that BWI is better than PHL. We are from around exit 6 on the NJ Turnpike and couldn't find anything super cheap out of PHL for our October trip, so we booked BWI. It's a little over 2 hours from our house---but for $49 each way flights on Southwest, I'll take it!

I was so worried that the BWI airport would be some dumpy little hole in the wall airport and would hate it, but from a few reviews I've been getting recently it seems I'll love it!

Looking forward to hearing more about the trip!

Hi Annnewjerz....Welcome! So glad you came out of lurking and are joining in. I hope you continue to follow along.

You will definately like BWI better than PHL, especially the Southwest terminal. BWI is a big SWA hub. It's no Orlando, but its a lot nicer than PHL. It's much more open and airy. They did a recent remodel there. Plus....and this is important and something to take note of if you usually fly in/out of PHL.....No circling, No back ups, no lines in the sky waiting to land. You just Land at BWI. What a novel concept! Yeah its further, but its definately worth it for $49 flights. Congrats on that!

The trip down 301 to Rt. 50 and across the Bay Bridge is actually a much prettier drive than down 95, but it would be a bit longer for you so I wouldn't recommend it.

LL got in on the first page and felt late - i'm excited to have made it before the second page finished! i'm here!

Sorry you had to deal with the boys' drama (and trauma!) before you left. That's not a great way to start your vacation i'm glad it turned out ok in the end.

Hey faerieprincess! Welcome to my newest TR! So glad to have along for third TR. I promise to get this thing moving along tonight.

Just found this board/threads.. Very cool idea! Keep them coming

Hi Disneyfanatic.....Welcome to my TR and to the Disboards. The trip report threads are a great place to meet lots of fun Dis'ers

 

[dawnbu40]

Hi MaryEllen! Caitlin told me you started your report so I'm in! Sorry you had teenage drama before you left (we had a little ourelves...a bad breakup a week before we left ...guess it goes with having teens!) but hopefully that was the only drama all week! Looking forward to hearing all about the trip!

 

[MEK]

Hi MaryEllen! Caitlin told me you started your report so I'm in! Sorry you had teenage drama before you left (we had a little ourelves...a bad breakup a week before we left ...guess it goes with having teens!) but hopefully that was the only drama all week! Looking forward to hearing all about the trip!

Yeah. I just asked about you and here you are! Wow....Am I psychic????? How was your trip??? I can't wait to hear about it. I can't wait to compare notes.

A breakup? Oh no! Not Caitlin? I hope she is OK.

 

[MEK]

Before I tell you about Pop, I have a quick rental car story. DH and I rented our car from EZ Car rental. We rented a car from there last December and, although it was a striped down Hundai, it was very clean and functional. EZ car had the best price for our September trip, so I decided to rent from them again. The price was $100 for a compact car for 4 days. I never rented a compact before, so I figured "how bad can it be ?" The whole purpose for the car was to get to our ADRs on time. We had ADRs at GF, Boardwalk, the Poly, and the Wilderness Lodge. I figured we needed every advantage we could get to get to our ADR's on time. So I named the car "the ADR car".

Well, when we picked up our car it turned about to be a very small Suzuki. If this was a compact, how small is a subcompact, I wondered ? It must be a car with three wheels. So we looked at this car, figured, "What the heck ?" We got all our luggage in with plenty of room to spare. But no sooner had we started to drive out of the parking garage when my DH declared, "I think there is something wrong with the rear wheels in this car. They are shaking." Great! So I suggested to DH that we just take the car back now if there really was a problem. So DH decided to turn right around. I figured if DH decided to take the car back, it must be really bad.

I let DH handle the negotiations. It didn't take him long to come back with a new set of keys. He said, "they offered me a Toyota corolla or a Jeep Liberty, so I took the Jeep". Wow....talk about an upgrade. Cha Ching! I was thinking about all the $ we had just saved. I remember thinking what a great scam that would be. Rent the cheapest car, tell the attendants there was a problem, and wa la....an upgrade. Seriously though, we would have been fine with the Suzuki, but it did have a legit problem.

So with Ellie, the GPS, leading the way we started our journey to Pop Century. It was after 4pm now and we had a 6pm ADR at Narcoosee's. Time's a wasting...let's get this show on the road. However, as soon as we hit the highway we realized that the Jeep Liberty also had a problem. The steering wheel started to shake at precisely 62mph. We figured it was only a 1/2 hour each way to Disney. Once we got there we would always be driving slower, so we did not return the Jeep Liberty, even though it was sadly in need of a front end alignment. However, if we had needed to do any highway driving on this trip, we would have had to take the car back.

I didn't take any pictures on the way to Disney World. I spent the half hour drive texting the boys to make sure everything was "cool" at home. When we arrived at Pop, I did the regular check-in. I never bothered with the on-line check-in. I did fax a request for a building in the 80's or one in the 70's facing the lake. There was no one waiting to check-in. Haha...so much for the online advantage. The CM who checked me in was really quite gravid with child. Her pin said "9 days until baby". She was really very nice and efficient. Originally she assigned us a first floor room in the 70's. As you may or may not know, I don't like first floor rooms. I think they tend to be noisy with foot traffic. I didn't want to take the chance of noise, so I asked for a non first floor room. She assigned me a new room in the 70's. We asked for our anniversary pins for the big 20th and we were set to go.

We drove the car all the way around to the 80's parking lot. In retrospect, we should have stayed right where we were. The walk from the 80's parking lot to our room was a tad lengthy. When we finally got to our section of the 70's we found Rm 3614. As we slowly approached our third floor room I said, "Whaaaaaaat? Waaaaait! I think I was in this room on my solo trip". Is that possible? There are over 2200 rooms at Pop. What are the chances of the same room twice? But I am about 95% sure this was my room back in January of 2008. I was on the third floor, close to the stairs (2 rooms down). Yup....It's the same room.

It was one of those awesome 70's room that is close enough to be a preferred room, but isn't. Outside of our room was a lovely view of the lake and the big red yoyo on the 60's building. I apologize for not taking any pictures when we entered the room, but I know everyone has seen tons of Pop pictures, so I don't think you are missing out.

We quickly unpacked and we changed into our dinner clothes. Since we were eating at a bunch of signature restaurants, I packed some black slacks with a cute black top. The I changed my jewelry and disgarded my crocs for a black pair of sandals. A quick freshening of the makeup and we were ready to go!

The drive to the GF was filled with excitement. It was really the first time I had ever set foot in the GF. I was really looking forward to this dinner and I felt like my fatigue from "next-to-no" sleep was replaced with excitement. Unfortunately, we learned that the self parking lot of the GF is ridiculously far. Once we found the lot, we had to drive nearly to the back of it to find a spot. It had to be a 1/3 - 1/2 mile walk to the main entrance of the GF. Well, I'm probably exaggerating, so let's say it was 1/4 - 1/3 of a mile. We entered the GF and quickly asked for directions. The we followed them straight to Narcoosee's.

We checked in about 5 or so minutes late. The hostess said, "Happy Anniversary (the second such greeting so far)" and gave us a beeper. We did manage to snap a few shots of the few before our beeper went off.

I barely managed to get these three shots and then our beeper buzzed and we were seated. A few people told me to wait for a window seat, but I didn't. I was tired, hungry, and feeling the Disney high. I was just happy to be here so any seat was fine. However, from my seat I did not have much of a vantage point for pictures. I did take a picture of this very sedate looking light fixture for LL:

Once we were seated we orded cocktails. I know DH had some type of tropical drink we had several types of liquor in it. He declared that it, "really packed a punch". I had a nice sangria.

Narcoosee's also offered us some complimentary champagne that we were more than happy to drink:

For appetizers DH ordered the crab cakes:

I had the mussels which were excellent and plentiful:

I haven't had mussels that good since I chained my bike to a fence, put the freewheel in my pocket, and hopped the T to downtown Boston. Ok this is an ancient memory, but many years ago I did a 4 day bike ride across Massachusetts (I don't think I spelled that right, help me LL) and on the 3rd night of our trip we decided to go into Boston. Remember - no car - we only had bikes and we were sleeping in college dorms. In order to keep the bike from being stolen I was able to slip out the freewheel, which holds the front wheel to the bike. A freewheel will fit nicely in your pocket and no one will take a bike they can't ride.

Ok, so I digress. Anyway, those mussels were mighty good.

For our entrees DH ordered fish. For the life of me I can't remember what kind of fish it was. All I know is the waiter gave him the warning that it was a "whole fish - head and all". I don't know why DH decided to order this. I was the one who was sleep deprived. Well, when it came out it looked like this......

Ok...that is just creepy looking and I love fish. Imagine if you HATED fish! The outer coating just sort of flaked away to a lovely white fish. Unfortunately, the fish was full of tiny bones which did not enhance DH's dining pleasure. He wasn't loving it and regretted that he did not order the tuna.

I had the surf and turf:

You can't really see the lobster tail all that well in this picture. I was just so excited to have lobster tail. I can't even remember the last time I had lobster. It was lovely, although it got a tad rubbery as the time passed. The filets were small, but very flavorable. I gave one to DH because he was still not loving his fish and it was too much food for me to eat. I only had a forkful of the scalloped potatoes that adorned the dish. As far as the broccoli - well I was done counting weight watcher's points, so you know where that ended up!

Dessert was almond cheescake for DH:

This cheescake was amazing. Really, really good! Since I was just coming off a diet and was used to eating next to nothing, I opted for the sugar free sorbet:

The berries were really good. There was a nice size serving of mixed berries in the bottom of the dish, but the sorbet was just ehhhh because it needed more......SUGAR! Seriously, what was I thinking ordering sugar free sorbet!

So up next.... a lovely evening in the MK and "Oh my Aching Feet"

 

[Lady Lallie]

MEK, I have to tell you that a yelped out loud when I saw the fish! All I could think of is that part of Little Mermaid when they are seeing Under the Sea and the fish just plops on the plate. Oh my goodness. That is one huge helping of fish!

I really want to try that almond cheesecake. Narcoosee's just looks like a really nice place. I might have to go there. How dressy was everyone dressed?

Too funny about having the same room at Pop! What are the odds of that happening?

Oh and you spelled Massachusetts correctly.

I love the light fixture too....it looks likes some drinking glasses my grandmother use to have.

 

[wigdoutdismom]

Oh my gosh Mary Ellen, that fish! UGH!!!!

You are a very fine wife to share your steak.

I'm glad you got the Jeep, too bad it was a shakey, shakey beginning with the rental cars....

 

[wsushocker]

The CM who checked me in was really quite gravid with child.

This is going to become my newest catch phrase......Wigd is going to get so tired of hearing me say it!

 

[wigdoutdismom]

This is going to become my newest catch phrase......Wigd is going to get so tired of hearing me say it!

Shocker may find a very large fish stuffed in his mouth if he is too annoying with that little phrase!

 

[Mr. I Won't Rent Car]

But no sooner had we started to drive out of the parking garage when my DH declared, "I think there is something wrong with the rear wheels in this car. They are shaking."

However, as soon as we hit the highway we realized that the Jeep Liberty also had a problem. The steering wheel started to shake at precisely 62mph.

However, if we had needed to do any highway driving on this trip, we would have had to take the car back.

We drove the car all the way around to the 80's parking lot. In retrospect, we should have stayed right where we were. The walk from the 80's parking lot to our room was a tad lengthy.

Unfortunately, we learned that the self parking lot of the GF is ridiculously far. Once we found the lot, we had to drive nearly to the back of it to find a spot. It had to be a 1/3 - 1/2 mile walk to the main entrance of the GF. Well, I'm probably exaggerating, so let's say it was 1/4 - 1/3 of a mile.

​

 

[Diamondintheruff]

Wow! That was some fish! It looks more ornamental than edible.

 

[dawnbu40]

First to answer your questions...yes the break up was Caitlin. Right before we left she found out her bf had been hiding a substance abuse problem She's hurt but she'll be ok thanks!

OMG THAT FISH! We saw someone order that on Wed and it looked awful! I can't imagine having to eat across the table from it

 

[MEK]

MEK, I have to tell you that a yelped out loud when I saw the fish! All I could think of is that part of Little Mermaid when they are seeing Under the Sea and the fish just plops on the plate. Oh my goodness. That is one huge helping of fish!

After my DH ordered it, I saw it plated for another customer and I almost did the same thing. I remember thinking, "DH is not going to like that!" We are still debating what type of fish it was. He says rock fish or sea bass. I thought it was red snapper. I can't find it on the menu at allears, so I give up. All I know is it had boney spikes on its back. Sheesh!

I really want to try that almond cheesecake. Narcoosee's just looks like a really nice place. I might have to go there. How dressy was everyone dressed?

Oh, that almond cheescake was devine. Seriously, it just melted in your mouth. I think that was my favorite dessert all week.

I didn't think people were dressed up at all. Everyone I saw was very casual. I looked about the dressiest there and, believe me, I was not "all that".

Too funny about having the same room at Pop! What are the odds of that happening?

Ya know....I am going to EXPECT that room the next time I stay at Pop. I wanted it named the "MEK room".

Oh and you spelled Massachusetts correctly.

I didn't have any help either!

I love the light fixture too....it looks likes some drinking glasses my grandmother use to have.

I'm glad you like! I think of you every time I photograph a light fixture. Sometimes my DH will say, "what are you doing?" And I reply "well, taking a picture of that light fixture, of course....what else?"

Oh my gosh Mary Ellen, that fish! UGH!!!!

You are a very fine wife to share your steak.

I'm glad you got the Jeep, too bad it was a shakey, shakey beginning with the rental cars....

I know, I know. What a weird presentation. DH doesn't like lobster or I probably would have offered to switch entrees with him because he definately regretted his dining choice. And for the record, he scarfed that steak down. Yes....the Jeep was definately an good upgrade for the ADR car!

This is going to become my newest catch phrase......Wigd is going to get so tired of hearing me say it!

Oh no. Poor Wigd. Shocker is just like a little kid. You always have to watch what you say around him.

Shocker may find a very large fish stuffed in his mouth if he is too annoying with that little phrase!

Good one. Well we all know where to find one freakishly large fish, don't we?

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Touche! You win!

Wow! That was some fish! It looks more ornamental than edible.

Hi Diamond in the Ruff.... Welcome!

Agreed. But that is one ornament I can live without. I just wonder how the heck they got on that coating on the fish. Now there's some creative cooking. NOT!

 

[MEK]

First to answer your questions...yes the break up was Caitlin. Right before we left she found out her bf had been hiding a substance abuse problem She's hurt but she'll be ok thanks!

OMG THAT FISH! We saw someone order that on Wed and it looked awful! I can't imagine having to eat across the table from it

Oh No! Poor Caitlin! That is such a bummer, especially when you really like someone. But she definately made the right decision. She is too lovely of a young lady to get mixed up with that. Yes...Caitlin....we are talking about you. Here's hugs

So you saw the fish,too! It was crazy. Actually the sangria and the champagne made it so I didn't even notice the fish anymore!

 

[MEK]

I can't post a real update now because we are going to Dorney Park for the day, but here are a few more pictures I took on the Narcoosee's deck and as we were leaving the GF to visit the MK.

As we were rushing to catch the monorail I grabbed a few inside pics.....

The floor.....such a beautiful marble floor.....WOW!

The band.....

Phew....made it.....the monorail.......