Girls' Shopping/Eating Extravaganza 2005: 9/8-9/11

[GADISNEYGIRL]

Girls' Shopping/Eating Extravaganza 2005: 9/8-9/11

Trip Report: Girls’ Shopping/Eating Extravaganza 2005 (9/8-9/11)

Me, Rhonda, 30-something, WDW Vet
Friend, Michele, 30-something, fast becoming a WDW Vet

Pre-Trip:
Back in July, my family (me, DH, DS) did a really crazy thing. Decided about 11:30 one Friday morning to go to WDW for the night. We did (you can read my trip report from that little jaunt), but instead of making it easier to wait til January, when we are taking what will actually be this year’s vacation, it got harder!!

Most people we know don’t understand our Disney obsession, so we only told this one family about our trip (I mean, other than all of you!): Michele’s family. We had decided back in early summer to take a trip together (meaning my whole family and her whole family) in February, and we’d already been making those plans.

My DS and her DD are best friends and/or boy/girl friends, depending on the day, or sometimes, the hour. I think my DS is more serious though. He’s already talking “gagement rings”. Oh yes, did I mention that he’s 3 and she’s 4?? Though I certainly support the relationship, I really think we should at least graduate from kindergarten before we discuss rings!

At any rate, when I told Michele about our overnight get-away, she said something like, “Oh, we should do that sometime!” She and I had been talking about a girls’ weekend anyway, somewhere. So I thought, why not a girls’ weekend at Disney? We started making plans for it, then came the free dining offer extended…and we were all set! (There were a few minor glitches in the plan, but it all worked out.)

So… the trip begins!

Thursday, September 8, 6pm

We were taking my car, but Michele was going to drive. Mostly because I don’t see well at night. LOL! For some reason, she thought that was a problem. LOL! I drove to her house (she lives 2 blocks away), we loaded her stuff, I gave her a little “We’re Going To Disney” Bag, which contained M&Ms (her favorite), water bottles, individual wine bottles, gum…you know, the necessities. And we were on our way! We were somewhat concerned about Ophelia, I knew it had been raining down there for days. We figured we’d run into some of it on our trip down. But not a drop of rain! We stopped about an hour from home and grabbed some drive thru food, and kept heading south. It took us about 6 hours to get there. We arrived at Pop Century right about midnight, and I was surprised at the wait to check in. DH and I sometimes drive down at night, and there’s never been a wait before! Eventually it was our turn, we were assigned a room in the 50s (my section of choice) that faced the lake, but we were on the wrong side of the building to have an “Epcot view”. Oh well, that’s okay! We were in the room about 12:40, probably.

In my resort review, I discussed the noise problems at length. This was my eighth stay in a value, and I’ve never heard such noise before!! To the extent that it kept me from sleeping…and just ask my husband, not much keeps me from sleeping! So it was late when I finally drifted off…only to be awoken around 5am by more WHOOSHING toilets. Arg!

Friday, September 9

We got up and moving about 9am. Today was our “big” Downtown Disney Shopping Day. I was going to be Christmas shopping, for the most part. We were kind of slow to get up and out, I think because we were just so wiped out from the drive, and then not sleeping well. But about 11am we headed out, first checking out Everything Pop. I do like their gift shop!

As I recall, we started in Basin, just looking, then took a spin in World of Disney. By that time, we were getting hungry, so we headed to Earl of Sandwich, for our first experience with the (free) dining plan. It was easy! We got our sandwiches (Original for me, Chicken Florentine for her), fountain drinks and desserts, and even found a table~it was close to 1pm, and the place was packed.

The weather was very overcast, and quite cool, by central Florida September standards~low 80s. Still no rain, though by now the skies were looking threatening. We took a spin through Pooh Corner, the Christmas Store, the Art of Disney store, and ended up in Once Upon a Toy. I had just about convinced myself to get DS a box of Potato Head pieces for Christmas. And also, I was on a mission to get something he’s asked for (or is planning to ask Santa for, anyway): the pirate ship with Peter Pan, Captain Hook and other characters. We saw it in February, I know, and I thought we saw it in July, too. But this trip, it wasn’t there. They did have a pirate ship with Pirate Mickey, Pluto, Minnie, and Donald, and some other accessories, and I ended up getting that, along with the Peter Pan playset. The figures aren’t exactly the same size, but close enough that he can still use them with the pirate set. Michele picked up some things, too, and then she also decided to do Mr. Potato Head pieces. She was finished first, so checked out, arranged to have the packages sent to the Pop, and went outside to sit. I kept working on my box, arranging and rearranging the pieces to get the very most in there that I could! I was finally satisfied, had ‘em all stuffed down in there. Went to the register, and the CM was very unfriendly and told me, “You have to be able to close the box.” Okay, no problem, I pushed the top pieces down, and closed the box. No big deal, I was glad to, but I wish she hadn’t been so rude about it~she just had a very unfriendly, I-don’t-feel-like-dealing-with-you sense about her. Arranged to have my package sent to the room, also, and went out to meet Michele. Back to World of Disney. Now that I had seen everything, I was ready to make some additional purchases. I got more items for DS, DH and our little cousin for Christmas, and bought myself a Minnie antenna topper (my “new” car has an antenna!).

While we were in World of Disney, it started pouring. We just kept looking around til it stopped, then ran back over to Basin, and bought a few more items. I got some things for some friends of mine (for Christmas). I was feeling pretty good with how much I’d gotten taken care of…my Christmas list is now shortened considerably!

All that done, we decided we’d spent enough money for the time being, and we wanted to go look at the Moderate resorts, since as of that morning, we decided that in February we were going to stay at a Moderate, instead of the Pop, as was the original plan. I’m telling you, it was LOUD!! We checked out POFQ, POR, CB, and ended at CS. Decision made: Coronado Springs it is!! Though I didn’t expect to, I really liked that resort. Had a good feel to it. I just hope it has better insulation than the values!! When I talked to DH, he was happy to hear we’d chosen that one, because that’s the mod he’s been wanting to try. Mission accomplished, we head back to the room to freshen up before dinner. Now it’s about 5pm, and it is deathly quiet there! Too bad I couldn’t go to sleep then…

We had ARs at Boma for 7:30, and arrived at AKL just before 7. When we stepped out of the car, we were overcome with an “animal smell”~and it wasn’t a pleasant one! I guess it was the way the wind was blowing or something. I’ve never noticed such a smell there before. Checked in at Boma, walked around for just a couple of minutes, and were shown to our table. I really like Boma, this was my second time there. DH was quite jealous that I’d be eating there without him! Michele enjoyed it, too, though I’m not sure she did quite as much as I did! I like the variety, and all the different flavors. More details on our eating experiences are in my dining reviews. After we stuffed ourselves, we checked out the gift shop at AKL. I always enjoy the deluxe gift shops, they have such different items.

Once we left AKL, it was just about 9. I thought we’d have just enough time to get to the Contemporary and see the Electrical Water Pageant. We had to wait about 10 minutes, and then when it began we were too far away to hear all the music (we walked closer as it was ending), but it was still neat. I enjoy the little things like that.

When we arrived back at the Pop, we had a surprise! There was a package on my bed from the Disney Florist. Hmm, what could it be? It was signed “From your Mickey and Minnie Pals”. We opened it up and found two Disney themed knapsacks. Too cute! Michele immediately insisted that it must’ve been my DH, because, as she said, her husband wouldn’t have known he could do anything like that while we were there. I called DH, who vehemently denied having sent them. He insisted that they must be from Minnie. (He later confessed, but he was hoping that we would just think it was part of “the magic”. Even if he did send them, it was still magical! )

It was going to be a much earlier night than the previous one. We were probably in bed by 11…but I still couldn’t shut out the noise and get to sleep. By now I was congratulating myself on deciding to stay at CS in February. (DH and I had already changed our 11 night Pop stay in January to the WL, for this very reason~and we’ve never heard noise like I heard this trip!) I’m happy about both the Jan and Feb changes, even if they didn’t help me for this trip.

Saturday, September 10

We were up earlier on Saturday, we had an agenda! I wanted Michele to see the park opening at the MK, and then we were going to check out all the other deluxe resorts (skipping AKL, since we saw it last night). Keep in mind that we were NOT going in MK, or any other park. Because of the free dining package, we of course had to purchase tickets. But we got the no expiration option, and Michele will use her ticket for our February trip, and I will upgrade my ticket to an AP before our January trip. Weather was great~sunny, with a little breeze. It got pretty warm later in the day, but still nice.

This was one of the only truly negative things that happened on our weekend. My plan was to park at the Contemporary, ride the monorail to the MK, stand outside the gates (obviously, since we weren’t going in), watch the opening, then get back on the monorail and stop at each deluxe on the monorail loop, so Michele could get a good look at them all. We arrived at the Contemporary, and the security guy stopped us, asked what we were doing. I told him we wanted to ride the monorail around the loop to see the deluxe resorts, is that okay? He acted as though he wanted to say no, it wasn’t (I’ve done this several times before!!), but finally said yes, but we could only park there for 3 hours. Well, that’s okay, it’ll just change my plan slightly, because I had also hoped to take the boat from CR to WL, but now we may not have time to do that. Please understand: it was not the exchange itself that bothered me, it was his tone and attitude about the whole thing. We parked where he told us, put our 3 hour permit in the window, and got out of the car. But by now I was thinking about the time, and realizing that if we rode the monorail to the MK, it would take a lot longer, because of stopping at TTC, PR, GF prior to the MK. So I suggested that we walk to the MK instead, and then get on the monorail from there. As we headed towards the walkway, security guy comes out of the building and begins yelling at us. You can’t go there! You can’t go there! You told me you were only riding the monorail! Now, that was true~I had told him we were only riding the monorail. So I walked over to him, and said let me explain why we’re walking. He wouldn’t let me explain, just kept talking over me saying, You CANNOT park here and go to the MK! You CANNOT! Finally I said, Sir!! Would you please let me tell you what it is we are trying to do!! (Thinking to myself, good grief, this is taking so long, we would’ve been better off to ride the monorail instead of walking!) So I explained to him (after he finally shut up) that we were walking to the FRONT of the MK, NOT going in, would stand there, OUTSIDE the gates, watch the park opening, walk up the ramp, enter the monorail, and do exactly what I had told him we were going to do, which was take a look at the deluxe resorts. I could tell he didn’t believe me, I really think he thought we were going into the MK. I know they don’t allow people to park in their parking lots if they are going into the parks, and maybe there are a lot more people who try to do that than I would think. I was not trying to break any rules. My main reason for wanting to park at the Contemporary rather than one of the others was so we’d have access to all the MK deluxe resorts, including the WL, via boat. I hate it when someone thinks you’re doing something wrong when you really aren’t! And I just can’t explain to you what his attitude was. It was like he wanted to arrest me, he was that mean and cold about it. I stressed again to him (I must’ve told him 8 times) that we WERE NOT going into the MK or any other park, and that we would most assuredly be back to retrieve our car from his lot before the 3 hour time was up (though now I’ve wasted 15 minutes having this discussion with him). He finally let us go, but he watched us all the way, and I was just very uncomfortable and anxious over the whole episode. We got to the MK with about 5 minutes to spare before the park opening, which made me cry, as it always does! Then, we walked up the ramp and boarded the monorail, just as I’d told him we would.

We were the only people waiting to board the resort monorail, and I asked if we could sit up front. Yay, we were able to! Some other people came up just as the monorail arrived, and they asked if they could, but we’d beat them to it. At the Contemporary (we didn’t get off, were going to see it last), a dad and little girl joined us in the front. We rode around to the Polynesian, and when we got off, we told the mother that now she could join her husband and daughter in the front. I think riding in the front of the monorail was one of the highlights of the trip for Michele! We explored the Poly, checking out the Wyland Gallery, the giftshop, and just a bit around the grounds. Then back to the monorail. We decided to skip the GF, because I was so worried about the time, and we were having breakfast there on Sunday, so we’d have time to see it then. Instead, we rode back to the TTC, boarded the Epcot monorail, rode the loop around Epcot, back to the TTC, back to the resort monorail, and back to the Contemporary, where we did go in and look in their shops. I really like Bay View Gifts! The reason we were doing this is that Michele has only been to WDW twice before, once as a young teenager (which she says she doesn’t even remember), and then again when their oldest daughter was 7, and she said she had her nose stuck in the Unofficial Guide the whole time, and felt like she missed a lot. That trip, they were there for a week, but only spent half a day at Epcot. I wanted her to be able to see everything and get a little more familiar with it so she could really enjoy herself in February. Plus, it’s just fun to ride the monorail!

We went to retrieve our car with 15 minutes to spare. I really expected Barney (as I took to calling him) to be sitting there on a golf cart, to make sure we departed at the right time. But he was nowhere in sight, and there was another guard on duty at the gate. Too bad, because I wanted to wave to him when we left and tell him to have a magical day. He apparently NEEDED some magic! But he wasn’t there, so we went on our way.

Off to the WL next, where the guard didn’t even look at us, except to see that we had our Pop thing stuck on the dash, just waved us on in. We walked around there for a while, then decided to eat at Roaring Forks, where we both had the Philly Cheesesteak. Then off to the gift shop, and back to the car.

Next up was the Boardwalk (again we were just waved in, no problem). This is one of our favorites (we’ve only stayed there once, though), and I was excited for Michele to see it. I just love the lobby! Then down to the actual Boardwalk. We wandered through the shops, and walked over to the Yacht/Beach club, checked out their shops, back around the loop to the Boardwalk Bakery for a treat, then back to the Pop. We were beat!

But we had a message that our packages were ready to pick up, so down we went to Everything Pop, then back to the room to look at all the things we’d bought and forgotten about. Then we mostly just relaxed for a while before getting ready for dinner at the Concourse Steakhouse…which meant, of course, that we had to go park at the Contemporary again. *sigh* This time, we were just waved in, no questions asked~same as we had been the night before, and at every other deluxe resort we’d visited that day. Again we arrived about 7, for a 7:30 AR. We only waited about 10 minutes for our table. Service here was not great, which I think is a result of the dining plan. But the honey wings and the steaks were fabulous! Sides and desserts were so-so.

After dinner, we had plenty of time to kill, so we thought we would go to the GF after all, so we wouldn’t be rushed on Sunday, when we were trying to leave. Hopped the monorail over, and ended up spending quite a bit of time there. It is a very beautiful place, and we were enjoying the live music. While browsing in one of the shops, Michele decided that on next year’s girls’ weekend, we should stay at the GF and have a spa treatment. Great idea! I just hope SHE’s planning to pay for it!!

Back to the Contemporary, back to the Pop… we were both exhausted, and she fell asleep pretty soon. Not me, and in addition to the “regular” noises, we also had the added pleasure of a crying baby in the next room. It was another night of little sleep for me.

Sunday, September 11

Up fairly early Sunday am, to (sadly) pack up and get out… This was all accomplished in good time, and we were on our way to the GF. This morning the security guard there did ask our reason for being there, and we told him we were going to Park Fare. He was so friendly and cordial, just accentuated how rude the guy was the previous day at CR. I certainly do understand if they need to check why you’re there, etc, but there is no reason for rudeness. The GF guard was very nice and pleasant, just what you’d expect!

Breakfast was a fun affair (Michele’s favorite character is Pooh), but I’ve been there 4 times previously with DS, and it really made me miss him. He loves the characters, and I kept thinking how much fun he’d be having, were he there. The food was yummy, as usual, and it wasn’t all that crowded. We took one more gander around the shops, then headed for DTD for one last hurrah.

Quick spin around World of Disney, where we each made some last minute purchases, then over to the Pin Trading store. I’ve never really been into the pins before, but I had not bought myself anything, other than the Minnie antenna topper, and I found a couple that just really made me smile, and I knew they’d be good reminders of our trip.

Last stop was Earl of Sandwich, where we used our last remaining credits for sandwiches for the trip home, and bottled drinks to stick in the cooler.

All in all, it was a very fun weekend. It was quite different for me~since I’ve been married, I’ve never been to WDW without DH and/or DS, and there were many moments that I wished they could be there with me. Michele enjoyed herself, but she doesn’t LOVE it the way we do (i.e.: She’s not obsessed!) and it was different sharing it with someone who doesn’t feel so attached to it. Not bad, just different! On the other hand, I figure it will be a whole new world, so to speak, when we are there with our families, and she can see it through her two DDs eyes. The trip home is generally spent discussing every minute detail of it, when I’m with DH and DS… this trip home we maybe talked about it for 10 minutes!

When we got home, DH wanted to know every minute detail!! DS was pleased with the items I brought him~the pirate Mr. Potato Head pieces (found them at the Boardwalk) and a Tick-Tock Crocodile pin, whose mouth opens to reveal Captain Hook.

Now…how are we going to wait the 4 months before our next trip?!?

 

[dazzled]

Your trip sounded like loads of fun! I'd love to do a girls trip sometime with my friends!

 

[Alicnwondrln]

sounds like you had a great trip

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoyed reading your report ~ Thanx for posting.

 

[Shelby5514]

I want to take a girls only trip too! If only I didn't live so far away.

 

[3Aumillers]

Rhonda -- If only I lived closer I would love to go to WDW on a girls getaway. I would talk your ear off both going to Disney and returning home. I enjoy reading all of your trip reports. Wish we could have you along with us from 10/1 - 10/9 as our personal tour guide.

 

[kimwim8]

Great trip report! I'd love to be able to go down for a girls weekend....maybe someday! I'm off to go find your dining report!

 

[kathymc]

sounds like you had a blast!

 

[DianaPrincessofWales]

Thanks for sharing your fun experience. I am in desperate need of a girls week-end away so your report really hit the spot!!