It all started with a PIN . A first time TR - 3-5 Update

[B&WMickey]

Looks like a wonderful trip.

We have never stayed at POR, but I hope to at some point in the future!

Thanks. I’d highly recommend POR to anyone. We’ve liked it enough to have made this our 3rd time staying there. I’ll keep posting pictures of POR throughout my TR.

Just found your TR. Fantastic pics and narrative. Keep it up. I too am a Disney Dad that LOVES all things WDW! There aren't too many of us that are willing to admit it but I suspect there are quite a few lurking about!

Thanks. Those of us guys that love WDW are a pretty dedicated bunch.

 

[B&WMickey]

Day 1 – Part 4 - DHS - Fantasmic

After spending a good amount of time at OL we decided we should make our way towards Sunset Blvd and Fantasmic. I figured we should get over there by 7ish for the 8 PM show. Along the way we stopped at one of our favorite stores, the Beverly Sunset to pick up snacks. (That is the first time I laid eyes on one of my favorite WDW snacks this trip, the Carrot Cake cookie. As tempted as I was I passed in favor of another type of cookie (sorry forgot the details) and decided I’d wait till our return to DHS later in the trip for the CC cookie.)

We made our way over to the Fantasmic Theater. Since the first show was wrapping up they weren’t letting anyone in from Sunset Blvd. We took up seats on a wall near the theater entrance. With about an hour before show time there were only a few people waiting in line.

We sat down and rested for awhile, that’s when I noticed a CM heading in our direction. He asked us if our kids would like to be honorary Sorcerer’s Apprentices for tonight’s show. He informed us that all that was required was for us to move to the front of the line, be lead into the theater ahead of everyone else and be shown reserved seats with a prime view of the show. Wow!!!!! You bet!!!!!

We hung around outside of the theater entrance on Sunset Blvd and chatted with the CM. What a nice guy. He’s been working at WDW for about 3 years but used to go several times a year when he was younger. He had relatives in Florida and would travel to visit them and go to WDW.

I have to admit it was getting a bit cooler now that the sun was down, probably low 60s. I was starting to regret not wearing a long sleeved shirt or jeans but was still far from cold in shorts and a t shirt. However, it was entertaining observing how some CMs were dressed. You’d think it was 20 degrees outside, jackets, gloves, etc. I admit though I probably couldn’t last 2 hours in a Florida summer.

With less than a half hour to go we were lead into the theater area ahead of the masses now forming on Sunset Blvd. We walked up a deserted pathway to the theater entrance. Once there we stopped and waited for a few more minutes. The rope was essentially dropped back at Sunset Blvd and the crowd was lead up the walkway and were held behind us. At that point a nearby CM on a microphone made the announcement that our kids were the honorary Sorcerer’s Apprentices for this evenings show. Everyone cheered for them, it was very cool.

We were then led ahead of the crowd again under a salute of lighted batons held by the CMs working as ushers that night. At the end of the lighted baton canopy we were given boxes of popcorn and then led into the theater seating area and were shown to seats that were at the top of the center section. The top several rows were roped off and we basically had the whole area to ourselves. Spectacular!!!!!

The show was a lot of fun. DS liked it a lot but DD was scared to death during the big villains part of the show, pretty intense at times. The one thing that was missing was Mickey in his Sorcerer outfit with sparks shooting out of his fingers. From pictures and video clips I had shown him DS was aware that this part of the show existed and kept asking where Sorcerer Mickey was. I had read on the DIS that there was a problem with this effect. I tried to explain it to him but I don’t think he quite understood what I was trying to tell him.

When the show was over we took our sweet time exiting the theater and then strolling down Sunset Blvd. I love DHS at night. All that glowing neon with that Art Deco architecture. Throw in some Christmas decorations and Christmas music and making this our first night, nobody wanted it to end.

After leaving the parks we didn’t have to wait long for our bus. I was also treated to one more bit of joy. When boarding the bus to POR I could hear the chirping sounds of crickets. Now, all felt right with the world.

 

[Chicago Mo]

I'm in!!!
I was there around the same time and stayed at POR. in building 14!
How exciting you were picked for Fantasmic show!!!! LOVE Disney magic!!!

 

[Soarin4Disney]

Another Disney Dad coming aboard!!!

Love your TR so far. Keep the updates coming!!!

 

[B&WMickey]

I'm in!!!
I was there around the same time and stayed at POR. in building 14!
How exciting you were picked for Fantasmic show!!!! LOVE Disney magic!!!

Glad to have along for the ride. I'll have to follow your TR as well. I'm trying to read as many TR as I can of people who were there over the same time period as we were. It'll be great to hear another persons perspective on WDW and POR from the same time period. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as we did.

Another Disney Dad coming aboard!!!

Love your TR so far. Keep the updates coming!!!

Thanks, welcome aboard.

 

[B&WMickey]

Day 1 - Postscript.

Overall Day 1 was highly successful, one could even say Magical. I do have one more anecdote to finish off my Day 1 reporting.

When we got back to our room at 9:30 PM we were greeted by the sight of DME delivering our luggage. About 9 hours after our flight landed!!!!!!!!!!!

Part of me thinks that the reason for the delay was the fact that we had a spilt reservation and then we switched rooms from where we were originally supposed to be located. It’s possible we just got kind of lost in the shuffle.

We didn’t need anything from our luggage that we hadn’t packed in our carry-ons and our luggage technically was there when we got back from the parks so in the end no harm no foul.

For the most part I’m OK with DME. You can’t beat checking your bags at your home airport and then having them show up in your room (eventually). I also love that for participating airlines (like SWA) when leaving WDW you can check your bags at the hotel and not have to deal with them until you get to your home airport.

However, there have been times when we’ve gotten our luggage in less than 2 hours after we’ve landed but the last two times we've been to WDW it seems like we’ve had to wait forever. The best advice I have to offer is to make sure to pack anything you must have when you land in your carryon bags because it might be awhile before you see your luggage.

 

[FosterA]

wow. A long time to wait on luggage. Good thing you had enough stuff and were busy that it didn't matter a whole lot.

Oh...awesome Fantasmic experience!! lucky lucky

 

[mandas08]

What an awesome Fantasmic experience!

 

[jenneth79]

Sounds like a great start to the trip, though you have me a little worried about the room situation from your comments....

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[B&WMickey]

Day 2 – Part 1 – First Full Day

DW always gets up early. Typically by 5 AM back home. By 6 AM she was moving around and went to the POR food court to get some coffee and bring back something to eat. She did pack a ton of food for the kids to have back in the room (Cereal, granola bars, gold fish crackers, etc.). I’m not sure how most people’s kids are but ours have spotty appetites at best. It was nice to have some “comfort” items from home for them to eat, especially in the morning. Not to mention it helped on costs.

(Side Note No. 1: DW packed most of this food in her carryon bag. There are no rules against doing this when flying. However, while going through security it sure had the TSA people buzzing. They pulled her bag out and went through it bit by bit. In the end everything she packed she was ultimately aloud to bring on the plane. She didn’t pack any liquids, so no problems there.)

I was up before 7 AM and headed to the main building to go through the whole checking out then checking back in exercise. I was a little anxious about this. I was still a bit apprehensive that they were going to say they made an error and we’d have to switch rooms.

I was also nervous about getting our UCT tickets added to our room keys. Sometimes this has gone smoothly; sometimes this has gone painfully slow, all depending on the CMs experience or how the computer system is operating that day.

I have to admit It was a bit chilly out this morning. Cold enough to wear a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt. However, I knew based on the forecast that morning that this nip in the air wasn’t going to last long.

I didn’t have to wait long and the check-out/check-in process was very uneventful and yes... no room change. It turns out there was somebody at the next window going though the same thing I was, checking-out then checking back in.

From there I had to head over to the concierge desk to have the UCT tickets added to our room keys. I was able to walk right up without any wait. The CM had no problem adding the tickets to the room keys. While she was helping me the guy who was checking-out/checking back in was now next to me at the other concierge window asking to have his family’s separate park tickets added to his room keys as well.

Within a few minutes I was on my way. I turned around to leave and found that quite the line had grown behind me in a relatively short time. There was also a pretty good line that had grown by the check-in windows. Looks like I picked the right time to head over to the main building to take care of this little business.

From there I headed over to the Riverside Mill (food court at POR). It was still before 8 AM and the food court wasn’t crowded. I ordered the breakfast platter, (scrambled eggs, 2 slices of bacon, 1 sausage link, potatoes and a biscuit) sorry no pics. Grabbed my food and headed back to the room.

After placing the whole room/ticket thing behind me I enjoyed a leisurely morning stroll back to the room, which kind of became my morning ritual on this trip. The pool area was quiet, morning steam rising from the water, the Fishing Hole was getting ready to open, sunny beautiful morning.

I snapped a few pictures on my walk back to the room.

(Side Note No. 2: Oh... one more thing... the squirrels!!!!!!! Oh the squirrels!!!!!!! The squirrels were everywhere this trip and boy were they squirrely. We felt a little like Dug from Up on this trip... Squirrel!!!!!!)

When I got back to the room the kids were up and eating breakfast. After breakfast we got ready and headed to the bus stop. It was an Epcot day, the last day of Food and Wine for 2011.

 

[B&WMickey]

wow. A long time to wait on luggage. Good thing you had enough stuff and were busy that it didn't matter a whole lot.

Oh...awesome Fantasmic experience!! lucky lucky

The Fantasmic experience was definitely one of the big highlights of our trip.

When we were coming back from the bus stop that first night I noticed a luggage cart parked below the staircase closest to our room. I made the joke to DW that they were there delivering our luggage and that is when I looked up and saw the bellhop coming out of our room.

What an awesome Fantasmic experience!

It was one of those things that we’ll definitely never forget. Something that doesn’t happen every time.

Sounds like a great start to the trip, though you have me a little worried about the room situation from your comments....

Looking forward to reading more!

I spent a lot of time worrying about the room situation but in the end it all worked out.

 

[Jake & Crew]

Joining in on your TR~ always wondered about the POR/POFQ resort, would love to stay someday

You are doing a great job with your TR...would never guess it is your first one!

 

[B&WMickey]

Day 2 – Part 2 – Epcot AM – 1

Despite the cool start to the morning the sun was shining and I knew the weather would be warm so shorts and a t shirt again today.

We were at the bus stop by 8:30 and with a short wait we were on our way to Epcot. We’ve always liked F&W and we were excited that it was still going on for our visit today.

Our general plan that day was to hit Future World in the morning, return to POR to swim and rest and then head back to Epcot in the evening to take in F&W.

Our other mission today was to land a stuffed Pascal (Tangled). DD had her heart set on getting Pascal weeks before we left from home. I had done some digging around on the DIS and thanks to all of those that replied I came armed with a list of stores that hopefully would have Pascal. I told her that Epcot had a couple of stores so her hopes were high that morning.

(Side Note No. 1: I kept thinking how awesome it was that we chose to come to WDW a day earlier than originally planned. Initially we booked our trip from Sunday to Saturday to take advantage of the PIN we had gotten.

After making our WDW reservation we still needed to book airfare. Well airfare was quite pricy this year as compared to our most recent trips. Not to mention the flight selections for flying out on Sunday were pretty poor.

We looked into Saturday flights and found that we had a better selection on flight times and prices were cheaper compared to Sunday. We decided to then leave on Saturday and add an extra day to our stay at WDW, hence the split reservation.

I wasn’t able to use the PIN for the Saturday night stay but with it being Fall season for pricing we got a pretty good deal on the one night at POR. In the end it was basically the same price for us to fly out a day earlier and stay an extra day than if we stayed one less day and flew out on Sunday as originally planned.

All day long I kept reminding DW that if we hadn’t decided to extend our trip then today would have been the day we were first getting to WDW and we’d have one less day to enjoy the magic. Extending the trip a day was one of the best choices we made. We accomplished a ton at DHS the night before and here we were bright and early at Epcot for our first full day instead of this being a partial first day and then Monday being our first full day.)

We got to Epcot in time for the rope drop and had every intention of heading to Soarin’ first. However, as we came through the gates we saw Daisy Duck and Stitch signing autographs. We had picked up fresh autograph books for the kids the day before so here was our first chance to use them.

(Side Note No. 2 - It turns out both of our kids love Stitch way more than Daisy. I should explain that my DD isn’t all that much into princesses. I kept asking her if she’d like to have a character breakfast with the princesses over at Akershus. Her answer was always no. I may call her Princess but quite frankly she likes dinosaurs better.... and Pascal, hence our mission today. She’s not much into playing with dolls but give her a good stuffed animal and she’ll be entertained forever.)

 

[B&WMickey]

Joining in on your TR~ always wondered about the POR/POFQ resort, would love to stay someday

You are doing a great job with your TR...would never guess it is your first one!

Thanks... I'll keep the POR posts coming throughout my TR.

 

[Moodyzblu]

Joining in !

POR is such a beautiful resort ! I love the pics.

Can't wait to read more.

 

[FosterA]

I understand that feeling of being happy that you extended your trip and walking around knowing that you made the right decision. Worked out great for you guys to get that extra day of magic in!

Great photos of the resort, keep 'em coming!

 

[B&WMickey]

Day 2 – Part 3 – Epcot – AM – 2

When we finally got to Soarin’ the standby line was less than 30 minutes so of course we got in line. This was the first time I noticed the new interactive games in the queue for Soarin’. The one where you lean your body left or right to steer your bird through the course looked like it could be fun but we weren’t standing there long enough to really see it in action.

While in line we heard several people who had never been to WDW before try to figure out exactly what they were about to experience on Soarin’. When watching the intro video at the point when they show the seats lifting up and towards the screen one of the people let out an audible “whoa!”

I love running into people who are experiencing WDW for the first time. Getting a glimpse of WDW through someone else’s eyes for the first time is really neat. So many of us here on the DIS have been so many times that we kind of forget what it was like the first time we went. For so many of us the reason we keep coming back is because of how special our first trip to WDW was.

We probably didn’t wait longer than 20 minutes before we headed inside the theater. We were in the middle row. Was hoping for a top row. Soarin’ always seems better from the top row but I still love it nonetheless.

As we were getting situated for the ride an elderly man leaned over to me and handed me a plastic golf ball with a set of Mickey ears drawn on it. He told me that during the golf scene when the golf ball is hit at us to pretend to reach out and grab it. How awesome was that!!!!!! I’m glad I’ve been on Soarin’ a number of times that I knew exactly the scene he was talking about.

So the movie starts and we’re flying over California, up over SF Bay, along wild rivers, up snow capped mountains and before you know it we were sailing down a lush green fairway dive bombing some duffers. I prepared for my big moment. Hacker swings and ball comes sailing. I reached my hand in front of my kids towards the screen and said to them “lookout.” Then I nudged Junior to my right and showed him the golf ball in my hand and then placed it in his. The look on his face was priceless. He showed little sister what I caught and they spent the rest of the ride trying to figure things out. When the ride was over I thanked the guy again who gave me the ball and told him he made our kids day. You can't buy magic like that.

After Soarin’ we decided to take in the other FW attractions nearby... Imagination, jumping fountains, Nemo and Turtle Talk with Crush.

After that we were all a bit hungry and decided it was time to get a snack. DW and the kids decided they wanted Mickey Ice Cream bars (believe me, one of my faves and something I’ve been craving since our 2010 trip). But knowing we were in front of the Land pavilion and the awesome Sunshine Seasons food court, I couldn’t resist grabbing one of their fabulous deserts. Chocolate Mousse cake it was.

DD was itching to find Pascal and DW wanted to do a little shopping as well. I told them Mouse Gears was one of the stores that supposedly had him. We decided to split up and the boy and I went to ride Mission Space while the girls did a little shopping and hopefully find Pascal.

Junior and I chose the green side; he’s still a bit timid, which is OK. We both love this ride, freaked out DD last year and DW isn’t the biggest ride simulator fan, even if it’s only the green side. We both had a great time.

After that I picked up some Test Track Fastpasses, just in case, before meeting up with the girls again.

It turns out no Pascal at MG, I told her not to worry we still had more stores to check including one more in Epcot when we come back that night.

After meeting up with the girls we headed over to the Universe of Energy to see Ellen. Both of our kids really liked this attraction when we first did it with them last year. (I think it’s the dinosaurs.) I know this attraction runs the risk of being dated but I still like it. Ellen always has a way of making me laugh.

After that DS had been begging us to ride Spaceship Earth. So we made our way over to SSE only to find it closed. Bummer

At that point we decided it would be a good time to head back to POR and get some swimming in. We promised DS that when we come back to Epcot that evening we’d ride SSE first thing. (Boy, it better be open when we get back.)

A few pics on the way to the bus stop.

 

[B&WMickey]

Joining in !

POR is such a beautiful resort ! I love the pics.

Can't wait to read more.

Thanks for joining in. I'll keep posting more POR pics.

I understand that feeling of being happy that you extended your trip and walking around knowing that you made the right decision. Worked out great for you guys to get that extra day of magic in!

Great photos of the resort, keep 'em coming!

Thanks. It really was the icing on the cake that extra day. The year before we only did 3 nights so getting an extra day on this trip meant so much.

 

[FosterA]

That is just the coolest thing ever about that golfball!!

I see your kids loved the dancing water too!

 

[Soarin4Disney]

Love your pics. Do you mind me asking what camera you have?