It feels like forever ago....17 Days in Disney

[dgagnon519]

I am very late on getting my stuff together for a trip report. We have been home 1 month since our trip and it feels like a year. This was a 17 day trip. It was a much needed trip. My grandmother who raised me passed away 2 weeks before we were set to leave.

This trip would start off with me, DD12, DS10, and cousin who is 14. Our flight was set to leave at 3:50. Mother Nature had a different plan and our flight was delayed an hour due to weather. Luckily our flight was uneventful. We landed in Orlando at 7:40. We are out of minds excited at this point. Finally, we are in Florida. We set off to find Magical Express. Unfortunately, I am awful with directions and took us 20 minutes to find it.

When we finally did get to ME, it took us to our first hotel of this trip. I should have mentioned we are hotel hopping between 6 hotels. Crazy? We know. We are up to challenge. Last trip we did 5. I can tell you after this trip, I will never do more than 4. It went well, but now I know what I like and will probably try 1 new one every trip and do 3 I like already.

Our first hotel is Port Orleans Riverside. We are DVC and have never stayed at a moderate before. We had gotten a great deal on airfare if we changed our flights, so that meant adding a few days to the trip. We arrived at POR at 9:00pm. They had made some errors on a reservation, so it took a litle longer than I expected it to. We had did online check in. We were staying in a Royal Room.

This resort is beautiful, we loved it. Our room location was great. We were placed in the oak manor bldg. It was not to far from the main building. We also were right near the night time movie. The room was beautiful. The kids did not want to leave this resort, but we were only staying 2 nights. I could have stayed there a week. It is one of my favs now and would pick it over some of the DVC resorts.

I am single mom so this trip was on a budget. I had a set amount to spend everyday. We were not doing a dining plan, but I did book quite a few TS meals. We had a late dinner at Riverside Grill. I also bought 4 mugs. I fihured I would note what it cost for us each day. It might help with budgeting for others. I rounded up to the nearest dollar.

The bill at Riverside Grill came to $105. This was for 1 kids meal, 2 pasta your ways, and a bcn cb.

We got back to our room at 10:45 and decided to call it a night.

 

[dgagnon519]

Our plan was to sleep until at least 8:30, especially since we had got to bed late. It did not happen. We were all up at 6:30 wanting to start. We were not doing a park today. The plan was to go to Downtown Disney since we were at location that offered a ferry and we wanted to enjoy the resort.

We left the room at 7:30. The ferry does not start until later we found out, so heade to the bus. We waited 17 minutes for a bus to DTD. It was 8:17. The stores in DTD do not open until 9am or after so we decided to take some pictures. They are so many places to take pics in DTD.

At 9am, we heade to customer relations so I could buy a TIW card, which I have never bought before and was so excited to do so. We then headed to the Xmas store, fun finds, pin traders and had to buy churros. We bought 2 and split them. The highlight of the morning was our churros.

At around 11am, we decided to take a ferry to French Quater for lunch. I wanted to try my TIW and you can't use it at the Riverside CS. We were going to have lunch at Sassagoula. We were so hungry, we went straight for food. It was good, the wait was a little long. Three of us had the shrimp Po boy. It was good, but big. We all had left overs. My son had the spag/meat and he had left overs as well. We grabbed some beignets for the road and headed back to the ferry.

The wait for the ferry felt like forever, but we were so full and none of us had the energy to walk. It did eventually come and we headed to Riverside. We decided it was time for a swim. We went to the pool for about an hour.

We decided we wanted to try surrey bikes. We always say we are going to try them and never do. This time we did. These are not easy. I made one lap before I thought my lefgs would fall off. When we finished the one lap , the CM said "you can go around again" I laughed, I was all set. We took showers and decided to head back to DTD. We were so full from lunch we canx our reservation for Boatwrights.

The kids got tattoos at DTD. They had a Wii station set up. My so had to stop and play. We hung out there for about 20 min. They had a cute set up to take a pic with the mario/luigi theme. The girls enjoyed that. We decided on ice cream for dinner. I know that is awful ,but we were in Disney. We headed to Ghirardelli.

I had a small quake I think it was called. It was mint choc cp and was heavenly. DD had a gold rush and loved it. DS had a sundae with Strawberry ice cream with marshmallow whipped and a cherry. The cousin had vanilla with hot fudge whip and a cherry. Everyone was happy with their choices and we decided to head back to POR.

We made it just in time to stop at the campfire. The kids each did a roasted a mallow and we toured around the resort. We stopped at the movie being shown. It was UP. We did not stay though. We had an MK day tomorrow and wanted to make sure we were up early. It was a great day!!!

Our cost breakdown...

3 tattoos - $16
Ice cream for 4 - $30
Surrey bikes - $24
TIW - $100 with dvc discount
Xmas store - $13 w/ dvc
Pin traders - $20 w/dvc
Churros - $7
Sassagoula - $37 with tiw discount
Fun finder - $21 w/dvc

spent $268

 

[wiigirl]

Following along.

 

[dgagnon519]

We woke up at 6 am and called to have our luggage transferred. We ate some breakfast in our room. We headed out around 7;45 and took the bus over to MK.
We went in right at opening and went straight to Space Mountain. We got a fast pass for it and then went on. We went on Buzz Light year next. We did astro orbitor and then went to see the Monsters laugh floor comedy show. I love that show. We then used our fast pass for Space Mountain. It was now 10:30 and it had been a very good morning so far.
We took a picture with Stitch and a picture with Buzz Lightyear and the White Rabbit. We rode the barnstormer and got a fast pass for Splash Mountain. It was 11:30 am and we decided to head over to the Plaza for lunch .
Our reservation was for 12:10, but we were hungry. We arrived and were able to be seated at 11:45. We were there until 12:50.
It was time to use our Splash Mountain fast pass. Splash Mountain is one of our favorite rides. We then went on the Pirates of the Caribbean. I have never seen the movie, but I still love this ride. We then rode BTMRR had some dole whips and left the park at 2:30.
We decided to head back for 9:15pm. We met Tiana and then went on the Haunted Mansion. We did Enchanted Tales with Belle. We then went on the Little Mermaid ride, which we loved. W visited the Grotto and took pics with Ariel. We rode Dumbo and the Barnstormer and then called it a night around 11pm.

 

[dgagnon519]

In our downtime, we headed to BCV to check in. We wanted to go swimming , but the pool was closed sue to a storm. We booked the hotel for the one night so we could try the pool. We were very disappointed. We decided to go to the arcade while it was raining. It finally stopped raining, but there was another storm coming in. We went for a walk to the Boardwalk. We went and bought some pastry from the Boardwalk Bakery to take to our room. We grabbed some dinner at Boardwalk to Go. We finally got to get in the pool for about an hour which was great.