July 2012. Yes it was hot. Yes it was crowded. Yes it was FUN! ***COMPLETED***

[204charity]

Subbed in! Looks like you girls had a good time, that's for sure! I love how after you've been once, if your memory serves you right, Disney can be a fairly easy vacation to handle! That makes me excited for our next trip!

 

[solana131]

Solana - you are taking DD nd I down memory lane. We want to go back so bad... DD and Lucy have started the agenda for next year.. It's fun to watch Midori go through the motions of planning and Lucy learning. Midori has taken in so much in the past 12 visits, she can plan and agenda all by herself. No more planning for me, I'll let Midori take over from here on out.

I can see July 2013 visit will be a super visit for Midori since Lucy is going.

Oh, I would have a hard time relinquishing control over the planning But how fun for Midori! Yes, it is going to be a very special trip for her!

Yay! So glad Dani liked Space Mountain and that you were able to ride twice in a row. That's how it was when we went on our last trip which is why we were so surprised at the wait when we went in July.

I completely agree about the rope that blocks off Frontierland. We stood waiting one time and the people running over there when they took down the rope was crazy.

Yum! That pretzel sounds really good! I'll have to remember that for next time.

Yeah, well this was only at EMH opening....the rest of the time it was craziness! Even had a FP line out the door once!

Yep, I was scared of being trampled when they finally let us through that rope

The pretzel was fabulous!

Subbed in! Looks like you girls had a good time, that's for sure! I love how after you've been once, if your memory serves you right, Disney can be a fairly easy vacation to handle! That makes me excited for our next trip!

Yay! Welcome Charity!
The planning was much less stressful this time around that's for sure. But some things were worse. I had never stayed at FQ, never had to count on buses for everything, never been in that heat, never dealt with those crowds! But it was nice having my cousin along instead of my grumpy husband and little guy that I would've been constantly worried about (overheating, getting lost in the crowd). It was nice.

 

[solana131]

When we last left off, Dani and I had been to the Magic Kingdom for EMHs and we accomplished a lot. It was now around lunchtime and our tummies were growling. We hopped a bus back to the French Quarter and went back towards our room to grab our mugs. I had to snap a picture of Dani with the cute little alligator band along the way.

When we got back to our room we had the wonderful idea of walking up to Riverside to try their pool and figured we could eat at Riverside Mill food court while we were up there. Now, usually you can only use your refillable mugs at your own resorts food court, but at Port Orleans it is different. Since the two are "sister resorts" you can use the facilities at both interchangeably. So I knew we could eat up there and use their pool with no problems. So off we went on this hot afternoon.

The walk up to Riverside is just beautiful. I was glad we were on the southern side of FQ, so we got the full view of the walk up the river. Even though we were hot from the walk and the pool seemed like a good idea, we were HUNGRY! So we quickly made our way up to the main building to the Riverside Mill.

It wasn't very busy at all for a mid day lunch trip.

We sat way over in the far corner next to the window facing the water wheel. That place was really neat inside. It looked like a huge barn and had way more room than our little Sassagoula Floatworks.

We both decided on the make your own pasta.

It was neat to watch them prepare it right in front of us. I kinda figured they would at least have the pasta all cooked and ready to go, but they even boiled that fresh for us.

I had penne with pesto, with chicken, olives, peas, proscuito....and Dani had penne with alfredo, chicken.....oh I can't remember! It's been over a month! Here's the picture anyway....

They were both so incredibly yummy! And there was so much food there! We could've easily split one....in fact if I had just been paying attention to oopsi's report, I would've seen that. She was doing an update about her experience with the MYO Pasta that very day! But alas....we had to throw our leftovers away. No way would it have kept in our very warm fridge in the room. And with no micro to warm it up... So we stuffed ourselves as much as we dared to stuff ourselves on such a hot day, and headed out.

Now, my mommy told me that you shouldn't swim for a half hour after eating, so like a good little girl, we decided to rent a surrey bike instead Yep, the two most uncoordinated girls in WDW were going to endanger all the lovely people walking about POR on this afternoon!

The people at the rental counter were really really nice and took the time with us to make sure we were comfortable with our weapon before we took off to kill people.

We decided that Dani might make a better driver than me since she just took drivers ed and got her license a few months ago...so we took off around the mill. We went past this beautiful wheel...this shot is from easywdw because there was no way I could loosen my grip to take a picture!

But yes, we drove a surrey bike down that wooden walkway! Thank god no one was coming! It was a nice drive around the back of the river. We got a good look at both Alligator Bayou and the mansions. I think Riverside will be a must do at some point. Some of those hills were really really hard! But we made it back safe and sound.

Continued in next post...

 

[solana131]

Just so you know, my steering wheel was a fake.....it did nothing! It was a little like when you ride with a kid before they get their license and you stomp on your make believe "brake" on the passengers side floor....yeah, it had no effect what so ever when I tried to steer away from the poor lady our running that day And to say nothing of how useless it was when we came across the cute little family with two strollers in our way! Oy.....I don't know why they say we have to yeild for pedestrians, whoever wrote those rules obviously didn't know how hard it is to stop a darn surrey bike!

So anyway...we made it around the circle once and figured it was enough for us. The girl at the counter gave us our money back since we were only gone for about 15 mins. She was nice.

We made our way (with wobbly legs) over to the pool to hopefully cool off a little.

But we both thought it looked way too busy and there weren't any close chairs to keep our stuff. So we walked back to FQ and hopped in our own little sea serpent pool. It was so nice, and not very crowded.

After we cooled off a little, we decided to go back to the room and shower and change. We had watched all the boats passing us on our walk up and back to Riverside and Dani wanted to check out DTD. So we showered, changed and watched Stacey for a bit on tv. Once we were ready it was about 3pm. We headed over to the boat dock and waited.....and waited....and waited some more. Boy, we were having about as much luck with boats as we did with buses.

Finally a boat came and we got out of the hot sun on the pathway which serves as a waiting area at FQ. We were on our way and the breeze felt good. I don't think I even brought my camera because I can't find a single picture from that afternoon.

We weren't at DTD for long. We checked out Goofy's Candy Co, Basin, World of Disney and a few others. I found a really cute dress at Tren-D. It is pink paisley with hidden mickeys all over it. I will take a picture of it tonight and upload so you can see it. Dani didn't find anything (yes, a teenage girl didn't find anything).

We had planned on having some goodies at Ghiradelli, but it was super crowded and we were still really full from our massive pasta lunch. So we just grabbed a couple raspberry lemonade slushies and made our way back to the dock. It was too hot to walk around Downtown.

Soon we were back in our room and getting changed for dinner. I was very excited about this dinner because it was at my beloved Poly. We were eating at Kona! Yum yum yum.

Up next....a great meal and my first DISmeet.....

 

[KatMark]

What a fun update, Suzi. I've always wanted to do the Surrey Bikes, but I'm always afraid I will run someone over. I'm so glad you and Dani got to experience it.

That pasta is making my mouth water right about now.

What a fun afternoon.

 

[solana131]

What a fun update, Suzi. I've always wanted to do the Surrey Bikes, but I'm always afraid I will run someone over. I'm so glad you and Dani got to experience it.

That pasta is making my mouth water right about now.

What a fun afternoon.

It was fun! I had wanted to do the bikes at the Poly in Feb, but we just ran out of time. And now I'm glad I didn't.....the pathways at the Poly are way too narrow and twisty turny to have me at the wheel But there aren't any hills at the Poly, so I guess that would've been better. Also, there really isn't a good place for a kid to sit. If they are small enough they can sit up front, but Bradey would be too big for that and not big enough for the pedals. So I will have to wait until he grows a bit.



I haven't told hubby yet, but I am tentatively planning a November 2013 trip for just Bradey and I. I wanted to go back to see the Christmas decorations, but December is too busy for us and higher crowds at WDW, so I decided on Nov instead. Problem with Nov is that hubby likes to hunt, and that is deer hunting month here in Maine. He usually takes the first week off for a hunting vacation, so I figured that maybe Bradey and I could take that week off too. Bill doesn't really care about Disney, and this would be a great bonding time with my little guy. Of course.....he will be 7 by then So it will be a bit different. But I think I am going to go ahead and book it. Cross your fingers for me that a good discount comes out. I usually do room-only, so I only have to put down one night as a deposit and I can cancel at any time. Here goes.....

 

[KatMark]

It was fun! I had wanted to do the bikes at the Poly in Feb, but we just ran out of time. And now I'm glad I didn't.....the pathways at the Poly are way too narrow and twisty turny to have me at the wheel But there aren't any hills at the Poly, so I guess that would've been better. Also, there really isn't a good place for a kid to sit. If they are small enough they can sit up front, but Bradey would be too big for that and not big enough for the pedals. So I will have to wait until he grows a bit.



I haven't told hubby yet, but I am tentatively planning a November 2013 trip for just Bradey and I. I wanted to go back to see the Christmas decorations, but December is too busy for us and higher crowds at WDW, so I decided on Nov instead. Problem with Nov is that hubby likes to hunt, and that is deer hunting month here in Maine. He usually takes the first week off for a hunting vacation, so I figured that maybe Bradey and I could take that week off too. Bill doesn't really care about Disney, and this would be a great bonding time with my little guy. Of course.....he will be 7 by then So it will be a bit different. But I think I am going to go ahead and book it. Cross your fingers for me that a good discount comes out. I usually do room-only, so I only have to put down one night as a deposit and I can cancel at any time. Here goes.....

Good luck.......

 

[notfrostyjosh]

Thanks for giving easyWDW credit for one of the dozen or so photos you took without permission and claimed that they were your own.

 

[Bouncin-Tigger]

Just to let you know you have been pointed out on twitter and a few of these boards as a photo theif.

 

[dpmfloyd]

Thanks for giving easyWDW credit for one of the dozen or so photos you took without permission and claimed that they were your own.

BUSTED!!!! oh snap.

 

[yellowfish78]

Are we playing find and seek? I found a few!

 

[solana131]

Thanks for giving easyWDW credit for one of the dozen or so photos you took without permission and claimed that they were your own.

Just to let you know you have been pointed out on twitter and a few of these boards as a photo theif.

I just did a google search for the ones I missed with my camera. The only one I knew came from easywdw was the one I said. I didn't know it was illegal to google search and save images. Sorry, I will remove them as soon as I get to a real computer (vs my kindle). And I never "claimed them as my own".....does it say "I took this picture"???

 

[solana131]

All deleted...I am so sorry! I honestly didn't know we weren't supposed to do that! I didn't mean any harm.

 

[GoHerbie]

Josh is our friend ... we should keep him happy. Otherwise his helpful crowd calendar might send us to the MK on a Monday.

He might be ok with keeping the photos in the trip report along with a shameless plug - "some photos copied from www.easywdw.com"

 

[solana131]

Josh is our friend ... we should keep him happy. Otherwise his helpful crowd calendar might send us to the MK on a Monday.

He might be ok with keeping the photos in the trip report along with a shameless plug - "some photos copied from www.easywdw.com"

Lesson learn...I'm so sorry Josh, I didn't mean any harm. If I had realized those other ones came from easywdw, I would've credited them too. They just came up on my google search. I thought ones that couldn't be copied had a copyright on them when you right-clicked. I wasn't trying to pass them off as mine, I had a whole paragraph saying how I had to search online because I didn't take many pictures, but I took it out because I didn't think anyone cared. I am still new to all this forum stuff. I'll get it figured out one of these days. Thanks for letting me know the rules! I love easywdw and everyone should check it out for sure....it's loaded with great info (not to mention great pictures ).

 

[AmyPond]

I don't think it's technically illegal to post images found in a google search in a forum. It's just common internet courtesy to mention where you got the pictures, even if you just say "a google search" that would be better than nothing.

I didn't see you exactly SAY they were your photos. But I did see where you had said stuff about the food court not being very crowded, followed by a photo...which basically implied that photo was taken at the time you were there. So I think it was stuff like that which made it seem like you were passing them off as your own photos, even if that wasn't your intent.

 

[crk1977]

I seldom post, but I wanted to say I have never even heard of easywdw until reading your trip report. Looks like a great site! Also, I am enjoying the report! The sweet cream cheese pretzel looks amazing. I am definitely going to try it on our next trip.

 

[KatMark]

I never heard of the site (but I also don't pay attention to crowd calendars). But it could have been done in a PM to you rather than calling you out on your report to explain the situation.

 

[ShortStuff]

Enjoying your report and it looks as if you are both having a wonderful time!! Looking forward to more of your adventures!!

 

[jennyjinx3]

I never heard of the site (but I also don't pay attention to crowd calendars). But it could have been done in a PM to you rather than calling you out on your report to explain the situation.

no kidding. classy.

moving on....