Lilo's Mom & Dad Orlando & WDW Trip

[Lilo's Mom]

Our story begins, at the beginning

Featured characters in this our Orlando/Disney Saga:

Me, Donna, age 45. I am an obsessive planner, and certifiably crazy for all things Disney. I have 10 Disney World trips, 4 Disneyland Trips and one Disney Cruise under my belt. My last trip to Disney World was 2002 where DH and I chaperoned a HS Marching Band Trip over Easter (some of us will endure absolutely anything to get our Disney Fix!). This will be my first trip back since having gastric bypass surgery in late 2002, so I am really looking forward to not being so self conscience of my size. There is 154 pounds less of me since my last trip, so I am very excited about that.

DH, Bob, age 46. Not into the planning, but loves to travel and explore. They say that out there in the world everyone has their soul mate and I am very fortunate to have found mine. Both of us got married to our former spouses when we were very young, and we both refer to our first marriages as “Boot Camp” for real life. We came into each other’s lives through our love of movies, and from there found that our backgrounds and beliefs were almost identical. Bob and I find humor in just about everything; we are both easy going and love the simple things in life. Family, friends and our pets are the most important things to us and we both believe that kindness gets you a lot farther than ignorance.

This is a Donna & Bob Trip, our first Disney experience without our kids. Although they are not coming along with us it is important to know who they are for the sake of the unfolding story. Bob’s children are:
DD, Brittany, age 22, and her fiancé, Jose age 25, who have just moved into their first apartment the day before we left for Orlando.

DS, Allen, age 19. Allen is staying at home and is in charge of our fur family. We have two cats, Angel and Doyle and two dogs, Harley and Lilo.


My child is, DD, Kelly, age 20 left for a “Buffy” convention in Pennsylvania the day before we left. Kelly will be gone the first five days of our trip.


DB, Greg, age 42. With all the comings and goings of our supposedly “too old to have any adult supervision” children we have decided that it is best if Uncle Greg keeps an eye on things while we are gone.


The Rankin’s. Sue, age 46, and her children Mindy age 24, Becki age 21, Billy age 9 and David age 5. Way back in the fall of 1997 my DD, Kelly who is now 20 met Mindy in a Backstreet Boys chat room on AOL. They became very good friends that exchanged emails, pictures and phone calls. Both girls wanted desperately to meet, so Sue and I arranged to make it happen at a Backstreet concert in Tampa in December of 1998. Sue and her girls drove down from Connecticut and Kelly and I drove down from Chicago. What followed was a really memorable trip for all the girls, they got to go to three concerts, met Howie from the Backstreet Boys and most importantly we all formed a lasting bond. Here is a picture of the girls and Sue with Howie.

Through the years there have been many trips back and forth between Chicago and Connecticut and finally when Sue and the girls moved permanently to Orlando lots of trips back and forth there. This trip will be a special one because Becki will be getting married, and Sue is finalizing the adoption of Billy and David. The boys have been in and out of the Orlando Foster Parent Program for a long time now. Both boys have also come from abusive situations and have behavioral issues. Billy’s parents gave up their rights to him and cleared the way for his adoption three months ago, David’s parents recently did the same. We will be spending the first five days of our trip celebrating all the milestones that go along with weddings and new family members.

Coming next our five days with the Rankin Family

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Wednesday, May 31st

After having a BBQ lunch with all the kids and Uncle Greg, Bob’s parents drive us to Midway for our flight to Orlando. Although we live about a seven miles from O’Hare airport, we just couldn’t pass up the airfare with AirTran. Roundtrip ended up being $154 a piece for us, so we were totally willing to give up the convenience of hopping the L to O’Hare to save a little bit of money on the flight. This was our first time flying on AirTran and I would definitely fly with them again. The service was friendly, the flight was actually a little ahead of time and the big plus for me was that they have XM radio on the flight. I love music and have been holding off on buying myself an iPOD, so to be able to sit back and relax and listen to a mix of music from the 70’s and 80’s was right up my alley!

Another one of my favorite things about flying into Orlando is the monorail ride from the terminal to baggage claim. For me it sets the mood for the trip, there is something about pulling out of the terminal and seeing palm trees that always puts a smile on my face. I glance over at Bob and he is doing his “vacation dance”, life is good. After a quick trip to the Alamo counter we are given our rental agreement and told that we can pick out any car we want from their lot. Bob gleefully makes his way to the row upon row of cars…this is his favorite part of vacation the rental car. On prior trips he has been miserable stuck with a Focus, and a Stratus that had absolutely no pick up and has also been beyond happy with a Spider convertible that had GPS and XM radio. I decide to just stand at the end of one of the rows while he looks over the cars, because to me if it gets me where I am going, nothing else really matters. After about fifteen minutes he has decided on a 4 door Pontiac G6, red with a sunroof, btw at the end of our trip he liked this car so much that he is considering trading in his Monte Carlo for one. The gentleman manning the checkout kiosk tries to give Bob a map of Orlando, which he refuses. Bob is blessed with a great memory of places, roads and directions. You tell him how to get somewhere once and it stays with him for life! So off we go, first on the agenda is FOOD!

Since the rest of this report will cover all kinds of food, it is probably good to mention that Bob and I are most fond of “basic food”, meat and potatoes; it doesn’t need to get any fancier than that. Not that we don’t appreciate a gourmet meal we just prefer to eat out at places like Outback or grab lunch at Hooters (they really do have good wings, and a pretty good Cesar salad too). We both also have a real fondness for places like the Sizzler which were all over the place in the Chicago land area when we were growing up and have since been long gone. Not wanting to make a trip to I-Drive when we have to be in College Park, we decide to put Sizzler and Malibu Chicken off for a few days and make a trip to the IHOP Colonial Drive. Strangely enough it’s about six o’clock at night, we are in a 24 hours IHOP and we are the only people in the place. It felt like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. The waitress was friendly and was actually originally from Milwaukee, of all the people that waited on us or took care of us during the trip, we never ended up meeting anyone that was born and raised in Florida!

Anyway after some yummy omelets we were back on the road and within ten minutes were pulling into Sue’s driveway. Within the first ten minutes of hugs and kisses we find out that Grandpa Rankin was able to make it down from Connecticut for the wedding, both David and Billy have decided to take the last name Rankin when their adoption happens, we are watching the boys during the rehearsal dinner, and the biggie of the night, Mindy is pregnant! Wow, imagine being mother of the bride and finding out you are about to be a grandmother all on the same day! All of this in 10 minutes…kind of like how I imagine speed dating is. Sue was so happy about both of the girls; Becki has just graduated with honors from St. Augustine and is marrying a young man with a bright future in the FBI. Mindy and her longtime boyfriend Nick are expecting their baby in January, although there are no immediate plans for the two of them to get married, they are both very excited about the baby and will be wonderful parents.

After the commotion died down, Mindy ran up to me and asked me where “The Book” was. What book I innocently asked? She turns to Nick and tells him “Mommy Donna always makes a vacation book with all her plans in it. She illustrates it, gives it tabs and laminates it!” Now Nick is excited asking me where The Book is. Isn’t it sad when people know you that well? I pulled out my binder, which was illustrated, did have tabs for each day, had color coded events, menus and pre-printed envelopes for Mousekeeping. I even had my sign for our door rolled up in a poster tube. I told you I was an obsessive planner!
What a way to end the first day!!!!

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Thursday, June 1st

When I originally started planning this trip last fall I wanted Bob who had never stayed onsite before to have the most magical experience possible. When we looked at the resorts and he saw the prices we immediately passed over all the deluxe properties. We bought our first house together and have two of the kids in college and with an upcoming wedding for DD, Brittany it just didn’t seem feasible to budget for Bob’s first choice of the Wilderness Lodge. Next we eliminated the value resorts because several people we knew described them as “Disney Motel Six”, so that left the moderate resorts. I have stayed at both the Caribbean Beach Resort and the then Dixie Landings, so it was up to me to pick which one we would be staying at. I picked Port Orleans Riverside (sorry, still Dixie Landings to me!) because I love the look of the place and the location. Still, I was curious about the Value Resorts so Bob and I decided to spend our first day in Orlando checking them out.

We started our day off by doing some shopping at the Premium Outlet Mall, where we naturally made a stop at the Disney store. We got some really great bargains on shirts for Bob there and were able to pick up a few gifts for our kids. From there we made it to the Sizzler for lunch then it was off to the All Stars Resorts. At each resort we parked the car and walked around the grounds. Neither one of us is really into sports very much, so All Star Sports was our least favorite of the three. All Star Music was cute, we walked into the main building to use the washroom and it was so chaotic that we quickly got out of there. All Star Movies I thought was the best of the three, the Toy Story area was my favorite. That day was a really hot one, and as we were going back to the car there were tons of people waiting on the buses, none of them looked too happy. Bob decided that based on the looks on those peoples faces that he wanted no part of the Value Resorts….that is until we got to Pop Century.

As soon as we got out of the car and walked into the main building at Pop Century the smile returned to Bob’s face. Everything on the walls, the music in the lobby, and the colors in the food court delighted him. We walked around the 70’s area first and he was singing along with the music they were playing. Gleefully he went from taking pictures of the giant Mickey phone to having me stand by the giant foosball players so he could take pictures of those. Then he spotted some great examples of “Mousekeeping Magic”. In the windows of many of the rooms stuffed animals were posed playing, listening to a walkman, reading and peaking from curtains. He turned to me and asked “Did you pack any stuffed animals?” I replied “No honey, sorry I didn’t.” “Well, we have to buy some so we can get our room decorated!” he tells me. Ok, I am thinking to myself, we haven’t even checked in yet and he can’t wait for Mousekeeping to pose toys in our room. I think to myself, he is not far from becoming a full fledged Disney addict, yippee!

This is my favorite picture of Bob at Pop Century

Not to be out done by Bob and Goofy here I am with Mrs. Potato Head

After two hours spent exploring Pop Century we both agreed that we could easily spend a future visit there! By now it was 6:30 and time to head back to Sue’s house and help with final wedding arrangements!

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Friday, June 2nd

Today it’s our job to pick up Sue’s and Mindy’s dresses from the tailor and then we are watching the boys while everyone else goes to the rehearsal the dinner following that. Bob, Mindy and I hop in the car and head out to pick up the dresses; once we have that taken care of the heat and humidity have gotten the best of Mindy who is having a nasty bout of Morning Sickness. Bob decides the best thing for her would be to get her out of the heat, so we take her to see “Over the Hedge”. Once inside the theatre and with a cold Icee, Mindy is feeling much better. All three of us loved the movie. Hammy was by far our favorite character, and we still will occasionally look at each other and say in our best Hammy voice “I want the cookie!”. It was just too cute.

After the movie it is time to get back to the house so we can meet the boys when they get home from their summer camp program. Since we have already seen a movie today, we don’t want to go back and see another one so we ask Billy and David where they want to go…the answer Chucky Cheese!!!! Oh Boy.

As you can see David had a really good time!

And Billy was doing his share of clowning around.

We spent a three whopping hours at Chucky Cheese with the boys, a personal record for me. I usually last only until the pizza is gone, then I need to seek peace and quiet. This trip wasn’t so bad, sure it was noisy, but all the kids in the place were really well behaved so it wasn’t as painful as it could have been. By the time we got the boys home, had them take their bathes and get ready for bed Sue was calling to tell us that her Dad (Grandpa Rankin) had a small stroke at the rehearsal dinner and was in Orlando Hospital. The doctors felt he would make a full recovery but they were going to keep him for observation for the next 72 hours, so he would be missing the wedding. Everyone was so grateful that he was going to be alright, so they promised him that the wedding party would stop by the hospital before the reception.

It was time to get some sleep for the big day!

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Saturday, June 3rd

Well, today is the big day for Becki and Mike, and was unexpectedly very emotional for Bob. Last June, DD Brittany suddenly broke up with Anthony her BF of 5 years. Everyone had expected the two would become engaged by Christmas time and were very excited for the wedding that was sure to follow. When the breakup came out of the blue Bob was pretty much in shock, over the five years the kids had been together he had come to care a great deal for Anthony and had already felt that he was his son-in-law. Within 24 hours of breaking up with Anthony, Brittany asked her Dad if her friend Jose could move in our house. Bob asked her what her relationship was with Jose, and she told him he was her BF. Now the breakup with Anthony made sense, Jose was waiting in the wings. Bob told Britt there was no way Jose could live with us, so she packed up her things and moved with Jose into the basement of his Grandma’s house.

Ever since then things have been strained between father and daughter. Jose and Brittany got engaged on New Years Eve. Brittany goes to college part time and works full time at David’s Bridal, she makes around $38,000 in commissions a year. Jose works at Game Crazy for $6.10 an hour, he dropped out of High School and has no schooling since then. It’s not hard to see that Bob would like more for his daughter, so being at Becki’s wedding and seeing her so beautiful and happy made him very emotional, and more determined than ever not to be a part of Brittany’s wedding, he doesn’t want to see her throw away her life. I have my work cut out for me trying to convince him that sometimes parents have to let their children make decisions on their own. The best we can do is be as supportive as we can, and be there to pick them up when they fall.

Back to the wedding at hand….Becki and Mike made a beautiful couple

Mindy was radiant too as the maid of honor. I have always thought like she looked enough like Julia Roberts to be her little sister…what do you think?

It was a memorable and beautiful wedding. It’s hard to believe that the young girl I met 8 years ago is now all grown up and married!

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Sunday, June 4th

Did you ever have one of those days that just seemed to move in slow motion? This was one of those because Bob and I knew that the next day we would be checking into Port Orleans, and the start of our Disney vacation. The day pretty much dragged on as we tried to keep the boys happy while everyone was visiting Grandpa at the hospital.

Finally after what seemed like a 48 hour day finally came to a close and we tried to get some sleep before the big day, but like the commercial we were too excited to sleep!!!!

Coming next….it’s finally here, our Disney Vacation! Where the heck is the magic?

 

[missmun52]

Great report. I will be staying at pop in August, hope its nice, i have heard great things.

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Monday, June 5th

Since everyone in the house had to get up around 6:30, we did as well. Bob was so excited to begin his “first official” Disney vacation that he offered to drop the boys off at their summer camp before we headed to Port Orleans. This made Billy and David really happy because they didn’t know that they would be joining us on Saturday in the Magic Kingdom, they thought they were going to be the last ones to say goodbye to us. We drove them the four blocks to their school and Bob got out of the car to walk them in. I was surprised when both boys started to cry really hard. Then it occurred to me, Sue is a single mom, so they have never had an adult male in the house before they didn’t want to see Bob go. Talk about breaking your heart! Bob promised to call them and check on them and told them they could visit us over Christmas. So with sniffles the boys hung their heads and walked into school.

We were officially now on the road to Disney. The plan was to check into Port Orleans, get our Key to The World, return the car to the Car Care Center and head over to Disney Quest. Since it was only 8:30 in the morning, I knew there was no way our room would be ready, but I figured we would still probably have to wait in line to check in. Imagine my surprise when we walked in the lobby and there were five counters open and no guests to be seen. WOW! Bob at this point is so happy that he is practically skipping thru the check in line. We are immediately greeted and called over to the counter by a young lady named Angela. I pulled out my paperwork from the Disney Travel company, handed it to her and gave her our name. Angela welcomed us to Port Orleans Riverside and asked for our I.D. and credit card for room charges….then the first snag hit. Angela tells us that we are going to actually be checking into the French Quarter for the first night, and then we will be moved back to Riverside. What?! Bob’s huge smile has changed to a happy grin, he leans over and whispers to me “That doesn’t sound very magical, can you fix it?” Ok, honey, I think to myself, let me pull out my pixie dust and see what I can do. I ask Angela if there is anyone that I may speak to about the situation. Within seconds a supervisor is headed over to speak with me. It appears that the problem was actually two fold. Angela, who was earning her ears, was trying to assign us a King room as we requested before the 3 pm check in time. There were none available at Riverside, but it somehow she was able to assign us to a room in the French Quarter. If I didn’t want the room immediately and was willing to wait until after 3, I could get my room in Riverside. No problem, hadn’t expected to get a room this early anyway. The supervisor types in a few things and says, we won’t be able to have a King Smoking. “For the first night or the entire stay?” I ask. She then informs me that all of the King bed rooms in the entire resort are non-smoking. Behind me I hear “Oh boy” from Bob who starts backing away from me. Now I don’t want to imply that I am at all unreasonable, but you would think that somewhere along the line with all the contact I have had in the last 9 months with the Disney Travel Company, that someone would have mentioned this to me. Bob knows me well enough to know that it is just best to step away and let me blow off some steam. Poor Angela can see what’s coming, and yet the brave girl stands smiling next to the supervisor. I ask why if all the King Bed rooms are Non-Smoking does every confirmation, and piece of correspondence I have indicate that I have a King Bed SMOKING? The supervisor tells me that she can’t explain that. I turn and point to Bob who is now standing across the room by the front door pouting and tell them that they are ruining his very first Disney Experience…surely there can be something that can be done? Do only people who sleep in double and queen beds get to smoke? How is that logical? The supervisor and Angela step away from the counter and have a talk; I see that Angela is sent to the phone while the supervisor is typing furiously in the computer. They come back to me in about five minutes with a room assignment, in Alligator Bayou 18 as I requested, and a King Bed room. The compromise being that they called and had one of the resort ashtrays placed outside the room on the balcony with a pool chair, so Bob could sit and smoke outside. I still can’t check in until after 3 pm, but Bob can smoke. Next they ask me if I would like to add park tickets to my package. I pull out my beautifully prepared vacation book, with all its index tabs and show them that I have indeed already paid for that. Somehow it was not noted in the main reservation system. This was corrected immediately, and we were given our Keys to the World. Now I think to myself the next time anybody makes fun of my trip planning and my vacation book, I am going to tell them my story of trying to check into Disney World!

With keys in hand, we go back to the rental car and head to the Car Care Center. The return process took an entire 30 seconds, within minutes they had us in a shuttle and asked where we wanted to go. Disney Quest please! Now, I have told this story once on the boards before, so I apologize to those who have already heard this. Seven years ago when Bob and I first met he took me on a date to Disney Quest Chicago. Of the many things we did that day, we built a roller coaster and stood in line to ride it. Once we got in the simulator it became apparent that my 318 pounds were not going to fit. The cast members spent five extremely embarrassing minutes trying to get the harness down and locked so I could ride. They were unable to do it and asked me to leave the ride. I had to walk past a line of people that because of the camera inside the room with the simulator knew that I was unable to fit in the ride. It was the most humiliating experience of my entire life. Conquering the virtual roller coaster now that I am 154 pounds lighter is really important to me. We scan our cards at the door and head directly to the roller coaster. Bob and I take turns picking track, and our end result is a fairly tame roller coaster, I grab the card out of the machine and march my way to the simulator.

Since I had my Gastric Bypass surgery in 2002, there has only been two times when I got emotional over my dramatic weight loss. The first time was six months after surgery when I had to fly to Indianapolis for a business meeting. I sat in the seat on the plane and buckled myself in only to realize that it was the first time since 1984 that I didn’t have to ask for a seat belt extender. I burst into tears I was so happy. The second time was when it was time for me to get my wedding dress. I had tried on the dress I liked around the same time as the airplane incident, and it was a size 24. I didn’t need to purchase the dress until the month before the wedding which was about 8 months after that….the dress I bought was a 14. Talk about water works, I could have flooded David’s Bridal!

Anyway, back to Disney Quest. I handed the card with our roller coaster on it to the cast member at the simulator and he took us into the ride. I sat down and there was lots of room in the seat, he lowered the harness on me and the tears started to flow. Poor guy had such a look of confusion on his face that Bob had to explain everything to him. After a congratulatory handshake and closed the hatch and we rode the ride. If I could have spiked a ball like football players do, I sure as heck would have. Crazy as it sounds I felt like my weight loss saga was finally complete!

We played around Disney Quest for another hour and decided that we wanted to have some lunch. Since we had the Disney Dining Plan we decided to grab lunch at FoodQuest. Because of my surgery I don’t eat a complete meal by myself. I usually share with someone or take what I don’t finish home with me and eat it the next day. Today Bob tells me that he is really hungry so what I don’t finish, he will. We ordered two Philly Cheesesteak, (no onions or peppers) one diet coke, one ice tea and since we get dessert, two apple cobbler bars.

The Philly Cheese were pretty good, lots of meat and cheese. Not too greasy, which is always a plus!

The apple cobbler bars were great! We shared one and packed up the second one for later.

We shopped around for awhile then decided to head back to Riverside since it was almost 3. We had a golf reservation for 6 pm at Oak Trail, and then dinner at California Grill, so we wanted to take a quick shower and unpack our bags.

The bus ride from the Marketplace to Riverside was really quick, and not crowded. In fact every time we took the bus to or from the Marketplace it was practically empty. It was a fairly short walk from the bus stop to our room, where as promised an ashtray and chair were waiting. We went inside called baggage claim and had our suitcases in 10 minutes. I unpacked the suitcases and hung the sign I made on the door. While Bob was in the shower I called the front desk and asked which bus we could take to Oak Trail. They told me that Bell services would call us a cab and give us a voucher.

Up next….Golf, Introducing Bob to pin trading, California Grill and Wishes,

 

[roberrl187]

Congratulations on your weightloss.

Great report so far. I look forward to more.

 

[missmun52]

Congratulations on your weight loss, I am glad you were having a good trip thus far and that everything worked out with the room.
Cant wait to read your next installment.

 

[Lilo's Mom]

By the time I got out of the shower and we got to Bell Services it was 5:30, tee time was at 6:00 and I was in a panic that we wouldn’t make it in time. The cab showed up in less than five minutes and we were at Oak Trail in about another five minutes. Bob usually golf’s here at home with his Dad or during outings with his work. The places he goes to do not allow non golfers on the course, so when he found out that I was allowed to walk the course with him and that he didn’t have to golf with strangers he was excited about the opportunity to golf at Disney. We went to the green house, rented him clubs, picked up a cart to help carry the clubs and we were off. Now I have never been to a golf course, unless you count the miniature golf kind, so this was an entirely new experience for me.

There was one single golfer ahead of us and nobody scheduled after until 6:45, so Bob was able to give me a crash course in golf. Here he is on the first hole.

Since I have to have the world’s worse eye hand coordination I didn’t even want to try hit the ball. If I had played it would have ended up being the longest ever recorded game of golf. So I settled for being the caddy.

It was lots of fun, the walking was nice and we kept seeing deer romp out of the bushes and onto the green. Golfing nine holes took us until 7:45; Bob said we would have finished earlier if the guy ahead of us hadn’t taken so long, but since we weren’t supposed to check in for dinner until 9:00 we weren’t in any hurry. When we returned everything to the clubhouse they called a cab for us to the Contemporary and gave us another voucher.

When we got to the Contemporary, Bob wanted to check with California Grill to make sure that our reservations were correct. Everything was all set for us, even our request to be put by a window. Since we had some time to kill we decided to check out the gift shops. The place we stopped was a pin kiosk that was set up in the lobby between the two gift shops. The last time we had been to Disney World, I talked Bob into chaperoning DD, Kelly’s HS Marching Band on a trip to play at the Magic Kingdom on Easter Sunday. During that trip we stopped at the Wilderness Lodge to look around and Bob bought himself a safari looking hat that came with a pin from each of the parks. At the time he thought the hat was really cool, but didn’t know about pin trading. That was all about to change. At the kiosk the cast member was putting out pins for Cars, two boys around 10 years old were really excited about the pins, so Bob asked them why they were so special. The boys took the time to explain the entire concept of collecting and trading. Recently Bob had found out that his Mom had cleaned out their attic and had thrown away all of his baseball cards from the late 60’s and early 70’s, so when he found out about pin collecting the little boy in him kicked in and he was hooked….BIG TIME. The first purchase he made that night was a lanyard, the plastic piece to put our Keys to the World and Fast Passes in, the four car pins that were out, and a pin for Disney Golf. This turned out to be just the beginning, of what looks like it is going to shape up to being a long term hobby. I decided the only pin I was interested in was Lilo, since that our puppy’s name, so I got a lanyard too and one pin. As we were checking out something in the larger gift shop caught Bob’s eye, so he told me to take a seat in the lobby and wait for him. About five minutes later he is back with a bag that he is holding out for me to take. “Here I bought you a present!” I look in the bag, and there he is in all his glory….PAL MICKEY! Oh my gosh, I read about him a lot during the month before we left for our trip, but I never thought I would end up with one. I must say he was the cutest thing, and everybody wanted to play with him. As I am struggling to free Mickey from his plastic bindings Bob is asking me if we can leave him behind in the room one day to see if the Mousekeeping does anything clever with him. I reluctantly agree since I know how much he is looking forward to this. Now Bob, Mickey and I are headed off to dinner.

We check in at 8:50 and are taken directly upstairs to the California Grill. We are taken to a table in the farthest room, but by a window, our waiter, Ron, is there to greet us. Ron immediately asks if we are on the Dining Plan, we tell him we are, but we would like to use the plan for Bob’s dinner and pay for mine. Ron says that will be no problem and rushes off to get our drink order, ice tea for me and diet coke no ice for Bob. We glance over the menu and decide that we want to order the cheese and sun dried tomato flat bread pizza.

This was out of this world! Bob even thought so and he hates tomatoes.

Bob also wanted the Hearts of Romaine Salad with the Green Goddess dressing

Although Bob is a real fan of Caesar dressing he said that the Green Goddess was just as good.

For his main course Bob had the Oak Fired Filet, which he gave a two thumbs up for. This was his second favorite steak he ever had, the first being the Filet from Ruth Cris.

I had the Sonoma Goat Cheese Ravioli, which was the exact right size meal for me. I really enjoyed it, the cheese was wonderful.

By the time we were done with our meal it was time for Wishes. Ron came over and told us he would have fresh coffee and the dessert menu ready for us after the show, so we walked out to the viewing area. Wishes was absolutely wonderful. I am a very sentimental person and will cry at the drop of a hat. Many times I have been in Blockbuster when they are showing Beauty and the Beast and it is the transformation scene when the Beast becomes the prince. I just stop in the middle of the store and cry my eyes out….every single time. Since I am this way I expected to get choked up, what I didn’t expect was that suddenly it would dawn on me that the last time I stood on top of the Contemporary to watch the fireworks was when Kelly was 4 years old and my Parents, and Grandmother took us to Disney world.
Here are some pictures from that trip in 1989

Dad, Mom & Kelly

Dad, Me, Kelly & Grandma

My mother passed away right after that trip in 1989, my grandmother shortly after her and my Dad right before Kelly graduated from High School. That coupled with that fact that my baby, Kelly will 21 at the end of the month opened up the flood gates for me. Not only was I crying I was sobbing, so hard and uncontrollably I couldn’t even explain to Bob why. Nobody else at our end of the viewing area seemed to notice, or perhaps they were just being polite. Anyway by the time everything was over, I just wanted to get back to our room. While I excused myself to run to the Ladies’ room to fix my mascara ridden face, Bob ordered the carmalized bananas for dessert and had Ron fix it to go. Sorry no picture of that, but Bob said it was the best dessert of the trip.

It wasn’t long after we got to the room that I was out for the night. The next day was breakfast with Lilo & Stitch and parasailing for Bob!

More to Come!

Thanks to everyone for reading the report and your notes of encouragement.

 

[missmun52]

I am sorry to hear about the passing of your loved ones.

I hope that they did something special with pal mickey for Bob's sake, I will be getting one for my DS; do you know how much they cost??

Keep the reports coming, i enjoy reading them.

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Pal Mickey was $65. He takes 3 AA batteries, which I had to replace twice. If you think you are going to buy him, I would suggest picking up the batteries at home rather than pay the $8 for a four pack at the resorts. Bob did eventually get his Mousekeeping Magic

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Tuesday, June 6th

We had breakfast with Mickey and Friends scheduled for 8:30 at the Poly, so not knowing what the buses were going to be like going to the Magic Kingdom, we set a wake-up call for 6:30 so we could get ready. I went first so when I was done, I could grab our cups and dash over to the food court and fill them up while Bob was getting ready. Let me tell you, for us those cups were great, we must have filled them on average of six times per day. Bob is a big coffee drinker and I can’t seem to get enough ice tea or just plain cups of ice in me. Anyway, by the time we got our act together and had made a refill stop at the food court for the cups it was 7:45. The line for the Magic Kingdom bus was really long, and when the bus came people suddenly forgot their manners and were stepping on each other, separating people from their children, it was a mess! We decided to wait for the next bus, which came about ten minutes behind that one. Still it was a disorganized mess, but we managed to get on the bus and were on our way. Once at the Magic Kingdom the easy part was to hop the monorail and get to the Poly. I love riding the monorail, and we laugh every time that recorded message gets to the “please stand clear of the doors” in Spanish, it means you really are in Disney World!

When we got to the Poly naturally Bob had to hit the gift shop and check out the pins, he got three Stitch pins at this stop and quickly added them to his lanyard. We went to check in for breakfast and ended up getting seated right away. Bob and I love breakfast here, not that the food is all that great. There is plenty of it, and it is filling, the pineapple bread is really good, but what does it for us is the people and the atmosphere. When Bob and I were planning our wedding, we had just seen Lilo & Stitch. Since we both had children from our first marriages, we decided that the idea of Ohana fit our situation perfectly, so we had a Hawaiian Themed Wedding in Chicago, followed by a two week Hawaiian honeymoon. It’s not hard to see why we love the Polynesian and the breakfast there. Even if you are not traveling with small children just watching the ones that are there when they see Mickey or any of the other characters come over to them is priceless. It’s hard to leave there having a bad day!

Here is Bob with Lilo

And me with Mickey

And for fun, here I am with Mickey in 2002 right before my Gastric Bypass

Hmmmm, just noticed that Mickey hasn't changed his shirt in the last four years? Cutbacks from Michael Eisner? LOL

Once breakfast was through it was back to the monorail and off to the Contemporary and Sammy Duvall’s for Bob’s parasailing appointment. This was a belated birthday present for Bob and is something he wanted to try on our honeymoon in Hawaii. The day before he was supposed to do it the house we had rented in Kailua Beach was robbed while we were sleeping. He missed parasailing because we were filling out police reports. Because of what happened Hawaiian Airlines gave us a free trip back to the islands last year, so we again made arrangements for Bob to parasail. This time the day before we went on an ATV adventure, and Bob flipped the ATV over the side of the rode, fell out, broke his arm, and tore up his leg when the ATV rolled over him. We decided that perhaps Hawaii was not a place we should visit again this year, so we picked Disney World instead.

We checked in with Sammy Duvall and were told that I could ride along even though I wasn’t going up. Today I was going to be in charge of videotaping his flight. Along with us for the ride were a couple of teenagers who were celebrating their High School Graduation, and a gentleman from Scotland. The kids went up first and Bob was suited up to go next. For a minute I thought he was going to back out, he asked the guy how high he would be flying. When he was told 450 feet, which is higher than the Contemporary, he turned a little gray, but decided he was going anyway. When it got to be his turn, they hooked him up, and away he flew. I was able to get a pretty good view of his face with the telephoto lens on the camcorder, and he looked like he was having the time of his life. I would say he was up there around 10 or 12 minutes and when he came down he told me that he loved it although he felt like he wasn’t in the harness the way he was supposed to be. I was glad that he made it back in one piece and didn’t break anything….that would come later in the trip.

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoyed reading your report ~ Thanx for sharing.

 

[missmun52]

WOW what a transformation, you look GREAT!!!!

I would love to try parasailing but I dont know what I would do with my DS as i could not go without my DH, i know i would need the support (I am a chicken)

 

[OhMari]

Loved those flashback pictures of 1989. I liked the picture of your grandpa or dad in the duck hat.

Glad you had a great time. My boys race 4-wheel atv's. They race on dirt and get hurt way to much. I'm glad your husband is okay and you decided to go to WDW.

 

[Philadisney]

what a great trip report - and you look great too! seems you guys had a fantastic time and crammed a lot of stuff in to the trip - that's the way to do it! parasailing is very cool, I did it on the Disney Wonder cruise I took for college graduation and thought it was wonderful. can't wait to read more!

 

[OhMari]

Thanks for posting.

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Tuesday, June 6th – Magic Kingdom

After successfully mastering parasailing it was now time to head over to the Magic Kingdom, my favorite of the parks. Now, let me start off by saying that I have been in the parks when they have been crowded and when they have been practically bursting at the seams, but this day was something the likes of which I have never seen. It was around 1 pm when we started our walk down Main Street. There were several Disney Photographers out taking pictures so we hopped into a line to get our picture taken, trouble was although we were waiting behind the photographers and tried desperately to get their attention it seemed like they were only interested in taking pictures with families. Now I must admit that they were spending a good chunk of time with larger groups, doing the entire group, just the adults, then just the kids. It must be extremely difficult for the photographers to coordinate all those photos with tons of people wanting their picture taken, so Bob and I decided to just let the families have their turns and we would try again later. So we headed off to Tomorrow land.

The strategy was getting a Fast Pass for Buzz Lightyear, do standby for Stitch’s Great Escape. Fast Pass gave us a return of an hour, so that meant plenty of time for Stitch. When we headed over to the standby area, we were told the attraction was offline, and they didn’t know how long it was going to be that way. So we headed over to the Carousal of Progress, which we were able to just walk on. I have always liked this attraction, sure it is outdated, but it always takes me back to my first trip to Disney World in 1980, whenever everything was so new to me. Plus it gets you out of the god awful heat, and boy was it hot that day! After the show was over we rode the people mover then headed back to Stitch, which was still closed, no Fast Passes being issued, no clue when it would open. Bob spotted a cast member coming out of the doors and asked him if he could tell him what exactly was going on with Stitch. The girl was really nice and told us that a guest got really sick during Stitch’s chili dog belch and thrown up all over the row she was in, and they were having some difficulty cleaning things up. They thought it would be all done and ready to go in 10 minutes, so she told us to just hang out in front of the stand by queue. It turned out that she was pretty darn accurate with her time, because about 10 minutes later we were in Stitch! This was the first time in this attraction for the both of us, and we agreed that it certainly was cute, but it could have been better. We walked out of there and right on to Buzz Lightyear, which is always fun for us since we always try to out do each other with our scores. For the record Bob beat me by a whopping 10,000 points!

After we finished Buzz we decided to head towards Fantasyland. This is where things started to go from bad to worse. I was so hot that the sun block I had on my face was started to melt, and it ran into my left eye, which I instinctively reached up to rub out of my eye…but actually rubbed into my eye. Let me tell you that stuff really burns!!!! I spent the next two hours walking around the park with a wet washcloth held against my eye. If that wasn’t bad enough we kept running into groups of people that were completely clueless about watching their children. First there was the grandmother in the wheelchair who had three of her grandchildren tied to the frame of her wheelchair. The children were wearing those harness things with the lease on them, the kind of thing that is used for toddlers, so they can roam, but not get lost in a crowd. The thing was these kids were between 7 and 10, and too old in my opinion to be using anything like that, in addition to it being a bad thing to tether the kids to grandma! There were other kids in strollers that were climbing out while their parents were looking at maps; other kids were walking along the tops of hand rails. Please don’t misunderstand, I believe that everyone can raise their children the way that they see fit, but please, just because it is Disney World, and there is “Magic” everywhere doesn’t mean that your children won’t get hurt, stepped on or snatched!

Anyway there was one must do for us in Fantasyland, that was Mickey’s PhilharMagic. So we made our way over there and were lucky enough to walk right in. I loved this! I loved it so much that I managed to watch it five times during the week we were there. From there we checked out the wait time on Peter Pan, another favorite of mine. Fast Pass had a return of 8:30 pm (it was 2:30) and the standby was 120 minutes. We passed on Peter Pan, and made our way out of Fantasyland.

Next up we stopped by Pirates, which I knew was closed but I figured we would shop for DD, Kelly who is a big Johnny Depp fan. Insert my mini rant about sizing and Disney Merchandise here! There were plenty of really cute shirts with pictures of Captain Jack; trouble is they are only on “baby tee” shirts. The kind of tight fitting shirts that small girls can wear, any shirt that came in an extra large had either only text on it, or skeletons. As a former plus size person, this is something that I have always thought was unfair, just because you are not an average size 10 or 12 doesn’t mean that you don’t want to wear a t-shirt with a character picture on it! In fact I bet there are lots of older women who would wear t-shirts, jackets, hats, nightshirts with Captain Jack Sparrow on them! I wish someone in merchandising would wise up and start making more items for plus size people. There, that’s the end of my rant. We bought some patches and buttons for Kelly and headed on our merry way,

Now I was ready for Dole Whip, so we walked over to the stand, and I got in line, and Bob went to the smoking area for a cigarette break. There were two counters open at the stand, with two people manning the registers and about four people filling cups and the soft serve machines. Each line had five people in it so I decided to join the line on the left. 45 minutes later I was still in the line, not kidding 45 minutes later. Why you ask? The two cast members at the cash registers would take an order, fill part of it, talk to each other in Spanish, then forget what they were doing and would have to ask the customer what the rest of the order was, then finish the order, collect the money. Then the same process was repeated again. There was way more socializing than waiting on people. When I finally got to the counter, the girl at my register walked away. The other register the cast member was attempting to fit five Pineapple Floats into a 4 cup tray. The poor customer took the tray, then stepped back two steps and the tray collapsed, and he was covered in Pineapple Floats. The female cast member at my register burst out laughing, and then all the cast members started to laugh. I felt so sorry for the man who was now wearing a Pineapple Float suit, he looked up at the young man who had given him they tray…and the laughing stopped cold. Five Pineapple Floats were made and the man was given some wet towels. I got my float and walked away from the counter flabbergasted by they behavior of the cast members. Bob was waiting across from the stand and saw the whole thing. He said, enough is enough, let’s go to guest relations.

Guest relations had a fairly long line, but things moved really quickly and before we knew it, we were at the counter. I started off by telling the hostess about all the good experiences we had during the day in the park, because I have worked customer service before and I know from experience that people will go out of their way to complain, but rarely will they take time to compliment. I ended up filling out five comment cards for outstanding cast members, while Bob told the Dole Whip story. Needless to say a food service supervisor came right over to guest relations, and someone was sent to the booth. Apparently the Dole Whip stand was pretty much how we left it, so they pulled those workers off the stand and put different people in their place. I have never seen anything taken care of that quickly, I was impressed.

By now Bob had enough with the parks, and it had been a long day with breakfast, parasailing the magic kingdom and my now swollen eye, so we made our way to the bus back to Port Orleans. This is where we encountered another example of parent’s checking their brains and letting their children do what ever they wanted. There was a little girl of about 10 practicing like she was on the balance beam on the hand rails of the bus queue. The parents were deep in conversation and completely ignoring her, and then she started jumping from rail to rail, almost missing a couple of times. Had she of missed she would have cracked open her head on either the rail or the concrete. There are signs all over the place that say “Please don’t stand on the hand rails.” The parent’s didn’t seem to care until Bob said rather loudly “ I could make a pretty decent living testifying for the Walt Disney Corporation against fraudulent injury claims” Suddenly the parents grabbed the little girl and made her sit on the sidewalk.

The bus ride back was uneventful. We stopped at the food court filled our cups headed to the room, changed into our swimsuits and went to the pool. We both loved the hot tub, and we met lots of really nice people at the pool. Dinner that night was in the food court, blackened prime rib sandwiches and brownies for dessert. Sorry, didn’t have the camera because we had been at the pool. We didn’t use the dining plan for this; we just paid out of pocket. I can tell you that the sandwiches were really good, and since they were cooked to order they were nice and fresh.

Coming next EPCOT and Le Cellier