March Break at the Yacht Club! - UPDATED 07/21

[JanetMom]

I can see why that is a favorite photo!

I was going to say how surprising it is that your son has grown so much in a couple of years, but I'm going through that same thing with my two boys.

Nice day! A few countries followed by a banana split. Yum!

The amount boys grow between 14 and 16 years is staggering. Hopefully he slows down the growth soon or he will be turning into a giant.

 

[Feckless]

Love BOTH pictures! And I want that banana split, and I don't even like bananas! LOL

 

[JanetMom]

Love BOTH pictures! And I want that banana split, and I don't even like bananas! LOL

The good thing about that banana split is that you could have easily eaten everything but the bananas and still been in heaven. It was soooo good. MMMM.

 

[Laffites Landing]

Janet:

Great update! I loved the China pavilion. There must be something about my whole family and I that we have a thing for Asian archetecture because both China and Japan count among our favorite spots in World Showcase. Were you able to spend any time in the Warrior room?

Wow, so boys grow a bunch between 14-16 eye? So we have THAT to look forward to with my already 5 foot 4 inch 11 year old? Fun.... (better get a second job to stock up the cabinet with food!)

 

[JanetMom]

Janet:

Great update! I loved the China pavilion. There must be something about my whole family and I that we have a thing for Asian archetecture because both China and Japan count among our favorite spots in World Showcase. Were you able to spend any time in the Warrior room?

Wow, so boys grow a bunch between 14-16 eye? So we have THAT to look forward to with my already 5 foot 4 inch 11 year old? Fun.... (better get a second job to stock up the cabinet with food!)

I loved the Warrior room, but must have been tired of taking pictures by that point.

As for your son, sounds like you will be sailing past the 6 foot mark.

 

[JanetMom]

Spending some time tonight organizing the pictures for my next post.

Who knows where this picture was taken?

 

[JanetMom]

For our last night we decided to head to Downtown Disney. We arrived and did some shopping (of course!) and then headed here.

Our favourite DD restaurant is Raglan Road and given that it was St. Patrick’s Day eve, it was a natural choice for us. The restaurant was extremely busy inside and out, so we took our pager and decided to wait outside where we watched stilt walkers entertaining people and handing out necklaces.

I’ve been to Raglan Road twice, but both times were last minute decisions and so we had to sit outside. The patio is a wonderful place to eat and I highly recommend it, but for this meal I was more interested in eating inside. I love Irish dancing, so I was happy we had a view of the stage in the middle. The band was in fine form and there was lots of dancing to enjoy.

We love the food at Raglan Road and it was as good as always. The one interesting note was that they sell short pints. My husband felt that he was going through the beer faster than usual so he measured his hand against the side of the glass and when compared to a normal pint glass in most bars, the ones at Raglan Road come up short.

After supper we wandered around soaking up the atmosphere and eventually decided to head out. As we all know grabbing a bus from DD to the resort isn’t always a fun experience, but this time we couldn’t wait to get on our transportation back to the resort. We decided to take a page from Dee’s fabulous Disney tips book, and made our way to the boats so we could ride the boat to POR and then take a bus to Epcot. This isn’t a time-saving means of transport but it is a great way to travel.

We had no idea where to get the boat to POR so we headed down to the West Side boat dock. There we figured out we would need to take the boat over to the Marketplace dock by the Rainforest Café and switch to the POR boats. Not a problem, we love the boat rides.

Once on the Marketplace dock we didn’t have to wait long for the resort boat and soon we were travelling back across Village Lake.

Riding the boat at sunset was beautiful.

We loved seeing the views along the way, but soon the sun went down and it was too dark to take a good picture.

I wish I had been able to take a picture of the Saratoga Springs tree house villas. They looked like a great place to stay. My husband fell in love with them and was disappointed to learn they are for larger families/groups.

Soon the boat docked at POR French Quarter and we were able to get a peek at a new resort. I’ve always been interested in POR so I was happy to see what it was like. For our first family trip back in 2004 we decided to stay at PORFQ. We felt we could afford a moderate and that looked most like our style. When I called in our reservation the quick thinking agent pointed out that for the regular POR price we could stay at WL with a discount that was offered, and so we upgraded. That was a great upgrade and started us on our road to future WDW trips, but I’ve always wondered if we would have liked POR.

We wandered around the resort a bit, making our way to the busses. Here is a picture from the main building.

Next we road the bus around all the POR stops and made our way to Epcot. It was fun to be able to enter Epcot through the main entrance.

Our Epcot mission was to make our way over to Mexico and Norway to get in some favourite experiences we hadn’t fit in yet. First up we took a ride on Maelstrom and then headed to La Cava del Tequila and see if there was room for an evening drink. We were pleasantly surprised to see that La Cava was almost empty so we picked a table and sat down for some guacamole and margaritas. (Mmmm)

La Cava is tiny and dark so it is hard to get a good picture, but here is one glimpse of the inside for those who haven’t seen it before.

Fortunately, we brought the happy teen with us that night so he was willing to try on some hats and let me take some pictures.

After Mexico my husband headed back to the YC and my son and I took another chance to ride on Soarin. All in all, it was a great last evening.

Well that’s enough prattling on for one day. Next up, our final day in the World.

 

[DrMomof3]

Interesting about the short pints. We were just on the Disney Dream and my husband noticed the drinks were quite small. The price wasn't terrible, especially by our NY standards, but you were definitely getting less. I'm wondering if that's a Disney thing?

Amanda

 

[Feckless]

Janet, loved your update and pictures! Glad to see that "Happy Teen" made an appearance!

 

[JanetMom]

Interesting about the short pints. We were just on the Disney Dream and my husband noticed the drinks were quite small. The price wasn't terrible, especially by our NY standards, but you were definitely getting less. I'm wondering if that's a Disney thing?

Amanda

Maybe that explains why the Grey Goose Slushies go down so fast!

Janet, loved your update and pictures! Glad to see that "Happy Teen" made an appearance!

He did show up from time to time and it was nice to have him out and about on the last evening.

 

[Laffites Landing]

Great update, Janet. :rofl2: on the "happy teen" coming along on this evening. BTW, tell those people to get out of your picture of the Mickey Topiary and Spaceship Earth please!

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

I just read through your whole TR and noticed that the shirt your son is wearing in your favorite Norway photo is the same as the one he's wearing in your current telephone box one.

Really good, detailed report. Thanks!

 

[natebenma]

I loved this update, but I was very scared when you said you used my DTD>POR>EP>YC scheme. I was worried that maybe something went wrong, but it sounds like you enjoyed your trip.

The DTD boat rides are so relaxing and you get some great views. LOVE your sunset picture. Beautiful!

I'm glad you got a little bit of bonus EP time. Love the picture of the SSE golf ball as you are entering.

for "Happy Teen"

 

[JanetMom]

Great update, Janet. :rofl2: on the "happy teen" coming along on this evening. BTW, tell those people to get out of your picture of the Mickey Topiary and Spaceship Earth please!

Why is it that some people just don't know when to get out of the way of the camera!

I just read through your whole TR and noticed that the shirt your son is wearing in your favorite Norway photo is the same as the one he's wearing in your current telephone box one.

Really good, detailed report. Thanks!

Thanks for the compliment.

We took the Norway photo and the telephone photo on the same day. One thing about my son is he hates to wear the same clothes twice. We pack a full wardrobe for him when we go on vacation.

I loved this update, but I was very scared when you said you used my DTD>POR>EP>YC scheme. I was worried that maybe something went wrong, but it sounds like you enjoyed your trip.

The DTD boat rides are so relaxing and you get some great views. LOVE your sunset picture. Beautiful!

I'm glad you got a little bit of bonus EP time. Love the picture of the SSE golf ball as you are entering.

for "Happy Teen"

That boat ride was definitely a highlight of our trip. I was expecting a shorter ride similar to the WL>MK ride or YC>HS. We were pleasantly surprised at the length of the ride and the beautiful scenery along the way.

 

[Ninja Mom]

Love BOTH pictures! And I want that banana split, and I don't even like bananas! LOL

This why it's imperative that you share the banana split with a couple of monkeys. Monkeys, at least the ones I take to Beaches and Cream, are not that fond of ice cream so it's a win, win for everybody! It can be hard sneaking actual monkeys into the hotel but if you put a suit and tie on them they look like conventioneers so be sure to come in through the Yacht Club!

Janet:
Wow, so boys grow a bunch between 14-16 eye? So we have THAT to look forward to with my already 5 foot 4 inch 11 year old? Fun.... (better get a second job to stock up the cabinet with food!)

AMEN Brother! After shopping at the Warehouse clubs Like Sam's and BJ's I'm thinking the better move would be to skip all that and just go right to the "Farm Feed" store and get "Purina Teen Boy Chow" in the 50 pound sacks!

RE the short pint pours: Maybe that explains why the Grey Goose Slushies go down so fast!

I'm telling you! Go to Mexico!! La Cantina is an outdoor counter service by the lagoon and they don't know how to measure ~at ALL~! It was the only drink I purchased on my mini EPCOT Drink fest last Feb. that exceeded the capacity of my refillable mug!

In other news I had my first drink today after my surgery. It was a Mango margarita at Great Wolf lodge. I'm not really a drinker and I may have a total of 10 drinks in a whole year but there is something about strolling around the World Showcase with a lil something fun in your refillable mug. I was worried that I may not be able to handle alcohol with my new stomach but I split the drink with my husband and I did just fine! I am so looking forward to enjoying some liquid fun during my December trip now!

~NM

 

[natebenma]

Fortunately, we brought the happy teen with us that night so he was willing to try on some hats and let me take some pictures.

I was going to include this in my trip report (I may still), but I thought this would be appropriate here:

 

[JanetMom]

This why it's imperative that you share the banana split with a couple of monkeys. Monkeys, at least the ones I take to Beaches and Cream, are not that fond of ice cream so it's a win, win for everybody! It can be hard sneaking actual monkeys into the hotel but if you put a suit and tie on them they look like conventioneers so be sure to come in through the Yacht Club!



AMEN Brother! After shopping at the Warehouse clubs Like Sam's and BJ's I'm thinking the better move would be to skip all that and just go right to the "Farm Feed" store and get "Purina Teen Boy Chow" in the 50 pound sacks!



I'm telling you! Go to Mexico!! La Cantina is an outdoor counter service by the lagoon and they don't know how to measure ~at ALL~! It was the only drink I purchased on my mini EPCOT Drink fest last Feb. that exceeded the capacity of my refillable mug!

In other news I had my first drink today after my surgery. It was a Mango margarita at Great Wolf lodge. I'm not really a drinker and I may have a total of 10 drinks in a whole year but there is something about strolling around the World Showcase with a lil something fun in your refillable mug. I was worried that I may not be able to handle alcohol with my new stomach but I split the drink with my husband and I did just fine! I am so looking forward to enjoying some liquid fun during my December trip now!

~NM

I've been thinking of a career change and Purina Teen Boy Chow may be the invention that brings me my next million.

I'm not that much of a drinker either, but I do like to be able to on occasion. So happy to hear that your body is back to cooperating and that you will be able to make some use of that refillable mug in December.

Sadly, I think you have shared the La Cantina tip before but I did not remember it in my trip planning. Must add that to my spreadsheet for my next trip.

I was going to include this in my trip report (I may still), but I thought this would be appropriate here:

This is such an appropriate cartoon.


You may all enjoy a statement heard in our house seconds ago. For background, I assure you that I did not exagerate when conveying that going to the Biergarten caused the biggest disagreement of our trip. A few moments ago my son said "I wish I had one of those pretzel buns from Germany." I just turned around and said "You have got to be kidding me."

I shouldn't complain too much though. This week's summer task is that my son must plan and cook all the suppers. Tonight we had some tasty spaghetti for supper.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

I was going to include this in my trip report (I may still), but I thought this would be appropriate here:

I've been thinking of a career change and Purina Teen Boy Chow may be the invention that brings me my next million.

I'm not that much of a drinker either, but I do like to be able to on occasion. So happy to hear that your body is back to cooperating and that you will be able to make some use of that refillable mug in December.

Sadly, I think you have shared the La Cantina tip before but I did not remember it in my trip planning. Must add that to my spreadsheet for my next trip.





This is such an appropriate cartoon.


You may all enjoy a statement heard in our house seconds ago. For background, I assure you that I did not exagerate when conveying that going to the Biergarten caused the biggest disagreement of our trip. A few moments ago my son said "I wish I had one of those pretzel buns from Germany." I just turned around and said "You have got to be kidding me."

I shouldn't complain too much though. This week's summer task is that my son must plan and cook all the suppers. Tonight we had some tasty spaghetti for supper.

Oh I might have to steal that idea!

 

[JanetMom]

Oh I might have to steal that idea!

In summer I am all about using my son's free time to teach him life lessons.

When he was in grade school he had to work through activity books during the summer.

Last summer he had to read "The Wealthy Barber" which is about learning how to manage your money. I told him if he wasn't making money he better use his time to learn how to manage it when he finally does start making money.

This year it is about gaining the experience of meal planning for a week and he has to do his own laundry. In August he is spending a couple of weeks volunteering at a community centre that serves meals to low-income people, so his "at home life lessons" only continue through July and then he is off the hook.

See, there are many reasons that I love having a teen!

 

[JanetMom]

Saturday morning brought with it our last day. Such a bittersweet day.

We made a tactical error when we planned our last day. Back in April 2011 when we were booking our flights, nearly a year in advance, we didn’t think about reality; instead we thought of all that could be done to maximize our time in WDW. When we looked at our flight options we didn’t want to wake up early and take a morning flight so our options were to take an afternoon flight which would mean getting the Magic Depress around Noon, or we could take an evening flight and get the Magic Depress around 5. Wanting as long a vacation as possible, we took the evening flight. This would mean leaving WDW around 5 pm and landing in Toronto around midnight and hopefully home by 1 am.

The reason this was a tactical error is that we are early people. This means anywhere we go, we arrive early. If we make a serious effort to be late, we will arrive right on time. When we go on vacation we are not the type to stay around a resort just to use the facilities one last time. We are the type that gets up, gets organized and moves on. The result of our personality quirks is that it turned out to be a rather long day of waiting, waiting and waiting (followed by some long stretches of unplanned waiting.)

We woke up in the morning and I braced myself to open the door to find our Magic Express time. To my surprise there was no ME tag on our door so I had to go down to the concierge desk to ask for our ME info. Our ME pick up time was 5 pm. Armed with that info we packed up our room, took our luggage to Bell Services and began our day.

We decided to begin our activities with one more trip to the Magic Kingdom. Once there we headed straight for our favourite ride.

It was a gorgeous day out so we rode the ride over and over and I continued to snap more pictures along the way.

After the Haunted Mansion we slowly wandered our way out of the Magic Kingdom. Since it was our last day, I did make sure to get a Dole Whip on the way out. As expected, it was yummy.

Our next way to fill time was to head back to the Boardwalk to enjoy some lunch at the Big River Grill. My husband loves this place so we had to be sure to fit it into our plans. We had a great lunch and then did some more wandering around. As much as my heart is with the YC/BC group, I have to admit that I also love the feel of the BWI (minus a few creepy features.) It was a nice place to wander around and kill some time.

We all know that the clown pool is so creepy that it deserves its own Stephen King novel, but there is more to the creepy side of BWI. As we wandered around I told my husband I wanted to get a picture of the creepy chair. He didn’t quite get it but willingly followed me around until I found it, and then said “You’re right, that is a seriously creepy chair.”

After our yummy meal and BWI sight-seeing, we took a moment to stare longingly at our wonderful vacation spot.

By now we had seen all we wanted to see so we headed back to the YC and parked ourselves in the lobby. It was only about 3:30 pm at this point but we were done and ready to just sit and wait for our ME time. While we waited we read books and used the ipad to check out the internet. It was at this point that we realized our 9 pm flight was going to be seriously delayed. Knowing this we managed to get ourselves into a patient state and decided things were out of our control and we should just relax and go along with the flow.

As our ME time drew near we headed out to the porte-cochère, retrieved our luggage and sat on the benches to continue our waiting. It was enjoyable watching the staff greet new guests. They do such an amazing job of reviewing their lists and knowing exactly who should be showing up when. I was so impressed seeing them put a personal touch on every greeting they conveyed.

Our ME bus showed up right on time and we had an uneventful return to MCO. When we got to the Air Canada counter I couldn’t believe the lack of a line-up. Any other time I’ve flown out of MCO the AC counter has been in a state of chaos and it has taken close to an hour to get checked in. Today, when our flight was delayed and we had time to kill, we were checked in within 10 minutes. As we checked in the sign behind the counter indicated our flight was on time. We handed over our suitcases and the attendant pleasantly handed us our boarding passes being certain to point out our gate info. She was so pleasant and didn’t give any indication that our flight would be delayed. As we prepared to leave the counter I asked “Is the flight on time?” She looked at me like I was crazy and said “No, you will be delayed”. Knowing the delay that was ahead we slowly wandered around, shopped all the stores that were there to be shopped, had some supper at the food court and then made our way through security.

Eventually we made our way to gate 20 and parked ourselves, preparing for a few hours of waiting ahead. We spent some time shopping the duty free store, watched them close and reopen the duty free store, had some treats from Starbucks, and mostly we waited and waited. The best part of waiting was that they never gave up on the sign that said the flight was on time. Long after our scheduled departure time came and went, they continued to post the sign that said it was on time.

It is always risky getting out of MCO to Toronto because the planes tend to come from Toronto or Montreal and then turn around and head back to Toronto. This means that the weather in Orlando isn’t usually a factor in the delays, but the weather in Toronto or Montreal can wreak havoc on travel times. In this case there was intense fog in Canada and so all planes from Toronto and Montreal were delayed. There was also a big runway fire in Toronto that was rumoured to cause delays. And then if you layer on top the fact that the Air Canada pilots were in the middle of a labour dispute and were rumoured to be calling in sick that day, we didn’t stand a chance of getting home on time. We knew this and accepted that our schedule was out of our hands.

It was amusing to watch people in the waiting area. Due to all the confusion with the flights coming to Orlando from Montreal and Toronto they kept changing our gate. They only moved it back and forth from gates 20 to 22, but every time they changed the gate, people would get up and move over to the other gate area. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The gates are right beside each other. You can see and hear everything that is happening at both gate areas but that didn’t change people’s desire to get up and move their stuff every time they announced a gate change.

The most amusing part came at the end when we were set to leave from gate 20. It is now almost Midnight, a few hours after our flight was supposed to have left. Everyone (including the gate attendant) was tired and cranky. When our plane was finally arriving, and we were all looking at gate 20, the attendant gets on the microphone and announces that the plane is finally here, just around the corner, and that they have to change our gate again and we will board at gate 20. Since everyone thought we were already at gate 20 there was murmuring and confusion and the gate attendant gets back on the microphone and says “I mean no change, we are boarding at gate 20”, then she says “Look, I’ve been here since 10 am, so BITE ME.” It was hilarious! One of her coworkers gently walked her away from the microphone and gave her something else to do.

Well that is enough prattling on for one night. I should just wrap this report up right here, but I think I will drag it on with one more installment with a few stories and pictures from Toronto.