Me...a Walt Disney World Honorary Citizen?!?!?! June 2012**updated 8/11**

[grandfloluver]

Hello Everyone! To all who have decided to join me on my crazy, magical trip report, Welcome!

Here's a little background on the trip:
June isn't exactly our favorite time of year to visit the Mouse, but due to some conflicts in schedule, this seemed like a pretty good time for me and and my family to go! Mine and my brother's birthdays are both in May(mine was two weeks ago) so we treated this as a belated birthday present for both of us. You bet I didn't miss out on wearing my birthday button!


Lets get this agenda rolling:
Who: Me, my younger brother Jordan, Mom, and Dad
When: June 9-12
Where: Grand Floridian Resort and Spa

Let me introduce you to my family!
me:
Recently became a 17 year old, even though I don't act it or you can't really tell it

Jordan:
He's 14 and taller than me! :O

Mom and Dad:
My Dad takes most of our pictures, so he's obviously not in a lot of them. My Mom doesn't exactly jump the gun to take pictures, but she does from time to time

 

[grandfloluver]

Reserved for Chapter Links


The Early Bird Gets the Worm
You gotta love that Florida sunshine
Here comes the sun
Our Zip-a-dee-dooh-dah ride
hmm can you move your head?
So this is the night

 

[carlandellie]

I'm here Hannah

 

[scarscar93]

I'm along for the ride as well

 

[grandfloluver]

I'm here Hannah

woohoo! Welcome girlie! :3

I'm along for the ride as well

yay!
Welcome Catherine!

 

[HeadintheClouds]

I'm in! Happy belated birthday!

 

[Belle_373]

Looking forward to reading your TR!

And happy belated birthday!

 

[grandfloluver]

I'm in! Happy belated birthday!

Looking forward to reading your TR!

And happy belated birthday!

Thanks a bunch and welcome!!

 

[grandfloluver]

With our flight leaving out of Knoxville at 7:11, that called for an extra early wake up time for me. My alarm went off at 3:10, and I got ready to leave the house to make the hour long drive to the airport around 4. My wake up alarm was "When You Wish Upon a Star." Very fitting, right? Sleep was out of the question on the way to the airport since I was super excited.

We arrived at the airport in good time and headed straight for the security line to get that over with! Everyone made it through fine....and then there was me. I walked through the body scanner and the airport workers decided they neede to pat me down. I wasn't exactly a happy camper about that. I happened to be wearing some Miss Me Jeans with rhinestones on the pockets. I'm guessing that set their alarms off? I made it out fine and dandy thankfully!

We made it through and went to sit down and eat breakfast at our terminal. I was drawing some pictures of boys from One Direction while I ate to kill of some time.

Jordan had the biggest breakfast out of all of us! He is a growning boy, I guess.

After waiting out the hour and a half before we got on the plane, we finally boarded. There was tv on the airplane, so mom and I watched it since we sat together. The ride was fairly short, but there was some landing traffic once we arrived in Orlando. It felt like forever since I was ready to get my butt off the plane and on the Magical Express.

I was getting updates from family and friends as soon as I stepped off of the plane from back home. It was rainy back home in Tennessee...just another reason for me to be thankful I was in Orlando. My dad led the way to the Magical Express check-in. He checked us all in and we all walked straight through the line. Since it was only 9:30, no one was in line.

The ME busses were waiting on us as usual, and we walked straight on in. That's the first time in history that's every happened to us! I was extrememly pleasantly surprised and ready to get this show on the road!

 

[MickeyisBeast]

I'm here Hannah, great start! Can't wait to hear more!

 

[Goofy442]

Great start can't wait to hear more

 

[Happy Elf]

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[grandfloluver]

I'm here Hannah, great start! Can't wait to hear more!

Thanks Sarah!

Great start can't wait to hear more

Can't wait to hear more!

haha thank y'all!
we're getting there!

 

[grandfloluver]

We walked onto the bus and I noticed that it was C-R-O-W-D-E-D crowded. Which, in all honestly, surprised me due to the fact that it was 9:30ish. No one was in the ME line for any resort, so I just assumed that the bus wouldn't be crowded. WRONG. My family and I like to sit together on bus rides and sorts, and we had to go about 3/4ths of the way back to find a seat. We finally did, and I sat with Jordan while my mom and dad sat in the row opposite from us.

If you can't already tell, Jordan tends to make somewhat strange faces when we are talking pictures. This last one is a *perfect* example of what he does. So, all I can say is please excuse his weirdness. He can't help it haha

One of my favorite things to do in Disney is people watch. Let's face it, there are many breeds that roam the savannah that is Walt Disney World. haha Our Magical Express bus stops at the Contemporary and Polynesian before it arrives at the Grand Floridian. To live up to my people obsessee standards, I like to try to predict which people on the bus were going to which resort. It kills time and there are those people that just have the Polynesian "look", ya know? By the time I started this, the bus was well on it's way and the informational video had started. I've seen that video a ton, but I still love it.

I think all of the bus drivers have that timing of the video down to a "T" because we had just arrived into the Magic Kingdom area when it stopped playing. We did make the two pit stops to drop off the other guests at the Contemporary and Polynesian. That was about 3/4ths of our bus, so it was a tad bit more peaceful on the short trip left to the Grand Floridian.

It was a little overcast when we pulled up, but I was super ecstatic to get back to my home away from home! Since we didn't put any luggage underneath the bus, we hopped right off. There was a Cast Member waiting for us to get our check-in started. She led us right straight into the lobby. I have always thought it is so pretty in there, and it has it's own signature smell that is heavenly! (I would wear it as a perfume if I could haha) Anyway, all of us took the elevator up to the Concierge on the 3rd floor. We got the whole speech about how to access the upper floors to the hotel, you have to put your room key into a little slot in the elevator. Since we've stayed here multiple times, this isn't something we were foreign to.

Since we let the Cast Member(for the life of me I can't remember her name) know we had stayed here before, we went up to the 4th floor where they were still serving breakfast, and that's where more tables were so we could sit down at look at our reservations and other house warming stuff like that. It didn't take long at all. She did remind us we had dinner reservations tonight at Tony's Town Square in the Magic Kingdom. Jordan and I also got our birthday buttons!! I got mine and started to put it on and then noticed Jordan had already put his on. I took mine off then because there was no way I was gonna let people think we were twins. I could just save it for tomorrow!

Because of our dining ressie this evening, we decided to go over to the Magic Kingdom to get some of that fun stuff done. We took the monorail and were off to Main Street USA!

Pictures from the monorail!!

 

[MickeyisBeast]

It must be cool to stay in the main GF building When we stayed there two summers ago, we stayed in one of the buildings with a view of Cinderella's Castle, but I've always wanted to stay in the GF's main building, it just looks cool lol and there'd be a lot less walking involved

 

[Goofy442]

Wow that many people on the bus, were the parks crowded when you went.

 

[grandfloluver]

It must be cool to stay in the main GF building When we stayed there two summers ago, we stayed in one of the buildings with a view of Cinderella's Castle, but I've always wanted to stay in the GF's main building, it just looks cool lol and there'd be a lot less walking involved

It definitely is! We have stayed in the Sugar Loaf before and it just wasn't like staying in the Main Building. It really is a whole lot easier to get to transportation, recreation, and such. It has spoiled me :3

 

[grandfloluver]

Wow that many people on the bus, were the parks crowded when you went.

yeah the bus was pretty full! haha The parks weren't any more crowded than anyone would expect them to be the second week of June. It obviously wasn't a breeze to avoid them, but I think they were manageable.

 

[carlandellie]

yeah the bus was pretty full! haha The parks weren't any more crowded than anyone would expect them to be the second week of June. It obviously wasn't a breeze to avoid them, but I think they were manageable.

That's how it was for me a couple weeks before you were there. One day, it was super busy and they even extended Magic Kingdom's hours.

 

[grandfloluver]

That's how it was for me a couple weeks before you were there. One day, it was super busy and they even extended Magic Kingdom's hours.

haha I can believe that! It wasn't really as relaxed of a pace as I normally like it, but we all survived.