Me and my sisters trip to WDW!

[DanielleNYY]

Just read that they have new rules for the trip report. This is complete. I'll answer any questions you have about the pre planning, planning and actually being there.
It's complete so moderator you can move this for all to enjoy.

The Great 2008 Disney World Trip Report! 6/22-6/28/08


After six months of planning, scheduling, making itineraries, and changing ADR’s, My sister and I had a wonderful week in WDW!
Sorry, no food pics but most of what we ate is featured in the food porn section anyways.

Day 1: My sister and I arrived at Orlando Airport at 10:30am, after a short flight from Newark on Jet Blue (which I wont use again, but lets not go there) We strolled on over to check in with Magical Express, which ended up being a Mears bus, but hey, it had air conditioning. And we were soon on our way to Contemporary which is the last stop on the route, but we enjoyed seeing other resorts so it was good for us. We arrived at the Contemporary at about 11:30am and checking in was a breeze. We were given our packet of maps and our room keys (which I’m saving as a souvenier) and we were off to our 11th floor Magic Kingdom view room. We were awstruck by the view of the Castle, the lagoon, and Poly and Grand Floridian. Two double beds which were super comfy, a nice LG LCD HD-TV, bathroom had was bigger than I thought it would be, and the balcony was pretty spacious, the computer screen and keyboard were spotless and were pretty useful for checking email. The room was sparkling clean. The radio had an iPod dock, which was cool, turns out we didn’t use much of it or the TV but they’re nice additions.
So, we were starving since we hadn’t eaten anything since I can’t eat Jet Blue potato chips at 7:30 in the morning. We headed off to the Boardwalk for lunch at ESPN Club, saw some of the Yankee game in the ‘seat yourself’ bar table area. We split medium spicey red wings and both had the Championship Chicken Sandwich, all of which were tasty and fresh. It started to rain after we ate, and it’s not easy to walk on the boardwalk in flip flops in the rain, so we decided to hop on the Down Town Disney bus and do a little shopping. Once we got there it was pretty empty, I assume because of the rain. We checked out a few stores and decided to head back to the hotel to relax a little before dinner at Kona Café. Fast forward to dinner, we had 7:20pm ADR’s and we got there a little early to check in so we looked around the Poly for a few minutes. It’s such a pretty hotel lobby. The counter where they have quick service breakfast items turns into a sushi bar in the evening. So, we checked in at about 7:10pm and were seated after a few minutes. We ordered a volcano roll as an appetizer. For any sushi lovers out there this tasted so good I wished we ordered two! But we weren’t on the dining plan so we kept ourselves on a budget. I ordered the prime rib, medium, it came with mashed potatoes, and was delicious. Sister ordered shrimp and scallops, which she liked but the portion could have been bigger. We skipped dessert, having made some Goofy candy at DTD earlier, so we headed back to our good friend the monorail and went back to our room for coffee and our goofy treats. Watching Wishes from the balcony gave us chills, it’s something I’ll never forget (going back in 9 months, so if I do forget, I’ll get a refresher lol) day one done, slept soundly.

Day 2: Magic Kingdom day. Woke up, the sun was coming up, and the view was so refreshing, especially since at home I wake up to a view of my neighbors house lol
I went down to the 1st floor coffee counter and got us coffee and we had cereals we brought from home in the room. We headed off to Magic Kingdom, which is either a 10 minute walk, or a 10 minute monorail ride, we chose the monorail to conserve energy. We made it in time to see the park opening show, which made us cry happy tears. It was a great way to start the day. We headed off to some rides after looking around on main street for a few minutes, taking some pictures along the way. We stopped for a Mickey ice cream bar and an itsakadoozie, which were both good, but if you don’t eat them in 5 minutes or less you’re left with some pretty sticky melty not so refreshing stuff. So we ate what we could and managed to not get the melty stuff all over ourselves. Went on some more rides, it started to rain, so we headed over to Pinocchio Village Haus, had figaro fries which they no longer put tomato and lettuce on, and also use some cheeze wiz instead of real cheese like I thought they would, so it wasn’t too tasty. The sun made a reappearance, so we went on a few more rides, but soon had gotten too tired and hot, we headed back to our room instead of staying at MK all day like we planned. We didn’t have ADR’s anywhere, so I called disney dining and asked if Spoodles was available that night, and they an 8pm availability. So we cooled off in the room for a little bit, freshened up and headed over to boardwalk and Spoodles. We gave our names and were seated after waiting about 20 minutes. We split the Crispy Calamari, and my sister ordered Pan Fried Chicken Cutlet and I ordered Moussaka, both were tasty, and very fresh, generous portion sizes. No dessert since we still had Goofy treats left over in the room. (That refridgerator in the room is so useful)
Went back to hotel, watched Wishes and headed to bed.

Day 3: Epcot day. Woke up, said good morning to Castle, went to 1st floor coffee counter got some coffee, a cinnamon roll (mine), and a chocolate chip muffin (sister), which were fresh and tasty, and headed over to the monorail, got off at the ticket and transportation center, and then caught the monorail to Epcot. Arrived, took tons of pictures of the sphere, and then headed over to the land. Grabbed fast pass for Soarin, and while we waited we went on Living with the Land boat ride, which had no wait time. It was enjoyable. We still had some time till Soarin, so we grabbed coffee (Nescafe, but it’s still caffeine). Finally, Soarin time, this ride is awesome, but I 100% suggest using fast pass, and making it your first stop. By the time we were done the standby wait time was almost 2 hours. After that, we went to go to Nemo. That didn’t work out, it was almost 90 degrees, the line is outside, and there’s no fast pass, so we decided to skip it and catch it another time. We went on every other ride except for that one, all were fun. You’ll defitely want to get fast pass for test track, as that’s also over 2 hours on standby, which at that point, makes the ride less fun. So while we waited for our Fast Pass time for Test Track, we went to Norway in WS for some school bread. It was good, looks like it’s pictures, very sweet. We both liked it. After that we went back to do Test Track, which was reallyyyyy cool! And then we went on Spaceship Earth, boring as a kid, so cool as an adult. After that we headed over to the World Showcase, which as a kid bored me, and as an adult revisiting my childhood during this trip, I found to be awesome. Not having ADR’s we thought we’d get some good counter service food for dinner. We decided after surveying our options, to go to Tangierine Café. Honestly, it wasn’t that good. We both got a sushi sampler and combo platter of chicken, beef and rice. It was ok, not the best. I got an ice cream cone and my sister got a crepe from the cart by France, and we relaxed by the water for a while and then headed back to the hotel. Being exhausted, having blistered feet, and not wanting to walk anymore, we thought we could take a bus from Epcot to the Contemporary. Well, this isn’t an option (just an FYI for anyone who is curious) so we decided it’d be a good idea to just go to another resort and grab the MK bus and get the monorail there. It worked out in the end, but we hopped on the Fort Wilderness/Wilderness lodge bus, and found that there’s no MK bus from that resort. So, we wound up taking the DTD bus and getting the Contemporary bus from there. Fun site seeing trip for us lol Went back to the room, surveyed the blisters on my feet, watched wishes, and went to bed. (we’re such party animals, can’t you tell?)

Day 4: Animal Kingdom day: Got up super early since there were extra morning hours that day, trying not to have a meltdown about the painful blisters on my toes, we headed over to the bus stop, and got to the park for the opening show, which was so cute, but doesn’t compare to the MK show. Headed right over to the Safari ride, and had to get a fast pass already, since mostly everyone could walk faster than me at that point. Note to self, blistered toes and closed up unventilated sneakers do not go well together. But fun was had none the less. We saw a lot of animals on the trail, a Giraffe was literally about 3 feet from the truck, and an Ostrich was a bit curios and decided to follow us for a few seconds. All very cool, gave us goose bumps. After that we headed over to Rain Forest Café for breakfast. Good service, good food, completely noisy, but it’s Disney, so I didn’t care. I had an omlette with home fries and my sister had a waffle. Both were tasty. We then headed over to see some more animals. We didn’t go on any other rides, just kind of walked around, went to the affection section. We grabbed some lunch at Flame Tree bbq, which was really good, ½ rack of ribs and corn bread muffin, I highly recommend it, it’s worth the 20 minute wait on line. It started to rain as we were eating, so we decided to call it a day at AK since we were both pretty tired and it started to thunder. We had dinner at Boma that night. There was a little scare while we were beginning to enjoy our dinner. The fire alarm went off, and all the restaurants emptied out to the pool area. Nice pool at the AK lodge btw. After about ½ an hour we went back in and headed back to the buffet. Our server was a nice guy, very attentive. We ordered the Glow-tini, which was very sweet, and good, but I prefer my martinis extra dirty with blue cheese stuffed olives (like they do at Cheesecake Factory). We sampled everything except the soups, and everything was delicious. We tried the zebra domes for dessert, which were good, but I thought they’d taste different so it was a little bit of a let down, the flavor wasn’t intense. Overall it was a great meal, and we’re planning on going back on our next trip. Headed back to MK and hopped on the monorail during Wishes, which we would have made had we not had the 30 minute delay.

Day 5: Hollywood Studios: We had ADR’s at Kona, which I was able to make the day before. Breakfast at Kona was lovely, we ordered the Kona pressed pot, which got us going, my sister ordered the macadamia nut pancakes, and I ordered eggs your way, the biscuit was the most delicious thing. They don’t have biscuits up where I live so anytime I’m in Florida it’s a must get when I can find it. I had some of the pancakes, delicious, but too much macadamia nuts after a while. Off to DHS. It wasn’t very crowded and we arrived there after 11am. We went in some shops, went on Muppets 3D, went on Star Tours, and then the rains came (grrr) not a quick shower like most other days. 4 hours of sitting in the ABC commisary, outside of the ABC commisary, inside the Writers Spot store, it was still pouring. We decided, after being bored out of our minds waiting for the pouring & some pretty intense thunder and lightening to stop, we tried to go on some rides. First we went to Little Mermaid. Now, I was a little disappointed. They only sang 2 songs, but we were happy to be out of the rain. We came out of there and it was still raining, so we went over to the Great Movie Ride, which I wouldn’t suggest going on, unless I just didn’t get it. Again it was nice to be out of the rain, but I didn’t like this ride at all. We had 7pm ADR’s at Mama Melrose, but it was 6pm and we ran out of things to do in the rain, so we headed over to see if we could be seated earlier. We were seated within 30 seconds, the place was mostly empty. We both got pasta dishes, which if you’re italian or have ever had home cooked Italian food, this just doesn’t messure up. Overall I’d rate DHS a skip for next trip. Maybe it was the rain that put a damper on our day but we didn’t have a good time. It managed to stop raining, so we took advantage of park hopper option, and headed over to MK to catch Spectro Magic and Wishes. Well, this more than made up for the miserable day at DHS, we almost forgot what we did that day. Between Specto Magic ending and Wishes beginning we grabbed the Nestle ice cream cookie sandwich at the Main Street bakery, it was very tasty, definitely big enough to share. We watched Wishes from in front of the bakery, a good spot if you get there as late as we did lol

Day 5: non park day. Went to DTD for some souvenier shopping. Had a quick bite at Earl of Sandwich, which was really good. We split the Full Montagu and a Ceasar Salad, both delicious. We then headed back to the hotel for a bit, dropped off our purchases and went to Grand Floridian Tea. It was relaxing, tasty, and they give you a full pot of tea! A great way to end the trip! The resort is gorgeous, and we toured around the grounds for a few minutes before heading back to pack (pack is a four letter in my book, I didn’t want to leave) after that, we headed over to boardwalk one last time and went to ESPN club. We split wings again, and my sister got a hot dog, which was about 2 feet long, and I ordered a spicy chicken sandwich called The Dinger. Very good, but I’ll skip it next time, it upset my stomach. We went back to our room to watch Wishes one last time, and went to bed.


So, after 6 days in our disney bubble we get to the airport, wait 45 minutes to check our luggage and get our boarding pass, we get yelled at by the ticket agent for not having 2 bags each, as the computer kiosk didn’t come up with the question of how many bags we had, so my NY girl kicks in and I yelled back at him that it was a mistake, just reprint it and stop yelling at us. I’ll never use Jet Blue again. They changed our flight time about 15 times, no joke, then in Newark they’re rude to us, in Orlando they’re rude to us, the flight attendants were rude in general on both flights, someone rammed a drink cart into my leg, it was just a miserable experience. No pillows, no blankets. I’m using Continental from now on.

But despite the annoyances and slight meltdowns, we had the most amazing vacation. Just wish it was longer! We’re going again in 9 months.

Feel free to ask any questions if anyone has any. Thanks for reading, and have a good day!