ryanpatricksmom
No more Pixie Poop!
- Joined
- May 18, 2001
- Messages
- 1,091
Friday, May 24th
It's 5am and time to go! Me (42), DH (40), and DS (10) are ready for our quickie trip to WDW. We have an 8:05 flight on Delta Express, so it's up and out. Everything is running smoothly at Dulles. We check-in, breeze thru security, and are at the gate with about a half-hour to spare. We leave on time...first hurdle accomplished.
Initially, our trip was scheduled for 9/14/2001. When the trip was cancelled, we looked over the calendar and found that Memorial Day Weekend was our only choice due to prior committments. At the time, we were not concerned with the potential crowds, as attendance was way down, but as the trip grew closer we began to get nervous. The e-night that had been scheduled during our trip was cancelled, and we all know about the dissolution of early-entry. I planned the best that I could, and we jumped in!
We arrived at the Grand Floridian around 11:30. There was no wait at check-in, and a room was ready for us....hurdle number two crossed. Our room was located in Conch Key. We hurried up to the room to unload. I have to admit, that we were somewhat disappointed with the room. The grounds and public buildings at GF are lovely, the rooms themselves are not of the same standard IMO. I would classify the quality as similar to a nice Marriott room, the prices however, are more inline with a Ritz-Carlton. This of course, did not dampen our spirits, as we intended to spend very little time in the room this trip. I would not spend the extra dollars to stay here on our next trip though.
By this time, we were hungry, so we stopped at the Grand Floridian cafe for a quick bite. Lunch took longer than expected, but we did finally make it to the monorail by 1:00.
We arrived at MK to huge crowds! We grabbed a fast pass for SM which was good at 4pm. There were long lines at every attraction. We decided to try POC (a 30 minute wait), but after waiting for 20 minutes the ride went down. We walked over to the HM, where the wait was about 25 minutes. We were able to squeeze it in before the parade.
The parade was scheduled to start in about 15 minutes, so we grabbed a spot in the area that links Adventureland to Frontierland. We sat of the split-rail fence and waited. About 5 minutes into the wait, a bird came by and pooped in my lap. At this point, I was getting a little concerned, as things weren't progressing very well. Thankfully, the weekend did improve.
We all enjoyed the parade. As with most of the Disney parades, it seems to primarily appeal to younger children and moms, but I heard no complaints from DH and DS either. Of course, that may be because they were having so much fun at my expense due to the bird poop incident.
I grabbed the boys, and we darted over to Aladdin which only had a 10 minute wait right after the parade. It is a cute ride, but very short.
At this point, it was time to head back to SM for our fastpass time. After wading thru the crowds, we arrived just in time. We rode SM, and life was good.
Because time was at a premium on this trip, we decided to forego EPCOT for the most part. We did have a PS at Les Chefs de France scheduled Friday evening, so we took the monorail at this point. Test Trak had no fastpasses left, so we did Spaceship Earth and headed for World Showcase. I did get DS to try the Beverly on the way! We didn't have enough time to experience any of the attractions, but we were able to see TOD before our PS.
We arrived at the restaurant right on time. It took a little convincing to get DH and DS into the idea of French cuisine, but everyone enjoyed their meals immensely. In fact, at the end of our trip, DH proclaimed this as the dining winner of the vacation.
We had originally planned on catching the Fantasmic show at MGM, but instead, we chose to return to MK to see if the crowds had lessened. Luckily, things had cleared out a bit, so we were able to ride BTMRR and the Tomorrowland Speedway before the fireworks. We sat down and watched the fireworks while DH had his third ice cream cone of the day!
At park closing, we waited for the crowds to get ahead of us. When we did exit, we found that the crowds were all waiting for the monorail and resort launches. We found out later that a woman had dropped her purse underneath the monorail, and the system was shut down for a half-hour. It finally cleared up, but it was midnight (after a 10pm closing) before we made it back to the GF.
We all dropped into our beds. Saturday is a sleep in day...we have a character breakfast. This turns out to be a good thing, because our neighbors return at 3am hooting and hollering for an hour or so. We all finally fall back to sleep....tomorrow is another day at WDW!
It's 5am and time to go! Me (42), DH (40), and DS (10) are ready for our quickie trip to WDW. We have an 8:05 flight on Delta Express, so it's up and out. Everything is running smoothly at Dulles. We check-in, breeze thru security, and are at the gate with about a half-hour to spare. We leave on time...first hurdle accomplished.
Initially, our trip was scheduled for 9/14/2001. When the trip was cancelled, we looked over the calendar and found that Memorial Day Weekend was our only choice due to prior committments. At the time, we were not concerned with the potential crowds, as attendance was way down, but as the trip grew closer we began to get nervous. The e-night that had been scheduled during our trip was cancelled, and we all know about the dissolution of early-entry. I planned the best that I could, and we jumped in!
We arrived at the Grand Floridian around 11:30. There was no wait at check-in, and a room was ready for us....hurdle number two crossed. Our room was located in Conch Key. We hurried up to the room to unload. I have to admit, that we were somewhat disappointed with the room. The grounds and public buildings at GF are lovely, the rooms themselves are not of the same standard IMO. I would classify the quality as similar to a nice Marriott room, the prices however, are more inline with a Ritz-Carlton. This of course, did not dampen our spirits, as we intended to spend very little time in the room this trip. I would not spend the extra dollars to stay here on our next trip though.
By this time, we were hungry, so we stopped at the Grand Floridian cafe for a quick bite. Lunch took longer than expected, but we did finally make it to the monorail by 1:00.
We arrived at MK to huge crowds! We grabbed a fast pass for SM which was good at 4pm. There were long lines at every attraction. We decided to try POC (a 30 minute wait), but after waiting for 20 minutes the ride went down. We walked over to the HM, where the wait was about 25 minutes. We were able to squeeze it in before the parade.
The parade was scheduled to start in about 15 minutes, so we grabbed a spot in the area that links Adventureland to Frontierland. We sat of the split-rail fence and waited. About 5 minutes into the wait, a bird came by and pooped in my lap. At this point, I was getting a little concerned, as things weren't progressing very well. Thankfully, the weekend did improve.
We all enjoyed the parade. As with most of the Disney parades, it seems to primarily appeal to younger children and moms, but I heard no complaints from DH and DS either. Of course, that may be because they were having so much fun at my expense due to the bird poop incident.
I grabbed the boys, and we darted over to Aladdin which only had a 10 minute wait right after the parade. It is a cute ride, but very short.
At this point, it was time to head back to SM for our fastpass time. After wading thru the crowds, we arrived just in time. We rode SM, and life was good.
Because time was at a premium on this trip, we decided to forego EPCOT for the most part. We did have a PS at Les Chefs de France scheduled Friday evening, so we took the monorail at this point. Test Trak had no fastpasses left, so we did Spaceship Earth and headed for World Showcase. I did get DS to try the Beverly on the way! We didn't have enough time to experience any of the attractions, but we were able to see TOD before our PS.
We arrived at the restaurant right on time. It took a little convincing to get DH and DS into the idea of French cuisine, but everyone enjoyed their meals immensely. In fact, at the end of our trip, DH proclaimed this as the dining winner of the vacation.
We had originally planned on catching the Fantasmic show at MGM, but instead, we chose to return to MK to see if the crowds had lessened. Luckily, things had cleared out a bit, so we were able to ride BTMRR and the Tomorrowland Speedway before the fireworks. We sat down and watched the fireworks while DH had his third ice cream cone of the day!
At park closing, we waited for the crowds to get ahead of us. When we did exit, we found that the crowds were all waiting for the monorail and resort launches. We found out later that a woman had dropped her purse underneath the monorail, and the system was shut down for a half-hour. It finally cleared up, but it was midnight (after a 10pm closing) before we made it back to the GF.
We all dropped into our beds. Saturday is a sleep in day...we have a character breakfast. This turns out to be a good thing, because our neighbors return at 3am hooting and hollering for an hour or so. We all finally fall back to sleep....tomorrow is another day at WDW!
