mill4023
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2005
- Messages
- 3,844
Wednesday, May 4 -
Did our best to get the kids up, but after the late night at MK, it was a bit of a challenge.
We had bagels and muffins in the room and made it to Animal Kingdom around 9:30am.
DW went to get a fastpass for the Safari while I took DS10, DD7, and DD4 over to Dinoland. DD4 wasn't big enough for Primeval Whirl, so we did Triceratop spin with no wait. When DW arrived, she took DD4 and DS10 on Triceratop Spin again while I took DD7 on Primeval Whirl. DS10 has a sensitive stomach and wanted us to try the Whirl first. Triceratop Spin is the same ride as Dumbo and Alladin, so the kids liked it. DW felt a little nauseous on it, which surprised me. Primeval Whirl is, IMO, a lame ride. It is very rough, made me a bit sick, and wasn't particularly exciting. DD7 said she liked it, but didn't care about riding it again. We started to head to Dinosaur and happened to catch Lucky right when they were bringing him out. This is one of the coolest things we've seen. He is very realistic looking and really appears to be a living independent creature. After watching him for a few minutes, we headed over and rode Dinosaur. DS10 and DD7 both rode twice with the baby swap. This is an awesome ride. I knew it was similar to Indiana Jones at Disneyland, but it is much more thrilling. This was the first ride that actually seemed to frighten DD7, although she still absolutely loved it. Even though I knew where to expect the T-Rex, the photo still showed me looking quite startled.
After this, it was cool and rainy and none of us felt like riding Kali River Rapids. So we took our time heading over to Africa, seeing everything on the way. We rode Safari, which was a lot of fun, then took our time going through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. We had lunch at Tusker house, which was very good. After lunch, we headed over to Asia and I took DS10, DD7, and DD4 on Kali. It had the potential to be a great ride, but was way too short. Even though I knew Mike mentioned how short it was, I still couldn't believe how quickly it was over. Luckily, there had been no wait at all, but if I had waited even 15 minutes for this ride, I would have felt like I wasted my time. We had planned to do the Maharajah Jungle Trek, but DW and I had very sore feet and the word "Trek" did not sound appealing at the time. So we headed to Camp Minnie-Mickey to see FOTLK, but we were late, so we had ice cream, visited the characters, went back to Discovery Island for some souvenir shopping, then made it back for the last showing of FOTLK. Unfortunately, I missed most of the show because DD4 was getting pretty bad cold symptoms and ended up crying because her ears hurt. She did her best, but after a couple minutes, she wanted to leave because the loud music was hurting her ears. Everyone else enjoyed this show a lot and DS10 and DD7 got to march around the theater playing drums.
Even though AK doesn't have as many attractions, It's a beautiful park and I definitely think it deserves a full day or more to explore.
After the show, we made it back to the car, forced DD4 to take cold medicine after quite a struggle, then headed over to AKL for our dinner PS at Boma with my cousin. We arrived 18 minutes past our PS time and were told that they only hold them for 15 minutes. But it didn't end up making a difference because we were still seated in about 5 minutes. As far as food, Boma was the highlight of our trip. It was a wonderful meal. Great atmosphere and amazing food. We will definitely plan at least one, if not more, trips to Boma next time we visit. DD4 was still sick, but luckily, she slept in her stroller for the whole meal. After dinner, we had a great time visiting with my cousin and walking around the animal viewing area. DW says that next time we go, we HAVE to stay at AKL.
Got back to our room at POR and got the kids to bed at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately, for the second time, DS10 woke up in the middle of the night very sick. We had planned a water park for the next day, but since the weather was cool and rainy and DS was sick, we decided we needed to just sleep in the next day.
Thursday, May 5th -
We slept in. DS was feeling a bit better, but still just wanted to lay in bed. The rest of us had some lunch at the POR food court, while DS rested and had some crackers. The food court at POR is great by the way. They had a great selection and reasonable prices. The Chicken Fettucine Alfredo was very good and was plenty for DW and I to share.
Eventually, DS was feeling better, so we took the boat ride to Downtown Disney, spent a couple hours shopping and had a great dinner at Wolfgang Puck's Express. The BBQ Chicken Sandwich and BBQ Chicken Quesadillas were both great. DW said the Quesadillas were the best meal she'd had (other than Boma). After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went swimming for a bit, but the weather and water were a bit cool so we didn't stay too long.
Friday, May 6th -
DW woke up very early with itching, painful eyes. Yikes, could we have any more illness?
We had planned on doing the MK EMH before heading over to Epcot for our Princess lunch, but instead, we had to go to the clinic to get DW's eyes looked at. Ended up being an infection and she was prescribed anti-biotic eye drops.
Eventually, we made it over to Epcot around 11:00. Had just enough time to grab FP's for Soarin and Test Track (baby swap / FP combination was great), then make it to our lunch in time for our 11:40 PS. The food was definitely interesting. I liked about half the items on the cold plate. But I'm not a fan of lox or herring. I had the lamb and cabbage, which was good, but not fantastic. DW had the Salmon Nicoise, which she said was also good. The kids liked their cold plates with candy, marshmallows, etc. and the hot dogs were standard disney food. DD7 and I loved the rice cream dessert, but DW, DD4, and DS didn't like it.
The characters there were: Alice, Belle, Jasmine, Ariel (with human legs), and Cinderella.
Although it was nice to get all the princess pictures, I probably wouldn't do this meal again.
After lunch, we did Maelstrom with no wait. I don't know who enjoys this ride, but none of us thought it was worth the time. We ended up skipping the Mexico ride because the Norway one was so boring. After this, we did Test Track. DW thought it was disappointing, I thought it was very cool, but too short.
After that, we headed over and did Soarin. This was by far the most crowded attraction we saw all week long. When we arrived around 1:30pm, the stand-by line was 90 minutes and FP return times were 7:30 - 8:30pm. With our FP's we were able to get on in about 5 minutes. Everyone rode except DD1 of course. I was a little nervous about DD4 because she is so easily frightened, but she absolutely loved this ride. We all loved it. Simply put, it is an amazing and breathtaking experience. If there is any ride in WDW that you cannot miss, this is it. It did give DW just a tiny bit of stomach uneasiness, but she is prone to motion sickness and it wasn't bad at all.
Overall, Epcot seemed to be more crowded than any of the other parks, but it was mostly concentrated near Soarin. After Soarin, we went over to Mission: Space, stopping at Ice Station Cool on the way. Mmm, gotta love that Beverly soda. Actually, we all seemed to agree that the watermelon flavored soda(I think it was China) was the best. It was about 2:30 pm by then, and the stand-by line for M:S was only about 20 minutes. The FP return time was only about 45 minutes away, so we grabbed a couple, then let the kids play around in Innoventions while we waited. They probably could have spent all day just doing everything in Innoventions.
DD7 and I were the only one's who wanted to go on M:S and even though neither of us are prone to motion sickness, I had heard so many warnings that we both took a dramamine about 45 minutes before riding.
Mission: Space was very intense. Even with the dramamine, I did feel a bit of dizziness. You definitely have to follow the directions and look straight ahead. The g-forces are very intense and I was worried about DD7, but she totally loved it. She was very excited that she was assigned to the pilot position and she hit all her buttons at the right time. DW and DS definitely would not have been able to handle this ride. If you are prone to motion sickness, don't ride M:S. And even if you aren't, you might want to take a dramamine first.
After this, we made our way around the World showcase, looking in all the shops and just taking our time. We had dinner at Tangierine. DW had the wrap and said it was very good. I had the Schwarma(sp?) sandwich and it was good, but a bit bland. We continued walking and made it to the UK before it was time to find a spot for Illuminations. We ended up staking out a great spot between the Japanese Torii and the America Garden's Theater. I went to get desert in France, but there was a huge line at Boulangerie & Patisserie. So I ended up getting lattes, chocolate mousse, and tiramisu at the stand in the west side of Italy. Very good, by the way. This was the only time it was actually cool enough for sweatshirts. We didn't have any, but we had ponchos, so the kids used those to keep the wind off them. Everyone enjoyed Illuminations, but it's definitely not quite as good as Wishes and Fantasmic.
Saturday, May 7th -
We had left this day open and had a hard time deciding what to do. Personally, I wanted to go back to MGM, but the kids all wanted to go to a water park, so we went to Typhoon Lagoon. We had to pack up and check out, so we didn't make it to Typhoon Lagoon until about noon. Spent some time in the wave pool, then DW took DD1 and DD4 to Ketchakiddee Creek, while I took DS10 and DD7 to the slides. The body slides were fun but not too thrilling. Humunga Kowabunga was fast, but still not that exciting. The family raft ride was fun but short. It would have been great for DD4, but when we got in line, I didn't know that. The two individual innertube rides were both fun, but also not very exciting and pretty short. Ketchakiddee creek was great for DD4. They have the cutest little innertube ride. It's perfect for the little ones. All in all, I'm glad we did a water park. The kids had a good time. The only thing disappointing was having to split up for the big kids and little kids to all have something to do.
We made it to the airport around 4:30, then the nightmare return trip began. First of all, I forgot to fill the gas tank in the rental van and didn't realize just how much that would cost me. $131 refueling charge!!!. Yep, $5.99/gal for 22 gals. Oh well, nothing I could do about it now.
Our 6:15 Delta flight was delayed until at least 8:30, which meant we would miss our connection in Atlanta. They rescheduled us to spend the night in Atlanta and take the morning flight home. We wanted the overnight flight so DD1 would sleep, so I asked if there was any other way to get home. They were able to rebook us on America West going through Las Vegas and arriving in Portland, OR at 2:30am. I agreed since they assured me our luggage would make it and I really wanted DD1 to sleep on the flight. The Atlanta to Vegas flight seemed to take forever, I couldn't sleep, and I was beginning to feel sick. I ended up with the same stomach bug DS had and was throwing up in the las vegas airport bathroom 20 minutes before our flight from Vegas to Portland was supposed to depart. Luckily, I felt a little bit better after that and was able to make it on the plane. This time, I fell asleep as soon as the plane took off and didn't wake up until we landed. I went to get our car out of long-term parking while DW waited at baggage claim. When I went to start the car, the battery was completely dead. Luckily, the airport was able to send someone out very quickly to give me a jumpstart. When I got to the terminal, DW informed me that our luggage was not there and nobody knew where it was. America West wouldn't pay for a hotel since it wasn't there fault, but they got us a distressed traveller rate at a nearby hotel, so we checked in, slept for about 5 hours, checked out, found they still didn't know where our luggage was, then made the 5 hour drive from the airport to home. When I booked, I thought saving $1000 was worth driving 5 hours to a different airport, but when I was driving home, I definitely had a different opinion.
Eventually, we made it home sunday evening and our luggage finally showed up Monday afternoon.
Now I'm back at work and wish I was still on vacation. It's still hard to believe that our trip is over. Even with the nightmare travel and all of us getting sick, this was by far the best vacation we've ever taken and I can't wait to go again. Unfortunately, DW says that our next trip is to Hawaii. She also had a great time and didn't want to come home. She just wants the kids to experience more than just Disney. I guess the only solution is to get a job that pays a lot more and gives me twice as much vacation. Than we can go to WDW once a year and also go somewhere else once a year.
Did our best to get the kids up, but after the late night at MK, it was a bit of a challenge.
We had bagels and muffins in the room and made it to Animal Kingdom around 9:30am.
DW went to get a fastpass for the Safari while I took DS10, DD7, and DD4 over to Dinoland. DD4 wasn't big enough for Primeval Whirl, so we did Triceratop spin with no wait. When DW arrived, she took DD4 and DS10 on Triceratop Spin again while I took DD7 on Primeval Whirl. DS10 has a sensitive stomach and wanted us to try the Whirl first. Triceratop Spin is the same ride as Dumbo and Alladin, so the kids liked it. DW felt a little nauseous on it, which surprised me. Primeval Whirl is, IMO, a lame ride. It is very rough, made me a bit sick, and wasn't particularly exciting. DD7 said she liked it, but didn't care about riding it again. We started to head to Dinosaur and happened to catch Lucky right when they were bringing him out. This is one of the coolest things we've seen. He is very realistic looking and really appears to be a living independent creature. After watching him for a few minutes, we headed over and rode Dinosaur. DS10 and DD7 both rode twice with the baby swap. This is an awesome ride. I knew it was similar to Indiana Jones at Disneyland, but it is much more thrilling. This was the first ride that actually seemed to frighten DD7, although she still absolutely loved it. Even though I knew where to expect the T-Rex, the photo still showed me looking quite startled.
After this, it was cool and rainy and none of us felt like riding Kali River Rapids. So we took our time heading over to Africa, seeing everything on the way. We rode Safari, which was a lot of fun, then took our time going through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. We had lunch at Tusker house, which was very good. After lunch, we headed over to Asia and I took DS10, DD7, and DD4 on Kali. It had the potential to be a great ride, but was way too short. Even though I knew Mike mentioned how short it was, I still couldn't believe how quickly it was over. Luckily, there had been no wait at all, but if I had waited even 15 minutes for this ride, I would have felt like I wasted my time. We had planned to do the Maharajah Jungle Trek, but DW and I had very sore feet and the word "Trek" did not sound appealing at the time. So we headed to Camp Minnie-Mickey to see FOTLK, but we were late, so we had ice cream, visited the characters, went back to Discovery Island for some souvenir shopping, then made it back for the last showing of FOTLK. Unfortunately, I missed most of the show because DD4 was getting pretty bad cold symptoms and ended up crying because her ears hurt. She did her best, but after a couple minutes, she wanted to leave because the loud music was hurting her ears. Everyone else enjoyed this show a lot and DS10 and DD7 got to march around the theater playing drums.
Even though AK doesn't have as many attractions, It's a beautiful park and I definitely think it deserves a full day or more to explore.
After the show, we made it back to the car, forced DD4 to take cold medicine after quite a struggle, then headed over to AKL for our dinner PS at Boma with my cousin. We arrived 18 minutes past our PS time and were told that they only hold them for 15 minutes. But it didn't end up making a difference because we were still seated in about 5 minutes. As far as food, Boma was the highlight of our trip. It was a wonderful meal. Great atmosphere and amazing food. We will definitely plan at least one, if not more, trips to Boma next time we visit. DD4 was still sick, but luckily, she slept in her stroller for the whole meal. After dinner, we had a great time visiting with my cousin and walking around the animal viewing area. DW says that next time we go, we HAVE to stay at AKL.
Got back to our room at POR and got the kids to bed at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately, for the second time, DS10 woke up in the middle of the night very sick. We had planned a water park for the next day, but since the weather was cool and rainy and DS was sick, we decided we needed to just sleep in the next day.
Thursday, May 5th -
We slept in. DS was feeling a bit better, but still just wanted to lay in bed. The rest of us had some lunch at the POR food court, while DS rested and had some crackers. The food court at POR is great by the way. They had a great selection and reasonable prices. The Chicken Fettucine Alfredo was very good and was plenty for DW and I to share.
Eventually, DS was feeling better, so we took the boat ride to Downtown Disney, spent a couple hours shopping and had a great dinner at Wolfgang Puck's Express. The BBQ Chicken Sandwich and BBQ Chicken Quesadillas were both great. DW said the Quesadillas were the best meal she'd had (other than Boma). After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went swimming for a bit, but the weather and water were a bit cool so we didn't stay too long.
Friday, May 6th -
DW woke up very early with itching, painful eyes. Yikes, could we have any more illness?
We had planned on doing the MK EMH before heading over to Epcot for our Princess lunch, but instead, we had to go to the clinic to get DW's eyes looked at. Ended up being an infection and she was prescribed anti-biotic eye drops.
Eventually, we made it over to Epcot around 11:00. Had just enough time to grab FP's for Soarin and Test Track (baby swap / FP combination was great), then make it to our lunch in time for our 11:40 PS. The food was definitely interesting. I liked about half the items on the cold plate. But I'm not a fan of lox or herring. I had the lamb and cabbage, which was good, but not fantastic. DW had the Salmon Nicoise, which she said was also good. The kids liked their cold plates with candy, marshmallows, etc. and the hot dogs were standard disney food. DD7 and I loved the rice cream dessert, but DW, DD4, and DS didn't like it.
The characters there were: Alice, Belle, Jasmine, Ariel (with human legs), and Cinderella.
Although it was nice to get all the princess pictures, I probably wouldn't do this meal again.
After lunch, we did Maelstrom with no wait. I don't know who enjoys this ride, but none of us thought it was worth the time. We ended up skipping the Mexico ride because the Norway one was so boring. After this, we did Test Track. DW thought it was disappointing, I thought it was very cool, but too short.
After that, we headed over and did Soarin. This was by far the most crowded attraction we saw all week long. When we arrived around 1:30pm, the stand-by line was 90 minutes and FP return times were 7:30 - 8:30pm. With our FP's we were able to get on in about 5 minutes. Everyone rode except DD1 of course. I was a little nervous about DD4 because she is so easily frightened, but she absolutely loved this ride. We all loved it. Simply put, it is an amazing and breathtaking experience. If there is any ride in WDW that you cannot miss, this is it. It did give DW just a tiny bit of stomach uneasiness, but she is prone to motion sickness and it wasn't bad at all.
Overall, Epcot seemed to be more crowded than any of the other parks, but it was mostly concentrated near Soarin. After Soarin, we went over to Mission: Space, stopping at Ice Station Cool on the way. Mmm, gotta love that Beverly soda. Actually, we all seemed to agree that the watermelon flavored soda(I think it was China) was the best. It was about 2:30 pm by then, and the stand-by line for M:S was only about 20 minutes. The FP return time was only about 45 minutes away, so we grabbed a couple, then let the kids play around in Innoventions while we waited. They probably could have spent all day just doing everything in Innoventions.
DD7 and I were the only one's who wanted to go on M:S and even though neither of us are prone to motion sickness, I had heard so many warnings that we both took a dramamine about 45 minutes before riding.
Mission: Space was very intense. Even with the dramamine, I did feel a bit of dizziness. You definitely have to follow the directions and look straight ahead. The g-forces are very intense and I was worried about DD7, but she totally loved it. She was very excited that she was assigned to the pilot position and she hit all her buttons at the right time. DW and DS definitely would not have been able to handle this ride. If you are prone to motion sickness, don't ride M:S. And even if you aren't, you might want to take a dramamine first.
After this, we made our way around the World showcase, looking in all the shops and just taking our time. We had dinner at Tangierine. DW had the wrap and said it was very good. I had the Schwarma(sp?) sandwich and it was good, but a bit bland. We continued walking and made it to the UK before it was time to find a spot for Illuminations. We ended up staking out a great spot between the Japanese Torii and the America Garden's Theater. I went to get desert in France, but there was a huge line at Boulangerie & Patisserie. So I ended up getting lattes, chocolate mousse, and tiramisu at the stand in the west side of Italy. Very good, by the way. This was the only time it was actually cool enough for sweatshirts. We didn't have any, but we had ponchos, so the kids used those to keep the wind off them. Everyone enjoyed Illuminations, but it's definitely not quite as good as Wishes and Fantasmic.
Saturday, May 7th -
We had left this day open and had a hard time deciding what to do. Personally, I wanted to go back to MGM, but the kids all wanted to go to a water park, so we went to Typhoon Lagoon. We had to pack up and check out, so we didn't make it to Typhoon Lagoon until about noon. Spent some time in the wave pool, then DW took DD1 and DD4 to Ketchakiddee Creek, while I took DS10 and DD7 to the slides. The body slides were fun but not too thrilling. Humunga Kowabunga was fast, but still not that exciting. The family raft ride was fun but short. It would have been great for DD4, but when we got in line, I didn't know that. The two individual innertube rides were both fun, but also not very exciting and pretty short. Ketchakiddee creek was great for DD4. They have the cutest little innertube ride. It's perfect for the little ones. All in all, I'm glad we did a water park. The kids had a good time. The only thing disappointing was having to split up for the big kids and little kids to all have something to do.
We made it to the airport around 4:30, then the nightmare return trip began. First of all, I forgot to fill the gas tank in the rental van and didn't realize just how much that would cost me. $131 refueling charge!!!. Yep, $5.99/gal for 22 gals. Oh well, nothing I could do about it now.
Our 6:15 Delta flight was delayed until at least 8:30, which meant we would miss our connection in Atlanta. They rescheduled us to spend the night in Atlanta and take the morning flight home. We wanted the overnight flight so DD1 would sleep, so I asked if there was any other way to get home. They were able to rebook us on America West going through Las Vegas and arriving in Portland, OR at 2:30am. I agreed since they assured me our luggage would make it and I really wanted DD1 to sleep on the flight. The Atlanta to Vegas flight seemed to take forever, I couldn't sleep, and I was beginning to feel sick. I ended up with the same stomach bug DS had and was throwing up in the las vegas airport bathroom 20 minutes before our flight from Vegas to Portland was supposed to depart. Luckily, I felt a little bit better after that and was able to make it on the plane. This time, I fell asleep as soon as the plane took off and didn't wake up until we landed. I went to get our car out of long-term parking while DW waited at baggage claim. When I went to start the car, the battery was completely dead. Luckily, the airport was able to send someone out very quickly to give me a jumpstart. When I got to the terminal, DW informed me that our luggage was not there and nobody knew where it was. America West wouldn't pay for a hotel since it wasn't there fault, but they got us a distressed traveller rate at a nearby hotel, so we checked in, slept for about 5 hours, checked out, found they still didn't know where our luggage was, then made the 5 hour drive from the airport to home. When I booked, I thought saving $1000 was worth driving 5 hours to a different airport, but when I was driving home, I definitely had a different opinion.
Eventually, we made it home sunday evening and our luggage finally showed up Monday afternoon.
Now I'm back at work and wish I was still on vacation. It's still hard to believe that our trip is over. Even with the nightmare travel and all of us getting sick, this was by far the best vacation we've ever taken and I can't wait to go again. Unfortunately, DW says that our next trip is to Hawaii. She also had a great time and didn't want to come home. She just wants the kids to experience more than just Disney. I guess the only solution is to get a job that pays a lot more and gives me twice as much vacation. Than we can go to WDW once a year and also go somewhere else once a year.
