"Mom, why does the Magical Bus have to be the happiest and the saddest bus?"NEW 8/24!

[wdwgirl03]

Yay for first visit buttons! How exciting. That's cool they gave out beads too...that's like at the Poly they give out leis. Sounds like a wonderful start with the surprise package and great room!

 

[DisneyCrafter]

Seeing your pictures of POFQ are bringing back such great memories of my Disneymoon.

 

[Cory's Gal]

I love how everyone is so excited to finally be there! don't you just love that feeling...you may get giddy arriving on other vacays but the feeling is indescribable when you arrive at Disney!

what a great location you guys snagged...can't wait to continue your travels...

Connie

TOTALLY agree Connie! That "Disney feeling" is so different than any other!!!! Yeah, we were so so happy with where our room was!! Even though we were by the elevator, it really seemed quite quiet!!

Wow! POFQ looks so pretty!!
Your TA was so sweet to send the kiddos a gift! How special!

Hi Heather! Yes, it was a total surprise!! It was really cool to get a "package"!! FQ is so pretty!! It is so lush and the little streets are really quaint and the resort is pretty quiet! It was wonderful!!

Hi Beth-

Great pix and so glad things went well on the flight and the kids did so well! Check-in sounded like a breeze and POFQ does look really nice (we had considered staying there before we booked Pop).

It must be so exciting to finally be there!! Can finally relax and let the fun begin!!! Can't wait to see where you went first!

Karen

Hi Karen! Yes, check-in was so easy!! On-line check-in is definitely the way to go!! Everything was all ready, all they did is ask if we wanted a credit card on file and handed us our packet!! We loved FQ and we liked POP too!! They are both really great resorts!!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

So glad you made it to POFQ & got great rooms! Also glad to her the kids did well on the plane.

It was such a relief to get there and checked in!!! Our vacation "officially" began at that point!!

Yay for first visit buttons! How exciting. That's cool they gave out beads too...that's like at the Poly they give out leis. Sounds like a wonderful start with the surprise package and great room!

It was an awesome start Sarah!!! The kids didn't wear the buttons much, so we clipped them on our stroller! I wanted to use them some how!!! The beads were fun and it kept Helen busy some mornings while we were getting ready, she would hang the beads on the drawers and all over the room, it was a little game for her!! I hope someday to stay at the Poly so we can get leis!!!

Seeing your pictures of POFQ are bringing back such great memories of my Disneymoon.

YEAH! What a great resort to "disneymoon" at!! It is so beautiful and very romantic, especially in the evenings!!! I will have more pics of the resort too later on!!!

 

[smithpack]

Wow! Your rooms really were perfect! Sounds like you were already being sprinkled with the pixie dust like crazy. I hope it continues through out the trip.

 

[Cory's Gal]

Wow! Your rooms really were perfect! Sounds like you were already being sprinkled with the pixie dust like crazy. I hope it continues through out the trip.

We felt like we had been sprinkled right away! It was a great start and just being at the resort felt already "magical"!! The check-in day is always so exciting, unlike check-out day which really stinks!

 

[letstalkboutdisney]

I'm in. Great start can't wait to hear more. We are thinking of staying at POR next time we go, so I'm interested to hear about your stay.

 

[Peter Pan Fan 22]

Great pics! I'm excited to see more of the resort. Other than Disney's promotional pics, I can't recall seeing that many of POFQ. It sounds lovely, and I hear only great things about it. I just keep thinking I have the real thing in my backyard, so I don't know if I'll ever choose it as a resort. Maybe by the end of your TR you'll have convinced me to add it to my list of future must-stays.

I have to say that is so cool that Gabe got to ride the cruise bus and it was a special treat for him. That's Disney magic for ya!

 

[Cory's Gal]

I'm in. Great start can't wait to hear more. We are thinking of staying at POR next time we go, so I'm interested to hear about your stay.

Welcome Welcome!!! Thank you for reading along!! My hubby and I stayed at POR back in 2005 and liked it a lot!! We ventured down to POR once this trip to surprise my parents with a carriage ride. We also ate at the food court and walked around a bit! It is also a beautiful resort!!!!

Great pics! I'm excited to see more of the resort. Other than Disney's promotional pics, I can't recall seeing that many of POFQ. It sounds lovely, and I hear only great things about it. I just keep thinking I have the real thing in my backyard, so I don't know if I'll ever choose it as a resort. Maybe by the end of your TR you'll have convinced me to add it to my list of future must-stays.

I have to say that is so cool that Gabe got to ride the cruise bus and it was a special treat for him. That's Disney magic for ya!

Yes, Gabe was so enchanted by the Disney Magic the whole entire time! It was really special!! We really loved FQ and I will FOR SURE write much much more about it and show more pics!! Not only is the resort beautiful but it is nice and compact, perfect for little legs, tired legs, and as my parents say "old legs"!!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

I hope I remember what happens next in the right order! We had day 1 of our garage sale today and I am totally EXHAUSTED!!! BUT, I need to squeeze in a bit of DIS time and what better way than to update my TR!!! Onward...

We left off walking into our room at FQ and seeing our Mickey towel!! YEAH!! The kids opened up their Mickey and Minnie package from our TA, it was from Memories by Betsy!

They were so happy to get these!

Here's a happy me in our room:

It was almost 5pm and we didn't eat lunch and we were starving!!!! Off to Sassagoula Floatworks (Sassy) for some dinner!! I had everyone go ahead and I set out the kids "surprise bag" from Mickey and Minnie! On our way we took a couple of pics, this is of the Sassagoula River where we catch the boat to DTD, right out the back of our building!

Here's the back side of the main building, the gift shop is on the left and the Sassy Food Court on the right!

When we got there Cory and I and my parents got our mugs and grabbed some grub! No food porn on the meal, sorry. Typical fare though, mac-n-cheese for the kids and Cory and I split the chicken dinner. My dad got a salad and my mom got the chicken club wrap. We were all happy with our meals, the cornbread and garlic mashed potatoes that came with our chicken were awesome!!!!! We stopped in the gift shop to grab some milk and juice for the morning and the 4 of us headed back to the room to get ready for the pool!!!! Here are two happy kids ready to get their suits on!!

I don't have pics, but they were so over the moon excited about the gift bag from Mickey and Minnie!!! We videoed it and haven't uploaded and formatted it yet! Their bag had coloring books and other activities, cups, a small Mickey and Minnie, and lots of odds and ends dollar stuff! The full list is in my PTR! We were also surprised because our bags from ME arrived!!! It was super quick!!! With suits on we headed down to the pool, just Cory and the kids and I, my parents were wandering around the resort this evening! Gabe went right on the "dragon slide", he had been waiting to try it for months!! He did great!!! We swam for about 45 minutes and then headed back to the room and showered the kiddos and got on their PJ's. We then took a little stroll down by the river to settle us down!
Happy to be in Disney World!!

This is the beautiful fountain garden area right outside our door:

Helen and Cory:

Mom and Dad got back from their adventure and the kiddos went to bed. They fell right to sleep! It was about 8:30 and I wanted them to get a good night sleep, we were hoping they would sleep soundly!! I think we got our wish:

Helen had one of the bed rails on her side of the bed. This was my only frustrated time at the resort. I had to call 3 times to have them bring it up to our room. I think we waited almost an hour to get it! Cory and I wandered over to Sassy to get a treat, beignets for him (they were great! made fresh!) and my first Mickey head crispy treat (YUMMY!). It was great having connecting rooms so my parents could be with the kids a little bit so Cory and I could enjoy a bit of time alone!! We made it back to room shortly after 9:00 and were enjoying the fresh air looking over the railing right outside our room and we could hear fireworks going off. We could see some from a distance and we figured they were from Illuminations since we heard them every night at the same time. We could see the high ones, it was an awesome little view!!! Then by 10 we were all asleep dreaming of our first park day in...

 

[longing2Batdisney]

great recap of the evening! our first stay onsite was POFQ and you brought back some wonderful memories...it was way back in '96. We, too, had traveled with my parents and had an adjoining room. It was so nice to take turns spending an evening out as adults w/o the little ones. We also loved the food at sassy, in fact when my dad was on this last trip he made the comment to my mom that he was going to have dinner at POFQ he loves the chicken there

 

[wed100105]

I tried quoting it, but am having trouble. The pic of the kids in their jammies is one of the cutest I have ever seen! They are so excited!

Great updates!!!

 

[wdwgirl03]

Awww, those are some adorable pictures of the kids in their Disney pjs and sleeping. Can't wait to hear about your first day!

 

[letstalkboutdisney]

Your kids are so cute! Love the pictures of the resort.

 

[kcandbella]

French Quarter looks really pretty! We never made it over there during our stay at Riverside, but I wanted to. The kids look so excited and that was great of your TA to send them a surprise. I'm excited to read more!

 

[Angies1274]

Catching up! Great updates!! POFQ looks beautiful and Gabe and Helen look so excited to be there! I love the pic of them in their jammies...so cute! Sounds like it was a perfect arrival day! I can't wait to hear all about your first park day!

 

[Cory's Gal]

great recap of the evening! our first stay onsite was POFQ and you brought back some wonderful memories...it was way back in '96. We, too, had traveled with my parents and had an adjoining room. It was so nice to take turns spending an evening out as adults w/o the little ones. We also loved the food at sassy, in fact when my dad was on this last trip he made the comment to my mom that he was going to have dinner at POFQ he loves the chicken there

The food court was nice, I liked that the one at POP was bigger and had many more selections but Sassy was much quieter and never crazy busy. I LOVED being able to spend a couple of evening with just Cory, it helped make the vacation a bit more relaxed and the kids never get enough of Grandma and Grandpa time anyways!!

I tried quoting it, but am having trouble. The pic of the kids in their jammies is one of the cutest I have ever seen! They are so excited!

Great updates!!!

Thank you!! I really LOVE that picture too, they were so happy when we got there!! It was fun taking a walk with them in their PJ's, they thought it was so fun to do silly things like that!!!

Awww, those are some adorable pictures of the kids in their Disney pjs and sleeping. Can't wait to hear about your first day!

Thanks Sarah!! They slept so good the whole trip and they were so happy and excited about everything, even wearing jammies and sleeping in a hotel bed!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

Your kids are so cute! Love the pictures of the resort.

Thank you!! FQ is just so beautiful, there were many many things to take pictures of!!

French Quarter looks really pretty! We never made it over there during our stay at Riverside, but I wanted to. The kids look so excited and that was great of your TA to send them a surprise. I'm excited to read more!

Thanks Kayce!! FQ was wonderful and so pretty and peaceful! It was a nice place to go back to after a long park day!! The surprise was so lovely and it was very thoughtful!

Catching up! Great updates!! POFQ looks beautiful and Gabe and Helen look so excited to be there! I love the pic of them in their jammies...so cute! Sounds like it was a perfect arrival day! I can't wait to hear all about your first park day!

Thanks Angie!! Arrival day was awesome! It was a great way to start our trip! The weather was beautiful too and was the icing on the cake!!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! OUR FIRST PARK DAY!!!!!!!!!! When the alarm went of Sunday morning I still couldn't believe we actually were in Disney World!! I was so excited to get up and get ready!! The kids slept great and were up at about 7am! I showered first and the kids and Cory ate breakfast. We brought along plastic bowls and cereal from home to have breakfast in the room. It was a great way for us in the mornings to have the kids fed and ready to go! Cory also went to Sassy to get hot water for him and my parents for DM to have her tea and the men to drink their instant Starbucks!! Cory showered while I got the kids dressed and slathered in sunscreen! We were ready and just waiting for my parents.
Here's Helen playing with her beads waiting to go: (her shorts were too big so they were hanging like that a lot!)

She climbed in her stroller and buckled in! She was excited to head out! (This was also the beginning of her grease-ball hair. Her hair is so thin that when we put sunscreen on her it looked like this!)

Now, I had some high hopes that everyday we would get up and get out for RD, and that Gabe would ride on and get excited over every attraction he was tall enough for. Gabe can be very stubborn and sometimes gets high anxiety over things. I thought preparing him ahead of the trip for the 'big rides' by watching the planning videos would help him. I was wrong about one ride, a favorite, Soarin'...

We finally got to the bus stop at FQ at about 9:00am, so by the time we got on the bus and to the gates at Epcot, and through bag check and then through the gates, it was a little passed 9:30. Grrr... I was a little aggravated, I didn't think I was going to be psycho commando but I was...we saw Daisy and Stitch, I told Gabe we had to wait and get right over to Soarin' and the first tears of the trip started..."I'm too scared, I don't want to go", he really believed from the videos we watched that you really went high up in the real sky...that equals a really frightened 5 year old. After a talking to and not getting anywhere, we headed over to Gabe's request which was Nemo. He found his smile right away:

We had a blast in our clammobile and I started to let go some of my hopes and just enjoyed what the kids wanted to do...they were having so much fun! We skipped Turtle Talk for now (and unfortunately never got to see it) and took some pics with the "sharks"..."Fish are friends, not food, Hello, my name is Bruce, "Hi Bruce":

Helen joined in:

Some more friends:

I don't know what Helen's deal was in this pic, she probably didn't want Cory holding her. Ha ha ha...

My favorite thing, holding hands with both my kids

This last pic you can get a view of my bag. I really like this bag, it's a cross body Nike bag and it expands too so you can hold a LOT of stuff. The only downside is Cory refused to wear it at all, my dad would even hold it for me but Cory wouldn't!! So, I always had to carry everything....No worries, you will see later in the trip I also brought a backpack and we graduated to that!!!

We tried one more time to get Gabe over to Soarin' and he just wasn't buying it, I decided to give up and let it go on this day. It was our first park day and I knew he would have to warm up to things!! I relaxed and took in all the beautiful sights and sounds of Epcot and we headed over to the number one thing on Gabe's list, CHARACTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[smithpack]

That pool looks like a lot of fun from what I could see. I love, love, love that pic of your kids in their pajamas. So adorable. Great idea to do the gift bag! I think I will steal that idea and use it the next time we go.