My Feet Are Killing Me and I Want a Lollipop 6/17-6/24 (Complete 7/24)

[Pixie Princess]

I love Ancestery.com too. I haven't started doing work across the pond, but I have my maternal grandfather's side traced back to the 1730s when they arrived in the U.S. Actually, it wasn't the U.S. then was it. LOL! I have always assumed you were full Scandanavian. There is no evidence of Germany in you at all. Learn something new every day.

I am not a fan of Sunshine Seasons either! I no longer feel alone in my sentiment. (Now if I can just find someone who is indifferent to Columbia Harbor House, I'll be good.) We went there a year ago based on all the raves about the place, and I was very disappointed.

I gotta say, the one part of WDW that remains largely unexplored by me and DD remains the World Showcase. We go over there, but we just haven't done a good job in touring the area in my estimation. I think it is the inordinate amount of time spent at the China gift stands playing with puppets and yo-yos. Hmmm..

I tend to compare trips to WDW as well. Mainly in terms of bang for the buck. The only place we go with any sort of regularity besides WDW is Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, and usually it is just for a change of scenery than to do stuff and explore the area. However, when we do go do stuff, it is hard not to compare the attraction with WDW attractions. I can't help but think, Disney would have done this better. Then I think about what I paid to get in to the attraction, and how much more I would have gotten for my money doing something similar at Disney. I may pay more for it at Disney in over all costs, but in terms of hours of enjoyment, WDW is a much better value.

So, it looks like Thanksgiving is back on! Groupon ran another deal for an Orlando resort, and this time I did a little homework upfront. Lots of positive feedback, and the negatives weren't about the condition and cleanliness of the resort. It is a newer property, and is located off the highway I normally take in to Disney. This makes me happy.

 

[jecskc]

I love Ancestery.com too. I haven't started doing work across the pond, but I have my maternal grandfather's side traced back to the 1730s when they arrived in the U.S. Actually, it wasn't the U.S. then was it. LOL! I have always assumed you were full Scandanavian. There is no evidence of Germany in you at all. Learn something new every day.

I am not a fan of Sunshine Seasons either! I no longer feel alone in my sentiment. (Now if I can just find someone who is indifferent to Columbia Harbor House, I'll be good.) We went there a year ago based on all the raves about the place, and I was very disappointed.

I gotta say, the one part of WDW that remains largely unexplored by me and DD remains the World Showcase. We go over there, but we just haven't done a good job in touring the area in my estimation. I think it is the inordinate amount of time spent at the China gift stands playing with puppets and yo-yos. Hmmm..

I tend to compare trips to WDW as well. Mainly in terms of bang for the buck. The only place we go with any sort of regularity besides WDW is Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, and usually it is just for a change of scenery than to do stuff and explore the area. However, when we do go do stuff, it is hard not to compare the attraction with WDW attractions. I can't help but think, Disney would have done this better. Then I think about what I paid to get in to the attraction, and how much more I would have gotten for my money doing something similar at Disney. I may pay more for it at Disney in over all costs, but in terms of hours of enjoyment, WDW is a much better value.

So, it looks like Thanksgiving is back on! Groupon ran another deal for an Orlando resort, and this time I did a little homework upfront. Lots of positive feedback, and the negatives weren't about the condition and cleanliness of the resort. It is a newer property, and is located off the highway I normally take in to Disney. This makes me happy.

I traced DH's people back to 1722 .... in the Virginia area. I was like ....wow ... that is a true American now. Also, several members of his family from different branches ....something like 5 different men from four different regiments (2 were brothers in the same NC regiment) were ALL at the SAME battle of Fredricksburg in the Civil War. Just completely fascinating stuff !!

Yeah .. Sunshine Seasons was just OK. I am willing to give it another shot, but it was just OK to me. We really liked Columbia Harbor House, though. The food wasn't spectacular, but that whole meal was just the perfect respite for that super busy day.

I really love WS and I never feel like I REALLY get to explore it properly. I find new stuff every trip. Which is why I love Disney so much. Plus, there is YOU who are the reason why I am so addicted ..... this is all your fault ... you know that But I do have to say that it is very special to me to share this with you

We have been going to Gatlinburg for that last 3-4 years for Thanksgiving to escape the psychological warfare that is our family gathering. But this year, we are going to Disney. Because we have DVC points to use

I will have to say that this latest trip to the beach was the first time where we were all someplace besides Disney and that everyone - even the kids - compared it to Disney and it fell short. The weather that weekend was amazing though. We got so lucky with the weather.

The Thanksgiving Groupon ?? Does that mean you guys are going during Thanksgiving ?? That would be cool since just the four of us will be on that trip and it would be easier to spend time with you.

 

[jecskc]

After touring Germany, we made our way over to Italy.

I soooo want to eat the restaurants here !!

The Kidcot station where DD colored her bear some more and got it stamped.

More photos

I had so many things on my list that I wanted to try, but we were so tired, that our goal was to hit all of the countries and then head out. So instead of doing American Adventure, we got DD’s bear stamped and moved on.
I made DH take at least ONE photo so we could say that we had been there.

Next up, Japan.

The drummers were out.

We got DD’s bear stamped and got some Photopass Photos

 

[DisneyDoc5]

I can agree with you and other posters that I feel like I never have had enough time in WS. Mainly because of the ages of our children and the rush to get through it! I am going to really try to spend some quality time there in August with DS12, he will get into the historical aspect - hopefully!

Sunshine Seasons was just 'meh' for us too. I had really salty asian, the sandwich DS12 had was dry, the rest was just ok. We have always used it in the am to get pastries for breakfast after riding Soarin, I think we will stick with that from now on. The pastries were really good.

I'm sad to think that your last few updates for this trip report are coming, but I'm looking forward to them!

 

[debrapagliasotti]

Looking at all your WS pics, I realize there is so much there I have not seen. Last trip to Epcot, our kids were just not thrilled about being there, so we sort of rushed through. Maybe next time we go we will get to see more of WS.

Love all the pics

 

[jubelee1872000]

I am subbing so I can come back and read more tomorrow. It's 12:43am and I'm only on page 6! I'm not gonn make it! Lol. Love your TRP and sense of humor! Will be back tomrrow to read more!

 

[jecskc]

I can agree with you and other posters that I feel like I never have had enough time in WS. Mainly because of the ages of our children and the rush to get through it! I am going to really try to spend some quality time there in August with DS12, he will get into the historical aspect - hopefully!

Sunshine Seasons was just 'meh' for us too. I had really salty asian, the sandwich DS12 had was dry, the rest was just ok. We have always used it in the am to get pastries for breakfast after riding Soarin, I think we will stick with that from now on. The pastries were really good.

I'm sad to think that your last few updates for this trip report are coming, but I'm looking forward to them!

I need more time in World Showcase as well. I haven't seen any of the movies in the countries nor have I seen the Voices of Liberty. Next time, we are going to JUST tour the WS on one day instead of wearing ourselves out in Future World

Looking at all your WS pics, I realize there is so much there I have not seen. Last trip to Epcot, our kids were just not thrilled about being there, so we sort of rushed through. Maybe next time we go we will get to see more of WS.

Love all the pics

I keep my kids interested by getting them a passport and visiting the Kidcot stations. Another idea that I thought I would try next time is to have them get a piece of candy in each country to keep them motivated to keep going. My kids seem to like the countries though, so I don't get much whining about it.

I am subbing so I can come back and read more tomorrow. It's 12:43am and I'm only on page 6! I'm not gonn make it! Lol. Love your TRP and sense of humor! Will be back tomrrow to read more!

LOL. I do this, too. Stay up waaayy too late reading TR's. I'm glad you are enjoying it. Thanks so much for stopping by. I am enjoying writing it and chatting with everyone

 

[jecskc]

We stopped and got DS another blue slushie at the stand before Morocco.

Morocco Photos

Tired DS. Sipping his blue slushie.

More Morocco photos.

Next up. France.

DH stopped to get himself a chocolate crepe

And DD a chocolate ice cream cone

They both loved these. And of course I got my usual.

Grey Goose Slushie !!!

Doesn’t it look awesome ?? I want one right NOW !!!

We got a Photopass Photo again

More France Photos

We got DD’s bear stamped and moved on.

On the way to the United Kingdom

United Kingdom Photos

We got DD’s bear stamped and headed to the last country. Canada.

I loved the flowers here. So colorful.

We got DD’s bear stamped and we were done. Exhausted. Pooped. There was so much on my list that we STILL didn’t do. NEXT TIME !! I would say that this would be the one thing that I would want a solo or adults only trip for. And that would be to really thoroughly explore the World Showcase.

 

[DisneyDoc5]

You're killing me with the Grey Goose Slushie! It's really hot here in MI, I just vac'd out the cars and am sweating bullets!

I love WS and agree that an adults only tour would be the best way to enjoy all the details! The blue tongues in the Canada pictures are great!

 

[jecskc]

You're killing me with the Grey Goose Slushie! It's really hot here in MI, I just vac'd out the cars and am sweating bullets!

I love WS and agree that an adults only tour would be the best way to enjoy all the details! The blue tongues in the Canada pictures are great!

It is hot here, too 103 today with a heat index of 113. And no end in sight. We really don't cool down much until mid September and then we will see some temps in the 80's.

An adults only tour would be awesome. I dream of doing that one day. I feel like I never get to slow down and enjoy everything. I need to do it at the beginning of the trip and not at the end when we are still worn out. The kids just love those blue slushies. And the stand where you buy them is right in the middle of WS. So it is the perfect place. They are pretty good but not as good as the Grey Goose slushies. And France has a Parisian Cosmo slushie during the Food and Wine festival that is to die for. Sooooo yummy !! I can't wait to buy one for my sister when we go at the end of September/beginning of October.

 

[disneymomof1]

subbing, now to go back to read from the beginning.

 

[jubelee1872000]

LOL. I do this, too. Stay up waaayy too late reading TR's. I'm glad you are enjoying it. Thanks so much for stopping by. I am enjoying writing it and chatting with everyone [/QUOTE]

I cannot BELIEVE how many spelling errors I made in that post..wow I was tired. Lol sorry.

 

[Pixie Princess]

It is hot here, too 103 today with a heat index of 113. And no end in sight. We really don't cool down much until mid September and then we will see some temps in the 80's.

An adults only tour would be awesome. I dream of doing that one day. I feel like I never get to slow down and enjoy everything. I need to do it at the beginning of the trip and not at the end when we are still worn out. The kids just love those blue slushies. And the stand where you buy them is right in the middle of WS. So it is the perfect place. They are pretty good but not as good as the Grey Goose slushies. And France has a Parisian Cosmo slushie during the Food and Wine festival that is to die for. Sooooo yummy !! I can't wait to buy one for my sister when we go at the end of September/beginning of October.

Again..I'm available Labor Day weekend. I'll tell the ex to reschedule his rafting trip with DD that weekend so I won't have to listen to the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Loved the pics from Morroco and France. Those two we really haven't spent any time in. We did eat at the QS in Morroco once, and it was really good. I keep trying to ply DD back over there with the baklava, but so far it hasn't worked. She actually likes the Electric Umbrella in Future World. Blech.

You gotta try the Grand Marnier slushie. It's a push up in a glass..it is yummmo! Love that thing. DD loves the slushies in Morocco and Japan also.

So yes, my Groupon we will use for three nights near Thanksgiving. The kids have the whole week off thanks to state worker furlough days. My thoughts are to go Sat. - Tues. before it gets too crazy. When will you be there? The property is a little further out than I thought looking at the map on their website, but that's okay. It won't be more than 15 min. drive or so to the parks, and I know a couple of short cuts so maybe quicker.

 

[jecskc]

subbing, now to go back to read from the beginning.

Thanks for stopping by !

LOL. I do this, too. Stay up waaayy too late reading TR's. I'm glad you are enjoying it. Thanks so much for stopping by. I am enjoying writing it and chatting with everyone

I cannot BELIEVE how many spelling errors I made in that post..wow I was tired. Lol sorry.[/QUOTE]

Well we all make mistakes of course and especially when we are so tired. Heck, I make stupid mistakes when I'm wide awake.

 

[jecskc]

Again..I'm available Labor Day weekend. I'll tell the ex to reschedule his rafting trip with DD that weekend so I won't have to listen to the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Loved the pics from Morroco and France. Those two we really haven't spent any time in. We did eat at the QS in Morroco once, and it was really good. I keep trying to ply DD back over there with the baklava, but so far it hasn't worked. She actually likes the Electric Umbrella in Future World. Blech.

You gotta try the Grand Marnier slushie. It's a push up in a glass..it is yummmo! Love that thing. DD loves the slushies in Morocco and Japan also.

So yes, my Groupon we will use for three nights near Thanksgiving. The kids have the whole week off thanks to state worker furlough days. My thoughts are to go Sat. - Tues. before it gets too crazy. When will you be there? The property is a little further out than I thought looking at the map on their website, but that's okay. It won't be more than 15 min. drive or so to the parks, and I know a couple of short cuts so maybe quicker.

I badly wish I could go with just you over Labor Day, but DH is working. Plus we have that trip at the end of September ... definitely we will do an adults only trip in the future !!

I have a post coming up from the Electric Umbrella. We loved the greek salads they had there. Really fresh and good. The burgers and Chicken nuggets are the regular stuff, but they were good. No complaints this time.

I keep meaning to try the Gran Marnier slushie, but I am drawn back to the Grey Goose one again and again. And then there is the Parisian Cosmo slushie that they have during Food and Wine that I cannot ever get enough of !!

OK, You keep missing us !! My kids have school Monday and Tuesday the week prior to Thanksgiving. So we are driving down Tuesday after school and staying until Sunday. I KNOW that it will be massively crowded. But now that I am the fast pass QUEEN, I am not too worried about it. Certainly you can stay another day or two ???

 

[jecskc]

On the way back, we decided to burn up the last of our CS credits. We had EIGHT of them left. We decided to go back to the Electric Umbrella. DS and I got food while DH and DD got us a table.

I used four credits to get us an early dinner/late lunch.

I used one to buy the guy behind me in line his food. He was very surprised and thankful. He was nice. Just passing along the Disney magic.

This is what we got for dinner:

A burger for DS

Chicken nuggets for me and DD

And DH got a Greek salad

We had three credits left, so I had the bright idea to get three Greek Salads and some cookies to use them up. We had a cooler in the car, so they would be fine on the way home. And they were. They stayed fresh for two more days as we ate them one by one. And they were very good.

On the way out, I wanted a dry shirt because mine was all sweaty, so I went to Mouse Gears and got my boss a magnet and myself this shirt:

DD was just so tired and she was really struggling, so DH gave her a piggy back ride to the car while I carried everything else. It was getting darker and just as we got in the car it started to rain.

My pedometer read – 14,801 steps = 7 miles.

And so this ends our trip to Disney. That drive home is always so rough. We went home on Friday which gave us the rest of the weekend to recuperate, so that was good. I have mostly clean clothes so that was good.
We really had a wonderful trip and on the way home, we talked about what we were going to do on our next trip.

Up next closing thoughts .............

 

[jecskc]

Closing Thoughts

Resort

We absolutely LOVED Old Key West and would not hesitate to go back. I was bummed that I never got to try out the slide at the pool, but my back was bothering me so much, that it seemed more important to rest at the time. The one bedroom unit was fantastic and we had more than enough space to spread out. The beds were super comfy and it was quiet and we slept and rested well there.

Pain patches.

If you have a bad back and you are going on vacation, get some of these things. They really helped me and I was able to keep a clear head most of the time by laying off the painkillers. I did need them at night though and a little more later in the trip.

College Baseball

So we watched a good bit of the College World series on this vacation. We are big South Carolina Gamecock fans and we won the 2010 College World Series. And this year …. We won again !!! YAY !! DH was so excited. We were all so happy. Hopefully, we will have a good football season as well. I just love college sports !!

Crowds.

This wasn’t the most crowded I have seen it. It was most crowded when we went on our very first trip on Spring Break in 2009 where they closed the parks at capacity twice while we were there.. But I would have to say that this was the second biggest crowd I have seen Disney. But we had such a good plan going in that we never had to wait very long for anything.
The two things I most regret not doing is more time in World Showcase and more time at the pool. But it rained a good bit in the afternoons and this seemed like a good time to get some rest. Oh, and Rapunzel. I really regretted not seeing her. I gave DD my solemn promise that we would see her in September.

Dining Plan.

This, we LOVED and plan to do again. We also have a Tables in Wonderland card which helped with the beverages and appetizers that we bought OOP. When we are on vacation, DH does a lot of the cooking so we don’t spend as much on going out to eat and he said it was really nice to not have to do that this time. He really enjoyed all of the places we ate at.

Our favorite TS restaurants were: California Grill, Whispering Canyon and Olivia’s (at the resort). We loved everything else, but those were our top 3. Least Favorite would be Tusker House. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it wasn’t great. Just ….meh. The juice, service and characters were great, though !! We are very much looking forward to trying some new places and returning to enjoy our favorites.

Our favorite CS restaurants were: Columbia Harbor House, Wolfgang Puck Express and Electric Umbrella (most especially the Greek salads there). And Good’s To Go at the resort was always good and very handy when we were tired.

Our favorite snacks were: Frozen Cokes and Frozen Lemonade. I mean, even though we were used to the heat and it didn’t bother us very much, it was hot. And those frozen drinks really hit the spot. I mean, ice cream is good, but it can make you thirsty. The frozen drinks really cooled you off and we just loved them. Also, DD said she loved the popcorn. Best popcorn ever, she said. And I have heard other people say that as well. But … it is just popcorn to me. But she just loved it.

Honorable Mention – Grey Goose Slushie

These are my FAVORITE in case you didn’t guess. I just LOVE them !! If you haven’t tried one, you need to !! But they aren’t a snack credit … sadly.

Disney Vacation Club

This was very exciting for us. The tour took up more time than we wanted it to, but I felt like the super fast passes made up for it. Those things were awesome. So, if you want to just take the tour, but not buy, and they offer you fast passes to do it, I would. The tour itself doesn’t take too long, really. About 2 to 2 ½ hours. But the time you save by using the super fastpasses is amazing. Our Magic Kingdom day was so amazing because of those super fast passes.

We are so excited about DVC and we feel like we have so many more Disney options now.

Special Thanks

A special thanks to those of you who write these amazing trip reports. The information and experience that you provide are so helpful. And plus, they are just a super fun way to get a Disney fix when we are all yearning to go back. So thanks, for taking the time to take all of the photographs, writing up the reports and responding to all of your readers. And to those that actually read MY report and to all of you who have commented. I love making new friends, so thank you for taking the time to say Hello and share with me.

Goodbye now and I hope that you will read along next time

Oh, and I plan on doing a Dining Review and I will post the link to it here once I get started if you want to read along.

Dining Review http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=41947966&posted=1#post41947966

 

[okw19]

That shirt is too cute!

I'm so glad you loved OKW! It made me even more excited for our January trip. I really enjoyed reading your report!

 

[jecskc]

That shirt is too cute!

I'm so glad you loved OKW! It made me even more excited for our January trip. I really enjoyed reading your report!

Thanks !! You will have an excellent trip, I am sure !! Thanks for reading along

 

[JenSop]

Loved the rest of your TR!

How wonderful to pass along some of that Disney magic to someone else with the meal credit! (And great Tshirt, btw!)


I so agree with you about Olivia's. It's becoming a favorite of ours as well. Every time we've gone, the service has been great and the food even better.

But I have to say - I WAY prefer the Grand Marnier slushies over the Grey Goose!