Our Anniversary Bonanza! Sept 6-12, 2007

[liz2d2]

First the cast of characters: myself, DP Andrea, our DD Valerie (15 months) and our dear friend E. The three adults had travelled to the World before, in 2005 and were eager to share the moments with my daughter.

Thursday, Sept 6, we got up at the crack of dawn and headed to the airport for our excellent journey to Orlando. For once, everything went smoothly with our flights and we arrived on time. Thanks to my research, we rented our car from the in-terminal Dollar rental place and saved ourselves another 30+ minutes over using an offsite location. Never mind the shuttle ride without a carseat.

By 6:40, we had the carseat installed and were on our way to the parks. We had an 8:15 pm reservation at Ohana and on a whim, I called to see if we could get in any earlier. Nope, they were packed so we drove to the TTC and parked. We took the monorail into the Magic Kingdom, where we had just enough time to show Val the castle and ride Buzz Lightyear once.

It cost $2 to add that extra day onto our tickets. That was so worth $2!

We headed back out of the park and hopped onto the monorail to the Polynesian. This time, DD and I got to ride in the front car! She ate her first co-pilots license but enjoyed the ride very much.

Ohana was indeed packed, but we got seated pretty quickly. Our server was very nice and the food arrived at a decent pace. It tasted just as good as I'd remembered! After dinner, our server brought out dessert, which included the secret cake I'd ordered to celebrate our 11th anniversary:

DP was totally surprised when it arrived and I was so touched that I got a little teary. DD was passed out and missed the moment.

After dinner, we walked from the Polynesian to our car at the TTC. I just took in everything -- finally, after 6 months of planning, we were there! Ahhh. Disney bliss.

We got totally lost driving to our resort, WorldQuest, but once we got there it was amazing. The place was huge, clean, was well-stocked and had a great pool we couldn't wait to try. But first, we had to hit the sack because the next day had us in the Magic Kingdom at 8:05 am!

 

[liz2d2]

Day 2
We got up early and headed to the TTC and again onto the monorail. We made it to the Crystal Palace a bit late, but they seated us anyway, thus starting a trend of being a little late for our reservations. The meal was just great and the atmosphere and view are hard to beat. Eating breakfast in view of the castle on your first full day in Disneyworld is about the coolest thing ever.

DD enjoyed herself, and especially the flags they handed out to all the kids for the parade. She skipped the parade but hung on to her flag for quite some time.

After breakfast, we headed out into the now-open Magic Kingdom. We saw the Main Street Singers:

and then headed to Fantasyland. We went on Dumbo, Peter Pan, It's a Small World, Pooh and something I'm forgetting. Pretty much all of Fantasyland before the crowds got big at all.

After Fantasyland, we headed out toward Pirates but decided to go for Splash Mountain instead. E and Andrea went on the ride first while I hung out with Val in this conveniently-located playground just outside the entrance.

Then they returned and E watched Val while I rode with DP. Man, I love that ride! And the WDW version is better than Disneyland's. I hardly got wet but loved every minute of it.

At that point, it was time to head back to the Polynesian for our lunch at the Kona Cafe. We'd never eaten there but I'd heard great things about it. We were once again late for our ADR and unlike the Crystal Palace, they kind of gave us a hard time about being late even though the place was half full. DD was sleeping hard in her stroller so we wanted to bring that in with us. They acted like that was absolutely unheard of, completely perplexing. It took a few minutes and a lot of people moving chairs around to get us and the stroller seated.

So I wasn't too impressed from the start. The food was Asian-themed and nothing special compared to what we could eat everyday at home. Maybe if we lived somewhere where there wasn't a lot of good Asian food, it would have been something special. But for us, it was a okay, we've eaten there, now we don't have to do ti again kind of thing.

The rain started while we were eating. That, and our exhaustion made us re-think heading back to the park for the afternoon. So we went back to the resort, hung around and swam in the giant pool we had all to ourselves.

We headed back to the Poly for dinner -- this time it was the Spirit of Aloha Luau. I'd called on a whim just two weeks before and found that we could get front row seating. So off to the luau we went!

There were guys in grass skirts:

and a guy who danced with fire:

We all enjoyed it except DD. It turns out that she was just starting to work on a pretty bad case of constipation and she was not having any part of sitting at the table. So I ended up walking around outside with her, then Andrea came and we switched off. It was another 'we've done that once and we don't need to do it again' kind of thing. Neat, but once was plenty!

Since there were still a couple of hours until Epcot closed, we headed over there and checked out the new Nemo ride while DD slept and we carried her. It was pretty neat, even the second time after DD woke up!

This time, we made it back to the hotel without getting lost so we took that as a great victory.