Our first Orlando, mostly WDW, trip report. "Making Memories". Dec 16-22. 2010 !!

[downsouthca]

When: 12/16/10 to 12/22/10
Hotel: Port Orleans – Riverside
Who: Party 1: Me, DW, DD18, DS13, DS9
Party 2: SIL. Nephew12, Nephew10. Niece8
First Visits for all of us. Disney dining plan. Birthday for DW.
The plan: One day at Universal IOA/WWHP, one day of resort time, and the rest at Disneyworld (a different park for each day)

The setup:
We live in San Diego and enjoy an occasional trip Disneyland with the kids. We've taken many day trips up to Disneyland, and have been curious about WDW. We’ve been married over 15 years. It's Summer 2010, and my DD has graduated from high school and taking a class trip to Europe. She’ll be starting at UC Santa Barbara in the fall. Our older son is a teenager. My youngest son is going to be 10 soon. We have some big family changes coming up and it’s got us thinking. How long do we have to build those cherished family memories?

Here we are all dressed up for a family photo:

We're reading about the new HP land at Orlando and it's getting us worked up. So, it's time to pull out the calculator and crunch those numbers. We setup a budget and start to plan and research, but we already know it’s too late. We are sooooo going to get our family to Orlando.

We are getting excited about the idea and mention to our family and friends. We must have done a good job of selling it, because DW sister and her three kids want to go. We get along very well and our kids are good matches for each other. Four of them attend the same schools. The more the merrier, but I give one warning: I’ll be setting up the game plan and it’s a crazy train that stops for no slackers!

We target mid-December and get our tickets on Delta. By now, our kids have been telling their friends about the Orlando trip and getting them all jealous. We’ve never taken a big trip like this before so it’s nice to get some vacation envy. The vacation planning pressure is beginning to build !

I look at offsite or onsite hotels. I’m leaning toward a WDW resort, but a family of five has limited options. I’m not ready to splurge for a deluxe villa or something that expensive. I’m about to pull the trigger on the Dolphin, when I notice a major price drop for Disney resorts that includes free dining plan. I book the whole party of nine for Port Orleans Riverside with Disney dining plan and 4 day resort passes.

I make the ADR’s, setup a couple of touring plans, and starting hitting all the WDW websites and forums for trip information. I show DW and SIL all the information and they look at me like I'm crazy, but agree with my ideas. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm not making any mistakes that would lead to a major vacation meltdown.

With most of it all set, the waiting game begins……

The trip intineary, I'll add links soon:

Day 1: Getting to Orlando

Day 2: WWHP/ Grand Floridian Dinner

Day 3: Magic Kingdom

Day 4: No Park day, Pool. DTD Dinner

Day 5: Disney Hollywood Studios

Day 6: Epcot, Candlelight Procession

Day 7: Animal Kingdom and back to Home

 

[downsouthca]

12/16/10 Day 1: Flying to Orlando and heading to POR

On Thursday AM, we are off to Orlando on an 11am flight. We have got all packed up for the Orlando nights and rain. We’ve got the games to keep the kids occupied. I’ve combed all the Disney forums to get all the information. We’ve got food to keep our stomachs full on our plane trip (yummy Vietnamese sandwiches).

A couple of complications: DW sister could not log into Delta to print her boarding pass. She called Delta and they were having system problems. I got lucky and was able to print out all of my boarding passes the day before. SILwas able to print her boarding passes with no problem at the airport. Plus, our “shuttle” to the airport was running late, he almost didn’t earn his payment of cookies and sandwich.

We get all boarded and headed to the runway, when the captain announces q fuel pump problems so we need to wait for a maintenance check. By the time we get in the air, we've lost an hour. I’m getting a little worried about our connector flight in Atlanta. At least the plane has personal video screens, so all the kids were entertained on the flight (they loved the Trivia game).

The Younger kids at the airport

DD18, SIL, and Niece8 getting settled

DW and I.. I have the worried about connection face

My DD18 was sound asleep for most of the trip. And I was able to sleep for a few winks. But when I was awake, I spent my time checking the flight information and scheduled arrival time. We touchdown at Atlanta 30 mins before our connector flight scheduled departure, but we get delayed 40 mins getting to a gate and disembarking. Stress rising. Luckily, we weren’t the only delayed flight and the connector flight to Orlando was held back to allow us to board.
We are off to Orlando with a non eventful quick flight. We land and take the monorail to the main terminal and see the giant Christmas tree at the Main terminal. We take our first “tourist pictures” in front of the tree.

We see World of Disney store and take more pics.

We grab a quick bite to eat. We head to the Alamo kiosk and complete the rental paperwork. We head to the parking garage and hop into our rental cars. I chose a black Dodge Charger… vroom vroom : )

As we drive, we find out that only one of us has a GPS and it was having problems locating the hotel address (due to both equipment quirks and human error). Ugh and double ugh. I get lost leaving the airport and have to backtrack to get on 417. Then, I lose track of SIL rental car and have to text her directions on the fly. We do connect again close at the first toll road, but I get us lost again getting off 417 to 538. I pull off and start working on the GPS (mental note: take time to punch in addresses before I drive in strange city) and finally get the right directions! We pass the Walt Disney World gates and follow helpful purple direction signs!

We pull into the Port Orleans and walk into the lobby. SIL and I are waiting to get checked in, it goes a little slowly but we do get all the keys and rooms sorted out. The rest of the party listens to the music of Piano Bob and love it. He made our group do a march and took a picture with them.

We drive to the Lodge 25 of Alligator Bayou and head to our rooms. When we open our door, we are greeted with a Mickey Towel head. Yea!! Love the room; we did not feel crowded, kids were happy with the trundle, outlets were bad but got fixed quickly, pretty close to the West Depot, and the bathroom curtain made morning/evening changes easier. We unpack quickly and get our backpacks/gear ready for Friday and IOA/WWHP.

 

[downsouthca]

12/17/10 Day 2: WWHP and dinner at Grand Floridan

Friday AM, we are not quite caught up with the East coast time change, but we manage to get awake. SIL and I grab some Disney waffle breakfasts and water from the hotel and head back to the rooms.

Learning from the night before, I have the GPS ready and preprogrammed and we hit the road to Universal Studios. There is no traffic as we head up Turkey Lane to the Universal parks.

We take our first ride on the parking lot moving sidewalks and we enter the IOA and head through Dr Seuss Land and Lost Continent to “Hogsmeade.” We are all big Harry Potter fans and read the books multiple times. We even listen to the Jim Dales audio books while on long drives. What a wonderfully themed area ! I touch the Hogwarts Express Train and give a cheer.

We head to the FJ line and I have a heck of time stuffing my backpack into the lockers, finally have to split up my junk. Once we were inside the castle, the line flew through. We only slowed down to take pictures of all the props, rooms, portraits and the other great theming.

FJ is a great ride, good use of live props and video screens. We got our bags back from the locker area. And it's just jammed in Filch’s emporium. Great shop and merchandise, but that place gets packed. And I’m getting old so I need better lighting. Oh well, it’s all part of the atmosphere. Next, we ride the flight of the hippogriff. I got the whole ride on our flip video camera. We head to some stores next and get a bunch of cards stamped by a very nice and patient attendant at the Dervish and Bangs store.

The older kids and I head to Dueling Dragons, my DS9 was almost tall enough, but had to sit this ride out. Love the DD queue, the Ford Anglia and the banners were very charming. We did the Fire side and it was great rush, made me woozy but fun. Nephew12 thought this ride was the best one of the whole trip. We do some more sightseeing, there is allot to take in. We took pictures at the Sirius Black sign, but only a few came out right.

We do a little more shopping and decide to head into the Three Broomsticks . We get our butterbeer and pumpkin juice and make a toast to “The boy who lived.” The food was just OK, but the frozen butterbeer was awesome. Regular butterbeer was OK and pumpkin juice was only loved the parents. The shepherd pie was very disappointing. The Fish and chips was well received. The chicken and ribs were just average. While eating our meal, I tell the kids to look up and they start to see owls and house elves shadows.

After lunch, we do the FJ ride again via single rider and we took the bag check shortcut by cutting through the store. I found the experience is even better the second time; I definitely caught more details. I wanted to kick those dementors in the head and ducked when the spider sprayed us! DW and DD did another round of shopping. I felt too confined so I headed outside the shop. I heard a small group bitterly complaining about the long line for FJ. I mentioned to them that the single rider line is much faster. Well, they liked that idea and took off for the single ride line. I saw them later in the park and they thanked me for the tip.
After the second FJ ride, we heading into the Jurassic Park area. We went on the River ride and got soaked. We spent time at the Discovery center and went on the trail to meet a Triceratops!

We got on the Amazing Spiderman ride, which had some great effects and enjoyed by all. They said the ride was almost as good as the FJ. By now, we were getting pretty tired out by now and headed back to Port Orleans for some well deserved rest before dinner. At the room, we found a Towel Doggie waiting for us and the kids loved it.

For dinner, we drove up to the Grand Floridian. I get us lost and we end taking a tour of the Magic Kingdom parking lot. It’s big.. lots of asphalt.. takes about 15 mins to get through. One more loop and we are back on the right track, we barely find a parking space and make into the hotel. Why is self parking so far away? We are little late for our reservation at the GF Cafe, but we get seated in 15 minutes. While waiting, we marvel at the Gingerbread house and listen to the Christmas carol bells.

This is our first table service and what a great place to start, we get an explanation of the dining plan and order away. The following dishes were delicious Spice-dusted Tuna, New York Strip, and Grilled Pork Chop. The Shrimp Penne was just average. Our group split a couple of dessert samplers, all were great, but the Chocolate Mousse Cake and Tiramisu got the best reviews.

I was hoping to stay for the Water Pageant and Wishes fireworks on the GF dock, but we were too tired. We headed back to our rooms full and sleepy. With WWHP done, it’s now time for all the WDW parks.

 

[downsouthca]

12/18/10 Day 3: Magic Kingdom
On Saturday, we get up and eat a quick breakfast at the room. I make sure to get the rain gear ready. It’s cloudy but dry when we march to the bus depot and the first one that pulls up is for the Magic Kingdom. Sweet!

We make to the Magic kingdom gates and get our fingers scanned. Still dry. We take one picture in the front plaza. … wait did that feel like a raindrop? We take our first steps into Main Street and it starts becoming a real rain. We break out the ponchos and get ourselves protected. When we reach the Castle, it’s a steady rain. Well, when it rains at WDW, then you better start getting inside the rides quickly!

We go to Space Mountain grab a fast pass and go in the 5 minute standby line; we walk/run all the way to loading. We hop on and we have our first ride into space. On the first ride, SIL and Niece sit it out. On the exit, we decide to go for one more time that’s another walk in. This time SIL and Niece join us and love it. The MK version seems a little slower than the DL version or maybe I’m just imagining it. Next, we head to Buzz Astro Blasters. I got the highest score! Take that Zurg !

While the group does a second Buzz spin, I make a run toward Fantasyland and get a FP set for Peter Pan with bonus Philharmagic FP too. The park was empty; the rain was keeping many people at home. Bonus for us!

I lead our group to Fantasyland (cutting through Cosmic Rays for some shelter). We take a quick picture with Mary Poppins who was wonderfully in character; she loved my DW Supercalifragilistic shirt and even said that word backwards. Awesome! We hop onto Peter Pan and Snow White rides. I still love the classics, something about getting sprinkled with pixie dust and flying over London means Disney magic. The snow white ride seems to have less of the wicked witch popping out at you which my DD appreciates.

While my Niece and I decide to do the Dumbo ride, the rest take a whirl on Prince Charming’s carousel. I know we’ll get wet, but there is no line for Dumbo. Let me repeat, NO LINE for Dumbo. I cannot let this chance pass. As we ride Dumbo, it’s starts to rain harder! When we get to the top, we see all the FL Expansion construction, my niece sees the crane and says “The Claw” in her best little green men voice. We all head to Philharmagic next and get a great photo op with Peter Pan.

The 4-d show is great fun with the “recent classic” Disney movie songs. This is all the music that my kids grew up on and I'm misty with nostalgia. The Little mermaid and Aladdin parts in 3D were a beautiful sight.

We take more pictures with the Cinderella stepsisters and stepmother. We get a lesson in judging people, looking down on them with your nose in air, and pointing the proper finger at our chins. Half of the group decides to wait for the Rapunzel meet and greet. We loved Tangled and we were the last people to get pictures with them. My niece asked Flynn if he had the crown in the bag and he showed her that he did indeed have it, too bad there weren’t any frying pans.

I took the other half to get Big Thunder fast passes. Trudging in the rain, we secure the passes and decide to check Splash Mountain. It has no line. It's a walk on ride. We can’t get any wetter so we head onto the ride. My Nephews ask me is the big drop coming ? I tell them not yet. When we get to the big drop, they scream their heads off but love it. Another classic ride, can’t believe I was able to walk onto it. Our group meets at Pirates of the Caribbean, the ride is traditional good fun.

We grab a FP set for Splash Mountain and head to Pecos Bill for lunch. We navigate the computer screen ordering and get our sides from the fixing bar. The kids loved the hot cheese dip for their fries. I had the veggie burger and it was quite bland and overcooked, luckily I piled enough sides to make up for it. The other burgers were just fine and made everyone happy. Lo and behold, the rain finally stops and we see the sun.

We happily pack the poncho and other rain gear and head out for the second half of our day. We go to the Haunted Mansion for short wait and ride. While I love the classic ride, the Nightmare before Xmas overlay at DL is a great plus. And while we were on it, some goofball kept taking flash pictures. Dude, the ghost effects don’t work with Flash photography ! And we got stopped when someone jumped out of their buggy. We got stuck with the raven staring at us with the evil red eyes.

We rode on Big Thunder and used our Splash Mountain FP next. We grabbed Dole whips on the way back to the castle and took some sunshine pictures.

After cleaning out our Dole whip induced messes, we headed to Stitch Great Escape (disappointing because the kids wanted the spaceship to move a little bit) and Laugh Floor (loved it, though I had to cough up Churros, but I wasn’t “that guy”).

We go on Tommorrowland Speedway next. My DD passes because she tells the other kids that "When you learn how to drive, this ride isn't as much fun." We took off and zipped around track and the other kids enjoyed being in their own cars. We walk into ToonTown Fair for look see and shopping. We hop on the Disney railroad (no dioramas of Grand Canyon or dinosaurs, too bad) for a loop around the park. It's getting dark by now, so we swing by the castle for some night pictures, what a wonderful color of purple. The lighting is really a work of art and feels like a show to me.

We use our last set of fast passes for Space Mountain and then we head down to Tony’s for our dining reservation. We are able to get seats on the patio over looking the Main Street Electric Parade route. While we are served, the parade starts and we have an awesome view. The dinner was great; I had the Lamb Shank (so tender). Others had the Chicken Parmigan, Gnocchi, Seafood Diavoli, Lasagna, and Salmon. For dessert, I had the crème Brule and the others had the ice cream bomb.

We are a well fed and happy group. We head to the Main Street Railroad platform for fireworks, but a dense fog rolls in and wipes out any view of the fireworks. We decide to leave the Wishes show early and take the bus back to the resort.

We are the first stop at our Resort, that’s another bonus. In our room, we discovered that our towel Doggie swiped a banana from my DS9’s stuffed monkey! Such treachery!

 

[downsouthca]

12/19/10 Day 4: Mass, Laundry, Pools, and DTD
On Sunday, we let the kids sleep late. My wife and I wake up early and take a nice stroll around the resort across Old Man’s river to the lobby. We love the atmosphere with the landscaping and the river theme. When we get back to the room, we get the kids ready for church services in Celebration. Once again, I take a wrong turn heading to church and get us lost and late. After service, we do some shopping at the local Super Target and have lunch at the POR counter service. I order the “Make your own Pasta” with great chicken-pesto mix. I also grab a Rice Krispy Mickey head snack. Yummy.

We change into our swimsuits, and head to the Old Man River pool. Wonderfully heated and the spa felt even better. The kids loved the pool slide and the got to burn off some energy. A great way to spend time while the clothes are in the laundry. Those dryers are slow and expensive.

We take the water taxi from POR to Downtown Disney. A fun and pretty ride, but it gets cold at night.

We have dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express and order great food. I can’t believe it’s just a counter service credit. Some big hits were the bacon wrapped meatloaf, salmon, and curried chicken salad.

After dinner, we do more shopping. My goodness, the Lego and Disney Stores were packed.

We took the bus back to the room. Back in the room, we picked up Towel Animal duckie !
A little more rested, I’m hoping we can do the next three park heavy days.

 

[downsouthca]

12/20/10 Day 5: Disney Hollywood Studios
On Monday AM, we take the bus to Disney Hollywood Studios.

We got there for rope drop and start heading down Sunset Blvd. We got a quick ride on Tower of Terror. ToT is way better at WDW, random drops and neat Twilight Zone Effects.

We got in line for Rock N Roll Coaster for our longest wait of the Disney parks, 30 minutes, it was worth it. What a great ride! The first speed rush was exhilarating and loved the Aerosmith music.

We made plans to get on the RnR again. We went back to Tower for as second round of drops, while a runner got Toy Story Mania Fast Passes. It was just after 10 am, but the fast pass time was for 7 pm. Wow, we were lucky to get one of them.

We meet at the Animation Character Greeting and took a picture with Lotso. He smelled like strawberries and gave us big hugs. We loved the Sunshine day care drawings of the TS3 character. And we flexed our best muscle poses with Mr. Incredible. We did the “what character are you game”. I was Scar, my DW and DD were Lady, DS13 was Tarzan, and DS9 was tinker bell. He selected madam, he got confused.

It was time for lunch at Pizza Planet. The lines were pretty long. The meatball sandwich and chicken salad was better than expected.

We sent a runner to get RockNRoll Fastpasses and we all met at the Great Movie Ride. We took some pictures of the stars hands.

The gangster “hijacked” our ride; we were all into the show/ride. We told our youngest to duck and not look up in the Aliens scene. We screamed at the Gangster “Never touch the red jewel….ohh too late.”

We went to Beauty and the Beast show and it was a great production. We loved the numbers and songs. Classic story and great delivery by the cast. The kids loved the part with Gaston. They do the bit where they sing “Now I eat Five dozen eggs”, but only hold up two fingers. It still cracks them up.

After the show, the older kids went to RockNRoll Single rider line and stroll through the backlot.

while the rest went to the Animation Academy for a drawing lesson. We tried to watch Little Mermaid show, but missed it three times that day. The animator (Dave) lead us in a lesson in drawing Eeyore (great cheers). It was a great lesson and made me inspired to draw again. I’ve made five Disney sketches for all the kids as an Orlando remembrance. I went up after the lesson and asked the instructor for his drawing. He colored it and signed it to my wife for her birthday. Double Awesome. Later that night, I left the drawing on the TSM ride, but DW was able to go back and recover them. Whew. Thank you Disney, for the awesome customer service.


We all met again at Lights, Action, Extreme Car Stunt show, wow, great stuff and thrilling. I still can’t figure out how they drive all those cars together without crashing. I can see why they call that part the car ballet, it was almost poetic. It all moved so fast and loved the backward driving car.

We had the dinner buffet at Hollywood and Vine. It was just okay. The buffet was like any regular dinner. I did have a nice superfruity Margarita. After the meal, we watched Muppet 3D, I love that Show, my personal favorite and the pre-show always makes me laugh. We got front row seats for a close look at Snookums . He is one tall Muppet. A quick walk thru the Osbourne lights on the way to Toy Story Mania to use our Fast passes. I wish we had more time at the Osbourne lights, but the group was ready for another ride. I noticed that TSM had the new movie characters that was a nice touch; on my final screen I had Spanish Mode Buzz. Muy Bueno.

Once we were done with Andy’s room, we went to Fantasmic 8 pm show. I’m glad they added the second show, we were able to just walk on and it wasn’t that crowded. It’s a great show, but the Pocahontas part doesn’t compare to Peter Pan-Hook fight at Disneyland. We loved the bench seating to watch it; we all had a great view. After missing on Wishes due to fog, watching the fireworks was a great treat.

After Fantasmic, we used our last set of RockNRoll Fastpasses and did some more shopping. We took the Bus back resort to find the towel animals watching TV!

 

[downsouthca]

12/21/10 Day 6: Epcot and DW birthday dinner
On Tuesday AM, we did some early morning pre-packing to prepare for our Wednesday check out. We were out the door and got to Epcot by 8:45, and got in few minutes before the non-resort guests. We took some quick pictures in front of Spaceship Earth. We decided to skip Soaring since we’ve been on that ride several times on DCA.

We grabbed some Test Track FP and went to Mission Space Green. What a Great ride and really immersive. With help from “Lt Dan”, we completed our mission to mars. After the ride, we did the advanced training and our Orion team, just barely lost the space race! We got some FP for Mission space Orange side and headed to Test Track to use our Fast Passes. It was a Fun Ride, but some of the kids were expecting more loops. Well, “test cars” don’t do loops. I loved the 60 mph acceleration test and flying around the curves.

The girls went to hit some shops while I took the boys to Innoventions. Sum of all thrills was too long of a wait; so we got a Kim Possible pass for Norway and UK, grabbed another set of Test Track FP for later that night. And it was time to use our FP for MS: Orange. Wow, quite a difference, it was hard to push the buttons and you can really feel the extra G-Force. I was a little woozy. The boys were in their own shuttle, but they really felt the difference. I was with an older group and they were a little freaking out. I think the Green side would have been better for them.

We chowed down on some popcorn and pretzels and headed to the Seas with Nemo to meet the rest of our group. The Nemo line was 60 mins, so we opted for Talk with Crush show with kids. Talk with Crush was well done and the interactive parts were great. A Surfer talking Turtle always makes me laugh.

We took the boats across the lagoon to eat at Yakatori house in Japan showcase. It was great to have steamed rice again, but the beef was not grilled and no onions, so the flavor was missing. And they ran out of sushi. So it was just OK. Loved the Anime display and we saw the candy art lady create a rabbit and koala out of thin air.

The girls went to take pictures with Jasmine and Belle, while I took the boys around France and UK. We heard the British invasion play a couple of Beatles songs, and got a Kim Communicator for my oldest daughter.

We met up again after the picture taking. DD18 and DS13 went to UK to shop and complete the KP mission. DW took the other boys to Sum of all Thrills (which they loved ). SIL, Niece and I went to the China pavilion. I loved the China showcase and the Terra Cotta warrior display. My Niece got her Mulan picture and autograph.

We went to Norway to play my niece’s Kim Possible mission. We made a red flag go up and sent some smoke signals, but we had to leave before we finished it. My niece was too spooked to take a picture by the Troll.
We meet again at Innoventions. My family went to take our free Disney Visa picture with Goofy and Minnie. Then, most went to Sum of all Thrills again! DW, DS9, and I went to Seas with Nemo ride which now had a 5 minute wait!! Some of the effects were very similar to the Nemo submarine ride, but fun to watch. We love seeing Dorie and Bruce the Shark.

We went off to Garden Grill for our dinner reservation and I spoke quietly with the host to make sure the Mickey Mouse cake was ready for my DW Birthday. We all got seated and had some of their salad. We asked for extra bacon, since we are all Bacon fiends. We finally realized, hey we’re moving as we rotated about the Living on the Land exhibit. We made a toast to our last dinner at Orlando and I especially thanked them all for putting up with my crazy plans and being good sports. We loved the mashed potatoes, sweet potato fries, mahi-mahi, and turkey. The second round of roast beef was much better than the first cuts. We had great visits by Chip, Dale, Pluto, and Farmer Mickey.

Finally, the Mickey birthday cake arrived and we sang happy birthday to my DW. She even got a card signed by all the characters. Super sweet. The cake was delicious, moist yellow with chocolate mousse. And the frosting and icing was great. The ears tasted ever better. We shared the rest of the cake with the table next to us. While the food wasn’t the greatest or fanciest, this was the best dining experience. What a great last dinner at WDW.

I took the kids to Test Track to use our fast passes, the ride is even better at night! All the kids liked it more. Then, we headed to Candlelight Procession show to meet with DW and SIL in line, we got CP tickets from our dinner at the Garden Grill. I’m really glad we made the time to watch it. Wow, great show, I loved the music from the orchestra and the choir singers. Trace Adkins had a great voice and was honored to be there. What a great way to start Christmas celebrations.

After the CP Show, the SIL family went back to the hotel. We stayed to watch the fireworks. Illuminations was mind-blowing and worth the wait. What a spectacle and it was done so well and it warmed my heart to hear Walter Cronkite. As a firework show, it was hit every note right.

As we were exiting the park, DS9 told me, “When I have kids, I’m going to take them back here.” We were all feeling the Disney Magic. Major Family bonding time! We were a happy group as hopped on a Bus back to the resort. In our room, we saw a new towel “girl” reading the Bible with the other towel creations and our monkey. The kids wrote a nice thank you note for our mousekeepers for their great work.

 

[downsouthca]

12/22/10 Day 7: Animal Kingdom and flying back Home.
On Wednesday, we got up to finish our packing and get showered up. Our flight was not going to leave until 6 pm, so we had time for one more park. I went to the ME lobby to get our boarding passes. They could print the other passes except mine. Not their fault, but kind of wasted my time. They entered my flight information into the ME computer, when all I wanted was computer and printer to connect to Delta website. Oh Well. I told my SIL to stay at her room and just print her boarding passes at the airport.

I grabbed some pancake breakfasts, bagels, water, and extra Rice Krispy snacks for the rooms. After finishing breakfast that off, we packed our stuff (and the towel animals/girl) into the car and bade Port Orleans a fond farewell. We gassed up at Hess and headed off to Animal Kingdom. Our last park at WDW.

DS13 and I went off to Expedition Everest to get FP while the rest headed to Kilimanjaro Safari. We grabbed the passes and went straight to Africa and caught up with them in line. The safari brought up much closer than the usual San Diego Wild Animal Park tour. We had great views of Elephants, cheetahs, and giraffes.

After the safari, the kids went to EE single rider line. DW, SIL, Niece, and I went to the Finding Nemo Musical. On the way, we took a picture with Baloo the Bear, but just missed King Louie.

We grabbed Fast passes for Dinosaur ride and we walked into the Nemo musical. We saw the older kids in the back of the line but they just missed getting into the theater. Nemo was a great show, the puppets and staging were impressive. Dorie always makes me laugh and Marlin-Nemo scenes make me tear up. When you get a parent and child doing the big scenes, it makes me choke up a little. (I had very moist eyes several time during TS3 too).

After the Nemo show, we all meet up to head down for the Dinosaur ride. While walking DS9 was asked about his favorite character and he said Stitch, the CM produced a large pin that opened like a laptop with Stitch on the screen and traded it to him, Wow, this is one LARGE pin.

We went on the Dinosaur ride. It was really dark and more intense than I thought. I was on the outside and I thought raptors were going to jump on me! It was kind of scary for me and the rest of the party said we didn’t have to ride that again. I thought it was going to me more like Indian Jones, but there something different between spears and boulders vs large lizards with sharp teeth.

Next, we headed to EE to use our FP’s. Great ride, one of the best. Fast, furious, and the mountain theme were awesome. Great Views of the park and whole resort area. The Yeti monster looked great; I wish we could see it in moving mode again. Wish I had time to ride it again, but we had limited time to catch a few more attractions before we had to head to the airport.

With the fast rides done, we grab some Jalapeno Pretzels and Disney ear ice cream bars on the way to the Flame Tree BBQ.

I found out that I used up all of my Quick Service credits on that last lunch order. Woo-hooo. After some messy ribs and chicken, we walk over to the Festival of the Lion King. What a fun show, the float animals moved well and the acrobats and singers were amazing. “Lion Sleeps tonight” is a favorite song for me, it had great energy throughout.
With our trip back home looming, we grabbed some egg rolls, fried rice sides, and more Rice Krispy treats to use up our snack credits and have airport munchies. We headed out of AK and went on Osceola Parkway to finally leave WDW.

A few tolls later and we are at the airport. We returned the car, bye-bye black Dodge Charger. We went through a regular security lines and were at the gate. No special scanners or pat down. While waiting at the gate, we broke out the egg rolls, fried rice, and pretzels! This plane did not have those nice video screens. And they were showing “eat Pray Love” on the screens above, so the kids were less entertained. They were hoping for another round of Trivia. It was a long flight back, but my niece felt better when I started to do some sketches of Eeyore, Minnie Mouse, and Stitch for the kids. She made me a great drawing of Mickey and shaded in the other drawings. It was welcome distraction for me too. I had a hard time sleeping.

When we made it to LAX, our connector flight to San Diego was delayed by 100 mins due to bad weather. We got more food and tried to make everyone as comfortable as possible. It’s hard to sleep in those airport chairs. When we finally got into San Diego, it was past midnight and we made back to home sweet home. End of trip. Whew

 

[downsouthca]

Final Thoughts and Wrap Up:

Disney Pin Trading: I ordered a 40 pin lot set from the internet before the trip for my niece and DS9 .We’ve never did pin trading before so it was all new for them. Once, they started to trade with a few Cast Members they were hooked. We were all hooked. Sometimes, we were slowed down because someone spotted a great pin and we stopped to do a trade. They moved all their original pins they and sometimes only kept their new ones for a few minutes before they saw a better one.. They were on the hunt and checked many CM’s pin collection. They remained polite and friendly about it. My niece looked for Princess pins, while my DS9 was all over the place on what caught his eye. He was able to find some great Stitch pins A few days into the trip, older nephew got his own lanyard and pins to trade because he “didn’t know that pin trading was going to be this much fun.” Pin trading was great way for the kids to spend their time and have extra Disney treasures (DW picked up an awesome Bulls Eye and Jessie pin, she never let that one get away).

Best rides: Rock Roll Coaster and Expedition Everest.
Best shows: Philharmagic and Finding Nemo Musical.
Best experience: HP/Forbidden Journey.
Best dining: Grand Floridian Café for food. Garden Grill for the characters and cake.


Missed out: Holiday Wishes fireworks (fog). Some HP shops (too Small/crowded) Soaring (seen it at DCA). Osbourne Lights, Backlot Tour, Spaceship Earth, Journey to Imagination, Living on the Land, Kali River Rapids, Monorail, American Adventures, Discovery Tree Trails. Other Disney Resorts (just no time)


Not Great:
Orlando Road signs leave a lot to be desired. Especially at night.
My GPS needed an update. Got lost driving about Orlando/WDW.
Flight Delays to and from Orlando. Stress from planning, delays, and getting lost.
Tolls, so many quarters.
Needed to fix two electric plugs in the room. What did the previous people do to them?
Carrying clothes for night/rain, made for a heavy bulky bag.

Final Thoughts: almost all of the big things we wanted to do worked out just fine. Thanks to the great information available, I was able to get our vacation planned out smoothly. WDW was a great place fun, exciting, educational, and happy. Harry Potter land was well-realized and definitely worth it.
I had great interactions with all the Disney CM’s. We got to see/take pictures with twenty characters. We usually don’t take the time on DL trips, but it was special to meet the characters at WDW. My kids loved the towel animals and would talk about them bus ride back to the resort. Dining plan was worth it, and getting it “free” was a big part of staying onsite.
While it was WWHP that pushed us to go to Orlando, staying at WDW was wonderful and had more magic. I miss it already. Both of the families had a great time and made some wonderful memories

This one picture sums up the trip.

I hope they stay young and happy forever and keep the Magic with them.

 

[ArdyG]

Many thanks downsouthca for your trip report. Although it fitted on one 'page' (which for me was the best thing about it), it had lots of helpful comments and observations. Such a lovely family too - great photos.

 

[DonnaLeah]

I really enjoyed your trip report. Glad you had a great time on your visit to IOA and WDW!

 

[downsouthca]

added more pictures to the trip report.

 

[mousebymarriage]

Great trip report and pics, thank you for sharing your vacation with us!