OUR GREAT TRIP REPORT (now with pictures!!!)

[redoschi]

Well, we've returned on Christmas Eve and now that all the Christmas gatherings have ended I managed to start putting things back into order like e-mails I received while on the trip, Christmas gifts, the loads of stuff we bought on the trip!

Now I decided that I should start my Trip report and I'll try to make it pretty complete and even include several pictures! You can find my Pre-Trip report here!

As you may notice from the topic of this TR, the trip was GREAT!!! We all loved it (of course! )

I'll start with a quick day-by-day list of destinations and then in the next days I'll try to describe everything that we did and all the fun that we had!

The whole trip was from Dec 6th to Dec 24th (the flight left Orlando on the 23rd and arrived in Brazil on the 24th, so this last day was pretty uneventful for a TR).

This was a 2 destinations trip: New York and Orlando.
We arrived from Brazil in Orlando on Dec 6th.
Then on Dec 7th took a flight to NYC.
We stayed in NYC for 4 nights until the morning of Dec 11th and flew back to Orlando.
In Orlando we stayed for 12 nights at the All Star Sports before leaving on Dec 23rd.

Here is a small description of the days with mostly the places we went to:

Dec 6th

Flight to Orlando
Florida Mall​

Dec 7th to Dec 10th - NYC (this is a Dis site, but if people start liking my Trip report for WDW and want to know about the NYC part of it too then I'll gladly report everything from those days also! )

Dec 11th

Flight back to Orlando from NYC
Meet DSis and her DBF
Magical Express to All Star Sports and Settling at the hotel
Downtown Disney
DisneyQuest​

Dec 12th

Magic Kingdom
Animal Kingdom
Downtown Disney​

Dec 13th

Disney-MGM Studios
Epcot
​

Dec 14th

Orlando Premium Outlets
Downtown Disney
Cirque du Soleil - La Nouba​

Dec 15th

Islands of Adventure
Meet my parents at IoA
Animal Kingdom Lodge - Jiko!​

Dec 16th

Disney MGM Studios​

Dec 17th

Animal Kingdom
Magic Kingdom​

Dec 18th

Magic Kingdom
Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party​

Dec 19th

Islands of Adventure
Universal Studios
Blue Man Group/Prime Outlets​

Dec 20th

Busch Gardens
Orlando Premium Outlets​

Dec 21st

Epcot​

Dec 22nd

Sea World
Downtown Disney​

Dec 23rd

Sea World
Flight back to Brazil ​

This was our vacation (at least in a general description). Soon I'll be back with more! Hope you all like this TR and leave lots of responses!!!

 

[redoschi]

Happy New Year everyone!

Ok, now that I'm back from the rest of the holidays I'll really get this Trip Report going.

I'll start with the days at WDW first and then if I have nice replies and people want more, I'll report the first days of the trip in NYC.

I've mentioned this on my Pre-trip report but now I noticed I hadn't mentioned on this topic. Here is the Cast of this trip!
Myself - Eduardo - 23
DGF - Bruna - 23
DSis - Patricia - 19
DBiL (DSis DBF) - Rafael - 21
DDad - Luiz - 50
DMom - Silvia - 49

We went in 3 waves to the US: I went first with DGF to NYC for some days (we arrived in the US on Dec 6th). My DSis and DBiL arrived on Dec 10th in Orlando. We met them on Dec 11th to go to WDW. My parents arrived on Dec 15th.

One more thing, this was the first ever trip to the US (and therefore WDW) for both DGF and DBiL so we wanted to show them all we loved there in just these 13 days (I wish we could have stayed longer, even in 12 days we had to let go of several things )

So...

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December 11th
We left the hotel in NYC in a cab to Newark Airport really early in the morning. Arriving there we went to check-in with Continental and managed to change the flight to an earlier one so that we could arrive 3,5 hours earlier!!! (YAY! ).

We arrived in orlando at about 11am (instead of the 2h45pm of the original flight!) and met my DSis and DBiL on the airport. From there we caught the Magical Express to All Star Sports!

We arrived, checked-in, left our stuff at the room (#8153, ground floor on one of the Baseball buildings) and went for a snack at the End Zone Food Court. We were starving and it was a pretty good lunch.

After this and unpacking we decided to get the magic started by getting a bus to DTD. When we were almost at the bus stop of the hotel we saw the DTD bus leaving. It was our first day and I had heard that DTD buses aren't that frequent in mid-afternoon having an increased frequency after dusk. So we tried to reach it by running like hell to All Star Music! Of course we didn't make it in time again, so we decided to wait there for the next one instead of foolishly trying to run to Movies.

Thankfully it didn't take too long and we were on our way to DTD. Once we got there we entered the first store out of the bus stop: Disney's Days of Christmas. It was nice to get us both into the Disney environment and its holiday joy. Then we stopped for one of my favorite desserts in WDW: the Famous Ghirardelli Hot Fudge Sundae!

After the delight of our sundaes, we walked through Pleasure Island to West Side and made it to DisneyQuest! We all had a GREAT time there! Of course the favorite attraction surely was Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold that we did 3-4 times! We also did pretty much all the other stuff like Virtual Jungle Cruise, CyberSpaceMountain, the Magic Carpets, Ride the Comix, Invasion, Mighty Ducks Pinball, Buzz's Astroblaster. We also had a great meal at the FoodQuest and a nice Cheesecake at the Wonderland Cafe.

After that we walked a bit through the Virgin megastore and some other stores of the Westside. and then we were all a bit tired of the trip to Orlando (from NY having to wake up pretty early or the long one from Brazil on the day before) so we decided to call it the night and grab some sleep.

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Well I better call it the night here now also, but tomorrow I'm back to continue the report!

 

[tinawv]

Looking forward to reading more about your trip. Also, looking forward to pictures (I am a visual person ).

 

[redoschi]

nice to get a reply! Well, I'm still sorting out the pictures, but I'll try to post some on the next few days, including probably a couple of this first day!

 

[redoschi]

Let's start the day with some pictures of Dec 11th:

DSis, DBiL and DGF on a Ghirardelli table outside World of Disney while waiting for our sundaes!

Myself with the LEGO dragon (I love these LEGO sculptures!)

The 4 of us (DGF, Myself, DSis and DBiL) with our Pirate Goggles just outside our Pirates of the Caribbean ship in DisneyQuest

 

[redoschi]

I had a busy week and now I'm back to continue this TR!

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December 12th

We woke up early and had a nice breakfast at the Sports Food Court. Then we left our mugs and picked our backpacks on the room and took a bus to the Magic Kingdom!

Magic Kingdom
Everyone should start their first WDW trip at the Magic Kingdom, after all it was the start of this wonderful world! And it has the Castle!

We arrived about 25 minutes before the rope drop and managed to see the opening ceremony from a great spot! Then we entered Main Street, caught some more maps (we had gotten one of each map at the hotel, but we also needed the attractions time info.) and then walked straight to the castle and around it to wait for the rope drop on the intersection of Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. From there we got into Fantasyland, took Fastpasses for Pooh and went into Snow White for our first ride of the trip!

We had decided to make all of Fantasyland before it got crowded on this first day because my parents didn't want to do any of it again, just the new Phillarmagic, so we left that to do with them (I regret this since seeing it as this became my new favorite 3d show !!! and we only got to see it once).

So we did Snow White, it's a small world, Pooh, Peter Pan. Then as the trip runners, me and DGF went to get FP for Frontierland (I believe we got for Splash) and met with DSis and DBiL in front of Haunted Mansion.

We then did both Splash and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and from there we went to Adventureland. Aloha Isle was closed (it was about 10h30 and a CM told us it usually opens a little before 11am) so we caught a FP for Jungle Cruise and did Pirates, now with Jack Sparrow!

After riding both of these and browsing a little on the Adventureland stores, Aloha Isle finally opened and we got some nice refreshments! I got the Pineapple Float (after having read a LOT about it and never taken one, I HAD to take it!) and it was AWESOME! DGF got a pineapple/vanilla swirl without the juice and DSis and DBiL didn't want icy stuff and got a pineapple juice and Doritos.

After this nice stop we caught the train from Frontierland to Toontown fair. Once there we walked through Minnie's and Mickey's homes and did the classic picture with Mickey at Judge's Tent!

We walked to Tomorrowland and got FP for Space Mtn. then we werestarving again and decided to have lunch at Casey's Corner. I love those hot dogs!

We took some pictures near the castle with a lot of sun on our faces.

Me and DGF with Cindy's Castle

DSis and DBiL with the Mickey and Minnie bushes

After that we went back to Tomorrowland for Space Mtn., Stitch and Buzz. I was a little disappointed on Stitch as I thought the Alien Encounter was more frightening, but as I love Stitch it was still pretty cool to see his attraction!

After tomorrowland we had ice creams at the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor and then left the park and took the Monorail for TTC.

At the TTC we grabbed a bus to Animal Kingdom to go for our second park of the trip (and enjoy its EMH!)

Animal Kingdom
We got into the park and passed Oasis directly to Dinoland U.S.A. and from there passed into Asia for Expedition Everest, the ride that we were expecting the most out of all the new ones since our last trip in 2000 (at least for DSis and I).

It was Spectacular! This is my new favorite roller coaster in Orlando! Surely it doesn't have loops or long falls, but the theming and story are the best of ANY roller coaster ever (the only one I know that comes close is Rock n' Roller Coaster with those speakers on each seat and the nice story!) and the backwards part and yeti encounters complete this ride in a great way!

Me and DGF with Everest on the background

After a couple times on Everest we got back to Dinoland to do Primeval Whirl (worst ride ever, I'm still thankful that we did this a LONG time after lunch or something might have come out after that!) and Dinosaur (still great ride, I love this one since it was Countdown to Extinction!)

Then we got our EMH wristbands and got by Festival of the Lion King. It was nice, specially the acrobatics and the guy with fire.

We then decided to do Everest at night twice more before dinner (to avoid doing a roller coaster just after eating).

Yeti museum before our last ride of EE on that evening

Expedition Everest at night

Then we got to the Yak/Yeti Local Cafes and we all got some nice stuff. I had the Sweet & SOur Pork (pretty good!), DSis and DGF got Crispy Chickens and DBiL tried the Kung Pao Beef. We first thought that it would be a lot of stuff but after noticing that below the meat there were vegetables and/or rice then we concluded that it was a nice amount for one person.

Then after the meal we did a last attraction before heading out: It's tough to be a Bug!

Tree of life at night (I highly recomend going to AK during EMH, it's wonderful!)

Then at around 8pm we caught a bus to ASSports to stop to leave our things and take a bath before heading to DTD again.

At DTD tonight we just walked around Marketplace and specially the World of Disney. Got some stuff (specially some snacks and candy!) and walked a little more but as we were tired we decided to return to the hotel for the night.

 

[mishy]

Enjoying your trip report popcorn:
Great pictures to...

 

[mishy]

oops...

 

[redoschi]

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December 13th

Again we decided to wake up early and arrive at the park before rope drop, so we had a nice breakfast at the food court and left for MGM Studios (which is no longer called MGM Studios, but as back then it still was, I will continue referring to it as MGM at least on this TR!)

Disney-MGM Studios

We saw the movie shooting rope drop and ran directly towards the power rides! We got the FP to RnR and got in line for ToT.

I had had a bit of trouble on my first time at ToT (back when I was 10 y/o) and had been terrified of returning to it ever since. But after all these years (and with DGF with me! ) I said to myself that I needed to try it again. I LOVED it this time! we even did it about 4 or 5 times in this trip!

Me and DGF at the Hollywood Tower Hotel Lobby!

We then did RnR and went to Star Tours (Great as always! The ride isn't that spectacular as it was to me when I was younger, but I'm a big Star Wars fan so its great to go on a SW attraction - never been to SW Weekends, I believe that it would be a really cool time to go). We then watched (or should i say listened) to Sounds Dangerous (we decided to do it because it was about to start and it was a lot of fun!)

We went on both RnR and ToT again and then watched The Magic of Disney Animation. If there wasn't such a long line, my gastronomy student DSis would have taken a pic with Remy on the end of it, but it would take too long and we would still go to Epcot (and we were starving by now!).

Remy and Emile at the end of Disney Animation.

We then took the boat to Beach Club (never taken this MGM-EPCOT boat, it is a nice ride and nice way to park hop!) for a nice lunch at Beaches n' Cream! We waited for about 15-20 minutes for seating (we sat on the counter, it was really nice!). and then we had the best burger EVER! It's really very very good! I had never eaten on one of the resort restaurants for lunch (except for the Sports food court 2 days ago!) and this was a pretty nice experience, surely a place I'll drop by again on the next trip!

Epcot

We then walked to the International Gateway and met Chip & Dale just inside Epcot.

DSis and DBiL with Chip & Dale.

We walked to The Land to try to get a FP for Soarin (it was about 2h45) and it was already giving FPs for 7h00! We decided to drop it and go take a FP for Test Track instead (we had a ADR for 7h15 so it would clash with Soarin).

We took the FP for Test track and decided to try Mission Space (the green one as we had just had lunch). I liked it very much, but wanted to try the Orange team as I thought the Green was fun but not really a THRILL ride.

We wanted to get by Universe of Energy before our FP for Test Track, but it had just closed for maintenance. We entered Innoventions and saw some exhibits, and had lots of fun with the House of the Future. there are some great appliances there!

We then got to The Land for the FP for Soarin and returned to do Test Track and Orange Team of Mission Space. Those 2 rides were great. I love TT and the Orange team really is a LOT more fun than Green!

We saw the Circle of Life movie at The Land (when it was finished there were no more FP for Soarin) and went to the World showcase for our ADR. We went directly to Japan and while DSis and DBil were browsing on the huge Japan store, DGF and me went to Teppan Edo to let them know we were there already (it was 6h40, about half hour before our ADR). We got the buzzer and went to the store also before our ADR. To my surprise, it buzzed less than 10 min after we had arrived. I called DSis and let them know that the table was ready. At 7pm we were already sitting on our table! I had been to this restaurant before the rehab and it's still pretty good. Our chef even made quite a show with the vegetables and the grill. She made a Space Mtn made of onion slices and then turned it into a Volcano! pretty cool! The food was delicious and we had a great time.

After our dinner, we returned to Soarin and it took some time even with FP. We had to go on the third row, unfortunately. I had heard a lot about this ride and had seen the LONG lines that it gathered. But I didn't think it was all that great. (This impression lasted about a week, as when we did Soarin again with $my parents, we got first row and then realized why it was so popular. It's a totally different ride when you don't have feet dangling in front of you!)

My DSis and DBiL went to MouseGear, but me and DGF wanted some dessert. the Ice cream place just opposite to Mousegear was closed already so we thought: let's grab something on the World Showcase.

We got by Mexico but as we didn't want churros, we passed them by. (Notice that this was just before Illuminations!) The Norwegian bakeri closed its doors just before us (we saw the CM locking it as we approached! ) The chinese kiosk just had a strange green tea ice cream which didn't fit what we wanted so we continued on.

Trader outpost was all closed just like Germany and Italy. US had almost everything closed also and by now Illuminations had already started. Then we found our savior! The funnel cake place at the Japan end of the US pavillion was still open!!! We got ourselves a couple of Fried Ice Creams and they were DELICIOUS!!!

Then we continued along the countries and Illuminations finished when we were passing through Morocco or France. Which meant a HUGE crowd. My DSis and DBiL had already gone to the bus lines and we arrive just as they had left on a bus to ASSports. We took the next bus (at least Epcot has 3 bus lines for the All Star resorts, which means less lines for each resort) and then we returned for a nice night of sleep.

 

[redoschi]

corrected picture size (these last few ones were uploaded with the original instead of the web lighter version) so now it is easier to see the post!

 

[redoschi]

December 14th

This was a different day. We would go to the Orlando Premium outlets for the day, so no parks.

We woke up a little later than the park days and after breakfast we got on a bus to DTD. From there we caught a taxi to the Premium Outlets (much closer than All Star Sports, and also much easier to get a cab!)

At the outlets we visited all the regular stores (including Disney's character premiere of course) and stayed there until about 4h30. We took a taxi back to the hotel (on the way back with packages it was best to return directly than to stop for a bus and we didn't have that much time).


We left the things in the room and all took a bath and then left for DTD. While my DSis and DBiL finished with their baths, me and DGF took a bus to DTD and stopped directly at the Westside for Planet Hollywood. We asked for a table and while we were waiting the others arrived.

We had a nice dinner there before going to La Nouba. Me and DSis had seen it on our last trip but it was nice to show the others this great show! Those chinese girls with the Diabolos never fail to amaze me!

We then walked a bit more on the westside and got a dessert at the Wolfgang's puck express. I had a nice Key Lime Pie, but it was a little bit too sweet for a lime pie, still good though.

We were tired by then (walking around carrying packages all day can exhaust you more than a day running around the parks!) and decided to take the bus back. We waited for a long time at the Westside bus stop for a All Star bus. I had never waited for so long for a bus, even after park closure. We just stood there talking to a guy who was also waiting for a bus (he was in movies) and it was a LONG time before the bus arrived (and pretty packed, at least we managed to get in, but barely, only 8-10 people at the Westside bus stop managed to enter!!! )

 

[waltdisneymama]

Hello,
I'm enjoying your trip report! I wondered how much it cost for your taxi from DTD to Orlando Premium Outlets and then how much it cost for the taxi back from the Outlet store to your hotel? (Do you think it would be a similar cost to Florida Mall?)
Thanks!!

 

[redoschi]

work has demanded a LOAD of time for me these past couple months and now during easter holidays is the first time I'm returning to DIS to resume my Trip Report!

waltdisneymama, I don't know if you're still interested on the cab fares, but I believe we spent less than 10 dollars to go from DTD to the premium outlets and then it was something like 25 or a little more on the way back to All star SPorts.

The Florida Mall is a MUCH longer taxi trip than the premium outlets so I believe that the cab fare there should be considerably bigger.



I should return with the rest of my TR in the next few days. Hope it won't be too bad that it took this long for me to return with it!

 

[MousekaMaddi]

nice report, c;mon back.........

 

[redoschi]

After a long time without posting more days, I hope to be able to complete this TR!

Here is another day from that magical trip!

December 15th

This day we had a little bus trip from ASSports to Universal Studios Orlando!

We were on a budget and my parents wouldn't have arrived for several hours still, so we grabbed breakfast at the food court and left on a bus to MK.

On MK we grabbed a resort monorail and returned to TTC to get a Lynx bus. We waited a little and got into the bus 50 to Sea World.

We met a nice brazilian lady who worked on USO and we talked with her on the way to SW. She said that there was another bus from SW to USO and that even if this bus was a little late we could catch a couple more buses eek and then arrive in USO.

When we arrived at the bus stop near SW she said we should wait just a bit for the other buses. We didn't want to have to travel too much on a bus and we were eager to get into IoA, so we entered a hotel right across the street and grabbed a cab to take us to USO. It was something like a 15-18 dollar trip and we sure arrived much faster then to take other buses.

From ASSports to USO we would have spend a LOT more on a cab then doing like this (bus most of the way and cab to arrive at USO), so I think it was worth it.

We ran to the entrance of IoA, got our tickets on the counter (my DSis and DBiL had his tickets printed from USO website, but DGF and myself got different kind of tickets as we would also watch the Blue Man Group so we had to get those at the counter) and then we entered this great park (I'm a big Marvel and Jurassic Park fan so I love it almost as much as I love WDW!).

We went straight to Hulk and get fast through the really small queue and when we arrived we were stopped with this warning: "You can't take your backpacks on this attraction! You need to store them at the free lockers outside!!!". We had carried those packs on all WDW attractions so far (even Splash Mtn, RnR and EE) and had no problems at all with them!

Me and DBiL, the ones carrying the backpacks left the girls at the exit of the coaster and ran to the lockers. His backpack fit well in a locker, but mine was bigger and didn't fit in there. We returned to the exit of Hulk and explained to the operator. He understood and said that he could keep the pack on the side of the exit for us while we were on the ride. ok, why couldn't he have done that in the first place???

We rode that great roller coaster and after we left it I decided to look for a bigger locker (even though the guy said that all park lockers were the same size!). We found those bigger lockers on the left side of the park entrance. We had to pay for it (we got just one), but that was the best thing we did as we had some extra clothing to change on our way out of the park and also some neoprene shoes to use on water rides, so we rearranged everything to keep what we would need most on his backpack (that we would share the burden for this day) and everything that we wouldn't need on the park on the locker, we even left our sneakers in there and put the shoes for the water rides to walk around so that we could save time and space in the backpack!

After this long intermission we returned to Marvel Island and after we saw the time on Spidey we thought it would be best to leave it for later (it was about 30 min or 40 min). A guy that was holding the "Meet Spiderman" sign on the street advised us to go now because the lines would just increase until really later in the day.

We did Spidey, one of my favorite attractions in Orlando! and then we decided to dare to face Doom's Fear Fall. Me and DSis hadn't done it on our last trip. I hated free fall towers since my troubles with ToT like I mentioned earlier! but after my nice experience with ToT this time I decided to give it a shot! IT was Awesome! this tower isn't frightening at all! we have a fast way up and get down slowly so no time to really FEAR a drop! We did it a couple times (there were no lines at all!) and then moved on to Toon Lagoon.

This is when I regret doing some attractions! This wasn't exactly a hot day, not very cold either, just had a nice weather. But it surely felt cold after Popeye. On the first turn of the raft, DGF and me were taken by a huge wave and we got soaked (we had our rain ponchos so our upper bodies just got a little wet, but my jeans weighted a LOT more on the way out of the raft than they did on the way in!

We decided that as were were soaked already we should do Dudley Ripsaw falls next. We got in there without waiting too much and were enjoying the ride and on the top, before the final drop, the ride stopped! We waited there for about 10 min or maybe a little longer before they said that the ride would be able to continue. I don't know exactly what happened but we enjoyed the end of the ride (this one doesn't soak as Popeye! just a little!) and head to Jurassic Park!

As we were soaked already we decided to do JP before lunch to finish the water rides! This one is the BEST water ride in IoA and the one who gets you less wet! Much better than popeye (I'm sure that in a hot summer day it must be refreshing but not so much in December!)

We then went to the Lost Continent for a nice meal at the Enchanted Oak Tavern. DGF and myself got a table while my DSis ran to buy herself a new Tshirt (her poncho was different from ours and DBiL's shirt was one of those which dry pretty fast). We waited for her and then I went to get us some food as we were starving by now! We all got some BBQ plates and DBiL got himself the Turkey legs. (picture isn't here right now on this PC, but will post it later together with other pictures from the trip!)

After lunch we thought it was best to wait a bit before doing Dueling Dragons so we head to the Eighth Voyage of Sinbad! A nice stunt show as it had been on our last trip and thankfully we didn't sit on the splash zone (I didn't even remember there was a splash zone on this show!)

After sinbad we did Poseidon's Fury... it's extremely cold in there! it is a nice attraction, but after we got wet with all those water rides, it's not wise to enter such a freezing attraction!

We then returned to Dueling dragons and did both of them! I remembered Ice being better than Fire, but this time we liked Fire the most.

After DD my parents called us saying that they were on the way from the airport. So we decided to get back to the entrance, we got by Toon Lagoon for some Dippin' Dots (those things are pretty good! I have no idea how they manage to make those ice cream balls, but they are pretty funny to eat!) and then stopped by some marvel stores until they called saying they were crossing the Citywalk to arrive at IoA!

We met them and then as I had planned we went back to Marvel Super Hero Island to do some of the attractions again with them. We did Hulk with my DDad (my DMom hates roller coasters, specially the ones with loopings!) and then went all together on Spidey and even Dr Doom (after our great experience in the morning we convinced them to try it out!)

We then crossed the park to do DD again with DDad right before the park was closing. We did both Fire and Ice and then crossed Dr Seuss back to the entrance to change our shoes and clothes as we still had to leave USO and return to WDW for signature dining!!!

After we were ready we got the car that my dad rented went straight to the Animal Kingdom Lodge (we changed in the park as we KNEW that there would be no time to stop by ASSports before our 8h30 reservation)

We arrived at that Beautiful lodge and managed to get by Jiko right on time for our reservation. We waited just a bit to be seated and got a table on a nice room. The meal was extremely good (not the best of this trip though!) but REALLY expensive! But my DSis and DBiL are studying to be chefs so we had to have a signature dining experience!

After that we returned to the hotel as my DParents sure needed some sleep after the long trip they had!

But still me and DGF, after been on the USA for 9 days (we arrived some days before the others to have a mini trip to NYC!), had to go and do some laundry... After a cycle on the washer and 2 cycles on the dryer we managed to have our clothes ready for our second part of the trip!