Our Month-Long Trip to Orlando w/ Pics and Video!* The Day Before Updated 1/25 Page 1

[babieemelly]

Hey everyone! After a long hiatus from the Disboards due to being extremely busy with school (and another trip to Orlando!) I'm back with my "Month-Long Trip to Orlando" trip report. I originally started it last year but I never finished it and now I'd really love to. We have another trip to Orlando planned for this coming summer, and we went on a three-week trip this past summer, so I want to get this trip report and the report from this past summer's trip done before we leave for this years summer vacation! I figured now's the perfect time to start...

Some Pre-Trip Background Information

I love Disney, which I guess is relevant by the fact that I'm on the Disboards! My love for Disney started when I was a little girl. When my brother Mike and I were younger we would watch Disney movie after Disney movier after Disney movie, and the Disney channel was a permenant staple of our afternoons. In 1992, when I was five and and Michael was three and a half our parents took us to Disney World and we loved it! We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort and had an amazing time, despite the fact that I cried on almost everything!

For years after our first trip my parents kept saying that we would go back, but for some reason we just never did. We kept going on vacation to other places, including Lancaster and Hershey, Pennsylvania, Williamsburg, Virginia, and Lake George in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York. All of these vacation were amazing but I really wanted to get back to Disney.

Then in 1998 I graduated from elementary school and as a gift we got... a puppy! It was a complete surprise since I'm allergic to dogs and it was just something we never even considered. The pet store we always went to for my bird, though, started selling dogs and my dad picked out the cutest little black and white Shih-Tzu since Shih-Tzu's are hypoallergenic dogs. We named her Oreo and she very quickly became a part of our family. My mom had't even wanted the dog but Oreo soon became her third child!

Due to the fact that we now had a dog, all of our vacations came to an end. We went from going on a summer vacation every single year for seven years to not going anywhere. My passion has always been traveling so this killed me but I dealt with it. My mom just didn't think it was a good idea to bring the dog on vacation, and she couldn't leave her home. So we simply just didn't travel.

Then, for my junior high school graduation in 2001, I finally got to go back to Orlando! My junior high school was made up of different programs and everyone in my program all went together for a week in March. My mom a little apprehensive about me going on my own, but my friend's mom (who we had known and been friends with for a good ten years now) was going so my mom gave in and let me go. And what a trip it was! We spent a day each at Epcot (we did the Hidden Treasure of the World Showcase tour in the morning), the Magic Kingdom, MGM, Islands of Adventure and Sea World. I had an absolutely amazing time, although the trip was laced with a lot of immature cattiness. There were a lot of fights and disagreements, but in the end we all had a great time. The best thing I got out of the trip was my restored love for all things Disney and Orlando-related.

For months after I returned home all I could talk about was how amazing Orlando was and how much Disney had grown up since our first trip all those years ago. I kept telling my parents that we all needed to go back as a family, and they actually agreed to it. That doesn't mean that it actually happened, though. For THREE years I planned trip and trip after trip but none of then actually came to fruction. Most of the time it had to do with not knowing what to do with the dog, but it also had to do with the fact that my parents just didn't want to go down to Disney.

Then, in the summer of 2004, everything changed. After seven years of vacationless summers, we decided to go back on vacation! We would go to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for four days and spend one of those days at Hershey Park. We had already been to Lancaster and Hershey three times before so we felt like seasoned veterans. My Aunt Stacy, Uncle Alan and little cousin Alison decided to come along, and we stayed at a pet friendly hotel. We decided that if all went well with this trip, then we would finally go to Orlando the next summer. I kept my fingers crossed the entire time...

And everything wound up going perfectly! We had such a good time that we actually added an extra day onto our trip. Oreo loved the hotel and she wasn't a problem at all. So Florida is was! I thought we were going to drive down with the dog, stay at a pet-friendly hotel for a week and then drive back home. Mom and dad had been discussing this without me, though, and they had an even better idea... we were going to rent a house down in Orlando for a month. What?! I was shocked. SHOCKED! At first I didn't believe them, but they conviced me that they were being serious and it would be a way to make up for all of the vacationless years we went through. That sounded more than good to me!

I started planning the trip a year in advance and we decided to go from July 9 to August 6, 2005. I picked out a really nice condo in the Emerald Island resort. We also got annual passes to Universal Studios and 10-day Magic Your Way tickets to Disney with the park hopping option. We then decided to also get tickets for Sea World, the Titanic Exhibit at the Mercado and the Orlando Ripley's Odditorium. I couldn't wait to get going!

The trip finally arrived and what an adventure it was... and now I'm sharing it all with you, from start to finish! To make the trip report even better I'm adding the tons and tons of pictures I took throughou the trip, as well as VIDEOS! We have a full four and a half hours of video from this amazing vacation and I captured most of it onto my computer to include clips of rides, shows, attractions, parades, firework shows, tours of resorts, etc. I'll have my first entry up tonight so look for it soon!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Blaynexox]

Hi! Im very excited to be the first to post! I cant tell you how excited I am to read your month long trip report! Your off to a great start and all of your plans sound GREAT! I understand your dilemma with the dog. Me and my boyfriend really wanted my parents to come on our trip, but there was no one to watch the dog and I would have been worried about him all the time so its just us too. Im pumped to see all your pictures and videos! Cant wait for more! - Blayne

 

[Gregory]

Great start babieemelly. Thanks for the trip report. Can't wait for more.

 

[babieemelly]

July 8, 2005 - The Day Before

After waking up at 9:00 every morning for the past two weeks, I actually got up at 11:00 this morning which was late for me. Mom and dad had brought Oreo to the groomer to get a haircut before we left and they still weren't back. They finally got back at around 1:00, and I watched some of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" on ABC in my room before taking a shower and getting dressed.

I then sat in the living room and transferred some stuff from the TiVo onto a DVD for mom, including an Eagles concert that was on ABC, a Barry Manilow concert that was on the HDTV channel, and Pink Floyd's reunion performance from the Live 8 concert. All three concerts had a lot of good music so I had fun watching them. In the middle of doing this, at around 4:30, dad brought our suitcases downstairs and started packing the car. It was so surreal to finally be getting ready to leave! After four years of planning trips that never happened we were finally on our way! We left all of our overnight bags and everything we were going to put in the roof rack in the house to pack away tomorrow. I didn't think it would, but all three of our suitcases, plus Mike's huge three foot tall duffel bag, fit in the trunk.

At 5:00 we ordered pizza, chicken rolls and calzone for dinner, and ate at 5:30. As I was hanging out and waiting for the food to come my throat started to hurt pretty bad, and I got so nervous! It felt like a mix between when my throat hurts from my allergies being bad and when I had strep throat. After four years the vacation was finally here, and now I was getting sick? I couldn't let it happen! I took some Tylenol and sprayed my throat with an allergy spray and just hoped it would get better. Since my throat was hurting I only had a half of a piece of pizza for dinner. I think it was more from nerves than from pain.

At 6:00 Aunt Stacy and Alison came over. We really just hung out, watching some of "Be Cool" with Uma Thurman and John Travolta (a really bad movie!) and the Yankee game. Alison and I both had waffles since we were hungry and there were only four waffles left in the open box that mom wanted to get rid before we left. Alison kept saying that she wanted to come to Orlando with us! She would tell Aunt Stacy, "It's only thirty days, mommy, if you miss me just try to think of me!" It was absolutely hysterical and the cutest thing ever! Then Aunt Stacy would say that she was leaving to go pack Alison's bags, and Alison would scream "No!" Haha!

At 7:00 I logged on to some Disney message boards to check some final posts and to say goodbye. I also checked my mail one last time and said goodbye to a few of my friends. After endlessly talking to them about the trip for the past year, I'm sure that they were more excited that we were leaving than I was!

Alison was getting impatient just sitting around and she started acting really bratty, so I went out on the porch with her and we played catch. After a half-hour, Aunt Stacy and Alison left at 8:00. Mom and Aunt Stacy both cried, and when Alison saw them crying SHE started crying and saying, "Aunt Debbie, I want to go with you!" We assured her that we'd get her lot's of presents and Aunt Stacy told her she'd take her to Mickey's house soon.

I went back online for a little while and redid my AOL profile. I put the lyrics to "Remember the Magic" by Brian McKnight on it, and said that I was going to be in Orlando for the month just in case my friends forgot where I was. My cousin Ryan came online and we had a pretty interesting conversation. At the time, hurricane Dennis was threatening Florida and Ryan and my dad's entire side of the family was leaving for a cruise around Hawaii in two weeks. So our conversation went a little bit like this... Ryan - "I hope you have fun in the hurricane", Me - "I hope your ship doesn't sink". It was great! At 8:30 dad shut off the computers and unplugged the main power switch. That was it for the internet for a month!

I went upstairs to take a shower at 9:00, and before I went in I heard my Aunt Debbie, Uncle Ted, Grandma and Grandpa come over to say goodbye. They live in neighboring houses across the street so they just ran over quick. I heard Aunt Debbie say, "Call us a lot", and Uncle Ted said "Don't melt on the sidewalk!" I was going to go down and say bye, but they only stayed for five minutes so I didn't bother.

After I took a shower I hung out in my room and watched TV and played Donkey Kong on my Game Boy, which I hadn't played in years! I watched the end of the Yankee game and then turned on the news hoping for some information on hurricane Dennis. They said that the storm had weakened over Cuba and was heading Northwest towards the Florida Keys, and then would head towards Alabama and Louisiana. I had my fingers crossed that it would just stay as far away from Orlando as possible! Mom, of course, was freaking out, but we all kept assuring her that it wouldn't be bad since the storm wasn't supposed to directly hit Orlando.

I went downstairs to get a water bottle, and Oreo was laying in the living room with her legs and paws completely stretched out. It was so cute!

At 11:00 I braided my hair so it would be crimped in the morning and I watched the third disk of my Boy Meets World Season One DVDs. I then watched some of my Florida DVD's - eight DVD's that I had burned with Florida, Disney and Universal-related things I taped off of TV. I watched the Family Matters and Step by Step episodes from when they went to Disney, and then I shut it off. I watched the end of Conan at 12:35. with Anthony Anderson and musical guest Aqualung, and then just laid in bed.

My alarm was set for 4:15 in the morning, and I just couldn't fall asleep! It was like that commercial where the kids are too excited to fall asleep on the night before their Disney vacation. After watching some late-night infomercials and a few episodes of Blind Date, I finally fell asleep at 3:00 in the morning. It was going to be a very short night...

 

[Blaynexox]

Wow! The day before exciting things like that is always so tough! I cant believe you remember all that from so long ago - great memory! Your dog looks so adorable in the picture! I love that you have disney dvds with those shows on them. I love the Step by Step, the Full House, and Boy Meets World when they all go to Disney. Those are my favorites! Cant wait to read more!