Amy&Dan
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2004
- Messages
- 15,958
This trip was long awaited, it was our first trip to WDW in a year with just the four of us (me: Amy, husband: Dan, kids: Matthew 11, and Maria 9). In October we took my parents, my mom has cancer and Alzheimers and my 81 year old stepdad had just had a long ordeal with his health. Great trip but many, many bumps along the way and probably not a good idea in hindsight to take them on a trip to WDW given their age and health concerns. Then in January we went with my husband's dad who unbeknownst to us was in congestive heart failure. Also along were Dan's aunt and cousin. Aunt and cousin had a ball and are great fun to travel with but again, the health concerns of part of our party just made the trip a bit stressful. So Dan and I were really anticipating this trip with a lot of excitement! We had originally planned to surprise the kids the morning we left, but the logistics of that, plus the fact that having them help with the planning is part of our fun, made us rethink that. So we told them in February we were going. So they were surprised then instead! This was our sixth trip to WDW and by far our most enjoyable. Great weather, great resort and dining experiences and just so much fun relaxing and playing with the kids. So here is a recap of each day:
Wednesday, April 26:
We departed out of Denver at 10:30 a.m. Left right on time, Dan was completely exhausted, he had worked 48 hours between Sunday and Tuesday. Plus 70 hours a week in the months before. I think he was asleep on our Airbus before we pushed out of the gate! I sat between Matthew and Maria who watched movies. I watched Food Network to pass the time. I hate to fly and even with two Xanax's I was my usual jittery self! We landed at 4:10 p.m. in Orlando, got our luggage and headed to Magical Express. We were on a bus by around 5:15 to Pop Century, our first of three resorts for this trip. Our last trip to Pop had not been quite what I had hoped. I had decided I liked Movies better but Dan had reminded me when we were making our plans for this trip that the unexpected death of my beloved Uncle during our stay at Pop had soured my experience, not the resort itself. So I decided to give it another try. I was so glad I did. We had a great stay. We paid for preferred and to us it was well worth it. We were in the 60's building, room 5309. While we checked in the cm's did the Hustle which brought back some funny 70's memories for me. Matthew and Maria got a huge kick out of it. Dan missed this as he was already in the gift shop buying stuff, the man loves to shop! I upgraded our base tickets to park hoppers as we had decided the night before we wanted to hop after all. I was so glad we did, as we ended up hopping quite a bit. We dumped our luggage in the room and got right on a bus for Epcot to make our 7:30 ADR for San Angel. We had a great table very near the water. We totally enjoyed our meal there, it was our third and best visit to date. Great service. We finished eating at 8:50, walked outside and got a decent spot for Illuminations. Dan got a margarita and we enjoyed Illuminations as always. We headed to the Pop busstop and had a pretty minimal wait, maybe 15 minutes. Not bad given that everybody was leaving the park at the same time. We decided to let the kids swim for a bit, great idea except the pool was really cold. They toughed it out for awhile but didn't have to be told twice it was bedtime! We were unpacked and in bed by midnight.
Thursday, April 27:
We slept in until about 11:00. I woke up earlier and read for awhile and stepped out on the walkway to admire our view of the Hippy Dippy pool but nobody else seemed to want to get up. I mentioned the word "shopping" and that got Dan out of bed at least. The kids were motivated when I reminded them we had refillable mugs we had purchased last night just dying to be filled with all that delicious frozen coke available to them! We put on swimming suits, grabbed lunch at the food court and let the kids swim. I was determined not to be Commando Park Mom this trip and let things flow a bit. The water was still cold but not unswimmable and we all swam. The pool was deserted because most people go to the parks during the day. I kept salivating thinking of Mickey's Philharmagic, Space Mountain and all the things I could be doing at MK but nobody else was in a big hurry. I was reminded by my family we had 9 full days ahead of us so I bid my time. Finally at 2:45 I could take no more and begged them to get out of the pool and take me to MK! They complied nicely. We walked through the turnstiles at 4:00, did our corny group hug we always have to do and got down to business. I can't remember every ride we did but I am pretty sure TTA, Small World, Peter Pan, Buzz and Splash Mountain made the list. We had dinner at the Village Haus. I have had heard few good things about this place but we loved it. Matthew and I split a paninni which was really good and Maria had her standard mac and cheese. Dan had a salad. The only bad part of this meal was that Dan got a call on his cell phone from work. They had called several times while we were at the pool so why not call and bug us at the parks too? He had to step out to get a better connection which left me alone in line to get the food. The kids were sitting outside at a table. So I had to squeeze our whole order on one tray which included a total of 7 drinks since I had asked for some free ice water. Naturally one of the drinks tipped over and began leaking ice water into Maria's macaroni so I asked some guy if he could assist me which he did. I set the tray down, was informed instantaneously by my daughter that her macaroni looked watery and realized they had shorted me my salad. I got all this attended to while Dan continued to talk away on his phone. He finally joined us and we had a nice dinner. We rode TTA after dinner and noticed Stitch only had a five minute wait. So we did that again, all convinced that we just needed to give it another try only to realize again, what a dumb attraction this is. And we love Stitch. I never saw any waits of any kind on this ride, I believe the novelty, which is the only thing this had going for it, has worn off. Too bad Stitch, you deserved better! We watched Wishes directly under the wire where Tinkerbelle flies, that was a great spot. Then we rode a few more things and saw Spectro at 11:00. Us and maybe 20 other people. The second parade is always a winner if you can stay up that late. We headed back to Pop and agreed our first full day had been a success.
Friday, April 28:
Headed to AK. I had hoped we could get up early but after our late night at MK that didn't happen. We arrived around 11:30, the standby for Expedition Everest was 70 minutes but we decided to go for it. We had a 3:10 ADR at Sci Fi at MGM and the fastpass return times were too late for us to make that. It only took 55 minutes. The inside area of the que is really cool and the wait actually wasn't bad. Even when we were outside there was a nice breeze (I love April at WDW for the weather alone) to keep us comfy. What a ride! We all loved it, the backwards part made my stomach lurch a bit but it was so fun. We had to leave AK after just that one ride but agreed it was worth the time and trouble. We got on the bus to MGM and got to Sci Fi early for our ADR and had to wait. We fastpassed Star Tours for after lunch, we should have just ridden it since there wasn't much wait and we had time. But we had already checked in and didn't want to miss them calling our name. Had our usual great lunch at Sci Fi, we love that place. We were all tired afterwards and skipped Star Tours and headed out. Two parks and only one ride. My Park Commando personality should have been having trouble dealing with this. However, in my old age I am amazed at all the new tricks I can learn! So we headed to Pop, swam and had dinner in the food court and got to bed early so we could get up early and head back to AK for more fun on EE!
Saturday, April 29:
Got up early as planned as we made our way down the stairs a man asked us if we were planning on going to MK anytime soon. We said sure and he gave us 22 ride re-entry passes. He said they had been in the elevator but that they were leaving so he gave them to us. According to the note they were inside of they would work just like fastpasses but with no time constraints. What a piece of luck! We had breakfast in the Pop food court. Maria had been dreaming about strawberry pancakes for weeks and she got them and shocked me by eating all four of them! Dan and Matthew loaded up on breakfast meats which is not a good idea before riding thrill rides but oh well. We were at AK by 9:10. Tourguide Mike said this was a great day as AK would be the least crowded park in Orlando. Well if that was true, I hate to think what the other parks looked like. At 9:20 the standby for EE was 70 minutes. We fastpassed it and headed into Dinoland. Dinosaur and Primevil Whirl had less than 20 minute waits so we rode those while we waited for our fp's for EE to come up. Afterwards we decided to visit the Pooh characters at their little greeting spot on the river. We then rode EE and loved it even more the second time around. We fp'd it again but then decided that since tonight was a grad nite maybe MK wouldn't be so bad so we gave our fp's to somebody else and rode the bus to the Contemporary and then monorailed to MK. Also, Dan and Matthew felt ill from all their bacon and sausage combo'd with EE, Primevil Hurl and Dinosaur. We got to MK. It was crowded but with our cool passes we were able to ride a few things. I really thank whoever that person is who A) left them in the elevator and B) the guy who gave them to us! We didn't use them all and saved some for another day. We fp'd BTMRR and rode that and then fp'd Splash and gave those to another family. If somebody was nice enough to pass along some pixie dust to us, the least we could do was imitate them. We saw the parade right by Splash. Not a great spot. In the first place it was in the sun. In the second place some pushy family from Hell moved right in and began chowing on McD's fries. I got really sick of hearing that man and his dad smacking those fries and screaming to their kids: Look, Pinnochio, Look, Snow White". Apparently they thought their kids and everybody around them needed some verbal cues on the parade characters. Oh and their body odor was also less than pleasant. So we all decided that we needed to see the parade again another day for a more pleasant experience! We rode Pirates since we knew it was going down again on the 1st. Then headed back to Pop for some swimming. I did some laundry with other nice moms who have a hard time leaving their domestic drudgery behind on vacation. The kids continued to drink huge amounts of frozen coke. Since they aren't allowed to have sodas at home the refillable mugs at Disney are about the best part of the trip! We had an 8:50 ADR at Chef Mickey's so we headed up to our room to get ready and decided to take a cab. Great idea except the cab driver didn't know where the Contemporary was. I told him to follow the signs for Magic Kingdom. He said he wasn't sure to trust me because if I knew why didn't I just drive myself? Well maybe because my car is parked at the airport in Denver genius. So he asked a bellman at Pop who also didn't know. I told him to trust me, head to MK and we'd get there. He managed to get lost but eventually decided to trust me and we got there. We had a great dinner and it was a lot of fun. The characters, Minnie in particular were really rushed but as the evening wore on and it was us and just a few other families they got a bit more friendly so that was good. After our cab ride we decided to just take a bus to DTD, shop a bit and then take a bus back to Pop. Bad idea, it was long, chilly wait followed by a very crowded bus ride and another long wait for a Pop bus. We skipped shopping as we were tired and needed to pack up a bit at Pop as we were moving to Boardwalk the next day. We finally got "home" and went to bed. We were all a bit sad, we had so enjoyed Pop and hated to leave!
Sunday, April 29:
Checked out of Pop and got a cab to Boardwalk. Except this driver had no idea where Boardwalk was. What is with these cab drivers. I told him to head towards Epcot. This guy at least "trusted" me and we got there very quickly. Checked in at Boardwalk but our one bedroom was not ready. We headed out to the boardwalk and had lunch at Big River Grille which was fantasic. Then we went and retrieved our swimming suits from our luggage at the Bell desk and swam in the Luna pool, which made the cold pool at Pop seem like a hot tub. It was ridiculous, I heard many people complain and the lifeguards said they hear this constantly. Matthew went down the slide once and let out a very painful yelp when he hit the water. He decided to read and play with his toy soldiers he had gotten at the Pop arcade. Maria just kept going down the slide, her blue lips matched her blue swimsuit. Our room wasn't ready until almost 5:00 which was a bummer but since we were at WDW we didn't let it get us down. A mai tai or two at the pool bar and I could not have cared less if our room wasn't ready until Tuesday. We finally got up there, unpacked, showered and decided to walk to MGM. We saw Fantasmic and loved it as always. Although there were billions of gnats flying around that were very bothersome! I was shocked that in two trips to MGM we had yet to ride anything. We decided to shop a bit and take our time. Bad idea since the boats to Boardwalk/YBC/Swan Dolphin only run for an hour past closing. I think this stinks since Fantasmic starts at park closing and by the time you exit along with 8000 other people and make your way out of the park it will be an hour past closing. Especially if you stop and shop for 15 minutes. So we walked back which wasn't a problem but nobody but our family of four was on that path. No boats running either and it made me a bit nervous. Jack the Ripper could attack and nobody but the ducks and frogs would hear it. So we booked it back and got back fine. But lesson learned not to tarry after Fantasmic if you need to get a boat back to your resort!
Monday, May 1:
Got up and left our room by about 10:20, we walked the short walk to Epcot. We walked through the deserted and not yet open World Showcase and headed to the Land to fp Soarin. Then we rode Spaceship Earth, my favorite ride at Epcot. We decided to have an early lunch in Japan and were just about to walk into the movie in France when my cell rang. It was our friends Jody and Tom. Their kids and our kids are all friends as well and since they are on the same school schedule we are, were also in Orlando. They were in Epcot to be precise, where were we? Too perfect. They had ditched their other family members to branch out on their own and hopefully meet up with us. So we left France and met them in the foodcourt in the Land. We all rode SE together, then took them to Ice Station Cool for some delicious Beverly. I still can't believe they fell for our line of "have some of this Italian soda its so great and its FREE". After they gagged and threatened us we rode Figment, saw Honey I Shrunk and then all rode Soarin. We then went to England, had a beer and they asked if we would mind going to MGM, they wanted to ride TOT and RNRC. We took the boat, I was afraid MGM would be mobbed since it was EMH night but it wasn't bad. We rode both of those rides with minimal waits. We then had a burger at Rosies (I think that's what its called) and all went into Fantasmic. They loved it. Its always fun to experience things at WDW with others who have not yet done them. We walked them to the bustop so they could get back to Epcot and their car and said goodbye. We thought about going back in for EMH but decided to walk back to BWV and swim. We tried the quiet pool which was nice and warm. A lady there told us that the Luna Pool had been better that day, maybe they had listened to the complaints?! In any case the quiet pool was wonderful and the first truly comfortable swim we had enjoyed the whole trip.
Tuesday, May 2:
Decided to head to MK, got there around noon. Immediately had lunch at Pecos Bills. Matthew pretty much put cheese sauce on everything. I think he filled up about 5 of those little cups! I decided to see if I could make an ADR for Cape May for breakfast the next day which I was able to do. Maria and Matthew really wanted to go to LTT that night but that was a no go. Too bad, I knew I should have kept our original ADR there but decided to cancel since we always go there. Big mistake, I will never be allowed to make again! We rode quite a bit, the crowds were very minimal. The longest wait I saw was for Peter Pan at about 4:30 it was 30 minutes. Everything else was either walk on or 10 minutes. Heavenly! Maria and I split up to do our own thing while Dan and Matthew did the arcade in Tomorrowland and the shooting gallery in Frontierland. And shopped. Did I mention my husband is a shopaholic? We also saw Share a Dream Come True from a shady spot on Main Street with no stinky people next to us. A much better parade experience! We decided to skip Wishes and head to DTD and have dinner at the RFC and shop. We took a bus to Coronado Springs and then onto DTD. We really wanted to see CS as we are staying there for three nights in August before our cruise. It looks beautiful and huge! We had a great dinner at RFC, shopped a bit and headed back to BWV. We are all beginning to get sad as our trip is well over half over!
Wednesday, May 3:
Arrived at Beach Club for our 9:10 ADR to Cape May and had a great breakfast. The characters and food were great. Of course we were stuffed and decided to head to the Luna Pool for some relaxing and hopefully swimming. Thankfully the pool was much warmer. We got there at 11:00 and stayed until about 5:00. Matthew and Maria met a very nice little boy named George. He was 10 and from PA. At first I thought he was excited to play with another boy but soon realized Maria was his interest! He told Matthew he REALLy, REALLY, REALLY liked his sister. Matthew decided George must be weird and left him and Maria to their own devices and did his own thing from then on out! We finally told George goodbye (he and Maria were quite sad to part ways) and headed to our room to shower and change. We got to MK about 6:00, it was totally deserted. My Park Commando self was shattered, how could I have allowed us to spend a whole day at the pool when a deserted MK was there for the taking? Oh well, we had fun and Maria had managed to fall madly in love so it was not all a waste I suppose. We did quite a bit since nobody was there. We saw Mickey's Philharmagic at about 8:45, exited, immediately found a bench near the carousel and had a great spot for Wishes which started at 9:00. What a great day. Except for the fact that somehow Dan and I both become targets for every mosquito in Orlando. I literally got about 25 bites and so did he. The kids didn't get bit once. I guess Florida mosquitos only like adults? Still a great day!
Thursday, May 4:
Got to Ak by 9:20. Totally deserted park. Thank God, I had managed to nail this one down. We rode EE four times with a five to ten minute wait and fp'd it for later. In fact we were able to get two sets of fp's. We then rode Kali, we all wore slickers except Maria who wanted to get wet. Except she apparently didn't because she was whining about being wet as we exited. She wanted to go back to Boardwalk and change. No way was this kid getting me out of a deserted park. I think she wanted to go back and find George, the great love of her life. I took her in the bathroom, put her in a stall and told her to hand over her wet clothes. I spent 10 valuable minutes holding them under the turbo dryers and they got pretty dry. She had to sit in the stall in only her panties whining that she was too old to be buck naked in public. I told her she had on underwear and was behind a closed door and to stop whining, we had rides to conquer with no lines! We decided to do Dinosaur and Primevil Whirl. Dan opted out, he was rode out from our four times on EE. He fp'd us for the Safari and you guesed it, shopped and then met us back in Dinoland. Now Matt and Maria and I had ridden Primevil Whirl twice while he fp'd and shopped and coaxed him on it for a third go round. Nice idea except it broke down and we got stuck just before you go up the first hill. We had to listen to the little announcement of keep your hands, arms, feet and legs in the vehicle, in English and Spanish for about 8 painfully long minutes. Finally we rode. We then decided to split up the boys and girls again so Maria and I went and rode EE two more times using fp and then fp'd once more for later. 7 times in one day, now that is my style! She then coaxed me into going to Rafiki's Planet Watch which I hate. Why pet stinky goats when you can be riding rides? But I played along nicely and watched some stupid sheep urinate all over the place. He must have had a refillable mug from someplace. Who knew a sheep could pee so much and why did I have to watch him/her do it? I finally got Maria out of there and told her we could do the Safari with our fastpasses. Except she was tired and didn't want to do Safari. She was on animal overload, probably from all of those stinky goats and sheep. So we skipped Safari rode EE one last time with our fp's and headed back to Boardwalk. Dan and Matthew were already there, we got suited up and headed to the pool. Guess who was there? George of course. Great, I am now not getting out of this pool area until that kid leaves I realize. I really wanted to go to MK for Wishes and Spectro even though I knew nobody else did. It was our last night at BWV and they wanted to stay there. Dan bought me a Ferris Wheel drink which made me much more mellow. George had to leave and on his way out gave me and Dan two pins, a Jasmine one and an Alice one for Maria. He said he was in too much of a hurry to give them to Maria himself! What a sweet kid. Maria loved her pins but was really bummed when she realized she was never going to get to see George again! Ah, young love. I was completely unable to coax anybody to MK, so Dan grabbed a pizza from the takeout window and we ate by the pool. We then watched Illuminations from our balcony which was nice. It was time to pack up, we were leaving BWV tomorrow. Oh my goodness, is our vacation really amost over?
Friday, May 5:
We checked out of BWV, left them our bags and asked them to please transfer them to All Star Music. Maria has always wanted to stay there and since we were low on points but wanted to stay until Saturday I had booked us one night there. No problem the bellwoman tells us. The bags will be at ASMU by 3:30. Yeah right, I find out later. We head to MK and are there by 9:15. Its foggy and humid and I can tell it will be very hot, very soon. We ride Peter Pan, Space Mountain, Indy Speedway, TTA, COP and then head to MGM. We have a 12:40 ADR at Prime Time. I really wanted to do Mickey's Philharmagic one last time but we just didn't have the time. Big bummer, its my fave. We say a very sad goodbye to MK. Lord, I hate this moment each and every trip. Maria cries a little, she has to say goodbye to MK and George all in a 24 hour period. We ride the monorail to TTC, get on the bus to MGM and try not to feel sad. We loved Primetime. It was our first time there, what a ball. And the food was great too, although my pot roast was just as stringy as my mom's which is the whole point I guess. Matthew cleaned his plate when our waitress made the guy next to us get up and sing "I'm a Little Teapot" when he didn't clean his plate! We then did Voyage of the Little Mermaid, I love that show. I was bummed we hadn't done it earlier in the trip when I could have enjoyed it without the weighty depression I was now feeling. Then we headed to Beauty and the Beast. Love that as always. Now it was time to split the boys and girls again as Maria and I have no interest in the stunt show. Matthew and Dan love it, they enjoy watching explosions and other things of that nature. Maria and I did the Great Movie Ride and One Man's Dream. We then shopped a bit to buy something for my little nieces. That was fun until some poor little girl got run over by a scooter. Tight corridors between those pin racks makes for a disaster. I think she was really hurt, they took her, her mom and the scooter woman to a back room. I have no idea what became of it, I hope she was okay. Then Maria and I saw the parade and met up afterwards with Dan and Matthew. Dan took the kids to the Narnia exhibit. I missed that movie and I also was just pooped. So I people watched in the shade and felt generally miserable that we were leaving the next day. We hopped the bus to ASMU, it was about 6:30 at least. We checked in but alas our bags were not there. After almost an hour they finally found them sitting in the luggage storage area at Boardwalk. I was fumed, we needed our stuff and I was worried it was lost forever and we would have to some how send Dan down to the laundry in his boxers to wash our stinky, sweaty clothes for the plane ride home. I decided to call BWV and ask them how this could happen and to make sure that indeed they were sending all 11 bags over which is what they told the bellstaff at Music. Werner the supervisor apologized, said he had no idea how they had screwed up and assured me that he had personally loaded 11 bags on the van. He was very nice. He also called back a few minutes later and left me a message that he had put a $100 credit on my Visa debit card. I thought that was nice and was then almost embarrassed I had complained. That seemed pretty generous but then again that was one long hour and half made even longer by whiney kids who wanted their swimsuits. So I took my hundred bucks and thought what the heck, I might as well accept it right? The original plan had been to have a quick swim then head to Epcot for Illuminations and EMH but we were all pooped. The quick swim hadn't happened and we were all just sort of deflated and not in the mood. So we purchased two mugs, got dinner in the food court and let the kids swim. Music is very cute but not as fresh as Pop. It also was home to about 1000 rowdy teens, maybe graduates? They were nice kids but when you get that many of them in a pool it gets noisy. Matthew and Maria didn't care, they had a ball and yelled and screamed along with the rest of them. When the teens began to throw full bottles of coke and gatorade into the piano pool and at each other (this while the chaparones sat on the edge of the pool drinking Coronas and wine from glass bottles) we left and went back to the main pool. We had fun, but man oh man that last night is tough! We turned in, the place was thankfully quiet and we slept great.
Saturday, May 6:
Time to go home. We had a 4:55 flight, so we let the kids swim a few hours, had lunch by the pool and then gave them quick showers in the locker room. We said goodbye to ASMU, Dan did manage another quick shopping run in their gift shop. Our ME bus was supposed to be there at 1:55 but it didn't show. Finally at 2:40 here came one. We had stop at Sports and Coronado Springs. I was nervous as was another couple who had also been there for teh 1:55. I know we didn't miss it because we had gotten out there at about 1:40. We got to our terminal at 3:30. I was nervous, we had to get to Frontier which is all the way down and get through security which had taken us over a half hour on our last trip. We got a porter and got to Frontier very quickly. Nobody else was checking in, I think they just have this one flight in the pm and everybody else was long since checked in. The ladies told us we'd be okay but to hurry to get to security. It only took maybe 10 minutes. Whew! But wait, the monorails were having problems. One was stuck on the tracks, the other one only had one door, meaning one train that was working. So we had to wait about 10 minutes for that. We got to the gate with 5 minutes to spare. That was way too close for comfort, although part of me wanted us to miss our flight. Maybe Werner would come through again and get us put up at the Poly and fixed up with some park tickets for the night and we could go home the next day. No such luck, we made it home after all!
It was a great trip. Extended family trips are wonderful but just having it be the four of us was better. We actually relaxed quite a bit for once, rode everything we wanted. The only things I missed that I wanted to do were the Safari and the movie in France. I felt like we didn't spend enough time at Epcot but our day there had been cut short by meeting up with our friends and that was a good thing so it was all worth it. I would go again tomorrow if I could. I cannot believe how depressed I have been since we got home. Dan was not a happy camper to be returning to work today! We are already thinking about June of next year, maybe two weeks if we can swing it. I don't think there is anyplace else on earth I could visit for two weeks but I know even with that long I won't be ready to come home when the time rolls around! If you made it all the way through, thanks for reading, I know its long but I just like to put it all down at once!
Wednesday, April 26:
We departed out of Denver at 10:30 a.m. Left right on time, Dan was completely exhausted, he had worked 48 hours between Sunday and Tuesday. Plus 70 hours a week in the months before. I think he was asleep on our Airbus before we pushed out of the gate! I sat between Matthew and Maria who watched movies. I watched Food Network to pass the time. I hate to fly and even with two Xanax's I was my usual jittery self! We landed at 4:10 p.m. in Orlando, got our luggage and headed to Magical Express. We were on a bus by around 5:15 to Pop Century, our first of three resorts for this trip. Our last trip to Pop had not been quite what I had hoped. I had decided I liked Movies better but Dan had reminded me when we were making our plans for this trip that the unexpected death of my beloved Uncle during our stay at Pop had soured my experience, not the resort itself. So I decided to give it another try. I was so glad I did. We had a great stay. We paid for preferred and to us it was well worth it. We were in the 60's building, room 5309. While we checked in the cm's did the Hustle which brought back some funny 70's memories for me. Matthew and Maria got a huge kick out of it. Dan missed this as he was already in the gift shop buying stuff, the man loves to shop! I upgraded our base tickets to park hoppers as we had decided the night before we wanted to hop after all. I was so glad we did, as we ended up hopping quite a bit. We dumped our luggage in the room and got right on a bus for Epcot to make our 7:30 ADR for San Angel. We had a great table very near the water. We totally enjoyed our meal there, it was our third and best visit to date. Great service. We finished eating at 8:50, walked outside and got a decent spot for Illuminations. Dan got a margarita and we enjoyed Illuminations as always. We headed to the Pop busstop and had a pretty minimal wait, maybe 15 minutes. Not bad given that everybody was leaving the park at the same time. We decided to let the kids swim for a bit, great idea except the pool was really cold. They toughed it out for awhile but didn't have to be told twice it was bedtime! We were unpacked and in bed by midnight.
Thursday, April 27:
We slept in until about 11:00. I woke up earlier and read for awhile and stepped out on the walkway to admire our view of the Hippy Dippy pool but nobody else seemed to want to get up. I mentioned the word "shopping" and that got Dan out of bed at least. The kids were motivated when I reminded them we had refillable mugs we had purchased last night just dying to be filled with all that delicious frozen coke available to them! We put on swimming suits, grabbed lunch at the food court and let the kids swim. I was determined not to be Commando Park Mom this trip and let things flow a bit. The water was still cold but not unswimmable and we all swam. The pool was deserted because most people go to the parks during the day. I kept salivating thinking of Mickey's Philharmagic, Space Mountain and all the things I could be doing at MK but nobody else was in a big hurry. I was reminded by my family we had 9 full days ahead of us so I bid my time. Finally at 2:45 I could take no more and begged them to get out of the pool and take me to MK! They complied nicely. We walked through the turnstiles at 4:00, did our corny group hug we always have to do and got down to business. I can't remember every ride we did but I am pretty sure TTA, Small World, Peter Pan, Buzz and Splash Mountain made the list. We had dinner at the Village Haus. I have had heard few good things about this place but we loved it. Matthew and I split a paninni which was really good and Maria had her standard mac and cheese. Dan had a salad. The only bad part of this meal was that Dan got a call on his cell phone from work. They had called several times while we were at the pool so why not call and bug us at the parks too? He had to step out to get a better connection which left me alone in line to get the food. The kids were sitting outside at a table. So I had to squeeze our whole order on one tray which included a total of 7 drinks since I had asked for some free ice water. Naturally one of the drinks tipped over and began leaking ice water into Maria's macaroni so I asked some guy if he could assist me which he did. I set the tray down, was informed instantaneously by my daughter that her macaroni looked watery and realized they had shorted me my salad. I got all this attended to while Dan continued to talk away on his phone. He finally joined us and we had a nice dinner. We rode TTA after dinner and noticed Stitch only had a five minute wait. So we did that again, all convinced that we just needed to give it another try only to realize again, what a dumb attraction this is. And we love Stitch. I never saw any waits of any kind on this ride, I believe the novelty, which is the only thing this had going for it, has worn off. Too bad Stitch, you deserved better! We watched Wishes directly under the wire where Tinkerbelle flies, that was a great spot. Then we rode a few more things and saw Spectro at 11:00. Us and maybe 20 other people. The second parade is always a winner if you can stay up that late. We headed back to Pop and agreed our first full day had been a success.
Friday, April 28:
Headed to AK. I had hoped we could get up early but after our late night at MK that didn't happen. We arrived around 11:30, the standby for Expedition Everest was 70 minutes but we decided to go for it. We had a 3:10 ADR at Sci Fi at MGM and the fastpass return times were too late for us to make that. It only took 55 minutes. The inside area of the que is really cool and the wait actually wasn't bad. Even when we were outside there was a nice breeze (I love April at WDW for the weather alone) to keep us comfy. What a ride! We all loved it, the backwards part made my stomach lurch a bit but it was so fun. We had to leave AK after just that one ride but agreed it was worth the time and trouble. We got on the bus to MGM and got to Sci Fi early for our ADR and had to wait. We fastpassed Star Tours for after lunch, we should have just ridden it since there wasn't much wait and we had time. But we had already checked in and didn't want to miss them calling our name. Had our usual great lunch at Sci Fi, we love that place. We were all tired afterwards and skipped Star Tours and headed out. Two parks and only one ride. My Park Commando personality should have been having trouble dealing with this. However, in my old age I am amazed at all the new tricks I can learn! So we headed to Pop, swam and had dinner in the food court and got to bed early so we could get up early and head back to AK for more fun on EE!
Saturday, April 29:
Got up early as planned as we made our way down the stairs a man asked us if we were planning on going to MK anytime soon. We said sure and he gave us 22 ride re-entry passes. He said they had been in the elevator but that they were leaving so he gave them to us. According to the note they were inside of they would work just like fastpasses but with no time constraints. What a piece of luck! We had breakfast in the Pop food court. Maria had been dreaming about strawberry pancakes for weeks and she got them and shocked me by eating all four of them! Dan and Matthew loaded up on breakfast meats which is not a good idea before riding thrill rides but oh well. We were at AK by 9:10. Tourguide Mike said this was a great day as AK would be the least crowded park in Orlando. Well if that was true, I hate to think what the other parks looked like. At 9:20 the standby for EE was 70 minutes. We fastpassed it and headed into Dinoland. Dinosaur and Primevil Whirl had less than 20 minute waits so we rode those while we waited for our fp's for EE to come up. Afterwards we decided to visit the Pooh characters at their little greeting spot on the river. We then rode EE and loved it even more the second time around. We fp'd it again but then decided that since tonight was a grad nite maybe MK wouldn't be so bad so we gave our fp's to somebody else and rode the bus to the Contemporary and then monorailed to MK. Also, Dan and Matthew felt ill from all their bacon and sausage combo'd with EE, Primevil Hurl and Dinosaur. We got to MK. It was crowded but with our cool passes we were able to ride a few things. I really thank whoever that person is who A) left them in the elevator and B) the guy who gave them to us! We didn't use them all and saved some for another day. We fp'd BTMRR and rode that and then fp'd Splash and gave those to another family. If somebody was nice enough to pass along some pixie dust to us, the least we could do was imitate them. We saw the parade right by Splash. Not a great spot. In the first place it was in the sun. In the second place some pushy family from Hell moved right in and began chowing on McD's fries. I got really sick of hearing that man and his dad smacking those fries and screaming to their kids: Look, Pinnochio, Look, Snow White". Apparently they thought their kids and everybody around them needed some verbal cues on the parade characters. Oh and their body odor was also less than pleasant. So we all decided that we needed to see the parade again another day for a more pleasant experience! We rode Pirates since we knew it was going down again on the 1st. Then headed back to Pop for some swimming. I did some laundry with other nice moms who have a hard time leaving their domestic drudgery behind on vacation. The kids continued to drink huge amounts of frozen coke. Since they aren't allowed to have sodas at home the refillable mugs at Disney are about the best part of the trip! We had an 8:50 ADR at Chef Mickey's so we headed up to our room to get ready and decided to take a cab. Great idea except the cab driver didn't know where the Contemporary was. I told him to follow the signs for Magic Kingdom. He said he wasn't sure to trust me because if I knew why didn't I just drive myself? Well maybe because my car is parked at the airport in Denver genius. So he asked a bellman at Pop who also didn't know. I told him to trust me, head to MK and we'd get there. He managed to get lost but eventually decided to trust me and we got there. We had a great dinner and it was a lot of fun. The characters, Minnie in particular were really rushed but as the evening wore on and it was us and just a few other families they got a bit more friendly so that was good. After our cab ride we decided to just take a bus to DTD, shop a bit and then take a bus back to Pop. Bad idea, it was long, chilly wait followed by a very crowded bus ride and another long wait for a Pop bus. We skipped shopping as we were tired and needed to pack up a bit at Pop as we were moving to Boardwalk the next day. We finally got "home" and went to bed. We were all a bit sad, we had so enjoyed Pop and hated to leave!
Sunday, April 29:
Checked out of Pop and got a cab to Boardwalk. Except this driver had no idea where Boardwalk was. What is with these cab drivers. I told him to head towards Epcot. This guy at least "trusted" me and we got there very quickly. Checked in at Boardwalk but our one bedroom was not ready. We headed out to the boardwalk and had lunch at Big River Grille which was fantasic. Then we went and retrieved our swimming suits from our luggage at the Bell desk and swam in the Luna pool, which made the cold pool at Pop seem like a hot tub. It was ridiculous, I heard many people complain and the lifeguards said they hear this constantly. Matthew went down the slide once and let out a very painful yelp when he hit the water. He decided to read and play with his toy soldiers he had gotten at the Pop arcade. Maria just kept going down the slide, her blue lips matched her blue swimsuit. Our room wasn't ready until almost 5:00 which was a bummer but since we were at WDW we didn't let it get us down. A mai tai or two at the pool bar and I could not have cared less if our room wasn't ready until Tuesday. We finally got up there, unpacked, showered and decided to walk to MGM. We saw Fantasmic and loved it as always. Although there were billions of gnats flying around that were very bothersome! I was shocked that in two trips to MGM we had yet to ride anything. We decided to shop a bit and take our time. Bad idea since the boats to Boardwalk/YBC/Swan Dolphin only run for an hour past closing. I think this stinks since Fantasmic starts at park closing and by the time you exit along with 8000 other people and make your way out of the park it will be an hour past closing. Especially if you stop and shop for 15 minutes. So we walked back which wasn't a problem but nobody but our family of four was on that path. No boats running either and it made me a bit nervous. Jack the Ripper could attack and nobody but the ducks and frogs would hear it. So we booked it back and got back fine. But lesson learned not to tarry after Fantasmic if you need to get a boat back to your resort!
Monday, May 1:
Got up and left our room by about 10:20, we walked the short walk to Epcot. We walked through the deserted and not yet open World Showcase and headed to the Land to fp Soarin. Then we rode Spaceship Earth, my favorite ride at Epcot. We decided to have an early lunch in Japan and were just about to walk into the movie in France when my cell rang. It was our friends Jody and Tom. Their kids and our kids are all friends as well and since they are on the same school schedule we are, were also in Orlando. They were in Epcot to be precise, where were we? Too perfect. They had ditched their other family members to branch out on their own and hopefully meet up with us. So we left France and met them in the foodcourt in the Land. We all rode SE together, then took them to Ice Station Cool for some delicious Beverly. I still can't believe they fell for our line of "have some of this Italian soda its so great and its FREE". After they gagged and threatened us we rode Figment, saw Honey I Shrunk and then all rode Soarin. We then went to England, had a beer and they asked if we would mind going to MGM, they wanted to ride TOT and RNRC. We took the boat, I was afraid MGM would be mobbed since it was EMH night but it wasn't bad. We rode both of those rides with minimal waits. We then had a burger at Rosies (I think that's what its called) and all went into Fantasmic. They loved it. Its always fun to experience things at WDW with others who have not yet done them. We walked them to the bustop so they could get back to Epcot and their car and said goodbye. We thought about going back in for EMH but decided to walk back to BWV and swim. We tried the quiet pool which was nice and warm. A lady there told us that the Luna Pool had been better that day, maybe they had listened to the complaints?! In any case the quiet pool was wonderful and the first truly comfortable swim we had enjoyed the whole trip.
Tuesday, May 2:
Decided to head to MK, got there around noon. Immediately had lunch at Pecos Bills. Matthew pretty much put cheese sauce on everything. I think he filled up about 5 of those little cups! I decided to see if I could make an ADR for Cape May for breakfast the next day which I was able to do. Maria and Matthew really wanted to go to LTT that night but that was a no go. Too bad, I knew I should have kept our original ADR there but decided to cancel since we always go there. Big mistake, I will never be allowed to make again! We rode quite a bit, the crowds were very minimal. The longest wait I saw was for Peter Pan at about 4:30 it was 30 minutes. Everything else was either walk on or 10 minutes. Heavenly! Maria and I split up to do our own thing while Dan and Matthew did the arcade in Tomorrowland and the shooting gallery in Frontierland. And shopped. Did I mention my husband is a shopaholic? We also saw Share a Dream Come True from a shady spot on Main Street with no stinky people next to us. A much better parade experience! We decided to skip Wishes and head to DTD and have dinner at the RFC and shop. We took a bus to Coronado Springs and then onto DTD. We really wanted to see CS as we are staying there for three nights in August before our cruise. It looks beautiful and huge! We had a great dinner at RFC, shopped a bit and headed back to BWV. We are all beginning to get sad as our trip is well over half over!
Wednesday, May 3:
Arrived at Beach Club for our 9:10 ADR to Cape May and had a great breakfast. The characters and food were great. Of course we were stuffed and decided to head to the Luna Pool for some relaxing and hopefully swimming. Thankfully the pool was much warmer. We got there at 11:00 and stayed until about 5:00. Matthew and Maria met a very nice little boy named George. He was 10 and from PA. At first I thought he was excited to play with another boy but soon realized Maria was his interest! He told Matthew he REALLy, REALLY, REALLY liked his sister. Matthew decided George must be weird and left him and Maria to their own devices and did his own thing from then on out! We finally told George goodbye (he and Maria were quite sad to part ways) and headed to our room to shower and change. We got to MK about 6:00, it was totally deserted. My Park Commando self was shattered, how could I have allowed us to spend a whole day at the pool when a deserted MK was there for the taking? Oh well, we had fun and Maria had managed to fall madly in love so it was not all a waste I suppose. We did quite a bit since nobody was there. We saw Mickey's Philharmagic at about 8:45, exited, immediately found a bench near the carousel and had a great spot for Wishes which started at 9:00. What a great day. Except for the fact that somehow Dan and I both become targets for every mosquito in Orlando. I literally got about 25 bites and so did he. The kids didn't get bit once. I guess Florida mosquitos only like adults? Still a great day!
Thursday, May 4:
Got to Ak by 9:20. Totally deserted park. Thank God, I had managed to nail this one down. We rode EE four times with a five to ten minute wait and fp'd it for later. In fact we were able to get two sets of fp's. We then rode Kali, we all wore slickers except Maria who wanted to get wet. Except she apparently didn't because she was whining about being wet as we exited. She wanted to go back to Boardwalk and change. No way was this kid getting me out of a deserted park. I think she wanted to go back and find George, the great love of her life. I took her in the bathroom, put her in a stall and told her to hand over her wet clothes. I spent 10 valuable minutes holding them under the turbo dryers and they got pretty dry. She had to sit in the stall in only her panties whining that she was too old to be buck naked in public. I told her she had on underwear and was behind a closed door and to stop whining, we had rides to conquer with no lines! We decided to do Dinosaur and Primevil Whirl. Dan opted out, he was rode out from our four times on EE. He fp'd us for the Safari and you guesed it, shopped and then met us back in Dinoland. Now Matt and Maria and I had ridden Primevil Whirl twice while he fp'd and shopped and coaxed him on it for a third go round. Nice idea except it broke down and we got stuck just before you go up the first hill. We had to listen to the little announcement of keep your hands, arms, feet and legs in the vehicle, in English and Spanish for about 8 painfully long minutes. Finally we rode. We then decided to split up the boys and girls again so Maria and I went and rode EE two more times using fp and then fp'd once more for later. 7 times in one day, now that is my style! She then coaxed me into going to Rafiki's Planet Watch which I hate. Why pet stinky goats when you can be riding rides? But I played along nicely and watched some stupid sheep urinate all over the place. He must have had a refillable mug from someplace. Who knew a sheep could pee so much and why did I have to watch him/her do it? I finally got Maria out of there and told her we could do the Safari with our fastpasses. Except she was tired and didn't want to do Safari. She was on animal overload, probably from all of those stinky goats and sheep. So we skipped Safari rode EE one last time with our fp's and headed back to Boardwalk. Dan and Matthew were already there, we got suited up and headed to the pool. Guess who was there? George of course. Great, I am now not getting out of this pool area until that kid leaves I realize. I really wanted to go to MK for Wishes and Spectro even though I knew nobody else did. It was our last night at BWV and they wanted to stay there. Dan bought me a Ferris Wheel drink which made me much more mellow. George had to leave and on his way out gave me and Dan two pins, a Jasmine one and an Alice one for Maria. He said he was in too much of a hurry to give them to Maria himself! What a sweet kid. Maria loved her pins but was really bummed when she realized she was never going to get to see George again! Ah, young love. I was completely unable to coax anybody to MK, so Dan grabbed a pizza from the takeout window and we ate by the pool. We then watched Illuminations from our balcony which was nice. It was time to pack up, we were leaving BWV tomorrow. Oh my goodness, is our vacation really amost over?
Friday, May 5:
We checked out of BWV, left them our bags and asked them to please transfer them to All Star Music. Maria has always wanted to stay there and since we were low on points but wanted to stay until Saturday I had booked us one night there. No problem the bellwoman tells us. The bags will be at ASMU by 3:30. Yeah right, I find out later. We head to MK and are there by 9:15. Its foggy and humid and I can tell it will be very hot, very soon. We ride Peter Pan, Space Mountain, Indy Speedway, TTA, COP and then head to MGM. We have a 12:40 ADR at Prime Time. I really wanted to do Mickey's Philharmagic one last time but we just didn't have the time. Big bummer, its my fave. We say a very sad goodbye to MK. Lord, I hate this moment each and every trip. Maria cries a little, she has to say goodbye to MK and George all in a 24 hour period. We ride the monorail to TTC, get on the bus to MGM and try not to feel sad. We loved Primetime. It was our first time there, what a ball. And the food was great too, although my pot roast was just as stringy as my mom's which is the whole point I guess. Matthew cleaned his plate when our waitress made the guy next to us get up and sing "I'm a Little Teapot" when he didn't clean his plate! We then did Voyage of the Little Mermaid, I love that show. I was bummed we hadn't done it earlier in the trip when I could have enjoyed it without the weighty depression I was now feeling. Then we headed to Beauty and the Beast. Love that as always. Now it was time to split the boys and girls again as Maria and I have no interest in the stunt show. Matthew and Dan love it, they enjoy watching explosions and other things of that nature. Maria and I did the Great Movie Ride and One Man's Dream. We then shopped a bit to buy something for my little nieces. That was fun until some poor little girl got run over by a scooter. Tight corridors between those pin racks makes for a disaster. I think she was really hurt, they took her, her mom and the scooter woman to a back room. I have no idea what became of it, I hope she was okay. Then Maria and I saw the parade and met up afterwards with Dan and Matthew. Dan took the kids to the Narnia exhibit. I missed that movie and I also was just pooped. So I people watched in the shade and felt generally miserable that we were leaving the next day. We hopped the bus to ASMU, it was about 6:30 at least. We checked in but alas our bags were not there. After almost an hour they finally found them sitting in the luggage storage area at Boardwalk. I was fumed, we needed our stuff and I was worried it was lost forever and we would have to some how send Dan down to the laundry in his boxers to wash our stinky, sweaty clothes for the plane ride home. I decided to call BWV and ask them how this could happen and to make sure that indeed they were sending all 11 bags over which is what they told the bellstaff at Music. Werner the supervisor apologized, said he had no idea how they had screwed up and assured me that he had personally loaded 11 bags on the van. He was very nice. He also called back a few minutes later and left me a message that he had put a $100 credit on my Visa debit card. I thought that was nice and was then almost embarrassed I had complained. That seemed pretty generous but then again that was one long hour and half made even longer by whiney kids who wanted their swimsuits. So I took my hundred bucks and thought what the heck, I might as well accept it right? The original plan had been to have a quick swim then head to Epcot for Illuminations and EMH but we were all pooped. The quick swim hadn't happened and we were all just sort of deflated and not in the mood. So we purchased two mugs, got dinner in the food court and let the kids swim. Music is very cute but not as fresh as Pop. It also was home to about 1000 rowdy teens, maybe graduates? They were nice kids but when you get that many of them in a pool it gets noisy. Matthew and Maria didn't care, they had a ball and yelled and screamed along with the rest of them. When the teens began to throw full bottles of coke and gatorade into the piano pool and at each other (this while the chaparones sat on the edge of the pool drinking Coronas and wine from glass bottles) we left and went back to the main pool. We had fun, but man oh man that last night is tough! We turned in, the place was thankfully quiet and we slept great.
Saturday, May 6:
Time to go home. We had a 4:55 flight, so we let the kids swim a few hours, had lunch by the pool and then gave them quick showers in the locker room. We said goodbye to ASMU, Dan did manage another quick shopping run in their gift shop. Our ME bus was supposed to be there at 1:55 but it didn't show. Finally at 2:40 here came one. We had stop at Sports and Coronado Springs. I was nervous as was another couple who had also been there for teh 1:55. I know we didn't miss it because we had gotten out there at about 1:40. We got to our terminal at 3:30. I was nervous, we had to get to Frontier which is all the way down and get through security which had taken us over a half hour on our last trip. We got a porter and got to Frontier very quickly. Nobody else was checking in, I think they just have this one flight in the pm and everybody else was long since checked in. The ladies told us we'd be okay but to hurry to get to security. It only took maybe 10 minutes. Whew! But wait, the monorails were having problems. One was stuck on the tracks, the other one only had one door, meaning one train that was working. So we had to wait about 10 minutes for that. We got to the gate with 5 minutes to spare. That was way too close for comfort, although part of me wanted us to miss our flight. Maybe Werner would come through again and get us put up at the Poly and fixed up with some park tickets for the night and we could go home the next day. No such luck, we made it home after all!
It was a great trip. Extended family trips are wonderful but just having it be the four of us was better. We actually relaxed quite a bit for once, rode everything we wanted. The only things I missed that I wanted to do were the Safari and the movie in France. I felt like we didn't spend enough time at Epcot but our day there had been cut short by meeting up with our friends and that was a good thing so it was all worth it. I would go again tomorrow if I could. I cannot believe how depressed I have been since we got home. Dan was not a happy camper to be returning to work today! We are already thinking about June of next year, maybe two weeks if we can swing it. I don't think there is anyplace else on earth I could visit for two weeks but I know even with that long I won't be ready to come home when the time rolls around! If you made it all the way through, thanks for reading, I know its long but I just like to put it all down at once!
It always makes it a bit hard to enjoy your last day there knowing you are going home the next day. 
