mrsmarilyn
Disneymom2twins
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2007
- Messages
- 260
Sat 20/Sun 21
So the big day (night?) finally arrived. I had a terrible time sleeping Saturday night. Woke up every couple hours. Good thing I did, because the alarm did not go off!! I woke up at 4:20AM (we needed to leave no later than 4!!) Got the kids up and dressed in record time (thankfully we'd loaded the car earlier Saturday Night). We just told them we were going to do something "fun for your birthday". So we left the house at 4:40AM for a 6:30AM flight from LGA and it's a 70 mile drive. I'd have been more tense if I wasn't completely exhausted. Thankfully since hubby was raised in Queens he knew where to avoid the cops. We drove as near as bats-outta-hell as we dared. Finally told the kids mid-drive where we were headed ;-) Pulled into the parking lot at LGA at 5:50AM. Begged the airport lady to let us check the bags through the First Class line at Delta (they did) and to let us go through First Class Security (they did as well, including a very nice man who let us line jump). Of course I forgot to take the netbook out of the bag so they had to hand inspect it. Yikes. We made it to the gate, walked on to the plane and they shut the doors. That's a tad closer than I like it! Got settled on the plane at last.
My kids are smart, they did their entire homework packet on the flight down so they wouldn't have to deal the rest of the week! It was grey and cloudy when we hit Orlando. No line at all at the Budget rental car counter, and they upgraded us to an SUV at a mid-size pricenice! We were out of the airport by 10AM. Got to Old Key West, which was mildly frustratingfirst the lobby was jammed, then we were supposed to be near a pool and we were anywhere BUT--we were in outer Mongolia. And they were full up, so that couldn't be resolved :-( But the room was fine otherwise, and it was ground floor which we wanted. They gave the kids their birthday buttons. Got our DDP & KTTW and headed for the Magic Kingdom! Had lunch with Pooh & Friends at the Crystal Palace, always yummy. Kids got a birthday card from Pooh&Friends, and a birthday cupcake. Wandered around a bit, but it started to rain (like a Monsoon, not a drizzle!) and decided to go back to the hotel room for a nap. I napped, kids didn't. We headed to our dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe at 5. GREAT food and excellent kid choice restaurantvery healthy yummy kid food choices there! Gave the kids a birthday cupcake and sang them Happy Birthday! However, my non-napping kids completely crashed & burned at that point--instead of heading for MK & Spectromagic we were back at the hotel at 7pm where they were down and out for the night, in their clothes! There was no budging them.
Monday March 22
Kids were up bright & early due to 12 hrs sleep. They were bummed we'd missed Spectromagic but I told them I'd try to juggle the schedule and make it work later in the week. We had breakfast with Lilo & Stitch at O'Hana, which was fun (and yummy). We love Lilo & Stitch. They had their birthday buttons on, so were given a Breakfast Birthday Cupcake and cards signed by Lilo & Stitch. Spent the day doing the MK and hitting our favorite rides (my kids love the less popular rides which makes things easier ;-) We did Big Thunder Mountain, Carpets of Aladdin, Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, Tom Sawyer Island, Small World, the Disney Railroad, Philharmagic, TTA, Buzz Lightyear, etc. Went back to the hotel for a swim and nap late afternoon. We had dinner late that night at the California Grill on top of the Contemporary, where we watched Wishes. Food was good but WAY too salty. I was disappointed in CG overall--for those prices, I expect great food, theme park or no. I wanted the food to be fantabulous as others have said. It wasnt, unfortunately. It was a lot of fun watching Wishes from up there, and they pipe in the music.
Tuesday March 23---the twins Actual 9th Birthday!
Started with Breakfast with Chef Mickey at the Contemporary. The food was ok, but breakfast was LONG. Characters took for-freaking-ever to make the circulation, took almost 2 hrs (yes, I talked to the handlers; it should have been 1 hr 15 min tops). I don't think I'd bother with CM again--the food was mediocre- average and the character wait far, far too long. There are better Character Breakfast choices. Then we took the long monorail ride (monorail is probably Edward's favorite thing) from the TTTS to Epcot, riding in the cool new Tron monorail. We did Future World (Elizabeth's fave is Spaceship Earth, Edwards is Test Track). Worked our way around Future World, then hit World Showcase, where we had lunch at Le Cellier which I had really been looking forward to. Again, the food was WAY too salty. (And I do like salt, btw--my husband also found his food way too salty). Good food, but salty. Another birthday cupcake for the twins. Did more World Showcase and Future World, including Soarin'. (Love Soarin'!) Took a nap break, mostly because the kids wanted to get their birthday presents (I had shipped them via Fedex to OKW and the pkg arrived that very AM). They opened their presents (books, DS games, Lego, webkinz) and played for a bit. That evening we headed back to the Polynesian for the Spirit of Aloha Luau. Luau was fun. We had ordered a birthday cake with their names for dinner. (They were happy it was NOT another cupcake ;-) They were both very tired by the time it was over. Between all our Poly meals we came home with 8 lei's! (Did I mention they wanted to go to Hawaii for their birthday, LOL? This was a close as we could get!)
Wed. March 24
We started with a late morning breakfast at Donalds Safari Breakfast at TuskerHouse in AK (and another birthday cupcake!) The food was quite good. AK was jam packed because it was an EMH day, which I usually try to avoid but it's just the way our schedule went. We did things we hadn't done before (the train to Planet Rafiki and the petting zoo) and things we had (Kali River Rapids, Kilimanjaro Safari, etc). We scheduled an early dinner at Boma, and when we got there our reservation wasn't in the system, although I had all our ressie #s in my Blackberry. (Turned out over the week 3 of our reservations were goofed up ;-( However, they were able to get us in. Boma is SO so good, one of my favorite places. Loved the nut encrusted salmon and coconut rice, as well as the beef loin. I could eat there all the time, just SO good and different. Another cupcake for the kids--at this point, they are only picking at the cupcakes. We spent a "quiet" night at the pool swimming, early bed time.
Thurs March 25
We had a later morning breakfast at Hollywood & Vine with the Playhouse Disney crowd. It was pretty sparsely attended, so we got LOTS of attention from the characters. I think the food there is pretty good, so we enjoyed it. Another breakfast cupcake, as well as cards and a gift (she got a light up Tinkerbelle; he got a light up buzz light year!)our waiter was terrific. Spent the day doing the Studio. My kids LOVE Toy Story Mania, so we were all over that a couple times. Did Indiana Jones Stunt Show which they hadn't been to before. Did Star Tours-- twice--Elizabeth LOVED that, LOL. Had to make an unscheduled return to the hotel which ate up 2 hrs. Had a very early dinner again, at H&V for the Fantasmic Dinner Package (which I highly recommend, vs having to sit in the theater for 3+ hrs to get a good seat!). After dinner we hit Toy Story & The Walt Disney Story, and Star Tours again. It started to cloud over and sprinkle, so I got nervous, but Fantasmic did go off without a hitch and we loved it. In all these years we'd never made it there before! Really loved it. An extremely impressive Disney show.
Friday March 26
Up early because today was Breakfast at the Castle with Cinderella, another first for us (I tried to plan lots of things-we-hadnt-done-before on this trip) We loved being in an empty Magic Kingdom (and got the photopass photo to prove it). It was so refreshing. Breakfast was good (at least the cupcake for the kids was chocolate this time; they were getting very tired of vanilla ;-) It was fun seeing the inside of the castle, looking out the stained glass windows (it had been many years since I'd been in there, and my children never had). Then we did a bunch more MK stuff, including make-your-own-ears-hatsEdward picked a grey base with an embroidery pattern of various classic mickeys, and silvery metallic looking ears; Elizabeth chose a white velvet base with the 3 circle mickey symbol embroidered on it, and pink velvet ears. He chose a classic Mickey Patch, she chose a Tinkerbelle one. Then we drove to Epcot and went in via the International Gateway for lunch at Chefs Du France. Have to say, my lunch was very disappointing (my lobster bisque was fantastic, but the entrée, basically a burger with mushrooms and béarnaise, was charred to a crisp and almost inedibel) but everyone else was satisfied and had better luck. Dessert was delicious, and the kids got (you guessed it) another cupcake. (BTW all these cupcakes were in addition to whatever desserts were included with their meals!) We LOVED the animatronic Remy, were big Ratatouille fans. We spent all afternoon doing more Epcot favorites. We were supposed to go to Rose & Crown for supper and to watch Illuminations, but they wanted to see SpectroMagic, so I did some of my own Disney Magic and scored dinner at OHana so we could then just jump the monorail to the parade. OHana had really good food but we had a lousy waitress. Our steak arrived after our dessert, our noodles never arrived, etc. But I'd give it another chance, because it was very yummy. Another birthday cupcake. (By this point, they are not eating the cupcakes). We hopped the monorail and got a great seat just in time for Spectromagic (my favorite parade!) Then we hit the TTA and Buzz Lightyear and the Laugh Floor again. We saw some of Wishes while riding the TTA. Got back to OKW and crashed.
Saturday March 27
We had breakfast at the OKW restaurant, which was nice. Then we packed (that was NOT nice, I hate packing to go home. We Checked out, and checked in our bags and ourselves in at the RAC at OKW, which I LOVED being able to do. (for those who dont know, RACResort Airline Checkinallows you to check your bags and get your boarding pass just like at the airport. So when you get to the actual airport, you can just go through security and skip the rest. Its GREAT.) We hit Downtown Disney (they wanted to buy out the Lego store, as usual), then headed for Epcot and lunch at Morocco. (Morocco got big points with them; they stuck the birthday candles in Ice Cream instead of another cupcake!) The food at Morocco is good. I then hit Boulangerie Patisserie in France to use up our gajillion snack creditsgot chocolate croissants, apple tarts and turnovers, chocolate éclairs and strawberry tarts (and then the idiot Flight Attendant turned the box sideways on the plane and wrecked my beautiful strawberry tarts & eclairs!) Then we hit more Epcot favorites like Journey to Imagination and Spaceship Earth again, as well as Daddys favorite, Club Cool (he loves the exotic sodas; I think they taste like cough medicine!). Finally hit the road at 5:30pm. Turned the car in at 6, were in the security line at 6:10 and at the gate by 6:30. Flight left on time at 7:30 and arrived on time. Ransomed the car (and I mean RANSOMED--I know where NY State is making up some of it's lost revenue!) from the LGA parking lot and pulled in to the driveway at the stroke of midnight. And we all turned back into pumpkins.
My daughter looked at me today and asked "mommy, can we take cookies to school to celebrate our birthday instead of cupcakes?". I think they got cupcake'd out, LOL.
I'm sun burnt (forgot my sunblock yesterday) and missing WDW already. We had a wonderful time. I didn't think for more than a very few moments about any of the insanity here at home, just focused on enjoying ourselves. No one was ready to leave and come back to reality. The suitcases are unpacked, the mountain of laundry is waiting to be done. I looked at the photopass photoswe managed to take 60 although I thought it was fewer (had a hard time finding photographers!) I have the CD code so will probably do that. Tomorrow I have to tackle Mount Washmore and grocery shopping and cupcakes (yes, cupcakes!) for 2 school classes. But todaytoday I am enjoying the memories. It was really a very happy wonderful week-long birthday party for the twins, one they will never, ever forget!
.. Idk how that happens
Happens to me every single time...
