niks81
Let's just say I wasn't the 'only one'!<br><font c
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2001
- Messages
- 892
Date: Saturday, April 5th, 2003
Crew: Nikki (me) ~ 6th trip to WDW, DVC member, 21 years old
Mike (my fiancé) ~ 2nd trip to WDW, DVC member, 30 years old
Nora (my mom) ~ 3rd or 4th trip to WDW, 41 years old
Darrell (my stepdad) ~ Not sure how many times hes beenat least 3 times, 51 years old
The alarm sounded promptly at 5:05am and boy was I tired.
I had a crazy day at work the day before getting things ready for when I would be gone. My parents had also driven up to Minnesota the day before to fly out with us. Both Mike and I grew up in IL but we moved to the Twin Cities a few years back. They arrived and I was still trying to pack and talk to my parents at the same time. I didnt end up getting to bed until 11:45pm or so!!
I got out of bed and started throwing on my clothes. I went with capris, a baby tee and a hooded sweater, considering we still had snow on the ground in MN!! I knocked on the spare bedroom door so that my parents knew it was time to get up. I finished getting the bathroom stuff together and last minute things ready. All of our big bags were ready, but I was still messing with our carryons of course. All of the sudden I heard Mike say, Oh, theres our driver. Our towncar driver had arrived 15 min early so I kicked it into high gear! We were ready pretty quickly and we headed downstairs to get our stuff in the car. It turned out to be the same driver we had the year before when going to Disney! I was honestly surprised that we managed to get all of our luggage and four people in the towncar, but it worked out just fine.
We got to the airport around 6:35am and wheeled our bags inside. There was a line which surprised me, but then I remembered it was SaturdayI had always scheduled our departures for a weekday. I looked and saw the nifty Delta kiosk check ins and told Mike I wanted to do that! I earned 500 miles just for using it so why not? Can you say easy?? These things are awesome!!
We got our boarding pass and got in the small line to check bags (they have a special line for kiosk users). It took all of maybe 15 minutes to get all of that done and to get through security. Gotta love that!! Looking at our watch we see that we have an hour to do as we please. Off to breakfast we go. I got a yummy cookie from DAmicos (healthy eh?), Mike got an order of Cinnabon sticks, Mom got the sticks also, and Darrell got some contraption from McDonalds. On the way back from eating we stopped in a few of the bookstores to browse. Finally we headed over to the gate to wait. This would be me and Mikes second trip flying Delta and my parents first time. They were late boarding, but we eventually got on and got seated. They were three rows behind us on the opposite side of the plane.
The flight was pretty decent. I filled out more of my Passporter along the way and watched an episode of Friends that they had playing on the flip down TVs. My stepdad was impressed because they had to pay for headphones on United .but they were free on Delta. Anyways, we got to Atlanta to see that our flight time had been moved up 15 minutes so we were hauling butt over to the T terminal. On the way there my mom got a phone call that her brothers stepdaughter was probably going to pass away within a few hours. She had been in a car accident a few days prior to us leaving and was paralyzed from the neck down. Apparently her blood pressure and oxygen levels were really low and they were giving her only a few hours. Only 25 years old, what a shame. This put a bit of a damper on things I guess you could say.
We caught the flight to Atlanta and got settled in our seats. This was one of the bigger planes three seating sections instead of two.
My parents were ahead of us this time and the same episode of Friends was airing (wouldnt you think theyd change it?) I decided to try to snooze a little on this one. We got into Orlando a few minutes late but it wasnt too bad. Just to see the palm trees as we pulled into the gate felt just great!
We got off the plane and my mom was just cracking up because there was a 4 year old girl sitting across from her that asked her a zillion questions
.kids are such crack ups!
We went down to baggage claim to find the guy from Happy Limo waiting with a sign with my name on it. The funniest part? I have a last name with 12 letters and it barely fit on the sign looked very amusing compared to the other names with Smith and Clark! We headed over to the baggage claim and waited for our bags .they took forever! Id never waited for my bags so long before .I was beginning to think they were lost! Finally they came around and we headed out to the pickup area. The driver told us he had to go get the car and hed be back. My parents for some reason thought we were getting a towncar and when they heard limo they were like WE ARE?? Around he came with the stretch white limo (yeah baby!)
We got in and boy was it roomy! Cold drinks waiting too .I just love doing that when we get into Disney World. It is really worth the money if you ask me! About 35 minutes later we pulled into the Disney gates
(what a wonderful sight! LOL ) and into the Yacht Club entrance! None of us had every been there before so it was all new to us. I loved the look of the place just gorgeous! I was of course videotaping everything at this point terrible habit!
We got our stuff unloaded and headed to the lobby. Its very classy in décor .shiny wood floors, dark wood, and just beautiful. It is really low lighted though, and I cant decide if thats good or bad. It was almost too dim to me.
I headed over to the front desk and quietly turned to my parents and told them to go sit down and wait. I booked the hotel before I knew they were going and quite frankly I didnt care to pay the additional $25 per person (ESPECIALLY after paying PEAK rates and having the parks close earlyno thanks!). I checked in and they told me I did get the Boardwalk view I requested (yessssssss!!!) I am a view person and I use the heck out of balconies so I really try to get a good view. We headed up to our room (a very longggggg walk) and finally found room 2009. This had to be one of the best rooms at the Yacht Club in my humble opinion.
It was a corner room and therefore it had the balcony plus two windows on the side. It was such a spacious room!! I am going to request corner rooms in the future because I cant even describe how great it was!! The rooms had been recently refurbished and they looked awesome. There was ample room in the vanity area and the bathroom had a phone! There were 2 queen beds and a daybed all with new bedspreads too.
Pulling open the shades took my breath away! We were staring straight at the lake and the Boardwalk best view in the world!
I took pictures of the room and then we sat around and decided what to do. In the meantime we called Bell Services to get our luggage. They were there within two minutes. The Yacht Club has impeccable serviceI was really impressed. Then a few minutes after that we got another knock on our door. The boxes of groceries I had ordered from Netgrocer had arrived. We decided not to open them just yet though. We finally decided to go to Downtown Disney for our first night. We got ready and went out and waited at the bus stop. We must have just missed the DTD bus because we waited around 15 minutes or so. Finally it came and we hopped on to enjoy the ride. We got off at the Pleasure Island stop and headed towards the West Side to eat dinner. We had decided on House of Blues. On the way I saw Bongos and I told them if we couldnt get into HOB we could try there. There was a whole slew of people at House of Blues it makes it appear that the restaurant is full, but that is not the case. There was a concert, but there were plenty of seats for dinner. We got right in.
I wasnt that impressed with the inside they make it look better online! We sat down and looked over the menu. I decided on a cheeseburger and so did my mom and Darrell. Mike decided to get a chicken Caesar salad. Darrell also got the side of cornbread. The food came after about 15 minutes and we ate. It was just ok, nothing too memorable in my opinion. Glad we tried it, but doubt wed go back soon.
After dinner we walked through the West side and just looked at what they had. My parents had never been to Downtown Disney so they wanted to see what they had there. We went past Pleasure Island and into the Marketplace. By this time it was getting dark.. I stopped and took a picture with the snoring Lego man (sexy!). Then we headed into World of Disney. It was busy, but not as busy as I would have expected for a Saturday night! That place is just huge!! I ended up coming out with a few scrapbook kits, stickers, and Mike got a set of four golf balls with the parks on them. We took some pretty funny pictures in there trying on the funny hats!
After World of Disney we headed over to Team Mickey Athletic Club. Mike loves this store and he ended up coming out with a Disney Golf hat and he wanted a lot of other stuff let me tell you!! We also browsed through the Disney at Home store but nothing really caught my eye. Finally we found Wonderful World of Memories ..great store!! It had everything I was looking for! I got my 12x12 scrapbook with Tinkerbell on it as well as some stickers. That was our last stop so we headed out to the bus stop. It wasnt too long of a wait and our bus arrived.
We got back to the Yacht Club and took the long haul walk back to the room. We opened the drapes and the view was awesome with the Boardwalk all lit up. I could have stared at it all night.
I got in the shower and we all got ready for bed (after soaking up the view of course!) We set the wake up call for an early 6:30amthis is hard because we lost an hour with the time difference and we lost another hour with the daylight savings time. So we needed as much sleep as possible!
Day Two to come soon!
Crew: Nikki (me) ~ 6th trip to WDW, DVC member, 21 years old
Mike (my fiancé) ~ 2nd trip to WDW, DVC member, 30 years old
Nora (my mom) ~ 3rd or 4th trip to WDW, 41 years old
Darrell (my stepdad) ~ Not sure how many times hes beenat least 3 times, 51 years old
The alarm sounded promptly at 5:05am and boy was I tired.
I got out of bed and started throwing on my clothes. I went with capris, a baby tee and a hooded sweater, considering we still had snow on the ground in MN!! I knocked on the spare bedroom door so that my parents knew it was time to get up. I finished getting the bathroom stuff together and last minute things ready. All of our big bags were ready, but I was still messing with our carryons of course. All of the sudden I heard Mike say, Oh, theres our driver. Our towncar driver had arrived 15 min early so I kicked it into high gear! We were ready pretty quickly and we headed downstairs to get our stuff in the car. It turned out to be the same driver we had the year before when going to Disney! I was honestly surprised that we managed to get all of our luggage and four people in the towncar, but it worked out just fine.
We got to the airport around 6:35am and wheeled our bags inside. There was a line which surprised me, but then I remembered it was SaturdayI had always scheduled our departures for a weekday. I looked and saw the nifty Delta kiosk check ins and told Mike I wanted to do that! I earned 500 miles just for using it so why not? Can you say easy?? These things are awesome!!
The flight was pretty decent. I filled out more of my Passporter along the way and watched an episode of Friends that they had playing on the flip down TVs. My stepdad was impressed because they had to pay for headphones on United .but they were free on Delta. Anyways, we got to Atlanta to see that our flight time had been moved up 15 minutes so we were hauling butt over to the T terminal. On the way there my mom got a phone call that her brothers stepdaughter was probably going to pass away within a few hours. She had been in a car accident a few days prior to us leaving and was paralyzed from the neck down. Apparently her blood pressure and oxygen levels were really low and they were giving her only a few hours. Only 25 years old, what a shame. This put a bit of a damper on things I guess you could say.
We caught the flight to Atlanta and got settled in our seats. This was one of the bigger planes three seating sections instead of two.
My parents were ahead of us this time and the same episode of Friends was airing (wouldnt you think theyd change it?) I decided to try to snooze a little on this one. We got into Orlando a few minutes late but it wasnt too bad. Just to see the palm trees as we pulled into the gate felt just great!
We went down to baggage claim to find the guy from Happy Limo waiting with a sign with my name on it. The funniest part? I have a last name with 12 letters and it barely fit on the sign looked very amusing compared to the other names with Smith and Clark! We headed over to the baggage claim and waited for our bags .they took forever! Id never waited for my bags so long before .I was beginning to think they were lost! Finally they came around and we headed out to the pickup area. The driver told us he had to go get the car and hed be back. My parents for some reason thought we were getting a towncar and when they heard limo they were like WE ARE?? Around he came with the stretch white limo (yeah baby!)
We got in and boy was it roomy! Cold drinks waiting too .I just love doing that when we get into Disney World. It is really worth the money if you ask me! About 35 minutes later we pulled into the Disney gates
(what a wonderful sight! LOL ) and into the Yacht Club entrance! None of us had every been there before so it was all new to us. I loved the look of the place just gorgeous! I was of course videotaping everything at this point terrible habit!
We got our stuff unloaded and headed to the lobby. Its very classy in décor .shiny wood floors, dark wood, and just beautiful. It is really low lighted though, and I cant decide if thats good or bad. It was almost too dim to me.
I headed over to the front desk and quietly turned to my parents and told them to go sit down and wait. I booked the hotel before I knew they were going and quite frankly I didnt care to pay the additional $25 per person (ESPECIALLY after paying PEAK rates and having the parks close earlyno thanks!). I checked in and they told me I did get the Boardwalk view I requested (yessssssss!!!) I am a view person and I use the heck out of balconies so I really try to get a good view. We headed up to our room (a very longggggg walk) and finally found room 2009. This had to be one of the best rooms at the Yacht Club in my humble opinion.
Pulling open the shades took my breath away! We were staring straight at the lake and the Boardwalk best view in the world!
I took pictures of the room and then we sat around and decided what to do. In the meantime we called Bell Services to get our luggage. They were there within two minutes. The Yacht Club has impeccable serviceI was really impressed. Then a few minutes after that we got another knock on our door. The boxes of groceries I had ordered from Netgrocer had arrived. We decided not to open them just yet though. We finally decided to go to Downtown Disney for our first night. We got ready and went out and waited at the bus stop. We must have just missed the DTD bus because we waited around 15 minutes or so. Finally it came and we hopped on to enjoy the ride. We got off at the Pleasure Island stop and headed towards the West Side to eat dinner. We had decided on House of Blues. On the way I saw Bongos and I told them if we couldnt get into HOB we could try there. There was a whole slew of people at House of Blues it makes it appear that the restaurant is full, but that is not the case. There was a concert, but there were plenty of seats for dinner. We got right in.
I wasnt that impressed with the inside they make it look better online! We sat down and looked over the menu. I decided on a cheeseburger and so did my mom and Darrell. Mike decided to get a chicken Caesar salad. Darrell also got the side of cornbread. The food came after about 15 minutes and we ate. It was just ok, nothing too memorable in my opinion. Glad we tried it, but doubt wed go back soon.
After dinner we walked through the West side and just looked at what they had. My parents had never been to Downtown Disney so they wanted to see what they had there. We went past Pleasure Island and into the Marketplace. By this time it was getting dark.. I stopped and took a picture with the snoring Lego man (sexy!). Then we headed into World of Disney. It was busy, but not as busy as I would have expected for a Saturday night! That place is just huge!! I ended up coming out with a few scrapbook kits, stickers, and Mike got a set of four golf balls with the parks on them. We took some pretty funny pictures in there trying on the funny hats!
After World of Disney we headed over to Team Mickey Athletic Club. Mike loves this store and he ended up coming out with a Disney Golf hat and he wanted a lot of other stuff let me tell you!! We also browsed through the Disney at Home store but nothing really caught my eye. Finally we found Wonderful World of Memories ..great store!! It had everything I was looking for! I got my 12x12 scrapbook with Tinkerbell on it as well as some stickers. That was our last stop so we headed out to the bus stop. It wasnt too long of a wait and our bus arrived.
We got back to the Yacht Club and took the long haul walk back to the room. We opened the drapes and the view was awesome with the Boardwalk all lit up. I could have stared at it all night.
I got in the shower and we all got ready for bed (after soaking up the view of course!) We set the wake up call for an early 6:30amthis is hard because we lost an hour with the time difference and we lost another hour with the daylight savings time. So we needed as much sleep as possible!
Day Two to come soon!
I need to do a better job with my trip reports from now on. 
I'm so glad you guys had a good time... can't wait to read more. 
