Princess Jonna's Return - Part One of Two

[shellybaxter]

Hello,

My husband (Brent 39), my sister (Donna 33), my niece (Jonna 5) and myself (Shelly 36) returned from nine days at WDW just this morning. I don’t have time to write a day-by-day account, so I thought I’d just report the highlights.

TRAVEL
Coming from California it always takes a day to travel to and from Orlando. That’s two whole vacation days just for travel, so this time I decided to try something else. We left at 8:30PM from Reno Nevada (our closest airport) and arrived in Orlando at 6:18AM. I thought this worked fine, but the rest of my party didn’t agree. Since we couldn’t get into our rooms right away (can you imagine rooms at Disney not being ready at 7:30AM – LOL) everyone was really tired and felt “grimy” from travel. The rooms were ready by 2:00PM though and everyone get a nap before dinner that night. We hired a town car from Tiffany and the driver was waiting at the bottom of the escalator for us. That went really smooth. The pick up was on time as well for the return trip, which was also at night, so everyone was very tired upon return as well.

HOTELS
We split our stay between Port Orleans French Quarter (first four nights) and Animal Kingdom Lodge (last four nights).

None of us had ever stayed at the French Quarter before (This was trip number four for DH and I, trip two for DN, and the very first trip for Dsis). It was BEAUTIFUL!! And the rooms were GREAT!! I had paid for King rooms and asked that they be somewhat near each other. They were both big corner rooms with two windows in building four, just steps away from the bus stop and the food court. We loved the décor and the view, even though you could see some of the parking lot. The staff was very helpful. Check in was a breeze. The lady even gave me the room numbers before they were ready. Everyone was very very nice. We are not usually food court people, but with a five year old we used it a bit. It was great. DH and I never got bored with the selection and the quality was good. The only downsides were the usual ones with a moderate, no room service (would have been nice for my sister with a little one) no sit down restaurant (the boat ride to POR was okay but a long way to go for so-so food) only bus transportation to the parks (no boat or monorail). One night we were supposed to go to Brown Derby for dinner but Dniece was too worn out so DH and I were going to have dinner on our own. We wanted to go to lots of different places but it was just too difficult to get there so we ended up at Boatwrights and had one of our only disappointing meals of the trip.

We transferred to Animal Kingdom Lodge half way through. The transfer was totally painless. I’d do it again in an instant. We were so happy with our room location and setup we even stopped by the front desk and asked them to thank the room assigner. We had asked for non-smoking (even though Dsis is a smoker, since she doesn’t smoke in the house with Dniece) connecting rooms, one with bunk beds. That is exactly what we got, just off the lobby on the Arusha Savannah. Dsis only had a short walk to the smoking area at the front of the lodge, the animals were out and visible a lot, and the rooms were not far from the bus stops or the elevators to the pool and restaurants. The lodge wasn’t as pretty as POFQ and even though we got the rooms we wanted they felt smaller because of the two beds instead of one King bed. The positives outweighed the negatives at this hotel though, as they did at POFQ (but it was closer at the French Quarter). Room service was great for those days we needed breakfast before hitting the parks. One night we were just too tired to go out for dinner and the AKL provided two wonderful sit down restaurant choices for us. The Mara quick service served its purpose, but none of us thought it was as good at the food court at FQ.

THEME PARKS
They were great as usual.

EPCOT – I LOVE EPCOT, but didn’t get to spend too much time there as Dniece and Dsis have bad hay fever and with the flower and garden festival it was just too much for them. My sister gave it the unflattering nickname of Ep-snot. The topiaries were beautiful this year. I don’t remember there being quite so many last year. The waits for the rides on April 9th were almost non-existent. But even when the park is pretty empty the Living Seas feels crowded, why is that?? Also, warning, if you have flown all night with little sleep and are waiting for your rooms to be ready, you may not want to ride Spaceship Earth. I can’t believe I fell asleep.

DISNEY STUDIOS - This was the park my five-year-old niece was looking forward to the most and it was fun. She wanted to ride the Tower of Terror so we went there first. DH, Dsis, and she walked right on. Next I saw them she was running out of the exit toward me with the amazed look on her face. “Was it fun Jonna?” I asked. “Yeah, but I’m not ever going again.” – LOL. What a cutie. Aunt Shelly bought her the ride photo and an “I survived” t-shirt. The rest of the park was about the shows for us. She loved the Playhouse Disney show but was disappointed that Rollie Pollie Ollie was replaced with Jo Jo (she doesn’t care for Jo Jo) and she was amazed by the Belle show (as she called it). I think she will want to take dance and singing lessons after this. She was totally in awe of the shows. We also saw lots of characters; I think maybe her favorite thing to do. We got autographs and pics with the Incredibles, Mike and Sully (Monsters Inc) the Toy Story group, and the Pink Power Ranger (they were annoying with REALLY REALLY loud music).

MAGIC KINGDOM - I think this was almost everyone’s favorite. We rode everything we wanted once and some things twice. We took afternoon breaks, this park took us two ¾ days. Everyone loved Splash Mountain. The newly renovated small world was pretty. I thought Stitch was REALLY lame, but Dniece loved it. Dsis rode Space Mountain (no one else wanted to) and got a bad headache. Characters were out in force; we even stumbled across Pocahontas, whom we’d never seen before. We had early PS for Crystal Palace on one day and that was fun going down Main Street almost alone. This was, as always, the most crowded park, but before 2:00PM we didn’t wait for anything (other than lunch at Pecos Bills – what’s up with that?) more then 15 mins.

ANIMAL KINGDOM – My sister LOVES animals, this was by far her favorite park. The safari was GREAT and Eric who posts here sometimes was our driver. I had to use an ECV everyday of this trip due to a knee injury I sustained at Christmas time. We were seated in the front due to this at the Festival of the Lion King. I don’t necessarily think this is right, but it’s the way Disney does things. It was a great show and my “I’m always performing” niece was chosen to be in the show at the end when the kids dance around. She was so excited and when we exited she wondered out loud if anyone would want her autograph now since she was in the show – LOL. What a little ham. My little Tower of Terror trooper was afraid of the Dino ride. I thought if she’d just go one she’d love it. She loves Splash and Test Track and Big Thunder, so I convinced her to try it once. She got off and said “I’m not going again Aunt Shelly”. I was wrong; she hated the noise and the jerkiness. Oh well, she didn’t seem traumatized so no harm no foul. We continued a family tradition started by Jonna and me last time and all three girls got our faces painted. That was fun, and face painting feels really good. All in all Animal Kingdom was a hit with our group.

This is getting kind of long, so I’m going to do dining and special events in a separate post. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our adventure.

Shelly