stacy347
I carried a watermelon?
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2005
- Messages
- 2,614
First Day {August 13th} ~
After leaving our Georgia hotel at 7:30 a.m., we arrived at ASMo at around 1:30 p.m.
We were all stiff and exhausted from 2 days of driving so mainly we just got out and stretched while walking around the ASMo lobby, food court and gift shop. I have to say, we were all very impressed with the theming here...it was pure Disney everywhere you looked! Within 5 minutes of being in the building my youngest DD had spent most of her Disney Dollars...she bought the biggest Stitch they had.
She had been saving for a year for this Stitch and she never once changed her mind on what her big purchase was going to be. This DD is in the Autism Spectrum (she is high functioning but has pretty serious issues with day to day life and being around people...not many things can make this child truly happy and for the last 4 years, the one thing that always, without fail makes her happy is Stitch...she will sit for hours and do drawings of the "cousins" and write stories, etc.). This info will be relevant later in the trip report. 
We were waiting for the rest of our Grand Gathering to arrive so we decided to have a bite to eat and just pay out of pocket since we hadn't checked in yet.
The food court food was very good and most of the people on that shift were friendly (IMO, the ASMo lobby staff was not the friendliest but this was not the case in the parks or other resorts we visited, just ASMo's lobby for some reason ~ I'm guessing it was extremely crazy being the first day of Free Dining and just gave them the benefit of the doubt that this was not the norm).
Right after we got our food and fed everyone, the rest of our group arrived from the airport, grabbed a bite and then we all went to check in. Once we had our Keys to the Kingdom (ok, I'm usually not a sappy person but being handed those cards and knowing that I was finally going to see everything I had been planning for over a year ~ well, it got me ~ it was a special moment)
, we went to the rooms to get freshened up and drop off my group's bags (the others were supposed to get their bags sometime in the next few hours...it actually turned out to be several hours later but at least they got there)! We all loved the rooms but my sister's family had to switch to a different one (upstairs) because there was a water leak in theirs and it had a terrible mustiness in there (the staff got the switch done very quickly and with no trouble though). 
We had ADRs at Tony's in MK for this first night, so after giving ourselves a couple of hours to unwind, we hopped the bus to the MK. I was immediately impressed and overwhelmed with the Magic Kingdom...it is truly amazing! The weather was not so great here this night...several storms rolled through but we didn't care, LOL ~ we were at WDW!
We got to the MK a little early for our ADRs so we headed over to Tommorowland and rode Stitch ~ I thought it was cool and so did the older girls but all the kids in our group that were 9 and under found it to be too intense, including my completely Stitch-obsessed DD.
We walked around some and checked out a few shops and then decided to pop into Tony's just to see if we could check in since it was still early. They asked if we had any problems with eating outside (it was still storming) but since it is a covered porch area and we had some rather tired and hungry little ones, we opted to go for it. Just for the record, I highly recommend eating outside at Tony's at least once!! We were seated at about 7:30 or so and even through the rain and lightning, it was just such a wonderful view and Main Street is so gorgeous at night...I don't think you really get the full effect as you're walking through but sitting there and taking it all in was definitely Disney Magic to me.
We had the coolest waiter here ~ his name was Abdel and I don't know if they let you request being seated in a certain server's section, but if they do, ask for Abdel!! The two toddlers in our group were tired from the travel and any mom here knows what a tired toddler can be like in a sit-down restaurant. He handled everything at our table with a smile and you could just tell he was really trying to keep the magic going. My poor sister gets dehydrated easily and adjusting to the Florida heat that first day really took a toll on her so she was going through her glasses of iced tea pretty quickly. Well, it only took Abdel a minute to figure out what her problem was so all of a sudden, without being asked, here he comes with a tray of glasses full of iced tea, LOL ~ he set them down in front of her and told her he didn't want her to worry about running out ~ it was so cute and sweet and he was just as attentive throughout the rest of our meal. We truly couldn't have asked for a better start to our trip. We enjoyed the food as well and I'll post dining reports in that forum later this week so I can tell all about the wonderful WDW food!
After dinner, we hung out for a bit hoping to catch the parade since were sitting right there on Main Street with awesome seats but due to the storms still rolling through, it was cancelled that night.
Once they made the cancellation announcement, we decided we were re-energized enough to stay for EMH so we headed off into the lands and even though we didn't leave Tony's until after 9:00, we managed to get in Mad Tea Party, Dumbo, POC, Cinderella's Carousel, IASW and Philharmagic (OMGosh, I am soooo in love with this show!!). Everything was basically a walk on...the only thing the kids had to wait about 20 minutes for was Dumbo
. When it was time for Wishes, we happened to be in front of Ariel's Grotto and it was a great view so we stayed right there and watched...a couple of the little ones were scared by the noise but overall Wishes was a big hit...very impressive!! 
That was pretty much it for the MK our first day...we headed back to the resort with the kiddies and tried to get some sleep for our morning EMH the next day at AK. I'll post that one in a few days!
After leaving our Georgia hotel at 7:30 a.m., we arrived at ASMo at around 1:30 p.m.
We were all stiff and exhausted from 2 days of driving so mainly we just got out and stretched while walking around the ASMo lobby, food court and gift shop. I have to say, we were all very impressed with the theming here...it was pure Disney everywhere you looked! Within 5 minutes of being in the building my youngest DD had spent most of her Disney Dollars...she bought the biggest Stitch they had.
She had been saving for a year for this Stitch and she never once changed her mind on what her big purchase was going to be. This DD is in the Autism Spectrum (she is high functioning but has pretty serious issues with day to day life and being around people...not many things can make this child truly happy and for the last 4 years, the one thing that always, without fail makes her happy is Stitch...she will sit for hours and do drawings of the "cousins" and write stories, etc.). This info will be relevant later in the trip report. We were waiting for the rest of our Grand Gathering to arrive so we decided to have a bite to eat and just pay out of pocket since we hadn't checked in yet.
The food court food was very good and most of the people on that shift were friendly (IMO, the ASMo lobby staff was not the friendliest but this was not the case in the parks or other resorts we visited, just ASMo's lobby for some reason ~ I'm guessing it was extremely crazy being the first day of Free Dining and just gave them the benefit of the doubt that this was not the norm).
Right after we got our food and fed everyone, the rest of our group arrived from the airport, grabbed a bite and then we all went to check in. Once we had our Keys to the Kingdom (ok, I'm usually not a sappy person but being handed those cards and knowing that I was finally going to see everything I had been planning for over a year ~ well, it got me ~ it was a special moment)
, we went to the rooms to get freshened up and drop off my group's bags (the others were supposed to get their bags sometime in the next few hours...it actually turned out to be several hours later but at least they got there)! We all loved the rooms but my sister's family had to switch to a different one (upstairs) because there was a water leak in theirs and it had a terrible mustiness in there (the staff got the switch done very quickly and with no trouble though). We had ADRs at Tony's in MK for this first night, so after giving ourselves a couple of hours to unwind, we hopped the bus to the MK. I was immediately impressed and overwhelmed with the Magic Kingdom...it is truly amazing! The weather was not so great here this night...several storms rolled through but we didn't care, LOL ~ we were at WDW!
We got to the MK a little early for our ADRs so we headed over to Tommorowland and rode Stitch ~ I thought it was cool and so did the older girls but all the kids in our group that were 9 and under found it to be too intense, including my completely Stitch-obsessed DD.We walked around some and checked out a few shops and then decided to pop into Tony's just to see if we could check in since it was still early. They asked if we had any problems with eating outside (it was still storming) but since it is a covered porch area and we had some rather tired and hungry little ones, we opted to go for it. Just for the record, I highly recommend eating outside at Tony's at least once!! We were seated at about 7:30 or so and even through the rain and lightning, it was just such a wonderful view and Main Street is so gorgeous at night...I don't think you really get the full effect as you're walking through but sitting there and taking it all in was definitely Disney Magic to me.
We had the coolest waiter here ~ his name was Abdel and I don't know if they let you request being seated in a certain server's section, but if they do, ask for Abdel!! The two toddlers in our group were tired from the travel and any mom here knows what a tired toddler can be like in a sit-down restaurant. He handled everything at our table with a smile and you could just tell he was really trying to keep the magic going. My poor sister gets dehydrated easily and adjusting to the Florida heat that first day really took a toll on her so she was going through her glasses of iced tea pretty quickly. Well, it only took Abdel a minute to figure out what her problem was so all of a sudden, without being asked, here he comes with a tray of glasses full of iced tea, LOL ~ he set them down in front of her and told her he didn't want her to worry about running out ~ it was so cute and sweet and he was just as attentive throughout the rest of our meal. We truly couldn't have asked for a better start to our trip. We enjoyed the food as well and I'll post dining reports in that forum later this week so I can tell all about the wonderful WDW food!
After dinner, we hung out for a bit hoping to catch the parade since were sitting right there on Main Street with awesome seats but due to the storms still rolling through, it was cancelled that night.
Once they made the cancellation announcement, we decided we were re-energized enough to stay for EMH so we headed off into the lands and even though we didn't leave Tony's until after 9:00, we managed to get in Mad Tea Party, Dumbo, POC, Cinderella's Carousel, IASW and Philharmagic (OMGosh, I am soooo in love with this show!!). Everything was basically a walk on...the only thing the kids had to wait about 20 minutes for was Dumbo
. When it was time for Wishes, we happened to be in front of Ariel's Grotto and it was a great view so we stayed right there and watched...a couple of the little ones were scared by the noise but overall Wishes was a big hit...very impressive!! That was pretty much it for the MK our first day...we headed back to the resort with the kiddies and tried to get some sleep for our morning EMH the next day at AK. I'll post that one in a few days!
