Surprise trip The good, the Bad and the “NO, You didn’t do that, did you?

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 1 Continues...

I never even saw the cop until he was up on my bumper and he flipped his lights on. At the time I had my Cruise control set at 75MPH. I noticed that the speed limit was 70, so I figured I could get away with 5 over the limit. Yeah, that probably would have been fine if I had noticed that the speed limit went down to 55 MPH in the city. I noticed that little detail, as I was pulling off to the shoulder for the officer. As I was making way to the shoulder of the road and realized that I was in fact going 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, I said to myself; "this is not how I want to start off this vacation!'' When the cop came to the window and asked for my license and asked if I knew why he was pulling me over. I played it cool...which means I begged for mercy!!! I was honest to my mistakes and must have apologized 20 to him, after putting the fear of taking my license away and giving me a $200 plus ticket, he ended up letting me off with his stern warning to pay more attention to the speed limits. (which I did all the way to Florida and back to PA the following week.)

We ended up stopping for gas after I left the state of VA, so we ended up stopping in NC for our first gas and bathroom break. (Fyi: it was almost 11pm and somehow we had made it 5 hours before having to stop for gas and no one in the car asking to make a stop.) Even with the unscheduled stop in VA, we were making good time and I was happy that my son only asked if we were there yet a few times. During the trip though he quickly moved the “are we there yet” to “How many more steps until we are there?” For some reason me saying 1 million more steps or 500,000 more steps made for sense to a 6 year old. He was actually only awake for about 2 hours of the 5 as he quickly went from “I’m going to stay up all night” to passed out. Only excitement at the gas station was that we had to wait 5 minutes to be let in, because the worker there was occupying the bathroom and having a nice chat with a guy outside who ended up trying to get me to lean him money. (He had an honest face and promised to mail me the money back if I gave him my address!!!)
Everyone hit the bathroom and I got my second large coffee of the trip. We finished out Day1 driving thru North Carolina.

Up next Day 2…

 

[wiigirl]

Following along.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Following along.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy!!!

 

[donnaf516]

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Can't wait to hear more!

Ask you shall receive....

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 2

Day 2 stared in North Carolina, I awake and the Mrs. And the kids sound asleep. From here on out my wife would wake up long enough to ask if it was her turn to drive, which I would reply Not yet, I will let you know when its time This exchange happened about every 30 minutes or so. The plan was supposed to be that I would drive until about 2am, then let my wife drive for a few hours. But to be honest the first 6 hour flew by, the first couple hours I tried finding radio stations that were playing the NFL football games. Then after that I broke out the old Back in the day Cds. (However I did blame the cds on my State trooper accident, because it was around that time I was too busy putting in different cds and not focusing on the speed limit signs, so I stopped going thru them after that) After the Gas stop I put on an audiobook that was on my ipod. I also decided after the gas stop to wash my coffee down with one of those 5 hour energy drinks. I normally do not do energy drink like red bull or Monster. ( they are usually way to sweet for my liking. ) However I find the shot glass size of those 5 hour energy drinks to be the right size of sweetness for me to handle. Plus in the few times I have taken them in the past, I found that there was not the crash after the time was up. We make it into South Carolina and went past the famous South of the Boarder at 1:30am. We did not end up stopping there, to be honest, I was not sure if it was open at that time. I have read on the boards how boring driving thru SC is, I here to say that soooooo very true. Besides the occasional deer sitting on the side of the road, there is nothing there to help keep you awake. It was about 3:30am and we were still in South Carolina when we stopped for our 2nd Gas stop of the trip. Everyone woke up and stretched their legs and used the bathrooms. If I were a smarter man, I would have let my wife take over the driving at this stop, but I was in FULL energy overload and amped up from the caffeine at this point. So I told my wife I needed a little more time, because I didnt think I would be able to sleep, even if I tried.

Unfortunately, about 30 minutes later, the caffeine effects wore off. My wife also chooses this time to not wake up every 30 minutes and ask me if she could drive. I made into Georgia and I finally pulled the car over and stop for gas at 5:30am and let me wife know she could now drive for me.

Up Next, Almost there...

 

[myhouseofmouse]

These were the happy faces after we told them about the surprise trip to Disney.

 

[tazdev3225]

Great surprise for the kids. I can't keep a secret so that would never work.

I made the same long drive down that Saturday from Philly. I only made it to Maryland before I was done driving. It was just my DH and I this trip and our third drive in 3 years. You were lucky in South Carolina. We hit all the traffic on that stretch of road.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Great surprise for the kids. I can't keep a secret so that would never work.

I made the same long drive down that Saturday from Philly. I only made it to Maryland before I was done driving. It was just my DH and I this trip and our third drive in 3 years. You were lucky in South Carolina. We hit all the traffic on that stretch of road.

I have to say, doing the surprise killed me the whole time. In past trips I have been able to include my daughter in on the planning, so it was really hard to not have her help in it this time. I've already told her that this is the one and done surprise trip.

As far as SC is concerned, As I said, we saw more deer then cars during that stretch. Sorry you had deal with the traffic.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 2..Almost There…

So I made it to 5:30am but probably should have let my wife take over at 3:30am. I was asleep in probably under a minute and woke up an hour later as we were in Jacksonville, FL. The picture, hopefully included in this post, is the sunrise I woke up too. Maybe it was the caffeine overdose or the lack of sleep, but it was one of the most beautiful sunrises I can remember. After I enjoyed the sunrise, I also realized that my wife was driving thru the city of Jacksonville. Now my wife is great at many things, but driving is not one of them. She does not have a lot of driving on highway experience and the experience she does have, we would all like forget about. (As an example; Even though I could not see at the time because I had a punctured eye from a weed whacker accident, I still have panic flashes of my wife driving me to the city and cutting off thee lanes of traffic on 95 taking my to the eye hospital.) She did make it thru the city and I could tell that it stressed her a little, so I got her to pull over and let me take back the drivers seat.

Because of the overnight drive, we didn’t make many plans for drive down as far as sight seeing and all. But there was one planned stop we had to make during our drive. A stop I think every American must take on a long multi-state drive… The Waffle House!!! We finally found one (The first one we left the highway for was closed down) was at Rt 92 in Daytona (This is right before (last exit) you get off 95 and go onto I4) Now this was my wife’s first time at a waffle house, so watching her take it all in was very enjoyable. Again, like the sunrise, probably one of the best breakfast meals I have had in a long time. After we filled our bellies, we headed back on the road for the last stretch of the drive. Now that last hour did seem to drag on, even though it did build on the excitement as we passed US and started to see the signs for the exits to Disney World. As much as I enjoyed seeing the sunrise, there is NOTHING like seeing and driving under that arch way that says...”Walt Disney World” We arrived on property at 11am, 16 hours after we started our drive to the world.

Up next..."I can't believe we are really here!!!"

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 2, finally here...
Now I say finally here, but honestly the drive went really well, better then expected and I actually enjoyed it. (As much as you can while sitting still for 16 hours.) We make it to property and I take the long way over to AOA so that I can take it all in. I know this sounds crazy, since I just spent the last 16 hours driving here, but I cannot put into words how much I enjoy just being on Disney property and need the time to take it all in.
We pull into AOA and my first impression is, WOW. Everything looks great, bright and clean, the details in everything are just perfect. I did online check in ahead of time and put in a room request for the first floor and also did the one to be able to have the room ready if possible. Check in was a breeze, someone came right up to us as we entered and started to help us out. They had our room ready and it was on the first floor, so yeah for us!! The whole check in was under 5 minutes and we were off to our room. We are staying at the LM rooms so we decided to drive over and as it turns out our room was about 50ft from where we were able to park. The LM pool was also right outside our room. The magic bands worked to let us in the room, which was rich with details as well. Again I just have to stress how wonderful the themes and details of this resort are. As I have said before, we love pop for the larger than life images and details. AOA, takes it to a whole new level. I thought the room itself was wonderfully themed and enough space for our family. Everything in the room looked brand new still and very colorful. We did notice that there were no bed spreads in the room. (It was the same at POR, no bed spreads) We did however call housekeeping and asked for extra pillows and blankets, which they delivered quickly.
Even though it was only about 70 degrees with a cool wind outside, we decided to hit up the pool, even though there was the LM pool outside our room, we decided to take the walk over to the big pool. Along the way we got to take all the great details of the resort, going thru the LM section and the Lion King section. The theming in both was great, with all of your favorite characters on display.
The big pool is, BIG, a really nice sized pool and again very well themed. With have a little one who is not a swimmer yet, it was really nice to have the zero entry area that he could just walk out into the pool at. There is also a nice splash and play area that was good for little ones to play in. The only downside to the pool is that it is no quiet pool. I had planned to use this time to take a nap, but between the splash zone and the pool games that the CM were playing with the kids and the incredible loud pool theme music, there was no chance of sleeping here. We spend about 1 and half here and then took a walk over to the Cars area to check out the theme and characters there, then headed back to the room. (Out of the 4 area’s, I would have to say I really liked the theme at the cars area the best.) This is one resort you HAVE to make sure you make time to take a walk around the entire resort to take it all in.

Please feel free to ask any questions about the resort and i will try to help with them. Overall I would highly recommend this resort to anyone. I thought the size was perfect, big enough to capture the scope of what they were trying to do there, but not to big that it took an hour to walk from one end to another. (I can see the arguments that the LM rooms are a long walk from the main building, but not really any longer than some other resorts.) There are plenty of things to do at the resort to take up a half day just hanging at the resort. I will give some more details of the food court on my next post.

Up next more of Day 2

 

[Lucille1963]

Loving it!!

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Loving it!!

Thank you, glad you are enjoying it. This is my first real trip report, I have to say, I am really enjoying reliving the trip while writing this up.

 

[scottny]

Joining in. We were there for some of those days also.
Glad the cop let you off.
Nice sunrise pic.
We stayed at Little Mermaid rooms also this trip for part of it. Never made into the pools though.
Great start.

 

[jrj]

I'm enjoying your TR

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Joining in. We were there for some of those days also.
Glad the cop let you off.
Nice sunrise pic.
We stayed at Little Mermaid rooms also this trip for part of it. Never made into the pools though.
Great start.

Glad to hear. I'll be curious to hear if you agree on any opinions, observations, MB/FP and crowd levels.

Also glad that cop let me off. I would probably still be hearing about it for my wife.

All the pool looked great, only made it to the Big Blue one, but checked out the other two as well. I would have preferred going to the Cars pool, just so I could have slept in one of the Cozy cones they had around the pool.

Hope you enjoy.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

I'm enjoying your TR

Thank you, hope i keep it up. I really enjoying putting it all into words. I am getting nervous about a part coming up and how people will take it when it does. (the reason I put the.. "No you didn't do that, Did you?" in the title.)

But at least i'll get it over with soon and take the heat that comes with it.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 2 continues…

We went back to the room after swimming and resort sightseeing and changed into clean clothes. At this point my wife wanted to just relax in the rooms and watch TV, but I can watch TV at home. (It’s what I’m good at, so says my wife!) I wanted to enjoy Disney every minute while I was here. We ended up out voting my wife and decided to head to downtown Disney and hit up Disney Quest. In all the years of us going to Disney, this is one of those things that we have never done before. I have always had a hard time justifying spending $30+ per person at an arcade at Disney. However, because of booking thru AAA and having more than 2 packages booked, we ended up with 6 free vouchers for Disney Quest. (This ended up saving us about $150.00 for the 4 of us)
Now we didn’t go shopping or sightseeing at Downtown Disney at this point, but I can assure you that the reports about the parking at Downtown Disney being worse than ever, are not exaggerated. After parking we spent about 2 hours in Disney Quest. The place is huge, to be honest too big. Maybe it is just me, but because of how it is laid out on 5 floors, I never felt safe just letting the kids go off and play on their own. So instead of going off and doing our own thing we ended up staying together, which probably took some of the fun out of it. The place was also very crowded, so you ended up having to wait in line to play the better games. The only games without lines were all the retro games, which they seemed to have way to many of them and not enough of new updated games. This was my feeling overall of the entire place, not enough NEW updated games. Disney could really use to spend some money getting new games in there.
Overall, my reasons over the years for not spending the money and going to Disney Quest have been proven to be spot on. Unless there was a hurricane outside, I would have been very upset if I spend $150.00 on this place or even used this as a day off from the parks. We did have a good time and my wife and I enjoyed some of those old games. The kids found a couple of games they liked, but did not want to spend the time waiting in lines to play the games that they really wanted to play. There were a couple of Food stands that seemed to sell snack type foods. Maybe it was because I was playing on 1 hour sleep, but really disappointed in this place overall and unless there is something dramatically done to change it up, I do not see us going back and spending the time here, even if it is FREE.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 2 Ending:

Quick note: On our way back to resort, we decided to stop by POR, we were supposed to check in there on Saturday (tomorrow) for the remainder of the trip and I wanted to see if there was any way to check in early, so we wouldn’t have to get up earlier tomorrow and check in before we headed to a park. Unfortunately this was not able to be done and we would have to check in on Saturday. (Worth the try I guess)
We get back to the resort about 5:30-6:00pm and head over to AOA Landscape of Flavors food court for dinner. My first impressions were that it reminded me a lot of the food court at POP. (Which we have enjoyed in the past) It had different food station pod set up with a few different choices set up to choose from. From the pictures shown on the TV screens at each station all of the choices looked good and fresh. Now for some reason 4-6pm seemed to be the right time to be at the resorts food court, every time during our trip the crowds were light at this time. So we were able to walk around and pick what we each wanted and then meet back up to pay. I can however, see the complaints by some that this can be a big negative when it is busy and trying to get everyone a meal from the different stations. Even though it was slow, the CM’s seemed to be unorganized and slow at the getting everything together. This is where having theMb’s can come in handy, you can have your family members go off and each find what they would like, pay and then meet up at a table. This was how we ended up doing things during the remainder of our trip (at resorts and other counter service meals at the parks) after learning from this meal. That would be a one of my big tips and reasons for putting a credit card on the Mb’s and giving permission to all party members. We were able to split up and this saved time during the ordering process. Just a note; they had us give every member of our party with the charging privileges, even though our 6 year old never used it, since we did not give him the code.
The Food was all very good; I ended up getting the Burger, which was probably one of the best burgers I have had on property. The kids both ended up getting a kids pizza, which they enjoyed, but was a little on the small side. My wife ended up getting an adult size pizza and a small salad. Her only complaint about the menu was that all the sandwiches were too fancy here. (This was a complaint she added a few other times during the trip) She wanted just a pain/normal sandwich and didn’t want to bother or slow things down even more by asking for something of menu.
Overall, the food was really good and thought that the selection was big enough that most families will be able to find something for everyone there. The seating area was nice and big and they used real silverware instead of plastic, which was a nice touch. (Note: We did not end up getting the refillable mugs, since we had a cooler full of drinks, so I cannot give feedback on those for this trip.)
We got back to the room around 7pm and I got ready for bed and got the outfits ready for my son and I for a day at Animal kingdom. I set the alarm for 6:30am to start day 3 off. (This way we could check into POR and then head off to Animal Kingdom for rope drop. I at 7:30pm I put my head on the pillow while everyone else got ready for bed and I was out in 3 seconds.

Up Next: Some Day 2 pictures and then Day 3…Check in to POR and Animal kingdom

 

[scottny]

I never made it to Disneyquest and we had premium annual passes. LOL
I love Landscapes of Flavors. The surf and surf burger is the best.