Ten Sleeps in Disney World!! - An Aug Trip Report *5/9 Departure Day & Final Thoughts

Angies1274 · Jan 5, 2010

Yay!!!

for a Christmas 2010 trip!!! I'm so happy for you!!! :goodvibes

I know how much you wanted to go near Christmas. You're going to have such a wonderful time!!! :thumbsup2

Mickey_Mom · Jan 5, 2010

Lady Lallie said:
I'm so excited that you are planning a December trip! It's going to be fabulous!!

Thanks!

It's going to be a blast showing Benny (Alex's friend) everything for the first time.... you get that excitement all over again seeing it new thru their eyes!

queensara said:
Your trip report is awesome. We are planning a 2010 trip also (Thanksgiving week and the first week of December). This year we are planning on going to Disney Quest, I was so happy that you included so much about it in your trip report. I wasn't so thrilled to be adding that this year, but after reading you tr, I can't wait. I love your mickey pirate head t shirts, did you do those? I would love to have some of those for our trip this time. Keep the tr coming

Aww thank you, how sweet of you to say! :blush:

Two weeks for you? And at Thanksgiving? Whew! That'll be a wonderful trip! We'll definately be doing Disney Quest again so we'll have to meet up to say hi!

Yep, I made the Big Brother/Little Brother pirate tshirts.... I got them from here on the DISboards.... they were perfect for Alex and Demetri. pirate:

I mentioned them in my PTR but I'm not sure if I put down where I got them from. I'll check it out from home, its blocked here at work.

Angies1274 said:
Yay!!! for a Christmas 2010 trip!!! I'm so happy for you!!! I know how much you wanted to go near Christmas. You're going to have such a wonderful time!!!

Thanks Angie! Yeah, I almost cancelled this August trip to rebook in December.... in retrospect of course I'm glad we didn't cancel. I'm nervous that free dining isn't going to get extended into December this year though. :scared1:

I caught the tail end of a Disney commercial last night... something about getting a $750 gift card if you book before March? That makes me think the deals will keep being offered.... And we just got a CAA (automobile club) membership so I'll have to see what deals I can get with that too. :thumbsup2

Mickey_Mom · Jan 21, 2010

Well hi there! Remember me? Im the slacker whos supposed to have been keeping up with my little TR here. :blush:

I hope most of you havent given up on me. I really dont have much of a defense for myself either. Its just Life that got in the way for a little bit. Our December trip seemed so SO far away in my last update, but now that were into 2010 a little bit more, excitement is creeping back. OK, I know its only 21 days into 2010 but I cant help it. Angie (Angies1274) started her PTR and its what I needed to kick my butt into gear again! So with that. on with the show! :cheer2:

What do you do when a freak snowstorm hits Florida? Build a ski resort of course! But as our lift went up, so did the temperature, leaving some of the worlds fastest, longest, slushing, gushing, downhill thrills and fun for the entire family. Park Map

So, weve had six sleeps in the Happiest Place on Earth so far, and on the morning of the seventh day, we were off to Blizzard Beach! Wed had so much fun at Typhoon Lagoon (despite Georges overdoing it in the sun department) and Disney Quest that we were excited to be trying something new for the third day in a row. Wed been studying the map and now that we knew how things worked from being at Typhoon Lagoon, we were ready with all the things we wanted to try. We got there at a respectable 9:30am and I grabbed two quick pics on our way in.

George and Alex still swap jokes to this day about those dang gators! Remember back on day one the Walmart story? Anyway, I had a laugh pointing the sign out to them and of course that set them off for gator speak and jokes all day long!

After those two pics with my regular camera, we switched to a waterproof disposable one so I really have no clue exactly when we did what particular ride, but heres what we did:

Slush Gusher - Yeah right, like I did this ride. Nope! I was always the chicken as a kid who loved the wave pools and the slides you go down on a boat but water slides? Not so much. Alex is the only one who tried this and he said it was awesome. I think its the tamer of the two really big slides. The other one.

Summit Plummet Totally didnt do this one either. Its the 120-foot vertical slide where you climb all the way up the ski lodge to the top and then slide through what looks like a ramp. Yikes! Alex did it and said it was incredible. Ill take your word for it buddy!

Heres a picture I took of the two slides while we were riding up the chairlift. Dont those clouds look really cool? (Foreshadowing alert!!)

Teamboat Springs This is touted as the worlds longest family raft ride and its soooo much fun. Well not so fun for George the first time we went on it. For some bizarre reason he was getting motion sickness from sliding back and forth but recovered quickly enough from it. At first he thought maybe the sun was getting to him again but he was fine almost right away. Demetri loved this ride a lot! It made me a little nervous that he was so vulnerable in the raft this little tiny boy in the big raft but Ariana and George anchored him in with their legs..

.. and I neednt of worried. He was thrilled!!

Toboggan Racers/Snow Stormers These were mighty fun slides where you use a mat and go face first down.

Please excuse chickee standing smack dab in the middle of the picture, she happened to step in front when it was her turn and not having a digital waterproof camera I didnt realize it until it was developed. But anyway, this is the view from the top of Tobaggan Racers. Its just like you were tobagging down a hill with seven friends beside you all going down at once. This was a little tricky planning for our family of five since we couldnt rely on Demetri or Ariana to propel themselves forward on their own when it was our turn, and we didnt quite know what to expect at the bottom. So when our row of eight were cleared to go, I got Demetri and Ariana going down with a little nudging and then I jumped (literally) onto my mat in an effort to catch up with the others and have us go altogether. Problem was, my little jump just kinda turned into a big thump and when I landed on my mat, it didnt go anywhere. Oh man kinda embarrassing to say the least and to make matters worse, (yes it gets worse) I seemed to be stuck and I started oomphing myself forward with little tiny hops but I still wasnt moving. So while the others were already half way down the monstrously long hill, I was still desperately trying to get going! Finally, I raised my left leg enough to get a foothold underneath and shoved off on my way. Despite the shaky start it was a lot of fun! Snow Stormers was pretty much the same but was in a slalom style where you swish back and forth like you were skiing but your on a mat going down a water slide!

It was about this time however, climbing all those stairs up to Snow Stormers, that I noticed a certain pain developing on my left side in my groin area. It was getting worse the higher I got and I pretty much figured out Id tweaked something. Did I do it when I thumped onto my mat or when Id gotten my foot underneath me and shoved off? Ill never know but it hurt like the dickens at the time. By the time Id finished the Snow Stormers ride and my family was ready to move onto the Downhill Double Dipper ride, I was sunk. I couldnt lift my left foot any higher off the ground than my right knee. No more stairs for me! The Downhill Double Dipper had a height restriction so while George, Alex and Ariana went to stand in line for it, Demetri and I moved to the ending area of the ride to wait for them to come down. and we waited. and we waited. and then just for fun, we waited some more.

Downhill Double Dipper These are side by side racing slides that take five seconds to come down. Literally. There are racing timers on each side of the slides and youre in a race to get to the bottom first. You come down on a tube and you dump into a pool at the end. Youre instantly ordered out of the pools by the lifeguard to the exits on the sides so your entire ride experience is about fifteen seconds altogether. twenty if your lucky. As fun as this ride was, George and Alex both agreed it was so not worth the wait. If you go and theres no lines do it. If theres any sort of line dont. As fast as it takes you to do the ride, its a long time between each race and Demetri and I must have waited at the bottom for at least a half hour. Luckily there was a little shower thingie there for Demetri to play with while we were waiting.

I filled my family in on my worsening injury and we decided to chill out (get it chill out?!) on the lazy river ..

Cross Country Creek Ah, have I ever mentioned how much I love lazy rivers?!? For those that may have missed the other million times it is heaven! Pure heaven I tell you! It was exactly the same set up as Typhoon Lagoon, you had periodic stations in which you walked down a few stairs to an area that had tubes floating nearby. You either grab an available tube or you just wait for a departing drifter to give you one. You never wait long and you hop on and the slow current starts you on your journey. You just sit back and do nothing else but float. Ahhhhh. Theres a really cool house along the way where something happens when the occupant sneezes and of course the cave is cool too.

Melt-Away Bay This is a pretty decent sized wave pool you can either tackle on your own or with a tube. We hardly spent any time here really. It was fun but I had trouble hanging on to both Ariana and Demetris tubes so we got close to the waterfall by the rocks and then moved on.

Runoff Rapids For the life of me I cant even remember if we did these rides. That may have been around the time when we had to evacuate the water park. Oh, did I not mention that? Forgive me, Ive gotten ahead of myself.

Ski Patrol Training Camp / Tikes Peak We ran out of time for Tikes Peak and only George and Demetri went to the Ski Patrol Training Camp, but Demetri said it was a blast. Tikes Peak is the childrens area and we skipped it this time since our little dare devil was content with the big boy rides. Ski Patrol Training Camp is a pre-teen area which I thought looked pretty cool when we drifted over it on the chairlift.

Alex sniffed at the pre part of the age recommendation and deemed himself to old to try it out, so I sent George with the camera while the rest of us were going back to our chairs to figure out what we wanted to do for lunch. He came back with one picture.

Sigh.

We hit lunch at the Lottawatta Lodge and they had outdoor tables right there so we lucked out with someone just leaving theirs and Alex snagged it. Warning! Bee alert! Holy crap were there a lot of bees there! We would have been fine had the kids not noticed they pretty much stayed to themselves (at first anyway) in the bushes alongside our table, but once Alex saw them it was game over. He hates bees! He left the table and wandered around a bit finishing up his lunch which in the end was a good idea because the bees became a bit brazen and would swoop back and forth around our pop. That pretty much sealed the deal and we gathered what little bit we had left and headed back to our chairs.

A bit more time in the lazy river and then the announcements over the loud speakers started. There was severe inclement weather in the area. Due to the nature of the park, everyone must immediately vacate the water, and the rides shut down. Can you imagine being in line for a ride just to be the next person to go and the ride shuts down? Gotta suck. So the loud speaker announcements continued on advising us to gather our belongings and take shelter immediately. No rain had started yet and the skies didnt look all that bad, but I guess the weather instruments they use monitor whats going on in the areas and whats headed our way. So they were predicting the severe weather before it actually hit us. It was tough to see everything empty and still when there still was no rain or storm. Very tempting to just run in and have everything to yourself, but we all resisted the urge!

So we hung out back at the Lottawatta Lodge again since it had partial coverage and eventually dragged a picnic table bench over so we could sit down. A lot of people did the same thing but it wasnt too crowded. We struck up a conversation with a lady whos daughter had a cell phone showing her the precipitation in our area and it was just a big green circle with us smack dab in the middle. The rain/storm still hadnt even hit yet but the loudspeaker announcements continued urging us to seek immediate shelter and that everything continued to be shut down.

After what had to be more than an hour doing essentially nothing....

... we started talking about what options we had. Since wed already gotten quite a bit done at Blizzard Beach but wanted to continue the fun, we decided wed come back the next morning before going to Epcot for our second day. Our ADR was for dinner so we would have lots of time to enjoy BB, return to our room for a quick change and then head to Epcot for dinner. It was EMH too so wed have plenty of time to enjoy our favorites. For the rest of today we decided wed head back to the Pop and then go to the Magic Kingdom.

We had a plan!

Orso we thought.

ZeroToHero · Jan 21, 2010

Woo! Update! I need to work on that too............

Sounds like fun, until you hurt your leg... :sad2:

I can't wait to hear more.

Stefy · Jan 22, 2010

Yay your back :goodvibes

Great update :thumbsup2

Blizzard Beach looks pretty cool and you guys looked like you were having a great time (apart from when you hurt your leg - hope it doesn't continue during the rest of your trip).

Bummer about being evacuated, but better before than during a heavy/bad storm.

wdwgirl03 · Jan 22, 2010

I'm still here!

Love the BB update. We were planning on going there in August but ended up skipping it (as you probably know from my TR!). Teamboat Springs is a lot of fun though...when we went years ago we all loved it except for my mom. You would've thought she was going to die or something, she was holding onto that raft for dear life! The Tobaggan Racers and Storm Slides were also really fun. :thumbsup2

Lady Lallie · Jan 22, 2010

Yay an update!

If I ever win the lottery, I'm talking lots of millions here....I would build myself my very own lazy river! They are so much fun. :goodvibes

mickeystoontown · Jan 22, 2010

Hey stranger! Glad that your back on the Boards. You got some really good pictures at Blizzard Beach. I'm sorry that you hurt your foot. I bet you're right....I bet you did it while trying to scoot yourself down the hill.

Angies1274 · Jan 22, 2010

Hey there!!! :goodvibes

I'm so happy to see an update!!!! :yay:

I've missed reading your TR!! Glad to see that the excitement has come back.

So...Love this update!! Blizzard Beach sounds like so much fun!! Great details on all the rides!! Sorry you hurt your leg though. :sad2:

I'm with you on riding the water slides.....no thank you!! :laughing:

Glad to hear that Alex had fun!!!

Too bad about the bees during lunch. Nick hates them too!! He would have been freaking out if they were swooping in around his lunch. :sad2:

Ahhh.....the lazy river. It sounds so relaxing!!

Can't wait to hear more!!! popcorn::

ZeroToHero · Jan 22, 2010

Oh, and those photos you took made me determined to get waterproof cameras for the next trip - those photos are great, and I don't want to destroy my camera.

Kathy Jetson · Jan 22, 2010

We have never made it to the water parks (just never has enough time) but would love to. To funny about the big thump and not going anywhere on the slide(not the hurting your leg part)! I love lazy rivers too I think I could go there and hop on a tube and tell my family to just go on and come get me at the end of the day :laughing:

To bad you had to cut your day there short. I can't wait to see what happens next!

Mickey_Mom · Jan 23, 2010

ZeroToHero said:
Woo! Update! I need to work on that too............

Sounds like fun, until you hurt your leg...

I can't wait to hear more.

Yes, you DO need an update! I can say that now that I finally did mine! :laughing:

Stefy said:
Yay your back

Great update

Blizzard Beach looks pretty cool and you guys looked like you were having a great time (apart from when you hurt your leg - hope it doesn't continue during the rest of your trip).

Bummer about being evacuated, but better before than during a heavy/bad storm.

Thanks! It's good to be back. BB is definately a fun place and I love how there was something there for everyone. Even just riding the chairlifts up were fun! :rotfl:

Yes we were thankful the storm hadn't hit yet, but when it did... :scared1:

wdwgirl03 said:
I'm still here!

Love the BB update. We were planning on going there in August but ended up skipping it (as you probably know from my TR!). Teamboat Springs is a lot of fun though...when we went years ago we all loved it except for my mom. You would've thought she was going to die or something, she was holding onto that raft for dear life! The Tobaggan Racers and Storm Slides were also really fun.

Hello! George definately didn't like the swinging back and forth up the sides of the shute. :sick:

To him that was the freakiest part and he was holding those handles pretty tightly too! :rotfl:

I need a do-over for sure on Tobaggan Racers! :rolleyes:

Lady Lallie said:
Yay an update!

If I ever win the lottery, I'm talking lots of millions here....I would build myself my very own lazy river! They are so much fun.

How cool would that be?! Maybe a slide out the back window of your mansion to the lazy river that circles the estate. I'd be visiting! :laughing:

mickeystoontown said:
Hey stranger! Glad that your back on the Boards. You got some really good pictures at Blizzard Beach. I'm sorry that you hurt your foot. I bet you're right....I bet you did it while trying to scoot yourself down the hill.

I didn't bring enough disposable cameras - one per park just wasn't enough. Three for each would have been much better and then a fourth for resort swimming! My injury, unfortunately, did come into play herein after. :headache:

Mickey_Mom · Jan 23, 2010

Angies1274 said:
Hey there!!! I'm so happy to see an update!!!! I've missed reading your TR!! Glad to see that the excitement has come back.

So...Love this update!! Blizzard Beach sounds like so much fun!! Great details on all the rides!! Sorry you hurt your leg though. I'm with you on riding the water slides.....no thank you!! Glad to hear that Alex had fun!!!

Too bad about the bees during lunch. Nick hates them too!! He would have been freaking out if they were swooping in around his lunch.

Ahhh.....the lazy river. It sounds so relaxing!!

Can't wait to hear more!!!

I think I'm even going to put a ticker up soon! :laughing:

We were having so much fun at BB, we were bummed we had to leave. There was definately a silver lining to our plans change but we didn't find it until much later! Those bees were too much. It didn't help that the people before us had spilled their sugary pop all over the ground under our table. :headache:

Oh you would LOVE the lazy river! :cloud9:

ZeroToHero said:
Oh, and those photos you took made me determined to get waterproof cameras for the next trip - those photos are great, and I don't want to destroy my camera.

Absolutely! I love my Fuji camera and I loved the disposable Fuji's I got. Make sure they're the action, bright sun ones. The darker pictures like the cave and the sheltered Lottawata Lodge ones, not so much but everything else came out better than I expected.

Kathy Jetson said:
We have never made it to the water parks (just never has enough time) but would love to. To funny about the big thump and not going anywhere on the slide(not the hurting your leg part)! I love lazy rivers too I think I could go there and hop on a tube and tell my family to just go on and come get me at the end of the day To bad you had to cut your day there short. I can't wait to see what happens next!

Btw...a proper :welcome:

is in order!! :rotfl:

If you only have time in your schedule for one park, I'd be hard pressed to choose! Oy I still cringe when I think about my flop of a jump off -- I can't even remember the pain anymore but the embarrassement! Eek, thank heavens I don't know any of those people! :rotfl2: