8caliace
United States Air Force
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2000
- Messages
- 324
This was our 4th trip to WDW and by far the most stressful in planning, but the most rewarding and relaxing trip yet.
The Crew:
Ace(me): 30, Active duty Air Force currently stationed in TX
Nancy: DW, 29. Civil service job on the base
Nick: 6, DS. First grader on fall break
Cameron: 8 months, DD. Spoiled lil girl.
JoAnn: 57, my mom. Lives in Vegas, always ready to spoil the grandchildren
Rob: 23, my brother. Works for an airline, and training as EMT/firefighter in Las Vegas
Ali: 27, brother's girlfriend. Also works for airline.
Tom: 27, Active duty Air Force stationed in California
Day 2: Morning comes much too early as we have to pick up Mom coming in on the red-eye at 8am from Vegas, and make the mini-van switch. Rob, Tom, and I head for the airport. Tom drops off the van while we head in the find Mom already at baggage claim. I head to Dollar to pick up the new van for the rest of the trip. It is so much easier loading one person's luggage today then it was with 6 1/2 yesterday. But packing and loading the van is just starting, as we will have much more to do soon. Arrive back at the Clarion and Nick is dying to swim. We all get changed up and head down to find no one in the pool, so of course it is our opportunity to go crazy and act like a bunch of clowns. Not that we would not have been acting like clowns even if there were others in the pool though. We brought along a football, so some pool football broke out, to be followed by pool wrestling with Nick and I taking on Tom and Rob. Of course we won. Cameron kept busy with the girls in the shallow end splashing around like the little fish she is. Back up to the rooms to get showered and dressed to check out. Here comes the next installment of our packing adventures. We need to move a couple blocks down 192 to the Nikki Bird for tonight. We load the bags, and the ladies and kids say they will walk down to the hotel. We head down and attempt to check in. Only one room ready but thats good for us, so we unload all the bags into one room. By that time, the others have strolled into the hotel. As with most days on this trip, nothing really planned in stone. We decide to head over to the Wilderness Lodge and get some lunch. Mom has been wanting to try Whispering Canyon, so we are off. No PS here, but we are seated within about 10 minutes. Big time thumbs-up from all. Big hits were the bottomless milkshakes, big portions, and the Banana Dustbowl dessert. We then decided to wander the grounds. Quick stop in the arcade, where Nick proudly won his sister a stuffed animal. Then into the kids club and Nick makes a little craft for his mom. We headed down to the marina and took our annual Water Mice ride. We made the mistake last year of riding at Downtown Disney with the slow boats, so we were glad to be back with the fast ones. Nick and I rode together, and Rob and Tom got their own boats. The ladies kept wandering the gorunds while we caused trouble out on the lake. Lots of chasing and following too close, hitting waves, and spinning around. We actually all ended up pretty wet, but Nick really got hit by one big splash. I felt bad for a minute, but it was so funny. Time was soon up so we headed back in. Back to the van where we decided to wander in Downtown Disney for awhile. No major purchases as this was only Day 2. Fatigue again set in, so back to the hotel. Room 2 is set so we are good to go there. Nothing spectacular at the hotel, but good enough for $28 per room. Spent the evening relaxing and watching some baseball before everyone ended up crashing early. Day 3 has us making our last hotel switch, this time over to CSR for the rest of the trip.
Day 3: Everyone sleeps in pretty good and we get up and around by 10-ish. The plan is to load all the luggage up and take it to CSR for storage while the others get dressed and ready. Again Rob, Tom, and I load it up and head on out. Check in at CSR but rooms not ready, so we head to Bell Services. I felt bad for the guy having to deal with our 16 pieces of baggage and such. I tried to tip him, but he insisted I give it to whoever delivers the bags to the room later. Back in the van to get the others. Decision made to go back to Universal, as Mom has not yet been there. Opted to pay extra for the Preferred Parking this time...big waste as we were no closer or faster in parking than the other day. Just the first in a list of things disappointing about Universal, which I will cover in my final report. Quick Starbucks stop for Mom and Nancy while we all check out the surf store where Nick finds a sharktooth necklace for Dad to buy him. Now her saved up money for this trip, but never thought it necessary to use it on the stuff he wanted. Gotta love how kids think, and of course I caved in. Into IOA for another go on Hulk as the my Mom took the kids to Seuss. More crowds today, but today we used our Express Pass booklets. Nancy freaked out big time on Hulk, but once again she survived. Over to Seuss, where Nick has to get everyone onto the rides with him. One thing Universal has better than WDW is their lemonade slush things. Much bigger and tastier in my opinion. Move onto the Lost Continent. Express Pass Dueling Dragons. Universal's Express pass system really sucks. On some rides they have it right, but then on other's it is terrible. Even with the passes, we waited almost 30 minutes. For some reason, they only had one coaster running on each side. Good ride though once we got to it. No one wanted to try the Unicorn so we moved on to Jurassic Park. Express Pass on the ride, which was decent. Quick stop for some pizza and caesar salads before moving on. A lot of stopping and going into the different shops as crowds were getting big. Decision made to call CSR to check on rooms. They are ready, so we head out. Unfortunately due to the crowds at WDW, we struck out on some of our room requests, but they turned out to be blessings in disguise. We ended up in Ranchos 7B, right near the quiet pool. Not far from the Dig Site and a quick walk to El Centro. Bags are delivered and we set off to explore the resort. Big hit with everyone were the hammocks. I could have stayed there for hours relaxing. Time for swimming. We peek at the Dig Site and it is packed but looks like fun. We head to the rooms and change and notice no one in quiet pool. So we end up there so we can act like clowns again. Finish up and get dressed for dinner. Wander down to check out Pepper Market. We are quickly seated and everyone heads off to find their meal. We pretty much ended up with a sampling of everything, which worked out good. Stop to check out the arcade here, where I make sure to put a beating on Rob and Tom in the basketball shooting game. Back to the rooms for baseball and sleeping time. Tomorrow will be our first day in a Disney park.
The Crew:
Ace(me): 30, Active duty Air Force currently stationed in TX
Nancy: DW, 29. Civil service job on the base
Nick: 6, DS. First grader on fall break
Cameron: 8 months, DD. Spoiled lil girl.
JoAnn: 57, my mom. Lives in Vegas, always ready to spoil the grandchildren
Rob: 23, my brother. Works for an airline, and training as EMT/firefighter in Las Vegas
Ali: 27, brother's girlfriend. Also works for airline.
Tom: 27, Active duty Air Force stationed in California
Day 2: Morning comes much too early as we have to pick up Mom coming in on the red-eye at 8am from Vegas, and make the mini-van switch. Rob, Tom, and I head for the airport. Tom drops off the van while we head in the find Mom already at baggage claim. I head to Dollar to pick up the new van for the rest of the trip. It is so much easier loading one person's luggage today then it was with 6 1/2 yesterday. But packing and loading the van is just starting, as we will have much more to do soon. Arrive back at the Clarion and Nick is dying to swim. We all get changed up and head down to find no one in the pool, so of course it is our opportunity to go crazy and act like a bunch of clowns. Not that we would not have been acting like clowns even if there were others in the pool though. We brought along a football, so some pool football broke out, to be followed by pool wrestling with Nick and I taking on Tom and Rob. Of course we won. Cameron kept busy with the girls in the shallow end splashing around like the little fish she is. Back up to the rooms to get showered and dressed to check out. Here comes the next installment of our packing adventures. We need to move a couple blocks down 192 to the Nikki Bird for tonight. We load the bags, and the ladies and kids say they will walk down to the hotel. We head down and attempt to check in. Only one room ready but thats good for us, so we unload all the bags into one room. By that time, the others have strolled into the hotel. As with most days on this trip, nothing really planned in stone. We decide to head over to the Wilderness Lodge and get some lunch. Mom has been wanting to try Whispering Canyon, so we are off. No PS here, but we are seated within about 10 minutes. Big time thumbs-up from all. Big hits were the bottomless milkshakes, big portions, and the Banana Dustbowl dessert. We then decided to wander the grounds. Quick stop in the arcade, where Nick proudly won his sister a stuffed animal. Then into the kids club and Nick makes a little craft for his mom. We headed down to the marina and took our annual Water Mice ride. We made the mistake last year of riding at Downtown Disney with the slow boats, so we were glad to be back with the fast ones. Nick and I rode together, and Rob and Tom got their own boats. The ladies kept wandering the gorunds while we caused trouble out on the lake. Lots of chasing and following too close, hitting waves, and spinning around. We actually all ended up pretty wet, but Nick really got hit by one big splash. I felt bad for a minute, but it was so funny. Time was soon up so we headed back in. Back to the van where we decided to wander in Downtown Disney for awhile. No major purchases as this was only Day 2. Fatigue again set in, so back to the hotel. Room 2 is set so we are good to go there. Nothing spectacular at the hotel, but good enough for $28 per room. Spent the evening relaxing and watching some baseball before everyone ended up crashing early. Day 3 has us making our last hotel switch, this time over to CSR for the rest of the trip.
Day 3: Everyone sleeps in pretty good and we get up and around by 10-ish. The plan is to load all the luggage up and take it to CSR for storage while the others get dressed and ready. Again Rob, Tom, and I load it up and head on out. Check in at CSR but rooms not ready, so we head to Bell Services. I felt bad for the guy having to deal with our 16 pieces of baggage and such. I tried to tip him, but he insisted I give it to whoever delivers the bags to the room later. Back in the van to get the others. Decision made to go back to Universal, as Mom has not yet been there. Opted to pay extra for the Preferred Parking this time...big waste as we were no closer or faster in parking than the other day. Just the first in a list of things disappointing about Universal, which I will cover in my final report. Quick Starbucks stop for Mom and Nancy while we all check out the surf store where Nick finds a sharktooth necklace for Dad to buy him. Now her saved up money for this trip, but never thought it necessary to use it on the stuff he wanted. Gotta love how kids think, and of course I caved in. Into IOA for another go on Hulk as the my Mom took the kids to Seuss. More crowds today, but today we used our Express Pass booklets. Nancy freaked out big time on Hulk, but once again she survived. Over to Seuss, where Nick has to get everyone onto the rides with him. One thing Universal has better than WDW is their lemonade slush things. Much bigger and tastier in my opinion. Move onto the Lost Continent. Express Pass Dueling Dragons. Universal's Express pass system really sucks. On some rides they have it right, but then on other's it is terrible. Even with the passes, we waited almost 30 minutes. For some reason, they only had one coaster running on each side. Good ride though once we got to it. No one wanted to try the Unicorn so we moved on to Jurassic Park. Express Pass on the ride, which was decent. Quick stop for some pizza and caesar salads before moving on. A lot of stopping and going into the different shops as crowds were getting big. Decision made to call CSR to check on rooms. They are ready, so we head out. Unfortunately due to the crowds at WDW, we struck out on some of our room requests, but they turned out to be blessings in disguise. We ended up in Ranchos 7B, right near the quiet pool. Not far from the Dig Site and a quick walk to El Centro. Bags are delivered and we set off to explore the resort. Big hit with everyone were the hammocks. I could have stayed there for hours relaxing. Time for swimming. We peek at the Dig Site and it is packed but looks like fun. We head to the rooms and change and notice no one in quiet pool. So we end up there so we can act like clowns again. Finish up and get dressed for dinner. Wander down to check out Pepper Market. We are quickly seated and everyone heads off to find their meal. We pretty much ended up with a sampling of everything, which worked out good. Stop to check out the arcade here, where I make sure to put a beating on Rob and Tom in the basketball shooting game. Back to the rooms for baseball and sleeping time. Tomorrow will be our first day in a Disney park.
