The Carlin's Conquer Everest!

[lillygator]

1/26/06 ~ Ahhh, Thursday - Friday to me....I sit here anxiously clock watching the day away....only about an hour left to go until I am outta here and the tailgatin' can begin. I guess I should tell you all who will be traveling with me.....



So, my cast of characters...and believe me they are all chacaracters......



DH, John, 41 (gasp! an older man!)

ME, Vanessa aka V, 31 ~ yes I know, I am officially a 30 something now!
DD, Samantha, 3

DD, Haley, 11 - almost 12 months old!



And soon to join us later on this evening will be my DS, Amber, almost 21.....and even later, her boyfriend Shannon, somewhere between 22-25.


So basically ~ a little background.....


Let's see, we never go to WDW in January...this is a first for us!! But hey, it's all about the free goods! I mean who wouldn't make a special trip over to get an Expedition Everest pin and lanyard!! Who cares about the ride? So anyway - we received this e mail telling us about the EE preview. I told DH 'bout the free goods, he asked if there would be beer tastings, um no honey that is in October remember? "Ah, ok - a pin will do, book it babe." That was music to my ears and off to the computer I went to find a room!

Now it is my quest to conquer the "World" one day....I hope to hit every restaurant and hotel on property. So I needed to pick a new resort....after a wine or two I finally settled on POR....made the call and got it! Kind of anxious about this one but I guess we will see.

Now the day has arrived and we are on our way! Left work at 3pm, picked up the girls, got home and finished packing and cramming everything in to the car....On my lunch break at work I had gone to Publix and loaded up on room snacks as well as filled the cooler!! DH got home and we were really on the road!

We arrived to Port Orleans Riverside and I got out to check in while DH waited in the car. I took youngest DD, Haley with me. So I walked in and was behind one couple ~ virtually no wait at all. I was disappointed in the decor....very very plain check in area, high ceilings which of course, lead to everyone's voice carrying. I just didn't like the lobby/check in area at all. John and Samantha show up just in time to get our cards. The CM asked if I had any requests and I said nope just a PNP....then we talked some Everest talk for a minute and we were on our way to Alligator Bayou room number 2527!!

Here are a few pics from the room....

double sinks....

the coffee pot, extra towels & blankets, etc...

one of the beds...

the Mickey bedspreads....

We were supposed to dine at Raglan Road that evening but were so tired and wanted to hit Everest early so we decided to hit the food court at Riverside before going to bed. I will write a seperate review for our dining!!

After dinner, we came back to the room, opened a wine, toasted to our EE trip and hit the hay!

 

[heaven2dc]

Must be so great to live close enough to make such a spur of the moment trip! Room doesn't look too bad - how did you like it tho? Anxiously awaiting day 2 of EE!

 

[lillygator]

1/27/06 ~ ok, so maybe I stayed up a little later than everyone else last night. I put my family to bed....and I filled the tub, poured a wine and enjoyed the latest People magazine. My sister decided to join us today instead of last night which worked out perfect. I won't put my thoughts on the room here but instead leave you with, glad we tried it but would probably not stay here again.

Ok ~ enough rambling already, on to Animal Kingdom!!

I was awake EARLY, as usual, I mean when I am at WDW, I wake up like every morning is Christmas morning! I got ready as quietly as possible and then started to round up the troops....I had brought bagels, cream cheese and fruit to nibble on for breakfast so we anted up and headed to brave the WILD!

I did say "Let the tailgatin' begin," didn't I? No better way to prepare for the thrones of AP'ers and DVC'ers trying to get onto Everest.

Haley's ready....

and the rest of the family, although I'll never tell what's in my cup....

ahhh - and yes it was COLD....to us anyway....almost all of our family is NATIVE and anything below 72 is cold....so we had the kids bundled...but as the day and weekend wore on the weather was some of the best ever.

We loaded up the car and headed out to AK..we arrived and walked to the entrance. John went through the no bag line with the stroller while I was herded though the "dig through my bags" line. Not finding anything of significant value I was allowed entrance....WE MADE IT! Crowds didn't look too bad and it was around 10am, we stopped to get a photo with a unknown (to us) character....

and then headed to actually get in the park....that is where the lines began. Somehow we always end up in the wrong line....of course today was absolutely no exception. We finally got through and bee lined for Asia...

upon arrival at Asia there were several cast members blocking the entrance and required you to show not only your Annual Pass but your driver's license as well. Finally dug everything out and got in. My main goal was the free goods...we went through the Fast Pass machine which was set up to spit out a coupon for the laynard and pin. We got those(2 ~ one for DH and myself ~ more on this later!), then got FP's and then did EE with the Baby Swap...somehow we ended up being lucky....DH went first, then I went twice, then DH went again.....

It was AWESOME!!! I loved it, I was in row 10 and 13 this time....we had NO wait at all...walked in with the FP/BS and that was it, walked on. The standby line was about 20 minute wait at this point. We were then on the lookout for my sister....we decided to get away from EE as we encountered so many RUDE people...we just wanted to be away from them all!

We headed over to Kali River Rapids...John and Samantha went....I was not about to get wet!

and then just kind of wandered around the park...found Ivy...that is her name isn't it?

played the drums....

found a Gator....

and then made our way to a waterin' hole...it was way past beer thirty.....

We hit Flame Tree BBQ....Bud Light seemed to be the drink of the day at this point...

this bird was eyeing our food the whole time@!

all the girls!

continued....

 

[lillygator]

Ok, I was waiting for dear sis to call and decided to find my phone...little did I know that she had blown it up! 22 missed calls!! OMG!! Anyway, I get a hold of her and she is in line for EE she'll meet us at FTB...ok - time for another beer!!!

We finally meet up and hit EE again, since she is with us DH and I can ride together!! We rode about 3 or 4 more times that day. DH still wasn't convinced we should take the camera on the ride as I lost my sunglasses and he lost a hat...

how often are you gonna see this?

ok I am on the left....dear sis is on the right in the front row!!

all the gals!!

 

[lillygator]

~ 1/27/06 ~ continued....

at this point I was totally off my intended itinerary...I mean, we came to get the free goods, ride EE once and leave.....by this time it was well after lunch and I wanted to head back to the room so the girls could nap ~ but we were too psyched to leave we had to have more!! They weren't lookng at the FP times so we used a couple expired ones with no waits and no problems. It's funny - since there was no wait in the line, we missed all the ambiance and extras that Disney went to for this ride. We slowed down the last few times and noticed all the boots, socks, clips and Yeti garb - it was really cool.
The ride itself was great, the first time half way through they had the shadow of the Yeti and I thought they would make him real, well next time I need to save all judgements 'til the ride is completely over. The backwards part is great....the drop is awesome...the whole thing is great! I love the theme, the cool blasts, just everything about it!!

EDIT ~ I had to come back to edit this post as I missed one of my main points!!

On the way out of AK we stopped at guest services since our AP's expire in February. My father had purchaed AP's at full price for us and we brought those along. We basically ended up getting 2 adult and one child Fl resident Premium AP's for NO extra $$$! I am not even sure how that happened as I had my charge card ready to go since I figured it was going to be close to $200 difference. It took about 30 minutes since this was the CM's first week in duest services and we waited in line behind these idiots who were complaining about:
1~no EE AP pins left to buy - DUH, that is why they were limited edition Bueller! and 2~that EE wasn't open to the public....man I just wanted to slap some of those people! So if you were a complainer in GS at AK in the late afternoon on Friday - SHAME ON YOU! I mean - these guests were RUDE...demanding pins and my DH even commented on them - at one point the CM went in the back and hubby said "oh if they come back with a pin for this BLEEP I am going to come unglued!" Anyway - I am psyched about the new passes - since we've only carried seasonal before! A little pixie dust our way!


We finally left around 3:30 and headed back to the resort.....we had dinner reservations for 7:30 at the Concourse Steakhouse....we had enough time to rest up and get ready for dinner. We headed over to the Contemporary, dined, shopped and went back to POR...pretty boring I know.....Dear sis was with us....it was a pretty good time. Back at POR everyone crashed and got ready for Saturday!

 

[MAGGIED]

Sounds like you guys had a great time... we are so excited that EE wil open the day we get there... I think we might wait a cuople of days to venture over to AK - I think the crowds will be crazy.

 

[THE HAT]

great report....looking fwd to the rest!!

 

[lillygator]

1/28/06 ~ Saturday!

Whoo hooo....well I try to let my gang sleep in a little bit, but not much. We all got up got ready and went to MGM...the park we don't do that much....not sure why, it's a pretty fun place. We suished my sister between the car seats in the back of the Explorer, that was quite a funny sight. We parked close enough to walk...by the small river that we could have ridden the boat from POR. This was the first time Samantha used her Annual Pass.....my baby is growing up! We got through the gates and kind of wandered around. I had lunch reservations for Epcot so I called and had them changed to 50's Prime Time Cafe as DH actually said he wanted to try that place....hmm...

We decided to head to Star Tours...there was no wait and I have never been on it so my sis watched the girls and DH and I went on...it was ok, pretty rocky - I could probably take it or leave it...if there was a wait I wouldn't be in the line. After that we took pics of the Jedi fighter and headed to the backlot area....for the stunt show...along the way we saw Kim Possible and her sidekick, I didn't recognize them but thank goodness my DH has been paying attention to the Disney Channel....then we got in line for the stuntshow...my sister was beside herself...she goes nuts for these guys, but hey, she's 20 and "single" whatever floats her boat. About the time they should be letting us in they announce there are some dificulties etc and after a few more minutes they cancel the show. They announce they are giving us FP's to the 1:30 or :50 (Can't remember) show...cool...so we are leaving and now we see the Power Rangers...we kept walking around the park just checking people and things out. Donald Duck was outside his trailer and Sully and the other Monster's Inc guy were out - there were tons of characters by the hat as well. We decide to head over to 50's PTC to see if we can get in early.....well there is a line....a SLOW line...they lost some lady's reservation....finally they get to me and they can't seem to find it either but they found my March one...they sit us immediately anyway which is surprising since they came out to tell the line no room until after 2pm. We've never been here...it was fun and they had alcohol! Of course Samantha and my sister had to get the loght up Mickey drink and DH and I had some concoction from Dad's liquor cabinet. It was yummy and I was feeling good! After lunch we had enough time to get back to the stunt show. Got herded in and climbed the many stairs to get a seat on the wonderfully comfortable benches. We sat in two rows because it was easier for us. There was probably about 5 spaces between us and the next people - I liek to stay close to the end because with a baby you never know if and when you have to make a quick exit. Anyway some loudmouth woman comes up and SCREAMS "can you move down"....I moved although I would have liked to punch her. I just went ahead and moved back a row to be with the rest of the family. Well this woman, her husband and son ended up in front of us with the woman directly in front of me. She had a backpack on which kept hitting my knees, she kept leaning back and I was not budging my legs, sorry lady. Then the dad in his yellow Sprite shirt held up a movie camera over his head, so it was level with our row. I was a little upset but hey, she was rude and loud and obnoxious...she is going to have a hard life anyway. The show was awful, they did not do any of the bike stunts or anything. At one point they lost sound and the crowd was getting ancy. I was ready to get out of there. We finally herded back out and we decide to head back to POR.

On the way out we stop to try and answer all the trivia questions to win a prize because one day I will do it! I could answer all but two and no one in my party could figure those out. Oh well, next time!

Back at the resort everyone kind of chilled, napped...my sis and I watched a movie on Lifetime...some great chick flick about a married man having an affair and the girlfriend killed the wife and pinned it on the husband...and it was based on a true story!! Had a couple Mike's and I started to get ready for dinner. We had a PS at Coral Reef for 7:30pm...we needed to leave by 6:45 at the latest to get all of us there and it was after 6 and people were still sleeping! Ughh!! My sister decides she and her boyfriend are going to Macaroni Grill and I decide to see if we can get in Boatwright's...I called Disney Dining and had the ADR changed. So just the 4 of us went to Boatwright's. We checked in and there was a little bit of a wait so we went to the arcade...FUN! I had to drag DH out of there...maybe it's a treat for him since we have no video games or gaming systems at home! We ate - nothing special - would not go out of our way to dine here again. Then head back to the room.

We walked around the resort to see the main pool and the other amenities...it was "Quaint", saw lots of those brown bunnies too! The girls crashed and DH and I watched TV..now would have been a perfect time for a balcony. Sis and her boyfriend show up around 11 to tell us he got a room somewhere and that they are going to be at AK in the morning....ok, now we are on a quest to see who gets there first....

 

[pumba]

I love AB at Riverside .......we like French Quarter too......I was looking at your photos.....they have a hair dryer on the wall? Did you get a fridge in your room too?
Thanks for your reports

 

[lillygator]

yep - there was a hairdryer which had a nightlight and there was also a fridge, ironing board and iron, coffee maker too!

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoyed reading your reports ~ Thanx for sharing.

 

[lillygator]

Hope to post the rest tonight with more pictures!

 

[kathymc]

enjoying your posts - cute family
what trivia are you talking about in MGM?

 

[lillygator]

enjoying your posts - cute family
what trivia are you talking about in MGM?

when you walk into MGM there is a store on your left with old posters for sale...they have a sign up with different trivia questions everyday, very fun to try!