disneysnowflake
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2004
- Messages
- 3,229
Cast.. DH age 40.. a heavy equipment operator in construction
Me age 36.. a part time pharmacy tech and full time volunteer
DS age 15
DS2 age 11
I decided to go to WDW after I saw the Travel Channel's holiday WDW show in Dec 03. We had a lot of snow and rotten weather in January. I decided to book a vacation to WDW for Dec 03. It gave me something to do to take my mind off the boring, dreary weather. At first I tried to book a package deal with WDW, but they would only allow me to use US Air. This one US Air flight was in late afternoon for takeoff, arrival in WDW at night, returning home before 7am, and a huge layover in Pittsburgh to catch our commuter. The airfare had to be paid in full up front when booking with WDW and was not refundable. Each ticket cost over $400 each!!!
So, that's when I found DIS. I booked my room only at POFQ in early Feb after reading much about it on DIS. In March I booked airfare with United. On Valentine's Day DH bought our php at AAA. It was my plan to pay for this entire trip by myself.. and it worked. My job which I loved was closed down. I then became a part time pharmacy tech and a full time community and school volunteer. I bring very little into the household, but wanted to try to pay for this vacation all on my own.
The countdown to this trip seemed like forever. I rejoiced when we hit the 200 day mark, then the 100 day mark, then the 60 day mark, and before we knew it we were doing the single digit dance.
I had everything packed, planned and ready to go. DH had no input into this vacation at all. He just let me do all the planning, which was fine with me.
On Dec 10th, the day before we left I had to put the dog in the kennel. He's a 9 year old Miniature Schnauzer who has only been in a kennel once before for only 2 days. We were all sad to see him go. We also have a cat, but she was to stay at home with family checking on her. I had the entire car packed and ready to go on Friday afternoon before DH came home from work.
Our Vacation Starts.. Saturday, December 11, 2004
On Dec 11th I was up at 1am making sure that everything was ready to go. DH got up at 3am. Our commuter flight was to take off at 6:25am. The airline told us to be at the airport no later than 5am. It was a 40 minute ride to the airport. DH wanted to stop for coffee at the convenience store first, so we left the house at 4am. It was around 45 degrees outside. We hadn't had any snow so far this season. We were looking forward to the 70 degree, sunny temps in Florida as Accuweather said before we left (ha ha.. right).
We arrived at the little regional airport at 4:50am. We parked and went inside. United didn't open until 5am. They took our checked luggage, and we were told to go to security. Security didn't want to hand check my film. I insisted they do so.. and I was told that my son's Spongebob disposible camera was suspicious. I was then patted down. I also was made to take off my sweatshirt. Good thing I wore a tshirt underneath it. I had already removed my jacket and shoes. All of us wore sweatshirts, but I was the only one who had to remove mine. I think they were mad I had them hand check the film.
We are off at 6:25am. I don't like commuter flights. We all chose window seats, but all of us had no windows. They were covered in plastic. DH was offered a front row window seat after a passenger didn't want to be responsible for helping the crew in case of emergency. DH liked the view and the extra leg room. It was a bumpy ride. We arrived in Washington DC 15 minutes early. We were glad because our flight originally only gave us an hour to change planes. We proceeded to catch our next flight and were off. We flew with TED. It was a nice plane. Our headphones for music worked. They showed some tv shows on their overhead video screens. All of us slept on the way down.
We arrived in Orlando at 10:30am. We exited the plane. Our luggage was already waiting for us. We quickly found our friendly Tiffany Towncar driver. He took us to Publix for a grocery stop. I got some sandwiches made while DH got the soda, chips, breakfast things, and bottled water. Publix wasn't crowded. It went smoothly. The weather was nice. It was sunny and in the lower 70s, I believe. DH didn't realized until we got to the resort that he bought 8 oz bottles of water. lol.
The great towncar driver took us to POFQ. I went to check in while the boys looked at the arcade. No one else was at the check in. I was surprised to see that our room was ready. It wasn't even noon yet. We got our keys and so forth and headed to our room.
We were in Building 4 at POFQ. The room was bigger than I thought. We only paid $79 per night plus tax for the room, and honestly it was nicer than the much pricier room we paid for in Upstate NY with Hampton Inn. I really liked the privacy curtain, and it really came in handy for me to get dressed. We opted for the parking lot view when I booked the room, but our room didn't look out onto a parking lot. When you looked outside the room there was a courtyard with trees, greens and iron benches. Very pretty. The boys liked the pool. That dragon slide was cool, and King Tritan was awesome. What a pretty resort POFQ is.
We ate our tasty Publix sandwiches and decided to stroll around the resort. I really liked the theme of this resort. It was clean and nice. We had PS for 1900 Park Fare at 5pm, so we hung around the resort until 3pm when we had our first bus ride. I really like the Disney bus transportation. I'm so glad we decided not to rent a car.
At 3pm we walked to the bus stop. The lobby, food court and bus stop were less than a 5 minute was from our room. The entire stay we had nobody occupying the rooms on either side of us or above us (we were on the 2nd of 3 floors), except on Friday when the resort seemed a lot more crowded.
The bus was right there when we got to the stop. We rode past the Riverside buildings which looked pretty, and arrived at MK in about 15 minutes after we left POFQ. DS2 seemed disappointed that we weren't visiting MK until the following day. It was so pretty seeing the Grand Floridian from MK. We hopped the monorail to GF for our dinner at 1900 Park Fare. The Grand Floridian was nice looking. It started chilling off. Nobody was in the pool, so some resident ducks decided to swim. The grounds were pretty. The inside was nice. There was a gentleman playing holiday music on a piano. The Gingerbread house was nice, but we didn't buy anything.
We checked in for our dinner a little early. DS2 liked seeing the Fairy Godmother open the dinner. We got a nice table there. The characters came over almost immediately. We saw Cinderella, Prince Charming and the 2 mice. At first DS2 didn't know that Prince Charming was a character. He thought he was a waiter (ha ha), but then they all came around a second time. DS2 remembered to get Prince's autograph that time.
The food at 1900 Park Fare was great. I had been on low carb since Jan 2004, lost over 50 pounds on it, but blew my low carb starting this day. The cheese lasagna was my favorite. Everything was hot and tasty. I'd highly recommend 1900 Park Fare. So much variety. We all left overstuffed and happy. We got back to our resort around 8pm. Everyone got showers, watched tv, filled out postcards and crashed. It had been a long day. DS2 was very worried about the pets and was homesick. We all were happy to be at WDW and couldn't wait until the following day. So far the first day was great!!! Everything went so smoothly and perfect.
Coming up next is Dec 12th.. our first day at the Magic Kingdom!!
Me age 36.. a part time pharmacy tech and full time volunteer
DS age 15
DS2 age 11
I decided to go to WDW after I saw the Travel Channel's holiday WDW show in Dec 03. We had a lot of snow and rotten weather in January. I decided to book a vacation to WDW for Dec 03. It gave me something to do to take my mind off the boring, dreary weather. At first I tried to book a package deal with WDW, but they would only allow me to use US Air. This one US Air flight was in late afternoon for takeoff, arrival in WDW at night, returning home before 7am, and a huge layover in Pittsburgh to catch our commuter. The airfare had to be paid in full up front when booking with WDW and was not refundable. Each ticket cost over $400 each!!!
So, that's when I found DIS. I booked my room only at POFQ in early Feb after reading much about it on DIS. In March I booked airfare with United. On Valentine's Day DH bought our php at AAA. It was my plan to pay for this entire trip by myself.. and it worked. My job which I loved was closed down. I then became a part time pharmacy tech and a full time community and school volunteer. I bring very little into the household, but wanted to try to pay for this vacation all on my own.
The countdown to this trip seemed like forever. I rejoiced when we hit the 200 day mark, then the 100 day mark, then the 60 day mark, and before we knew it we were doing the single digit dance.
I had everything packed, planned and ready to go. DH had no input into this vacation at all. He just let me do all the planning, which was fine with me.
On Dec 10th, the day before we left I had to put the dog in the kennel. He's a 9 year old Miniature Schnauzer who has only been in a kennel once before for only 2 days. We were all sad to see him go. We also have a cat, but she was to stay at home with family checking on her. I had the entire car packed and ready to go on Friday afternoon before DH came home from work.
Our Vacation Starts.. Saturday, December 11, 2004
On Dec 11th I was up at 1am making sure that everything was ready to go. DH got up at 3am. Our commuter flight was to take off at 6:25am. The airline told us to be at the airport no later than 5am. It was a 40 minute ride to the airport. DH wanted to stop for coffee at the convenience store first, so we left the house at 4am. It was around 45 degrees outside. We hadn't had any snow so far this season. We were looking forward to the 70 degree, sunny temps in Florida as Accuweather said before we left (ha ha.. right).
We arrived at the little regional airport at 4:50am. We parked and went inside. United didn't open until 5am. They took our checked luggage, and we were told to go to security. Security didn't want to hand check my film. I insisted they do so.. and I was told that my son's Spongebob disposible camera was suspicious. I was then patted down. I also was made to take off my sweatshirt. Good thing I wore a tshirt underneath it. I had already removed my jacket and shoes. All of us wore sweatshirts, but I was the only one who had to remove mine. I think they were mad I had them hand check the film.
We are off at 6:25am. I don't like commuter flights. We all chose window seats, but all of us had no windows. They were covered in plastic. DH was offered a front row window seat after a passenger didn't want to be responsible for helping the crew in case of emergency. DH liked the view and the extra leg room. It was a bumpy ride. We arrived in Washington DC 15 minutes early. We were glad because our flight originally only gave us an hour to change planes. We proceeded to catch our next flight and were off. We flew with TED. It was a nice plane. Our headphones for music worked. They showed some tv shows on their overhead video screens. All of us slept on the way down.
We arrived in Orlando at 10:30am. We exited the plane. Our luggage was already waiting for us. We quickly found our friendly Tiffany Towncar driver. He took us to Publix for a grocery stop. I got some sandwiches made while DH got the soda, chips, breakfast things, and bottled water. Publix wasn't crowded. It went smoothly. The weather was nice. It was sunny and in the lower 70s, I believe. DH didn't realized until we got to the resort that he bought 8 oz bottles of water. lol.
The great towncar driver took us to POFQ. I went to check in while the boys looked at the arcade. No one else was at the check in. I was surprised to see that our room was ready. It wasn't even noon yet. We got our keys and so forth and headed to our room.
We were in Building 4 at POFQ. The room was bigger than I thought. We only paid $79 per night plus tax for the room, and honestly it was nicer than the much pricier room we paid for in Upstate NY with Hampton Inn. I really liked the privacy curtain, and it really came in handy for me to get dressed. We opted for the parking lot view when I booked the room, but our room didn't look out onto a parking lot. When you looked outside the room there was a courtyard with trees, greens and iron benches. Very pretty. The boys liked the pool. That dragon slide was cool, and King Tritan was awesome. What a pretty resort POFQ is.
We ate our tasty Publix sandwiches and decided to stroll around the resort. I really liked the theme of this resort. It was clean and nice. We had PS for 1900 Park Fare at 5pm, so we hung around the resort until 3pm when we had our first bus ride. I really like the Disney bus transportation. I'm so glad we decided not to rent a car.
At 3pm we walked to the bus stop. The lobby, food court and bus stop were less than a 5 minute was from our room. The entire stay we had nobody occupying the rooms on either side of us or above us (we were on the 2nd of 3 floors), except on Friday when the resort seemed a lot more crowded.
The bus was right there when we got to the stop. We rode past the Riverside buildings which looked pretty, and arrived at MK in about 15 minutes after we left POFQ. DS2 seemed disappointed that we weren't visiting MK until the following day. It was so pretty seeing the Grand Floridian from MK. We hopped the monorail to GF for our dinner at 1900 Park Fare. The Grand Floridian was nice looking. It started chilling off. Nobody was in the pool, so some resident ducks decided to swim. The grounds were pretty. The inside was nice. There was a gentleman playing holiday music on a piano. The Gingerbread house was nice, but we didn't buy anything.
We checked in for our dinner a little early. DS2 liked seeing the Fairy Godmother open the dinner. We got a nice table there. The characters came over almost immediately. We saw Cinderella, Prince Charming and the 2 mice. At first DS2 didn't know that Prince Charming was a character. He thought he was a waiter (ha ha), but then they all came around a second time. DS2 remembered to get Prince's autograph that time.
The food at 1900 Park Fare was great. I had been on low carb since Jan 2004, lost over 50 pounds on it, but blew my low carb starting this day. The cheese lasagna was my favorite. Everything was hot and tasty. I'd highly recommend 1900 Park Fare. So much variety. We all left overstuffed and happy. We got back to our resort around 8pm. Everyone got showers, watched tv, filled out postcards and crashed. It had been a long day. DS2 was very worried about the pets and was homesick. We all were happy to be at WDW and couldn't wait until the following day. So far the first day was great!!! Everything went so smoothly and perfect.
Coming up next is Dec 12th.. our first day at the Magic Kingdom!!
