The Pilgrimage with the Big Surprise - Trip from August 2010. LOTS of Pics. NEW 6/5

[wizzzzzard]

So we're planning our trip for this August, and (once again) as a surprise for my wife, I am going to do a report for our trip back in 2010. Let's see how long it takes her to find it.

So here's the first two stars of our show:

DS & DD.

My Blushing Bride of 18 years of wedded bliss

And lastly the ugly mug of your author.

I've got a lot of pictures to upload. A little over 800 I think. The free photobucket account is going to make me take some time to upload that many. So it might be a little slow

 

[wizzzzzard]

This trip started in the winter of either late 2009 or early 2010. I don't quite recall when the conversation was, exaclty. I do remember coming back from a foster parent training class, mentioning to my wife, that would we never be able to afford a Deluxe resort until the kids were grown and gone. She took this suggestion to heart.

She was working nights at the time, and earning differential and overtime pay. She was trying to get the bread we would need to stay at a Deluxe for the amount of time we normally go. About 8 to 9 days.

Well, some how, she swung it. Snookered me quite easily. She kept mentioning the Coronado Springs Resort, but instead we ended up somewhere else....

During our planning we were looking at the ghastly airfare prices. Our oringinal plan had been to fly in on the 22rd of August. Flying anywere on Friday or Sunday seems to be hideously higher in price. In our searching we discovered that Saturday airfare were immensly less.

So, one of us had the idea of coming in on Saturday the 21st, staying at a cheap hotel near the airport, then trekking back the next morning, to pick up the ME bus to WDW. We saved way more than enough to cover the cost of the hotel.

With that said, here's some shots on the way to the airport:

We have decent mass transit here in Southeastern PA. The one rail line runs to our town, and the terminus is 7 blocks from our door. For $26 ($28 now I think), we can take the train from this station right to the airport. With only one change between trains, and about 20 minutes between them. Not bad, and it certainly beat the $8 a day we were looking at parking.

We arrived at the airport with minimal delay, grabbed some lunch and waited for our plane.

Our kids waiting and fooling around at the airport:

 

[wizzzzzard]

We had a stop over in St. Louis, where we deboarded the plane, and were to reboard the same plane. The layover time wasn't to be long, however, we were delayed because of a broken lavatory smoke detector.

We landed at MCO at 8pm. We called the hotel's airport shuttle, and were picked up by 8:30. A local Quality Inn, and we were in our room ordering pizza by 9pm.

Our room was small, but we expected that. The room was suppose to have a fold out sofa bed for one of the kids to sleep on, but it was not made with any sheets. We considered calling housekeeping, but by the time we discovered it, we just wanted to go to bed. Light went out around 10:30, and soft snores were heard by 10:45....

We woke at 7:30 the next morning, and ate at the hotel's continental breakfast. Nothing fancy, but free.

We left the hotel at 9am on the airport shuttle, so we could pick up the ME bus. We got there by 9:30, and soon we were in line for the ME.

Here's where the deception continues....

DW goes to the counter, and checks us in. I wait at the entrace post that says Coronado Springs.

She comes back and says we have to go stand in the line for the Contemporary, Polynesian, and Grand Floridian. I question this. She says, that's where the man told me to go. I looked at the Coronado line, and it was fairly full. It shared with others hotels, but I do not recall which. I remember thinking that the bus for those resorts was probably 'full' and we were overflow. We might get dropped off last, but we'd still get to our hotel. We were on our bus within 5 or 10 minutes.

I took our bags and loaded them into the bus's luggage area, while the driver was busy doing something. I later learned what he was doing...

Here's our approach on the ME bus:

Our first stop was the Polynesian. I wasn't thinking much about this at the time, as I had nodded off, and was still groggy from my nap. I was trying to guess which hotel would be next. When the driver returned he annouced we had two stops remaining, the Contemporary and Coronado Springs.

As we pulled away, my son got atsy, and looked around the bus. He's a smart one he is. Beginning to drift off again, I hear him say:

"Dad?" Said in a very questioning voice.

"Hmm? Yeah? What is it," is my pithy reply.

"Why are there two stops left for the bus and we're the only ones left on it?"

 

[wizzzzzard]

So I turn to my bride of many years, and say, "Uh dear. Can you answer your son's question?"

Her response is to hand me a card.

She basically worked her butt off to afford the Contemporary, and we had a room on the lake side in the big A frame of the hotel. Awesome sauce!

She had also spoke to the driver and let him in on it. Aparrently, I was the only one not in on this the whole time. My inlaws knew. My kids knew. Our friends knew. Everybody knew. Except me.

Here's some pics from the approach:

We arrived at about 10:15, and started the check in process.

We figured we'd have to dropp off our luggage, fart around a bit, then our room would be ready around 2 or 3. No such luck.

Our room was ready immediately. We were unpacking by 10:30. What a nice surprise.

Here's our room #:

Here's us exploring our room.

When we stepped out of the front door to our room, and looked right, this is what we could see:

And to our left:

 

[wizzzzzard]

We took a video of the monorails coming in and out, but I don't know enough of the code here to embed it for viewing. This should make a picture you can click to link to Photobucket to view it. I hope.



We were getting picked up for a special visit from DSIL, so we wanted grab some lunch before we headed out.

Down to the Contempo Cafe.

Here were our choices:

My son or I ordered the sandwhich, and one of us ordered the marianted beef flatbread pizza. I don't remember who ordered what, but we ended up swapping meals.

My wife had a turkey sandwhich, while DD got the chicken nuggets.

Food Porn:

DSIL picked us up around 12:15. We were going to see our niece in her play "Bye Bye Birdie". She knew were coming down to Disney but not for her play. She was surprised to see us.

It was decent for a high school production. 'Birdie' sounded flat from time to time, but otherwise not bad. The chorus was good. Very harmonic.

Our DBIL returned us to our hotel around 5:30. We had reservations at Ohana for dinner that night. My FIL & MIL arrived around the same time, bringing a case of water for use to use. (We also brought little flavor pouches to give the water some taste.)

Our reservation for Ohana was at 6:25, and we were soooooo far away. MIL & FIL were joining us, so we hung out until we decided to make our way to the monorail.

 

[wizzzzzard]

Dinner at 'Ohana. 'Nuff said. Lotsa food porn here. We only waited 5 minutes before we were seated. It was all pretty good. The chicken was dry, but we kinda expected that. We did some birthday cupcakes for DFIL, and DD, as thier brithdays were next month.

We went back to our room, and finished unpacking until 11pm. We all passed out at that point. We didn't have a breakfast rezzie in the morning. Animal Kingdom was destination, so we knew we had some time.

 

[MissPrice]

Hi There Great start so far! What an awesome surprise your wife pulled off. I would love to stay at a monorail resort some day. I was in a production of Bye Bye Birdie in high school too. Fun stuff. O'hanna's looks sooo yummy. Your kids are so cute. Looking forward to more. -Amanda

 

[wizzzzzard]

Hi There Great start so far! What an awesome surprise your wife pulled off. I would love to stay at a monorail resort some day. I was in a production of Bye Bye Birdie in high school too. Fun stuff. O'hanna's looks sooo yummy. Your kids are so cute. Looking forward to more. -Amanda

Thanks for following along!

 

[wizzzzzard]

Our first day in the parks. Where do we go?

We woke at 7:20 and we had a light breakfast today of muffins & danish and juices. Snack credits were handy here.

We took the bus over, and had to make pit stops at the Polynesian and Blizzard Beach before heading to the park. It took us about 30 minutes to get to AK.

We made stopped for a pic of the Tree of Life.

We made a beeline for our favorite attraction here. The Kilimanjaro Safaris. We rode it twice as we always do.

Here's a few dozen shots:

 

[wizzzzzard]

More Safari

 

[wizzzzzard]

The last of the Safari

After the safari we weren't quite ready for lunch, and the kids wanted to ride EE. I was adamant about not riding after lunch. Roller coasters tend to make me lose my lunch. However after the last safari, we notices darkening skies. Here's the view.

It stared to rain at 12:20, and EE was held up while it downpoured. Heavy drenching rain. When it began to lighten, we rode EE. I was not happy, but I was determined to ride it so I could hold on to my daughter. While I am sure it was safe for her, I am a paranoid, Murphy's law trusting dad. I rode it with her. I was not happy, but the kids were.

Since it was still drizzling, we decided to make our way over to pizzafari at this point to have lunch.

Cheese Pizza

Ceasar Salad

Parfait Dessert

After lunch we decided to hit the Lion King show. We had never seen this before, so it was new for all of us. While being seated in the handicapped area for our autistic son, we saw this:

The guy's whole chair was done up like this. We thought it would be rude to snap pics of him without his permission, but we caught that.

While were waiting:

Here's some pics of the show:

 

[wizzzzzard]

More Lion King show

 

[wizzzzzard]

Should be the last of it

We headed over to see It's Tough to be a Bug. On route we found a friend.

Since we didn't have food on us, he left rather quickly. We took a couple of shots inside the lobby of the show.

We like the show, especially the little surprise at the end.

 

[wizzzzzard]

We came out of the Bug show, and took some good shots of the Tree of Life.

We decided to head back to EE, to ride it again and get our pic taken. I have it somewhere. If I can find it....

Here's some shots of the monkey area:

Found it:

It was about 5:45, so we decided to head back, and hang out until our Dinner reservation at Chef Mickey's for 7:55pm.

The DW & DD playing around with the camera:

Off to Chef Mickey's! The pic from the entrance:

 

[wizzzzzard]

So, dinner and the characters:

We went back the CR, and decided the kids could play in the pool at night. I think it was only about 9pm, so not too late.

 

[wizzzzzard]

This is by far the coolest thing we did while staying here. We watched this parade from the CR beach. I took some pics, but they did not come out well.

After this we toddled off to bed. Tomorrow Epcot!

 

[wizzzzzard]

We were going off to Epcot today. Nearly everyone's #1 or 2 park. We got up, and had breakfast in the Cafe this morning. Sandwhiches, but lunch was to be at Sunshine Seasons so we could eat whenever.

Here we are getting ready.

We took the monorail over to the TTC, and picked up the Epcot Monorail. Very nice to be able to do this, instead of the bus. We saw the Tronorail, but missed out on getting on it. Here's our trip over to the ball.

First up: Spaceship Earth. Pics didn't come out good here. Then onto UoE. Man they need to upate this. Trebek doesn't have a mustache anymore.

Hidden Mickey in the exit shop of Mission Space

The crows inside the land pavilion

 

[wizzzzzard]

It had rained a lot this day. We waited out some rain in MS, and TT was closed for a little bit. But we got on it twice. We did the Figment thing, and oddly most the games were not working. I think they were renovating.

The DW and kids did Soarin'. Not for me. Don't like the heights thing. Ugh! Then we hit the Living with the Land boat ride. A nice calming thing for those stressing over the Soarin experience.

Here's some shots:

 

[wizzzzzard]

More Land ride:

The ballons in the pavillions

Where do these lead?

The kids at the figment games. Again. Not much here.

We had a inside special for our Disney Visa card. Special photo op with charcters. Here's some shots

Some shots of the family playing in the cars at Test Track as we waited out more rain.

Off to World Showcase next!

 

[wizzzzzard]

We had reservation in Japan for Dinner, so we decided to start at Mexico, and work out way around counterclockwise.

The mexican river ride:

Norway Next. I tried to take pics of the various land dolls where I could find them.

We heard that Sleeping Beauty was in France so we huffed it over there to get pics. We caught her just in time.

Another Doll found

We went on to Morrocco to kill time before dinner.

I found a rare sight indeed.

Something on sale in a Disney park!