The starfish shield and our birthday/Halloween/anniversary celebrations! Updated10/24

[Andrea464]

That quirky comment was often said during our trip. I'm going to save the next few slides for a trip report. This is the first time I've done one, so hang in there! This will probably be pic intense!

A little background on us: I'm Andrea, the Momma and brains of this poorly run organization. DH is Leonard, and my DD is 6 year old Annabelle. DH and I have been married 7 years- we met in nursing school! This was our second trip to WDW. The first one was almost two year ago in late October 2010. We figured out then that the fall was the best season to visit and vowed to never visit in the summer unless it was free! We started talking about another trip earlier this year and quickly made our reservations. We decided to NOT tell DD about the trip! How I kept it a secret from her is beyond me- it's a miracle!

We had reservations for the Pop Century resort again. We loved it last time. My only complaint would be the bed sizes. DH and I are both Pooh sized, so we'd like a bigger bed! We decided to do the regular dining plan. We had everything crossed for free dining, and then we didn't get it. I didn't want to move the dates around at that point, so we sucked it up and ate that cost. We also decided to drive down again. With the correct timing and planning (and slight speeding) the trip can be made in 10-11 hours for us since we're pretty much a straight shot down I-95.

 

[Andrea464]

This space reserved for Days 0 (travel day) and Day 1 (MK).

Thursday night- We had already dropped off the dog at the boarder and had started packing bags. DD had just finished getting ready for bed. I had been psyching myself up for an epic reaction from her with this surprise. She has talked about going back to Disney since our last trip two years ago! She knew she'd go back, but she didn't know when. One day she said "I can't wait to go back to Disney" and I told her she needed to save her pennies. Her face lit up and she ran off, grabbed her piggy bank, ran back and said "I HAVE PENNIES"! LOL
So we sat down on the couch- I shot video of her reaction. I asked her if she could go anywhere tomorrow, where would it be. She giggled. She looked at me and said "Disney World!". I said OK! Let's go to Disney World tomorrow! She'd just giggle and say "We're really going to Disney tomorrow?"

DD looking at the maps

Day 0- Travel Day
Bags were packed in the car the night before. We got up around 5:30am. I called upstairs to DD, told her it was time to get up. She mumbled something and I said "It's time to go to Disney World". Her feet hit the floor and I hear a loud and clear "OK!". LOL We stopped in town to fill up the car with gas and then stopped at a fast food place to get breakfast (eaten in the car).
We stopped again about three hours later at the SC state line visitors center to walk and use the bathroom. It was light enough then to open up the DVD player for DD to use.
Next stop was just south of Savannah at a Cracker Barrel. I had intended to eat fast food and be back on the road, but they have this amazing apple strudel (spelling?) french toast right now. *drool* After lunch we filled up the car with gas and kept going!
We stopped again at the Florida state line visitors center. We went inside and I showed DD the maps, we talked about the states we had went through and we tried from Florida OJ. Also yum!

All was going well until we hit I-4. The sun was in my eyes. Then the closer we got to Orlando, the crappier the traffic became. It'd be different if there was an accident or something, but you'd be going all slow and then everyone would speed up again until someone decided that 20mph was just way too cool.

We checked into our hotel- the Quality Inn by Doctor Phillips. We went cheap and easy, but wanted something a little closer to the parks and that had a hot breakfast. We planned to get up early, eat and then go check into our real hotel (Pop) to get our KTTW.

At this point we went out and met and old coworker of mine for dinner. She'd recently moved to Orlando to be closer to family. I was SO excited to see her. She was a great coworker and because my office mate about two months before she left. Hussy. She suggested The Melting Pot. We'd never been, neither had she, but her coworkers told her it was moderate price.

I'm really curious to find out how much her coworkers make if The Melting Pot is moderate price! LOL It was incredibly yummy, and since it's a long meal we were able to spend a lot of time together that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise, so it was totally worth it!
We hit up CVS right after that to buy all of the little things I knew I didn't bring- bobby pins, small deo, small soaps, baby powder, sunscreen...


Day 1- MK!
We woke up super early and went to the hotel lobby and ate their "hot" breakfast. By hot they meant that they had sausage patties, a toaster and a waffle maker. Got in the car as the sun was rising, plugged in the Garmin and we were Pop Century bound! At check-in we were lucky enough to be able to go ahead and put our stuff in a room. That was great because we still had the energy to bring all of our stuff upstairs! It meant we got a later start to the magic, but that's ok! They also gave me and my DD a carnation at check-in and she got a sweet balloon!

We hopped on the bus to the MK. At this point we're just giddy. The first thing we did was run over to Town Square. The Princesses had about a 30+ minute wait, so we saw Mickey instead!

Our next destination was to visit Merida. She was just opening up! Merida is who my DD was dressing up for on Halloween (keep an eye out for their pic together on MNSSHP pics). They also brought the kids down while waiting in line and let them practice shooting an arrow. I think these CM's have the best uniforms!

Merida was incredibly sweet too. DD asked where her brothers were- they went off to the corner to search for them!

Afterwards we ran off to hit up The Haunted Mansion- DD's request....until we got up to the mansion and she started to freak a little. We rode it anyways knowing she'd love it once we were done. There are now two lines- one goes through the graveyard and the other just goes straight to the entrance. I don't remember that from our 2010 visit but I thought it was neat!
We visited Mickey's Philharmonic afterwards (first time!) and then went to Pooh's ride. The line is too cute! The story boards with "honey" on them- when you smear the honey fast you can see pictures from the book underneath!

 

[Andrea464]

This space reserved for Day 2- Epcot.

 

[Andrea464]

Day 3- DHS, Epcot, MK

 

[Andrea464]

Mk

 

[Andrea464]

Epcot

 

[Andrea464]

Mk, mnsshp

 

[Andrea464]

AK, Epcot

 

[Andrea464]

MK Goodbye