The tables are turned, this time my daughter took me to Disney!

[Lilo's Mom]

Let me give you a little background on this impromptu mother daughter trip. The last 18 months have been full of difficulties for my DH and me. April 13, 2007 my husband lost his job of 15 years, (he worked in disaster recovery for AS400 computers) and has been searching high and low looking for another similar position that will allow us to remain in Chicago where his elderly parents live. In the meantime, he is interviewing for jobs as he has been working part time consultation jobs, while I work my full time job, and a part time job. To add to our trials and tribulations, in September of 2007 I fell in a hole in a mall parking lot, and fractured my left ankle, my right wrist and tore a ligament in my left arm. I have had numerous steroid injections, and physical therapy trying to avoid surgery…finally the decision was made that I needed to have some bones removed from my wrist. I put the surgery off until the first week in October so I could work as much overtime as I could to keep things afloat while I was off work recuperating. To say I have been stressed would be an understatement. DH and I have a December Disney trip planned and already paid for but were considering canceling it because of everything that has been going on. (We have since decided to not cancel that trip DH finally has a new job! Now we are suing the trip to celebrate!)

Along comes my DD, Kelly, with the offer of a quick trip with her to Orlando before my surgery. I told her that was a sweet offer, but not something I could not swing financially now. Turns out Kelly was offering to pay for me to go along with her while she attended EyeCon (a convention for the show Supernatural) at the Florida Hotel in Orlando. Wow, a free trip to Orlando! I get to go to part of the convention with Kelly, and she even bought me a photo-op with Jared Padalecki, one of the stars of Supernatural. The icing on the cake was once the convention was over we were moving over to Pop Century for the last day of the trip so we could take advantage of extra magic hours at the Magic Kingdom!

What can I say? I have a great daughter! So the plan was to fly to Orlando on the morning of Thursday, September 25…settle in the hotel, watch that week’s episode of Supernatural at the Orlando Ale House. Friday, Kelly had some events that she wanted to attend so I was going to go to the Caribbean Beach Resort and a few of the other Disney Resorts to take some pictures. Saturday and Sunday, I would attend some of the convention with Kelly, Monday morning we would check into Pop and head over for a full day at the Magic Kingdom. We would fly home Tuesday and I would finish the week at work…and have my surgery the following Monday. Suddenly I had something to take my mind off all of the worrying I had been doing!
So for fun I am throwing in a picture from my first trip to Disney World circa 1980, I was 19

And Kelly’s first trip to Disney World, at age 3, with her Nana and Goofy

Just a little background on Kelly’s first Disney trip…Kelly’s Nana (my grandmother, her great-grandmother) decided to treat the entire family to a trip to Disney World, and a stay at the Contemporary Resort (which to this day Kelly calls it the same thing she did when she was three “Temporary Lesort Village”) On the trip was Nana, My parents, my younger brother, my husband, Kelly and I. The men were all initially upset about the trip because the first day of the trip was the also the first night game at Wrigley Field. The date was 8/8/88…so now if anyone asks you when the Chicago Cubs played their first night game at Wrigley…you know!

Up next...getting to Orlando!

 

[Lilo's Mom]

September 25th
One thing Kelly has inherited from me is wanting to get to her destination as soon as humanly possible, so she booked us on a 8:00 am flight out of Chicago…which meant leaving home at 5:30 in the morning. I travel often for my job, so I am a world-class packer, I only bring what I think I will need and always leave space in my suitcase to bring home anything I may purchase. Kelly on the other hand believes in bringing her entire closet with her when she travels. She keeps telling me that a girl has to have options, so she always packs more clothes than she could possibly ever wear. All of this is fine and dandy, but we had to park the car in long-term parking then drag the luggage to the bus, drag them off the bus, into the terminal and check them. Not only did she check a bag, but she had her computer as a carryon and a duffel bag as well. I did not carry on anything other than a paperback. We grabbed some sodas in the terminal and waited to board the plane. I glanced around the waiting area and noticed that there were probably 20 plus small children on our flight. Although it has been a long time since I have had a small child I do remember what it was like trying to keep a baby happy on a flight, especially when there are so many people that are not understanding about how difficult that can be. I thought this flight could get ugly, all it would take would be one cranky toddler and the others might follow suit. As it turned out there was actually nothing to worry about, the flight was one of the best flights I have ever been on. There were lots of smiling children and quiet giggles, everyone walked off the plane happy! Even if the flight had been horrible, I probably would have gone skipping through the airport. I absolutely love the Orlando Airport; it is in my top three, firmly located between the Honolulu Airport and the Las Vegas Airport. You gotta love an airport that has great shopping, great food, a hotel, and awesome transportation to baggage claim!

After a brief wait for the bags, we made our way over to the rental car counter, picked up our paperwork and headed into the garage to pick out our car. Kelly tried to convince me that I wanted to rent a hummer, LOL, but I convinced her that we were taking the Optima instead. I had declined the maps from the rental agent, because I brought along my own GPS, and I have been to Orlando so many times, I can pretty much find all of the important places in my sleep. With complete confidence, I turned on the GPS and pressed the button to take us to the Grey Hound station to pick up Kelly’s friend Nora. Kelly and I were chatting in the car, when suddenly I realized we were at the outlet mall!

Opps, guess I really did not want to pick up Nora after all! After a good 5 minutes of laughing and a quick call to Nora, we were headed to the bus station, then on to the Florida Hotel.

So…the Florida Hotel….it is in a mall, which is cool…good shopping a food court, Disney Store, the essentials. The room was fairly spacious, internet access was free, would I stay there on my own? No, other than the fact that the last time I stayed at a non-Disney Property was 2001 (we rented a house since there was 8 of us that trip) you really needed a car to get anywhere from this hotel. If you don’t have a car and you want to go to Disney, they have a shuttle that runs once in the morning, and once to pick you up at night. The shuttle only goes to Downtown Disney; from there you are on your own to get to the parks. Here’s a picture of the hotel

Back to the hotel, we got settled, grabbed something to eat in the food court, and looked around the mall. Before we knew it, it was 7:30 and time to head over to the Orlando Ale House to watch Supernatural. It turned out that there were 80 people from the convention that had showed up to watch the show…needless to say the locals were not too happy when all of the big screen televisions turned off baseball in favor of Supernatural. It was a fun night and we headed back to the hotel after the show…I was beat by that time so it was right to bed for me!

I am going to throw in my autographed picture of Jared now. Just to give you an idea of what he looks like in case you don’t watch the show. Jared plays Sam Winchester, he and his brother Dean hunt demons. It’s a great show! If you haven’t seen it’s on Thursdays on the CW, right after Smallville!

 

[PopArtGal]

Waiting to hear more!

nice to know I'm not the only one who travels with my mom

 

[PopArtGal]

That guy also played in Gilmore Girls.. didn't he?

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Hi everyone! Thanks for reading!

Waiting to hear more!
nice to know I'm not the only one who travels with my mom

I divorced Kelly’s Dad when she was 12. For a long time it was just the two of us so we have had lots of adventures together. Kelly and I traveled all over going to concerts, and conventions. We still do have mother daughter trips but this was the first one where she paid for me.

That guy also played in Gilmore Girls.. didn't he?

You’re right Jared was in Gilmore Girls, he played a character named Dean. Ironically in Supernatural the show is about Jared’s character Sam and his brother Dean!

Back to the trip report!
September 26th
The girls had a full day planned in addition to helping set things up for the convention; Nora was turning our room into a nail salon. Nora is a nail technician, so she brought all of her stuff with her on greyhound and had scheduled nail appointments with some of the other girls attending the convention. I couldn’t relax in the room, so the next best thing was to spend the day exploring Disney! I decided to start my day off at the Caribbean Beach Resort, since I haven’t been there since 1990, and DH, Bob and I are scheduled to say there 12/2 – 12/8. Bob loves Port Orleans Riverside and had wanted to stay there, but we couldn’t get a king bed for the dates we wanted so I convinced him that CBR would be a great alternative!
I grabbed my camera and got in the rental car, headed out for the day. I was really surprised when I pulled into the guard gate at CBR…they just waved me in! That seemed really odd to me. In the past when we had a rental car and would go to other resorts for dining reservations, the guard would ask what you were there for, check your drivers’ license and give you a 2 hour parking pass for the window of your car. Guess they have changed things.
So you have a little compare/contrast I have included some pictures from 1990
This is my Grandmother at the pool, everyday she would pull her chair over so she could sit outside but not be directly in the sun.

Here is the pool now

Outside our room in 1990

Outside the room in 2008

Most things were pretty much as I remembered it, although I think the store is much larger than it had been. I couldn’t tell you what the food area was like back in 1990, we had a rental car and most mornings breakfast was either at the top of the Contemporary with Pooh and Friends, or at Perkins on International Drive. Also I remember there was steel drum music in the courtyards (Kelly and my dad would dance around to it every morning) and I didn’t hear that when I was walking around taking pictures.

DH, Bob’s favorite resort is Port Orleans Riverside, our last trip in August of 07 we stayed at Pop Century, which he didn’t like at all. He thought it looked like Disney Does Motel 6. For that trip we chose Pop because we were taking our son to celebrate his 21st birthday, and we had along his girlfriend and his best friend as well. Since we were paying for that trip, we went with Pop. I thought it was fine, I liked the food court, and the gift shop, the bus service was fine, but I can see his point. Anyway back to the point…seeing CBR, I felt like Bob would really like it when we get there in December. The resort is more laid back, and it has a hot tub!

I walked entirely around the resort and took some more pictures.

After about an hour or so of wandering around I decided since I had never seen Coronado Springs, I might as well drive there and check that out as well!

 

[PopArtGal]

Nice!

Never been there.

Stayed at POR 2 times and loved it. I definetly recommend it!

 

[Lilo's Mom]

After a nice stroll around the Caribbean Beach Resort, I made my way to the car and my next stop Coronado Springs. When I pulled up to the guard gate, again I lowered the window expecting for them to ask me where I was going. Again they just waved me in. Wow things sure seemed to have changed in the last year! I snagged a great parking place that gave the car some shade again grabbed my camera and went to explore.
First off let me say this place is HUGE!

I made it almost as far as the Dig Site, when I decided that I was really thirsty, so I headed back to the Pepper Market Food Court to get something to drink. I really wanted a picture of the fountain in the lobby area, but I wasn’t able to ever get it when someone wasn’t sitting next to it. Still I thought it was really pretty.

With a nice cold bottle of pop in my hand I headed back out to the Dig Site. Along the way I snapped some flowers.

Then I finally made it to the pool!

I was really surprised that there were less than 10 people in the pool, and there weren’t any kids around. Granted it was around Noon, but still, it was a beautiful day and I had expected to see some families taking a break from the parks. Maybe it was still too early for that. Anyway I decided to find a seat by the pool and give me family at home a call. When I pulled out my cell phone to give my DH a call I noticed the phone was almost dead. I had my charger with me, but since I was at the pool, I didn’t have anywhere to plug it in. I decided before I made the trek back to the Pepper Mill where I was sure I could find an outlet to charge my phone for awhile, I would stop at the restroom. Turns out the restrooms are conveniently located next to the game room, and low and below they had tons of outlets not in use! The game room was blissfully cool and completely empty, so I plugged in my phone, and sat at one of the driving games and made some notes of what I had done so far. After about a half hour my phone and I were both re-charged ready to walk back to the car. As I neared El Centro I decided that I probably wouldn’t ever be staying at CSR. I have no problem with the way it looks, but given that I work planning and attending conventions, the last place I would want to stay for a vacation would be place where they are held. Now if I could convince the Powers that Be here at work to hold a conference at CSR that would be a different story! Unfortunately, that would never happen. My Executive Director refers to Disney as the seventh level of hell, and would never consider letting any of us plan a meeting at Disney.

Back in the extremely hot car, I sat and decided my next destination. Where to go next?

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Nice!

Never been there.

Stayed at POR 2 times and loved it. I definitely recommend it!

I agree about POR, I have stayed there 3 times, twice with Kelly and once with DH. We really wanted POR for our trip December 3rd - 8th, but it wasn't available.