The Year of Disney Trips: ***Update!!!! 8/20/08****

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Welcome home Z!

You know reading about Universal and looking at everybody's pictures really does make it look appealing. I always used to shrug it off as not an option as it wasn't Disney but I have slowly changed my mind about it.

I think you should make it part of your big family trip your planning is it next year or the year after? Alek and Erich would really enjoy it and I'm sure you would too! The Harry Potter side of the park should be up by then too.

Welcome home, Z! Glad to hear you had a good trip! And a mini PR TR is better than no PR TR!

Oooh, the Jurassic Park area of IoA looks awesome! I love that movie!

I've seen videos of Dueling Dragons, and it looks wicked! I don't know if I'd have the guts to ride it or not. I'd probably get strapped into my seat and then proceed to have a panic attack or something.

Horton! Hears a Who! *points wildly* Look out, Z!

Great pictures and update, Z! Looking forward to more!

Thanks Emily! JP is my fave movie so it's really cool to visit that part of the park. I didn't think to take video of DD.

Did you see Horton almost stepped one me?! Good watching out.

WElcome home Z....

Another great update. Your JP pic had me . You can take the girl out of Disney but not Disney out of the girl

Thansk Janet, you betcha!

Welcome home! I wanna see PR pics too!


10 points to you!


That was on the Bring it on movie! Is is sceery??



Neat report! Afraid to show the kids though....they keep asking to go to Universal, but I just can't pull away from Disney!

More points for me! That must've been in one of the Bring it on sequels I haven't seen yet.

You could always do Universal before Disney...

great update and pics.

I love JP.

I also love the Dueling Dragons. I did the blue side. so much fun.

Look forward to hearing your about trip.

The JP part is so fun, there's also a little museum that kids can learn about dinosaur's and stuff like they have at Rafiki's planet watch. We just skipped it though. We always do both sides of DD, it just wouldn't seem right to only ride once.

Welcome back!!
I haven't been to Universal for years!!! IOA wasn't there!!! It's great to see your pics & read your descriptions of the rides & themes!

Wow, that's a long time. I like IoA a lot more than the Universal side, I recommend it. I can't wait 'til they do the Harry Potter side of the park.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Ok so to make this sort of Disney related....

I just got back from Puerto Rico (PR) and while there I found out that I will once again be going back to the visit the World in May! My dad, brother and stepmom are coming down and we're going to go to Disney for a few days to hit the water parks.

On that note, here's a mini trip report of my trip.

The purpose of this trip was to visit for my little brother's birthday (and of course to see family).
Here's my older brother and his wonderful "Window" seat:

The view was excellent!

My dad picked us up at the San Juan Airport

Here are some shots as we were leaving the airport

My brother and I were starving so we decided to stop and eat at Denny's. Check out the service Denny's in PR offers:

That's right ladies and gentlemen, you can get free Valet at Denny's
I just found that so hilarious that I couldn't resist taking a picture.

After we ate we headed to my dad's house, where we would be staying the next 7 days. My Grandfather bought land God knows when and decided to build his house on it. It's a huge piece of land (I don't know how big) but it's purpose was for each of his sons to own a piece of it so that they too could one day build their houses. My Grandfather has since passed and so has one of my uncles so my father lives in the main house which is a 2 story house duplex thing so he lives on the top half and my Grandmother lives on the bottom half. My other uncle has just started building his house. So here's the house Clockwise all the way around the land:
Main House

The House my Uncle's building (beyond the trees)

The rest of that side

Driveway

Grandma's garden area

Aerial shot of it

The rest of the land (ok see the little row of palm trees and then there's mowed grass area then bushes, well right after the bushes there's a river and that's where the property ends)

The side leading around the back (the tree line is the end of the back part of the property though)

It's basically a big farm with no animals (except a dog). Although a lot of the trees are some kind of fruit tree.

We basically settled in arrival day, went to pick up my little brother from school and then went to watch his football practice. Not too exciting, but that was the end of day 1.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Day 2
The next day I requested to go visit my Grandma on my mom's side, since I hadn't seen her in almost 2 yrs and she's getting up there in age. So we went to her house, but she wasn't home. So I called my Aunt and found out she was at my Aunt's house, so we headed over there.

Here's my bro & I with our Grandma

While at my Aunt's house I got to meet my new little cousin/niece (my cousin is like a sister, so her daughter is like a little niece to me)

Awwwwww

Yeah....uh, I won't be having one of those for awhile.

After a short visit we left and went to pick up my little brother from school and then went home. That was the excitement of the whole day, because the boys all started playing video games and that was the end of leaving the house.

Day 3
Another boring day, I think I ended up watching like 3 movies or something this day since my dad gets "free" satellite. Picked up my brother from school again and took him to his football practice. We played basketball while he practiced and that was the excitement for that day.

Day 4
My cousin and I made plans this day, so around 3pm she picked me up at my dad's house and took me out to eat. Originally we were going to go to the beachy area of PR and eat some traditional PR food, but the weather looked bad and it looked like it was going to rain. So we ended up going to this little Mexican restaurant she goes to that made some pretty good food.
Here's our trip through the mountains towards the restaurant:

My cousin and her baby

After eating we headed over to her house, she wanted to show it to me, since they just moved in. Now the roads in PR are really tiny. Think a regular 1 lane street (slightly bigger), but used as a 2 lane street driving around curves and up and down mountainous roads.
Here's sort of what I mean

After touring her house she dropped me off at my dad's and I think I watched another movie and fell asleep.

 

[scottny]

wow what gorgeous property. there is so much of it.

loved the window seat.

very nice that your going back to Disney so soon. LUCKY!!!

great pics.

 

[scottny]

sounds like some time with the family and that is always good.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Day 5

Today was my little brother's birthday, it was also his last football game of the season. So we woke up way to early to get to his football game.

Here's some pics from the game, my brother is #40

Good game! His team won too!! So it was a great way to end the football season for them.

Here are my boys:

After the game we went back home and I asked my dad for some PR food, but he didn't feel like driving to the area of the island that sells the food, so he did the next best thing. He called my Grandmother up and asked her for the food I was craving. There's a food in PR called Alcapurrias (pronounced: Al-ka-poo-ree-ahs) which are basically plantains with ground beef inside fried.

Here I am enjoying one

Here's what they look like

Yum!! So after a few of those I watched my brother and dad play a video game for awhile and went on the DIS.

Then we had dinner and celebrated my little bro's birthday.

He got a hard drive to his Xbox and some stuff for his paintball arsenal.

Later on we played Rock Band

And that was the end of Day 5.

 

[scottny]

MMMM that looked tasty.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Day 6

Today was officially our last full day in PR.

It was also my little brother's bday party and he decided he wanted to go paintballing. Oh my goodness is that fun!!! I loved it!!! It's like an adrenaline rush and so much fun!

Me ready to go

The mesh around the course kinda messes up the pics (you can kinda see my older brother in the middle with the white/grey pants and my little brother's friend is in the foreground on the left)

You can kinda see me in the blue in the middle crouched

Here I am walking out after getting hit (technically my gun got hit.... )

Here's my older bro, his team won

Refill time

The little pink and green balls are the paintballs and those suckers hurt! I got hit twice in the arm and once in the leg and I was so sore (still am a little), but it was so much fun.

Some fun Sibling shots

After paintballing we headed back home. My Aunt wanted to spend time with me before I left so I called her up and my Dad dropped me off at her house so she could take me out. We ended up going to San Juan (the capital) and eating on this restaurant right on the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous.
(These are just for you Scott)

My view from inside the restaurant

the other side of the beach

Family shots
L-R Cousin, Aunt #2, Me

Cousin & I

Aunt #2 & Cousin's "husband" our table in the restaurant with our view

More shots outside

Sunset

Aunt #2, Me, Cousin

Aunt #1 &#2 and Niece/Cousin

Our meal was delicious and apparently Ricky Martin ate there once, so we were told....

We went to visit my Grandmother (on mom's side) again and also to visit my Uncle who's my Godfather who I hadn't seen in 2 yrs either. Then I was dropped back at my dad's and packed and got ready.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Day 7

We were officially leaving today.

We finished packing up our stuff and after a quick breakfast headed out to the airport. Said goodbye to our grandmother (on dad's side), little brother and stepmom, but we would be seeing them soon in May when they come down and we all head to Disney together.

My brother and I were sooo tired, I guess the week finally caught up to us. Luckily everything was smooth at the airport and we were soon headed back home.

Some parting shots of PR from the plane:

You can see the shadow of the plane in the Ocean

Goodbye my beautiful island!

That's all folks.

Now back to our regularly scheduled TR.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Sounds like you had a wonderful time visiting your family Z.

Your families property is beautiful.

People are always trying to get me to go paint balling but I am a big chicken and afraid of the welts the balls leave behind. OUCH!

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

wow what gorgeous property. there is so much of it.

loved the window seat.

very nice that your going back to Disney so soon. LUCKY!!!

great pics.

We thought it was hilarious and couldn't resist making fun of it!

It's always good to visit our Happy Place!

Thank you.

sounds like some time with the family and that is always good.

MMMM that looked tasty.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Sounds like you had a wonderful time visiting your family Z.

Your families property is beautiful.

People are always trying to get me to go paint balling but I am a big chicken and afraid of the welts the balls leave behind. OUCH!

I did, but it was good to get back home too.

It's really huge, what's funny is I never thought twice about it when I was little, I was just used to it being so big. It wasn't 'til I got older did I really realize how huge the property is.

OMG it is soooo fun!! But then again I'm like a big tomboy when it comes to stuff so I think it's fun. They really do hurt and leave welts, luckily I didn't get too bruised. The key is to go well padded (that's why we were wearing jackets and long pants).

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

OMG it is soooo fun!! But then again I'm like a big tomboy when it comes to stuff so I think it's fun. They really do hurt and leave welts, luckily I didn't get too bruised. The key is to go well padded (that's why we were wearing jackets and long pants).

I am sure they will get me out to play eventually. There is a big course in the next town over and they go out to play a few times each summer. I am sure it is really fun and I would probably really get into it, I am very competitive. I just wish it didn't hurt!

 

[scottny]

I did paintball with some friends. I had to get done quick I thought I was going to wet myself from laughing so hard. it was so fun and ridiculous we loved it.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

I am sure they will get me out to play eventually. There is a big course in the next town over and they go out to play a few times each summer. I am sure it is really fun and I would probably really get into it, I am very competitive. I just wish it didn't hurt!

Oh if you're competitive you definately will.

I did paintball with some friends. I had to get done quick I thought I was going to wet myself from laughing so hard. it was so fun and ridiculous we loved it.

It is fun & ridiculous!

 

[jcc0621]

SOunds like you and your brother had a fun, but relaxing trip. Your grandmother is so cute

 

[KatGarcia]

I hate when the User CP messes up...I missed updates and had to go back...but I'm all caught up. PR is just beautiful! I love me some Alcapurrias!!!! There's a spot in Brooklyn that has them, prob not half as good but still yummy. I swear the food is why I married my husband !!! I love it all! One day we will get to PR I'm pretty sure KC has family still there.

 

[MeMom]

Beautiful countryside, precious baby, awesome plane pictures.

Paintball for me... n-o! I bruise easily!

I'm glad you got to spend some nice family time together.

 

[PrincessAlways]

Well, it looks like you had a wonderful family reunion! The property surrounding the house is beautiful. Loved the beach pics!! It looks soooooo relaxing! Great picture from the plane showing the plane's shadow!!!

 

[Disneyolic]

Thanks for posting all those pics Z. They were absolutely wonderful! I especially love the ocean pics.