Third time's a charm! Mother and Daughter take on Disney World (8/29 - 9/3)

[PoohGal05]

Cast of characters:
myself, Angi, 37 years old and single
Mom, Ruth, age unknown and would prefer to keep it that way!

Pre-trip information ~ Our trips to Disney World were in July 2003 and July 2005. Both trips were wonderful and amazing! after we went to Disney in 2005, a week before Thanksgiving, my mom told me that she wanted to go back to Disney. We had talked about going to Disney in 2006 and taking my sister, nephew and niece. Since they are school aged children, it was going to be tricky about when to book when they were going to be able to go. Anyway, when my mom mentioned that she wanted to go sooner than '06, I put in a call to our travel agent, someone I use locally, so I can talk to her in person and on the phone when I have questions. Actually, all I was doing when I called Carie was getting the cost of the trip. She asked me when we wanted to go. I had looked at a calendar and for no reason whatsoever, I decided the last week in August, the 29th - September 3. The start of our vacation would be the week following both Mom and I getting paid. I have always just taken a week plus the following Monday off for our Disney vacations. Mom has always taken two weeks off, as her job is more flexible for doing so.

Anyway, after giving Carrie the dates for Disney, hotel we wanted (All Star Movies), airlines we wanted (American Airlines), and ticket information (Magic Your Way with Park Hopper option), and transfers (Disney Magical Express), she said she would call me back. True to her word, she called me back within a day. Carrie said that our trip would be $1692. That was very doable, about what we had always paid for previous trips. I told her that I wanted to talk to Mom and see if she really wanted to go. I knew my mom better than that and knew she wanted to go. When I saw my mom after she got off from work, I told her that I had talked to Carrie about a trip in the summer to go to Disney. She asked me where I had the money. I told her I had enough money to pay for it. She kind of hunched her shoulder and said, 'If you want to go, that's fine with me', very nonchalantly. I saw the look in this lady's eyes and they were dancing and her pupils changed from dark brown to Mickey Mouse heads!

I called Carrie the Monday after Thanksgiving and booked our trip. She said she would send both my mom and I itenaries. One should have been okay, but my mom likes to have her own.

As far as preparing for the trip, I told my mom that we would only buy exactly what we needed for this trip, since we were going two times in a little more than a year. No new clothes. Just toiletries (because you always need that kind of stuff anyway). We would wear what we wore in '05.

Our trip was booked! Mom and I both put in for our vacations at our jobs!

180 days out, I booked our ADRs ~ 50's Prime Time Cafe on August 29 and Crystal Palace for breakfast on August 31.

Mother's Day rolled around. I had no idea what to get my mom for Mother's Day. I usually have an idea of what she wants, but I had no idea this year. Then Mom had a suggestion! She suggested that I could get the stuff she needed for our trip ~ a new toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, deodorant, liquid soap, socks, underwear, a first aid kit. Anyway, you get the idea. That's what she wanted, that's what I got her! The month before was her birthday, so I bought her a new pair of shoes. For Disney. At some point, I also bought myself a pair of Nike Shoxs. My mom noticied that I was picking up stuff for myself and asked me what happened to us buying only the necessities for the trip. I told her that you can never have enough shoes and I needed a pair anyway. I told her that I would break them in so they wouldn't hurt my feet or give my blisters, as someone had told me that they had a hard time breaking theirs in. I wore a lot longer after that because they felt wonderful on my feet! Mom gave me a lot of grief about we always wearing the shoes!

Late spring/early summer, some cute shorts and tops started showing up on shelves at Wal-Mart. I couldn't resist and started shopping! Early August, the stores started putting their summer clothes on clearance. Foley's had an AMAZING sale on their capris, shorts, and tops! I went NUTS! My mom hit Foley's about 2 weeks after I went and found some shorts for herself that looked good on her and fit her perfectly. She even went into stores that I didn't think she would ever shop. She went to Avenue and I bought her some capris, an item of clothes she said didn't look good on her. These looked great on her! We also shopped at the Dress Barn and I got myself a skirt and Mom bought herself some more capris! Half the clothes in our suitcases were new clothes! My mom and I decided we would wear summery dresses when we flew out of OKC. She had a hard time finding a dress she liked, but after looking in several stores, she found one.

Two weeks before our trip, I had gotten a call on my cell phone. The number looked like the number from our travel agency, but there hadn't been a message left. Carrie would have left a message and she knew we were waiting for our travel documents. I called my mom on her cell phone and told I thought Carrie had called, but that she hadn't left a message. She said to call her and see if she had called. Mom said to call her back as soon as I had information. I called Carrie and left a message for her to call me back. She called me back and said she had our travel documents! I asked her if she had our DME documents since I knew that would come separetly. She said she had everything!! I called Mom and told her we had our documents! This was my early day at work and I RAN out the door to pick up our documents! I went to Mom's job and showed them to her. She was excited as I was! She read over the documents from cover to cover and afterwards put them in her lockbox

I started matching my outfits about a month before we were scheduled to leave. I ironed and packed my clothes. Two weeks before the trip, I helped Mom match, iron, and pack her clothes.

About a week before D Day, Ernesto was starting to make an appearance. I listened to the weather intently and checked the weather.com website about where the storn was moving. It looked like the storm would just move up the cost and not hit Orlando much. It looked like Orlando would get some rain the Wednesday we were there. We had packed our ponchos and umbrellas, so we thought we would be fine. I didn't know how much, but I was prepared for us staying in the room if necessary. I mean, if you're going to be stuck with a hurricane during your vacation, Disney is definately the place to be stuck, right?

My mom decided that she would take Friday the 25th off to finish packing. She didn't need to do any more packing since she had had (cue heroine music) 'Angi the Super Packer Packin' Daughter' help her put her stuff in the suitcase! I asked for the 25th off and got it as well. We got manicures and pedicures and I got my hair put into a ponytail at my hair dresser. Saturday we cleaned our houses.
I went to church on Sunday at my mom's request, so we wouldn't be sitting around looking at each other and driving each other crazy! Monday went go traveler's cheques. Monday afternoon, I cleaned out the car and dropped the backseat down so we could get the 4 check in suitcases and 2 carryons into the car. We had planned on taking food in our carryons so we wouldn't be hungry by the time we got to Orlando. With the new restrictions that had happened prior to leaving, we rearranged some items from our carryons to our check ins and decided not to take food.

We had an early flight out, so we decided we needed to catch a cat nap. We set the alarm and went to bed. At 1:00 we got up, got dressed and headed out the door at 2:00. We dropped the car off at an off airport parking facility and they shuttled us to the airport. We were at the airport at 2:30. We had an hour and half before the ticket counter opened. We were on our way to Disney!!

Next up: Are we there yet?!

 

[dwheatl]

Funny how those bargains just jump off the shelf into our carts!

 

[crossfamily]

Hey Angi you need to edit you tr already. You forgot to include your craziest pre trip idea yet..... Your Dis meets... How you meet all these crazy people (Kathy) on the board and how you couldn't wait to meet all of them. LOL

Great job so far. can't wait to read more. You know your first Dis MEET!!!!!!

 

[katlas&kids]

Hey Angi you need to edit you tr already. You forgot to include your craziest pre trip idea yet..... Your Dis meets... How you meet all these crazy people (Kathy) on the board and how you couldn't wait to meet all of them. LOL

Great job so far. can't wait to read more. You know your first Dis MEET!!!!!!

Hey I wasn't the first crazy diser to meet her!! you found her first and then got all of us involved!! Course it was one of the best mini meets I've ever had! Do the world in a week and meet what... 8 different diser's?

 

[crossfamily]

Hey I wasn't the first crazy diser to meet her!! you found her first and then got all of us involved!! Course it was one of the best mini meets I've ever had! Do the world in a week and meet what... 8 different diser's?

Crazy Who's

 

[blue_river]

looking forward to reading more...subscribing!

 

[PoohGal05]

Mom and I arrived at the airport at 2:30. The American Airlines ticket counter didn't open until 4:00. Not many people in the airport and lots of time to kill, so we each took out a book and preceeded to read. I don't know about my Mom, but I kept reading the same sentence I was reading in my book more than once, so I gave it up after a while.

At 4:00 the ticket counter opened and I used an ATM card to get our boarding passes at the self serve kiosk. My mom wanted to make sure she could put a comb and brush in her carryon, so she asked the lady at the ticket counter who told her it was fine to do so. The agent weighed and tagged our bags and off they went and off we went to go through security. I'll spare you the details and just leave it to say we made it through security and went to find our gate. Will Rogers World Airport isn't a big airport, so our gate wasn't hard to find. After we found our gate, we decided we were hungry. We went to one of the places in the airport and had the Disney Vacation Breakfast of Champions: Cheetos and hot chocolate!

There was an earlier flight than ours out of Oklahoma City, and we could have gotten on that flight, but it meant that we would have had to sit around that much more in Dallas, so we decided to wait for our 7:00 flight. We started boarding 30 minutes before the flight, took off on time and we were on our way! ABOUT TIME! Oklahoma City to Dallas is only about a 40 minute flight, so we were up and down before we even got a beverage. No big deal though. We landed in Dallas, deboarded, went to find our gate. We had to change from the B terminal where we landed to the A terminal, also no big deal. We just used that nifty Sky Link that DFW has and we were at the A terminal in a heartbeat. We had a 30 minute wait before we boarded. At our time, we boarded our plane, got the schpill, and then took off. I was tired and as soon as the seatbelt sign went off, I laid down in the seat next to me. They were honey seats (you know, the seats with the arm rests that raises up). About an hour into the flight, my mom pulled my legs into her lap and I slept about another 30 minutes. We landed abput 15 minutes before our scheduled time, around noon. We got off the plane, found out we were on the B side. We had to talk to the A side, then take the shuttle to baggage claim and walk all the way across to the left side to get to Disney Magical Express. There was NO one there and we walked right up to the desk! Everyone standing there was so nice! The guy that checked us onto DME asked us if our return flight was correct, which with all of the pre-trip planning, turned out NOT to be correct. I pulled out my binder with all of our plans and gave him the correct return flight information. He changed the information right there! He pointed us across the way to where there was another empty que for us to board our bus to All Star Movies. We boarded the bus, sat down, and within 5 minutes, we were on our way to our home for the week! The bus driver asked who was going where. There was a stop at Pop, Sports, they skipped Music since no one was staying there, and finally Movies!

The ride from the airport to the Movies took about an hour. We got off the bus and the lobby was virtually empty. We walked up to the desk and checked in. Check in took about 5 or 6 minutes. Ou room wasn't ready, but we had our Keys to the Kingdom and a card with a number to call in a couple of hours to check on our room.. We had a preffered room, Fantasia building 8, room 8726. Mom and I were both hungry and I told Teresa (crossfamily) that I would call her as soon as we got to hotel. I knew neither Mom nor I would be very good company until we got something to eat. Mom and I went to the foodcourt and we each cheeseburgers and french fries. They were very good.

After we ate, I called Teresa to let her know that we had arrived. I forgotten to mention how I met Teresa. I met her on the DIS board. She pmed in late June/early June to tell me she would be at the Movies the same time as us. We struck up a wonderful friendship. Throught Teresa, I met Kathy (katlas&kids). I also met Lauren (lauren_elizabeth). We all got to know each other pretty well and exchanged email addys and emailed each other about our plans for being in the World. As it turned out, we all had reservations at 50's Prime Time Cafe in staggered times.

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah! I called Teresa to let her know that we had arrived. She asked me where we were and told her the food court. She said she would set up the baby monitor and would be right over. She came down within a few minutes and I introduced her to my mom. We talked for a few minutes. Then all of a sudden, I heard this boy's voice and this body running into me. It was Teresa's son Anthony, whom Teresa had been telling for weeks was excited about meeting me. Mom and I had finished eating and Teresa told her son to go get Kathy. I think she was at the pool. Kathy arrived a few minutes later and I introduced her to my mom. Teresa took us to her room and we got all of this wonderful stuff from her. Mom and I had lime green t-shirts and a photo album each, I had a lime green visor, a picture frame, another lime green photo album and two laminated lime green mickey house head chips, a door hanger, and a lime green mickey head to with my DIS name to hang in the window of our room. Teresa also gave me an italian bracelet with a lime green mickey head to put on the bracelet. Kathy sent her son to Teresa's room with gifts as well. She had made tye dye t-shirts that had Mickey heads on them!

While Teresa got her kids dressed, Mom and I changed into our lime green shirts. In about 15 minutes, everyone was dressed and we were out the door on the way to MGM. It took us about 15 minutes to get to MGM. When we got into the park, we stopped and had a photo pass picture taken. Myself, Teresa, Anthony, Nick, and Emily, Kathy, Jeff, and Krista. Neither my mom nor Kathy's husband wanted to be in the picture.

My mom and I were wanting to do Tower of Terror. We told Teresa that that's where we were headed, but we would meet them at the 50's PTC at 5:00. Mom and I headed over to the TT and it was a walk on! LOVE that ride! We walked around the park for a bit, then headed over 50's PTC. Teresa called me on my cell phone about 5 minutes later and said they were waiting in line to get autographs, but would be over there as soon as she could. While we were waiting for Teresa to arrive, I called the number to find out about our room, to ask if our luggage had been delivered and had our refriegerator been added to our request. Our room was ready and our luggage was on it's way to the room, but somehow the refrigerator hadn't been added to our request. The CM on the phone added the refrigerator.

I asked the CM if Teresa's family and my mom and I could sit together. No problem. I asked for a booster seat for Emily. Within 15 minutes Teresa and her children arrived and we were seated. We were given menus. Little Brother Bobby (I think that was his name) was our server. He explained the menu. I had somehow gotten a lunch menu. Mine had a chicken caesar salad on it, so Teresa asked if I could still order that. LB Bobby said it was no problem. Mom couldn't find anything on the menu as far as the entrees that she wanted so she got Mickey's Bee Bop Drink and the Angel Food Cake with berries and whipped cream. I ordered the Chicken Caesar Salad and a Sprite. Teresa ordered for our children and herself. It took about 15 minutes before our food arrived. My salad was wonderful. Mom said her Angel Food cake was good. I had a taste of it and it was very good. While we were eating, Lauren and her sister and brother were seated. Shortly after meeting them, I met scubagirl as well!

While Teresa had taken her two little ones to the bathroom, Mom and I were so tired from very little sleep the night before and traveling all day that we thought we would turn in early. We headed out the park and to the bus stop. Teresa also left and had managed to beat us to the bus stop. We arrived back at the Movies and Mom decided she was hungry, since it had been about 1:00 since she had had a regular meal and she'd only had dessert at PTC, so we stopped at the food court and she had a bacon cheeseburger. I got some sliced apples with carmel.

Teresa called and said she would bring us our water. Since we weren't sure about taking the water even in our suitcase, Teresa offered to stop at Target in pick up some water for us. She brought the water to our room and we chatted a bit. She left after a few minutes and mom and I contunued to unpack. We were reading one of the Disney channels and saw that Animal Kingdom had rescheduled their EMH from the evening to the morning 7:30 - 9:00. Mom asked me if I wanted to go and I said sure! We called for a 6:00 wake up call, climbed into our jammies and were out like a light!

Next up ~ August 30 Animal Kingdom: It's raining, it's pouring and the lion's awake!

 

[blue_river]

Hey...we were in Fantasia #8 as well in room 8944 from 8/26 - 9/2! Had my lime green mickey in the window but was disappointed that I saw no other mickey heads. What a great idea to meet up with other DIS members! I wish I had planned to do that as well.

We almost went to AK the same day as you but decided against it due to the rain that day. We figured the animals would be in hiding so I'm anxious to hear about your day now.

 

[stinkerbelle's mom]

Wow great TR! You all are so lucky you got to meet up! Theresa must have set some kind of records for DIS meets!

 

[PoohGal05]

And in one trip no less!

Wow great TR! You all are so lucky you got to meet up! Theresa must have set some kind of records for DIS meets!

 

[crossfamily]

My gosh Angi did you bring a tape recorder to document every detail. Man do you make me look bad. I can just copy what you wrote and paste it. You were great with the details. I am still trying to remember the next day to update my tr. You did leave out the details of how my kids drove you batty!!!! LOL Awsome Job Angi. I miss you!!!!!!!

 

[PoohGal05]

My gosh Angi did you bring a tape recorder to document every detail. Man do you make me look bad. I can just copy what you wrote and paste it. You were great with the details. I am still trying to remember the next day to update my tr. You did leave out the details of how my kids drove you batty!!!! LOL Awsome Job Angi. I miss you!!!!!!!

No, no tape recorder. I just have a memory of remembering the good things that happen to me

And your children didn't drive me 'batty', as you put it!

Miss you too girlie! SMOOCHES!

 

[PoohGal05]

August 30 Animal Kingdom: It's raining, it's pouring and the lion's awake!

I didn't remember until the following day that I usually take a customary picture of our room, so here is the room number and inside of our room:

It's Animal Kingdom today! I have to mention that my mom loves the Festival of the Lion King show in Camp Minnie Mickey, so that's where she wanted to go today! We got our wake up call at 6:00 am. We got up showered and dressed. I had scheduled for the Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridian at 3:40. I thought maybe the park would close early because of Ernesto. A few minutes before 7, I started trying to calling Disney Dining to reschedule the tea for the next afternoon. It took me a couple of tries, but I finally got through and was able to change the reservation with no problem.


After that was take care of, we were out the door to catch the bus. We saw hoards of of persons Mom and I call the Coffee Clatch Clad were on their way to the food court to get their fixes on coffee! It was already gray outside, but we had our ponchoes and and umbrellas in our bags. There was a bus pulliing up as we were walking out the door. We boarded the bus and we're on our way to AK. We get their within 15 minutes. We walk to the gate and mom looks in her bag for her key. She doesn't have it. She starts packing her pants pocket. Not there either. Oh what to do. I hear someone saying her name. Naaa, I'm hearing things. I hear my mom's name again and turn around looking where I heard her name come from. A man with an English accent notices me looking and comes over and asks if I'm this person (my mom). I told him, 'No, but she is.' He hands her her key and we thank him. Mom had dropped her key. Okay, we've got her key back.


There is practically no one standing at the entrance and it's almost 7:30. We had made it in time for rope drop! We walk into the park and check the board to see when the first LK show starts. Doesn't start until 9:00. We haven't had any breakfast, so we head over to Tusker House. It's open, but they don't serve breakfast until 8:00. Plenty of time to hit Kilamanjaro Safaris in Africa. The CMs at the kiosks are very friendly, everyone saying 'Good Morning!' We get to Kilamjaro Safaris and guess what? THE RIDE IS A WALK ON! We walk through the que and get on the bus. We get the schpill and off we go. It started raining before we got on the ride so we put on our ponchos. I had wanted to video tape the ride and take pictures, but as it was sprinkling, I decided against it, pretty sure we would get back to AK. The ride this day was great! The animals were out in full force. I think I gave myself whiplash looking from one side of the bus to the other at the animals! Ostriches were crossing the road in front of the bus, some standing next to the bus as close as 6 feet! We saw lots of animals we know and lots of animals we don't know! Zebras, giraffes, hippos! OH! And the very best part: the Lion was awake!! The bus driver told us that the lion is hardly ever awake and we got to see him awake!!! The bus driver said the male lion is asleep often because the it's hot (I guess if there was couch and a football game on, he never would get off of that rock, just like ANY male I know LOL) We got off the bus and headed over to Tusker House. When we walked past the CM at the fruit stand just across from Tusker House if the lion was awake, we told her it was! She was excited as we were! So off to Tusker House. Very few people in there. Apparently the rain kept a lof of people out of the park today. Okay, back to breakfast. I got the breakfast platter and Mom got some cereal and milk. She wanted a banana, which they didn't have. I walked over to the fruit cart and got her a banana.

After breakfast, it's was 8:30 or so, not time for the LK show, so we walked around the park, enjoying it being not shoulder to shoulder. About a quarter til, we headed Camp Minnie Mickey for the show. We sat in the elephant section and the show was very good. AWESOME show, as always! We left the show and I had to go the bathroom, which became a theme for this trip. Everytime I walked past a bathroom, I had to go! When I left the bathroom, I saw across the way that there were characters on the greeting trail, so I hopped in line and asked Mom to take pictures. The first line I got in was for Chip. I asked Mom to get in the picture, but she wouldn't. Even Chip got on one paw and begged Mom to get in the picture, but Mom said no.

I also getting a Photo Pass card was easy! All you had to do was ask for one! I have some really cute pics coming for Photo Pass soon! I also got autographs and pictures on Photo Pass with Mickey AND Minnie and Goofy!

We walked back around and Pocohontas was showing. We caught that show. Very cute show with the live animals.

It's was about a 20 minute show and by the time we got out, it was time for the 10:00 LK show. Back in line we got and we ended up in the same section! The show let out and we walked around and got back in line and saw the show AGAIN! Yes, that is 3 times!

I do have to mention here that we saw the LK show several times last year when we went to Disney. There are several persons who do speaking parts for this show. The father person (and someone will have to tell me the name because I don't know it) in this show, there is one who has a lot of power in his voice. He was in the third show and when my mom heard him sing, she was so excited! I have it on tape! As we were leaving I asked on the CMs if we could meet the performers. We were told that we had to make arrangements through Guest Relations.

We were getting hungry and AK really doesn't have anything that neither of us cared for, so we decided to leave and head back the resort. On the way out of the park, we stopped at Guest Relations and asked them how we could go about meeting one of the performers at the LK show. We were told something along the lines of having to speak to the persons that did the show. It wasn't a big deal, so we just dropped it. The rest of the day later.

Out of the park, we stopped at the bus information desk and asked if we could get to MK from AK without going back to our hotel. He said we could and told us the bus to catch. We got in line for the bus, waited no more than 10 minutes and were on our way. We arrived at MK in a reasonable amount of time, got through bag check and into the park we went.

 

[dizprincess27]

I'm looking forward to reading more too!! Sounds like you and your Mom had a great time.

 

[crossfamily]

Mom and the Lion king show. We never did make it to see it. Kinda bummed. Now a reason to go back next summer. LOL Great TR. Love to hear all the stories about mom. Angi's mom is such a sweet heart. She was a trip the first time I met her. Can't wait to hear more.