This is MY Graduation trip and all we hear is “Oh you just got engaged?!” July 2011

[radev104]

Let the Memories Begin!
July 17, 2011 to July 29, 2011
Walt Disney World-POP Century Resort and Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure​

This is my first trip report ever. I wasn’t planning on writing one so I don’t know how this will go.

We planned to go on it for a couple years but never actually planned anything until about the November before the trip. I don’t even think we made reservations until about April or May…I can’t believe that we booked so late but at least we got a room. I tried to making ADRs for us at any place but no one in my family decided where we should go to eat so we didn’t have any TS meals this trip. We got our tickets to both WDW and US using the discount my fiancé receives from his work. The WDW tickets came in the mail in June and we printed the US voucher out. We got a 10-day PH, WPF&M and planned on upgrading to a PAP and a 4-day PH for US (buy 2 days get 2 free).

Anyway onto the introductions of the lovely members of this wonderfully crazy adventure.

Me: I’m Rita, 22 and a Disney Freak. I love everything Disney. I have been to Disney 5 times before this trip and plan on going many, many more times. I wish I can work for Disney and live in Florida. I want a Disney Wedding (recently got engaged). I am still a kid a Disney but who isn’t. I still go see characters and get their autographs.

Chris: My fiancé, 23, who has only been to Disney once before this. And now we are planning a trip in May for SWW. He remembered most of the parks and it was lovely to watch him remember what he could and take in all the new stuff that is there. I cannot wait until we take more trips there together. Chris was also the main photographer on this trip (he got this from his mom and I absolutely love : this about him) and he took about 4000 pictures, no editing. He will have a new, fancy camera for our next trip because he broke my camera the third day we were there...luckily Dad let Chris us his.

Mom and Dad: I think they love Disney as much as I do. They have been to Disney 8 times. They are the mediators of the fights.

Amber: My younger sister, 18. She has been to Disney 5 times (although if you ask her it was 6 since my mom was pregnant with her when I first went down). She loves everything Disney too. This was her graduation (high school) present but again if you ask her she will tell you a lot more people commented on Chris’s and my engagement buttons…but that is later in the report.

We are those people that you see and go what the heck are they doing and the ones that you look at and are like these people are crazy. You will see all this later in this report.

That’s all for introductions. Next will be the anticipation of leaving for the most Magical Place on Earth!

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Let's Leave Already
Horrible Start
Horrible Start cont.
Finally Made it

 

[DizFan101]

Hey I'm first! Yey. (if i'm not disregard)
I'm here to subscribe to your report. Looking forward to it.

 

[antnyh]

I'm in!!

 

[bna16]

i'm in!

 

[radev104]

Hey I'm first! Yey. (if i'm not disregard)
I'm here to subscribe to your report. Looking forward to it.

You're first!! Thanks. I hope its a good one.

I'm in!!

Thanks!

i'm in!

Thanks!

Hope you all enjoy it. I'm preparing for Irene to hit CT...apparently its the first hurricane to hit us in 20 years. But I will have an update soon. And hope you all like pictures cause this might be a little picture heavy since we have over 4000 plus photopass.

 

[radev104]

We didn't have any damage from Irene. Just a little puddle in the basement no bigger than a foot. We didn't lose power but we did lose our cable and internet around 4 PM on Sunday but we got that back so now I can update!


The couple weeks before the trip I made my checklists; what needs to be done before we leave, what needs to be packed, what I need to buy, etc. The week before the trip I went to Target and Wal-Mart to get everything on my list and started to conquer my to-do list. First up clean our room then move our little baby, Squishy to the kitchen so he will be fed (Squishy is a goldfish we’ve had for over a year and named from Finding Nemo) and laundry. Well the laundry took forever. Who waits to do laundry three days before you leave for Disney…this girl. After the massive 5 loads of laundry (Ilove coming home to clean sheets, towels and blankets) my bed packed with all the clothes that will be making the magical trip.

It was finally Friday. I had to get up early with Chris so I can go to work with him. We packed the car with all of our stuff for Disney. I might be a little bit of an over packer but Chris doesn’t seem to mind. We finally got to work an hour later. While Chris worked for four hours I cruised over to the DIS. Those four hours took forever I just wanted to leave so we can drive to my house to get ready to leave for Disney the next day. After another 4 hour drive we finally made it to my parents’ house. We had some errands to run and last minute packing but we were finally going to bed.

It was so hard to fall asleep that night but I managed it. My alarm was set for 6:30, but since I didn’t fall asleep till late I just turned it off and woke up to my mom knocking on our door to get up. I let Chris sleep a little longer while I got dressed and ready to leave. Chris and I had to go to WaWa to get our lunch for on the way down. When we got back the van was mostly packed. We finished packing it up and went out for breakfast at Chick-fil-A. Now we are ready to go, got our bellies full with delicious chicken and caffeine.

I always keep track of times and stuff when we drive down. We left at 9:32 AM. I usually sleep most of the time but for some reason I was wide awake maybe it’s because I was going to the most magical place on Earth with the love of my life.

I'm waiting on some pictures from my sister so once I get those I can update more.

 

[Merida]

Subbing! I'm amazed at how old your goldfish is - I think my record is about 2 weeks, and that one was kind of suicidal due to our cats. I'm a much better cat/dog owner than fish owner.

 

[antnyh]

I am very glad that Irene left you alone. Many others weren't that lucky. Looking forward to the rest of you TR!!

 

[radev104]

Subbing! I'm amazed at how old your goldfish is - I think my record is about 2 weeks, and that one was kind of suicidal due to our cats. I'm a much better cat/dog owner than fish owner.

Haha. Thanks. We are so surprised he is still alive. Sometimes we forget to feed him for about a week and yet he still manages to survive.

I am very glad that Irene left you alone. Many others weren't that lucky. Looking forward to the rest of you TR!!

We are too. There is a lot of people without power still in our state. They might not get it back until this weekend at the earliest. We have a friend that is a volunteer firefighter and he spent Saturday-Tuesday at the station. He said they had calls all the way through Monday and they finally calmed down on Tuesday. We are watching this new storm in the Atlantic.

Next update coming today!!!

 

[radev104]

Last I left off we were just leaving for our long drive. We were talking about Disney and taking in everything around us while trying to get Dad to stop at all the stores we wanted to but of course we didn’t. We hit both tolls, somewhere on 95 and Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.

We hit some traffic in VA. What do you do while sitting in traffic? How about this?

We stopped at Arby’s to hit the bathroom. We smelled something burning coming from the van. Dad figured out it was coming from the rear passenger brakes. So now we have to detour to Advance Auto and then Firestone

We got all the parts and went to Firestone (luckily they were in the same shopping plaza, along with a Taco Bell). Firestone said it would take 2 hours for them to get to the van. No problem we ate lunch then 2 hours came and went. We were not happy campers. We tried calling every place we can think of…luckily Chris and I upgraded our data on our phones. No one else can take us so we were stuck there.

Chris and I walked to the pawn shop that was there…maybe there would be something cool.

Will we make it to the hotel in GA that night or even to POP the next day? Continued in the next post.

 

[radev104]

Let's continue this horrible start...

Well it’s been over 5 hours of waiting for the van to be ready to go. We had to cancel our reservation for our hotel room in GA. So now what do we do? Stop and get some rest in a bed then leave early to get to WDW or drive straight through. We voted for driving straight through. We were on the road again by 7:50 PM. We stopped at a McDonald’s for dinner. Dad, Mom, Chris and I got some caffeine.

Chris and I tried to get some sleep so when we stopped at the NC Welcome Center around 10:30PM and Chris and Dad switched which meant Mom and I switched too. I was now focused on staying awake to make sure Chris stayed awake. It was so quiet in the car and hard to stay up. Chris drove until we needed gas then switched again with Dad in SC. Dad drove for awhile until we got to the FL Welcome Center.

I was so tired but so excited to be in FL and in the front seat so I can get a good picture on the WDW sign. Chris and I watched the sunrise while we drove through FL.

I could tell that Chris was tired, he was acting silly during our drive.

Here is everyone sleeping. I think Amber got the most sleep during this trip down.

Everyone was waking up around the time we were getting on I-4. So what did we do? Mom got out one of our games we packed for the ride down and we started to play it.

Amber and I were so competitive at this game that Chris even said he liked it better driving through NC when everyone was sleeping. Haha always cracking me up. And Dad didn't stay asleep that long after we started playing.
We finally got to WDW and saw this

me excited cause we saw this

We finally made it to POP Century around 9:00 AM, the earliest we ever got to WDW.

How long will we have to wait for our room so we can relax a little? You just have to wait for the next post.

 

[Merida]

Haha. Thanks. We are so surprised he is still alive. Sometimes we forget to feed him for about a week and yet he still manages to survive.

I feel like if the fish survives the first week or so, then it's practically indestructible for the next five years. I've never gotten past that first hump though!

After reading about all your car trouble, I'm starting to appreciate the fanatical way my boyfriend is going over everything in our car! Five hours waiting? Driving straight through? I fall asleep in the car all the time and would not have been any help whatsoever. Though watching the sun rise is pretty cool.

Do you still prefer driving over flying? I would be pushing for a driving break for the next couple years after waiting five hours to fix a car. I'm not very patient though!

 

[caaraa]

Looking forward to the rest of you TR!!

 

[radev104]

I feel like if the fish survives the first week or so, then it's practically indestructible for the next five years. I've never gotten past that first hump though!

After reading about all your car trouble, I'm starting to appreciate the fanatical way my boyfriend is going over everything in our car! Five hours waiting? Driving straight through? I fall asleep in the car all the time and would not have been any help whatsoever. Though watching the sun rise is pretty cool.

Do you still prefer driving over flying? I would be pushing for a driving break for the next couple years after waiting five hours to fix a car. I'm not very patient though!

My dad actually checked the car out before we left. I usually do fall asleep in the car. Ask Chris I can be asleep within half an hour in the car. Driving straight through I thought was horrible but the sun rise was really awesome. We are thinking of flying down our next trip (either December, January, March, May, June or July-not sure which one we are doing yet) since it will be fast. Haha. I wasn't a great flier but I went to Ecuador and the Galapagos and being on 5 planes in less than 24 hours I got pretty used to it. (Never fly American to Ecuador).

Looking forward to the rest of you TR!!

Thanks.

I promise there will be an update either today or tomorrow. We have been busy puppy sitting and with family.

 

[radev104]

Last time we just made it to POP. We did online check in hoping to get a room early in the day. We waited in a small line maybe three people in front of us.

We checked in and our rooms weren't ready so I gave them my cell number to text me. We ate breakfast-we all were starving and got our refillable mugs.

Delicious.

We sat around for awhile hoping our rooms will be ready. We were all tired and just wanted to relax and maybe take a nap.

Chris and I decided to go exploring the resort-this was my second time staying there but I wanted to go with Chris.

We were getting hot and I was getting tired of hamming it up for the camera. I think there are a lot more of pictures of me on this trip than any other trip. Chris and I went back to the food court to find everyone. We only found Mom so we sat around a little long.

Mom wanted to see if they could tell us how much long for at least one of our rooms and when she went to stand in line my phone went off! It was a message from Disney. Our room 3331 was ready. The only problem was we didn't know whose room it was-so we went to ask. We messaged Dad to meet us by the 50s building to unpack the car.
Our building.

The view from our room.

Tower of Terror with the cranes from the new Arts of Animation Resort

I didn't get any pictures of the inside of our room-we were just so tired that we wanted to lay down for a little. Chris's and my room was done first so I unpacked our stuff while we waited for the other room to get done. Chris laid down for a little and took a nap.
We were all unpacked and ready to go but we were getting hungry so we ventured out to Wal-Mart to get our stuff for breakfast in the rooms and sandwiches for lunch in the parks. We then went to dinner at the Golden Corral.

Next update with me our first night in Disney! Where will we go? Stick around to find out.

 

[debfen]

Oh, what a way to start a trip! Glad you made it. Now let the fun begin! Can't wait to hear more.

 

[Merida]

That waffle looks amazing! I didn't realize there were Jungle Book figures at Pop, which section are they in?