Two Take on the World: Take Two. A September 2011 TR

[pggirl]

Welcome to my first trip report. This was our second adventure to WDW and I felt like this time around we could really stop and smell the roses. The first trip we celebrated DS 6th birthday and it could have been our one and only visit to the World, so we ran from ride to ride to make sure we could try everything on our list at least once. We left that trip knowing we would be back and we were ready to re-do our favorite rides, check out the attractions that didn’t make our list the first time and to have the time of our lives (again!).

This time around I wanted to go when the temps were in the 80s and 90s (I shivered through the mornings and evenings of our November 2010 trip and had to wear two layers). Low crowds were also important as we lucked out on our first trip and barely had to wait in line for anything. So we chose September 10 – 18, 2011.

Who we are...
Me: Mom, 38. I own my own vacation rentals business so I can only take vacations during the low season. I like to plan, but am really a laid back type of traveler and will adjust our plan if we are not having fun/getting tired/etc. I refuse to be that mom who is yelling at her kid at Disney World. At home, well, that’s a different story

DS6: Loves anything Disney and is a great little traveler. He is good at following maps/directions and enjoys any type of transportation and is strangely obsessed with suitcases. He is not the most adventurous type, but ends up trying everything and loves the scariest rides. You can’t get him to walk two blocks at home without whining the whole time, but he will go from morning to night at DisneyWorld with a bounce in his step all day.
We booked a MYW package with free quick service dining & 8 day park tickets. I hope you enjoy our seeing our adventure unfold, we had a great time!

Table of Contents

Day 1: Getting There/Pop Century
Day 2: 1900 Park Fare/Epcot
Day 3: Hollywood Studios
Day 4: Magic Kingdom
Day 5: Downtown Disney/Epcot
Day 6: Animal Kingdom/ Winter Summerland Mini-Golf
Day 7: Pirate’s Adventure Cruise/Hollywood Studios
Day 8: Magic Kingdom
Day 9: We’re Outta Here!

more to come...

 

[pggirl]

Getting There

We started our day at 3:00am, which seems crazy since we won’t arrive to DisneyWorld until 5:30pm, but we have to start sometime I guess. My friend picked us up at our house to give us a 15 minute ride to the bus that will take us to San Jose. I should mention that we live in Costa Rica and the airfares are ridiculously cheaper (like a third of the price!) if we fly out from San Jose. Unfortunately, we live 5 hours from the capital city, hence the early morning bus ride. We settled in for our long journey and I hoped that DS has finally outgrown his tendency to get motion sickness when in a moving vehicle before 6am. Unfortunately, that did not happen, so I was awake the entire ride and my poor DS was sick pretty much the entire time. I did give him a pill that was supposed to help, but had no affect so if anyone has any suggestions on what works for their kids, pleas share!

Having finally arrived to the San Jose airport we checked in for our flight and set up camp at the gate. This was our first time flying Jet Blue and everything went very smoothly. I love the leather seats and the extra legroom you get even if you don’t pay for the More Legroom seats. The video did not work on our flight, but we had enough to keep us busy and we soon arrived in Orlando.

We’re Here!

Getting on the Magical Express really gets you in the mood. DS bounced onto the bus and settled in to watch the video. POP was the 2nd stop after Carribean Beach and it took about 10 minutes to get checked in to our room. I had requested top floor, 70s building. There was nothing available in the 70s but I was given three options for top floor rooms, we selected the 50s. I was exhausted after a full day of travel and I was glad we had decided not to schedule a park day, but the excitement of the shop and food court gave us a little energy boost.

We grabbed our mugs and took our luggage to the room and came back to the food court to get dinner. This was the first time we did the Quick Service Dining Plan and I was amazed at the amount of food included. Way too many desserts by the end, but that first night it was great! I don’t know if this is new or not, but POP now shows movies every night at 8:30pm in the grassy area between the main pool and the walkway to the 70s.

We took our tray outside and watched Gnomeo & Juliet while we ate. Unfortunately, we were not able to see any other movies as we stayed in the parks each day until close, but it is a great addition to the POP experience. We had actually planned on going to Fort Wilderness to see an outdoor movie one night, so this was a welcome surprise.

 

[pggirl]

ok, i am not sure if anyone is following, but it is fun for me to re-live the trip anyway, so the adventure continues...

1900 Park Fare

Alright, time to get this vacation started! We awoke at 7:00am by receiving a wake-up call from Stitch and Mickey. We received the same wake-up call all week, so I am not sure how often they change the message or characters. DS was excited to take the monorail this morning. We did not get to try the monorail last time, so this was high on our must do list.

We headed down to the bus stop around 8:00am and waited just a few minutes for the bus to Magic Kingdom. Overall, the bus service to and from POP was excellent with the exception of Saturday night from Magic Kingdom, but more on that later . We arrived around 8:30am to the Magic Kingdom and DS really wanted to stay and watch the opening show, but we had an ADR to get to. I only scheduled three sit down meals as I find it hard to plan when and where I am going to want to eat 6 months in advance.

We hopped on the lime green monorail after a short wait and we arrived to the Grand Floridian around 9:00am.

Wow- what a difference from POP! We spent a few minutes checking out the lobby and the elevators (did I mention that DS loves ALL forms of transportation?) before checking in for our 9:15am reservation. We were seated immediately and almost ran into Alice as she skipped out of the restaurant hand in hand with a cute little boy.

The buffet line and the characters moved quickly and we had met everyone except for Alice in less than 40 minutes. DS especially loved Mary Poppins (who is a favorite even though he has never seen the movie) and she impressed us both with remembering his name throughout the meal and she even stopped visiting with a family near the exit to say goodbye as we were leaving. DS was a little confused by the Mad Hatter as he has only seen the Johnny Depp version, but he had fun with all of the characters anyways.

We were a little disappointed that we could not wait to meet Alice, but she was taking a break after each table or two and after we finished eating we waited 10 minutes and she was still about 7 tables away so we headed out to Epcot-- full of strawberry soup (super yummy) and ready to hit the parks.
Overall 1900 Park Fare was a great breakfast buffet (although I did not like the lobster eggs benedict, it was a weird combination of flavors to me) and a really fun way to start the trip.