Liz
Make a miracle!
- Joined
- Aug 18, 1999
- Messages
- 4,909
Our Family:
Me - 46, born & raised in Florida but have been gone since 1981. Love WDW, obsessive planner. Really want this trip to be nice because we're bringing a family of 1st timers! Writes trip reports with way too much detail but I just can't do it any other way!
Paul - DH 52 - Loves Disney but not as much as I do. He'd probably be happy to vacation some place else occasionally but as soon as we get home I'm planning our next trip before he has time to process what I'm doing!
Jeff - DS 17 - Raised on WDW and Disneyland and loves it all. Super friendly guy!
Laura - DD 16 - Loves WDW but doesn't handle the heat well. Gets tired easy but she has a good excuse. She had a heart transplant when she was 6 weeks old and had West Nile Virus in 2002. Doing really well though. Our sweetheart.
Our Friends:
MM - 40ish - Going to WDW for the wife & kids. Isn't really a theme park kind of guy. Really nice though.
JM - 40ish - My good friend! Been trying to get her DH to go to WDW for a couple of years now!
Mike - DS 16 - Jeff's best friend since probably Kindergarten.
Heidi - DD 13 - Laura's friend. Despite the age difference they get along great!
Our family has been in Florida since May 28th and enjoyed time with my Mom! Although we were sad to leave her today, we were excited for our friends to arrive! Last night Jeff and Mike were on the phone forever! They are so excited!
We left Jacksonville at 5:00 PM and stopped quickly at the Belz Factory Outlet Disney store in St. Augustine. We'd already stopped here once during our week but we thought of a few more people we should have gotten gifts for.
We got to the Coral Beach Resort in Ormond Beach at 6:45 and checked in! Both rooms were in our name so we could get the AARP discount. We had oceanfront rooms with an awesome view for $96.75 per room (including tax). Our rooms were adjoining on the top floor (7th). The hotel was old, but most in Daytona are, and the elevator was squeaky.
One of the rooms smelled slightly of smoke but it wasn't too bad. We took that one and left the other for our friends. We opened the sliding glass door to the balcony to let some fresh air in. It was very clean though. The view of the ocean is just awesome!
Our room had all the standard amenities but also had a refrigerator, stove, etc. We didn't cook anything but having the fridge was nice.
We took turns watching for our friend's arrival. I was working on getting organized in the room (although we'd only be there one night) and laying out clothes for the next day, getting swimsuits ready, etc.
After flying into Orlando and driving to the beach, our friends arrived at 7:45. We were so excited! Since we had already checked into both rooms we were able to just take their luggage to the room and give them a key. All we had to do was tell the front desk their license plate number.
After getting things into their room we immediately went down to the ocean! Due to the hurricanes of the previous year, the ocean is remarkably close to the hotel. Not much beach area. What little beach there was had a red tint to it. Upon closer examination we saw what was making the sand appear red. It was millions of sea shells crushed to crumbs all washing up on shore.
Everyone had fun building sand castles, splashing and playing in the water till it got dark. The boys said they were going running. If I had been able to get to them first that wouldn't have happened because I didn't like them taking off in the dark down the beach. Luckily they weren't gone too long.
The husbands were sent down the road to Burger King for some dinner. My friend and I needed to get some groceries. We were going to Super Wal-Mart but when we asked at the front desk and found out it was about 6 miles one way we decided to try Food Lion, which was only a mile or so down the road. Their prices weren't too bad so we just did our shopping there.
We got to bed about midnight, which was late considering we wanted to get up early to see the sunrise over the ocean!
Part 3 - Leaving Ormond Beach, we check into Pop Century and visit Animal Kingdom!
Me - 46, born & raised in Florida but have been gone since 1981. Love WDW, obsessive planner. Really want this trip to be nice because we're bringing a family of 1st timers! Writes trip reports with way too much detail but I just can't do it any other way!
Paul - DH 52 - Loves Disney but not as much as I do. He'd probably be happy to vacation some place else occasionally but as soon as we get home I'm planning our next trip before he has time to process what I'm doing!
Jeff - DS 17 - Raised on WDW and Disneyland and loves it all. Super friendly guy!
Laura - DD 16 - Loves WDW but doesn't handle the heat well. Gets tired easy but she has a good excuse. She had a heart transplant when she was 6 weeks old and had West Nile Virus in 2002. Doing really well though. Our sweetheart.
Our Friends:
MM - 40ish - Going to WDW for the wife & kids. Isn't really a theme park kind of guy. Really nice though.
JM - 40ish - My good friend! Been trying to get her DH to go to WDW for a couple of years now!
Mike - DS 16 - Jeff's best friend since probably Kindergarten.
Heidi - DD 13 - Laura's friend. Despite the age difference they get along great!
Our family has been in Florida since May 28th and enjoyed time with my Mom! Although we were sad to leave her today, we were excited for our friends to arrive! Last night Jeff and Mike were on the phone forever! They are so excited!
We left Jacksonville at 5:00 PM and stopped quickly at the Belz Factory Outlet Disney store in St. Augustine. We'd already stopped here once during our week but we thought of a few more people we should have gotten gifts for.
We got to the Coral Beach Resort in Ormond Beach at 6:45 and checked in! Both rooms were in our name so we could get the AARP discount. We had oceanfront rooms with an awesome view for $96.75 per room (including tax). Our rooms were adjoining on the top floor (7th). The hotel was old, but most in Daytona are, and the elevator was squeaky.
One of the rooms smelled slightly of smoke but it wasn't too bad. We took that one and left the other for our friends. We opened the sliding glass door to the balcony to let some fresh air in. It was very clean though. The view of the ocean is just awesome!
Our room had all the standard amenities but also had a refrigerator, stove, etc. We didn't cook anything but having the fridge was nice.
We took turns watching for our friend's arrival. I was working on getting organized in the room (although we'd only be there one night) and laying out clothes for the next day, getting swimsuits ready, etc.
After flying into Orlando and driving to the beach, our friends arrived at 7:45. We were so excited! Since we had already checked into both rooms we were able to just take their luggage to the room and give them a key. All we had to do was tell the front desk their license plate number.
After getting things into their room we immediately went down to the ocean! Due to the hurricanes of the previous year, the ocean is remarkably close to the hotel. Not much beach area. What little beach there was had a red tint to it. Upon closer examination we saw what was making the sand appear red. It was millions of sea shells crushed to crumbs all washing up on shore.
Everyone had fun building sand castles, splashing and playing in the water till it got dark. The boys said they were going running. If I had been able to get to them first that wouldn't have happened because I didn't like them taking off in the dark down the beach. Luckily they weren't gone too long.
The husbands were sent down the road to Burger King for some dinner. My friend and I needed to get some groceries. We were going to Super Wal-Mart but when we asked at the front desk and found out it was about 6 miles one way we decided to try Food Lion, which was only a mile or so down the road. Their prices weren't too bad so we just did our shopping there.
We got to bed about midnight, which was late considering we wanted to get up early to see the sunrise over the ocean!
Part 3 - Leaving Ormond Beach, we check into Pop Century and visit Animal Kingdom!
