We're Back!!: Me & DS 12 bound for WDW and FREE Dining!

We're going at the same time! Though, I haven't rec'd my docs yet.
Hmmpfft

hehe
 
Final itinerary:

Fly to MCO August 22 and arrive midnight.

Renting a car from Alamo and heading to our off-property hotel, Ramada Hotel & Convention Center, for 2 night.

Saturday, August 23 we are spending the day at Blizzard Beach with dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe that evening.

Sunday, August 24 we check-out of the Ramada and head for the All Star Sports to check-in. Then off the Magic Kingdom with lunch at Crystal Palace and dinner at 'Ohana.

Monday, August 25 Hollywood Studios with breakfast at Kona Cafe and dinner at Sci-Fi.

Tuesday, August 26 Epcot (best friend who is also a castmember is spending most of the day with us, YAH!) with lunch at Le Cellier and dinner at Teppan Edo.

Wednesday, August 27 Animal Kingdom with lunch at Yak & Yeti and dinner at Maya Grille.

Thursday, August 28 go home day :sad1: . Breakfast at 'Ohana Lilo and Stitch and a couple of hours at Magic Kingdom then fly home.
 

Looks like a great plan. Not long now.

Hope you enjoy Whispering Canyon Cafe, we sure did.
 
This time next Friday we will be picking up our rental car!! :cool1:
 
Oh bother....I don't like Fay!! Pleeeeeeease GO AWAY!

Good news: my car rental dropped another $20! My 6 day rental with Alamo is now $104 TOTAL with all taxes/fees!! :cool1:

Did some packing today and was pleased to find out that DS's watershoes still fit him (barely) from last year!

Wow, at this time next week we will just be finishing Extra Late hours at Magic Kingdom! :banana:

Looks like some fellow DIS'ers (Bemily and Kath1210) are at my hotel the same dates so we are going to try and meet up and say hi!
 
It looks like you leave in 5 days per your ticker, so Fay should be a memory by then. Hopefully!

Wow, great news on the rental!:thumbsup2
 
We're home safe, sound and EXHAUSTED!

Our trip plans changed a little. Tropical Storm Faye had me a bit worried so I decided that we would extend our trip by 2 nights just in case we had trouble getting to Florida as planned. We flew Southwest home and I was able to change our tickets to Saturday (no charge) and have a $60 credit for future travel as the new flight was cheaper. I used LastMinute Travel online and booked 2 nights at the end of our stay for $69 total (will tell you more about that later!).

We flew out Friday, August 22. The night before our flight I called Delta and was able to change our connecting flight from Atlanta (Faye was to hit there that day) to Cincinnati. Our flight went super smooth and we arrived Orlando at 9:30pm Florida time. Our original flight thru Atlanta wouldn't have landed until midnight.

Also the night before we left I added 2 more days to the car rental and rechecked the rental rates one last time and it dropped from $105 to $76 for 8 days!! :cool1: !!

I had done the Alamo online check-in thing so when we got to the airport we just went straight to the Alamo kiosk and were in/out in 5 minutes! We headed to the parking gargage to get our car. Quickly learned that Alamo and National are the SAME entity. The kiosk told us to find a car in our category, the keys would be in the door and to drive off. Well, no cars in the compact section. None in the economy section. Mid-size had 1 car but no keys in it. We were finally steered toward two Chevy Impala's (very nice car) and chose the one with the fabric vs. leather (hot sticky legs on hot leather = not nice) and drove off.

Our 1st two nights were at the Ramada Kissimmee Hotel and Convention Center formally knows as the Orlando Sun Resort. Another lesson learned: Irlo Bronson Highway and US192 are the SAME road!? Also learned that if your hotel is on WEST Irlo Bronson you need to travel on EAST 192?? Took us about 25 minutes of traveling the wrong way to figure this out.

We arrive at the Ramada. The lobby is very nice and check-in went smoothly. We chatted in line with a couple, who also got lost trying to find the hotel, and ended up finding out they live 45 minutes from us...small world.

We find our building and realize there are NO elevators so we haul our luggage up 2 flights of stairs :mad: . When I open the door I realize the AC is broken. It's humming and making a horrible clicking noise and the room is about 90 degrees. We get moved to another room but the light switches are shorted out but it will do for now. During the night the AC unit goes kabosh. At 4:00am I send out an SOS and we are moved into a 3rd room that feels like the artic. We sleep for about an hour and DS 12 wakes up and is ready to go :scared1: ! So, off to Blizzard Beach we go. VERY easy drive and quick trip from our off-site hotel.

We spent about 4 hours at Blizzard beach and had lunch there. Fabulous time as always. Just as we were leaving the RAIN started. We are talking 2 gallons per drop kind of rain. The wind kicked up in high gear and we walked quickly to our car.

We returned to our hotel and dried off and took a nap before dinner. We had an ADR at Whispering Canyon Cafe (paying OOP as free dining plan not in effect yet). We have a smooth drive to the Wilderness Lodge and are seated within 10 minutes. Unfortunately we were seated in the "outside" patio area away from everyone and all of the fun. We were all by ourselves in this back-room. NOT impressed with our waiter. We paid for the all you can drink milkshakes and got 1 each and our waiter never returned with our refills or any water. We ate the Skillet and for the $$ I would not do it again. It was a VERY expensive, dissapointing meal and a let down.

To be continued....
 
Thanks for pointing me to your trip report.

We ate at WCC on Wednesday, August 27, very early, 4:30 p.m. They tried to put us in the back room, but I protested. After all, there were tons of open tables! :confused3 Anyway, the food was very fresh and delicious, and while our waitress wasn't the most animated, we had a great time. I don't think they should ever put kids in that back room area.

Looking forward to reading more about your trip!
:goodvibes
 
Glad to hear you had a great trip!

We ended up in the back room of WCC, but just past the wall. DS ended up standing by the fireplace and watching everything. We still enjoyed ourselves, but had a great waitress. That can make all the difference in the world.

Wow, you lucked out on your rental car! I am still ticked at our rental car company from June!

Looking forward to more.
 
I forgot to mention that I ended up upgrading to Deluxe dining 2 days before we left. Because we were staying 2 more nights I decided it was worth it to be able to book two more table service for Thursday (credits expire at midnight that night) plus the double snack credits and drink mugs and I was going to be paying OOP for a lot of our ADR's as I had trouble deciding which ones to cancel = kept them all, LOL!

Saturday August 23:

After Whispering Canyon we swung by the All Star Movies to retrieve our fridge swap fridge.

We stopped at one of the HESS gas station and convenience stores on property and bought a case of Dasani water for $5.99 and some snack foods.

We crashed in our room (still arctic cold :thumbsup2 ) and slept like babies.

Sunday, August 24: We checked out of the Ramada and headed for the All Star Sports. We arrived at 10:00am at the Sports and I was the 2nd guest in line to check-in and it went very quickly. Our room was not ready but they told us which building and floor we would be on: 1st floor HomeRun Baseball Building and gave us a business card with a phone # so that we could find out our room number later in the day.

Off to Magic Kingdom. We had a 11:30 ADR at Crystal Palace. This dining venue was for ME as I love Pooh and his pals. Got some great photos with Tigger and Piglet. Then Eeyore arrived (I giggled like a kid!) and my camera dies. Said battery low. So I switch out the batteries and nothing. It won't work. Keeps beeping 3 times but won't power on. I try another set of batteries and no luck either. I am very sad and say goodbye to Eeyore without a photo. Our digital camera remained dead. Took it to one of the camera shops at Hollywood Studios and they weren't able to help. No $ in the budget for a replacement so we used our disposable Fuji camera and our photopass card (joined a photopass swap on the Budget Boards for $14) for the rest of the trip.

MK was crowded and HOT! EMH that night made it very crowded. We had a 7:00pm ADR at 'Ohana and rode the monorail over to the Poly. We had a nice table for two against the window, facing the castle. The food was AWESOME!!! My son ate and ate and ate. Everything was amazing, fresh, yummy and delicious! :thumbsup2 :thumbsup2

We returned to MK after dinner. Splash Mountain was having issues. We made it to the front of the line 3 times and had to leave due to technical difficulties...very frustrating. But we made the best of it. Pirates had no wait so we enjoyed it several times (WHY do people insist on using flash photography on Pirtates and ruining it for everyone else????). I even gave in and did Space Mountain (once was enough)! We covered a lot of ground at MK and ended up leaving at 11:00pm. Stopped at the Main Street candy shop and DS used 2 snack credits for a piece of fudge and a bag of cotton candy.

Dialed the resort phone number and got our room number. Our room was very close to the parking lot which was a bonus. We fell into bed and slept like rocks...slept right through our Kona Cafe breakfast Monday morning, oop's!!!

To be continued...
 
Monday, August 25: Ran into some DIS'ers (young couple) while waiting to get our picture in front of the Hat. They spotted my lime green mickey head on my lanyard.

Today is Hollywood Studios day. As previously mentioned, we slept through our breakfast ressie. We arrived at HS around 11:00am and of course the fastpasses for Toy Story were long gone. The wait time said 80 minutes so we decided to go for it. Good news is that it took exactly 40 minutes to get on the ride. LOVED IT!!! Just might be my favorite attraction. DS whooped me good score wise!

We ate lunch at the ABC Commissary. I'm gonna have to admit that I lost my patience in line!!! The family ordering before me had a GINORMOUS order and wanted to use 3 kids counter service credits, 3 adult table service, 2 adult counter service and 2 snack credits. OMG!!! We stood there for over 35 minutes while the castmember tried to figure out how to apply the different types of credits to the one order. Guess what?? YOU CAN'T!! She had to void, void and re-void their order umpteen times. I seriously was about to go postal. I'm not sure why I stood there for 40 minutes watching every other line cycle through over and over??????

After lunch we decided to try Toy Story again. The wait time said 90 minutes but once again it took exactly 40 minutes to get on the ride. Mama caught on and beat DS's score!!

We headed for Lights, Motors, Action Stunt show. Stood outside for 1/2 hour and made our way to some great seats where we sat for another 30 minutes until the show started. HOT and HUMID to the extreme. The show started. Made it through the 1st stunt...COOL! Then they set up the airbag and ramps and started filming the 2nd stunt but nothing happened?? Apparently they had to scratch this sequence due to safety. Bummer. Then they start setting up for the 3rd stunt sequence. 5 to 7 minutes pass and they tell us there is an oil leak and they send out the zambonie machine and cleaning crew. We wait some more....and wait....nothing. Announcement: Ladies and gentleman due to safety concerns we can not complete the show. Thank you for coming and have a great day.

Ok, so I totally think it's part of the show! I'm waiting for cars and motorcycles to come racing out and fly through the air. Nope. Everyone left. TOTAL BUMMER and waste of 1 & 1/2 hours.

We were walking around the back lot when the tidal wave of rain hit. It rained, rained, rained and rained some more. This of course was the only day DS wore his sneakers and socks! We got in line for the backlot tour but it was closed due to inclement weather. We caught the Muppets 3-D show hoping the rain would be gone when we got out. Nope. The drains had backed-up near Star Tours so we were walking through shin deep water! We were early but decided to head for our ADR at Sci-Fi. Tried to dry off as best as we could with the paper towels that were being handed out. DS was soaked as he opted NOT to wear a poncho...good time to say I told you so.

We were seated in our car and had a FANTASTIC dinner!! DS had the onion rings and I had the salad for our appetizers. For dinner DS had the Blue cheese Steak Wedge Salad and I had the bow-tie shrimp pasta with olives, tomato's, artichoke hearts and feta cheese. For dessert we both had the carmel cheesecake which was served with carmel corn and M&M's on top. YUM!!! We gave this restaurant 2 thumbs up!! One of our best meals of the trip...we will definitely eat there again!

We were still wet and getting tired. Caught the Little Mermaid show and rode Star Tours before heading out at 11:00pm.

To be continued....
 
I always end up stuck behind someone ordering like that. But it never fails, if I jump to another line, there will be another.

Sorry to hear you couldn't see the Stunt Show. That has happened with us for Indy due to weather. Still waiting to see Indy.

Looking forward to more!
 
Tuesday, August 26:

Today is Epcot Day. We met my best friend, who is also a castmember, in order to get into the park. She thinks we are COMPLETELY NUTS to come to Florida in August and opted NOT to hang out with us. We did convince her to enjoy Spaceship Earth with us. LOVE the new technological additions to the end of the attraction...lot's of fun and had us giggling. Oh, and while in line I was spotted by DIS'er Josh's Mom and we exchanged hello's and I am amazed that I remembered her screen name!

After saying goodbye to BF/CM we zipped over and got Test Trac fast passes. We ducked into the Mexico pavillion and were the ONLY people in line for the boat ride. After Mexico we zoomed over to Germany for our Biergarten ADR. We were seated with a wonderful couple in their 60's from New York that were having a private lunch away for the children and grandchildren that they brought with them. Also seated with us were 2 gentleman from Austrailia. They arrived in the states August 1 and had been to Los Angeles and Disneyland, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, DC and were finishing their vacation at Disney World. We really enjoyed everyones company and I was beyond tickled to have all you can eat sour Kraut!!!! A great lunch with fun music, good company and great food.

OMG!! I almost forgot!! The REAL reason I enjoyed our table mates sooooo much was because when my son and I introduced ourselves, all 4 of them thought we were brother and sister!!! :love: Everyone loves a good ego stroke even when on vacation!

After lunch we took the boat accross the lake and opted to stand in line for 80 minutes for Soarin...the heat made me lose my mind! We hopped right on The Land with no wait. Then off to Nemo, Turtle Talk and Living Seas Aquarium. Timed Nemo and Turtle Talk perfectly and walked right on. Enjoyed seeing the manatee as always. Our Test Trac fast passes were up so we made our way over and only had about a 10 minute wait.

Then it was off to Mission Space. I have NEVER done this attraction as I have significant motion sickness issues. But I didn't have oldest DS to pin this on so I bucked up, chose the GREEN version for obvious reasons and climbed aboard (15 minute wait). I discreetly took my ponchos out of the gallon ziplock bag that they were stored in and clutched the empty ziplock in my hand just in case the sour Kraut came knocking! I survived and my lunch stayed put.

After Mission Space we hopped on the Energy Ellen ride and I took advantage of the 37 minutes of darkness to deeply relax ;) . We made our way to the Coke tasting station and filled up on free coke products...love that watermelon one! Jumped back on the boat and headed across the the lake. We had a dinner ADR at Teppan Edo in Japan.

DS had the shrimp cocktail for his appetizer and I had the tempura sampler. For dinner we both chose the shrimp and steak w/ veggies and rice. DS was still hungry after inhaling his portion but I was content. We both had the soft serve ice cream for dessert. We decided not to stick around for illuminations/crowd and headed for our car with a stop in front of the "ball" for some pictures.

To be continued....
 
Tuesday, August 26:


OMG!! I almost forgot!! The REAL reason I enjoyed our table mates sooooo much was because when my son and I introduced ourselves, all 4 of them thought we were brother and sister!!! :love: Everyone loves a good ego stroke even when on vacation!

Ooh, don't you love those moments! Not that it has ever happened to me.

You actually waited 80 min for Soarin!??? In the heat of the day, why not. Since it is an inside wait with air conditioning, it wouldn't be bad.

Looking forward to more.
 












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