Which Way Is Splish Splash Mountian? UPDATE 11-3 July AKV TR

[trinaweena]

Aand we're back. I last left off with me heading to my boyfriend's for a sleepover while we anxiously aways our to Disney. Well Morning came all to sooon that morning and we were up at 5:30am when his parents knocked on this door and told us it was time to get up. i had showered the night before so I was all set to just leave. Well as were packing the car up we har our first mely down of the trip. Mr. N has a quick temper so he tends to have melt downs when something happenes he doesnt like. So there was lot of swearing and stuff but we were finally off to the airport!

Boyfriend at 7am not a pretty sight

Parked the car with no fuss and then we to check in. Now I was a little worried that my bag would be over size and guess what ding ding ding my bag is 4lbs heavier than it can be. So everyone is yelleg at me now and i'm shoving stuff into my boyfriend suitcase and managed to get it down to 51lbs and after that they let us go though. Pretty uneventful ride down. I was once again not allowed to sit next to my BF because Jess has an anxity disorder and HAS to sit next to Jameson. Well I have an anxity disorder to but whatever. I watched UP and tried to entertain my self till we landed. After landing we got all our stuff and headed over to the parking garage to find out rental car. We find it and another meltdown ensues, about trying to fit all the luggage. 2 meltdowns and were not even out of the airport! Finally we were all packed in and ready to go, and off we were to AKV.

I asked Jess how the plane ride was:

We arrive at AKV at around 11 something.

Not much crowed, people seem nice. We have 3 sep room, all on different floors (thank god) from eachother. And our's was ready! Also they gave us a rose for each lasy in our party at check in. So we go take a look at our room and i took some pictures I can share with you guys!

I present: a Tour Of Our Room

Our bed

Our view

Our mirror

Bathroom

Shower and Shower tiles

our mouse:

our kitchen

and our balcony

Coming up next: when will everyone else's room be ready? Will we ever DO SOMETHING? And where's my Margarita?!

 

[DisneyFirefly]

I so wish I had the money to stay at AKL... It just looks so gorgeous. I'm sure I'll stay there someday

 

[jc040404]

Catching up! Your dogs are sooo cute in those Mickey ears! I love it!!

Sucks about all the meltdowns along the way. But wow! The resort looks AWESOME! I've always kinda ignored that one, even though I've seen some good deals there before, until all the TR's that take place there lately. I really wanna stay there now!

 

[yourhighwayinthesky]

I'm here and excited to read some more!

 

[trinaweena]

I so wish I had the money to stay at AKL... It just looks so gorgeous. I'm sure I'll stay there someday

It is very pretty but half of me is unsure if I want to go back! I loved the animals, but there were certian aspects of the hotel that i hated! But I will def talk all about that in my TR

Catching up! Your dogs are sooo cute in those Mickey ears! I love it!!

Sucks about all the meltdowns along the way. But wow! The resort looks AWESOME! I've always kinda ignored that one, even though I've seen some good deals there before, until all the TR's that take place there lately. I really wanna stay there now!

I always thought the resort was pretty but was never really interested in staying there until we actually did and i'm unsure i would rush back but it was very very nice!

I'm here and excited to read some more!

Welcome! I hope you enjoy, it was def a very eventful trip!

 

[trinaweena]

Hello all! I have some time before work so looks like another update is in order! (So wish I didn't have to go to work though!). When we last left off we had just checked into our room. Couple points I forgot to make:

1) Check in was quick, especially when we had three people checking into three different rooms. Mostly let the boys take care of it and we looked at the animals outside. I also had to keep an eye on Jess because she wanders off and then Jameson yells at her. Yes it's like vacationing with children.

2) The walk from the lobby to our room was LONG! This was one of my major complaints about the hotel When you look at the map this walk does not look that bad but let me tell you it was long! i was beginning to think we'd never find out room!

Here is the map to give you an idea of where we were (the red dot is us) See doesn't look so bad right?

Very wrong!

So after we finally got to our room, it was decided that we would grab some food. Mr. and Mrs. N were going to head back to the airport later to pick up our friends that were flying in from the UK. It had been decided before we left that the four of us would go to a park while they did that. Well I'm not sure who decided this but apparently Jameson and Jess were not informed. At this point i was starting to get anxious. We had bought an extra park day just for this and I wanted to use it. But food comes first so we jumped in the car to drive over to Jambo and get some food at Mara.

Now none of us have ever stayed at AKL. The only thing I knew about the Mara was it was next to the pool. But Mr. and Mrs. N always lead the way like they know where they are going so I just assumed they knew.

WRONG! We must have walked around Jambo for 15 minutes before we even got on the right track. No one botherd to stop and ask for directions or look at a map. Finally thanks to a helpful resort guest we found it and went to order. I couldn't decide if I was hungry or not and we had dinner at Sanaa that night so I ended up just getting a vegetable flatbread and a side salad as my desert. I did not like this. Mainly because their idea of vegetable was olives and lots of them. i didn't realize this came with olives otherwise I never would have gotten it. I picked them off and ate about half of this along with half my salad. Boyfriend got a sandwhich which also was loaded with olives which he did not enjoy.

Boyfriend had also heard me talking about zebra domes for awhile now. He knew I really wanted to try them and was surprised when i did not pick them up as my desert. I explained that I really felt like a salad so he went and got some as his desert. So we finally had our first bite of zebra domes aaaand...neither of us were big fans!

Not sure what it was but we just weren't feeling it! Oh well! I honestly can't remember what everyone else had, although i'm sure Jess had the chicken nuggets (it really is like travelling with a child!). After lunch we headed over to the gift shop and I saw the one thing I had come to Florida to get! I knew I would be buying it this week so why not get it now!!

The front

And the back!

This was my birthday present from Boyfriend. I never buy expensive purses but i knew this was mine the moment I saw it. Boyfriend even said after we bought it "I knew the second you sent me that link I would be buying that for you!"

So after that we went back to Kidani and his parents took off to the airport and we sat around the lobby for a little bit. By this point it was almost 3:00pm and I was getting really anxious. I asked Boyfriend if we were going to a park and he said he didn't know so I went up to the room to change and use the facilaties. When I came back we were headed out to the pool area so Jameson could have cigeratte.

Now I'm not knocking anymone who smokes, what you do is your business, but Jameson's smoke breaks got RIDICULOUS this trip. He smokes about 2 packs a day and had to stop every 5 minutes and even get up in the middle of meals to have a smoke. This first smoke break didn't bother me too much but I was bored and don't like being around smokers so I decided to take some pictures

Heading into the pool area

The slide through the trees

And the pool

I have to metion this is the most I saw of the pool this whole trip. After that for some reason we ended up in the fitness center and this is where I started to get really annoyed. I wanted to be at a park, I did not want to sit in a fitness center while they played around on stuff. I mentioned I was going to go walk around and take pictures if we weren't going anywhere but for some reason was quickly yelled at for that. FINALLY they got a call saying there room was ready. We agreed to meet back down in the lobby in half an hour to head to a park.

Before we left the fitness center I did snap a picture of a hidden mickey though! (okay not really but it made me happy!)

And just some flower pictures I took:

Okay this is long so I will end it here

COMING UP: Which park will we finally end up at? How many smoke breaks will we take? How is dinner at Sanaa?

 

[dizneeat]

Okay, this sounds like fun! I am in here!

Oh, and by the way I tried that dress up your pet thing on our cat once - just once, ended in quite some blood loss - this kittycat did not enjoy being turned into a mouse! You are very lucky with your dogs!

 

[trinaweena]

Okay, this sounds like fun! I am in here!

Oh, and by the way I tried that dress up your pet thing on our cat once - just once, ended in quite some blood loss - this kittycat did not enjoy being turned into a mouse! You are very lucky with your dogs!

Haha we started the dogs from a very early age with the dress up thing! When I first started dating my boyfriend he was so embarassed, now he shows off pictures of his furbabies to anyone who will look! I've corrupted him!

We've also dressed up the cats but not quite as much! We have very good natured animals (that's what comes of being a dog trainer haha!)

Welcome and thanks for reading!

 

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

I'm joining!

Oh god, I am like shaking with anxiety just reading about your first day! I can't imagine trying to keep all those people happy! You know if it was just you and DBF, you'd have been in the parks for hours by now! We went once with just my sister, her DH and their 16 mo. old and they pulled the same stuff the first day! Let's go to the food court, let's go to the gift shop...blah blah LET'S GO! They have food and gifts in the park! Needless to say, our of the 4 day trip, we split up A LOT! Hopefully you and DBF got to separate from the group every once in a while....

So we go take a look at our room and i took some pictures I can share with you guys!

Are there some pictures from the room that you CAN'T share with us?

 

[bukosluvswdw]

I can totally feel you with getting to a park sooner than later. As soon as we arrive I am ready to hit it but sometimes my family wants to relax and get settled in. Our kids want to hit the pool, my wife wants some r&r and I am ready for some park time.

 

[bellebookworm9]

I'm joining in! Wow, BFs family sounds a bit annoying, I hope things got better for you as the trip went on. One of my biggest pet peeves about Kidani was the smoking area. I hated that to get to the buses you had to walk right through it. As someone who thinks smoking is a disgusting habit and is nauseated by the smell, it wasn't a pleasant experience. We also had a bit of trouble locating Mara at first. I knew it was by the pool and you had to go outside to get to it. We got lucky on our first try: we went in the lobby, looked at a map, saw that we had to go down, got on the elevator, and went straight out the doors. It is a strange set up. I know how long those hallways are at Kidani! When we walked back from Jambo, we'd come in the Zazu elevator to get back in the air conditioning quicker, but the hallway just seemed to go forever!

 

[natesmom11]

Love the Bag

 

[trinaweena]

I'm joining!

Oh god, I am like shaking with anxiety just reading about your first day! I can't imagine trying to keep all those people happy! You know if it was just you and DBF, you'd have been in the parks for hours by now! We went once with just my sister, her DH and their 16 mo. old and they pulled the same stuff the first day! Let's go to the food court, let's go to the gift shop...blah blah LET'S GO! They have food and gifts in the park! Needless to say, our of the 4 day trip, we split up A LOT! Hopefully you and DBF got to separate from the group every once in a while....





Are there some pictures from the room that you CAN'T share with us?

So glad you're here!

Yes it was very difficult travelling with other people, especially since (as you will see) no one from his family ever once asked me what I wanted to do! I'm very lucky to have my Boyfriend though, who understands my obsession. When we were talking about our next trip we had a slight argument about it where he asked me not to worry about it till 8 months out and he even said "i know how much you love planning and you love your dis boards but i need you to do this'. He's a keeper. Last year we went with 16 of his family members!

And no no naughty pictures haha! Who has time for that stuff in Disney!!

I can totally feel you with getting to a park sooner than later. As soon as we arrive I am ready to hit it but sometimes my family wants to relax and get settled in. Our kids want to hit the pool, my wife wants some r&r and I am ready for some park time.

Especially since we had paid for it I really wanted to get going. i mean it's a three dollar difference but three dollars is three dollars. I'm not a big pool person, I want to DO STUFF on vacation!

I'm joining in! Wow, BFs family sounds a bit annoying, I hope things got better for you as the trip went on. One of my biggest pet peeves about Kidani was the smoking area. I hated that to get to the buses you had to walk right through it. As someone who thinks smoking is a disgusting habit and is nauseated by the smell, it wasn't a pleasant experience. We also had a bit of trouble locating Mara at first. I knew it was by the pool and you had to go outside to get to it. We got lucky on our first try: we went in the lobby, looked at a map, saw that we had to go down, got on the elevator, and went straight out the doors. It is a strange set up. I know how long those hallways are at Kidani! When we walked back from Jambo, we'd come in the Zazu elevator to get back in the air conditioning quicker, but the hallway just seemed to go forever!

Welcome! Thanks for joining!You know, i like his family most of the time but they were very difficult this trip. i can't say they got much better but at least it makes for some interesting reading! I did not enjoy the smoking areas either, especially when I had to sit in them and wait for him! By the 3rd day i was walking away from him! We never went back to the Mara after that first day. I like Wilderness Lodge better where Roaring Forks is right down the hall! And yes those hallways were very very long!

Love the Bag

Welcome and thanks! I get so many compliments on it!

 

[Soopafly]

Oh man, how frustrating must it have been for you! Was there a reason you and your boyfriend had to stay with everyone else? You should have just gone to the parks, its your vacation as much as it is theirs. Hope it all turns out well in the next update though

 

[trinaweena]

Oh man, how frustrating must it have been for you! Was there a reason you and your boyfriend had to stay with everyone else? You should have just gone to the parks, its your vacation as much as it is theirs. Hope it all turns out well in the next update though

Haha, the fact that is was also my vacation too was a subject of much debate between me and BF before we left. His parents paid for the hotel and apparently that meant we had to do whatever they wanted. It wasn't BF's fault, he was really stuck between a a rock and hard place on this one because even tho his parents were paying for just my hotel, they paid for his EVERYTHING. He didn't want to be rude about it and on the first day we weren't sick of everyone yet, but annoyed we weren't at a park. (By the end of the first day, that's a different story aha!)

Poor BF, I did feel kind of bad for him. He would have been happy anywhere but he knows what I'm like at Disney so he wanted to make me happy but also didn't want to piss anyone off. Thankfully we did get some alone time throughout the week but his family did their best to make us feel guilty about it!

 

[taymacsmom]

Here I am!! I feel bad for you and your DBF! I understand his wanting to please you and his family. Must have been difficult for him! I am looking forward to more!

Kelly

P.S. Put on your AC. It's going to be a HOT and HUMID one tomorrow here in CT!

 

[DisneyFirefly]

I feel bad that they basically commandeered your vacation that's actually one thing I'm definitely saying at our possible family reunion - if people want to do their own thing, go right ahead, just come to the few planned family events (two dinners and a surprise I'm going to plan at Epcot) I hope your trip with just DBF is better

 

[brookelizabeth]

All caught up now!

The pic of your dogs with the ears is adorable!!! So, so cute! I can't believe they just sit there with them on. You must have Disney trained your dogs like I have my child.

What a first day so far! UGH! That would be very frustrating to want to be at a park, having that as the plan, yet no one is moving toward that. Hopefully they are down in 1/2 hour and you can goooooooooo!

 

[trinaweena]

Here I am!! I feel bad for you and your DBF! I understand his wanting to please you and his family. Must have been difficult for him! I am looking forward to more!

Kelly

P.S. Put on your AC. It's going to be a HOT and HUMID one tomorrow here in CT!

I will be stuck inside Petsmart all day tomorrow so I need not worry about the heat! (It'a always hot in there!) How about that rain today? How miserable

I feel bad that they basically commandeered your vacation that's actually one thing I'm definitely saying at our possible family reunion - if people want to do their own thing, go right ahead, just come to the few planned family events (two dinners and a surprise I'm going to plan at Epcot) I hope your trip with just DBF is better

Thats how it was last year when we went with them. There were 16 of us and we basically did our own thing and met up for family stuff. I have to say they are not usually like this, something was really off about them this trip im not gonna lie

All caught up now!

The pic of your dogs with the ears is adorable!!! So, so cute! I can't believe they just sit there with them on. You must have Disney trained your dogs like I have my child.

What a first day so far! UGH! That would be very frustrating to want to be at a park, having that as the plan, yet no one is moving toward that. Hopefully they are down in 1/2 hour and you can goooooooooo!

Yay so glad you're here!

Yes i have trained my dogs well, you should see the pictures I get at Christmas time! The Christmas decorations come out and so does the camera!

I think it's even worse when you are a big planner and stuff doesn't go the way you expected it too. It wasn't even that i wanted to be at a park it's that i didn't want to sit in the fitness center or the smoking areas. Let me explore at least! That was the toughest part.

 

[trinaweena]

Going to get to an update in a minute, but I just have to say that I'm feeling kind of sad tonight because DBF is gone for two long weeks so I thought i'd youtube some Disney Magic to make myself feel better (I watch it on the 74" big screen, almost like being there!) and I'm watching the 25th anniversay of epcot illuminations and I'm pretty sure i was there for that! This show looks really familiar and I remember after I saw this show I always thought Illuminations was longer and this must be the reason! Anyways, Illuminations always make me happy and it reminded me of a moment from our last night there which put me in a bittersweet mood.

Anyways it's time to continue on with the trip report. I hate that I'm so slow in writing this, but I like a lot of detail and I have so much stuff I want to share with people! Plus I'm not used to anyone actually reading my stuff, so thanks to all of you that are reading along! it really makes my day knowing i have people to share this stuff with!

So when we last left off I was wondering if we'd ever make it to a park! It was decided we would be meeting in the lobby in half an hour and going somewhere. Yes somewhere. No one could decide where they wanted to go. You'd think with only 4 of us we could make a simple decision but I was torn. I knew I was not going to HS or AK so it was between Epcot or MK. We had dinner reservations for 8:30 at Sanaa and it was almost 5:00 at this point. I pulled up the app DBF has on his ipone to check wait times and it was pretty equal. Eventually we decided we'd go to the Epcot/MK bus stop and just got on whatever bus came first.

So we ended up at:

EPCOT! I was psyched, I was finally in a park! Now that we were here I didn't care what we did! It was decided that first things first we gotta head to mexico and get a margarita! Now i'll say this now, I am not a huge drinker, but there are certian drinks I very much enjoy, purely for the taste and I love me a drink at Epcot. DBF does not drink (although this trip he did have one!) and Jess does not drink. Jameson is much easier to deal with when he's had a drink. Very sad, but a truth we realized all too soon on this trip! So Jameson and I were speedwalking our way through the park to get to Mexico. While we walked i took some pictures..these were all taken while moving i must point out

I'm lagging behind (a trend during this trip) so I took a picture of the rest of my group:

Just loved this kids haircut!

Finally we spotted Mexico. With all the construction going on it looked like the Margarita stand was closed! Oh no! But thankfully hope was not lost and I soon had my yummy frozen friend!

After this we really had no plan. Jameson wanted to ride Maelstrom but I had it in my head that was not happening. We didn't have much time at the parks, and we had already walked past Norway I just didn't see us getting back there. Of course we had to stop for a smoke break along the way (just outside of Germany, the location is important) so i took some pictures while we waited

We decided to keep heading through the countries and by the time we hit France it was time for another smoke break (I hope your keeping track here people. I will never again go to Disney with a smoker). Jess and I decided we would split something from the French bakery. I love the French bakery, when i used to come with my Grandfather this was his favorite place. He was french and used to love to talk to the people there and we would always get a chocolate mousse to share. Well this time Jess and I decided to share and apple struedel but at the last second change are minds to get some coconut macaroons. I have a new found love of coconut, something I had always detested so this was very exciting for me. They were very yummy!

(Side note, DBF loves coconut. One christmas I made him homemade macaroons. He didn't like them but pretended too. I remind him of this all the time, so of course this was a perfect chance to remind him again.. he still to this day tries to play it off like he liked them!)

We found the boys and continued our walk. A parting shot of France

We made it just out of Canada, near the entrance to World showcase before we had to stop for another cigeratte. So in the span of maybe 15 minutes of walking, we had stopped 3 times.

Some more pictures i took while we were waiting (again)

I took these from across the lagoon. my camera has some great zoom

i asked the boys to smile for me

Thanks boys

I really love this picture

We decided we would hit club cool, Figment, and The Land before heading out. I think we also wanted to hit up nemo but didn't make it that far. Club Cool was first, love the movie theatre sticky floor in there. Boyfriend likes to try all the flavors but i stick mostly to the gingerale. After that was Figment, which is one of DBF's favorite ride. I personally hate it but suck it up for the team! I did sing along with him though and then the song was stuck in my head all night!

After Figment there was some breif talk about seeing Captain EO. I had not interest but the other three were really excited about it. Since we were running late though we decided to skip it and head over to the land.

Now i personally love living with the land. And so does DBF. He really wants to do the behind the seeds tour. he talks about it all the time! I told him on our next trip we could go! We enjoyed our boatride and i snapped a few pictures along the way

After the land it was time to head back because Mr. and Mrs. N were back with the Sage's and it was time to go say hello!

We headed out of Epcot knowing we would be back tomorrow and made our way back to AKL

COMING SOON (next post) We meet the Sage's, watch some animals, and have a wonderful dinner!