Who needs poncho's? We do, we do! May 15-23rd (Updated 6/11)

[msce2]

As I sit down to write this, I can’t believe our trip is over! (Ok and that yet again it’s raining!!!) It seemed like we waited and planned for so long and I blinked and it was time to go home. We tried to squeeze everything we could into the 6 days we had. The weather did not cooperate with us, but it did make the lines much shorter!!!

Our cast of characters (based on DS(2) favorite movie)
Me – Flo
DH – Ramon
DS(9) – Mack
DD(5) – Sally
DS(2) – McQueen

Our first day began at 3am.We had packed the car the night before. Even went to bed in the clothes we were going to wear the next day.

And you expect me to fit all this stuff where??????

(Kids at 3am)

It was rainy and cold when we left PA. Luckily I had the kids wear their sweatshirts and jackets (who knew they would be what we needed to wear just about every day?) Especially when the 10 day forecast was for 90+ degree temps every day!!!

We had decided to split the 1005 mile/16 hour trip into 2 days. Thought it would be easier on the kids. I had scheduled our first leg to be the longer one. 542 miles/9 hours 11min. We managed to get through DC without hitting the morning rush hour!

We decided to stop for breakfast at one of Ramon’s childhood favorites – Shoney’s. We found one in Virginia and it must have been near an Army base as there were quite a few patrons with uniforms on. Our waitress was less than helpful in explaining that there was a breakfast buffet, how much it cost and that kids ate for free. We finally got that straightened out and headed off to help ourselves. It was definitely not the cleanest restaurant I’ve ever eaten in, and I was not overly impressed with the food. Ramon had been looking forward to having some “southern grits” but said theirs tasted bland. My favorite thing was French toast with blueberry syrup. Sally and McQueen didn’t really eat very much. Sally said the pancakes tasted funny. Mack will eat just about anything and found plenty there to help himself to 2nds and 3rds. I was in a hurry to get out of there and get back on the road.

A short nap for McQueen

McQueen - awake and upset!

Sally with her princess glasses on:

We made one more stop at South of the Border. A place that if you happen to be driving by, keep going. We were on “E” with the light on, so had to stop. If you make the mistake of turning right, you will find all gas stations boarded up and most everything else closed. It’s a ghost town. We turned around and headed towards South of the border. We stopped at the first gas station, and were immediately approached by someone asking for money to make it home. Ramon was not ready to throw in the towel just yet, he wanted to visit some of the stores. (Fond childhood memories of a place that over the years has become very run down.) We went to one of the stores and did pick up a few souvenirs and took some pics. We were back on the road a short time later.

We finally pulled into our hotel @ 1:30pm– Springhill Suites in Florence South Carolina. The hotel staff was great and allowed us to check in early. We unpacked and immediately jumped into the pool. My only complaint about this hotel was that the pool water was a little cloudy. Like it had too much chlorine? Regardless, the kids had a ton of fun!

Mack

Sally splashing

Ramon and McQueen

There was a mall across the street, and we headed over. We had dinner at Olive Garden. Our waiter was very personable, and the food was great! We had our favorite appetizer – Calamari. Ramon had Eggplant Parmigiana, I had Cheese Ravioli, Mack had the kids cheese ravioli (finished off every single bite of this) and Sally had the kids pizza (did not eat a single bite). She was too full from the tiny bit of salad and breadstick she had. We rolled ourselves out and were in bed by 8:30pm. We played musical beds for awhile, but were all asleep by 9. We woke up bright and early the next morning, packed the car and enjoyed the complimentary breakfast at the hotel. Ramon was really impressed by the grits they had here. He said they were so much better than Shoney’s!! Sally and McQueen had yogurt and powdered donuts. Mack had egg, sausage and cheese on an English muffin and a piece of cinnamon raisin toast. I had cereal. There were so many great choices here! We were back on the road by 7:30am.

Well I’m going to have to continue this later. Still working on unpacking, getting laundry done and resting from the cold I picked up while at WDW.

 

[mickeystoontown]

What a cutie pie family you have! I am sooo looking forward to reading all about your adventures. We live 811 miles away from WDW so we break our drive into two days too.

 

[msce2]

What a cutie pie family you have! I am sooo looking forward to reading all about your adventures. We live 811 miles away from WDW so we break our drive into two days too.

Thank you! I'm glad to hear there are others that drive too! We got many crazy looks when we told people that's what we were doing. It turned out great!

 

[msce2]

Our second driving day was uneventful. We originally thought we would be arriving around 5pm, but instead arrived around 1:30pm. Our plans were to stay with my Aunt and Uncle who had a timeshare over near Sea World. Since it looked like we were going to arrive sooner than we thought I had called them and found they had plans in the early afternoon. So we decided we would find somewhere to eat when we got there to kill some time. I received a phone call from my sister who lives in Fla and was also spending the night with our Aunt and Uncle. It looked like we would arrive at the same time so we decided to meet and have lunch together.

The area around Sea World is very confusing! We ended up at KFC. There were only 2 young guys working and everything took forever. The line went out the door. Customers just started leaving. Even ones who had already ordered their meal. Since we weren’t in a hurry it wasn’t a big deal for us. Around 2:45 we headed over to the Hilton Grand Vacation Club.

At this point the kids were begging to get in the pool. So after getting the car unpacked and getting organized we headed over. They had 2 huge pools with water falls/fountains, Hot tubs and kiddie pools. Mack, Sally and McQueen were in heaven. We had to drag them away at 7:45pm since we had a busy day ahead of us and wanted to make sure they got plenty of sleep. We headed back to the villa and made pizza and salad for dinner.

Sally and Uncle D

Mack

McQueen in heaven aka the kiddie pool

Day 3 Started bright and early. I was up at 4:45am getting us packed up and ready to go. Woke up Ramon, Mack and Sally at 5:45am. We managed to be on our way at 6:30am. The morning was beautiful and sunny! We only got slightly lost (luckily Disney has very good signage!) and managed to arrive at Beach club Villas at 6:45. I left Ramon and my sister to handle the valet parking and baggage delivery, and headed to check in. As my sister put it there are some people who want to make sure your trip is very “magical”. The CM we got was not one of those people. I mentioned that we had been planning for 6 years and if it was possible to have an Epcot view on the 5th floor. She told me the best she could do was a swamp view on the 2nd floor. I was very nice, but persistent. After a half hour of her on the phone looking very annoyed she “managed” to get us a 4th floor with an “Epcot view”. As I expected she was not able to tell me the room number but told us we would be called later. We got our room keys and she gave us a folder of info about the dining plan. I went back outside to find all our luggage packed up on carts and our crew in strollers ready to go. We walked over to the bus stop and were right on schedule with my color coded excel spreadsheet (like I said 6 years to plan).

The MK Bus Stop

Mack

Sally

We made it onto the Magic Kingdom bus at 7:45am and arrived at 8am. We went through bag check. It was funny how this varied from park to park and from officer to officer this was. Some made you open every single zipper, made you completely empty the bag so they could see all the way to the bottom, others just took a quick peek and sent you on your way.

We were all so excited! We were at Magic Kingdom!!!! It was a nice touch that they had hoola hoops out for the kids to play with. It certainly helped to pass the time. I have to make one complaint though. They have you wait in front of the 2 underpasses, and they block you in the front, but not on the sides. So people are able to funnel in from the sides and block the people trying to walk from the front of the underpasses. This happened to us on all 3 days that we did rope drop. It made things especially difficult when you had 2 strollers. About 10 minutes before 9, they started their welcome show. It was a little difficult to see from where we were, but we lifted Sally and McQueen up on our shoulders and they were able to see some of it. They were so thrilled to see the characters!

Up next……Adventureland! Would we be able to keep to our optimistic schedule? Would we meet up with the rest of our group? And did we have to break out the ponchos????

 

[15isto2]

Great report so far, thanks

 

[msce2]

Great report so far, thanks

Thank you for reading!

 

[msce2]

Sorry about the delay in posting. I have been waiting for the rest of our group to upload their pics. I had taken a lot of video, but not as many pictures.

On tap for today – all 4 parks!!!

So.....after the magical Welcome Show, we were allowed to head down Main Street.

There is nothing like the feeling when you first step onto the street, past the trolley tracks and look up and there is Cinderella’s Castle! I have to be honest, it brought tears to my eyes. (Ok, well lots of things do….commercials, tv shows, songs…but I digress) I love how they have the CM’s with Mickey hands waving to you as you walk down the street! It somehow adds to the excitement of the whole experience.

As per our color coded spreadsheet, we were headed to Adventureland. So we hung a left and when we reached the bridge into Adventureland there was a 2nd rope drop.

There was a CM here who was absolutely hysterical. (He's the one standing with his hands on his hips in the pic above) He was teasing the crowd, and it really made the wait more enjoyable. One of the other things is that while we were waiting at rope drop at every park the CM’s made a point of noticing anyone wearing their celebration pins. Wishing them a Happy Birthday, or Anniversary. While we were waiting, Aladdin and Jasmine came through the crowd and under the rope. Jasmine was beautiful as usual, but Aladdin was a little on the strange side. He kept doing weird things with his head. I can’t really describe it except that I’m not sure I would have taken my kids to see him. Finally they enlisted the kids to help with rope drop and away we were.

First on our list was Aladdin’s carpets. It was so cool to be the first ones on the ride!

The kids enjoyed this, but did not ask to do it again. I definitely would not have waited in a long line. Next over to the Jungle Cruise. Just as we arrived there was a boat departing and we had a short wait for the next boat.

Our CM was ok. I think she was trying a little too hard to be funny, and repeatedly talked about the kids missing school. Once was ok, but she kept asking them to raise their hands and after the 5th or 6th time, the kids just ignored her. After the Jungle Cruise, we went to Pirates. Ever since I was a kid, this has been one of my favorites at MK.

(I did get yelled at here for taking pictures, and we hadn’t even gotten in the boat yet…Jeez!) Oh well, the ride was great, although McQueen was pretty scared the first part of the ride. But he liked the second half, and we all left the ride singing Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirates Life for Me!

After this, we decided to try out Frontierland and see how long the lines were on Thunder Mountain. Luckily it was only a 10 minute wait (actually turned out to be less than that) and we hopped on. My sister stayed with McQueen since he was just under the required height. (Next time!!!) Sally loved Thunder Mountain and this was the first of many rides for her!

We had originally put Splash Mountain on our list, but no one really felt like getting soaked (except Mack) so we bypassed it. Unfortunately for Mack this would be the pattern for the remainder of the trip. We were surprised by how quickly we were able to get all this done, and with time on our side headed toward another of my quintessential favorites – Haunted Mansion!

I love this ride, however it does tend to be pretty scary for the little ones. And a tad bit dangerous for those of us who are not as coordinated when walking. The conveyor belt caught a few of us by surprise. Luckily no major wipe outs….that would come later on.

After HM, we were off to Fantasyland and the lines were extremely long. We had known it would be that way, and so we just had It’s a Small World on our list. Sally and McQueen really liked this ride. My only complaint, actually more of a suggestion would be that it would be helpful to have the names of the countries posted. The kids kept asking, and with 4 educated adults, we were stumped on a few of them. While on the ride we got a phone call from my Aunt and Uncle. They were waiting for us at the exit. Mack, Sally and McQueen were excited to see their cousin!!! With more time to kill, we headed over to Mickey’s Philharmagic. This was McQueen’s first 3D experience and he refused to wear the glasses until the last 30 seconds of the show! We all really enjoyed this, and I’m sad we didn’t get to do it a 2nd time.

We got the phone call we had been waiting for My Parents were in MK! Their flight had arrived and the Magical Express (ME) was packed, so we weren’t sure when they would arrive.

It was around 11:15 so we decided to head over to Pecos Bills for lunch. This was our first time using the dining plan, and it was chaos. My Mom wanted us all to order together, and with 9 people we overwhelmed the CM. To make matters a little more complicated my DSis decided there wasn’t anything she wanted here, and she went over to Columbia Harbor House. It was also at this time that I noticed we were short 1 child. Little did I know that this would happen again later in the week! Luckily this time we found Sally in line with My Aunt and Uncle on the other end of Pecos Bill’s. Whew! Our CM was really frustrated with us and actually YELLED at Ramon. No matter how much I tried to be prepared, sometimes things just didn’t work out as planned! I had printed out all the menu’s and Mack, Sally and I had picked out what we wanted. I tried to get Ramon to do the same.... Oh well, we did get better at this later on. The food was ok, and we did enjoy the fixin’s bar. I would have liked to have had containers to put the fixins in to take back to the table, but we managed by putting stuff on napkins. The seating was plentiful, and we had a nice corner in the last section. We found that we just had way too much food and most of our deserts ended up in the cooler.

After eating we headed out of MK and to the monorail. Somehow we got separated and McQueen and I were in our own car. McQueen LOVED the monorail! There was a father and his daughter in our car, and when they left the father handed us a mouse ears hat. Said his daughter didn’t want it. McQueen’s face lit up when he saw it, and against my better judgment, I put them on him.

We took the monorail to the Contemporary, reunited with the rest of our group, took the elevator to the first level, and walked to the bus stop.

Up next……Which park did we take the bus to? Would we make it to all 4 parks? Would McQueen wake up in time to see his first visit to the park?

 

[mickeystoontown]

No need to apologize for making us wait for an update. I read the hint about somebody having a "wipe out". What's up with that?

I've started a trip report too. We surprised our son with a trip to WDW last August and, since I was getting antsy waiting on our next WDW vacation, I decided to start a trip report. Hope you'll head over for a read.

 

[msce2]

No need to apologize for making us wait for an update. I read the hint about somebody having a "wipe out". What's up with that?

I've started a trip report too. We surprised our son with a trip to WDW last August and, since I was getting antsy waiting on our next WDW vacation, I decided to start a trip report. Hope you'll head over for a read.

Thank you for reading!!!

We will get to the wipe outs later, and there was more than one!

I will definitely check out your report! And I'm so jealous that you're headed down in a month!!! Do you have any extra room in your luggage????

 

[msce2]

So where did the bus take us? ANIMAL KINGDOM!

With our lofty goal of hitting all 4 parks in one day, we decided that we really only had time for 1 ride. McQueen fell asleep on the bus ride over, and remained asleep during the transfer back to his stroller.

So my Mom said she would keep him with her while the rest of us headed to “It’s tough to be a bug”.

The entry to this ride has amazing carvings in the walls. It’s a really cute 3D show, and has some interesting special effects that leave you feeling .….buggy. We did sightsee a little bit, and the kids loved looking at the various animals.

So we were off again and this time on our way to Hollywood Studios (AKA MGM). Now 6 years ago, I was pregnant and not able to ride most of the “fun” rides. First on the list…..Tower of Terror! My Mom and Sis took Sally and McQueen over to do Muppets. This time McQueen put the glasses on right away, and they both really enjoyed the show! The wait time for TOT was posted as 30min, but it really looked like it would be shorter, and sure enough we didn’t wait more than 10min. This is a crazy ride, and I held on for dear life!! After TOT we went to Rockin Rollercoaster, and the posted time was 45min, however we figured we’d try the single rider line. The wait was not long at all, and we flew by all the people standing in line. I was so nervous, but found out I LOVED it, and it was the first ride of many! It was time to meet up with the rest of our group, since we needed to see if our room was ready, and we had a 5:15pm ADR at Teppen Edo’s in Epcot. As we walked toward the entrance we got to see the tail end of the “Block Party Bash” parade. This was loud and fun, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. We noticed the sky starting to get really dark, and heard some thunder in the distance. Who knew this would tell the tale for the next 5 days.


Somehow the only pics I have from MGM. Again, we have video, but no pics.

We walked over to the boat dock and waited a few minutes for the next boat. On a side note, not that my kids were perfectly behaved the entire time, but there was a little boy who was probably around 7 or 8 who was running back and forth up and down the “exit” line. He kept slamming the metal gate, and screaming. His family just watched him do it, and were laughing and talking to each other. While it might not have bothered them, it very clearly bothered the elderly couple in line behind us.

While on the boat, we called Beach Club, and were told our room was ready. As planned, my Mom and Sis got off at Beach Club dock and went to clean our room. My Aunt, Uncle and cousin also went to unpack.

The rest of us stayed on the boat and got off at Epcot. Since we had a little over an hour until our ADR, we decided to walk around. As we were walking around the countries, the skies opened and it began to torrentially rain. We broke out our ponchos and decided to head to Norway to ride the Maelstrom. Of course a lot of people had the same idea and it was a little crowded. However this is a quick moving ride, and we only waited about 20-25min. They really should redesign the short movie at the end of the ride. You have to stand at the closed doors until the movie ends, and when they open, most people just walk through the seats to the exit. They also make you walk through the entire store instead of allowing you to exit. By the time we managed to exit the store, we needed to hustle to get to our ADR.

Teppen Edo was definitely a little difficult to find, as there is construction going on, and not a lot of signage. But we managed to find it on time. It was a comedy of errors though, as we couldn’t find the stroller parking, couldn’t find the elevator and then 2 of the kids had to go to the bathroom. We finally managed to get checked in, and were given a pager. We only waited a couple of minutes and we were taken to a back room with only 1 other table. It was very private and quiet, which was nice. Since we were a party of 9, we had our own table. The waiters here were amazing! They really took care to make sure our drinks were always filled and that we had everything we needed. They explained to us what was allowed on the dining plan. 3 of us had the steak and shrimp, 2 had the chicken and shrimp, and my sis had the scallops. The kids both had the shrimp since we were told if they ordered the Tempura it would be cooked in the kitchen and not at our table. They brought us out warm washcloths to clean our hands. And then our chef came. He was a lot of fun, and did a lot of “Mickey” tricks. The kids loved it, ok, us adults had a great time too! The food was very good! My only complaint was that the steak had a lot of gristle. Although it might just have been the piece I got. The shrimp was awesome, and my Sis said the scallops were perfectly cooked. The dipping sauces were interesting, and it was nice to be able to sample each one. It was one of our best meals of the trip!!! I would recommend this to anyone!!!

After our meal, the plan was to check out our room at BCV, have our bags delivered and then over to MK for extra magic hours. It was open until midnight. We split up - Ramon, Mack, Sally, McQueen and I hurried over to BCV since it was thundering and lightning. We walked into the Beach Club and took the elevator to the 4th floor.

We got off and all the rooms were in the 4000’s. We were in the wrong hotel. LOL! In my defense, it’s been 6 years since we’ve been there. We finally ended up getting to the Villas (the big sea green building) and to the correct room #442.

It took quite awhile for our bags to be delivered (we did have 2 full carts). By the time they came, it was still storming, and everyone was exhausted. So we ended up staying in the rest of the evening.

We were going to use our snack credits at MK, but since we didn’t make it back we headed down to Beach Club Marketplace. It was packed!!! And for some reason always smells like burnt plastic? But they do have amazing cakes and pastries. The 2 kids got gelato and Sally got a Mickey bar, and they seemed to like it a lot. We got the cheesecake, chocolate cake, carrot cake and a rice crispie treat dipped in chocolate with Mickey sprinkles. They were really good, although were beat later in the week by the Boardwalk Bakery! We did get to see the Illuminations fireworks from the balcony. This was exciting for the kids, although they were a little disappointed they didn’t get to try out the pool. I had foolishly assured them we would get to go to the pool everyday.

Up next…..What’s in store for Day 2? Does the rain stop?

 

[mickeystoontown]

Great update! I understand why you guys were so tired by the end of the day. How the heck did you go so many places in just one day? We usually stick to one park per day and are there from sun up to sun down.

I wish my 12 year old was an adventurous eater so we could eat at Teppen Edo. Every time I see it, I wish I could make an ADR there.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Thank you for reading!!!

We will get to the wipe outs later, and there was more than one!

I will definitely check out your report! And I'm so jealous that you're headed down in a month!!! Do you have any extra room in your luggage????

I hope you get a chance to come over for a read. If I had a piece of luggage for everybody who wants to "hide out" in the trunk of my car, I'd have at least a dozen extra pieces. But, hey, what's one more? Come on!