sbnuggie
05-16-2007, 09:44 PM
Trip Report
Ok folks here is my trip report. I’m not really a fan of the supersized trip reports that some people post as it can become very tiring to read after a while so I’ll try and keep this as brief as possible:
Travel dates: May 1 – May 9, 2007
Travel method: Plane, United Airlines then DME
Resort: Port Orleans Riverside, building 39 Aligator Bayou
Accommodations: 2 connecting standard rooms with double beds, trundle and a crib
Ages Represented in Group: Mid 50’s, Mid 30’s, Twin 5yr olds and a 20 Month old
WDW Experience Represented in Group: 1 Grandma been there 4x in past 20 yrs, 1 grandma 1x 3years ago, everyone else is a newbie.
Comments: We have all been to DL numerous times and we are veterans of the DL Resort, so we were looking forward to visiting the “World”.
Cast of characters:
Grandma #1 (GMA1): 50 something, in an ECV and oxygen dependant and my mother. She paid for the entire trip as she has always wanted to take her grandkids to WDW. Presents some logistical hurdles for travel. Been to WDW 4 times in past 20 years or so, last visit in the mid 90’s before her health problems.
Grandma #2 (GMA2): 50 something and my mother in law. Asked by GMA1 to come along and help with the kids. Invaluable with her help with the kids. Been to WDW 1x in 2004.
Me: 37 yr old father of 3. Been to WDW 1x in the mid 80’s with my mom (GMA1), barely remember the trip. The main planner for this trip.
DW: My loving and patient wife. Never been to WDW but loves DL.
DD1: 5yr old daughter, twin. Been to DL every year of her life thanks to her mother, loves all things Disney, especially Cinderella.
DD2: 5yr old daughter, twin. Been to DL every year of her life thanks to her mother, loves all things Disney, especially Aurora and Pocahantas.
DS: 20 Month old son. My boy, happy about everything, waves at everybody and is already trying to kiss girls (that’s my boy:D …………………….).
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Day 1 – Travel Day, Tuesday May 1, 2007
My wife and I live in the Sacramento Area while the grandmothers still live in the San Francisco Bay Area which is about 75 Miles away from us. Due to the kids and my mom’s health issues we decided that a direct flight to Orlando would be best. Out of all of the airports in the SF Bay Area and Sacramento, we could only find 1, a United flight. When we originally booked the flight back in August of 2006 it was scheduled to depart at 11:25 am which would put is into Orlando at a reasonable time of around 7:30 PM. Traveling with youngsters that is a good thing. Unfortunately, as our travel date got closer, United kept bumping the flight time up (grrrrrrrrrrrrr), to the current departure time of 2:25 PM. Oh boy, this is going to be a long day.
We drove to the Bay area the day before and stayed at GMA2’s house. On travel day we left for SFO in two cars, my minivan loaded with everyone and then Grandpa followed us in his truck with our luggage. We got to SFO in no time, I dropped everyone off at the curb, Grandpa and I unloaded the 7 suitecases (all with our yellow DME tags), I flagged down a porter and he escorted everyone inside to the United Counter while I drove the van to long term parking. I fully expected and planned that we would have to wait for me to return from long term parking to check in. When I got back 30 minutes later, much to my surprise my wife had us all checked in with boarding pass and all, through security and at the gate with about an hour to spare. So far so good.
This was my kids first flight on an airplane. My son fell asleep while the plane was taxing and DD’s were excited. We took off about 20 minutes late but no big deal. DS slept first 1.5 hours which was great. Had plenty of activities and DVD player for DD’s and they were all angels on the flight, not one single problem. Thank you lord.
We landed at MCO at 1047 PM. Last one’s off the plane and down to DME. There was no line and numerous castmembers milling about. Once we got off the elevator one skipped right over to us and helped find our way. Checked in at the counter and we were directed to a Bus. We were on the road by 11:15 with 2 other families from our flight, all of us going to POFQ or POR, wow that was fast. We got to the resort and checked in by midnight when we hit our first snag.
Check in was smooth and we had reserved 2 connecting rooms with one of them being a disabled access room so that we could all be together and help my mom when she needed it. Both rooms were to have two double beds in each room with me, the wife and kids in one room and both grandma’s in the second room. They asked if we wanted the luggage delivered in the middle of the night or to call Bell Services in the morning, I said we would call. The front desk castmember, Jose, was great and doubled checked to make sure that the rooms did connect and had double beds. We were in building 80 (Acadian House) and he directed us where to go. My mom had rented an ECV from a local vendor and it was there waiting. Jose gave us directions and away we went. Got a little lost as POR is big but we made it to the room at about 12:30 am. We opened the door and uh oh, one of the rooms had a king bed. Not gonna work. Now the kids are getting tired and cranky. Call to Jose at the front desk, they have to work some things out and call us back. 30 minutes later they call back saying we would be in building 39 in the Alligator Bayou and Jose would be right over to give us our new keys and show us where it is. 2 Am, still no Jose, the manager at the front desk says he went to go get a cart but must be lost or something. 2:10 AM Jose shows up, apologized, gave us our keys and escorted us to building 39. I was fuming mad but my wife made me hold back, there is no reason it should take an hour and 40 minutes for them to get us a new room. The kicker was when we got there our luggage was in the new room!!! How did our luggage make it before we did? OH well, we got everyone in bed and asleep by 245 AM (1145 Ca time).
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Day 2 – Rest Day and EPCOT - Wedensday May 2, 2007
Dang it sure is Hot and Humid, Highs in the low 90’s. Today we slept in until about 10am, everyone got up and dressed. We ate at the Riverside Mill food court at about 11 am when they had started serving lunch. It took about an hour for our group to eat. This was a sleep in day and maybe go to EP depending on how the kids were after the long flight and time change. I felt that we should’ve stayed at the resort and rest but was promptly overruled by the wife. We went to EP. We got there around 1ish and toured the Future World portion on the right side only. We had no set plans and just toured freestyle. Spaceship earth, saw the Nemo ride, the kids loved it and it is a great effect. We skipped the land and the crowds for Soarin as we have ridden it a lot out here in DL. Next was Figmant and Journey into the imagination, very cute and the kids loved it. Due to the heat and humidity and long journey we were all getting pretty tired and decided to eat dinner and call it a day. We ate at Sunshine Grill in the Land at about 5:15 and were back at our Room by 7:30, kids got a bath/shower and we were all in bed by 9 pm as we had a big day planned the next day.
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Day 3 – Magic Kingdom – Thursday May 3, 2007
Dang it sure is Hot and Humid, Highs in the low 90’s. This was going to be the longest day for us during our entire trip and we knew it ahead of time. We had CRT resi’s at 8:55 am for breakfast and this is an EMH for MK today. So we were all up dressed and at the bus stop by 7am, it was no easy task but we got to the MK by rope drop at 8am!! We rushed into Fantasyland and was able to get a few rides in before heading to the castle. After a short wait, photo’s with Cindi we went upstairs and ate breakfast. Plenty of photo op’s with the kids and I burned through about 200 digital photo’s. My son really took after Belle, I guess he’s a brunette guy. The only disappointment is that we had to have two separate table for our family but they were right next to each other but for some reason we couldn’t just push them together, oh well, no biggie. After breakfast we headed out for the rest of MK, due to the heat/humidity, ages in our group we soon discovered that we were not the fastest touring group by far. We finished up with what few rides we had left in Fantasy land and headed over to Liberty Square and toured a bit there hitting HM and the Riverboat cruise, then off to Splash Mt and Big Thunder. It was around 1ish or so and we desperately needed to get out of the heat and GMA1 loves the Country Bear Jamboree so we hit that, I was told it was a good show after I woke up from my nap ;-). As we walked out the Parade was starting so we got great front row seats for that. After the parade we walked over to Adventure Land and rode the Carpets, Tiki Room and Pirates. Our group hit a little snafu and we wasted about an hour at Pirates looking for each other after we got split up so we started to run short on time as it was getting close to 5 PM. Wanting to avoid the Dinner “rush” we decided it was time to eat and decided to skip MK version of Jungle Cruise. Since we had not been in Tomorrowland yet we decided to eat at Cosmic Ray’s. Had dinner and were done by 6:30 ish, decided to ride Space MT but it was broke down, we did Buzz ( I like DL’s a lot better because the guns come off), the TTA (I love this thing), Laugh Floor and re-checked on Space MT but it was still closed. By now it was getting dark and we got some seats in the hub area for Spectromagic about 20 minutes before showtime. Saw the Parade and then milled around waiting for Wishes. Saw that and the park was officially closed. My wife and GMA2 decided they were going to shop on Main Street she was going to keep DS since he was asleep in the stroller by now. Myself and GMA1 along with the twins were going to head back to the resort.
This is where we witnessed a very ugly event. I knew it was going to be busy at the end of a theme park day but wow. It was total gridlock walking down Main Street so we decided to hang out in the hub by the TL bridge for about half an hour until we were shooed away by some CM’s. We then headed to the bus stop, as we exited the Park it became total gridlock near the bus stops. No one was moving and everyone was in line for the busses. This of course made for some very short tempers. People were yelling at each other and it was a very ugly scene. This was the first time I was glad that we were with GMA1, being that she is in an ECV we were able to duck off to the side and use a special line for Handicap. At first I was feeling guilty as I looked back at the throngs and one lady even yelled at us saying that there was a line. I just ignored her staying with GMA1 and her ECV. As we were waiting for the bus the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen at a Theme Park happened. In the line for the POP Century resort bus, which is just across from the POR line a fight broke out between two women. They were pushing and shoving and then the fists and hair pulling, then the respective families jumped in and it was a melee for a good minute until Disney Employee’s and eventually security showed up to break it up. The mass of humanity was pushing away from the fight and people were getting pushed up against the bars for the line’s and kids were screaming. That is when I was glad we were in our own separate line. Just then our bus showed up and we were out of there. That by far was the worst experience I’ve had anywhere with any of my kids, bar none. As we were driving away I saw people who were involved in the fight being put into the back of a couple of police cars that showed up. We made it back to the room around 11:30 and the twins fell right to sleep, and so did dad. Because we moved so slow through MK we never made it to Toontown or hit a few of the major rides but all in all we enjoyed MK but decided that we liked our DL better. It seemed that the MK did not have as much attention to detail, the rides seemed worn down a little bit and the place seemed a bit dirtier. Just my $.02.
Day 4 – Rest Day – Friday May 4, 2007
Dang it sure is Hot and Humid, Highs in the low 90’s. Today we all slept in as the plan for the day was pretty laid back. The only thing we had planned was the twins had reservations at Tea Party with Alice at the GF. We had thought that we would get up mid morning, eat then go to Downtown Disney for shopping then to GF for the tea party then back to the hotel to get ready to eat dinner at Chef Mickey’s. We slept in but my mom woke up with a horrible cold, she had felt it coming on the days leading up to the trip but the past couple of days of hard charging wore her down and it turns out she had a respiratory infection. She called the front desk and turns out there is a medical clinic that Disney contracts with. They came and picked her up at the front lobby and took her down to the clinic which was somewhere close by, she was gone a total of three hours so she missed the GF but she went back and got plenty of rest and she felt much better. They gave her a pretty powerful antibiotic injection and that really helped her. The rest of us decided to take a bus to Downtown Disney. We got to the bus stop at 11:00 and a bus didn’t show up until noon. Turns out they have “upgraded” all of the buses the past few days with a GPS system and networked them all but the system was giving them fits. This was ongoing the whole week we were there. Needless to say we didn’t get to DD until 1220 or so which only left us about 20 minutes to shop as we needed to be at the GF by 1:15 to check the girls in at the Tea Party. Me and my pocketbook were happy, DW and GMA2 were not. We got to the GF just in time and sent the twins off to Tea with Alice, they had a GREAT time. DW, GMA2 myself and DS toured around the GF and ate at the Gasparilla Grill and Games. We picked the twins up at 2:30 and headed back to POR for a quick swim then get ready for Chef Mickey’s at 6:20. With the travel times involved with catching busses/Monorails etc this was frustrating for the kids since they only got to swim for about 45 minutes. We made it to Chef Mickey’s, including my mom who was feeling rested and better and had a great meal. Got back to the room around 8:30. My wife and I had planned to go to Pleasure Island this night. But by the time we got back, got the kids showered for the night and in bed it was 9:30 and we were tired. The heat was taking it’s toll on us. We decided to just go to the POR bar, River Roost and there was a very funny piano player whose name escapes me right now. He put on a great show and we were back in the room asleep by midnight.
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Day 5 – Saturday May 5,2007 – EPCOT, sort of………..
Dang it sure is Hot and Humid, Highs in the low 90’s but I think it’s actually hotter today. The plan is for the rest of EPCOT today with Illuminations to top off the night. We were up and at and at Future World for the Rope drop, we then proceeded to do the “left” side of FW, Mission Space, Test Track, Universe of Energy, we did those and we had Lunch Resi’s at Coral Reef for 1130. Due to the heat and us being tired we had our first child meltdown just before lunch. One of the twins just lost it crying etc, this of course set off the other two so we took some time in Living with the Sea’s looking at the Aquarium before going in for lunch. They all calmed down except for DS, he was hot and tired and he let everyone in the restaurant feel his pain. We tried for a few minutes to calm him down but no luck, he was done. I told my wife what to order me and I took DS back to the hotel. GMA2 was going to follow me after lunch with the twins while GMA1 and DW toured WS. I got back to POR at 1 pm, put him in his crib and he was out until 5 pm!!!!!! Twins showed up about 2:30 with GMA2 and they went right to sleep. GMA2 was at EP and WS just 2 years ago so she really didn’t feel like going all the way back but didn’t want to stay in the room so she did her own walking tour of POFQ and POR. Spoke to DW about 5PM and we decided then we weren’t going to drag the kids back to EP when they woke up. GMA1 was also wilting under the heat. This was by far the hottest day of our trip, 95 degrees (Turns out that tied the record temp for the day). DW & GMA1 came back in time for the kids to just waking up, we swam for about an hour then ate at the Food Court at the hotel and in bed by 8:30 or so. GMA2 decided that she was going back to EP to see Illuminations and she went off on her own, the rest of us missed Illuminations and I missed WS. Not a big deal as long as the young one’s are getting rested, nothing will ruin your vacation like tired and cranky kids. I’m glad we decided not to go back. Maybe next time.
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Day 6 – Sunday May 6, 2007 – Animal Kingdom
I can’t believe how hot it is, jeez – e – peete, we came in May to escape the Florida Summer Heat, not to experience it. We’ve really hit a stride when it comes to waking up and getting to a theme park in the morning. We do great all the way up until about lunch time, then we have to power it down a bit. Today is Animal Kingdom. My kids love, love, love the zoo so they have been looking forward to this park for a long time. Once again we make it by rope drop and we follow the UOG touring plan to the exact letter and it works GREAT! It is a busy day and we got on everything we wanted, my twins even rode Everest! We had lunch at the Tusker house at 11:30 and got a nice table inside right under an A/C vent which was heaven. We took our time eating lunch to escape the heat and this really reinvigorated us all. Did the Safari ride then caught the Lion King show which was great. The Nemo show was cancelled for the day due to “Technical Difficulties” so we missed it. We looked at the Tree of life for about 30 minutes and were still amazed at all of the animals carved into that thing. We caught the Jungle Jammin Parade and then it hit……………No sooner did the last float pass us by when we heard a loud thunder clap. The gods must’ve been angered by all of the celebrating because about 30 seconds after the thunder came the biggest downpour I’ve ever seen in my life!!! It went from the low 90’s to cool, rainy and breezy for the next hour. We all huddled inside of a little shop as we watched thousands of people make a mad dash for the exits. The rain let up at about 5 pm and it was so nice outside, still overcast but finally, it was tolerable outside. DW and GMA1 & 2 did some shopping while me and the kids walked around the tree of life again until closing. The park was an absolute ghost town. We had dinner plans at BOMA at the AKL, we had resi’s for 7 pm, we got there at 6:30 and asked if they could squeeze us in early, they couldn’t and we were seated at 7:10. Dinner was very good, and we were done by 8:15 and back in our room by 9:15, asleep by 9:16.
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Day 7 – Monday May 7, 2007 – MGM Studios
Finally, a nice day!!! Not to hot and not to cold, kind of smoky but no more mid to low 90’s. We slept in just a little today to give the kids more rest time but we were at MGM by 10:00. All of us were able to do the big rides except Star Tours, we’ve ridden it a million times in DL so skipped it here but I loved the outside theming. We at lunch at the Backlot Express and found it edible, not great. Toured some of the streets and took in the last show of the Light Motor stunt show, which was great. We had to cut our day short as we had 5 pm resi’s for the Hoop Dee Doo Revue. Had to leave the park right after the stunt show and we made it just in time. The kids loved the show, I loved the all you can drink beer ;-). A fun time had by all. When we were done the group split up. GMA1 wanted to go back and see WDW version of Fantasmic, GMA2 and DW needed to go shopping. I had a nice buzz going from all that free beer and knew I would crash so I took the kids back to the hotel to go to bed, while the others did their thing. Turns out GMA1 is pretty quick in that ECV and the WDW transportation system is very good for people with disabilities as she was able to see both Fantasmic and Illuminations that night. She explained to me how she did it the next day but I don’t recall just now, I just shook my head and said good for you.
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Day 8 – Monday May 8, 2007 – Day before we leave, Freestyle touring day.
This is the last day before we leave. We had no set plans for the day except for GMA1 had booked the “Gardens of the World” tour at EP from 9am – 12pm. She was up and out the door before the rest of us were up. We slept in until about 9:30 or so, ate breakfast at the Food Court and decided to go back to the MK to let the kids ride some more rides and catch all the little things we Missed on our first day. We did Mickey’s toontown which was neat, I like DL’s version better though. We were able to ride Space Mountain as it was not broken this time. Again, DL’s is far superior since it’s redo a couple of years ago. GMA1 met up with us after her tour. We took the train around the park as our last ride, I must say I was a little disappointed in that you don’t get to see much of the park from the train like you do in DL. Oh well, the kids sure love the train and as we were getting off the Flag Retreat ceremony was just starting so we saw that and it was a fitting end to our stay and trip. Originally, I had plans for us to eat at Ohana’s this night. But we were all tired, we still had to pack since our flight tomorrow leaves at 7:05 am thus we had to be at the DME bus stop at 4:00 am we decided to eat at Boatwrights at the hotel. We had an excellent meal, we all took our time and reminisced about the trip and talked about our favorite parts, it was a great meal and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. GMA1 commented that she thought it was the best dinner of the trip. Back to the room to start packing. The last snag of the trip happened here. We went to pickup our packages that we had delivered from MGM the day before. We were missing DD1 and I’s ride photo from TOT. We told them about the snafu and they called MGM and they said they would call back the next day, turns out they never could locate our ride photo and so we missed that. Advice for next time, take your ride photo’s with you. I called bell services and scheduled a 3:30 am pick up of our bags. DW and I got done packing all of our stuff at Midnight!!!!!
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Day 9 – Wednesday May 9, 2007 – Our trip back home
This is gonna be a rough day. DME sent us our letter the day before saying we needed to be out front of the hotel by 4 am for our pickup. OOF, trying telling 5yr old twins and a 20 month old at 3:30 that it was time to get up. Much to my surprise, they all sprang right up and were actually pleasant. I wondered how long it would last. Bell services arrived at 3:30 sharp and took all of our bags. The night before we had used our remaining snack credits to get apples/bananas/cookies/muffin for breakfast. We made it to the bus stop at 4 am and there was another family and a couple waiting. Promptly at 4 am the DME bus showed up. The driver loaded all of our bags and away we went. Surprisingly the kids are doing great. DW and I are spent though since we were up until midnight packing. We made a few stops at other resorts and there was no one there. We got to MCO at about 5 am. This is where the magic stopped. The driver stopped at our drop off point and literally just threw the bags up onto the curb and took off. When you get off the bus there is a pile of bags you have to sort through. Since we had 7 bags to check plus all of our carryon’s and my moms need for a wheelchair I had a lot to juggle. There wasn’t a porter in sight so I rented two “smarte carts”, loaded all the bags up and went to the top floor to check in with United. This was kind of a pain because United makes you weigh your bag before getting in line, you then push all of your bags to the not so nice front counter lady who will tag it all. Then, you push all your bags over to one of the new TSA scanners and they scan them. For me trying to juggle all of this, plus being super tired, I was starting to get very cranky and I let the United lady know how I felt. Surprisingly, the kids are doing a lot better attitude wise then daddy is. Through security and onto the plane. 5 hours and 15 minutes later we are back in San Francisco. The kids were great on the plane, DS actually slept for the first 2 hours, twins just watched movie after movie. I can’t say how relieved and happy I was that the kids did so well on the plane, I was really worried because they are very active. Father in law was outside waiting. Loaded up his truck with all the bags while DW stayed in the terminal with the kids, got a ride to long term parking, picked up the ol’ minivan and picked up the kids, DW and GMA1 (GMA2 rode back with Father in law). Got back to Petaluma (small town 40 miles north of SFO where we are all from) about Noon and our vacation was officially over with. We stayed the night and returned to Sacramento the next day.
*****
Final Thoughts:
I think the twins at 5 are about the perfect age to do a cross country trip like this, my son, I don’t think so. He was always in a stroller and this frustrated him. We probably won’t return until he is at least 5.
WDW is huge!!!! If you’re a Disney nut, this is the place for you. I liked how everything was so clean and neat. 8 – 10 days is definitely not enough time but who has the money to afford such long trips????? Not me.
We loved POR. What a beautiful resort, I would definitely stay again.
Next time we plan on eating at the theme park we are at for dinner. You waste too much time traveling to other parks/resorts to do dinner.
Don’t overplan. WDW is so huge and can be overwhelming for kids. I thought I had built in sufficient rest time but I didn’t. If you’re taking kids, expect that you are not going to be traveling as fast as others and the kids are going to get tired. It seemed that we did the best on the days we were at a park from 9 am to 6 pm and in bed by 8 or 9.
Be flexible in your planning. We did use the UOG touring plans and they work great. We found that following the plan up until about lunch time was perfect and then we kind of had to flex on what we were going to do. As it turned out, for everyone’s sanity I missed all of WS and illuminations so the kids could get rest. I’m not one bit upset about this because I knew they needed it and I may have planned a bit more then we could handle. I’ll catch it next time.
DL vs WDW. Hard to compare the two as they are so different and it’s been done before so no need to bring it up again other then I would say that I like DL more then MK. It’s tough to describe so I won’t. But the rest of WDW is far superior then the DL resort and I would love to go back every year.
Take care.
Ok folks here is my trip report. I’m not really a fan of the supersized trip reports that some people post as it can become very tiring to read after a while so I’ll try and keep this as brief as possible:
Travel dates: May 1 – May 9, 2007
Travel method: Plane, United Airlines then DME
Resort: Port Orleans Riverside, building 39 Aligator Bayou
Accommodations: 2 connecting standard rooms with double beds, trundle and a crib
Ages Represented in Group: Mid 50’s, Mid 30’s, Twin 5yr olds and a 20 Month old
WDW Experience Represented in Group: 1 Grandma been there 4x in past 20 yrs, 1 grandma 1x 3years ago, everyone else is a newbie.
Comments: We have all been to DL numerous times and we are veterans of the DL Resort, so we were looking forward to visiting the “World”.
Cast of characters:
Grandma #1 (GMA1): 50 something, in an ECV and oxygen dependant and my mother. She paid for the entire trip as she has always wanted to take her grandkids to WDW. Presents some logistical hurdles for travel. Been to WDW 4 times in past 20 years or so, last visit in the mid 90’s before her health problems.
Grandma #2 (GMA2): 50 something and my mother in law. Asked by GMA1 to come along and help with the kids. Invaluable with her help with the kids. Been to WDW 1x in 2004.
Me: 37 yr old father of 3. Been to WDW 1x in the mid 80’s with my mom (GMA1), barely remember the trip. The main planner for this trip.
DW: My loving and patient wife. Never been to WDW but loves DL.
DD1: 5yr old daughter, twin. Been to DL every year of her life thanks to her mother, loves all things Disney, especially Cinderella.
DD2: 5yr old daughter, twin. Been to DL every year of her life thanks to her mother, loves all things Disney, especially Aurora and Pocahantas.
DS: 20 Month old son. My boy, happy about everything, waves at everybody and is already trying to kiss girls (that’s my boy:D …………………….).
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Day 1 – Travel Day, Tuesday May 1, 2007
My wife and I live in the Sacramento Area while the grandmothers still live in the San Francisco Bay Area which is about 75 Miles away from us. Due to the kids and my mom’s health issues we decided that a direct flight to Orlando would be best. Out of all of the airports in the SF Bay Area and Sacramento, we could only find 1, a United flight. When we originally booked the flight back in August of 2006 it was scheduled to depart at 11:25 am which would put is into Orlando at a reasonable time of around 7:30 PM. Traveling with youngsters that is a good thing. Unfortunately, as our travel date got closer, United kept bumping the flight time up (grrrrrrrrrrrrr), to the current departure time of 2:25 PM. Oh boy, this is going to be a long day.
We drove to the Bay area the day before and stayed at GMA2’s house. On travel day we left for SFO in two cars, my minivan loaded with everyone and then Grandpa followed us in his truck with our luggage. We got to SFO in no time, I dropped everyone off at the curb, Grandpa and I unloaded the 7 suitecases (all with our yellow DME tags), I flagged down a porter and he escorted everyone inside to the United Counter while I drove the van to long term parking. I fully expected and planned that we would have to wait for me to return from long term parking to check in. When I got back 30 minutes later, much to my surprise my wife had us all checked in with boarding pass and all, through security and at the gate with about an hour to spare. So far so good.
This was my kids first flight on an airplane. My son fell asleep while the plane was taxing and DD’s were excited. We took off about 20 minutes late but no big deal. DS slept first 1.5 hours which was great. Had plenty of activities and DVD player for DD’s and they were all angels on the flight, not one single problem. Thank you lord.
We landed at MCO at 1047 PM. Last one’s off the plane and down to DME. There was no line and numerous castmembers milling about. Once we got off the elevator one skipped right over to us and helped find our way. Checked in at the counter and we were directed to a Bus. We were on the road by 11:15 with 2 other families from our flight, all of us going to POFQ or POR, wow that was fast. We got to the resort and checked in by midnight when we hit our first snag.
Check in was smooth and we had reserved 2 connecting rooms with one of them being a disabled access room so that we could all be together and help my mom when she needed it. Both rooms were to have two double beds in each room with me, the wife and kids in one room and both grandma’s in the second room. They asked if we wanted the luggage delivered in the middle of the night or to call Bell Services in the morning, I said we would call. The front desk castmember, Jose, was great and doubled checked to make sure that the rooms did connect and had double beds. We were in building 80 (Acadian House) and he directed us where to go. My mom had rented an ECV from a local vendor and it was there waiting. Jose gave us directions and away we went. Got a little lost as POR is big but we made it to the room at about 12:30 am. We opened the door and uh oh, one of the rooms had a king bed. Not gonna work. Now the kids are getting tired and cranky. Call to Jose at the front desk, they have to work some things out and call us back. 30 minutes later they call back saying we would be in building 39 in the Alligator Bayou and Jose would be right over to give us our new keys and show us where it is. 2 Am, still no Jose, the manager at the front desk says he went to go get a cart but must be lost or something. 2:10 AM Jose shows up, apologized, gave us our keys and escorted us to building 39. I was fuming mad but my wife made me hold back, there is no reason it should take an hour and 40 minutes for them to get us a new room. The kicker was when we got there our luggage was in the new room!!! How did our luggage make it before we did? OH well, we got everyone in bed and asleep by 245 AM (1145 Ca time).
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Day 2 – Rest Day and EPCOT - Wedensday May 2, 2007
Dang it sure is Hot and Humid, Highs in the low 90’s. Today we slept in until about 10am, everyone got up and dressed. We ate at the Riverside Mill food court at about 11 am when they had started serving lunch. It took about an hour for our group to eat. This was a sleep in day and maybe go to EP depending on how the kids were after the long flight and time change. I felt that we should’ve stayed at the resort and rest but was promptly overruled by the wife. We went to EP. We got there around 1ish and toured the Future World portion on the right side only. We had no set plans and just toured freestyle. Spaceship earth, saw the Nemo ride, the kids loved it and it is a great effect. We skipped the land and the crowds for Soarin as we have ridden it a lot out here in DL. Next was Figmant and Journey into the imagination, very cute and the kids loved it. Due to the heat and humidity and long journey we were all getting pretty tired and decided to eat dinner and call it a day. We ate at Sunshine Grill in the Land at about 5:15 and were back at our Room by 7:30, kids got a bath/shower and we were all in bed by 9 pm as we had a big day planned the next day.
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Day 3 – Magic Kingdom – Thursday May 3, 2007
Dang it sure is Hot and Humid, Highs in the low 90’s. This was going to be the longest day for us during our entire trip and we knew it ahead of time. We had CRT resi’s at 8:55 am for breakfast and this is an EMH for MK today. So we were all up dressed and at the bus stop by 7am, it was no easy task but we got to the MK by rope drop at 8am!! We rushed into Fantasyland and was able to get a few rides in before heading to the castle. After a short wait, photo’s with Cindi we went upstairs and ate breakfast. Plenty of photo op’s with the kids and I burned through about 200 digital photo’s. My son really took after Belle, I guess he’s a brunette guy. The only disappointment is that we had to have two separate table for our family but they were right next to each other but for some reason we couldn’t just push them together, oh well, no biggie. After breakfast we headed out for the rest of MK, due to the heat/humidity, ages in our group we soon discovered that we were not the fastest touring group by far. We finished up with what few rides we had left in Fantasy land and headed over to Liberty Square and toured a bit there hitting HM and the Riverboat cruise, then off to Splash Mt and Big Thunder. It was around 1ish or so and we desperately needed to get out of the heat and GMA1 loves the Country Bear Jamboree so we hit that, I was told it was a good show after I woke up from my nap ;-). As we walked out the Parade was starting so we got great front row seats for that. After the parade we walked over to Adventure Land and rode the Carpets, Tiki Room and Pirates. Our group hit a little snafu and we wasted about an hour at Pirates looking for each other after we got split up so we started to run short on time as it was getting close to 5 PM. Wanting to avoid the Dinner “rush” we decided it was time to eat and decided to skip MK version of Jungle Cruise. Since we had not been in Tomorrowland yet we decided to eat at Cosmic Ray’s. Had dinner and were done by 6:30 ish, decided to ride Space MT but it was broke down, we did Buzz ( I like DL’s a lot better because the guns come off), the TTA (I love this thing), Laugh Floor and re-checked on Space MT but it was still closed. By now it was getting dark and we got some seats in the hub area for Spectromagic about 20 minutes before showtime. Saw the Parade and then milled around waiting for Wishes. Saw that and the park was officially closed. My wife and GMA2 decided they were going to shop on Main Street she was going to keep DS since he was asleep in the stroller by now. Myself and GMA1 along with the twins were going to head back to the resort.
This is where we witnessed a very ugly event. I knew it was going to be busy at the end of a theme park day but wow. It was total gridlock walking down Main Street so we decided to hang out in the hub by the TL bridge for about half an hour until we were shooed away by some CM’s. We then headed to the bus stop, as we exited the Park it became total gridlock near the bus stops. No one was moving and everyone was in line for the busses. This of course made for some very short tempers. People were yelling at each other and it was a very ugly scene. This was the first time I was glad that we were with GMA1, being that she is in an ECV we were able to duck off to the side and use a special line for Handicap. At first I was feeling guilty as I looked back at the throngs and one lady even yelled at us saying that there was a line. I just ignored her staying with GMA1 and her ECV. As we were waiting for the bus the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen at a Theme Park happened. In the line for the POP Century resort bus, which is just across from the POR line a fight broke out between two women. They were pushing and shoving and then the fists and hair pulling, then the respective families jumped in and it was a melee for a good minute until Disney Employee’s and eventually security showed up to break it up. The mass of humanity was pushing away from the fight and people were getting pushed up against the bars for the line’s and kids were screaming. That is when I was glad we were in our own separate line. Just then our bus showed up and we were out of there. That by far was the worst experience I’ve had anywhere with any of my kids, bar none. As we were driving away I saw people who were involved in the fight being put into the back of a couple of police cars that showed up. We made it back to the room around 11:30 and the twins fell right to sleep, and so did dad. Because we moved so slow through MK we never made it to Toontown or hit a few of the major rides but all in all we enjoyed MK but decided that we liked our DL better. It seemed that the MK did not have as much attention to detail, the rides seemed worn down a little bit and the place seemed a bit dirtier. Just my $.02.
Day 4 – Rest Day – Friday May 4, 2007
Dang it sure is Hot and Humid, Highs in the low 90’s. Today we all slept in as the plan for the day was pretty laid back. The only thing we had planned was the twins had reservations at Tea Party with Alice at the GF. We had thought that we would get up mid morning, eat then go to Downtown Disney for shopping then to GF for the tea party then back to the hotel to get ready to eat dinner at Chef Mickey’s. We slept in but my mom woke up with a horrible cold, she had felt it coming on the days leading up to the trip but the past couple of days of hard charging wore her down and it turns out she had a respiratory infection. She called the front desk and turns out there is a medical clinic that Disney contracts with. They came and picked her up at the front lobby and took her down to the clinic which was somewhere close by, she was gone a total of three hours so she missed the GF but she went back and got plenty of rest and she felt much better. They gave her a pretty powerful antibiotic injection and that really helped her. The rest of us decided to take a bus to Downtown Disney. We got to the bus stop at 11:00 and a bus didn’t show up until noon. Turns out they have “upgraded” all of the buses the past few days with a GPS system and networked them all but the system was giving them fits. This was ongoing the whole week we were there. Needless to say we didn’t get to DD until 1220 or so which only left us about 20 minutes to shop as we needed to be at the GF by 1:15 to check the girls in at the Tea Party. Me and my pocketbook were happy, DW and GMA2 were not. We got to the GF just in time and sent the twins off to Tea with Alice, they had a GREAT time. DW, GMA2 myself and DS toured around the GF and ate at the Gasparilla Grill and Games. We picked the twins up at 2:30 and headed back to POR for a quick swim then get ready for Chef Mickey’s at 6:20. With the travel times involved with catching busses/Monorails etc this was frustrating for the kids since they only got to swim for about 45 minutes. We made it to Chef Mickey’s, including my mom who was feeling rested and better and had a great meal. Got back to the room around 8:30. My wife and I had planned to go to Pleasure Island this night. But by the time we got back, got the kids showered for the night and in bed it was 9:30 and we were tired. The heat was taking it’s toll on us. We decided to just go to the POR bar, River Roost and there was a very funny piano player whose name escapes me right now. He put on a great show and we were back in the room asleep by midnight.
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Day 5 – Saturday May 5,2007 – EPCOT, sort of………..
Dang it sure is Hot and Humid, Highs in the low 90’s but I think it’s actually hotter today. The plan is for the rest of EPCOT today with Illuminations to top off the night. We were up and at and at Future World for the Rope drop, we then proceeded to do the “left” side of FW, Mission Space, Test Track, Universe of Energy, we did those and we had Lunch Resi’s at Coral Reef for 1130. Due to the heat and us being tired we had our first child meltdown just before lunch. One of the twins just lost it crying etc, this of course set off the other two so we took some time in Living with the Sea’s looking at the Aquarium before going in for lunch. They all calmed down except for DS, he was hot and tired and he let everyone in the restaurant feel his pain. We tried for a few minutes to calm him down but no luck, he was done. I told my wife what to order me and I took DS back to the hotel. GMA2 was going to follow me after lunch with the twins while GMA1 and DW toured WS. I got back to POR at 1 pm, put him in his crib and he was out until 5 pm!!!!!! Twins showed up about 2:30 with GMA2 and they went right to sleep. GMA2 was at EP and WS just 2 years ago so she really didn’t feel like going all the way back but didn’t want to stay in the room so she did her own walking tour of POFQ and POR. Spoke to DW about 5PM and we decided then we weren’t going to drag the kids back to EP when they woke up. GMA1 was also wilting under the heat. This was by far the hottest day of our trip, 95 degrees (Turns out that tied the record temp for the day). DW & GMA1 came back in time for the kids to just waking up, we swam for about an hour then ate at the Food Court at the hotel and in bed by 8:30 or so. GMA2 decided that she was going back to EP to see Illuminations and she went off on her own, the rest of us missed Illuminations and I missed WS. Not a big deal as long as the young one’s are getting rested, nothing will ruin your vacation like tired and cranky kids. I’m glad we decided not to go back. Maybe next time.
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Day 6 – Sunday May 6, 2007 – Animal Kingdom
I can’t believe how hot it is, jeez – e – peete, we came in May to escape the Florida Summer Heat, not to experience it. We’ve really hit a stride when it comes to waking up and getting to a theme park in the morning. We do great all the way up until about lunch time, then we have to power it down a bit. Today is Animal Kingdom. My kids love, love, love the zoo so they have been looking forward to this park for a long time. Once again we make it by rope drop and we follow the UOG touring plan to the exact letter and it works GREAT! It is a busy day and we got on everything we wanted, my twins even rode Everest! We had lunch at the Tusker house at 11:30 and got a nice table inside right under an A/C vent which was heaven. We took our time eating lunch to escape the heat and this really reinvigorated us all. Did the Safari ride then caught the Lion King show which was great. The Nemo show was cancelled for the day due to “Technical Difficulties” so we missed it. We looked at the Tree of life for about 30 minutes and were still amazed at all of the animals carved into that thing. We caught the Jungle Jammin Parade and then it hit……………No sooner did the last float pass us by when we heard a loud thunder clap. The gods must’ve been angered by all of the celebrating because about 30 seconds after the thunder came the biggest downpour I’ve ever seen in my life!!! It went from the low 90’s to cool, rainy and breezy for the next hour. We all huddled inside of a little shop as we watched thousands of people make a mad dash for the exits. The rain let up at about 5 pm and it was so nice outside, still overcast but finally, it was tolerable outside. DW and GMA1 & 2 did some shopping while me and the kids walked around the tree of life again until closing. The park was an absolute ghost town. We had dinner plans at BOMA at the AKL, we had resi’s for 7 pm, we got there at 6:30 and asked if they could squeeze us in early, they couldn’t and we were seated at 7:10. Dinner was very good, and we were done by 8:15 and back in our room by 9:15, asleep by 9:16.
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Day 7 – Monday May 7, 2007 – MGM Studios
Finally, a nice day!!! Not to hot and not to cold, kind of smoky but no more mid to low 90’s. We slept in just a little today to give the kids more rest time but we were at MGM by 10:00. All of us were able to do the big rides except Star Tours, we’ve ridden it a million times in DL so skipped it here but I loved the outside theming. We at lunch at the Backlot Express and found it edible, not great. Toured some of the streets and took in the last show of the Light Motor stunt show, which was great. We had to cut our day short as we had 5 pm resi’s for the Hoop Dee Doo Revue. Had to leave the park right after the stunt show and we made it just in time. The kids loved the show, I loved the all you can drink beer ;-). A fun time had by all. When we were done the group split up. GMA1 wanted to go back and see WDW version of Fantasmic, GMA2 and DW needed to go shopping. I had a nice buzz going from all that free beer and knew I would crash so I took the kids back to the hotel to go to bed, while the others did their thing. Turns out GMA1 is pretty quick in that ECV and the WDW transportation system is very good for people with disabilities as she was able to see both Fantasmic and Illuminations that night. She explained to me how she did it the next day but I don’t recall just now, I just shook my head and said good for you.
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Day 8 – Monday May 8, 2007 – Day before we leave, Freestyle touring day.
This is the last day before we leave. We had no set plans for the day except for GMA1 had booked the “Gardens of the World” tour at EP from 9am – 12pm. She was up and out the door before the rest of us were up. We slept in until about 9:30 or so, ate breakfast at the Food Court and decided to go back to the MK to let the kids ride some more rides and catch all the little things we Missed on our first day. We did Mickey’s toontown which was neat, I like DL’s version better though. We were able to ride Space Mountain as it was not broken this time. Again, DL’s is far superior since it’s redo a couple of years ago. GMA1 met up with us after her tour. We took the train around the park as our last ride, I must say I was a little disappointed in that you don’t get to see much of the park from the train like you do in DL. Oh well, the kids sure love the train and as we were getting off the Flag Retreat ceremony was just starting so we saw that and it was a fitting end to our stay and trip. Originally, I had plans for us to eat at Ohana’s this night. But we were all tired, we still had to pack since our flight tomorrow leaves at 7:05 am thus we had to be at the DME bus stop at 4:00 am we decided to eat at Boatwrights at the hotel. We had an excellent meal, we all took our time and reminisced about the trip and talked about our favorite parts, it was a great meal and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. GMA1 commented that she thought it was the best dinner of the trip. Back to the room to start packing. The last snag of the trip happened here. We went to pickup our packages that we had delivered from MGM the day before. We were missing DD1 and I’s ride photo from TOT. We told them about the snafu and they called MGM and they said they would call back the next day, turns out they never could locate our ride photo and so we missed that. Advice for next time, take your ride photo’s with you. I called bell services and scheduled a 3:30 am pick up of our bags. DW and I got done packing all of our stuff at Midnight!!!!!
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Day 9 – Wednesday May 9, 2007 – Our trip back home
This is gonna be a rough day. DME sent us our letter the day before saying we needed to be out front of the hotel by 4 am for our pickup. OOF, trying telling 5yr old twins and a 20 month old at 3:30 that it was time to get up. Much to my surprise, they all sprang right up and were actually pleasant. I wondered how long it would last. Bell services arrived at 3:30 sharp and took all of our bags. The night before we had used our remaining snack credits to get apples/bananas/cookies/muffin for breakfast. We made it to the bus stop at 4 am and there was another family and a couple waiting. Promptly at 4 am the DME bus showed up. The driver loaded all of our bags and away we went. Surprisingly the kids are doing great. DW and I are spent though since we were up until midnight packing. We made a few stops at other resorts and there was no one there. We got to MCO at about 5 am. This is where the magic stopped. The driver stopped at our drop off point and literally just threw the bags up onto the curb and took off. When you get off the bus there is a pile of bags you have to sort through. Since we had 7 bags to check plus all of our carryon’s and my moms need for a wheelchair I had a lot to juggle. There wasn’t a porter in sight so I rented two “smarte carts”, loaded all the bags up and went to the top floor to check in with United. This was kind of a pain because United makes you weigh your bag before getting in line, you then push all of your bags to the not so nice front counter lady who will tag it all. Then, you push all your bags over to one of the new TSA scanners and they scan them. For me trying to juggle all of this, plus being super tired, I was starting to get very cranky and I let the United lady know how I felt. Surprisingly, the kids are doing a lot better attitude wise then daddy is. Through security and onto the plane. 5 hours and 15 minutes later we are back in San Francisco. The kids were great on the plane, DS actually slept for the first 2 hours, twins just watched movie after movie. I can’t say how relieved and happy I was that the kids did so well on the plane, I was really worried because they are very active. Father in law was outside waiting. Loaded up his truck with all the bags while DW stayed in the terminal with the kids, got a ride to long term parking, picked up the ol’ minivan and picked up the kids, DW and GMA1 (GMA2 rode back with Father in law). Got back to Petaluma (small town 40 miles north of SFO where we are all from) about Noon and our vacation was officially over with. We stayed the night and returned to Sacramento the next day.
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Final Thoughts:
I think the twins at 5 are about the perfect age to do a cross country trip like this, my son, I don’t think so. He was always in a stroller and this frustrated him. We probably won’t return until he is at least 5.
WDW is huge!!!! If you’re a Disney nut, this is the place for you. I liked how everything was so clean and neat. 8 – 10 days is definitely not enough time but who has the money to afford such long trips????? Not me.
We loved POR. What a beautiful resort, I would definitely stay again.
Next time we plan on eating at the theme park we are at for dinner. You waste too much time traveling to other parks/resorts to do dinner.
Don’t overplan. WDW is so huge and can be overwhelming for kids. I thought I had built in sufficient rest time but I didn’t. If you’re taking kids, expect that you are not going to be traveling as fast as others and the kids are going to get tired. It seemed that we did the best on the days we were at a park from 9 am to 6 pm and in bed by 8 or 9.
Be flexible in your planning. We did use the UOG touring plans and they work great. We found that following the plan up until about lunch time was perfect and then we kind of had to flex on what we were going to do. As it turned out, for everyone’s sanity I missed all of WS and illuminations so the kids could get rest. I’m not one bit upset about this because I knew they needed it and I may have planned a bit more then we could handle. I’ll catch it next time.
DL vs WDW. Hard to compare the two as they are so different and it’s been done before so no need to bring it up again other then I would say that I like DL more then MK. It’s tough to describe so I won’t. But the rest of WDW is far superior then the DL resort and I would love to go back every year.
Take care.