barnaby's Unplanned 2010 trip, Day 1, Part 1

[barnaby]

This is my first trip report and I am doing it mostly for memory, so it may be a little rough around the edges. But I enjoy reading others, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Trip members:
Me, barnaby, 35 YO husband
Wife, age 35, soon to 36
Daughter, age 15
Son, age 9

This was kind of a last minute trip. My last trip was in March 2008, spring break and it was very crowded. We didn’t really have plans to vacation at all this summer, but my wife and I worked a little extra this summer and had some extra cash and we could use our Disney Reward dollars. Could of used the $ to put back into the house, but decided we hadn’t vacationed in awhile (since our last WDW trip) and we should say heck it and go. So we contacted Wendy from Magical Journeys at the end of July on a Saturday nite. She got right back to us, answered about 10 e-mail questions and after waiting a few days to get our Disney Reward card, we booked All-Star Sports for 6 nights, 7 days, arriving Sunday, August 22 and leaving on Saturday, August 28.

With the cost of flights and my fear of flying, we decided to make the drive again and this time to drive straight through. The original plan was to leave Saturday at around 4PM and arrive at WDW around 10AM on Sunday. But after figuring we would be tired that day and we wanted to maximize our park time, we decided to leave early Saturday morning arrive in the WDW area on Saturday nite and stay off-site for one nite.

Day -1 (Sat, Aug 21)
We packed up our Pathfinder the night before and woke early to leave home (Millville, NJ) at 2AM. We drove through the typically heavy traffic areas early enough to miss most traffic. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Florence, SC. This is the same one we had stopped at both ways when we drove down in March 2008. So after a late lunch, we continued south and arrived at the Magic Castle Inn and Suites in Kissimmee at around 9PM. This hotel is on Irlo Bronson Highway and is located about 15 mins from WDW. The place was clean, the staff was friendly, and it was inexpensive at just over 40 bucks with tax. With stops, the trip took about 19 hours. Thankfully, both kids and my wife are good travelers.
Highlight of the day was when the women behind the desk at the Magic Castle asked my son if he wanted the lights for the pool left on for a nighttime swim, because they usually close it around 10. Of course, he said yes and after 19 hours in a car after getting up at 2AM, my son and I were swimming at around 10:30 at night. He and I both enjoyed it. Nice relaxing end to the night.

Day 1 (Sun, Aug 22)
We got up at 7AM, grabbed some breakfast and headed over to the All-Star Sports Resort to check in. I had done the online check prior to leaving and check in was smooth sailing. After getting our Keys to the World, we jumped in our Pathfinder and headed over to Animal Kingdom, getting to the gate about 15 minutes after the 9AM opening. I hurried the family up and we headed straight to Expedition Everest for a morning encounter with the Yeti. The wait was near walk-on with the only stop being at the loading platform. Only problem with a quick wait is you don’t get to take in the queue. We survived the Yeti and headed over to Finding Nemo the Musical. We had never seen it before and all of us enjoyed it. After Nemo, we headed over to Dinoland. We jumped on Dinosaur, which is a family favorite, then rode the Primeval Whirl and Triceratop Spin. It started to rain during our wait for Primeval Whirl, so we donned our ponchos and we decided to head over to Africa to ride Kilamanjaro Safaris. We walked on to the Safaris and had a great trip through the savannah getting to see a lot of animals including the elephants, a cheetah, a sleeping warthog and a lion. The rain let up shortly after our Safari ride and we took a stroll through the Pangani Forest Trail. We headed over to Restaurantosaurus for lunch. Not the greatest selection and the food was OK.
After lunch we hit Its Tough to be a Bug and took in the Flights of Wonder show. My wife got picked to go on stage to get a picture of the big bird (not the yellow one!) coming at her. They gave her a certificate and she got a decent picture of the large bird coming at her with its wings spread.
We then used FPs we picked up earlier for Kali River Rapids where we luckily avoided a soaking. We had never ridden this attraction and I was a little disappointed. This had a relatively long wait at 35 minutes, I am glad we used our FPs because this ride was rather short and not much on thrills.
It was getting near 3PM so we decided to head over to Dinosaur for one last ride before heading back to get into our room and unpack. The wait for Dinosaur was about 30 minutes (only one side loading) and when we got off and into the gift shop, we saw it was raining heavily. So we waited it out for about 20 minutes, it slowed and we donned our ponchos again and quickly walked to the truck.
We headed to the resort and found we were in the building 4, the Center Court theme, on the 3rd floor, on the back side of the property. We didn’t mind and the walk to the food court and pool wasn’t too bad. The rain slowed so we unpacked the truck and got ready to head to the Magic Kingdom. To be continued………

[T-Belle]

Sounds like a great start. The swim after the long drive sounds wonderful. Can't wait to read more!

[yjgirl32]

Great report!

[merrymouse]

Sounds like the crowds weren't too bad a AK for Aug Looking forward to the rest of the report.

[RedSoxFan]

Sounds like a great start to the vacation.

[faline]

Well, a little rain certainly did not slow you down! Your got your trip off to a running start with a very busy Animal Kingdom day and it sounds like you didn't end your day there?!

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

that's a long drive, thanks for the report

[barnaby]

Finally got the 2nd part up, sorry for the delay.

[DisneyorBust]

What a nice gesture by the desk staff at the hotel to keep the lights on for your son. Seems like a great start to your WDW vacation, looking forward to the rest of your day. Thanks for sharing.

[amorillo]

thanks for sharing! off to read more!