Newbie and Last Family Trip

[Ramblingman]

So it begins...

Okay, I have delayed too long already. Thanks to those who followed my pretrip report and welcome to those who are just coming aboard. It’s way past time to do this trip report. We’ve been a bit busy since we got back with all the getting back in the swing of things (sadly). Life just seems to interfere sometimes when you just want to wallow in your memory of the last Disney trip.

Our day of departure finally arrived after a mostly sleepless night. Friday, May 20 was our day to drive down to the Kingdom and get checked into Shades of Green. We have never checked in the day before we do tickets, so this will be different for us. We have always stayed overnight at my mother’s house in Tampa and driven over very early in the morning, but this time we wanted to check in and have time to relax so we could start our Magic Kingdom day fresh.

The members of our party are myself and DW (50’s), DD (19), DS (21), and DS’s GF (23). GF has never been to a theme park before. She is a complete newbie to all things like this, so we are chomping at the bit to show her around and see it new through her eyes. We will have to be careful, because she is not good with large crowds, doesn’t like mascots or rides that go up off the ground or too fast. We will take it easy and not try to force her on anything she truly does not want to do.

While my DS goes to pick up GF, the rest of us drive a couple of exits down to our normal breakfast spot. With any road trip to Florida, our first stop is always Hardee’s for a biscuit, or as my DW calls them – sleeping pills. One biscuit with bacon, egg and cheese and she’s usually out until Tallahassee. We wait for DS and GF to arrive and get their breakfast.

We are getting an earlier start than I honestly thought we would, and the day is looking to be a great one. After eating, we drive across the street to gas up before hitting the road. This is where our first bit of magic happened.

We are driving two cars in case DS and GF have to leave early to return home. After gassing up my car, I walk to the other car to pay. He’s already pumping and is standing there with his legs spread apart about shoulder width. Something catches my eye on the ground and when I look down, directly halfway between his feet is a ticket. I asked him if he dropped it. He looked down and said he had never seen it.

I bent down and picked it up. It’s a one day pass to the Magic Kingdom with a picture of Donald Duck and the words, “Let The Memories Begin” on the side facing up. The ticket looks brand new even though it’s two days old and is at a gas station in Alabama about 40 miles from the Florida state line.

I get in the car and show it to DD and DW. “It’s fate, it's a sign,” I tell them. DD puts the ticket on the dash wedged between the AC knobs and the radio player. She loves it and it accompanies us on our trip (and more on this later, so don’t let me forget to tell you the rest).

Okay, that is enough for now. I’ll pick up with the story in a bit.

[faline]

Hope the rest of your drive goes well and you are soon in Disney World!

[T-Belle]

Sounds like a great start. I too love to take newbies to the world. It's fun to watch them morph into a Disney person. I remember when we took my DD's boyfriend. We were watching wishes after a fun day at MK and he asked "they do this EVERY night?"
Can't wait to read more of your trip.

[Ramblingman]

As we drive, we hook up my iPod and listen to Disney tunes for the trip, singing along with all the songs. Our favorites are the Disney Afternoon songs. We wore that tape out when the kids were young. They loved those songs. Rescue Rangers, Tale Spin, Gummiberry Juice – all of them are as great today as back then. I wish those shows were being shown still.

After crossing the state line, we pull over at the welcome station and take pictures in front of the Blue Angel plane and the Welcome to Florida sign. This is too funny, as we have traveled a whole 45 miles from our house. DD’s favorite pose is in the grass, right next to the sign that states, Keep Off The Grass. She got her dad’s sense of humor.

After driving awhile, we stop for gas and a bathroom stop. We had found some old lottery scratcher tickets while packing. They were over a year old but we figured why not try it and see if any are still good. To our surprise and good fortune, only one of them had expired. We had $62 in old winners to go with our $20 in newer ones. I had put aside some cash to buy scratchers on the drive down and back. It keeps my DW and DD occupied and happy. So, I did not have to put in any money this first time. We did tickets and purchased some drinks and shopped for stuff too.

My daughter found a shelf full of FSU stuff. She has always wanted to go to Florida State, and since I went there, we have lots of FSU stuff around our house. But, she is always on the lookout for new items.

While she was looking over the FSU things, I said well they surely have U of Florida things too, and looked on the other side. I told my daughter, “sure enough, there’s gator stuff here on this side.” She walked around and saw little stuffed gators, gator shaped backscratchers, and other stuff made from actual gators. She laughed and laughed at that one.

After driving past Tallahassee, we stopped for lunch at a Denny’s. They don’t have any close to where we live so it was different for us. We stopped about 2:30 and everyone was plenty hungry. I had the bacon cheeseburger, DW had the cowboy western burger, DD had cheese fries (she’s vegetarian), GF had nachos and DS had shrimp.

We hit the road again and as my wife sleeps in the back, my daughter keeps me company up front. We sing along to Disney songs and keep each other excited about getting to Orlando.

As we get closer, the excitement grows. The familiarity begins to sweep over us like the rising tide. We are back in our second home. Memories flood over each other as landmarks are spotted. The excitement peaks as we finally spot the Disneyworld sign.

We drive to Shades of Green to check in. When we get to the counter, we get another pleasant surprise. The girl who waits on us is the same girl who checked us in at 2 am in December 2009 on our last trip here. We begin asking how she is doing. She was pregnant then and working the night shift. She had a baby girl who is healthy and growing like a sprout now.

We were not sure if our rooms were going to be close together because the wife forgot to call and request it after making the reservations. However, they anticipated obviously and gave us adjoining rooms that have a door between them. How sweet of them to pay attention to the small details even when we don’t request it.

We are in one of the newer wings from the renovation they finished a couple of years ago. The rooms are nice but we actually prefer the rooms in the older wing. Those have a half wall that separates the beds from the sitting area. The newer rooms have no partition and seem just a bit smaller to me. They are still nice though.

It’s about 9 pm as we finish getting settled in. Everyone is hungry so we head down to one of the restaurants for dinner. Shades of Green has the Garden Gallery and Mangino's Bistro for restaurants. They also have a bar near the pool named Evergreens. In the same building as Evergreens is an arcade room and a fast food service counter that is open when Evergreens is closed.

We choose Mangino's. I have the lobster bisque and chicken quesadilla. The bisque is delicious and my daughter almost takes it away from me. This is her first time tasting lobster bisque and it immediately becomes one of her favorite soups. My wife has calamari and a huge house salad. DD has mushroom ravioli. She will find plenty of items without meat while we are here. My son, who considers vegetables a nice side dish to a huge platter of meat, orders the BBQ ribs with a baked potato. GF orders bruschetta and a chef salad.

You all know about the refillable mugs available at Disney resorts. Shades of Green is just a bit different. They have their own mugs. Refills are $1 and only good at SOG. They come in three solid colors – green, purple and pink. We all get one and will have to mark them so we know which is whose.

All total, we spend under $150 with the tip. Not too bad for first dinner. We have one large meal planned for each day. The wife made all the reservations as soon as she could. We have a good laugh earlier because after we hit the road, she realized she left her spreadsheet with all the times and plans at home. That’s my wife – the planner. I had told her to transfer them to my laptop since I was taking it. I need the laptop to transfer pictures from the camera each day. She had forgotten to copy it to me or to email it. Fortunately, she had told my daughter the reservation times and DD had written them down. We are saved!

On the way back to the room, DD poses for a great picture with the huge Red White and Blue Mickey in the lobby. After we get back to the room, my daughter and I make our trip out to the Walmart on Highway 192 for our usual supply run. After getting home finally, we all bed down for a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow begins our Disney experience in earnest.

[Ramblingman]

After waking at 6:30, we begin getting dressed for our big first day. We usually try to make the first day Magic Kingdom. It just seems right that way. My daughter says that she has Hakuna Matata stuck in her head from the trip yesterday, so I fire up the iPod and play it for her again. We are dancing around the room as we are getting ready, singing along. We had the TV on, mostly showing local attractions, and the cutest kitten commercial came on.

DS and GF are getting into the spirit of things as well. The glass sliding door is fogged up from the humidity. GF has drawn a cute snail on the door to greet DS.

After everyone gets ready, we head down to the Garden Gallery for the breakfast buffet. It’s about $11 per person including drinks and taxes. The food is plentiful and not bad. We’ve had better but this is pretty good. They have an omelet bar that is quite good. There are plenty of choices for everyone to have their breakfast of choice. Eggs, ham, bacon, waffles, cereal, muffins, toast, pretty much every combination of breakfast can be had.

We head out to wait on the bus. When we get to the Ticket Center, we get in line to get our tickets activated. We are using the Armed Forces Salute ticket special and purchased the tickets last night when we arrived, but they have to be activated here at the TTC.

While DW is having the tickets activated, I wind up speaking to the two people working the ticket counters next to us. There is no one there for them to wait on right now and they looked lonely so I struck up a conversation. I was explaining who we were and why we are there. When they heard that we had a newbie, they grabbed a “1st Visit” button and gave it to us. I thanked them and told them it was a big week since both of them graduated college last Saturday and now here we are at Disney World. She reached down and gave me two more buttons that both said, “I’m Celebrating.” I hand the buttons over to DS and GF and they dutifully put them on their shirts.

GF is scared of things that are high, so she has said no to any suggestions of taking the Monorail. As such, we have said we’ll take the ferryboats to and from MK. We walk right down and only have to wait a couple of minutes.

While on the boat, I strike up a conversation with a couple of young kids who appear pretty excited. It turns out they have just recently begun collecting pins. Since I have a ton of pins for trading, and I am wearing a lanyard full of them, I offer them a free pin. The eyes light up and the transfer of magic has begun. It’s worth it to see the look of joy on their faces and the look of happiness on the faces of the parents. I discussed with my daughter on the way down that we are going to give away pins as well as trade for them. She thinks this is a great idea. She also is excited about giving away the glow necklaces we bought before the trip.

Next up – we enter MK

[mouseketeer mom]

Great Start!!!!
What happened with that ticket you found?

[pdrlkr]

Thanks for the Report!

[Ramblingman]

I apologize for the delay. I had to take time for some things (including Father's Day). I hope those reading are not too disappointed. Okay here we go.

Today is Epcot day. After waking up and a quick breakfast at the hotel, we drive over, parking in Journey row 8. DS wants to get a FastPass ticket for Fast Track. Someone gave him three FP tickets that they were not using, so we had extra. I spotted a girl who the princess makeover walking towards us with her family. I stood and bowed while saying, “Your Highness.” She giggled and enjoyed that so much I tried to do it to every other Princess I encountered that day. I gave her a Princess pin I had on my lanyard.

We headed into the Coke exhibit in order to taste the drinks from around the world. Some are tasty, some are a little weird. Walking back towards Fast Track, we passed the Winnie The Pooh hedge sculptures. We stopped to take pictures. DW posed with Pooh, DD mimicked Tigger’s pose, and DS and I both posed beside Eeyore.

Next came Imagination, so DW could get her Figment fix. Figment is a must do on every trip for us. GF enjoyed the ride, but she enjoyed the machines that you play with after even more. DS and DW headed to ride Fast Track while DD and I waited with GF. We went into Innoventions to look around. They have an area called Torture Lab so naturally we were intrigued. DD and GF played with some of the displays until it was time to catch up with the others. We gave away our extra FastPass tickets so we could begin our world trip.

Since we were at that end, we headed towards Mexico. Of course, everyone decided they had to have food. We stopped at La Cantina de San Angel and got nachos, churros and drinks. After shopping, everyone else went on the Gran Fiesta ride. I held our drinks and enjoyed the views. We looked around a bit after they finished the ride. There were statues of parrots in different poses in one of the windows. My daughter thought the dancing parrots were just plain creepy.

On to Norway. After shopping, DW and I rode Maelstrom. It has the funniest wall mural of Norwegian people. Men are depicted as being warriors, fishermen and oil rig workers. In the middle is a tall blonde Norse woman who is a cruise director on a cruise ship. I guess Julie from the Love Boat was from Norway.

We shopped our way through China next, before hitting Germany. After a little window shopping, DS was overcome by the availability of bratwurst and pretzels from Sommerfest. The girls had all sorts of chocolate items from Karamelle-Kuche. I just took pictures and watched them enjoying their food. We pressed on to Italy where we sat and watched a group putting on a show. It was some women dressed in red, singing and making jokes about handsome men in the audience. I spotted a Photopass photographer so we had lots of pictures taken.

We reached America and DW always wants to see the show so we went into the rotunda and caught the a cappella group Voices of Liberty. They sounded fantastic as usual. We went in and caught the American Adventure show. The air conditioning was most welcome. After we were done with Ben Franklin and Mark Twain, we headed to Japan and more shopping. Most of our shopping was of the window variety. In Morocco, I was able to snag a picture of DS trying on a Fez (for those in the know, here’s another Doctor Who reference).

Then we made it to France, where my daughter was in heaven. She took French in high school and has been enthralled with the country since. She bought some items and we got plenty of Photopass pictures. I purchased DW a glass of Moet at La Maison du Vin. It was well worth the $13 per glass. She and I sat at a table outside while the kids waited in line at Boulangerie Patisserie for some delicious pastries. We were discussing the other countries with GF while at the table and we were talking about Canada. The people sitting at the next table said, “or you could just come visit us.” They were from Canada, so we had a good laugh and talked about their country. I took advantage of this to ask them how they felt about visiting their “home” country while here. They did not seem all that impressed by the exhibit. I guess it would be like going to another country and there being a small display of America there. I would probably skip it as well.

On the bridge between France and the UK, we hit up another Photopass photographer, who gladly obliged and took many pictures of just me and my wife in romantic poses with France in the background. Finally we made it to the United Kingdom. The first stop was the phone booth for pictures. On the picture of my daughter, I put the caption “I thought it was bigger on the inside”, for yet another Doctor Who reference (even though it’s not really a Call Box). I completely forgot to write down the phone numbers in order to call them while standing a few feet away to see who would answer.

We split up to shop. DD and I wound up in The Crown and Crest, where she found a small Beatles tin that looked like a tiny lunch box. She had to have it. We stepped outside to catch part of the performance by The English Channel. I wrote about them in another thread, but I was not overly impressed. They are okay, but it’s apparent that at least three of them are not from the UK and sound genuinely American. I did not hear the other one speak. Their music is alright, and the choices are good. The mixture is a bit eclectic but they have a wide range to cover. My son found some things in Fancy Goods for Lords and Ladies to buy for GF to complement the other things he had been buying for her.

It was just after 3 pm, so we had time to stop at Canada and finish our trip around the world before our early dinner reservations. DW and I sat and caught our breath while the kids shopped. I got a great picture of my son wearing a moose hat with antlers. He refused to wear it while I had the camera out until GF made him put it back on. Seems she has him trained fairly well. We watched a family go by and overheard the mother saying, “Baby, Momma’s legs are tired.” We got a good laugh and completely understood the sentiment.

This is a good place for a break. When I pick up the narrative, we head to our dinner reservations at Coral Reef and we take in Illuminations. See you then.

[Ramblingman]

With our World trip concluded, it was time to head to the Living Seas. We made it to the Coral Reef Restaurant with a few minutes to spare. When they walked us to our table, we looked around the room in amazement. This is a great place to visit, much less to sit and eat. Our waiter came right over and was a very personable man. He was from Korea and was outstanding at making us feel comfortable and relaxed.

After drinks (Corona, tea and soda), we ordered Rainbow Trout, NY Strip Steak, Lobster Ravioli, Seared Chicken Breast, and Leeks Potato Soup. We spent our average $200 for the scheduled meals and it was well worth it.

After our fabulous meal, we decided to split up a bit, as there were different things people wanted to do before our last day. I dropped DS and GF at Animal Kingdom, then delivered DW to the hotel for a quick nap. DD and I headed to Hollywood Studios because there was a quilted throw that she had been keeping her eyes on, and we told her we would get it for her. GF had been seeking a safari hat but had not been having any luck because she wanted a specific type. We searched at the Indiana Jones shops but no luck there either. We picked up the quilted throw at Celebrity 5 and 10, as well as a tea cup for a gift for a friend of hers, and I finally got my Mickey tote bag.

Everybody met back at the hotel and we headed back to Epcot for Illuminations. We got a great parking spot in the 3rd row and walked right in. DS and GF headed off somewhere on their own while DD, DW and I staked out a spot and spread a blanket for Illuminations. I went over and bought pretzels and water for everyone and DD and I put together the last of the glow bracelets and necklaces we had brought to give away. She wandered around handing them out to small kids. We could track where she was by listening for the squeals of delight. DS and GF joined us in time and we enjoyed a great show. This is usually one of the last things we do on our trips, and it always is wonderful (if not just a touch bittersweet since it signals the nearing of our time there).

We hung around as everyone headed to the exits. There’s no rush and things just get too crowded after the show. Besides, I still had a handful of pins to trade. We hit all the CM’s in the stores right there on the lake. I wound up with about 4 pins untraded, but we still had DTD tomorrow. We began making our way to the exit, stopping to let the kids play on the lit sidewalks. It was more fun when they were 5 or 6, but this was good too, because they had all the memories of playing on them before. My daughter has always been shy about approaching strangers and that is why I wind up trading her pins for her. She spotted a CM at one of the stands and went up to him and asked if she could see his pins. He looked forlorn and replied, “I’m sorry, we are not allowed to trade pins after 9.” It was 9:30, and she almost walked away before he could no longer contain his smile. She blushed when she finally caught on, and we traded with him.

A quick drive back to the hotel and soon everyone was fast asleep. Tomorrow is a full day at Down Town Disney and a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 in the Fork and Screen dining theater.

[Hog]

Great report I felt as if I was their with you...

[dtootsie42]

Terrific reports. Love reading about your adventures!