bouncer
02-23-2008, 10:09 AM
We planned our trip around DS turning 5 on 2/10 and since he's been a few times we were mainly going over the weekend to that we could go to the P&P party on 2/9 since he loves Pirates. Originally we (MIL, myself & DS) would be taking along MIL's friend who has travelled to WDW with us before so the quick trip would be perfect. After we booked our portion the friend found out she would not be able to go. MIL asked my Mom if she would like to join us (her treat) as my Mom had never been and her birthday is 2/9. Of course she said YES. So although it would have been nice to stay a full week I didn't have any options at work to stay longer (also rooms were booked tight at Poly). When we booked we had to split our reservation one night standard and 2 nights LVC because they said they didn't have any openings in concierge for 2/8. Prior to the trip I called no less than twice a day (sometimes more) to see if anything opened up at concierge so that we wouldn't need to change rooms. I finally had success about 4 days from leaving! On Tuesday we had a huge snowstorm and the airport was shut down for a day and a half. Thursday night my Mom & Dad drove up from IL to us 1 hour north of Milwaukee so that we could fly out of Milwaukee (great airport).
By Friday things were just getting back to normal at the airport. DS went to preschool in the morning on Friday 2/8 and we picked him up to go straight to the airport. Grabbed a few sandwiches after clearing security and waited for the plane. As we boarded the pilot was walking past me and saw DS and asked if he would like to see the cockpit. That was cool- I wish I would have had enough hands to have my camera out. They told him he could come back for a picture after we landed and everyone was off the plane. We took off as scheduled about 1:45pm and landed as scheduled about 5:30 WDW time. We flew Airtran and had a great experience with them. Nice take off & landing and smooth flight! Mom hates flying. Got our quick picture and since we only took carry ons we headed straight to the town car that was picking us up. Once we found him it was off to POLY:cloud9: MIL met us at Poly (she's staying near Tampa for a little while) and had checked in at about 1 and they were able to not only meet our room request but also let her check in early.:mickey: Called MIL to tell her we were up front and we'd soon be in the room to meet her. Got to our room and grabbed a quick bite from the lounge for dinner. Quick changed clothes/shoes and off to Epcot for Illuminations. The temp was beautiful that evening. DS got a close up of some ducks "playing" while waiting for illuminations to start. Grammy (MIL) couldn't wait for Nana & myself to get back from the bathroom to rescue her from the sex education.:blush: After illuminations, which was great of course ,we got a yogurt smoothie and headed back for our room. I wanted to go on SE as that was the only day it would be open but when we came past the lines were long and we were too tired. Oh well, next time.
Saturday 2/9 (Mom's B-Day) we woke up grabbed breakfast at the lounge and headed to DHS to do DS fave: Great Movie Ride. Brian ducked down when the shoot out started and again in the Alien part. In Oz the car ahead of us ran out of gas-never had that happen before! Quick refuel and away we went. Had a pretzel and cheese for a snack and went to the Star Tours ride. Brian had told me a lot of times that he wanted to do the Star Wars ride but when we got up there he chickened out. No biggie. While we were standing there the Jedi training started and he thought he was in the REAL Star Wars set. The look on Brian's face was pricelesss and when Darth Vadar :darth:came out :eyes: he couldn't believe it. Following the training we spent quite a while in the Star Tours gift shop and the grandmas did what they do best: SPOIL. We went to Muppets 3D and about fell asleep (yep I think it's ready for a little change). Walked down the city scapes and asked DS if he wanted to see the new Playhouse Disney show. He was too tired and asked to go back to the hotel. Went back to Poly got sandwiches from Captain Cooks, napped & got ready for the P&P party. Grabbed quick dinner in the lounge and over to MK about 5:30. Got the wristband and off we went. Brian had to take Nana on his favorite first: Peter Pan which had the longest line of the whole night (really wasn't even bad) and by the time we were done Small World had NO line. We made our way back to get a funnel cake (mom's fave) and over toward Pirate's and realized that the Parade would be starting soon so we camped out in front of the Saloon where Mickey was signing autographs but he had to go get on the parade float (got his signature later), ate the funnel cake and waited for the parade. Soon the strolling band trio-tuba and banjos found Mom (I took Brian to the shooting gallery) and spotted her birthday button and sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She told them that Brian's birthday was the next day and saw us walking over and the band waited for him to get there so that they could sing :birthday: to him too. After the parade which was really cool we went to POTC and walked right on! I couldn't believe it. I've never had the chance to walk straight to the ride let alone POTC. Awesome! Then we made our way to the castle court to view the fireworks. Truly the best fireworks at WDW!!! Although we wanted to stay longer everyone was pretty tired so off to bed we went.
Sunday 2/10 back to Epcot and another gorgeous day. Got FP for Soarin' and went to see Nemo and Turtle talk. Went back to Land got sandwiches and DS was given a Choc Chip cookie because a CM saw his BDay button. Waited till time got close and took Mom on Soarin'. I was nervous because she doesn't like heights or flying but she loved it. The scenery is just over the top. From there we did the WS loop starting in Canada, stopped in France for some treats and some wine in Germany (even though we're German we'd rather have wine than beer). Went on the new Mexico ride and loved it! The smell of the food in Mexico was great just wished we had room enough in our bellies for it. After making the loop we had enough walking and went back to the room again to nap. After nap, freshen up, dinner we headed out to MK. We did some shopping and realized that Wishes would be starting soon. So we cut through the Noodle Station and went to go on Buzz. Line was pretty short and by the time we got off Wishes had started and there was no line so we went on again. MILs fave is CoP which was open so we made a point to go there. Also went on TTA and skipped Monster's to take Nana to Philharmagic. I wanted to go to HM but lines were big so we skipped and went back to POTC and no line there again! We finished up our shopping and by then it was 11:30 and we were wore out. Time for bed have to leave tomorrow. As the CMs were waving goodbye they saw Brian's button and yelled "Hey, is that a Birthday button I see?" And they wished him a "Happy Birthday" too. When we got up to the monorail the train was getting ready to pull out so we waited for the next one and got to ride up front. Our last ride on the monorail, on Brian's birthday was up front with the driver.:cloud9:
Monday morning got ready, packed up, breakfast, few last pictures and the town car was there to take us back to reality. Glad we didn't take the time to check bags as Security lines were aweful! Longer than when we left when Hurricane Wilma was coming! We lined up PAST the Disney Store. Don't know if you've seen worse but this was the longest I've ever seen. People behind us did nothing but complain and people in front were moving their breakfast, coffee and suitcases with their feet! C'MON PEOPLE GET A CLUE! Got through security finally and over to our gate. Grabbed another sandwich (no food in flight but mini pretzel bag) and soon were back home to reality:freeze:. You probably noticed that we skipped all TS to save time. Again, sorry for the length. For such a short trip we had a great time!!!
By Friday things were just getting back to normal at the airport. DS went to preschool in the morning on Friday 2/8 and we picked him up to go straight to the airport. Grabbed a few sandwiches after clearing security and waited for the plane. As we boarded the pilot was walking past me and saw DS and asked if he would like to see the cockpit. That was cool- I wish I would have had enough hands to have my camera out. They told him he could come back for a picture after we landed and everyone was off the plane. We took off as scheduled about 1:45pm and landed as scheduled about 5:30 WDW time. We flew Airtran and had a great experience with them. Nice take off & landing and smooth flight! Mom hates flying. Got our quick picture and since we only took carry ons we headed straight to the town car that was picking us up. Once we found him it was off to POLY:cloud9: MIL met us at Poly (she's staying near Tampa for a little while) and had checked in at about 1 and they were able to not only meet our room request but also let her check in early.:mickey: Called MIL to tell her we were up front and we'd soon be in the room to meet her. Got to our room and grabbed a quick bite from the lounge for dinner. Quick changed clothes/shoes and off to Epcot for Illuminations. The temp was beautiful that evening. DS got a close up of some ducks "playing" while waiting for illuminations to start. Grammy (MIL) couldn't wait for Nana & myself to get back from the bathroom to rescue her from the sex education.:blush: After illuminations, which was great of course ,we got a yogurt smoothie and headed back for our room. I wanted to go on SE as that was the only day it would be open but when we came past the lines were long and we were too tired. Oh well, next time.
Saturday 2/9 (Mom's B-Day) we woke up grabbed breakfast at the lounge and headed to DHS to do DS fave: Great Movie Ride. Brian ducked down when the shoot out started and again in the Alien part. In Oz the car ahead of us ran out of gas-never had that happen before! Quick refuel and away we went. Had a pretzel and cheese for a snack and went to the Star Tours ride. Brian had told me a lot of times that he wanted to do the Star Wars ride but when we got up there he chickened out. No biggie. While we were standing there the Jedi training started and he thought he was in the REAL Star Wars set. The look on Brian's face was pricelesss and when Darth Vadar :darth:came out :eyes: he couldn't believe it. Following the training we spent quite a while in the Star Tours gift shop and the grandmas did what they do best: SPOIL. We went to Muppets 3D and about fell asleep (yep I think it's ready for a little change). Walked down the city scapes and asked DS if he wanted to see the new Playhouse Disney show. He was too tired and asked to go back to the hotel. Went back to Poly got sandwiches from Captain Cooks, napped & got ready for the P&P party. Grabbed quick dinner in the lounge and over to MK about 5:30. Got the wristband and off we went. Brian had to take Nana on his favorite first: Peter Pan which had the longest line of the whole night (really wasn't even bad) and by the time we were done Small World had NO line. We made our way back to get a funnel cake (mom's fave) and over toward Pirate's and realized that the Parade would be starting soon so we camped out in front of the Saloon where Mickey was signing autographs but he had to go get on the parade float (got his signature later), ate the funnel cake and waited for the parade. Soon the strolling band trio-tuba and banjos found Mom (I took Brian to the shooting gallery) and spotted her birthday button and sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She told them that Brian's birthday was the next day and saw us walking over and the band waited for him to get there so that they could sing :birthday: to him too. After the parade which was really cool we went to POTC and walked right on! I couldn't believe it. I've never had the chance to walk straight to the ride let alone POTC. Awesome! Then we made our way to the castle court to view the fireworks. Truly the best fireworks at WDW!!! Although we wanted to stay longer everyone was pretty tired so off to bed we went.
Sunday 2/10 back to Epcot and another gorgeous day. Got FP for Soarin' and went to see Nemo and Turtle talk. Went back to Land got sandwiches and DS was given a Choc Chip cookie because a CM saw his BDay button. Waited till time got close and took Mom on Soarin'. I was nervous because she doesn't like heights or flying but she loved it. The scenery is just over the top. From there we did the WS loop starting in Canada, stopped in France for some treats and some wine in Germany (even though we're German we'd rather have wine than beer). Went on the new Mexico ride and loved it! The smell of the food in Mexico was great just wished we had room enough in our bellies for it. After making the loop we had enough walking and went back to the room again to nap. After nap, freshen up, dinner we headed out to MK. We did some shopping and realized that Wishes would be starting soon. So we cut through the Noodle Station and went to go on Buzz. Line was pretty short and by the time we got off Wishes had started and there was no line so we went on again. MILs fave is CoP which was open so we made a point to go there. Also went on TTA and skipped Monster's to take Nana to Philharmagic. I wanted to go to HM but lines were big so we skipped and went back to POTC and no line there again! We finished up our shopping and by then it was 11:30 and we were wore out. Time for bed have to leave tomorrow. As the CMs were waving goodbye they saw Brian's button and yelled "Hey, is that a Birthday button I see?" And they wished him a "Happy Birthday" too. When we got up to the monorail the train was getting ready to pull out so we waited for the next one and got to ride up front. Our last ride on the monorail, on Brian's birthday was up front with the driver.:cloud9:
Monday morning got ready, packed up, breakfast, few last pictures and the town car was there to take us back to reality. Glad we didn't take the time to check bags as Security lines were aweful! Longer than when we left when Hurricane Wilma was coming! We lined up PAST the Disney Store. Don't know if you've seen worse but this was the longest I've ever seen. People behind us did nothing but complain and people in front were moving their breakfast, coffee and suitcases with their feet! C'MON PEOPLE GET A CLUE! Got through security finally and over to our gate. Grabbed another sandwich (no food in flight but mini pretzel bag) and soon were back home to reality:freeze:. You probably noticed that we skipped all TS to save time. Again, sorry for the length. For such a short trip we had a great time!!!