McGoofy
06-11-2008, 08:46 PM
Dates: Wednesday, May 28 - Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Cast of Characters: McGoofy (me, Tara) 37, DH 36, and DS, Birthday Boy turning 10
Don't you hear it in your head? It's the HSM song playing, "What time is it? Summertime! It’s our vacation...." My son finished the 4th grade on May 28th. We wanted to get down to WDW as early in the summer as possible in order to avoid massive crowds and intense summer heat. We decided to leave town the day he finished school. So....here it is...the trip report from our week of summer vacation at WDW.
Day Number 1:
I am a nurse, and I work 12 hour night shifts twice a week. In order to get my time in on the pay period, I had to work the two nights prior to our vacation. I was like a big kid all night long on the last night. I was counting down the hours until I could clock out and go to WDW. The other nurses were laughing at me. You could have made a commercial out of it. As soon as I came home, I cleaned up, took care of a few last minute details, and we went to the school to pick up our son and say our goodbyes to his teacher. By time all was said and done, we were on the road by 9:30am. The plan was to sleep in the car, but I was too hyped up! I could not sleep. Finally, somewhere near the South Carolina/Georgia border, I finally fell asleep. A little while later I awoke. I thought I had been asleep a long time, and then I realized that we were only in Brunswick, GA, and it was only 12:00pm! Since I was now awake, we decided to stop for lunch. After that, we pressed on. We kept making all sorts of stops. We stopped at the Florida welcome station. My DS loves to stop there for 2 reasons. They hand out free orange juice, and they have Disney time guides. It's our first little hint of Disney along the way. He likes to read the times of things that are going on during the dates we will be there and form plans of what we can do. We didn't get too much further down I-95 before I felt that a Starbucks was a necessary stop for me. We found a really nice exit in Jacksonville with a huge shopping area called River City Marketplace. In this marketplace, we found a Starbucks! After this stop, we go a little further and make what is a regular stop for us at the St. Augustine outlets. There is a Disney store there where you can find all sorts of cool discounted Disney merchandise. It is actual park merchandise, so it makes for great souvenirs that are way less expensive than what you would purchase at the parks. We spent a while at this store and then we continued on our way with the next stop being Walt Disney World. There's nothing like that feeling of being on the road all day and finally driving under the Walt Disney World sign! Without stopping too much, we can get to WDW in 6 1/2 hours, but because of our stops, we ended up taking 8 hours to get there. We checked into Old Key West Resort around 5:30pm. We took some time to get settled in. As we were putting things away, there was a knock on the door. To my surprise, the Disney florist was standing at the door with flowers in his hand. My sweet husband had planned ahead to have those delivered to our room for me as a gift for our 15th wedding anniversary.:cloud9: (Our anniversary is actually not until June 12 (tomorrow), but he wanted me to have that little surprise at WDW.) The flowers were so beautiful! The next thing on our agenda was that we needed to go purchase a few groceries, so we hopped back in our car and drove to the Wal-greens that is right out the back gate of Downtown Disney. We got some milk, fruit, and a few other things. When we got in line to pay, my DH says, "Oh no...all I have is my room key. I put my wallet away because I knew we were using the room key for all of our charges!" Needless to say, Wal-greens doesn't take room charges, and I didn't have my purse either. Fortunately, for us my DS had a little cash in his pocket, so we had to borrow from him! Now there's a switch! And then he says, "If I give you $12, will you just pay me back with a $20?" Are you kidding me? The man in line behind us was cracking up. I'm pretty sure that paying the child's way to Disney World should be payback enough! After avoiding what could have been an embarrassing incident at Wal-greens, we went back to OKW. We put our purchases away, and then drove over to the nearby Port Orleans Resort to spend an evening listening to the crazy piano player, Bob Jackson. We decided to use our first counter service at the POR food court. I was trying to eat something healthy, so I got one of the build-your-own salads. That was so good. There is a list of two lettuce mixes, two meat choices (chicken or steak), a list of every salad ingredient under the sun, and a list of dressings. You tell the CM what you want; they throw it all in a bowl and then toss it. There is no limit to how many ingredients you can have, so I got close to a little bit of everything. That salad was delicious! We took our food to the POR lounge and waited for Bob. He began his show at 8:30pm. We had so much fun with that. I even got an honorable mention (http://good-times.webshots.com/video/3091566400101825575EoBMIb)during one of his songs. He had the kids come up on stage for various songs. At one point, I was on stage with all of the ladies as we were the chorus line, while he sang "New York, New York." At one point, my DH was "riding horses" around the room with all the men when Bob sang "Ghost Riders in the Sky." We had so much fun with all of his songs (http://good-times.webshots.com/video/3091792620101825575cskvjA). However, around 11:30pm, after being up for approximately 32 hours (with the exception of a 1 1/2 hour nap), the excitement high was wearing off for me. I was about to crash at the table, so we went back to our resort. I do not remember even telling anybody good night. I was fast asleep as soon as I laid down!:sleepin:
Well, this ended up being too long, so I have to split this into two separate posts. Going to post day two now!
Cast of Characters: McGoofy (me, Tara) 37, DH 36, and DS, Birthday Boy turning 10
Don't you hear it in your head? It's the HSM song playing, "What time is it? Summertime! It’s our vacation...." My son finished the 4th grade on May 28th. We wanted to get down to WDW as early in the summer as possible in order to avoid massive crowds and intense summer heat. We decided to leave town the day he finished school. So....here it is...the trip report from our week of summer vacation at WDW.
Day Number 1:
I am a nurse, and I work 12 hour night shifts twice a week. In order to get my time in on the pay period, I had to work the two nights prior to our vacation. I was like a big kid all night long on the last night. I was counting down the hours until I could clock out and go to WDW. The other nurses were laughing at me. You could have made a commercial out of it. As soon as I came home, I cleaned up, took care of a few last minute details, and we went to the school to pick up our son and say our goodbyes to his teacher. By time all was said and done, we were on the road by 9:30am. The plan was to sleep in the car, but I was too hyped up! I could not sleep. Finally, somewhere near the South Carolina/Georgia border, I finally fell asleep. A little while later I awoke. I thought I had been asleep a long time, and then I realized that we were only in Brunswick, GA, and it was only 12:00pm! Since I was now awake, we decided to stop for lunch. After that, we pressed on. We kept making all sorts of stops. We stopped at the Florida welcome station. My DS loves to stop there for 2 reasons. They hand out free orange juice, and they have Disney time guides. It's our first little hint of Disney along the way. He likes to read the times of things that are going on during the dates we will be there and form plans of what we can do. We didn't get too much further down I-95 before I felt that a Starbucks was a necessary stop for me. We found a really nice exit in Jacksonville with a huge shopping area called River City Marketplace. In this marketplace, we found a Starbucks! After this stop, we go a little further and make what is a regular stop for us at the St. Augustine outlets. There is a Disney store there where you can find all sorts of cool discounted Disney merchandise. It is actual park merchandise, so it makes for great souvenirs that are way less expensive than what you would purchase at the parks. We spent a while at this store and then we continued on our way with the next stop being Walt Disney World. There's nothing like that feeling of being on the road all day and finally driving under the Walt Disney World sign! Without stopping too much, we can get to WDW in 6 1/2 hours, but because of our stops, we ended up taking 8 hours to get there. We checked into Old Key West Resort around 5:30pm. We took some time to get settled in. As we were putting things away, there was a knock on the door. To my surprise, the Disney florist was standing at the door with flowers in his hand. My sweet husband had planned ahead to have those delivered to our room for me as a gift for our 15th wedding anniversary.:cloud9: (Our anniversary is actually not until June 12 (tomorrow), but he wanted me to have that little surprise at WDW.) The flowers were so beautiful! The next thing on our agenda was that we needed to go purchase a few groceries, so we hopped back in our car and drove to the Wal-greens that is right out the back gate of Downtown Disney. We got some milk, fruit, and a few other things. When we got in line to pay, my DH says, "Oh no...all I have is my room key. I put my wallet away because I knew we were using the room key for all of our charges!" Needless to say, Wal-greens doesn't take room charges, and I didn't have my purse either. Fortunately, for us my DS had a little cash in his pocket, so we had to borrow from him! Now there's a switch! And then he says, "If I give you $12, will you just pay me back with a $20?" Are you kidding me? The man in line behind us was cracking up. I'm pretty sure that paying the child's way to Disney World should be payback enough! After avoiding what could have been an embarrassing incident at Wal-greens, we went back to OKW. We put our purchases away, and then drove over to the nearby Port Orleans Resort to spend an evening listening to the crazy piano player, Bob Jackson. We decided to use our first counter service at the POR food court. I was trying to eat something healthy, so I got one of the build-your-own salads. That was so good. There is a list of two lettuce mixes, two meat choices (chicken or steak), a list of every salad ingredient under the sun, and a list of dressings. You tell the CM what you want; they throw it all in a bowl and then toss it. There is no limit to how many ingredients you can have, so I got close to a little bit of everything. That salad was delicious! We took our food to the POR lounge and waited for Bob. He began his show at 8:30pm. We had so much fun with that. I even got an honorable mention (http://good-times.webshots.com/video/3091566400101825575EoBMIb)during one of his songs. He had the kids come up on stage for various songs. At one point, I was on stage with all of the ladies as we were the chorus line, while he sang "New York, New York." At one point, my DH was "riding horses" around the room with all the men when Bob sang "Ghost Riders in the Sky." We had so much fun with all of his songs (http://good-times.webshots.com/video/3091792620101825575cskvjA). However, around 11:30pm, after being up for approximately 32 hours (with the exception of a 1 1/2 hour nap), the excitement high was wearing off for me. I was about to crash at the table, so we went back to our resort. I do not remember even telling anybody good night. I was fast asleep as soon as I laid down!:sleepin:
Well, this ended up being too long, so I have to split this into two separate posts. Going to post day two now!