Janmac
03-12-2010, 02:27 PM
Sierra shows her grandparents the World & VWL
Breakfast with Donald at AK, Kilimanjaro Safari and departing the World – 29 January
Cast of characters
>From Missouri
Sierra - five year old Disney Fan
Sam - Sierra's mom
Grammy K - Sierra's maternal grandmother
Me – Sierra's great aunt (Grammy K's sister)
>From Louisiana and first time visitors
Granny M - Sierra's paternal grandmother
Papa R – Sierra's paternal grandfather
The Plan – Have Bell Services help us with our luggage, actually drive ourselves to a park (!), breakfast at Tusker House, do a couple of Animal Kingdom attractions, get some counter service meals to go and leave for home (sniff sniff).
What really happened – We finished packing and called for Bell Services about 7:15. We had 20 items for that poor fellow to pick up. We had suitcases for clothes but most of the other general can't do without stuff for a stay in a villa (like night lights, surge protectors for phone chargers, food stuffs, lighted Mickey head decoration, light strings for decorating, etc. etc.) was in plastic storage boxes which we hope made loading and transporting easier. And we have two coolers.
We also checked the weather forecasts again. The forecast accumulations were even more than had been forecast the night before. Friday's forecast was for considerable freezing rain in the Memphis area (hate icy roads) and a foot of snow for the Ozarks in northern Arkansas. Nowhere near as bad as the mid-Atlantic states would get in a couple of weeks, but neither was this going to be cleared away in a day or two. And Sam was due back at work on Tuesday.
I proposed to GK and Sam that we go home to mid-Missouri by way of east Texas and Oklahoma, as eastern Oklahoma's accumulation was less and moving out today, Friday. We decided to re-examine the situation that evening after checking into a motel near Auburn, Alabama. This is where we had planned to overnight on Friday anyway, and wouldn't put us out of the way, much, if we decided on the Texas route. An extra day on the road seemed a lesser evil than white-knuckle driving on our usual route.
Sam brought her van around to the front of Wilderness Lodge so our very kind bellman could load our stuff from his crammed full cart. I was so happy to have help with all that stuff, that I tipped him $30 instead of the dollar a bag we normally tip.
We actually arrived at Animal Kingdom without getting lost. Sam was driving again. We walked to the entrance, going in through the early breakfast turnstile again. It is so cool to be walking through a park early.
At Tusker House we had our photo with Donald. And finally realized we are all wearing our matching Mickey Mouse shirts. No one else seemed to notice, or they were too nice to say anything.
The breakfast at Tusker House was so good. Maybe because we're having Crystal Palace withdrawals. We had good interactions with Donald, Daisy, Mickey and Pluto. And great food. This breakfast is another new must do for us.
After seeing a lot of animals on a great Kilimanjaro Safari – with some odd happenings: the vehicle's check engine light came on once and the audio worked intermittently – Sam wanted to look in some stores for some “comfy pants” because of the extra day in the car. Then we headed to Pizzafari for some sandwiches to go.
We got our lunch loaded into the car, and got ready to go when the lamp out light on the van came on. Head light out. We went to the Car Care Center and got the bulb replaced. We weren't even an hour later than planned and the replacement was less than $40. However, we did get lost trying to get on the 429 out of the World. Missed the sign the first time around. Still, Sam had a better record than the rest of us.
We had an uneventful trip up north to our motel for Friday night. The weather was still looking not good for Memphis and the Arkansas Ozarks, so we planned, in the morning, to head for Montgomery and make our way west to I-20 and on to Texas.
All day on Saturday the temperatures hovered around freezing. We even saw snow flurries in Mississippi. We stopped for the night in Mount Pleasant, Texas. Cold but no snow on the ground yet.
On Sunday we drove north into Oklahoma, after checking the weather forecasts, road conditions, and any other news we could find. It's nice to have WIFI in the motels. About 20 miles into Oklahoma we found snow but the major roads were clear. Shortly after noon we were in Missouri and about 4:30 we were home. Glad to be there with no trouble and DH was glad to have us there. And Sierra got a new state – Oklahoma.
On Tuesday, at work, Sam heard from a delivery driver that Memphis on Monday was still an icy mess.
At the end of the day(s) - We had a great time at Animal Kingdom, even though we didn't do very much. It was fun not to have much on our schedule. We had great sandwiches from Pizzafari for our trip home. (Why can not DHS have counter services like the other parks?!?)
We're already making plans for our next trip – except we don't have a year in mind yet. If we do DVC again, we're thinking we'd like to try to exchange into either Boardwalk or Bay Lake Towers.
We think we would like to try the Deluxe Dining Plan the next trip as we really really like eating at character breakfast buffets. And entering parks early. That is so cool and no problem as we are early risers. We also like eating at Epcot most nights. Before the Disney Dining Plan we used to eat 3 table service meals a day. We figure the Deluxe plan might be more along the lines of how we like to eat.
Hopefully we can remember a strategy we discovered for getting out of the restaurants more quickly: when the server brings the desserts, have a room key out waiting on the table. When we did this, the server usually started our check out process right away. By the time we had eaten our desserts, the papers were signed and we were good to go.
We are also thinking we might not do a Garden Grocer order next time - and not because of the delay with the order but because of left over food. With the snack credits, we can get a lot of what we'd want to have available in the villa, from the counter service restaurants, such as water, Silk, juice, fruits, etc. Our menus for breakfasts in the villa worked well (french toast & bacon, biscuits & gravy, pancakes & bacon, bagels & cream cheese). They were easy for me to cook, and GK and GM were happy to clean up. Still, we like those character breakfast buffets.
Granny M and Papa R had not been able to give us much response while they were at Disney, they were so overwhelmed. They were prepared to have a good time – PR even sang M-i-c-k-e-y in GM's ear the morning they were to leave home for their flight to Orlando. Several of their friends take their grandkids to Disney regularly. So they'd heard plenty about it. But they were still unprepared for the reality. GM told us, once she was home, that she was having ride withdrawal. PR said when he visited again, he could people watch while we rode most rides. From the questions they asked, they're thinking of a trip of their own in the future. And they want to know when we start planning our next trip. Maybe DH and PR can warm the benches together.
All in all, it was a good trip.
Thanks for reading!
Jan
Breakfast with Donald at AK, Kilimanjaro Safari and departing the World – 29 January
Cast of characters
>From Missouri
Sierra - five year old Disney Fan
Sam - Sierra's mom
Grammy K - Sierra's maternal grandmother
Me – Sierra's great aunt (Grammy K's sister)
>From Louisiana and first time visitors
Granny M - Sierra's paternal grandmother
Papa R – Sierra's paternal grandfather
The Plan – Have Bell Services help us with our luggage, actually drive ourselves to a park (!), breakfast at Tusker House, do a couple of Animal Kingdom attractions, get some counter service meals to go and leave for home (sniff sniff).
What really happened – We finished packing and called for Bell Services about 7:15. We had 20 items for that poor fellow to pick up. We had suitcases for clothes but most of the other general can't do without stuff for a stay in a villa (like night lights, surge protectors for phone chargers, food stuffs, lighted Mickey head decoration, light strings for decorating, etc. etc.) was in plastic storage boxes which we hope made loading and transporting easier. And we have two coolers.
We also checked the weather forecasts again. The forecast accumulations were even more than had been forecast the night before. Friday's forecast was for considerable freezing rain in the Memphis area (hate icy roads) and a foot of snow for the Ozarks in northern Arkansas. Nowhere near as bad as the mid-Atlantic states would get in a couple of weeks, but neither was this going to be cleared away in a day or two. And Sam was due back at work on Tuesday.
I proposed to GK and Sam that we go home to mid-Missouri by way of east Texas and Oklahoma, as eastern Oklahoma's accumulation was less and moving out today, Friday. We decided to re-examine the situation that evening after checking into a motel near Auburn, Alabama. This is where we had planned to overnight on Friday anyway, and wouldn't put us out of the way, much, if we decided on the Texas route. An extra day on the road seemed a lesser evil than white-knuckle driving on our usual route.
Sam brought her van around to the front of Wilderness Lodge so our very kind bellman could load our stuff from his crammed full cart. I was so happy to have help with all that stuff, that I tipped him $30 instead of the dollar a bag we normally tip.
We actually arrived at Animal Kingdom without getting lost. Sam was driving again. We walked to the entrance, going in through the early breakfast turnstile again. It is so cool to be walking through a park early.
At Tusker House we had our photo with Donald. And finally realized we are all wearing our matching Mickey Mouse shirts. No one else seemed to notice, or they were too nice to say anything.
The breakfast at Tusker House was so good. Maybe because we're having Crystal Palace withdrawals. We had good interactions with Donald, Daisy, Mickey and Pluto. And great food. This breakfast is another new must do for us.
After seeing a lot of animals on a great Kilimanjaro Safari – with some odd happenings: the vehicle's check engine light came on once and the audio worked intermittently – Sam wanted to look in some stores for some “comfy pants” because of the extra day in the car. Then we headed to Pizzafari for some sandwiches to go.
We got our lunch loaded into the car, and got ready to go when the lamp out light on the van came on. Head light out. We went to the Car Care Center and got the bulb replaced. We weren't even an hour later than planned and the replacement was less than $40. However, we did get lost trying to get on the 429 out of the World. Missed the sign the first time around. Still, Sam had a better record than the rest of us.
We had an uneventful trip up north to our motel for Friday night. The weather was still looking not good for Memphis and the Arkansas Ozarks, so we planned, in the morning, to head for Montgomery and make our way west to I-20 and on to Texas.
All day on Saturday the temperatures hovered around freezing. We even saw snow flurries in Mississippi. We stopped for the night in Mount Pleasant, Texas. Cold but no snow on the ground yet.
On Sunday we drove north into Oklahoma, after checking the weather forecasts, road conditions, and any other news we could find. It's nice to have WIFI in the motels. About 20 miles into Oklahoma we found snow but the major roads were clear. Shortly after noon we were in Missouri and about 4:30 we were home. Glad to be there with no trouble and DH was glad to have us there. And Sierra got a new state – Oklahoma.
On Tuesday, at work, Sam heard from a delivery driver that Memphis on Monday was still an icy mess.
At the end of the day(s) - We had a great time at Animal Kingdom, even though we didn't do very much. It was fun not to have much on our schedule. We had great sandwiches from Pizzafari for our trip home. (Why can not DHS have counter services like the other parks?!?)
We're already making plans for our next trip – except we don't have a year in mind yet. If we do DVC again, we're thinking we'd like to try to exchange into either Boardwalk or Bay Lake Towers.
We think we would like to try the Deluxe Dining Plan the next trip as we really really like eating at character breakfast buffets. And entering parks early. That is so cool and no problem as we are early risers. We also like eating at Epcot most nights. Before the Disney Dining Plan we used to eat 3 table service meals a day. We figure the Deluxe plan might be more along the lines of how we like to eat.
Hopefully we can remember a strategy we discovered for getting out of the restaurants more quickly: when the server brings the desserts, have a room key out waiting on the table. When we did this, the server usually started our check out process right away. By the time we had eaten our desserts, the papers were signed and we were good to go.
We are also thinking we might not do a Garden Grocer order next time - and not because of the delay with the order but because of left over food. With the snack credits, we can get a lot of what we'd want to have available in the villa, from the counter service restaurants, such as water, Silk, juice, fruits, etc. Our menus for breakfasts in the villa worked well (french toast & bacon, biscuits & gravy, pancakes & bacon, bagels & cream cheese). They were easy for me to cook, and GK and GM were happy to clean up. Still, we like those character breakfast buffets.
Granny M and Papa R had not been able to give us much response while they were at Disney, they were so overwhelmed. They were prepared to have a good time – PR even sang M-i-c-k-e-y in GM's ear the morning they were to leave home for their flight to Orlando. Several of their friends take their grandkids to Disney regularly. So they'd heard plenty about it. But they were still unprepared for the reality. GM told us, once she was home, that she was having ride withdrawal. PR said when he visited again, he could people watch while we rode most rides. From the questions they asked, they're thinking of a trip of their own in the future. And they want to know when we start planning our next trip. Maybe DH and PR can warm the benches together.
All in all, it was a good trip.
Thanks for reading!
Jan