brivers222
10-19-2010, 01:06 PM
Day One - October 8th/9th, 2010
its about 2:30 PM and the final preperations are being done before YO! gets home from work... When its all said and done we walk out the door at 4PM
I won't get much into the long long long car ride... YO! would probably like it better if I didn't discuss the Blood tears and laughs of this 18 hour trip. I will comment though that we actually really did a good job... Only a few fights that happened because we were both tired and exhausted but kept on pressing. As for the Blood, no don't worry it wasn't any of ours... I consider myself lucky that she didn't slay me lol. But it was from a poor possum that for some reason decided it would LOVE to cross I-75 at about 2am. I tried to avoid contact, but in trying to keep ourselves safe and on the road, contact was pretty much a given. Moment of silence for that little roddent please...
Alrighty then, With stops at Bob Evans in Ohio for Dinner and then Ihop in Adel, Georgia for Breakfast we arrived at the Fountains at 1pm on Saturday 10/9. We put our names in the queue even though check-in wasn't until 4pm.... I was hoping for all our sakes we could get in early to take a quick nap before we head out to YO!s Spa treatment at the Grand Floridian. We found our way to the pool bar and took up residence ordering a pretty tasty Ceasar Salad wrap and some adult pops. Kept checking my phone every 5mins hoping to see a new message about our room. No luck, not yet. Lounged around the pool and took in the sights and sounds of people enjoying a 100% sunny, blue sky day. Unbenounced to us, this would be the trend for our entire 10 day trip... and to think we bought and brought 10 of those $.89 disposable ponchos from Wally-world (aka Walmart). Around 3pm I received a message saying I had a voicemail. Strange as I have full bars and the phone never rang...Regardless it was the front desk with a short and sweet message, "Your room is ready come and get it" not 100% friendly but staying offsite this is more a place to spend 6 hours sleeping... the real magic happens daily 5miles to the south west :)
First Impressions of the Room was nice, very nice actually! It was about 1,300 sqft with a Full Kitchen, Dishwasher, Washer/Dryer, Jaccuzi Master suit, Front porch over looking the man made lake. it was good times. I thought it was best that since we had a few hours before the 6:45pm spa that I put YO! down for a nap... or whatever you call it when adults sleep in the afternoon haha. During that time
I decided to watch the UofM/MSU game as with all the excitement I just couldn't sleep, even after being up for about 27 hours straight now. While she napped I brought in all the luggage and whatnot so that we could just shower and go when the time comes.
We started this trend where no matter what we did, something always made us a few (well sometimes not a few) mins late for all of our reservations lol the joys of staying offsite ;) 6:15PM struck and we were out the door for the first apperance through the welcome sign on World Drive!!!
Garmin took us to the Magic Kingdom parking gates where I proceeded to tell them we had a date with the spa at the grand floridian... he motioned us to stay to the right and we were on our way. Pulled up to the Grand Floridian and found that since we didn't want to pay $12 to Valet we got placed in the cast off lot (aka the self parking). Funny thing about this lot is that if you are going to the spa you don't really have a path so you have to walk either along the street or through the grass... We chose the grass to remain safest as we didn't want to have an accident this early into our trip. come to find out that there isn't really an easy way to get to the Spa building from the self parking (note to self, there is a reason they offer valet). So we arrived at the rear of the building only to find that there wasn't really a way around it that didn't involve scalling a fence or walking through mud. So seeing that it was now 6:56pm I called the spa asking for a guided tour of how to arrive clean at their location. Finally we arrived and luckily they didn't seem to mind that we were about 15mins late (well actually right on time for her 7pm treatment, just they wanted us to arrive 15mins early to get set up). We have dinner reservations at 1900 Park Fare to spend night 1 with Cinderella so I wasn't sure now if getting there late meant either the spa was cut short or we were late to the dinner. Spa was not in fact cut short and for that I am happy. YO! needed this to unwind from a crazy year and the long car ride. Since I wasn't getting a treatment I was
expecting to go grab the monorail from the Grand Floridian and just ride it like there was no tomorrow. After all how do you spend 1-1/2 hours waiting? Well since we were celebrating our engagement the lady escorted me off to the "gentlemans room" Crazy cool, I had access to the Sauna, Jacuzzi and showers.... I took full advantage of this, all by myself actually...the place was dead! I managed to take 2 naps during my wait... one in the sauna and one in the gentlemans wait room... they have the soothing music and lights down low... perfect storm for a guy that has been up for now 30hours straight and just driven for 19hours...
Around 7:55pm I got a text from YO! asking where I was because she was done... I popped my head out of the back room and listened as she explained how absolutely wonderful she felt... She was all relaxed and explained the feeling of the knots being worked out as like peas popping... ew. but regardless, she loved the experience and it showed... she was glowing (partially because of the massage oils used I would gather).
It was a short walk to 1900 Park Fare where we checked in about 8-1/2mins after our Ressie... The greeter was calm cool and collected and happily checked us in. He noticed that we were celebrating our Engagement but we didn't have any buttons... he questioned why I would do such a thing lol After explaining he was the first real Disney stop since we arrived 4 hours ago he gave us "JUST ENGAGED" buttons. The other guy next to him slipped me some "JUST MARRIED" buttons too exclaiming for practice when 11.12.11 comes along. We were seated in about 10mins and had a great 2 person seat.
The waitress came and took our drink orders (Pomogranted Lemonaid for both and some water....). While we were hungry we couldn't exactly leave right away becuase Cinderellas step sisters arrived to visit with us. They loved her ring and little did we know we would be asked about 6,766,555,513 times to tell our story and show off the ring. Every single character wanted to hear and see it... Finally we had a slight break to go up and get food. We found the real fun to be using the Kids mickey plates... Maybe not the most practical it was a pretty cool haha. After all, when in Disney.... Cinderalla came along with her Prince (She is YO!'s absolute favorite Princess) It was so much fun talking with them and such and telling our story and getting pictures with them. The food was not really that good, but the ability to meet the Princess, Prince, Her step-mom and step-sisters... it was a good time! We got caught in the Disney experience and bought the photo from it. I do like that once bought you get the EVNT-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx number that you can link to your Photopass account so you can add borders and print at your leisure as well.
We didnt want to over do ourselves but it was about 9:50 when we ended dinner so we head over to the magic kingdom to catch the end of wishes and just see the castle for the first time (MK was open until 12am). Afterall, a disney vacation doesn't officially start to you walk under the train station and peer out unto Cindys Castle. We got a photopass that would become or mission and fun to use at every possible point haha. I know we went on Stitches Great escape as it was posted only 5mins... However they had technical difficulties making the wait more like 20mins... they gotcha once you are in there. After that we headed over for a nice jaunt on the WEDway People Mover. we then headed over to Adventure land where we caught the end of the Electromagic parade. All rides in fantasy land were about 5min waits but I know for sure all we went on was PeterPans Flight... We tried to go to the Haunted Mansion but it was also having technical difficulites.... so this is when we caught the parade... After it ended we noticed people going into the HM, problem solved and we were in our doombuggies within 8mins of crossing the threshhold.
Even though about 24 hours earlier we were only 8 hours into our 19hour car ride, we ended up closing MK...it was shocking to see that we actually got a monorail car to ourselves heading back to the Grand Floridian...odd on a saturday night. Walking to the Car in the self park at the Grand Floridian was a bit tricky again given that there was no signage to tell us there is another entrance to the left that has a tram to take you to the GF! So we walked through the grass over the hills to our car....Scared something in the brush and it made a scurrying noise! Got to our car and then within 20mins we were back to the Hotel to download pictures to the computer and recharge our bodies.... YO!'s is starting to feel a bit sore from the Spa workout lol
We talked it over and decided we would give 1900 Park Fare (Princess Dinner) a 3.5 out of 5 stars. Food was less than spectacular but the Character greeting aspect made it worth while. Will we be going back to this in our next visits....(NO)
Pictures from Day 1 can be found here: http://family.webshots.com/album/578765687NFquGR
Tomorrow we are off to HS in the morning (sci-Fi) and Epcot at night (Chef De France)
its about 2:30 PM and the final preperations are being done before YO! gets home from work... When its all said and done we walk out the door at 4PM
I won't get much into the long long long car ride... YO! would probably like it better if I didn't discuss the Blood tears and laughs of this 18 hour trip. I will comment though that we actually really did a good job... Only a few fights that happened because we were both tired and exhausted but kept on pressing. As for the Blood, no don't worry it wasn't any of ours... I consider myself lucky that she didn't slay me lol. But it was from a poor possum that for some reason decided it would LOVE to cross I-75 at about 2am. I tried to avoid contact, but in trying to keep ourselves safe and on the road, contact was pretty much a given. Moment of silence for that little roddent please...
Alrighty then, With stops at Bob Evans in Ohio for Dinner and then Ihop in Adel, Georgia for Breakfast we arrived at the Fountains at 1pm on Saturday 10/9. We put our names in the queue even though check-in wasn't until 4pm.... I was hoping for all our sakes we could get in early to take a quick nap before we head out to YO!s Spa treatment at the Grand Floridian. We found our way to the pool bar and took up residence ordering a pretty tasty Ceasar Salad wrap and some adult pops. Kept checking my phone every 5mins hoping to see a new message about our room. No luck, not yet. Lounged around the pool and took in the sights and sounds of people enjoying a 100% sunny, blue sky day. Unbenounced to us, this would be the trend for our entire 10 day trip... and to think we bought and brought 10 of those $.89 disposable ponchos from Wally-world (aka Walmart). Around 3pm I received a message saying I had a voicemail. Strange as I have full bars and the phone never rang...Regardless it was the front desk with a short and sweet message, "Your room is ready come and get it" not 100% friendly but staying offsite this is more a place to spend 6 hours sleeping... the real magic happens daily 5miles to the south west :)
First Impressions of the Room was nice, very nice actually! It was about 1,300 sqft with a Full Kitchen, Dishwasher, Washer/Dryer, Jaccuzi Master suit, Front porch over looking the man made lake. it was good times. I thought it was best that since we had a few hours before the 6:45pm spa that I put YO! down for a nap... or whatever you call it when adults sleep in the afternoon haha. During that time
I decided to watch the UofM/MSU game as with all the excitement I just couldn't sleep, even after being up for about 27 hours straight now. While she napped I brought in all the luggage and whatnot so that we could just shower and go when the time comes.
We started this trend where no matter what we did, something always made us a few (well sometimes not a few) mins late for all of our reservations lol the joys of staying offsite ;) 6:15PM struck and we were out the door for the first apperance through the welcome sign on World Drive!!!
Garmin took us to the Magic Kingdom parking gates where I proceeded to tell them we had a date with the spa at the grand floridian... he motioned us to stay to the right and we were on our way. Pulled up to the Grand Floridian and found that since we didn't want to pay $12 to Valet we got placed in the cast off lot (aka the self parking). Funny thing about this lot is that if you are going to the spa you don't really have a path so you have to walk either along the street or through the grass... We chose the grass to remain safest as we didn't want to have an accident this early into our trip. come to find out that there isn't really an easy way to get to the Spa building from the self parking (note to self, there is a reason they offer valet). So we arrived at the rear of the building only to find that there wasn't really a way around it that didn't involve scalling a fence or walking through mud. So seeing that it was now 6:56pm I called the spa asking for a guided tour of how to arrive clean at their location. Finally we arrived and luckily they didn't seem to mind that we were about 15mins late (well actually right on time for her 7pm treatment, just they wanted us to arrive 15mins early to get set up). We have dinner reservations at 1900 Park Fare to spend night 1 with Cinderella so I wasn't sure now if getting there late meant either the spa was cut short or we were late to the dinner. Spa was not in fact cut short and for that I am happy. YO! needed this to unwind from a crazy year and the long car ride. Since I wasn't getting a treatment I was
expecting to go grab the monorail from the Grand Floridian and just ride it like there was no tomorrow. After all how do you spend 1-1/2 hours waiting? Well since we were celebrating our engagement the lady escorted me off to the "gentlemans room" Crazy cool, I had access to the Sauna, Jacuzzi and showers.... I took full advantage of this, all by myself actually...the place was dead! I managed to take 2 naps during my wait... one in the sauna and one in the gentlemans wait room... they have the soothing music and lights down low... perfect storm for a guy that has been up for now 30hours straight and just driven for 19hours...
Around 7:55pm I got a text from YO! asking where I was because she was done... I popped my head out of the back room and listened as she explained how absolutely wonderful she felt... She was all relaxed and explained the feeling of the knots being worked out as like peas popping... ew. but regardless, she loved the experience and it showed... she was glowing (partially because of the massage oils used I would gather).
It was a short walk to 1900 Park Fare where we checked in about 8-1/2mins after our Ressie... The greeter was calm cool and collected and happily checked us in. He noticed that we were celebrating our Engagement but we didn't have any buttons... he questioned why I would do such a thing lol After explaining he was the first real Disney stop since we arrived 4 hours ago he gave us "JUST ENGAGED" buttons. The other guy next to him slipped me some "JUST MARRIED" buttons too exclaiming for practice when 11.12.11 comes along. We were seated in about 10mins and had a great 2 person seat.
The waitress came and took our drink orders (Pomogranted Lemonaid for both and some water....). While we were hungry we couldn't exactly leave right away becuase Cinderellas step sisters arrived to visit with us. They loved her ring and little did we know we would be asked about 6,766,555,513 times to tell our story and show off the ring. Every single character wanted to hear and see it... Finally we had a slight break to go up and get food. We found the real fun to be using the Kids mickey plates... Maybe not the most practical it was a pretty cool haha. After all, when in Disney.... Cinderalla came along with her Prince (She is YO!'s absolute favorite Princess) It was so much fun talking with them and such and telling our story and getting pictures with them. The food was not really that good, but the ability to meet the Princess, Prince, Her step-mom and step-sisters... it was a good time! We got caught in the Disney experience and bought the photo from it. I do like that once bought you get the EVNT-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx number that you can link to your Photopass account so you can add borders and print at your leisure as well.
We didnt want to over do ourselves but it was about 9:50 when we ended dinner so we head over to the magic kingdom to catch the end of wishes and just see the castle for the first time (MK was open until 12am). Afterall, a disney vacation doesn't officially start to you walk under the train station and peer out unto Cindys Castle. We got a photopass that would become or mission and fun to use at every possible point haha. I know we went on Stitches Great escape as it was posted only 5mins... However they had technical difficulties making the wait more like 20mins... they gotcha once you are in there. After that we headed over for a nice jaunt on the WEDway People Mover. we then headed over to Adventure land where we caught the end of the Electromagic parade. All rides in fantasy land were about 5min waits but I know for sure all we went on was PeterPans Flight... We tried to go to the Haunted Mansion but it was also having technical difficulites.... so this is when we caught the parade... After it ended we noticed people going into the HM, problem solved and we were in our doombuggies within 8mins of crossing the threshhold.
Even though about 24 hours earlier we were only 8 hours into our 19hour car ride, we ended up closing MK...it was shocking to see that we actually got a monorail car to ourselves heading back to the Grand Floridian...odd on a saturday night. Walking to the Car in the self park at the Grand Floridian was a bit tricky again given that there was no signage to tell us there is another entrance to the left that has a tram to take you to the GF! So we walked through the grass over the hills to our car....Scared something in the brush and it made a scurrying noise! Got to our car and then within 20mins we were back to the Hotel to download pictures to the computer and recharge our bodies.... YO!'s is starting to feel a bit sore from the Spa workout lol
We talked it over and decided we would give 1900 Park Fare (Princess Dinner) a 3.5 out of 5 stars. Food was less than spectacular but the Character greeting aspect made it worth while. Will we be going back to this in our next visits....(NO)
Pictures from Day 1 can be found here: http://family.webshots.com/album/578765687NFquGR
Tomorrow we are off to HS in the morning (sci-Fi) and Epcot at night (Chef De France)