Tiki Family Trip Report 2011 Part 1&2

[TikiGoddess]

Tiki Family Trip Report 2011

Cast of Characters:
Me, 38, Mom, Teacher, and all-around WDW fan
Tim, 43, Dad, Teacher, and accommodating husband
Julie, 8, tomboy and scientist
Katie, 6, makes everyone laugh with her antics

Dates: July 18-27

Monday: visit relatives in Tampa

We flew into MCO for a change, and picked up a rental car from Hertz. I had done a Priceline bid for $18 (Full Size), and they upgraded us to an SUV! We walked out to the parking garage where they met us with cold water bottles and the guy drove the Rav 4 up to us. It was a really nice car to drive – we might even look into one when we need a new car. Great surprise #1.

We drove over to Downtown Disney, managing to cover all of the tolls with change that we had brought. Katie was already starting to get cranky, after a busy morning and all that. We parked near the T-Rex restaurant and walked around a bit. Got to visit the T-Rex store (Julie’s request), Legos, and I grabbed some lunch from Fresh Appeal. I got to check out the Babycakes store too, which I’ve heard a lot about.

For Katie, the magic potion is smoothies. So we made a point to get her a mango smoothie before we headed out to the car. Unfortunately, when she was strapping into her seat, Daddy knocked over her smoothie and it went all over the floor. She fell into a fit (I would have too!) and Tim went back and got her a new one. After we had cleaned up the mess and the tears, we were off to Tampa.

The ride went quickly thanks to short naps and iPod touch games. We arrived at my in-law’s house in the late afternoon. They made a delicious spaghetti dinner for us, we all swam in the pool, and had Rita’s for dessert. It was a long day but we were in Florida, on vacation. All good.

Tuesday-Friday: Tampa

We had some wonderful times at my in-laws house. Tuesday we went to the beach. Wednesday was a quiet day at home with the pool, and dinner out at the Salt Rock Grill. Thursday we went to the Lowry Park Zoo, and a Yankees/Rays game at night. Friday we went back to the beach and packed up.

Up next: Disney

[TikiGoddess]

Saturday:

We woke up at 5am and were out of house by 6:20. We weren’t planning on going to the hotel before Epcot, but since we got to Orlando so early we drove to AKL. We dropped our luggage at Bell Services and checked in on the 6th floor. Check in went smoothly and quickly. We grabbed a few snacks and headed to the bus stop for Epcot. The lounge was beautiful and well stocked (with the exception of evening appetizers).

Buses for the parks at AKL were very good. That’s one of the benefits of visiting in the summer. A constant parade of buses. The longest wait we had during the whole trip was probably 10 minutes. We arrived at Epcot at 9am and I went to get FPs for Soarin’. Not bad -- 10:33 return time. I met the family over at Test Track, which had a posted standby wait of 20 min. When we went into the building though, we waited less than 5 minutes. Julie got scared before going on but remembered the fast part (that part she liked). Mission Space was next (less than 5 min wait). Katie was really into this one, because my husband Tim pretends that he doesn’t know what to do. He’s a total goofball and she loves it.

Something new was next. We went over to Innoventions East for Sum of All Thrills. We waited 10 minutes in line and it was worth the wait. The girls thought it was really cool – it had a great interface for planning rollercoasters. Katie and I did “Lightning Mountain” and Julie and Tim did “Turbo Snake”. We had a great ride (and it was a nice break in the air conditioning).

We walked over to Nemo and the girls rode together, so I got some quiet time with my hubby. (Gotta take it when you can!) We got lucky and walked right into a showing of Turtle Talk. There was a little girl who was named “Flush” (she said, “cause I almost came out in the toilet” – I kid you not) and you should have seen the expressions on Crush’s face. We had dared Katie to ask Crush a question (she has been too shy in the past) but she didn’t get a chance. The show was packed.

We walked onto Imagination next. Thank goodness they kept the Imagination song, which is just the catchiest tune around – I am always singing it at the end of the ride. We didn’t spend too much time in the area following, although we had to jump around on the musical lights. And I noticed they have a new “make your own figment” program on the computers. We then headed to the Land pavilion and had lunch. Tim and I shared a turkey ciabatta and the girls had PBJ. Free water from the soda fountain.

Listen to the Land was next. Katie was a bit grumpy one minute, happy the next. Soarin’ was next with FP (except I lost one, but the CMs gave me an extra). It was the shortest wait ever for Soarin’. They were looking for a family of 4 and we jumped ahead. We usually wait for the top row but this time we ended up on the 2nd row. Awesome flight, still a breathtaking ride. Julie asked me if they would ever make a new film – I hope they do, that would be an easy update.

It was getting later but no text about our room being ready. So we went up to World Showcase. Julie wanted to go to Japan, so she could peruse the extensive Pokemon selection. She’s a bit obsessed with Pokemon. I was thinking about the long, hot walk in the early afternoon sun. We got slushies at a stand by Imagination and that helped. Some clouds came out and that helped too. We made it to Japan and Julie was in her element with so many Pokemon plush to choose from. Then Katie noticed the lady banging the drum by the pick-a-pearl station. She watched closely and quickly decided she would like to try. My husband convinced me to get one with her, and he would call it our special treat. Katie picked out two oysters for us. Hers had the biggest pearl of the day, an “8”. Mine was a smaller “7” with some beautiful coloring. We chose two necklaces (hers was an open clam, mine a small swirl of metal), paid for them and arranged to pick them up tomorrow. It was a really special moment. I am glad my husband convinced me to do this with Katie – what a special keepsake to have from our day at Epcot.

Julie did awesome in her first day walking. We headed back to Future World and tried to do Mission Space, as requested by Katie, but the line was 30 minutes. She was disappointed and threw a small fit but there was no way I was waiting. Someone said there was something wrong with the ride, so it probably would have been a longer wait. We did find SSE with NO wait, so we did that. I stuck my tongue out during the photo and Julie got a laugh out of it.

We waited less than 10 minutes at the AKL bus stop. We had received a text that our room was ready (4223) while we were pearl shopping. We found our room – it had everything we requested! Bunk beds for the kids AND close to the lobby. We were in the first set of rooms on the 4th floor, on Kudu trail overlooking the Arusha savannah. Animals were always wandering into view, and we could see the pelicans by the central outlook.

We found our way to the lounge after some wandering. The kids watched Toy Story 2 and had snacks while Tim and I had tea, scones, rice crispie treats, and yogurt. We decided to stay in the hotel for the evening. We went back to the room (after Katie discovered the African smoothie) and unpacked. The lounge appetizers weren’t enough for dinner, so we went to the Mara and got dinner. Yum - Chicken flatbread, kids mac and cheese (much better than years past), and nuggets.

Out to the pool, where we tried out the slide and the various depths of the pool. What a difference in the girls’ ability and comfort level in the water this year! Last year I had to stand at the end of the slide and catch Katie… this year she’s doing it all by herself. Julie is swimming in the deep end.
The only complaint I would have about the pool is that the water felt very over- chlorinated. Around 7pm, we went back to the room to shower the chlorine off and get ready for bed. The kids watched Tom and Jerry for a bit until sleep. My husband and I took advantage of the drinks and desserts in the lounge. Tim found a very yummy caramel cordial and some awesome desserts. A sweet end to a fun day.

[TikiGoddess]

Sunday, MK day

We got up early but groggily. Out to bus stop at 7:15 or so… and the bus came quickly. We arrived at the gates to MK around 7:40. We waited on Main Street to get our picture taken by one of the Photopass photographers. Our camera fogged up despite our best efforts. We checked in at Crystal Palace for our 8:05 res but weren’t called until about 8:20. Didn’t matter, we got to see all of the characters and finished breakfast at about 8:50. I waited around for the bill (the waiter was SLOW) and Tim took the kids to do Space Mountain, which I was happy to miss. This did mean that I was in charge of getting FPs for Splash. It was a long walk in the heat. But I did get to see the Thunder/Splash area empty in the morning – 5 min waits – we should go there first next time. I walked back through Frontierland and then Main Street, stopping to see the Trolley Dancers doing the morning “Welcome/Trolley” song - my husband hates this song and groans every time it comes up on my ipod playlist. Too cheesy for him. For me, it reminds me of bright, early mornings in the Magic Kingdom…

I sat under the TTA for a while until Tim and the kids showed up. We did Buzz (I got a measley 106,000 – totally off my game today). I’m usually around 300K. The girls were happy with their scores – Julie got 7600 and that was big for her.

Then I headed over to the Tea Cups with the girls. How silly of me. I’m getting too old for spinning. Everyone enjoyed the new queue at Pooh (no wait). Wow, Fantasyland is really looking amazing, esp. Beast’s castle. Snow White had a long wait by then, so we got FPs for Peter Pan and walked over to Haunted Mansion. The ‘scenic’ queue at the Mansion is fantastic!! The new interactive elements are so well-themed. Julie was brave and rode the whole ride without getting scared. We even got stopped 2-3 times. And I love the new ghosts at the end.

After HM we did a bathroom break in the Columbia Harbor House, then went up to Splash. The left water cannon wasn’t working so we didn’t get soaked, although with the heat we could have used it. We got FPs for Thunder. It was getting to lunch time and we were all tired, so we thought we would go out of the park and eat at our resort. We started walking out through the shops when the 12 o’clock parade went by (yes, they had two parades that day). We stood in the store doorway (the shop next to Casey’s Corner) and watched it pass from air-conditioned comfort. It was a shorter parade than I remembered but I’m so glad we stopped. A little magic moment. After that we went to the other side of Main Street, looked longingly at the artwork (and the Shag merchandise) then went to the hat shop and bought the girls and Tim hats. By then it was about 12:30 and we were all hungry. So we went up to Tomorrowland Terrace. Tim and I shared a burger, and the girls had nuggets etc. It was a good lunch (minus all of the Brazilian teenagers that seemed to fill the park). We felt better after eating and did Laugh Floor (first time for the kids and Tim). Katie’s joke was used in the show!! “Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road?” “Because he had no guts!” Then we did Stitch, where the girls predictably loved Stitch’s antics and “Miss me, miss me…”

We left after that. It was hot and crowded. Thankfully the AKL bus stop was close and we didn’t have to wait long. The ride back was stinky and sticky – no AC.

When we got back to the hotel we took a well-earned break in the room. The plan was to drive to Epcot for dinner at Tokyo Dining. Tim took a wrong turn and we ended up taking I4 to DTD. We parked at the Yacht Club and walked into Epcot. (Yes, it was me who said to park at the Yacht Club. Why didn’t we park at Beach??) Julie was so tired and grumpy from walking so much I ended up giving her a piggy back ride for most of the walk. She’s 8, and it was about 90 degrees outside. Yes, I am a dedicated mom.

Dinner was good and the kids were happy because we got Pokemon cards and one more Poke friend for Julie. Katie and I picked up our necklaces from the pearl stand. Then the exhaustion hit and I could go no further. We left and went back to the room – I was in bed by 8 and Tim took care of the kids, bless his soul.

[TikiGoddess]

Monday

We woke up refreshed and well-rested. We had breakfast in the lounge and hopped on a bus to the Studios. We got to the Studios before opening. The crowd was amassed on the main street, so I told Tim I would go ahead and get FPs for Toy Story, and meet him at RnRC. I wormed my way up to the front of the mob and was able to score FPs for 9:45am – I was the 3rd person in the FP machine line! Total Disney geek moment.

I walked quickly over to RnRC where I met Tim (who was getting pressed pennies with the girls) and we waited about 5-10 min for the ride. The girls liked it, although I think Katie was a little scared as the ride bumped her around a bit. But she did say that she wanted to go on it again. Then we went over to ToT but the wait was at 30 min. I got a tea and a yogurt while we waited for 9:45 so I could get a FP for ToT. Tim walked over to Star Tours 2 with the kids and I met up with them. There was a FIVE minute wait for Star Tours 2. We met Darth Vader on the ride, went to the Wookie Planet, and to an underwater world. Very Cool. We wanted to do it again but the wait was up to 30 min when we passed by. So we went over to TSM to use our FPs. The standby was only about 20 min at that point, by some freak of nature. The queue was empty! But we used our FPs and in about 10 min we were in. Tim and I rode together. He crushed me, of course. I still can’t get past Beaver level - he got the next one up.

Then we did Tower of Terror – Tim went over to the 50’s Prime Time without us, as his back was bothering him and he didn’t want to make it worse. The girls loved the ride and remembered a lot of it from last year. Katie and I got FPs for it so we could ride after lunch. Tim went and got FPs for Star Tours so he and Julie could ride again.

Lunch at 50’s Prime Time was great. The food was excellent, although I was a little disappointed in our server. My husband and I were trying our best to get punished but we got nothing from our server except a verbal reprimand. We did have a ball shooting spitballs at each other and hearing the kids say, “Mom, behave!!”

After a delicious lunch we split up. Tim and Julie went on ST2 again and Katie and I went to ride Tower of Terror. It was really nice to have some alone time with Katie. We also stopped and watched the Citizens of Hollywood doing “Hollywood Matchmaker”. The man who was in the show picked his wife instead of one of the characters – they were married 33 yrs.

We looked in the shops before heading out to the bus. There was an AKL bus sitting there about to leave, so we jumped on… and my husband and Julie were in the back. They had ridden ST2 and gotten some ice cream (cookies and cream mickey sandwich! And none left for me??) and bought 4 of the small figurine attraction packs. We had fun opening them and finding out which ones we had gotten. Katie made some of the princesses kiss Daddy and he made the girls happy by making silly faces.

When we got back to the hotel, we had some media time in the room. Then Tim decided to rest, so I took the girls to the pool for 45 minutes. We did the slide a few times and swam around. A kid found a small snake on the steps, and Julie was very excited to see a ‘real’ snake. One of the lifeguards picked it up in a towel and dropped it in the bushes.

The lifeguards were running pool games. The girls were excited to try the hula hoop game. They both went longer than they had ever hooped! Then the lifeguard said they had to turn in a circle and they both lost it. Two teenagers won the contest. After hooping away, we headed back up to the room. I had my bathrobe on and Katie announced that she had to go to the bathroom, so there I stood, outside Boma (where people were starting to arrive for dinner), listening to the drummers in Boma, in my bathrobe. I just reminded myself that I was never going to see these people again…

We cleaned up in the room and joined Daddy on the balcony, looking at the animals. We had a great view of the savannah – the pelicans were almost always there, and zebras, wildebeest, giraffes, small deer (duiker?), red river hog (one of our favorites), ducks in a row, quail (?)… even though we were close to the lobby we still saw tons of animals.

We went to the lounge to get some snacks, but it wasn’t enough for dinner so we went to the Mara again. Julie and I shared a cheese flatbread and Katie had nuggets. Tim had food from the lounge. I guess it’s a blessing that we all don’t feel like eating a lot in the summer heat. Saves us money on food. 

We took the bus to the Magic Kingdom. Bus service to/from the lodge was excellent. We hardly ever waited for a bus. When we got to the MK, first stop was the popcorn stand in the hub. I bought my first popcorn bucket and we munched on the popcorn all night. Then we headed to Space Mountain to see if we could get a FP. The FP return time was 10pm. We were noticing that it was fairly crowded. We hopped on TTA so the girls could at least ride through Space Mountain. Plus it gave us a breeze on a hot night.

We headed up through Fantasyland, encountering more and more crowds. To illustrate the point – the wait for Small World was 45 minutes!! We saw the paddleboat loading, so we hopped on. A slow ride around the rivers of America. Katie had fun exploring the boat but Julie wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t as cool of a ride as I had wished. By the time we got off I was sweating (maybe from the heat of the engine).

We cut through to Adventureland. Katie asked to ride the magic carpets. So we waited about 15 minutes to ride but the smile on her face was worth it. Then we did Pirates, which was only about a 10 min wait in the cool air conditioning. Some people look for the redhead, or the dog, but our family looks for the hairy leg. The couple in front of me wanted to see everything – and take pictures of it all. Unfortunately they didn’t know to turn their flashbulbs off!

I took the girls to ride Thunder using our FPs from the previous day. It was so busy, the CM at the front of the FP line hardly glanced at our tickets. We got to sit in the very first row – I sat in the middle and tried to not squish the kids on the corners. But it turned out that they liked that and there were squeals of laughter throughout the ride.

We knew the parade was coming, so we met Tim at the end of the ride and walked to our favorite spot to watch the nighttime parade. We found that if you sit right near the tunnels under the train station, you can escape quicker after it’s done and get on the first bus back to the hotel before the masses exit.

We managed to squeeze ourselves into a spot right by the stairs up to the train station. It was 8:45. Tim went off to get food and drinks, and came back with a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich from the Bakery and water. The girls played with some glow bracelets while we waited. The parade was fun. Tinkerbell blew a kiss right at the girls. A snail stopped right in front of us and bowed its head. The Elliot dragon was amazing. .

We made it out of the park with the first wave of guests, and got on the first bus (even had seats!). There weren’t that many people on the bus even. It was about 10:30 by the time the girls got to sleep, but it was worth it. It was a really wonderful day.

[TikiGoddess]

Tuesday

We knew that everyone was going to be tired after the late night. Plan was to go to AK for the morning. But we decided to take it easy in the morning and had breakfast in the lounge. I sat down with the concierge (they were very helpful through our trip) and got dinner reservations for CALI GRILL at 5:30, that day.

We went to Blizzard Beach for our first visit ever. We got there around 9:45. As we went through the turnstiles, we found out that Katie’s ticket didn’t have the waterpark option on it. Julie and I were through, and Katie and Tim were on the other side. The attendant must have seen the look of panic on my face. He let Katie slide in with Tim
and said, “Have a nice day”. A little magic in our day!

The water park was awesome. We had some good timing with the weather- it was overcast all day. We talked to one of the CMs at the snack stand, and he gave us a plan of action: Teamboat Springs, then take the Lazy River over to the Rapids and Snow Stormers. None of us was feeling brave and interested in the big plunge, and by the time we figured out Crush Gusher the wait was about 45 min. I don’t think the girls would have liked it anyway.

It took me a minute to get used to speeding down the mountain on a raft, but after that I had a great time. Teamboat Springs was our favorite, along with the Snow Stormers and Rapids. We all tried the in-the-dark-solo-ride and the double rider. We spent some time bobbing on the wave pool, but it got me seasick after about 5 minutes. We had a nice lunch at one of the stands – chicken wrap, meatball subs, and two sweet teas (for me). We really worked up an appetite, climbing the hills. Wish I had brought water shoes though. My feet were sore and my germaphobic tendencies were grumping at me.

We stayed for about 4 hours. The girls had a blast! They had seen the sing-along video and got a kick out of doing some of the things they had seen on TV. They tried the iceberg pass (Julie made it across but Katie fell in) and Julie did the water drop. She got a photopass and was excited to see her picture online.

We changed into dry clothes and took the bus back to the hotel. I had a nice hot shower while Tim took the girls to the lounge for snacks. We found gummy bears, trail mix, and yogurt pretzels -- one of our favorite selections in the lounge. My hubby liked the tea time which is funny because he never drinks tea at home!

It felt really good to be clean and get dressed up. We drove over to the Contemporary, checked in at the podium, and went up on the elevator. We walked into the restaurant and our buzzer went off. We were brought to our table, which was right next to the window and overlooking the lagoon and MK. It was perfect!

The girls had mac and cheese and Tim and I shared sushi and a chicken flatbread. He had two drinks (one delicious coffee based cocktail, one Cali Grill coffee) and I had a gin and tonic. It cost us $100 for the four of us, a bargain for a great meal with a fantastic view! We even took some time out on the balcony watching the Magic Kingdom and marveling at the ‘endless stairs’ – the fire escape stairs from the balcony that go from the top to the bottom of the Contemporary.

We went down to the shops, where Tim took the girls to the arcade and I looked in the shops. I found a great notepad made of old tickets and got some ideas for later. The girls ended up playing games in the arcade for about an hour. Katie won 120 tickets on the Deal or No Deal game! They got some neat prizes (over 400 tickets combined) and we headed back to the hotel early. It was time to pack up as tomorrow was our last day.

[TikiGoddess]

Wednesday

Our last day at Disney. We got up around 7am. Boy, those blackout drapes really block out the light. The girls found the chocolate coins that Tink had left for them. Along with the chocolates that were left on our beds in the evening turn-down we had amassed quite a collection - plus the chocolate giraffes we had gotten from the concierge when we checked in!

Last packing done, we went to the lounge for breakfast. We made it to the AK by 9:15. People were pouring in. We went up to Everest to get FPs and managed to get 11:20am FPs. We walked over to Dinoland, marveling at the amount of people already in the park. We rode Triceratop Spin and caught a nice breeze. It was HOT even though the sky was overcast.

We hadn’t planned to go on Dinosaur but it only had a 10 min wait, and I had dared the girls to go on it with eyes open. If they could do it I would buy them a pin. They did it! I didn’t cover my eyes but my ears – that ride needs to be turned down 3-4 notches.

After Dinosaur we went to Restaurantosaurus to use the bathroom and look for drinks. Unfortunately the place wasn’t open yet. Most of the stands and carts weren’t open in the morning. I was dying for my iced tea fix but didn’t get one until much later.

We walked over to Camp Minnie-Mickey, and missed seeing the Lion King show by about 5 minutes. We were in line and the CMs said no more people, so we went to the character lines and had our longest wait of the trip. I wanted to see Mickey (plus the girls and I had our “I heart Mickey” shirts on), so we stood for about 20 min and waited to see him. It was pleasant in the area (hadn’t been there before) and I loved the music. Solo guitar arrangements of Disney tunes - I will have to find that one somewhere on the internet.

We walked through Africa and Asia to the Jungle Trek. Julie had done a school report on bats and wanted to see them. We were lucky to see lots of deer about, and a fantastic tiger walking along around the ruins. Great view of the tiger by the water. By the time we finished the trek it was FP time. Wow, so many people in that area, including Brazilian tour groups. The girls and I rode Everest while Tim camped out and checked his email. It was a great first ride. The girls knew sort of what to expect (we watched a youtube video of the ride) but that was good, as they were not too scared to try it. I love the g-forces you get on that ride!

The ride was pronounced ‘awesome’ and off we went to meet Daddy. By then it was definitely time to get some lunch and get out of the park. We went back to Restaurantosaurus which was teeming with people, but we didn’t wait that long in line. They have good crowd management. Shrimp po-boy, veggie sub, nuggets, and hamburger. The hardest job was finding a table inside. We managed to snag a table right near the condiments. One table had two Brazilian bags on it and stood empty for probably 20 minutes before two girls sat down at it. That was annoying as people were walking around looking for tables.

Lunch was good and we all felt refreshed after the coolness and the food. We made our way slowly out of the park and got a bus to Epcot. We got to Epcot about 1:15pm. Totally off our usual touring plan – we hardly ever stay out in the afternoon as it’s too crowded and hot. But today we had no other place to go!

Katie wanted to do Mission Space but there was a 30 min (and 130 min?) wait. So Tim had the idea to go to World Showcase so we could do Mexico and Norway. Oh, and Katie could get worms in dirt and Julie wanted churros. Oh, and we could try out Kim Possible! Right by the entrance to WS we stopped in the Duffy store. The girls and I each bought a small Duffy bear, about 6 in tall with magnets in the hands and feet. We had a blast bringing them on the Mexico ride, playing with each other, and sticking them together. One of my favorite souvenirs of the trip. The Duffys are now stuck to our new refrigerator, watching over the new kitchen.

The Mexico ride was blissfully cool and fun. I love that they kept the cliff diving sequence. Wish they still had the old song though. We found a pressed penny machine with a Duffy Mexico coin in it, so Tim thought we could visit each country and collect coins from each. We went to Norway, got desserts (worms in dirt, chocolate cake, and some apple dessert), and coins. We didn’t find coins in China (their coins are at the International Gateway) but it was nice to walk through the pavilion.

When we left China it started to drizzle. The first rain of the trip. It didn’t last long – was dry by the time we got to Italy. But we skipped Germany because of it. We were headed to Italy to get our Kimmunicator. It told us to go to Japan. As we were passing the American Pavilion, it was 2:45 and we got a chance to see the Voices of Liberty! As a singer I LOVE this group. They did some great arrangements of Red River Valley and You’ll Never Walk Alone. A nice magic moment.

We went over to Japan and did our mission. It took about 20 min but we had a great time. The girls were totally engaged, and it was neat to see the clues hidden in the actual buildings. We thwarted the killer Beebee baby! As a prize Tim bought the kids (more) Pokemon cards. We really wanted to do another quest but it was getting late, and we had to get back to the hotel. We will DEFINITELY be doing more missions the next time we’re in World Showcase.

We walked out and stopped for one last ride on Figment. As we were parking the stroller, we felt the first real raindrops coming down. We knew it would be pouring by the time we came back out, and sure enough it was. We waited for a break in the rain and ran for Innoventions. After a bathroom break we made our way through the building and walked out of Epcot, wishing we had time for one more ride on SSE, which had no wait.

Sigh, we took the bus back to the hotel. There was enough time to pick up some souvenirs in the store (mostly chocolates, pins). We got some snacks at the lounge, picked up a bag from bell services, and headed out. The ride to the airport was uneventful and rental car dropoff easy.

We got dinner at the food court, changed into fresh shirts, and got on the plane. Julie didn’t sleep at all (8:30-11:15 flight) but Katie dropped off around 10. My brother-in-law picked us up at the airport and we came home to one happy, happy dog!

A great vacation with plenty of family fun time. And now we’re home for 4 more weeks until the busy school year starts. It's been a busy summer as we've totally redone our kitchen and made some big changes in the house.

Our next trip will most likely be in summer 2012, but I'm also planning on booking a Caribbean Disney cruise for 2013, as soon as the dates come out! It will be our first Disney cruise (my first cruise ever).

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!

Kathy

[yjgirl32]

Thanks for sharing!

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

Great reports, thanks for posting

[MizMissy]

I enjoyed your reports. I can just about imagine Crush's face!! My face probably looked similar when I read your story. haha.

Glad you had a wonderful trip with your family and good luck on your school year!

[January-2007]

What a wonderful vacation! Thank you so much for the awesome trip report!!

[Disney4us2]

Great reports. Thanks for sharing. You made me even more excited for our AKL stay. I just can't wait.:mickey:

[DisneyorBust]

Thanks for the reports! I enjoyed each day. Makes me kind of wish my family's next trip would get here sooner.....:D

[wildernesslady]

Great reports. Thanks for sharing them.

[faline]

Wonderful trip for you and your family! I don't know who ever planned the placement of the pool at Animal Kingdom which essentially forces you to walk through the diners in your swim wear! I remember commenting it on our last trip!

[SBETigg]

A fun-filled trip! Was that girl really named Flush or was she kidding with Crush? Gosh! Glad that you managed to do California Grill without spending a fortune! Awesome park time, and down time. Thanks for sharing.

[princessgirls]

Kathy,

A fabulous trip from beginning to end! Thanks for sharing!!

Julie:mickey:

[eeyorepoohfan]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us! I enjoyed reading all about it!!!

[MinnieMommie]

Great trip report and what a wonderful way to end the summer before both children and parents return to school! :mickey:

[KylesMom]

What a wonderful trip, Kathy. It sounds like your time at both AKL and the parks was super, and that the girls really broadened their horizons this time around. I think we were at Epcot the same day (the 23rd) and MK (the 24th). I concur, it was certainly hot and crowded - but SO worth it, right?!

Thanks for taking the time to share your magical trip with us! :mickey:

[emerzmom]

Thanks for sharing your trip. Loved it!
:mickey:
Julie

[ponmommy]

Thanks for sharing! Loved reading about the wonderful family vacation....enjoy your new kitchen :chef:

[pdrlkr]

Thanks for the Report! :smickey: