Kairi_7378
10-15-2011, 11:23 AM
The Plan: Free breakfast at 7, Drive to WDW, check into CSR, return rental car, and Epcot
Food Plans: None, other than snacks at Epcot
Pedometer Reading: 9.67 miles
What Actually Happened:
Ben and I planned to wake up at 6:30 to pack the car, grab some free breakfast at the hotel when it opened at 7. However, both of us woke up at 5:00, too excited to sleep any more. You’d have thought that it was Christmas morning! :D We let David sleep in while we packed the car and noticed that the breakfast opened a half hour early to accommodate some guests who were headed off to a soccer tournament. There were about 30 high school aged girls and their families at the hotel but they weren’t a problem at all, other than being a little messy with their Fruit Loops. We dressed our groggy son in his Mickey Mouse t shirt, had a nice breakfast, drove to the grandparents’ house to say goodbye (where they warned us about scam artists and pickpockets!) and off we were to Disney World! As we approached the “arch” at the entrance of the World, I turned around to David only to find him snoring, loudly, in the backseat. Oh well, he’d need the rest, so we didn’t wake him until we had parked at CSR at around 9:00.
Check in was both efficient and pleasant. The Cast Member wished Ben and David a happy birthday and gave us buttons, and another Cast Member rushed over with some balloons tied to a Mickey Mouse weight for David. She asked if she could take his picture for the resort kids’ album, so he perked up and smiled! I was a little nervous when I saw that we were assigned to Ranchos building 6B… on the other side of the resort, and probably the furthest building from the main building. The room was available, so I decided to take it so we wouldn’t have to deal with checking bags in at Bell Services. I’m glad that we did. We were thrilled with the landscape architecture of the Ranchos section. We were across from a quiet pool, the laundry, and a wooden bridge that David adored skipping across every morning. (It’s my little wooden bridge, Momma!) We were a short walk away from Bus Stop #3.
After I got some ice for our Thermos bottles and Ben put some stuff in the safe while David played with his balloons, we split up. I ran to catch the Epcot bus that was just pulling in the bus stop (with the folded up stroller, and DS on my hip while carrying a backpack… can you tell that I grew up taking city busses?) and Ben returned the rental car to the Swan and Dolphin. I think that Scar suggested this and it worked out perfectly. Ben drove to the valet parking at the Swan and asked, “Where do I return this?” and the valet said, “Right here,” and filled out a receipt. The whole transaction took less than 5 minutes. Ben got a little twisted around in the resort but eventually found the boats to Epcot and entered the park through the International Gateway.
Meanwhile, David and I had an uneventful bus ride to Epcot, and when we approached the front gate he started saying, “Golf ball!” We went through a pretty thorough security check… they even pulled out DS’s portable potty seat, which I had wrapped in a grocery store bag! Note to self: Better put the diaper/ potty items in a clear bag for the rest of the trip! It took me a while to get my stuff back into the park bag, and then we entered the park and waited for Ben in the gift shop under Spaceship Earth. It was pretty warm and humid today so we trying to get as much AC time as possible. We headed over to the Land, and thanks to the Podcast, I knew where to park the stroller. We picked up some FP’s for Soarin’ and took David on his first ride, Living with the Land. As we pulled away from the boarding area, David looked around, a little confused, and said, “Momma, where’s the Tiki Room?” loud enough that several CMs and guests heard and giggled.
After the ride, we decided to eat an early lunch at Sunshine Seasons, a first for us. I grabbed a table and Ben got the food. We split an entrée of roast chicken with beans and rice and a key lime dessert. Ben was a little confused that everyone was calling him by name in the restaurant, but then he remembered that he was wearing his birthday button. While David and I waited, we had a nice conversation with a friendly CM who was busing tables. After talking about the park and food, he disappeared for a bit and came back with a “First Trip” button for David, saying “Mickey told me to give you this.” We all thanked him, and David gave him a high five. After lunch, we hit the Seas (where David almost ran out of the cue for Nemo because he was scared) and Turtle Talk before visiting Figment and Captain EO. All of these were walk-ons. I was hesitant to visit EO because I wasn’t a huge MJ fan and HISTA was my least favorite attraction in the World, but I’m glad we went to see it, once. Ben complained that the show seemed unnecessarily loud. After that we returned to the Land and DH went on Soarin’ while I attempted to entertain David. This was a little hard at the Land, and I made a mental note to pack some activity books for child swap times in the park bag. When Ben returned, he took David back to Nemo and Figment so I could ride. The ride was awesome as always but I missed having Ben next to me! I always have the bad luck of having loud, rude guests next to me on this ride but I am getting better at ignoring them.
When the family met up again, we decided to head toward the World Showcase and see if we could meet Snow White. Snow White is David’s favorite character/ movie, and he had been telling me that he was going to hug “his friend Snow White” for weeks. Somehow, Ben got from Imagination to Germany in about 10 minutes, with me lagging behind them due to a camera issue. When he parked the stroller to go to the meet area, we discovered that David had fallen asleep again! We gently woke him up… he perked up quickly when he saw THE Snow White waiting to meet him. When his turn came up, David walked up to Snow White and started flapping his arms, exclaiming “I saw Figment!” which confused poor Snow White enough that she started flapping HER arms and saying, “What’s that, Little Prince?” I got some very cute pictures of the pair of them.
After this we walked back around the WS and stopped at China. This was the first time that Ben and I had visited the China pavilion or seen the movie. That is one of the most beautiful gift shops I’ve ever seen, and I took some photos of the wood carvings. Ben enjoyed juggling with a CM at the outdoor gift shop but she was very nervous about juggling too close to anyone and kept backing away from him. We rode Maelstrom with a woman who thought that we were going to drop backwards out of the ride, and she screamed from the time where we passed the trolls until we passed the rigs near the end. We split a fiesta margarita and visited Mexico, We did notice that although the park was relatively crowd free, a lot of the stands selling alcohol at the WS were packed with rowdy guests. (We weren’t able to make it into the tequila bar in Mexico due to crowds and belligerent people!) Seriously, I think that Drinking around the World Showcase is a fun thing to do, but if you can’t do it responsibly, you might want to split it over a few days.
We split a shwarma platter dinner at Tangerine Café, one of our favorites. We decided to try to go to Fantasmic that night since the weather was so nice, so we wandered over to the boat to DHS. Not very smart when it’s almost 7:00! We took the slooooooow boat ride to the Studios and hurried over to the theater as they were announcing that it was standing room only. However, there were plenty of seats on the right hand side of the theater. Before checking our stroller in, we put a glow bracelet on the handle (purchased by me before the trip) and gave a stick to David to play with during the show. David was absolutely terrified of the snake and dragon, even though I’d shown him these shows on You Tube. I guess I underestimated the effect of the loud music! I told him that he could help Mickey by shaking his light stick at the snake. This became a code for when he was scared of something in a park… he’d shake a glow stick at whatever the “scary” thing was. When asked about it later, he told everyone that he helped Mickey Mouse fight a dragon.
After the show we got some pictures taken in front of the hat, then waited a short time before we could board our bus for the resort. Ben tucked David into bed while I unpacked and organized the bathroom area before I collapsed into bed, myself.
Next up: Day 4, and DS’s actual birthday!
Food Plans: None, other than snacks at Epcot
Pedometer Reading: 9.67 miles
What Actually Happened:
Ben and I planned to wake up at 6:30 to pack the car, grab some free breakfast at the hotel when it opened at 7. However, both of us woke up at 5:00, too excited to sleep any more. You’d have thought that it was Christmas morning! :D We let David sleep in while we packed the car and noticed that the breakfast opened a half hour early to accommodate some guests who were headed off to a soccer tournament. There were about 30 high school aged girls and their families at the hotel but they weren’t a problem at all, other than being a little messy with their Fruit Loops. We dressed our groggy son in his Mickey Mouse t shirt, had a nice breakfast, drove to the grandparents’ house to say goodbye (where they warned us about scam artists and pickpockets!) and off we were to Disney World! As we approached the “arch” at the entrance of the World, I turned around to David only to find him snoring, loudly, in the backseat. Oh well, he’d need the rest, so we didn’t wake him until we had parked at CSR at around 9:00.
Check in was both efficient and pleasant. The Cast Member wished Ben and David a happy birthday and gave us buttons, and another Cast Member rushed over with some balloons tied to a Mickey Mouse weight for David. She asked if she could take his picture for the resort kids’ album, so he perked up and smiled! I was a little nervous when I saw that we were assigned to Ranchos building 6B… on the other side of the resort, and probably the furthest building from the main building. The room was available, so I decided to take it so we wouldn’t have to deal with checking bags in at Bell Services. I’m glad that we did. We were thrilled with the landscape architecture of the Ranchos section. We were across from a quiet pool, the laundry, and a wooden bridge that David adored skipping across every morning. (It’s my little wooden bridge, Momma!) We were a short walk away from Bus Stop #3.
After I got some ice for our Thermos bottles and Ben put some stuff in the safe while David played with his balloons, we split up. I ran to catch the Epcot bus that was just pulling in the bus stop (with the folded up stroller, and DS on my hip while carrying a backpack… can you tell that I grew up taking city busses?) and Ben returned the rental car to the Swan and Dolphin. I think that Scar suggested this and it worked out perfectly. Ben drove to the valet parking at the Swan and asked, “Where do I return this?” and the valet said, “Right here,” and filled out a receipt. The whole transaction took less than 5 minutes. Ben got a little twisted around in the resort but eventually found the boats to Epcot and entered the park through the International Gateway.
Meanwhile, David and I had an uneventful bus ride to Epcot, and when we approached the front gate he started saying, “Golf ball!” We went through a pretty thorough security check… they even pulled out DS’s portable potty seat, which I had wrapped in a grocery store bag! Note to self: Better put the diaper/ potty items in a clear bag for the rest of the trip! It took me a while to get my stuff back into the park bag, and then we entered the park and waited for Ben in the gift shop under Spaceship Earth. It was pretty warm and humid today so we trying to get as much AC time as possible. We headed over to the Land, and thanks to the Podcast, I knew where to park the stroller. We picked up some FP’s for Soarin’ and took David on his first ride, Living with the Land. As we pulled away from the boarding area, David looked around, a little confused, and said, “Momma, where’s the Tiki Room?” loud enough that several CMs and guests heard and giggled.
After the ride, we decided to eat an early lunch at Sunshine Seasons, a first for us. I grabbed a table and Ben got the food. We split an entrée of roast chicken with beans and rice and a key lime dessert. Ben was a little confused that everyone was calling him by name in the restaurant, but then he remembered that he was wearing his birthday button. While David and I waited, we had a nice conversation with a friendly CM who was busing tables. After talking about the park and food, he disappeared for a bit and came back with a “First Trip” button for David, saying “Mickey told me to give you this.” We all thanked him, and David gave him a high five. After lunch, we hit the Seas (where David almost ran out of the cue for Nemo because he was scared) and Turtle Talk before visiting Figment and Captain EO. All of these were walk-ons. I was hesitant to visit EO because I wasn’t a huge MJ fan and HISTA was my least favorite attraction in the World, but I’m glad we went to see it, once. Ben complained that the show seemed unnecessarily loud. After that we returned to the Land and DH went on Soarin’ while I attempted to entertain David. This was a little hard at the Land, and I made a mental note to pack some activity books for child swap times in the park bag. When Ben returned, he took David back to Nemo and Figment so I could ride. The ride was awesome as always but I missed having Ben next to me! I always have the bad luck of having loud, rude guests next to me on this ride but I am getting better at ignoring them.
When the family met up again, we decided to head toward the World Showcase and see if we could meet Snow White. Snow White is David’s favorite character/ movie, and he had been telling me that he was going to hug “his friend Snow White” for weeks. Somehow, Ben got from Imagination to Germany in about 10 minutes, with me lagging behind them due to a camera issue. When he parked the stroller to go to the meet area, we discovered that David had fallen asleep again! We gently woke him up… he perked up quickly when he saw THE Snow White waiting to meet him. When his turn came up, David walked up to Snow White and started flapping his arms, exclaiming “I saw Figment!” which confused poor Snow White enough that she started flapping HER arms and saying, “What’s that, Little Prince?” I got some very cute pictures of the pair of them.
After this we walked back around the WS and stopped at China. This was the first time that Ben and I had visited the China pavilion or seen the movie. That is one of the most beautiful gift shops I’ve ever seen, and I took some photos of the wood carvings. Ben enjoyed juggling with a CM at the outdoor gift shop but she was very nervous about juggling too close to anyone and kept backing away from him. We rode Maelstrom with a woman who thought that we were going to drop backwards out of the ride, and she screamed from the time where we passed the trolls until we passed the rigs near the end. We split a fiesta margarita and visited Mexico, We did notice that although the park was relatively crowd free, a lot of the stands selling alcohol at the WS were packed with rowdy guests. (We weren’t able to make it into the tequila bar in Mexico due to crowds and belligerent people!) Seriously, I think that Drinking around the World Showcase is a fun thing to do, but if you can’t do it responsibly, you might want to split it over a few days.
We split a shwarma platter dinner at Tangerine Café, one of our favorites. We decided to try to go to Fantasmic that night since the weather was so nice, so we wandered over to the boat to DHS. Not very smart when it’s almost 7:00! We took the slooooooow boat ride to the Studios and hurried over to the theater as they were announcing that it was standing room only. However, there were plenty of seats on the right hand side of the theater. Before checking our stroller in, we put a glow bracelet on the handle (purchased by me before the trip) and gave a stick to David to play with during the show. David was absolutely terrified of the snake and dragon, even though I’d shown him these shows on You Tube. I guess I underestimated the effect of the loud music! I told him that he could help Mickey by shaking his light stick at the snake. This became a code for when he was scared of something in a park… he’d shake a glow stick at whatever the “scary” thing was. When asked about it later, he told everyone that he helped Mickey Mouse fight a dragon.
After the show we got some pictures taken in front of the hat, then waited a short time before we could board our bus for the resort. Ben tucked David into bed while I unpacked and organized the bathroom area before I collapsed into bed, myself.
Next up: Day 4, and DS’s actual birthday!