never did figure out how to use my slideshow program to turn the pictures, so some are sideways. Even still, it’s a nice batch of pics. We are missing a few encounters, ones that I did not have camera ready and I let the WDW people take for me. I didn’t realize that they would charge me 12.95 per picture.
more about "Slideshow of disney character meeting…", posted with vodpod
Day Whatever, Monday 9/22
Yesterday was an ok day. Too long and exhausting!
We went to Epcot and saw a few exhibits before “breakfast” which was scheduled for 10:40. We saw half of the Innoventions and participated in a little game show about Velcro. Then we crossed the park to Norway to check in for the Princess Storybook Breakfast at Akershus.
As instructed, we arrived 30 min early. I stood in the already hot sun with Em in the line to check in for quite a while. After checking in, we had to move to another line, and family after family was called until it was only just myself and another nice lady. At this point, I went and asked and was informed that my reservation was not until 11:45. By now, the morning was shot. My feet were killing me, and we were all hot and starved having skipped breakfast. I was not happy they didn’t tell me this when I checked in!
We killed time in Norway for another 30 min or so. Keith went through the checking in process again while I sat inside the Maelstrom ride and tried to rest my poor feet.
The meal itself was good. I had some sort of Norweigian traditional meal at the waiter’s suggestion, and Keith had Lamb Stew. Em had on her new princess dress and we got pictures with all of the princesses except Snow White. They gave us a comp. 8 x 10 with Belle, which they lost until our waiter was subtly nudging us out the door and we weren’t leaving because we hadn’t gotten our picture. He had to run around and try to find the darn thing.
So we actually didn’t start our day at Epcot until after 1 pm. We were able to see most of the front part of the park. The high points were test track and Mission: Space. Emme played in the splash pad while we all went on the rides with parent swap. Alex was torn about the water or the ride and ended up going on the ride. He planned to go in the water later, and then we never got the chance because of another dining snafu.
The exhibits have all changed in 10 years time since we’ve been here. Spaceship earth is much the same, but we got to the top of the ride, the pinnacle of the story and it looked like a warehouse. I certainly hope that was because it’s not finished yet! The Seas has all been redone with a Nemo theme. There is a manatee exhibit, and dolphins in the main tank. There is a neat interactive 3-d with Crush the turtle from Nemo. Duuuude!!
The Lands now includes a conservation movie featuring the Lion King, and a boat ride. Only at the end of the boat ride do you go through the greenhouse area, which is not about hydroponics anymore, but other newer gardening methods. Keith found this really interesting and would like to take the “Behind the seeds” walking tour when we go back. The talking vegetables and the nutrition theme is gone. There is a ride that we weren’t able to go on that we’ll have to hit next time. We had a 7:40 reservation for dinner at the Garden Grill. We didn’t want to leave the Lands for fear of not making it back, so we hung around there from 7 pm on. We checked in at 7:20 and didn’t get seated until an hour later. We missed the Illuminations light and firework show. The food was mediocre at best, as was the service. We didn’t get out until almost 9:30, and we were not pleased. Not a banner day for the DDiningPlan!! 4 hours of park time wasted on waiting for meals, grr!!
It was a long exhausting day. We have found that we can’t afford to take breaks during the day. The walk out of the park, the wait for the bus and the walk to our room takes an hour both ways, and then if we stay here for an hour or two, we just aren’t seeing as much of the parks as we want.
That said, we’re on leg two and are only going back to each park to fill in the blanks, so other then MK (which we have a lot left to see) we should be ok. We only have a few things to do at AK, and then that one will be finished.
Today we have breakfast scheduled for 10:35 at the Grand Floridian. It’s supposed to be a character meal with Mary Poppins, so there will be some different autographs to get. I think I’m going to have to buy another book. The GF can only be reached by monorail, so we haven’t decided what park to go to after, but we are going to take a little extra time this morning and not leave the room until 9:15 or so for a change. We were planning to go back to AK today, but since the monorail runs to MK and Epcot, we may change our plans.
9/25 The trip home
Leaving was much like the last day of summer camp. Happy to go home, sad to see it all end and say goodbye. We met so many nice people from all over the world. One family we met from Quebec spoke very little English, and were lovely. Their 4 boys were so cute! I gave them our contact information and invited them to visit us in the Smokies. We met another couple of ladies from South Africa, and they were sweet and interesting as well. Who needs the world showcase in Epcot–we rode the Disney busses!
The last several days we’ve done a lot of park hopping trying to fill in the blanks. We spent Monday at Epcot, and it rained a good part of the day. We were glad to have our ponchos. We were able to complete most of the World Showcase except for Mexico. We hightailed it to the front of the park to try to get in to Imagination before we left, only to find that they had closed that building early. We were not pleased at all about this, it’s my favorite part of the whole park. It was a disappointing end to a wet birthday.
The next morning, determined to see Imagination, we went back to Epcot again. We decided that since we went back for that, we would try to see Snow White and complete our autograph collection for the princesses. What we thought would be a quick couple hour trip, ended up taking us all morning, and we had to change our lunch reservations. The princesses didn’t show up until 12:35, so we waited all that time, just hanging out. The boys went to the Innoventions exhibit which they had missed the day before, and Em and I waited round Germany for SW to come. We were also able to snag Mulan though in China on our way out and she was very sweet and took extra time with the kids because Em was being snotty and wouldn’t take a picture. (She was snotty a lot on the trip, actually. Totally exercising her right to be 3). We headed over to the MK in the afternoon and actually got the rest of it done! Tomorrow land was great and we were happy to have made such progress in only a few hours. The park closed at 7 for a Halloween event and we were happy to go back to hotel early and get to bed at a decent hour.
The last day, we went back to AK. There were a couple things we missed, and several things we wanted to do again. It didn’t work out that way actually. I was having a lot of pain and took a Perc. I guess two danish wasn’t enough because I got very dizzy and nauseous from it. K ended up having to get me a wheelchair and we decided to forego anything we wanted to do again and went back to hotel for a couple hours so I could sleep it off. We had a 4 pm reservation at MK which we just barely made. WE spent the rest of the evening riding a couple things we’d missed in frontier land and re-riding Big Thunder Mountain. We stayed late specifically to see Wishes, the fireworks show that features Tinkerbell flying across the night sky. Em was really looking forward to it having missed it the first night we were there. Unfortunately, Tink did not fly. I assume it was too windy. Other then that, it was a sweet end to a mostly great vacation. I got all teary about it ending. We’ve looked forward to this for a year and now it’s over and I feel like I have nothing to look forward to. Our first family vacation is over, and regular life resumes.
We are on the road now, and hoping to get a chance to go to Tybee beach. We had originally planned to spend the afternoon in St. Augustine and then head home, but we have agreed that doing the whole 10 hrs in one day is too hard. We loved Tybee so much, that we want to try to get one night in a hotel there and go play in the ocean one more time. However, we see that the east coast is getting a storm, so we’ll have to decide when we get there if the ocean is swim worthy and if we’ll stay.
10:05 pm
We are at The Courtyard By Marriot in Savannah. It is a really nice room, much nicer then where we stayed for the last 10 days. Thanks to Priceline, we got it for $50. I have been able to clear out my email box and catch up on all my online friends’ blogs and Facebooks. We got in about 8 and went to the hot tub for a while. The weather is cold, the pool is cold enough to welcome ice cubes. I don’t think we are going to the beach tomorrow, the high is only supposed to be 76.
Pictures and video will be updated over the next week, I presume. I have to sing in church on Sunday and have hardly practiced, so I am sure that I am going to be doing laundry and practicing a lot the next few days and getting caught up on house stuff. Check back though!
I don’t have a lot of time left on today’s internet access…however….
Animal Kingdom was awesome!!
A much much much better day today. The cast members were all extra nice, and one fellow gave us fast passes to a ride so we could go right on. We saw most of the stuff we wanted to see, so there will only be a few more things to do on day two of AK. THat’s good because I think we are going to need extra time at the MK or Epcot.
Lion King show and Nemo show were both Awesome and we’ll see them both again next trip if we can work it in. We got a lot of autographs today. We got Donald, Pooh, PIglet, Eyeore and Tigger. We at lunch at Tusker house and I took little tastes of nearly everything on the buffett. It was all african flair and it was all delicious, esp the roast beef which melted in your mouth. The desserts were just little two bit appetizer size and so it was nice to get to sample everything that way.
I don’t have time to update with pictures today, but I will do that next time stretch of internet I purchase. (it comes in 24 hr package)
The park closed at 5 and we are going to go to the outlet shopping tonight. Nick lost his hat the first day and has been pestering me ever since.
I think I am getting used to all the walking. I did much better today and I’m really proud of myself. We didn’t even take a break today, so I did 8 hrs and my feet hardly hurt. Yay Me!!
I’ll check back in a couple days!!
Be sure to scroll down to read Day’s 3 and 4 first. Sorry it’s out of order and confusing, but this is the only way I know to do it.
Today was at Disney Hollywood studios. All in all we were very unhappy. We cancelled our dinner reservation, left early, and that is why I have time to do things like mess with pictures and write blog posts.
First off, Keith rode the Tower of Terror. It is a fast dropping elevator. He liked it and it cured his grumpiness. While we waited for him, we went on over to the Rock and Roll Rollercoaster to get two fastpasses. Next, we wanted to see Ariel’s Voyage under the sea. On the way, we ran into Goofy. ( I can’t show you the pictures because i’ve been at this for over 2 hrs now and WordPress is being stupid about pictures. I just don’t have the wherewithall to deal with it anymore!)
There were three “shows” in that same little area and they were in no way staggered so you could see one right after the other. We ducked into the animation one, and lucked out to meet Sorcerer Mickey.
Since the next Ariel show didn’t start for 20 min, K and N ran over to ride the RRRollerCoaster, which they both liked. The Ariel show was only OK at best. Nothing to write about. The morning was near to gone by now from all of the waiting around, and we skipped the Playhouse Disney show that Em would have liked. After a 3 way meltdown with the kids, we went for an early lunch. We had to majorly backtrack to get to the food we wanted from the dining plan and then when we got there it was closed. After lunch, we headed to Toy Story ride, which is supposed to be the best ride in the park. There were no more fastpasses available, and an hour wait. Already behind schedule, no way were we waiting that long, so no Toy story ride. We walked past a few adult themed attractions to get to the Honey I shrunk The Kids playground, where we let the kids run around and play. My feet were swollen, bug bitten and killing me, so I sat down and took off my shoes. I was trying to rub them and a cast member came and told me I had to put my shoes on unless there was a need for first aid, in which case I’d have to go to the front of the park (I was at the back, by the way). Needless to say I was NOT pleased at all, and noticed lots of other people doing the same thing as me, except they were all wearing flip flops so it didn’t look as obvious I guess. That whole experience pretty much killed the park for me. We tried to see the Cars characters, and were told their greet line was closed. We tried to go the the Indiana Jones show…closed until 4 (It was 2). The boys went on the STar wars ride, and liked it, but Em was too small to go so we just sat around in the heat and waited.
At some point in there we saw Minnie, so at least Em got to meet with her.
I do have a cuter pictures, but again, I’m having trouble with my pictures turning the right way and it’s a vertical picture. I’ll add them all to a cd and send them out or email them if anyone wants to see them.
We decided to cut our losses and made for the exit. Muppets 3d had a relatively short wait, so we saw that as we left. It was decent, but not after the day we’d had.
We will never go back to Disney Hollywood. In 6 hrs time, we saw 8 attractions, and it was a total waste of a day. We came back and took naps and went swimming and spent the evening in our room eating leftover pizza from last night. I did want to see the evening performance but it was not worth it after everything we’d been through. I was surprised at how busy it was, and we feel the fastpass set up is flawed.
We are hoping for a better day tomorrow!
Day 3, Weds, 9/17 6 pm
Not much to write today, this is the first chance I’ve had. WE had intended to leave for Orlando at 2 pm, but our suits and towels had to be washed and it took forever. We went to the beach again this morning and did not return until around noon. We got to see dolphins again, about 300 yards out. It was very cool. Other then the beach, we mainly just kicked around today, resting and waiting on laundry. I would have liked to get to WDW in time to mosey around the resort and downtown Disney, but we’ll get the chance. We have plenty of time.
We are in a torrential downpour right now! The weather forecast for Orlando this week is 85 for the rest of the week, yay!
I don’t know when I’ll get to update the blog again. I plan to purchase internet a few days, but I don’t know which. I want to keep this up and I’ll have to post it in big chunks…which if you are reading this, you already know, obviously.
Oh yeah…Emme pooped on the potty today of her own accord!!!! (but then had an “accident” later)
10:00 PM
Our arrival here certainly didn’t make for the happiest place on earth! This place is huge, and the yahoo map we had was wrong. I turned to the only book (of the 4 I have)I had in the front with me and the map in the beginning of it was also wrong, missing two of the major roads to our hotel. We drove around for the better part of an hour before we found our resort. I had terrible stomach pain, so my patience level was pretty slim.
After we got checked in, we came to find our room. Our room is about as far as possible from the parking area on the side, and also from the resort entrance where we will catch the bus in the morning. [*about a half mile from the busses, food, concierge, and about a quarter mile from the parking lot. And no shuttle. ] The parking situation at least is poor engineering on the architects fault because there certainly is an open area where they could put another lot! We have TONS of luggage to manage for the 5 of us, and getting it all here was a trick. I can laugh about it now, but at the time when I dropped a shoebox full of our medicines three times in a matter of 25 ft I was not laughing at all. It’s fair to say I lost my cool and I’m sure the people in the car behind us didn’t know whether to laugh or help me. Finally, at 9:30, we went to the fast food court in the resort for dinner, and used our first dining plan meals. The “quick service meals” were delicious, and not just hamburgers. Keith and Emme had turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans and Nick had a chicken. Alex had pizza and grapes. I had nothing, but I tasted Emme’s. Keith was so happy to get a real meal, and I was impressed. It’s taking some doing to figure out the lay of the land and how the dining plan works.
Tomorrow is a new day, and Extra Magic day at the Magic Kingdom.
Day 4, Thursday 9/18
6:31 AM I have been up a while. I want to get out of here by 7 as we will need 15 min to get to the concierge and get Alex’s birthday button and then we’ll have to wait to catch a bus. The book says to be at the gates a half hour before they open, so that is my plan.
So far this morning, I’m feeling much better. TGM is good as is my belly–I’m hungry!!
10:53 PM
We got an early start to try to get in on the extra magic hour. It didn’t seem to make much difference, things were still packed. I am not pleased with the touring plan I have, it is in no way linear or logical. Going seemed to be slow, and we did not even get half of the Magic Kingdom done today.
The highlight of my morning was the 3-D Movie Mickey’s Philharmagic. I wish I could explain it, but it was totally fabulous. I was grinning so big the whole time, I was actually crying. It was so wonderful and I’ll definitely see it again on Day two!
The park is all decorated up for fall, it’s pretty. 
We had lunch at the Liberty Tree Tavern in Liberty Square. It was very good.
We were at the park until about 3 pm and saw roughly a quarter of it. We came back to the hotel for about an hour, and then went back after. We did not get much accomplished on the evening run. The bus trip takes too long.
Since we first talked of going, I have told Alex that he must go on Big Thunder Mountain with me. He has dug in from the start, he has never been on a roller coaster and no desire to go. I was the same way as a kid, and BTM was my first coaster as well. I was in my teens however! Even today, he was not wanting to go, but we had a talk and by the time came to go on it, he was cautious but willing. He had a blast, and was bouncing like Tigger as we came off the ride. It was nice to see him overcome his fears.
We saw the Spectro Magic parade and it was really neat. I don’t remember ever seeing a parade when I came as a kid. We got some nice pictures, but my camera malfunctioned when Mickey came by (grr).
We hightailed it out of there right after since no one had had dinner. On our way out we got to see some of the fireworks and Tinkerbell make her flight. That was really cool to see, but I think Emme missed it.
Even with leaving early, we still did not get back to the hotel until 10:15 or so, and Keith and I are just now eating. We had a pizza delivered and it’s super good (as is all the food we’ve had so far). I am impressed with the Dining Plan, and will try to plan a return trip around the promotion again!
Tomorrow is the Disney Hollywood Studios, and is not an extra magic day, so we get to sleep in just a bit more. I don’t know that I’ll have time to weed through the hundreds of pictures to get them into the posts, so no promises there. I will have to go back and update after the trip is over.
Day two: 9/16
The Manasota beach is beautiful and completely different then Tybee. Tybee beach had hardly any shells and fine silky sand. Manasota had heavy shells and much coarser darker sand. Tybee had a more commerical feel, whereas Manasota was very natural. The waves were quite small, and the water surprisingly cool. We saw many jumping fish and we saw some porpoise!! That was so exciting, let me tell you!
Swimming in the ocean is fatiguing, esp after everyone (kids included) was up past midnight and awake at 6! I am exhausted, and my body fills heavy after adjusting to normal gravity again. We are planning to go bowling this afternoon and then later this evening, there will be a party for Alex’s birthday. I am hoping to go back to the beach this evening and get some pictures at dusk. We may also go again in the morning. We plan to leave for WDW around 2 pm and then spend the evening checking out the resorts and non park venues on downtown disney.
We are really having SUCH a wonderful time with our friends. Even if we weren’t going to Disney, this would be a fun vacation.
9:24 PM Tues
What a full day. We are sitting around watching the finale of Big Brother, and enjoying the bliss of 6 children sleeping.
Bowling was a lot of fun, and Alex especially loves it. He has been asking us to go for a while, and when the other kids had long since gotten bored, Alex continued to bowl every frame for everyone. He has the most bizarre form, but with bumpers up anyway, he was pretty dang good with picking up spares and stuff.
After bowling, the dads took the 4 older kids to the pool, while April and I decorated for Alex’s party. We had a nice little pizza party, and the rushed to the beach to catch the sunset. We have tons of great pictures from that for sure! The sunset was stunning, and quick! We had no idea that the sun set that fast. Em had to go potty as soon as we arrived, and by the time Keith got back from taking her, the sun had nearly fully set.
Live Blogging:
2:30 AM Monday Sept 15th
We made a clean, on-time getaway despite heavy misting. We are currently 45 miles out from Asheville, NC, and I believe the boys are asleep. Em is still hanging on, although her eyelids are heavy. The Asheville Highway is dark and creepy! And curvy, geeze, they gave no warning for all of these curves!! Not a streetlight to be had on this mountain road. I’m bound to be carsick before it’s done. On the way home, we are not going to go this way even though it’s way out of our way to do otherwise.
7:06 am
After reversing nearly all of last week’s chiropractic, I woke up unable to turn my neck and my TGM twanging. I was able to fumble around in the dark for the biofreeze sample pack and it helped tremendously. We just stopped in St. George, SC where gas was only 3.69. There were some seriously scary people at this station at this hour. From the camo’d and gloved homeless person next to the door, to the cast of Deliverance playing the deer hunting video game, to the drugged out girl staggering across the parking lot, I am pretty sure I don’t ever want to visit here again! The bathroom looked like it had potential to be nice, but every stall was dirty. I sternly instructed the boys to wait just outside the doors and wait for me and Em. I figured DH would have the lot covered if Bubba and JimBob decided to get themselves a couple of brand new boys. Everything worked out and the motley crew had all dissipated by the time we came out of the restrooms. The smell of vomit still lingered on.
Next stop, Savannah, Ga and Tybee Island.
8:31 am
I’m so starved I could eat baby feet. We began to get uncertain about where we were with the google directions because the exit numbers were off. We stopped at a shell, and providentially I had found a wifi hotspot!! We only had to go one more exit before finding the sweet Golden Arches and a direct shot to Tybee.
12:14
Now THAT was fun! We stopped off at the Tybee Island Visitors Center, where the sounds of the cicada’s were deafening. Alex had his hands covering his ears. We made a long drive out to the beach. There was a beautiful boardwalk and we were able to get great parking being a week day. The water was wonderfully perfect and the waves were 3-5’. The beach was clean and pristine, and we didn’t feel the 90+ air temps at all. Nicholas was fearless, and went right to body surfing. He wasn’t deterred even when he got the inevitable nasal cleanse. The younger two were more reticent, but were warming up towards the end. We are all excited to go to Venice Beach tomorrow and do it all again, Gulf Coast style.
3:10 pm
After losing an hour driving around Savannah trying to get back on 95, we have finally had our sunshine in a glass at the Florida Welcome center. We are still probably 4 hours out from Venice. They had massage chairs at the welcome center, and Keith and I got a bit of a backrub. He needed it more then me, but it was nice just the same. I still need a nap, and navigation has been keeping me too busy to get one. It is definitely Florida HOT!! The kids are all being really good. Emme took a long nap, and the boys have been watching movies. The boys need naps too because none of them slept as much through the night as we had hoped! After the current movie, we are hoping to get them to try to sleep a bit.
4:19 pm
Finally, I think I am going to have a stretch of open map where I can sleep. Too bad I’m not sleepy right now. I have realized that the cord I brought to get the pictures from my camera to my computer isn’t the right one. I don’t think I have a cord to fit, which means no pics to go on the blog.
6:52 pm
It’s safe to say we’ve all had it. My TGM has been twanging along at about a level 6, and I broke down and took some Percocet. An hour later, and it’s only down to about a 2. I know K has said his sciatica is hurting him. We are discussing our options for traveling home, but I don’t think we are going to try to attempt it all in one trip. In 10 min, we will have been on this trip for 17 hrs, save the 3 we were at the beach. (Back when I was patting myself on the back about how good I was feeling with my knees and whatnot. I was RUNNING! I haven’t run in months!)
We are still not to Venice. We are nearly there, near Bradenton.
Have I ever mentioned how much I detest traveling??? Love to go new places, hate the getting there.
9:19 pm
We have made it. We got in about two hours ago. Andrew made us delicious meal and the kids are getting settled. All 6 of them in one room, heh.
The house is an adorable beach style bungalow. There is an alligator that lives in the pond in this development. The kids have gotten to see a snake and a frog this evening, so of course that was thrilling.
