Here I am again, writing another trip report. Didn’t I just do this?
I am at the end of yet another wonderful time at Walt Disney World. This trip was rather unexpected and I owe it all to Harvey Plum...
...ok, and Steve too.
And by the way, there will be no loafing or loitering allowed in Laura's trip report. :fork:
While at Epcot on Thanksgiving 2007 I received a phone call from Rain letting me know that I had won the WDWMagic 4 night Swan & Dolphin resort stay, a result of answering 9 difficult trivia questions, and 1 impossible :lookaroun trivia question.
I intended to use the prize with my husband, but due to all of his pre-deployment restrictions (he goes to Afghanistan in a couple weeks) bringing him wasn’t possible and the certificate would expire by the time he returned. So instead I brought my father, and my mother stayed at my house with my kids and Andy hung out with her after work each night. It worked out great.
MONDAY
My dad and I flew out bright and early Monday morning (Feb 4th) and headed to our first destination: Coronado Springs. Neither of us had been there before. I instantly fell in love with the resort. It’s absolutely gorgeous and one of my new favorites now. The only downside is the incredible amount of walking you have to do to get around the place. Luckily our building (Casitas 2) was fairly near the lobby, though a long way from the main pool. The best part is the lack of children at this resort. It's crawling with peace and quiet!
Our first park was the Magic Kingdom. We had left my house at 5:15 a.m. and were standing on Main Street USA by 2:15 p.m. By 6:30 p.m. we had done every single ride and attraction we wanted to except Pirates, Thunder Mountain, and Hall of Presidents. It is incredible how fast you can fly through a park without children or people who walk slow or go to the bathroom every 5 minutes. By the way, why on earth is the Space Mountain queue so crappy now? It was so much better back in the day when you’d actually wait for the ride up in the part with the coaster and it played all those funny space commercials on the TV’s. I hate the way they have had it set up for the past few years.
Normally I include the list of all the grumpy pictures of my kids from each trip outside of Crystal Palace, but since my kids weren't with me my dad had to take over...
It goes with these:
July 2004
February 2005
September 2005
December 2005
February 2006
May 2006
June 2007
November 2007
Next we watched SpectroMagic and then went to my “X” spot on Main Street for Wishes. (There is a secret little spot on Main Street where the trolley tracks split apart in the back of the Roy and Minnie statue that forms an X on the ground. For some reason no one ever stands in this spot until about a minute before Wishes starts, and it’s dead center on Main Street with a perfect view, so it’s where I always go.)
Here's the view from the X:
While standing on my X, one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen happened. It was a fairly gusty evening and there was a CM with a ginormous bouquet of Mickey balloons hanging out a bit in front of the X. Well anytime a wind gust would come all of the Mickey balloons would start blowing all over the place, smacking about 10-15 guests in the face as they walked by. Many of the guests would be stuck in a sea of bobbing Mickey heads for a good 5-10 seconds trying desperately to escape. I couldn’t even contain myself laughing at everyone. Of course I was safe on my X. At one point I decided to film what was going on and just as I got the camera out the Mickey balloons began attacking the lady in front of me. I only got a 6 second clip of the action because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe and tears were running down my face, but even after I stopped filming the sea of balloons swept down the street plowing down everyone in the way. I really had a difficult time watching Wishes after that as I was doubled over in laughter.
Mickey balloon video
After we got back to the resort we decided to check out the dig site (the main pool). We swam for a few minutes and the pool was really nice, but all of the water features had shut off just before we got there so it was a bit boring. Next we had a late snack at the Coronado food court, which was very confusing at first. It’s kind of like a sit down restaurant, but also kind of like a fast food restaurant, but also kind of like a cafeteria. It took us about 15 minutes to figure out how the heck you eat in there! :lol:
I am at the end of yet another wonderful time at Walt Disney World. This trip was rather unexpected and I owe it all to Harvey Plum...
...ok, and Steve too.
And by the way, there will be no loafing or loitering allowed in Laura's trip report. :fork:
While at Epcot on Thanksgiving 2007 I received a phone call from Rain letting me know that I had won the WDWMagic 4 night Swan & Dolphin resort stay, a result of answering 9 difficult trivia questions, and 1 impossible :lookaroun trivia question.
I intended to use the prize with my husband, but due to all of his pre-deployment restrictions (he goes to Afghanistan in a couple weeks) bringing him wasn’t possible and the certificate would expire by the time he returned. So instead I brought my father, and my mother stayed at my house with my kids and Andy hung out with her after work each night. It worked out great.
MONDAY
My dad and I flew out bright and early Monday morning (Feb 4th) and headed to our first destination: Coronado Springs. Neither of us had been there before. I instantly fell in love with the resort. It’s absolutely gorgeous and one of my new favorites now. The only downside is the incredible amount of walking you have to do to get around the place. Luckily our building (Casitas 2) was fairly near the lobby, though a long way from the main pool. The best part is the lack of children at this resort. It's crawling with peace and quiet!
Our first park was the Magic Kingdom. We had left my house at 5:15 a.m. and were standing on Main Street USA by 2:15 p.m. By 6:30 p.m. we had done every single ride and attraction we wanted to except Pirates, Thunder Mountain, and Hall of Presidents. It is incredible how fast you can fly through a park without children or people who walk slow or go to the bathroom every 5 minutes. By the way, why on earth is the Space Mountain queue so crappy now? It was so much better back in the day when you’d actually wait for the ride up in the part with the coaster and it played all those funny space commercials on the TV’s. I hate the way they have had it set up for the past few years.
Normally I include the list of all the grumpy pictures of my kids from each trip outside of Crystal Palace, but since my kids weren't with me my dad had to take over...
It goes with these:
July 2004
February 2005
September 2005
December 2005
February 2006
May 2006
June 2007
November 2007
Next we watched SpectroMagic and then went to my “X” spot on Main Street for Wishes. (There is a secret little spot on Main Street where the trolley tracks split apart in the back of the Roy and Minnie statue that forms an X on the ground. For some reason no one ever stands in this spot until about a minute before Wishes starts, and it’s dead center on Main Street with a perfect view, so it’s where I always go.)
Here's the view from the X:
While standing on my X, one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen happened. It was a fairly gusty evening and there was a CM with a ginormous bouquet of Mickey balloons hanging out a bit in front of the X. Well anytime a wind gust would come all of the Mickey balloons would start blowing all over the place, smacking about 10-15 guests in the face as they walked by. Many of the guests would be stuck in a sea of bobbing Mickey heads for a good 5-10 seconds trying desperately to escape. I couldn’t even contain myself laughing at everyone. Of course I was safe on my X. At one point I decided to film what was going on and just as I got the camera out the Mickey balloons began attacking the lady in front of me. I only got a 6 second clip of the action because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe and tears were running down my face, but even after I stopped filming the sea of balloons swept down the street plowing down everyone in the way. I really had a difficult time watching Wishes after that as I was doubled over in laughter.
Mickey balloon video
After we got back to the resort we decided to check out the dig site (the main pool). We swam for a few minutes and the pool was really nice, but all of the water features had shut off just before we got there so it was a bit boring. Next we had a late snack at the Coronado food court, which was very confusing at first. It’s kind of like a sit down restaurant, but also kind of like a fast food restaurant, but also kind of like a cafeteria. It took us about 15 minutes to figure out how the heck you eat in there! :lol:
