Our April trip "plan"

[wdwforus]

We are leaving Wednesday from Maine, staying in Boston that night and then taking the train from Boston to Orlando, leaving Thursday morning and arriving in Orlando at about 10:30 a.m. My Dad is picking us up at the train station and were going to their campsite to shower and eat before we get our room at Pop. We have some slight handicap issues, my Dad has asbestos and his breathing isn't the best so we are trying to accommodate that.

There are 4 families, 12 people total, three families staying at Pop and my parents staying at Fort Wilderness

Friday - after cleaning up, maybe getting our Pop room, we are headed to Epcot for the afternoon/evening to do some of the countries/American Adventure and see the fireworks

Saturday - Animal Kingdom - hit Everest, Nemo, Dinosaur, Primeval, Tough to be a Bug, maybe parade, Flights and Kali, afternoon off and Downtown Disney for the evening

Sunday - Magic Kingdom - Crystal Palace reserve. for 8:05 a.m. then hit the west side of the park, Be Our Guest for a late lunch, Liberty Square faves and nighttime parade/fireworks depending on how everyone feels, this will be our longest most involved day

Monday - Hollywood - Great Movie Ride, Star Tours, Toy Story, Lights Motor Cars, RRnC, Tower, maybe leave for the afternoon, naps and swim, and come back for Beauty and the Beast and Fantasmic

Tuesday - Epcot - Soarin, The Seas, Test Track, Spaceship Earth, Captain EO, and whatever else we didn't get, early night maybe cookout at the campground and watch a movie and smores there

Wednesday - MK - East side of the park including the new expansion maybe go back in after our Hoop Dee Doo reserve. at 6 p.m.

Thursday - 2 families gone early, just my 4 and my parents, going back to AK - Kilimanjaro, Lion King, Pangani - dad takes us to the Amtrak Station for our 5:30 departure

We're not trying to see everything, we know we are limited on time and not everyone can stay in the park all day, but we'll definitely get out favorites done, enjoy ourselves, and look back on what my parents started about 35 years ago

 

[Figgy1]

Have a magical time it sounds fabulous and to have that many family members together will make it even better! The plan looks great!

 

[DisneyDebNJ]

Looks like you have all your bases covered! Now, all you need to do is sit back, relax and enjoy a wonderful vacation!! Prayers and best wishes to your Dad

 

[bethymouse]

Take it slow and easy. Enjoy the precious time w/ your Dad. When we went w/ my parents in 2007 ( Christmas) it was the most memorable of them all. I can't get them to go again though as it was rather "taxing" on them. Maybe rent an ECV for him?

 

[wdwforus]

Well our trip is over but what a crazy trip it was! Report to come soon, it will be a long one, probably in multiple posts as I like detail. I might start it tonight, but here is a teaser, we are calling it the Tour of Fire 2013!

 

[wdwforus]

Tour of Fire, Day One

We picked up my son on Tuesday because the excitement of going was making him sick at school and my girlfriend had Wednesday off and could watch him while I went into work for a couple hours. The 18 yo daughter stayed home also. I got home around noon and we were packed and loaded for the trip to Boston by 2ish. Trip down pretty uneventful and we found the Sonic on Route 1 in Saugus, had an okay dinner, we had never been to a Sonic before, and then went to the hotel, Holiday Inn Express. Hotel was very clean and in good shape, I'd stay here again. I don't think anyone slept well, we did get some sleep. It was a good thing I called and double checked our taxi ride for 5:15 a.m. because they had the information wrong. They had come that day to pick us up, when it was supposed to be Thursday. The man I spoke with said no problem and that they would be there the next morning. When I made the reservation the week before the woman was very rude and had that attitude like I was bothering her and she just wanted to get me off the line. Overall they day went well and I was hoping that the taxi glitch was going to be our only near miss on things going smoothly............

 

[wdwforus]

Tour of Fire, Day Two

Boston to New York

We get up early, meet our taxi at 5:15 a.m. and head to South Station. The cabbie is a decent young guy from Morocco who chats us up and we have a nice drive into the city. He drops us off at the station, which I would have had a hard time finding even with a GPS, and in we go. South Station is pretty basic, a few eateries, big status board, and the terminals are right outside in plain view. We've got about a half hour to kill so I get something for us to eat and wait it out. Plenty of police presence. Finally our train is called, we shuffle down the terminal and enter a car about half way down. I get all the luggage put away, kids into their seats and we sit down waiting to head out. Right on time 6:10 a.m. we leave the station and were chugging along headed south the rest of the trip to New York is pretty uneventful and we enjoyed the ride.

 

[wdwforus]

Tour of Fire, Day Two

Penn Station

So Penn Station is nothing what I think it is, we get off the train and nothing looks like the maps and pictures I looked at before we left. On top of that I can't find one sign pointing us in the right direction. We end up picking up two other families who were on the Boston train with us who don't know where they are going either. I tell my family to stay put and head out on recon. After a few minutes I find an info booth, you know the kind, with the disgruntled, underpaid, rude, attendant who hates our guts for asking the same question the person did 3 minutes ago? Yeah that one. So I ask this person where the outbound terminals are. She looks at me, makes this sweeping motion across her chest with her left arm from left to right, pointing 2 fingers, and utters ever so softly with a slight hint of disgust "go around". My response? "Excuse me?", again, "go around". "go around where?" is my reply, to be answered with, "go around" with the same arm motion. I give up and peek "around" where I see no signage, a large, wide, long, hallway with some stairs and escalators at the other end. I run back and grab the group and we head off to the "around". We finally get where we are supposed to be and have about 15 minutes until boarding. Our train gets called and we load up. Looking back I think this is where things started to go wrong. As I am walking down the aisle of the car we are on, I decide not to go with my first selection of seats and move farther down the car. I choose 4 seats on the right hand side, 2 rows back from the front of the quickly filing up car and hustle to get our gear stored.

 

[wdwforus]

Tour of Fire, Day Two

Riding Coach

We've sat down, the train has loaded up, and its crowded, and we have a young family of variety of aged people, including a very young baby. The Conductor comes around looking for tickets, and I can't find mine. I start tearing things apart looking for it, she takes our names and pulls it up on the little handheld device she is using but says I need to find the ticket. I'm panicking and scrambling. Its nowhere. I finally ask the young family sitting in front of us if they've seen it and sure enough its buried in their pile of crap that they have piled up on the floor in front of them. I must have set it down on their seat while I was loading the luggage in the overhead and when they came in they just threw it on the floor and dumped their stuff on top of it. The train is now rolling along and were checking out our surroundings, including the two families behind us who are well into an attempt to get as drunk as fast as possible. Were stuck listening to these Yankee loving, Red Sox hating kids, and their dope smoking in the bathroom parents the rest of the way to Orlando. The rest of the evening is pretty uneventful other than the joys of listening to the coach mates we have, an occasional "The Red Sox suck" being shouted out by a 10 year old boy 2 seats back and we start putting the miles behind us and drift off to sleep each on our own need to find sleep.

 

[wdwforus]

Tour of Fire, Day Three

about 2 a.m. in the middle of nowhere aka north of Columbia S.C.

I wake up and the train is not moving much, people are talking and looking out the windows. I look out to my right, I see a small town crossing that is pretty dark, to my left I notice the windows are wet. I look back to the right and see the first bolt of lighting and hear the thunder almost immediately after. I can hear the rain on the ceiling and I hear someone say, "we must be stopped because of the storm, the train can't get hit by lighting", yep I'm riding with a bunch of rocket scientists. We sit for a few minutes and that's when I notice that there are people outside of the train near our windows talking. I can't hear what they are saying but they look like Amtrak employees. This goes on for a few more minutes until I am startled by the stream of water that is pouring out of the ceiling directly into my lap. I jump and start scrambling to put my electronics away and then hold my hands out to catch the water. This was a pretty lame attempt to stop my seat from becoming soaked and I grab a roll of paper towels out of the cooler to try and sop up the water. The leak then follows the path of least resistance and starts pouring onto my boy. I get him out of his seat and go into the lounge car to grab more paper towels to put on both of our seats. At about this time I notice the flashing lights, red and blue, and notice the police cars now blocking the tracks on either side of the train and the fire trucks pulling up. I then notice that we are directly blocking the road in both directions, at a crossroads, and there are police and firefighters everywhere. And the water keeps pouring out of the ceiling. We watch the activity outside for a few minutes and then a Conductor comes through and I ask him about my seat. He says that we need to call our Government to get Amtrak so more money as these cars were built in the 60's and they are falling apart! Then a different Conductor comes in and says the battery box is on fire and we may have to evacuate the car! We continue to watch the activities outside and sure enough they come back and tell us that we need to evacuate the car, grab all our stuff and go into the lounge and dining cars. I quickly hustle into the lounge car with the boy and grab a table, the girls are right behind me and I tell them all to sit down and I will get our gear. There is about 90 passengers I think in a coach car, and they are all pouring into these two cars. I grab our stuff in between dodging all our coach mates trying to do the same thing. I build a stack on the table, put the big ones in the aisle and go back to check for anything I missed. When I get back there is a woman sitting next to my girlfriend, with headphones in her ears, talking to someone on her phone. She has what seems like a Carribean island accent and for the next 45 minutes or so talks to this person in a regular sound level. The gf and I both agree afterwards that the topic of discussion was sex, and I could see my 9 year old son was confused on what she was saying. We all sit in the lounge car for what seems like forever, watching the Conductors walking back and forth doing whatever it they had to be doing. They come back with an update that the firefighters have to take the batteries out of the box and that we might have to unhook the car. Eventually we are given the all clear, they are not unhooking the car and we can return to our seats. Again the chaos ensues of reloading the car, and now I have to figure out what to do about my seats. The 2 across the aisle from us are wet now also. I garb all the paper towels I can find in the café car and try to soak up as much water as I can. They're pretty soaked. A different Conductor walks by and I ask what can be done about our seats. He says he will try and find some towels or blankets. 15 minutes later, we are moving again now, the room is dark except for some dim lights in the ceiling, he comes back and said there are no spare linens but he has some garbage bags to put over the seats. I wrap the around the cushions as best I can and take my boys small blanket he brought across both of them. The girls next to us try and do the same. We get settled back in and next thing I know we are stopping again. We're at our designated stop, Columbia, S.C. 2 hours and 15 minutes late. its about 4 a.m. now. And then it starts, drip, drip, drip, right onto my lower chest. We've got 8 hours to go to Orlando. The Conductor who tried to find some linens for us at this moment walks by with an arm load of towels. Where he got them and where he is headed with them I don't know but I am not a happy camper. I somehow drift back off to sleep and wake up with a large wet circle on my shirt. Its around 6 a.m. and I decide I need coffee. I head down to the café car, get the coffee and head to sit down in the lounge. I strike up a conversation with a gentleman in the next table over and we start comparing notes over the whole nights entertainment. He informs me that the batteries are in the last car. I said hmmmm, "the fire department took them out" and he said "yeah, they threw them into the last car on the floor in the aisle" and then follows that with, "they're back there covered in towels"...........

 

[englanddg]

I've always considered doing Amtrak...after this report is done, I'm not sure I'll ever consider it again!

But, we'll see what happens. Following!

 

[wdwforus]

Sorry I haven't had the time to post more info, but I did contact Amtrak tonight about our ride and what they can do to keep us as customers, waiting on their reply, update to come this weekend on the rest of the trip

 

[englanddg]

Sorry I haven't had the time to post more info, but I did contact Amtrak tonight about our ride and what they can do to keep us as customers, waiting on their reply, update to come this weekend on the rest of the trip

Hopefully they'll do right by you. I'll have my fingers crossed.

 

[wdwforus]

Tour of Fire, Day Three

The rest of our ride to Orlando is very uneventful compared to the early morning activities we had to endure. That is if you don't count getting hit by a wall of foul odors emanating from our car every time I walk back into the car from the lounge or café. No AC or lights for 8 hours, it got pretty bad.

We end up getting into the Orlando station about 2 hours late. I have been in contact with my parents who are already at Fort Wilderness about our predicament and what time we will be arriving. Sure enough Bumpy is waiting for us. We get all the gear loaded into his truck and its off to the H.P.O.E!!!!

He and my mom are staying in the same loop I stayed in when I went in 2007. That first beer was like liquid gold! Showers in the spotless bathrooms and burgers on the grill with a side of my moms homemade potato salad and I'm like a brand new man. Dad takes us over to Pop and check goes smooth. We are in the 50's room 3443. My brother and has 2 rooms right next to us but there not there yet. After unpacking and organizing we head over to Epcot to meet my parents. They have dinner reservation with my brother's family and we want to see a few things and watch Illuminations. We hit Test Track first. The boy loves it! He hasn't been to Disney since he was 4 and everything seems new and I am worried about how he will handle the thrill rides. He gets nervous about these things. But Test Track breaks the bubble and he wants more . We head over to Norway and Mexico, do a little shopping and have an excellent dinner at La Cantina de San Angel. It costs about $50 for Empanadas de Queso, Tacos de Pollo, both which were excellent, chicken fingers and fries and drinks. It was a pretty good meal.

Now this is where I complain about my fellow visitors. I found it really irritates me when I stake out a good location to watch the fire works, or any show for that matter, and camp out for an hour or so, only to have a bunch of ignorant idiots just walk right up and push their way in front of us and stand blocking my view at the last few moments like they own the place. Its gotten pretty bad. It happened a couple of times while we were there and people were very rude. It was the worst at IllumiNations and Electric Light Parade. SO if your one of those types of people who have little respect for your fellow park guests and barge right in front of a bunch of kids who have been waiting for an hour or more to see a show because you couldn't plan ahead and find your own spot......your going to get an earful from me. You've earned it.

We head back to Pop after the fire works and immediately everyone is passed out, but were in our beds at my favorite place in the world

 

[wdwforus]

Sorry again for the lack of updates, life gets crazy

I got a call from Amtrak last night and called them back today. After 2 tries I finally got through but ended up being on hold for almost an hour over both calls. I finally spoke to a human and guess what????? $1,000 travel credit!!!!YAY!!!!!! That's more than I paid for our 4 round trip tickets!!! Its usable for as many trips as I can squeeze out of it and basically doesn't expire for 2 years. We are EXTREMELY happy with this gesture. I was hoping for enough points to get a free regional trip, like Boston to DC, this will pay for that 4 times over almost! We're already planning our next vacation, probably a short cruise for just us adults, any suggestions???


Oh!! I almost forgot. I am two for two this week. I searched high and low the week we were there for the right souvenir's for myself. I wanted a new coffee mug for both at work and home, a new ball hat, and a t-shirt. Not a lot to look for right? Now I'm very finicky about hats and I like my shirts from Disney to have some embroidery and something to do with all 4 parks. This is probably where I was most disappointed. I was very unhappy with the selection throughout the parks. I looked everywhere. I finally decided on a pretty good t-shirt, had a hard time finding an XL. Found a hat, I felt the selection here was very poor, but I got one, and then I found 2 mugs. One at Hollywood Studios that I hadn't seen elsewhere, and one at Everything Pop. That one I took to work. Its got the retro picture of Main St in black and white with Walt and Mickey on it in color. Again, not the greatest stuff, I felt they are mostly lacking a variety, but these ones were the best I could find. Well, last week at work I'm cleaning the mug and I notice that the handle feels funny. I look at it closer and discover that the bottom connection of the handle to the body of the mug is cracked. There is a hairline crack all the way around and a good twist and I could probably break the whole thing off. The cast member who had wrapped this particular item up had told me that after we got home if anything didn't survive the trip to go to the website on my receipt and they would take care of it. So Tuesday night I dug out my receipts and found the one for the Walt/Mickey mug. The web address just took me to the normal Disney Store website and that was of no help at all. Above this was an email address. I emailed that and sure enough within an hour I had a response telling me that if I sent them my address and phone number they would send me a replacement! I complied with their instructions and sure enough, a new mug is on its way here!!! Again I'm wicked happy! And people wonder why I love going to Walt Disney World????

 

[wdwforus]

Day Two, Animal Kingdom

Normally Magic Kingdom is my must do first park to visit, but we've already broken that tradition by going to Epcot so lets keep the new ways going. We all head to AK for our first full day. Everyone goes on Everest. It is funny as can be. My mom is a riot and everyone loves the ride, even my sick father who shouldn't have gone on. And unfortunately that's about it for him for the rest of the day, it really screwed him up. The boy loved it but not enough to go back on it again. We end up hitting Dinosaur while my dad sits outside trying to get his head screwed back on. He has asbestosis and sometimes suffers from vertigo and he shouldn't have gone on the ride but we were all pumped up and he wanted to do it. My mom wanted to kick his butt afterwards, we all got a good laugh out of it and its one of those memory's for the vault. Bugs Life, Primevil Whirl, Flame Tree for lunch, which again was excellent, Nemo, and were pretty much done for the day.

About Flame Tree, gf and I split the roasted turkey sandwich with onion rings and we both felt it was an excellent sandwich that was plenty big enough to split and not feel either still hungry or over full. We ended up splitting a lot of meals the whole week and it worked out great.

We end up heading back to our rooms for a bit before hitting Downtown Disney. We ate dinner at Earl of Sandwich, which we've never done before and the food was good, the music playing outside though was extremely loud and annoying. Again, we split the Hawaiian Sandwich, with some chips and really liked it.