We have returned from our super-duper top secret surprise birthday trip to WDW. Some of you may remember that I wrote a short pre-trip report about this upcoming trip. See here http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=793491. The even shorter version is that I planned a surprise trip to WDW for my husband’s birthday. His birthday is November 28th and I began planning the trip in August. An email to my inbox promoting free dining pretty much made up my mind to set my plan in motion. I proved to be a very bad secret keeper which I pretty much expected lol. But hey, I kept it for about a month which is longer than I thought I could. It didn’t help that everyday Dan would ask me “Where are we going, where are we going???” He kept needling me and finally he asked “Are we going to Disney?” and all I could do was smile. I would lose in a second at poker. So the cat was out of the bag and he knew we were going. Not the grand reveal I wanted, but I really only have myself to blame lol!
So on with the trip! On the morning of Nov 28th we rose dark and early at 2:00 am. We had gotten everything ready the night before but we had some animals to take care of in the morning. The worst part of going on these trips is leaving all our animals behind and hoping they will be all right. We had dropped off our 2 dogs the night before at Dan’s parents house. We also have cats and horses. My friend who boards some horses at our house would be staying the week to take care of them and our cats.
With the pets taken care of and the truck loaded, we were on the road at a bit after 3 am. We had a 6 am flight out of Philadelphia and it takes about an hour to get there. We stopped at Wawa for a quick bite and some coffee! Yum! We arrived at the off-site parking lot at about 4:15 am. We used Winner for parking and I highly recommend them! They take you to the airport in your own car so you don’t have to transfer your bags to a shuttle and wait for a bunch of other people. When you return, they will pick you up in your car and you can either have them drive you back to their parking lot to drop them off or pay a small fee to immediately drive home from the airport and they will find their own way back to their lot.
We flew Southwest for the first time this trip. We usually take Spirit Airlines out of Atlantic City, but their fees have become exorbitant and I can’t justify the convenience of AC over Philly with the large price increases. We paid the extra $10 per ticket for the Early Bird Check in. We were early in the A group for boarding, I think A28 and 29. I really liked this service as I didn’t have to be online 24 hours in advance to get a good boarding position and will def do this again.
Our flight was uneventful (thankfully) and we landed in Orlando a little ahead of schedule. By this time we were a little hungry and didn’t know how long it would be before we would be able to eat so we stopped in a McFood before heading down to the Magical Express buses. Luckily for us, as soon as we got in line they started letting people on the bus for Pop Century, AKL, and CBR. We didn’t even stop in the line and I had no time to get the requisite photo of the ME line. I did get a few photos of the buses though.
On our way to the resort we had a little boy (maybe about 3 or 4 yo) who was so excited to be going to WDW. He was screaming his excitement right in our ears the whole trip. Everytime a new character came on the video, he went CRAZY. He was standing on the floor with his mouth right near our heads. Mom, at least make him sit down! Needless to say it was a long ride :lol:. I totally understand his excitement, but I just don’t think we could handle having kids! Although my mom tells me it is different when you have your own….I just don’t know
. I think it is just her effort to get another grandchild (my sister has one). We were staying a Pop Century this trip and we were the second stop after CBR.
We arrived at PC and checked in. I think we arrived around 10 am and our room was ready. We had done online check-in at home prior to our trip. We were room 9308 which was in the 80’s section. It overlooked the computer pool. It was pretty chilly our entire trip, so it was never very busy in the pool. We had absolutely no problem with noise in our room. Occasionally we heard people walk by the room, but no different than when staying at CBR, POR or CSR. I have to add that this was our first time staying at a value resort, so I was a little concerned about whether we would like it. Our room was good although a little small, which I expected. It was nice and clean and we had no problems with it. The beds were a little squishier and much smaller than I am used to, but I was comfortable sleeping, but if you are used to a firm bed, you may have a little bit of a problem.
This was the view from our room.
A couple others I took before heading to the parks.
So on with the trip! On the morning of Nov 28th we rose dark and early at 2:00 am. We had gotten everything ready the night before but we had some animals to take care of in the morning. The worst part of going on these trips is leaving all our animals behind and hoping they will be all right. We had dropped off our 2 dogs the night before at Dan’s parents house. We also have cats and horses. My friend who boards some horses at our house would be staying the week to take care of them and our cats.
With the pets taken care of and the truck loaded, we were on the road at a bit after 3 am. We had a 6 am flight out of Philadelphia and it takes about an hour to get there. We stopped at Wawa for a quick bite and some coffee! Yum! We arrived at the off-site parking lot at about 4:15 am. We used Winner for parking and I highly recommend them! They take you to the airport in your own car so you don’t have to transfer your bags to a shuttle and wait for a bunch of other people. When you return, they will pick you up in your car and you can either have them drive you back to their parking lot to drop them off or pay a small fee to immediately drive home from the airport and they will find their own way back to their lot.
We flew Southwest for the first time this trip. We usually take Spirit Airlines out of Atlantic City, but their fees have become exorbitant and I can’t justify the convenience of AC over Philly with the large price increases. We paid the extra $10 per ticket for the Early Bird Check in. We were early in the A group for boarding, I think A28 and 29. I really liked this service as I didn’t have to be online 24 hours in advance to get a good boarding position and will def do this again.
Our flight was uneventful (thankfully) and we landed in Orlando a little ahead of schedule. By this time we were a little hungry and didn’t know how long it would be before we would be able to eat so we stopped in a McFood before heading down to the Magical Express buses. Luckily for us, as soon as we got in line they started letting people on the bus for Pop Century, AKL, and CBR. We didn’t even stop in the line and I had no time to get the requisite photo of the ME line. I did get a few photos of the buses though.
On our way to the resort we had a little boy (maybe about 3 or 4 yo) who was so excited to be going to WDW. He was screaming his excitement right in our ears the whole trip. Everytime a new character came on the video, he went CRAZY. He was standing on the floor with his mouth right near our heads. Mom, at least make him sit down! Needless to say it was a long ride :lol:. I totally understand his excitement, but I just don’t think we could handle having kids! Although my mom tells me it is different when you have your own….I just don’t know
. I think it is just her effort to get another grandchild (my sister has one). We were staying a Pop Century this trip and we were the second stop after CBR. We arrived at PC and checked in. I think we arrived around 10 am and our room was ready. We had done online check-in at home prior to our trip. We were room 9308 which was in the 80’s section. It overlooked the computer pool. It was pretty chilly our entire trip, so it was never very busy in the pool. We had absolutely no problem with noise in our room. Occasionally we heard people walk by the room, but no different than when staying at CBR, POR or CSR. I have to add that this was our first time staying at a value resort, so I was a little concerned about whether we would like it. Our room was good although a little small, which I expected. It was nice and clean and we had no problems with it. The beds were a little squishier and much smaller than I am used to, but I was comfortable sleeping, but if you are used to a firm bed, you may have a little bit of a problem.
This was the view from our room.
A couple others I took before heading to the parks.
