Ok so here it is. The moment I know you all have been waiting for…..MY TRIP REPORT!!! Haha, ok so probably you aren’t losing sleep over waiting for this one but I am excited writing. This is my first one so bear with me. I took well over 500 pictures which is a lot but not a whole lot. I didn’t follow my exact itinerary as posted in my pre-trip report, and I forgot to take a lot of pics of food, but I think I did ok!
So a little background if you didn’t read my pre-trip report which is linked here:
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=435999
My DH and myself decided to take our niece to Disney World as her gift for graduating high school. It was a plan in the making since we went on our honeymoon in Disney in 2007. We stayed at POP Century from 06/23-07/06, which I have to say I absolutely loved the hotel. I would never stay at another All Star and would pick POP over them anyday. I will say this though, I will NEVER go back to Disney again for that time of year. The crowds were so good until around July and then it got crazy.
We live in Folsom, PA right outside of Philly. My name is Courtney (25), my DH is Mike (23) and DN is Chynna (17). Here we are at Chynna's graduation:
So I guess that’s all you really need to know before I start. Some of the pics you will see will not have Mike in them with the characters. This is because he was taking the pictures! So he claims he was not on vacation because you can’t see him anywhere! So here we go!!!!
Tuesday 06/23/2009 DEPARTURE DAY!!!!
I can’t believe it’s finally here. It felt like it was going to take forever until this day got to us. Me and Chynna had been talking about this trip and counting down for so long and it was finally here. We had set out alarm for 4:30am but I was so excited I started poking Mike at about 4:15 to get up. That night before me and Chynna both took Tylenol PMs so we could get to sleep. Well Chynna took hers at like 6pm and was asleep on the sofa by 8pm. So me and Mike decided to just head to bed early. So anyway, we got up and I had to call my dad to get him up. Well he wasn’t supposed to come over to get us until 4:45. I think he got to us by 4:30 and we were ready to go.
Just a side note, I was devastated leaving my two dogs, Chase and Mocha at home. The looks they gave us when we left was just heart-breaking I could have cried. But my dad was taking care of them so I knew they would be in good hands.
So anyway, we were off to the airport by 4:45am. We made a stop at Wawa for my dad to get himself some coffee so he could wake up. Well Philadelphia airport is only 10 minutes away from our house, right off of I-95, so we were there by 5am! We checked our bags at the curbside checkin with Southwest. The man that took of us was so polite which was a shock for the Philly airport. We got inside and got right in the line for security. We get through and of course my bags go through and I see some woman waving my purse around asking whose handbag it was. I came forward and she asked me to open it. Well looks like I forgot to take out my lotion that I use in the tanning salon and it was too much liquid to carry on. No biggie, it was only a 8 dollar bottle from Walmart so I told her to trash it.
So by the time we got to our gate it was only 5:30am and our flight didn’t leave until 7:05am. We went to get some breakfast. I got a cappuccino and a crumb cake for myself and an iced coffee for Mike which cost $8 something. Chynna got a iced chai latte and a yogurt parfait which cost her $8 something and Mike got a sandwich from Burger King which was $4 I think. And this is where part of my trip report title comes in. we are done eating and just sitting and talking and Chynna asks “Do I have anything in my teeth?” let’s just say after everything we ate for the two weeks we were there, she asked this same question!!!! It drove us nuts by the end of vacation. Oh and let’s not forget 6am came around and what did I announce? “It’s time to take our Bufferin!” Let me explain…my mom is a bit nervine when it comes to getting blood clots on planes from sitting too long, so one hour before any flight she reminds us all to take our Bufferin, so of course my dad brought it over to us when he picked us up that morning! Here we are sitting and waiting at the airport:
Southwest finally started boarding the plane and even though we were boarding group B, we still all got seats together. Chynna was in the middle. Now keep in mind, she has not flown a plane since she was about 3 so she remembers nothing and was a nervous wreck just getting on. Well our flight attendants were hysterical. They were singing the mickey mouse club ending song (“M I C, see ya real soon, K E Y, why because we like you”)and getting the kids all excited that they were going to Disney. When the plane finally started to take off, Chynna got VERY nervous. Every little noise the plane made and every movement, she would freak out. When we started to accelerate and go down the runway, she grabbed my hand and by the time we were up in the air I had white marks on my hand from her squeezing so hard!!! The plane ride was very smooth, hardly any turbulence which was nice. We got the usual airplane cinnamon graham cracker cookies and a bag of pretzels and our drinks. Next thing you know the plane is landing and it was only 09:10. we were supposed to land at 9:35!!! So we were again ahead of ourselves which also seemed to be another theme of this trip. We walked down to the Magical Express counter and there was not one person in line anywhere. Usually you still have to go to counter and check in and give them your magical express passes. But not this time! There was a CM standing there waving her Mickey hand and told us to proceed down the red carpet to the next CM. We did so and she checked us in and told us to proceed to the POP line. We got there so fast I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of it. Next thing we know, the CM at the head of the line opened the line and led us to our bus!!! No way was this happening to us! We thought this was a very good sign!
So we hop on the bus and were told that POP is the first stop! Yet even more good news! And off we go!!!! This is us on the bus ride there...
By this point I was jumping out of my skin and I was waiting to see the video that they show on your way there. Well guess what?! They NEVER showed it. I was bit upset about this because Chynna had never seen it. But whatever I wasn’t going to let that ruin my good day so far. And we're home!!!!
So we then arrived at POP. These are just some pics i took while we were looking around.
Oh and let me just mention it was very hot in FL. It was extremely humid. Just to mention we were checked in at POP by 10:15!!! And let me just tell you, the CM that checked us in was HORRIBLE and NASTY! First of all she could hardly speak English and I couldn’t understand her but she was very rude also. She informed us that our room was not ready and gave us a card with a number to call to check. She gave us our package that was waiting and never gave us pins. So I asked her for one and her response was “Well what do you need that for?” I told her that we put on our reservation we were here for Chynna’s graduation. She looked at me, smiled, and said “Oh Congratulations”. After I was done checking in, I realized that she never asked me to pay for the refrigerator we had on our reservation and I also noticed that inside of our packet were “Celebrate” pins anyway! I ended up going back up a few minutes later and got another CM and she took care of writing on Chynna’s pin what we were there for plus letting me pay for the fridge.
So since we were at the hotel so early and our lunch reservations were not until 2pm, we had no idea what to do. We decided to just head to the POP food court and get a snack to eat because we hadn’t eaten since like 6 that morning. This was us sitting in the food court. Lovely pics of us right?!
So we went and got our 3 free mugs that were included with the Deluxe Dining Plan and I got a bag of chips, Mike got a chocolate cake, and Chynna got celery and carrots with dip. The mugs would have cost us $41.51 and the snacks would have been $10.30. (just so you know we kept track of what everything cost so that we would see if the DxDP paid off.)
I'm going to finish up here for now, until I get more pics loaded up on photobucket because they are taking forever. But i will continue soon!!
So a little background if you didn’t read my pre-trip report which is linked here:
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=435999
My DH and myself decided to take our niece to Disney World as her gift for graduating high school. It was a plan in the making since we went on our honeymoon in Disney in 2007. We stayed at POP Century from 06/23-07/06, which I have to say I absolutely loved the hotel. I would never stay at another All Star and would pick POP over them anyday. I will say this though, I will NEVER go back to Disney again for that time of year. The crowds were so good until around July and then it got crazy.
We live in Folsom, PA right outside of Philly. My name is Courtney (25), my DH is Mike (23) and DN is Chynna (17). Here we are at Chynna's graduation:
So I guess that’s all you really need to know before I start. Some of the pics you will see will not have Mike in them with the characters. This is because he was taking the pictures! So he claims he was not on vacation because you can’t see him anywhere! So here we go!!!!
Tuesday 06/23/2009 DEPARTURE DAY!!!!
I can’t believe it’s finally here. It felt like it was going to take forever until this day got to us. Me and Chynna had been talking about this trip and counting down for so long and it was finally here. We had set out alarm for 4:30am but I was so excited I started poking Mike at about 4:15 to get up. That night before me and Chynna both took Tylenol PMs so we could get to sleep. Well Chynna took hers at like 6pm and was asleep on the sofa by 8pm. So me and Mike decided to just head to bed early. So anyway, we got up and I had to call my dad to get him up. Well he wasn’t supposed to come over to get us until 4:45. I think he got to us by 4:30 and we were ready to go.
Just a side note, I was devastated leaving my two dogs, Chase and Mocha at home. The looks they gave us when we left was just heart-breaking I could have cried. But my dad was taking care of them so I knew they would be in good hands.
So anyway, we were off to the airport by 4:45am. We made a stop at Wawa for my dad to get himself some coffee so he could wake up. Well Philadelphia airport is only 10 minutes away from our house, right off of I-95, so we were there by 5am! We checked our bags at the curbside checkin with Southwest. The man that took of us was so polite which was a shock for the Philly airport. We got inside and got right in the line for security. We get through and of course my bags go through and I see some woman waving my purse around asking whose handbag it was. I came forward and she asked me to open it. Well looks like I forgot to take out my lotion that I use in the tanning salon and it was too much liquid to carry on. No biggie, it was only a 8 dollar bottle from Walmart so I told her to trash it.
So by the time we got to our gate it was only 5:30am and our flight didn’t leave until 7:05am. We went to get some breakfast. I got a cappuccino and a crumb cake for myself and an iced coffee for Mike which cost $8 something. Chynna got a iced chai latte and a yogurt parfait which cost her $8 something and Mike got a sandwich from Burger King which was $4 I think. And this is where part of my trip report title comes in. we are done eating and just sitting and talking and Chynna asks “Do I have anything in my teeth?” let’s just say after everything we ate for the two weeks we were there, she asked this same question!!!! It drove us nuts by the end of vacation. Oh and let’s not forget 6am came around and what did I announce? “It’s time to take our Bufferin!” Let me explain…my mom is a bit nervine when it comes to getting blood clots on planes from sitting too long, so one hour before any flight she reminds us all to take our Bufferin, so of course my dad brought it over to us when he picked us up that morning! Here we are sitting and waiting at the airport:
Southwest finally started boarding the plane and even though we were boarding group B, we still all got seats together. Chynna was in the middle. Now keep in mind, she has not flown a plane since she was about 3 so she remembers nothing and was a nervous wreck just getting on. Well our flight attendants were hysterical. They were singing the mickey mouse club ending song (“M I C, see ya real soon, K E Y, why because we like you”)and getting the kids all excited that they were going to Disney. When the plane finally started to take off, Chynna got VERY nervous. Every little noise the plane made and every movement, she would freak out. When we started to accelerate and go down the runway, she grabbed my hand and by the time we were up in the air I had white marks on my hand from her squeezing so hard!!! The plane ride was very smooth, hardly any turbulence which was nice. We got the usual airplane cinnamon graham cracker cookies and a bag of pretzels and our drinks. Next thing you know the plane is landing and it was only 09:10. we were supposed to land at 9:35!!! So we were again ahead of ourselves which also seemed to be another theme of this trip. We walked down to the Magical Express counter and there was not one person in line anywhere. Usually you still have to go to counter and check in and give them your magical express passes. But not this time! There was a CM standing there waving her Mickey hand and told us to proceed down the red carpet to the next CM. We did so and she checked us in and told us to proceed to the POP line. We got there so fast I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of it. Next thing we know, the CM at the head of the line opened the line and led us to our bus!!! No way was this happening to us! We thought this was a very good sign!
So we hop on the bus and were told that POP is the first stop! Yet even more good news! And off we go!!!! This is us on the bus ride there...
By this point I was jumping out of my skin and I was waiting to see the video that they show on your way there. Well guess what?! They NEVER showed it. I was bit upset about this because Chynna had never seen it. But whatever I wasn’t going to let that ruin my good day so far. And we're home!!!!
So we then arrived at POP. These are just some pics i took while we were looking around.
Oh and let me just mention it was very hot in FL. It was extremely humid. Just to mention we were checked in at POP by 10:15!!! And let me just tell you, the CM that checked us in was HORRIBLE and NASTY! First of all she could hardly speak English and I couldn’t understand her but she was very rude also. She informed us that our room was not ready and gave us a card with a number to call to check. She gave us our package that was waiting and never gave us pins. So I asked her for one and her response was “Well what do you need that for?” I told her that we put on our reservation we were here for Chynna’s graduation. She looked at me, smiled, and said “Oh Congratulations”. After I was done checking in, I realized that she never asked me to pay for the refrigerator we had on our reservation and I also noticed that inside of our packet were “Celebrate” pins anyway! I ended up going back up a few minutes later and got another CM and she took care of writing on Chynna’s pin what we were there for plus letting me pay for the fridge.
So since we were at the hotel so early and our lunch reservations were not until 2pm, we had no idea what to do. We decided to just head to the POP food court and get a snack to eat because we hadn’t eaten since like 6 that morning. This was us sitting in the food court. Lovely pics of us right?!
So we went and got our 3 free mugs that were included with the Deluxe Dining Plan and I got a bag of chips, Mike got a chocolate cake, and Chynna got celery and carrots with dip. The mugs would have cost us $41.51 and the snacks would have been $10.30. (just so you know we kept track of what everything cost so that we would see if the DxDP paid off.)
I'm going to finish up here for now, until I get more pics loaded up on photobucket because they are taking forever. But i will continue soon!!
!
