Trip Report C'mon Pop Pop!

We got back recently from another quick trip to the world and I thought I would share our adventures with you all!

Back story is my husband Gary who usually has to be dragged to Disney had been saying for a few weeks, "we need to get a Disney trip together."
My response was, where's Gary and what did you do with him?!

Gary hasn't been feeling too well and our daughter Aleisha decided to bring herself and our oldest grandbaby, Una to where we live, near Pittsburgh to visit. The youngest granddaughter was in the process of sleep training and they didn't want to throw the time change into the mix. I told Aleisha she could explain to Lana when she asks as a teen why she wasn't on the trip!!
Seth our son who lives in Orlando now (see recent TR about his Orlando move if interested), was going to fly up to see all of the family.
I got a crazy idea and asked these 2 what they would think about doing a run to Disney while Aleisha and Una were on the east coast. They live in Sacramento.

They thought it was a great idea and in one weeks time we pulled together a mini trip in the middle of the big one. Seth ended up staying in Orlando to meet us there and to be our chauffeur.

Aleisha and Una flew to Pittsburgh on Wed. the 6th and then we all flew to Orlando on Sat. the 9th. to meet up with Seth. Seth's partner Jake met up with us the next day as he is a CP CM and had to work on the first day. We then flew home Tues. the 12th.

Who all partied:
Gary, Me Cindy, Seth, Jake, Aleisha and Una.

While I have sympathy it annoys me when people complain about the heat in Florida. You kind of know this going in.
BUT, it was freakin hot as the surface of the sun! Who knew a human body could actually melt, Olaf style?!
I say that to explain the red melted look we all have in the pic, at 10 am! This was actually our last day at MK.

Anyway, to continue with the particulars, we stayed for 2 nights club level at the Contemporary and then 1 night at Baylake. We have DVC but I could only get one night using points. Club level was insanely wonderful but I did feel a little ill at the price tag.

Follow along if you want to read about Una dragging Gary all around Disney. C'mon Pop Pop!!

 

[MickeyCB]

I'm following too. That was a nice picture of all you in front of the castle.

Glad you are following and thanks, love those castle pics of people.
But I have yet to get the magic shot I want like I've seen on @Tuvalu pics that look like a postcard.

 

[MickeyCB]

I’m sure Disney had to watch out for Una and the gang!

She was on a roll! No princess or Dondald sightings to be ignored!

 

[mpaulam]

Following along!

 

[Bullseye1967]

I'm in!!

 

[MickeyCB]

Following along!

I'm in!!

So glad you're here!

 

[MickeyCB]

ARRIVAL DAY-ROOM IS READY!

We left off as we were heading to our now available room after perusing the lounge offerings.
We were given room number 4909 and I see that Una pilfered some of the home made potato chips for the long journey to the room! (It was just down the hall a little piece!)

This is the view as you enter the room/living area. There are 4 balconies in total. 2 off of the living area and 1 each off of the bedrooms. Decorated I would say mid century modern. Early Incredibles perhaps?!

View from the opposite side of the living/dining area.

The quirky part of the suite is where that yellow wall is. That area is the kitchen. I don't have a good picture of it but it has tons of cabinets with almost nothing in them except a few cups for the fancy coffee maker. It has a dorm size fridge there and a small sink.
The large picture on the wall Una is looking at has the ability to change depending on the angle you view it from. My artsy kids said it is Lenticular.

From this angle you can see there is an actual foyer that was large enough to the left of the door to park and charge Gary's scooter nightly and in that foyer is a full bathroom, one of 3.
All of the fancy little decorations on the far shelf had to be moved up a shelf or two as the curious 2 year old wanted to investigate.

There were 2 very nice bedrooms, one on each side of the living area with large closets and equally nice bathrooms.
There were 2 things with the bedrooms I found a little odd. One is if you like a nice quiet reading light at night, you won't get it here. The lights imbedded in the header all turn on together and if one person wants to read and the other sleep, oh well.
The other thing is noted below regarding the bedroom door.

Souvenirs toiletries provided for your pleasure.

I can't find the photo I took of the door to our bedroom but it was super strange, and in my opinion could be if not dangerous at least annoying. These bedrooms appear to function as lockout rooms. There is a locking mechanism on the living room side but no door handle on the bedroom side.
So we could not pull the door completely shut and more concerning is it could lock you out of the living area if a kid played with that or whatever. You could exit the bedroom to the hall but as the concierge pointed out, if you stepped out without a room key you were in the hall at someone's mercy to get back in! That night I had the kids push a pillow against our door to hold it closed so we wouldn't hear the TV they were watching.

Next post I have a few photos of the magnificent view from the balconies.

 

[mpaulam]

Wow! That suite is huge!!

 

[MickeyCB]

Wow! That suite is huge!!

It really was! Plenty of room for an actual party!

 

[MickeyCB]

ARRIVAL DAY CONTS.

Here are a couple of views from the balconies. The MK view side gets a fair amount of late afternoon sun, so incredibly warm out there and we didn't get to make too much use of it. We were able to catch the fireworks from there later.
I think with the table and chairs it would make a wonderful place to have breakfast or dinner in cooler weather.

One thing I did forget to mention was on arrival they had this neat artwork for us with a little note. Love paper!!

After we were done ohhing and awwwing over the room we decided we were pretty hungry and placed an order at the Contempo, conveniently located 14 floors under our feet!

But before our Contempo run, Gary wanted to shower and needed to rest.
It was so cute. He never lets anyone fuss over him, but he took a shower and we bundled him into one of the fancy robes and Aleisha built him a nest on the couch to rest and watch a football game.

We were getting ready to place our mobile order for Contempo when Seth got an email from Jake that he was able to get all of us in to see the new Moana Journey of Water on Monday, our Epcot day, as part of cast preview. We thought that was really cool and something fun to look forward to!

We place our order and Seth and I went down to get it. I made a rookie move and didn't push "we're here" upstairs and so had to wait about 20 minutes. But that was ok because we spent the time shopping in the store there that I have always liked.
Seth found a Halloween fan that he actually used in the parks.

I was so excited to get this large Mickey pumpkin, it lights up and is so cute!
I figured we would have it as a decoration during our stay and after talking to the CM she told me for $5 I could bring it back down with the receipt and they could mail it home to me instead of lugging it back. It worked out great.

I also bought this great looking candy apple but sadly we didn't get around to cutting it open and I sent it home with Seth but we spent a few hours at MK on our last day and it melted into oblivion in his car.

After our shopping blitz our food was ready and we took it back upstairs and ate in the dining room of our suite.
I realized later we were like ravenous wolves having had nothing to eat since the Pittsburgh airport and I didn't get any photos of our food. It was really good. I love their meat flatbread and Seth got their veggie one and said it was awesome. Aleisha got a Greek salad with chicken and Una got a pepperoni flatbread. Gary drank a fancy beer from the lounge and ate peanut m&m's. (His choice.) We all got various drinks from the lounge, beer, wine, soda and milk for Una.

After that we hung out waiting for the delivery of Gary's scooter I had rented him. It was supposed to be 4:45pm but they called and asked if they could come earlier so Seth and I went down to meet them around 3:30ish.

I have to take a moment and plug the Buena Vista Rentals. I ordered this only a few days before our trip and the lady on the phone was very nice and very helpful. After describing Gary's medical situation she recommended the "premium" chair because it had a high back with a head rest. It also had an overhang thing to help block the sun. What was hilarious is it also came with a fan and a case of water which I thought was useless but in fact was a life saver during our stay.
This scooter ended up being worth every penny spent.
After we got home Gary was talking on the phone to a friend and I overheard him saying "he loved his scooter and that Disney is all over it, I was able to just drive that right up onto the buses!"
Makes me look a little differently at the people using these at Disney.

The young man that dropped it off went over everything including how to drive it and information on charging. I let Seth drive it back up as I didn't want to wreck into anything.

Next up, Princesses, Tron and what would become a daily ritual for Una!

 

[Back!Elbow!Shoulders!]

So we could not pull the door completely shut and more concerning is it could lock you out of the living area if a kid played with that or whatever.

I like how you say a kid but we all know you had a particular kid in mind.

That doesn’t seem like a helpful or safe feature though.

Looking at a lot of WDW hotel rooms now with a parent’s eyes I am amazed at how kid unfriendly some of them are.

 

[MickeyCB]

I like how you say a kid but we all know you had a particular kid in mind.

That doesn’t seem like a helpful or safe feature though.

Looking at a lot of WDW hotel rooms now with a parent’s eyes I am amazed at how kid unfriendly some of them are.

Seems like the first several years of a kids life they spend about 90% of the time trying to kill themselves! Makes "kid proofing quite the challenge!"

 

[k8einwdw]

I’m in!

 

[cgersic]

I'm here too!!! So good to see you all and the pic of Gary on the couch is so sweet. I can't wait for the fun that I just know is coming!!

 

[rshell68]

I didn't want to wreck into anything.

Says the Wonder Woman who drove a freaking Uhaul in New York traffic.....LOL

 

[MickeyCB]

I’m in!

So glad you're here! With all of the kid stuff I think of you guys and your adventures!

 

[MickeyCB]

I'm here too!!! So good to see you all and the pic of Gary on the couch is so sweet. I can't wait for the fun that I just know is coming!!

Glad you are following and yes, there was a lot of fun to this trip even if it was short.

 

[MickeyCB]

Says the Wonder Woman who drove a freaking Uhaul in New York traffic.....LOL

That's hilarious! I didn't think about that but it's amazing what we find intimidating!

 

[MickeyCB]

ARRIVAL DAY-MK!

After the scooter was delivered we all got ready to go over to the MK. I don't think you can ever complain about the proximity to MK from the Contemporary and Baylake. We headed down to the lobby and started on the walkway over. This was Una's first time to yell, "come on Pop Pop" as she was leaning dangerously out of her stroller looking back at Gary in his scooter!

We went through the small security area and made a mistake we did not repeat during the trip. They told Gary he could stay in the scooter then spent 5 minutes wanding him down, lifting up his shirt, etc. After that I just had him stand up beside it and it took 10 seconds.

We had to stop to get Aleisha her ticket and to initiate Gary's AP that I had renewed almost a year before.

After that we got a quick selfie in front of the train station that I can't find and then headed up main street.
As we rounded the bend I asked Una if she knew who lived in the castle that she was exclaiming over and she yelled Cinderella!

Una participated but didn't get the point!

Seth had arranged for an ILL for him and Aleisha for Tron but before that we had an important engagement. Princesses were waiting!
But first we had to get dolled up.

And then the moment that is my new phone wallpaper!

Una lost her mind when we walked into the room with the princesses and she saw Cinderella. That dress has been worn for about 6 months daily at home, in the yard, eating dinner, etc. (Only one other princess dress gets similar wear and we would hunt her down too!)

But first, here in the castle was this lovely lady that Una had a good laugh with, but really coveted her beautiful jewelry.

At the exit of the princess gathering was a lovely figure of Minnie that Una also enjoyed. This is a great age for this stuff.

After this we had to do a little hustle because Seth and Aleisha's boarding group for Tron had been called, and we needed to figure out a way to get Una to peel off with us and let them go ride.
We surprisingly got her to go on the people mover with us by saying we were going to ride the blue train. I figured if it didn't work the worse that could happen is we would have to walk over to Tron.

Up next, The People Mover and a new favorite snack.

 

[fractal]

No better medicine than some time at WDW! The suite is amazing and Una is a cutie-pie!

 

[lindawdw]

I'm finally here following along!!! It really sounds like everything just came together for this trip! I've never seen pictures of the Club Level at the Contemporary and that view was truly incredible! It must be so precious to see your granddaughter get to meet Cinderella for the first time!!!