First resort stay, new camera, graduation celebration September 2012 TR!

Finally, I'm making time to start my trip report! I've had such a hectic life since I got back from my trip. If you read my PTR you know that I graduated nursing school in August, so when I got home I had to study for my state boards to get my nursing license since I was taking the test 10 days after we came home. Well, I passed and I am officially an RN! That high didn't last long because the day after I found out I got my license, my cat got hit by a car I was devastated, I still can't look at pictures of him :'( Anyways, a couple days later, my grandma went into the hospital and spent about a month there. So between all that and looking for jobs (and getting rejected), I just haven't had time to start on my TR. Well now that cooler weather is here, I'm longing for Florida... so on to the TR!

When: September 20 - October 1
Where: Art of Animation (TLM) and Coronado Springs.
Who: Me (Kelly) and my Mom.

Please take it easy on me, this is my first TR and I am not a writer! Lol! Hopefully I will be able to make this interesting The good news is that I got a new camera (Nikon D3100) about a month before my trip and I took *drumroll please* over 3000 photos! Lol, I think I went a little over board. I think all the pictures in my first post are from my iPhone 4s.

My luggage, all carry on.

Haha, I always watch my old Walt Disney World vacation planning kits before heading down to Florida. It gets me in the mood!

We left the house around 8:30am, we stopped at Bob Evans to get some breakfast, and headed to the airport. We were all checked in and waiting for our flight by 11:20 (yes, I wrote times down! lol!). We boarded our 12:30 flight. I got a window seat! Score!

Waiting for take-off.

Once on the plane, we left about 10-15 late. That was annoying, I just wanted to get down there!

Pictures from up in the air! I'm obsessed with the clouds. I love the sky from the ground, but it's even cooler up in the air!

My snack: pretzels and Sprite!

I think I saw about every kind of cloud there is! I love how you could tell what state you were flying over: red soil in Georgia, nothing but lakes in Florida.

Finally, we landed! The clouds got much heavier once we got in Florida which meant turbulence! It wasn't that bad, but definitely not my favorite thing. The pilot said there was 60-80 mile/hr head winds, so it slowed the plane down substantially, making us about 15 minutes late landing. By 3PM we were on the ground!

The Orlando airport is huge compared to the airport we flew out of. In no time at all, we were one the airport "monorail"!

Palm trees!

 

[tropicalsmile]

I have been so bad at this :/ Now lets see where I left off... oh yeah exploring the resorts.

By this time, we were extremely hungry! So we headed off to Landscapes of Flavor of course!

I love everything about the lobby! I want all those pictures in my room!

We didn't have the dining plan until the next day, so we both got bacon cheeseburgers and fries. They were so good! I don't know if it was because we were hungry or if it was just really good! Lol! All I know is looking at the pictures makes me want one!

A couple of pictures of Landscapes of Flavor

 

[tropicalsmile]

After eating, we headed through the Cars section with the destination of Pop Century. This section was probably my favorite, which was surprising to me because as much as I love Cars, it's my least favorite of the four movies that are featured at AoA. It didn't hurt that the sun was starting to go down (my favorite time of the day!). It also seemed to be the least crowed of the sections, has anyone else found this? I don't know if it was because TLM section just opened. The pool over there was not nearly as crowed as the other pools. I actually would probably pick this section if I ever had the money to stay in the family suites.

I love the lighting in the picture below.

Probably the only picture you'll see of me (2nd photo)

Then we walked over to Hourglass Lake to take pictures because the view was stunning!

Back through the last of the Cars section and then onto the Finding Nemo section.

I loved the Finding Nemo section, but I thought it was a little cramped because there is so much in it. This was definitely the busiest section. Personally we wouldn't book this section, we like the quieter spots better

Now it's time to explore Pop Century! Here are more views from Generation Gap bridge!

I really have to take it easy on the pictures, my posts aren't fitting (its hard to edit down when I took 3000 photos!)

 

[tropicalsmile]

Finally, I think this will be my last "Day 1" post!

So we explored the Pop Century resort.

I thought these were pretty decent night shots, since I used auto the entire time. I took a photography class when we got back home, I really could have used this information before vacation!

I was obsessed with the Mickey phone, I used to have one of these!

I am so excited that Roger Rabbit is coming out on Blu! Oh and I definitely used to rock a Walkman listening to Michael Jackson!

On our way back to AoA, we ran into a new friend. I was tempted to kiss him, I mean I am in Disney

We made our way back to TLM section and I took some night shots.

We went back to our room and got ready to go to Wal-Mart to get some breakfast food and snacks.

I LOVED the carpet in our room!

When we got back, I went swimming and took a couple more night time pictures!

 

[DisneyDebNJ]

These are VERY nice pics. In all the pics, the skies look stunning!!!!!!!!! And that burger looks so good!!! I love the little metal trays they use too!

 

[sam_disney]

i'm in!!great report so far xx

 

[Lil Fort]

Wow!! I love the resort pics. We've never been to AoA or Pop. The theming looks awesome and the burgers looked delicious! We're purely Fort Wilderness people, but we may have to resort hop over there for dinner and check it out in person on our next trip.

 

[tropicalsmile]

These are VERY nice pics. In all the pics, the skies look stunning!!!!!!!!! And that burger looks so good!!! I love the little metal trays they use too!

Thank you!! I know, the sky is awesome in some of them. I was disappointed that it was a little rainy and cloudy when we got off the plane, but it made for some awesome pictures. I liked the trays too, I thought they were unique!

 

[tropicalsmile]

i'm in!!great report so far xx

Yay! Thanks for reading!

 

[tropicalsmile]

Wow!! I love the resort pics. We've never been to AoA or Pop. The theming looks awesome and the burgers looked delicious! We're purely Fort Wilderness people, but we may have to resort hop over there for dinner and check it out in person on our next trip.

Thanks! Yeah, they're definitely worth the look around! I loved the theming of both of them, they're just fun! Haha, I definitely wouldn't mind having that burger right now! Fort Wilderness sounds fun, I want to do the Hoop-Deep-Doo Musical Revue someday!

 

[Lil Fort]

Thanks! Yeah, they're definitely worth the look around! I loved the theming of both of them, they're just fun! Haha, I definitely wouldn't mind having that burger right now! Fort Wilderness sounds fun, I want to do the Hoop-Deep-Doo Musical Revue someday!

Both Fort Wilderness and Hoop De Doo are a whole lot of fun. There are rumors that the Hoop De Doo's days are numbered though. That is one rumor that I hope isn't true!

 

[joanna71985]

Following along!

 

[tropicalsmile]

Following along!

Thanks for reading!

 

[tropicalsmile]

On to day 2 (September 21, 2012)...

So this day we got up at 8:50. We didn't go and eat breakfast anywhere. We had gone to Wal-Mart the night before and bought little packages of cereal and a bottle of milk. I had some Lucky Charms I'm not a cereal person, but they tasted pretty good!

Afterwards we explored The Little Mermaid section as we walked to Animation Hall. I was obsessed with all the little sea creatures on the railings!

Ariel, my favorite!

When we got to Animation Hall, we saw these little sidewalk paintings. I really wanted to see them, so I'm glad we stumbled upon them even though they were drying quickly! After Animation Hall, I took some more pictures of the Finding Nemo section as we slowly made our way back to The Little Mermaid section.

I really like this picture for some reason.

The view from our room

I believe we had a late check-out for 1pm, but we left a little early and checked into the Coronado Springs by 1pm.

Up next: Getting settled at the Coronado Springs resort and dinner at Boma!

 

[tropicalsmile]

On to the Coronado Springs! I was so excited to get to this resort! We checked in, the process went really smooth and the cast members were friendly. After we checked in, we went to our room to drop our stuff off and take pictures of course!

I liked our rooms, but they reminded me too much of the Marriot. I've seen older pictures of the rooms at Coronado and I thought they were much more fun and colorful, I wish they were still like that.

Moderate toiletries.

Some not so hidden Mickey's

This was the only animal we got during our whole stay. Is this normal? I was under the impression that Mousekeeping put new animals in your room a couple times throughout your stay. I was pretty dissapointed about it. I also had a Duffy sitting out and they did nothing with it, do they only do that stuff at certain hotels?

Anyways, after we walked around the resort a little bit and made our way to El Centro. There we split a pepperoni pizza (it was really good, sorry I didn't take a picture), looked around the gift shop, then we headed back to our room and went swimming! By 3:30pm we were back in our room. We unpacked our clothes, took a shower, then got ready fro Boma.

We had a 6pm ADR, but we got there early and explored the resort a little bit. We wanted to go outside and see the animals, but by the time we got there, it was pouring down rain, so we never did get to explore much of it. Here are pictures of basically just the lobby area.

Since we couldn't go outside to explore, we checked in to Boma at 5:12 and we were seated by 5:13. All the food was really good. I didn't get any pictures of the food, except for one... Our waiter brought out a surprise dessert for my graduation. I can't remember what everything was, but the two middle ones were praline macaroon and the guava jelly. I really liked the two on the left of the photo. I wasn't too fond of the guava jelly, it tasted like grapefruit to me. I didn't eat the chocolate thing on the very right (my Mom ate it, I don't like chocolate very much).

After we were done eating, we walked around AKL a little bit (it was still raining). After, we went to Downtown Disney. We had to make a stop a Goofy's Candy Co. so we could get our snacks. I got a Mickey rice crispy covered in white chocolate (I hate dark chocolate, I can stand only a little bit of milk chocolate, but I love white chocolate!) and reeses pieces. We then went back to our room and were in bed by 11pm.

Up next: exploring the Walt Disney World resort!

 

[Bethany M]

Following along! Great pictures of AOA!

 

[catnrob]

Reading along....love your photos!!!
I love TLM section of AoA... never been there but would love to! Is the distance to the main lobby from that section really far? It seems it on the map.

 

[tropicalsmile]

Following along! Great pictures of AOA!

Thank you and thanks for reading along!

 

[tropicalsmile]

Reading along....love your photos!!!
I love TLM section of AoA... never been there but would love to! Is the distance to the main lobby from that section really far? It seems it on the map.

Thanks! Yeah, it's quite a little hike from TLM section to Animation Hall. I didn't think it was too bad though, especially since the scenery is awesome the whole way there!

 

[tropicalsmile]

Day 3 (September 22, 2012)

So this day was dedicated to exploring and doing what ever came to mind!

We woke up around 8:30. We ate some cereal, then walked up to El Centro to fill up our mugs.
Here's some pictures walking from our room

The Three Caballeros!

Our room number <3

Our building!

The view from our door

My Mom wanted to go to the Prime Outlets, so we headed over there. The highlight was the Character Warehouse of course. I got a lot of Disney souvenirs there! One of my treasures!

After we shopped a little bit, we headed over to Downtown Disney to shop and get something to eat!

We ate at Cookes of Dublin. Had to take a picture of my celebration button while we were waiting for food!

Fish and chips. For dessert... ice cream! It was so hot out, my ice cream pretty much instantly melted.

I was trying sooo hard to get a picture of Stitch mid-spit. Didn't happen :/

Thought I'd try and get a little creative

After we were done, we went back to Coronado Springs and went swimming. We got ready and left by 6PM for our ADR at the Grand Floridian Cafe. I feel like this restaurant needs a better name. It was so cute and nice inside. I thought the name didn't fit it, but that's just me! We ordered steak and some kind of pasta. I can't remember what it was called, but it was all really good. My Mom and I split everything, so we could try both dishes.

We got the dessert sampler to share, also really good!

The beautiful Grand Floridian lobby!

After we were done eating, we hopped on the resort monorail and made a visit to the Polynesian and Contemporary resorts!

I always have to get a picture of this! We caught Wishes while we were here too!

We headed back to our room at 10PM. When we got there, I had to take a bite of my snack I had gotten at Downtown Disney earlier in the day

Up next: The Magic Kingdom!

 

[tropicalsmile]

Day 4 (September 23, 2012)

Magic Kingdom day!

This morning we were awoke by Stitch (aka our good morning phone call). My goal this morning was to get to the Magic Kingdom early to watch the opening. We headed out the door (and much later than I wanted) made our drive over to the Transportation and Ticket Center. The monorail was busy, so we decided to take the ferryboat.

As we rode across the lake, we heard fireworks go off... we missed the opening. I was really upset, but there will be other days.

We got to the Magic Kingdom by 9:15.

I think I'm in the minority here, but I really disliked the Autumn decorations. I don't like Halloween, but there wasn't even that many Halloween decorations, so that wasn't really the issue. I guess it was the yellow and orange banners all the way down Main Street USA. I thought it took away from its' beauty. Oh well, that's just what I have to expect when going this time of the year

As we walked down Main Street USA, these entertaining people drove up...

We made our way towards Cinderella's Castle.

I love these statues <3

The man and the mouse.

We headed straight to Fantasyland.

All the lines were really short, like 5-10 minutes. By 9:44 we were on our first ride, Peter Pan's Flight. Our next ride was it's a small world which was a five minute wait. I was surprised to see that they switched the lines up since I was there last. I tried to get some pictures with my new camera. I thought they turned out pretty good for using auto my entire trip. Does anybody have any tips for taking pictures on dark rides? What kind of settings should I use?

After it's a small world, my Mom went to find a restroom. I stayed behind to take pictures. When I was done, I snuck through Pinocchio Village Haus. Apparently it wasn't open yet because nobody was in there. I took advantage of the bare rooms and took some pictures of the amazing artwork on the walls.

We then headed over to Mickey's Philharmagic which also had a 5 minute standby. This was only my second time seeing this show, but I absolutely love it! The theater looked pretty, so I took a picture of course!

After that we got a fastpass for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, we also got a surprise fastpass for Dumbo. We didn't end up using it, which I really regret. While we waited for our fastpass we wandered over to Storybook Circus, we didn't do anything in this area, just walked around. Oh and I got a very distant picture of the Beast's castle!

On our way back to use our fastpasses, I had to take a picture of the Alice topiary. I haven't been on the teacups since I was little, I think I'm gonna have to ride it the next time I'm at the Magic Kingdom.

We finally made it onto The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh. We had to stop for a minute, luckily it was right in front of Pooh, so I took advantage of it

Up Next: Magic Kingdom Part 2