Ok, just to clarify, this is my first TRIP REPORT not my FIRST TRIP report. Make sense? Good, let's move on...
Let me preface by saying that this trip did not go at all as planned due to my wife getting sick and me not feeling well either but nonetheless we had a good time just not a GREAT time. Oh well, a bad day at Disney is still better than a good day at work!
I tend to be very wordy and this report will contain lots of photos so please bear with me...
I also may have to do this in seperate segments throughout the day as I have time.
Here goes...
Saturday April 14th:
We leave our little town of Cashiers, NC and head for Greenville, SC at around 8:00am to catch our 11:45am flight. We grab a quick breakfast at McDonalds in Pickens, SC and arrive in Greenville at around 10:15. I was worried about going through security because this was my first trip with a CPAP machine since being diagnosed with Sleep Apnea around two months ago but, thankfully, everything went very fast and smoothly, they just unzipped the case that my CPAP was in and swabbed it and then let me go on my merry way. Greenville airport was dead so that helped speed things along as well.
We boarded the plane at around 11:30 and were actually lifting off of the runway at exactly 11:45. We arrived at Orlando International at around 1:00.
We have used Disney's Magical Express on every trip but this was the first time we have had any trouble. The lines for Magical Express were absolutely packed, all except for ours that is. Our line, the one for Saratoga Springs, only had seven people in it. We proceded to wait for over thirty minutes for them to let us board the Magical Express, in the meantime, the lines for all of the other resorts were moving very quickly. As you can imagine, we got a little frustrated but since all of our other Magical express experiences went very smoothly we didn't think that much of it. The girl in front of us on the other hand was absolutely having a hissy fit of epic proportions. She was causing quite the comotion and we were very embarrassed to be in the same line as her. The whole time I was thinking "if she's freaking out over a thirty minute line at the airport,she's gonna be a mental case once she gets in the parks".
We finally boarded the Magical Express and were on our way to Saratoga Springs. Just as we were reaching the resort, our bus driver(who looked very young to me and I am assuming he hadn't been driving a bus long at all) ran up on one of the curbs in a curve and got the bus stuck. After a few minutes of hitting the gas and break to rock the bus back and forth we finally got unstuck but the driver ended up severely warping several panels near the wheel well of the bus. I felt horrible for him but needless to say, the girl who was freaking out at the airport was acting like Linda Blair in the Excorcist. I'm serious, her head was spinning around and she was shooting green vomit all over the bus. It was really gross. We finally got to the main lobby of Saratoga around 2:30 or so and we got to follow Linda Blair all of the way. She was fuming and fussing all of the way to the lobby and proceded to freak out on the receptionist at the check in desk and tell her how horrible her trip had been so far. Luckily, no vomit was involved this time though. I had finally had enough so I shot her an evil look and then said " aw,come on, it wasn't that bad at all" and rolled my eyes at her. I wanted to say more but her boyfriend had two or three more muscles than I do and I didn't want to spend our vacation in a body cast. Space Mountain would have been really rough in a body cast.
ANYHOO...we finally got checked in and by that time we were famished so we went to The Artist's Pallette for lunch. It was quite good, I was surprised.
We then began to tour the resort. I must admit, I wasn't looking forward to staying at Saratoga Springs. We had went to a DVC presentation there almost exactly a year ago and weren't all that impressed. It just didn't feel like Disney to us. As we began to walk around the resort I was pleasantly suprised at how nice the resort is. True, the Disney theme isn't very strong(except for the occassional hidden mickey and pictures of all of the famous Disney horses on the wall in the main lobby) but the Equestrian theme that they are shooting for is incorporated very well into everything. It's a gorgeous place, I was quite impressed. We ended up touring the Animal Kindgom Villa that they have set up at the DVC preview center there at Saratoga. The AKL Villas look absolutely gorgeous, I can't wait. I have included a few pictures below for your viewing pleasure along with pictures of our room and pictures of Saratoga Springs Resort. We stayed in The Grandstand.
That's all for now. Coming up...Animal Kingdom Villas,EPCOT, Beautiful topiaries , and Le Cellier!
Sorry, no pictures of the hateful vomit spewing girl.
Let me preface by saying that this trip did not go at all as planned due to my wife getting sick and me not feeling well either but nonetheless we had a good time just not a GREAT time. Oh well, a bad day at Disney is still better than a good day at work!
I tend to be very wordy and this report will contain lots of photos so please bear with me...
I also may have to do this in seperate segments throughout the day as I have time.
Here goes...
Saturday April 14th:
We leave our little town of Cashiers, NC and head for Greenville, SC at around 8:00am to catch our 11:45am flight. We grab a quick breakfast at McDonalds in Pickens, SC and arrive in Greenville at around 10:15. I was worried about going through security because this was my first trip with a CPAP machine since being diagnosed with Sleep Apnea around two months ago but, thankfully, everything went very fast and smoothly, they just unzipped the case that my CPAP was in and swabbed it and then let me go on my merry way. Greenville airport was dead so that helped speed things along as well.
We boarded the plane at around 11:30 and were actually lifting off of the runway at exactly 11:45. We arrived at Orlando International at around 1:00.
We have used Disney's Magical Express on every trip but this was the first time we have had any trouble. The lines for Magical Express were absolutely packed, all except for ours that is. Our line, the one for Saratoga Springs, only had seven people in it. We proceded to wait for over thirty minutes for them to let us board the Magical Express, in the meantime, the lines for all of the other resorts were moving very quickly. As you can imagine, we got a little frustrated but since all of our other Magical express experiences went very smoothly we didn't think that much of it. The girl in front of us on the other hand was absolutely having a hissy fit of epic proportions. She was causing quite the comotion and we were very embarrassed to be in the same line as her. The whole time I was thinking "if she's freaking out over a thirty minute line at the airport,she's gonna be a mental case once she gets in the parks".
We finally boarded the Magical Express and were on our way to Saratoga Springs. Just as we were reaching the resort, our bus driver(who looked very young to me and I am assuming he hadn't been driving a bus long at all) ran up on one of the curbs in a curve and got the bus stuck. After a few minutes of hitting the gas and break to rock the bus back and forth we finally got unstuck but the driver ended up severely warping several panels near the wheel well of the bus. I felt horrible for him but needless to say, the girl who was freaking out at the airport was acting like Linda Blair in the Excorcist. I'm serious, her head was spinning around and she was shooting green vomit all over the bus. It was really gross. We finally got to the main lobby of Saratoga around 2:30 or so and we got to follow Linda Blair all of the way. She was fuming and fussing all of the way to the lobby and proceded to freak out on the receptionist at the check in desk and tell her how horrible her trip had been so far. Luckily, no vomit was involved this time though. I had finally had enough so I shot her an evil look and then said " aw,come on, it wasn't that bad at all" and rolled my eyes at her. I wanted to say more but her boyfriend had two or three more muscles than I do and I didn't want to spend our vacation in a body cast. Space Mountain would have been really rough in a body cast.
ANYHOO...we finally got checked in and by that time we were famished so we went to The Artist's Pallette for lunch. It was quite good, I was surprised.
We then began to tour the resort. I must admit, I wasn't looking forward to staying at Saratoga Springs. We had went to a DVC presentation there almost exactly a year ago and weren't all that impressed. It just didn't feel like Disney to us. As we began to walk around the resort I was pleasantly suprised at how nice the resort is. True, the Disney theme isn't very strong(except for the occassional hidden mickey and pictures of all of the famous Disney horses on the wall in the main lobby) but the Equestrian theme that they are shooting for is incorporated very well into everything. It's a gorgeous place, I was quite impressed. We ended up touring the Animal Kindgom Villa that they have set up at the DVC preview center there at Saratoga. The AKL Villas look absolutely gorgeous, I can't wait. I have included a few pictures below for your viewing pleasure along with pictures of our room and pictures of Saratoga Springs Resort. We stayed in The Grandstand.
That's all for now. Coming up...Animal Kingdom Villas,EPCOT, Beautiful topiaries , and Le Cellier!
Sorry, no pictures of the hateful vomit spewing girl.
Thanks for the pictures and the clever commentary!
I'm having some trouble with Webshots, I'm trying to remedy the situation though. Please bear with me. I wonder if Linda Blair is behind all of this? Hmmm...