Pre-Trip Fractal's Aug '11 Pre-trip report & '07,09 trip flashbacks

The excitement is building!

We are closing in on 100 days until our August 8th trip back to the World! I decided it was time to start my first trip report. Actually it's a pre-trip report combined with "flashback" reports from our 2007 and 2009 trips.

Introducing the Cast...


I'm Chris and my beautiful wife of 18 years is Val. I work in the investment business and over the last 20 years have had more up and downs than the craziest roller coaster. With some sacrifices we've been lucky enough to have Val stay home with the kids. She is a homemaker and does a great job of running the house and making sure we are all on schedule and at where we need to be when we need to be. The pic is from our vacation to Wildwood Crest last year. One of us loves Disney, the other one - eh. More on that later.

and now kids... Alexandra is our oldest @ 17, Sterg is 14 and Antonia (Toni) is 9. Alex is in the middle of her high school lacrosse season, Sterg plays water-polo and Toni is our dancer. All three LOVE Disney.

Coming up next - our 2011 trip itinerary.

 

[fractal]

Itinerary


Dates of Trip

Arriving Monday August 8th
Departing Sunday August 14th


We are staying at Beach Club Villas. We stayed at the Beach Club in a standard room in 2009. We loved the resort. The room was great, the pool was impressive. The kids loved it and had a great time with all the activities and dancing that Raul, the pool CM, ran. The also loved the pirate ship slide and can't wait to get back.

This year we are staying in a two room Villa. The motel room was great but we realized a family of 5 in a hotel room and now with 2 teenagers is not really enough room. I'm looking forward to the extra space but had to "pay up" for that luxury.

We almost booked a villa at Kidani Village. I thought the resort looked beautiful and was really tempted with getting a Savana view. In the end we decided on BC because of the time we spend at the parks and the ease of walking to Epcot and DHS. I anticipated doing a better job of planning the meals around the resort. Last trip it seemed we spent too much time rushing from one side of the World to the other to get ready for dinner than rushing again to get to the restaurant.

Speaking of meals - we booked the Disney Dinning Plan again. I considered going against it this time because of staying at the Villas and maybe eating in once or twice -but the kids and Val really enjoy going out to eat and we wanted to try restaurants we never tried before. After much consideration and great feedback from the forum, we booked the following sit down meals;

Monday Aug 8th - Teppon Edo. I've read many positive reviews (and some luke warm ) about TE but we wanted something different and we realized we've never spent much time at the Japan pavilion and this would give us a chance to do that. Plus it's a just a hop, jump and skip from the BC!

Tuesday Aug 9th - 50's Prime Time. We've done Sci-Fi three times - it was now time to hit up 50's Prime Time. My brother-in-law had a great time there in 2010 so we put it on our list and are looking forward to it. I'm hoping my daughter gets scolded at for texting at the dinner table. :ROFLOL:

Wed Aug 10th - Hoop-de-doo-review. We booked the early show and plan on taking the boat to MK after dinner in time for the fireworks. This will be our first trip without one of the kids not terrified of fireworks. We are looking forward to Wishes for the first time and the first time seeing Illuminations since 2000.

Thursday Aug 11th - San Angel's Inn. I know the reviews are mixed. I know it's not like "On the Border", but on our last trip we went on the Mexican/Donald boat ride and I said at that time that I have to eat there if only for the atmosphere. Plus - another restaurant we can walk to!

Friday Aug 12th. Flying Fish. This is the dinner I'm looking most forward to. I think it will be a good experience for the kids to eat at an "upscale" place and I know Val will enjoy it. Also - chalk up another place we will walk to.

Saturday Aug 13th - Yak and Yeti. Ok, I lied. We did eat at Y&Y last trip - but this was going to be our AK day and the kids loved, loved, loved Y&Y, so I gave in and booked a restaurant we already ate at. I am looking forward to it as I enjoyed the food and remember the time we ate there feeling like we had stumbled on some hidden inn somewhere in Asia.

Coming up next - Our 2011 trip "philosophy" and "strategy" and special things.

 

[fractal]

FLASHBACK #1!

I'm interrupting the pre-trip report to bring you my first flashback. Jump on the internet time machine set for May 2007 for a glimpse of our trip.


This is Toni waiting patiently @ the airport. This was her first trip to WDW.

Here are Alex and Sterg - they were 13 and 10 at the time - kinda in that "I'm too cool to take pictures of" stage...

Our flight left at 6:30am. We flew from PA to Orlando, caught the magic express bus to Port Orleans Riverside, checked in and grabbed the bus to Magic Kingdom. We were walking down Main Street USA by 10:30am!

 

[fractal]

Our first trip as a family ( 4 at the time ) was in 2000. We stayed onsite at CBR. It was really Val that pushed for that trip. She viewed Disney as place we should take the kids to see once. Kinda like checking it off a list. I agreed to go but wasn't especially thrilled. I ended up loving the trip. Although Alex was terrified of fireworks we managed to get her through Illumination. I remember how impressed I was with the Tapestry of Nations parade and with the music. I ended up buying to CD and actually listened to it today. Somewhere in my house we have dozens of pictures of that trip but I can't seem to find them.

Our 2007 trip was also prompted by Val - Toni was 5 and it was now time for her trip to Disney. I was ok with going - I had a great time in 2000 and realized that I missed WDW. It was on this trip - 2007 - that I really fell in love with WDW. I just had a great time experiencing a week at Disney World with my family. By the end of this trip I was hooked.

Here is Toni in 2007 on the carousel ride. She was having a great time!

From there we hopped on Peter Pan's flight. Amazingly, I don't remember having to wait in line that long.

Val then took Toni to see Ariel (her favorite)...

 

[fractal]

Still in 2007.


Later that day we got to see Mary Poppins...

and some "villians" -

Ursula really freaked out Toni. I remember her clutching my arm and hiding behind me as the evil octopus came by...

 

[fractal]

Our first day @ MK in 2007 was perfect. The weather was beautiful, the kids were excited and I was having a great time. There is something about entering the MK and walking down Main Street. It does makes you feel like there is no better place to be on the planet. I got that feeling on this trip. Unfortunately, Val wasn't getting the same tingles. She was having a good time but to her the trip was still a mission to check off one more box on the list of things to do with the kids. She was and still is a person that would rather be on the beach with a nice cold drink with nothing to do.

A character photo from the first day...

We left MK sometime in the afternoon and hopped the bus back ( I love Disney transportation! Sometimes you wait but you never have to drive ) to PORS. We checked in and found our room. I remember the room having 2 double beds and a trundle bed for Toni. The whole trip she called it the "chumby" bed. As in "do I have to sleep in the "chumby" bed again tonight?".

I really enjoyed the resort. I would get up early on a few days and jog over to the FQ side, over a bridge and back. The grounds were beautiful and the kids loved the food court.

 

[fractal]

May 2007 Day 2

The next day ( i think ) we headed to Animal Kingdom.

Here we are waiting for the bus...

We were lucky enough to experience EE in it's full glory. I still say today that with the Yeti in A mode, EE is the best attraction I've ever been on. The queue is great, the story works, the ride builds the drama with the climb up through the temple, to the broken track and then "out of control". The projection of the Yeti furthur builds the suspense and the ending scene with the roaring Yeti trying to snatch you out of your car is brilliant! Later in the week AK had a rare extended evening magic hours. Alex, Sterg and I went and ending up riding EE about 6 times in a row - that combined with how mystical AK looks at night made for one of the best memories I've had with my two oldest - we still talk about that evening.

Here's some pics of EE from Flame Tree BBQ...

 

[fractal]

Toni was definately into character meet and greets. She had her autograph book out and ready to go. The other two? Still "too cool" for that. :brick:

Here is Toni and I with Baloo & King Louie

and later Toni snatched "Safari Mickey's" autograph...

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Great pre-trip report so far!!:wave:
The BCV are sooo convenient to Epcot and DHS. I've never stayed there but they are on my list of resorts I'd like to one day stay at!

 

[mamamouse]

goodstuff looking forward to the rest!

 

[fractal]

Great pre-trip report so far!!:wave:
The BCV are sooo convenient to Epcot and DHS. I've never stayed there but they are on my list of resorts I'd like to one day stay at!

Thanks! Definitely nice to be @ an Epcot resort.

goodstuff looking forward to the rest!

Hope to add some more tonight. thanks!

 

[fractal]

2007 Trip - Disney MGM (at the time) studios.

Toni sporting the top her Mom made for her.

The kids and I posing in front of one of our favorite's

and another favorite. My daughter Alex was bummed after RnRRC because she really thought we were going to an Aerosmith concert.:lol:

 

[fractal]

We grabbed lunch at Sci-Fi.

Then caught the always good Beauty & the Beast stage show.

 

[fractal]

We hopped our way over to Epcot.


Alex and Sterg enjoyed doing the passport around the world. They got the stamps from all the countries and meet some very interesting CMs.

Here we are in front of France.

I think this is one of the hidden gems of World Showcase.

One thing we want to do on our August trip is spend more time in the WS pavilions. I'm almost embarrassed to say we've never viewed any of the movies or American Adventure. Here a photo in front of the Viking boat that's no longer there.

 

[fractal]

Downtown Disney the next day.

One day we started with Toni getting the Bippidy Boopidy Boutique Ariel treatment, then back to Epcot...

and breakfast at Akershus.

Here it is. The dreaded wand. Did we do SSE? Nope - not this trip. What were we thinking?

A pic of the lagoon. Looking back on this trip now, it's clear we didn't spend enough time really exploring Epcot. I think Epcot can be somewhat intimidating if you are not familar with it. Most of the attractions are sort of "hidden" in their own domain and can make them easy to miss. World Showcase also looks great from the outside - One can easily assume not much is going on inside.

Siblings...

we had to watch the fireworks by the Fountain of Nations because Toni was scared.

We capped off the long day and night with EMH at DHS. We watched the Voyage of the Little Mermaid show. Toni ducked under my seat when Ursula came out.

"Why are you under my seat honey?"

"Daddy I'm scared. Ursula might think I'm Ariel because of my costume."

"OK, seems logical."



After escaping from Ursula, Toni ended up falling asleep on my shoulders waiting for the Great Movie Ride.

 

[fractal]

So what are some things I learned from our trip in 2007?

1 - I love WDW. More specifically, I love spending a week there with my family. Running around the parks with my kids is one of the joys of life.

2- My wife Val doesn't love WDW. She had a good time but after this trip she felt more relieved that we had now taken all of the children to WDW and can scratch that off the list. Time to go back to "beach" vacations.

3- In a very wierd way, a vacation to WDW is relaxing to me. How can all that activity jammed in one week be relaxing you might ask? Well, I found myself so busy with "fun things" that my mind had no time to worry about the stresses I left behind at work. This is why I don't really find "hanging out on the beach" for a week as relaxing as one might think. Sitting on the beach is nice but eventually my mind drifts back to work stuff.

4-Late May is great time to go. After Memorial Day the crowds die down and the weather is well enough.

5-PORS is a lovely resort. I enjoyed CBR in 2000 but thought PORS was better. The room we had was able to accomodate our family of 5 - but it was getting a bit crowded.

6-I need to do a better job of taking pictures. We also needed to do a better job of exploring more of Epcot and planning before the trip.

7-Finally - I needed to find a way to get back to WDW as a family. I knew with Val it wasn't going to be easy.

 

[fractal]

Compromise is a beautiful thing!

2008 was just a bad year. No vacations. We'll leave it at that.

2009 rolls around and everybody is "jonesing" for a vacation. We agree that a nice vacation is in the cards - now the question is where do we go? Well, Val wants to go to the shore ( of course ). I on the other hand think a trip back to WDW would be great. This begins "the Great Debate". We go back on forth for a few weeks and then one day "magic" arrives via the US postal service.

What's this from Disney? A pin code? An offer of 40% off any Deluxe Resort?
I quickly start to look into Deluxe resorts - I thought a Deluxe would be a big selling point - especially if we could get some extra room. I spent time here and throughout the internet and started pricing things online. My hope was to get a good enough price to be able to afford two vacations - beach and WDW and present that as the Great Compromise to end the Great Debate. Everything looked good until you added in the plane tickets.

The thing about supporting a family is that you have to multiply most costs by the amount of people in the family. In my case, I have to multiply everything by 5. Food X 5, clothing X 5, laundry detergent X 5, movie tickets X 5, etc. So what initially looks affordable quickly disintigrates into outrageous when you "times 5". It was this way with airline tickets. X 5 was killing me and any hopes of a great compromise and probably hopes of another trip to WDW.

Then it came to me in the middle of the night. Credit card points! Or in my case, Debit Card points! I knew I was racking them up but didn't know how much they were worth. The next day I checked them out and wow! I could put a serious dent in the cost of airline tickets. The Great Compromise was proposed. A beach vacation and a WDW vacation. It passed! We were going back to the World and staying at the Beach Club!

 

[mamamouse]

Oh The beach Club (sigh) someday I'll make it there and be so happy,I love the admiring the beach Club and long for the day when it's my turn

 

[fractal]

Oh The beach Club (sigh) someday I'll make it there and be so happy,I love the admiring the beach Club and long for the day when it's my turn

I hope it comes soon for you!

 

[fractal]

FLASHBACK #2 - MAY 2009


The trip after the Great Compromise. I seriously had my doubts that we would get back to the World but here we were at the airport waiting for our flight. Sterg isn't looking happy - nothing to do with Disney, just that he was being scolded for teasing his younger sister. Sometimes it's tough to be a middle child - especially a boy wrapped around two girls.

We left early Sunday morning, the day before Memorial Day - same week as in 2007. The flight down went smooth. We did get lost at the Orlando airport and had to re track. Then on the magical express to BC. When we arrived we were greeted outside of the resort "Welcome Home" and he even called us by name. I thought this was very cool. The resort is pretty impressive but not in a grand way. It doesn't overwhelm you but does feel comfortable almost right away.

They had this neat antique car parked right outside the main entrance.

The lobby. Again, not overwhelming but very well done, warm and comfortable.