Trip Report I'll Never Grow up!-April 2016 Trip Report

Hi! So I'm a bit nervous...this is my first trip report actually being posted after browsing the forums and reading these for almost 7 years now. But we had the trip of a lifetime and I put so much planning and thought into it that I thought it would be really fun to share it finally, given how much I myself love reading the trip reports.

We just came back from the most amazing eight days at Disney World! I couldn't believe that after over 400 days of counting down the day finally came to go to the most magical place on Earth and from there the rest of the trip was nearly perfect.
Since I'm new to this specific thread, I thought I'd introduce our fun little family!

Cast and Crew:
Me!-A.K.A. Danielle, I just turned 18 and am graduating this year and heading off to Penn State in the fall! I'm probably the biggest Disney fan in my family as it's literally all I ever talk about. My favorite character is Stitch and my favorite princess is Mulan

Victoria-my 14 year old Ariel obsessed sister! We don't get along all of the time but managed to go the entire trip without getting into too many fights

Mom (A.K.A. Andrea)-If I told you her age, she'd probably find out and kill me! My mom is a saint for taking us on this trip! She's the most amazing woman I know and her favorite thing to do is say "watch the closing doors!" when we're in Disney! As you can imagine, she's the woman who has memorized the spanish monorail directions. Her favorite character is Tink!

Dad (A.K.A. Pete)-unfortunately dad is a big deal for his firm [PWC] and is a managing partner for the Long Island office. It's busy season for him so he won't be taking this trip with us, but he'll be with us in memory! He'll make a few brief appearances in the trip report. Dad has an awesome Goofy impression!

So that's our family!

Before getting into the details, I guess I'll briefly explain the title! I'm the biggest kid at heart, even if I'm only 18. Going off to college and having to do adult things scares me and Disney is one of the only places where I can comfortably feel like a little kid again. So my goal this trip was to make like Peter Pan and go off to Neverland! It's also my last Spring Break trip with the family so it's very bittersweet for all of us [even if dad couldn't be there physically].

Where we're staying: Polynesian Village Resort! We're so excited because it's our first time!
When: We stayed from April 23-30. 8 days packed full of fun and adventures

I hope you guys enjoy the trip report and I'll try my best to update regularly and make it entertaining [hopefully?!] As soon as I get my iPhoto issue with exporting my photos sorted out within the next few days I will get the trip report started.

 

[myhappyplace]

Welcome to the Trip Report forum, and I'm ready for more! Great job so far!

And, as a proud PSU alum....WE ARE!

 

[danitaytay]

Welcome to the Trip Report forum, and I'm ready for more! Great job so far!

And, as a proud PSU alum....WE ARE!

Thank you so much!
Woo! PENN STATE! I'm so excited, it's been my dream school my entire life

 

[fractal]

Great start - looking forward to the rest!

My son Sterg just finished his Freshman year at Penn State. He loved it! Good luck!

 

[Matt and Kelly]

Looking forward to reading the rest! We too are staying at the Polynesian in August, also a first. Can't wait to hear how you liked it

 

[danitaytay]

Great start - looking forward to the rest!

My son Sterg just finished his Freshman year at Penn State. He loved it! Good luck!

Thank you so much!
I'm so glad to hear that I hear nothing but amazing things about the school, I can't wait to be there myself!

 

[danitaytay]

Looking forward to reading the rest! We too are staying at the Polynesian in August, also a first. Can't wait to hear how you liked it

Thank you!!
That's so exciting! I think you're going to absolutely love it

 

[danitaytay]

Okay...here goes nothing!

Day One!
Saturday, April 23, 2016: Are we there yet?!

I set my alarm Friday night for 5:45 AM, but I think we all knew that sleep was for the weak when it came to leaving for Disney. I ended up going to sleep after midnight and slept restlessly until mom woke up after 4, and I finally got myself out of bed a little after 5.

I had showered the night before so I just needed to get ready and I heard mom wake up Victoria at 5:15 so I of course visited her but was only met with a groggy groan. Disney day or not, you'll come to see that Victoria is not a morning person at all! Dad was planning on heading to the gym before he had to work after dropping us off so he woke up around 5:30 to shower and I drove with him to Dunkin Donuts so he could grab a coffee because I'm always the first one ready and I couldn't stand sitting in the house any longer.

We left the house around 6:45 and actually got to Laguardia at 7:30, which is super fast for us. This is where we sadly had to part with my dad and I hate giving him goodbye hugs. Disney trips are never the same without his humor! Once we parted ways, I ended up doing the kiosk check-in for mom because she's clueless when it comes to technology. An airport personnel tipped us off to use a different security line because apparently American Airlines' main one had an hour wait. We were able to get through our line in no more than 20 minutes, which would actually end up being our average wait time for the rest of the trip!
Because we used the special security line we did have to take an airport shuttle to get to terminal D. It was raining outside, and I couldn't help myself from anxiously checking the AA app every 2 minutes because I was afraid our flight would get delayed.

There's our flight, still on time!

We got to the terminal and were so disappointed because it was nothing like the newly renovated main terminal. There wasn't even a Dunkin or Starbucks and I was badly craving iced tea. While we waited to board Victoria and I snacked on my provisions of dried pineapples and waffle cookies. I'm glad I decided to pack snacks last minute because there wasn't anything else for us to eat in the terminal.

Excited airplane selfies! Can you spot the bathroom right behind us?!

Finally at 9:25 they announced boarding for our flight. It took 45 minutes to board because people would just not listen and wouldn't sit when it wasn't their group's turn to board. I felt so bad for the flight attendants who were trying to then sit the people who were all standing in the aisles on the plane but everyone seemed to have a seat assignment issue. We were supposed to take off at 9:55 but this whole debacle didn't get us in the air until 11. I started to get scared that this was going to mess with our afternoon and bring us in a lot later.
The flight went by much faster than I thought, and I tried to sleep a little but I had some issues because back in January when AA changed our flight [without informing us for 3 months] they threw us in the second to last row of the plane so we were surrounded by the masses of people waiting to get in the bathroom. All these people ending up leaning up against our seats and standing literally in our seat row so I kind of sat curled up in my seat the entire flight.

So far the first good news of the day came because we ended up landing at 1:20, which surprised me because that was only 20 minutes after our original landing time and we did take off an hour late.
We made our way off the plane and I could already feel the Florida heat! Victoria and I were very excited to board the fonorail, our first "ride" of the trip, [stands for "fake monorail"!] and we were then off to the baggage claim. The belt took a while to get started but once it did our bags came out pretty quickly. This trip we were able to find the Magical Express in no time. During our last trip in 2013 it took our group of eight 30 min. to find the check-in because there were no signs telling us where to go! I guess they fixed that issue during that time gap because there were literally signs everywhere pointing you in the right direction.

We got to the Magical Express check-in kiosks and the lines were SO long! After scanning my Magicband for the first time we headed onto line 3 and ended up waiting about 30 minutes for the bus but while waiting a CM saw my Stitch plush and my t-shirt and gave me a Stitch sticker, which of course made me very excited.

Stitch found a comfy place to rest on the suitcases while we waited

We are able to find seats towards the back of the bus because it was already nearly full and then we found out we were going to be the 1st stop, and of course mom started obnoxiously clapping in excitement. Can you tell we were just a little bit overtired and a lot a bit excited?!

We were so excited to be wearing Magicbands again!

It took us about 30 minutes to reach the Welcome sign and I was upset that our DME driver didn't shout our "Welcome to Walt Disney World!" or anything like that, but I think Victoria and my squealing made up for it. Once we arrived at the Poly for the first time ever we were greeted with many "Ohana's" and then we were leii'd!

Still to come...We get to see the Poly for the first time ever and ringing in our arrival day with a bang! [Quite literally!]

 

[LisaBelle]

Following along. My sister and I stayed at the Poly for the first time in February and we loved it!

 

[danitaytay]

Day One cont...

Check in was super quick and easy and our room was ready so we were very grateful! I received a birthday button and celebration buttons for the rest of the family and then we were off in search of our room. We were located in the Aotearoa building in room 3227. The location ended up being super convenient and even though we paid for a standard view we did have a partial view of the lagoon [there were a bunch of flowered trees obstructing it a bit].

I couldn't help but gasp when we entered the room...it was absolutely amazing and I was in complete shock! I hadn't looked at pictures of the room in a while to let it be a surprise [Victoria and mom did however] and I was just so blown away by how beautiful and surprisingly big it was, at least in comparison to the AKL where we stayed our last trip.

Mom wanted to unpack so Victoria and I went off to explore! We took pictures of the pool and lobby and then went to Pineapple Lanai for our first Dole Whips of the trip. We both got the floats and they were just as amazing as I remembered!
Dole whip selfies!

We browsed the two gift shops where I was in awe of all of the Stitch merch and I wanted absolutely everything! I couldn't resist buying my first souvenir of the trip, which was a little graduation Stitch plush which I just needed to have!

I think mom would have killed me if I brought this back to the room!

This is my new Stitch that I bought!

After that we decided to head to the room even though we were still hungry after not eating all day because it was 4:30 and we had just 2 hours until dinner. We just relaxed in the room until it was time to get ready. Mom and I rushed a bit because we wanted to get down to the lobby to see the torch lighting ceremony at 6. We made it just in time and the ceremony was awesome. We didn't expect the fire dancer from the Spirit of Aloha show to be there either and when they started playing the drums it nearly scared me out of my skin! I'm a very jumpy person.

Mom and I browsed the gift shop while we waited for Victoria until we checked in at Kona Cafe at 6:30 for our ADR.

We were seated shortly after and were given that delicious macadamia nut bread and butter. We were so hungry that we devoured it! Mom got a margarita to celebrate and I got a strawberry fizz lemonade. Victoria just drank water, which would end up being her drink of choice for the entire trip.
For appetizers Victoria got the soup of the day, which was a pepper curry that she really enjoyed. Mom thought her Kona salad tasted very fresh and I got the famous sticky wings that I'd heard so much about, and they were SO good! Some of the best wings I've ever had! We all ended up sharing them because I felt bad hogging them all to myself.

Sorry about the lack of food pictures in advance. It seems as if a good majority of the photos I lost in my giant export happened to be food pictures

For dinner I got my favorite asian noodles with tofu, Victoria got the pan-seared Taal chicken which she thought was dry and didn't enjoy too much, and mom had the fish of the day which was red snapper which she enjoyed. For dessert I had to give up my beloved Kona Kone to avoid a major stomachache [I was just diagnosed with severe lactose intolerance ] so we shared the chocolate fondue which was super yummy. The chocolate was delicious and Victoria was very happy that there were coconut macaroons.

I was so stuffed afterwards! Our waiter also brought me out a birthday cupcake but was kind enough to wrap it up for me because I was so full. It was around 8:15 and my mom isn't a night person so she went up to the room to wind down while I went with Victoria so she could pick out some pins.

We then went down to the beach to relax for a bit. I was able to chat on the phone with my dad for a bit and then I facetimed my cousins, who we typically go to Disney with and we chatted all the way through the Electrical Water Pageant.
It was my first time seeing it and I was so impressed by what Disney can do with a floating parade! I wanted to stay on the beach until 10 to watch Wishes but I was getting eaten alive by mosquitos so we decided to head back. Once we were in our PJs we watched Stacy on Must-Do-Disney for the first time which always makes me so excited for the trip!

At around 9:45 I ended up grabbing a sweatshirt and heading back down to the beach because I couldn't stand not watching Wishes on our first night! There were no lounge chairs left so I found myself a nice spot in the sand and was able to enjoy Wishes, but the music wasn't working
Once Wishes ended I ran back to the room and the exhaustion must have hit me because I passed out at 10:30.

Total Miles Walked: 3.91
First Day Summary: [a little thing Victoria and I started doing for fun!]
Bad: Our flight was an hour late to take off
Good: everything once we arrived at the hotel!
Surprised by: the amazing Electrical Water Pageant
Today I tried: a dole whip float and Kona Sticky wings
The result: delicious!
In One Word Today Was...Stressful!

Well, that's it for Day One! I hope everyone enjoyed it I'm a newbie at trip reports so any criticism or feedback is appreciated! I'm still having issues with my pictures so it may take a few days to update but if I can't figure it out I'll just move on without some of my pictures sadly.

 

[danitaytay]

Following along. My sister and I stayed at the Poly for the first in February and we loved it!

Thank you! We loved it too! We can't wait to go back.

 

[acrab3t]

Following along! Stitch is my favorite too! My first stay at Poly will be this fall so I am excited to see your resort comments.Congrats on your upcoming graduation. Leaving home for the first time and going off to college is scary but you will experience so many wonderful things. Keep busy and enjoy campus life and you will be just fine.

 

[myhappyplace]

Great job! I would love to stay at the Poly someday.

Love the end of day summary

 

[Shane7694]

Awesome report so far! Can't wait to read more..

 

[bee]

Great report so far and great pictures! Your stressful airplane experience is a huge part of why I almost always fly Southwest these days. They assign each individual a boarding number (instead of 100+ people in each "group") so everyone lines up and you avoid the mob standing in the boarding area. Can't wait to read more!

 

[prfctlyximprct]

Loving your report! You and your sister are too cute! Definitely following along, and I am suddenly craving dole whip thank you very much.

 

[FlaggNL]

absolutely following along Thanks for sharing!!

 

[joshsprincess921]

Following along. Great start! I love the end of day summary!

 

[cdeev8690]

I feel your pain with Laguardia. I'm a LI native, just moved to Philly, and always tried to avoid LGA like the plague! I usually stick to JFK or EWR even now (PHL isn't much better)!

Loving the idea of an all girls trip and even more so at the Poly! Looks fantastic! Can't wait to see how the rest of your stay goes

 

[gobstoper27]

For your first TR you are doing an AWESOME job!! You and your sis are totally adorbs!!