Hello All!
Here we are in the World...which means it is time for me to start up the Live trip reporting. If you have followed along with us before, Welcome Back! If this is your first Brifraz trip report welcome along for the ride. I try to post each day of our trip with at least a couple pictures. Mainly fun and frivolity, but also the occasional newsworthy item and a piece here or there of personal opinion.
There are three of us in the Brifraz team, myself, my wife, and our 11 year old daughter. As you can see by my signature below, we have made quite a few trips to the World. My wife and I are both high school teachers, so our trips are almost always summer, Christmas, or Spring Break. This will be our second 4th of July week in a row. If you want to read about last year, see the aforementioned signature. Also, if you want the 'pre-game' for this trip, see here.
So, yesterday, we set out from the house at 6:45pm and this morning, we pulled into the resort right around 10:15am. About 13.5 hours of driving and 2 hours of breaks. What does that mean? It's nap time! But since I doubt you want to read about us falling sound asleep in our hotel room, here's what has happened so far.
We arrived at 10:15am at which time we surprised our daughter with the news that we would be spending one night at Art of Animation. In fact, she hadn't expected us to leave until this morning, but you can read about all that in the pre-trip if you want. Check in was quick and easy and our CM, Doug, was exceptional.
After check-in, we went right to our room on the top floor of the Little Mermaid building 7. This being our first time here, we are quite impressed with the room. Very nice and a little more spacious than I was expecting. Had a little trouble with some magic bands that weren't activated, but once that got resolved (over the phone - our daughter's worked so we could get in the room, but ours didn't) we changed into swimwear and toured the resort grounds before hitting the pool. The theming here is great. We have been to All-Stars before and find this MUCH more satisfying. That being said, we are quite spoiled by our DVC at Old Key West and the crowded-ness and noise level here is not nearly so relaxing as over there.
Once we had explored the buildings, it was pool time. After some chair searching (OK, a lot of searching...) we found a spot to stow our stuff and hit the pool.
Love the fact that every sign in the area is done with the silver fish from Finding Nemo. Our daughter loved the music playing underwater. Hate the fact that towels are not readily available. Evidently they are first thing in the morning, but otherwise you have to get them at the front desk. Oh well, air drying was fine for us. After a bit of playing, a storm started to roll in, so it was out of the pool. It did allow for a nice picture of an empty Big Blue Pool.
We headed into Landscape of Flavors and got some lunch. My wife had a burger (not sure what all was topping it) and my daughter and I split the make-your-own pasta - spaghetti with alfredo, chicken, garlic, and parmesan. I was pretty happy with the size of the portion and the three of us all got enough to eat from just the two meals. If you are going to visit, please note that they accept Tables in Wonderland there since they don't have a table service restaurant in the resort. Can't beat 20% savings!
After this bit of rest, we are thinking of going over to Studios for a quick Frozen-themed visit (sing along and fireworks). I am a bit Frozen-ed out, but our daughter is still pretty obsessive about it. If you want to read more about that check out last summer's trip when we did the opening night of the Frozen package at DHS.
If I can, I'll update on the evening tonight. If not, we will be heading to Universal tomorrow for IOA (but not Potter, yet) and will update after that!
Here we are in the World...which means it is time for me to start up the Live trip reporting. If you have followed along with us before, Welcome Back! If this is your first Brifraz trip report welcome along for the ride. I try to post each day of our trip with at least a couple pictures. Mainly fun and frivolity, but also the occasional newsworthy item and a piece here or there of personal opinion.
There are three of us in the Brifraz team, myself, my wife, and our 11 year old daughter. As you can see by my signature below, we have made quite a few trips to the World. My wife and I are both high school teachers, so our trips are almost always summer, Christmas, or Spring Break. This will be our second 4th of July week in a row. If you want to read about last year, see the aforementioned signature. Also, if you want the 'pre-game' for this trip, see here.
So, yesterday, we set out from the house at 6:45pm and this morning, we pulled into the resort right around 10:15am. About 13.5 hours of driving and 2 hours of breaks. What does that mean? It's nap time! But since I doubt you want to read about us falling sound asleep in our hotel room, here's what has happened so far.
We arrived at 10:15am at which time we surprised our daughter with the news that we would be spending one night at Art of Animation. In fact, she hadn't expected us to leave until this morning, but you can read about all that in the pre-trip if you want. Check in was quick and easy and our CM, Doug, was exceptional.
After check-in, we went right to our room on the top floor of the Little Mermaid building 7. This being our first time here, we are quite impressed with the room. Very nice and a little more spacious than I was expecting. Had a little trouble with some magic bands that weren't activated, but once that got resolved (over the phone - our daughter's worked so we could get in the room, but ours didn't) we changed into swimwear and toured the resort grounds before hitting the pool. The theming here is great. We have been to All-Stars before and find this MUCH more satisfying. That being said, we are quite spoiled by our DVC at Old Key West and the crowded-ness and noise level here is not nearly so relaxing as over there.
Once we had explored the buildings, it was pool time. After some chair searching (OK, a lot of searching...) we found a spot to stow our stuff and hit the pool.
Love the fact that every sign in the area is done with the silver fish from Finding Nemo. Our daughter loved the music playing underwater. Hate the fact that towels are not readily available. Evidently they are first thing in the morning, but otherwise you have to get them at the front desk. Oh well, air drying was fine for us. After a bit of playing, a storm started to roll in, so it was out of the pool. It did allow for a nice picture of an empty Big Blue Pool.
We headed into Landscape of Flavors and got some lunch. My wife had a burger (not sure what all was topping it) and my daughter and I split the make-your-own pasta - spaghetti with alfredo, chicken, garlic, and parmesan. I was pretty happy with the size of the portion and the three of us all got enough to eat from just the two meals. If you are going to visit, please note that they accept Tables in Wonderland there since they don't have a table service restaurant in the resort. Can't beat 20% savings!
After this bit of rest, we are thinking of going over to Studios for a quick Frozen-themed visit (sing along and fireworks). I am a bit Frozen-ed out, but our daughter is still pretty obsessive about it. If you want to read more about that check out last summer's trip when we did the opening night of the Frozen package at DHS.
If I can, I'll update on the evening tonight. If not, we will be heading to Universal tomorrow for IOA (but not Potter, yet) and will update after that!
