Friday January 3, 2014
After work, everyone met at Scott and Pam's house, packed up the cars and by 6:00pm we were on the road heading down I-77 south! Scott, Pam and Brooke were in one car while Karl, Kay, Brittany, Grant and myself were in the other. Our plan for day 1 was to try to get to Port Wentworth, Georgia where I had booked rooms at the Holiday Inn Express for the night. Port Wentworth is approximately 4 hours from where we live in North Carolina, so we figured that would be a good stopping place for the night.
Grant did great in the car, he even slept a little bit! When he wasn't sleeping, he was watching Disney movies on his car DVD player that Santa brought him for Christmas! Great idea, Santa!
When we checked in to our rooms, we were happily surprised that they had put us in adjoining rooms as requested. Just like in the cars, Scott, Pam and Brooke were in one room, while Karl, Kay, Brittany, Grant and I were in the other. Grant LOVED running back and forth from room to room!
I let Grant borrow my Cowboys toboggan because it was cold that night!!
Grant did okay that night, but ended up sleeping between us in the bed. He's not used to sleeping in his pack and play. Surprisingly, we all got a good night's sleep.
Saturday January 4, 2014
We were up bright and early and after a lovely continental breakfast, were loaded back up in the cars and back on the road in no time! We only had about 4 or 5 more hours remaining on our drive to Orlando, so we decided to stop at the outlets in St. Augustine to do a little shopping (gotta get rid of that Christmas money) and to give Grant a little break.
It wasn't long after leaving the hotel, a little over an hour, until we saw this little beauty...
Again it was cold, cold, cold, so Grant stole my hat again...
After we stopped at the outlets, we decided to head on in to Orlando to see if we could check in to our hotel for that night. Yes, it was another Holiday Inn Express, but this time we were 11 minutes from WDW! The hotel was actually on International Drive and we could see the Characters in Flight balloon at Downtown Disney from our room! Talk about making our excitement grow even more!!
We arrived at the hotel and were glad to see that our rooms were ready (although not adjoining this time), so we went ahead and checked in. By this time everyone was getting pretty hungry, so we packed into the cars again and headed down the street a few blocks and ate dinner at TGI Fridays. After dinner I suggested that we go check out Downtown Disney! Everyone agreed and thought that was a great idea, so we headed that way.
Once we got to DTD, we realized this may have been a bad choice. If you are driving your own car, it is a nightmare to not only get into the parking lot, but dang near impossible to find an actual parking space (much less two). So, sadly, we called it a night and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep so that we could get an early start the next day - our first day at Disney!
Sunday January 5, 2014
We got up fairly early, had breakfast in the lobby and were on the road to WDW by 9:30am. About 10 minutes or so later we saw this beautiful sight...
We were all so excited and were acting like children, except for Grant, who was looking at all of us like we were crazy. After a few turns, we had arrived at our home for the next week - Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort!
It was around 10:00 am by this point and we went to see if there was any chance our rooms were ready. Surprisingly, two of our three rooms were! We were put in Barbados in building 16, which was really close to the main lobby. Karl and Kay were in one room, Brittany, Grant and I were in another, and Scott, Pam and Brooke were in the other. Again, we had adjoining rooms with my parents. This would be invaluable during the week in getting Grant to sleep and also allowing us to sneak out a couple of nights for some "grown up" time in the parks. In no time, we had put our luggage in the rooms and were headed toward the bus stop and to our first park of the trip! Where would we go first??
On the way to the bus stop...
Grant waiting on the bus with Pam and Scott...
After about 10 minutes or so, our bus arrived! We were making a special first stop to none other than...
Disney's Animal Kingdom!
Normally, I HAVE to go to Magic Kingdom first and last on EVERY trip, but this trip was a little different. You see, January 5 was the last day that the Festival of the Lion King would be showing until it reopens in it's new building in Africa this summer. Needless to say, we had to go see it first thing!
As soon as we got seated, we were on our way to Animal Kingdom!
*Next installment - Sunday Jan 5 continued...
