(Mostly?) Live! from WDW, it's my trip report....

Seems totally surreal that I'm about to start this trip report! My Grand Gathering Christmas 2010 report! :xmas:

First things first, and I must thank the person who made this trip possible, kept my sanity, survived nearly 18 months of emails with yours truly AND my immediate family.......... Marie from Kingdom Konsultants.

I can't say enough good things about Marie and all the help she has provided my family over the last year and a half. From the '500 days out room only reservation' to now, she has stuck with us through some very tedious changes. First we were a group of 12, then 14, then (sadly) 12 again. We got pin codes, promotional emails and bounceback offers - one at a time, Marie made all those changes with never any complaint.

Then came the Free Dining promotion, oh so close to our travel dates, but just not in our arrival range. It was Marie who pointed out that we could go for 10 days and still pay less than it would cost us to go for 7 days! :sohappy::sohappy: And it was Marie who manged to get us FIVE rooms at Pop DAYS after the promotion had been released (I thought she couldn't do it, but I now know never to doubt Marie! )

Anyway, I am sure that the other travel agents and support staff at Kingdom Konsultants helped out along the way too, so a big thank you to them as well. And my point is, if you have a Grand Gathering to plan, I HIGHLY recommend Marie (marie@kingdomkonsultant.com) and the Kingdom Konsultants! Thank you so much for making this planning process so easy!!

Up next: Roll Call

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Yay! I'm all caught up!!!! :sohappy:

Loved sharing your adventures, as always. Completely fabulous report! Well written...great pics...adorable kiddos...what more could ya ask for?! Good work! Hate to hear that your son got sick. That's such a bummer. At least it didn't last. Isn't the frigid weather just wroooong when you're at WDW?! Ugh! I never, ever wanna do that again. You summed it up well when you said you were tired of being cold. I got really tired of being cold, too.

Thanks so much for such an enjoyable read and for bringing us on your trip with you. It was a ton of fun! Ooooh...and AKL! How awesome is that?! We loooved it there. My only wish would be for the rooms be the size of the ones at the Poly & Contemporary. If they were I believe AKL would be perfection incarnate!

Got your message, BTW. Still have some pics to upload but it will be sooooon. My brother asks me about my upcoming report every day. The text alone ended up being 116 pages typed. You'll see what a lot of the hold-up was when you read the report. Maaaaany trips up to Beaumont to the orthopedic doc & physical therapy since we got home. :lookaroun

 

[HollyBelle]

May I just say... FABULOUS trip report! I loved every minute of it. I was totally laughing out loud at your "Someone lied to me..." story. Classic. And the ensuing pictures on Splash were just icing on the cake. You have some really great pictures; the Sword in the Stone one is definitely frameworthy! Along with so many other fun ones of the kids. We were at Disney 12/12-12/17 and the monorail was creeping along for the first couple days (all we could attribute it to was the cold :shrug: because it was moving much more quickly towards the end of our trip when it warmed up). It's amazing how far reaching it's effects are, though. Glad to hear that you still made it to your reservations.

So, is there an Animal Kingdom Lodge vacation in the near future?!

And ummm just for the record... you have the most A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E family, ever! Seriously. It's a fact.

 

[erstwo]

Interesting that you bring this up. We didn't see a ton of Pop Warner kids...in fact, I think we saw more parents than kids. Either way, the ones we did see were VERY well behaved. There was only one group that caught my attention - b/c they were cheering on their way to the bus - but even then, the cheering was being done in normal speaking volumes and not full on cheer volumes. In any event- I totally agree about going during Pop Warner week and being able to have a great time.

I'm glad you had a good experience with them too!

Yay! I'm all caught up!!!! :sohappy:

Loved sharing your adventures, as always. Completely fabulous report! Well written...great pics...adorable kiddos...what more could ya ask for?! Good work! Hate to hear that your son got sick. That's such a bummer. At least it didn't last. Isn't the frigid weather just wroooong when you're at WDW?! Ugh! I never, ever wanna do that again. You summed it up well when you said you were tired of being cold. I got really tired of being cold, too.

Thanks so much for such an enjoyable read and for bringing us on your trip with you. It was a ton of fun! Ooooh...and AKL! How awesome is that?! We loooved it there. My only wish would be for the rooms be the size of the ones at the Poly & Contemporary. If they were I believe AKL would be perfection incarnate!

Got your message, BTW. Still have some pics to upload but it will be sooooon. My brother asks me about my upcoming report every day. The text alone ended up being 116 pages typed. You'll see what a lot of the hold-up was when you read the report. Maaaaany trips up to Beaumont to the orthopedic doc & physical therapy since we got home. :lookaroun

Thank you for all of your sweet comments!

Since this was the first time any of us got sick at Disney, I figured it was just our turn. I feel like we've been really in all our previous trips, and I was just glad we didn't pass it on to anyone else! That would have been such a bummer.

AKL is amazing! And speaking of amazing, I saw you've started your trip report! I'm so excited! I can't wait to read it!

May I just say... FABULOUS trip report! I loved every minute of it. I was totally laughing out loud at your "Someone lied to me..." story. Classic. And the ensuing pictures on Splash were just icing on the cake. You have some really great pictures; the Sword in the Stone one is definitely frameworthy! Along with so many other fun ones of the kids. We were at Disney 12/12-12/17 and the monorail was creeping along for the first couple days (all we could attribute it to was the cold :shrug: because it was moving much more quickly towards the end of our trip when it warmed up). It's amazing how far reaching it's effects are, though. Glad to hear that you still made it to your reservations.

So, is there an Animal Kingdom Lodge vacation in the near future?!

And ummm just for the record... you have the most A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E family, ever! Seriously. It's a fact.

Wow. *blush* Now TWO of the best trip reporters on here have said nice things about my report! Thank you!

I'm so glad that the story was funny to someone outside of our family! Those Splash pictures really are my favorites of the whole trip, but they just don't mean as much unless you know the back story. :lol:

Not too sure about the AKL. I think it will all depend on several factors, one being the pricing. The hubby and I can be kind of cheap. :lookarounnd And we'd rather go to WDW 2 times and stay at a Value than 1 time and stay at a Deluxe. (Is that crazy?)

Either way, it *should* be a while before we make our way back through the WDW gates. My mother in law wants to take the whole family on a Disney cruise this June - who can turn down a free Disney cruise? :sohappy: We'd already be booked, but my poor brother in law is having some health issues, and we're probably going to wait until the last minute to book because we want to be sure he is healthy enough to travel with us. If he can't go, we'd all rather not go, because it would seem so wrong to be there without him or his family.

I'm thinking if the Disney cruise gets the green light, we'll probably be back at WDW in October or November of next year. Possibly Jan. or Feb. of 2012. One thing we want to do for sure is drive Route 66 all the way to LA in 2012, just in time to visit Disneyland and the new "Cars Land" at California Adventure. So the short answer is - sometime between June 2011 and June 2012, we might be staying at the AKL! :lol:

Now, where's YOUR trip report?