Trip Report Oh, the Places We go, The People We See

Welcome to my newest Trip Report. For those who don’t know me, I am Jen.

That’s my Daughter Claire with me.



We just got back from an amazing vacation with several family members.

We traveled Nov. 1st thru the 15th, 2012. We rested our headed at 6 different places on this trip, and though it wasn’t always easy to keep moving from place to place, I am happy to have tried some new resorts out and stayed at some familiar ones as well.



This trip came about over a year ago. My Mom’s cousin Vicki wanted to take a trip with her and my Aunt Mary. Her Daughter Katie also wanted to come along.

After some talking and planning it became a group of 16 traveling. I was elected ring leader since I have quite a bit of Disney experience.

Plans were made, some were changed, and some were a little slower at making decisions than others.

My husband Skip is what is known in the Disney groups as a resistor and he decided NOT to come along. He was not so happy about the amount of time I was going to be gone.



The dates for the cruise were set first, Nov 4 through the 8th on the Disney Dream. We all planned to arrive a day early and stay at the Residence Inn near the port. Soon I decided that I must add a few Disney days, and so did everyone else eventually. I thin decide…heck lets add some more, and Claire and I ended up staying 3 more days after the rest left.

Then after doing some research and with a heads up from my good Dis-friend Carey, I was alerted to the fact that the last Halloween party was on Nov. 2nd. How could I pass that chance up? So Claire and I decided to fly in a day earlier than everyone else to hit that party. Claire and I also decided to fly out of Columbus. My family lives near the Toledo, OH area, and the best direct flights are out of Detroit. My youngest sister, who was not going on the cruise, lives in Columbus, and I was able to get a decent priced direct flight from there, so Claire and I drove down Nov. 1 and spent the night before our early flight.



Plans were finally all set in stone and we just had to wait for our time to arrive. Not an easy task, but we all managed.



Let me introduce you to the crew. This is a picture of a picture. My sister has the CD with the actual digital copy, but hasn’t yet loaded it to the computer, so I had to go with this for now till I can get a copy.

In the back row, left to right, we have my parents, Joe and Paula, next to them is my Uncle Geoff. Next to Geoff is cousin Vicki and her son in law Thad. Next to Thad is Pete, Vicki’s husband and then me. Aunt Mary is on the end, she is married to Uncle Geoff and my Mother’s sister.

Down towards the front, left to right, is my nieces Alexis and Abby with their parents Rob and Gail. Gail is my sister. Front and center is Claire. Behind Claire are Jude, and Katie. Katie is married to Thad and is Pete and Vicki’s Daughter. And then we have baby Luke in the stroller. He is only about 9 months old and what a cutie he is.



This trip had the usual ups and downs that most every family will have, but I have to admit things went much smoother than I planned. We never felt the need to kill each other for the most part. LOL

We had several cruise newbies and several Disney World newbies as well.



Please join me in reliving a very magical trip with all the places we traveled and all the people we met along the way!

 

[jenseib]

And then to one of my favorite resorts.

On our way once again.

But this time only to the other side of the lake.

 

[jenseib]

Now I have to tell you, there was a family in the rows behind us with a couple of kids. After listening to them I realized that the kids had no idea where they were or where they were going.
You could hear them say I think it’s Disney, then the other one would doubt it and say no, it’s just another hotel, and then one would say I think it’s a hotel at Disney, and the other would say there weren’t hotels there, only castles. It was so cute. The Mom told me after a bit that they had no idea and just told them they were going on a plane ride. It was so cute to watch them. At Art of Animation they told them they were getting off and that this WAS Disney. They were so excited. That had to be the best kept secret ever.

I have to admit, I was pretty darn excited to see AoA too. In just over a week we would be staying here ourselves, and my Dis friend Carey was there right at that moment.

I would say the majority of the bus got off here. Now we were down to just a few people and once again on our way.

 

[Britt]

Yay!!! Loving this report!!!

 

[jenseib]

Yay!!! Loving this report!!!

Thanks

 

[jenseib]

Now one thing I forgot to mention. I had not told Claire where we were staying our first night. I am terrible at keeping surprises, plus I wanted her to be in on the planning, so a complete surprise trip was out of the question. Also the whole family knew and she was in on the very first planning meeting with family, so she knew about the trip before my sister even did.
So my one try at a “surprise” was to not tell her our first night’s stay. Well that didn’t go real well because I told my Mom one day and Claire was standing right there. Luckily she wasn’t paying much attention, but I was pretty sure she had a good idea. She asked for months, trying to trip me up, but I held on. But I knew she heard me say Animal Kingdom. She still wasn’t sure and even the name didn’t mean a lot to her without a book with pictures.
Once we got off the plane and headed to the bathroom I did tell her then and she was excited. But I could tell she still wasn’t “sure” where this exactly was or what it meant.

The one thing she did know was that it was the last stop and it was taking forever to get there.

Finally we were en route to our destination.

And here we are!!!! It was now around 11:30.

We got off the bus and waited for our carry on.

And then we made our way to the lobby.

We were both wide eyed and excited. Neither of us have ever been here at all, not even for dinner or to tour, so it was so exciting to see a new resort for the first time.

We went inside and got in the online check in line, which consisted of just us.

 

[jenseib]

And checked in.

Our guy was nice, but very slow. He left for a few minutes and came back with a package.

Good thing he was on the ball because I wasn’t. I had forgotten about getting this box. Earlier in the week, one of the gals from our cruise group had to cancel suddenly. She said she was sorry and if anyone wanted their Fish Extender gift from her, she would gladly send it. I told her if she wanted to, she could send them all to me at AKL and I would be happy to pass them out for her. I knew she had worked hard on her gifts and I would hate to see them go to waste. The package was waiting for us.

We grabbed that and our packet and were told the room would be ready by 3. They would text me when it was ready. Now I know how many people have been told this only to never get a text, so I knew I would have to check back later. Let’s just throw this out now. I stayed in 3 Disney resorts and all said they would text …I did not receive ONE single text from any of them.

Claire received a princess crown too since I listed we were celebrating her birthday. I have never seen this before, and she seemed a bit unsure about it. LOL

I was disappointed that our room wasn’t ready. I was hoping to have a nap before the party this evening, but we still had time.

So with this box (which was not huge, but awkward to carry), and a carry on, plus we each had a back pack on and Claire had another bag she was carrying, we just kind of set out to rearrange our bags and then send some off to luggage services for a while.

We decided to find a bench outside to do our business.

 

[jenseib]

Passing the pool made Claire very excited and she couldn’t wait to get in it.

We found a secluded area and opened up the bags and got what we needed for the day packed into one bag and put the rest in the others and headed back to luggage services. I must say in the short time I was carrying that box, I was becoming annoyed with it. It was just hard to carry with all our other stuff, so I was glad to be rid of it for a while.

As we walked back inside I took a couple of quick shots.

And on to the elevator to go up to the lobby again.

I think I heard a choir of angels sing when I dropped off our bags. I felt a little less like a pack mule now.

 

[jenseib]

So I am now not so weighted down and feel so much better. Well sort of. Remember that muffin I had a butt crack thirty this morning? Well it’s long gone now. And the few snacks we had on the plane are not doing it for either of us either.

Claire thought she could suffer and swim for a bit first, but I told her no, eating was first on the list.

Of course as we walked away from Bell services I had to take a few pictures first.

In case you do not know where Mara is …the fast food place in AKL, it’s down stairs from the lobby and outside past the pool.

We have arrived.

 

[jenseib]

My biggest complaint about deluxes at Disney …the food courts pretty much suck. They have such a small selection. And it seems most carry the same few items.

Claire and I decided to share a flatbread pizza. I knew it would be big enough for the 2 of us. Claire also LOVES pineapple, so we picked up a container of that for her.

And now was the time to make that decision. What decision is that you ask? Well should I try the Zebra Domes. I have heard off and on for years just how fabulous they are. Then others will chime in and say they are just awful. It seems you love them or hate them. I had asked for descriptions, and people gave me some, but I never quite understood what they were. My fear was that they would taste like coffee, which I hate, or coconut, which I hate. LOL
Well we took the plunge and decided to give them a try.

We paid for our food and were handed a buzzer for the pizza. Another note, it was really weird how you ordered here. They had someone standing there with a pad of paper, printed with the selections and they checked off what you wanted from the grill area. I guess they then took it back there then to be filled.

We sat and started on the pineapple and waited for the pizza.

And we opened up the zebra domes and gave them a try. Verdict is that we like them. I think they are good, but not fabulous. Claire really enjoyed them though.
My description of them is that they are like a chocolaty shell with chocolate mousse type stuff inside. Our outside shell was kind of melty though and we got a little messy eating them. I also would not be able to eat many in a row. One or 2 was fine, but more than that might be a bit too much. We did finish off the box, but I think Claire ate more than I did.

Soon our pizza was ready and we dove into that too.

Now I complained about the selection, but the taste was still very good. I just wouldn’t want to eat this every day as it would become tiresome and boring.

While we ate we called Skip and checked in with him. We told him we were having lunch and he seemed disgusted because the last time he had talked to us we were eating at the Cheesecake Factory. He made some kind of sarcastic comment about that. Well I informed him that we pretty much hadn’t had anything to eat in between time, so we were now hungry.
Claire talked to him a bit and we hung up.

We headed out after that and our mission was now swimming. Well not mine, but Claire was all for it. I even walked around a bit looking at things, but with all the griping next to me it was just not meant to be and we headed to the bathroom to change.

 

[jenseib]

These bathrooms near the pool are VERY nice. They had showers in the back and were very clean. We chose the handicapped shower stall as it had a stool to place our bag on and got Claire changed.

And out we went, passing the VERY tiny kiddie pool.

 

[Briangwen7]

Love This Report!​

 

[jenseib]

Love This Report!​

Thanks you so much. It's been a crazy week, but I hope to get more done on it in the next day or so.

 

[Alison1975]

ahhhh I'm so conflicted do I read the tr here or on the dis LOL

here.. the LIKE button trumps the Dis

 

[jenseib]

here.. the LIKE button trumps the Dis

I do like the "like" button

 

[erstwo]

I'm in!

So funny that you think that you reference the QS in deluxes as being bad in reference to Mara. We actually consider Mara to be the best deluxe QS on property. They seem to have the best selection and it's always so quiet and clean. It's far away from most of our other Disney activities so we've only been there twice, but we love to have lunch or dinner at Mara and play on the playground, enjoy the savannah, etc. For us, it's a great 'non park day' stop.

 

[jenseib]

I'm in!

So funny that you think that you reference the QS in deluxes as being bad in reference to Mara. We actually consider Mara to be the best deluxe QS on property. They seem to have the best selection and it's always so quiet and clean. It's far away from most of our other Disney activities so we've only been there twice, but we love to have lunch or dinner at Mara and play on the playground, enjoy the savannah, etc. For us, it's a great 'non park day' stop.

I compare to Po p and AS Movies, which I think have fabulous options. I will add I thought AoA did not have very good options for us either.

 

[Alison1975]

I do like the "like" button

Exactly.. when I'm on that other board I go to click like..and there is no like.. so I come here instead..I like like

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Agreed- I like the 'LIKE' !!! Great TR so far...I've seen you on the DIS before under my alter ego (TiggerTrigger ). Nice pics of AKL. I've wanted to stay there, but can never seem to convince DH. Can't wait to read more.

 

[mamamouse]

here.. the LIKE button trumps the Dis

and just for that you get a click of the like button

 

[Alison1975]

and just for that you get a click of the like button

right back at ya!