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]

Claire and I decided to explore the Beach Club a bit after everyone left. I wanted to get a few pictures and just check out the lobby.

 

[jenseib]

Another picture of Claire NOT looking at the camera.





Back to the Villas.



Another mermaid shot.







I just love Dollhouses.

 

[jenseib]

I really loved this breezeway room





This is such a gorgeous picture.



Out to the Villa pool.





We then headed back to the room for Claire to put her swimsuit on. She was going to go swimming in Storm-along-Bay!

Who knew deciding where to swim was such a big deal? We walked down towards the Yacht Club and started there.





I would get settled in with my Kindle and she would decide to move again.



I think we moved like 3 or 4 times.

 

[jenseib]

And then the announcement came. Everyone needs to get out of the pool now, it is closed!

What? I didn’t know this pool closed at 10 PM. I swore it was open till at least 11. Oh well, nothing we can do about it now. She did get a good 30 minutes of swimming time in at least.

We got her out and dried off and it was getting quite chilly out. On our way back to the room we saw some fireworks go off. I am guessing they were for a race because they came from behind Epcot and it was too late for them to be shooting anything off.





A quick shot of the boardwalk and we headed off to our room.



We got settled into bed once again. It had been a pretty full day for our sort of early night day. We had a lot of fun again, with a few headaches along the way.

We got to see Carey, John and Kadence once again today. Oh the people we see!
We went to Hollywood Studios today as well. We are learning to like that park more and enjoyed it more than I ever have in the past. I just wish I had a really LONG trip to explore each park more and take my good ole time enjoying it all.
Oh the places we go!

 

[jenseib]

Nov. 10, 2012, Saturday, Day 10

If I am remembering right, I did NOT sleep well at all this night. What it boiled down to was I was NOT feeling well at all. I felt so sick. I was nauseated, my head was pounding, my body achy, I felt like the starts of a sore throat, and my mind was racing. UGH! I think I caught Rob’s bug. How was I going to do 4 more days of parks feeling like this? And after Saturday the family was leaving and I would be on my own with Claire. I got up at one point and found any and every kind of pill I could and went through them and took a few. Mom woke up and asked what I was doing and I told her and she found some magic pills and gave me one of those as well. I finally did get back to sleep and by morning I was feeling pretty good. Thank God!!!!!

I got up early and I think I did some more laundry. Mom wanted things washed before she went home and with 4 of us in the room, we had to keep the towels washed. (I have a phobia of reusing towels, especially washcloths).

I showered and felt much better. Then I got Claire up fairly early. She had still mentioned last night that she was planning on hitting Toy Story Mania first thing before heading off to the Magic Kingdom. She is NOT an early bird, but she did slowly but surely get up and dressed. By 8:20 we were heading towards the studios. They had extra magical hours this morning, which we were already late for.





Again there was no boat in sight so we started walking.





There’s the boat we missed.



I tried to push us a little faster today, but both of us were now starting to suffer from sore legs.





We arrived a little before 9. The crowds to get in were insane. To the left were the general public and on the right the resort guests, but of course the general public were making it hard for those of us trying to get in for the EMH’s. I watched my clock tick away once again as we waited in line. We got next to these people and I found this hilarious. Backpack baby.



I think we got through the gates about 5 till 9, so we still officially made it in during EMH’s.



I told Claire we had to step it up a gear so we could make it back to Toy Story before the masses arrived.

 

[jenseib]

The line actually was not bad at all.

















A shot of Mr. Potato Head, who I rarely have seen because going through the fastpass line as I normally have, doesn’t give you much of an opportunity to see him.

 

[jenseib]

We made it on fairly quickly. I think our wait was only 15-20 minutes, which is not bad at all. Of course by the time we came out the wait had tripled. We had another great time on the ride once again.

When we came out we tried to decide what to do. The plan had been to go back and let Claire swim a bit and then head to Magic Kingdom, but now she wanted to ride Star Tours again so we worked our way over there.





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[jenseib]

I had to take a quick look through the Osborne light area and Claire posed for me.











We saw Lightening McQueen and Towmator out, but Claire didn’t want to stop, so I took some quick pictures as we walked by.

 

[jenseib]

Another pose.

 

[jenseib]

We finally made our way over to Star Tours.



I spotted a photopass photographer and basically made Claire pose. She was against it totally for some reason, but we had never gotten these shots before and I really wanted them. I think they turned out great too.







See that sort of nasty look on her face. She was glaring at me.





My shots.



She told me she was pointing her light saber at me on purpose. Isn’t she just a bundle of joy?



We then got in line for the ride.

 

[jenseib]

It was another fun ride and this time our adventure was much different than the day before.

Another pose.



We then started to head towards the front, but made a stop. I am thinking that we must’ve gotten a small snack or something because we sat there for a little while. I know I did some texting as well.



Another one of my co-workers was also at Disney. Jeanne and I are pretty close as co-workers, but we have not met in person yet. We message each other all the time and talk on the phone.

We texted back and forth a bit. I think she was heading toward DTD this morning, but most likely would be at MK later in the day. Sadly we never did meet up because her phone battery died and she couldn’t get ahold of me to meet up.



On our way again.

 

[jenseib]

This time a boat was waiting and we got right on.



We had a nice relaxing ride back.





On the way back we discussed our options. We could go swimming, and then Claire would need a shower and head to MK. Just shower and head to Beaches and Cream for an ice-cream lunch then head to MK, or a variance of those ideas. I think we settled on a quick swim, shower, lunch and then MK, but time ticked away and we changed our minds again.





As we headed back I told Claire that Kadence’s family was having breakfast at Cape May today and that maybe as we walked by we would see them in there. We did look, but did not see them, but as we rounded the corner to head back to our room we saw them sitting out in the lobby. They were still waiting to be called in. We stopped and chatted for a little bit and of course Claire and Kadence had to make up for lost time and chattered away.



We said goodbye and Claire went and had a shower. She was getting her hair done later today so we had to be sure she had a nice clean head.

We decided to skip the swimming as the time was just going so fast and she was anxious to spend some time with Alexis at MK, so we headed down to Beaches and Cream and were seated right away.





There was really no need to look at the menu, we already knew what lunch was going to be.

 

[jenseib]

A no Way Jose with Vanilla ice-cream. Yep, we went with a healthy option! This is one of my favorite foods in the entire world.





We also brought along a refillable mug since you can refill them at B&C and got pink lemonade. Our waitress just brought it out in a glass for us and we ended dumping the rest in our mug before we left.

Let’s just say we had one of the best lunches ever. It was so good, but even with the 2 of us sharing we couldn’t quite clean the bowl. In 2011 I ate the whole thing by myself, I have no clue how I didn’t explode then.

After lunch we collected our things and set off for the bus stop.







I took this picture because I wanted proof. So many people who use wheelchairs and scooters bring on large amounts of family when they board. I don’t mind waiting for them to board, well sometimes I am impatient, but I understand the need for them, but what drives me batty is when a family group of 20 all feel they can board with Grandma.



Of course we had to wait a bit for a bus. I think like 4 Animal Kingdom buses came before the Magic Kingdom bus came. Bad bus mojo again.

So what was the rest of the family doing while Claire and I had spent alone time touring DHS and lunching on ice-cream? ………

Well Alexis had been promised a swim and she was making good on that promise.





Is that a jungle creature creeping up? Nope, it’s Aunt Mary!

 

[jenseib]

I am not sure what is in Geoff’s hair, but Alexis probably put it there OR Geoff put it in to be funny.





You must always do as many handstands as possible while in the pool.



They headed back to their room and Geoff took a few pictures from their room at the JW Marriot.



That pool looks impressive.







Look what can be seen when you zoom in. Pretty cool.

 

[jenseib]

Another zoom in shot.









I am assuming at some point in time Gail and the girls left and picked up Rob from AoA and then headed over the Magic Kingdom. Geoff and Mary made their way as well. I am assuming they picked up Pete and Vicki, but I don’t think I even saw them at all that day. It was a very busy day all around for all of us.

 

[jenseib]

Rob was feeling better today, but not 100%. He said he was NOT going to miss Abby seeing the castle and all the wonders of the magic Kingdom for the first time though, so he was coming no matter how he felt.





Claire and I were now making our way to the Magic Kingdom after our ice-cream lunch.

We walked into the park and BAM …it hit me! This is what I have been waiting to see for so many years.



The Magic Kingdom was all decked out in Christmas décor. It was amazing. Just a week before I had been here and it was all decorated for Halloween and within a few days they totally transformed the park. Amazing!



This time however, I was not going to pass on the photopass opportunity up front like we had with the Halloween Décor, so we got in line.





I just loved how they turned out too.





We texted family members to let them know we were in the park, but no one was answering us. I think Geoff finally did though. I can’t remember what they were doing exactly, but I think they were in line for something.
We made our way down Main street. It was just so beautiful.

 

[jenseib]

We stopped for another photopass shot.







And a few random shots.

 

[jenseib]

The Move It, Shake It parade was pulling out, so I took a few pictures as it went by.







Another castle shot. You know ….because you have to take as many as possible while there.



And then we headed back into Fantasyland. It was now around 12:50 and we had a 2:10 appointment at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. So we had over an hour, but we couldn’t wander too far off and do too much for fear of not making it back in time.



Claire decided it was time to tackle the sword again. There was a line today, so we couldn’t waste too much time at pulling (though others weren’t as considerate), but I let her try and got a couple of shots.

 

[farrellbarrel]

amazing pictures, and cute kids!!

 

[jenseib]

amazing pictures, and cute kids!!

Thanks