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.



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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.



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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

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Pool Time!!!!!

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Claire really like the zero entry.
I was then given instructions. I am sure if you are a Mom, or even a Dad, you know about these “rules” you have to follow. I was to walk to the other side of the pool and then “wait” and watch her come in from the zero entry side. Of course she made it much more complicated and there was a reason for this, though I am not sure what it was. I did as I was told and then watched (and took pictures) of her coming in.

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I settled on a chair and pulled out my kindle, took my shoes off and relaxed a few minutes and shot a few pictures as well.

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jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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I then kind of looked out and around for the slide and spotted it. I found it and pointed it out to Claire. I now had new rules. I had to move close to the slide so she could swim over there and go on it. I told her I could see her just fine from where I was, but that was not the correct answer. I NEEDED to be over near the slide. I am sure this had to do with a bit of the jitters about going on the slide for the 1st time by herself.
So I gathered my stuff and moved over a little ways closer to the slide.

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I settled in once again. Claire slowly swam over. Like I said, I think she was nervous and excited about going on the slide. I took some pictures while I waited for the “moment”.

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That is the pool bar over on the other side.

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And now the moment we all have been waiting for. She is going to go on the slide!!!

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I was supposed to take a picture of her coming down, but it was hard to see and then time it right. I think this is her head just going under.

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That was not good enough for her and I had to keep trying off and on all day long.

I liked this sign, too bad it’s kind of hidden.

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jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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So Claire’s goal was to go down the slide as many times as she could, and I was supposed to take a picture of her each and every time.

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Ok, after about 50 times down, I told her that I think I could sit down now as I am sure I got at least a couple of pictures with her in it.

I loved that the resort had free wifi, and though it’s not the best and I would lose it every so often, it was great to take my kindle out and try to catch up on facebook. Sadly facebook doesn’t always like me and at times I try to post and it tells me it can’t be done. I had this issue at home and thought maybe it was my connection there, but it did it to me at Disney as well, so it’s just me in general that isn’t liked. LOL

Claire had spent about a half hour of going down the slide and then she wanted to go check out the hot tub.

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disneygirl1

Well-Known Member
Hi Jen! I just love AKL!!! Definitely one of my favorite resorts! We are heading to Disney tomorrow morning! Gosh I really wish I was staying at AKL!
 

PolynesianPrincess

Well-Known Member
Love the pics of AKL. It's one of the resorts we are debating on next Sept after our cruise. It all depends how many days we stay after. It's just looks so peaceful :)
 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
just caught up!

Art of Animation, looks fantastic!! We have stayed at pop twice and i really enjoyed it there! x

I stay there later in the trip and we enjoyed it too. Sadly the little mermaid rooms are so far out that we most likely won't stay again, but we'll see. I did not however care much for the food court compared to Pops
 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hi Jen! I just love AKL!!! Definitely one of my favorite resorts! We are heading to Disney tomorrow morning! Gosh I really wish I was staying at AKL!

Gosh I am so jealous. Any resort would be just fine. I wish I could talk my husband into going more often ...every time there is usually a fight and pouting match for a few days. Thanks goodness Disney is worth it.
 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We just loved watching the Flamingos.

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Claire felt the need for a picture.

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There are those guys relaxing still.

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A look over at the pool.

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Back at the birds.

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jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We moved on to get another view of the Flamingos from the other side. We spotted a few pay phones.

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Flamingo overload.

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They look like headless Flamingos.

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And we moved on a little further.

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jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We found the other hot tub.

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Getting artsy.

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And pool games.

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Pool games, I think, are more common now at all resorts than they used to be. I think up until last year, they really didn’t have much going on at Values, at least not like they do now. But since we never really have taken a full resort/pool day, we have never witnessed this too much. This was all new to Claire and as the time went on, she really loved “watching” the games.
 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Claire and I kept on with our exploring.

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We found the sign for Simbas kids club and went in search of it.

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It appeared to be down a hallway and we gave up fast.

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We then went in search of more animals. I believe these shots were taken through a window.

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Then we found a porch overlook and we were trying to figure out how to get to it.

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And another shot through the window, but this was kind of neat looking.

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jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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Here’s a porch!

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Getting artsy!

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Hidden giraffe.

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While we stood there, I just took several pictures.

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And we kept moving too.

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jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We spotted a few birds.

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Another try at an artsy type shot.

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I still had rules to follow as we walked around. One being these little tunnel type areas through the rocks. I was NOT allowed to go through till Claire did. Since I was kind of wandering and taking pictures, I broke this rule a few times …and of course was scolded for doing so!

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We have found more animals!

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PolynesianPrincess

Well-Known Member
Kids and their rules! ;) My cousin makes rules like that for all her big cousins all the time! lol

Love the pics of the lobby. I definitely see the comparisons between AKL and WL in the lobby. Both are so grand and beautiful!
 

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