Hi whoever is reading this. The trip report is finally 100% uploaded. I may have a few more pictures to add later, but the main report is complete. Hope you all enjoy reading it.
The 2012 Trip Report
Intro
Hello everyone, and welcome to the 2012 edition of the Burnett family trip report. Let’s start with a brief intro of the crew this year (you can see a more detailed intro and tentative itinerary at the PRT: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/let-the-wind-carry-you-home-september-pre-trip-report.836558/ ).
This year we have my DW Tammy, our DD Stephanie, our DS Liam and me (Graham). We’re booked for 9 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village in a one bedroom apartment. This is our 5th trip in 4 years. This year we’ve decided to try the waterparks and more option on our park passes, and we’ve also booked the Not So Scary for Sept 19th, and a family photo session at Epcot on Sept 16th. So, without further adieu, let’s jump in...
Day 0 – How do they expect me to concentrate at work today?
As has been our normal practice, we head down to Buffalo the night before our arrival at WDW since it is a lot cheaper to fly out of there rather than Toronto or Hamilton airports. However, I first had to get through a full day of work (normally I take this day off to finish packing etc, but I’m an accountant and we were just in the process of closing the books at the company I work for (Tim Hortons – coffee anyone?), so that wasn’t happening this year). I was concerned that I would be too “antsy” all day and that they day would drag. Fortunately I had a lot to do, so I didn’t have a lot of down time, and before I knew it the end of the day had arrived. I jumped in the almost 100% packed car, drove home as quickly as I could in rush hour traffic, got home, spent a few more minutes packing the car, and we were out the door by around 6:15pm. Traffic to the border was great, and we have Nexus passes which means we don’t need to sit in the customs lines at the border (we cross border shop quite a bit too, so the passes are great), and before you know it, we’ve checked in to the Sleep Inn hotel. We love this place, not because it’s super fancy or anything (it’s not), but because it’s the place we always stay the night before we go to Disney. Anyways, check in went smooth, then we headed out to Cracker Barrel for a late dinner, then back to the hotel for an “earlier” night since our flight is at 6:10am the next day. We were all in bed and asleep by 10:30, with a wake-up call at 3:00am. Good night everyone.
Day 1 – How can you not be happy to be at the most Magical place on earth?
The alarms started going off around 3 (I had set the bedside alarm, as well as the alarm on my Blackberry, my Playbook, and had scheduled a wake-up call also – there is no way we’re sleeping through all those), and Tammy and I got up and started getting ready. I hate that kind of sick feeling you get when you wake up and haven’t slept enough, but that was quickly overtaken by the excitement that today was the day we had been planning for almost a full year. Steph and Liam were up not long after us, and we were out of the hotel room by 4. We grabbed a quick breakfast in the lobby, and then hopped on the hotel shuttle to the airport. Check in went extremely smoothly (the agent at Southwest asked if we were professional packers since our two larger bags both weighed in at 49.5 lbs (50 lbs is the maximum). We didn’t tell her we had weighed them a few minutes before at an empty scale and had to do some last minute rearranging. Security check was pretty good too. The agent was a guy with a really dry sense of humor who made the experience more tolerable for the kids (they both have inherited my sense of humor, so they catch on pretty quick to when people are being funny and play along). We grab some caffeine from a coffee shop in the waiting lounge and sit patiently waiting to be boarded.
Boarding call came quickly, and before we knew it we were in the sky.
I’m a pretty relaxed flier, so I was able to sleep for about an hour of the 2.5 hour flight (Liam fell asleep for a while too), which really helped the time “fly” by. The plane touched down in Orlando around 8:30, and we made our way quickly to the Magical Express desk.
The AKL line was really short (actually, the whole airport was pretty dead at this time), and we were boarded on a bus almost right away. After a few minutes the ME movie started, and before we knew it, we had arrived at Kidani. We had a nice talk with a CM who was waiting when we got off the bus. His name was Hamilton, but his tag said Hammy. He asked where we were from (we’re from Hamilton, Ontario), so he thought that was kind of cool. He knew about an attraction we have in Hamilton (the African Lion Safari), so that was neat. After our discussion with Hammy we head to the front desk to begin the check-in process. Everything there went smoothly too and, to our surprise, our room was ready. Once we received all the check-in materials, we head up to room 7311. I noticed they have the RFID locks on the doors in Kidani which makes life easier when your hands are full. We got into the room, and we were all really impressed. We love this place. Here's a few room shots:
S
I love this headboard.
Is it odd that I'm super excited about being at Disney and my wife is super excited to have this in our room:
Must be a mom thing
So we drop our bags, try to make a quick call to my parents using video chat on the Playbook (that didn’t work well. One complaint about this place is the free Wi-Fi in this resort is terrible. In the room you can’t connect half the time, and when you do you can’t really do much other than basic web surfing), and then decided to head to Animal Kingdom since it’s so close.
The park was pretty empty, and I also noticed that while it was really humid, it wasn’t overly hot. The kids wanted to do Everest first, so we headed over. The wait time said 10 minutes, so we head in. It was more like 5. Love this ride. The waterfall effects were all working, and they have the yeti positioned in such a way that I found myself kind of ducking when we went by. The kids loved it so much that they wanted to do it again, so round 2 it was.
After that everyone was getting kind of hungry (it was around 1:00), so we headed to Flame Tree. Tammy and I got the ribs, and Liam and Steph split the chicken and ribs.
The food here was OK. I found the ribs to be a bit dry, but the food did the trick and we were soon full. Next was Dinosaur, which was another walk-on, and then the kids wanted to do Everest again (guess which ride is their favourite). One more Everest walk-on, and then we called it a day in the park. Our plan was to head back to the room and nap for a few hours since I can’t stand when tweens get tired and suddenly become so much smarter than you (at least in their eyes they are). Our bags had arrived when we got back, but we just wanted to sleep, so we unpacked after the nap. Oh sleep, how I missed you. The nap was great, and everyone was up by 5:00 and ready to go. We had 7:00 reservations at ‘Ohana, and couldn’t wait to get there.
We showed up at around 7:05 (some transportation issues had us running a bit late) and checked it. Tammy and the kids went to look in the shops, while I tried my parents on the Playbook again (which worked great in the Poly. They had a really good wi-fi signal. I’m wondering if the Wi-Fi is really strong in the lobby area of each hotel, but weak in the rooms). Anyways, the buzzer went off, and we were soon in wood fired meat heaven. Our server was Roy, and he was fantastic. Our drinks never got empty, and he was by about every 10 minutes to see if we wanted anything else. Everything was so moist and delicious.
The one thing they’ve started doing is opening the shrimp up so they are easier to eat, which made Steph very happy. The bread pudding was amazing as usual (so good that I asked for the recipe. They had me fill out a form with my e-mail address and will e-mail it to me later).
With bellies full we decide to walk around the Poly a bit.
Hidden Mickey
We head out down to the beach and the pool. This resort is amazing. After that, we head back to Kidani since the kids wanted to swim before bed.
The pool there is nice, and the kids made a friend in the pool. I didn’t catch her name, but she was an extremely out-going, not shy at all twelve year old girl. As we were getting ready to leave she swims over and starts talking to Tammy. The conversation was something like “Hi....I’m really happy I can swim right now...I haven’t been able to for the last 3 days...you should know why...girl things....Is it weird that my cup size is bigger than my 18 year old sisters?...”. What??? Really??? This is how you strike up a conversation with complete strangers? Tammy and I both laughed afterwards. Anyways, we were done for the day. We headed back to the room and crawled into bed thoroughly exhausted by our first Disney day. Tomorrow’s plan is the Magic Kingdom, and then we’re meeting up with some friends who are down here for dinner at Boma.
The 2012 Trip Report
Intro
Hello everyone, and welcome to the 2012 edition of the Burnett family trip report. Let’s start with a brief intro of the crew this year (you can see a more detailed intro and tentative itinerary at the PRT: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/let-the-wind-carry-you-home-september-pre-trip-report.836558/ ).
This year we have my DW Tammy, our DD Stephanie, our DS Liam and me (Graham). We’re booked for 9 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village in a one bedroom apartment. This is our 5th trip in 4 years. This year we’ve decided to try the waterparks and more option on our park passes, and we’ve also booked the Not So Scary for Sept 19th, and a family photo session at Epcot on Sept 16th. So, without further adieu, let’s jump in...
Day 0 – How do they expect me to concentrate at work today?
As has been our normal practice, we head down to Buffalo the night before our arrival at WDW since it is a lot cheaper to fly out of there rather than Toronto or Hamilton airports. However, I first had to get through a full day of work (normally I take this day off to finish packing etc, but I’m an accountant and we were just in the process of closing the books at the company I work for (Tim Hortons – coffee anyone?), so that wasn’t happening this year). I was concerned that I would be too “antsy” all day and that they day would drag. Fortunately I had a lot to do, so I didn’t have a lot of down time, and before I knew it the end of the day had arrived. I jumped in the almost 100% packed car, drove home as quickly as I could in rush hour traffic, got home, spent a few more minutes packing the car, and we were out the door by around 6:15pm. Traffic to the border was great, and we have Nexus passes which means we don’t need to sit in the customs lines at the border (we cross border shop quite a bit too, so the passes are great), and before you know it, we’ve checked in to the Sleep Inn hotel. We love this place, not because it’s super fancy or anything (it’s not), but because it’s the place we always stay the night before we go to Disney. Anyways, check in went smooth, then we headed out to Cracker Barrel for a late dinner, then back to the hotel for an “earlier” night since our flight is at 6:10am the next day. We were all in bed and asleep by 10:30, with a wake-up call at 3:00am. Good night everyone.
Day 1 – How can you not be happy to be at the most Magical place on earth?
The alarms started going off around 3 (I had set the bedside alarm, as well as the alarm on my Blackberry, my Playbook, and had scheduled a wake-up call also – there is no way we’re sleeping through all those), and Tammy and I got up and started getting ready. I hate that kind of sick feeling you get when you wake up and haven’t slept enough, but that was quickly overtaken by the excitement that today was the day we had been planning for almost a full year. Steph and Liam were up not long after us, and we were out of the hotel room by 4. We grabbed a quick breakfast in the lobby, and then hopped on the hotel shuttle to the airport. Check in went extremely smoothly (the agent at Southwest asked if we were professional packers since our two larger bags both weighed in at 49.5 lbs (50 lbs is the maximum). We didn’t tell her we had weighed them a few minutes before at an empty scale and had to do some last minute rearranging. Security check was pretty good too. The agent was a guy with a really dry sense of humor who made the experience more tolerable for the kids (they both have inherited my sense of humor, so they catch on pretty quick to when people are being funny and play along). We grab some caffeine from a coffee shop in the waiting lounge and sit patiently waiting to be boarded.
I’m a pretty relaxed flier, so I was able to sleep for about an hour of the 2.5 hour flight (Liam fell asleep for a while too), which really helped the time “fly” by. The plane touched down in Orlando around 8:30, and we made our way quickly to the Magical Express desk.
The AKL line was really short (actually, the whole airport was pretty dead at this time), and we were boarded on a bus almost right away. After a few minutes the ME movie started, and before we knew it, we had arrived at Kidani. We had a nice talk with a CM who was waiting when we got off the bus. His name was Hamilton, but his tag said Hammy. He asked where we were from (we’re from Hamilton, Ontario), so he thought that was kind of cool. He knew about an attraction we have in Hamilton (the African Lion Safari), so that was neat. After our discussion with Hammy we head to the front desk to begin the check-in process. Everything there went smoothly too and, to our surprise, our room was ready. Once we received all the check-in materials, we head up to room 7311. I noticed they have the RFID locks on the doors in Kidani which makes life easier when your hands are full. We got into the room, and we were all really impressed. We love this place. Here's a few room shots:
Is it odd that I'm super excited about being at Disney and my wife is super excited to have this in our room:
Must be a mom thing
So we drop our bags, try to make a quick call to my parents using video chat on the Playbook (that didn’t work well. One complaint about this place is the free Wi-Fi in this resort is terrible. In the room you can’t connect half the time, and when you do you can’t really do much other than basic web surfing), and then decided to head to Animal Kingdom since it’s so close.
The park was pretty empty, and I also noticed that while it was really humid, it wasn’t overly hot. The kids wanted to do Everest first, so we headed over. The wait time said 10 minutes, so we head in. It was more like 5. Love this ride. The waterfall effects were all working, and they have the yeti positioned in such a way that I found myself kind of ducking when we went by. The kids loved it so much that they wanted to do it again, so round 2 it was.
After that everyone was getting kind of hungry (it was around 1:00), so we headed to Flame Tree. Tammy and I got the ribs, and Liam and Steph split the chicken and ribs.
The food here was OK. I found the ribs to be a bit dry, but the food did the trick and we were soon full. Next was Dinosaur, which was another walk-on, and then the kids wanted to do Everest again (guess which ride is their favourite). One more Everest walk-on, and then we called it a day in the park. Our plan was to head back to the room and nap for a few hours since I can’t stand when tweens get tired and suddenly become so much smarter than you (at least in their eyes they are). Our bags had arrived when we got back, but we just wanted to sleep, so we unpacked after the nap. Oh sleep, how I missed you. The nap was great, and everyone was up by 5:00 and ready to go. We had 7:00 reservations at ‘Ohana, and couldn’t wait to get there.
We showed up at around 7:05 (some transportation issues had us running a bit late) and checked it. Tammy and the kids went to look in the shops, while I tried my parents on the Playbook again (which worked great in the Poly. They had a really good wi-fi signal. I’m wondering if the Wi-Fi is really strong in the lobby area of each hotel, but weak in the rooms). Anyways, the buzzer went off, and we were soon in wood fired meat heaven. Our server was Roy, and he was fantastic. Our drinks never got empty, and he was by about every 10 minutes to see if we wanted anything else. Everything was so moist and delicious.
The one thing they’ve started doing is opening the shrimp up so they are easier to eat, which made Steph very happy. The bread pudding was amazing as usual (so good that I asked for the recipe. They had me fill out a form with my e-mail address and will e-mail it to me later).
We head out down to the beach and the pool. This resort is amazing. After that, we head back to Kidani since the kids wanted to swim before bed.
The pool there is nice, and the kids made a friend in the pool. I didn’t catch her name, but she was an extremely out-going, not shy at all twelve year old girl. As we were getting ready to leave she swims over and starts talking to Tammy. The conversation was something like “Hi....I’m really happy I can swim right now...I haven’t been able to for the last 3 days...you should know why...girl things....Is it weird that my cup size is bigger than my 18 year old sisters?...”. What??? Really??? This is how you strike up a conversation with complete strangers? Tammy and I both laughed afterwards. Anyways, we were done for the day. We headed back to the room and crawled into bed thoroughly exhausted by our first Disney day. Tomorrow’s plan is the Magic Kingdom, and then we’re meeting up with some friends who are down here for dinner at Boma.
. The cab arrives, and $20 later we are at the Beach Club. A quick walk to the International Gateway and we are ready to go. We arrive at the gate at 7:30 and are met by our photographer Alicia and her assistant Jo. They were both fantastic and we had a lot of fun (I’ll post some pictures of the photo shoot once I get them (they take about 4 weeks from the time of the shoot for them to be ready to view)). We had a lot of pictures taken in Canada in the garden up by Le Cellier (it was Alicia’s suggestion to go there). Liam kept thinking we were breaking the rules of the park since we had to hop the fence to get into the garden. After Canada we headed to the UK for a few pictures by the phone booths, and then France for a few more pictures, and then we were done. Here is a "sneak peak" at what the kids looked like:
