The birthday, we're posers, I wanna go home trip report: July 1-16, 2011

I'm back and ready to start another trip report if only so that I can remember it while making my scrapbooking pages. Now, just a foreword, this may get a little wordy as there are lots of things that I want to remember. This shouldn't be a problem, as you can just scroll through all the words, or block the report all together! :lookaroun:lol:

So, here goes! This is another road trip from Minnesota from July 1- July 16, 2011. We had been tentatively planning this for awhile, but I wasn't sure that it would actually happen until pretty close to the time we were leaving.

Before I go further, here's who is on the trip.

Me: turning 38 while there, certified Disney lover

Sam: DH 37, had his first trip at the age of 18 with his two sisters and mom, was the only one on the trip that had any fun, and (I believe) is now an even bigger Disney lover that me- he may debate that, but he has a friend at work who is another DVC owner, and they spend all day talking about Disney and sending texts to each other while on vacation.

Lexy: DD 16, not a certified Disney lover! She was actually really excited about this trip until three months ago when she got a boyfriend. Now she wants nothing to do with this trip at all!!! She has been whining that she DOES NOT want to go. She wants to stay home with her Nana and Papa. Not happening!

Lainey: DD 10, my teenager in training. She is getting those eyerolls and sighs down pat from her older sister.

Roddy: DS 9, our easy going one. He will do anything and have a smile on his face while doing it. He is the reason I'm not totally insane now! :ROFLOL:

Bella: DD 7, our thrill seeker. She is here for the rides and little else. She is the one known to complain when she's not feeling things are going her way.

Oh, boy, I have a feeling this is going to be a fun one! So let's get started!!

Thursday June 30th. Sam worked a full day and I was scheduled to work at the dance studio that the girls dance at. I work there a few days a month to help with my dance bill. I was working to 9 pm, which Sam was not happy about at all! He wanted everything packed and ready to go, which it was not. Now Sam is a doer, I'm the resident procrastinator. I always think that I have plenty of time to get things done. We were originally going to leave on Saturday, but then Sam said we should leave on Friday night so that we could get there earlier and go to the parks on Sunday too. We wanted to see the Fourth fireworks on Sunday at Magic Kingdom then go to Epcot on the actual Fourth. We decided to get a room at a cheap hotel we found a deal on at allears for $69 a night on Sunday night. I wasn't sure if they would let me fit all my kids in there for that price, so I said I only had two kids. Flame away! :drevil: So I was under the impression that we were leaving on Friday night. Plenty of time for me to get stuff done.

I got home from working at the studio to find Sam in a complete panic. He does not like things hanging over his head. We decided to hit Cub Foods up to get some things to bring in the car with us to eat. We were at the check out when Sam wanted me to grab something else. I knew that time was of the essence to Sam so I was really hurrying. I guess on my way back, you could hear my flip flops crazily coming. Sam said that the check out person was looking like what is that? There was a stock boy ahead of me that I was coming up behind closely. He kept looking back over his shoulder with a scared expression on his face. I think he thought I was going to run him over. Sam was laughing so hard in the car on the way home. He said that I was giving "stocking" a new meaning. He thought the guy figured I was stalking him. I think that lightened things up for Sam a little, or at least I thought so. It was now getting late so Sam went to bed to get ready for our day of leaving.

Friday July 1, 2011. Leaving day. Again, I thought I had plenty of time to get ready. So I woke up and went on the computer for a bit. I was not scrapbooking, but I was doing things related to it. Sam was furious that I was scrapbooking while he was trying to get things ready to leave. I thought that we were taking naps and such, so I figured I would just skip my nap. Nope, suddenly Sam decided that we were leaving ASAP. Why was I not giving the memo on this? He wanted to leave by like 1 pm. Yeah, that was going to happen. I still had to run to Target to pick up some things, and I really wanted Roddy to get a hair cut. The Justin Beiber look alike thing that he was trying to get started was just not working for me! So after some grumbling, we managed to get out of the house and packed up around 3 or so.
Are we one big happy family or what?

 

[mouselvrmom]

We were all hot and cranky at this time. The car was an inferno. We told the kids we were going to the pool, but first we were going to stop at Target for more water and some milk and such. Lexy was NOT happy about having to "grocery shop" while on vacation. So she was in a foul mood. We found one not very far away. I love Target's in Florida since they sell alcohol! Score! Now we only had to make one stop instead of two!

When we got back to the room, we made the kids suffer awhile before we went to the pool. I kept telling them that we'd go after this drink. Oops. Opened another? Well, then after this next drink. hee hee hee. Our kids are very slowly learning that when they complain about things, they get less of things they want.

We eventually made it to the pool, and I was astounded by the number of people that were laying out on chairs. I don't know how they stand it. I could only do it for no more than 20 minutes, then I had to get in the pool to cool down.

Lainey and Roddy entered the hula hooping contest.

Lexy is always a good big sister to Bella at the pool.

Roddy did the wet tshirt contest too. It is totally not what you're thinking it is! Get your minds out of the gutter! It is a relay. Really, this is a family resort! There are two lines. You need to put the tshirt on, jump in the pool, get out, get the tshirt off, and hand it to the next person in line. Roddy's line won, but they said that it was a tie.

I almost burned the soles of my feet crossing the bridge to take some pictures of the kids. Note to self, never walk anywhere at the pool without the flip flops!!

I was pretty much done with the pool after a few hours. The kids had resorted to attacking dad.

We knew that we were going to a park to eat counter service somewhere, but we weren't sure where. Sam really wanted to ride Star Wars. He had been building it up in his mind since he heard about the redo. Pizza Planet won out. Yay. That was a half-hearted yay in case you didn't know.

We got out of the pool, got ready, and got on a bus to the Studios.

First stop, fill those bellies.

 

[mouselvrmom]

Coree's comment cracked me up! She really did love that place!

I love your Test Track poses!

I am super impressed with your rennovated room at Old Key West! It's so nice! And huge!!

Apparantly that place really made an impression on her!

The renovated rooms were awesome! I was so impressed with the floors! I wish the other DVC resorts were as spacious as OKW!

Ok, back to eating dinner.

You can guess where we had to go next. No one is excited here!

We had the Darth Vader, Hoth, underwater one. It was awesome! One kid in front of us was literally shrieking when the fish was shocking us. It was hilarious. I'll speak more on this ride later. Remind me.

Anyway, Sam made a beeline to Rockin Rollercoaster next. I was not going to ride because I was feeling a little bit nauseous so far. I'm not sure if it was the drive, or I was just tired, but I rode it later in the trip. I was happy to hang out and take pictures. The line said 50 minutes, but it was much shorter than that.

We were tired, so we decided to head home for the night. It's a nice walk from the bus stop to our room.

Up next, more Studios action, with some 50s Prime Time fun...

 

[Coree]

Awesome night pics at DHS, Jenn.

 

[blackthidot]

Are you using HDR in some of your photos? A lot of them have that look.

 

[ashley_marie]

That is why we don't drive in January!! Too
Can I give you Lexy's number? She could use that kind of advice! :lol:

:ROFLOL:
If he can't wait until I get home, he's not worth it.

 

[eagles]

nice to see you are now picking on coree! :ROFLOL:

great pics, but i still don't know how you dealt with that heat. i'm dying of it just from your report.

we love pizza planet. :lol:

looking forward to 50's, did you get smores?

 

[disneygirl1]

Have you called DVC yet? :lol:

It was a dilemma about the hair. Lexy wanted to try something, but was worried she would hate it. It has tamed down a bit, but she loves it.

No not yet! Hopefully in near future that is for sure!

I like the hair! But then I again I absolutely LOVE trying new colors in my hair. Currently my hair is brown with hot pink highlights! :ROFLOL:

 

[eagles]

jenn, where are you? :wave:

 

[ILMdisneyfan]

50s Prime Time was fun the last time I went!


My family had a bad experience there once and didn't think the food was that great, but that was more than likely over 10 years ago (pre-2001 visit) and I was wowed when I went.

Had the pot roast and it was nice!

 

[mouselvrmom]

Awesome night pics at DHS, Jenn.

thanks, Coree!

Are you using HDR in some of your photos? A lot of them have that look.

No, not at all. I know nothing about HDR pictures.

:ROFLOL:
If he can't wait until I get home, he's not worth it.

You are wise beyond your years! The boyfriend has already dumped her. Glad I didn't bring him now! :lol:

No not yet! Hopefully in near future that is for sure!

I like the hair! But then I again I absolutely LOVE trying new colors in my hair. Currently my hair is brown with hot pink highlights!

Ooh, now that sounds interesting!

jenn, where are you? :wave:

Sorry. Life got in the way. Stupid life! :lookaroun:lol:

50s Prime Time was fun the last time I went!


My family had a bad experience there once and didn't think the food was that great, but that was more than likely over 10 years ago (pre-2001 visit) and I was wowed when I went.

Had the pot roast and it was nice!

It is totally one of my faves, even though it was kind of eh this time. I know I'll be back again!

 

[mouselvrmom]

Wednesday July 6, 2011.

This was to be our full Magic Kingdom day. I was hoping to get there soon after park opening, but by the time we got up and got ready, it was close to lunch time. This trip we really took our time getting to the parks. I figured that we had enough days, so we might as well not kill ourselves getting up early every day.

We had to take the obligatory in front of the room door pictures.

Here is Sam showing me how to show off the door properly.

I guess I'm just not as good at it as Sam is.

\

We were starving by the time we got to the park. We really just wanted to get lunch. But Roddy's card wasn't working, so I ended up in a conversation with a really sweet CM. I think he felt bad that it took a few times to go through. I thought the conversation was over after a second and I went to take a picture of the mickey head flower. He came running over shouting that he'd love to take a family picture of us. I'm sure the photopass people staring at us were super amused by this. He grabbed my camera and spent literally 10 minutes trying to get the perfect picture. He kept coming back to me and asking me things about the camera. Like how to zoom out and such. The kids were like, just take the picture. I was just trying not to laugh since it was so cute, but we so just wanted to go. He took this, but wasn't happy with cutting off the top of the train station.

I finally had an epiphany and suggested to him that he could turn the camera the other way. He was so much happier with this one.

We hightailed it out of there as fast as we could. I thanked him profusely, but I didn't want him to suggest trying it again.

I don't know who really buys these balloons. What would you do with it all day at the park? But they do look super fun!

I was already sweating from standing in the sun waiting for our picture to be taken, so I suggested heading into the Confectionary to cool off. The smell of that place is just so delicious! I could sit there all day! Sam really thought this looked yummy.

Lexy thought this was more her speed.

Sam had to drag me, but we started heading further into the park. We really wanted some lunch. I wanted to try Tortuga Tavern mostly because I love the new name, and it did sound good.

 

[mouselvrmom]

Sam and I had eaten there back in 2009, but the menu had changed slightly and I thought it was much better now.

It was super busy, but we had sent the kids to find tables, and they managed to find two together.

I got the beef burrito. I loved the toppings bar. It was great to get to add what you wanted to it!

The setting is so pretty. We were sitting right near this view.

We were suitably stuffed, so we thought Pirates sounded like a good idea. The kids absolutely love this ride. We rode it quite often this trip. I guess my girls all love Johnny!

We walked back to Frontierland to see how long the wait for splash or big thunder was, but we decided not to wait. The kids wanted to ride Space again, but Sam wanted to do Country Bears. He said it was cool in there. Lexy put up a hissy fit, and only Bella agreed to see the Bears. She had never seen it before. Apparantly the others all think it's dreadfully boring. So we sent Lexy, Lainey, and Roddy to find Space by themselves and the three of us went to see Country Bears. I had a minute of worrying that they would be able to find it. But I hoped that with the number of times they had been here they would be able to figure it out.

Bella looks ridiculously excited to see the show.

 

[mouselvrmom]

Sam had told Bella that there was blood on the saddle and blood everywhere. So Bella kept asking me the entire show where the blood was....I think she may have been disappointed to find no blood, she didn't think the song was that funny.

We got out of Bears to find that the others were still not even on Space yet. We had gotten fastpasses to Big Thunder previously. The parade was coming soon, and we knew that the others would not get to meet us back there, so we decided to head there ourselves to use the fastpasses. It was great for us because we got to ride it twice in a row since we had all six fastpasses.

Sam was sad we weren't riding the train, he loves that darned train.

but he was happy to be videotaping on the ride.

I rode with Bella. She was so mad that we wouldn't let her ride by herself. I just felt that she's so little, I didn't want her all by herself in that seat.

We texted Lexy and told her to meet us by Crystal Palace where we had dinner reservations. With the parade, we knew that it would be hard for her to come to where we were. We walked out by Adventureland.

 

[mouselvrmom]

We met up with Lexy by Casey's. She was super cranky since she had to walk around the parade. I'm not sure how exactly that occured since it should have been past her, but I wasn't arguing with her at that time. I'm not sure which way she went. Either way, to avoid any further crankiness we quickly decided that we had about 40 minutes or so until dinner. We agreed to go to the Laugh Floor to wait it out. We reasoned that it would be cool in there, and we all like the show. Crisis averted. Melt down avoided.

The queue at Monsters always goes so quickly! It's a nice spot to beat the heat.

It was a fun show as usual. I always like to see the people's reactions when they are chosen to be on the screen. They usually seem pretty surprised.

Yay yay! It was pretty much time to check in. We usually have to wait so long to get into CP. We figured we better get our name in line.

Even though there were quite a few people waiting, surprise, surprise, we got called so quickly, I barely had time to take many pictures. That was the thing about the restaurants this trip. They never seemed to have that many people in them. That may have had something to do with the early time we had dinners, but that's when we usually eat on vacation and it's usually busier than it was this time. They did fill up once we were ready to leave, but surprisingly slow at first.

 

[mamamouse]

I really like that u can see lexy in the mirror of the piano man "Jim" ast Casey's its cool I'm gonna try n see if I can do that on purpose with my kids watching him,I think it makes a great shot.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

I like Sam's way of showing the door much better. :lol:

 

[silver1113]

Been there before with our kids. It get frustrating when they want something but not sure what. Can't wait to try a Grand Marnier slushies!

 

[durhay]

Monday July 4, 2011.

I have similar pictures of my kids playing with those things while waiting for DME to pick us up. OKW rocked.

 

[mouselvrmom]

I really like that u can see lexy in the mirror of the piano man "Jim" ast Casey's its cool I'm gonna try n see if I can do that on purpose with my kids watching him,I think it makes a great shot.

I totally didn't try to do it, but you can also see Lainey in the mirror and even a bit of me taking the picture. So would have cut that one out if I'd known. :lol:

I like Sam's way of showing the door much better.

What?! I am so not telling Sam that, I'll never live it down! :lookaroun:lol:

Been there before with our kids. It get frustrating when they want something but not sure what. Can't wait to try a Grand Marnier slushies!

I think they learned to speak up rather quickly! The slushies are the best! So good! :slurp:

I have similar pictures of my kids playing with those things while waiting for DME to pick us up. OKW rocked.

I love that they have little things like that to catch the kids' interest.

 

[mouselvrmom]

While I was happy with the wait time to get into the Crystal Palace, I was not overly excited about our table placement. It was kind of in the middle of a clump of tables. Hard to get into or out of, and not the best for taking pictures with the characters, but I guess I shouldn't complain.

Pooh came out right away. I like when they come out early so that you can then relax and eat.

Lexy decided she wanted her picture alone with Pooh. He's her favorite character.

Sam says that he doesn't particularly care for the buffet here, but I really like it. I love the rice and potatoes.

Tigger came around next. He was playful as always.