The Power of Meema Trip.
When: Sept 20 - Sept27 (or 9/28 thanks to the moron in Chicago who tried to burn down the control tower and kill himself which kept us in Orlando).
Where: Pop Century
Number of bags: 8 plus five carry-ons. We all had at least four pair of shoes each (thanks to one woman…….. and a father and two teenagers who are sneaker-geeks). LOL
Pics: There will be lots but none of our food. I’m not a big fan of taking pics of my food sorry. There will be a lot of us....I love my wife and kids.
Notes: The forecast for this trip involved a lot of rain so we knew it was going to be very different from what we’ve been accustomed to. I’ve gone to WDW 5x prior to this trip and it’s rained a total of 2 days before this one. However……remember “The Power of Meema”.
Cast of this trip is Me (Bill-43), DW Meagan (33), DS Steven (16) and DS Nicholas (13…yes 13). She is my kids' step-Mom and they love her to death.......and so do I. We traveled as well with my best friend (Steve) and his gf (M) with whom we had dinner or breakfast with virtually every night. There were some parts with them but we had mostly separate experiences.
One quick thing….. Meema is the name both of my kids called my late Mom who died early last year. So many things have happened over the past 20 months since she passed that we feel she’s given us “some help”…lol We were picked in August 2013 to be family of the day in Yankees Stadium (in our first trip since she died and she was a huge Yankees fan) and were upgraded to the Delta SkyBox suite for the game. So many things like this and we always say “thank you Meema” and smile. My trip to WDW with my best friend 5 weeks after she died had some incredible weather to which we insist she had some doing. We miss her so much every day and this trip had many “power of Meema” moments as you will see. She loved her family so much….especially my kids. Ok….wipe away the tears and type….on with the show. I was thinking of some funny and clever names for this trip but decided to stick with what I did because of the number of times we felt my Mom around us. I’m not a faith based or afterlife person but……
This is my first trip since Feb ‘13 (w/ Steve), Meagan’s first since Nov ’13 (with her Mom and sister) and the boys’ first since Oct ‘11. What’s really funny is my youngest son was the shortest in 2011 and is now the tallest in 2014. (see below) My how things have changed huh?
OCTOBER 2011
SEPTEMBER 2014
Steve and M flew down on the 20th early in the day but we waited til the afternoon to fly out @ 3:15 from Albany, NY. We had a late lunch at a nice café in the airport since we knew we would be eating dinner around 9. Also, since we were taking the kids out of school for the week, their trip included having to do homework on the plane, in the airport and during some downtime at the resort (part of the price for a WDW trip).
Also, my son with a great photo bomb.
We actually arrived @ MCO a little early around 6:00 to have our first ride…the tram! LOL It was raining fairly hard when we landed which gave us some concern but onto the Magical Express. A 30 minute wait on the DME at the airport stunk a little but what are ya going to do.
While most of the little things don’t faze me as much as many on the boards here, I’m disappointed in the lame video they play now….I really miss the other cheesy one with the man’s voice saying “welcome aboard Disney’s Magical Express…”. It doesn’t “get the juices flowin” on the way to the resort like the old one did IMO.
After a small hiccup at the online check in and with the Magic Bands on our wrists, we dropped our carry-ons in our room and off we went to MK!!!!! Oh…..remember the rain I mentioned when we landed??? It stopped the second we arrived at Pop!!! That would be far from the only time this happened.
We had fastpasses @ MK for Splash, Space and SDMT that night but because of the DME delay and the small hiccup upon check in, we ended up missing our Splash FP because we didn’t arrive in MK til around 8:15 (it was from 7:00-8:00). I knew it was going to be close but chose it anyways but it wasn’t that big of a deal. WE WERE BACK IN WDW!!!!!
Upon our arrival and texting with our friends on the way to MK, we decided to go right to SDMT for our FP+ (8:15-9:15) and then meet them for dinner. Pics could wait a little bit and we casually strolled up Main St enjoying the view, the smells, the sounds and the incredible sea of humanity!!! ? I thought September was supposed to be slow….uhhhh….NOPE!!! Holy crap is was busy and our friends said it was mobbed all day.
Nothing beats the Castle on arrival night.
We all really like SDMT but definitely felt it was short.
Awesome way to start the trip though! We then headed over to Peco’s Bills to meet our friends for dinner. This was my first time there and really enjoyed it. While I’m not the biggest fan of MSEP, it was pretty cool to have it pass right by us during dinner.
next up....pt 2
When: Sept 20 - Sept27 (or 9/28 thanks to the moron in Chicago who tried to burn down the control tower and kill himself which kept us in Orlando).
Where: Pop Century
Number of bags: 8 plus five carry-ons. We all had at least four pair of shoes each (thanks to one woman…….. and a father and two teenagers who are sneaker-geeks). LOL
Pics: There will be lots but none of our food. I’m not a big fan of taking pics of my food sorry. There will be a lot of us....I love my wife and kids.
Notes: The forecast for this trip involved a lot of rain so we knew it was going to be very different from what we’ve been accustomed to. I’ve gone to WDW 5x prior to this trip and it’s rained a total of 2 days before this one. However……remember “The Power of Meema”.
Cast of this trip is Me (Bill-43), DW Meagan (33), DS Steven (16) and DS Nicholas (13…yes 13). She is my kids' step-Mom and they love her to death.......and so do I.
We traveled as well with my best friend (Steve) and his gf (M) with whom we had dinner or breakfast with virtually every night. There were some parts with them but we had mostly separate experiences.
One quick thing….. Meema is the name both of my kids called my late Mom who died early last year. So many things have happened over the past 20 months since she passed that we feel she’s given us “some help”…lol We were picked in August 2013 to be family of the day in Yankees Stadium (in our first trip since she died and she was a huge Yankees fan) and were upgraded to the Delta SkyBox suite for the game. So many things like this and we always say “thank you Meema” and smile. My trip to WDW with my best friend 5 weeks after she died had some incredible weather to which we insist she had some doing.
We miss her so much every day and this trip had many “power of Meema” moments as you will see. She loved her family so much….especially my kids. Ok….wipe away the tears and type….on with the show. I was thinking of some funny and clever names for this trip but decided to stick with what I did because of the number of times we felt my Mom around us. I’m not a faith based or afterlife person but……This is my first trip since Feb ‘13 (w/ Steve), Meagan’s first since Nov ’13 (with her Mom and sister) and the boys’ first since Oct ‘11. What’s really funny is my youngest son was the shortest in 2011 and is now the tallest in 2014. (see below) My how things have changed huh?
OCTOBER 2011
SEPTEMBER 2014
Steve and M flew down on the 20th early in the day but we waited til the afternoon to fly out @ 3:15 from Albany, NY. We had a late lunch at a nice café in the airport since we knew we would be eating dinner around 9. Also, since we were taking the kids out of school for the week, their trip included having to do homework on the plane, in the airport and during some downtime at the resort (part of the price for a WDW trip).
Also, my son with a great photo bomb.
We actually arrived @ MCO a little early around 6:00 to have our first ride…the tram! LOL It was raining fairly hard when we landed which gave us some concern but onto the Magical Express. A 30 minute wait on the DME at the airport stunk a little but what are ya going to do.
While most of the little things don’t faze me as much as many on the boards here, I’m disappointed in the lame video they play now….I really miss the other cheesy one with the man’s voice saying “welcome aboard Disney’s Magical Express…”. It doesn’t “get the juices flowin” on the way to the resort like the old one did IMO.
After a small hiccup at the online check in and with the Magic Bands on our wrists, we dropped our carry-ons in our room and off we went to MK!!!!! Oh…..remember the rain I mentioned when we landed??? It stopped the second we arrived at Pop!!! That would be far from the only time this happened.
We had fastpasses @ MK for Splash, Space and SDMT that night but because of the DME delay and the small hiccup upon check in, we ended up missing our Splash FP because we didn’t arrive in MK til around 8:15 (it was from 7:00-8:00). I knew it was going to be close but chose it anyways but it wasn’t that big of a deal. WE WERE BACK IN WDW!!!!!
Upon our arrival and texting with our friends on the way to MK, we decided to go right to SDMT for our FP+ (8:15-9:15) and then meet them for dinner. Pics could wait a little bit and we casually strolled up Main St enjoying the view, the smells, the sounds and the incredible sea of humanity!!! ? I thought September was supposed to be slow….uhhhh….NOPE!!! Holy crap is was busy and our friends said it was mobbed all day.
Nothing beats the Castle on arrival night.
We all really like SDMT but definitely felt it was short.
Awesome way to start the trip though! We then headed over to Peco’s Bills to meet our friends for dinner. This was my first time there and really enjoyed it. While I’m not the biggest fan of MSEP, it was pretty cool to have it pass right by us during dinner.
next up....pt 2
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