Hello everyone!
Like some have done before, I thought I would start my trip report to WDW before I go and finish it up when I return. I'm starting it now because I know I won't have time later this week.
My family consists of myself, Male 43, my wife 45, and my two daughters ages 8 and 10. This will be me and my wife's 5th trip and my kid's 2nd trip back to WDW. We last visited last summer, this is our first back to back WDW vacation and we probably won't return for a few years after.
Our vacation will start on Saturday, July 26th and we will return home on August 8th. We'll be driving down and back in our 2006 Chrysler Town & Country touring minivan.
On this trip my wife and I will be celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary.
We decided to make an effort to finally visit Universal this time, we've never been, and we will do SeaWorld as well, before we do WDW. It is the fact that we haven't visited Universal before that we are justifying our return to WDW again so soon, not that anyone needs to have a reason, my wife's idea.
On the first day we're going to drive south starting at 5:00 AM from northern Illinois to just south of Chicago through Indiana, Kentucky Tennessee and stop in northern Georgia overnight. Sunday morning we then will continue south and take the bypass around Atlanta to avoid the road construction that is going on downtown and continue south through Georgia into Florida. We plan on being on Universal's property mid to late afternoon Sunday before 6:00PM, hopefully earlier. We have reservations at the Portofino Bay Hotel, we requested a bay view room. We are staying on Universal's property for 4 nights, we want to do both Universal parks and SeaWorld. If we have time we'll do other diversions we don't normally get to do, pool time for the kids, shopping and other such frivolities around Orlando proper. We'll also do some resting up around the hotel before embarking on our WDW adventure, because that is one thing we won't be doing once we get there. We don't have a real plan as far as which parks we'll do when, probably SeaWorld last. We like to plan but we also like a little spontaneity as well.
We will leave Portofino on Thursday morning 7/31/08 and check into the Contemporary resort early, before noon if possible. We requested an MK view, on a higher floor. We have ADRs for Chef Mickey's that morning, the last seating time. We haven't done Chef Mickeys since 1987.
We plan on hitting MK that first day with no real itinerary, I would like to hit the Haunted Mansion imeadiately because I missed it last year due to the refurbishment and haven't rode it since 1990, but my kids have never seen it before and I want them to experience it the same way I did for the first time as a kid in 1973, at night, I'm a sentimental fool, I guess.
The next day August 1st is our Anniversary and as I mentioned we're staying at the Contemporary, which was our honeymoon hotel 21 years before. When we made the reservations last summer the person we talked to said we could request the same room we stayed in then, but that isn't important to us, so we didn't request it. We will do MK on this day as well, we have ADRs for dinner at CRT for our anniversary, not necessarily me and my wife's first choice, our kids wanted to do it. We decided to celebrate our anniversary as a family instead of just as a couple. There will be plenty of opportunities to do the couple thing when the kids are grown and out of the house. We will do MK again on our last day before going home, too depressing not to.
We plan on hitting MK, Epcot, AK and DHS on their late EMH days, my wife has written down the days, we'll have to check to make sure they don't change, I think as the days fall we won't be able to do late EMH at DHS, I don't remember. One thing, we will be doing less TS dining than we did last time. We wasted a lot of time sitting in restaurants last year.
That's the general plan, we have been preparing for this trip since last July. We are now about 95% packed thanks to my wife. The only thing left is my stuff. I had the van cleaned out, washed and waxed and had the oil changed.
Our trip is only 7 days away and the pressure is on. It seems I've been counting the days and it's here all of a sudden! Just yesterday I remember it being 368 days away! My wife has been cleaning the house and I have to mow the lawn one last time, if it ever stops raining, it's raining now as I write this.
I've been preparing things at work, I'm at work now. I've been ordering extra supplies and delegating some of my responsibilites so my absence won't be too keenly felt. Being away from work for two weeks is not something I normally do, it does make it worse coming back. Not only will everything be piled on my desk and my computer filled with unread emails but being in the zombie state that first day back is a killer. I'll try not to think about it and let that foul day worry about itself for now!
I'm really looking forward to this vacation. We did the awkward "first time back in 17 years" last year and got through most of the new stuff that we never experienced. Our touring, I anticipate, will be better this time around. Our kids have matured a bit more and since this trip is not a surprise to them I've been coaching them about the rides they were too scared to try last time and the new ones they'll see at Universal. I think they may want to try some of them, we'll see. If not, I won't push them too hard, but I really think being more ready this time they'll want to do more. They're adamant that they won't do ToT, they won't negotiate on that one for sure, disappointing, but not unexpected, after the "freak out" they had last year when my wife and I did the swap thing in line and they thought they were going to ride, despite our reassurances that they weren't. They also told me most certainly they are not doing Dr. Doom's fearfall either.
I'll continue to add to this post before we go if I have anything else to report, otherwise I'll add what happened when I return.
Thanks for reading in advance!
Like some have done before, I thought I would start my trip report to WDW before I go and finish it up when I return. I'm starting it now because I know I won't have time later this week.
My family consists of myself, Male 43, my wife 45, and my two daughters ages 8 and 10. This will be me and my wife's 5th trip and my kid's 2nd trip back to WDW. We last visited last summer, this is our first back to back WDW vacation and we probably won't return for a few years after.
Our vacation will start on Saturday, July 26th and we will return home on August 8th. We'll be driving down and back in our 2006 Chrysler Town & Country touring minivan.
On this trip my wife and I will be celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary.
We decided to make an effort to finally visit Universal this time, we've never been, and we will do SeaWorld as well, before we do WDW. It is the fact that we haven't visited Universal before that we are justifying our return to WDW again so soon, not that anyone needs to have a reason, my wife's idea.
On the first day we're going to drive south starting at 5:00 AM from northern Illinois to just south of Chicago through Indiana, Kentucky Tennessee and stop in northern Georgia overnight. Sunday morning we then will continue south and take the bypass around Atlanta to avoid the road construction that is going on downtown and continue south through Georgia into Florida. We plan on being on Universal's property mid to late afternoon Sunday before 6:00PM, hopefully earlier. We have reservations at the Portofino Bay Hotel, we requested a bay view room. We are staying on Universal's property for 4 nights, we want to do both Universal parks and SeaWorld. If we have time we'll do other diversions we don't normally get to do, pool time for the kids, shopping and other such frivolities around Orlando proper. We'll also do some resting up around the hotel before embarking on our WDW adventure, because that is one thing we won't be doing once we get there. We don't have a real plan as far as which parks we'll do when, probably SeaWorld last. We like to plan but we also like a little spontaneity as well.
We will leave Portofino on Thursday morning 7/31/08 and check into the Contemporary resort early, before noon if possible. We requested an MK view, on a higher floor. We have ADRs for Chef Mickey's that morning, the last seating time. We haven't done Chef Mickeys since 1987.
We plan on hitting MK that first day with no real itinerary, I would like to hit the Haunted Mansion imeadiately because I missed it last year due to the refurbishment and haven't rode it since 1990, but my kids have never seen it before and I want them to experience it the same way I did for the first time as a kid in 1973, at night, I'm a sentimental fool, I guess.
The next day August 1st is our Anniversary and as I mentioned we're staying at the Contemporary, which was our honeymoon hotel 21 years before. When we made the reservations last summer the person we talked to said we could request the same room we stayed in then, but that isn't important to us, so we didn't request it. We will do MK on this day as well, we have ADRs for dinner at CRT for our anniversary, not necessarily me and my wife's first choice, our kids wanted to do it. We decided to celebrate our anniversary as a family instead of just as a couple. There will be plenty of opportunities to do the couple thing when the kids are grown and out of the house. We will do MK again on our last day before going home, too depressing not to.
We plan on hitting MK, Epcot, AK and DHS on their late EMH days, my wife has written down the days, we'll have to check to make sure they don't change, I think as the days fall we won't be able to do late EMH at DHS, I don't remember. One thing, we will be doing less TS dining than we did last time. We wasted a lot of time sitting in restaurants last year.
That's the general plan, we have been preparing for this trip since last July. We are now about 95% packed thanks to my wife. The only thing left is my stuff. I had the van cleaned out, washed and waxed and had the oil changed.
Our trip is only 7 days away and the pressure is on. It seems I've been counting the days and it's here all of a sudden! Just yesterday I remember it being 368 days away! My wife has been cleaning the house and I have to mow the lawn one last time, if it ever stops raining, it's raining now as I write this.
I've been preparing things at work, I'm at work now. I've been ordering extra supplies and delegating some of my responsibilites so my absence won't be too keenly felt. Being away from work for two weeks is not something I normally do, it does make it worse coming back. Not only will everything be piled on my desk and my computer filled with unread emails but being in the zombie state that first day back is a killer. I'll try not to think about it and let that foul day worry about itself for now!
I'm really looking forward to this vacation. We did the awkward "first time back in 17 years" last year and got through most of the new stuff that we never experienced. Our touring, I anticipate, will be better this time around. Our kids have matured a bit more and since this trip is not a surprise to them I've been coaching them about the rides they were too scared to try last time and the new ones they'll see at Universal. I think they may want to try some of them, we'll see. If not, I won't push them too hard, but I really think being more ready this time they'll want to do more. They're adamant that they won't do ToT, they won't negotiate on that one for sure, disappointing, but not unexpected, after the "freak out" they had last year when my wife and I did the swap thing in line and they thought they were going to ride, despite our reassurances that they weren't. They also told me most certainly they are not doing Dr. Doom's fearfall either.
I'll continue to add to this post before we go if I have anything else to report, otherwise I'll add what happened when I return.
Thanks for reading in advance!
