Two girls, taking on the World! A January 2012 Trip Report

Well, here we are again! For those unfamiliar, I’m Ashley and this is probably my 10th trip to WDW. This trip begins with some jealousy from my bff. When I went to WDW last year with my other friend, Christa, Lauren let me know immediately that we would have to plan a trip for ourselves. No problem there! I love to do the planning, so once I got home, I started sketching out plans for January 2012. I put everything together and decided on POFQ for our resort, since I had always wanted to stay there. When August came around, we booked the package with free dining and made all our ADRs.

In a flash, the holidays were over and we were ready to depart! Testing out my new memory card on my sideyard:

Goodbye cold, cold NJ, we were on to Florida!

We were leaving on Monday from a smaller airport that only runs select flights to MCO, so we didn’t have much choice about what time we left. But, I was able to go to work for almost a full day, picked up Miss Lauren and we were at Lehigh Valley International within an hour after leaving home. That’s about the same time it would have taken us to get to Newark, but since Allentown is so small, it’s way faster to get through security and much less harrowing. I’ll take that any day!

We checked our bags, went through security and were at the gate within 10 minutes! Great timing, except for the fact that our flight didn’t leave for almost 2 hours. Oh well, better early than late, right?

Finally, we boarded and took off exactly on time. After our first monorail trip at the airport, we found the DME lines (totally empty!) and hopped on the bus! It was really, really tough not to skip the entire way through the airport to the bus, but I managed to hold it together.

Excited to be on the Magical Express!!!

I'd rather not admit exactly how many pictures we had to take, trying to figure out why the picture was so dark. You know the flash usually works better when your hand ISN'T covering it! Duuuhhhhh! Finally figured that out...

It had been a long day...

We were the second stop and hauled our luggage to the reception desk. Since we got into MCO at about 8:30, we thought we’d just pick up our own bags instead of waiting for them to be delivered. It was super quick and we were both glad to have all of our things with us. We ended up in building 4, which is about as close as we could have gotten to the bus stop and the main building!!! Wooooo!!! I don’t know why, maybe we were just too darn excited, but we didn’t bother to look for the elevator and just dragged our bags up to the second floor. We had the most beautiful room on a corner, overlooking a courtyard with a fountain.

Love it!

The giddiness of actually being in WDW was too much for us to handle, so we decided to explore a bit. We checked out the gift shop, the bar, which was jammed because of the LSU/Alabama game, and the food court. I was a little worried about how many people were milling around, since I purposely book trips during the slow season so that we don’t have to deal with major crowds, but who could worry about that now? WE WERE IN DISNEY WORLD!!!:sohappy::sohappy:

 

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Taken through the window of a moving bus. Pretty impressive, I think :animwink:

We ended up at the Contemporary, where we wandered around and shopped a bit. Lauren needed another layer of clothing, so she found a cute hoodie. I braved it and as long as we kept moving, I was warm enough.

The MK was crowded!!! I expected it though because it was the Saturday of Martin Luther King Day weekend. I had planned our trip so we could get out of there before we got too annoyed by the long lines and pushy people. We finally had our chance to walk through the castle and Fantasyland was an absolute madhouse.

We love you, Splash!!!!!!

We veered left for another ride on POTC, which was only a 5 minute wait. Blackbeard was still not working and afterward, we tried Tortuga Tavern again, which was closed. Oh well, it’ll be on the list to try next time! Instead, we went to Columbia Harbor House, since we liked our last meal there so much. That was craziness too, but we managed to score a table upstairs near the windows.

FLE shots:

 

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We were getting frustrated by the crowds and the cold, so we headed for one last ride on the Peoplemover. Everything else that we would have ridden again had wait times that were just too long, so we took the scenic route out of the park. I wanted to stop by the wishing well.

Hmm...

Copycat :lol::lol:

 

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We didn’t know what else to do and we didn’t want to buy anything else since our bags were already checked, so we left the park and took the monorail to the Poly to have some drinks at the Tambu Lounge.

It turned out to be a really good decision, since we had been on the go constantly and it was so cold out. The prices of the drinks were really reasonable too. Well, compared to what we pay at home. New Jersey is an expensive place to live, so the prices at WDW don’t offend me too much. You just get used to it.

After some wonderfully relaxing drinks, it was time to go. We took the monorail back the MK and hopped on the bus to POFQ to wait for the DME.

Lauren and the backscratcher from her drink, called The Backscratcher

Overall, we had a fantastic trip. We lucked out with the weather during the first part of the week, which is always a big risk when visiting in January. Our meals were fantastic and Flying Fish will absolutely be on our list when we return. While we were there, Lauren was already plotting when we could go back. All I had to do was say the phrase “Food and Wine Festival” and she was signed up! We also want to do the Alaska cruise at some point, but that might have to wait another year because it’s much more expensive than a WDW trip. Right now, I am booked to go back at the end of November/beginning of December with my parents for a few days. I’ve been stashing money away here and there for the past year, so my dad’s plane ticket is just about paid for (he has to fly 1st class for the legroom and seat comfort). We are headed back to the Poly, which will be nice for me to return home after two trips to other resorts. I absolutely loved POFQ, but the Poly is where we always stayed when I was a kid and it has a special place in my heart. Lauren wants to go again next January, but I don’t think I’ll be able to afford that, so maybe we’ll try for Food and Wine time 2013. That seems so far away!!! I wanted to get there for my 30th bday, but since that’s in a month, I don’t think that will be happening.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed our trip report!:wave:

 

[accord99cutie]

Thank you for sharing your trip with us! I enjoyed reading along

 

[HopLow]

Thank you for sharing your trip with us! I enjoyed reading along

I'm glad you liked it!!