Trip Report What do you mean there's no record of her AP?! We've been using it since February!**COMPLETED**

So we've been back for about a week now, and what a time we had! Only one major bump in the road as you can probably tell from the title, but we'll get to that ;)

First a little back story....

3 days before we were scheduled to leave, my husband was admitted to the hospital with acute pancreatitis. He was in excruciating pain and eventually put in the ICU! He was ok with me leaving, and honestly what would have been able to for him that doctors and nurses couldn't? He wasn't dying, so off we went.


Wednesday, August 16th


Our flight wasn't until 2:30 that day, so we got up early to visit Kevin and drop the dog at the kennel. Our Uber came for us around 12:15 since we're 10 mins or less from the airport. There were no lines at check-in or security so we breezed right thru and searched for our first meal of the day. We decided on Sbarro pizza. While we were eating I saw Brook's best friends older brother walking in the terminal(who is my age). We called him over and it turned out that he, his wife and kids were not only on our flight, but also staying at CBR! We chatted for a few mins and then went our separate ways. Brook was begging me to talk to some pilots so I creepily approached one lol. I told him we were headed to FL to visit Embry-Riddle and he was more than happy to chat with us. Turns out he graduated from DSU, her number one choice as of right now! They exchanged numbers and she was on cloud 9! After that we went in search of something sweet. We finally settled on sharing a HUGE oreo rice krispy treat. It looked a lot better than it was, so we tossed it after a few bites.

We boarded and had an uneventful flight. Touched down right on time at 5pm. It felt very strange not to head directly to the ME. We grabbed our luggage, picked our rental car and decided right then and there that instead of driving to Daytona right away that we would go out of our way and head to Epcot. The major reason I decided on this was that the next day(Aug 16th) was the last day the Express Transportation could be purchased. We would need that on our tour day to get to AK in time for our FoP FP. I tried to purchase it over phone, but was told we needed to do it at a guest relations location. It was then that we decided to head to Epcot for dinner and few rides since we had to go for the purchase. Brook hopped on MDE during our ride and snagged us a FP for SSE and a 7:45 ADR for Coral Reef. She chose that since we had never been. We got to Epcot and it felt GREAT to be back and even better that we were ''sneaking'' some extra Disney time!!

For dinner I got the Mahi-Mahi with coconut rice and Brook got the kids mac n cheese. In the end, we both agreed that the atmospheres was neat, but there would be no reason to ever return. We took our desserts to go and headed over to MS with a FP Brook got while we were eating. We were excited to try the new version that had just opened back up 3 days prior. We assumed that since the ride is now called RELAUNCHED! Mission Space that it would be totally different. It wasn't. The only that we noticed that changed was the intro no longer has Gary Sinise. The scene during the ride was THE SAME!:eek: Bummer, it's one of my fave ride. The CM told us that we were on the last ride of the night! After riding we headed out and drove to Daytona Beach .

We arrived around 10:30 pm and the place was a DUMP. I was actually scared to be there and really wished my husband was with us. The Days Inn we were staying at looked like something off of an episode of Cops. There were some ''ladies'' hanging around outside if ya know what I mean lol. Had we arrived earlier I would have taken the loss and found another room, that's how uncomfortable I was. I pushed a chair in front of the door, locked both locks, and literally prayed that we would be ok. The bed was comfy tho lol. We woke up and realized there was free breakfast being offered so we stopped in. I had toast and Frosted Flakes and Brook made herself a waffle. While eating, a maintenance man came in, stood on a chair about 3 feet behind us, stabbed the ceiling with a sharpie and TONSSSSS of water came pouring out into a trash can. We lost it!!! Like diedddd laughing and got the heck out of there LOL!

The drive to Embry-Riddle was short uneventful. The school was beautiful but in the end Brook crossed it off her list.

Around noon we headed to Publix to get a bouquet and balloons for Elsie and a case of water for the week. We drove straight to POR and decided that after we visited with her that we would stay for lunch. She recognized us right away and said to her co-worker...''It's the sisters that are really mother and daughter''. I was glad she remembered us because it had been about 16 months since we last saw her!

elsiesgift.jpg


After our meeting we checked out the pin board and grabbed some lunch. I opted for the create your own pasta with penne, alfredo, chicken and every veggie known to man. It was good...not great. But I had been craving alfredo for the past few days. Brook got the kids chicken nuggets and a king cake.

After lunch we drove over to CBR to check in. We arrived at 2:30 and I was surprised that we still hadn't gotten our room text yet. We ended up hanging around the lobby for about an hour until we got the text. Our room was in a great spot. Trinidad North, room number 3321. It was about a minute from the bus stop and quiet pool, and about 5-7 mins from the main pool and buffet. I was very happy with the location. The room itself was really nice! I didn't take a pic, but the decor reminded me of the Poly. We had a king bed which was SOOO COMFORTABLE!!! Double sinks behind barn doors and the fridge had a new glass door. The light fixtures were also very pretty. We loved the room except that it stunk. It only bothered me right when we came in, it must have been a smoking room.

Up next...our first night continued....


 

MinnieM123

Premium Member
Glad to have you!

Thank you, he was finally discharged on Friday night after 12 days! He'll be out of work until next Tuesday and isn't allowed to be driving as well for the time being. He is still having pain, just not as severe. He is still weak from all that time in bed and losing right around 20 lbs! He's getting there...slowly but surely ;)

Glad to hear he is on the mend. You must be so relieved. Better days are ahead for him, thank goodness. :)
 

LAKid53

Official Member of the Girly Girl Fan Club
Premium Member
Glad to hear hubby's okay. Not the way I'd want to loose 20 pounds, though.

I had a hotel like that in Tampa - recommended by someone. The main part of the hotel was nice, indoor swimming pool, lovely lobby. But our room was stuck way in the back in a separate building that looked like it had been converted from some other function to rooms. Shabby room overall. And I worried that I could see plenty of daylight under the door. So, yeah, I too did the shove the chair under the door thing...and didn't sleep well that night at all. Let the person I was meeting with the next day know her recommendation of a hotel was garbage. She apparently didn't know about the out building....

So Brooks' interested in aviation? Too bad she decided against Emery. I know someone who was a pretty highly placed administrator.
 

Courtney6682

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Glad to hear hubby's okay. Not the way I'd want to loose 20 pounds, though.

I had a hotel like that in Tampa - recommended by someone. The main part of the hotel was nice, indoor swimming pool, lovely lobby. But our room was stuck way in the back in a separate building that looked like it had been converted from some other function to rooms. Shabby room overall. And I worried that I could see plenty of daylight under the door. So, yeah, I too did the shove the chair under the door **** thing...and didn't sleep well that night at all. Let the person I was meeting with the next day know her recommendation of a hotel was garbage. She apparently didn't know about the out building....

So Brooks' interested in aviation? Too bad she decided against Emery. I know someone who was a pretty highly placed administrator.

Ugh lol..it's the worst being at a place like that!

Thank you for the kind words,he's getting there. He is pretty annoyed about losing that much weight in all the wrong places tho!

Yes, Brook wants to be a commercial airline pilot. On our February Disney trip we stopped at Florida Tech, FIT and Embry-Riddle are the 2 biggest names in aviation schools. She decided against both however!
 

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
Glad to hear hubby's okay. Not the way I'd want to loose 20 pounds, though.

I had a hotel like that in Tampa - recommended by someone. The main part of the hotel was nice, indoor swimming pool, lovely lobby. But our room was stuck way in the back in a separate building that looked like it had been converted from some other function to rooms. Shabby room overall. And I worried that I could see plenty of daylight under the door. So, yeah, I too did the shove the chair under the door **** thing...and didn't sleep well that night at all. Let the person I was meeting with the next day know her recommendation of a hotel was garbage. She apparently didn't know about the out building....

So Brooks' interested in aviation? Too bad she decided against Emery. I know someone who was a pretty highly placed administrator.
It's amazing to me that some of these places can even stay open. We stayed at a hotel for speech and debate when I was in high school. Part of the building was condemned, when we got to our room, one of the beds had a big huge wad of hair in it, so we called to have the sheets changed and the woman came over with a washcloth and wiped the hair off onto the floor. (Actually onto another girl's leg....SO GROSS) They couldn't change the sheets every day because they didn't have enough extras, and the woman who did the laundry was already gone for the day. The floor looked like it had never been vacuumed before, the TV didn't work. One of the rooms only had one (broken) lock on the door, while ours had 7 locks. When we left during the day, we took everything with us because we were worried about theft, and when we came back that night, there was a dirty sock on the floor that didn't belong to any of us and had not been there earlier, so we think they rented out the room by the hour during the day. We still don't speak the name of the town among those of us who were on that speech trip and that was more than 20 years ago. We refer to it as the "P" word, or as the trip from a very hot place. (It wasn't just the hotel that was bad...one of the girls got food poisoning and we were on the way home when it manifested, so we ended up in the ER with her, a blizzard rolled in while we were in the hospital, and the principal wouldn't ok the funds to stay in a hotel because the roads hadn't been closed yet, though they were in the process. So we had to drive through a mountain pass during a blizzard, on a bus, with a girl with food poisoning, and then by the time we got to the next town over, they had closed the roads so we HAD to stay, but the only hotel that our principal would release the funds for was a Motel 6 at which the heat was out.) We never went back to that speech tournament after that year. The whole thing has been a joke for years. "Remember that one trip?" I honestly have no idea why it was just that one part of the building that was condemned. Do these places just escape the notice of inspectors?
 

Courtney6682

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
It's amazing to me that some of these places can even stay open. We stayed at a hotel for speech and debate when I was in high school. Part of the building was condemned, when we got to our room, one of the beds had a big huge wad of hair in it, so we called to have the sheets changed and the woman came over with a washcloth and wiped the hair off onto the floor. (Actually onto another girl's leg....SO GROSS) They couldn't change the sheets every day because they didn't have enough extras, and the woman who did the laundry was already gone for the day. The floor looked like it had never been vacuumed before, the TV didn't work. One of the rooms only had one (broken) lock on the door, while ours had 7 locks. When we left during the day, we took everything with us because we were worried about theft, and when we came back that night, there was a dirty sock on the floor that didn't belong to any of us and had not been there earlier, so we think they rented out the room by the hour during the day. We still don't speak the name of the town among those of us who were on that speech trip and that was more than 20 years ago. We refer to it as the "P" word, or as the trip from a very hot place. (It wasn't just the hotel that was bad...one of the girls got food poisoning and we were on the way home when it manifested, so we ended up in the ER with her, a blizzard rolled in while we were in the hospital, and the principal wouldn't ok the funds to stay in a hotel because the roads hadn't been closed yet, though they were in the process. So we had to drive through a mountain pass during a blizzard, on a bus, with a girl with food poisoning, and then by the time we got to the next town over, they had closed the roads so we HAD to stay, but the only hotel that our principal would release the funds for was a Motel 6 at which the heat was out.) We never went back to that speech tournament after that year. The whole thing has been a joke for years. "Remember that one trip?" I honestly have no idea why it was just that one part of the building that was condemned. Do these places just escape the notice of inspectors?

Wow!! That's just crazy! The place we were just at mostly made me feel unsafe. It was disgusting too, but not as bad as what you described lol! I left out the hole in one of the walls, the bathroom overhead light that was hanging by a thread and the smashed spider struck to one wall.:hungover:
 

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
Wow!! That's just crazy! The place we were just at mostly made me feel unsafe. It was disgusting too, but not as bad as what you described lol! I left out the hole in one of the walls, the bathroom overhead light that was hanging by a thread and the smashed spider struck to one wall.:hungover:
Nice....sounds like a classy joint. :depressed: Were there any reviews? Who in the world recommended this place to you??
 

21stamps

Well-Known Member
Our first night con't...

Ok, so I left off at dropping our bags in the room. It was now around 4pm and we had a Space Mtn FP starting at 5:05. I decided not to drive to the MK so we hopped a bus and arrived with plenty of time to ride the People Mover first. After Space we were able to use our 7D FP.

View attachment 225669

We then strolled over to Big Top Souvenirs for a frozen drink. From there I insisted that we do Mickey's Philharmagic for what I thought would be our first time ever. Brook said she remembered the show, but I had no recollection of it. Afterwards we made our way over towards the HM, which she proclaimed is her new fave ride. News to me, but whatever lol. She bought a few pins and we strolled towards Frontierland. She traded a few pins there and then we decided to ride PoC standby. It was only a 15 min wait and we were ready to be goofballs!
View attachment 225670


After PoC it was time for our Splash Mtn FP. As soon as we scanned our MBs Brook snagged up at 4th FP for Buzz an hour later. The people behind us LOVED the ride photo lol.


View attachment 225671


Since we had time to kill before Buzz, we traded some more pins and then walked right on the Magic Carpets. When we got to Buzz it was a walk-on so we rode that twice back-to-back and then used our FP for our final ride of the night. We made our way to CBR and showered before bed. It was a great first night!!

I have to repeat this.. I am so in love with your Pirate's and Splash photos!!! Love Love Love!!!
Best Splash photo ever!!
 

Courtney6682

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
First Full Disney Day...Friday, Aug 18th...

We started our day by dropping off our rental car at the MK Car Care Center. The drop off went smoothly and soon we were on the shuttle bus headed for ....AK! We arrived with plenty of time before our first FP of the day. We walked right on Kali which I hate, but I ride it for Brook. We did however get a red card, score! I always seem to be the one who gets soaked. Luckily this time, I escaped without being drenched! After Kali we walked to Everest and walked on twice before using our FP for it. We could have ridden a few more times with a minimal wait but Brook checked MDE and saw that Dinosaur only had a 15 min wait so we chose to do that instead. I've never liked Dinosaur, but this trip it really grew on me! We look bored in our ride pic, but we weren't, I promise! Just taking it all in:p
dinosaur2ndday.jpg

We got off Dinosaur and traded some pins with the CM's in the gift shop. We had time to kill before our Na'vi FP so we decided to play some of the carnival games for the first time ever. We got 7 tickets for $20 and played 4 games. I won once and Brook won twice. We gave our last prize to the little kid she beat lol...her family was really grateful! We gave the stuffed animals we kept to our puppy...he loves stuffy stuffs! Next, it was time to visit Pandora! I was really excited to experience something new, even tho I had no clue what it was all about. Plus I was getting hungry and I knew I wanted to try Satu'li Canteen! We took some obligatory pics around Pandora and then hopped in line for our river journey. I was blown away!! It was incredibly beautiful!!! We were really impressed, even tho we didn't really know what it was supposed to look like,which sounds kind of dumb, but the queue and ride were very well detailed and we COULD appreciate that.

There was no wait at Satu'li, so we had our food in under 5-6 mins, which surprised me! I thought it would have been busier. We snagged a table inside and dug in, sharing 2 kids meals and 2 desserts. I didn't want to be stuffed for afternoon tea later at the GF! Brook got the kids cheeseburger pod and I had the kids sliced beef over grains. Both were delicious and I can't wait to eat there again sometime!! The beef was tender and seasoned well and the kids pod was very tasty! Brook said she would order it again as well. We also split both desserts, the blueberry cream cheese mousse with guava curd on top, and Neytiri's choc cake. I loved the cheesecake! It was bright and refreshing! We didn't care for the choc cake, but I think it's because we had the sweet fruity cake first which made the choc bitter. With our bellies full we decided to head back to our room for showers and fancy dresses for tea! We waited about 10 mins for our bus and the air conditioning was very welcomed!! IT WAS HOTTTT...the temp said 91...but the real feel was 102!!:eek:

Up next...A spot of tea!

 

Jedi Stitch

Well-Known Member
Oh, its a trip report. Ha, you hooked me in, Good one.
I feel you about Flop House level, "hotels". We stayed in one before a white water rafting trip once. Barely slept, from the constant parties going on. It even worse when the night manager pays you lip service when you complain. They said they talked to them in person. I could hear the people above us clearly and they didn't. We called the cops, and they said sorry already been out there that night, unless someone starts shooting, just deal with it.
 

Courtney6682

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Oh, its a trip report. Ha, you hooked me in, Good one.
I feel you about Flop House level, "hotels". We stayed in one before a white water rafting trip once. Barely slept, from the constant parties going on. It even worse when the night manager pays you lip service when you complain. They said they talked to them in person. I could hear the people above us clearly and they didn't. We called the cops, and they said sorry already been out there that night, unless someone starts shooting, just deal with it.

Hahaha!! Sorry!! It really was an accident, I swear;)

Glad to have you along tho!!

I say flop house at work and they all laugh at me lol...I got it from my grandmom who is from NY. Places like that are the worst!! I couldn't leave fast enough!!
 

gdisneyfans

Well-Known Member
Following!! I love your ride pictures:)

Sorry to hear about the creepy motel...but glad you made it out of there safe and sound!

We went to Satu'li as well and I had the beef bowl and it was amazing! I couldn't believe how tender the beef was. We actually had pretty decent meals the whole trip. Looking forward to more!
 

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