Trip Report "Whoa!" Our Disney Trip through the eyes of our 15mo Old!

Hello everyone, we just got back from Disney on Saturday night, and I want to start my trip report before I start forgetting the little details. So here we go...I WILL be adding pictures, but the beginning of the trip report is being started while at work, so I will have to add them later!

First: Read my Pre trip Report Here: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...-for-mom-dad-babys-first-trip-sept-15.901000/

Thanks for reading along.. hope you enjoy!

When: 9/19-9/26
Where: Animal Kingdom Lodge
Who: Myself, My husband, and our 15 month old daughter Harper. Also, My Mom, Step Dad, and 5 year old Nephew.

Day1 Friday September 18th:
The day was finally here! The vacation that I had been looking forward to for TWO years. We had counted down from 400 something days, and now we were are at ZERO and within hours of departing. I worked a half day on Friday, but could barely concentrate at work. I kept staring at the clock on my computer wishing so 1pm. Finally, it rolled around. I changed into comfy pants, and met my husband outside since he picked me up. If you were reading along on my trip report, you will recall that my daughter Harper was sick, and I was feeling somewhat sick, but I didn't let it get me down! We were going to Disney World!! I hopped in the back seat and was ready to go! My parents had to wait for my Nephew to arrive so we drove across town and when to a vitamin store to get an energy drink I like before we left. At this point, I took command in the drivers seat, and we jumped right on I-81 to get the show on the road. Not long after, my parents were on their way too, we tried hard, but we just could not meet up together on the road. Eh, that's okay. We would work it out. I'm not sure of the exact route now, but we took 81 south, to 17 south and through some windy back roads with lots of winery's. We ended getting on I-95 at Fredericksburg, VA. The drive wasn't too bad, and I don't recall any issues at all.

We finally met up with my parents at the first rest stop once we got on 95. Harper had JUST fallen asleep when we stopped and she must have sensed it even though the car was running, because within minutes of stopping, she was awake. Well, crap... I needed her to nap, but she was up, so we got her out of the car and met my parents and walked inside. After quick bathroom stops, and a few minutes of leg stretching, we were back on the road ready to go!

(this is where I'm going to stop until I get access to my pictures!)




 
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ScarletBegonias

ScarletBegonias

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 1 Friday 9/18 Continued…

We got back on the road and eventually started talking about dinner. We ended up stopping at a Cracker Barrel in Roanoke Rapids, VA. It was nice to get out of the car for a while, but Harper wasn’t really digging sitting in a high chair, so my mom had to take her outside to run around. We tried to determine how much longer we thought we could go. It was almost 8pm when we got done dinner. We determined we’d go to Walterboro, SC which I believe was about 60 miles from the GA line.
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We stopped for gas after dinner, and headed back to 95. Hours passed and it was started to get late. Harper was sleeping, but not very well in the car seat. Mom had told me she had made reservations at a Hampton Inn in Walterboro, so we pretty much had to drive there. My husband started looking really tired, and I couldn’t sleep myself because I was worried about him. I kept asking him if he was okay, and he assured me he was, but I needed to stay awake to keep an eye on him. Around midnight we still had an hour to go in the car, and I really started regretting thinking we could make it this far. Harper kept waking and crying, and falling back asleep. It was awful. I said to my husband “we over did it. We should have stopped earlier.” He nodded his head and kept driving. It was the longest hour ever. I’d look and only 2 minutes had passed. Urgh. Finally about 1am, we got to our hotel. Harper woke up confused, but happy. We checked in quickly and got in our rooms and climbed right into bed. We all fell right to sleep! I slept like a rock. I woke up to Harper babbling along. My first thought was “wonder what time it is?” but I must have said it out loud because my husband (AJ for further reference) replied back with “You KNOW what time is!” we laughed because she wakes up at 6:30 on the dot pretty much every morning. Sure enough.. That’s what time it was. We didn’t get very much sleep, but at least we slept well. I can’t eat for the first hour after I take my thyroid meds, so we played in the room with some toys and then headed down to the lobby for some free breakfast.
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It was pretty good, and Harper loved the fruit loops. By this point, my mom was up and met us down there and walked around with Harps for a bit. We wanted to get on the road, so we showered and packed up the little stuff we had with us.

Soon enough we were packed up and pulling out of the hotel! It felt so refreshing to have sunlight again and be (a little) rested! I hate driving at night. It gets boring so fast, and honestly, dangerous! Before we knew it, we were in Georgia. YAY!
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When we hit Florida, we stopped at the rest stop, had some orange juice, and took some silly pictures. It was HOT outside. Whew! The humidity was kicking!

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Back in the car, we pressed on. We eventually passed Jacksonville, and that was pretty exciting. We didn’t take the bypass, and my parents did. Turns out it took the exact same amount of time, and we were only about 2 minutes from each other. By the time we hit Orlando, it was raining, and traffic was ridiculous. We lost two hours in Florida somewhere. It was already 5 pm and we STILL weren’t there. I was starting to get impatient, and cranky. Harper was just about done in the car too!
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When the GPS said 26 minutes left, I popped my magic band out of the box and put it on. I needed something positive as it seemed like we’d been in the car FOR-EVER! I started seeing things I recognized and started getting really excited! I saw the Cabana Bay resort, and signs for Universal! Yay! I knew we were getting close now. My parents were behind us, but a couple of minutes behind now. Not soon after we were turning on to Osceola Parkway and we saw the Disney sign! AH!!!
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ScarletBegonias

ScarletBegonias

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 2 September 19th

After passing under the Disney sign, I forgot that you still have a bit of a ride! It seemed to take forever to get to AKL! We had NO idea what we were doing, and my parents were at least 10 minutes behind us at this point, so we were just trying to figure it out on our own. By the time we reached the sign for AKL, Harps was having a complete meltdown! I was so glad we were getting out of the car soon!
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We pulled up to the resort and pulled under the huge awning. I was kind of freaking out because I’ve never done this before and they ascend on your car quickly! I wanted to wait for my parents, but didn’t really have time too! Before I knew it, a bell hop was taking things from our car and handing me a little paper ticket that I had NO IDEA what I was supposed to do with. As soon as all of our things were out from the car, my parents pulled up behind us. We waited for them and then we all walked in to the lobby together.
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Walking into the lobby of AKL literally took my breath away! The lobby was HUGE, and the smell! Oh my, the smell! I was standing there in awe of the place when Harper pipes up and says “WHOAAAAA!”(This became her phrase of the week!) To which I had to laugh! She was clearly blown away by it too! So I put her down and watched her roam all over the lobby. It was just beautiful. I couldn’t believe it! I was concerned that I wouldn’t like the theming of it for some reason, but it was amazing. I just loved it. My mom wanted to show us the resort, so we went for a quick walk out to the Savannah to see the animals, and we also found the quiet porches with the big rocking chairs and enjoyed those too!
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We checked in quickly and made it to our rooms. We asked for side by side rooms, and got them! We got rooms 4020 and 4022. We used our magic band, and opened the door! It was a nice room, would have loved to have a King instead of two queens! Oh well. Not a big deal! We used the other bed to hold our luggage all week. LOL. There was no couch, and a SMALL table, but we had an awesome view looking at the pool, so I could deal with that!
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We went down and picked up our stroller that we rented and went down to check out the playground, the pools, and the Mara quick service cafeteria. It was all SO pretty! I really wanted to go to MK this evening, but we were just tired and we kind of ran out of time! We grabbed dinner from the Mara this night. I got a pretty good cobb salad! Hubby bought our refillable mugs and I’m pretty sure the ONLY thing we put in them all week was ice water and maybe coffee once or twice. Ooops. Still, buying bottled water gets pretty expensive, so I’m glad we got them. Plus, they make nice little cups for travel once we got home, so there’s that! I don’t really remember doing much else this evening. We may have swam for a bit? But soon it was off to bed. I remember sleeping SO soundly! Harper slept pretty awesome too snuggled in between my husband and I. We had to be up super early for our ADR at Crystal Palace on Sunday, so we went to bed pretty early! All in all, getting to resort was amazing! It was quiet, and peaceful.
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Figgy1

Figgy1

Well-Known Member
ScarletBegonias said:
Day 2 September 19th

After passing under the Disney sign, I forgot that you still have a bit of a ride! It seemed to take forever to get to AKL! We had NO idea what we were doing, and my parents were at least 10 minutes behind us at this point, so we were just trying to figure it out on our own. By the time we reached the sign for AKL, Harps was having a complete meltdown! I was so glad we were getting out of the car soon!
View attachment 112485

We pulled up to the resort and pulled under the huge awning. I was kind of freaking out because I’ve never done this before and they ascend on your car quickly! I wanted to wait for my parents, but didn’t really have time too! Before I knew it, a bell hop was taking things from our car and handing me a little paper ticket that I had NO IDEA what I was supposed to do with. As soon as all of our things were out from the car, my parents pulled up behind us. We waited for them and then we all walked in to the lobby together.
View attachment 112486

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Walking into the lobby of AKL literally took my breath away! The lobby was HUGE, and the smell! Oh my, the smell! I was standing there in awe of the place when Harper pipes up and says “WHOAAAAA!”(This became her phrase of the week!) To which I had to laugh! She was clearly blown away by it too! So I put her down and watched her roam all over the lobby. It was just beautiful. I couldn’t believe it! I was concerned that I wouldn’t like the theming of it for some reason, but it was amazing. I just loved it. My mom wanted to show us the resort, so we went for a quick walk out to the Savannah to see the animals, and we also found the quiet porches with the big rocking chairs and enjoyed those too!
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We checked in quickly and made it to our rooms. We asked for side by side rooms, and got them! We got rooms 4020 and 4022. We used our magic band, and opened the door! It was a nice room, would have loved to have a King instead of two queens! Oh well. Not a big deal! We used the other bed to hold our luggage all week. LOL. There was no couch, and a SMALL table, but we had an awesome view looking at the pool, so I could deal with that!
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We went down and picked up our stroller that we rented and went down to check out the playground, the pools, and the Mara quick service cafeteria. It was all SO pretty! I really wanted to go to MK this evening, but we were just tired and we kind of ran out of time! We grabbed dinner from the Mara this night. I got a pretty good cobb salad! Hubby bought our refillable mugs and I’m pretty sure the ONLY thing we put in them all week was ice water and maybe coffee once or twice. Ooops. Still, buying bottled water gets pretty expensive, so I’m glad we got them. Plus, they make nice little cups for travel once we got home, so there’s that! I don’t really remember doing much else this evening. We may have swam for a bit? But soon it was off to bed. I remember sleeping SO soundly! Harper slept pretty awesome too snuggled in between my husband and I. We had to be up super early for our ADR at Crystal Palace on Sunday, so we went to bed pretty early! All in all, getting to resort was amazing! It was quiet, and peaceful.
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AKL looks amazing! We've never even been inside! I'm going to fix that next trip, we won't be staying there but will stop in to look around and eat! You were so lucky!
 
ScarletBegonias

ScarletBegonias

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 (Park Day 1) September 20th:

Up early this morning! I had to set an alarm to get us up on time and showered. Everyone was still sleeping when the alarm went off except for me! I had been up since 5AM because I was so excited to be there! I looked at my phone for a bit and waited for them to wake up. We fed Harper some snacks, and got ready to go. We headed down to the bus stop to wait for our bus to Magic Kingdom. It took forever!! We were a little worried about our ADR, but finally the bus showed up. I was surprised that even though we stood in a semi formed line, how many people butted right to front and got on before us. I’m not going to let this bother me, so I shrug it off. I got a seat, and so did my mom, so we were good. Our husbands stood up front with the strollers to allow more people to be able to sit down. Harper was quite impatient for the bus to take off and I really had to hold on to her. This also became the theme of the week. She is just too little to understand being “restrained”. She hated the stroller, and being held on the buses. Once the bus got moving, she was a little better. Every once in a while she’d point out of the window and say “See!” The ride to MK took a while, admittedly it was longer than I thought it’d be! It wasn’t so bad on the way there, but the evenings coming back, it was a little testy with a cranky, sleepy child!

When we approached MK, we saw the Contemporary, and BLT! On the other side was the Poly, and Grand Floridian! Wow, those resorts sure are close. I see why everyone likes them. The music started blasting on the bus and Harper was bobbing her head along to the music! So cute! We used our Magic bands to get into the park, and bypassed everyone waiting to get in since we had an ADR! I filmed the first few minutes of harper in the stroller and seeing the castle. She didn’t really have much to “say” but it sure was magical! It’s been TEN years since I’ve seen it, and seeing it all decked out in Halloween decorations was pretty awesome.
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We got up to CP, and took Harps out of the stroller to run around for a bit. Man, it was HOT! We’d only been out of the bus for 15 minutes and I’m sweating! I promised my mom I wouldn’t complain about the heat, so I did my best to keep my mouth shut. It was still great to be there and see everything! Soon enough it was our time for breakfast! We got our table and my mom and I talked to the Chef for our Gluten allergies. I was so hungry, so we grabbed food while we were up there. Harper was not in the mood this morning. She refused to sit in the high chair, so my mom had to hold her on her lap with a bowl of fruit loops to keep her occupied. I will admit I was a little frazzled. I’m always slightly on edge with her in a restaurant. I never know how long she’s going to be good until she’s just DONE. Plus, we were here to see the characters, so we HAD to wait it out. We were there over an hour and had YET to have one come to our table. We were all getting pretty upset as we were all done eating. We talked about just going because harper was done, but my step dad was pretty upset. The meal was really expensive (not on the dining plan!) and we wanted our pictures with the Characters! So we decided to wait a few more minutes, and LUCKILY they were on their way over, so we did end up getting to see everyone!

Harper seemed to be okay with the characters. She wasn’t scared, but she wasn’t running towards them either. That’s why I’m holding her in all the pics. She was being super shy!
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I think we missed Pooh all together, and I'll have to get my piglet pictures! They were not on my cell phone, but my Nikon, so everything is jumbled!
 
lostpro9het

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
ScarletBegonias said:
lobby of AKL literally took my breath away! The lobby was HUGE, and the smell! Oh my, the smell!...
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YES! Jambo's lobby is both beautiful AND smells awesome! The DW and I had a small conversation last week about which we liked more, BLT lobby smell or Jambo lobby smell, we ultimately decided we could not decide since both were uniquely awesome for different reasons. I'm so glad you're enjoying AKL, its a wonderful place!
 
ScarletBegonias

ScarletBegonias

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
lostpro9het said:
YES! Jambo's lobby is both beautiful AND smells awesome! The DW and I had a small conversation last week about which we liked more, BLT lobby smell or Jambo lobby smell, we ultimately decided we could not decide since both were uniquely awesome for different reasons. I'm so glad you're enjoying AKL, its a wonderful place!
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Jambo house smells amazing! LOL. I already miss it. I opened my purse the other day and stuck my head in. I said to my husband "it still smells like AKL!!"
 

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