Disney World 2009 - Day 7 traveling home

Our last day in Floriday.  And who knew it would take so long to get packed, get loaded and get to the airport.  I booked a 2 o'clock flight thinking it might give use time if we needed to run to a park to buy something.  But by the time we packed, checked our lugage in for the airport, it was time to head to the airport.  We made it to the airport, and to our terminal around noon.  Which was perfect, because we ate Wendy's again, just like when we landed.  And got a good seat to wait for our boarding time. 

At boarding time that is when for some reason they made us check our carry ons.  And not thinking our boarding passes for our next flight were in.  Not to big of a deal, in DC. They guy was able to take my Driver license and print new boarding passes out.

Anyways, the flight was smooth, Noah was great!  But we made it to DC with about an hour before our next flight.  And Five guys was inbetween our 2 terminals, so we decided to stop and order a burger and fries for each of us.  And while standing in line, Rich Fenush (sp?), from the campground we camp at taps me on the shoulder.  Amazing, many miles away from home and we run into a good friend.

Well, the burger was good, and my fries got tossed. Noah accidentaly kicked my soda over into my fries.  Oh well, I won't over eat then!

Anyways, Noah fell asleep on the last flight.  We must of worn him out!  I'm glad he did, the last flight we ran into some bad weather which caused our flight to toss us around.  It wasn't the worst i've been in, but it makes me realize how dangerous air planes still are.

Anyways, back to Disney World 2009 trip.  It was a GREAT trip, and I'm glad and saddened at the same time we went by ourselves.  I was glad because we got to do it our way, no family stress!  I was saddened because the family only got to enjoy it through pictures and videos we took.  If I had to rewind time, I would do it again.  If I could rewind time, I would have invested into the Disney Vacation club instead of other things we have invested into.  IMO, it is so much more memorable, then other events we have done!  Now that we have Sydney, we are trying to figure out when we are headed back.  It is going to be much more difficult to pick a time since Noah is getting into School and Sports. 

Disney World 2009 - Day 6 Breakfast, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom - and a suprise weather storm

Day 6 was to start out with a breakfast character dining event.  What we didn't realize until we looked up how to get to a different resort was that we had to go to Magic Kingdom, catch the TRAM (train), and then go to 'Ohanas.  It was awesome to see a different resort, making us realize that even though our resort was very cool, every resort seems to be at that level!  Once we made the travel over to 'Ohanas, we had our best meal of the week.  The breakfast was great!  Meeting Lilo and Stitch, Mickey and Pluto was awesome too. 

And then an expected, but early cold front made it to Floriday, luckily while we were having breakfast.  It was so warm in the morning we carried sweatshirts with us.  When we left the restaruant, the sweatshirts were barely enough.  We got to ride the tram over to Epcot.

Once at Epcot we were overwhelmed by the Big Golf ball and the amazing character bushes on display!  After getting some professional photos from Disney Photo pass, we headed through the park.  Did some riding, then headed torwards the Nemo ride, where we ran into... NEMO, and the seagulls.  They have an animated seagull display where they do the "MINE, MINE, MINE" scene from the movie.  I enjoyed that very much!





After continuing through part of the park, with Tiff starting to wear out and weather looming, we decided to leave Epcot.  Since we had to go back to Magic Kingdom to catch our bus, we decided to run in Magic Kingdom so some quick shopping and then headed back to the Resort to close out our vacation. 

How Sad :-(  That evening we started packing, went to the Resorts center to pick up the stuff we bought through out the parks and enjoy the Disney Commercials on TV.  Oh yeah, Disney Commercials on TV were Noah's favorite thing within the Resort it self!  He loved watching those previews of what is at Disney.

Disney World 2009 - Day 5 Magic Kingdom

Day 5 is the day Noah was looking forward too, Seeing Mickey's Castle (as he called it, you know Cinderalla's Castle).  This was the one day we decided to get up early, and make it to the park just after the gates open.  We also decided to that, because for the first time during our vacation, it was suppose to get HOT, well atleast for someone coming from snow on the ground.  If I remember right, it got into the upper 80s with a pretty high humidity.  Since it was going to be that hot, Noah and I decided to head off without Tiffany.  With Tiffany being pregnant we wanted her to stay cool for as long as possible.  So we got to the park, Noah and I enjoyed the overwhelming view of the entrance, to Main St., and to the Castle. 

And to play a little bit a fun with our Facebook friends, I posted the picture to the right with the quote "Where is the Castle?"

We got to enjoy many rides this day.  Using the fastpass, we got to ride the original toy story ride, where you fight zorge(sp?).  Also, Noah got to drive a race car, and many other rides before mommy was able to make it to the park.  When we were done riding, we decided to head over to the Castle to watch a Mickey play.  But on the way we ran into one of the Parades.  Shocking to me, the parade was a dance parade.  Noah got to dance with Mickey, Minney, Goofey, and Mr. Incredible.  Once it was over, then we watch the awesome Mickey show.  Then finally, we then went and met mommy at the resturaunt.  Where Noah got to meet more characters.  He got to meet, Winnie the Pooh, Tiger, Eeor, and Piglet.  Mommy decided to walk to the back of the park and ride the train to the front where with the heat, and mommy retaining water from all the walking she did already that week, we sent her back to the hotel room to enjoy the air conditioning and piece of quite.

Noah and I then road the train to the other side of the park and decided to walk around to see what else the park has.  We got to watch splash mountain, watched the boat to one of the Islands, and road some other rides.  We then passed Smokey Robinson's Treehouse; I decided to take Noah in.  Who knew Noah would love it so much, through out the rest of the day we went up the treehouse 3 times.  Closer to 5 o'clock we made it to the back of the castle where Noah found where Mickey lives.  And we found a ride Noah seemed to love, which kicked off him riding rides he didn't want to before.  See the ride to the right :-D.

The included rides was a mery-go-round, which before Disney he was deathly afraid of.  We then went to Mickey and Donald's 3D adventure (not sure the real name).  Noah absolutely loved the beginning, got scared in the middle where he took off his glasses, and enjoyed the end where Donald flew by us and ended up in the wall behind us.  He kept on asking questions about Donald.

We ended up staying for the Fireworks and meeting some great people.  Unfortunately we picked a poor spot to stand because of a tree, but we got to see a good 1/2 of the show.  After the fireworks, we headed off to the bus depot to go back to the resort.  During our walk out, Noah fell asleep - how sweet! 

But then I'm not sure what went wrong at Disney but for the first and only time in our stay Disney dropped the ball.  It was around 8.30PM when we made it to the bus depot, and the line for our bus was already long (and I was expecting that), so I sat at the benches and watched the disaster unfold.  After 30 minutes went by and only one bus appear, I started to see guests starting to get angry and approach staff.  Where staff shrugged it off, another 10 minutes pass and finally a bus appears.  By this time the line for my resort was wound through the normal area, and lined up pass ALL other bus stops, if I remember right there was 5 other bus lines it had to go by.  And that didn't include the people like me sitting and watching.  So in 40 minutes 2 buses.  Another 20 minutes goes by before I hear the Staff member use his walky-talky to call the bus management people, that is right an hour went by and 2 buses.  When people started to raise concerns, the Staff should of started to work with the bus management people.  But once word was out that our resort was that long of a line, and now I also notice the Animal Kingdom's line was also almost as long, I realized something else was going wrong.  Anyways, I made it on the bus by 10.00PM, the last bus.  And the bus driver told me that they were having issues with drivers just pulling off and taking time when it wasn't break time.  He also said, that situation caused the bus management people to redirect a lot of buses to address Magic Kingdom which is now (at 10.00pm) causing Epcot issues to start.  Since buses had to be diverted away from Epcot to finish the crowds at MK.  Amazing, when there is GPS chips they can put in buses.  Then make it easier for drivers to define their own "breaks".  The bus driver informed me he wasn't to happy about the GPS, because of his medical condition (many potty breaks).  Anyways, we were back at the resort at 10.30pm and Noah stayed asleep!  That is good, because on Day 6 we had a Breakfast Character dining!

I'm glad Tiff was already back in the hotel, Noah fell asleep, and I just relaxed as the bus disaster unfolded.  The could of really sent my blood pressure through the roof, but it was just another event that unfolded at Disney to remember.

Disney World 2009 - Day 4 Downtown Disney and Relaxing

This is what a vacation is suppose to be about; Relaxing, not rushing and enjoying the sites around you.  We planned a day where it would be a flexible day, not knowing what the weather would be we didn't want to miss an attraction we wanted to see, so we planned a day-off into our vacation.  Day 4 was that day for us, but we got lucky, the weather was perfect, and looked to be perfect the entire week.  So we decided to head on over to Downtown Disney and do a little shopping, enjoy a little Non-Disney Fast food, and play with legos.

We got todo some shopping at some fun shops, like building our own t-shirts, christmas store, The Disney Store, and a toy store.  Where they had a great deal on Mr. Potato head stuff.  We got a lot of Mr. Potato head accessories including Darth Vader, Storm Trooper, and some Disney stuff.

Thats not all we did downtown Disney, but that is all worth mentioning.  Since it was shopping, it felt like we where there forever, but it was early afternoon that we were back at the Resort and enjoying the pool.

Disney World 2009 - Day 3 Hollywood Studios

I was really excited for this day, heading to Hollywood Studios where there was Playhouse Disney, Toy Story 3D ride/game, Lightning McQueen and Mater Characters, and the Big Hat!  What do you think, did I find a hat that would fit my head?

Anyways, back to the vacation,  we got a better feel of how the buses work.  Yeah, that is right staying at a disney resort, you get free transportation to the parks.  Noah loved riding the buses (no seat belts), lots of people to talk too, and there was something different on each bus.

I know I mentioned the huge tree in the airport, but each Disney Park had a huge holiday tree all decorated up, and was beautiful at night (couldn't get a good picture of that).  But the day time photos were just as remarkable.

We showed up a little after the park opened, grabed a map and off to the Toy Story Mania 3D ride.  First pickup a fast pass, OMG what time is the fast pass for, it says please return between 3.45 to 4.45PM.  Wow, show a little late and look what happens.  Once we got our fast pass we decided to see how long the wait was.  It is an hour and half, just getting there and waiting an hour and half for a ride, no thanks.  So we decided to walk the park (or half of it). 

After doing some shopping and getting a good feel for where things were at in the park our scheduled character dining was next.  How they move that many people through a buffet resturaunt with kids waiting for all the characters to visit their table is amazing.  But what is cool is they don't rush you out.  We waited patiently for all the characters to come to our table.  Here is June from Little Einstiens.

After lunch, we went to Playhouse disney, luckily Tiff decided to stay outside, because we had to sit on the floor to watch the "puppet" show.  It was really cool how they achieved the cartoon like puppetiering (sp?). 

We then moved on to the Little Murmaid musical / laser show.  The show was very "cool", that is it had airconditioning, water spritzing, and a very entertaining show. 

Then we went to the far end of the park to meet up with Lighting McQueen and Mater.  Even though it was kind of disappointing that the cars only varoomed, it was cool to get my picture with Noah and McQueen.

After that it was time for the coolest ride at Disney, not that it is fast, or scary, or dareing.  I felt like I was actually apart of Toy Story, and apart of the game.  Wearing 3D glasses, air blown, water spritzing, and spinning cart we sat in all added to the awesome ride.

We then took a walk torward the TOWER OF TERROR, knowing Noah wasn't big enough we didn't go closer.  I think he wanted to go on it.  But we ate supper over on that side of the park, enjoyed the retro sceanery, and then headed over to the Christmas light spectactle.  Which inspires me to decorate more and more each year.  Even though I'll never be able to afford (money and time) to go that crazy.  With that it ended the night for us.  Noah was exhausted spending his first entire day at a park.

Qik - Disney World - Hollywood Studios - Osborn Holiday Lights by Craig Benner

This was from when we went to Disney in December 2009! Recorded from my phone and uploaded using QIK. Pretty Cool; both the phone technology, and the lights!

Disney World 2009 - Day 2 Animal Kingdom

Since none of us has ever been to Disney World, we didn't know what to expect. So between booking a time for our Lunch plans, and knowing animals were at Animal Kingdom, we choose to go their first. With us being exhausted from Traveling the day before I felt like we didn't get out as much as was offered at the park, but we got to enjoy, but not limited too, Finding Nemo Musical, the Kilimanjaro Safari, and character meeting. After the fact, I thought this was a great park to kick off our vacation. We took our time, enjoyed the scenery and left the park early without feeling disappointed - especially since the park closed at 6pm that night.

A fun event that happened at Animal Kingdom was in the Kilimanjaro safari ride. Noah and I sat up front, and as you can tell in the pictures Noah was a pirate. The driver fed on this and interacted with Noah during the entire ride. It was awesome!  Especially, I don't want to ruin the ride for anyone soon going, how the ride is played out.  Noah kept on asking the entire vacation if the elephants were safe.

Another cool thing that we just happened to stumble upon was the character meeting.  We were looking to waste time between a ride and our lunch plans.  So we started to walk the park, and came across chip and dale.  Then noticed 4 other lines, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, and Mickey.  This photo should explain it all.  Look how excited Noah looked meeting Mickey for the first time.

Disney World 2009 - Day 1 Traveling

As I mentioned before, this was going to be a stress free vacation.  Stress free huh? A winter storm is going to hit the east coast on the day we leave. Ring-ring airline calls us, your flight has been delayed. Damn stress setting in and we haven't even left yet. How long of a delay, only an hour whew. Ok, That gives me time to check-in for our flight online, successful but noticed time has changed again which would cause us to miss our connecting flight. REALLY STRESSED NOW. Tiff asks me to call the Guy from airport who called us to inform us of the delayed flight. He gave vague information on our flight but suggested to switch airlines, which he could do for me while I travel to the airport. Awesome, crap flight leaves in an hour gotta pack vehicle and drive in ice and snow. Yeah me. Well with little issues we get everything taken care of. Get on plane and have a great flight to Philadelphia.

We have time to have lunch and relax for a little before our next flight. Walk up to our terminal and WHAT our flight is delayed -UH. During this time I use my phone to check on the 'old flight' out of state college. It was canceled, THANK YOU, united employee for talking me into switching airlines and flights!

Luckily our next flight was only a two hour delay and it was taking us to our final destination, Orlando. Arriving in Orlando was awesome, we walked out of our terminal up the concourse, and sat down and ate Wendy's. Funny, I know, we travelled many hours to eat at a Wendy's in an airport! Anyways, that wasn't the cool part, we took the train (tram) to the main concorse to catch our bus, but when we made it to the main concourse we saw the Disney store, and a huge holiday tree. Just amazing! Then we went down stairs to the catch the bus, that is right staying a disney resort we didn't have to worry about our checked lugage. We walked to the magical express caught our bus and on our way to our resort. Noah thought the bus trip was awesome, TVs came on and showed a little highlight of disney world. Of course, Noah being TV junky, wanted to watch it again.

Arriving at our resort was different, the check-in was normal, but then we had to wait for another bus. The Carribean beach resort was HUGE, not in the number of people staying, but the amount of land it took up. Trinidad South was the village that our building and room was at, and then Old Port Royal was the hub that the food court, restaruant, gift shop, etc was at.

Anyways, the check-in was smooth, waiting for the bus kind of stressful we just wanted to get to our room, and making it to our room seemed like forever. But when we made it to our room, Noah got so excited for his gift, to make the first night special Tiff and I had a basket of goodies delivered for Noah. He absolutely loved it.

After settling in the room, Noah and I decided to walk to Old Port Royal to check it out and get some fruit for breakfast (Remember tiff was pregnant). Anyways, it was so late when Noah and I were walking there we got to watch the Epcot fireworks, truely amazing! And did I mention cold, it got down to upper 40s lower 50s. After watching the fireworks, we finished walking to Old Port Royal, and by the time we made it inside, Noah fell asleep. Poor Kid

Disney World 2009 - Preparing

I've always wanted to go to Disney world resort in Florida.  But my Tiff and I never went.  Well in December of '09, we got take that trip.  It turned out great, no stress and lots of fun times!

Let me roll back time to describe and fill in some details.  In the winter of '08, Noah (our son at age 4) decided we were going, we actually decided with his excitement as a driving force, but wasn't sure when, what resort, and for how long.  After many months of research, in February I booked our Disney world resort and park portion of the trip in December.  It felt so easy, being a computer geek I wanted to book online but had so many unanswered questions.  So I called their booking number.  And WOW what great customer service.  I was on the phone for about 30 minutes booking and getting my answers.

Cool we are going on vacation now... how do we get there.  Disney offered to book our flight for us, but being an informed freak I decided to use the discount websites.  And OMG they were expensive.  Called Disney back almost same price.  For some reason I jumped on united.com to check out info and found a cheap flight.  Bamb it's booked, and this was middle March. 

Ok, now the waiting begins... 9 months to go.

Uh oh.  What we thought wasn't going to happen after many years of trying came true.  TIFF WAS PREGNANT.  It wasn't by accident, but with our luck we didn't think it was going to happen.  When is the due date, early February. Hurry do the math, she is going to be 32 weeks at vacation time.  Hmm, do we cancel?  Do we wait and see?  Well, obviously we waited.

All the months pass, during which We did a lot of reading, general planning, booking of our meals, calling Disney to apply the latest discounts, and documenting all the possible ways we could accomplish a successful and stress free vacation.

I'll be posting more articles on each day with pictures.  Check Back :-D  I know it was a long time coming.