Here at the Carousel - SSR on the fly!

[corinnak]

Well, today is the day we get on an airplane and fly home. I am sorry I didn’t get more put up here while we were still in WDW - I think a little fatigue started setting in and I just wasn’t getting things written up very well, due to falling asleep.

I haven’t nosed around AKL at all about DVC coming in, but I will say this: I will be glad to stay at AKV! We have really enjoyed this resort for the short time we have been here, but coming from a 2 bedroom to a plain old hotel room is a bit of a let down in some ways. Mr. Tall walked into the room and said “OH, it’s a bit small!” Well, yes. And there is no kitchen, only a refrigerator. And no laundry - just hand washing in the sink and drip drying over the tub.

It has worked out OK, though. We have eaten at Boma for dinner and breakfast now, and have done a few of the activities around the resort including the storyteller and the cookie decorating. There are usually a few animals outside our room, though we are off in a back corner that seems to be mostly populated by the big-horned cattle and occasionally giraffes.

I have pool reports and more photos and more days in the park, which I am in the middle of writing up and sending to Photobucket and everything, but I will have to finish when I get home, for now it is time to throw everything into suitcases and go home. We will be in the freezing cold weather by this afternoon, if all goes as planned. It is always sad to leave, but truly, by the end of every trip, I have felt like I have had enough. This trip, I felt like I had had enough of the theme parks pretty early, but I could still take a good bit of resort time. We had a nice mostly relaxing couple of days. I’ll write about it on the plane.

 

[Erie Islands]

Thanks Corrina! I've looked forward to these reports the last few days-thanks for taking the time to keep us entertained. Have a safe flight and bundle up!

 

[jns]

Just found this thread
Thank you for sharing and I love all your photos
you could be writing our trip report you sound a lot like me

yes and we have the cruse of Tom Sayers Island too , one of the kids either has a meltdown or gets lost
but DH always seems to fall asleep there

Congratulations to your DS on eating so much of the kitchen sink
and how magicial was that getting the free Cruise to see the Fireworks

Looking forward to hearing more

we are going home for the first time in November to SSR

BTW did you have the dining plan

Hope you have a safe trip back home

 

[mamaprincess]

AWWW, the last day! Thanks for the wonderful trip report and all the beautiful pictures. I look forward to reading your last installment and seeing more pictures.

 

[corinnak]

This is how not- live this report has become. I wrote this up yesterday and didn't have time to post it before we had to get to our Magical Express. Well, better late than never, so here it goes:



Well, today is the day we get on an airplane and fly home. I am sorry I didn’t get more put up here while we were still in WDW - I think a little fatigue started setting in and I just wasn’t getting things written up very well, due to falling asleep.

I haven’t nosed around AKL at all about DVC coming in, but I will say this: I will be glad to stay at AKV! We have really enjoyed this resort for the short time we have been here, but coming from a 2 bedroom to a plain old hotel room is a bit of a let down in some ways. Mr. Tall walked into the room and said “OH, it’s a bit small!” Well, yes. And there is no kitchen, only a refrigerator. It has worked out OK, though. We have eaten at Boma for dinner and breakfast now, and have done a few of the activities around the resort including the storyteller and the cookie decorating. There are usually a few animals outside our room, though we are off in a back corner that seems to be mostly populated by the big-horned cattle and occasionally giraffes.

I have pool reports and more photos and more days in the park, which I am in the middle of writing up and sending to Photobucket and everything, but I will have to finish when I get home, for now it is time to throw everything into suitcases and go home. We will be in the freezing cold weather by this afternoon, if all goes as planned. It is always sad to leave, but truly, by the end of every trip, I have felt like I have had enough. This trip, I felt like I had had enough of the theme parks pretty early, but I could still take a good bit of resort time. We had a nice mostly relaxing couple of days. I’ll write about it on the plane.

 

[TinkGirl]

I loved hearing about your stay at SSR two weeks after ours. Hope you're getting some rest today. I made the mistake of going to work the morning after our return (about 10:00 p.m.). The kids also went to school. I work in kindergarten and was sitting in a rocker that afternoon. I ended up rocking myself to sleep in front of the entire class--hard to live that down. The other teachers in the room were like "darn, we had no shaving cream." The nice thing was that my husband stayed home from work and did the laundry and went to the store. Thanks for taking the time to post during your vacation.l

 

[corinnak]

Day 6: Epcot and....More Epcot.

We got up fairly early to head out for Epcot rope drop. Our friends were behind us as usual. We are both equally convinced of the wisdom of our methods for our particular families, so they tend to sleep in a little more, and stay at the park till close once they have arrived, while we tend to get up early and tend to leave in the middle of the day for a break during the hottest, most crowded hours, and return in the evening. This divergence in timing has been the source of much of our discombobulation with them this trip. We get in early and do a bunch of stuff, and when they arrive, they....seem to do most of that same stuff we were doing, so we don’t manage to synch up all that well most of the time.

But this day was different. In frustration with the 39 1/2” height of my thrill loving Mr. Little, I booked a table for two at the Princess Storybook Breakfast at 8:45. Mr. Wonderful (I really ought to add DH to the list of Mr.’s, don’t you think?) and Mr. Tall accompanied us to the front of the park, and were first through the turnstiles that morning, apparently.

The walk through a deserted Epcot was amazingly nice. It was another one of those misty mornings, and it is so cool to feel like you have the park all to yourself. Our fellow early morning travellers ALL seemed to have at least one princess or little girl in their party. Go figure!

Finally we arrived in Norway and checked in with the nice young Norwegians attending the podium. They told us to wait and they’d call out our number. So we waited. We waited over here, we waited over there, we moved under the little Akerhaus roof, and they called our name, party of two. And we go to move towards the woman holding the little slip of paper when another woman walks past her, grabs the paper and starts to join the line with her party of 4. I say to the Norweigian cast member “Uh, did you say “Wonderful, Party of 2?” And she said “Yes - is that you?” And proceeded to get the slip of paper back from the other woman who hadn’t, apparently checked in yet. She seemed to be a non-native-English speaker, which could perhaps explain some of the confusion. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for someone who is a native Spanish speaker to understand what someone is saying in fairly Norwegian accented English...... Off we go to meet Belle. She was the atrium photo-shoot character that day. Mr. Little was happy enough to meet her and posed for a picture, and then we moved on to our nice little table for two.

We enjoyed the buffet, and our waiter brought out some eggs and potato casserole and ordered us some pancakes, since we are vegetarian and didn’t want any of the meaty offerings, which was nice of him, I must say. I was surprisingly pleased to see that they had lefse in the “bread” offerings on the buffet, and equally pleased to find that they did not have lutefisk. I went to St. Olaf College, and so this was like old home week - the place even reminded me of college, somehow.

Finally, after we had mostly finished eating and I think we had even paid the bill, the princesses came around to see us, one after another. First was Snow White. Mr. Little is not a fan of hers, and wouldn’t come out from under the table. She was great, though - she looked and sounded just like she does in the movie, and called Mr. Little “Bashful.” I had to photograph her on her own, though.

Next, Princess Aurora came to see us. Mr. Little DOES like Sleeping Beauty, so out he came from under the table. They had a nice friendly talk, and she really was beautiful!

The next princess to visit us was Ariel - and Mr. Little was WAY into her. I told her how whenever he sees a picture of her, he shouts “It the Little Mermaid! I LIKE Little Mermaid!!!” and she really, really was Ariel. She asked if Mr. Little was a sailor, like her Prince, Eric, and she talked about Scuttle giving her misniformation - she doesn’t know why people always have their dinglehoppers in their food! And she gave Mr Little a big princess kiss on his cheek.

He gave her one right back on her....dress! Which she seemed to think was very sweet and she said “Wow! You really took it seriously when they said “Kiss the Girl!” He was just beaming after that.

I told him the last character we would meet would be Mulan. He said “But she not a prince.” The boy is quick - a little confused at times, but quick. I said that was true, but she did save all of China, so she is a big hero. When she came over to visit, Mr. Little was....back under the table. Wouldn’t come out. Nope. I took a photo of Mulan on her own as well.

Our princess meeting being concluded, we headed off back to Future World to meet up with the boys. On our way, we saw the Segway Tour.

I had hoped to send Mr. Wonderful and My friend’s husband, Mr. Incredible (He planned and paid for this trip in secret -well, my family knew since we were supplying the villa- and kept the secret for several months so he could surprise the whole family on Christmas Eve - pretty Incredible, no?) on this very Segway tour, on this very day, but we finally opted against it for this trip. I contacted Mr. Wonderful via cell phone and it turned out that they were just now getting to Test Track. While they had been ahead of the pack at the turnstile, at the front of the group going into the Land, as they approached Soarin, Mr. Tall suddenly asked if there was a bathroom between there and the ride, so they didn’t actually ride with the first wave. They got fastpasses and got in the standby line, but they still had a wait. The whole point of scheduling that breakfast, in my mind, was to keep from waiting around while the other two rode the big Future World rides, but it was what it was.

Mr. Little was NOT interested in leaving the after-show of Test Track. He liked trying out all the cars way too much.

We got fastpasses for test track for later, and there was a jam or something because one got cut off and the last one didn’t print at all and I had to talk the CM into giving me one because the other FP machines wouldn’t print the fourth one either - since that other machine had read but not printed. They went to check out the jam, too, since I was able to point them to the machine having trouble. I probably appeared to be a fastpass scammer, though.

Next we went to Innoventions. One of the favorite things from the last trip was the design and race a robot attraction, so the boys wanted to do this again. It takes a little while to go through the whole program. I worked with Mr. Little and we made a very fast, very bouncy, very green robot. Mr. Tall worked alone and made a very attractive robot. Now here is an embarrassing thing - I really like racing these robots, and I actually seem to be fairly unaccountably good at it. I raced this one with Mr. Little on the jump-pad and we came in first place.

Then I felt really badly because Mr. Tall didn’t have such an easy time of it, and didn’t finish the race even, and burst into tears. Poor little guy. We then got a call from our friends who had been there for a while, and were on their way to use their Soarin’ fastpasses. I was going to ride with Bailey anyway and asked if they would mind waiting a few minutes for us to get over there. They said they’d wait, so off we went, leaving the others in Innoventions, saying that we’d meet them at the Rose and Crown at noon. Which was cutting it a bit close, I have to admit.

We got to Soarin’ and got into the Fastpass return line with our friends. Mr. Tall and his compatriot, Aladdin, being 8 year old boys, started in with their getting-boistrous routine. Finally, as we were getting ready to enter the loading area, I said to them “Look. If you can keep your hands to yourselves and stay calm, we will let you sit together, If the two of you can not behave as the gentlemen I KNOW you are, we WILL seat an adult between the two of you. Do you understand?” Solemn nods. And do you know what? They were totally fine the rest of the day! We were all astounded. I am not sure if it was my deadly serious manner or if the exhaustion had finally gotten to them, but at last, they had settled down to enjoy being in Florida together without all the antics! This wasn’t the first time for any of us to be on Soarin’, but it was my first time on the top row. I did like the lack of feet in the view, but noticed that the top of the screen was visible, which was a little bit of a detraction, though not much.

Soarin’ is in the midst of a cell phone dead zone. The entire Land Pavillion was a dead zone last January, and overall, it seemed improved, but when you get down into the bowels of the Soarin’ cue area, well, there is no signal. It wasn’t a big problem, but Mr. Wonderful had been trying to call me to let me know his status. You see, after the somewhat trouble-laden Test Track fastpass acquiring mission, I realized I had lost Mr. Little’s annual pass. We are a mess of admissions on this trip. Last March, Mr Little was 2 and he and I traveled along with these same friends to POFQ while Mr. Tall and Mr. Wonderful kept on with school and work. I got a DVC annual pass at that point, and Mr. Little didn’t need one. Then in October, we traveled with my mother and grandmother (a whole nother story!) and got here a few days before Mr. Tall and Mr. Wonderful. Well, Mr. Little was 3 by then, and I knew we had this January trip coming up, so I got him an AP as well. We had gotten 10 day hopper plus passes last January and still had a few hopping days left, and in October, I bought some non-hopping plus passes for the two poor AP-less members of our party. So if I were going to lose anyone’s tickets, the best one to lose is clearly one of the AP’s - they are so easily replaced at the parks. So they had been off getting another one of those made up for Mr. Little after they were done at Innoventions East.

Finally, I called him back, once we were out of the pit of Soarin’ and he informed me that they were at the Rose & Crown. Now this one had been on Mr. Wonderful’s list. He is the most well traveled of our family, having lived in Europe during his middle-school years, and he had particularly enjoyed his travels to England. We got to our table and.....ta da! There are crowns and dragons there because we were, for some unknown reason, the Table of the Day! It was one of those little Million Dreams things where you get some paper crowns, some paper dragons (the kind that they have for the kidcot station) and a little card that says we were the table of the day and labeled our family as “Royal.” The kids thought it was fun, and Mr. Wonderful was just beaming because he liked the ambience there so much. We had the fruit and cheese plate, which was an interesting experience - the stilton in puff pastry was very strong for my sheepish taste. We also shared the vegetarian selection which was quite good, slightly curried vegetables in some sort of pastry over some sort of slightly curried grain. We liked it, though!

After that, we called our friends who were watching Miyuki making candy sculptures in Japan. We didn’t see her this trip, but I have seen her twice before and she is amazing. My kids have each been lucky enough to have gotten one of her creations. Sadly, my friends’ kids didn’t get one (not in the right spot, I guess) and they were disappointed. Really, though, the fun is in watching her make them - the candy is not that delicious, and if you don’t eat it, it breaks on the way home, I have found.

So their plan involved dessert, Test Track, Innoventions and Mission Space and I’m not sure what else, but OUR plan involved going around to ride Maelstrom, and mentioning that Norwegian ride was all it took to get their plan to change. They decided they’d meet us in Norway and we’d see what the wait looked like. Now this was about 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon in January, and I am sure you are all thinking “Maelstrom is a Fastpass?” Well, the fastpass machines were all covered up and put away, and the wait was 5 minutes, as I’d kind of expected. My friends insisted that they had seen people waiting half an hour for this ride last time, though. They may have been there in the evening, I guess. That early in the day in January, practically no one is Maelstromming. We rode once - the kids loved it. We rode twice, the kids loved it. The decision was made to move on to the bakery for dessert. We got in there and there was a line, it was fairly crowded and Mr. Little was being a bit of a menace. So I scooped him up and took him for one more boat ride, asking Mr. Wonderful to save me a bite of whatever he got. The final Maelstrom ride was....just the same as the first two, really. The desserts were good, and off we went to Test Track, which was......broken down! The shock, I know.

Next: More pictures of SSR
Followed by: Innoventions, part Deux, Mr. Tall’s Mom Helps Him Win a Race AND - we stay TOO long at Epcot.

 

[corinnak]

Views from our balcony:

The walk from Carousel to the Springs

The Paddock

Approaching the Springs Bus

 

[DisneyFreaks]

corinna your photos are breathtaking!!

 

[corinnak]

It seems like my report is winding down - I may just gloss over the rest of that Epcot day and get right to the last morning at SRR..... but I wanted to give a shout out to each of you that has written since my last big reader acknowledgement. Thanks to all of you that have taken the time to post on my report. It means a great deal to me that you have enjoyed my reports.

Those pictures make me so envious, while I sit here all bundled up by the fire trying to stay warm. We had a little snow storm here today in the Northwest and it is somewhere in the teens!
Keep it coming!

Oh, that sounds so cold - Now that we are back home, that warm weather just seems like a long dream I had. Hope it has warmed up where you are!

Brother I can sleep on a concrete if I were tired enough, and let me tell you, After freaking out in the parks and gladly hitting every ride and seeing each act or show for the 5th 6th and 10th time I hit the pull out bed and pass out. But don't use me as an example, I have been told by my wife that I am much to similar to a sleeping Grizzly Bear.
Hope this help

Did I mention the fold out couches? I wonder if this was intended to be posted on the fold-out-couch thread.....in any case, the fold outs at SSR are, according to my party, better than the ones at OKW. Seemed a bit on the firm side to me, but workable. I do kind of wish the DVC resorts didn't rely quite so much on the fold outs for sleeping capacity, though. I like the couch to be a couch!

Corinna I just had to add how wonderful it was seeing all the wildlife at the resort. Be on the lookout for a cute little otter. DD and I were walking to AP one morning and saw something at the edge of one of the ponds. It took a while to figure out what it was but we were finally able to see enough of it to see that it was an playful otter sticking his head out. We watched him swim and play for quite a while before heading on our way.

Something I've never seen at Disney before!
Lori

Loribell - that sounds so adorable! I think someone in our group did see the otter - I think it was my friend's husband on one of his morning runs. I never did see him, but hopefully he will have many years of frolicking that we can all enjoy when we visit SSR! I wonder if there is more wildlife than average at SSR or if it's just that the landscaping is set up in such a way that it makes it much easier to see the wildlife than at other resorts because the ponds are so exposed. It was sure fun to observe, though!

Thanks for the pics!! The castle looked especially beautiful.
Two weeks from today I'll be at SSR !!
P.S. It's much warmer today--almost 25!
Gotta get back to work!

I am glad the temp is up into the high 20's and low 30's now. Cause that single digit stuff would have been really hard to come home to. Your trip is coming up quickly! I hope you are having fun getting ready for it and that it is a fantastic trip for your family!

What wonderful pictures and reports! I am thoroughly enjoying reading and looking! I hope the rest of your stay is magical! We are going in September and that seems just WAY to far away right now!

I'm glad you have enjoyed my little report! September will come sooner than you think and then I will be the one envying you! I don't think we will be back until next winter. Hope your trip is great and that you are enjoying the planning!

Thanks for the pics! I'll be checking in 2 weeks from tomorrow!

Your trip is coming up so quickly too! Are you and GinaMattsMom going to be there at the same time, then? I didn't know of any other DISers who would be at SSR at the same time as we were. I hope you have a spectacular, wonderful trip!

Those pics are to die for. You have really captured the beauty and tranquillity of SSR. Whenever you have the oppurtunity, will you post them in the SSR Lovers thread, they would sure beautify the place! http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=16485292&posted=1#post16485292

I am glad you enjoyed my SSR photos! I will certainly post on that thread soon.

Loved your report and pictures! It is so nice to read DVC trip reports this time of year. Now I am day dreamin' up here in Michigan.

Kelly, I am glad you enjoyed my report and thoughts of warmer weather. I love Michigan, too, though. We go there for part of nearly every summer.

We just got back one week ago today. We saw the otters, too. Three of them were playing in the water by the long bridge to the Paddocks. Turtles are there, too. Wish we were, now. Enjoy the rest of your trip!

It is clear to me now that I needed to set aside a whole day for just SSR, at least! I need to spend more time on that bridge. We only went across it once and that was at night - I didn't see a whole lot of wildlife because I was chasing after two preschoolers!

OK - that was page 3.....I will reply to page 4 posters next!

 

[corinnak]

It is really neat to hear your day to day stories. Thanks for posting!
DH and I are going to SSR for the first time next Sunday. We were wondering about where to request a room and what the busses were like. Glad to read your replies to the same previous questions.
My parents are going with us for their first trip to WDW. Sounds like it will be a little crazy during that time, but glad to have the extra 4 nights to ourselves after they leave. I'm 5 months prego, so will need the time off my feet!!
The weather looks nice there, I hope we are just as lucky! We are having a werid week in Houston at 30-38 degrees. Looking forward to the 70's again!

Have lots of relaxing fun and keep posting!
Jen

Jen, are you at SSR now as I write this? I hope you got an excellent room! Which location did you end up requesting?

I hope your parents are having a great trip and that you are finding plenty of time to relax and take care of yourself. I hope that your Florida weather is perfect and that the rest of your pregnancy goes very easily!

I'm so enjoying your live report and pictures, Corinna! Thank you! Have fun!

Glad you liked it liznboys! We did have a great time!

Wow Corrina what a way to end a frustrating day! That is fabulous. I always love having others go along with us but I sure with they wouldn't mess up my plans while they are there.

Thanks for posting. I had been waiting for it all day!
Lori

Lori, you hit the nail on the head - it was great to have friends with us to share the experience inasmuch as we were together, but plans seem to get broken a lot with that many people. It really was the best way to end a frustrating day. By the time we got back to the room, everyone was feeling pretty cheerful. Our friend's kids were in bed asleep and they had made up from a fight that they said they had been having during all this. Apparently there was some confusion because each one thought the other didn't want to go to Beaches & Cream, but the sad reality is that they both DID want to go. Well, it all worked out in the end, anyway!

Awesome!!

What a magical surprise!!

Thanks LIFERBABE! It really was magical. We didn't get any special fastpasses, lanyards or nights in the castle, but this was perfect! And the funny thing is, we didn't even get a "certificate" for this really magical thing, but we did get a certificate for sitting at the "table of the day" at Rose and Crown, and that was really much less of a Magical Moment, overall! I guess it just goes to show that the Disney magic is not awalys "certified," which is actually kind of refreshing!

Wonderful report. Thank you.

I am glad you enjoyed it -you are very welcome! Thank YOU for reading!

Thanks for sharing especially the photos.

Actually you were right to think Beaches and Cream to be a part of the Beach Club because it is.

That was wonderful about the criuse and really nice of the CM to offer.

I'm glad I wasn't just totally confused! We did finally end up going out of the Beach Club past Cape May and. I guess it really is right in the middle, but the map we were looking at at the Beach Club had it listed under the Yacht Club. We got directions from a nice bell services CM, though, and weren't too confused for long. It sure is pretty over there.

We feel super lucky to have been offered that cruise. It really made the day special!

Wow that sounds like a "dream"! The pixie dust runneth over! May the rest of your trip be just as magical and thanks so much for this beautiful report!

P.S. That Kitchen Sink is a wee bit gross but you have to try it once! 5 of us could barely put a dent in that thing.

It truly does feel like a dream at this point. Nothing else was as magical as that night, but we did have some wonderful times the rest of the trip too.

I guess you are right that it's good to have tried that kitchen sink. I think if we had had our friends there, we might have managed it, but I don't know for sure. It is a LOT of ice cream. I can't believe they say on the menu
that it "serves 4."

Thanks for the wonderful updates! That is so great that you got the free Illuminations cruise! How magical!

Enjoy the rest of your trip!

It was such a magica surprise, I almost didn't believe it myself. Thanks for reading!

Great post so far!

We went with my brothers family last month. It can be hard to keep two families on the same schedule, esp since it was thier first time to WDW.

The fireworks cruise really seem to make everything good after all. What a great surprise that had to been!!

Hi tomandrobin! It's good to know that we aren't the only ones to have had this schedule coordination trouble. I think our problem was that we knew that we weren't going to be on anything like the same schedule when we went into this, but we disagreed about how best to deal with our time together - I would have liked a plan, and they feel like it's pointless to plan ahead because the plan is going to change when you get there. I hope your trip was fun overall.

It is amazing what a little pixiedust can do. I guess things can work out for the best even when they don't go according to plan!

Wow this is so great! Thank you so much for taking the time out to post. I'm having a great time reading and can't wait for more!!

Thanks for reading! I am glad I wrote down as much as I did while we were on the trip - it's so nice having so much of it already preserved without having to strain my failing memory too much!

MMMMMM

Have a nice time at AKL!

LOL - That Kitchen Sink really is pretty, isn't it? We did have a good time at AKL, but truly, nothing compares with a DVC! Thank goodness they are putting a DVC resort in over there!

Oh Corinna--
so sad to leave, but at least you can stay a while at AKL. You are not in Minn so that is the best part.
Those pictures are soooo beautiful and mostly I say that about the chocolate dessert. I have been trying to be good so I can fit in my bathing suit, but geez, if I am eating stuff like that in 12 days who cares!

Yeah, that is an extreme sundae. Though there is a lot of rich food to be found around WDW, that is for sure. I guess you could always get a bigger baithing suit? I still can't believe they have them in stores this time of year and are taking out the winter stuff. Crazy! How many days now? 9?

Oh corinna I feel your pain. I was so sad to leave SSR. I found it to be the prettiest resort we have stayed at. Thank you so much for your wonderful reports and photos. They have really brightened my winter.

Leaving SSR was definitely a bummer. Mr. Tall says that it is his favorite resort because he enjoys the formal landscaping. Well, I'm glad he loves it! I'm glad to have helped you through wintere a little bit.

Thanks Corrina! I've looked forward to these reports the last few days-thanks for taking the time to keep us entertained. Have a safe flight and bundle up!

I am glad you enjoyed reading about my trip. We are certainly back to winter but somehow recharging our batteries in Florida always seems to make it easier to get through the rest of it!

yes and we have the cruse of Tom Sayers Island too , one of the kids either has a meltdown or gets lost
but DH always seems to fall asleep there

we are going home for the first time in November to SSR

BTW did you have the dining plan

Jackie, I'm glad you found my report! I don't know what it is about Tom Sawyer Island. I think I helped another family avoid a lost child incident there on Friday. I can't believe your DH always falls asleep there! Well, I guess it is pretty peaceful compared with the rest of the MK!

I hope your November trip is wonderful - SSR is a nice place to stay, I think.

We did not have the dining plan. We considered it with our friends. They had had it before and seemed to enjoy it, but I have the DDE card, and left to our own devices, we would actually not even break even most days on the dining plan because we tend to favor breakfasts and buffets for character meals, and we are vegetarians, so we never seem to get the really pricey entrees. We tend to split an appetizer, a main course and a dessert between DH and me, which is so much less food than on the Dining Plan, but we don't really want any more than that, and we are pretty big eaters! We probably spent a bit more this trip than we would have on the DP because we had more table service meals that took advantage of the DDE, I guess.

AWWW, the last day! Thanks for the wonderful trip report and all the beautiful pictures. I look forward to reading your last installment and seeing more pictures.

Thanks mamaprincess - my last installment is still to come, obviously. I will do my best to get there!

I loved hearing about your stay at SSR two weeks after ours. Hope you're getting some rest today. I made the mistake of going to work the morning after our return (about 10:00 p.m.). The kids also went to school. I work in kindergarten and was sitting in a rocker that afternoon. I ended up rocking myself to sleep in front of the entire class--hard to live that down. The other teachers in the room were like "darn, we had no shaving cream." The nice thing was that my husband stayed home from work and did the laundry and went to the store. Thanks for taking the time to post during your vacation.l

Oh, it is amazing how much there is to do after a trip. We did jump right back into real life yesterday, but our plane got in in the afternoon on Sunday, so it wasn't too rough. The kids seem to have had good first days back at school, though Mr. Tall still has some work he needs to make up. We did our best, but he ended up so tired at the end of the day, that it was hard for any of us to focus on homework. We are all still on Disney-time. I got up at 5am this morning, not of my own volition! Mr. Little took a long afternoon nap yesterday. I wonder how long this will last! That is too funny about you rocking yourself to sleep. I can see how that could happen!

corinna your photos are breathtaking!!

Thanks, DisneyFreaks - it's easy when the subject is so photogenic! Seriously, I think it is hard to take a bad photo at Disney - they have everything lit and arranged to perfection. I am glad you liked them - I do still have a few more to share.

 

[aprince&princess]

Thank you Corinna for this wonderful report. I felt like we were there with you. (oh, how I wish that were true.) I can't wait to be back in Disney.

The pictures and details were great. I'm glad that you guys had such a nice trip.

 

[corinnak]

Thank you Corinna for this wonderful report. I felt like we were there with you. (oh, how I wish that were true.) I can't wait to be back in Disney.

The pictures and details were great. I'm glad that you guys had such a nice trip.

I'm glad you are enjoying it - I'm not quite done yet. Almost, but not quite! There is nothing like Disney, that is for sure!

 

[corinnak]

Actually, upon further reflection, “Mr. Tall’s Mom Helps Him Win a Robot Race and We Stay Too Long at Epcot” pretty much covers the rest of that day. I did finally get to ride Test Track, and Spaceship Earth 2 times. Mr. Wonderful took Mr. Little on the Nemo Ride and they saw Turtle Talk while we rode the test track. By the time we were heading out to the bus at about 6pm, I felt as though we really should have left 4 hours before. Mr. Little fell asleep in the stroller at the SSR bus stop and slept through till the next morning. We were all similarly tired, though we managed to stay awake until we got back to the room. Our friends stayed on to close the park on their last night in Florida, our last night at SSR.

I spent the evening catching up our laundry so that we’d get through our AKL stay without needing any laundry services or facilities. I LOVE that so much about the DVC resorts - it is, to me, the height of luxury to be able to wash a load of laundry in your very own room. Yeah, I have low standards. But it is SO handy.

The next day, our friends left in a bit of a scramble, and we had a couple of hours before we needed to be checked out. I continued packing things up, and there was a knock at the door. It was one of the housekeeping staff asking me when we would be leaving - well, it was direct, that is for sure! We communicated mostly through hand gestures - she was evidently hearing impaired. I told her 10 O’clock with all of my fingers, though I thought we might be cutting that a bit close. Bell services came to get our luggage at 9:45 and we collected the things we were carrying with us, and off we went. Goodbye lovely 2 bedroom villa! We miss you already!

We had a nice walk to the pool, as it was our intention to swim before we headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge - I felt like we hadn’t adequately used the resorts amenities that week, mostly through keeping up with our friends and being tired. We have GOT to slow down more next time. And I thought we were within our rights, swimming on check out day. I thought that I had read on these boards that there were changing rooms and I knew there were lockers. We didn’t find the changing rooms right away, though, and I went into the Community Hall to see about getting a lifejacket for Mr. Little, who is a remarkably good swimmer for a 3 year old, but still probably needs a little help at the bottom of the water slide.

Anyway, Community Hall looks so fun - I wished we had had more time there. And I talked to the woman at the window (didn’t catch her name) and asked where the changing rooms for the pool were. She said that “No, we don’t do that here.” But another CM happened through and told us there were changing rooms under the spa with a shower in each and that would be our best bet. Then I asked about borrowing a lifejacket for my son, and the first CM asked for my room key, which, of course, was back with the guys outside, so I said I’d run and get it, but the second peppy CM said “Oh, we can fill out the form without it - no problem!” So it seemed like one CM was trying to discourage me at every turn while the other was practically shoving me towards the pool. I believe that we WERE still within our rights to swim in the pool late on the morning we checked out, right?

We changed and put our stuff-not-to-be-lost into a locker (which cost $1 apiece - they are free at OKW with a room key, so I was surprised) and went for a wonderful swim. There was almost no one in the pool, the sun was out and the water was so lovely and warm. The air temp was probably in the high 60’s or low 70’s and the water felt just lovely. I’d climb up to the top of the very fun water slide and put my feet in that water rushing out at the top and it was just wonderfully warm. This was our second trip to the pool, but our first time on the water slide, and we had a blast. The water seemed a bit warmer than it had earlier in the week, if anything.

This is how busy it was that perfect day:

We also made use of the more secluded hot tub - there was a family of 4 older kids in it when we arrived, but after a while, they left with their parents and we had the thing to ourselves. Mr. Wonderful got a Pina CoLAVA, which was just delicious. I wish I had thought to ask for that recipe! I love the little waterfall near the hot tub:

Finally, we had had enough fun in the sun, and showered and changed back into our regular clothes. Before long, both boys were asleep - Mr. Little in the stroller and Mr. Tall on one of the lounges in the sun (I had packed extra clothes for everyone but him - I had put some out for him to wear, but he just put on his swim trunks and swim shirt, and his clothes must have gotten re-packed. So I had told him to lay in the sun and let his swim clothes air-dry a bit more. And he dozed off! While the boys rested, I FINALLY went and picked up the package from the shop that I had had sent from MGM on Monday. It was a dress up Little Mermaid for Mr. Little - they have so little Little Mermaid merchandise in the parks, it is kind of a shame. And even less gender-neutral Little Mermaid merchandise. I couldn’t even buy him a T-Shirt with his favorite character. All they had was girly pajamas. Did I mention this before? I am still a little bitter.

After I picked up the packages, I sneaked off to take a few photos of the new Grandstand section, but didn’t press my luck - there were workers all over the place there, so I confined myself to just in front of the carriage house and parking lot area.

Better than nothing, right?

After this, we grabbed a boat to DTD for our departure from SSR. We cut it a little close, but the boat arrived a few minutes after we did, so it wasn’t TOO close! We saw one of those coots (or whatever bird that is!) drying its feathers, too.

We rode over to the Marketplace with a sleeping Mr. Little where we got some lunch before catching that bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge. Mr Tall had ravioli from Wolfgang Puck Express and Mr. W and I had sandwiches and soup from Earl of Sandwich. Speaking of which, it seems to me that the soup used to be a much better bargain - they have increased the cost to $1.99 and reduced the size of the container - a double whammy. The little desserts and salads also seemed to be a vastly reduced size. I am sorry, but $1.59 is way too much for a half-cup of pasta salad! I know Disney is overpriced, but it really was a tiny amount of salad.

Mr. Little slept through lunch, but I saved him half of my Caprese sandwich in case he woke up.

He did wake up at the AKL bus stop, and really chowed down on that half sandwich. The ride to the lodge was uneventful, as was our check in. Our room was not facing the large area in the middle, and we were kind of at the far end of the looong hall, but it was only about 5 minutes to the food court, which was better than the 10 minutes from the Carousel. When we walked in the door to our Savannah view room, nice as it was, it was no villa. Mr Tall's comment was "It's a bit small...." Yes, we are thoroughly spoiled. We had doubts about how we were going to fit in there with all our luggage when it arrived!

Well, we managed all right, and we did enjoy our views of the animals.

We had dinner at Boma, and sent Mr. Tall to Simba’s clubhouse for actually less than we would have spent for him to have dinner with us. It included dinner of his choice, which was grilled cheese. He thought it was a great deal too.

After dinner, we went to the storyteller, who took a looong time to get to the actual story.

And then we went to a wildlife game that the kids seemed to enjoy. After that, we put on our swimsuits and hurried down to the pool, but unfortunately the slide closed just as we were getting in. Oh well. The pool was COLD. We stayed in a few minutes and I said “This is terrible! I think we should go to the hot tub to warm up and then head back up to the room.” Which we did. Again, the hot tubs were pretty full. Just two data points, but I thought it was interesting that the DVC resort had the warm pool and the deluxe had the c-c-c-cold pool.

It was good to have an early evening, as the next day was our last full day in Florida and we were planning to do Magic Kingdom in the morning and Epcot in the evening. We had a request from Mr. Little for Pirates of Caribbean! And I wanted dinner from Morocco, and to see Off Kilter, if possible.

 

[tomandrobin]

Loving all the pictures!!!

 

[mamaprincess]

Thanks for responding to all of your readers! I am going to be so sad for this report to end. I almost feel like I was there with you. it has been such a dose of pixie dust! You stayed at our 2 favorite places on property, Akl and SSR!

I too am looking forward to staying at the VAKL. We are to spoiled by DVC at this point to squeeze the five of us into a hotel room. Plus we too are enamered of our in room laundry! We may do more laundry at WDW than we do at home in a week. Boma is one of our favorite restaraunts and we enjoy AK park and the wonderful themeing of AKL immensely! Hopefully VAKL will have a warm pool.

Thanks so much for the wonderfully detailed report. Your pictures are amazing! Mr. Little sounds adorable.

 

[mamaprincess]

It just occured to me that you could go over to the Creative DISigns board and request a t-shirt design of little mermaid for a boy. They come up with some amazing stuff over there. You can print the design on Iron-on transfer paper and iron it on to a blank t-shirt for your son.

 

[corinnak]

Saturday, January 20th, our last full day in Florida. We started the day with Breakfast at Boma. This was, ahem, our third meal at Boma this trip, but our first ever breakfast there. It was good, but not nearly as spectacular and interesting as the dinner. If you go, I highly recommend the Jungle Juice - it was fantastic. The eggs were good, and the pasteries were excellent. My boys especially liked the little muffins here. We did have a custom made omlette, but if you get this, I suggest asking for it with no additional salt - I think the chef threw some in and it was too much. I prefer to salt my own food (or not.)

After we finished breakfast, we headed out to the bus stop. Somehow between Boma and the Bus Stop, I lost Mr. Little’s green jacket (that he didn't want to wear anyway). I ran back to look before the bus arrived, but that bus stop is FAR from the lobby, and I had to run back to catch the bus before I tracked it down. I figured I would check at the front desk later.

Also, WHY is the smoking area outside AKL between the front door and the far away bus stops? I am all for having a convenient place for smokers to smoke their smoke, but it seems to me to be a poor idea to put it right on the way to the bus stop so that you have a whole bunch of people, including kids, traipsing past all the time. First, there is always that risk of burns that you get when moving kids past burning cigarettes, not to mention the cloud of smoke everyone has to then pass through, but I also can’t imagine that would be the most pleasant set up for the smokers either. I mean, I would think that they would prefer a more relaxing retreat in which to relax, free of large amounts of boistrous foot traffic, but then I guess I am just speculating.

The bus for the Magic Kingdom arrived in fairly short order, and as we were riding along in the back of the bus (our preferred seats, for some reason known only to my kids). There was a family sitting right there near us at the back, though. The little girl was having a birthday - so said her button- so we wished her a happy birthday. I realized that I had forgotten the package of wipes. Now Mr. Little has been potty trained for some time now, but I still buy those baby wipes because they are so doggone handy for travel, and they clean up pretty much anything. Mr. Little had strawberry juice on his face (the boy loves berries), but it wasn’t a big deal. But the birthday girl’s mom said that they had some wipes (they had a baby as well) and her husband opened up their diaper bag and got them out just for us. It was so nice. Talking to them further, it turns out they are owners at the Boardwalk Villas! They had used all their points for a big gathering but decided to come down on an AP rate for their little girl's birthday instead of going skiing because there was no snow. Very neat! This was the second family of Boardwalk owners I had met this week on the bus!

When we got to the Magic Kingdom, a little after ropedrop, we split up. Mr. Tall and Mr. W went off to ride BTMRR while Mr. Little and I went to get Space Mountain fastpasses. I offered to get a couple for Buzz or Peter Pan for him to use later, but he wouldn’t hear of riding anything but Pirates of Carribeeen! How about Aladdin? NO. How about the little cars? NO! Pirates of Carribeeeen! Well, ok. So I got 4 Space mountain FP’s and off we went. I thought maybe when he saw the carpets, he would relent. Turns out that BTMRR was having a delayed opening due to technical difficulties, so we all just headed for those pirates. 15 minute wait - not too bad, especially if there is nothing else in the park a person will consent to ride.....

It was good as ever, and the people behind us were freaking out that we were going to get soaked as we passed under Davy Jones. We all enjoyed it thoroughly, though once again, I was a little creeped out by how eerily real the new animatronics on Jack Sparrow look in comparison with the older figures.

After we finished with that ride and made it safely above-ground again, Mr. Little finally told us what else he wanted to do that morning. Go to the real pirates and shoot the cannons! Huh???? Oh. Right. The fort at the Accursed Tom Sawyer Island. Well, fine. I will risk it again, for the team. Misters Tall and Wonderful went off to ride BTMRR standby, and we got in line for the raft across. We went straight to the fort, where Mr. Little systematically decided which shooters were too loud and which ones weren’t. The ones up in the corner turret rooms always seemed louder to me. The other two finished riding, and decided to ride again, since we had the Fastpasses and were stranded on the island. I tried to take their picture from the Fort, but the fact is, my camera ran out of battery! Here is the one photo I managed to get from up in the fort, which we can pretend contains the rest of the family - it is a neat vantage point up there!

While we were in the fort, I think I may have saved another family from The Curse of Tom Sawyer Island. We were standing by the cannon in one of the hallway parts, and a little boy goes racing by. Follwed by another wearing a red shirt, and along comes a grown up, maybe their grandmother, She gets the second boy and sends him back to the rest of their group and calls after the other boy, but starts to head back to tell whoever that she couldn’t find the first one, not really all that concerned. I piped in with “Is he wearing red too?” And she said “Yes.” And I said “Oh, he just ran across the little walkway to that far turret” Or something like that, and she went off in that direction to collect him after all. Whew! I think she got him, too, That was a close one! You never want to let your kids out of your sight on that Island, I must say!

We finished up at the fort, having seen all the guns in their arsenal and the eery animatronics in the stable, too. Then we went over to the main part of the island where we walked around until we got to Tom and Huck’s fort at the top of the hill. Mr. Little had a BLAST at this simple little play area, pretending he was navigating a pirate ship (he instructed me to drive) and when the rest of our family met us there, they were put to work on “the cannons.” Finally, we safely explored Injun Joe’s cave without incident, though we were glad to have a tiny little flashlight for Mr. Little.

After we stepped off of the return raft and breathed our big sigh of relief at once again having thwarted the Curse of Tom Sawyer Island, we split into two parties - Mr. Little and I went to ride the riverboat while the other two went off to ride Space Mountain on a fastpass. I had never ridden the riverboat before, but heard that it was not all that exciting, but of course! I beg to differ! Mr. Little and I walked all around the boat before it left the dock and finally found the captian’s room. We spent a while looking at the maps and the bed in there and then along comes the pilot CM and moves the little rope to the side. There was another boy, 12 years old, who had also been checking out that room with his dad, and they asked if they could go up stairs to the steering room with the CM, who replies “Of course!” She was sooo nice - she let both Mr Little and the very sweet 12 year old boy drive the Riverboat with the BIG wheel. I wish I had a photo of that, but my camera was still drained of battery. Well, at least I have written it down.

Once the boys safely returned the riverboat to the dock, Mr. Little and I high-tailed it for Tomorrowland, oh, except that we stopped to watch that new stage show in front of the castle. There was Captain Hook and Maleficent and dancing and singing, and we couldn’t quite resist, even though it isn’t much of a story, from what I can tell. The show only had about 10 minutes left, but Mr. Little was interested, so out of the stroller he comes and I popped him up onto my shoulders so he could see. It seemed to be the thing to do! He did seem to enjoy what was left of the show. Then off we went to Tomorrowland, where the other two were sharing a smoothie after Space Mountain. We came into Tomorrowland ahead of a very large tour group - there were quite a few that week, and they all seemed to be from Spanish speaking countries, Central or South American, I think. I can’t imagine that would be an especially pleasant way to tour the parks - wherever you go, you are in a long line of people, you know?

Anyhow, they were all headed for the standby line of Space Mountain, which had been saying 30 minutes. As soon as that group hit the line, I thought - mark that up to 50, at least! But I guess it doesn’t work that way. Anyway, we had fastpasses, and I had decided to have a go with Mr. Tall because he had been enjoying it so much. Mr. Wonderful took Mr. Little to ride the TTA. The plan was for all of us to head out of the park as soon as we finished. I had ridden Space Mountain in 1987, and remembered it being dark and my younger brother being scared and not too much else. I was seated in the front seat of the car, with Mr. Tall right behind me, and away we went. It was a lot rougher than I would like and being in front, there is an uncomfortable feeling that your head is going to slam into something, so I guess I didn’t enjoy the ride as much as I would have hoped, but still, it was good to try it again.

When we were done there, we made our way out, and caught a bus for Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was around 1pm by the time we were underway and Mr. Wonderful asked how long a ride it was to AKL. Which reminded me that what I had forgotten was that we were hoping to get the boys to the cookie decorating program at Boma that started at 1pm. Well, we got them there late, but the cookie decorating was still going on, and the boys got a chance to do it! It will be really neat to have DVC at AKL - we are so excited about that. I hope that these fun little events will be open to DVC guests as well, and that they will even add more activities on the DVC side.

While they were madly squirting frosting and sprinkling sprinkles, I took the opportunity to do a little detective work. Sadly, it wasn’t of the DVC variety. No, I was trying to track down a hat that Mr. Incredible had arranged to have sent over for Aladdin, who had lost his prized Everest Trip a few days ago in the Magic Kingdom. Also, we had a box of missiong groceries that didn’t quite make the transfer, and there was that lost and found jacket as well.....actually, quite a lot of stuff to track down before an afternoon break!

 

[corinnak]

Well, we are home and I am going to try to put the cap on this trip soon, but daily life has been intervening. That's what always seems to happen, and it's why it has worked out so well for me to have written most of the trip down "on the fly." If anyone is still reading this, thanks for giving me the opportunity and encouragement to share this trip.

Loving all the pictures!!!

I'm so glad! - I tried to take lots of them this trip because I never feel like I have enough once the trip is over.

Thanks for responding to all of your readers! I am going to be so sad for this report to end. I almost feel like I was there with you. it has been such a dose of pixie dust! You stayed at our 2 favorite places on property, Akl and SSR!

I too am looking forward to staying at the VAKL. We are to spoiled by DVC at this point to squeeze the five of us into a hotel room. Plus we too are enamered of our in room laundry! We may do more laundry at WDW than we do at home in a week. Boma is one of our favorite restaraunts and we enjoy AK park and the wonderful themeing of AKL immensely! Hopefully VAKL will have a warm pool.

Thanks so much for the wonderfully detailed report. Your pictures are amazing! Mr. Little sounds adorable.

Mamaprincess, thanks for taking the time to read and reply - I feel like I've gotten to know you a little on this vacation too! I'm glad that you have enjoyed the photos - I had a fun time taking them.

I am also hoping for a warm VAK pool, but I suppose only time will tell.

Thanks also for the idea for a shirt for Mr. Little - I will have to look into that, cause that is the best idea I've heard for a mermaid shirt for that boy! He can just just adorable and sweet and funny - he can also be very.....challenging and obstinate, but I suppose I have left that mostly out of the report. No, really, he was pretty easy to live with on this trip for the most part. But he's 3 - cute and difficult definitely seem to go to gether at that age!

 

[mamaprincess]

I never do trippie's as I have the patience of a gnat but I completely admire those who do.

We eat at Boma quite (ehem) frequently at each trip. If it was up to DH, we'd probably eat no where else (but it's not). I to find the breakfast to be quite a few notches below the dinner but we eat it anyway.

The smoke at AKL out front bothered us too. I had forgotten. They need to find a more appropriate area.

I am waiting with baited breath for VAKL. It's the only other resort I know we will forgo a stay at SSR for. I can't wait. Dh should be afraid. Be very afraid.

It's awful when your camera runs out of battery. One year ours ran out of battery and we had to buy one in the park for over 20 bucks. This year our camera ran out of battery (rechargeable) right as MVMCP parade began.

Good save on the kid at TSI. That family is blissfully unaware of how close they were to certain doom.

Loving your trip report all to pieces. I am there!