~~~~~ Sew, the heat is… ON! ~~~~~ June 2019 ~~~~~ Update x4 6/30!!!!!!!!

So glad to see the start of your trip report and the amazing YouTube video! Looks like you had a great time. Happy Belated Birthday to you!
 
Following along :wave2: Love the day before stuff!!!! It is always the most anticipated day. The last minute chatting of plans, seat selection on the plane, packing those last minute items, going over the lists. It's all fun!!!!!! Can't wait to hear more. I didn't watch the video, as I love to read your trip reports. I'll watch it after to bring everything together ::yes::
 


I love reading the day-before stuff!

Glad you were able to get your hair done, it looks great!

Disney/Lily Pulitzer needs to be the theme of my life!

Can't wait to read more!!! popcorn::

Right? LOL I am loving wearing LP in the summer so much! If summer would just get here? LOL

Joining in too! I'm glad you were able to get your hair done by your stylist (keeping my fingers crossed you didn't end up getting sick with the flu!!) Love the new color and style! Anxious to read more about your June sweltering trip report :)

I almost cried tears of relief when she was able to get me in!

It was hot - don't get me wrong - but I wasn't dying like the girls were? :scratchin

I'm following :)

Welcome back Lillian! :lovestruc

It’s an age and stage thing I reckon! I caught myself crying at the tv ads for toilet roll once when I was mid 40s and approaching the menopause because of the cute puppies and kiddies in the ad! Like seriously sobbing :scared1: :rotfl:


Love the nails :)

Gorgeous!

Would have made a great title :thumbsup2:rotfl:

It’s the same in small rural towns here though many of them were also undertakers when I was growing up ( not so much the case now). My favourite was a pub/corner shop/undertakers called PJs in Carlingford where I holidayed with my best friend and her family as they owned a house there. We’d get a bottle of “football special” and a quarter of “chewing nuts”.and sit at the shop side of the bar pretending to be grown-ups. Thanks for sparking that happy memory. I haven’t thought about those days in a long time :)

Ok - good - I keep telling myself that I was overly emotional about my hair... but I don't go through all of this outfit planning and coordinating only to have a hair fail. LOL

This makes me feel so much better... I had a (local) mom of one of Allison's friends once judge me harshly for letting the girls go to a "bar"... :eyeroll: Clearly - she didn't grow up local or in a small town? LOL However - the undertaker portion kinda made me chuckle... I wonder how that worked out? :scratchin "bodies in the back please..." LOL

I've read through so many of your TR's and can't wait to follow along again!!!!
Following:hyper2:
Following - that video is just priceless; look at you all starring in your own Disney commercial! I hope to go back at the end of 2020 if plans work out, so looking forward to reading along with your posts!
I'm a pink and sparkle fan, so those nails are #1 with me, and as a friend once told me "Some people are born with glitter in their veins!"

Thanks! While she was taking all of these videos on our trip (no pics, just videos) - I was sorta getting annoyed with her. But then she sent it to me after, and I just loved it! It was a great idea, and totally captured our trip!

Hehehehe! I was just looking at them this morning, thinking that I might go get them filled? I kinda want to keep them... Normally I am a "1 and done" with my nails after trips, but these are fun... And they match everything so nicely!

Love to hear about the days before! That's when spirits (and sometimes tensions) are high. I'm not particular about a lot of things but I am about my hair. I've had the same stylist FOREVER and I'm not sure what I'll do when she hangs it up. So, I get it. And, so close to your departure :sad: Glad she was able to rally and come back to work. Your hair and nails turned out great! Hope you got a good night's sleep - anxious to hear how your travel day went!

Oh good - I am so glad I am not the only one! I've been going to my stylist for 10 years now, and i just know I will walk out of there looking good every time - so to trust that to someone else, it was super hard!

I always love the day before - you have all the excitement of the trip ahead and it’s literally just hours away. I just wish the trip would go as slow as the days leading up to it.

Right? Same! LOL

Following along. Can't wait to read your report. I'm glad you all survived the heat. You were there for one of the hottest weeks! Ack!!! So sorry we missed you by a few days :-)

Yes - it was definitely warm there! I wish it would warm up at home now!

Late to the party, as usual, but I am so happy to join in!
So glad to see the start of your trip report and the amazing YouTube video! Looks like you had a great time. Happy Belated Birthday to you!

Thank you! <3

Following along :wave2: Love the day before stuff!!!! It is always the most anticipated day. The last minute chatting of plans, seat selection on the plane, packing those last minute items, going over the lists. It's all fun!!!!!! Can't wait to hear more. I didn't watch the video, as I love to read your trip reports. I'll watch it after to bring everything together ::yes::

Sounds like a plan! LOL I totally understand. :) I hope you don't forget to watch it though - it's pretty cool. :)

Whew, I am late, but I made it. Just saving my spot, now I will go back and read....

Welcome everyone!!! So happy to have you all here!!!

I am working on uploads for day 1... I don't think I will get to an update this morning? I have to lift and I am running a little later than I'd like.

Enjoy your day everyone, and now that I am caught up on replies - I'll work on another update asap. :lovestruc

D~
 
However - the undertaker portion kinda made me chuckle... I wonder how that worked out? :scratchin "bodies in the back please..." LOL
:rotfl2: :rotfl2:That’s exactly how it worked. Think there’s still a few like that in Donegal but yeah not so much with the undertaker bit lol:rotfl:
 
Thursday, May 30, 2019

Day 1, Part 1


I was up at 3am with my coffee (actually, it was the iced chai we decided to get the night before) - despite being super excited, I was pretty tired!

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Allison was up at 4...

V straggled along (as usual) at 4:45... Even the prospect of leaving for Disney in a few hours, does nothing to rouse her out of bed any earlier. :lmao:

At the very last minute - literally walking out the door to leave for the airport - we noticed that one of the patches on V's shorts was coming off... So, she threw her travel sewing kit in her stuff, and worked on sewing it as Josh was driving us to the airport.

We were on the road at 5:30am.

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We made it to the airport at 6 - I am thankful, when we have these early flights - that we live close to the airport.

Our check in line was very long - but there were several gate attendants working, so it seemed to go quickly. We've flown out of our "small airport" several times - so I knew that once we were through check-in and security, our gate would be right there... No walking a bazillion miles with our carry ons to find our gate. ::yes::

We were through security by 7am.

The longest line of the morning was for our morning coffee at Caribou - we ended up waiting in that line for 30 minutes. :eek:

While we waited to board - the life of a college student - V did her homework. ::yes::

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Our plane was waiting for us...

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We boarded at 7:45am...

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Found our seats at the back of the plane...

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Something new to us, thanks to Grandpa, I grabbed a deck of cards on our way out the door and threw them into my carry-on... We played cards for 2 hours of the flight (Rummy 500 - or is it 500 Rummy? Either way...). We had SO MUCH FUN and it made the flight go super fast!

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At one point during the flight - V crawled out from her window seat for a bio-break... She comes back, super annoyed - her bathroom was out of TP - and she had to "improvise" (her words, not mine... I didn't ask her to clarify either - LOL). She told the Flight Attendant (so everyone could hear) - the FA went immediately to put a new roll on... The FA comes back, only to tell V that there was a full roll of TP and it was under metal flap. :lmao: My gosh, Allison and I just rolled - and V was so embarrassed! LOL

Our flight landed 20 minutes early - though I didn't note the time - only that we landed early.

We stopped for another bio-break (doesn't everyone do this?) on our way to meet our town car driver... The service we use always texts me a photo of our driver the day before - I really love this - this is something "new" they've been doing only for about the last 4 years. I really like knowing who we are looking for - and as luck would have it - it was a female driver who has driven us in the past.

Fastest luggage unload ever, it was waiting for us on our carousel when we got there. So, we were literally in our town car as soon as we landed. :woohoo:

We had made arrangements with Cindy to pick up bottled water for the girls and sparkling water for me... but I wasn't thinking we'd have to do a grocery stop anyways, as I needed half & half for my morning coffee. We did a very quick grocery stop for that & we were on our way!

Before we knew it - we were seeing an unobstructed view of this!

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We checked in at Shades of Green at exactly 2pm. Sadly - our room wasn't ready... This has never happened to us before and we weren't sure what to do. We were hungry and had initially planned to have lunch at the Poly on our way to the parks... but this kind of changed our plans, because we were all wanting to freshen up before we headed out. We decided to check our bags with Bell Services, and head down by the pool to eat at Evergreens - not our first choice for our first meal - and probably not in the top 10 either, but we were hungry.

On our way to Evergreens - walking past the check in desk - the CM flagged us down to tell us our room was now ready (5 minutes later - LOL)... Change of plans again. Check our room, have Bell Services deliver our luggage, then go back to our plan of eating lunch at the Poly.

Our room request was... Lobby floor, close to the elevators/lobby, with a view of the Koi Pond. We were given room 2108 - which was a bit further than I would have liked to have been, but it was an OK room and not too far away from everything. This room location guaranteed us the "bigger bathroom" - as opposed to the small bathroom in other areas of the resort. These rooms have also been newly remodeled, and seem to be a bit more spacious than the old rooms, because they don't have the half wall between the beds and the couch/table area. Overall, we were very happy with our room, and would request this area again.

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And the "big bathroom" with the long vanity, in a separate room from the tub/toilet... It was SO NICE to have all of this counter space with the 3 of us! It really makes me wish we would have requested this area many trips ago. ::yes::

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I just wanted to show you a pic from Allison's grad trip TR (2015), which shows the small bathroom configuration... The small vanity with the tub/toilet in the same room...

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Anyways... All freshened up and ready to hit the parks! Where are we headed????

Link to Day 1, Part 2

D~​
 
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Overall sounds like you had a pretty smooth travel day! How nice to just hop in the limo. Love that they will do a grocery stop. Your room looks great! I love the sink/counter being outside the bathroom. The double sink and long counter are really a plus - especially for 3 ladies. Glad you could stick to your plan to eat at the Poly. Next stop a park - I'm guessing MK??
 
Sounds like the travel went well. Your room looks great. I can't wait to hear more from your trip
 
Sounds like a good travel day. It’s nice that you have a small airport close to your home. I do, too, but only Allegiant and Frontier fly direct to Orlando from it and I’ve had bad experiences with both. That leaves us to drive to either Baltimore or Philly, both about 90 minutes away.

Your room looks lovely.
 
I thought we would be on vacation at the same time! My 27 yo daughter and I spent June 1-9 in New Orleans. We were supposed to be flying back on Saturday the 8th, but our flight was canceled. We were casually having a last lunch and cocktail on Bourbon Street and I happened to notice the message on my phone. Thank goodness we were staying in a private home, because due to Pride Weekend I doubt there was an available hotel room in the city!

I don't mean to hijack your trip report, but I have a funny story that I bet you can relate to. We were flying out of the Atlanta airport near 9:30 AM, so we got to the airport at 7:30 AM. Went up to the Southwest counter to check our luggage, and OMG. The line to check luggage for Southwest snaked around and around like at Space Mountain, and even around the corner, almost to TSA. :scared1: I don't fly a lot, but I have NEVER seen a line like that at the Atlanta airport. Nothing else was backed up like that, just the SW bag check line. Well, Grace and I were standing there with cartoon blinky eyes, wondering what in the world, having lost the gift of speech. An airport employee, not a Southwest employee, walked up to us and asked us were we flying Southwest (yes!) and where were we going and I told him New Orleans. He said, "Come out here and I'll check you in," and we followed him out to curb side check-in - for Jet Blue, not Southwest, mind you - and within minutes our bags were tagged and we had our bag receipts and paper boarding passes. We basically floated away, wondering why we had been gifted this incredible break. That never happens to us! Grace kept saying, "What just happened?" And then we both proceeded to worry the entire flight whether our bags and their contents were already being sold on Ebay. :laughing: :scared: However, all was well and our bags DID show up in NOLA when we did. :banana:
 
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Your resort room looks very nice. I never did understand why they had the half wall and the room looks better without it. The bathroom sink looks really nice, too. It is every bit a deluxe resort room now. :)
 
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Overall sounds like you had a pretty smooth travel day! How nice to just hop in the limo. Love that they will do a grocery stop. Your room looks great! I love the sink/counter being outside the bathroom. The double sink and long counter are really a plus - especially for 3 ladies. Glad you could stick to your plan to eat at the Poly. Next stop a park - I'm guessing MK??

Thanks! Yes - it does make it so easy! And they park the town car right under the airport at baggage claim - so it's literally just steps away.

Yes - the bathroom was amazing this time! I wish we would have requested this area years ago!

Maybe? LOL

Sounds like the travel went well. Your room looks great. I can't wait to hear more from your trip

It was a good travel day!

Sounds like a good travel day. It’s nice that you have a small airport close to your home. I do, too, but only Allegiant and Frontier fly direct to Orlando from it and I’ve had bad experiences with both. That leaves us to drive to either Baltimore or Philly, both about 90 minutes away.

Your room looks lovely.

I am trying to think who all flies out of our little airport... There are 15 gates maybe? The 2 main ones for us are Southwest and Sun Country. SC does the non-stop flights to Orlando, but SW does not - I have not found a good layover with them in years... We did a 4 hour layover in Chicago on Allison's grad trip, and even though I LOVE flying SW - I'd rather go direct if we can. ::yes::

I am very happy with our room this time, and even though I love sitting out on the deck with a pool view - this was OK too.

Good travel day, can't wait to hear what you do next!!

It was a good travel day!

I thought we would be on vacation at the same time! My 27 yo daughter and I spent June 1-9 in New Orleans. We were supposed to be flying back on Saturday the 8th, but our flight was canceled. We were casually having a last lunch and cocktail on Bourbon Street and I happened to notice the message on my phone. Thank goodness we were staying in a private home, because due to Pride Weekend I doubt there was an available hotel room in the city!

I don't mean to hijack your trip report, but I have a funny story that I bet you can relate to. We were flying out of the Atlanta airport near 9:30 AM, so we got to the airport at 7:30 AM. Went up to the Southwest counter to check our luggage, and OMG. The line to check luggage for Southwest snaked around and around like at Space Mountain, and even around the corner, almost to TSA. :scared1: I don't fly a lot, but I have NEVER seen a line like that at the Atlanta airport. Nothing else was backed up like that, just the SW bag check line. Well, Grace and I were standing there with cartoon blinky eyes, wondering what in the world, having lost the gift of speech. An airport employee, not a Southwest employee, walked up to us and asked us were we flying Southwest (yes!) and where were we going and I told him New Orleans. He said, "Come out here and I'll check you in," and we followed him out to curb side check-in - for Jet Blue, not Southwest, mind you - and within minutes our bags were tagged and we had our bag receipts and paper boarding passes. We basically floated away, wondering why we had been gifted this incredible break. That never happens to us! Grace kept saying, "What just happened?" And then we both proceeded to worry the entire flight whether our bags and their contents were already being sold on Ebay. :laughing: :scared: However, all was well and our bags DID show up in NOLA when we did. :banana:

That was an awesome bit of pixie dust!!! :woohoo: I would have been so worried, as well. ::yes:: Glad your bags made it safely! :)

Off to a great start. Looking forward to hearing more :)

THanks!

Your resort rooms looks very nice. I never did understand why they had the half wall and the room looks better without it. The bathroom sink looks really nice, too. It is every bit a deluxe resort room now. :)

Yah - the half wall was a Disney thing... I think they may have had it in a few of their older resorts? I was thinking maybe Beach Club had it at one time? Not sure? The extra long vanity was so nice!!! The lighting left a lot to be desired though... It makes one's skin look flawless - but it's so dim, it's hard to see.

******************************************************************************************************************************************************************

I am going to lift, and then I will see if I have time to do another update today? I'll try. :)

D~
 
Yah - the half wall was a Disney thing... I think they may have had it in a few of their older resorts? I was thinking maybe Beach Club had it at one time? Not sure?

The first time we stayed at the Contemporary was in January 1981 and there wasn't a half wall. We also stayed at the Polynesian in the early 1980's - no half wall. And then there was the Beach Club in the 1990's - no half wall. We also stayed at the Disney Inn, aka, Disney Golf Resort, aka, Shades of Green - twice, and that was the only place we saw the wall. :)
 
Day 1, Part 2

Once our luggage was delivered, We changed clothes and freshened up...

Then we boarded the Shady Shuttle to the Poly. For those who have never followed my TRs before - or stayed at SoG... The Shady Shuttle is a large golf cart - seats 8, including the driver - it's managed by bell services and if they are not busy - or if you sometimes don't mind waiting (which we usually wait), they will give you a ride down to the end of the SoG property, which is just across the street from the Poly... Then it's a quick walk arcross the street and to the monorail station. We utilize this mode of transportation as often as we can!

Waiting for the Shady Shuttle...

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Our first meal - Captain Cooks... You guessed it - we split our 2 favorites, the Hawaiian Flatbread and the Pork Nachos... And all 3 of us had water - it's very RARE we drink anything, but water in WDW. It's free, afterall.

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So, our original plan for arrival day was to board a bus at SoG that went directly to AK...

However, V desperately wanted a photo of her Mickey outfit in front of the Castle... So we did a 2 hour detour - on a VERY HOT arrival day to MK...

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We literally walked in... Did a few pics on Main Street (I don't even think we went past the flag?), and then back out. LOL

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And then we waited in a SUPER LONG and SUPER HOT line - in the BAKING SUN for these pics... Well, the line wasn't very long - but the photographer was very adamant about getting people posed nicely and with no other people in the background - so it took a long time. Sometimes I get annoyed with photographers like this - but then I am always grateful for the great pics we get.

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We boarded a direct bus to AK from MK...

Cindy was waiting for us just inside the entrance! :woohoo: We were all so excited to see our good friend - it had been too long, as always. :lovestruc No pics of our meet up... As a matter of fact, Cindy was in very few of our pics this trip - which I was sad to discover when we got home.

We entered AK and had a few pics done...

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We did a bit of shopping, and grabbed waters from Starbucks...

We weren't quite ready for dinner yet, so we decided to seek out some air conditioning in the form of ITTBAB.

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After - we decided to make our way over to Pandora for dinner, and to be in the area of our first FP.

Both Allison and I had read great reviews on Satu'Ll Canteen - so we thought we'd give it a try.

I ordered a beef noodle bowl with the charred green onion vinaigrette - and the CM filling our tray - Hali (pronounced Hailey) pixie dusted us with 4 of the Cheeseburger Steamed Pods to try! This was super sweet of her! But ended up to be a mistake - LOL - because now we have to have this exact meal every time we go there, and it's expensive to order all of the noodle bowls + all of the pods. LOL We all loved this meal so much - we actually ate here again later during our trip. ::yes::

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Bellies full - but not so over full that we were uncomfortable... We left the air conditioning and headed towards our first FP... RoL.

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None of us have ever actually ridden this ride - but we all wanted to. I'd have to agree with most people who say it's a "1 and done" - but it was enjoyable, and air conditioned - two pluses in my book.

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On our way to EE - we stopped for a few quick PP pics...

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And a not so flattering one of me. LOL

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After - we decided to ride EE single rider... We had a FP for later in the evening - but we were tired and hot from a long day of travel, so we opted to SR it instead. ::yes::

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After EE, we exited the park with Cindy...

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Cindy took us back to SoG, and helped us haul in our water supplies... The girls decided they wanted some ice cream and a dip in the pool, so Cindy and I visited pool-side while the girls swam a bit to cool off.

After, we stopped for the excellent home made ice cream at the Java Cafe.

Cindy left as we were walking past the parking garage at SoG.

The girls and I went back to our room and relaxed. I sat out on our deck and updated my trip journal. Our view at night... I honestly didn't spend as much time out here as I normally do on our trips. Part of it was the heat, but the other part is that I am a "people watcher" and there really wasn't any people watching to be done with our view. ::yes::

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We were in bed by 10pm, and excited for the day to follow!

Link to Day 2, Part 1

D~​
 
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Your hair turned out great! You all also did quite a bit for it being your travel day. I find that I'm so tired/anxious from the travel day that I am ready to go to bed even earlier on our travel day.
 

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