A Festival, Flowers, Friends, & The Fab Four - Adventures both old & new - UPDATED 4/25 About This Page:

[amandal]

Yea - You're BACK!!!! Can't believe we get an update the day after your arrival!! I can't wait. . . . . .

[scdisneyfan]

YAY! Welcome back....sorry you feel bad Cant wait to read all about the trip!

[Starla4436]

Welcome back! I cant wait to read all about it...Feel Better Soon.

[Suzie&Jay]

Can't wait for your TR, Melissa! Hope you're having a wonderful time Shoot a wink at Eye Love for me

[Colexis Mom]

Welcome back Melissa I hope you're feeling better soon

[POOH]

Glad you're back and can't wait to read the TR.
hope you're feeling better soon.

[kimkdmm]

welcome back
cant wait to read about all of your adventures... yay

[mestitch]

I feel I should begin this TR with a few disclaimers....
A) If at any time I sound ugly or bitter....it was for good reason
B) If you're a smoker, please don't take any offense to any ugly comments I make about smoke breaks...
C) We had a million times better trip with T & K than we did with this crew.... (T & K = the inlaws if you didn't read my last TR)

SO, now that all that is out of the way, I guess we'll begin.

Sunday, March 23 - departure day
We had packed everything up the night before so this morning Andy got up early this morning to run to the store to pick up a few last minute necessities. When he got back I finally got up to start getting ready and spotted a cute little Peter Rabbit chocolate bunny sticking up out of one of the bags of luggage. A nice little Easter surprise from Andy

We got all ready and got everything packed up in the car and were headed out by 9:30am on our way to my grandmothers for Easter lunch with my parents and my grandmother. No way out of this Can't disappoint the moms...
So after a 2 1/2 hour drive we were there. Lunch was fab as it usually is when it's prepared by my Memee and my mama We both ate too much but that's what you're supposed to do when you eat at Memee's.

We left them around 3 and headed out to meet Kevin and Lori at their house b/c their house was on the way. Just a few minutes at their house and we were on our way.....about 200 feet down the road before we had to pull over while they turned around to go back....they forgot their vouchers and were insistent on getting them. (I mean really, who forgets their frickkin' WDW packet?????? )

Finally we were on our way, for real this time...

Andy wanted to indicate that we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us....

We had to make a couple pit stops along the way... which I don't normally do. I hate stopping. I just want to get where I'm going and spend the least amount of time in the car possible. Andy was right with his "monkey in a cage" comment...

See what I mean??? And I know you're drooling over my travel attire Andy told me I looked like a hobo.

We arrived in Brunswick around 8:30ish and found our motel. Across the street was the GOASIS gas station which was like the megamall of gas stations. They had a Subway, Burger King, and coffeehouse all inside. And people were just hanging out like they would at a coffeehouse. We made note to definitely remember the GOASIS for furthur trips We all grabbed something to eat to take over to our room, got checked in and we all went to our room to eat.

Audrey enjoyed her chicken nuggets....
I told her to freeze so I could take her picture.....

She took me quite literally
And this next picture shows just how excited she was about where she was going the next day...


Kevin, Lori, and Audrey headed off to their room for the night and after a quick bath I hopped into bed as well. Andy had found Monsters Inc. on the Disney Channel and it was like a sign (That is his favorite movie) So we layed there and watched it and then went to bed afterwards. I woke up at 3:30 all ready and raring to go...but I still had about 3 1/2 hours of sleep time left. I woke up every 1/2 hour after that hoping it was time to get up and go........until finally it was! Andy came out of the shower with some crazy styled wet hair and asked me what I thought it looked like. My response "Bozo the clown....or maybe Ace Ventura"..... not the answer he was looking for...apparently he was going for the "Wolverine" 'do. Oookay.... I love ya, but Hugh Jackman you're not! We got a good laugh out of it though

Now I had told them that we wanted to leave between 8 and 8:30am.... so around 8 we called them and told them we were heading downstairs to grab breakfast and we'd meet them there, ready to go. When did they get downstairs? 8:30am....pushing it right to the limit....
But it was okay b/c we were still on schedule and getting ready to be on our way!
We all pulled over to the GOASIS to fill up and we were on our way!

Coming up in next post: Arriving through those fabulous WDW gates!

[POOH]

Great start Melissa. And those disclaimers sure sound ominous.

[amandal]

Peggy, I was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, I'm not thinking good things here, Melissa . . . . .

[mestitch]

Monday March 24 - arriving at our happy place!

So 3 episodes of Lost and a round of the alphabet game later we were exiting off of I-4 and then it was through the magical gates!!


A few seconds later we were being welcomed home at the POFQ

The guard at the gate got a good laugh out of my cheer of excitement when he said "Welcome home" I just that!!!
We all headed over to check in. Right as we got out of the car a woman walked up to us and was like "Hey Melissa and Andy" Totally caught me off guard b/c I didn't recognize her so I wasn't sure who she was. It was Mom2of2 (and I apologize I can't remember your actual name ) She told us she was from Gifts of a Lifetime and had handled our photoshoot with Robyn. We told her that we had the best time doing that and wanted to do it again one day. It was crazy running into someone that knew us! I guess Kevin thought we were nuts b/c he was standing right there with us when it happened

On Saturday I had called Disney Florist to have a Pal Mickey delievered to Audrey. The florist said they'd have it so that it would be waiting for her when they checked in. Well, we checked in, and no package..... We were told it was at Riverside waiting to be put in the room. I explained that we arranged for it to be waiting at check in. Apparently all this info was too much for her b/c she just kept acting all confused and then ruined Andy's surprise b/c he had apparently ordered something as well and was having it delievered to the room and she spilled the beans on it in the process. She finally said that it would be here in about 5 minutes so since our room wasn't ready yet we decided to go park the cars and eat lunch at the foodcourt and then check back. Surprise and magic completely blown.....
While they all went to park the cars and unload some needed items Audrey and I walked around the pool. Audrey LOVES pools!



There'd be no swimming today as it was barely in the high 60's. Not the kind of weather I was hoping for in sunny Florida on my spring break. But hey, atleast it was sunny
We all met back up in the lobby area and headed over to eat lunch...

Andy and I shared the chicken wrap with pasta salad which was very yummy....

Andy took that pic....he's getting so good
Kevin had the same thing while Lori and Audrey shared the cheese quesadilla and some fruit.

After lunch we walked back over to see if the package had arrived. We were told it had and they went to get it. While we were waiting Audrey came in and showed us that a nice family had given her their Mickey balloon b/c they were leaving today and the girl couldn't take it with her. Awww, a nice little touch of Disney magic.

Those balloons are hard as rocks!! I'd never held one before but Andy and Kevin were clocking themselves in the head with it and let me tell ya, it's hard

So after some more confusion the woman brought out the wrong package which meant we had to wait 5 more minutes while they had the right one sent over... Audrey finally had her Pal Mickey.

We all headed out to the bus stop to catch the bus to Epcot.

We didn't have to wait too long before one showed up and we were sitting inside.... when we realized that we had left our APs in the car !!!!! They were clipped in my Passporter which I layed in the backseat in the chaos of checking in and forgot to grab again......so we hopped off the bus and told Kevin and Lori we'd meet them at Epcot. We grabbed a taxi and made it to Epcot a good 5 or 10 minutes before they did b/c they had to make all the stops at Riverside..... But atleast we realized what we'd done before we got all the way over there Way to go, I know!
Coming up: Star Struck Audrey!

[scrapbookmomma3]

Great start! I love reading your TRs. More please.

[KandJluvdisney]

great update melissa
those disclaimers do not sound promising
glad to hear you are feeling better
hurry back with more

[scdisneyfan]

i was so excited to read updates already! We stayed across the street from a starbucks and next door to cracker barrel in Brunswick, needless to say i was estatic but the oasis sounded cool too!
Audrey, is so cute! i loved the freeze pic! Sorry to hear about the mishaps with the surprises, it really does kinda take the magic outta it.
The food at POFQ looked yummy! Cant wait to hear more!

[lindawdw]

Yeah! Melissa's back! Sounds like a rough start for you Melissa. It's definitely a different kind of trip when traveling with friends. Especially when they don't work on the same schedule that you're use to. Too bad the CM at the front desk of POR ruined your surprises. Hope things get better.