"A Very Happy Birthday" Trip Report - Afternoon @ Epcot - UPDATED 8/7 About This Page:

[SuperKate]

When: May 19th - 25th 2008
Where: Pop Century
Why: Celebrating Nick's 29th Birthday at his happy place
What: I will post my itinerary for all of you itinerary nerds. I'm sure some of yours will put mine to shame, but I'll post it all the same.



Ok let's slow down a bit. Let me start by introducing myself to those of you who don’t know me. (Which now that I think about it, may be a lot of you.)

My name is Katey, or “Kate” as I have become more formally know. Here is me way back in 2006. It seems so long ago. I look so young.





I’m from St. Louis, Missouri. I’m 23 years old and a nursing student. That is the reason I am just NOW writing this.
Nursing school is one of the most life consuming things I've ever been involved in. I finally finished my summer classes and have nothing to do except work. So this is the result of that boredom. I work part time as a Patient Care Tech (fancy word for nurses assistant) in the Intensive Care Unit at one of the largest trauma centers in St. Louis. I love my job, and I’m very proud of it (at times I'm prideful to a fault about my job...oh well I'll work on it.)

I was a frequent poster on Passporter waaaaay back in 2004-2006, and I lurk the boards daily. I come from a semi-Disney family. I took many trips as a kid, including a Disney cruise. As a young adult I took two trips in 2004 and 2005. (I realize that I am still a young adult…I guess I should rephrase that as a “late teen”) Then in late 2005 I decided that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life so I took a college hiatus.

I’m lucky to have an amazing family who is a constant support system for me. Here is a picture of us from March. Me, Step Dad (who is truly my dad), Mom, Sister, Brother-in-law, and step brother. Not pictured is my sister’s amazing daughter who I am in LOVE with, Brooke. Well actually, let me just add a picture of her b/c she is so darn cute!



So I applied and was accepted into the Disney College Program in the Spring of 2006. I had the opportunity to audition in Chicago for an entertainment role, and landed a part in the "chipmunk height range". Here are some of the roles I played in that time.



Me as Jessie

Me as Perla
Me as Pooh Bear.
Me as Dale

I was also King Louie, Gideon, Yellow Rabbit, Chip, Suzy, and a couple more.

It was truly the greatest experience so far in my life. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. It was life changing. When my CP time was over I had had enough Disney for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I still LOVED Disney and everything about it, but I was ready to get back home to a normal life. I didn’t really think about Disney too much for a year and a half. I had a lot of personal stuff going on in my life at that time and I needed to focus. We all know that Disney can keep our heads in the clouds. I had just gotten out of a serious relationship that I’m sure a lot of you remember, and I needed to pick a career path already!

Fast forward to March of 2007.
I met this goofy guy, Nick.


Ah, and also I recent picture of yours truly!

He is 29 and hails from the Illinois side of St. Louis. He’s type 1 diabetic, and rarely seen without a hat. He works for UPS, and does freelance graphic design. His hobbies include music, hockey, fantasy sports, Star Wars, Cardinals baseball, and his girl Kate. He is a passporter member under the alias of MyNameIsNick. We actually met through some mutual friends online. We hit it off instantly and have been together ever since.

He was a NON Disney person. *gasp* He had NEVER seen a Disney movie in the theater. *gasp gasp* He had most definitely never been to Walt Disney World. He had a lot of catching up to do!

Well after a few months of dating, the itch for WDW came back to me around October of 2007. Nick knew about my college program experience and he knew I loved Disney, but I don’t think he realized just how nuts I was. I brought up the idea of taking a trip, and he actually showed a lot of interest. He said he had always been interested in going, and always found it to be intriguing. Without much hesitation I booked a trip for January 2008. We did it BIG.

-8 days 7 night at the Wilderness Lodge- Courtyard View
-Dining Plan
-Signature Dining several nights
-Park Hopper plus option

Needless to say it was an AMAZING trip. Nick was hooked after the first day, and fell instantly in love with Epcot, pin trading, Illuminations, Wilderness Lodge, Steamboat Willie, and Jiminy Cricket. He will forever be a Wilderness Lodge junkie. Here are some pics from that trip. I took close to 1000, so this is VERY few.

a Star Wars welcome basket from memories by Betsy. She’s GREAT!


Nick at Flying Fish Café without a hat =)



When we got home we missed it desperately. Nick was listening to live365, and looking at Disney Pins everyday. I always caught him looking at Disney stuff on ebay too. He truly, truly loved it. I decided we had to go back, and I figured why not for Nick’s birthday. I went back and forth about the idea for a few weeks. I knew we wouldn’t be able to stay deluxe again….no dining plan….so I thought about waiting until next year. I am used to staying value and moderate, but I wanted to be able to stay at the lodge again.

LONG story short I contacted Small World Vacations where I was hooked up with Terri Amundson. LOVE her. She quoted us with a great rate that I couldn't pass up! She booked us at Pop-Century May 19-25th. We got a AAA discount and qualified for the Park Hoppers Plus promotion that Disney had running at that time. We decided against the dining plan this time around. I love Disney in May. It’s one of my favorite times to go. When we went in January is was chilly, and dreary most of the time. I actually missed the heat of WDW in May. It was a much different trip than last time, but it was great all the same.

So let’s get on with the show, shall we?

As we have seen from the legends known to us as, Melissa and Andy =), I imagine that my Nicky will give his input as well. I’m sure he won’t be able to sit back and watch. Whew….so here we go!! Now that I got all that stuff out of the way, I can start acting like my silly self.

[DopeyGirl]

KATEY!!!!!!!

If you got him hooked after the first day, and he's got the itch to keep going back, he sure sounds like a keeper to me!

[DyanKJ130]

back, Kate!! So good to see you posting again!! Nick sounds like a super guy. Can't wait to hear more about your trip

[lonereb]

Kate, I love your TR. Looking forward to more. Glad Nick loves Disney too.

I think your pics of your characters you played is fantastic. I probably 'saw' you and didn't even know it. Looks like fun.

[lablady]

Yeah! Kate is back! Can't wait to hear all about your trip.

One question.......did you ever forget which character you were playing? I would think that could happen if you are playing a different one every day!

[SuperKate]

I realize that the pictures in this installment and the last one are a bit too large, I hope to have more time tomorrow to fix that.

The weekend before our trip was jam packed with stuff to do. Nick and I don’t do a whole lot except work, go to school, and hang out with my family. I know, we sound like loads of fun. I found it hilarious, albeit somewhat annoying, that the weekend before our trip we had a million things to do. Now I HATE packing. Errr, I highly dislike packing. I had to correct myself. If my mom were to stumble across this I would get in trouble for saying I hated something. Sorry mom. (She will never read this.) I digress. PACKING: I loath it, but because we had such a busy weekend, I had to pack 4 days in advance. To put it nicely, this made me crabby. It helped to know that I would soon be in my happy place, celebrating Nick’s birthday at his newly found happy place. We had a wedding on Saturday, that went late into the evening. Nick used to book bands for shows here in St. Louis, and a band that he has been friends with for years came into town for a show that was a pretty big deal. So of course we had to go hang out with them on their bus and all that stuff that we love to do. I love hanging out with these guys, but I knew it would be a long day, and it was. It’s okay though, we were going to Disney the next day and everyone was green with envy. Muahahahaha.

Typically we take a flight out at the (pardon me) butt crack of dawn, and hit the ground running as soon as we get there. This time I decided to fly down a day early, check in, hang out, and rest up for our first officially day on Tuesday. I will now do this for every trip. It was great having that first day to relax and get settled. After our busy weekend we woke up on Monday morning, showered, loaded up Sophie (my car), and headed to the airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave out of the Southwest terminal at 12:30pm, if memory serves.

Here we are leaving my house.
Loading up Sophie (my car)


We got to the airport, group ‘A’ I thank you, got the typical airport junk, and before we new it we landed in sunny Orlando. Wooooo!!

THIS is where some trouble started. We went downstairs to claim our luggage. We didn’t use DME because: A. I wanted my luggage right away, and B. our plan was to rent a car. HA…our plan to rent a car. I will get back to this.

We stood there and waited….and we waited….and we waited….I had all my bags but we were still missing one of Nick’s. This is the point where Kate gets a little heated. I’m not great at dealing with things when they don’t go quite my way, or as planned. LONG story short, Southwest was expecting us. They already knew we had a bag that I thought was lost forever. I had overreacted for no reason. It was actually kind of my fault. I put yellow ribbons on all our luggage, to make it easier to spot. They are the same yellow that DME send you to put on your luggage. Well DME snagged my bag in St. Louis and put it on a flight to Chicago. They promised us that we would have it later that evening. Way to go Southwest! They fixed the problem, and actually called us twice to confirm that we had gotten our bag.

WARNING: Scathing review ahead of PAYLESS RENTAL

Now we usually take a town car and use Disney Transportation so this part was new to us. We hopped on the shuttle to take us to our rental car. We get to this lovely little rental car place where the people as my mom put it “saw us coming from a mile away.” Nick and I both look like a couple of teenagers, so maybe they thought they could pull a fast one over on us, I dont' really know. We waited in a short line and we walked up to the lady behind the counter. I felt like I was at the DMV. It was hot in there, and dreary, and the people looked a little questionable, not that I’m judging. Clue number 1. We walk up to the lady (who was the manager I may add), gave her our confirmation number, and she proceeded to ask us if we want to upgrade for ‘x’ amount. “No thank you” Then she told us the total, and asked us what kind of insurance we wanted. Again, “no thank you.” She THEN proceeded to tell us that if we declined the insurance that they would put a $600 hold on Nick’s credit card (That was actually a debit card). Um…”No thank you?” So she called us a cab. She let us walk out of there…no sale…because we didn’t want their insurance. Oh but not before she made us feel like fools for not reading the fine print. She said it so sweetly too. “Sometimes people just don’t read the fine print.” It was like she was rubbing salt in the wounds that she created. I did read the fine print. I was screaming in my head, “HI I HAVE CAR RENTER INSURANCE ON MY OWN.” It was going to cost double what the car cost to rent. I think it was something like 90 bucks a day. Gross. I was so glad to get out of there. Then this towncar pulled up. It was a company I hadn’t heard of. This man drove 35mph on Interstate 4. 35 mph PEOPLE! He actually pulled onto the shoulder to let someone pass him….on the INTERSTATE! So sixty dollars, and what felt like 75 hours later we arrive at Pop Century.

Our room was ready, thank goodness. We got settled in. Our room was in the 60’s section. It was about a 5 minute walk from the main building. As a side note; every time I see pictures of the “Legendary Years” I get a creepy feeling in my stomach. It just seems so haunting looking across the lake and seeing these unfinished buildings in the distance. I don’t know maybe it’s just me. Well where was our room? RIGHT ACROSS from the “haunted looking” Legendary Years. I was creeped out the first night when we walked back to our room. *shiver* After Nick gave me a “you are so crazy” look, and after I explained to him that I read that they are going to tear down the “haunted” buildings, we went into our room.

After a few minutes, we decided to get cleaned up and head to DTD for some shopping. What else? We walked down to the food court and had some lunch/dinner. I called my mom and told her about disaster that was our arrival in Orlando and she was pretty mad about the car rental place. She said something to the affect of, “I have been renting cars for years and they NEVER put a hold on my credit card for declining their insurance.”

ON a happier note, here are some pictures of us around the resort.





Our room number:


Now don’t get me wrong, I love Pop Century…and this was my second stay here. It was my 3rd stay at a value, but we desperately missed our deluxe amenities. I guess the Wilderness Lodge will just always feel like home.



The year Nicky was born


Then we hitched a bus to DTD for a few hours. We started off at, where else, the Pin trading mother ship. This place is insane. I love it. It’s always very hot in there though. Has anyone else ever noticed that? We went to World of Disney, and Nick found a new hat for this trip.


I love it.

We stopped at Ghirardelli too. I love what they have done to the inside of this place. Instead of one BIG line with several people on the registers, it is several lanes. Very nice. I spent a lot of time here during my college program.

After we finished eating our ice-cream we decided to head back to the resort and get settled in.


Up Next: A birthday breakfast surprise for Nick, and our morning at Animal Kingdom!

[chezp]

Great start - and I love all the photos of the characters you played. I was always curious about which ones you were and now I know!

[bsblady01]

more please

[emtpej]

Really nice! This may help us plan our next trip!

Thank you!

[DyanKJ130]

Oh boy, what a scary start at the airport and car rental, but glad you have finally arrived at POP! the photos!! (The size of them is fine. The guidelines have changed and we are now allowed to post photos up to size 640x480 ) Sounds like you had a wonderful time at DTD! Can't wait to hear more

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Katey and welcome back Great intros!! Sorry your start to the trip was a little maddening Hurry back with more

[lauren-roxy]

Welcome back Katey!!!! As a fellow nurse I can say that nursing school really is difficult, but so worth it when you are done. Great start and wonderful photos!!

[piratefreak]

Great start at DTD. Sorry about the car rental disaster and your bag taking an extra plane trip. How awful. Can't wait to hear about your first full day.

[MontiMouse]

Welcome Back Kate!! Can't wait to hear more about your trip so hurry back.

[mcc0313]

What a great start....except for the car issues but glad you made it to your resort and settled in. Can't wait to hear more...