*Our Fabulous Disney Vacation* About This Page:

[Aspen]

Hi!
I've always wanted to do a trip report and now is my chance. I figure it will help me relive the trip until I am mentally ready to return to reality.

Our Party: Me – Charity, DH – Todd, DS16 – Jacob and DS11 – Travis
Our Journey: We drove and left Ohio on February 3rd at 6:30 in the morning. We took route 77 both on the way there and back home. We were in Disney from the 4th until the 12th. Then we went to North Port, Florida to stay with my parents from the 12th until the 18th. They are snow birds and are renting a house down there for 2 months. We made it home on the 19th.
Our Lodging: We stayed at Pop Century in the 70's section, first floor.
Other Stuff: We had the quick service dining plan, park hopper and water parks and more passes.

We left home around 6:30, stopped for food at Burger King and hopped on the road. We made it to Richmond Hill, Georgia the first night. It was about a 10 hour drive. We got up and left the hotel around 8:00 and made it to the Florida border for our OJ around 9:00. It felt great to be in Florida again, where it is sunny and warm. Ahhh... I think we made it to Pop around 12:30 or 1. When we saw the huge Disney sign we all just fell quiet and listened to “It's Gonna Be a Good Life” (the song Disney currently plays on their ads on TV) the whole way to Pop. As soon as we pulled in I broke down and started crying. I was so relieved and couldn't believe we made it. For several reasons – one was, it had been 8 years since the last time we were there and the past years have been challenging for us. Besides that our car has a lot of miles on it and even though we got it all checked out before we left, we were still very happy the car made it! So anyway, I dried my tears, we all piled out of our stuffed car and went in to get our KTTW cards. I had checked in on-line and I am glad I did! We were waited on in a matter of minutes (unlike the huge line for regular check-in), our room was ready and we were handed our cards right away. What a relief, since we were really early for check in! A cast member was handing out brownies and lemonade in the lobby. Mmmm! I can say the parking lot for the 70's was extremely far away from our room and the walk was torture with our luggage! We got smart when we left and went to get a rolling luggage cart. Shew! First impression of our room was “wow, it's small”. Haha. Last time we went our kids were 4 and 8 – small kids. Now they are 11 and 16. It just felt small and we were tempted to see if we could get a moderate resort room. We ended up being fine with the room and didn't spend enough time in it for it to matter. We took an air mattress for DS11 and we had to move a bed over to fit the mattress in between the 2 beds. So that was a chore everyday, but it wasn't that big of a deal and it just became routine.
We unpacked as best we could, got shorts on and headed out to DTD. We had wanted to eat at Fulton's Crab house for a long time so that was where we chose to eat lunch. Now this was OOP and we knew it was going to be pricey and we budgeted for it. First impression was good, eating on the boat and just the atmosphere. We ordered our food and waited. I had a dish with scallops, shrimp and crab stuffing. The only thing I liked was the stuffing. The scallops were huge with lots of sand in them and the shrimp was just “okay”. It was a lot of money for the amount of food we got as well. DH and DS16 had the seafood cioppino. It had crab, shrimp, clams, mussels, scallops, market catch fish, tomato herb broth and linguini. DH also got a cup of clam chowder. DS11 ordered crab legs off of the kids menu. DH felt the same way I did about the food, DS16 was excited to try new foods and liked his clams and mussels and such, DS11 loved his crab legs.
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After Fulton's we walked around and enjoyed being there. We went to some stores and scoped out what they had. It was just a fun evening of being warm and being in our happy place.
We went back to Pop and the boys weren't hungry so we sent them to the arcade to play awhile. I can say it was SO nice to have a 16 year old to take the 11 (almost 12) year old places without us adults. DH and I went to check out the food court and see what we could get on the dining plan. This was our first experience with it so we weren't sure how it all worked and what was included and all that. We also got our free Disney mugs. They only had pink, black and teal to choose from. DH got the mom's night out dinner with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and corn bread. I chose the salmon, risotto, green beans and corn bread. We picked chocolate cake and tye die cheese cake for dessert and 2 powerades for our drink. We took those to the park with us the next day. After eating and the boys playing video games awhile we all went back to the room to crash for the night.

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Next up – Disney Hollywood Studios and a late night at the Magic Kingdom

[tloveswdw]

Great start to what sounds like a wonderful trip!

[chezp]

What a great start to your trip!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start!

[Cam22]

Great start!

[Tabitha34]

Great start!

[abubbles77]

Great start

[edisneymania86]

Isn't it the absolute best feeling when you finally get back there? It was two years in between our last trips, but it felt like forever! When we got there though, it was like we were just there... ahhh, the magic of WDW!

[mickeyforlife]

[bsblady01]

more please

[FitMom]

Sounds great so far!!

[Aspen]

Originally Posted by edisneymania86

Isn't it the absolute best feeling when you finally get back there? It was two years in between our last trips, but it felt like forever! When we got there though, it was like we were just there... ahhh, the magic of WDW!

YES it is an awesome feeling!!

Thanks everyone. We did have an amazing time.

[apqsmom]

I love reading these! Thanks!

[Aspen]

Sunday, February 5th

We decided to go to DHS our first day. We went straight back to TOT and the line wasn't long at all. In fact the whole time we were at Disney the lines weren't too long. DS16 – Jacob (aka Jake) really wanted to ride it because he chickened out last time we went. I think the little movie and story scares my kids worse than the ride does! DS11 – Travis chickened out right after the movie – same time Jacob did when he was 8! So DH and Travis went out the chicken door exit and Jake and I rode TOT. The look on his face after the ride was priceless! HAHA! I wish I had had my camera! He loved it, but he didn't want to ride it again. On a side note, he rode it when he was only 4 but he doesn't remember and I don't think they allow kids that small/young to ride it anymore. After Travis and DH left, this lady in line commended me for not making my child ride the ride. She said she's witnessed several parents forcing their children onto rides and crying the whole time. We had told Travis before we went that he did not have to ride anything he didn't want to ride., and he didn't do a couple rides the first day we visited a park. He warmed up to them the next time we went though, like Star Tours and Space Mountain. He loved them both and rode them a few more times. He never did warm up to TOT, and that's totally fine. He felt bad, but we assured him it would still be there next time we visit. haha
After TOT we rode RR. This was a first for all 4 of us. Jake and I rode first and LOVED it! Jake ended up riding it again by himself. I told Travis he would love it and so he and DH went. Travis loved it but did not want to go on it again. Haha. That was his first upside down coaster. The take off on that ride is the most fun.
We ate lunch at 50's Prime Time and had a wonderful meal and waitress. She was amazing! We paid OOP for this meal. Travis was able to order off of the kids menu even though he is 11. The waitress gave us our drinks for free and also gave us a dessert that she messed up the order on for someone else. Mmm!

Our meal - meatloaf, fried chicken and pot roast



Our dessert.... MMmm!

We saw most of the shows here and enjoyed ourselves very much. The Lights, Motors, Action show was awesome! This was new for us. So was the Toy Story 3-D ride. That was so cool! We rode it a few times and this was probably the place we waited the longest to ride. We left DHS at closing time, 7 and went back to Pop for some pizza. A whole pizza is worth 2 QS credits, so we got that and all shared.
MK was open until 1:00 a.m. so we headed over there after our supper. We had the best evening with very low crowds. The weather was perfect and we all felt like our first night was pretty much perfect. I did have a stomach ache though and let the guys go off and ride Pirates while I went to the First Aid station. I was amazed when the nurse handed me some generic Imodium tablets and I didn't even have to pay for them! Wow! He gave me 5 pills with strict instructions and then told me all about what I should do to feel better and what to watch for and how to eat the next day. It was awesome. Thankfully I felt better rather quickly and was able to enjoy the evening with my family.


A cast member was walking around painting pictures with water onto the pavement. He did quite a few and they lasted a long time. It was just him, a brush and some water. Neat!

We got a lot of great photo pass pictures at the MK this night. One complaint about the photo pass is there weren't enough of them around. They were mostly all up front. We have some very nice pictures, but a lot of them are the same. I don't know if that is because we went in February and not in a busier season or what. ?? That being said, I would still recommend the photo pass and buying the CD before you go so it's cheaper. I haven't submitted my order yet because I'm still having fun putting borders on the pictures! We have some great shots and the best part is all 4 of us are in them!



The castle is gorgeous at night!


Next Up – Epcot and a big boo boo

[Aspen]

Originally Posted by apqsmom

I love reading these! Thanks!

Thanks for reading!