Helton's Holiday About This Page:

[Las17]

Matthew-38 (closet Disney Fan)
Laura-38 (BIG DISNEY FAN!!!)
Joshua-11 (typical pre-teen boy)
Kaci-8- (Daddy's girl)

This is a little late and I'm writing it instead of my DW. After we got back, life returned to normal in a hurry.

Friday 6/29/01

Living in Atlanta makes it a "short"7-8 hour to the World. So we decided to make the trip in two parts. We both got off work around 4pm. My DW works in a day-care center and for a change, it was not difficult to get the kids to leave to head home. Everybody was (obviously) packed. We hit the door at 4:30. Now, anybody that has been in or around Atlanta on A friday afternoon knows how the traffic is. I was hoping the travel gods would be lenient. Well, no such luck. It tooks us 2 1/2 hours to go the 40 miles to the far side of town. But our spirits were high due to our destination. Our plan was to stop just beyond the Florida border. We stopped at our favorite place (Waffle House) for a quick dinner. About 10pm, we stopped in Gainesville and found a really nice Holiday Inn. The check in was very nice. The lady asked if we had any discount cards and I told her no but, we were from Atlanta, very tired and on our way to Disney. She gave us the AAA rate which saved $30! We made it a little more than half way. Wheeee!!!

Saturday 6/30/01

Since we didn't want to waste a half day in the parks, we decided to stay offsite the first night. Now, I had never used Priceline.com so I did not know what to expect. We got a lot more than I had hoped for. I bid $100 for a four star or better. We got the Hilton in Downtown Disney. This is a nice(!!!) hotel.

We got up from the long drive at 8am. We had the free for kids buffet in the hotel. It wasn't awful but we couldn't wait to get to Disney for the food and Atmosphere.

We hit the road and stopped at the Disney information center(Ocala,Fla.)This is a very nice stop and a great way to get you in the mood.

We made Downtown Disney about noon. Seeing all the Disney signs really builds up the excitement. Since it was too early to check in, we went over to DowntownDisney(walking distance). This was our first time in the shopping area and the World of Disney store(largest Disney store in existence) was very impressive. Our first bout of souvenir shopping. After several keychains and a lanyard with pins for my dw, we explored further. My son enjoyed the Lego store immensely and did some his own shopping with a buy one get one free offer.

We walked down to the AMC theater and saw Atlantis. We had been saving this movie so we'd see it in Disney!! Not one of Disney's better movies but not terrible. (All things are better in Disneyworld!!) After the movie, we had a late lunch at McDonalds. (can you believe we drove 400 miles for a movie and McDonalds!!!) We knew the meals would get much more exciting.

We then went over to the Hilton to check in. (I got a good laugh checking in. The front desk person had a hard time saying "Welcome to the Hilton Mr. Helton").
The room and hotel were awesome!!

After giving the kids time to explore, we went back to downtown Disney. More window shopping and dinner from the Gourmet Pantry. Very reasonable sandwiches. I also learned a lesson from the Florida sun. Don't leave your $40 worth of Ghirardelli's chocolate in the trunk of your car.

Back to the hotel for some time in the arcade and a nice dip in the pool. Bedtime about 11pm. CBR tomorrow!!
More later!