The Birthday & 10k Weekend Bash with the Mouse - Day 5 - trip completed About This Page:

[DrDolphin]

Cast: Terri (33) – celebrating 33rd birthday and walking the 10k (birthday - 9/27)

Cheryl (28) – celebrating 28th birthday and walking the 10k (birthday - 10/1)

Dates – Oct 9-13

Resort – Animal Kingdom Lodge- Savannah View



Pre-caps and planning



Ok – Cheryl and I have been running marathons and long distance races since 2000 when we met in Washington DC training for the Marine Corps Marathon. We discovered that both of us not only enjoy running long distances races – but we love to travel to them. We registered to run the Disney Marathon in Jan 2001 before we ever ran the MCM!



So – now we speed forward to Aug 29, 2003… Terri now lives in Jacksonville, FL – Cheryl still lives in Virginia. While driving home from work on the Friday before, I was rear ended on I-95. It totaled my car and messed up my back. I ended up starting physical therapy – and the first thing my therapist said is “you aren’t running anywhere – but you can WALK”. So I called Cheryl and told her that the trip was on – but if I started the race – I was walking the complete distance due to my newly injured back. Its gonna be a long 6.2 miles!!!!



Because of my back – I spend a lot of extra time on line reading Disney stuff and planning. I have already begun to put together a bag of must-takes with me and doing even more reading and planning…. So since I so have Disney on the brain – here are my plans for our trip.



So – here is a quick look at our plans:



Thursday, October 9 – 11:40pm – Cheryl arrives in Jacksonville via AirTrans.



Friday, October 10 – 6:30am – leave home, head to Winn Dixie for groceries, bottled water and ice.

7:00am – on the road to Orlando

9:30am – arrive Animal Kingdom Lodge – check in if possible – if not, leave bags and head to MGM.

1:00pm – PS at Prime Time Café

2:30pm – Downtown Disney – shopping!

Back to hotel for rest, unpack, swim, soak – etc

7:00 – Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party!!!!



Saturday, October 11 – 8:30am-2:00pm – Keys to the Kingdom Tour

Afternoon – Magic Kingdom – do anything remaining that we missed from the tour.

5:00pm – Race packet pickup at Disney’s Wide World of Sports

7:00pm – PS at Boma!!!!



Sunday, October 12 – RACE DAY

7:00am – Disney Classic 10k!!

9:30pm – Back to AKL, change clothes and head to Animal Kingdom

Stay till park close

Head to EPCOT!!

7:00pm – PS at Le Cellier

9:00pm - Illuminations!!



Monday, October 13

Check out of AKL

Spend the day at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure

4:00pm – Drop Cheryl off at MCO

Terri drive home to Jacksonville.



Ok folks – there is the plan – we will see if it goes as planned!!!



<small>[ 10-20-2003, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: DrDolphin ]</small>

[DouglasE]

Sounds like fun to me! Can't wait to hear how it all went.

[tikibird]

Kudos to you for still participating in the race!

Sounds like you have a great trip planned - can't wait to hear all about it! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[TxDisMom]

So sorry to hear about your accident, but glad you're still going on your trip! Looking forward to hearing all about it when you get back [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Carol

[DrDolphin]

Day 1 - Thursday, Oct 9, 2003

I spent most (if not all of today) trying to get my desk cleaned off and things settled in the office so folks could deal with my absence (or at least I hope cold deal). I had agreed to take my Blackberry with me on Friday to read some emails and only respond to the real pressing ones (Ok – so I a real fool). Before Cheryl arrived, I planned to walk the Home Depot Corporate Challenge 5k with a group of co-workers. The race started at 6:30pm, across the river from our offices. Being that it is a 5k (3.1 miles for the non-runners) – and my back is still hurt from the car accident and I would we walking the race, I knew it would take me about 45 minutes.

I walked the race, and then “raced” home to take a shower and change clothes in preparation of a dash to the airport to get Cheryl. I checked on her flights from Baltimore a couple of times and everything looked well. I also worked on continuing to pack for the trip. I had been packing for a week – stuff into the suitcase, then out of the suitcase… I checked the weather on the Internet and finally sat down to watch CSI and Without a Trace to wait till 10:45 or so, since it can take an hour (or better) to get to the airport in Jacksonville (absolute north) from my side of town (way down south).

Well – the best laid plans (theme of the trip) being what they are – I fell asleep on the couch!!! I woke up at 11:12pm!!! So I literally grabbed my purse and car keys and jumped in the car… Ok – here is where discussions with God began – let her flight be 20 minutes late… Let the luggage take longer to get off the plane than usual (ok remember here – the flight lands at 11:40pm in JACKSONVILLE – this means it is likely the ONLY flight landing at 11:40pm... luggage thing should not be an issue….

I get to the airport at 11:50… And circle the arrival area twice without seeing Cheryl. She had tried to call me from Atlanta on her cell phone and I missed the call (didn’t dash into the bedroom fast enough) and then she turned her phone off – so I was never able to get in touch with her before she landed to discuss a pick up location. We had originally said I would pick her up outside baggage claim… so… After 2 attempts, I parked the car and walked to baggage claim. Before I got to the door – I found her, getting ready to call me on my cell phone. So we walked back to the car and headed to the house. Remember that it is now midnight, and we have a 40-plus minute drive to my house… with plans to be up at 6am for a no later than 7am departure planned for our little excursion in the morning. This will set the tone for our day…

After arriving at my house and getting settled… neither one of us is tired. We both were excited and wound up about the trip and ended up watching the Food Network channels’ “Unwrapped” episode on Walt Disney World dining…. Then we tried to go to sleep. It must have been sometime between 1:30am and 2:00am…..

[DrDolphin]

Day 2 - Friday – October 10, 2003 – Walt Disney World – here we come!! Day 2 – Part One

Cheryl and I did not go to sleep until close to 2am, and woke up when the alarm went off at 6am. This would really affect us later in the day!! We were in the car by 6:15am headed to WDW. We got drive though from McDonalds for breakfast and were headed south. Originally we had planned to make a grocery run and buy bottled water, ice and breakfast foods at my local Winn Dixie – but as we got closer to leaving, we decided to leave the cooler at home. The drive to WDW was very uneventful (except for the construction on 95 and I-4) – in fact it went very quickly. We listened to my Disney CDs while driving down (Illuminations, Share a Dream Come True Parade, Fantasia…). We also listened to the Mary Poppins soundtrack and sang along with Jolly Holiday....

We drove though the gates outside Magic Kingdom (giggling like little girls) and headed to the Contemporary to stop by Shades of Green to get Cheryl’s Annual Pass. With that task completed – we hopped back in the car and headed to the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Cheryl and I had both been very excited about staying at AKL!! Back in January we stayed at the Polynesian and really learned to love the amenities of the deluxe resorts, so we were exceptionally excited to stay at AKL since I have heard such fantastic reports about AKL. I went over to AKL back in September after the Danskin Triathlon to look around and was very impressed by what I saw. The theming was totally fantastic and Cheryl really wanted to see the animals outside her room....

We arrived at AKL right at 10am. We unloaded the bags, checked them with baggage service and I parked the car in the lot. I went into AKL to join Cheryl in the check in line. The place was a madhouse!!! Come to find out – this was Friday after the Press event as well as the 1st weekend that Wishes would be shown, the 1st weekend that Mickey’s Philharmonic would be open and the 2nd MNSSHP. We were told at check in that AKL was at 100% occupancy (wow!!). Amazingly enough - our room was ready (woo hoo) and we headed to the room.

A request for Zebra trail, 2nd floor on the Arusha Savannah had been submitted before we left for the trip – along with a note that this was our birthday trip. We got all that we asked for, with one exception – we were on Kudu trail, Arusha savannah, 2nd floor…. Room 2319. We headed to our room – and found it very funny that you had to get on an elevator to go DOWN to your room from the lobby!!! We laughed about it every time – it was definitely different than most hotels.

We got to the room and immediately went to the balcony to look around – and I started taking pictures!! We placed a call to baggage services to have all our stuff (and we had lots of it) delivered to the room. The bellman (ok – name completely eludes me) was there in 5 minutes and showed us all the details of the room – as well as warning us of the cameras that are on the rooms all the time and remembering to close the curtains nightly so as not to give security a good time!!! After getting settled in – we headed over to MGM for the afternoon…. Has anyone noted the hidden Mickeys IN the rooms at AKL??? We found them - -including the half of a hidden mickey - although I don't think that counts... If I can figure out how to post photos on this thing - I will add them so you can see them.

Next part - RNR is a bumpy ride, No Dame Julie for us....

[statelady01]

Great start! Looking forward to hearing more!

[tikibird]

Great start to your report - can't wait to hear more about your trip and the AKL!!! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[rescuesk]

Oh, your poor back...back injuries are not fun! Glad you could still do your trip. Looking forward to reading more!

Sue

[DrDolphin]

Day two - Part 2~~

We headed over to MGM after checking we. We drove over to MGM and parked the car. We exchanged Cheryl’s voucher for her annual pass and headed into the park. The plan had been TOT, RNR, Beauty and the Beast and lunch at 50’s Prime Time. After we entered the park, we saw a sign at the Tip Board that Dame Julie Andrews would be signing copies of her books at the bookstore in the back of MGM. My mother is a major fan of hers (as am I) and I thought that would make a major cool Christmas gift for mom(really hard to shop for). We looked at TOT and saw that Fast Pass return was for 6pm, and we would be gone by then – there was a 45 minute stand-by line, do we turned to go and look at RNR…. It appeared like only one of the two towers of TOT was working and that was what made the line so long. We decided we would come back later in the week to ride TOT…

We went over to RNR – stand-by 10 minutes!!! WOO HOO. We hop in line and start talking about seeing Dame Julie Andrews and getting a copy of her book(s) signed. We had just listened to Mary Poppins on the way down in the morning, and we were SO excited at the thought of seeing her… If we went to the bookstore (at 1:00pm) we would have to skip our 1:00pm PS for Prime Time… But we decided we really really wanted to see Dame Julie – so we bailed on PT.

We went on RNR – saw the hidden Mickey in the studio and headed to the “alley” to catch our limo. We were the last seats in the car – this was a first for us, and we both thought it was a much rougher ride than either of us remembers.

After RNR – we grabbed lunch at the ABC Commissary. I had the Fish and Chips (with 3 very small pieces of fish) and Cheryl had the Tabbouleh Wrap and marinated tomatoes. We finished lunch and headed to the bookstore – only to find a HUGE line of people sitting on the ground outside the doors with the doors to the bookstore locked. We asked some other folks sitting there what was going on and were told that they had issues bracelets that morning – no bracelet, no Dame Julie…. Oh well… We headed over to One Man’s Dream and I finally got to do this (after a year of wanting to!!!). At the end of the movie with Walt – I was teary eyed.

We left MGM and headed to DTD to get some shopping done before heading back to AKL to relax before heading to MNSSHP…. We went into World of Disney – two words. MAD HOUSE!!! We picked up a few things (that took like 5 minutes) and ended up in line behind two ladies that each purchased 4 snowglobes!!! Did you know that anytime a snowglobe is purchased – it must be opened and shown to the customer?? Then it is placed back in the box and the whole thing is taped shut. Neither did we until snowglobe 3… by then we had too much time committed in the line to move!!! We definitely qualified as the grumpy girls. ONE HOUR later – we left the store…We were MAJOR tired. Lack of sleep definitely played in here. We drove from DTD back to AKL. We were hot, hungry and tired. We decided to take a nap for a while and then head to dinner at Boma. I went down to Mara to get us a snack while Cheryl headed to the room. She was not feeling well and wanted to sleep. I got us a roast beef sandwich and grapes as well as a bottle of water and headed back to the room. I could not sleep – so I sat on the balcony and took photos of the animals.

Part 3 – Cheryl not feeling hot, Boma, Birthday cup cake marathon begins and getting ready for MNSSHP….

[tikibird]

Wow, sorry about not getting to see Julie Andrews (agreed this sounds like it would have been a great gift for your mom!) and the crowds at WoD, but sounds like a great day otherwise!

Ready for more... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[DrDolphin]

Part 3 – Cheryl not feeling hot, Boma, Birthday cup cake marathon begins and getting ready for MNSSHP….

While Cheryl was sleeping, I called Disney Dining to change our dinner reservations. I switched Boma from Saturday night to Friday night and added O’Hana as a birthday surprise for Cheryl on Saturday night. It is our all time fav place to eat at WDW!!! We got up, got ready and headed to Boma for dinner. Cheryl was still not feeling all that hot – but she felt better as the evening went along.

We were seated in the back corner, by the windows overlooking the pool and the walkway to the Mara. Cheryl and I were both presented with birthday cards. The buffet was…. Well…. Interesting. Yep – that’s the word I am looking for. I know some of you are HUGE Boma fans and always always eat there – I feel the same about O’Hana – but Boma just didn’t do it for me. Maybe it was the cinnamon in the rice…. After we were done with dinner – we were presented with two cupcakes with a strange white icing (tasteless with the consistency of caulk) sprinkled with Mickey’s and gummy bears on a plate with “Happy Birthday” written in chocolate. We were very surprised and thankful for the surprise. Oh – by the way – Cheryl loved the zebra domes – I loved the pineapple cheesecake – I cannot handle coffee at all – so Kalahua flavored anything is yuck to me. Cost of dinner for two adults – with tax, tip and the 20% Disney Dining Experience Discount was $50.00.

We headed back to our room to change into our costumes for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. We had been racking our brains for weeks trying to figure out a comfortable, affordable and unique costume that was easy to deal with on rides. I finally found it – I was at Target in Jacksonville and located Tinkerbell adult jammies (tops and bottoms) as well as Mickey head house shoes. I bought two sets – one for Cheryl and one for me. They had Mickey Mouse too – Cheryl is a major tink fan as am I – so I decided not to make either of us wear a costume we wouldn’t like. We changed into our clothes and walked (ok SKIPPED) through the lobby at AKL!!! Cheryl was SO worried that we would be the only adults in costume – I had to reassure her that this would not be the case at all. I don’t think she believed me at first.

On a side note – it took us 3 days of walking around the AKL lobby to find the hidden mickey – we looked like fools walking around looking at the ceiling all the time…..

Day 2 - Part 4 - MNSSHP!!!

[DrDolphin]

Part 4 - Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

Ok –as I said – we were wearing jimmies – our costume?? A Disney sleepover!!! We had our hair up in pigtails and skipped along like little girls. I had to take the house shoes off to drive since Mickey’s head kept getting in the way. If you ever have to walk around WDW in house shoes – I recommend against it. They have no support and after 4 hours – my feet and back were KILLING me!!! We arrived like 5 or 10 minutes after the gates opened – we played with a little girl on the monorail that asked her mom why the ladies were in pajamas….

After getting our candy bags – we headed to Liberty Square first – to have our photo taken. Then we went to Haunted Mansion, followed by Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean. On Splash Mountain one of the cast members asked us if we were planning a makeup party as part of our sleep over and if so could he come too???? After getting a bit damp on Splash – we headed to Tomorrowland for Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear. Both were complete walk ons!! I love the fact they are taking photos at BL – my only beef is that the queue is no longer covered and everyone has to stand outside – I could see this getting REALLY hot in the summer. We rode TTA – right as the fireworks started – they showed Fantasy in the Sky with the witch’s flight. After the fireworks – we headed to Main Street and sat in front of the bakery, on the curb next to Riley and his grandmother. Riley is an adorable toe-headed young man (3 years old) who told me all about the bats with Mickey ears flying on the building and waited for the parade to start. That is the closest I have been to any parade at WDW – the character interaction was fabulous!! I loved the villain’s float!!! The ride of the headless horseman was too cool as well. After the parade was over – Cheryl and I headed “home” we were exhausted. We had been awake since 6am and it was quickly approaching 11pm – 17 hours!!! One great thing about our costumes ---- take off the shoes and fall in bed!!! I know some of you have done this with your little ones – but it worked well for 2 big girls in desperate need of sleep too!!!

What’s up next – Day 3 – Keys to the Kingdom, Packet Pickup and O’Hana!!!

[tikibird]

Sorry that Boma did not live up to your expectations, but sounds like you had a blast at MNSSHP - love the concept that you could wear your costumes straight to bed, too! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Great installment - ready for the next one! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Colexis Mom]

Great installments Terri [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img] Looking forward to more [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]