Christmas Vacation!!!-Day 2 added!!!! About This Page:

[tink1352]

OK so I'm going to start my trip report...
the basics:
we were there December 18-26 (Drove down the 18th and drove back ont he 26th)
People that went: Me (14), my mom, and my dad
We stayed at Coronado Springs
Also went to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure

I'm gonna post one day at a time!

DAY 1:
we woke up around 5:30-ish (its about a 9 hour drive from NC). Our official start time was 6:15! After packing everything up in the car i thought i would be able to sleep for the first part of the trip while it's still dark outside but what was i thinking! I automatically brought out the portable DVD player and watched 4 movies the entire way down! We checked in to the resort around 3:00 and we were just amazed at the buildings! They were sooooo gorgeous!!! The lake was very pretty and we saw that you could rent paddle (and motor) boats!!! We decided to do that later on in the week maybe after a short park like animal kingdom or MGM! My mom has a back disability so she didnt want to have to walk alot from the room to el centro(i was hoping for cabanas b/c i LOVE the coastal feel of it but oh well!) so the check-in lady gave us casitas #1! The buildings were a little confusing because everything is a circle courtyard so you dont know where you came and we had trouble remembering that to the left was the elevators and El Centro and the right was to the car! There was a fountain in the center of the casitas building and i took a picture of it! on this day the view outside of the room window was a courtyard with a *something* in the middle. We didnt know what is was because a white box thing was over it (we figured they were finishing a statue or something---you'll have to wait till a couple days ahead to find out what it is!) The and the walk to El Centro was VERY short and a very pretty walk. We hung around the resort for the rest of the day because we didnt want to waste one of our days on the 5 day park hopper! we got a 5-day park hopper for Disney and then we found an online deal for Universal where if you buy a 2-day (what they call 2-park but its basically a park hopper) and you get a 3-day free!!! so worked out perfectly but we were planning on going to Animal Kingdom to pick up my mom's annual pass but it would waste a park hopper day and we wouldnt be able to go to Disney on Christmas day!! so we took a look around the hotel. We ate dinner at the Pepper Market. I actually thought the card/stamp think was very easy and i got it right away! Doing the pepper market to go is the best way b/c you arent charged an automatic 10% gratuity. They have some great choices there and great specials that change every day! We went to bed kind of early because we knew we had a VERY long day ahead of us tomorrow at Magic Kingdom!

P.S.-We actually saw some wildlife, i was looking over the balcony later that night and i saw a bunny hopping around underneath our room!

[tink1352]

Also--here is a link to the online photo album my mom made on SnapFish!

http://www.snapfish.com/thumbnailsha...29/t_=18526162


they arent really in order but theres alot of them!

[DouglasE]

Isn't it the best feeling when you enter Disney property? Glad you had a wonderful holiday and I'm looking forward to hearing more.

[Colexis Mom]

Great start! Looking forward to more

[tink1352]

OK-DAY 2!!!!

We woke up early that morning and ate breakfast in the room (we didn't want to have to spend too much money on food so we brought alot of breakfast items). Our original plans for our first day were to go to Animal Kingdom but Extra Magic Hour was for Magic Kingdom so since we didn't have any resteraunt reservations for MK or AK we just switched the days we were going to them! So we got kind of a later start than we intended because we didn't exactly know how long it would take for everybody to get ready. We walked to the bus station at El Centro and didn't have to wait very long at all for a bus to come. Once we got to MK my mom has to pick up her AP and then we were off. My dad and I wanted to ride space mountain first since we didnt know how long the lines would be later. When I was little I never rode space mountain (wasn't a big roller coaster fan) because i had always seen it going on the people mover (now "tomorrowland transit authority"-whatever...) and it always looked sooooo scary because you didn't know where you were going on account of the darkness! My dad convinved me that it didn't go upside down so i did it and was amazed at how something so old (atleast i think so) could go <u>SO</u> fast!!!My dad said that they have definetly picked up the speed on it because it didnt used to be that fast! So that was done with and when we came out of the arcade/store (almost every ride dumps you in one) my mom introduced us to a friend she met while she was waiting for us! We noticed that the Stitch attraction only had a 20 minute wait so we jumped in line as fast as we could! I personally didn't like it as much as Alien Encounter-but oh well-Alien Encounter didn't have anything to do with Disney so i can't blame 'em!! Buzz Lightyer had too much of a wait for us to handle so we continued on to Fantasyland (my favorite part!!!) Alot of rides had somewhat long waits so we got fastpasses for peter pan and the pooh ride. The carrousel wasn't working at the moment and the CM said to try back later so we decided to come back to fantasyland after we did some other stuff. On to Frontierland! We walked right on to Haunted Mansion then my mom decided that she would try big thunder mountain railroad (it was between that and splash mountain and i told her that i would NOT let her go on splash mountain...way too hard for her back to handle). We didn't have to wait that long surprisingly but we did have out mid-morning snack in line. It was a very fun ride! (Although we decided to fit all three of us into one row-not so fun!) My dad and I got a fastpass for splash mountain because it was a little to early and cold to be getting wet. Then we headed back to fantasyland to use our fastpasses and the carrousel was up and running so we did all three of those. Snow white still had a long wait and no fastpasses so we looked around the pooh store for a while. I really wanted to find a BIG heffalump but the lady said all they had of heffalumps was a beanie baby size and she didnt know of anywhere else to find one! Very dissappointed but i kept looking for a different stuffed animal. We ate lunch at Columbia Harbor House (loved it-great food!) and then we were off to explore the rest of the park. We did the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse and Alladin and Pirates of the Carribean. We were pleasantly surprised by the new tiki room and enjoyes that as a good rest. We finished up our park walking at about 6-ish---long day! We came back to the hotel--rested a little bit and relaxed at Panchitos. Its a bar-my parents had drinks and i helped them eat the chips and salsa We started to watch the channel that disney does on TV where they talk about the resort and park news and have the weather. By the end of the week we figured out that the weather was a bunch of crap! on friday and saturday it was raining and cold buit that channel said 63 and partially cloudy-- yeah right!!

Oh yes-MOUSEKEEPING!!!- on just our first day there we came "home" to the stuffed animals we brought sitting up watching cartoons! she also made a towel angel that said have a magical day! we got a toothbrush holder and a shower/bath tub hanging thing! how sweet!!!


More to come later!!!

Oh yeah-that link is where you have to sign up- you can if you want to but i'm probably going to transfer it to a webshots photo album later!

[luvnwdwgal]

Sounds good!!! Keep it coming!!!