TroianRae's Crazy Adventures in the World - DAY 5, PART 1- UPDATED 8/15 About This Page:

[TroianRae]

<font color="black"> Sunday, July 3 - Day Three Part Two</font>

<font color="blue"> So where were we?? Oh yeah, Benji was freaking out about the Pop Century sign.

We turned into the Pop Century driveway (?) and made our way to the guard hut. We waited our turn and when we were up, I gave him our last name which he checked against a list or his computer inside (not sure which) and he let us in. We pulled into the check-in parking and made our way inside. We were so excited!!! Benji wasn't the only one jumping up and down!! Oh well, it was Disney and I was allowed.

We were just bowled over by the outside signs and icons (those bowling pins were larger than life). We actually walked in towards Everything Pop first; I was just itching to get in there and shop. But, no!! First we must check in!! We got into the line which was non-existent (no one was there) and waited our turn. A nice young man (can't for the life of me remember his name) and his trainee asked how they could help us. I said we were checking in and it went downhill from there. The young man was so busy "training" the trainee that he basically ignored me and wouldn't/didn't answer my questions. Oh well. He asked me if we had any requests for location. That worried me because I had Maureen request 50's, Bldg B or C, 3rd or 4th floor so as to see fireworks. So I told him 50's please. He informed us that our room wasn't ready, but to check back after 3:30 pm. Okay, we'd do that. We made our way back out to the van; we got in to decide what we would do next. Good thing we got in because we encountered another one of those torrential rainstorms.

We sat in the van trying to decide what to do. It was about 2 pm and we didn't really want to take off for Downtown Disney with all of our luggage still in the van. We didn't really have a choice but to wait out the rain or we'd get soaked. After it finally let up (I think it was a vlmost 30 minutes), we went inside to look around at Everything Pop. I love that store!!! I could've spend much much $$$, but I knew that we were going to World of Disney and I had that wonderful AP discount.

We spent about 30 minutes wandering around the shop and food court before making our way over to the phones. It was only 3 but I wanted to check on our room anyway. I was told 50's 2341. Woo hoo!!! I looked on my map that the front desk had given to me, and saw that it looked like we may have gotten the location I had requested. Double woo hoo!!! We jumped (really) into the van and headed over to the back 50's parking lot and found a nice close spot for the van. I ran upstairs to check and see if I was correct on the location. I was!!!! We got everyone into the room, and I starting unpacking our stuff as Nathan kept bringing more stuff in. (I really should have taken a picture; we utilized every nook and cranny, especially once I started adding Disney shopping bags to the mix!!! )

Once we got all of our stuff into the room and I had enough stuff unpacked, we headed downstairs for the bus stop so that we could head for Downtown Disney. It was an enjoyable bus ride; I just love seeing Saratoga Springs. We entered DTD through the back (that's how I always think of it) close to the World of Memories store. We bypassed that because I was on a mission: World of Disney. We started in the Princess room; it's always hard to restrain myself when I find Princess stuff for Troian, but I really wanted to find items that said "Walt Disney World". (Disney products are so out in the mainstream nowadays that I wanted to get stuff that had WDW on it. Makes sense, right??) So I bypassed a lot of the Princess stuff. I shopped and shopped and I had a blast!! I was able to make a reasonable start on my souvenir shopping, plus I bought one of those lithographs. I happily came away with a Happiest Celebration t-shirt for each of us, as well as multitudes of little things - magnets, notepads, keyrings, jewelry, etc. Somehow it all fit into 3 bags - with 1 of them for the lithograph - but the other two were heavy.

It was time to head for the buses. BUT, I had to make a stop at the Everything Under $10 store. I made another killing there with lots of little stuff, but I also found an awesome set of 4 Mickey drinking glasses for $2.50!!! Woo hoo!!! (I should have bought more, when we went back 6 days later, they were all gone, of course.) So that was the last stop. We headed back to the bus stop, waited a few minutes, got back to Pop, and went to bed. I think we were in bed by 11:30, but I was up until 1 (I was too excited - Disney!). </font> <font color="red">

Coming Up: EPCOT Morning EMH, Meeting Christie (Christiejay), &amp; How many new things did we do today???? </font>

</font>

[kimdisneynut]

Another great update...

Thanks

Kim

[lauren-roxy]

Great update Jana!! It is amazing how much you can accumulate while you are at Disney! Can't wait for more!!

[Colexis Mom]

Another great update Jana

[FanOfMickey]

Another fantastic update, can't wait for more!!

[Happymommy]

Great Trip report!!!! I can't wait to read more!!!!

[BelmontBelle]

I'm enjoying your trip report! Looking forword to more!

[Jillybean]

Jana,

Glad that you got checked in and into the room of your choice! Great night of shopping!

Jill

[DawnDenise]

Another wonderful update Jana!!! Can't wait to read more!

[TroianRae]

I'll be back tomorrow with (hopefully) day four and day five.

[christiejay]

Finally, I can get caught up - the last time I was here, the kids were throwing up on your first day! I'm glad the rest of your drive went well. I just wish I'd had money to go shopping with! This trip, we didn't even go in most of the stores.

Hurry back, I want to hear theme park stuff!

[TroianRae]

[ QUOTE ]
Hurry back, I want to hear theme park stuff!

[/ QUOTE ]

Now that I'm NOT worrying about you I can continue. You really had me in a rut!!!

Onwards..............

[TroianRae]

[b] <font color="black"> Monday, July 4 - Day Four Part One</font>

<font color="blue"> 6 am came very early for me, I can tell you that. But I wanted to be at the bus stop a little after 7 am since EPCOT was opening at 8 am for morning EMH. Getting the kids up was a challenge (not as bad as later in our trip but still not easy); thank goodness we had breakfast snacks in the room so we were able to have something to eat before we even left the room.

We all were up, dressed, and ready to leave by a little before 7 am. By the time we reached the bus stop it was almost 10 after 7 and we waited until about 7:20 for a bus. There were some people there, but not a lot and we still were able to snag seats on the bus (that is ALWAYS a good thing). By the time we got to EPCOT, got off the bus and walked to the entry, it was almost 7:40 am. The lines were forming, but I noticed them getting ready to open another checking bags station in front of the turnstiles so we headed over there and were the 2nd ones in line. NOT BAD!! I was pretty content with that. So we got cheapy American flag pins they were giving away since it was the 4th of July and they actally starting letting people in about 10 to 8. Woo Hoo!!! I was so excited!! NOT excited enough to RUN for the rides like others (bad ankle!), but excited to be at WDW!!

We headed for Test Track because Nate and Benji were going to ride it. At least Benji was UNTIL he heard the WHOOSH of the cars against the sides; at that point he said absolutely not!! So we let Nathan go ride Test Track while the kids and I went around the side to the gift shop. I looked around while the kids did the Kidcot (?) station. They had a lot of fun with the really talkative CM running the station; she was full of information and told us we had to go over to the Living Seas. That actually was going to be our next stop anyway so it was interesting to hear her talk about it. It took about 10 or 15 minutes before Nate joined us, but I was glad when he did because Troian was getting antsy.

We headed out of the Test Track Gift Shop towards the Living Seas but Troian had other ideas. We were barely out of there and she started to really fuss. Okay, it was only 8:15 am so where did we head?? Over to Mouse Gears, of course. I figured a toy might smooth things out. Turns out that was an incorrect assumption on my part. We walked into the nice cool air of Mouse Gears and I started looking around for something to keep her happy. Guess what? She'd already found something - the glass snowglobes. That about gave me heart failure when I saw what Nathan was letting her play with! Sometimes I wonder what that man thinks - to let a 2 year old play with a glass snow globe, especially when it isn't ours!! So I went running over to them and took it away. Bad move on my part ( to a degree ), she then commenced SCREAMING!!! And I mean screaming with all the gusto she could put into it. The CM manager came running over to see what was wrong with her. She even tried to bribe her with a Snow White and Cinderella pin which she gave to Troian (she had asked Troian who her fav character was and since she was too busy screaming to answer, Nate answered Cinderella). Needless to say, nothing worked and the screaming continued.

So we speedily left Mouse Gears; I figured they had already endured her screaming for 5 or 10 minutes and they didn't deserve to be tortured any longer. We headed out to try to get her something more to eat ( maybe she was hungry, right?). Fountainview Expresso (?) was open so we grabbed a chocolate croissant, a blueberry muffin, and a chocolate cookie. She was NOT interested in food unless it involved feeding the pesky bird that wanted our food. She destroyed the muffin and I refused to let her destroy the croissant (what? waste a chocolate croissant? I think NOT!!), so she started fussing again. (BTW, I've mentioned that she's 2, right?? We're in the terrible two's and I don't think that we're ever coming out. )

We stopped quickly (in my mind) at the Pin Station because Benji wanted the Incredibles 4th of July 2005 pin. Then it was onward to the Living Seas. We made it into there and down the hydrolaters. We looked all around and through the rooms; we wanted to see Turtle Talk at 10 am, but we felt we needed to leave EPCOT by 10:30 so I wasn't sure if we had time to the show or not. We decided to just come back at a later date (never did make it back ).

We headed out of EPCOT and took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Once we got to MK, we hopped off the monorail and headed down to the Fort Wilderness/Wilderness Lodge boat dock. Today was our lunch at Trail's End where we were going to meet up with Christie (christiejay), her DH Jay, her DS Joshua, and DSIL Melanie. I had been excited about meeting Christie for days, and it was almost here. This was our first time going to Fort Wilderness so I was doubly excited!! We enjoyed the boat ride from MK to Fort Wilderness; when we went by the Contemporary you could see the rooms they were remodeling. I wish that I had taked a picture because half the rooms were missing. There was the doorway and them it looked like they had demolished out the rest of the room beause it was just rubble. (If you had walked through one of those doors, you would have fallen the 7 or 8 (?) floors to certain death.)

We arrived at Fort Wilderness and it was only 11:30, if even that. We meanderd slowly up the walkway; Benji saw the playground and wanted to go play while I saw the shop and wanted to head in there. Nate took the kids to the play area and I went to get a Fort Wilderness magnet. It didn't take me very long considering the store is actually quite small so I went to find the others. They weren't at the play area because Benji had changed his mind. He actually was bothered by something and wanted to leave. I had to stop him right there in the walkway and explain to him that this was NOT the time for him to be acting up and that were going to be meeting mommy's friend, Christie. That worked kinda. So we headed towards Trail's End.
</font>
<font color="red"> Coming up: Meeting Christie and MGM </font>

[KrisLuvsDisney]

I just caught up on your TR and it is wonderful!

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry it was a bit of a rocky morning I hope the PP meet goes well, can't wait to hear all about it