Sunday, September 27, 2009

Fireworks and Dessert - what else do you need in life?

At the top of our list of "musts" at WDW is Wishes - the firework show at Magic Kingdom. In Disney's never-ending quest to take ALL of your money - they recently added a twist to Wishes - a private, reserved spot complete with a dessert buffet. Of course this "exclusive" event comes at a cost - but we were happy to shell out the cash to try this out! They uniquely called it "Fireworks Dessert Party" :) Now for anyone who has been to WDW and experienced an evening of pushing and shoving to secure a good viewing spot - you can probably appreciate the thought of not worrying about WHERE you'll stand.

When we arrived we found that a table had been reserved for us - complete with Mickey head confetti!


Our view of the castle


The dessert buffet (I think I got my money's worth in chocolate covered strawberries alone :))


Fireworks view


All in all I think it is a pretty cool thing - although doing it once will probably be enough for us! No fear - I'm sure Disney will come up with ANOTHER way to get more money out of us :)

Next post - changing hotels and seeing the other parks :)

Monday, September 21, 2009

More Vacation

When I left off we had finally made it to Disney and were en route to our 1st hotel. Notice I say "1st hotel" - at the time I thought it would our ONLY hotel - but well we like to keep things interesting :)

A little background on our Disney World "obsession". This is my 9th trip. ALL Of these have been to the Disney version of "the land" - although I am currently tentatively planning a visit to the California version for late next year. 7 of those trips have been in the last 6 years! My parents took me twice, and then I started Keith's "obsession" when we went for our honeymoon. Disney has about 15 hotels and we have now stayed in around 7 of them. We are always looking to try new hotels - so this had lead us to pick our 1st hotel (and what I thought was going to be the only one). With my brother working for Disney we also get a pretty fat discount (40%-60%) - so this also allows us to try out some pretty sweet places without spending all of our $$$$.

So the hotel we had chosen was Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary Resort. For those of you familiar with Disney World this is the hotel that the monorail goes through the middle of. Our room was in a seperate tower that is considered Disney Vacation Club (think timeshare - but you can also rent like a regular hotel room - which we did). We had a cool skybridge that connected us to the Contemporary - which meant easy access to the monorail - which means getting places pretty quickly! Keith had been wanting to stay at a "monorail" resort - and Bay Lake Tower had just opened up about a month before we were there so it seemed like a good choice.

Outside of Bay Lake Tower


Our Room


So - we had just arrived at the room - which was very nice! It was fairly late (10 or 11) and we hadn't eaten dinner yet - so we headed off to find something to eat. That first meal at Disney World is always a shock to the system -as the prices are higher than at home. Once we got over that - we had a nice meal - and then wondered around the resort. Disney is very good at making their resorts a vacation all on their own! You wouldn't even need to go to the parks to have a good time here!

The view from our patio




My brother was still working so we waited up on him. He showed up around 1am - he also wanted to walk around and check the place out - so we did. I don't think we ended up going to bed until around 3am - so the next morning came pretty early.

For those Disney illiterates :) there are 4 different parks at Florida's Walt Disney World - so there is A LOT to get done! We only had 3 full days- so we got started right away the next morning. Each park has a lot in it too - so we knew we wouldn't be doing it all - but we all had favorites that we wanted to do!

The first park we hit was EPCOT. This is a neat park that includes several pavilions of different countries around the world.


My uncle lovingly refers to walking around all of these pavilions as the "Disney Death March" :) It is a pretty long walk - but each country has things to stop and see. This park also has a few rides and a large aquarium.

Upon my insistance we hit my favorite ride 1st (and then again last- on our way out). This ride is called Soarin'. This ride simulates a hang glider flight over California.


You sit in these type of seats and then a screen in front of you has a video that was taken flying over several land marks in California. The seats move to give you a very realistic flight!


It is SOOOOO cool! Disney doesn't pull out any stops - and they actually have scent pumped in at certain parts (an orange grove and a pine forest).

We also walked around ALL of the countries and ate at the Japan pavilion at Teppan Edo. I'm not an adventurous eater - so I didn't even eat anything - but the chef that cooked right in front of us make this my favorite meal of our whole trip! She was HILARIOUS! I think it was unique that she was a female doing this - as all the other women in the place were waitresses! She kept us entertained the whole time she was cooking and my brother and husband loved the food - so it will definitely be on our list of places to go back to!


We spent most of our day at Epcot and then headed back to the hotel. That night we were headed to Magic Kingdom where we had reservations for a Fireworks Dessert Party! Next post coming soon!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Vacation - FINALLY :)

Vacation time finally came -and now I'm finally blogging about it :) I've got a lot of GREAT photos so I'll probably break it up into several blog posts. We squeezed a lot into this vacation too - so I've got a lot to talk about :)

Wednesday September 2nd finally rolled around - the week before was the slowest! Our flight didn't leave Columbus until about 5:00pm- but I had taken the whole day off. Not only did we have to get ourselves and all of our stuff (which was enough to be gone for 2months) to the airport, but we also had to get the doggies to the kennel. I don't trust just anyone with my dogs - so the kennel is out of the way for us. We trust them 100% though - so we add 2 extra hours to our drive to the airport. If we would go straight to the airport from home it would take about 90 minutes.

Here are the boys watching us load up the van :( Chewie is dark, so you can't see him - but he is there! I always feel bad when I'm packing up - but not bad enough to stay home!


Here they are in the van on the way to the kennel (which really isn't a kennel - a lady boards in her home).



Once the boys were safely dropped off we headed to Columbus! It was starting to really feel like vacation. We arrived at the airport with our 6 bags in tow (seriously -2 checked bags each, plus a backpack each). Keith dropped me off at the curb and I waited while he parked the car and took a shuttle back. For some reason he didn't want to drag all of our stuff on the shuttle, I'm not sure why :) We then used Southwest's curbside check-in for the first time. We always fly Southwest, but we usually drag our bags into the airport and check in there. The guys doing the curb-side check expect a tip; but I consider it a $5 well spent!

Within just a few minutes we were checked in and ready to go through security. We had left ourselves about 2 hours - so no rush - but we headed there anyway. We have traveled enough to be pretty prepared for security - nothing in your pockets, slip-on shoes, liquids in the seperate bag, etc. Obviously the person in front of us hadn't got the memo - it seriously took her like 10 minutes to unload everything then she had to untie her shoes, take them off, take her laptop out of the bag, and FINALLY walk through the metal detector. Did she make it through? Of course not - she still had her phone in her pocket.... I finally just walked around her and through the metal detector with no problems. Seriously it isn't that hard - I understand - it IS a pain in the a$$; but come on don't make the rest of us stand behind you while you take your sweet time doing everything you SHOULD have done before you ever got in line.

Now we were at out gate and weren't scheduled to leave for about an hour and a half. I try very hard to give myself plenty of time now - as last year I almost missed a flight! They were calling our names over the loud speaker at the airport - we were *those* people. That has only happened once though - and this time we got even MORE time - our flight was delayed about 30 minutes. I should have expected that - we were one of the last flights of the day - so even a few minutes late from several previous flights probably adds up by the end of the day!

Before I knew it we were loaded and then in Orlando pretty quickly. The non-stop flight from Columus is only 2 hours - so by the time you are up to cruising altitude and they serve drinks it is about time to come down already! I can't say enough good things about Southwest Airlines. We fly them as often as possible - as I love the ease of not having assigned seats, but having an assigned boarding order. If we go to the back of the plane Keith and I can usualy get a row of 3 seats to ourselves!

Ok - so we are finally in Orlando and now we get to figure out the maze that is Orlando Airport. That place is so huge that they have their own monorail! Luckily a good percentage of people who land in Orlando are also visiting the mouse so there are plenty of signs and people giving directions!

Walt Disney World is about a 40 minute drive from the airport - but they actually have a FREE shuttle. Now if you've been to Disney you know that nothing is free (in fact - everything is pretty much overpriced)- so this is a really nice perk! We were meeting my brother in Florida (he works at Disney) - but he was working that night so we hopped on Disney's "Magical Express" and off we were to our 1st hotel.


Next post - our 1st hotel room and finally making it to the parks!