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 $$$$.
So the hotel we had chosen was Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary Resort. For those of you familiar with Disney World this is the hotel that the monorail goes through the middle of. Our room was in a seperate tower that is considered Disney Vacation Club (think timeshare - but you can also rent like a regular hotel room - which we did). We had a cool skybridge that connected us to the Contemporary - which meant easy access to the monorail - which means getting places pretty quickly! Keith had been wanting to stay at a "monorail" resort - and Bay Lake Tower had just opened up about a month before we were there so it seemed like a good choice.
Outside of Bay Lake Tower
Our Room
So - we had just arrived at the room - which was very nice! It was fairly late (10 or 11) and we hadn't eaten dinner yet - so we headed off to find something to eat. That first meal at Disney World is always a shock to the system -as the prices are higher than at home. Once we got over that - we had a nice meal - and then wondered around the resort. Disney is very good at making their resorts a vacation all on their own! You wouldn't even need to go to the parks to have a good time here!
The view from our patio
A little background on our Disney World "obsession". This is my 9th trip. ALL Of these have been to the Disney version of "the land" - although I am currently tentatively planning a visit to the California version for late next year. 7 of those trips have been in the last 6 years! My parents took me twice, and then I started Keith's "obsession" when we went for our honeymoon. Disney has about 15 hotels and we have now stayed in around 7 of them. We are always looking to try new hotels - so this had lead us to pick our 1st hotel (and what I thought was going to be the only one). With my brother working for Disney we also get a pretty fat discount (40%-60%) - so this also allows us to try out some pretty sweet places without spending all of our $$$$.
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!
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