Disney World – BigGoofyFamily

Our Disney Vacation Club adventure!

Since my first trip in January 2008, we have stayed in Orlando and at Disney World proper many different ways.

We have stayed on property in value, moderate and deluxe resorts (even once getting a wicked upgrade to a 2 bedroom club level room at the Beach Club Resort – now that was fun!) and we have stayed off property in a townhouse for a 3 week stay when the kids were much younger.

There were pros and cons to each but this past summer we finally decided that Disney Vacation Club was the way to go.

Basically the major driving factor for that is that when we are at Disney World, one of our favorite things to do skip the Disney buses and walk to the parks.

That basically means a deluxe resort…a few very specific ones.

And the cheapest way to stay deluxe at Disney World appears to be Disney Vacation Club (DVC). You can rent DVC points to do that which is much cheaper than renting the room from Disney directly. But if you plan to go year after year then it can be cheaper to buy DVC points.

If you decide to buy then you have a couple choices – buy direct from Disney at a premium price or buy from the resale market. Buying direct from Disney does get you some extra perks over resale but there are some negatives as well beyond the extra price. Disney usually has limited availability of some of the older resorts which is unfortunate if you are looking for a specific resort to allow you to book at the 11 month window for that resort. Sometimes you can get on a wait list but that doesn’t necessarily work for us Canadians as there are some laws in place that make it difficult for DVC cast members to contact us for purposes of a timeshare sale. Which mostly means that, for Canadians, you have to buy when you are down at Disney World and if what you want isn’t available when you are there then you either end up not buying or buying a 2nd or 3rd choice.

So for us resale made sense.

But what resort?

Ideally we wanted to be able to walk to parks from our home resort. That meant the Contemporary Bay Lake Tower walking to Magic Kingdom or the Beach Club or Boardwalk Villas to be able to walk to Epcot and Hollywood Studios.

We were leaning toward either the Beach Club or Boardwalk as Epcot is our favorite resort and they are so close. Plus they are a quick walk to Hollywood Studios and with the two new areas getting built in that park we figured it would be good to be close.

We love the Beach Club Resort but the Villa rooms looked a bit dated (this was before they did a fantastic update to the rooms in 2016). We did a tour on our last trip of the Boardwalk rooms that were fantastic. The Boardwalk rooms also have more bed type options in the Deluxe Studio rooms with a bed, a couch/hide a bed and a Murphy type single bed meaning we could get each of the kids in their own bed. (Yay sleep!) (Note that they did this same style of set up for the updates at Beach Club Villas.)

Then we looked at price and landed on Boardwalk as well as the cheapest cost per point.

Then we looked at the number of points required to stay…which landed us at Boardwalk too.

We looked at the number points we would want and ended up buying 100 points from the resale market at a price we liked that also had some banked points we could use.

By the time we had decided we had already rented points for our January 2017 family trip so we had some decisions to make on what to do with some of the points.

I was already booked to do the Goofy Challenge at the beginning of January but didn’t have a room yet so after playing with wait lists I managed to get one night at the Beach Club Villas and then the remaining nights will be at Saratoga Springs.

Since we had extra points my wife, Heather, decided that she would see if there were rooms available during the Princess Half Marathon in February. There were, so she signed up for the Glass Slipper Challenge, convinced her mom to come along, and booked flights and the room. (We strangely had a lot of extra air miles this year so this all wasn’t nearly as expensive as it sounds).

While we were at Disney World for our family vacation we got super lucky and Disney actually had some points available for the Boardwalk Villas that we could purchase directly from them. We added 25 points (at a premium!) to bring our total up to 125 points. The points were added to our existing contract with the same use month, etc making it easy to manage the two sets of points. The bonus with these direct points is that we now get all the benefits reserved for direct purchasers including the discounted annual passes and access to the unique and exclusive DVC member lounge located in Epcot.

We are about a year into the purchase now and have booked our next family trip using the points we have and are extremely happy with the value for the money we are getting from how we did our purchases. January 2018 we will be down in Orlando for the Disney World Marathon weekend (Dopey Challenge!) staying at the Boardwalk Villas and then spending 4 nights at Animal Kingdom Kidani Village and ending our 2 weeks at Disney’s Beach Club Villas. We are going to get lots of different experiences this trip! And isn’t that what it should be about?

Let’s see where this DVC adventure leads us!

January 2017 – family trip – report 9

January 31st:

Last full day! We got the Magical Express envelope under our door through the night – pickup 4:30 pm the next day. That’s pretty good as we get time to do stuff before we have to leave.

We decided to walk over to Beach Club this morning – grab breakfast from the Marketplace and then eat in the Solarium. We enjoy having a snack in the Solarium – love the atmosphere – we are glad that the little tea event Disney was doing in the Solarium is not occurring anymore as we missed the place.

Then a bus from Beach Club over to Animal Kingdom.

Photo Pass pic of the family heading into Africa at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Straight to Kilimanjaro Safaris – we hadn’t had a day ride yet this trip on it so it was nice to do that. Heather was hoping to see the new baby elephant – we kind of did back over our shoulders but it wasn’t a great picture opportunity.

Heading into Harambe Wildlife Reserve at Animal Kingdom Kilimanjaro Safari ride

back end of a blurry baby elephant at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

After an ice cream we headed out and caught a bus back to Boardwalk.

Then a bit of a rest in the room and then headed on down to the pool and hot tub. The kids did a lot of slide runs and K did some stuff with the entertainment crew.

We had lunch by the pool before heading back up to the room and eventually heading over to Epcot for our last night.

We snacked our way around the park and caught Illuminations (we did Spaceship Earth and once we got off I did our pre-check in for our flights the next day).

Fountains at France pavilion at Epcot World Showcase

T and K from World Showcase with a view of Spaceship Earth at night

There was a section of World Showcase where the lights were out (near Morocco) and we saw lights flicker hard just after we got in the park crossing the bridge to France. There were also several rides down – Frozen Ever After for quite a while, Test Track and Imagination for the whole time. Soarin’ and Spaceship Earth for a shorter time. Apparently Epcot was having some power issues that night!

There were Extra Magic Hours but after doing Nemo I was just done. T wanted to go back to the room as well and relax.

So T and I went back to the hotel and Heather and K stayed in Epcot. They did meet and greets with the Mickey crew, Anna and Elsa and managed to get on Frozen Ever After when they finally opened it again (apparently it was deserted).

Selfy of Heather and K with France in the background in Epcot

Packing and then bed!

January 2017 – family trip – report 3

January 25th:

We had fast passes set for today at Animal Kingdom but we had hit all the rides the night before and we just would have needed to hit the shows. After some contemplation we decided to just stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge and explore. The kids really wanted to do more of the conservation activities and collect more of the beads. Plus it was going to be hot and we really wanted to do some swimming!

So I got up and went down to the store to pick up some breakfast which we ate in the room before starting our wander.

Heather and the kids did some medallion rubbing – they have a large (6+ feet diameter) medallion set in the floor near the entrance with various stylized animals on it. A cast member (who is on an exchange program from Africa) comes out with paper and crayons and will sit on the floor with the guests as they rub imprints of the animals on the paper. He/she talks with the guests about the area of Africa they are from – it is an interesting and informal way to learn more about Africa – a very cool idea.

Heather and the kids did 3 different environment activities to collect beads including one where they set up feeders for giraffes.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom Jambo House medallion rubbing

giraffe feeder selfie – Disney’s Animal Kingdom

We sat in the lobby talking supper plans for a bit – during this time our son heard some people playing on African drums and went to find out what was going on. He got to play a little and then came to tell us. We all went over – our daughter did some time that we videoed and then Heather and T did some together that I recorded.

That after noon we swam in the pool for a good hour and a half or so and the kids pretty much did the slide non stop. The pool area was very nice – lots of activities and surrounded by lots of greenery – not too far from a flamingo pond and easy views of the savannah.

We spent time in the room looking out at the savanna and saw many animals come by – including giraffes essentially right outside our window. Lots of pictures and some video.

giraffe at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge – through the trees

wildebeest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge

giraffe at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge

Lunch was at the Mara by the pool and it was pretty good – there was a decent selection to suit many tastes.

For supper we decided to cab over to Old Key West and try Olivia’s for the first time. Food was great but the atmosphere was more casual than we were expecting – overall a good experience though. Old Key West is very cool at night.

We thought about getting to Magic Kingdom for magic hours until 10 but instead boated to Disney Springs, shopped a bit and then took the bus back to Animal Kingdom.

Back to the room to rest and pack for the hotel move the next day.

January 2017 – family trip – report 2

January 24th:

Up around 8 with our daughter out on the patio looking around the savannah and being disappointed that there were no animals.

Eventually did see some Roan Antelope (3) and a couple of them butted heads – got pictures of that.

roan antelope head butting Disney’s Animal Kingdom

We had bagels for breakfast in the room watching for animals.

Short tour of parts of the hotel and kids took part in one of the conservation activities that you can collect beads for doing. They did the jenga block type one talking about the ecosystem.

We had a couple of old Samsung S4 phones that still function for wifi and as cameras, etc – so let each of the kids use one to take pictures with. It was pretty fun watching them decide what they wanted to take pictures of during the trip. It was also cool to look at the pictures later to get a view from a different perspective.

sunlight through the trees waiting for the bus at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge

K selfie waiting for the bus at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge

We took the bus to Disney Springs and did a short wander there. There we checked to see if Planet Hollywood was open or not – we had gotten a reservation for that day a few weeks back but it had been cancelled as they weren’t quite ready yet and we wanted to check to see if maybe they might be open after all – they were doing a private event instead. Oh well.

fountain near AMC and Planet Hollywood Disney Springs

During this walk we got a call from our DVC client rep and we sorted out the timing to head over to Saratoga Springs DVC center to sign the paper work in a couple hours.

We ended up having a good lunch at T-Rex without any real wait. T-Rex is always fun.

After lunch and a decent walk around Disney Springs and Saratoga Springs Resort we were at the DVC center and finished up the paperwork and got our add on points. With the changes Disney made to DVC the previous year prior to us buying our points on the resale market we weren’t able to take advantage of some of the benefits that members that bought from them enjoyed. But with the add on points we now have access to the full benefit set. We had our new blue DVC cards saved to our phones and the points banked for next before we left the building!

We got some ice cream for the kids before we left and they also gave us 3 special fast passes to be used how we liked over the next few days. Bonus!

We walked back to Disney Springs and did some shopping through several stores and then headed out to the buses.

Back to the hotel and took some time to rest at the hotel. We ended up missing our planned Nemo musical fast pass and Primeval Whirl fast pass because of the afternoon events but we wanted to make sure we got to our night safari right fast pass.

Once we got to the park we had to wait to get Heather and the kids’ annual passes set up and then we were in the park for a quick walk to the safari ride. Along the way we saw the lit up Tree of Life for the first time in person – very cool!

Animal Kingdom Tree of Life – lit up at night

We made it to the night safari ride with a half hour to spare in our window and it was a very different experience at night – but a lot of fun!

After that we saw we had about 35 minutes until the park closed – so we hit up Expedition Everest for our son and I to ride in the dark – that was a lot of fun – you can see so far at night. The night safari ride was fun but I think the dark ride on Expedition Everest was cooler.

Then we made it over to Dinoland to make up for our missed Primeval Whirl fast pass and quickly got on the ride (well, all of us but Heather who can’t handle the spinning).

Then all 4 of us got on Triceratops Spin and then a sprint to Dinosaur and we just made it in before the clock changed to 7:30 to indicate the park was closing.

We were the only riders getting on and got an entire car to ourselves (we were the last to ride that night).

At the end the staff had been doing a final inspection of the ride cars and we were left out in the final time tunnel for a few minutes as the cars were backed up. It was pretty awesome and a definite cool first for us but by the end the kids were getting a bit scared.

After that, it was a quick bathroom break and a walk to the front of the park – along the way we managed to catch the animated show on the Tree of Life. Fantastic. Leave it to Disney to turn an oil rig into a tree and then turn around and turn it into a movie screen.

We left the park and caught the direct bus to Epcot as that park was to open to 11 that night.

The bus driver for that ride had a lot of fun joking around with everyone – made for a shorter ride.

After bag check we were into Epcot – we ended up walking right onto Spaceship Earth.

Heather and the kids had only had their annual passes for a little over 3 hours at this point and we were in our second park and had ridden 6 rides. We can be efficient at Disney World sometimes!

We then decided we needed to eat and hit up Electric Umbrella and got a partial view of Illuminations while we ate.

We checked out Test Track but the wait had jumped to 45 minutes, so instead we went over toward the Nemo ride. Along the way we looked at stopping for the Joy and Sadness meet and greet but the wait ended up being 20 minutes and the kids were a bit punch drunk so we needed to keep moving.

Onto Nemo and then did Soarin’ after a short wait. (again Heather did not ride) It was the kids’ first time seeing the updated Soarin’ so it was fun to watch their reactions.

After that we wandered out of the park and onto a bus (after a short wait) then on our way back to the resort.

Back to the room and then bed!

January 2017 – family trip – report 1

January 23rd, 2017

I woke up at 6:30 am to hear our daughter up early feeding the dogs and taking them to play for a few minutes before school. Usually I will be the first one up and I will feed the dogs before work but she wanted to do it today as we won’t see them for a bit and she was going to miss the pups.

She wanted to make sure she had some time with them before we leave. Very cute.

We then fed the kids breakfast and took them to school for the morning before heading home to take the pups to the kennel. The kennel we use is great but there were some tears dropping the pups off for sure.

Next we drove home, finished up the final bit of packing and did some cleaning (always nice to come home to a clean house!).

After putting all of our stuff in the truck we headed off to pick the kids up from school at lunch time and after a couple stops we headed to the airport.

Check in at the airport was quick and easy and going through US Customs was straightforward as well.

Due to how we had booked our tickets this trip (a couple tickets with Airmiles and a couple with the carrier using their travel miles), we ended up sitting separately – me with our son and Heather with our daughter.

They ended up boarding the plane a little late and then we had a delay as they had to fix a radio on the plane, but once we got going they made up most of the time from the delay and we got to Orlando only a few minutes late.

The flight was good and I am always happy to see how well our kids behave on a plane!

We ended up with a nice surprise when we landed too. When I was down for my Goofy Challenge trip earlier in January, I had talked to our DVC client rep and indicated that when we were down for the family trip we were looking to get add-on points for our home resort. It can be hard to get points at the Boardwalk Resort and being from Canada they really couldn’t be put on a wait list in the normal way but our DVC rep said she would do what she could.

With what she had told us we did not expect to get the points we wanted so we had a plan B and C ready for while we were down there. But…as soon as I fired up my phone and it connected to the cellular network I had a message from the DVC rep indicating that the points had come through! Woohoo! We just needed to call and get an appointment time set up while we were down and we would be good to go.

After getting off the plane we headed over to the Magical Express area and caught our bus to Animal Kingdom. In the end we were the 4th stop to be dropped but we were amused by the driver who late stopped for at least 2 stop signs. Pretty funny.

Check in at the Animal Kingdom (Jambo House) was pretty quick and we wandered around the gorgeous lobby before headed to the room. The big fire pit area was just so cool.

We had a room with a savannah view and as soon as we got in the room we had to check out the patio – spotted a wildebeest wandering around a few deer of some kind (never did figure out what they actually were) having a nap just out from our room.

Then did a wander to buy breakfast for the next morning and a quick evening snack before kids went to bed.

Heather noticed a flashing message light on the room phone – called and our luggage was here. They didn’t just deliver due to the lateness (00:25). I asked them to deliver it and they said it would be right away.

An hour later they still hadn’t come. I called bell services and again and eventually the front desk answered. They said they would get the bags to us right away. It took about another 10 minutes after that. They must have forgotten about us the first time we called, yay!

Sleep time.

February 2016 – Disney World Vacation – post 6 – Feb 16th, 17th and 18th

Feb 16th

Started the day with a quick 2 miles – it was quite warm! It was nice to finally get some real heat.

Took a while before everyone else got up after I got to the room – all the walking yesterday burned everyone out!

Lunch was pizza at the hotel then an hour of swimming in the quiet pool. Just a beautiful area with a great mix of sun and shade.

Then a bus to Epcot!

Walked into Epcot and right onto Spaceship Earth.

We then stopped for treats – popcorn and ice cream by the main fountain.

We then had a quick stop to check on the special DVC fast passes – they were not showing up in app anymore – asked fast pass folks and they confirmed they were still there and active. Excellent.

Used one of the specials for each of us to do Test Track – Heather did not ride though.

Next was Ellen’s Energy Adventure.

Then we went in and saw that the wait for the Sum of all fears simulator was not very long. So our son and daughter and I went on it. I had done it before with our son but it was our daughter’s first time. He went on his own this time and I went with her. They both had a blast and loved the designing aspect of the ride.

Sun was starting to set right at about now – great colors in the sky!

Then we did the walk over to Rose and Crown for our supper reservation – it was quite good.

Then a look around United Kingdom / England pavilion before walking to the fast pass area for Illuminations viewing. We had never done the fast pass for the fireworks show before – what a great area to view the fireworks!

Magic hours tonight so we still had lots of time to do stuff after fireworks…

First we walked around the world and had a beer in Germany.

While there we saw them open the bridge to let the globe out of the lagoon – that was pretty cool – we had seen the globe and other barges come out to the lagoon before but never leaving for the night.

Wandered back to do the Character Stop and saw Mickey, Minnie and Goofy then did the Finding Nemo ride, the Journey into Imagination with Figment ride and then went to check on Test Track again but it ended up being down. One more trip on Spaceship Earth then Mouse Gear for a final bit of shopping for the night.

We were pretty much ushered out of the store and then wandered out to the buses. One was waiting for the hotel that we ended up running for. Last ones on before it headed out.

Got out at main entrance of the hotel and went to the food court that was still partially open. Got some snacks and headed back to the room for a bit of tv and then to sleep. Another day up after midnight.

Feb 17th

3.68 miles this morning. There were lots of ladies out running this morning – Princess Half Marathon folks are showing up

Received Magical Express transportation notice for the 18th but it had no pickup time – called and got it set up. 3:30pm

Lunch at hotel then off to Magic Kingdom for our last full day.

Magic Kingdom:

Steam train to Story Book Circus
Run around and shop in that area
Over to Tomorrow Land
Bought Heather a purple magic band
Rode People Mover
Used special fast passes to do Space Ranger spin – it had been closed for a refurb when we here a few days ago but now it was open again but my question is what did they do doing refurb? Both my gun and Heather’s were wonky.
Splash mountain
Looked at using special fast passes for Heather and our daughter to go another time on Splash Mountain but it was too long a fast pass line
Back over to the Tiki Room
Then to hub and caught end of Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it
Then hub grass for a bit before checking in for supper at Plaza – bit of a wait – supper was not too bad – lighter sandwiches which was nice for a change
Then some shopping before Wishes – got a nice spot on main street
Then over to Space Mountain for fast passes
Then the Tomorrowland dance party
Tomorrowland Speedway
Then Goofy’s Barnstormer – couple times for the kids including a back to back ride without having to get out
Dumbo
Ariel meet and greet
Under the Sea ride
Pirates of the Caribbean
Thunder Mountain to end the rides for the day. Just realized we conquered the Magic Kingdom mountain range again today!
Then got Kaia a Shellie May just before the stores closed and then off to the bus and back to the room to pack…

Feb 18th – checkout day

Just an easy day today as we finished packing and got all of our stuff over to the airline check in desk. However there was an issue with the type of flight we had from Delta and we weren’t able to check our bags at the hotel unfortunately.

So we dropped the bags with the concierge folks and did some wandering and shopping around the hotel (including using up the gift card we got from the DVC tour).

Eventually it was time to get on the Magical Express and head to the airport. It is always sad to leave but at this point we were all getting anxious to get going and get home to see the pups.

We had some more fun at the airport with our bags and then our flights but we got on the plane fine and it was all good in the end – just more stress than we had been hoping for.

Off the plane in Minneapolis and caught the shuttle to the hotel where we had parked the van. It was pretty late by the time we got there and checked in but the TGI Fridays that was attached to the hotel was still open so we had some appetizers to fill the bellies and then off to bed.

The next morning it was near freezing and raining – it was lovely loading all our stuff in the van!

On the way home we made some stops for more running gear shopping and supper in Grand Forks before heading toward home. There was risk of freezing home the last couple hours of driving so that added some extra fun right at the end of the trip.

Kids off to bed as soon as we got home and we did some quick unpacking – and then I was up and at the kennel picking up the pups first thing on the 19th.

Ahh good to be home!

Feb 2016 Disney World Vacation – post 4 – Feb 12th and 13th

Feb 12th

Breakfast reservation this morning for the character breakfast at Tusker House in Animal Kingdom. This meant we had to get up and moving quite early compared to what we had been doing – we were all out of the room by 8:30! Crazy.

We got to Animal Kingdom just after 9 and got our first indication that the park was going to be crazy – there was a very long wait for back check and we just got to Tusker House in time for our 9:25 reservation.

Overall the food was good – fresh and a very good selection. The characters took longer to come around then what I remember from other character breakfasts but it wasn’t a bad wait. I would go there with the kids again.

After breakfast we abandoned the park because the lines were already crazy.

After a few minutes back at the hotel we decided to try Blizzard Beach – it was the first day of the trip where it was warm enough to actually go to a water park and we wanted to hit Blizzard Beach at least once while we were there. Every time we have gone in the past Blizzard Beach has been closed for winter reno and we have gone to Typhoon Lagoon instead – this year we lucked out and they were switched.

We got to and in the water park at around 12:45 but surprisingly they hadn’t opened until 12:30 (was supposed to be 10). I’m not sure what the issue was but it did mean the park wasn’t that crowded and we were hit everything without too much of a wait.

In the end we did every slide and kids’ area except for the Downhill Double Dipper as it was closed for some repairs. Several of the slides we did more than once. It was a lot of fun and I think in the end we enjoyed it more than Typhoon Lagoon.

We left the park around 4:45 (after stopping at the med station to get a bandage for scraped toe) – we then waited for a bus until 5:30. That was a just plain irritating frankly. And then to make it worse the bus got stopped by some kind of weird traffic jam on the way back to the hotel – we sat on one of the roads for pretty long time. Once we got going though there were many cheers through the bus!

The bus stopped at French Quarter first and after a quick discussion with Heather, I decided to get off there and run to the hotel room while she continued on the bus with the kids. We would then meet up back at the room. I have been trying to run every day as part of a challenge to run every day of 2016 and I hadn’t run in the morning so I needed to get that run done. So I hopped off and met up with everyone after a couple miles of running.

After that we had supper at the resort and did a bit of shopping through the general store there.

Later I took our son to the arcade for a little while (whoops – found out later he had lost his resort mug there).

Then we went back to the room to crash and have a relatively early night for a change.

Feb 13th

I got up and out for a run at around 9 and man, were my legs ever beat up after the day at the water park the day before. Ouch. The run was fairly slow due to a lot of extra traffic at the resort.

When I got back to the room our daughter was up and all dressed wanting to come run with me – so back out we went and did a little tour while having some daddy-daughter time.

After a quick cleanup we all went and had breakfast before coming back to the room to get changed to do some more swimming. The main pool at the Riverside was closed for reno while we were there and we decided to go try the French Quarter pool today.

So we walked over to the French Quarter (there is a shuttle as well but we decided to walk down) and spent a few hours there swimming and the kids enjoyed the slide and doing a bunch of the pool side trivia games, etc.

They were in the process of building a new splash pad area at the FQ pool when we were there and it is probably open by now. They were also in the process of putting extra gates around the pool (I suspect to ensure that only hotel guests are coming into the pool areas such as what was done at Art of Animation).

We also took a few minutes to let the kids run around on the play structure before we caught the golf cart shuttle back to the Riverside.

We decided to head to Hollywood Studios to see if we could get into Fantasmic that night as well as see Symphony in the Stars. On the way to the bus stop we stopped and talked to the Disney Vacation Club guy there and decided we should probably just do a tour. We go frequently enough and with how we vacation at Disney it would probably make some sense for us to get into DVC. Granted the Canadian dollar was fairly awful at that point but we figured if we did the tour and got the info we would be in a better place to make a decision once the dollar gets better. So we booked an appointment for the next morning.

Then off to Hollywood Studios! Very busy there as well so we didn’t end up getting on any rides but we did manage to get into SciFi Dinner for supper. The last time we were there our son had gotten a bit freaked out by some of the movie shorts they had been playing and he really didn’t want to go this time but they had changed just enough of the movies that he had a blast.

After supper we did a wander around the Launch Bay Hanger to get a look at all the Star Wars merchandise – it would be easy to lose a fortune in there…

We watched Symphony in the Stars right in front of the Great Movie Ride – it was a beautiful thing. Fantastic fireworks but the power of the music was great.

We went then to see if we could get into Club Disney that I had heard about a while back but apparently it was no more – that didn’t last long…oh well.

So then we went and got a seat at Fantasmic and had a great time before heading back out of the park to catch the bus to the hotel.

At this point we needed to get some laundry done so I went down to the quiet pool and the laundry facility to see if anything was available. Found out about something I had never heard of before – there is a laundry tracking site for all the laundry rooms at Disney World. You go to the site, pick the hotel and the laundry facility and it will tell you which machines are free and where the active machines are in their cycles (including time to completion). That is a phenomenal thing! Super convenient. www.laundryview.com/disneyworld/

2016 February family vacation – Disney World day 2 – first full day

Unfortunately our son woke up and got sick around 6 am but at least he got back to sleep after and seemed good the rest of the day after that.

I did not get back to sleep however, so after a bit of trying I decided to get up and go for a run. I did 2 laps of the hotel running path including the out and back past Port Orleans French Quarter. Beautiful morning, if a bit cool.

After my shower, everyone was still asleep so I wandered down to the general store and picked up some milk for the room fridge and some more meds for our son. Everyone was just getting up as I got back from the walk.

We had breakfast / lunch at the hotel in what became a bit of a theme for the trip – late nights and late breakfast.

We found out that Port Orleans Riverside now keeps a breakfast station open in their food court until 11:45 – sweet!

After a short wander around the hotel we grabbed a bus ride to Epcot.

It was weird to see a long wait for Spaceship Earth at around 2 in the afternoon. We skipped that with a promise to the kids that we would get to it before we left – it is one of our favorite rides but we only end up ever doing it as a walk on.

We then did the Finding Nemo ride before going to give Living with the Land a try…but it had a huge line as well!? Strange.

So a quick ice cream and popcorn stop by the fountain and then a quick check of Ellen’s Energy Adventure. But they had just let in a group and the wait was going to be too long before they opened the doors again.

Instead we did a wander of the World Showcase area making sure to hit the 3 Caballeros ride in the Mexico pavilion and also to get pretzels and beer in Germany. We also stopped in the Norway pavilion to grab some of the perfume Heather loves from there.

We also hit the American Adventure show and I hate to admit it but I fell asleep – the beer from Germany and the less than 5 hours sleep caught up to me I guess.

After the show we explored some more and did a quick walk out the International Gateway before coming back into the park and making our way back to Coral Reef for our supper reservations.

We had a short wait once we checked in but it was worth it. We ended up with a table right by the aquarium windows. The kids were ecstatic. The meal was very good as well and we had couple visits from a young boy who politely asked if he could take some pictures at the window to show his friends. It was pretty cool – we saw a few groups of divers in the aquarium during the meal.

After supper we wandered over to do our Test Track Fast Passes, then hit Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land, which were walk ons now.

We then caught the last 75% of Illuminations before getting back on the Finding Nemo ride and one more go on Spaceship Earth.

Then a bus and back to the hotel. Kids probably fell asleep around midnight.

Finally getting around to writing up our Feb family trip to Disney World. Travel days and first Disney day.

So, I haven’t been as active on this blog as I would like due to other responsibilities but I am at least going to finally start getting up a write up for our family trip to Disney World in Feb 2016.

Look for the write up to come in several installments over the next few days (hopefully).

——-

Our vacation this year started on Feb 5th with a drive from Winnipeg down to Fargo, ND. We overnighted in Fargo, did some shopping at Scheels and enjoyed the hotel pool. We then headed to Minneapolis on the 6th. We overnighted in Minneapolis for the 6th and the 7th and then hit the flight on the 8th. Minneapolis was pretty much pool time and Mall of American shopping with a stop at a premium outlet mall for some sport gear shopping. (lots of running shoes…)

We could have flown out of Winnipeg but we like doing the drive down to Minneapolis as it allows us to wind down and get in vacation mode before we hit Orlando. Plus, even with the cost of the gas and extra hotel rooms we still end up saving money on the flights.

Our son woke up feeling pretty sick on the morning of the 8th and we ended up giving him some anti-nausea meds before getting on the hotel shuttle to the airport which helped him during the day and seemed to prevent any disasters.

We did end up having some fun getting on our flight – apparently the flight type we had didn’t give us assigned seats and the plane was overbooked…by 8 seats. That was stressful for a bit but we got our seats – right at the back of the plane but that worked pretty well for us.

We landed in Orlando and had a quick bite at the food court before wandering over to the Magical Express check in area. We were directed onto a bus immediately which was nice – there was about 15 minutes or so sitting on the bus before we got going but it wasn’t too bad.

The bus got us to Port Orleans Riverside quickly and we checked in, dumped some stuff in our room and immediately headed to Magic Kingdom. We had thought about just relaxing instead of going to a park but Magic Kingdom was slated to be open until midnight and we figured we would be able to have some fun at least.

We got off the plane in Orlando at 5:25 and were in Magic Kingdom by 8:25 – not too bad for timing – the park was not crowded so we figured we would be able to hit quite a bit of stuff before closing.

First thing we did was go to Pirates of the Caribbean and then Splash Mountain which were both essentially walk ons at that point.

We were getting hungry, so we went to Pecos Bills just as the Electrical Parade was starting and ended up getting a very good vantage point to watch just by the restaurant. Once that had passed we looked at the menu and decided there wasn’t anything we wanted there after all and headed to Pinocchio Haus instead and ate there while sitting and watching people load onto It’s a Small World. We did end up missing Wishes unfortunately.

After supper we went and got on Big Thunder Mountain before heading over to ride Little Mermaid and then back tracking to watch Mickey’s Philharmagic (we tend to jump around a lot at the parks).

The park was getting close to closing so we wandered over to Tomorrowland and rode the People Mover to end the day. But while we were coming to the end of the ride we realized they were still letting people on Space Mountain…could we make it and conquer the Magic Kingdom mountain range in one night?

We got off People Mover and sprinted to the entrance – 2 people got in behind us before they stopped letting people in. Did it! Mountain range conquered! Well, for 3 of us at least – Heather can get motion sickness and didn’t ride Big Thunder or Space Mountain.

At this point the park was closed so we did the wander out, got a photopass picture or 2 and watched the Kiss Goodnight before making our way to the buses.

That was a productive 4 hours in the parks! And to think we almost didn’t go.

Swinging in front of Disney’s Beach Club Resort – Family Friday – July 11th, 2014

How often do you see kids that happy while just relaxing?

Granted they had just spent a good half hour playing tag on the grass and the beach…

The photo was taken in front of the Beach Club Resort on the beach area in Feb 2014 during our family trip. It was a gorgeous day and everyone was feeling good even though it was our last full day at Disney World.

We ended up doing World Showcase in Epcot and then Magic Kingdom thoroughly that day (late magic hours at Magic Kingdom) and the kids were exhausted but it was a great day and I think that was at least partly because we had time to relax and have a bit of fun in a great relaxed area before we went and hit the parks.

Lovely day.

K and T on the swing in front of Disney's Beach Club Resort — K and T on the swing in front of Disney’s Beach Club Resort

Tag: Disney World

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