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Wednesday March 17, 2005
Who: Prince Charming(23) and Cinderella (22)
This is the trip to celebrate our upcoming graduation from Ohio State University. We have not taken a spring break trip yet in college so we decided to go all out
for our last "official" spring break! The night before we left (Tuesday March 16) I had been at home in Dayton OH then
my Mom drove me back to Columbus so that my car would be home and we were taking Prince Charming's car to the airport. I got a little overwhelmed trying
to make sure we had everything and double check things. With finals just days before, my mind was still a little frazzled and I really hadn't had the time to sit down
and plan out our itineraries. Prince Charming and I went out for Chipotle for dinner around 8pm
then came back. He could not understand why I was so stressed! I told him all the things I still needed to do, etc. He proceeded to make a mistake by telling me
it only took him 5 minutes to pack and he really didn't have anything else to do if I wanted
help. While he may have just been being nice, I was not in the mood to hear about
his 5 minute packing so I sent him on his way to his own apartment while I finished. I
finally had everything ready, organized and prepared by midnight. Of course then I
couldn't fall asleep!! By 1am I had fallen asleep but I woke up at 3:47 AM WIDE
AWAKE! I was ready to go so I just got up and got dressed. Prince Charming came
down at 4:30 and after taking out our luggage and the trash, we were on our way
to the airport. Port Columbus Airport is only about 10 minutes from campus and as
you can imagine there is not much traffic at 5 am but we still left early (something
our parents both do!). By 5am we were parked in the blue lot long term
parking($5/day) and a shuttle was waiting! I couldn't believe that we didn't have to wait for
one. As we got off the shuttle, we saw some friends from school who were headed to Key
West! At 5:15 we were at the Independence Airline ticket counter but there were no
workers! That made me quite nervous. Delta and United were the ticket counters
next to us and they had lines of 50+ people. Then at the Independence Airline counter
stood Prince Charming and myself! Soon after an Independence worker arrived and
said the ticket counter doesn't open until 530am but she took us early.
We headed to our gate. The security man checked Brian's ID, boarding pass. I
hadn't gotten my ID out yet and was a little frantically reaching into my bag.
He looked at me and said how old are you? I was a little taken back. He asked me
again and I said, "22". He just laughed and said--You are kidding me. I was going to
tell you that under 16 you don't have to show an ID!! He then proceeded to tell me that
he'd look at my ID too then! Prince Charming did not let that go the whole trip! By
5:35 we were seated at the gate and our flight didn't leave until 7. Then they pushed
back our flight til 7:25! We arrived in DC and I got a much needed coffee drink at Starbucks!
We were to have landed in Orlando at 1124am but we ended up not landing until
12:30!! While we were slightly irritated about being an hour late but assumed
that Tiffany Towncar was keeping a tab on that. We landed and nearly rushed to
baggage claim just anxious to get to Disney. We quickly identified our names on a sign
being held by a man by baggage claim. He explained that he would go get the towncar
while we got our luggage because of the delay he wasn't able to keep the car as
close as normal. He told us to meet him outside to the left. So Prince Charming
got our bags and we headed down to the towncar. We went left but saw no towncars. I
began to panic a little bit as there we lots of other shuttle buses and towncars
but we did not see our guy. 15 minutes passed and finally here comes our driver running
from the opposite direction explaining that he had not been able to find a spot
to the left and had parked at the other end. While we were slightly irritated that we
had lost him, he was exteremly nice and we enjoyed our car ride with him. The weather was
awful. Pouring rain but the temperature was great! Coming from 20-30 degrees in
Ohio, the 65ish felt wonderful, even if it was raining. Our driver told us it
had been raining for the last 4 days straight but that it was supposed to clear up
tonight. We were really glad to hear that and were not really disappointed that it was
raining for our arrival day. We went to Publix for our grocery stop. He took us to an out of
the way Publix which was not crowded with tourists. We were in and out in 10 minutes.
We bought boxed OJ, cereal, yogurt, 2 half gallons milk, gatorade, and some gum.
We arrived and checked into the hotel at 2pm. As we drove towards Disney we drove
over one of the major high ways and it was bumper to bumper! Our driver had taken
us a back way so that we didn't sit in the major traffic which he says was typical!
Prince Charming and I were so happy that we had taken the towncar instead of
renting a car or taking a taxi or shuttle. It was nice that it was just us in the car and
that we didn't have to stop at other locations but our own destination.
Check in at PC was great. There were quite a few people in line ahead of us but in
less than 5 minutes we were at the desk. The guy that checked us in was super
friendly and chatty. I made sure there would be a refridgerator and a hairdryer in the
room. We were assigned to the 80s section, building 7 to be exact. Room .
We opened up the door to our room and just felt like we were coming home. It was
spotless clean and perfect for the 2 of us. We could not believe how clean it was. It
appeared as if we were the first to ever stay in this room. I unpacked our clothes and
in about 20 minutes the fridge and hairdryer were delivered by mousekeeping. We
decided we were going to skip lunch--we were both past being hungry since we were
so starving. So we ate some peanut butter crackers and drank so gatorade and we
were off. We left the room about 330pm and headed out to the bus stop. In less than
5 minutes a bus to Animal Kingdom pulled up. We arrived at Animal Kingdom and it
had stopped raining. We hopped off and headed to guest relations. On the way we
stopped to take a picture of 2 college aged girls so they could be in the same
picture, then they did the same for us. Then as we headed towards the entrance,
who was standing out there but MICKEY, MINNIE, GOOFY AND DONALD!! All
dressed in their safari gear! There was no one standing near them so we headed over
and got our pictures taken. It was so fun! We headed to guest relations where I
upgraded my 4 day parkhopper(price at AAA:$206) for an annual pass. It only cost
me $187 to upgrade!! I was so excited. I thought it was going to be at least $200 so
the $13 difference made my day! Tommy from GA was the castmember. He was so
nice. I hadn't brought my photo ID with me because I left my wallet in the room but
he went ahead and processed it for me. We talked to him about experiencing the
hurricanes in August and then decided to head to AKL. We walked back down to the
bus stops and a bus for AKL pulled up--what luck! As we pulled up to AKL we were
both in awe. It was so big and themed excellently! We explored AKL, taking lots of
pictures of the lodge for a possible stay in December. We listened to a cast member
talk about the animals and then decided to head over to MK. I loved the feel of this
resort and can't wait to surprise my folks with a stay here in December. We took the
bus from AKL to MK then took a bus to Wilderness Lodge as we still had time before
our PS for 1900 Parke Fare. We loved Wilderness Lodge as much as AKL. The
atmosphere was great. We boarded a bus back to MK and decided to take the
monorail over to GF since it was pouring rain again. We loved riding the monorail for
the first time this trip! It's always fun. We arrived at GF and looked around the gift
shops then checked in for our PS very early as we were now starving. We checked in
about 6:30 for our 7:20 PS but they took us. Goofy was in the lobby and we got
pictuers with him. Then while we waited the Fairy Godmother showed up and we got
pictures with her. She was an awful fairy godmother-nothing like my magical moment
with the Fairy Godmother at CRT in August. Never the less it was fun. We were
seated in a decent amount of time. Great table about half way into the large room.
We decided to go get some food as the characters were far from us. I was VERY
disappointed with the food. I had read some good reviews and some bad reviews and
I am going to be writing my own BAD review. The food was awful. Nothing over the
top and not worth the $27 per person. There was salad, soup, lasagna, fresh pastas,
breads, shrimp, kids buffet and a dessert side. The food was very average. It was
much like our dining hall food at college. This was our most expensive meal all week
and our worst meal all week. We ate our share of food as we were starving but it
was just plain. I ate quite a few veggie eggrolls, some of the shrimp alfredo
pasta(minus shrimp for me) and some salad plus the strawberry soup(more like
eating a smoothy with a spoon but it was good). Prince Charming ate a bunch of the
pizza from the kids buffet, salad, some lasagna, veggie eggrolls. The mice came
while we were eating and it was fun to get pictures with them. Then it was forever
before Prince Charming(character) made it over to our table. He was nice but not as
cute as my own Prince Charming. We felt so awful for the little girls next to us. They
were so antsy to meet Cinderella but she was no where in sight. Then she appeared
and came close to us only to turn and go into this far away part of the restraunt. The
parents were ready to pull their hair out because the food was awful and the girls
were not eating plus the characters were not coming. The mice made their second
swing through shortly after. At this point we were beyond done eating. We had even
done dessert--Key Lime tort was decent. Prince Charming had softserve icecream.
Hard to mess up but he liked it. We were both very tired at this point, especially
myself. Our waiter was extremely nice and apologized 100x to us and to the table
next to us with the little girls, about how long we'd waited to see Cinderella. I was
almost ready to leave without seeing her just because I was tired of waiting. Finally she made her way towards our tables. After a rushed converstation and photos we
left. While it wasn't a great experience, we both decided it was a learning
experience. We took the monorail over to MK. The rain had stopped and we could
see the castle lit up. It was a lot of fun to see. We got on a bus to PC. We were both
exhausted. After showers and setting up a Mickey wake up call, we were off to sleep.
Best thing about today: ARRIVING AT DISNEY! Our room at PC
Worst thing about today: rain, 1900 Park Fare
Tomorrow: MK !!!
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