|
Date: MLK Weekend - January 18 - 20, 2008
Cast: 2 North Carolina families that are good friends. Each family has 2
boys, and the kids are ages 10, 7, 7, and 2. I'm not telling you how old I am!
Let’s just say I’ve enjoyed my 36th birthday several times.
Lodging: Wilderness Lodge - yeah, baby!
Day 1 Arrival & Epcot
Pixie dust moments:
- Room upgrade to a courtyard view. Score! Our friends also received the upgrade and were one door down from us at the hotel.
- While we were walking into Epcot, an incredibly nice guy hands our big group Test Track fast passes. Thanks, dude!
- Our friends’ 7 year old got the spotlight at Turtle Talk with Crush.
Really good stuff:
- The Wilderness Lodge--What a gorgeous, relaxing resort. We felt right at home and loved the boat launch to the other resorts and to the Magic Kingdom.
- Living with the Land--Surprisingly enjoyable. I was expecting something along
the lines of the old boat ride in Mexico. My husband is already trying to figure out how to grow Mickey pumpkins at home for Halloween.
- Soarin’ - Incredible--Wow--Amazing! It was over much too quickly. I am very
afraid of heights and made sure not to look down or over the side. I didn’t want to see feet dangling!
- Test Track--Fun with a capital F.
- The weather;Snow in NC, but much warmer in FL. Overcast, but warm.
- The WL pool. The kids had a ball on the water slide.
- Light crowds, short waits.
- Illuminations-a great way to end an evening. We shopped at MouseGear afterwards while the crowds rushed to the buses, so we had no wait at the bus stop when we were ready to return to the WL.
- Meeting Donald Duck in the Festival Marketplace in Mexico. Donald got down on one knee to take a picture with my little one, so he got down one knee, too.
The picture is precious.
A couple of sticky points:
- I was trying to show-off my superior Disney planning skills by taking the group to Epcot by bus to TTC and then monorail;unfortunately, the monorail to Epcot was down. We ended up wasting a good amount of time due to my over-planning. Oops.
- Because of the excitement of our late-morning arrival, our 2 year old did not
nap. You can imagine what a tired toddler is like at Disney;not a pretty
sight.
Grubbin’ and Shoppin’ around Epcot:
- Mexico: Fiesta Margarita;mmm! and nachos--pretty good
I didn’t think we’d ever get the kids out of the marketplace! They wanted
everything. And so did I.
- Norway: School bread;I have never had anything like it before. Coconut,
cinnamon, creme--yum, yum! It should be a fastpass attraction instead of
Maelstrom!
- Germany: Bratwurst, beer, and sauerkraut;very tasty, indeed! The kids loved
their "hot dogs" and my husband loved the German beer. Our friends bought a
pickle for their Christmas tree. Yes, a pickle---it’s a German tradition. (We already have one from a previous trip, thankyouverymuch.)
- Japan: Kaki Gori for my 7 year old. He said "Yum!" The adults said "Yuck! It never ceases to amaze me what he will and won’t eat. We loved the shop and we bought quite a few things here.
- USA: Funnel Cake for the kids
- Italy: Bellini-I was expecting something sweeter, but I enjoy dry wine and
champagne. Italian margarita-very sweet, lemony (is that a real word?)
- Morocco: Shwarma platter and a chicken wrap---Oh. My. Gosh. Absolutely
delicious. The best counter service of the entire trip, hands down. It was slap-your-knee good.
Note to the reader: the adults shared the alcoholic beverages over a period of
several hours! If we had all ordered our own drinks at every location, I’m
sure that we would still be sleeping it off on a bench in France. And all eight
of us shared the food.
Things I’d do differently:
- Find a way for our toddler to nap! I knew that it was a disaster in the making.
- Try not to divide up our car trip with an overnight stay if possible. We are
used to arriving in the late afternoon, and it is better for us.
- Spend more time at Epcot. There is so much to do!
- Wear my camera around my neck like the tourist that I am. I spent way too much time digging in my bag to take a picture (we came home with 202 pictures to
print, and there were many more that got deleted, if that tells you anything.)
- Spend the first day at Disney at a character meal and hanging out at the resort. We had a short trip and tried to pack as much as possible into our time. As a result, we were rushed.
Page: 1, 2, 3, 4 >
|
