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Day 1: Surprises abound...
Well as some of you know this was the big surprise trip for my daughter's 7th birthday and boy did we get her good. Rouseted her from bed about 4:30 am to "Take daddy to the airport for his conference in Orlando" which had been the cover story so I could grill her for info on what she missed and wanted to do if she where going. She was tired and a bit cranky about having to help with one of the rollaways so I handed her Pal Mickey and said "Here your in charge of this" she asked why and I responded "Well you have to hold him for my in DisneyWorld!" after a few rounds of "your just teasing right?" she perked up and was trying to drag every suitcase in sight. Ya just gotta know how to motivate kids.
Well after arrival and being met at the airport by our driver (Sorry skiped the magical express in favor of a towncar) and whizzing byall the folks waiting for the bus, we drove off, picked up a couple cases of water and other groceries and headed off to the Wilderness Lodge.
Surprise #1: We where able to check in early at around 10:30 when we arrived and our room was ready, mentioned it was my daughter's birthday and the CM gave her a WDW resort birthday pin and mentioned he would have cinderella sign a card for her when she was over the lodge later that day.. ok things are lookin up these are the little things we all expect from Disney but I admit after some of the cynical posts I was setting my expectations a bit lower this trip... So we headed off to our room.
Surprise #2: The refurbished lodge rooms are wonderful! The head boards have carved woodland scenes and the posts hide the light switches for the over bed lamps. bot on top of those posts... animal carvings! Just like the lobby! Additionally they have a nice LG HiDef TV now and high speed Internet service in room! the desk also has the jacks and power outlets above the desk, one stop recharge center without havin to scronge for outlets everywhere. Also they have finally built in the refrigerators in the cabinets beside the front doors. In all a big improvements although I do miss the mission furnature a bit. Pictures to come soon.
After we had finally changed and finished playing with all the new amenities of the room we headed down to the lodge merchanitle to buy a new autograph book, where (Surprise #3) the CM actually *GAVE* (not traded but gave) my daughter a Sleeping Beauty pin from her lanyard for her birthday! I called Summer to let her know we whereon our way to the mini MiceChat meet and off we went to the boat to the MK.
We hit the MK at 1 pm right during the start of the mainstreet Family Parade, I took some pictures to be posted soon as I can. We hustled to Cosmic Ray's Cafe and Met up with Summer, CMash, Figment, Boo and a few others. (Again Pictures to to come soon... I promise) It was wonderful to meet everyone who I had been chatting with here and on VMK. After fighting to protect my new camera from Figment's clutches, Summer, Figment and my family went over to the VMK Central to turn in some quests and other items.
Surprise #4 We met the nicest CM in VMK Central who hooked us up with some extra bonus cards and wirstbands after we introduced ourselves.... I literally walked out of there with a good 5 inch stack of trading cards! Thank you SO Much Summer and Figment for all the help!
After some shopping and all we headed over to Adventureland to ride the magic carpets at my daughter's insistance. Then we heade over to POTC where what do we see? A pirate laying out a rope on the ground and gathering a crowd...
Surprise #5: Captain Jack! Wow... this guy was captian Jack Sparrow, absolutly incredible I will try to return later in the wek and shoot some digital video for everyone. We wandered off to ride POTC saddened by the new signage and loss of the animatronic parrot that graced the old sign. Now POTC is my favorite attraction and I have mixed feelings, the new anamatronics are incredible, the Davey Jones projected in the mists is a nice addition as well but the lackluster sound and the obvious voiceovers for captain jack and added fire fx wher enot really needed, and the treasureroom scene I kinda miss the the old pirate on the cannon with the pistol... It was nice but it just looked half done.
Next we headed over to hall of presidents, why well yes its a lame attempt to add some educational value to the trip since she is missing a couple days of school... To my amazement everyone stayed awake and she actually liked it! We followed that up with Philharmagic which was awsome and its a small world which was well wat it is.
And headed back over to the Junle cruise (Shopping all the way) We met Skipper Dave in the queue and went on the cruise, it was almost exactly as I rememeber it but well our skipper I think was skipper Lame he just wasn't into it...
We had dinner at Liberty Tree tavern and met the charaters. Dinner was great as always, the best table service in the kingdom. and headed out since we where all exhaused after a long day. Only to be caught up in the Spectromagic parade! More pictures to come of that was actually able to get some nice ones with my new Digital SLR... then we hoped the boat back to the Lodge watching the water pagent along the way. A great first day full of surprises!
Well as some of you know this was the big surprise trip for my daughter's 7th birthday and boy did we get her good. Rouseted her from bed about 4:30 am to "Take daddy to the airport for his conference in Orlando" which had been the cover story so I could grill her for info on what she missed and wanted to do if she where going. She was tired and a bit cranky about having to help with one of the rollaways so I handed her Pal Mickey and said "Here your in charge of this" she asked why and I responded "Well you have to hold him for my in DisneyWorld!" after a few rounds of "your just teasing right?" she perked up and was trying to drag every suitcase in sight. Ya just gotta know how to motivate kids.
Well after arrival and being met at the airport by our driver (Sorry skiped the magical express in favor of a towncar) and whizzing byall the folks waiting for the bus, we drove off, picked up a couple cases of water and other groceries and headed off to the Wilderness Lodge.
Surprise #1: We where able to check in early at around 10:30 when we arrived and our room was ready, mentioned it was my daughter's birthday and the CM gave her a WDW resort birthday pin and mentioned he would have cinderella sign a card for her when she was over the lodge later that day.. ok things are lookin up these are the little things we all expect from Disney but I admit after some of the cynical posts I was setting my expectations a bit lower this trip... So we headed off to our room.
Surprise #2: The refurbished lodge rooms are wonderful! The head boards have carved woodland scenes and the posts hide the light switches for the over bed lamps. bot on top of those posts... animal carvings! Just like the lobby! Additionally they have a nice LG HiDef TV now and high speed Internet service in room! the desk also has the jacks and power outlets above the desk, one stop recharge center without havin to scronge for outlets everywhere. Also they have finally built in the refrigerators in the cabinets beside the front doors. In all a big improvements although I do miss the mission furnature a bit. Pictures to come soon.
After we had finally changed and finished playing with all the new amenities of the room we headed down to the lodge merchanitle to buy a new autograph book, where (Surprise #3) the CM actually *GAVE* (not traded but gave) my daughter a Sleeping Beauty pin from her lanyard for her birthday! I called Summer to let her know we whereon our way to the mini MiceChat meet and off we went to the boat to the MK.
We hit the MK at 1 pm right during the start of the mainstreet Family Parade, I took some pictures to be posted soon as I can. We hustled to Cosmic Ray's Cafe and Met up with Summer, CMash, Figment, Boo and a few others. (Again Pictures to to come soon... I promise) It was wonderful to meet everyone who I had been chatting with here and on VMK. After fighting to protect my new camera from Figment's clutches, Summer, Figment and my family went over to the VMK Central to turn in some quests and other items.
Surprise #4 We met the nicest CM in VMK Central who hooked us up with some extra bonus cards and wirstbands after we introduced ourselves.... I literally walked out of there with a good 5 inch stack of trading cards! Thank you SO Much Summer and Figment for all the help!
After some shopping and all we headed over to Adventureland to ride the magic carpets at my daughter's insistance. Then we heade over to POTC where what do we see? A pirate laying out a rope on the ground and gathering a crowd...
Surprise #5: Captain Jack! Wow... this guy was captian Jack Sparrow, absolutly incredible I will try to return later in the wek and shoot some digital video for everyone. We wandered off to ride POTC saddened by the new signage and loss of the animatronic parrot that graced the old sign. Now POTC is my favorite attraction and I have mixed feelings, the new anamatronics are incredible, the Davey Jones projected in the mists is a nice addition as well but the lackluster sound and the obvious voiceovers for captain jack and added fire fx wher enot really needed, and the treasureroom scene I kinda miss the the old pirate on the cannon with the pistol... It was nice but it just looked half done.
Next we headed over to hall of presidents, why well yes its a lame attempt to add some educational value to the trip since she is missing a couple days of school... To my amazement everyone stayed awake and she actually liked it! We followed that up with Philharmagic which was awsome and its a small world which was well wat it is.
And headed back over to the Junle cruise (Shopping all the way) We met Skipper Dave in the queue and went on the cruise, it was almost exactly as I rememeber it but well our skipper I think was skipper Lame he just wasn't into it...We had dinner at Liberty Tree tavern and met the charaters. Dinner was great as always, the best table service in the kingdom. and headed out since we where all exhaused after a long day. Only to be caught up in the Spectromagic parade! More pictures to come of that was actually able to get some nice ones with my new Digital SLR... then we hoped the boat back to the Lodge watching the water pagent along the way. A great first day full of surprises!
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