~No Way Who Say!~ Braving Spring Break? Updated 3/16!

lillygator

DIS Veteran
Joined
Dec 27, 2003
~ “No Way Who Say!” ~ The Carlin Darlin’s Brave Spring Break ~ 2015! ~

We’re baaaack! Ok, so we never really left Disney, or the boards, just trip report writing (and er, finishing). I went to fix my signature today (out of whack since the upgrades) and I was reading through some of my OLD reports. Wow - our girls were so little, it reminded me of so many things….it was back when you could do things like:

Wake up Tinker bell

Ride in the front of the monorail

Ride the double decker bus around Epcot

Sit on the benches at Casey’s Corner and watch some cheesy cartoons

Play in the penny arcade and hit the magic shop

Give away a Fast Pass

Hang with some jocks at ESPN the Weekend


I could go on and on and on, but to keep moving forward, there are new things to experience and new Disney memories to be made starting this SATURDAY! That’s right folks; the Carlin Darlin’s are heading back our happy place! Let’s get down to business – here’s our motley crew:

lillygator – best known as “Vee” – 40 (gasp, when did that happen?) – been going to Disney since I was born, living so close made it very easy and an AP was our Christmas gift for many years. I loved those plastic AP’s that had my picture so neatly in that round circle. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed experiencing Disney as an adult through my children’s eyes – it’s something different every time we go.

Charming – 50 – yes, he’s a cradle robber….! Why Charming, you ask? Well, he used to be….lol! No, in all seriousness – he is my prince and I knew the day I met him I was going to marry him. What I did not know that day was this poor man had only been to Disney like once, maybe twice!! I started him out going to Pleasure Island and Downtown Disney (was it that back then? Maybe Lake Buena Vista?) he.never.knew.what.hit.him!
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Pumpkin Samantha – 12 – going on 20, a middle schooler, complete with the ‘tude, but is still pretty naïve and loves, loves, loves Disney. She was 18 months on her first trip and thought the Castle was our apartment, she still maintains Disney is our other home.
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Haley Bug – 10 – OMG.now.a.disney.adult! her first trip was at 4 weeks old!! she’s our 4th grader and so competitive…if there is a prize or ribbon – she will do whatever it takes to win. Got that Tebow heart I tell ya!
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For this trip report we need to roll out the red carpet……

Sound the trumpets…..

There’s a new addition to the Carlin Darlin’s…………….(can you believe it??)

King James! – Grady-James that is! – 3 – he’s our surprise little miracle and loves his “Disney home” and “Disney busses” and all things Polar Express and cars, trucks, fire trucks, dump trucks, garbage trucks – you get the idea. His favorite books are the Pete the Cat series and his phrase of late is “no way who say”, and yes, he says it just like that, not Jose! Don’t know where he picked that up from??!!
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A little more about us, we have PAP’s and try to visit often. I like to plan, plan, plan our trip and then usually upon arrival, it gets tossed out the window and we end up going with the flow. Since we do try and go often it isn’t life ending if there is something we don’t see or aren’t able to do. I personally, can’t stand waiting in line but Charming doesn’t seem to mind…on Haley’s birthday, he braved a 110 minute line at Test Track for her….I said no way, birthday be damned!

2 days to GO!!

You may be asking yourself why on earth we are going during Spring Break when crowds are INSANE….well, Haley is in ALL Star Cheerleading and on 3/7 they have a competition in Orlando. Where in Orlando? Well, the Swan and Dolphin to be exact. We were supposed to stay there and had to book through some housing authority for the gym to get some kind of credit. By the time I logged in to book –BAM, it was already filled. So, I had a couple other choices and ended up booking the Clarion Inn or some other god forsaken place that isn’t Disney.

Later on I found out we didn’t actually have to stay the night since it was close to home and her team isn’t doing the two day competition….which in turn got me thinking.

And thinking….

Hmmm…

The kids last day of school is Friday March 6th….

We have tickets….

We are going to be in Orlando ANYWAY….

Are you thinking what I am thinking?

NEMO, errr, B-I-N-G-O!!

Let’s take the week off and go to DISNEY!

I was able to book a week at POP Century with either a FL resident rate or an AP rate, can’t recall, arriving on 3/7/15 departing (BOOO!) 3/14/15. Let the agonizing – um, the planning begin!

~vee note~ on Disney resorts – over the years, we have stayed in almost every single one of the resorts, but – a few years ago I discovered the GEM of Bonnet Creek. This resort is on property, has a lazy river (and four pools), is HUGE and a bargain for a two bedroom, two bath , full kitchen, Jacuzzi tub, washer and dryer, and a balcony - which I can normally book for $100-$120 a NIGHT! Oh, and did I mention it’s on DISNEY PROPERTY FOLKS! Since we drive over and have our car, transportation is not an issue. This resort is nestled next to the Caribbean Beach Club so no different for us if we were driving from there. So why are we staying in a 260 square foot room where we will be falling all over ourselves for a week? Two reasons…and not really good ones now that I put pen to paper….


MAGIC BANDS

KIDS


Ugh! The kids love to stay on property and use their bands to open the door….we must be some pretty boring people if that is what gives these girls a thrill! Being the finance person in the family, it PAINS me to know that I could be sitting on a balcony sipping a wine, playing cards with Charming, while the girls (and GJ) are watching a movie in their own bedroom after a long day in the parks for the same price as a pimped out up Motel 6. Literally, PAINS me.

I.mean.like.every.time.I.open.the.door.or.see.a.larger.than.life.icon.

I did do a family poll and it was 3-2 – I begged, I pleaded, I even bribed! Gasp! c’mon girls, Bonnet Creek has slides in their pools, there is a lazy river, I will give you $100 each for spending money. Did they care?

As Pete the Cat would say “goodness, no”!

So Pop it is. I love the location much better than the All Star Resorts, you are right there in the middle of where you need to be. I do not like the price for what you get.

On to the planning!

The whole FP+ and booking dining 180 days out is just nuts to me. NUTS! I did find out a couple things, passholders can only book 7 days at a time – so for example, I had all 7 of our days booked at 60 days in advance (with resort reservation)….we made a quick trip over to Epcot a couple weeks ago – to meet up with some DIS friends!! – and I was trying to make a FP+ reservation on the app on the way over, which is when I learned that I would have to cancel one of my seven to get one for that day. Epcot was insanely busy that day too, so I probably wouldn’t have gotten any of the big ticket rides. It all worked out ok, but I think there is still some tweaking to do….I did read over on the theme park attractions forum that with multiple bands you can finagle some extra FP’s….too much work for me. If we ride it, great, if not – there is always NEXT time baby!

So I got a few FP’s in….which will probably all change:

Saturday March 7th

MK – Buzz, Mine Train, Dumbo

Sunday March 8th

MGM (and yes, it will always be MGM to me!) – Toy Story, LMA and Frozen

Monday March 9th

MK – Mine Train, Pooh and Anna and Elsa Meet and Greet

Tuesday March 10th

MK – Mine Train, Peter Pan and Anna and Elsa Meet and Greet

Wednesday March 11th

MK – All three mountains!

Thursday March 12th

Epcot (really not MK???) – Soarin, Nemo and Turtle Talk

Friday March 13th (omg….Friday the 13th!!)

MGM – Star Tours, Toy Story and Tower of Tower (will Haley actually ride??)

Hmm, what is wrong with this picture? Was I drinking when I booked these? My least favorite park to get to – four times in seven days? This WILL be changing. When I was booking, I was so excited to see that the mine train and Anna and Elsa were available, that I took whatever I could get.

Being the “awesome mom” that I am, I ask everyone to give me a wish list for Disney – rides they want to go on, restaurants, other activities, etc…which I do try and meet the requests….I was so pumped and told Charming that I got the mine train three (yes three) times… his response:

“I didn’t like it that much.”

He was too far away to smack.

of course they all picked insanely (over) priced restaurants which all seemed to be “booked”, so Vee booked where she wanted. Take that, Pop Century lovers!

~vee note~ I used to love doing character buffets, because as I said, I don’t do lines, but the PRICES (and now we are four ADULTS), holy smokes. I have spreadsheets from every trip, and the prices have risen so dramatically while the food has been on the decline. Charming’s two favorites, Le Cellier and the Yachtsman….I loved Le Cellier, but you are practically sitting on the table next to you and $45 for a steak with the side extra?? Again, this stems from me being the finance person, but this pains.me.as.well. Obviously we don’t do the dining plan but we do have the Tables in Wonderland card, which is good for 20% off table service restaurants and we use it A LOT!

So far I have ADR’s for – Yak N Yeti, Trail’s End dinner, Garden Grill, 50’s Prime Time, Hollywood and Vine breakfast, and Crystal Palace breakfast x 2. Let’s see how many of these end up in the trip report. The story behind the Crystal Palace breakfast is that not so secret anymore get you into the park before it opens trick. I have two since I wasn’t sure which day we would be going to Magic Kingdom yet. Then….the unthinkable…

They darn well gone and done it…..

Disney changed the Magic Kingdom’s hours to open at 8 AM every day – YES, EVERYDAY next week. OMG. That blows my plans and strategy out of the water.

8 AM, what are they thinking….Sunday starts daylight savings….you know, the crappy one…

Spring forward…as in lose an hour of sleep.

So here I sit, two days to go, rethinking all our plans…here’s my plan for our arrival:

On the road no later than 7am (Haley has to be at the Swalphin by 8:45am)

Charming drops us off at the Swalphin and heads to MGM

Haley competes 10:33am and awards at 12:30 then dismissed

Vee and Haley Bug boat over to MGM to meet up with the rest of the Carlin Darlin’s

???? then what ????

And yes, Charming, Pumpkin Sam and GJ love Haley to death, but I kind of talked them out of attending the competition…have any of you ever been to one? There is a lot of standing/sitting around and waiting, and waiting and more waiting and TONS of people – for example, our gym has 9 teams with over 200 girls, factor in family members and tons of other gyms WOW….not so much fun for a 3 year old. Not to mention, this Return to Atlantis is charging $20 per person to get in and $20 to park!

So obviously my FP’s for Saturday are no good, along with my Yak n Yeti reservation (cancelled it)….I am going into MDE now, to see what I can change. This part scares me, in the app it looks like you have to cancel your current FP to make new ones, SO - here goes nothing. Tower of Terror, Frozen Sing A long and Toy Story are all gone for Saturday (is anyone shocked? Not this gal)….I play around a bit and suddenly Toy Story no longer has the dreaded distribution note, I am clicking and clicking just knowing it will be gone faster than a Miller Lite at a Nascar race, but lo-and-behold….I got Toy Story 2 days out!! YES! Snaps for Vee! So Indiana Jones, Toy Story and Disney Jr. Not the best times, but they all start at noon and end before three, so Haley and I will make them too!

I am not going to make any ADR’s for Saturday night, Haley’s team may want to get together and there was talk of hitting up ESPN Club…let’s just say we will be winging it for food on Saturday as a whole.

Onto more agonizing planning details….so , Magic Kingdom is open until 2 am Saturday night…(let me confirm) I just checked the calendars…MGM has early morning EMH from 8-9 am, maybe sending my peeps over there is not a good thing?? I’ll let them figure it out. I love the Magic Kingdom at night…2 am is tempting, but we have an 8 am Hollywood and Vine ADR and we will be losing an hour of sleep, so me thinks we will head to Pop to check in and hit the poolside movie – it’s the new Tinker Bell one!

Stay tuned…..


~vee note~ Charming plays softball and last week he got nailed in the shin, H-A-R-D, to the point where the bottom of his foot is now all bruised and his leg looks, well, gross. Of course he has to stand on it all day for work, but not sure how that will change any of our plans due to mobility issues, he suggested renting a scooter (WHAT?). Also, I have found that renting a stroller from one of the Orlando agencies has been wonderful…while my 8 seater SUV is roomy, the stroller takes up a ton of room, by renting we have the extra space for all our gear, the kids can still spread out and be comfy and its waiting for us once we get to the resort. Cuz, you know, fitting that cooler in, is top priority!


Off we go…..stay tuned!
 
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night before and day one....

so Friday was a normal school/work day, well, as normal as any day before vacation can be. Had it not been for me having to wrap up month end, I am not really sure how productive I would have been. Soon it was quitting time, but by the time I had rounded up two kids, gassed up and ran errands, it was seven before we got home. yikes!

I did laundry and packed all night while the rest of 'em relaxed and slept. I did a last minute online order at Apple Strollers for a double Citi Mini to be delivered to Pop. I have used them before with no issues, but I ordered online after 9pm for delivery tomorrow morning - there is no place for comments or additions on the order form and no one was answering their phone.....

I finally loaded the big suitcase and cooler in the car by 1 am. I was still pretty juiced, so I laid in Charming's easy chair and had Bring It on tv, trying to fall asleep.

Really, fall asleep? before DISNEY?

so it really didn't happen. We had to be at the Swalphin no later than 8:45 am. Charming said we would leave at 6 - and we had a slight detour, a little boy on a mini team needed a ride up, so we had to go get him, which also meant I had to make sure there was a place with a seat belt for him to sit.

My alarm went off at 5...Haley got up no problem and I got her dressed bow to toe, including her makeup. Charming and Samantha got up, dressed and in the car and I had the pleasure of dressing the Gumby like Grady-James. he.was.out.....out...still snoring out!

It was still dark out and we made it to pick up mini #1 and we were on I 75 by 6:30 am. Roads were smooth and clear and made it to Orlando no bubbles...no troubles.

8:00 to be exact, 45 minutes ahead of schedule. YES, we are ahead of schedule for once!

and that is when the fun began, and fun it was. The Swalphin is an easy exit and a left turn. Not today. Well we made the turn and were directed around, and around...in a line with CLEAR signage that read, "drop off".

now in each lane there were multiple cast members staggered a car apart. And we were moving as slow as that slug in MU. s-l-o-w. and every CM had to talk to EVERY car? WHAT? this was not a well thought out process.

so we are in the designated drop off line - the clearly marker one, remember? and once we get to a CM, oh no, he says, go around here, make a u and go to the next one. Oh, you mean the next one blocked off by orange cones and fierce looking security guards?

sure thing pal.

so, of course, we follow directions. It's early am after all.

led to the $18 self parking area and a cast member is running up yelling, employee parking is full, where do we send them? they were instructing Charming to drop us off and then for him to go to Epcot and park and take a shuttle...the self parking was full. He was trying to tell them he was dumping us off and hitting mgm, they weren't listening, so he drove on thru and dropped us off.

so Charming was tasked with a 12 and 3 year old....could he handle it?

Grady was still snoring at this point!!
 


day one continued......

so Haley, Gage and I finally got to the Hall C.

OMG, more Vee notes on cheerleaders later.

as I said, the Vee plan was Charming and his third to go to MGM and hang out until we were done, which was no later than 1:30 pm.

guess what?

they actually listened!!

back to us.....the kids went off to their respective teams and I waited and waited....but we watched 4 of 9 teams (from our gym) and they rocked it!! My daughter's team is undefeated and went against 6 teams today - and they placed first!

so we are staying at Pop Century. I am not one to normally request things, and after participating in the Pop thread, I called 2 days ago and added that we would like to be either by the Hippy Dippy Pool or the main hall (thinking it was the same thing). I then checked in online. and didn't request anything (I don't think) so YAH, 10:22 am I get a text.....

our

room

is

ready......

and now I recall why I don't request anything. "your resort room is ready, your room number is 8261, 2nd floor, bldg 8"

could that be any farther from my request??????????????

so in between waiting for results I call the resort and explain that I would like to be by the hippy dippy pool and within minutes I get an updated text that we are in building 5.....yahoo!!

meanwhile I was worried about my 3 as it was an EMH morning at MGM, they seemed to have NO problem. They rode TSM and did Disney Jr (with no FP) and of course a trip to Starbucks before heading to the Swalphin via boat to meet up with us.

and in all this time, my phone was dying.....UGH!

so finally -- national champs, number 1 and undefeated!

see ya, we are off to hook up with Charming.

we meet up and head to the boat launch. huge line for Epcot, none for MGM and what looks like a full boat. I start taking pics and Bam, the gate opens and the Carlin Darlin's embark upon a full ship to find one empty row!!!
so can anyone recognize where they parked???
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yep, they were parked pretty darn close, no trams needed! as we disembarked the boat, the wait to board was so long!!

we hit the car and headed to Pop.

of course our bands didn't work to open the gate so we had help. and as Charming pulled in, I recalled I needed to pick up the stroller....he busted a u, and haley and I jumped out.


and hey, as long as you know some one's name who rented a stroller - no worries, that was me, no purse, no id, just a really cute kid, who just won first place!!!

got the buggy and headed to our 50's room and soon my phone was blowing up. Charming was calling me, he was stuck by the bowling pin pool, he bit off more than he could chew bringing stuff in.

and why did he park HERE?

omg in more ways than one. he was carrying like 4 reusable bags, no luggage, no cooler, no....nada. hmmm, we handed the stroller to him, which he loaded up and Hay Bay and I set off we brought everything else@!!!

on to our ROOM!
 
Can't wait to read more! I hope you are enjoying your trip. We will be there in 13 days! Woohoo!
 


so far the past 5 days have been awesome~~~ will try and post an update tonight. the weather has been wonderful. in the room now trying to decide where to go.
anyone have a better site than photobucket? I am having 50 fits with them and trying to upload photos....
 
we are home!! it was a great week, i took lots of photos and detailed notes will post my updates late tomorrow or monday. traffic on i4 and i75 was a nightmare coming home, guess everyone is coming to the beach for spring break!!
 
On to the room!!


So our room is on the second floor and next to the last room on that hallway... the walk to the elevator wasn’t bad at all and it really was convenient to get to the pool and Classic Hall. Over the course of the week, we saw, maybe one family on this hallway. There were towel animals in a couple windows, but either it wasn’t full or people stayed gone from morning until night. The room next to us had the do not disturb sign out and sent out laundry every day….I should have done that!! Coming home to laundry is no fun!

The room is well, a basic motel room – 2 beds, table and 2 chairs and a nice flat screen tv. The fridge doesn’t have a freezer so my plan of freezing water bottles to take into the parks didn’t work too well. Not sure what they are called, but the table runners on the ends of the bed are kind of worthless. I suspect they are to “pretty up” the beds, but really, they slide off at the slightest touch and I think they should get rid of them altogether.

First things first – I always unpack right away – once that is done I finally feel like my vacation has started. So the pictures are once I unpacked and it looks pretty lived in!

Our first towel animal…
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the closet area....
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see that Disney sweatshirt? Charming bought that this morning ($65) because he was COLD....I packed sweatshirts for everyone and they were right in the back of the car in a huge bag that you could see from the top....he claims he couldn't find them! MEN!

dresser/tv area....
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some photos of the view...
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"the bench"
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this is one of the very few times this bench wasn't occupied. I made mention to Charming that the view must be wonderful as every time I looked over, there were people sitting there. His reply, "Vee, it's a smoking bench." Hmmm, guess my eyesight is going. We never walked by it or went that way so I was never bothered by the smoke and couldn't smell anything up on our floor.

keep in mind, we left town at 6am to get to the Swalphin, and while it was the beginning of our Spring Break extravaganza, this is what actually happened next:
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yep, we're at Disney, on vacation and everyone crashed! No worries, I let them all sleep and I actually laid down and got to read some of my book!

so my plan was to hang at the resort and maybe catch the poolside flick tonight.

guess what?

That's exactly what we did. Ran to the food court for some dinner and settled in to watch Tinker Bell and the Never Beast - loved the movie. It was cold out and we had brought blankets from home - since it was cold when we left there too! Those came in handy during the week as well.
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We were so exhausted - I don't think we cared what we ate....GJ fell asleep and missed out on his sgetti. We did get our mugs and Pop takes the TIW card, so that is a nice feature.

After the movie, we called it a night since tomorrow was daylight savings and we had an 8am breakfast to get to!

~vee note~ this was the first time I have done online check-in (I think?). That aspect was great, several times during the week we passed the check-in area and it was a NIGHTMARE! do the online check-in if you can, it's a breeze. Only problem is if you normally put in a request, on-line only offers the floor and numbered sections as choices - there is no spot to write in or anything. I actually called this time and put our request to be by the main pool, I usually don't put in a request and don't think I will do that again. This was also a first time I actually asked for a different room - we normally just go with what we are given, I did it over the phone and within minutes I had a new room with no issues. While I didn't hear many people, you can hear the showers and the toilets plain as day in these paper thin rooms. None of it was a problem it was mostly early am and late evening.
 
Thanks for following. ...I will update this week....we were back in Orlando this weekend - just got home actually - stayed at Caribe Royale for the weekend and we will be back this weekend as my daughter has another competition at the Swan on Saturday. I have detailed notes and will also post review on Caribe Royale.....
 
holy smokes....back to O town tomorrow. Our competition is at the Swalphin again. was able to go online tonight and get FP for Buzz, race cars and Pirates for tomorrow, plus a BOG. S-W-E-E-T!
 

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