Disney 2011: Touring the hotels

22 weeks, 2 days

I've been given specific instructions to make this as detailed as possible for future record so bear with me. Most of you may not give a crap about any of this but that's just fine with me. :)

The trip was originally planned as a quick sister weekend to Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as a gift from my parents for Christmas. My mom actually had the entire thing planned and booked as a surprise trip in January, but Joe was unable to get in touch with my work without me finding out so she canceled it and surprised us with a TBD trip, which ended up being much better for us (control freaks).

Shortly thereafter, it was decided that the three of us could not be in Orlando and not go to Disney. A sacrilege, if you will. (I feel like I should say a few Hail Mary's to absolve my sins.) And we got to planning.

Oh, the infamous planning! (I told you we were control freaks, right?) Allyson had already purchased "The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World" which is basically the bible if you are planning a trip to Disney. Get it on amazon. Do not stop on Go. Do not collect $200. Get.it.

My luck, she had already read it (numerous times, I think. With a highlighter in hand) when we started planning the trip, so I took it and sped through all 700(?) pages in like 2 days. This book is where we learned about Touring Plans. I'm not going to get into the touring plans in this installment but you will hear about them more in depth later.

Thanks to "The Book," we found historical data to help us determine our dates. The creators keep records of what the busiest times and slowest times of the year are and rank them accordingly. We had originally decided that Rachel's spring break would work great but after referencing the data, there would just be too many people. We found out that the week right after Memorial Day, when most schools in the US were still in session, would be a perfect time. Rachel would be on summer break already and there would be no problem for Allyson and I to take vacation days. So June 1 to June 4 was decided.

And the trip was born...

Wednesday morning, June 1st, we all woke up bright and early at 4am so we could be on the road by 4:30 to make our 8am flight at Midway. Not surprisingly, we left just a bit late but all was well until we hit mad traffic at Weber Road. (I forgot to mention that although the trip was originally planned for just us sisters, my mom saw our planning and decided that she would tag along with us.) Anyways.... the traffic slowed us down quite a bit. My mom was having an internal freak out that we were going to be late. We got to parking about an hour before our flight was to leave and after a quick bag and security check, we made it to our gate with 15 minutes to spare. Perfect timing, if you ask me!

Before we could get to Orlando, we had a quick layover in Raleigh, NC. I'm not a fan of layovers but the price was right and we only had to sit in the terminal for about 10 minutes before boarding again. After the first leg, I was fine with having to make the stop since our flight was pretty quick and very smooth. Unfortunately, after bumpy mcbumperflight #2, I determined that layovers were, again, the pits. We hit some bad storms in FL while we were descending and it was not fun. Luckily for us, by the time we got to our shuttle, the sun was out and we were on our way to Disney!

We booked a room at The Swan which technically is not a Disney hotel but is on Disney property and still includes most of the Disney amenities plus some extras like WiFi and a refridgerator (neither of which come with all Disney hotels). We chose this hotel only because it took my parents timeshare points but we were all happy with the decision. It is said that they have some of the most comfortable beds on property and if my sleep was any indication, I would agree!

Why they chose the ugly green and salmon, I will never know.


This is the view from our balcony of our room. The pathway leads to the Epcot hotels and eventually Epcot itself. It's a easy 10 minute walk to the International Gateway entrance.


After getting to our hotel about 3ish, we took a stroll down the boardwalk to check out all the epcot hotels since none of us had visited them on our other trips to Disney.

Our first stop was The Boardwalk hotel.


Along this strip, they have a bunch of shops, restaurants, ESPN zone, a dance club and piano bar, as well as huts to rent bicycles and paddleboats.




As you loop around the walkway, you will hit the Beach Club and Yacht Club hotels. These were two of my favorites.






I didn't take any pictures of it but these hotels share what is considered the best family pool on property. It is known for it's sandy bottom, slides, caves and size. A total kids dream. This shipwrecked pirate ship is actually a slide into one part of the pool!




Our last stop in our walk was our "sister" hotel, The Dolphin which is just across the bridge from our hotel. Again with the nasty green and salmon color.


After a quick rest in our hotel room, we freshened up and hopped on the bus for dinner and to tour the Monorail hotels. In all our other trips to Disney, we stayed at the Contemporary resort which is one of the monorail hotels and a short walk to Magic Kingdom. We had been to all the other hotels in the area but since most of us hadn't been back since 2003, we still wanted to check them out. The bus system does not shuttle from hotel to hotel so we had to be dropped off at Magic Kingdom before heading to the other hotels. Can I tell you how much of a tease it is to be dropped off at the entrance and not be able to go in?!? I don't know what it's like for others but it doesn't really feel like you're in Disney until you've gotten a glimpse of the castle.

I have to add in here that while on the bus, we sat next to a family that included mother, two daughters and a son. I'd guess the mom was in her 50s and the kids were all between the ages of 18-24ish. They were very overweight (which is probably irrelevant but I need some descriptor to refer to them so that's what I'm going with). At some point, one of the girls made the mention that the figure on top of the Dolphin hotel is not a dolphin. It is supposed to look like one but it doesn't. It looks like a goldfish.

I'm shooting myself now for not getting a picture! but pretend there is a goldfish/dolphin here instead of a swan.


Getting back to the story, my mom laughs at the girl and says that we were just discussing this on our walk earlier and that some of us agree with her. My mom then continues to have a little conversation with her before getting off the bus. We assume that is the last we will see of them.

At MK, we decided to take a ferry ride across the lagoon to check out the Grand Floridian first. In all our trips before we had never taken the ferry and it was really pleasant. We had this cutie 2 year old next to us who was totally enamored with the ride. I can only imagine what he thought of the real rides in the parks!




From there, we stepped on the infamous monorail to catch a ride to dinner. Once you hear those doors open, it's a trip back in time. From our very first trip when I was 10, everything about the monorail is still the same. It smells the same, it feels the same, the warning is still the same. (Please stand clear of the doors. Por favor mantengase alejado de las puertas.) We sat with an extended family of what looked like mom, dad, brother, sister and both sets of ILs. The sister was maybe 2ish and for the 5 minutes we were on the ride, she was throwing a fit! Mom and Grandma were trying everything they could to get her to calm down to no avail. We were all headed to the Contemporary but she was headed to Tantrum City!

We had made reservations at The Wave within the Contemporary Resort for dinner. As we were being seated, we walk into the restaurant and first thing we see is a family that we know from Pontiac. We knew they would be there at the same time but it was crazy how we both chose to be at the same restaurant (of all the choices) at the same time! It's a small world after all, it's a.... Moving on, the food was yummy. Rachel got some sort of chicken dish, Allyson and I got beef tenderloin and my mom pork tenderloin. It seemed like the real hit of the meal was the bread and butter though!


The last stop of the night was another quick ride on the monorail to the Polynesian resort. Through our research, we found that the views and atmosphere would be great to watch the fireworks show at Magic Kingdom. Since we were early, we were able to get prime seating on the beach in some comfy lounge chairs. I had brought my tripod and gear with us so that I could do a test run of fireworks. While Allyson and Rachel went to watch the Beauty and the Beast, which was playing on a projector screen on the beach, I took my time to set everything up and do some tester shots.

We had also planned on catching the boat show which is a light parade that plays along the lagoon every night. I'm not sure how long this boat show has been in running but one of my most vivid memories of our previous trips was watching the boat show from our room. The floats were the same, the music was the same. It's too bad, I didn't get any good shots except for the very end.

You can see Cinderella's castle in the background.


At this point, I wasn't very happy with what I was getting with my pictures. The settings that should have worked were not coming up with good results so I had a bunch of trial and error to figure out before the fireworks began but before I knew it, the show was starting.

Wishes is my favorite fireworks show so I was really excited that we were going to get to see it twice. I think it has to do with the music and how it really tells a story as compared to others.







This was the finale. Although, technically the picture is all wrong, I still kinda liked it. I had stupidly taken off my ND filter which resulted in some serious blown highlights from all the light.


After the show, we monorailed back to Magic Kingdom where we met with thousands and thousands of others waiting for a bus to take them back to the hotels. Our line was extra long so we got into line for the Beach and Yacht Club. You will never guess who gets in line right behind us! Yep, the overweight family from the bus earlier. Of all those people, what are the chances that we would get in line with the same family from earlier? As luck would have it, they were at the Polynesian for the luau and were trying to get back to the Boardwalk Hotel. After a bit of a wait, we finally get onto a bus.

I'm going to add here that it is now almost 11pm eastern time and we had been up since 4am central time. We were tired. The bus was extra crowded and no seats were available. Now, I know that probably everyone was equally tired, but don't you think some of the young males should have given a seat up to the pregnant chick or at least maybe the 5 year old girl who was obviously fading fast. Nope, not one. So there we all stood, next to the overweight family, for the ride home. I figure I was extra irritable but I pretty much wanted to throat punch the overweight family on the ride home. They would not shut up. First, they were complaining that they had to wait in line forever to get on the bus. Then, they were complaining that they had to stand for the entire time. Somehow, they started talking to some other guy who was standing next to us and we found out they were from Ohio, they suck at golf and think it's a worthless sport, and that they hate the rain.

I say they suck at life.

We could not get off that bus fast enough. A quick walk back to our room and we were all passed out in no time dreaming of our next day in Epcot.