Our vacation, day seven 1/6/09

On the 7th day we headed back to the Magic Kingdom. There were a few thing s that we didn't get to see or do on our first day in that park. Tyler also wanted to return to one of his favorite spots....The misters. I swear that boy would be just as happy if we installed misters in the back yard as he would be if we got a pool.

All in all it was a nice day at the park. The day off was helpful. By the end of the day we had seen and done everything in the park.

And on the 6th day we rest. Vacation day six, 1/5/09

Monday morning I opened up the french doors and stepped out onto the balcony to see our view. It was beautiful. check out the pictures below to see what we saw every morning. Don't be a hater. The pictures I took don't do this view justice. My camera honestly sucks!!!

Our view was of the pool. Our room was in the middle of the resort so the shots of the hotel were the rooms to the right and the left of us.

This was our day to rest. We were going to sleep in and spend the day by the pool. Todd has a hard time doing nothing. Laying by the pool or on the beach kills him. He is so antsy and jittery. Chill out dude. Below is a picture of Todd by the pool. Does he look relaxed to you?

Here is a picture of me by the pool. Ahhh stretch out, chill out and relax. That's how I roll!

Tyler loves the pool. He is a fish. We cant get him out of the water. He always makes friends when we travel. He loves life! This kid can relax like no body's business.

After we left the pool we showered and went to Downtown Disney. It is an area with shops and expensive places to eat. We ate at Mickey D's and it was $20. Tyler got nuggets, I got a chicken sandwich and Todd got a super sized meal so we could share the fries and drink. It killed Todd to spend that much for Mickey D's. We don't even like it. Tyler wanted nuggets so bad that we gave in. We gladly would of paid $20 for Taco Bell. I know gross!! Downtown Disney was just another place to spend money. It was kinda boring. We only stayed a couple hours. When we got back to the resort we hung out on the boardwalk a while and watched fireworks. It was a nice peaceful day.

The new resort & a lot of uninteresting information about our trip

The second hotel we stayed at was Disney's Boardwalk Villas. This place was AWESOME! It had a super cool pool and the property was beautiful. It was built around the water. The back side of the resort has a huge boardwalk. There was also a huge porch that went all across the back. It had wicker chairs and rockers so you could sit and relax. The Boardwalk had lots of restaurants and street performers. There are carnival games and you can rent boats by the hour. There are dance clubs and piano bars on the boardwalk and gift shops. At night it is beautiful. We ordered dinner and ate by the water 3 of the 8 nights we were there. At night You can see the fireworks from Epcot on the boardwalk. It's a great place to sit, relax and have a cup of coffee. Below are the pics from the front of the resort and the back area where the boardwalk was. I realized when I got home that I didn't take any of the inside of the resort. Bummer because they had the coolest furniture in the lobby! From this resort we could take water taxi's to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. Tyler liked that. He was sick of being on the crowded buses all the time.

Our original plan was to spend a lot of time in all four parks the first 5 days. We decided to do this because when we transferred to our new hotel it was going to be a much nicer Disney resort than the last. We wanted to take time to enjoy the second hotel and all that the area had to offer. We each got a 10 day pass for the parks. This allowed us days to rest and relax in between all the park hopping. We went back and forth about getting park hoppers. It was an extra $150 to add that option to the tickets. We decided not to add it. We figured that because it was winter and the parks were on their winter hours schedule it would be a waste of money. The parks closed pretty early so there would not be much time for park hopping.

Sunday night when we got back from the MK we checked in and went straight to our room. We had our luggage delivered along with the groceries we ordered from the grocery delivery service. If you are traveling, not renting a car and your hotel has a kitchen I highly suggest you take advantage of a local grocery delivery service. It works out so awesome. The one we used in Florida was http://www.gardengrocer.com/ Their prices were pretty good. Couldn't use coupons but I didn't care. The delivery fee was only $12. We had the groceries delivered to the new resort on Sunday. Because we were going to be checking in late the resort took care of the groceries. Even putting the cold items in the fridge!! It was nice to have more stuff for breakfast and stuff to make sandwiches. We also got some fresh fruit that was super sweet!

I know you might think I am crazy but I packed an entire duffel bag full of snacks, cereal and paper goods (Throw away plates, bowls, Ziplocs, napkins and utensils) for our trip. It was a great way to save money. Everyday we filled the backpack with water bottles and snacks. For the first 5 days we ate breakfast at the hotel (cereal that I brought) and we ate 2 meals in the park. At the second hotel we had a fridge so we were able to add more to the breakfast menu. My family loves bagels and cream cheese so we had that delivered with the groceries. We made sandwiches for lunch and threw them in our bag each day we went to one of the parks. Nothing better than a smashed up peanut butter sandwich. By bringing the PB&J with us we only had to buy one meal a day in the parks! And yes I brought peanut butter and Jelly from home!! We brought and ordered just the right amount of food for the 2 weeks. At the end of the trip we rolled the duffel bag up and put it in the suitcase. We flew Delta home and they only allow you to check 1 bag.

We flew Southwest so we were able to check in 2 bags each. We only had 3 bags of clothes and toiletries. That in its self amazed me. How could 2 weeks fit into 3 bags? JEANS. That's how. We got 2 days out of each pair. We also did laundry when we were there. Before we left I bought some powdered laundry soap and put in one scoop per Ziploc. I packed 6 bags of soap and 1 bag of fabric softeners. There was no way I was going to pay the high prices that they charge in a hotel laundry room for soap!

So that is all of the uninteresting things about the trip I can think of right now. I still have 7 days left to blog about so if I forgot anything I am sure I will put it in another blog......

Our vacation, Day five 1/4/09

We woke up early on this day because we were going to the Magic Kingdom for the first time. Also because we were changing hotels we had to check out of this one by 11am. The hotel took our luggage and transferred it to the new hotel for us. That was nice because check in at the new hotel was 4pm. We didn't have to worry about anything.

Each day one of the four parks has extra hours for Disney resort guests. Each day one park either opens an hour early OR stays open 3 hours later. This is nice because the crowd thins out. It makes it much easier to go on rides. The lines are not as long. They also have extra shows for the Disney guests during this time. You have to show your Disney resort room key to go on rides or to see shows. Everyone in your party gets a hotel key. This card (key) also had your Disney world passes on them.

On this day Magic Kingdom was going to be open 3 extra hours. We knew that by getting in the park early we would have a long day in the park so we could check things out. The park is set up pretty much the same. You enter on main street. Gift shops and food up and down main street with the castle at the end. The castle at Disney World ROCKS!! It is beautiful. The one in Disneyland is beautiful but the one in Magic Kingdom is so much bigger. I didn't get any pictures of it during the day but I did get some at night.

What did we think about the park? It was nice but we love DL (Disneyland) much better. Why you ask? Everyone talks about how the Magic Kingdom is so big and so much better. I am not sure why. Yes, the park is bigger but bigger isn't always better. We noticed that a lot of the rides in the MK (Magic Kingdom) were shorter and didn't have as much to see on the ride. Below is a list of the rides that we have rode in both parks. I have added what I think about the ride in each park.

Pirates Of the Caribbean: DL longer and more to see than MK

Tiki Room: The show is different at MK but still good. It is shorter in MK than DL

Jungle Cruise: A little different at MK than DL. Shorter in MK than DL

Rail road: Less stops in the MK than DL. Longer ride and more to see from the train in DL

Toon town: Sucked at MK. Sooo much smaller than Toon town at DL. Mickey house is much better at MK than DL

Space Mountain: Terrible at MK. Much faster in DL. The track and the car you ride in is much better at DL.

Speedway Indy Cars: The same at both parks

Buzz Lightyears Ranger spin: This is one of our favorites in DL. It sucked at MK. You cant pull the gun from the car to shoot. It is mounted to the top. This makes it harder to aim at the targets. Also at DL the targets light up when you hit them. This helps you know if you got it or not. They don't light up at MK. These things make a huge difference when you are playing the game. Astro Orbiter: Same at both parks

It's a small world: The rides appearance when you are in front of it is so much better at DL. At DL it looks huge in the front. At MK you could almost walk past it and not even realize it was there. The rides are pretty close. The one at the MK did seem a little shorter though.

The River Boat: Same at both parks.

The Haunted Mansion. A little different at MK. Both are still pretty good. The mansion at MK is awesome. It looks so much different than the one at DL. They are both great. Check out the photo below.

Big Thunder Mountain: The same at both parks

Tom Sawyer Island: At the Mk is is still the same as it has always been. At DL they have changed it over to Pirates Island after the popularity of the Pirates movies.

There were things at MK that were pretty cool that are not at DL. One of our favorites was the Monster's Inc Laugh Floor. Its a comedy club where the monsters interact with the humans. Another was Stitches Great Escape. It was also cute. We only needed to do this one one time though. It didn't have that I wanna do it again feeling. We liked the Carousel of Progress. I am sure most people hate it. It is a round building that you sit in. It rotates around through different eras. It shows you how far we have come over the last 100+ years. Its Corney but we liked it so much we did it 2 different times. Another cool thing was the Mickey's Philharmagic show. It was a 3d movie that was pretty great. They still have the Country Bear Jamboree at MK. It's pretty bad though. We did go see it but we laughed the whole time. I am not sure why it's still there. It's been 9 years since DL put their Jamboree to rest.

Splash Mountain was not working when we were there. It is down for the entire month of January. So is the hall of presidents. Not sure we missed much by not seeing this. The fireworks show at night is the same as the show at DL. Because of this we decided to use the time that other people were using waiting for and watching fireworks for more ride time.

As the park came to a close we headed back to our new hotel to get checked in and settled for the next 8 days. We were upgrading from a hotel to a resort so we were looking forward to all the extra amenities that this new place would have.....Like a fridge and microwave.