Disney Trip Report Nov. 2001

Source: Disney Trip Report Nov2001.doc

Disney Trip Report Nov. 2001 Alan: 31 Lisa: 30 Olivia: just turned 11 Owen: 2

This is known as the “FREE” trip! We had bought Annual Passes in Jan. when we were down for Alans business trip and our stay at the Poly. So our passes were already taken care of. Owen was still free too. Then we had FF miles for our plane tickets. Also we had one free night at Clearwater beach with Hilton points. Also had free nights in Orlando 1st at the Fairfield inn Marriott Village and then 6 nights at the NEW Residence inn lake Buena vista. So all we had to pay for was food and a rental car.

Thursday: Nov. 22nd 2001

It is Thanksgiving Day and we woke up at mom’s ( where we are staying while building the house). After we were loaded up and ready to go we went to Alan’s grandma Miller’s house to have “coffee ( which we don’t drink) and cinnamon rolls. I think mom and dad had gotten up and went shopping and are eating Turkey dinner out somewhere. I can’t remember didn’t write that part down. Drove to St. Louis and parked car, took the shuttle bus over to the airport and checked in. The airport was empty! We had an early afternoon flight and I guess everyone that we flying for the holiday was already gone. This is mine and the kid’s 1st flight since Sept. 11th occurred. Alan has flown several times for business. But security was easy since there weren’t a lot of people around. It felt weird going through the security stuff though. And I was on the look out for people who looked shifty not that has anything to do with it really. We had our Thanksgiving dinner at the burger king and it was cold since they weren’t busy. Yuck! Plane was on time and we had no problems. We flew into Tampa because we had FF miles and can never seem to get free flights into Orlando. Rented our car and were off for one night over on the beach with some free Hilton points that Alan had. We remembered sometime today that we had forgotten to pack lib’s bathing suit. So on our way to Clearwater at a K-mart and the place was packed! We had forgotten that today was a holiday and they were having special sales. We couldn’t find a swimsuit anywhere and we knew she would want to swim in the morning. Finally we found about 3 suits on a clearance rack and one was her size! Not the cutest but it was only $6.00. We couldn’t believe that they weren’t selling swimsuits for any size at all because they said it was off season!!!!!!!!!!!! ……………. HELLO it’s FLORIDA!!

We also bought some bottled water and soda and got out of that place! When we went in the sun was still out and when we came out it was dark! We weren’t in there that long maybe 30 minutes. But we had missed the sunset. Darn we had thought maybe we would get to the hotel in time to see it.

Found our hotel and it was right on the beach and it didn’t look too busy. Alan went and checked us in. He came back and said that the very nice lady said that since we weren’t staying for the holiday weekend but just for tonight we could have the top floor suite! Alan was some kind of Hilton GOD back then. ( a lot of traveling!!) So this guy comes out and helps us unload and find our room. He was impressed that we were on the top floor and in this suite. He even asked us what we had to do to get that room. It was funny.

Well the room was very nice but with as much sq. footage as the room took up you would think they would have made it into a 2 room suite. It was all open. There was a HUGE elaborate dining table, a fireplace, a kitchen, a king bed, a sofa, love seat and coffee table. Then there was also a balcony that was gulf front. NICE. Of course it is 6-7ish pm when we check in and we have to leave at ??11am or something like that so we don’t have it for long. Also the sofa wasn’t a sleeper! So Owen slept with me and alan and lib slept on the couch.

We unloaded our stuff and put on our suits so we could go for a quick swim. We had the pool to ourselves and the water was warm but the breeze from the ocean we very cool! We didn’t stay long at all. We floated around and talked about how weird it seemed to be swimming in Florida on Thanksgiving. At home thanksgiving evenings are made up of rerun movies that we have seen over and over and heating up leftovers.

We asked the guy that had brought our luggage up where we could find food? And he said that every place in the area is closed. The only bad part about traveling on a holiday. But the bar downstairs is open and they have pizza.

So after we get settled in Alan went down for pizza. He called the room from the bar and said that “friends” was on and it was the new episode with Brad Pitt. So lib and I turned it on to watch. We had missed the 1st 10 minutes or so and I was bummed! Little did I know that she was going to become obsessed with the show and own all the Season’s on DVD and I would end up watching that episode a millions times! Owen had pizza crust, and a cheese stick for dinner since there wasn’t anything he would eat. But he was so tired it really didn’t bother him at all. He was fast asleep.

Friday Nov. 2nd 2001 Alan and lib woke up 1st and went down to the beach to see if they could find any shells. Owen slept till 8:30. I stayed in the room with him but kept stepping out on the balcony to see the view since it was too dark last night to see much. Alan and lib were almost the only people walking on the beach and they were walking along looking down at the sand for shells but straight out from them were DOLPHINS! And not far out either, I was trying to get there attention but it is hard to do from that far away. Those dolphin looked like they were swimming along right down the beach along with alan and lib but they never did look out and see them.

They came to the room and I told them. They weren’t happy to hear that at all. We all got dressed and went across the street for breakfast. It was a little downtown place and was cheap. Then back to the hotel and I took owen out to the gazebo area so he could play in the sand while alan took lib up to the room for a breathing treatment. We fly down with the machine! We all put our suits on when she was done to go for a swim but it was just too windy for swimming by the ocean. Especially for lib since she was still having a cough. It was just too windy out to enjoy it. If the hotel hadn’t been ocean front it probably would have been fine. Owen demanded to go to the room for chocolate milk and cartoons. Lib and I sat out in the gazebo for a little while.

Back to the room and alan and I took turns showering while the kids watched tv. Then we sat out on the balcony to enjoy the view a little longer.

By now it was check out time so we gathered all our stuff up and left to go drive down the beach and check out this place that the hotel guy had told us about called Crabby Bills. He said there was one just a block or two from the hotel but the best one was the original in Indian Rocks Beach just down the road. We drove through Sand Key, Bell Air beach and some very nice areas. Owen of course slept for the whole drive.

We woke him up to go in and eat lunch. We all had the shrimp. (don’t know about owen) and it was very good shrimp. After we ate we went just down the road a bit to the public beach area. We had heard that Indian Rocks beach was famous for sharks teeth so we wanted to check it out. We didn’t find any! The kids found some shells but nothing you would brag about. But we had fun and spent an hour or more there. It was a nice area not any hotels that I can remember seeing just condos but not in an overpowering way.

We got back in the car and drove all the way down the beach front road all the way down to St. Pete Beach. It was interesting because there were so many hotels that I had looked into staying at for that one night before we found out we had those Hilton points. Some were nice and some not! But it’s just beach town after beach town. Almost like driving from Pensacola to Panama City Beach.

Once we got to St. Pete beach we got onto the interstate and took it all the way to Orlando. It was about 4pm when we got to the interstate. We had wanted to avoid Orlando over some of the holiday weekend so this gave us something to do and took up the whole day.

Arrived in Orlando about 5-5:30pm and went to check into the Fairfield inn Marriott Village. Got a pool view room but there are no balconies here. However, this is better than an interstate view room! Olivia and I stayed at this hotel for 2 nights in April of this year (2001). With 2 free night things and thought it was nice.

We unloaded the car of the luggage and then left to go to walmart. We would have stopped on our way to the hotel but there was no room left for anything in the car! While at walmart we got some chicken poppers and sandwiches from the deli to take back to the room for supper.

Once back at the room we tortured Alan by watching NSYNC in the Bahamas special on TV! Went to bed about 10:30-11:00. It is only Friday nite we have only been gone for one night it seems like we have done a lot in our one day here. On the other hand it feels like we are just packing and unpacking. I hate switching hotels and we aren’t done yet.

Saturday Nov. 24th 2001

Lib and I got up 1st and went down to breakfast while the guys slept. This was at about 7:45. I think we were too excited about being in Orlando to sleep. They have changed the free breakfast a little since her and I were here in the spring. It has always been free continental type but they have someone there now that looks at your little card that you are given at check-in. The card says how many people and what your dates are so that people can’t come in and “steal” free food. I think this is only because there are 3 marriott hotels in a little cul-de-sac and 2 of the 3 have free breakfast but the one that doesn’t probably has people coming into the other 2 for there free food.

Anyway we sat and ate just a muffin and then went walked around the hotel a bit and went back up to the room at 8:30. The guys were up and wondered why we didn’t bring them up some food! So we now all went down and took our food to the tables out by the pool to eat. It is such a nice little pool area you would never know that there is an interstate on the other side of the building and not a beach!

Back to the room and into suits since the pool looked so nice. Stayed from 10-12. Then got ready and went right around the corner to the new outlet mall I had heard about on the internet. It has a very nice Disney store outlet. We stayed here for awhile and looked the store over from head to toe. Also looked in the Universal store too. When we left the mall it was almost 3pm and we hadn’t ate lunch so we went to Ponderosa to eat lunch/dinner. Owen loved the rice krispy treats they had on the dessert table.

We went to the hotel after eating at about 4, so Alan and Owen laid down for a nap. I took lib and her homework outside to the courtyard area. They had a lot of tables and we sat out there and did her homework. It was very quiet since everyone else was in the parks. She worked till 5:30 then back up to the room. The guys were still out cold so we laid down too. We were both asleep in about 5 seconds! I woke up about 30 minutes later and I knew that if I didn’t MAKE them get up we would sleep all evening and we had plans!!

Once we were all awake and ready we left for the magic kingdom. Tonight was the only night all week that they were having the spectro light parade and so it was our only chance to see it. Normally we would never waste a day on our park hoppers for this but we didn’t have to as we had ANNUAL PASSES!! We could have been in the park all day today if we had wanted. However, it was still thanksgiving weekend and we knew the parks would be VERY busy. So we decided to go over just to watch the parade and hang out and if we could actually ride a ride then great and if not then no big deal we will be back all week!

The parade was a 7pm and 9pm. We were on the ferry boat over at 6:45, went through security at Disney for the 1st time. This is new since Sept. 11th. We caught the last train before they stop running for the parade and took the train to the back of the park. We are going to watch the 9pm parade later instead of the 1st one. We went to Toontown to see the characters in the tent. There was no crowd back here at all since everyone was either on the big rides or watching the parade. We saw chip and Dale and Minnie. Owen just loves them ALL. Then we took a ride on the barnstormer! This is Owen’s 1st roller coaster ride! It’s a very small one and super short so he did ok. He doesn’t scream or cry just looks constipated!! Like he is holding his breath. He said he didn’t want to do it again!

So we went to fantasyland an found a table and chairs out in front of the ice cream shop. We sat down and watched the fireworks go off.

The kids now want to walk over and see how long the wait is for buzz. I knew it would be long and I was right. I reminded them that we will be here all week and it won’t be this busy then. So we just went and found a spot to wait for the parade to start. Along the way we decided to have a snack and ordered one large order of chicken strips and fries and all share. It came with 4 strips so we each got one and then some fries.

We now only have 10 minutes till parade time so we went to main street and found a spot in front of the bakery to watch. We were able to put owen’s stroller in front of us so he could see and then we stood right behind it. This way owen had a front row view without even getting out of his seat. He really loved the parade I tried to video tape his face but with it being dark and then the lights for the parade you can’t see it well. Plus the fact that I was actually standing behind him with crowds of people on both sides made it hard to do! Once it was over we joined the huge crowds exiting the park. Missed making it onto the ferry by a smidge! Had to wait for the next one and then catch the tram out to the parking lot. If we had been 1 minute faster we would have made it out with no waiting at all which is a miracle with the holiday crowds.

Got back to the room at 10:35 watched tv till 11:30 then to sleep. Kids went to sleep as soon as we got back though!

Sunday Nov. 25th 2001

We got up at 8:00. Owen still asleep though. We took turns showering and getting dressed and he slept through all of it. Alan and lib went down and got breakfast and brought it back up to the room. We ate and he still slept! About 9 he woke up watched tv and ate. We wanted to go to the pool at he courtyard hotel next door because they have one of those zero entry pools that we thought owen might like. We have never been to one of those before but when lib and I stayed here in the spring it rained really hard one day for about 24 hours straight so we went over and tried out the courtyard indoor pool and saw that the outdoor one was zero entry. Plus they do allow you do pool hop here between the 3 hotels. There are locks at the pool that require a room key and ours from the Fairfield opened it up. This is a very nice pool area very pretty.

We were right Owen loved that pool. Being able to walk in and out of it was big fun at 2 years old. We stayed till 10:35. We had to check out at 11:00. We were too stupid to get a late check out. That was really stupid of us because owen was having such a good time and we had the whole place to ourselves. That one thing about Disney area hotels you have them to yourself all day till people get back from the parks.

So we checked out of the Fairfield and drove over to the other side of the interstate to our next hotel!! We could see it from the parking lot! That is pathetic! But I guess we will do anything for a free room! And we couldn’t get a free room at he residence inn till Sunday because of the holiday weekend. Luckily our room was ready at the new hotel because we had cold stuff and no cooler to put it into! ( had a mini fridge at the Fairfield)

Unloaded and unpacked AGAIN! For that last time thank God! Called home and watched tv for awhile then decided that since it was the last day of the holiday weekend and everyone was checking out of their hotels they were probably heading home and the parks might not be too bad!

So we went to Animal kingdom. Stopped along the way at burger king for lunch 1st. ($11.00) There were a lot of characters out in front of the park and then we went back to camp Minnie Mickey and saw Daisy! She is never out anywhere so this was a big deal! Also saw goofy, mickey, and Minnie. We had just missed the last lion king show. The park is open till 5 and it is only 2 so that seemed pretty stupid to us! They all wanted to go see the tarzan show so we did that but I must say that show is getting old! The lion king one is so good it doesn’t ever get old!

After the show we watched the parade it was the 1st time we had seen the parade at this park and it was cute but we were too close to the speakers or something cause it was loud!! Now over to dinoland to ride triceratops spin since it’s a new ride. Don’t really care for this area of the park it is so carnival looking. Then the kids played in the playground till it was 5pm and they kicked us out cause they were closing.

We stopped at walgreens on the way back to the hotel for coke and milk. Called home again cause they weren’t home when we called earlier. Got an update on the house and on grandpa. Ordered pizza hut and alan ordered an order of shrimp appetizer from hooters to go. He went and picked up all the food and we ate in the kitchen area of our room. Went down later and played a couple games in the game room. Writing this at 9:30 and getting ready for bed soon.

Also forgot to describe the hotel and the room. It is new it just opened up this summer so it’s only a few months old and is tall and has indoor hallways. The pool area is in the center and doesn’t get much sun so as you will read later is a bad bad thing! There is a free breakfast buffet every morning with hot food like pancakes, eggs, potatoes, sausage and stuff. It was all good except on the days they had ham. (yuck!) The room was very nice when you walk in you are in the kitchen “area” but is just like one big room with the living area also. But there was a full size stove and fridge an “L” shaped counter, table and 4 chairs. The living room had the tv, sofa and a chair. Then there were 2 bedrooms and 2 bathroom they were the same except one had a king and the other had 2 doubles. But the 2 bathrooms was really nice and they were like master baths since you could shut one big door and shut off the bedroom and bath from the living room then you could do the same with the other bed/bath. (They have since changed the amount of points that is required here for a free night from when we were there.) Also as reading ahead we didn’t enjoy the pool! Although it was a very pretty area to look at it was freezing cold. Couldn’t put more then a toe in it, we never even got knee deep!

Monday Nov. 26th 2001

Got up at about 7:30, showered and got ready. Down for breakfast they has sausage, eggs, Belgian waffles, fruit, etc. The timeshare lady made her way around the room asking if anyone was interested. Got in the car and headed to MGM, got there about 9:30. Al and lib went on ahead to Rock n roller coaster and tower of terror while owen and I walked through some shops. I bought him some grapes at the fruit cart that he wanted and he ate about 2 or 3! We found an empty area and he got out of his stroller and ran around and played. As he was starting to get antsy they showed up. The Rock n roller coaster was down right now but they got passes good for anytime! This part made them happy. Olivia survived the tower of terror! It was the 1st time she had rode it since she was 4 years old and she doesn’t seem to remember it from then. She remembers everything else from that trip when she was 4 but I think we scared the crap out of her on this and she has blocked it out! It was also the one and only time I have ever rode it.

We went back in the park to do millionaire and owen was a big brat in there! He just hates this. Will not sit still and behave at all for this. And I must say that over the years as he has gotten older he has NOT gotten any better in here!! The rest of us really liked it. It looks just like the set on TV. This was our 1st time doing it and now that I know that you must wait for your keypad to light up BEFORE you answer I would like to give it another try but of course not with Owen!

We left here but that didn’t seem to help Owen’s had mood he just wasn’t happy. Gotta love 2 year olds. We went and saw the muppet’s 3-D show and he also wasn’t happy with that. Still being a brat so since none of us were having any fun with him being like this we did what any smart parent would do. WE LEFT! The rule is when we aren’t having fun anymore leave and come back later and so that is what we did. Kindof kills the Disney extremely obsessed person that I am do it but we did it anyway. It was just now 1pm and we are leaving! Back to the room and I laid down in the bedroom with him till he fell asleep.

Alan who happened to see this as an excellent opportunity took Olivia and went hot wheeling! He saw a chance to shop and he took it! So I am unhappy to be out of the park and he is thrilled to be out of the park for now he can …………… SHOP!

And shop he did, he drug her all over the place. They went to more than one walmart, a kmart and a target. They even ate lunch together while they were out. Owen slept and I got to watch my soap. I also called home as they are pouring our footings today.

Once they came back and owen woke up we went back to the parks. We thought we would park at the boardwalk since it was almost 4pm and we could finish MGM and then take the boat to epcot. They gave us a parking pass that was good till 8:30pm. This was fine with us we weren’t going to stay for illuminations anyway. We took the slow boat to MGM from the boardwalk and by the time we arrived it was 5pm! They had those fast passes from this morning burning holes in them so I told them to just go on ahead and I took owen and all of our bags, the camera bag and the diaper bag through security! That was fun to do alone!!

We made it through the security and browsed our way towards towards the gigantic hat which is where we are meeting them at. Owen just loved this area he was just checking everything out. He pushed all the buttons a million times up and down at each of the stations. By the way he is also now in a fine mood. He’s his happy usual self now. He was just very tired I guess. ( now after more trips he has learned that when he is tired he just needs to lay back and go to sleep in his stroller but he just wasn’t gonna do that this morning!)

Everyone in the park was now heading towards Fantasmic! So there were no people around at all. We moved over to a bench area where they would be able to find us and he got out his hot wheel and played with it till they showed up. It was now 5:30 so we headed towards the Osborne X-mas light display. I have heard so much about this over the years but never seen it. Well I wasn’t lit up yet since we were a little early. This was also where half the people in the park were hiding at! WOW a lot of people! Once they lit it up we went through with the huge crowds. If we had been smarter we would have waited till the crowds had gone through and then went so we could have seen better.

Once we made our way to the front of the park Fantasmic had just let out and there were people everywhere!! We went to wait for a boat but so did everyone else! We waited for 30-40 minutes for a boat. I thought alan was going to kill someone he just didn’t know who! So once the boat shows up it stops at and makes it’s stops it was 8pm by the time it got to the boardwalk! So we decided to forget about epcot for tonight since we didn’t want to fight more crowds in an hour when that park closed. Plus we were all VERY hungry. Did we ever eat lunch today?? I don’t know I don’t remember and I don’t see it written down anywhere. Oh, never mind alan and lib ate while they were out shopping! And owen and I ate in the room! Anyway we went to eat off site at bahama breeze. We had a very good meal of course we were very hungry! I had a steak and alan had the pork chops. The kids had grilled cheese. Then Olivia fell asleep sitting UP in her chair while we were waiting on the check. Meanwhile, Owen is wide eyed, awake and full of energy! Looks like lib should have napped today instead of going hot wheeling! Back to the room about 9-9:30 and watched tv for a bit then to sleep.

Tuesday 27th 2001

This was the best day we have had so far. Of course it wouldn’t have to be that great to be better then yesterday! It seemed all we did was deal with owen being a brat, and wait for a boat forever. Seems like we were hardly even in the parks!

But that’s ok cause things get better today and we have some real fun! We were up dressed, feed and out by about 9am. Drove to the Magic Kingdom and took the ferry over. We got through security quickly and walked down main street for the 1st time all week! This is what has been missing all week………. My favorite park! We had our picture taken in front of the castle. We were all wearing red mickey shirts except alan who had on his gray goofy one.

We went straight to dumbo and I video taped them riding. The onto pooh, snow white, peter pan, and the carousel. All of this by 11am! Much better then yesterday morning at MGM. We now went over and rode the new alladin’s magic carpets and then bought a citrus swirl that I had heard so much about. It was vanilla soft serve with some pinapple soft serve swirled together. Very strong tasting! We found some big rocking chairs and sat down to eat our snack.

Then we went over to frontierland, we saw Mickey riding on the raft over to Tom Sawyers island. Alan decided to take Owen over to the island to see what was going on while lib and I rode big thunder mountain. We grabbed fast passes for later and then waited in line about 10 minutes. Got off, waited in line about 10 more minutes and went again. By the time we were done with that it was time to go one more time with the fast passes! We felt so smart! We got to ride 3 times in 35 minutes. On one of our rides we saw Alan and Owen over on the island. They were sitting on the rocking chairs out by the water. Then when we went by again on the next ride Alan was holding owen and rocking and owen was asleep! It was very funny. One minute he was rocking in his own chair and the next he is fast asleep on alan’s lap.

They met us at the stroller area and lib wanted to ride splash so I went with her and it said 15 min. but it was a walk on. We were thrilled and ended up sitting in the back and didn’t get too wet. When we got off alan took her back on and they got totally soaked!! We took a picture of them all wet. Then we Owen was awake so we went over to the country bears show and owen liked it a lot. After we were done we went into the candy store and each got one thing from the counter. Alan lib and I had a mickey turtle and I’m not sure what owen had but it wasn’t a turtle because he won’t eat nuts! We sat out on the big front porch in the rocking chairs and ate our snack and relaxed a bit.

From there we were going to cut across the park and go over to tomarrowland and on our way we saw a bunch of characters out in front of the castle. There was Genie, Pinochio, chip and dale. Alan and lib went and got fast passes for space mountain and we all rode buzz with about a 5-10 minute wait. Then when we got off al and lib went to ride astro orbiter and owen and I were going to go one buzz one more time. This time we had to wait 15 minutes! They went to use there fast pass for space mountain and owen and I rode the TTA and a couple times and then sat out in an empty open area where he could run around a little. They ended up using the fast pass and then walking on two other times as the line was gone then.

Now we are all done here and we leave the park and walk over to the Contemporary for dinner at Chef Mickey’s. We were 10 minutes late for our reservation of 5pm but the characters weren’t even there 5:30ish. The family next to us had already eaten and hadn’t seen a character yet! They were not happy. The food was good as usual but the characters seemed to be in a big hurry tonight! Which I didn’t think would happen with having the 1st reservation time of the night. We didn’t have an autograph book with us and so it was a quick click of the camera and they were off. They didn’t spend any time with the kids. Of course if you have that book with you they have to hang around a little longer. After we left we were going to walk out to the observation deck to see the fireworks but there was some kind of construction going on and we could get out there. We could hear the fireworks but couldn’t see them. Bummer!

We got on the monorail and waited forever to it to take off. Then over to the TTC to get the tram out to our car.

Once we got back to our hotel we put on our suits to go for an evening swim and got all the way to the pool but couldn’t swim! The water was freezing and I mean freezing! We never in the 7 days we were there saw one person in that pool. Which was a shame because it was a very pretty pool area. Alan was VERY ticked off!! He went to the front desk to complain and they told us that we could use the pool at the courtyard hotel ( also a marriott) down the street! Oh, great how fun, getting in the car and driving down there just for a quick evening swim! But we did it anyway since the kids were looking at us like we were the bad guys who wouldn’t let them swim! We the pool at the courtyard wasn’t warm! We were able to get into the pool and stayed about 30 minutes but it was still cool water. Not freezing but cool. We also got an up close look at this hotel and it was a dump! Very old and outdated and dark!! We parked and walked all over this place looking for the pool and then swam 30 minutes and never ever saw another human being!

Back to room and to bed! Can’t believe we even had the energy to go for an evening swim!!

Wednesday Nov. 28th 2001

Slept in a little and got up at 8am. ( that is funny!!) This was a non park morning. We showered and went down to eat breakfast and then left for the BELZ outlet at 10am. Alan was dieing to shop! Hadn’t been in a couple days now! We went to the 2 disney stores over there and lib bought some jewelry and some Minnie cheerleading shorts to go with the shirt she had found the other day at a different Disney outlet. And alan got an embroidered mickey baseball cap for only $3.99. Which was good because he had forgotten to pack one and had been wanting one since we got here but they are $20 in the parks! I bought myself a new WDW t-shirt that says 4 parks 1 world for $7.99. They also had these in the parks for about $20! We went back to the room about noonish.

I was going to try to get owen to take a nap so that we could go to one of the parks this evening. So I went in and laid down with him. Lib did homework at the dining room table. It took owen forever to fall asleep but he finally did about 1pm. And slept till 2:30. Lib worked till 2 and then her and alan went downstairs to the basketball court. Owen woke up and I got everything packed up and ready for the parks. We left a little after 3:00.

We were riding the ferry over to the Magic Kingdom and there was a very strange and we think drunk man on the ferry with us!!

Once we entered the park we went to Pirates of the Caribbean to ride. After this we realized that it was 4pm and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast! We were made at ourselves for not thinking of this before we entered Disney and we could have eaten offsite 1st. But too late now so we went to Pecos Bills and it took over 15 minutes to get fast food! I was stuck sitting with the kids at the table while alan ordered and waited for the food. Well owen was being a BRAT and lib has decided that she didn’t feel well and was going to vomit!! So she didn’t eat a drop of food but owen sure did. Well when we ere done the plan had been big thunder but since lib didn’t feel well that wasn’t going to work. So we went towards fantasyland. Dumbo was only about a 10 minute wait so we rode it twice. Owen just loved it and lib is now feeling better and hungry again!! Then we rode the carousel and went to the front of the castle to see the 5:45 show. We got there right as it was starting but owen wasn’t interested so lib and I watched it while alan and owen went to wait one a bench. We left this evening right after the fireworks were over and just missed the 1st ferry boat. We were the cut off as usual! We couldn’t decide what to do with the rest of our evening and since we didn’t go to the parks till afternoon we weren’t too tired yet. Our 1st plan had been to go over to epcot but I had some HUGE blisters and epcot is huge and I knew my blisters would never make it! Then we thought about downtown Disney but we had already bought all our souvenirs and didn’t need to be tempted. So I suggested that we take the boat over to the Poly and let the kids play on the playground and have a drink for the bar with an umbrella and rest my blisters! Good plan they all said. So off we went only to find out that they took out the playground at the poly when they built the new pool and have never put another one in! CRAP! So much for that plan. I didn’t even get my drink. So instead of walking next door to the TTC for the car we took the lazy and stupid way and got on the monorail!! BIG mistake as the crowds weren’t done leaving the MK. So once the monorail got there people by the hundreds crowded on. Then when we got to the Contemporary and stopped we sat for at least 10 minutes before going again! So lets say that we were at the park from 4-6 and then spent from 6-8 leaving…….. twice! Idiots!

Lib was still hungry after all of that and so we decided to go to Bennigan’s and eat. Alan and I just split the appetizer sampler since we had eaten at 4. Lib and owen shared a grilled cheese. He ate about ¼ of the sandwich and some fries and she ate the rest. So this was nice and cheap and also relaxing. Back to the room at 9:30pm.

Thursday Nov. 29th 2001

Yesterday was really the last day of the trip report. All I wrote for today was that we got up at 8am and went back to the magic kingdom again since we hadn’t gotten to do much the night before.

Friday Nov. 30th 2001

Today we went to MGM. I did bear and the big blue house with owen and the beauty and the beast show. Then lib and I did star tours and one man’s dream.

Alan and lib did rock n roller coaster and tower of terror several times. We sat down at 1:30 in the shade to watch the parade. and left after the parade to spend the rest of the day at Epcot.

Saturday Dec. 1st 2001 Up at 7:30-8:00 packed up, ate breakfast and checked out. Loaded everything in the car and went to magic kingdom one last time. Arrived at 10:30 and decided to split up. Lib and I went our way and alan took owen. Meeting back up at 1pm.

Lib and I rode splash 3-4 times in a row and big thunder twice. We just kept riding them over and over and singing the laughing place song. When we told the lady in line with us that we had to leave for the airport in 30 minutes she laughed and said that we were making the most of our last day!! And the most of the last trip on those Annual Passes!!!

Alan and owen rode the race cars and buzz and aladin’s magic carpets. They saw Howie Mandell on the carpets. He was taping a segment thing for the Regis and Kelly show! They also had a snack. Which lib and I did too, we tried the Dole whip! We met up at 1pm and got to the car at 10 till 2! The plan was to be on our way at 2pm so it worked out well! And since the park was busy because it was a Saturday we knew the only way to get in a few things was to split up! Drove to tampa and flew to st. louis, drove home to moms and arrived very late!