Another awesome Disney Vacation!!! Trip Report

[MdCaterer]

We got home last week from a wonderful WDW vacation. This time I booked the Yacht Club for the first two nights because we stayed there the first few times we took ds then 3 years old. He is now 12 and I thought he would get a kick out of staying at the Yacht club and swimming in Stormalong Bay and trying the pirate ship slide. We checked in with no problems and our room was lovely, on the ground floor with a small patio and views of the water!
We put on our suits and hot the pool, the water was warm but it was still great to be swimming. We gave the giant slide a try and it was fast and fun. We grabbed a bite of dinner and purchased our refillable mugs and decided to go to Hollywood Studios for the evening.
We dressed and drove to Hollywood studios purchased our annual passes and annual water park passes then we headed for the animation studios. My son loves to draw and this is one of his favorite attractions in Disney. Even though we live 16 hours away and visit usually once or twice a year most of the cast members know him and recognize him when he shows up. We were able to catch 3 drawing classes (Eeyore, Chip & Pooh). We rode the new star tours ride 4 times and ds was the spy on the last ride, which made him very happy. We did some shopping in the Villains store and vinylmation trading and finished the evening with the Fantasmic show!
Day 2 I encountered the largest hornet I have ever seen in my life in our room. I brushed past it with my foot on the way to the bathroom, when I looked down I saw a huge bug with wings so I quickly flipped the trashcan upside down on it. I called my husband and when he lifted the lid you could hear a very angry buzz and when he lifted off the trash can liner paper and saw what it was he smashed it with the in room book of information, it took about 8 hits and he completely severed the head from the body and the antennae and tail were both still twitching!!!
We decided to visit Magic Kingdom, it was hot and crowded but we managed to get on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, Pirates of Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Haunted Mansion. We also saw Mickey's Philharmagic and did some pin trading and vinylmation trading before we got too hot and headed back to the Yacht Club. We swam for awhile then we dressed for dinner at the Captain's Grille, excellent steak for husband and crabcakes for me, more than I could eat. We then finished our dinner and headed back to Stormalong bay. We swam and rode the slide until the pool closed at midnight. Although they are rather abrupt at kicking you out of the pool area at closing time and they do not give you an option as to which exit to take. They closed the front gate and would not even give you the option of leaving that way. We ended up with a very long, walk from the pool to the beach club then back to our room. I am used to POR where they announce the pool is officially closed and the life guards are going home and they leave, you are welcome to swim at your own risk and enjoy the lounge chairs etc. I tidied up the suitcases for easy room transfer tomorrow.

The Yacht Club was comfortable and the bedding was plush the bathrooms were not really any different than POR other than decorations and different soaps and shampoos. We enjoyed our stay at the Yacht club and the use of the pool. All in all we had a nice stay at the Yacht club and enjoyed the restaurant and re-living the memories of past visits, but were not really feeling like we were "home" until we checked into POR. ....more later

[PSL1013]

We got home last week from a wonderful WDW vacation. This time I booked the Yacht Club for the first two nights because we stayed there the first few times we took ds then 3 years old. He is now 12 and I thought he would get a kick out of staying at the Yacht club and swimming in Stormalong Bay and trying the pirate ship slide. We checked in with no problems and our room was lovely, on the ground floor with a small patio and views of the water!
We put on our suits and hot the pool, the water was warm but it was still great to be swimming. We gave the giant slide a try and it was fast and fun. We grabbed a bite of dinner and purchased our refillable mugs and decided to go to Hollywood Studios for the evening.
We dressed and drove to Hollywood studios purchased our annual passes and annual water park passes then we headed for the animation studios. My son loves to draw and this is one of his favorite attractions in Disney. Even though we live 16 bhours away and visit usually once or twice a year most of the cast members know him and recognize him when he shows up. We were able to catch 3 drawing classes (Eeyore, Chip & Pooh). We rode the new star tours ride 4 times and ds was the spy on the last ride, which made him very happy. We did some shopping in the Villains store and vinylmation trading and finished the evening with the Fantasmic show!
Day 2 I encountered the largest hornet I have ever seen in my life in our room. I brushed past it with my foot on the way to the bathroom, when I looked down I saw a huge bug with wings so I quickly flipped the trashcan upside down on it. I called my husband and when he lifted the lid you could hear a very angry buzz and when he lifted off the trash can liner paper and saw what it was he smashed it with the in room book of information, it took about 8 hits and he completely severed the head from the body and the antennae and tail were both still twitching!!!
We decided to visit Magic Kingdom, it was hot and crowded but we managed to get on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, Pirates of Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Haunted Mansion. We also saw Mickey's Philharmagic and did some pin trading and vinylmation trading before we got too hot and headed back to the Yacht Club. We swam for awhile then we dressed for dinner at the Captain's Grille, excellent steak for husband and crabcakes for me, more than I could eat. We then finished our dinner and headed back to Stormalong bay. We swam and rode the slide until the pool closed at midnight. Although they are rather abrupt at kicking you out of the pool area at closing time and they do not give you an option as to which exit to take. They closed the front gate and would not even give ytou the option of leaving that way. We ended up with a very long, walk from the pool to the beach club then back to our room. I am used to POR where they announce the pool is officially closed and the life guards are going home and they leave, you are welcome to swim at your own risk and enjoy the lounge chairs etc. I tided up the suitcases for easy room transfer tomorrow.

The Yacht Club was comfortable and the bedding was plush the bathrooms were not really any different than POR other than decorations and different soaps and shampoos. We enjoyed our stay at the Yacht club and the use of the pool. All in all we had a nice stay at the Yacht club and enjoyed the restaurant and re-living the memories of past visits, but were not really feeling like we were "home" until we checked into POR. ....more later

Looking forward to reading the rest of you TR and so sorry about your bug encounter! We learned two visits ago to never get a room on the ground floor. We were staying at BCV and on the second day I got up in the morning, flipped on the kitchen light and I saw the biggest Palmetto bug (cockroach to me) that I've ever seen in my life. Tried to find something to wack it with but it quickly disappeared under the cabinet. OK, now I'm freaking out that this thing is in our room, I won't be able to sleep. Called the front desk to get our room switched, no rooms. Called back again and REALLY insisted that we needed another room. In the mean time they called the "bug man" yes there is such a person at WDW, if you ever see him, he rides around on a bicycle with the license plate on it that says Bug Man! The bug man assured me that he would get it and not to move to another room because of it...long story short, we never saw the big bug again but from them spraying we got a little one, belly up the next day. Disney was extremely generous...buying us lunch ($80 worth) the next afternoon and when we returned from the parks we walked into our villa and there was a huge white chocolate Mickey on a plate with choc. covered strawberries and a nice card. So needless to say, I will not be staying in a ground floor room again. Now back the the regularly scheduled TR...sorry for highjacking!

[MdCaterer]

Looking forward to reading the rest of you TR and so sorry about your bug encounter! We learned two visits ago to never get a room on the ground floor. We were staying at BCV and on the second day I got up in the morning, flipped on the kitchen light and I saw the biggest Palmetto bug (cockroach to me) that I've ever seen in my life. Tried to find something to wack it with but it quickly disappeared under the cabinet. OK, now I'm freaking out that this thing is in our room, I won't be able to sleep. Called the front desk to get our room switched, no rooms. Called back again and REALLY insisted that we needed another room. In the mean time they called the "bug man" yes there is such a person at WDW, if you ever see him, he rides around on a bicycle with the license plate on it that says Bug Man! The bug man assured me that he would get it and not to move to another room because of it...long story short, we never saw the big bug again but from them spraying we got a little one, belly up the next day. Disney was extremely generous...buying us lunch ($80 worth) the next afternoon and when we returned from the parks we walked into our villa and there was a huge white chocolate Mickey on a plate with choc. covered strawberries and a nice card. So needless to say, I will not be staying in a ground floor room again. Now back the the regularly scheduled TR...sorry for highjacking!

I have seen those Palmetto bugs and they are HUGE. We saw one by the pool one night a few years ago and there was one on the wall of the train we took last Christmas when we headed to Florida for our Christmas cruise. They look EXACTLY like giant cockroaches and they do give you the creeps!! After the hornet had been neutralized and we were in the parks I thought I should have maybe reported it to the staff at the Yacht Club but by then we were already on to the next big adventure! No problem with the hijacking I love to hear about other's adventures in WDW chime in anytime!!

[MdCaterer]

Day 3 we got up and my husband loaded up the car. My son and I hit the gift shop for some vinyls we had seen that we could not live without (gotta love the Disney (signatures, pins, vinyls...) collections obsessions!!!) We decided to do Epcot since we could just take the boat from the dock at the Yacht Club. I checked us out of our room and asked if they could call POR and put a note on our ressie requesting a Mansion not the Bayou. The young lady behind the desk pulled up our reservation and said the room was ready and she even printed me keys to our POR room!! Talk about an easy breezy check in!! I had already done the online check in for both reservations so that made it simple for everyone! My son did some pin trading in the lobby and even got his father to go back out to the car to find a Woody character pin we had to trade with the cast member in the lobby whose name was Woody!

We hoped a boat over to Epcot. We managed to ride Test Track, Soaring, Living with the Land, Green Mission Space, window shop at the Pin Station, buy vinyls at Mouse Gears, taste some colas at club Cool, visit the Disney Art store, do the Piggy Bank Game and Sum of all Thrills (X3) and have lunch at the Land. The storm clouds started to roll in so we decided to head to POR and check out or room. We hopped the boat to Yacht Club, jumped in our car and drove to POR.

Our room was in Parterre Place and was very easy to access on the 2nd floor top of the steps from the parking lot. This suited us perfectly because we use our car to get around Disney! I was pretty good this year and cut way back on my packing but still took too many clothes, I did not totally unpack which made packing back up very simple. And loading and unloading too! We relaxed for about an hour then put on our suits and headed to the pool. It was very relaxing. Later we decided to get a bite to eat and then get a good night's sleep.

Day 4 already!!! We got up early and headed out to Animal Kingdom. Today we were on a mission to find a cast member friend we met years ago in Magic Kingdom.
BACKSTORY:His name is Bill and he was my son William's first pin trade back in 2004! He and William hit it off and became fast friends. Bill found out that William liked Captain Hook, before we left Disney World on that vacation we were called by the front desk and told we had a package waiting. Inside the package was a special Captain Hook pin, a signed picture of Captian Hook and a pirate hat that said "Captain William" with a note saying he hoped we had a great vacation, your friend Bill! Needless to say that was some mighty powerful pixie dust as we were leaving from a vacation!!! When I got home I wrote a letter to Disney (Lee Cockerell) about Bill and his kindness. The next year when we returned to Disney we looked for Bill at Magic Kingdom and he told us we had made him famous (apparently with the letter). Now it is not a vacation at WDW unless we get to spend some time with Bill. We usually get together on his day off and he comes to the park to hang out with us and have lunch, we look forward to this as much as anything!
Anyhow, Bill had asked to transfer from Magic Kingdom to Animal Kingdom and had made the switch after our vacation last year so we did not know exactly where to find him in the park so this was our treasure hunt!!! (I have Bill's cell phone number but we like to surprise him) We looked high and low at Animal Kingdom and we asked a TON of cast members. Finally, when we got to the trading store in Africa a cast member immediately knew who we meant and another cast member went to check his schedule. Turns out he was off that day and the next so we decided we would have to call him. Besides having fun on our treasure hunt for Bill we managed to seeing Finding Nemo, The Festival of The Lion King, rode the Safari and we were all supposed to ride Expedition Everest but I chickened out so my son and husband went. Then we headed back to POR and hit the pool because it was beastly hot!!!

While at the pool we called Bill and he suggested we meet at Epcot tomorrow. After swimming we decided to venture to downtown Disney.
That place was packed full! There were hardly any parking spaces and the stores were crowded beyond belief!! We made a trip through The World of Disney and were saddened to see the Villain's room full of jewelry and things not very villainy! We made a few pin trrades and then headed outside and took great pictures of Jack Sparrow and the skelton pirates in the windows. The close ups of Jack were to be able to get all the beads and doodads he now wears in his hair for the most recent movie. We visited the Pin Store, The Art of Disney and D street to feed my vinylmation obsession!!! Then we hit the hotel to get some rest tomorrow is early opening at Epcot!!!!

[LuvMyBoys]

Great report, sounds like fun

I am helping my brother plan another trip and they are going to stay at POR this time. Why did you request a Mansion and not the Bayou?

Any other helpful hints for staying at POR?

[MdCaterer]

Great report, sounds like fun

I am helping my brother plan another trip and they are going to stay at POR this time. Why did you request a Mansion and not the Bayou?

Any other helpful hints for staying at POR?

It's a personal preference. We have stayed at POR at least a dozen times and we love the decor and everything about them. One time we stayed in the Bayou...it has a camping type of theme and is more buried in woods, with chirping cricket sounds and seemed to be farther to walk to everything. I just did not care for it, but to be fair some people absolutely love it. I am certain you can probably pull up pictures from the inside of mansion rooms and bayou rooms. Please fell free to ask e any questions.....I love POR I will pull together my thoughts and hints and tips and post them for you. When are they traveling?