Aren't these shirts adorable? The Yeti Spaghetti one is my favorite. It says, "For Abominable Appetites" on the bottom, lol. The Snowball Fight one says, "Glacial Grudge Match-One Night Only" on the bottom. I couldn't resist them when I went to Cherry Creek in Denver over the past weekend. Me and the kiddos met up with a good college friend of mine at the mall, Jennifer (or J-fer as I call her). We had lunch at CPK and my kids were outstandingly good. I tried to explain to Jennifer that they aren't always that well behaved. They were definitely putting on a good front, lol. Clayton spent quality time at the Great American Beer Festival while we shopped.
On Sunday, I went to the Aveda salon for a prenatal massage. It was absolutely fabulous!! I will be heading back in there at the beginning of December. Shhhh, don't let Clayton know that, lol.
Everytime Big E goes #2 he says the same thing, "I don't eat poop". Then he says, "I eat cookies". Gee, it's a good thing that he understands that concept (cookies=poop), lol.
BTW, I had a 3D ultrasound done on Thursday and my IPs got some great pics of their little guy. I was lucky enough to get one and I will post it as soon as I can get it scanned in. He is absolutely adorable!
Sit back, have a drink and I hope that you enjoy our trip report. We had a wonderful time at the World and can't wait to go back again. The report is posted below by day and the restaurant reviews/final report will be posted later this week. Enjoy!
Let me just say, Clayton and I both abhor Orlando International Airport. It royally stinks. Trust us on this one. We have flown into many airports and never have been as confused as we were when we arrived. Let me back up and tell you that we flew Southwest (and we never will again-explanation will be included in the last day report). Our flight had 137 seats but there were only 60 people on board. Crazy, huh? Anywho, our flight thankfully landed on time but then we couldn't figure out what to do to find where my Mom and Aunt were. None of the screens had US Airways on them. Our terminal only had Southwest and Frontier in it. After walking around forever and looking like idiots, we finally realized that there must be another terminal but then we couldn't figure out how to get there. The signage was horrible. We decided to take the rail system and prayed that we wouldn't end up in baggage claim. We got to terminal A and then found the gates to where my Mom and Aunt should be arriving. Unfortunately, we couldn't get to them because of there being another security checkpoint in this terminal. It totally stunk. I was hoping to be waiting at the gate for them when they arrived. Instead, we had to wait outside of their terminal's checkpoint because we didn't have boarding passes for a flight originating out of that particular terminal. What a load of crap. In Denver you can go to all 3 terminals with only one universal security checkpoint to go through. In fact, I can't name any other airport that does that and I have been through many. Ugh. We finally met up with my family and off we went to Disney's Magical Express.
DME was a little bit confusing because the people working the counter forgot to tell us where to stand after checking in but we finally got on our bus and were on our way. We checked in at POP Century for a one night stay before we transferred over to the Polynesian. We got an upgrade to a premium room and let me tell you, big whoop. I was really hoping that the value hotels at Disney World would at least be decent but I cannot lie, they suck. The rooms were tiny, the bedspreads were awfully faded, the grounds were extremely cheap and seemed dirty, the food in the food court was yucky, the food court itself was terribly gross with the floors being so sticky that you felt like you were walking on fly paper and the counters really needed to be cleaned, and worst of all was the transportation. You can only take a bus to/from the values and that was awful. For the amenities that you get by staying there, you might as well stay somewhere better off property and rent a car. It would be a lot easier, cheaper and less hectic.
Hayden and I had tickets to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) that night so we took off after dinner. The bus trip to the Magic Kingdom wasn't too bad. We met our friends Sandy & Sage (from NC) for the event. They had just moved to the Orlando area recently. The kids had a blast and we walked onto almost all the rides without waiting. Space Mountain only had about 20 people in line both times we passed it on the TTA. It was unreal. It's too bad I couldn't ride. Oh well, maybe next year. Hallowishes (the fireworks show) was spectacular and the parade was decent. All in all, the extra expense for the event was well worth it.
Hayden and I were exhausted when we left and we had to wait for a stupid bus forever. We waited in line long enough to fill 4 busses before we could finally board one. It was standing room only. Can you believe that no one even bothered to offer me a seat? I would never have accepted it but that is beside the point. I cannot believe that people just watched me stand there while I hung to a bar and held a 4 year old child against me. Did I mention that I am 6 months pregnant??? How rude. After that horrid ride that seemed to take FOREVER, we finally got into our room after midnight.
The Boys
We went back to Epcot after our treatments to meet back up with the kiddos and my Mom/Judy. Dinner was at the Coral Reef. I was so excited to try this place out but ended up severely disappointed. It was wayyyy too loud in there and my crab legs were nasty. At least the aquarium was neat to look at. :P
We putzed around the hotel after eating lunch at Captain Cook's. I had a surprise planned for Mom and Judy at the Garden View Tea Room at the Grand Floridian. This was one of the highlights of the whole trip. We had little tea sandwiches, scones and some yummy desserts to go along with our tea. Everything was excellent and I highly recommend this place to everyone without kiddos. It was a great refuge from the screaming brats that I had encountered oh so many times over the past few days. It was quiet and very relaxing.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I ordered a surprise dessert for the gals from the Grand Floridian Bakery a week before we left. It was a Cinderella slipper made out of white chocolate and it had the best mousse ever inside. It also had a decadent chocolate mousse boat on the side. I couldn't believe how yummy it was. Gosh, I would give my right arm to have one right now. Mmmmm.....
We slept in a little bit this morning and then headed out to Epcot. One of our missions was to find Dad a Coca-Cola hat and thankfully there was a cool one at Club Cool (sponsored by Coke). We tasted several kinds of Coke products from around the world. I particularly liked a Fanta drink from Mexico that we don't have here. It was a pink fruity drink that tasted pretty good.
After that, we decided to use some more snack credits for some ice cream and then headed on to Figment's Journey Into The Imagination ride. We then headed over to World Showcase and they had alot of their booths up for the Food and Wine Festival. It wasn't supposed to start until the next day but I took advantage of it by trying some sushi from Japan and a cheese plate from Ireland. Yum! We stopped into the Kringla Bakery in Norway and got some schoolbread and lefse (sp?). The schoolbread was to die for. It is a custard filled bread loaf with coconut on top. The lefse was really good too. It's basically a potato bread tortilla that is rolled up with cinnamon, sugar and butter.
Dinner was at Le Cellier. After reading about how awesome this restaurant is and how hard it is to get reservations, I expected a lot from this place. It was just okay. I will go into more detail in my dining report. Anyhow, Emerson got to meet Brother Bear (Hayden was asleep) outside of the restaurant and he was thrilled. He lit up whenever a character would be nearby. It was so cute!
After goofing around in Innovations, we headed out to the International Gateway towards the Epcot resorts. I gotta say that they are beautiful but they are severely lacking conveniences. The walk from Epcot stunk and the boat ride wouldn't have been any better. Also, neither the Yacht Club or Beach Club offered a food court with counter service. They did have one counter service restaurant but you had to put your name in for ressies and it had a 30 min. wait. Then there was a counter service place outside by the pool but I really wanted to sit inside. It was way to hot. Ugh. It amazes me that I can name an indoor food court in all the Disney resorts, whether it be a value or a deluxe hotel, but there wasn't one available in these hotels. What a crock.
Anywho, we ended up eating outside because we didn't have time for the indoor restaurant's wait. After that, I led everyone up to the dock for a big surprise. I had booked us an Illuminations cruise on the Breathless II. Now mind you, that isn't an easy thing to come by. There is only one of these speed boats in all of Disney World (Breathless I is out of commission). It is extremely difficult to book and I was lucky to have gotten it. It was a bit pricey but oh so worth it. Our wonderful driver was Aaron and he took us for a tour around the boardwalk and MGM before heading back over to Epcot for the show. He was able to make it go fast a few times and we all loved it. Once we got to Epcot, he parked us underneath the International Gateway bridge and we had front seats to Illuminations. There were 5 other boats (pontoons) around us. We felt like such VIPs to have such a wonderful seat. People above the bridge waved at us. Little did I know that 2 of them were our friends Sandy and Sage, lol.
After retuning to the Poly, we met up with Sage and Sandy for a late night swim in the volcano pool. The kids had a blast and didn't go to bed until midnight.
We were pretty tired on this last day and just couldn't wait to get home. Unfortunately, our flight was at 7:45pm so we had the whole day to waste. Clayton and I took the kiddos to the Magic Kingdom to do some last minute shopping but it was just too hot and crowded. We ended up having some ice cream and then we got the heck out of there. We had lunch at Captain Cook's in the Poly and then took Magical Express to the airport. Mom and Judy's flight was leaving from a different terminal so we had to say goodbye quickly as we exited the bus to go to ours. This is when everything got ugly.
For starters, I was exhausted. I couldn't hold my eyes open. We got our boarding passes but couldn't check our luggage just yet because we were more than 4 hours early. We waited 45 min. and then Clayton finally got rid of our bags. Orlando Intl. Airport totally stinks. C had to take our bags over to the scales, get it weighed and then put it onto the conveyer himself. Now mind you, this section was not at the same place that you actually check yourself in so you have to lug it yourself. I have never had to do that crap and it really makes me mad that he had to. I wasn't with him because I watching the kiddos elsewhere so he had to lug all 4 huge bags himself. It turns out that my Mom and Aunt also had to do this in their terminal so it wasn't just a Southwest thing. Ugh. So much for service. :(
We had time to burn so we went to Chili's and got us some grub. The kiddos fueled up and had way too much energy for us to deal with. Oh well, at least they could sleep on the plane.
When we got to our terminal I took a nap on the floor while waiting. Once we were able to get in line to board, we kept hearing the Southwest employee talk about Birmingham/Denver. Now hold up, we were booked for a direct flight. Guess what? They decided to load the Birmingham people on our flight and made us stop over in Alabama. I was ticked. It would be one thing if it were an emergency or their plane broke down but come on. I booked a direct flight and that it what I expected. I will be writing them a nasty note and I will never fly with them again due to this. I did not get what I paid for and they acted like it was no big deal. Well guess what, it is!! I have never had an airline change my itinerary just for fun. What a load of crap. It was bad too because of the horrible turbulence near the ground at both airports so we had to experience way more than we should have due to 2 different take-offs. Sheesh.
Anyhow, we arrived in Denver around midnight and Clayton couldn't locate his keys. It was an absolute nightmare. After digging through everything, we finally found them within the next 15 min.. Thank the Lord! We finally made our way home and passed out shortly thereafter.
Well, I this is the conclusion of the trip report (with the exception of our food reviews which will be posted later this week). I hope that you enjoyed it and if you are planning a vacation to the World anytime soon, feel free to email me with questions or suggestions. We will be heading out that way again (hopefully!) next September and we are already booked for the Polynesian. :)
