Nick's Trip Report

[nicks10]

I've gotta get up at 4 am tomorrow morning to be to the airport in time for our 6:40 flight! So I'll bid you all farewell now. I should have a full trip report very similar to my last one (http://www.disneyworldtrivia.com/for...-pictures.html) when I get back. I may even update you guys from WDW when I'm there if I feel I can swing $10 for internet access. See ya all when I get back!

[lilo88]

Have a great trip!!

[disneyfanatic101]

Have a great trip Nick!

[zeusywoo]

Have a wonderful trip looking forward to the feed back.....

[nicks10]

Thanks everyone, I just got back home and have lots of pictures to share from a great trip! I should be able to get the report going tomorrow hopefully, but we'll see since school starts and I have work

[eeyoregirl13]

Yay! I hope you had a great trip!! (And I'm sure you did!) I can't wait to read the report!

[disneyfanatic101]

I can't wait to see them!

[nicks10]

Day 1, January 2 2009: Arrival and Crescent Lake Area

So this trip is very similar to my previous trip to WDW, as it was just me and my grandparents. We went for 9 nights at Pop Century and then I was flying back to Illinois and they continued down to parts of southern Florida to extend their vacation. Anyway, this report will probably end up having more photos than text since I'm not fond of writing about myself, lol.

So we got up at about 4 am to be to O'Hare for our 7 am flight. The line for DME was pretty long and we ended up waiting for about 20-30 mins just to get to the counter. We arrived at Pop Century around 12:30 WDW time. Check in was flawless and we didn't have to wait at all. We had requested a water view room and got room 3320 in the 50s, which I found to be a really good location, it was quiet since it faced Hourglass lake and wasn't far from Classic Hall or the bus stops at all.

Here are some pics from around our room and the view:











We had lunch at Everything POP before heading over to DHS to try to do some attractions and get some dinner there. It was packed! I believe Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, and Rock n Roller Coaster all had waits over 100 mins. So we saw Muppet Vision 3D and the Great Movie Ride since they had waits around 20 minutes each. We tried to walk in to Mama Melrose which was pretty dumb to even try considering how packed the studios were. So we decided to head over to Epcot via the friendship boats considering that it handles crowds so much better and it has many more dining options. We stopped at the Beach Club on the way to see if they still had their gingerbread carousel up, and they did





We ended up just using one of our counter service tickets at Cantina de San Angel. We were all really tired from getting up that early and decided to not wait around for Illuminations this night.





On our way out of the park we stopped and rode the new Spaceship Earth which I had not seen yet. I enjoyed most of the improvements and thought the touch screen was pretty cool, but I preferred Jeremy Irons over Judy Dench. Her voice didn't seem as dramatic and powerful as Irons' was.



We headed back to the room to get some rest before the Magic Kingdom tomorrow and a dinner ADR at Ohana!

[GIOny]

Nick, I love the pics! How lucky to go for 9 days, can't wait to see the rest of the pics

[eeyoregirl13]

Thanks for sharing this with us!! I can't wait to hear more! I love all the pics! That pic of the framed poster at Pop was especially cool - with all the Disney stuff from the 50's!

[Thumper10]

Great start! Looking forward to the rest!

[disneyfanatic101]

Great TR and pics Nick! Can't wait to see and read more!

[zeusywoo]

Nick these are really nice pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[nicks10]

Thanks everyone I should have day 2 up tomorrow sometime.

[nicks10]

Day 2 January 3 2009: Part I Magic Kingdom

So today we had a mission of getting on Splash Mountain early since today would be its last day open during our trip (down for refurb Jan 4-17). We got up early and got to the Magic Kingdom a bit after 8 for morning EMHs. Frontierland wasn't open for Extra Magic Hours so we went over to Space Mountain and grabbed Fastpasses and then rode Buzz before we headed over to wait for the rope drop into Frontierland.









We got on Splash Mountain right away and its still my favorite attraction, too bad I didn't get to make it my last ride of the trip since it was down, but at least I got to ride once!







After riding Splash we grabbed fastpasses for Big Thunder and then headed over to Adventureland to ride Pirates and the Jungle Cruise.





After this we rode the Haunted Mansion and it was my first time going on it since it was refurbished and I thought it was amazing. Audio was excellent, the new attic scene updates were great, and the staircase scene is now among my favorites. Perfect in every way!

Since we hadn't eaten breakfast yet we decided to have an early lunch at Columbia Harbor House and got the whole upstairs all to ourselves with a nice table overlooking the Liberty Belle dock. We then rode It's a Small World and the bad news is we got stuck for about 20 minutes and the good news is that we got stuck in the Polynesian scene and it has no lyrics during that part!

So after that ordeal we returned to Space Mountain for our return time, it was one of my last times riding one of my favorite rides in its original state and my last time riding the Omega (right) track.



We then headed back to Frontierland for our return time for BTMRR. On our way out of the park we stopped at Aloha Isle to get a Dole Whip before heading back to our room to get ready for our ADR at Ohana.







At the bus stop I noticed the progress on Bay Lake Tower and it actually looks like a building now, last time I was there it was just a hole in the ground. If you look carefully you can see the scaffolding is actually down on the northern side of the building. I took better pictures later in the trip that I'll share later



Next up: the remainder of this day and my review of dinner at Ohana