[ILUVMICKEY333]

Cast of Characters: Me, DH, DD1, DD2, DD2's best friend, DBIL, DSis, DNephew

8 people travelling and 100 pieces of luggage! We loaded into the van at 10 am and headed off for the airport. We always fly Continental non-stop for our short 2 hour flight from Houston to Orlando. Flight was great, we got a big giant plane and had a variety of movies to choose from on our personal monitors. I, of course, chose Beauty and the Beast since we were headed for WDW. Plane landed 10 minutes early and our driver from Mears was there waiting for us. A word about Mears: We always use Mears because they are one of the few that offer limo service. Our driver was slightly unfriendly and very put out by how much luggage we had, but we were there so we paid him little attention! If anyone knows of a better limousine service please let me know! We checked in to Pop Century about 5 pm. The CM's at checkin were sooo friendly! When we told him we would be checking into the Poly the next day he asked us to take a lot of pictures and keep an open mind to this resort and consider it for our next trip if we enjoyed it. He also asked us to check out the tie-dye cheesecake. We ended up getting an additional room for the two teenagers in our group.....at this price it seemed foolish to be cramped. The resort was able to give us all 3 rooms right next door to eachother. We had paid the extra 10 dollars to have a room close to the main building and got the 60's building. We were, however at the farthest end and other buildings were closer that didnt have the extra fee. Our rooms overlooked the lake (which we preferred over the pool view) and also had views of the 2 buildings under construction. Anyone know what those buildings were? I think one is called Legendary years, but doesnt really look like a hotel, more like a convention building. The other looks something like a Motel 6. Very plain and not so pretty. This was a Sunday and the resort was very quiet. The theming is fun and we spent a lot of time just looking at everything and laughing at how old we felt when we recognized things that our kids had no clue about. When the luggage was delivered to our room we made reservations for 9 am the next day to have our luggage transferred to the Poly, the lady that handled it was very nice and reassured us that everything would go smoothly and our luggage would be in our rooms at the Poly by 3 pm. After settling in we took a bus to the TTC and then the monorail to the Contemporary for dinner at Chef Mickeys. It was almost a bittersweet dinner because as much as the grown ups loved it and we all loved the Disney ambiance of the place, our kids who get a year older everytime we visit werent overly excited about the characters at our table. I almost felt sorry for the characters who didnt get much of a reaction from our table. Dinner was good and we shopped a little at the Contemporary and then decided to just catch a cab (or 2) back to the Pop Centruy for an early night. Warning......the short distance between the hotels cost us $40 in cab fares. I was exhausted after a day of airports and luggage so I went to bed while my kids enjoyed the arcade. They really do have a nice arcade here! Tomorrow morning we transfer to the Poly (although our luggage gets there own destinations) and the Magic Kingdom!