[sjpurple]

We left home about 9:30am on September 30th. We spent the night in Tifton, Ga. Arrived on Oct. 1st in Orlando. 1pm

Day 1- Oct. 1st, Friday. We stayed at the HIFS in a kids suite. Nice room, 1st floor right near the pool. I booked the rooms here back in Feb. 2004 becauce my DH was going to need some time to recover from the trip. I had paid for them at a very low rate in advance. It turned out he didn't need recovery time. Brer rabbit (DGD) got her hair braided and nails done at the kid's spa. Very nice. We ate at the hotel in the Club Car restaurant. It to was very good. Off to bed big day tomorrow.

Day 2 - Oct. 2nd, Saturday. We had a free breakfast buffet at the hotel restaurant at about 6:30 am. We had reservations for the My Disney Girl Princess Tea at 10:30am at the GF. This was fun as it was for Brer rabbit(DGD) and her mother lawwin (DD). DD didn't know anything about it but DGD knew. She wanted to surprise her mother. She was very surprised. We had told her we were going to eat lunch at the GF. DH and I ate lunch there while they were at the party. The tea was very nice and DGD got alot of really nice things to bring home.
We went shopping at DTD. Then went back to HIFS to swim. We ate dinner again at the hotel. Off to bed. Going to WDW tomorrow.

Day 3 - Oct.3rd, Sunday. Another free buffet breakfast before we left. We arrived at Saratoga Springs at about 9am. They were at 100% capacity so our room wasn't ready till 2pm. So we went to MGM. DH had brought his scooter to use but decided he wanted to try to walk all of the parks. Which I am happy to say he did. His back bothered him some but not bad. He has a degenerative spinal condition too. We had to get a GAC because DH can't stand for long periods. DH, DGD, and DD went on TOT. I did not go. We also saw the Muppets 3D, The Little Mermaid, The Great Movie Ride and ate lunch in the commisary. We got to the room about 2:30pm.
The room was not near the elevator as requested. But it was okay. We had to have a handicap room for the bars in the shower.
DD and DGD dressed for MNSSHP. We went to the Magic Kingdom around 4pm.
We had reservations at Liberty Tree Tavern at 5:10pm. It rained a little while we were eating. Maybe 30 minutes. DH and I went back to the room. We got to see the fireworks at DTD at midnite. We were walking around looking around the grounds.

Day 4 - Oct. 4th, Monday. We took advantage of the EMH for Animal Kingdom. We rode Kilamanjaro Safari, It;s tough to be a bug and Dinosaur. I didn't ride Primevil Whirl or Kali River Rapids. We ate at Flame Tree BBQ. We got back to the room about 2pm. We went swimming in the pool. We were going to go see Illuminations but DD and DGD wanted to go shopping at DTD. So DH and I stayed at the hotel.

Day 5 - Oct. 5th, Tuesday. We had to be to the MK early, 7:15am, to do the Steam Train Tour. We drove to the Contemporary and walked to the MK entrance. Nice walk in the morning, about 10 mins. The train tour is excellent. Very informative. We went back to the roundhouse. Watched them fire up a train. We were done around 10:30am. We were all given a special pin with our name on it and at the end of the tour we were given another special Disney pin.
We went to ride some rides before lunch. We rode Pirates of the Caribean and Haunted Mansion. We had PS's for CRT for lunch. We got a window seat. We had a very nice lunch. Now, more rides to do.
We saw Philharmagic, Buzz space ranger spin. DH got the most points. We all did Space Mountain. I will never ride this again. DGD said she had never seen anyone turn green before. I remembered to late why I didn't ride this ride any more. It had been 25 years since I last rode it. No more!!
Lawwin got a call from rowdyraider. He arranged to meet them to help with some autographs. DH and I went back to the room about 3pm.
We all met at MGM for Fantasmic. It wasn't too hot and there was a nice breeze. Excellent show. We waited for most of the people to leave before we left. We had driven our van so we didn't have to wait for a bus.

Day 6 - Oct. 6th, Wednesday. We had a free day. We didn't go to the parks. We went to the Boardwalk and ate lunch at ESPN. Excellent food. DD and DGD went to the Boardwalk pool to swim. We had PS's for Whispering Canyon at 5PM.
We had alot of fun. We had an excellent waiter. The food was very good, and there was plenty of it. We watched what happens when you ask for ketchup. Very funny. DD and DGD went to the campfire show at FW. We had driven to WL so we went back to the room.

Day 7 - Oct. 7th, Thursday. We went to Epcot. We rode Spaceship Earth, The ride with Figment, Honey I shrunk the audience, we rode through the green house. We ate lunch at the Garden Grill. Then we rode the Energy ride with Ellen, Test Track, twice. DH and DD rode Mission Space. We took the mororail over to the MK. We rode Splash mountain and BTMR. We sat down for the Spectromagic parade about 6pm. We had good seats. I got us some hot dogs. We stayed after the parade to see Wishes. Both were excellent.
We let most of the people leave before we tried to go. We took a bus back to the room.

Day 8 - Oct. 8th, Friday. Nothing planned. DH stayed at the room to rest. DD, DGD and I went to DTD. We met Rowdyraider again. He was very nice and alot of help to DGD in getting the autographs she wanted. He had to get to work. Thanks Rowdyraider!!
We ate lunch at The Earl of Sandwich. This was excellent. $4.95 for a huge sandwich. Well worth it. I walked back to our room. DD and DGD stayed to trade some pins. They came back about 4pm. They decided to go back to trade some more pins at 6pm.
DH and I drove over to FW. Took the buss back to the Trails End buffet and had dinner. It was very good. They had some really big peel and eat shrimp and roast turkey and ribs. It was all you could eat. What a variety. We got back to the room about 8pm. I had done some of my packing before we went to eat. I got all my packing done before going to bed.

Day 9 - Oct. 9th, Saturday. We got some breakfast at the Artist Pallet at Saratoga. We brought it back to the room. We finished packing the car. We left there at 10:23am EDT. We drove straight through and got home at 9:30pm CDT. Not bad. We stopped for lunch and dinner too.

We had a very nice trip. We got to see and do pretty much everything we had hoped to do. Anything we missed we will do the nxt time we go. We were not to tired any day. I can hardly wait to go again!!

[quartz7]

Sounds like you had a wonderful time!! I'm going to have to try that Earl of Sandwhich place. Saw it on the food channel.

Janelle

[Dana]

So glad to hear your had a great time. I was happy to find your trip report all posted when I got home today. Thansk for sharing it with us.

[tinkerbell]

:) I had been looking forward to this ..because of the surprise Tea !!!
it sounds as though ya'll had a wonderful time .. I hope we get a trip report from brer Rabbit and Lawwin too :)

[llama]

Thanks for the report! Sounds like you had a busy, happy time. How did you like Saratoga Springs?

[MerlinMatt]

Welcome back Shirley. Great TR!