[KarenWDWCP]

Eventually a bus came and we got to DTD around 8:45. Earl of Sandwich was still hopping even at that relatively late hour! I got the All American, yum! My mom got the one with chicken and spinach (the Florentine maybe?) and my dad got the Original 1762 or whatever it was. My parents LOVED their sandwiches (as did I). My mom said it was worth it to take the bus over even though it was late. We met a couple from New Hampshire in the seating area of Earl and chatted with them a bit. They were very nice.

We had planned to hit up Ghiradelli for sundaes next but it still was not open from it renovation (though I think I had read that it was supposed to have opened the day before) I was bummed because I LOVE that Ghiradelli ice cream, but what can you do?

We hit up World of Disney briefly to buy some souvenirs for our co-workers, etc and I once again asked my mom about buying stuff for the kids back home that we usually buy stuff for (nieces, nephews, cousins, etc, there are 5 of them) My mom had decided that we wouldn't get anything this trip since two of them are older now and two had been in WDW the week before so proabably already bought whatever they wanted. I thought this was a good idea, but I also know how my mom operates and she ALWAYS says things like this and then at the last minute decides that we need to buy everyone something. I really did not want to use any park time shopping for souvenirs so I told her we should buy stuff now if we were going to but she said no, we weren't getting anything. (I am sure you can all guess how this turned out a few days later).

We were getting tired so we got on a bus back to Beach Club and my dad wanted to get a drink so we went to the Martha's Vineyard lounge. I was still wanting ice cream so I went to see if Beaches and Cream was still open but I had just missed it. I walked around the resort a little on my own and headed back to the room. They came up shortly after and we were all off to our first night of Disney dreams!

[KarenWDWCP]

Day 3 - Our first full Disney day!

We woke up around 7:00. Ok, the wake up call was for 7:00 but I was up at 6:15. I was too excited to sleep any longer. I got up and showered, etc and we were all up and out by 8:00 or so. We went to the Marketplace to grab some breakfast.

I have to say that my one complaint with the Beach Club was the Marketplace area. I knew it would not be a food court like the moderates have, but I really didn't realize how on top of the food part, the gift shop part is. It was strange. I really didn't like the design of the place. I can't imagine it would have been that hard for them to really split the food part from the Shop part, but I guess they know what they are doing more than I do. We just got some pastries, coffee and juice this morning as we were eating at Le Cellier at 2:50. I had a chocolate croissant which was delicious! We ate in the very small seating area outside which was really nice and a pretty spot to sit.

Our first stop after breakfast was EPCOT so we walked over there and suddenly I realized that THIS was why people are willing to pay so much for the Beach Club - location, location, location! It was great just walking over there. We walked through the gates and over to the Future World side. The plan had been to get FPs for Soarin but the posted wait time was only 20 minutes. Since it is a bit of a haul to get all the way in to Soarin inside the Land, we figured we would probably actually save time by waiting the 20 minutes rather than getting the FPs, leaving and then coming all the way back when our time came up. This was a good decision as the wait was decidedly LESS than 20 minutes which was nice.

My dad had chickened out on Soarin twice before (once in California Adventure when he actually came all the way into the theater and then said he didn't want to do it and once in WDW when we got to the line and he bailed). He rides all the thrill rides but has a weird thing with Soarin. He had a bad experience with motion sickness and just feeling strange after riding Back to the Future at Universal several years ago and is now a little leary of movie/simulator type rides. We had tried to tell him that Soarin was not at all like that but he was never convinced in the past. This time he pushed through and rode it and loved it! I was so glad because we knew he would like it if he just got on it.

[dixie]

Great TR Karen- thanks!

[mairinmaureen]

I love it. I feel like I am at Disney just by reading your TR.

[lovemysons]

Yay Karen!! You really are doing it!

I am so curious about this Cha Cha Coconuts place. The name alone makes me want to go there!

You are so right about the size of the rooms compared to the moderates, they seem downright huge, don't they??!!

Looking forward to your pictures.

[DisneyTeacher]

Originally Posted by KarenWDWCP

Our first stop after breakfast was EPCOT so we walked over there and suddenly I realized that THIS was why people are willing to pay so much for the Beach Club - location, location, location! It was great just walking over there.

You are so right. We love WL but because of the location Beach Club has become our favorite resort. I love to 5 minute walk to and from Epcot and for that I can overlook the lack of food court.

[vlogilvie]

Originally Posted by KarenWDWCP

In cheesy Karen fashion, I popped in a CD and played "A Dream is Wish your Heart Makes" as we drove under the WDW sign. My dad just shook his head and laughed at my ridiculousness. We pulled into the Beach Club and breathed a sigh of relief and I soaked in that WDW smell ( I SWEAR it smells different there!) We were finally here!

Karen I totally do that kind of stuff too. I like to enhance the arrival it adds to my magic. I really enjoying you TR.

[KarenWDWCP]

After Soarin we rode Living with the Land for the first time in many, many years. It was better than I remembered. We then left the Land Pavilion and headed over to see Nemo and his pals.

We enjoyed our ride on the Clammobiles (we waited about 15 minutes) and then checked out Turtle Talk with Crush which my dad LOVED (he had never seen it before). I should mention that when we are in WDW my dad often gets super excited about some of the cheesiest, most kid oriented things. He just loves a lot of the over the top corny funny stuff. He is still lamenting the loss of the Doug Live show at the Studios. I thought he might pee his pants from laughing so hard the first time we saw that show. It was the same way with Turtle Talk (and later with Monsters Inc Laugh Floor)

We didn't hang around the Seas too long, we headed out and rode the new Spaceship Earth. We actually waited quite a while here and it was a serious wind tunnel underneath that geosphere. We enjoyed our ride on Spaceship Earth and the interactive video part at the end totally cracked us up.

After Spaceship Earth, we started to make our way back to Le Cellier to our ADR. We stopped at some of the Flower and Garden spots and then decided to check out the new O Canada movie. My dad also loves the 360 degree movies so he was pretty excited. We liked the new movie and I have always been a fan of the music in that movie. After that, we shopped in the Canadian shop, rested on a bench and finally checked in for our ADR. Here is me and my dad on a bench in Canada.

[KarenWDWCP]

We enjoyed a delicious meal at Le Cellier (I had the filet and substituted the cream cheese mashed potatoes for the new mushroom risotto. My mom had the risotto and really liked it though. My dad was disappointed that the prime rib was not on the lunch menu but he enjoyed his meal too) We skipped dessert here since we had plans to go to Raglan Road later and have appetizers and dessert (around 9:00).

We started making our way out of the park and took the boat to the Hollywood Studios for the afternoon. Over here we rode the Great Movie Ride with no wait, saw the Muppets (another favorite of my dad's where he laughs as though he has never heard the jokes before), rode Star Tours with no wait at all and then headed to Sunset Blvd for a little Tower of Terror.

Now, my parents are both thrill ride fans. In fact on our first trips to WDW, they would enjoy the thrill rides while I just wanted to ride Small World and the Tea Cups over and over again. So they are pretty game for everything WDW has to throw at you. But in the end, my dad decided he would rather ride Rock N Roller Coaster than ToT. I always think that Rock N Roller Coaster is more intense than ToT but he disagreed. Either way, ToT is my favorite ride in all of WDW so my mom and I decided to ride that while my dad went over to try and get FPs for Rockin Roller Coaster.

Mom and I had a great stay at the Hollywood Tower Hotel ( I love, love, love this ride) My one issue here was that there was a family behind us where the parents were completely lying to their kids about the intesity and actuality of the ride. The kids truly wanted no part of the Tower but the parents kept saying "Oh, it is not really scary or intense at all! They are just trying to psych you out in the waiting area." At one point one of the kids said something like " I don't even like to ride elevators" and the mom said "Oh, it is not like an elevator at all!" Now, I am all for trying to convince kids to go on some things they might be leary of but out and out lying to your kids to get them to ride something they obviously want no part of is NOT okay. By the time we got to the actual ride, one of the kids must have completely bailed on it because just the dad and one son ended up on the actual ride. At the end of the ride, a different kid sitting next to him (who he had been talking to in line) asked him if he liked it and I thought the kid was going to throw up he was so scared from the ride. He hated it and practically pushed his way off the thing. I felt so bad!

[dancing4disney]

Great trip report! I can't wait to hear more!

[dac921]

Loving your TR Karen... keep going.... You are giving me my fix.

[faerie dust]

great trip report keep it coming.

[KarenWDWCP]

After Tower of Terror, we met up with my dad who had taken shelter over in the Sunset Ranch Market as it had started raining. By the time we all got our ponchos out and put them on, the rain had basically stopped so we looked like fools. Oh well. My dad had gotten FPs for Rockin Roller Coaster but the return time started at 7:15. We had reservations at Raglan Road for 9:00 so we decided we didn't want to cut it so close and have to rush around. We figured we would be back later to ride Rockin Roller Coaster so we gave our FPs to another family of 3 that was on their way up Sunset Blvd and we headed back to the boat to the Beach Club. We freshened up in the room and then went over to the bus stop to catch a bus to DTD.

And then we waited, and waited. As I said earlier in the report, our experience with the DTD buses was not great, we waited a good while for one twice during our trip. We finally did get on a bus and made it to Raglan Road just after 9:00 so we weren't too late.

Our plan had been to order appetizers and dessert and my mom and I did that (I had the drunk chicken and she had the calimari, both were good) but my dad was more hungry than that so he ordered the Fish and Chips ( I am still convinced that he only got it because he read in the menu that the fish was flown in from Boston every day and all my dad talks about when we are away on vacation is Boston to every single person we meet! So if you met us in our WDW travels and had to listen to my dad go on and on about either the Red Sox or Boston in general, I apologize!) At any rate, my dad did say that the Fish and Chips was actually the best he's ever had.

The music and entertainment at Raglan Road was really great. The band was extremely talented. We had decided to go to Raglan Road because my dad loves Irish music (his mom was born in Ireland). He goes back to Ireland often and hangs out in actual Irish pubs but he really thought the band here was just as great and authentic as any he had heard in a pub in Ireland. I would highly recommend spending an evening here though it is very loud once the band started playing!

[KarenWDWCP]

I should give you a little backstory on our past family vacations at this point. As a child, I was often tortured on family vacations when the time came to go to sleep because my dad is an insanely loud snorer. It is a snoring like I have never heard before. And it si not just snoring, but a gasping, chewing, snoring noise all combined together. It was always impossible to sleep and I would often end up dragging my blankets into the bathroom and sleep on the floor in there where the sound of the fan would drown out some of the noise. It got to be a family joke when we would check in somewhere my dad would look in the bathroom and say "Your room looks nice, Karen!" I had tried everything - ear plugs, sleeping pills, you name it to try and sleep in the same room but it almost never worked.

Finally, a few years ago I was finally able to convince my dad that he should see a doctor about his snoring since I felt there was something else going on. It turned otu I was right and he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and given a CPAP machine to wear while sleeping. The machine has changed all of our lives - he now sleeps throughout the night and doesn't wake himself up with his own choking and snoring so he feels more rested in the mornings. And he no longer actually audibly snores. So this was the first trip we were taking with the sleep apnea machine (and actually the first family trip we'd gone on in a few years.

Unfortunately, now that my dad has stopped snoring, my mom has started snoring. Though not as noisy as my dad, it is still snoring. And her snoring combined with the Darth Vader breathing noise my dad's CPAP machine made it a little hard for me to sleep on this trip. I had taken to wearing my Ipod to fall asleep but the charge on my battery was running out and I didn't have a charger with me. Since we were at DTD, I decided to run out to the Virgin Megastore and buy a charger for my IPod.

I left my parents to enjoy dessert and the music and told them I would meet them back at the resort later.

[vlogilvie]

I spy Veras in your pic. Nice bags!!!