[goofygal1975]

Hey guys and gals!! I made it back from our July 4th weekend trip! I'm so glad we went!! The fireworks and spectromagic parade were amazing!

I'm going to post all the reports on this one page again, so everything is easy to find!

Cast: Me, ds Brandon(8) My friend from work, Wendy and her dd Jessica(8)

Dates: July 3-5th, 2003

~~~Day one, July 3rd-Check in and Chef Mickeys~~~

We got off work around 1230, met at my house (I was still packing when she got there:nooo: ) We were on the interstate by ten till one! Traffic was horrible, it was raining off and on, and we were only able to go about 30 mph about half the way there! We get checked in and in our room by 430pm!! While we were standing in line, Jessica turned to her mom and said, "thank you so much for making these reservations...this is wonderful!!" Her mom told her i had made them, she came and gave me a big hug and thanked me!! how cute!

We unpack, wash off and head to Chef Mickeys!! Wow, WDW must have heard the complaints about the bus situation...because we never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a bus. On the way to MK, to get to cont, we were walking out as the MK bus was pulling in. We also got to the monorail as it was pulling up!!

We get to Chef Mickeys around 5:30, and check in for our 6:15 PS. She said the wait would be until 6:15 or 6:30, no biggie, we went and looked in the shops.

Our pager goes off, so we go back to be seated! We got pictures w/Donald Duck in the waiting area, and while we were waiting, Mickey came over and pulled on Donalds tail! Haha. Donald started chasing Mickey around, and they struck Karate poses...and started to play fight! This was too funny to see!!! :laugh We ate dinner, and got our pics taken w/Minnie, Mickey, Chip and Dale and Goofy. Goofy played w/ds hair and then wrote in his autograph book..."We have the same hair!!" and drew a pic of his head! Haha!!

We were not impressed w/the dinner, though! I was really hoping it would be better than last time, and i'm not a picky person at all! But at least we can say we tried it again. My friend and her daughter just ended up eating the peel and eat shrip. I really enjoyed the parmasean (sp) mashed potatos, though!! Yummy....it was worth it for those!! The smoked turkey was good, too. Of course as long as they had rolls, and chicken tenders, my ds was happy!

We tried to get in front of the monorail at the contemporary, but other people were waiting. The CM told us to go to the TTC, and get on the"express" one. (I am figuring she meant Epcot???) So we did, and only had one family in front of us. We had a good time talking to them too! It was such a great ride, and my friend and her dd had never been in front before! Our pilot was great (he gave us all co pilot licenses) and very talkative! Just a great ride! We got in the back on the way back from Epcot to the TTC. The resort monorail was going under an inspection(the time said that it had been waiting there for 50 minutes, and the guests were inside, w/the doors shut!) They say they do this every evening, but it was taking longer today. ANyways, we decided to forget about resort hoping , and got in front AGAIN on the monorail ride to the MK!!! 2 times in a row...this was awsome!

We went back to the resort, and went swimming for a little while and then went to bed!!! Oh, there was no wait for the bus on the way back to the All Star Sports either, it was pulling up as we were walking up!! This was our luck for the whole trip! At the MK, there were 7 buses pulling up at the same time, it was the most I had ever seen there!! They were ready for the 4th of July crowds!!

Weather: Raining while driving to WDW, check in and unloading the car. Hot in the evening.

Favorite part of today: Chef Mickeys, riding up front in the mororail 2 times. No wait for any of the buses today!

First for today: swimming in the resort pool...very relaxing!(We've never had the chance to swim here before!)


Click here for Pictures from 7/3/03

[preidel24]

Heather,

So glad to hear you all had a wonderful trip and your DS I guess did fine with the heat I hope. Pictures are adorable as always. I guess I'll just sit here dreaming the rest of the afternoon as our trip is still seriously far off. Keep me posted on if you and your DS will go to disney for the day on Nov 15th I'd love my DS's Paulie to meet your DS. Paulie is 9 years old and my only disney nut in the house. Thank God I have one allie in the house.

Paula

[ilvminnie]

Glad to hear you had such a great time. We'll be doing Chef Mickey's 1 month from today for DD's 18th birthday. Think she's more interested in the characters than the food, though. :)

[dizneeluvr]

Your pictures are great Goofygal1975! It looks as though all four of you had a really good time.

I'm envious that you can be so close as to go for a weekend trip. I bet the Fireworks were spectacular.

Glad to hear you had a good time.

[ajbdk5]

Oooooh, Heather!!!
Those pics were the BEST!!!!!!
The kids looked like they were having the time of their lives!!!!!
I'm glad Brandon seemed to do okay in the heat.
So did you view the fireworks from inside the MK???
How did he do???


Amy:)

[goofygal1975]

~~Day Two, July 4th, 2003 MK, Fireworks,Spectromagic~~

Mickey wakes us up at 7:30am, so we can get to the MK first thing in the morning. We eat breakfast in the food court, and are on our way to the MK. We only had to wait less than 5 minutes for the bus today! Yeah! We got to the MK *right* after opening ceremonies. We have a game plan....we want to get in, do rides, and get right back out by 11am. (Wendy and her daughter may stay awhile longer)

We asked a CM at the gates about the parks closing. She told us, that they will close off parking to guests first. Then they will not sell anymore tickets to people needing to buy tickets to get into the park. Then next thing would be not letting anyone back in at all. She said for as long as she worked there, that they have never closed the parks to resort guests. She made sure to tell us she couldn't *garauntee* this, but most likely we would be ok!

We head back and go on Winnie the Pooh first...and walked right on!! The ride is acting funny as you get off, it is not smooth at all, and we were stopped a few times on the ride. Of course, this upset my son...and set up the mood for the morning!:madmad We then decide to go onto Peter Pan, and there was about a 5 minute wait. Of course, all of a sudden, my ds said he's going to be sick :nooo: So our friends go on the ride, we get off and run to the restrooms. My ds is determined not to go back to the resorts yet. So we get back in line w/our friends and ride Peter Pan. DS feels sick again, and friends go on small world, we go to restroom. At this point, i tell ds, sorry honey, but we're leaving to go rest and swim. (At this point, we had had NO waits in the sun at all, and had the fan and mister on him to make sure he was cool, we also walked VERY slow around. But none of that helped, and no way was I going to push it. )

We leave, and our friends decide to stay for awhile, w/a promise to use our cell phones to catch up later. Brandon and I head back out VERY slowly to the front of the park. We did find the hat shop w/the FREE embroidery...(thanks to everyone that PM'd me to let me know where to find this!!) We both got our Mickey Ears hats w/our names on them! Then we head out to the bus, and NO wait again! Yeah! DS is already looking better,and wants to go back, but I put my foot down and we get on the bus and go back to Sports! We stop in the gift shop to do some shopping (because my ds had money and my friends dd didn't, he didn't want to spend his money in front of her, so he wanted to shop when she wasn't there). He bought some more pins, and we go back to rest, stopping to take some pictures outside first.

We were back in our room by 11am. By 1120am, our friends called to say they were heading back, that her dd didn't want to eat lunch w/out us. (Keep in mind that our kids didn't meet until yesterday! They are getting along so good!) So they come back and we have lunch...and the the adults try to take a nap.

If you were a fly on the wall in our room...you'd have been cracking up laughing...but we, as tired parents, were not!:bandit For a little boy who was so sick earlier...you couldn't tell it now! They were jumping all over the beds, the floor, yelling, talking, playing games, chanting....Let's go swimming...and just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep simming swimming swimming! I don't know how she did it, but Wendy slept through all of this...I didn't!:devil Of couse, my cell phone went off twice, right when i was *just * about alseep! My dad was calling to tell me he was buying a new Ford Explorer...and was giving me his older(1999) Ford Explorer!! Yeah...happy 4th for me! My explorer has seen it's better days!

Well, at 4pm, we decide to head out to ride the TTA, and get our spot for the fireworks/parade. On the way to the bus, ds goes pale and feels sick. :cry: At this point, i'm ready to page his dr and demand a better explantion as to how 5 minutes of walking in the sun can do this to him, and ask what the heck are they going to do to help him feel better. We go inside the lobby and watch the TV there, while our friends sat down and colored at a station they had set up w/4th of July pages. I ask Guest Services if they knew of anywhere to go to help out our condition...they could only think of the Boardwalk. We sit there about an hour, and he looks better, and wants to go so bad to see the fireworks. He just doens't want to go on any rides, "just incase". So we all head out...and once again...thank goodness for pixie dust this trip...there is a bus there for us!

I'll write more about the park and fireworks in just a bit!

Here are some more pictures:

7/04/03 Disney Pictures
;)

[mmouse67l]

Great reports Goofygal1975! I'm glad to hear about the great bus service since we will be using them a lot on our next trip.

Sorry to hear about son. Never fails does it? :madmad

Great pictures too. I love the pictures of the Resort. Going to have to stay there soon.

[jmouse]

Love your trip reports. I had been wondering how Brandon did on the 4th. Sorry to hear he kept feeling sick. I hope his doctor can do something for him.

[goofygal1975]

So we made it back into the parks. On our bus ride over, it looked like they had cones up,and were making people driving make Uturns out of the area. (I'm not able to confirm that though, cause i didn't ask a CM, but that's what it looked like to all us passengers)

Since we aren't going to go on any rides, and people are already getting spots for the fireworks and parades, we decide to do the same. We sat down, on the "circle" on main street, right as you walk into the park, facing the Castle. *Perfect* view!! Wendy and her dd take off to look around and get dinner. Ds and I saved the seats.

After an hour, we were told we'd have to move off of that ONE spot on the curb. By this time, though, all the other spots were taken. If it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any, I tell ya! There was a lady in a wheelchair behind us, so really no room to move. My ds and I go to get dinner, since they hadn't put the ropes up yet, wendy and her dd stayed in our spots. By the time we got back, they started putting up the ropes. Oh, we all had hot dogs from Casey's. We don't eat hot dogs really ever, so these were wonderful to us! Yummy!

The nice family, and lady in the wheelchair, had saved room for all of us to "back away from the curb". CM, Jason, made sure that NOBODY, including us...sat on the curb during the THREE hours before the fireworks! We began to make it a game wondering how long it would take for someone to sit down, until Jason spotted them and made them leave. LOL:laugh (I Tested him one time...just because my feet hurt so bad i had to sit. I got to sit for a good 5 minutes!:laugh )

After standing all that time, the fireworks were so worth it!! I won't go in to all the complaining us, and the crowds around us were doing, since we had to stand, after OUR spot was taken...now I can laugh at it all...LOL(but is was none to funny then!) The fireworks were coming from right behind the castle, and in Seven Seas lagoon, right behind main street station. It was SO awsome to see them from both areas at once, and to hear the beautiful patriotic music. I got the goose bumps, and tears in my eyes when the National Anthem was playing, so proud to be an American, and be around so many people enjoying and celebrating this day!!! Then the fireworks were 360 degrees around us!!!!!It's just something words can't explain! Everywhere you turn, you see fireworks!! It was so amazing!!

We knew that the family next to us had to catch a bus to get back to their off site resort, and would not be staying for the parade. So as soon as they exited after the fireworks, we took up camp right *behind* the rope!! We struck up a great conversation with CM Jason, and he promised us we had "prime seating" and he wouldn't let *anyone* sit in front of us! Of course, he had lots of areas to watch, and tons of people sat down there. We tried to warn them, so they'd have time to find another good spot, but they rolled their eyes at us and one lady told me off:p We just smiled and waited until Jason came back!:laugh He even took off his badge and handed it to my friend, who wasn't too shy to tell people to move:bandit !!

Well, after all our waiting....again Spectro was so worth it!!! We were *this* close to all the floats. When the Queen from Alice and Wonderland came buy...Wendy yelled "Off w/her head!" The Queen turned around, walked all the way back to Wendy and made the gesture "off w/her head!" and shook her head in agreement and pointed at Alice! It was TOO funny!! LOL We had great character interaction! Peter Pan came up and talked to Brandon and Jessica, asking how their day at the park was. Then he was off to fight w/Captin Hook. Snow white came by and said hi and held their hands.:love: Mary Popins came by and said hi! and shook their hands!! We were so happy to see this parade again and enjoy it so much!!

After the parade, the maddness begain. Somehow, we were able to stay together, and make it to the buses! And believe it or not, we only had to wait 5, maybe 10 minutes for a bus. We met Tinkerbell while waiting in line too! Well, her name was Morgan, and it was her 7th bday today!! (Hey, tink, she shares your bday!!!) She was dressed up in Tinkerbell costume, shoes, wand, dress and crown! She was very shy at first, but then after a few minutes, everytime you looked at her, she would curtsey (sp)! She was just waiting for us to look!;) Very cute!! The bus came, and my usual venting would come right about now...about people not giving up their seats, and the tiny 2-3 yr olds taking up a whole seat...but you've heard it before and I"m not going there!;)

We got back to the room, and took showers in shifts! We were still wide awake, so we packed up some, and just watched some TV. Finally sometime after 1am we fell asleep!

Weather: Hot, of course. In the evening...cloudy and we heard thunder...no storms though. It did drizzle a few minutes while waiting for the fire works.It wasn't too hot while we were waiting, because of the breeze and the clouds

Favorites: Seeing the Amazing Fireworks in 360 degrees and hearing the beautiful music. Seeing Spectromagic,and seeing the kids faces light up when the characters talked to them! Meeting some really cool people and having great conversations w/them!

Bad part: Brandon not feeling good. I felt like a horible mom for taking him out there in the morning. :cry: :madmad Even though we took every precaution we could. But he wanted to go so bad, so we tried it. He still tells me he's glad he got to ride those two rides!! So I guess it wasn't too bad:bandit

Tiggerlover1971, I was going to try to call you, but it was SUCH a madhouse there, I knew we'd never find each other!!! Maybe we'll have better luck in December!! I hope you were able to enjoy your trip and the fireworks!!

I took some pictures of the crowds as the evening went on, just look down main street, and imagine that people were shoulder to shoulder, and not moving anywhere!! We were happy that we had our spot, and could just people watch. I also tried to get some pictures of the castle lighting up and the fireworks. They didn't come out good at all.

The Castle would turn red, and purple, and have white stars on them! It was so beautiful!

July 4th and Spectromagic Pictures

[MickeyMac]

FABULOUS!!

I'm loving the SpectroMagic shots - I missed it and was really bummed. I can't believe how crowded it was though! Three hours!

BTW, Brandon is a cutey!

[ajbdk5]

Great report and awesome pics, Heather!!!!!
You have a GREAT attitude when things aren't going so great;)
I second what MickeyMac said, Brandon is a cutie!!:)

Amy

[goofygal1975]

Keep me posted on if you and your DS will go to disney for the day on Nov 15th I'd love my DS's Paulie to meet your DS. Paulie is 9 years old and my only disney nut in the house. Thank God I have one allie in the house.

Paula

Yes, I have had the date marked on our calender since we got our AP's. It would be great to meet up with you guys then!!

We'll be doing Chef Mickey's 1 month from today for DD's 18th birthday ilvminnie

Your dd is going to have a wonderful 18th bday there!!

I'm envious that you can be so close as to go for a weekend trip. I bet the Fireworks were spectacular. dizneeluvr

Thanks We had a great time, and loved the fireworks! I do love being so close to WDW, and can't wait for the cooler weather so we can just go up for the day!

Great reports Goofygal1975! I'm glad to hear about the great bus service since we will be using them a lot on our next trip. mmouse67l

Yes, the bus system worked 100% better this trip, than just 2 weeks ago! It was back to what we expect it to be!!

Sorry to hear he kept feeling sick. I hope his doctor can do something for him. jmouse

Thanks! I'll be puttin in a call to his DR on monday!! That's for sure!!

I'm loving the SpectroMagic shots - I missed it and was really bummed. I can't believe how crowded it was though! Three hours!

BTW, Brandon is a cutey! MickeyMac

I'm sorry you missed the parade while you were there! I'm glad you are enjoying the pictures, though! And thanks, he's my little cuite;)

Great report and awesome pics, Heather!!!!! ajbdk5

Thanks Amy!! And thanks for helping me through the night before sickness on Wednesday too!!

I'm having fun playing w/these quotes, if you can't tell! LOL

[goofygal1975]

Well, today is check out day!:cry: We had set a wake up call for 10am, in hopes that we could sleep in. But half of our group woke up at 830am, and housekeeping was knocking on our door by 8:45am!:nooo: So we take our time getting up and packing. We take more pictures around the resort,and head to the food court for breakfast.

We then spend some time in the arcade...which we didn't get to do during my son's bday trip. After spending about 45 minutes in there, we head out to the car, and drive home. This ride back was MUCH faster then the trip up!

Our PDD has now set in, and the only cure is doing up my pictures in the creative memories style!! If only my online order of disney supplies would get here!!! LOL


By the way, we stayed in room 5104 in the Tennis/Hoops section. We were on the 1st floor. I have learned now, that all the times we stayed on the 1st floor....there was somehow less noise, especially the pipes and water!! We have also stayed on the 2nd and 3rd floors, and for some reason it was SO much more noisy! I don't know why...but i do know that our resort was pretty full this weekend.

When we checked in , they were handing out DVC folders, to put all our paperwork in.

When we got to the MK on the 4th, they were handing out free Pins. (It is like Willbegone's avator) You maybe able to see us wearing them in some of the pictures, if not, i'll try to post one later.

As mentioned before....two thumbs up for the buses this time! I was so happy they were so much better this trip!!

7/5/03 Pictures

[jmouse]

I'm so glad you were able to get back into the park for the fireworks. Boy was it crowded! Great pictures! :)

[neen626]

Great trip report Heather! I am so sorry that Brandon got sick again, but you were a great mom to put your foot down and say "no, we are going back to the resort"

At least he didn't feel sick during the fireworks, and Spectromagic.
Great pics! Looks like you all had a wonderful trip!!

Thanks for the report, and don't forget to let us know what the Dr said :)

Glad the bus worked out well for you this time also ;)