First time for the Flower and Garden Festival

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

I am going to make my first attempt at a trip report here. I apologize now if it takes a while to get it all up on here.

This trip was a different one for me and my wife SIlvia. We have never been in April and had only had a couple along with us once before. This trip my wife's friend Liz is joining us on. We were lucky with the timing on this trip as the school where my wife teaches scheduled their April vacation not around Easter as they usually but for the middle of April. This meant cheaper room rates for us.

We stayed at Pop Century again for this trip. It's the only value we have ever stayed at and it is the one we stayed in for our honeymoon so it will always be special to us.

Usually we drive down to FL from CT but since we were tight for time with school on either side I looked around and found us some affordable flights, Provided we were willing to drive to Atlantic City to fly out. Since we saved $1100 doing this I had no problem doing this. Otherwise drive it would be.

We said good bye to our dog and cat, my sister would be over later to spend the week taking care of them, and headed out to our friend Liz's house to pick her up as she liked saving a bunch of money on flights also. It was around 2:45pm when we headed out from her house towards Atlantic City and other than one stupid traffic accident it was smooth sailing and we arrive a little

We actually stayed at the Travelodge Atlantic City Bayside in West Atlantic City. It was a nice enough place especially considering I paid for it with points so it was free for us.

We had dinner at a local Italian restaurant called Jo Jo's Italian Grill. This was a really great place to eat and I love good Italian food.

After that we called it a night pretty early as we needed to take showers and get to the airport for 5:30 for our flight.

I promise there will be pictures in this trip report but we never took the camera out that first day.

more to follow....

[stefa70 205]

Cool! I'm in...and I love good Italian food too! :jumpforjoy

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

Yeay my first reader!

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Another reader!

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

Another reader!

WooHoo!

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

Me three. :)

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

Great start!! Can't wait to read more!!!

[DaveInTN 3,247]

I'm in!!

[Lou... 3,118]

I don't read TRs so don't count me.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

You can count me in though.

[YENSIDCAMPER 66]

me too!

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

I'm here!!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

You are off to a great start, Jason!

I am looking forward to the next installment, which I assume will include your arrival at Disney World.

Don't worry if it takes a while to post. Take as much time as you need. Just don't give up. You will have a lot of readers!

And only one non-reader.

TCD

[ajcjmom 8]

Another reader here!

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

Welcome to all my readers and my one non-reader and Thanks for the advice TCD!

Picking up our story where we left off. After getting to bed at a not to bad hour I found I just could not sleep. To save money we had gotten 1 room for the night for the three of us with two double beds. I have trouble sharing a bed to begin with but in a double it was horrible. Normally I would have just gotten up and read a book or something till I was tired enough to fall asleep, but with Liz with us I didnt want to disturb her. So i laid in the bed and stared at the ceiling. After a couple of hours I did finally fall asleep and get an hour of two before the alarms started going off at 4 am.

Now no offense to those of you who like to get up early but I don't I would much rather be going to bed at 4 than getting up at 4, but there was a plane to catch. So I got up quickly and raced into the bathroom to get ready first as I would take the least amount of time (remember I am traveling with 2 girls, one of which confessed to having a morning routine that is usually a 1 hour affair). Once out I started repacking teh few things we had out and getting ready to leave.

Amazingly we were ready to go by 5:20. After a short 7 mile drive over to ACY we left our car in the economy lot and made the long horrendous walk to the terminal. Ok I exaggerate, it was like 2 minutes with stopping to tie a shoe. This is a small airport with only 7 terminals and 3 airlines that fly out. We checked out bags and headed over to the dreaded security lines. As a small aside I don't fly very often. I am afraid of heights and have issues with not having any control over my fate, add the security checks and I would much rather drive. All in all though at 5:45 am at a small airport Security was quick and relatively painless.

All 3 of us were through in about 15 minutes from when we showed out id's to putting my belt back on before my pants fell and caused and incident....oops didn't mean to type that. Oh well I did so you can all live with it. Eventually it was time to board our luxurious Spirit airlines flight to FL and we made it on without any issues. Our flight was supposed to be from 7:25 am to 9:50 am. We must have caught some killer airflow though casue we were there by 9:25 and by there I mean in the magic express line. This is where I think Disney is genius at its best. They prepare you for a week of being in lines. "oh your going to Pop head right over there and follow the ropes." Oh your in line for Pop Ok stand in this line while we board your ride vehicle" Really it just forshadowing.

After a short ride and a stop at Caribbean Beach we were finally at our hotel!

We had done Online checkin but our friend was a noob at this and I forgot to mention it so she had to stand in the line. While she was standing I had a mission. I added some more days to our park tickets and then said goodbye to my wife. I had something I had to get. Some of my readers I think are already aware of this but I was on a mission to get a case of water and not give the mouse anymore of my money than necesary. I headed out to the bus stops and hopped on one headed to DTD. Once at the Pleasure Island stop i headed out on what looked on line to be a slightly more direct and shorter walk to the Hess across the street. I probably could have cut some distance but I had cast members walking with me and didn't want to get a talking to on my first day at Disney. Quickly my mission was accomplished I had a case of water for $5.99 and headed back to the Pop bus stop.

As I walked up to the bus stop I saw a bus pull in. Oh No was i going to miss the bus back and have to wait for another one. Not if I could help it. I hoisted that case of water up on my other shoulder (first one was tired by this point) and started running to get there. I made it no problem. Whats that? Oh you waiting for you assignment. You don't know where your headed. Ok I will just go sit on this bench and catch my breath. Doh! It took another 10 minutes but finally a bus came around and I was on my way back to Pop. Alot of people on the bus were looking at me weird for carrying this case of water onto the bus. Except this one dad I was sitting next to. He asked me where I got it and how much it was and if there was soda or beer. I explained it all to him and suddenly his trip seemed brighter. He could afford more sodas for his kids, and beer for him when they finally pass out. He thanked me for the information and said he would be heading over to do the same thing himself.

Once back at Pop i got the lovely text that our room was ready so I headed straight there with our case of water. My wife and her friend has decided to eat at Pop so they were still there and met me at the room. Those new fridges at Pop are nice and they get the water nice and cold too. I fit almost the entire case of water into it. For those who would like to know by the way I did the math. An equivialent amount of water bottles from Disney would be 24 x $2.50= $60. I just saved us enough money for dinner for the two of us. Yeay. Now if only my arms weren't so sore..hehehe.

We all grabbed a bottle of water and headed out to our first park of the trip Magic Kingdom. This park one by virtue of the fact that with extra magic hours it was going to be open until 3 am.

I think I will take a break for now. I will pick this up in the Magic Kingdom shortly.

[stefa70 205]

In my best Mom/Wife voice "Think of all that money you saved on water!"

In my best Personal Trainer voice "Think of all the calories you burned while toting that water back!"

:thumbsup1:

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

I am with you, Jason. If I see 4 a.m. it's cause I haven't been to bed yet. I'm glad the flight went so well and that you got your case of water!!

Ready for more!

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

Great start!!! Sounds like DME and your water mission went well!!!!

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

Sorry for the delay. When I left us we had boarded one of Disney's wonderful buses to the Magic Kingdom. I will say we had very good luck with the buses this trip but I still missed my car. It was great seeing our friend light up as we went though the gates. It had been over 10 years for her and she couldn't wait. We headed on through security and into the park and one of the first things we encountered we had to stop and listen too.

The Main St Philharmonic! Yeay! All three of us are musicians and the two of them marched in the magic kingdom in high school so we always stop and watched the musicians out of respect for what they are doing.

After they finished there show we continued up the street and made a right. Had to get the girls fast passes for Space Mountain. Despite the fact that it was around 1 at this point the fast pass times were less than an hour from then. While the girls were grabbing there fast passes I grabbed my treat. Everytime I come to the park I have to have one from the first cart I notice selling them.

And now you know what we all look like. From left to right you have me, my wife Silvia, and our friend Liz. This was taken by Liz later in the week but it was the only shot I have with my Mickey Premium Ice Cream bar as I am usually to busy eating it to bother with pictures.

While waiting for there fastpasses to come ready we decided to hit some other attractions in Tomorrowland. So we walked over and to took the moving walkway up to the People Mover. We love taking a spin around Tomorrowland on this so it usually happens a couple of times a trip.

These pictures were taken by Silvia. You can usually tell when shes taking the pictures. They are crooked.

This one is foreshadowing.

After are ride through tomorrow we headed over to another favorite. Yep "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow." The Carousel of Progress. I got in trouble on this one a few trips ago. I apparently missed the announcement about no photography. I got a couple of pic before they came on to tell me to knock it off. Unfortunately I can't find them at the moment. If I come acrross them I will come back.

At this point their fastpasses were ready so I grabbed their tickets and headed for the recently re-opened Fantasyland Train station by the little back pathway figuring I would grab a quick train around to Frontierland for fastpasses to Splash Mountain. It wasn't quite as quick as I wanted as there was a long line. Apparently they were adding a train so as soon as that big empty train showed up we were on our way.

I think I will break here for now. I need to upload more pictures.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

I could eat one of those Mickey bars right about now.

[ftwildernessguy 778]

Well Sylvia has the technique down for eating Mickey bars, but you don't. Everybody knows you bite each ear first, you never bite and ear and work down the side.

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

Well Sylvia has the technique down for eating Mickey bars, but you don't. Everybody knows you bite each ear first, you never bite and ear and work down the side.

I usually do but this was a damaged one. When I unwrapped it it was cracked all over the place. It was either take the chocolate and eat it or loose it. I was not loosing it. Besides she cheated. She took her cues from Marc Summers.

[ftwildernessguy 778]

Okay, I'll let it go this time. Just don't let it happen again.

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

Loving the updates. Good to know I am not the only cheap one. :)

[ftwildernessguy 778]

I have the corner on cheap. Just ask my family.