Cdn Friends of Pooh
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2006
Welcome to our latest TR, this one from our October 8th to 20th trip. Many of you already know us from our previous trip reports, but for those of you who don't, who are we?
DH Lee - is an attorney with his own practice in the field of child protection. DW - Bonny - whose background is in Human Resources but has worked for DH since October 2007. We live in Edmonton, Alberta and have been making our annual pilgrimage to Orlando each October to celebrate our anniversary.
Because we visited both WDW and Universal Studios during our visit, we will link to the appropriate boards for the posts of the parks we visited that day.
Day 1 - Travel Day
Our vacation began at 4:30 am on October 8th when the alarm rudely woke us up. We had packed everything the night before, so once we got ourselves ready, we loaded our suitcases into the truck, said goodbye to the pooches and were on our way to the airport by 5:00 am. Our flight didnt leave Edmonton until 8:00 am, however we live about 45 minutes away from the airport, and of course they want you to be at the airport at least 2 hours ahead of time.
We arrived at the airport, parked our truck and caught the shuttle to the terminal, where we had to wait for 15 minutes before the NWA counter opened to check in. Once we were checked in, we headed to US Customs/Security to wait in more lines. Fortunately the lines werent too bad at that early hour and we were at our gate with a wait of an hour and a half before our plane took off. While we were waiting, Bonny headed over to the Starbucks counter to get us some coffee and hot chocolate.
Finally after what seemed like forever, they began boarding the plane. As we upgraded to 1st class, we were one of the first on the plane, however had to wait while the rest of the plane boarded and stowed their carry-on luggage.
At last we were off
... more cloud pics ... even more clouds ... and yet more clouds
Next stop was Minneapolis where we had an hour and a half wait before our connecting flight departed for Orlando. To pass the time we took a stroll around the airport and took these pics along the way
We arrived back at our gate with a few minutes to spare before they started boarding and took these pics while waiting
We finally boarded the plane for the final leg of our flight, and after a "short" 3 hour flight, we arrived in Orlando - 8 1/2 hours after our impolite alarm had gotten us up.
We took the tram over to the terminal
where we ran into this guy
Next, we headed down to the luggage carousel where we found a place to wait for our luggage
across from this sign
While Lee waited for the luggage, Bonny headed to the National Emerald Aisle to grab our car. Unfortunately there was nothing exciting on the Aisle, but we did manage to grab a Pontiac G6 GXP with leather seats, sunroof and only 130 miles on the odometer (as we would find out during the course of our trip, the car wasnt the best on gas, however it was much better than the Saturn we had on a previous trip).
After Lee arrived with the luggage, we were off to our resort - Pop Century. When we made our ressies, we had requested top floor of building 1 so we were anxious to see if our request had been granted (we had that location for both our May 2007 and May 2008 trips and loved the location) . Arriving at Pop, we headed to check-in with our travel mugs in hand. The CM who checked us in was great (cant remember his name off hand) but unfortunately our room was in building 9. Oh well, we were just glad to be there.
We stopped and filled our mugs then headed to find our room. As it turns out, our room was only across the parking lot from the bus stops, so it was as close, if not closer, to classic hall than our room had been in building 1 ...
After unloading our luggage, we decided to head over to Earl of Sandwich at DTD for a bite to eat. Arriving at DTD, we were very surprised how few people were there we were able to find a close parking spot without much trouble (unlike other trips where weve had to circle around the parking lot for hours to find a place to park). After filling our tummies, we of course had to stop by Ghirardellis for our chocolate sample before heading back to Pop, where Bonnys next task was to decorate our resort window. This was the first time in all our trips we had decorated our window and if we do say so, it turned out quite nice.
After a long day of traveling (and waiting), we climbed into bed for a good nights sleep after all, the next day was our day at Universal and HHN that evening
DH Lee - is an attorney with his own practice in the field of child protection. DW - Bonny - whose background is in Human Resources but has worked for DH since October 2007. We live in Edmonton, Alberta and have been making our annual pilgrimage to Orlando each October to celebrate our anniversary.
Because we visited both WDW and Universal Studios during our visit, we will link to the appropriate boards for the posts of the parks we visited that day.
Day 1 - Travel Day
Our vacation began at 4:30 am on October 8th when the alarm rudely woke us up. We had packed everything the night before, so once we got ourselves ready, we loaded our suitcases into the truck, said goodbye to the pooches and were on our way to the airport by 5:00 am. Our flight didnt leave Edmonton until 8:00 am, however we live about 45 minutes away from the airport, and of course they want you to be at the airport at least 2 hours ahead of time.
We arrived at the airport, parked our truck and caught the shuttle to the terminal, where we had to wait for 15 minutes before the NWA counter opened to check in. Once we were checked in, we headed to US Customs/Security to wait in more lines. Fortunately the lines werent too bad at that early hour and we were at our gate with a wait of an hour and a half before our plane took off. While we were waiting, Bonny headed over to the Starbucks counter to get us some coffee and hot chocolate.
Finally after what seemed like forever, they began boarding the plane. As we upgraded to 1st class, we were one of the first on the plane, however had to wait while the rest of the plane boarded and stowed their carry-on luggage.
At last we were off
... more cloud pics ... even more clouds ... and yet more clouds
Next stop was Minneapolis where we had an hour and a half wait before our connecting flight departed for Orlando. To pass the time we took a stroll around the airport and took these pics along the way
We arrived back at our gate with a few minutes to spare before they started boarding and took these pics while waiting
We finally boarded the plane for the final leg of our flight, and after a "short" 3 hour flight, we arrived in Orlando - 8 1/2 hours after our impolite alarm had gotten us up.
We took the tram over to the terminal
where we ran into this guy
Next, we headed down to the luggage carousel where we found a place to wait for our luggage
across from this sign
While Lee waited for the luggage, Bonny headed to the National Emerald Aisle to grab our car. Unfortunately there was nothing exciting on the Aisle, but we did manage to grab a Pontiac G6 GXP with leather seats, sunroof and only 130 miles on the odometer (as we would find out during the course of our trip, the car wasnt the best on gas, however it was much better than the Saturn we had on a previous trip).
After Lee arrived with the luggage, we were off to our resort - Pop Century. When we made our ressies, we had requested top floor of building 1 so we were anxious to see if our request had been granted (we had that location for both our May 2007 and May 2008 trips and loved the location) . Arriving at Pop, we headed to check-in with our travel mugs in hand. The CM who checked us in was great (cant remember his name off hand) but unfortunately our room was in building 9. Oh well, we were just glad to be there.
We stopped and filled our mugs then headed to find our room. As it turns out, our room was only across the parking lot from the bus stops, so it was as close, if not closer, to classic hall than our room had been in building 1 ...
After unloading our luggage, we decided to head over to Earl of Sandwich at DTD for a bite to eat. Arriving at DTD, we were very surprised how few people were there we were able to find a close parking spot without much trouble (unlike other trips where weve had to circle around the parking lot for hours to find a place to park). After filling our tummies, we of course had to stop by Ghirardellis for our chocolate sample before heading back to Pop, where Bonnys next task was to decorate our resort window. This was the first time in all our trips we had decorated our window and if we do say so, it turned out quite nice.
After a long day of traveling (and waiting), we climbed into bed for a good nights sleep after all, the next day was our day at Universal and HHN that evening
)
