Archive for the ‘Lodging’ Category

WOW! It’s been that long since I’ve blogged about anything! OOPS! I’m sure most of you (at least my family members that I haven’t called) are wondering how our vacation is going. Things are going pretty good!

Last Tuesday (Has it already been a week since we left!) we left after Kevin got out of school and drove down to Goshen to visit my Aunt Margo. Usually we take a different way, but this year I thought lets take this way so we could visit her. Now I know why as there was a big pile up on the expressway we usually take and we would of been stuck in that big mess.

After visiting with my Aunt for awhile we hit the LONG road for our next destination.. Macon Georgia so we could visit the Museum of Aviation. Kevin fought like crazy on going to sleep as he didn’t want to miss a thing. Katie did too, but thankfully they did sleep for a couple hours so I could get a little sleep. We finally arrived at the Museum, but Kevin wasn’t to interested. I think it was because he got spoiled at Kalamazoo’s Air Zoo. That too is a air museum, but it also has some rides for the kids to ride on and he was in the ride mode as our next destination was Disney!

We arrived in the Orlando area Wednesday night and spent the night in the hotel and then arrived at our villa rental on Thursday!   I was very surprised on how nice it was as the pictures did not do it any justice.  Since we did arrive before noon we decided day 1 of Disney was in order and off we went!

Disney Day 1 ~  The first thing we did was we took Katie over to the barber shop in the Magic Kingdom.  In case you don’t know.. there is a barber shop there and they will cut kids hair for $14 and adults for $17!  If it’s a childs first haircut (and it was Katie’s) then they give them Mickey Ears with the back that says First Haircut and also a certificate noting the first haircut as well (as well as wrapping the hair in tissue for you).  Then she ended up putting her hair up in a pony tail and added “pixie dust”!  (She even put some in Kevin’s hair too!)   The crowd level wasn’t bad at all as we didn’t have that many long waits.  The longest was Peter Pan and I think we waited about 40 minutes otherwise it was 10-20 minute waits if that even!

Disney Day 2 ~ We ended up going to Animal Kingdom this day as Paul’s parents were going to be coming up and staying with us for a couple nights and since the park closes at 5pm we thought that way we wouldn’t be missing anything.  We got there after the park opened and the crowds weren’t that bad either.  We didn’t have that long of a wait for the Safari ride or It’s a bugs life.  Other than that we really didn’t do many other rides.  We did see a lot of characters there and the kids got their pictures with them.   (Rafiki, Pocahontas, Jiminy Cricket, Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Bear from Brother Bear)  We did learn one thing… our kids both love riding rides so we decided from now on we will just be doing the Magic Kingdom.

Disney Day 3 ~ Paul’s folks were staying with us and went to Disney with us as well!  Since they were there, Paul and I took advantage of it and while they took the kids on the Putt Putt cars, Paul and I went on Space Mountain!  Since it was early morning we were able to ride it twice before the line started forming.  The 2nd time riding it Paul got to ride in the front car and he said that was amazing!  The crowds were a lot busier on this day as it was a Saturday and the weather finally was warmer!  We ended up staying the whole day and watched the spectromagic parade and fireworks.

We then took a day off to go back to Magic Kingdom yesterday!  We couldn’t of done things any better yesterday except of gotten there when the gates opened.  We still got there early where we were just about able to walk onto the rides.  Then around lunch time we headed home for the afternoon.  When we went back we got to ride in the front of the monorail with the driver!  It’s just so much fun to ride up front because you can see everything.  By the times we got to Magic Kingdom people were already leaving and we once again didn’t have to wait that long for the rides we were looking to ride.  Instead of watching the night time parade we ended up riding more rides and what was really cool was we had just got on the Astro Orbiter when the fireworks started so it was cool to be flying in the rockets watching the fireworks!

Today was another day to veg around the house, but then tonight we ended up goign to the Cinderella Gala Feast at the Grand Floridian.  Can I just say I can’t wait to get home to download my video I took of the kids dancing with Cinderella, Kevin getting a kiss from Cinderella and then Kevin dancing with Drizella.  At least you will have something to look forward to now right??

If you are planning on staying somewhere for a week or longer my advice would be to look at renting a condo/villa/house over a hotel. This year we ended up renting a 4 bedroom Villa with our own private pool in the Kissimmee area (10 minutes from Disney) for 5 nights for the same price as if we would of stayed at the All Star Resorts @ Disney!

After staying at someplace like that it would be hard to stay in a motel again. Not only do you have more room & privacy, but you also have a kitchen to make meals in so you don’t have to go out to eat all the time and you usually have a washer & dryer so you can wash your clothes so you don’t have to bring as much. (I ended up doing 2 loads of wash.. granted they weren’t big, but you know how kids spill all over their clothes)

One of the websites I always look at when looking to rent by owner is VRBO. (Vacation Rentals By Owner) I will admit that we did have a problem with the first place we rented.. we found out after we sent in our $200 that he was a fraud. BUT they do have a Rent With Confidence Guarantee which is..