Now that we’re back and settled back into the grind of the day-to-day, I thought I would take a few minutes and document our trip to Disney World. Over the next few days I’ll post a journal of what we did along with a select group of pictures (we took over 800!) If time permits I might even edit together a little video. We’ll see how that goes. Anyway, welcome to our February 2006 trip to the “Most Magical Place On Earth”!

Our trip began rather early, 5:15 to be exact. The plan was to get up early, pack up quickly and be out of the house by 6:15 so we could be at the airport parking by 7:00. Our flight was at 8:30, and with the logistics of getting all our baggage from the shuttle parking lot to the check-in counter, I knew we’d need the time. Well, needless to say we didn’t get on the road until 6:30, but made it to the airport by 7:15. Fortunately, everything went smoothly and we were able to park, ride the shuttle to the terminal, and check-in with about 15 minutes to spare before boarding.

Here are a couple of snaps of us waiting in the new American Airlines terminal B at DFW. Click on any of the pictures to see a full resolution version.

Our plane boarded quickly and we had seats up front, so we were in the last group to board. But that meant we’d be the first off once we arrived in Orlando.

The flight was uneventful; Cynthia read, Michael listened to his iPod and watched the scenery outside, Matthew took lots of silly movies with his camera and listened to his iPod and Madison watched a movie on mine.

iPod with video, best invention ever.

Somehow I didn’t get any pictures of it, but we took Disney’s Magical Express from the Orlando International Airport to our resort. This is a really neat service offered to guests staying on property at WDW. Prior to your depature, they send you special luggage tags to put on any checked baggage before you get on the plane. Once you get to MCO, you simply go downstairs to the transportation counter and check in, then get on the bus to your resort/hotel. Later on that day, your bags “magically” arrive in your room. In our case, we spoiled a little of the magic; the bags came so quickly we were still in our room when they got there.

We arrived at Disney’s Grand Floridian around one o’clock (local time, Plano Time + 1 hour). It’s quite a site pulling up to the GF: it’s turn-of-the-century Victorian architecture is quite grand in it’s splendor. It’s a beautiful property.

I checked us in and although our room wasn’t guaranteed to be ready until 3:00, they had us all set and issued our keys immediately. Room 8324 in the Boca Chica building. A short walk across the courtyard and around the main pool and we found our room on the third floor, just around the corner from the elevator. Our hotel was situated on the east side of the property, just on the west shore of the Seven Seas Lagoon. Although our room was a “garden view” (read: slightly less expensive than “lagoon view”) the view was very nice, and we could walk out of our building to watch the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom or see the Electrical Water Pagent on the lagoon itself.

Our room was very spacious, larger than any room we’ve had at Disney to date. It had two very fluffy queen-sized beds and a daybed, which Matthew promptly claimed. The bathroom area had two sinks, and the toilet/shower was a separate room, which I like since the shower doesn’t end up fogging up the mirror over the sinks. Our room hadn’t been upgraded to include a refrigerator yet, so I called down to the front desk and they promptly delivered one.

We unpacked and decided to head out to Gasparilla’s for a bite to eat, since it had been too many hours since our pop-tart at 6:00 AM Texas-time.

One of the cool things about the way we booked our trip turned out to be the Disney Dining Plan. Basically you pay for a meal plan up front, and then you don’t have to worry about nickels and dimes at each meal. The plan is based on the number of nights of your stay, and for a set daily rate (different for adults vs. children) you receive a credit for a snack, a counter-service meal and a table-service meal. A snack is something like a box of popcorn or an ice-cream. A counter-service meal includes an entree (hamburger and fries, for example), a drink, and a desert from any of a (large) number of eateries both inside and outside of the parks. A table-service credit gets you an appetizer, an entree, drink and desert from most of the sit-down restaurants on property.

At first this sounds like “sure, pay up front and end up paying more when you’re there”… but in reality, if you know how the eating works at WDW (and we did, having been numerous times before), this is a great deal. At each meal we ended up having more food than we could eat (often taking the deserts with us for snacks later), and at each meal we never had to worry about what the cost would be. This was great at sit-down restaurants, since we never had to look at the prices of the entrees. It can throw some serious cold water on the experience to eat a great meal at Cinderella’s castle and then get a bill for over $200 at the end. Our table-service credit worked for just about anything on the menu (in fact, we never ran into a situation where something wasn’t covered). The credit also covered gratuity, so there was literally no out-of-pocket at any of our meals. I imagine the waiters and waitresses like this plan too, since they get an automatic 18% tip on the bill.

We actually ended up our trip with two table-service credits and one counter-service credits left over, and never paid for food the whole time (apart from the occasional lollipop or candy-type item). I did the math once we got home: our meal plan for the whole family (5 people, 8 days) was just over $1000. Had we paid cash for the meals we ate, it would’ve totaled over $1450. That’s not including the 3 credits we had left over. I thought it was a great value.

After snagging a lunch at Gasparilla’s at the hotel, we went back to the room to grab our jackets and backpack and head to the Magic Kingdom. When we got back, there was a My Pal Mickey sitting on one of the beds with a couple of balloons. Madison went straight to it and was so excited! Pal Mickey is a little Mickey Mouse that you carry around Disney World, and he tells you about things, sings songs and tells jokes. It’s really cool, and works a lot better than I thought he would. The only downside is he seems to eat batteries faster than he should. I changed the batteries at least three times during our trip. By the way, earlier I had the concierge send up the Pal Mickey to our room as a surprise for the family. I love the concierge service!

One of the (many many) reasons we chose to stay at the Grand Floridian was the fact that it’s a monorail resort. Meaning on the monorail. Meaning one quick ride to the Magic Kingdom. No Bus. No long walk. Way cool. If you go to WDW and plan to stay at one of the deluxe resorts, stay at either the Contemporary (only if you can stay in the tower, though, don’t stay in the garden wings, they’re too far from the main building), the Polynesian or the Grand Floridian. For getting around, the monorail is too convenient. The busses, while efficient, are always too crowded and too sparse.

One quick monorail trip and we were standing at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom! Once we managed to navigate the “let’s look in your bag to make sure you aren’t carrying anything dangerous into the park” stop and the “place your first two fingers in this biometrics reader so we aren’t getting ripped off by you giving your ticket to someone else” stop we were in the park.

On our way down Main Street we stopped in the Emporium gift shop and got Madison an autograph book and pen, since she hadn’t been before (the boys both had their autograph books from our trip back in 2002).

We saw a barbershop quartet and listened for a bit, then made our way to the end of Main Street, right in front of Cinderella’s castle, where we decided to watch the Cinderellabration show.

After the show we shot north to Fantasyland, where the first item on the agenda was the Teacup ride. Being her first ride, Madison was a little apprehensive, but once things got “spinning” she warmed up to it quickly! Matthew talks about it here.

Next we traveled over to Toon-town, which is an area of the park aimed at younger kids (i.e. Madison’s age). We saw a number of things including Minnie Mouse’s house and rode a roller coaster, the Barnstormer. Madison wasn’t too sure about that until she found out it was perfectly OK to scream your head off. Then she had a blast.

We rode the train around the park to Frontierland, and then the boys and I took a spin on Big Thunder Mountain. Awesome coaster, the boys loved it so much that I sat with Madison and Cynthia went on it with them a second time. The crowd was very low and the wait time was about 3 minutes.

After that we happened on Woody and Jessie (from Toy Story 2) and got autographs and pictures.

The day was wrapping up, so we headed over to the castle to grab a spot to watch the fireworks show “Wishes.” I think it’s the best MK fireworks show yet. Some of the shells were so bright, it looked like daytime in the park!

I snapped this really cool image of Michael in front of the Castle as it was changing colors prior to the show.

After the fireworks show, the entire population of the Magic Kingdom shuffled towards the gate, and although crowds seemed to be low earlier, whenever you pack that many people on Main street, it’s a bit crowded. We caught the monorail back to our Hotel, and since it was only 8:45 local time (7:45 to us still), we decided to grab dinner at the Grand Floridian Cafe. Steak and Shrimp, Yum!