It's been a while since.... trip report!!

[dolphinmickey9170]

Hello all!! It's been a bit since I've been on the boards, this semester of nursing school has been pretty wild! However, I made it through...heading for Maternity and Peds in January.

We decided to take this trip earlier this year and planned to bring Katy and her new fiance, Charlie...but Charlie wasn't able to get the time off from his new job; also Keara was supposed to go as well. So Ben and I went alone. It really isn't the same without Katy and Keara, but we have already booked the next one for Memorial Day and Katy and Charlie will be going as well as Keara and her new little sister, Zoe!

So this trip was December 14-22, 2009...with a surprise weekend visit from DisneyWhirled, DWHubby and their children.

We really had a great flight....quick, short and painless, landing in MCO at 925 and we were at Kidani Village before 1030...surprise, our room was ready, however the four packages I had shipped two weeks prior had not arrived, except for one small one. Oh well....I will check the confirmation to see what happened to it. Meanwhile, we headed to the room to enjoy a beautiful 1BR for only two people. This room is HUGE. I couldn't believe how big this room was, it would have been perfect for the original travel party. The foldout chair that makes a bed was quite large, not at all what I was expecting. Check out my pix to see room shots.

We decided to head for Epcot as we had dinner plans at Nine Dragons. We first tried this one in July (twice) and fell in love, so we had to be sure to return this time. They brought Ben a nice piece of Ginger cake for his birthday (actually Jan9th) and it was interesting...Ben had the Kung Pao Chicken (Very spice) and I had the honey sesame chicken. Delicious!! Then we headed to MK via the Monorail so we could ride the boat to FW as I had booked a surprise Sleigh Ride around the campground. I got some cool shots of holiday Wishes from the boat to FW.

The elaborate decorations were phenominal. I have seen this on the travel channel before, but never realized the effort put forth by these people. There was even a "spectacle of lights" that was made of a replica castle and dancing lights and tinkerbell. We got to meet the man who made this display and I couldn't stop "OOGLING" over this display. The lights danced to the music, Tinkerbell flew as she does in her treasure shop at MK, this was just wonderful....bringing tears of joy to my eyes. I'm sorry, I cannot recall the man's name! You will see in my pix there are some shots of his display and the castle's meticulous workmanship. John, the name of the horse and the driver, was fabulous, explaining about the gentleman's work and the surprise he was going to show us...it really was awesome, and then he snapped our picture and we departed back to MK to hop a bus for some much needed sleep--since we had been up since 3am and it was now 11pm, we needed sleep!

The next morning we spent at AK and got some nice pix of the KS. I was so happy to see DiVine...I hadn't seen her in a year or two, and the gobs of people standing and staring at her was fun to watch. Expressions on faces were of disbelief, even once she started walking, people still couldn't believe she was human. We then walked my favorite trail and saw the tigers and the gorillas. I'm sorry, gorilla's picture is of him picking his nose, so if you are offended, I appologize. We tehn took the KS again on the last truck and we saw the cheetahs and the lion and they were pacing like it was dinner time, I suppose it was, because they were getting ready to call them in for the night....We had THE BEST driver ever, as he was so entertaining...I think his name was Greg or Craig and he was from NY...I had to take his picture as well!! We left AK and headed for DHS just to take the boat to Epcot and the Monorail to MK then the Monorail to Kona...we love this ride and take the time to go out of our way to do so. I got some great shots of the BW and S&D hotels while riding. Ben lost his Steelers hat is it jumped overboard from the wind. He was devestated, as it sank out of sight immediately. I got shots of the Christmas tree at Epcot and then there are pix of our dinner from Kona. And another birthday dessert for Ben..then there are some shots of Kidani Village Christmas tree, fire pit, and the lighting in the hallway to our room.

These are the first two days worth of pix, the last picture on page 11 is actually from a different day, not sure how it got in the album! :-)
More to follow!