Walt Disney World: Day One

Alright, I know that this is an extremely long post, and I'm very sorry for talking so much about one day where we didn't even get to the parks yet. I promise to try to condense the rest of the trip as much as possible. I'll try to only describe each ride once and just tell how many times we went on it instead of telling you about it each time we went. Please do not let the length of this be so daunting that you do not want to read it!!!!


From October 31-November 8, 2006; I was in the happiest place on earth. I was in a magical place where dreams and wishes come true! I was in Walt Disney World. I love Disney World; I love the rides, I love the shops, and I love the atmosphere. I have always been a fan of Disney. Ever since I was little I have enjoyed watching the videos and singing the songs. This was my 5th trip to Disney World and I do believe that every trip gets better and better.

Our journey began on October 31, 2006. When everyone woke up we immediately began last-minute packing. Our clothes were already gathered and packed, but homework, and food, and entertainment items were still needed, along with numerous other things. We left our house around 11 and headed to the airport, we got through security fairly quickly and then after a quick lunch we got on our plane. The plane ride was uneventful, I looked through a Sky Mall magazine...(when I should have been doing homework)...but it was fun. Disney has this special service, when you are staying at a Disney Resort, like we were, you just have to put these stickers on your luggage and Disney will pick it up for you adn transport it to your hotel for you. That was really conveniant because as soon as we arrived at the Orlando airport we headed to a bus queue for the Disney Resorts and they ushered us onto a bus that was heading to our Resort. The bus ride was fun, they played a promotional video on our way to our hotel and that just made me more and more excited to get there.

There was a little boy on the bus that was very cute, he talked pretty much non-stop and he was very excited to get to Disney World. The bus that we were on stopped at several other Resorts before it reached ours and that greatly distressed this little boy. Everytime we pulled up to a hotel he would ask his parents if we were in Disney World and they would say yes. But since it wasn't their stop they wouldn't get off, and when we started to leave the boy got very upset that they were leaving Disney World. Everytime we stopped he said he wanted this to be their stop. It was very cute, but also slightly irritating near the end, my mother and I especially were both wishing that it was his stop too.

Finally we arrived at the 'All-Star Movies Resort'. We all got off the bus and headed inside, My Mom and Mark went to stand in a line to check in while my sisters went over to this mini-theater that was in the lobby, it was playing the Disney Channel so my sisters and I sat down and watched, waiting for our parents to get signed in. Eventually everything was signed and they called us over, we each got room keys with our names on them. Stephanie's name was spelled wrong, the card said "Stephaine DeJohn" and my room key had the wrong last name it said "Laurel DeJohn" instead of Laurel Smith. But that didn't really matter. The room keys were kind of fun, because My parents cards and my card had the ability to act like a credit card, we could charge things to our room and it would show up on the bill afterwards. I found that extremely fun, because I don't have a credit card and it was just a fun way of paying for things, (that probably is a worrying thought) but it was okay, because I knew not to spend too much money, I did have a limit. We walked over to our room and it was cool because we were in the 'Mighty Ducks' section of the hotel, and from the main building we had to walk through the '101 Dalmatian' section to get there. The main pool for our hotel was under construction, but there was a pool in the Mighty Duck section that was right outside our building so that was very convenient. While we were there we also looked at the 'Toy Story' section, and the 'Fantasia' section. {Pictures Below!}

We went up to our rooms to drop off our carry-on bags and check out the rooms, we had two rooms so they would be big enough for all of us, my parents slept in one room, on separate beds because the beds were small and then in the other room I slept on one bed and Leah slept on the other, we were going to rotate with the beds having Stephanie in Leahs bed some nights in my bed other nights and in her own bed with Leah and I sharing on other nights, but in the end Stephanie refused to sleep in the same bed as Leah and I said that I would only sleep in the same bed with either of them if they slept together too. Since they refused to do this we made a bed of pillows and an extra blanket for Stephanie on the floor. The rooms were nice, not as small as we had heard they would be, and the decorations were kind of cool with the filmstrip bathroom decor. There was also a light that amused us, it was attached to the wall and when it was turned off you could see the picture of a popcorn bag, but when it was on you couldn't see it because there were small holes that let the light out and so when the light was on it overpowered the picture.

After dropping our stuff off in the room we headed to dinner. We went back to the main building which was where the food court was. The food court was very nice, there were 4 stations. There was a dessert station, a fried foods station a sandwich/miscellaneous station and then there was a station that had foods that I could eat. I could only eat from that station or the dessert station without breaking allergy guidelines.

I ordered baked chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner (I had this a lot, which is the only reason I remember exactly what I had) My sisters both got pizza and I forget what my mom got, but Mark shared with both my mom and I because our meals were huge! Who can really eat half of a baked chicken and two side dishes? Anyone?...No, I didn't think so. The food was really good, we all enjoyed it. We also bought this insulated cup that we could refill at the hotel whenever we wanted, it was really useful, we got hot chocolate with it every morning and pop whenever we had meals there, and I even used it a few times at night for hot chocolate. After eating we searched the giftshop. Needless to say we would have liked to have bought the entire store. I love Disney stuff!!! Unfortunately I don't have millions of spare dollars to spend on Disney memorabilia. After that we headed back to our room and got on swim suits and then went down to the pool.

We swam for about an hour and then we went back to our room, by this time we had all of our luggage except one bag, the bag that had Stephanies, Leahs and my stuff in it. We were a bit worried but not too much. Our last bag did show up around 9 and while my sisters got changed into pajamas I went outside and called Andrea, (I didn't mention that I got a cell phone did I? OMG I can't believe I didn't write a post about that, I'll write one after this one) so I called Andrea because she said she was going to miss me like whoa. I had completely forgotten at this point that it was Halloween. She had already finished trick-or-treating, but she was at the mall with her boyfriend and some other people so she was kind of distracted and that didn't help the conversation so she left and said to call her tomorrow, then I called Chris and he had friends over watching a movie, so he was also distracted, so I didn't get to talk to him really either. Both of those calls were disappointing so after that I just went back to the room and went to bed.

Loving The World