Wednesday, March 21, 2012

One Year Later - 2011 WDW Trip Report - Day 1

I've long been eager to get back into my Blog here for more than just another place to add my Flickr photos. It's about time that I get back to my trip reports, as I remember from my last 2008 trip report that I got some good feedback. So here goes nothing.

It's been over a year since my last trip, our dates were February 26 through March 5 of 2011. This will lead into one of the main points of my trip report and my Blog in general. I'm not a person who gets to Disney every year or multiple times of year like a lot of others (who I envy). So what is a guy longing for a Disney fix to do in the years in between trips? Why write a year old trip report of course! Let's see how well I can remember this trip from my photos.

I'll start off by saying that we drove down to Orlando from our home town of St. Louis, Missouri. We were a large group, 9 total, which made the choice to drive much easier. My girlfriend Jenea and I along with my younger brother Josh and cousin Andy (first timer) were all in one rental car. My Mom and Dad as well as Sister Lori, Brother in Law Dewey, and Nephew Xavier were all in my parents van. We have driven down many times before, so how long the drive was is something we've gotten used to. We split the drive up into two days, only having about 4 and a half hours of driving on the second day before getting to WDW.

Looking Over The Courtyard
The Best Place To Start... The Beginning

I was very excited about this trip for several reasons. It was my cousin Andy's first trip, my first trip with my Nikon D90, our first stay at Port Orleans French Quarter, and our first time with free dining. As we pulled under those beautiful gates, we were home. Getting to French Quarter was simple, which was good as we were all ready to get out of the car and start vacation. Roamin around the lobby and surrounding areas were a lot of fun. This defintely is one of our new favorite resorts. It's a bit smaller than a lot of the other resorts, which meant it was a lot more quite as well. We were fortunate enough to get one of the newly refurbished rooms that had queen beds and a new LCD TV. We didn't spend too much time at the resort, as we wanted to get to the parks! We headed to the bus stop to head to Epcot as we had an ADR for dinner that evening.

In This... Our Spaceship Earth
Golden Hour Flowers (Explored)
Monorail Monday - Light Rider


Arriving at Epcot just before golden hour was a blessing for me, as that's one of my favorite times to be in that park. We went on Spaceship Earth as our first ride since it's such a classic, and we had to wait for the rest of our party before heading back to World Showcase. We met up with everyone and then headed to an outstanding dinner at San Angel Inn. I'm not really sure what the deal is, but I've been there twice and have had great experiences both times. I'm not sure why it gets the reputation it gets. They were really good at handling our group of 9, which is a lot for a Disney restaurant to handle efficiently, but it was a running theme this trip of good dining exerpiences.

Mexico Wide and Golden
Heading To The Inn

After dinner, some of us rode the Grand Fiesta Tour. I love this attraction because it has a lot of pieces from the classic attraction, while adding the Three Caballeros into the mix quite well in my opinion. From there, some went back to the resort, while we toured a bit more of World Showcase and watched Illumintaions. Illuminations is Jenea and I's favorite night time offering at WDW, usually we see it several times a trip. I didn't take nearly as many shots as I thought I would this first night. I just got caught up in taking in my first night that I couldn't even take many photos.

I hope you all have enjoyed this first installment of my trip report, one year later. Please let me know what you all think as any suggestions are welcomed and appreciated!

Enjoy!

Be sure to check out the other parts of this trip report here:
One Year Later - 2011 Trip Report - Day 2

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Looks like you are remembering pretty well. :) Great photos, too!

Amanda said...

Great photos.

Love Port Orleans French Quarter. It's such a peaceful resort.

Glad you had a good experience at San Angel Inn - I have not had good experiences there, but I haven't been back in a few years.

DisHippy said...

Thanks a lot you two!

Anonymous said...

Love your photos of the resort. I love POFQ. I like the look back a year ago, too. Our family has taken flights from Texas to WDW and we have driven. We have been known to drive all night going and do a split day with a hotel stay coming back. Haha.