So, I am still alive. I survived the trip and had a pretty good time. It was super busy there so much so that on New Years Eve the Magic Kingdom reached capacity and they wouldn’t let anyone else in.
The First Day of Travel
We left on Monday the 29th around 8:00 am. We actually go off pretty much on time. We got about an hour down the road when one of the youth threw up with no notice at all. We stopped the vans got out and cleaned everyone up. Even a police officer stopped to check on us. The girl who threw up assured us she was fine. We moved her to a seat closer to the front and pressed on. The rest of the day went pretty well. Besides the throw up event we only made three more stops before we made it to Pensacola. I think that is pretty good for 17 people.
Pensacola
I haven’t been to Pensacola in years, so I had no idea what hotels/motels were decent in that town. I looked on line and tried to find one that was a decent price, close to the interstate, and didn’t look to bad. I picked one. The youth freaked out a little. Truthfully it wasn’t that bad. The beds weren’t very comfortable and the place could have been a little cleaner, and it did smell like curry due to the Indian restaurant in it, and the apple juice at the breakfast bar did taste like beer, and there was some creepy guy roaming the halls rubbing our guy’s room door, but still it wasn’t that bad.
We made it out alive with on more youth getting sick in the middle of the night. She threw up once that night and once in the morning, and she didn’t feel well the rest of the day, but she always gets sick on trips.
The Second Day of Travel
The second day of travel went well for most of it. We made good time and only made a couple of stops. We were due to make our condos before 4:00pm until we hit a huge traffic jam. On the turnpike, I guess there was an accident of some sort, somewhere ahead. We were stopped for two hours. We got bored, so we got out of the vans and played around on the side of the road. The boys got out their instruments and played for everyone. Some of the girls really had to pee so they tried to go into the woods but chickened out. Some other people in the same traffic jam did not have problems peeing in front of everyone. Some guy even walked by our van turned his back and let it go.
We finally started moving, got to the condos, ate a really late dinner, watched the boys shave shapes into their leg hair, and then went to bed.
First Day of Disney World
We decided on the first day to hit the Magic Kingdom. This was evidently a mistake. We found out that New Year’s Eve is the busiest day of the year for Disney World. The Magic Kingdom was crowed by the time we got there, but not horrible. Tark, three youth, another man named Dan, and I went to ride the Haunted Mansion first. I don’t’ know why it was just on the way to other rides we wanted to ride. The line took about 25 minutes which isn’t too bad. We enjoyed the ride and decided to hit Splash Mountain next. That line took about 50 minutes but still not too bad. Everyone really liked this ride. By this time it was about time to meet for lunch. Dan said he would go to the van and get the sandwiches. He rushed ahead. The rest of us in our small group slowly made our way to the front. This was hard as a Christmas parade was making its way down Main Street U.S.A. We kind of joined the parade and followed it to the front. Once there we found Dan waiting for us with no sandwiches. He informed us that if he was to leave the Magic Kingdom, he could not get back in due to the park reaching capacity. The rest of our youth group walked up and said they were miserable as they couldn’t find any rides and hated all the people. I was a little angry at their lack of enthusiasm as it is not that hard to find rides if you have a map, and Disney World will always be crowed. Some of our group wanted to go back to the condo and play around. I said we came to go to Disney World and that is what we will do. We decided to go to the van, eat our sandwiches and then go to Epcot, which was still open.
Epcot was crowed as well, but not as bad. There were two rides at Epcot most people wanted to ride. Soarin’, and Test Track. There was a big sign listing wait times. Soarin’ had a wait time listed at 280 minutes. We decided against that. Test Track’s wait time was listed at 70 minutes, much more manageable. At 2:15pm, we entered into the test track line. This line went outside of where the line normally enters. By the time we got to where the line enters the wait time said 180 minutes. We thought hopefully it was for the back of the line and not where we were. Two and half hours later we were still in line. Some of our group gave up, but the rest of us didn’t want to throw away the two and half hours we had just spent. Finally after three hours and thirty minutes we made it to the front of the line. The filtered us into some room. In this room there was some kind of cheesy orientation video. After this video the doors opened up to more lines. Yikes! Fortunately these lines moved quickly and we got on the ride. It was a neat ride, but probably not worth the 4 hour wait. We then went on the Nemo ride which was a very quick wait and kind of a cute ride. We then watched some fireworks, got some free hats and horns and went back to the condo for dinner and bed.
-Bonus fact of Day 1-I was flashed. Yep, I saw a man’s stuff. What a way to spend a day in the Magic Kingdom
Day 2 of Disney World
Day two was much less hectic. We went to Hollywood Studios. It was not as crowed and we got on several rides with very little wait. The youth rode the Rock and Roll Roller coaster several times. I could not ride it as it goes upside down and that makes me very dizzy. They also rode the Tower of Terror and put one very scared youth on it who cried the whole time.
Tark and I ate in the park that day and were very surprised at how affordable the food was. In the late afternoon, we went back to the Magic Kingdom and everyone had a much better time. Tark and I rode Pirates of the Caribbean, The Great Stitch escape, and The Carousel of Progress.
-Bonus fact of Day 2-The Carousel of Progress freaked me out as I am scared of those robot/human things
Day 3 of Disney World
The last day was spent in Animal Kingdom and this was everyone’s favorite park. We rode the Safari, The River Rapids (several times), Dinosaur, It’s tough to be a Bug, and Expedition Everest. I am not a big roller coaster person, but for some reason I got talked into going on Everest. It scared the begeesus out of me, but I loved it. I would have rode it again but the line was super long. Tark even bought me a T-shirt to remember the event as he was surprised I went on it.
Bonus fact of Day 3-We got to see a Rhino drag his own poo across the road right in front of our vehicle on the safari. It took the Rhino like 8 minutes.
The ride back home wasn’t too bad; we stayed in Hattiesburg at a much nicer Hotel. One youth did get sick the second day of travel and the poor thing threw up all the way home and then some. She is better now though. We also stopped for a beach break on the way back. It was cold, but nice.
I have been exhausted and spending time with my kiddos and dog. I missed poor Mg’ birthday, but we took him to Dairy Queen on Monday and Tark’s parents are coming down this weekend to celebrate. My mom also took him out on his birthday and bought him a present. When my wits are about me again, I will put up a post on the awesomeness that is Mg.
