A Train, A zoo and New Jersey

East Coast Driving Trip 2015 - Day 8

We have been at this for a week now! This morning the son told me it was day 9, I smiled and reminded him we left last Friday... and that today was Friday. Oh... so its day 7 (close enough... it's our 8th travel day)

We left Hershey this morning... Goodbye Chocolate. I would be sad, but we took soo much with us, it's hard to feel like we will miss it ;)

Our first fun of the day was in Strasburg, PA, with a ride on the Strasburg Railroad. This 45 minute excursion is great. Cars are nicely refurbished and the whole trip is narrated.

Our railfan, with 475 after our trip

ready to board

picture time!

please keep your hands, arms, and heads inside the train at all times :) I love this pic of him. 

From here, we were off to Philly and probably the zoo, but we hadn't decided for sure yet. Along the way we stopped for lunch. And then we had a snag... do you hear it? the music beginning to build... something is going to happen....
Well, it wasn't anything horrible... just a window malfunction. Yup, the drivers side door window wouldn't roll up. Not gonna happen. (What music do you use for a goofy mishap?) Anyway, there we sat, with a completely workable car.. not an emergency by any means, but.. we also couldn't leave the vehicle. Hmm, this would need to be fixed, and today!

So we worked our way through the maze of the phone system from the unnamed car rental company (names are being withheld, until the author has decided how she feels about said company) and hubby connected with a real live person! In chatting they decided we should buzz over to the local rental office and just swap out cars. It was only 20 minutes away.. sounds like a fairly easy fix.

Only slightly wind-blown, we arrived at the office, located in a strip mall. The agent just happened to be in the parking lot when we got out of our car and was quite surprised the company sent us to him.... and didn't tell him we were coming (nope, I am still not naming names). He and hubby went inside to talk options and where we might be able to swap vehicles, preferably along our route today. Well, hubby is a charmer ;) and a few minutes later they emerged with a new set of keys. He had a car we could have... grated it was one "size" down from what we had, but all the windows worked and it was much newer... which means bluetooth and more cupholders. (Never underestimate the value of cupholders on a road trip with kids)
We took it! Moved all our bags over and where off.

We decided to hit the zoo after all. And had a nice couple of hours wandering through it. The Philly Zoo has a 360 theme, so several of the animal exhibits even have animals walking over you... amazing. We didn't see any of the big cats using these walk ways, but they are pretty cool.

You can see the overhead walkway the lemurs use.... maybe even the black and white lemurs inside.

Shows the larger cat walkway... also overhead, can you image looking up to see a tiger!?

Okapi, one of my favorites

Great exhibits for pictures

Maned Wolf... these are new to me, our zoo just got a pair. 

Look up... its a bear! 

On our way out of Philly we drove past Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
And I picked up the Philadelphia Starbucks You Are Here Mug... mug count for this trip: 2.

Independence Hall

More to come! 

In an attempt to catch as many states as possible on this trip we are overnighting in New Jersey.
Good night.

Stats:

Miles today: 186

Miles total: 692

States Total: 6 (+New Jersey)
Starbucks Mug Total: 2

All around the town

East Coast Driving trip - Day 3

We all slept like rocks... yay!!
That was wonderful.

So excited for the zoo and our first day in DC

Our plan today was to start at the National Zoo, then do a Hop on/Hop off style tour of the all the tourist stuff. Hopefully having time to walk through two of the Smithsonian Museums.

With a little research we decided the most efficient way to do this involved several different transportation options, starting with a taxi to the zoo.
The zoo grounds open before the buildings, so we kind of did the zoo in reverse, ending with the visitors' center.... silly us, but it worked.

We decided to eat at one of the Smithsonians for lunch, so we hit the Metro to Union Station to grab our hop on/off tour bus, or I should say "Trolley" - it was a modified bus, to look more like a trolley, but it was a bus ;)

This plan worked well for us. The kids enjoyed the Metro ride a lot, and we were able to get through half of the tour before we "hopped off" at the Museum of Natural History.
Lunch was pretty easy at the counter service style cafe they had. And we really enjoyed the exhibits.

First ride on the Metro

Yup, Scaffolding on the dome... We are told it will be ready for the next inauguration

Supreme Court

The Elephant's name is Henry... and he is undergoing some refurbishment... thus the walls
This is funny to me :)

After the Natural History fun, we planned to "Hop On" the next Trolley.... but it took a bit longer than we hoped. They say, the Trolley comes by every 30 mins. And what was the likelihood that we just missed it?
Apparently - HIGH... 25 minutes later, our Trolley pulled up. We managed to be the first in line... but no luck.
They only had room for 3... and the driver wouldn't allow us to have the youngest on a lap :(
He promised the next shuttle was "Just behind" him.

It was closer to us than he had been originally, but it was still about 10 mins out. And it only had 3 spots left - UMMMM?? However this driver was ok with a kiddo on the lap.
So we got on board. Then we had another hurdle. None of the seats were together. Oh bother.
Honestly, had our son known this going in, he might (might) have been able to muddle through, sitting next to the cute 20 something year old girl. [Editor's note: Give him a few years...] But sitting on his own.. two rows ahead of me and one row behind dad, wasn't ok. He fell apart.
He was barely keeping it together with the previous wait and then the full bus. So, his reaction wasn't a surprise to us. What was a surprise, was the kindness of a couple to give hubby and the boy their row. They sat apart and let my guys settle in - I would have hugged the women if I could have. I don't lean too heavily on the "he is Autistic" excuse, when we are out and about. But on an occasion such as this, I think I would have pulled it out. Anyway - a huge THANK YOU, to that kind couple.

So we were off to finish the tour where we left off and ride on over to the Air and Space Museum.
I think the kids enjoyed Air and Space more than Natural History. Both museums are beautiful, full of great exhibits, many of them hands-on. So we had some fun, and hopefully (fingers crossed) learned a little something, maybe?

This took us to about 5:30. And now we are all tired... 10K+ steps on our fitbits, and hungry. So we taxi'd back to the hotel. Well worth it.

I am hopeful we will all sleep well tonight.

Stats:

Miles today: 0 (well, no driving miles... but a few walking ones)

Miles total: 245

States Total: 3

Running (walking) with Disney - Day 2

Travel day, take 2

We are up early again today.... With a strong resolve to get to Orlando.

Kids woke up much slower this morning. Still struggling to find a smile. With bad coffee at the hotel and some general confusion with the airport shuttle we headed to the airport In search of good coffee, food and clear skies to Florida.

The airlines did a nice thing and gave us premier status to get through security in a short line. And quickly found us seats together instead of the four of us all in middle seats behind each other.

And once we spent our food vouchers, it was about time to board.

For some unknown reason our flight was running 30 mins late. Since this flight had been created for us and the plane had been waiting at the gate since the night before, the delay didn't make much sense, but we've learned not to question. Our seats were way in the back 40 of the plane, but we boarded before most and the attitude of those around us was very much - acceptance and trying to laugh about it. Stories were swapped about hotel experiences and what had brought us to Houston. But soon we were backing up and the flight attendants began the safety presentation. Here we go....

Nope!

Someone in the middle of the plane passed out during the safety talk, right before they showed us how to put on our inflatable vest, this poor guy slumped over.

His wife was sitting behind him with an infant on her lap. They stopped the plane mid taxi, and over the intercom called for any medical professionals to ring their call buttons.

It wasn't 30 seconds before someone had joined the flight attendants in helping. It took about 10 mins to declare this guy couldn't fly. He was awake by this point, bit we were all going back to the gate.... Again.

I asked our flight attendant if he had ever had a flight like ours (we had the same crew on all attempts to leave Houston)... He said yeah, everyday. Oh man.

So long story short.... Too late, we dropped this frightened family back off at the gate, with their bags and the airport medics and..... Wait for it..... We took off!!!!

I know it's hard to believe. You all thought we'd just taken up residence in Houston.

The plane erupted in applause when the plane took off.

When the family was unloaded the pilot came on the intercom to tell us what the plan was. He then said they would get is to New Orleans as quickly as possible.... Hubby and I looked at each other... Hmm? Then he came back and said, just kidding... We are going to Orlando... Don't quit your day job, fella. The flight went well.. It felt short even.

We talked with a very nice family visiting the US from Australia, who were riding out all the bumps of the last 24 hours with a great sense of humor.

And then we landed. Orlando, we've arrived!

Getting luggage, the rental car and getting checked in all went well. Note: it was worth calling the hotel to tell them we were coming, even with a prepaid room, they would have given it away.

Approaching Gaylord Palms resort, our hotel for the next day

Then it was time to try and make up for some of the time we lost on our Texan adventure. SeaWorld.

Let me say arriving at an amusement park mid-dayon New Year's Day.... Crazy!!!

People everywhere.

But I was hungry and we were hours behind on having fun... So lunch, then rides (we had already decided today wasn't a day to sit and watch shows... So we ride).

Well it seems luck follows us. Our first attempt to ride the penguin ride was halted before it started by the ride being down for an unknown amount of time.

Hmm. On to Wild Arctic, with a Polar Express overlay for the holidays.....

The ride starts, then goes black.... Another ride down. Hmmmmm

We tried Penguins again still not up...

Luckily after a bathroom break and walk through the gift shop, it was running. And three hours after we entered the park, we got on our first ride. Whew!

Later we went back to Wild Arctic and this time got halfway through the ride before it died.

Oh, I hope we can shake this pattern. "Back to the Gate" has become the family's joke for the trip.

Entering the new Penguin attraction... cool! 

Leaving the Polar Express area

Kraken - Hubby is in the second row, with hand in the air.

Well we managed to enjoy SeaWorld until our bodies reminded us how little sleep we have had the last two days. So it felt like a good night to get into PJs and have dinner in the room.

Tomorrow we hope to relax and regroup.

Zzzzzzzz

Running (walking) with Disney - Day 1

Travel day - fail

It all started out well, and oh so very early.

The kids actually woke up before my 2:45 alarm went off.... I said EARLY.

We got dressed, ate a bit and were off.... Like cold, sleepy turtles in the dark.

With no traffic, it was a fast drive to the airport. We had time to get some breakfasty food and the mandatory Starbucks.

Side note: the holiday season is over... Note that my cup is not red :(

And my name has been reduced to one syllable.... Cute.

Back to our story :)

The flight plan today is to hop through Houston, spend four hours enjoying all the airport has to offer then fly into Orlando. Landing around 7 in the evening. Grab some dinner, check into the hotel and sleep til it's 2015.

All went as planned....

First flight went well.

Well-mostly,  shortly after takeoff, I noticed something going on in the aisle, a man was lying in it. Flight attendants were hustling about and a passenger a few rows back had offered his help. The man lying down was eventually ok, after some oxygen and help walking. Hubby told me later he  thought we might land early to get the guy medical help, but we didn't. (We should have seen this as a sign of things to come)

Houston airport had many treasures to be found..

Ruby's Diner for lunch

Amazing vending machines - nail polish vending machine!!!

And a train to take us around the terminal.

Enjoying the train around Houston Airport

Then somewhere about 3:45 into our wait... Things started to seem off...

The flight crew arrived but not the plane.... Even though it was on the ground in Houston since the night before.

Well, we had some delays....

And then we boarded.

But before we could get to the runway the pilot ran into an issue. So after hanging out on the tarmac for a spell (we're in Texas y'all) we parked in a different gate and maintenance came out.

They tinkered for a while, said "all fixed" and left. But our pilot said Nope, it's not working well enough. So they came back..... And once again said "all fixed". This time we were ready.

There was drama along the way. People really upset and wanting to get off the plane...some even did, but then came back.

But now we are once again trying to taxi to the runway, and our safety first pilot come over the intercom once more to apologize and say the plane is still not fixed.

So after getting back to yet another gate, we unloaded, still in Houston.

Note: we were on board that plane for about three hours. Just wandering around the airport, trying to take off. Flight time from Houston to Orlando: 1:45.

Stood in line to get new boarding passes for a flight at o'dark thirty tomorrow and vouchers for hotels and food.

What an adventure! 200+ people trying to keep a good attitude. Many having lost New Year's Eve plans and reservations. And now spending it in assorted hotels around Houston.

The cab to the hotel was fun. A sweet Jamaican man singing along to country music on his radio. Welcome to Texas!

And happy new year!!!

Almost, anyway. I am determined to be asleep before 2015, so good night.

Day 9 - Off Ship

Breakfast this morning was early. Let me be more specific... breakfast was CRAZY early. Since we had the first dinner seating for this cruise, we then had first breakfast seating on disembarkation day. So we needed to be dressed and all packed up at breakfast with our stuff at 6:45 am. They don't want you to return to your room at this point. They feed you a lovely meal and you walk off the ship... more or less :)
We had a short wait to walk off, sometimes it can take a few minutes for the line. But we had found a porter to help with our bags and were walking through customs in record time.
Having the porter help with this was really handy. He guided us out of the terminal to where we would meet our car for transportation to Disney World.
When scheduling a car you need to give them a time for pick up. And for us this was a complete guess. We haven't had first seating on a cruise before and we had no idea how long it would take on a ship the size of the Fantasy.
So we were a bit off on our time estimate. Our car arrived about 30 mins after we got off ship. And the driver loaded up all our stuff. It wasn't long before we found ourselves enjoying a comfy ride in a long black limo! Wowsa, what a treat.
The drive went quickly. And we were at the on-site rental car office at Disney World before we knew it. We put all our gear in the rental car and headed to Disney's Old Key West to check in.
We are DVC members and this is our home resort. Although we haven't stayed here in about 4 years.
So when the guard said "Welcome Home" at the guard station it really felt like we were returning home again.
We had no expectation of being able to get into a room this early. Rooms are ready by 4 pm and this was barely 10 am, but we wanted to check in all the same. And guess what... a room was available. It wasn't the room assigned to us, but it was the same layout we reserved so we took it. Our one bedroom was the perfect size for us. With a king bed, pull out queen and pull out twin. So everyone gets a bed. Plus a full size washer and dryer and a great soaking tub... ahhhh.
We spent the next half hour or so settling into the room, unpacking and exploring.
Then we headed back down to the main area of the resort to catch a boat to Downtown Disney for lunch. A family's gotta eat right? Actually having been so well fed for the previous week, it was kind of funny to be on our own for means all of the sudden. But we managed ;)
Wolfgang Puck Express and Ghiradelli for ice cream after worked out great.
We also took a minute and activated our park passes while we were near guest relations... more on this later.
We wandered back to the boat dock and began working our way back to OKW.
This evening for dinner we had reservations at 1900 Park Fare, in the Grand Floridian resort for dinner with Cinderella and "friends" - to celebrate our little lady's birthday... Oh, did I forget to mention? Today was her birthday! And she was definitely in birthday mode all day ;)
But dinner was the highlight for her.
We had a bit of quiet time before we had to get ready and go.
Then we were off again to eat.... hmmm, I hope this isn't a theme this week.
Dinner came with pictures of the group and then of course getting to meet all the characters and take pics.
Our peace loving son doesn't care for characters at all, so this was really stretching him. He managed well and even timed his trips to the buffet for when they came to our table. He really was surprised when the stepsisters would scream... just because they can.

meeting the Prince 

Ok, is this one Anastasia or Drisella?

classic Cinderella Stepmother... she was soo funny. "Oh, great, a birthday girl" 

this one was the screamer - and she can scream! 

We ate and took pictures, the birthday girl had a blast and we were heading out before anyone else started to scream ;) just kidding. It was a nice character meal experience.
We went back to the room and then things got a bit nutty for hubby.

Before the trip, we had been trying out some of the new "MyDisneyExperience" features on the Disney World website.  It is a new web application and smart phone app.  A few months ago, Hubby had associated our annual pass vouchers with our profiles in the system.  Well, after we activated our passes today, hubby looked online to see if the new passes has been automatically associated with our online profiles.  They had, with one problem.  His pass was associated with our son, and our son's pass was associated with him.  We weren't sure if this was going to be a problem or not, but hubby felt that it would be best if we worked everything out before we tried to enter the parks the next morning, so he went back to Downtown Disney to Guest Relations to ask about it. After explaining the issue, the girl working at guest relations first congratulated hubby on finding a way to break the system in a way that they had been unable to, and then ended up re-issuing hubby's and the boy's passes.  Hooray, everything was fixed... at least until he came back to the room and found that he couldn't get into the room.  Somehow during the process of getting the passes re-issued, his key was deactivated.  He then went to the OKW front desk to get his key re-issued, but their system wasn't able to confirm that the new passes were set up correctly.  So, he headed back to Downtown Disney to double-check that the passes wouldn't give us any trouble in the morning.  The new system has some cool features and shows promise, but still has a lot of bugs to work out.

While he was gone, the kids and I took the resort bus to the OKW general store and did a bit of looking around. We picked up a few things and then grabbed the bus back to the room and got ready for bed.
Tomorrow we hit the parks!

Day 8 - Castaway Cay... by way of Nassau

We all expected to wake up at Castaway Cay -- Disney’s private island. But when I woke up about 2 hours before we supposed to get to the island, it felt like the ship wasn't moving. After about 20 minutes, curiosity got the best of me and I had to look out the window.... and we weren't anyway near Castaway Cay. So I turned on the stateroom TV that has a map and bridge report, to see the message that due to a medical emergency we had changed course, more information would be available in a bit. Soon Hubby woke up and we began trying to figure out where we really were. We were pulling into dock in Nassau. They made one announcement that I didn't hear about what was going on. But no more communication came until the person who needed to depart had left the ship. Then the cruise director came on the speaker and talked about the plans for the rest of day. We were still going to go to castaway cay - but would arrive late.

As the morning played out, the crew did a great job of keeping everyone entertained. And we arrived at the island about 1:15. They pushed back our departure time to 5:30, which would give us a nice amount of time on the island.

We got to see the Disney Dream pull into Nassau

Our sister ship (the Dream) and a Carival ship in port at Nassau

our location and course

So a bit of history... I have been to Castaway Cay four times previously. And have never had a great time. Most people LOVE this place. It's the whole reason they cruise and want to go more than once. I have had an OK time at best. Each time I try and go into it with a good outlook, today is the day I will see the light and fall in love with this place. (insert buzzer sound here) Not this time.

I soo want to love this place... even like it would be good. But today didn't help :(

We got off the ship without issue and headed toward the tram station. Beach here we come. We were first in a line to get on the next tram and our transportation loving boy was having a hard time waiting. Now it wasn't an organized line, but if you are a follower of common courtesy then you would clearly see who would get on the tram first... Ha.. silly lady. You push and push until you are on, don't look back just GET ON THAT TRAM.

We were shocked! Less than 30 seconds after the tram stopped to load we had all been pushed and moved out of the way, no seats were left and we stood there looking at each other with our mouths open.

Hubby was upset. Actually we all were, but I knew he needed to walk and not be in this line any longer. So we started to walk to the beach. And our boy lost it. He was sooo sad about the tram. Which was apparently his favorite thing on this island. We eventually got to the beach. The walk isn't too long, but I made several stops to help my kiddo calm down.

Beach time was great. White clean sand with lots of shells to find. And we really enjoyed ourselves.

Next up was a cabana massage for hubby, scuttles cove kids club for the little lady and back to the ship for the boy and I.

Boy at Mount Rustmore

on tram back to ship

ship from the tram

Amazing mosaic tile mural in Cabanas - Nemo themed 

a close of up of Nemo in mural

A little soft serve... watch out for pelicans 

Mine, Mine, Mine!
Great themeing for this place!

Our boy and I headed back to the ship for some quiet time. With a stop up top for some soft serve on the way. We were really settling into the room when my wave phone beeped.... I have mentioned wave phones?

Wave phones: like a cell phone, but provided by the ship. They work on board and at Castaway Cay. Allows you to call room to room and text - each room comes with two. And the kids clubs page or call on the wave phones.

So, the phone beeps... hmm. Who could that be? It was a text from Scuttles Cove on the island saying "just a reminder, we close in 10 minutes. Please pick up your child". Ahhhh! It takes at least that long to get there if everything goes your way: i.e. elevator is waiting, you make the tram and your relaxing boy wants to jump up and run off the ship.... oh, bother.
Well, with much coaxing.. and a little bribing, we were off. We made it off the ship in record time and the tram saw us coming and waited for us - what luck. Well, not really. this tram didn't stop at the Scuttles cove stop! It went right past it to the next stop and we had to walk back, which was not a fun thing for me or the kiddo I was dragging along with me. But we made it and picked her up before they closed up shop. We later found out that if you don't pick your kiddo up they will just take them back on board. Which makes perfect sense, but it all seemed sooo urgent at the time.
We met up with Hubby, who was in a massage relaxation bubble until he heard about all this silliness and had to deal with a grummpy boy, stressed wife and distracted girl - sorry hubby :)
He had planned to pick her up and bring her back onboard - anyway. Next time ask what time they close... because the times weren't posted and even though they postponed all aboard time, they didn't postpone the previously listed closing time for scuttles cove. Oh, she had a great time by the way.

Once we all got back on board it was time to get ready for dinner and eat. Dinner was back in Royal Court. Being our last dinner on board it's also the night you typically hand out tips :)
We had wonderful service on board. Our main server Nestor was awesome and Richards his assistant was so friendly. Overall we had great dinner experiences. 

After we ate and took a leisurely walk back to the room, we decided to get swim suits back on and hit the AquaDuck and pool one last time. Final AquaDuck ride count for the whole cruise: Boy: 18, Little Lady: 4, Hubby: 21, Me: 1

view of funnelVision screen with AquaDuck tubes over pools

Dad and Boy waving from AquaDuck

Loving the empty pools

Dad and Little lady waving from AquaDuck

The last night of a cruise you put your bags out before you go to bed. The crew then organizes and takes them all off the ship and into the terminal at the port in the morning.
So, we had some packing to do.
Then off to bed as early as possible. Our next morning would be the earliest morning yet.