Our Poly Dream Vacation - April, 2012 TR *Update 08/26 pg8*

[Tinkerbellie16]

Coming over from the Poly thread. So far, looks awesome and I can't wait to see what happens!

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Loving your trip report!! Hmmm, your views from your room look awfully familiar.

[jennyjinx3]

I am here! Have been following along and can't wait to read about your adventures! What wonderful parents you have to give your family the trip! I would be like you though, going with the DD! No way you could have missed out her first time to WDW! BTW she is a cutie

[204charity]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbellie16

Coming over from the Poly thread. So far, looks awesome and I can't wait to see what happens!

Thanks for joining in!

Originally Posted by DaveinFallsChurch

Loving your trip report!! Hmmm, your views from your room look awfully familiar.

HAHAHA - yeah, same as yours only higher!

Originally Posted by jennyjinx3

I am here! Have been following along and can't wait to read about your adventures! What wonderful parents you have to give your family the trip! I would be like you though, going with the DD! No way you could have missed out her first time to WDW! BTW she is a cutie

Thanks so much for joining in! Yes, I am certainly a very lucky girl getting to experience this whole holiday WITH dd. I hope to go back again one day with all of my family this time.

[204charity]

Arrival Day Part 2 -

Well, we last left off with you wondering if we would follow through on our original plan of hitting up Blizzard Beach or trying something NOT on the schedule. For those of you wondering, we HAD to make time to hit up both water parks during our trip because we all LOVE waterslides and we LOVE swimming. We were worried we wouldn’t have any downtime during our week to go to both water parks, so it was really important to us that we utilize our arrival day for park time.

WELL…..when we arrived at the Poly it wasn’t sunny at all. L It was very cloudy and EXTREMELY windy, and we were worried it would start to rain. We could not envision ourselves have any fun at all soaking wet, waiting in lines for water slides, so instead of hitting up BB as originally planned, we decided to explore the grounds of the Poly for a bit, get our bearings and then walk over to the TTC and catch the monorail to Epcot! Yippee!! My favourite park! (Or is it? I think I’ve changed my favourite this time around, we shall have to see later in the TR)

Walking through the grounds of the Poly we were immediately struck by the sheer beauty of it. There was always lots of wildlife wandering around, little bunnies, lizards, DD even found a large frog one night on the path, squirrels, ducks and their babies (I think some of them pestered those on the ground floor rooms quite a bit - Dave….did they bug you guys at all?) and these super cool birds with really long curved beaks. What are these? I loved them a lot and felt like I was really in the tropics when I saw these birds around.



We wandered along the path that goes along the beach - we tried out the hammocks







walked pass the Hawaii CL building (and I briefly had a pang of jealously that I didn’t let my dad splurge on the CL TPV room in Hawaii as he originally wanted to) and came upon the famed Volcano pool! The pool itself is really quite neat. It has a waterfall (that hides a cave with bathrooms, showers and change space in it) and a really cool waterslide that I enjoyed many times during the week. The thing that I liked a lot about the Poly Pool was the amount of lifeguards we saw on duty their at any given time. They always rotate between 3 or 4 stations and are constantly scanning the pool for kids that are submerged for too long. In fact, twice when we were there during the week we saw a female lifeguard jump in fully clothed to grab a kid. There was really no tolerance for rough housing or anything of that sort, and as a parent, this made me feel very confident in my daughters safety in the pool. The slide is also equipped with a light at the top that is RED when you can not go down the slide, and then it switched to GREEN when the slide is clear and you can go down. We often drive down to the states and go to the Canad Inns Hotel & Water Park in Grand Forks, ND, and although they have lifeguards, they do not have this light system and I think every pool with a waterslide should have this as it really prevents injuries to kids from getting kicked in the back while going down the slide. Anyways, enough about that - overall, the energy at the volcano pool was high. There were activities going on for the kids pool-side and their was pretty loud kids music playing at the time. (DD said it was the soundtrack to Lemonade Mouth, a Disney Channel movie?) Not a relaxing place to hang out, but if you are a kid, or a tween - this was HEAVEN ON EARTH.


We continued our walk past the volcano pool and walked over to where the water sport stuff is and looked at the other building we had requested - Fiji. My Dad and I both agreed, Tahiti was the better of the two. We were closer to the TTC, the quiet beach AND it certainly had to be more peaceful when sitting outside on your balcony.



After wandering around, DD decided she wanted to hop onto the volcano slide, but alas - no such luck. The pool was closed! WHAT?!? It’s mid-afternoon…..what’s going on?!?!!? Uh-Oh, pool fouling!!! (AKA poop-in-the-pool) So no swim for us. We took that as our cue to head to our room, get changed and head over to the TTC. It was a very short walk for us from the Tahiti Longhouse. Maybe 10 minutes max? And once there, we literally had ZERO wait for a monorail to arrive. DD loved the monorail. Well, we all did. We were able to visit with other travellers, and see the sites of Disney from above. It was always nice to cruise along the track together. One thing that I particularly like about the Epoct Monorail is that you don’t just pull up to the gates and get out, but you go all the way through Future World first. It helps you to get a birds-eye view of the crowds at various rides, and really gives you a sneak-peak of all the fun to be had when you walk through the gates.

Continued....

[the_green_machine]

Those birds were everywhere, especially in AK...I think they're called a White Ibis.

[204charity]

CONTINUED.....

We exited the monorail and walked through the gates of Epcot. We stopped to take some pictures of the topiaries inside Future World before heading to World Showcase for dinner.





We all really like Asian food, so we figured either Japan or China would be a good choice for our family. I remembered what Daveinfallschurch had said about the ferry to Morocco, so we caught the ferry and walked over to Japan from their. We used the ferry often in World Showcase, and being with a 9 year old, it really helped cut down on the walking. I do think, however, if I was there without kids, the walk would not have been too bad overall. Anyways, we walked quickly through the store in Japan and were really overwhelmed by the crowds in their, (Epcot was the most-recommended park this day too! Yikes!) and even though DD saw some stuff she maybe wanted to buy, we quickly exited as we knew we had an Epcot day scheduled for later in the week.



We had lunch at Katsura Grill in Japan (Quick-Service DP) and found a wonderful corner table near the windows. My dad ordered the Teriyaki Chicken, I ordered the Teriyaki Beef, and my mom ordered the Tempura Shrimp Udon. Dad and I each tried ice-cream, I had green tea and dad had strawberry. DD didn’t order anything, she was nervous about Japanese food since we always order Chinese food at home, but when the food came to the table and she tasted mine, she LOVED it!



Leaving with full bellies and happy memories of a wonderful first meal in Disney, we wandered through Morocco. To be honest, I thought Morocco would be a lot better. We were all kind of disappointed in it. Everything was very repetitious, the same merchandise in ever store, around every corner and the overwhelming scent of incense started to bother us. After taking a couple of pictures (the buildings were beautifully designed though) we headed out and saw Jasmine & Aladdin!



This was very exciting as it was the first character DD had seen on the trip, and it really made Epcot feel more “Disney” to all of us. We were lucky enough that while boarding the ferry we saw The Beast and Belle as well, and we managed to grab a couple of pics of them while we boarded the ferry to head back to Future World.



We wandered through some shops by the gates of World Showcase, but didn’t buy anything. DD seemed to be getting a bit antsy, so I asked her if she wanted to try a ride while we were there anyway and she jumped to chance and said YEAH! So, we walked over to “The Seas with Nemo and Friends” She and I were both extremely excited to try this one out as Nemo is one of our favourite Disney movies.

We walked in and I asked Mom or Dad if they wanted to sit with DD on her first Disney ride since they were the ones that paid for the trip, maybe they would like to experience this really magical moment themselves but they said “No way! You and her are doing this together.” So DD and I hopped into our clam-mobile and started our journey through the world of Nemo. I started to tear up almost immediately. After so much planning and dreaming and anxious days waiting, we were here. Riding in rides in Disney World. Together. I felt very grateful and happy to be there with my DD and my parents. My Dad caught this great shot of us together in our shell, and I think it captures the moment perfectly.



After exiting Nemo, we walked right over to “Turtle Talk with Crush” and waited. I would say nearly every ride we went on was walk-on the whole week, but we inevitably waited 10-20 minutes for every show we saw during the week. But, we always had fantastic seats so it was probably worth it to be early for the shows when all was said and done. After around 10 minutes they removed the rope and let us in. I told DD if she sits in the front she may get picked to talk with Crush, and she did it! Mom and I were both shocked. I never would have done that in a million years when I was a kid. She surprised me this trip, with her independence. I guess she’s just growing up and not needing Mom as much as I thought. LOL



Turtle Talk with Crush was great. So funny, for both kids AND adults! DD put her hand up to ask a question and he said “Hey yah - stripes in the front row in the sea-horse pony tail? You have a question?” and she asked “Where’s Nemo?” ROFL! Crush went all quiet and looked at us like he was sooo annoyed and said “Awe man, is that little dude lost again!?!” LOL I don’t know how they do it - but that show was extremely magical and we loved every moment of it.

[Tinkerbellie16]

Moments like the one you experienced on Nemo is why Disneyworld is so worth it! Love the report so far!

[chocolateMinnie]

great start - looking forward to more

[mieshie75]

Hey there is this seat taken?... Hope i havent missed much. Cant wait to hear about your trip. I have 2 dd's myself about your daughters age and we went for the first time in July 2011, loved watching there faces.

[204charity]

Originally Posted by chocolateMinnie

great start - looking forward to more

Thanks!

Originally Posted by mieshie75

Hey there is this seat taken?... Hope i havent missed much. Cant wait to hear about your trip. I have 2 dd's myself about your daughters age and we went for the first time in July 2011, loved watching there faces.

Awe, welcome!

[puente0629]

Can't wait to hear more! I've always wanted to stay at the Polynesian since I was a little girl. Do you have pics of the room that you can post?

[204charity]

Originally Posted by puente0629

Can't wait to hear more! I've always wanted to stay at the Polynesian since I was a little girl. Do you have pics of the room that you can post?

I have some, but not many. I will upload them for you ASAP!

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Great report so far! Love the picture with you and your DD in the Nemo ride!

The ducks were a bit funny in that every time we opened our patio door, they waddled straight towards us almost entering our room. Clearly people have been feeding the duckies.

[204charity]

Someone asked for some pics of the room we had. So here are the few I have. Room 3012 in the Tahiti building.