Trip Report

This past October my family and I took the most amazing trip! It is rare that the three of us take a vacation alone. Don't get me wrong, we love our family and friends. It was just nice to have a chance to be a family.

We saved up for three years for this trip. Rich and I were celebrating our 10th anniversary, and decided to make it a special celebration. We decided to take the land and sea combination at Disney World. We also had some other surprises up our sleeves!

We flew out quite early in the morning. We flew from Indianapolis. We had a voucher that Rich's parents had given us. It was supposed to be used on a trip to Florida last spring, but I had my gall bladder taken out instead. The day before the trip we decided to call and see if we could get a hotel room next to the airport that we could just leave our car at. So, at the last minute we finished packing and left the night before. Our hotel had a free hot breakfast, free parking for the entire time we were gone, and free shuttle to the airport! It was almost as cheap as paying for parking at the airport. We were excited. The room was nothing to brag about, but all we were doing was sleeping. (We were so excited we didn't even do much of that!)

The next morning we got up and headed for the airport after a very lovely free breakfast. We promised ourselves to stay there again if we were ever in a similar situation.

We went to check our luggage first. This was not fun. We were going to be gone 8 days, several were on a cruise....we had a lot of stuff. One bag weighed over the limit. So, we had to switch things around. Nope, we weren't the only ones there doing it. We met another family that was taking their first Disney vacation. They had also overloaded a bag. We ended up chatting with them about our favorite Disney tips.

The flight went well. Finally we were in Orlando. Oh how I love those palm trees! Not to mention the famous ears you instantly see everywhere! We weren't sure how our next hour was going to go. We were being taken from the airport by Magical Express. Rich went to get us taken care of at the desk. We would be heading to a bus that would take us to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Ben did not know this was our destination. He thought we were headed for the Polynesian. I just knew the surprise would be given away when we went into the Animal Kingdom line. He had NO CLUE! Then, the bus driver starts telling us all the stops he will be making. The Polynesian is never mentioned. I knew he had to be catching on! Nope, still clueless. Finally we pull up to the bus's last stop....Animal Kingdom Lodge. Ben says to me, "Mom, at least I get to see what it looks like." I laughed and told him that maybe we should just get off of the bus and look around a bit. His jaw drops! Can we really do that? I comment, "Well, since we are staying here tonight we might as well get off of the bus don't you think?"
The look one his face was priceless!

Little did he know that we were staying there in order to be able to go on the Sunrise Safari the next morning. You had to stay at the lodge, concierge, in order to go on this special outing. We checked in at concierge. We were given pins to wear that said it was our Anniversary. We were also given a set of African dolls carved out of wood and dressed in beaded clothing. They told us that it is a traditional anniversary gift in Africa. When arrived in our room to find a BEAUTIFUL view of the savanna. Ben was beside himself! Here are a few pictures of the room and our view.

I shall report on the rest of our first day tomorrow. I must call it a night. I think I will go to bed and dream magical dreams!