Mayhem Marauders Meet-up Part Deux!

[mindflipper]

Everyone we met last week was truly amazing!

Does that include Mr. Brazil???

I hope we will all be able to meet up again in the near future!!!!

If you can get me some dates in March, I can see if I can free some time up. Hopefully, at least make a day trip. Get Soarin08 to come along to, we can have a mini-meet-up. Maybe get NaCler to come too....

[NaCler]

You know I'll do my best to be there, but I think she's talking about meeting in Chicago in March, right?

Also, can someone please send me a picture of the group at the Poly? I want to edit it and add it to my signature. Thanks!

[Soarin08]

A huge THANK YOU to the Mousecouple, mindflipper and Soarin08!!! You guys rock! All the planning and amazingly thoughtful gestures were so appreciated and you are all just wonderful people with Texas-sized hearts! Because of you, this trip was one of the most magical Disney trips we've ever taken.

Everyone we met last week was truly amazing! I hope we will all be able to meet up again in the near future!!!!

I am so glad that you and Cbog had such a wonderful trip, and I cannot wait for you both to make it back sometime in the future! I miss everyone already!

Does that include Mr. Brazil???

I think he was the exception.

If you can get me some dates in March, I can see if I can free some time up. Hopefully, at least make a day trip. Get Soarin08 to come along to, we can have a mini-meet-up. Maybe get NaCler to come too....

If we have a mini-meet at any point, count me in!

[mindflipper]

You know I'll do my best to be there, but I think she's talking about meeting in Chicago in March, right?

Also, can someone please send me a picture of the group at the Poly? I want to edit it and add it to my signature. Thanks!

Rats, you're right. I should have known a D23 event would never be in Orlando LOL...

We still need to do a min-meet-up somehow. I can't let 2012 be like 2011 and have no trips to WDW...

[Soarin08]

You know I'll do my best to be there, but I think she's talking about meeting in Chicago in March, right?

Also, can someone please send me a picture of the group at the Poly? I want to edit it and add it to my signature. Thanks!

Rats, you're right. I should have known a D23 event would never be in Orlando LOL...

We still need to do a min-meet-up somehow. I can't let 2012 be like 2011 and have no trips to WDW...

If we can even get three of us together (I'm including myself in that three 'cos I live here), I say go for it. mindflipper, you can ask me to let you use my maingate pass...

[NaCler]

I'm in... Just give me enough notice. I think Soarin may be tired of me by then, it would be the 4th time we have met up, I think.

[Soarin08]

I'm in... Just give me enough notice. I think Soarin may be tired of me by then, it would be the 4th time we have met up, I think.

3rd. But I'd never get tired of meeting up with Sub people.

[NaCler]

I'm in... Just give me enough notice. I think Soarin may be tired of me by then, it would be the 4th time we have met up, I think.

3rd. But I'd never get tired of meeting up with Sub people.

Haha... Typical male, I can't remember anything! I guess I was thinking you were at the Sub meet in December, sorry.

[MmeLeota]

Yes, yes, Mr. Brazil was the exception...but admit it, we'll be talking about him for quite some time

I was indeed talking about Chicago...I wish we'd be able to make it back to WDW so soon!!! But I will definitely let you guys know when we have confirmation on a new trip!!! We would love to spend more time with you guys that happen to live in the area!!!

[MmeLeota]

Day 1:
Before we jump into the report, let me give you a little background. Back in October, we were looking forward to celebrating our anniversary at the Halloween Party at Disneyland. We then found out that hubby had inventory that weekend. Ok, no problem…we’ll pick another day to go. Our nieces found out about it and we decided to take them with us. Then Cbog40 ended up in the hospital over the time we were supposed to go to the party. With the holiday season fast approaching, we knew we couldn’t get away so we decided to make our January WDW trip a really late anniversary celebration. So we made the update to our reservation to reflect the celebration. (I mention this for reasons to be explained later) Then we found out about the promotion/move and things all went downhill from there. We ended up cutting the trip short and only planned to go to the park for one day, but it didn’t matter…we were going to be in WDW and would be meeting up with so many fellow Mayhem Marauders! We just had to go one way or another!!!

Now back to our regularly scheduled trip report…

We couldn’t believe it! It was finally here!!! Our much anticipated trip to WDW!!! Since this would be our first trip leaving out of WI, we wanted to get to the airport early so we had time to get lost. But to our surprise, the airport was easy as pie to find, we got parked with no problems and there were no lines at security! Perfect! Another plus? The flight was not full…so we didn’t feel so cramped on our three hour flight…(three hour flight)
Once we made it to MCO, there was a bit of mayhem to welcome us. Because it was after 10pm, we had to pick up our bags from the baggage claim. No biggie. But wait…what???? Where do we catch the DME??? Turned out we had to go all the way back up to the 3rd floor, cross over to the other terminal, and then head back down to the first floor. It was building us up for all the walking we didn't know we would be doing in the coming days. We finally found the place where we were supposed to catch the bus and there happened to be one there ready and waiting. We settled in for our half hour trip to our resort…Caribbean Beach Resort. Being that this was to be our first time ever staying on property, we were excited to experience being immersed in all the magic that is Disney. (Surprisingly, for as late as it was, the bus was full! But once we stopped at AKL and POP Century, the bus emptied out quite a bit...go fig, we were the last stop... )
Our DME bus:




on the bus:



The most magical bus stop!


We've arrived!!!!


Doesn't this say it all?



We finally pulled up to the resort and had no problems checking in. We were assigned to Barbados and were instructed which building it was. Fortunately, the building was just across the street and behind the bus stop from the Custom House. However, when we got over to the buildings, we headed in the wrong direction at first…then found the right building number and followed the signs to our room number. Around corner after corner and finally we found it! We entered the room and started putting our stuff away. It was a nice room with Nemo themed touches.

Liked the decor, but something was missing...no Mickey towels We had been looking forward to seeing that on the bed welcoming us.


Detail of comforter


Detail of border


Light fixture


Rest of the room


I really love the effect from these "water" curtains!


There was even detail in the divider curtain between the living area and the bathroom area


...and what's room detail if you don't have an intricate tropical design on the shower as well? AMAZING details in the room!!!!


We turned on our TV and saw this...enjoy!



Of course, even after midnight I was wide awake (think: “I can’t sleep, I’m too excited”). After we were settled in, we heard what sounded like fireworks. I couldn't think why we'd be hearing fireworks at midnight thirty or so....so I decided to take a walk. I meandered in one direction and whatever music I could faintly hear was getting softer so I went the other way and realized it was the Illuminations music! I ran back to the room, grabbed the camera and let Cbog40 know about it...but he was too tired. I found a spot where I could see the "high" fireworks between the trees...and hear the music perfectly! When it was over, I wandered about while playing with the settings on the new camera. It was about 1:15am or so when I returned to the room to find Cbog40 sound asleep...it was after 2am before I finally fell asleep.

Illuminations - from my vantage point anyway...



Love these flowers!


I decided to try out the panorama setting on my new camera...I still haven't gotten the hang of it, but I had a little success

The beach area


EDIT: I'm not sure why some pictures are misbehaving...I have them set to certain sizes, but a few of these pics seem to not be paying attention. Hopefully I can fix that. Sorry about that.

[Amy]

A three hour flight, a three hour flight! I trust that the weather did not start to get rough or toss your tiny plane
You guys had a late flight! We luck out that we like to fly early so we don't have to deal with retrieving the luggage
Lots of details in the room. We stayed at the Caribbean Beach before it was Nemo-ized. But it looks like the Nemo details are pretty subtle so that is nice.
Stacy? The horror!
Those are really lovely flowers
That is pretty awesome that you got to see some of the Illuminations fireworks. And hear the music too ~ bonus!!
My pictures are naughty sometimes too I don't know why that happens

[Soarin08]

The pic of the DME bus looks awfully familiar... oh that's right! You texted me that!

Great start, and I love the room at CBR! All the details are amazing!

[MmeLeota]

Usually, we like to travel early too. By getting there so late, we've lost out on a day (or half a day anyway) of activities. But because we had to change our flights, we took what we could find that wasn't too much more than our original flight.

The details in the room were nice and we loved that they were pretty subtle so it didn't feel forced. The border was the most obvious, but since it was high up on the wall, it wasn't "in your face".

Yep Soarin, that's the one

[yodiwan1]

My DW and I stayed at CDR for our anniversary exactly a year ago. We has an amazing time. I am surprised they didnt do anything for your anniversary. It may ahve been because it was so late? I know when we got there it was like 11am, they gave my DW a rose, and we had a beautiful Mickey shaped chocoalte box fileld with mroe chocolate. They also were trying to make sure we had no problems since our last visit was a disaster, so maybe they were just kissing up to us. Can't wait to see teh rest of the report! I love the ME, makes me think of old field trips from school.

[Mousekedude]

Hey, guys! We're home now, trying to rest up after all our exertions. I want to thank you all for your kind comments, and I also want to say that it was truly an honor and a pleasure to finally meet all of you whom we met for the first time on this trip. As for our trip report... well, it's going to be interesting this time. In the past, I've relied upon my pictures to remind me of each day's events (we usually had our cameras with us and took tons of pictures each day...). But this time we didn't carry our camera around the whole time. We just decided to spend our time soaking in each moment and enjoying ourselves instead of stressing about how to document each moment (know what I mean...?), so as a consequence we will not be able to do a "day-by-day" report like we've done in the past. Instead, we'll only be able to post comments and pictures of various situations and events as we remember them... in no particular order. Hopefully our fellow M.M's will be able to fill in the blanks. So stay tuned for some posts on our adventures as we manage to make time for them. Thank you for your patience and understanding.