How Many Days In A Row Will We Wear Tie Dye (or Disney 2009 review): Part 3featured
Sorry for the delay in getting this up. Things are a bit busy around here and things got complicated with all of the pictures. I’ve been hearing that my pictures are getting lifted off of here and people are posting them as their own. Not cool. So I had to go and edit a tag onto all of them. If anyone wants to use them for anything other than personal use, please just link them directly to the picture or to this blog and please don’t upload them to your Flickr/Photobucket/Web Site without my knowledge and consent.
Okay. Back to the review (and I’m really sorry I had to tag the pictures…I tried to make them as unobstructed as possible).
It was so nice to finally get a good night of sleep, even though we went to bed a bit late and had to wake up early to get a jump start on our drive. I think we woke up around 7:00 am and tried to get out of the hotel and on our way within an hour. We had express checkout and the Westin people left a bill under our door for any incidentals (and parking). We bought a box of croissants from the bakery at Publix the night before and munched on those. I think we stopped at a McDonalds for some breakfast sandwiches and juice an hour or so into the drive.
The drive from Atlanta to Orlando (or anywhere south of Orlando) is long and tedious. It never seems to go as fast as the drive from Kentucky into Georgia, which is around the same amount of time but seems to pass faster. There’s not much to look at outside of Atlanta at but plenty of places to tempt you to stop and lose time on the drive. We knew that we wanted to spend 20 minutes or so at a peach farm that we always stop at, so we tried to make up as much time as we could on the way there.
The peach farm (Lane Southern Orchards) is about two hours outside of downtown Atlanta and we made pretty good time getting there. We found this market by accident on our drive to Disney World in 2008. We had driven to Florida (straight through from Chicago, no less) a few years back and we were too tired to stop and find a peach farm. Mom talked for years about how she wishes we went to a peach farm in Georgia, so last year when we were driving to Disney, we saw a few billboards for Lane and decided to stop and we loved it so much that it’s now a mandatory stop on our drives.
Lane Southern Orchard is a few miles straight off the highway, past a heavily wooded area, a housing subdivision and a few roadside produce markets, peach trees and pecan trees in Peach County (yes, in actual Peach County). While their main draw is obviously their fresh peaches, they also grow and sell a myriad of fresh produce. They also have a partnership with a citrus farm in Florida, so they ship fresh peaches to Florida and the farm in Florida ships fresh citrus to Lane.
Even though we intended to spend 20 minutes at Lane, it turned into a nearly hour stop and I was peeved at how much time we lost. I love trips to the peach farm, but I wanted to get to Florida! It was a bit busy at Lane because it was almost lunch time and they have a lovely little cafe inside, but not busy enough to feel crowded in the vast open space. Mom had a list of things she wanted to buy and I think we bought some peaches, a bag or two of pecans, a bottle of peach cider and a package of peach candy. And two tie dyed shirts for Stephanie and I that said Lane Southern Orchards on the front and “Our Peaches are TO DYE For” on the back, which I got a kick out of. I took note of a few things I wanted to buy on the way home (including peach bbq sauce…it’s mega yum) and walked around. I could spend hours looking around the market area because there’s so much to look at.
We never seem to find the time, but if anyone doesn’t mind a bit of an extended stop, they offer tours of the peach orchards for a nominal fee. They also have a very nice playground for kids (including some tractors and farm vehicles to play around with) to burn off some energy before getting back into the car for a long drive and some rocking chairs outside the cafe to sit and enjoy some homemade ice cream or cobbler.
Mom wanted to know if I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich (which at Lane is really just two slices of Kraft american cheese in between two slices of Wonder bread, but if you’re coming off a week at Disney on the dining plan or a week on a cruise where you’re eating gourmet food, nothing tastes better than their grilled cheese), but I wasn’t really hungry. Stephanie and grandma weren’t hungry for lunch, either, so we bought some hot cinnamon glazed pecans in the market and headed over to the ice cream and bakery counter in the cafe to get some homemade ice cream (peach for Mom, grandma and Stephanie and strawberry for me). It was super hot and sticky out and the sweet, smooth ice cream was the perfect antidote.
We were really taking too much time so Stephanie and I took our obligatory cheeseball picture and we got on our way.
We got hit with intermittent storms from Valdosta until we hit Disney World and that added time to our drive when we really needed to make up some time from our extended stop at the peach farm.
I think we entered Florida in the early afternoon. I was a little surprised at all of the anti-abortion billboards we saw once we entered Florida. At one point on the Turnpike, there was literally an anti-abortion billboard every 100 feet or so. I think we saw more of those than we did theme park billboards.
A few hours and a few more storms later and we were making our way through I-4 during rush hour. We didn’t encounter too much traffic, but it was at a standstill on the other side. Note to self: stop timing drives to hit major cities during rush hour. Before we knew it, we were passing through the golden gates (okay, they’re not so golden as much as they are purple) into Disney territory. I wish it hadn’t been raining so we could have stopped on the side of the road and taken some pictures with it, but we had to settle for driving through it while listening to the Wishes soundtrack.
I was really excited to check in to the Gaylord Palms for our pre-trip stay. Anytime we go to Florida, I try to see if I can fit a stay at the Gaylord Palms in because it’s one of my favorite hotels anywhere. AllEars.net was running a promotion for, I think, around $120 a night for an atrium view room, with a two night minimum and part of the proceeds going to breast cancer research, so I jumped on it.
We called on the drive over to confirm our reservation and were told that the atrium view wasn’t guaranteed. Jigga wha? No. I booked an atrium view. If I wanted to look at the pools or the parking lots, I would have booked a Florida view. My worries were for naught, as we were given an atrium view room on the fifth floor of the Emerald Bay area of the hotel, as well as a packet of hotel activities (the Gaylord Palms was having a summer celebration with more than a dozen activities ranging from Guitar Hero competitions to scavenger hunts and bar crawls).
The Gaylord Palms is really a destination unto itself. It’s a behemoth of a resort, and that’s not including the large convention center past the pools. The large indoor atrium is split into four sections (St. Augustine, Everglades, Key West, Emerald Bay), where the guest rooms in each section have a different decor. There’s shops, there’s bars (including a piano bar that Stephanie and I never seem to make it to), there’s fine dining and casual dining alike, there’s all kinds of flowers and greenery, there’s gators and koi fish, there’s waterfalls and there’s even a fortress. There is no way to go bored here, which is exactly why I love it. Outside, there’s a bocci ball court, a few whirlpools, a family pool and a large adults-only pool and area.
The rooms are large and offer queen beds (which made us happy since Stephanie and I were tired of pushing each other off double beds), a mini fridge and a computer with internet access that crawls at the pace of an elderly turtle. The queen rooms have a tub/shower, and I hear the king rooms have a separate shower. I get a kick out of the doorbells to each room and Stephanie always makes fun of me for it. I like how the Do Not Disturb sign is an electronic light on the doorbell (that also prevents the bell from ringing) so that way if you have it up, it won’t fly off the door when you close it.
We usually stay in St. Augustine, so it was nice to see the decor of a different section, but I prefer the views out of St. Augustine (which look out onto the atrium as a whole) since our room view was obstructed a bit and all we could really see was the Haagen Dazs shop and a bit of the greenery.
A resort fee of $15 is imposed at the Gaylord Palms, regardless of if you book directly with the hotel or through a third party (like Hotwire or Priceline) and includes internet access, two bottles of water a day, local and toll free calls, a daily newspaper delivery and use of the shuttle to Disney (which we’ve never used, so I can’t comment on it’s timeliness or crowdedness). As far as I know, you can’t opt out of this fee, but we’ve never tried.
Mom and I brought the luggage up (we would have had a porter do it if we parked valet, but we self parked) while Stephanie and grandma sat on the balcony. I was glad that even though we weren’t in a handicapped room, grandma’s wheelchair still easily fit onto the balcony. Mom and grandma went to rest for a bit (and Mom wanted to call Disney to see if we could get any tickets to the Wishes dessert party or into afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian the next day…both were a no) while Stephanie and I walked around the hotel for a bit (I did a walking tour the next day and I’ll post those pictures later).
Stephanie wants to be a wedding planner someday, so she got a kick out of the cakes display. The Gaylord Palms must be an amazing place to get married!
Some of the quick-serve food areas, including a coffee shop, a Haagen Dazs ice cream parlor and a grab-and-go sandwich shop.
A few of the shops, including a general store/logo shop and a very nice Disney store.
The adults-only pool and pool area
It was getting late and we were getting hungry. I’d seen an episode of Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels, where she was in Orlando and I wanted to try a place called the Colorado Fondue Company, but Stephanie and Mom didn’t want to go there. They wanted to head over to Crossroads for Fuddruckers or Sweet Tomatoes, or to the Chili’s down the street from Crossroads, but I didn’t want to go somewhere we could go at home. Then I wanted to go try Disney’s new restaurant, Paradiso 37, but they didn’t want that, either. Grandma didn’t really care where we went because she’s the least picky, most go-with-the-flow of all of us. We compromised and decided to go to Smokey Bones since we really liked the one in Fort Lauderdale. It was a quick drive over from the Gaylord Palms (less than five minutes) and Stephanie had me stop and take some pictures of the sunset before we headed inside.
As much as we loved Smokey Bones in Fort Lauderdale, we didn’t care for the one in Orlando. This just goes to show you that you shouldn’t search for consistency in chain restaurants. The Smokey Bones in Fort Lauderdale was busy, immaculately clean and seemed very cool. The one in Orlando wasn’t too busy, didn’t have live music (but did have a live trivia game) and wasn’t as clean. It was more akin to an Applebees. The food wasn’t as good at this location, either. My steak was fatty and overcooked and grandma’s was really fatty, too. Still, it was food and we were famished since we never did stop for lunch and it was nearing 8:00 pm.
After dinner, we took grandma back to the hotel because she was absolutely exhausted and then we headed out to Downtown Disney so Stephanie and I could get our first Disney fix. We started at the World of Disney store and it was an absolute zoo. I swear, people leave their manners and common sense at Disney. I don’t know anywhere else in the world where people frequently walk for long periods with their arms pointed out (that’s a clotheslining waiting to happen if I’ve ever seen one), bump into people without saying “excuse me” and scream in other peoples ears to such an extent. I joked with Stephanie that I would walk around with my arm and hand pointed up and out. I made note of some things I wanted to buy before we came home if I couldn’t find them in the parks and we made our way out. We stopped to look in TrenD next, which was a new store at the Downtown Disney Marketplace. It has some really fun clothes and merch, but it’s so overpriced. If I’m going to drop $80 on a hoodie, it’s going to be Juicy Couture, not Mickey Mouse. Still, the merchandise very much lives up to the “trendy” name. Pin Traders was next because Stephanie was eager to start pin trading, but I didn’t see any pins that I wanted to trade for or buy. A lot of them were the same from last year.
We debated going over to Ghiradelli’s to split a sundae, but it’s always a zoo after 5:00 pm and gets crazier the closer it gets to closing time so we decided to head over to Goofy’s to partake in one of our Disney traditions: pretzels on our first night.
As we have come to expect, Goofy’s was a zoo, too, but a manageable one. We grabbed three order sheets and crafted up our pretzels (I think I had white chocolate/Oreos/white chocolate drizzle, milk chocolate/Reese’s Pieces and milk chocolate/pecans/carmel drizzle). Goofy’s also had pretty much the same merchandise they had the year before (missing was the candy-filled monorail that doubled as a piggy bank that I’m very glad I bought last year), but now also had gigantor Mickey head rice crispy treats for $50 (which might be the most expensive and massive consumable souvenir at Disney World). They also converted what used to be a small sitting area with tables to eat your treats at into a party room, so you’ll now need to enjoy your treats al fresco. We walked around for the 10 minutes it took to make and cool set our pretzels looking at snack credit items since last year we ended up with 40 snack credits on our last day and spent most of them on make-your-own items and cookies at Goofy’s and I was sure we’d end up with the same situation this year. I noticed that they had new boxes and commented to the cast member how cute they were and she told me that while they’re cute (and much nicer than the old plain white ones), the cast members hate them because they’re harder to put together and don’t stay together well (she was right…ours kept coming apart in the car).
Downtown Disney was about to close when we left Goofy’s and though it was late, we still needed to hit a grocery store to grab some snacks and drinks. Publix was closed and we didn’t want to drive all the way over to the 24 hour Wal-Mart, so we went to Gooding’s at Crossroads. When we were on our long Disney trip in 2001 (nearly two weeks), we stayed in Downtown Disney and went to Gooding’s to get any grocery items we needed since it was within walking distance and we didn’t have a car with us. At some point during the trip, I got bitten by a spider (which I’m very allergic to) and Mom had to get me the most expensive bottle of Benadryl I’ve ever seen. Since I’m pretty sure the locals aren’t shopping at Gooding’s, they raise the prices because it’s a tourist area and they can. For people who stay on Disney property and don’t have a car, it’s the easiest store to get to (bus to Downtown Disney and then a 15 minute walk), but the prices are so exorbitant. We grabbed some cereal, yogurt, milk, muffins and Vitamin Waters and headed back to the hotel.
We took turns showering and using the super slow computer (which I kept using despite the fact the connection on my iPhone was faster) before settling into bed with some Stacy TV (aka the internal Disney channel that runs a program of a girl named Stacy and her tours of the park 24/7) and pretzels. I can eat about half a pretzel before I go into sugar shock. I’m pretty sure I didn’t finish any of them.
We talked about our hopes for the trip and our plans for the next day (another tradition- resort hopping) before fading into Disney dreamland.
Up next: Hopping, Shopping and Waiting at the Disney Resorts
