September 20 - 24th, back to WDW

zackiedawg

zackiedawg

Member
Staff member
Finally booked my September getaway trip to Disney yesterday. ; I thought I'd have to wait until Monday when DVC opens, then remembered they added online booking capability - so I went to the site, logged in, picked my resort, days, etc...and borrowed forward some of the points from next year since I had banked a bunch from this year. ; Of course with late notice the selection was thin - so I had to take Saratoga Springs to get a 1-bedroom for the full 4 nights...no biggie since this is always my getaway trip when the parks hopefully won't be as crowded. ; My buddy Dave is flying in from Dallas, so we'll enjoy some away-from-work time...slow rolling through the parks and enjoying the Halloween displays.

Looking forward to getting to the top of BLT too, finally!

If anyone else is around, let me know - maybe we can run into eachother. ; We're doing the trip with no plans, no rope drops, and no ressies!
 
Got a wee bit of rain the past 36 hours...22+ inches!

Well Florida gets rain, that's no surprise. ; And sometimes we can have really rainy days, like 4-6 inches in a day. ; But we get extra special rain sometimes when tropical storms or hurricanes visit our area. ; This past few days, we've been getting awfully close to some records, even though TS Isaac went south of us and wasn't particularly strong. ; In fact, Isaac dropped more rain on us than Cat 1 Hurricanes Frances, Jean, or Katrina, or Cat 3 hurricane Wilma, did when we were hit by them. ; Isaac stayed way down south by Cuba, but the feeder and outer bands just sat right across our particular spot in Palm Beach county, resulting in over 16 inches yesterday, and an additional 6-8 inches so far today. ; The last of the feeder bands are still dragging across our area today, though the storms are more sporadic now.

The more recent record I can recall was Hurricane Irene in 1999, which dumped 18 inches of rain in our area within a 12 hour period. ; We were just shy of that for the daily record, but this storm has pulled rain across our area for a longer period of time...pushing over 20 inches now in the second day.
 
Thanks guys. ; No problems at home other than potted plants blown over and lots of leaves in my very full pool. ; At work we had a sizeable leak in the roof - it's a flat-roofed building and if the drains along the sides clog, it starts to imitate a swimming pool - and then it finds the weak points to get inside. ; We had water soaking through a 4 x 3' section of roof drywall, plus filling up inside a flourescent light fixture which had to be drained every few hours lest the plastic panel crack out and dump the collected water. ; Good thing about Florida is that we're flat as a board and pretty much sea level down here, so there's not much way for the water to pond up like it does in hillier country, finding low spots to get deep - ours pretty much runs off into the ocean or the swamp and doesn't get much deeper than a foot or so in the worst ponded areas. ; Driving home and to work is a PITA though as for some reason 5 stoplights on my commute are not functioning - fun at rush hour especially without traffic cops to direct - it's free-for-all time!
 
Ironic...had Pixelmania been October this year, I actually might have been able to attend! ; :) Last year my cruise went right over the Pixelmania date, but this year I just booked a cruise which won't be until Nov 9...so I could have made it. ; Next year, might not be so lucky - I usually cruise in October, but this year was just an anomaly as the cruise I wanted to take wasn't pricing very well, so I moved the date into November to get the big suite at the better price. ; 11-day Panama Canal cruise this time. ; I've finally got the rest of this year's vacation time all sorted out: ; Sep 20-24 Disney, Nov 9-20 cruise, Dec 6-10 Pixelmania!
 
is it a full transit? if it is you are going to love the engineering and the sights. if you have a balcony set up your tripod and sit back with a cool boat drink in 1 hand and the cable release in the other and take those photos
 
No, not this time. ; I've done the full transit, but that was 10 years ago. ; This one is going to go fairly well into Gatun lake - some only go just inside and park, and others will actually cruise the lake a bit like this one. ; But we won't be hitting the Pedro Miguel/Miraflores side.

It's still fascinating to watch the locks in action. ; I've got a nice big veranda suite with lounge chairs, coffee table, and comfy reading chairs with ottomans...I'll be spending much time out there!
 
Just posted some info on our trip for the last half of September and saw that you will be there at the same time. ; Maybe we will catch up with each other.
 
Indeed - feel free once we're up there to post here or IM me as I'll be checking up each night and/or morning. ; Maybe if we end up heading to the same park on the same day, we can plan on a place and time to say hi face-to-face! ; I'm letting my friend decide a little on where we feel like going, as he doesn't get there as often as I, but he's also into the idea of an unplanned trip, so we'll still be mostly winging it by however we feel each day and where we feel like going.
 
Quickie update from the World. ; Got here Thursday afternoon, checked in at Saratoga...Congress Park section, 3rd floor, Pleasure Island view on the main lake. ; My buddy Dave got dropped off by Magical Express 3 minutes after I had pulled in, so he walked into checkin lobby at nearly the same time as me - pretty good timing there! ; Went over to DHS for the late afternoon/early evening just to do something that day...the usual (Rockn Roller for Dave...no for me; TOT, Great Movie, Streets walk, and out. ; Headed over to Wilderness Lodge, ate at Whispering Canyon (did NOT ask for ketchup!), then hit the boat to Contemporary and went to BLT's bar at the top - great margaritas and a great view from the deck.


Friday went to Epcot for the day - got rained out at Illuminations (the rain held off until around 7pm, so we made most of the day problem-free, and when it came it was just a constant light rain for the rest of the night), so we walked out to Boardwalk, bussed back to Saratoga, then drove over to Coronado for dinner.


Today, getting ready to head out to AK. ; Got the camera on the balcony to de-condensate and equalize from the refrigerator room temperatures I like to the jungle steamy humid outside temperatures. ; Probably hit Jiko tonight for dinner.


Sunday will be MK day - though may start the day with Epcot a bit, or something else, since MK is midnight hours that night.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top