iHoff.com - Family Disney July 2003

iHoff.com - Family

Central Park NYC, NY
Thanksgiving 2003

Disney World July 2003

Welcome to Florida sign.
It may seem funny that I put this picture up, but upon entering South Carolina (I couldn't get my camera out fast enough, which is RARE), and in Georgia, Todd hit a bump and I missed the shot. We were laughing so hard.

Downtown Jacksonville, FL was to our left, due East, we could see it in the distance. But I thought this was a neat view driving out through the water.

The gateway to the Magic Kingdom.
We panicked as we drove up, because we thought we were going to have to pay to park. Looking back, $7 is NOTHING compared to what we were about to spend AFTER we drove under that sign!!! ha! But we had to drive this way since we were staying at a Disney Resort. They don't make you pay, by the way, they just direct you to the right to a special lane that continues you to the properties. This is the main entrance others go through to get to the Magic Kingdom park.

Driving up to the entrance to our Hotel, the Grand Floridian.

Driving up to the security gate at our Hotel, the Grand Floridian. This is where the "magic" begins...I'll explain in a moment...

Driving up to the Hotel entrance. Now the "magic" explanation...and I'm sorry I didn't get a picture, but there were people everywhere helping us get out of the car, unload, etc. The people are all dressed in knickers and hats (looking like 1920's golfers) and there are old-fashioned cars underneath and flowers everywhere. It's beautiful. But what's neat, is the guy at the security gate alerts the people waiting here, and *everyone* calls you by name. "Welcome, Mr. & Mrs. Hoff, did you have a good trip? Let me take that for you, etc. etc." Then our stuff was whisked away and so were we, on a quick tour and walk right to our room with a guide pointing out everything the entire way. He even tested our key for us to make sure it worked. Your key is also like a credit card. You don't have to carry cash or credit cards in the parks. Just it. It charges everything to your room account.

The beach at our hotel.

One of the 2 pools at our hotel.
Taylor in blue to the left. Todd and Carter up ahead.

Walking around the grounds. Checking things out.
Todd & kids up ahead.
Madison finds a spot on the sidewalk she must step on.

Bathroom in our room at Grand Floridian. Mainly showing you this so you can see the Disney wallpaper. I have a close up shot at the bottom of this page.

Bathroom in our room at Grand Floridian. Mainly showing you this so you can see the Disney wallpaper. I have a close up shot at the bottom of this page.
The sink area was separate from the shower, bathtub and toilet.

Bathroom in our room at Grand Floridian.

Wallpaper in bathroom in our hotel room at the Grand Floridian.
One of the fun things about staying at a Disney hotel is finding "hidden Mickeys" or other characters. If you look closely, you can see that IN GREEN, there are Mickey's, Minnie's, Donald's, Pluto's sitting atop some of the green topiary bushes in the wallpaper.

We are at the "Magic Kingdom" at Disney World.
Cinderella's castle in background.
Madison, Carla, Carter, Taylor

Kids in front of Cinderella's castle

Taylor, Carter, Todd, Madison on "It's a Small World" ride.

It's a Small World

In line for Dumbo

Boarding Dumbo (Mom is nervous, 1st kids ride other than carousels).
Or is it just the height these Dumbos fly to??

We're in - with Taylor on the outside, so she's IN the picture.

We're in and waiting - Carter is sizing up the "up-down" control. YIKES!

We're up - YIKES. I've never held onto the kids so tight. They were complaining "Mom, you're hurting me, let go!!"

Taylor awaiting teacup ride.

Taylor and Carter on teacup ride. (I'm in it too, YIKES again)

Madison and Taylor and I in teacup ride while boys ride Goodyear cars.

Carter and Todd wait in line for cars

Here come Todd and Carter in their red car

Red car is theirs, they are done now

We are at Mickey's house at Mickey's ToonTown Fair.

Having our "autograph" books signed (who started this silly tradition?)
Note the Mickey pumpkin in the bottom right of the picture.

Formal pose with THE mouse.
Bummer though - while Todd was taking our picture, they had professional photographer guy taking it too, who handed us a card to pick up later, and it was a great picture. We should have had Todd in there with us. We don't have any photos of all five of us there.

Here is how we should have painted our gazebo in Michigan!! What were we thinking?? This is in Minnie Mouse's backyard (of course it is! who else would have a pink gazebo???)

After a train ride around the park

Todd's future career...if only we could get him to wear the blue spacesuit.
I recorded some of this, I'll try and add a sound sample later. These guys were awesome. When we retire, Todd will go do this, and I'll go be a character or something. But Todd will have to practice his dance moves beforehand...

Band again...and they were in Tomorrowland, just playing in the street.

Oops - bad shot of Taylor's eyes...this is the people mover. Scariest ride of all for us. We knew it took you through Space Mountain, which was fun to show Carter. But there were lengthy periods of total darkness, and it was freaky trying to keep track of the kids. We were afraid they'd fall or fly out! This is just supposed to be a scenic thing.

Space Mountain in Tomorrowland

Kids with Goofy in the background. The line was a mile long.

Madison (front) and Taylor on our patio

Bay area view at Grand Floridian from our patio.

View towards lake from our patio at Grand Floridian.

View of Gasparilla's Grille from our patio at Grand Floridian.

Todd and Carter on speedboat in bay, view from our patio.

Todd and Carter return from speedboat ride.

Taylor in our room. View towards door to hallway.

Our room. View towards patio

Part of our patio

B & W view of bay area at Grand Floridian

B & W view of Gasparilla's Grille at Grand Floridian

Sepia view of bay area at Grand Floridian

Sepia view towards Gasparilla's Grille at Grand Floridian

Fountain at Tony's Italian Restaurant at Magic Kingdom.
By the way - this restaurant was good, but had the most limited menu I have ever seen at a restaurant. One page, only a few items to choose from. They move you in and out. They clearly had the entrees already prepared and ready to bring out minutes after you placed your order. Expensive, fairly good, "fast" food. Lady and the Tramp everywhere, which I loved.

Todd, Carter, Taylor & Madison at Tony's Italian Restaurant at Magic Kingdom.

Afternoon production of characters and princesses at Magic Kingdom.

Madi climbing in Swiss Family Robinson Tree House.

Todd, Carter and Taylor in Swiss Family Robinson Tree House.

Country Bears Jamoboree show

Delta Queen - I think that's the name of this

Shootin' Gallery. I would never hear of Todd putting up this view of me....

The castle, just beginning the evening hues - it's pink right now.

Taylor, Todd, Madison and Carter at Liberty Square in Magic Kingdom.

Beginning of SpectroMagic Parade. This is the evening parade at Magic Kingdom, 9pm, and some nights, 11pm. This has replaced the Electric Light Parade, which I believed retired in 1996. They moved it out to Disneyland. I don't know if it runs there at all, or if any of it is on display, but my Mom, sister and I always enjoyed the music from it. This parade is pretty amazing. Even the characters costumes are completely covered with lights.

Oops - he looked away - but this is Mickey, right at the beginning.
You can kind of see, we had a beautiful view of the castle right behind the parade. I videotape the parade, Todd took pictures.

Goofy on xylophone.

Chip and Dale

Little Mermaid (see her green skirt?) and that's Flounder the fish (yellow and blue) right in front of her

More Little Mermaid characters.

King Triton from Little Mermaid

Pigs

Cinderella in her coach

I shook her hand - Mary Poppins
A great thing about where we were, we met almost all the characters that were on foot for the parade. The kids had a ball. (so did Mommy and Daddy!)

Pirate

Snow White

Donald Duck

Fireworks, with Castle to the right

Fireworks with castle to the right. We watched these that night from in front of the Crystal Palace restaurant at Magic Kingdom.

Our hotel does a "turn-down" service at night, with chocolates on your pillows, and when we got home tonight, there were cards for each of us, from the characters. The kids were so excited, even though they were so tired.

Madison's card

Notice the gold wrappers in her hand. That's from her chocolate

Todd and Carla's card. Notice Minnie & Mickey are in their wedding garb.
We were celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary, since this is where we honeymooned! The kids had fun telling everyone that. We had a date night, the next evening.

Taylor's card.

(she also had a birthday card from Cinderella and balloons in the room when we checked in, they knew her birthday was just the week before!)

Carter's card

Carla, Carter and Taylor got to take a front seat monorail ride.

Monorail ride

Monorail ride view of Epcot street entry

Monorail ride view of Epcot

Epcot entry

Here we go again...the autograph signing!

And then the picture posing! How cute.

Pinnochio

Gepetto

With Donald!

GM Test Track at Epcot

GM Test Track at Epcot
Todd and Carter in line

Kids at fountain at Epcot - this day was especially hot

Kids at fountain at Epcot

Epcot Innovations and the kids section

Epcot Innovations and the kids section
Look who we found in a room towards the back??
No lines no waiting!
Snow White was so sweet with the kids, she talked to them for quite a while, asking them where they were from, ages, etc.

Snow White

Epcot - Innoventions

Animal Kingdom - Tree of Life, center

AK - Line for Pooh & friends, but we didn't stay

Playground at Animal Kingdom
we met some people from Lenox, here

Playground at Animal Kingdom

Todd and Carla out for dinner celebrating their 10-year Wedding Anniversary
at the California Grill high atop the Contemporary Hotel at Disney

Todd with our dessert

Walt & Mickey statue

Why to stay at a Disney resort
No long lines for monorail

Carter and I in line for the Star Wars "Star Tours" ride.
If you look closely you can see some white dots on the picture above him. They are really water droplets. Notice there is no one standing close to where he is (but me). I told him where to stand, and there was a structure above him of a Star Wars character called the AT-AT, and it shoots out water every minute or so. OOPS - sorry, buddy. Glad he had his hat on!

This is the AT-AT thing Carter was standing under.

Inside in line for Star Tours.

C3PO talking as we wait in line

Carter on a Star Wars scene outside the ride

Taylor on a Star Wars scene outside the ride

Fountain near the muppet 3-D theatre. Madison loved this fountain

Pizza Planet from Toy Story, where we had lunch

Green Army men from Toy Story. It WAS right behind Carter, and he was posing for a picture, but I had the slow-motion camera retrieval syndrome, so I pretty much missed the shot!

A SEA OF STROLLERS. All the websites that tell you how to survive Disney recommend tying a brightly colored scarf to your stroller. This is why...there are hundreds of them everywhere.

Minnie and Pluto. These are not kids we know, but I just thought it was funny they were under the awning of an airstream camper.

How cute! Taylor and Pluto!

Driveway up to Grand Floridian

Security gate at Grand Floridian

Entry to Grand Floridian

Part of beach at Grand Floridian

One of 2 pools at Grand Floridian

Walkway on bay side of Sugarloaf Building at Grand Floridian

Hotel Pictures

Main lobby at Grand Floridian
(birdcage elevator on left)
Serves floor one and two

One of 2 pools at Grand Floridian
They have a great kiddie pool at this one, only 1.5 ft. deep
And a large section that is only 3ft deep

Same pool as above
They also have towels right there at the pool
Straight across in the building you see is a beverage bar

Sugarloaf Concierge building where we stayed

Main building

Walkway to Main building

Pool on left and fountain on way to Main Building

Main Building again

Back entry to main building. GF Cafe is on right and door on left where people are walking through leads to the main lobby of GF Main Building

GF Cafe

Hallway to GF Main Lobby.
Sundry store is on right

Main Lobby - Main building
Birdcage elevator center

Garden view Cafe Main building

View of bay area from Sugarloaf Concierge building

Our room on 1st floor of Sugarloaf Concierge building

Our room on 1st floor of Sugarloaf Concierge building
view to patio

Our room on 1st floor of Sugarloaf Concierge building
Patio

Cinderella's castle...my postcard shot!

Our other "Character Dinner" - This one is Pooh & friends at the Crystal Palace at Magic Kingdom. It was very good buffet food, 2nd best meal we had there at Disney. (best was at California Grill at the Contemporary).
Here is Taylor with Piglet.