Olivia - More Birthdays at Disney

 

Once again I find myself at Disney World to celebrate a birthday - this time it is Olivia. It is her 19th birthday. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate with her.

Things started off with big trouble. On the seventh day prior to our arrival at the resorts I was to get our ride reservations and individual lightning lanes. However, when I was reviewing our reservation about an hour later (at work) I found that I had only ordered for Olivia - not Olivia and myself. Full panic mode, but I was able to work out some things and over the next six days and I was able to align our opening rides somewhat and had put together a master plan for the first park of the day - EPCOT.

We always take this picture but until you experience it you never know what it feels like to realize that you are here and can sink into this place for a few days.

We arrived and checked in at All-star Music (a value resort). We got an instant upgrade which basically meant that we were closer to the main desk, restaurant, and bar. We wouldn't realize how important that would  be until later. This message was on our TV screen.

We arrived with plenty of time left in the day and went to Disney Springs. Olivia wanted the eat somewhere we had never eaten before. Terralina was great. We had a great meal there.

We did a little shopping.

Back to the room to rest.

We participated in some resort activities and turned in early because tomorrow would be a very big day.

We arrived at the back gate of EPCOT and were in time to be one of the first five people to arrive. I took this picture of us in the ears that Olivia made for us to wear. I wore them most of the day and was shocked at the number of people who stopped us to ask about them - apparently they knew what they meant. The irony of course is that I did not.

People were beginning to arrive behind us - we were planning to beat them all to rope drop Ratatouille.

Success! We were on and off of the ride less than 10 minutes into our early entry

We rode this ride to open our ability to book other top tier rides in the other parks - First target Disney Studios.

Living with the Land and Soarin' were next

We made our appointment to Olivia's new favorite ride - Guardians of the Galaxy.

Park Number 2

Lunch at the ABC Commissary

Rise of the Resistance

Saying goodbye to Disney Studios

Park Number 3

Haunted Mansion

TRON

This was us worn out - we rode every ride in Magic Kingdom except Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. We rested as we took the ride home. It was here that we realized the full value of our upgraded room. When we got off the bus we could hardly walk. Fortunately, our room was less than 100 feet away - score.

The next day began with beignets. For me, these are the best beignets you can get - he at Port Orleans. They are much softer than others you might get and - though they may be a tad less authentic, to me they are the very best.

We ran into a friend at Port Orleans

We continued to tour some of the other resorts beginning with Art of Animation.

Next we went to The Contemporary. I took this picture with Olivia because it was conceived and produced by Olivia's favorite artist - Mary Blair.

Next we were on to The Polynesian Resort. We ran into more friends and found some Dole Whip.

We had the highly coveted reservation at Beaches and Cream at Beach Club for dinner

One last picture as we began our ride to the airport. If you have seen much of this blog you may ask how many times we would one want to go to Disney World. The answer is as many times as our family wants to go. As this trip wraps up I can certainly look back on it and immerse myself into any one of hundreds of memories. Also, though I do not want to think about it - time continues its terrible dance and I don't know how many more birthdays I will have the opportunity to share with Olivia one on one. So, for as long as I have these times and these moments, I will hold on tight and thank God for Olivia and for our family and embrace the moments - Always!

Days in New Orleans

 Megan and I got the opportunity to take a long weekend away - just the two of us. We still had some value left from American Airlines moving us to a later flight from Las Vegas. Neither of us had ever been to New Orleans so we were off. We arrived here.

We stayed here - It was great with breakfast and dinner each day

We got on this

We saw things like this once but the photos are from our first jaunt around town on the Double Decker bus.

Mostly we were up top but the A/C was below

We arrived at St. Louis cathedral named after Louis IV who was king of France from 1226 to 1270 - not name after the city.

I took a picture with Andrew Jackson

And then I saw the beautiful woman in the park - we struck up a conversation

We began walking in the French Quarter

Listened to jazz band

We ate beignets which I found to be more authentic but less wonderful than the ones at Port Orleans at Disney World

We ended up eating at this restaurant for lunch by mistake. I misunderstood the instructions from the concierge at the hotel - still we loved it. And we did eat at the restaurant we intended to eat at later in our stay.

For the evening meal we found world famous Acme Oyster House. I don't eat oysters but the other seafood was great as well.

The next day we went to the World War II museum. We expected it to be good but it was literally great. We could have spent multiple days in there.

The museum is on two sides of the street. The first side is all about D-day. The whole reason that the World War 2 museum  is in New Orleans is because it was first the D-day museum and the reason that the D-day museum was there is because New Orleans was where the Higgins boats were manufactured. These were the boats that were used to ferry troops to the shore.

Across the street were all of the other exhibits for many facets of WWII including:

Aircraft

Monument Men

We rode the trolley back to Canal Street - not far from out hotel

This morning we took at walking tour of some historic areas of town.

Our tour finished and we walked until we found lunch

You can always count on Fried Chicken - No matter where you are

We went downtown to experience some since of nightlife. I guess we are getting to old because it was just too loud - there was no way to have a conversation there but we did love the atmosphere other than that.

The next day we signed up for a haunted New Orleans tour. We were a little early so we found Louis Armstrong park across the street.

We went to various places with a haunted past.

We learned that the water table dictates that a lot of the burials are above ground. What we did not know is that these tombs get very hot inside and that bodies are naturally cremated. Each of these tombs have been used many many times - not just for one person.

A hospital abandoned during Katrina that has been empty since (said to be haunted) has been recently purchased but is now bogged down in bureaucracy - empty so far for 19 years.

This is the floor of the hospital where the patients to were not or could not be transported in hurricane Katrina died. There were 13 or so of them. Interestingly this hospital was not flooded - just abandoned and all of the patients ran out of medications and electricity and the staff had left as they were ordered to. So they died, not from Katrina, but by neglect - No wonder they are said to still haunt these halls.

Today we went to Mardi Gras World where many of the floats are made for the Mardi Gras parades.

This is one of the floats that mostly just carries people.

We recognize an old friend far from home.

It was great to have time together- just us. This a discipline we developed early in our journey together and we have pretty much been able to do this once a year to grow together.