Disney Summer '09 Trip, Day 1

Our flight to Florida left Newfoundland early, too early. We were up at 3:30 AM to start getting ready, and then got our daughter up by 4. We were out the door before 5 and at the airport an hour before our 6:20 AM flight. YAWN! Luckily WestJet offers satellite TV on all of their flights and Casey was happily watching Treehouse TV while we napped or drank coffee. She's a great little traveler.

After a stop in Toronto, and a very quick wait for customs, we flew to Orlando, arriving at 1:00 PM. Disney's Magical Express offers a fabulous service where you tag your luggage with custom tags (mailed to you from Disney) before you leave home, and then don't have to wait for your luggage in Orlando. We skipped right by the luggage carousels and headed down to the Magical Express area. The guides waving us forward with giant white Mickey hands were a favorite of Casey's!

It took about 30 minutes on the bus to our Disney resort—Caribbean Beach. We sat at the front of the bus, and I hurried inside to line up for check in, while Bev and Casey waited for our carry-on luggage that was on the bus. Check-in was quite busy, but more Disney cast members opened up their windows, and we were served in no time. Our TPI travel agent—my new colleague, Jaime Murphy—had faxed a building request to Disney for us. Caribbean Beach is a massive resort, with its own internal bus system to travel from one area to another, so we wanted a building close to the main building—Old Port Royale—where the food court, gift shop, and main pool are located. We were assigned Jamaica 45, second floor—exactly what we wanted. Jamaica is a short walk across the bridge and Caribbean Cay island from Port Royale. It took us maybe 5-6 minutes to walk over there each day.

After checking in, we took the internal shuttle system to Jamaica and found our room. All rooms in Caribbean Beach were recently redecorated in Finding Nemo or Pirates of the Caribbean themes. The Pirate-themed rooms are only available in Trinidad South and at an increased cost. We were quite pleased with our Nemo room and the general Caribbean decorations in the room.

We had arranged for groceries to be delivered through GardenGrocer.com. Once in our room, we called Bell Services and they brought up our groceries (which had been kept refrigerated for us). We changed into some clean clothes that we had packed in our carry-on and headed to Animal Kingdom for the evening. One downfall of leaving your luggage with Disney's Magical Express, is that you cannot pack sunscreen in your carry-on (unless it is a very small bottle), and so we had to buy some as soon as we arrived in Animal Kingdom. Expensive, but we used the whole bottle during our trip, so it was worth it!

We really enjoy Animal Kingdom. I find it to be of a slower pace than the other parks, and the green foliage and natural surroundings really take you away from the hustle and bustle of the other parks. Another plus is that Animal Kingdom features a Rainforest Café restaurant. This is another must-do for us whenever we travel to Disney. We ate at this fantastic restaurant first (it is not on the dining plan, so we paid out of pocket) and then headed into the park.

We headed straight to the kid's area, DinoLand U.S.A., and went on TriceraTop Spin, Casey's must-do of the day! We tried to ride Expedition Everest (using the kid swap program) but the line-up was long and the fast passes were for a much later time. We ended up walking on the Maharajah Jungle Trek trail. We saw giant fruit bats, tapirs, Komodo dragons, and tigers, among other animals.

After returning to the resort, we finished our first day by heading over to the main pool with its fantastic kids area. This was one of the selling points of Caribbean Beach for us—no need to go to a water park when you basically have all your 4 year old could want right at your resort!