Our Vacation

We are home from vacation. I did not log on a single time so I am WAY behind on posting deals. Give me a few days and I will be back in full swing. In the meantime here is a playbyplay for our aweseome vacation:
Day 1 we departed before 2pm (on time! WooHoo!). We arrived in Beaufort in time for dinner. My mil served fried chicken (homemade of course) so the kids ate (a BIG deal there!)
Day 2 we lounged around their pool, C&B went crabbing (C caught 6 BIG blue crabs) and shelling and we cruised on the golf cart. Pretty low key day. I did venture out midafternoon for a CVS run.
Day 3 our plan was to depart no later than 5am. J woke me and said lets go and I guess I assumed it was the planned time. I got all the kids in the car and was super shocked to find it was 3:45am when we pulled out. In hindsight his craziness was a blessing ad the kids fell back asleep and they might not have done that at 5am. In fact despite my excitement I feel asleep in GA and slept for over an hour myself. We arrived in Orlando at 9am and that is when we told the kids they were going to Disney. They were SHOCKED especially when they realized were were 30min away! Because we were several hours ahead of schedule we could not check in to our room and I had not packed in a way that would make it easy to get to our stuff so we decided to let the kids wear their traveling clothes for park day 1 (GASP did I say that?) We arrived at AK at a decent hour and did ITTBABug, TriceratopSpin, Primevil Whirl, Nemo, Expedition Everest (COOL but it made me a lil nauseous, FP), a HORRIBLE burger lunch, Rafakis Planetwatch and finally my fave KSafari (AWESOME at usual, FP). We then hopped to 1900ParkFare for dinner. The characters were incredible the food was average. From there we hopped to Epcot. We rode Mission Space (green, what an improvement for me since I get motion sickness! I actually enjoyed it) and we capped it off with Test Track (FP) (we had to childswap on both so despite 5min walk ons and FPs it took a while to do just these 2 rides). Luckily the bus back was fast and our room was ready and waiting. We were exhausted!
Day 4 we awoke and caught the opening bus to MK. We started with Buzzlightyear followed by SpaceMoutain, Astro Orbitor, Laughfloor and a repeat of Buzz (FP), From there we rode Barnstormer, toured Minnie and Mickey's house (Cooper loved that). Then we rode IASWorld, Philharmagic, Pooh (FP), Snow White, Philarmagic, PPan, a Yummy Harbor House lunch, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, ETikiRoom, Splash Mountain (FP) and then the WDWRR to the front for dinner at Chef Mickey (Charcters were only ok but food was slightly better than 1900PF) After dinner Cooper and I returned to the room and J, C and B repeated Buzz a few more times then did Stitch, TLSpeedway, MTeaParty and Spectromagic.
Day 5 was out DStudios day. We started with characers, Playhouse Disney, Little Mermaid, Jedi Training (we did not get chosen), face painting, STours, IndianaJones, Pizza Planet lunch, LightsMotorAction, Muppets, Star Tours, Great Movie Ride, ToTerror, RRollerCoaster and then we left for dinner at Ohana. (Food was good, pork and turkey were dry but the rest was good and the kids had fun!). After dinner Cooper and I once again called it a night and J, C and B went back to MK for a repeat of SpaceMoutain, Buzz, TLSpeedway, WDWRR, Splash and BTMx2, WDWRR out of the park.
Day 6 we started at AK. This was not our original plan but it worked out great. We started at Dinosaur, followed by a repeat of Triceratop Spin and PWhirl and Expedition Everst (FP, much better the 2nd time!), then KaliRR, KSafari (FP), ITTBABug and finally Lion King. Then we hopped to Epcot ate at the food court at the land (best meal we had) and grabbed Soarin FP and rode Living with the Land (hubbys 1st time) Imagination (we love Figiment), Nemo (lame), Living Seas, Turtle Talk w/Crush (very cool!) and then dinner at Coral Reef (average food but best service we had all week). After dinner we rode Soarin (it was OK. I think I would have liked it better if I could have rode it 2x?) and we ended with SpaceshipEarth. We returned to the room early so B could swim and J could load the car.
Day 7 I really wanted to leave w/o attending a park but there was NO WAY J was agreeing. We decided on DStudios and I am so glad we did. We rode RRCoaster and were able to ride ToyStory Mania (sneek preview) 2x and it is my new fave!!!!!! The cue was long or we would have done a few more rides. From there we repeated ToT (FP) and grabbed lunch at Toluca Legs and then called it quits. I was so happy to be on the road to the beach. Don't get me wrong we had a great time but WDW in the heat is not for me. I MUCH prefered all of our previous trips in cooler weather/ We made good time on the drive back from FL but we had to pay $4 for gas! WOW. We arrived at Harbor Island by 5pm. We did not feel up to dinner out so we all stayed in and ate Honeybaked Ham Sand. (I was so glad our family brought groceries!)
Day 8 we spent at the beach. It was deserted. Litteraly it was us, shrimp boats and dolphins. NICE! J prefers big waves but the small harbor waves were ideal for Cooper and the older kids loved finding hermit crabs etc. We got a ton! At lunch time we took the golfcart for a cruise to explore the island and swim at the club pool. It was nice. That night we dressed for a nice dinner in downtown Beaufort and J took the boys to the drive in to see Indianna Jones. B did not even dress for dinner with us she stayed home with Carley (cousin) and my gpas.
Day 9 was another beach day. We did see one other family by the water. The dolphins were still there but so were dead bait fish. I guess someone had dumped them as they kept washing in and Cooper kept getting them YUCK. J got takeout seafood from the Shrimp Shack for lunch. Afterwards we went to the pool for short while then we dressed early for a 4pm hourse and buggy tour of Beaufort. We love history and lots of movies were filmed there as well so it was cool. J skipped the tour to take Cooper to a park that we love to go to with my mil. He then met back up with us and we went to a chinese buffet that we had heard about. If was very good. The rest of our family had a shrimp boil at home. We arrived just in time for C&B's bday cake and we had a good time letting them sing and entertain us all like the lil hams they are.
Day 10 we decided to pack up and head home before lunch. The kids were hungry so we did end up stoping at Ruby Tuesdays in Walterboro and at Target (to spend some bday $) in Charlotte but we arrived home before dinner time to find our thouse in one piece and the veggies growing like crazy.
All in all we had a great trip. The kids said it was a wonderful birthday. We now need a vacation from our vacation!
We will probaby wait 2-3y to return to Disney and when we do we will definatly upgrade to deluxe (we have outgrown the smaller rooms) and we will definatly go durring cooler weather (Nov-Feb) but we will return to Harbor as early as next summer as my family really liked it a lot.