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[TimNDansMom]

Jennie, if we do the trip in two days, half way for us (Woodstock) is Knoxville, Tennessee. We stop at a Sleep Inn at exit 108. It's about two 12 hour days.

If we leave on a Friday evening we drive as far as Lima, Ohio, then to Byron, just below Macon, GA on the Saturday night. We get into Orlando around 3pm on the Sunday afternoon.

Gone are the days when we drive straight down to anywhere.

 

[Jennie in TO]

I take it you go down through Detroit and then use I-75, or whatever that highway is. Funny, I just ran your route through mapquest and it came out as 22 hours. We cross over at Buffalo and do I-79 to I- 75 to I-95 and it supposedly will take us 21 and 1/2 hours. Not much difference.

We did the overnight thing with the kids last year easily cause I fed them Gravol at 10 pm, and fed the husband and I caffeine. That way, when we were driving insanely through a massive snow storm, they were fast asleep. No asking, "Are we there yet!" .

 

[DSNY FN]

Jennie we drive from London @ 6:30 PM and get to Valdosta Georgia by around 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon the next afternoon. We stop at the Fairfiels in at exit 18 then we drive the rest the next day and arrive at Disney around 12 or 1 in the afternoon. When we drive home we do it straight no stops other than food and gas and we get home in about 20 hours roughly.

 

[TimNDansMom]

Yes Jennie, our route is straight down the I 75. Since Dh does all the driving he finds stopping a little longer now for meals easier on him, so we don't mind the two 12 hour days, instead of 11 as suggested by Mapquest. Plus once I get into a Cracker Barrel, I like to look around a bit!

Darren, do you do all the driving?

 

[DSNY FN]

I usually drive until the Gorgia welcome centre then Lisa will take over for a couple hours then I will drive again same with the drive home

 

[DSNY FN]

So it ias now time for Cocoa Beach
Friday Dec 5th Cocoa Beach:

We arrive at the Holiday Inn Ocean Front in Cocoa Beach and check in the weather is quite nice today and warm enough to stroll in the water at the ocean out behind the hotel. The room we have is a kids suite mind you it is a room the size of All Stars with a section blocked off and a set of bunk beds and another kids size bed in it not the best room we have ever stayed in but for 49 dollars a night we are not complaining. We get everything we need into the room and go for a walk around the hotel to check it out the pool has a pretty nice kids area and the girls want to go check it out after dinner tonight which is fine by us, So now we are off to the beach to check out the ocean for the first time in Paige Madison and Spencer's life. Madison isn't to sure about the waves for the first 15 or 20 minutes we are down there but she loves looking for shells. Spencer was impossible to keep out of the water and Paige just loved it all the water the shells the birds everything. So we play on the beach for about 2 hours running in the surf and finding shells we now have quite the collection the waves are rolling in at about 4 feet high this afternoon. The last time I was at the ocean was in 1978 when we were at my grandparents trailer down in West Palm Beach. We loved running up and down the beach and looking to see if we could see any of the cruise ships coming in and out we did see the Wonder and a Carnival and Princess ship all in at port the girls loved seeing them. We found ourselves some parts of sand dollars and some pieces of sea turtle shells from some baby turtles that we figure didn't quite make it very far. After we played for awhile there we went back and washed up the kids to get the salt water and sand off of them and went for a drive into Cocoa to the mall and to get some dinner we went to Stea and Shake this was ok but not quite what we were looking for but it was fast and filled out stomachs. Now off the the hotel and for a swim in the pool I stayed in the room with Spencer and Lisa took the girls to the pool they had a great time but I so wanted to watch Disney channel but couldn't find it on the TV. When the girls came back we got them to bed and watched some tv we made it an early night as tomorrow we have some great things to go and do.

 

[DSNY FN]

Ok Saturday the 6th

Our boat tour and some nature trails

We head out to Island Breezes boat dock for our 2.5 hour boat trip around Cocoa Beach area and too see if we can find some Manatee and Dolphins. We all board the boat and it is only us we have the boat to ourselves off we go first stop is over on the far shore/docks to find us some manatee. Alas we didn't get to see any up close but we did see where they were swimming around in front of us. So off to look for Dolphins and low and behold what do wee see in a sheltered area of the small lagoon is a young adult bottlenose dolphin hunting for food. The dolphin would swim circles getting tighter and tighter around a school of fish till it was afout a 3 foot circle then he would dart through the centre catching as many as he could. We were told to watch for Pelicans sitting in the area it was a good sign there were a dolphin or 2 hunting in this fashion as the pelicans used it as a free meal from all the fish they had hurded together. We also got to see a posh complex that one of the members of the backstreet boys had his construction company build as one of them is from Cocoa Beach we saw him on Sunday driving around in a beautiful yellow Ferrari. So now back to the boat docks and off tour next adventure. We are now heading to the nature walking and driving trails of Meritt Island and boy what a great place it was to visit. We got to see a 6 foot alligator about 200 yards from the Merritt Island wildlife information centre just suning himself beside the water. I got about 15 feet away from it before it jumped back into the water I have some great pictures of the thing just an awesome creature. We then drove to the Manatee lookout and within 10 minutes we saw 2 manatee swimming in the river avour 50 feet or so from us and they surfaced for us and everything it was a great experiance for everyone. We also go to see our very first live not in captivity BALD EAGLE it flew right over top of the van about 20 feet above us Lisa wasn't quite quick enough to get a picture of it though and I was driving so I couldn't take it. We also saw tonnes of Osprey flying by the edge of the water all the way down the highway on the way to and from Cocoa Beach I have never seen that many in one area before in my life. The kids were able to see lots of great wildlife and different types of birds and animals it was anexperiance I would like to do again and do more of the walking trails. So we finally head back to the hotel and stop at Pizza Hut for dinner we leave to go back to Disney tomorrow morning and what we found out was a suprise to us so stay tuned to my next installment of our trip report.

I have lots of pics from the trip to Cocoa Beach and the Merritt Island day trip also for the next dis meet.

 

[DSNY FN]

Trip report for Sunday Dec 7th:

Okk so it is Sunday morning and we get up and start pacing up the few things we brought into the room for the weekend so I can load them back into the van. Then we go and grab some breakfast and have another walk on the beach the weather is quite chilly this morning low 50's we wore pants sweaters and jackets walking on the beach. We load everyone back into the van and head for Disney it is a short 40 mile drive from Cocoa Beach to Disney so the ids grab a quick nap in the car and before they know it we are back at OKW. We check in and the room isn't ready yet so we go play in the playground by the main pool and take some pictures I think I see what is a DIS t shirt but wasn't quite sure it was heading away from me and I just saw it out of the corner of my eye. I thought nothing of this as I heard there were lots of Disers going to be there at this time and figured if they were staying at OKW we would likeley meet up with them again. So I go get a drink from Goods and see the shirt again but it is heading down towards the front desk area of the resort so I tell Lisa about it and we take a short walk but don't see it again. We have now decided since the room isn't ready to go for a boat ride to DTD and catch a bus to FW and walk the swamp trail and go to the petting zoo well low and behold if we don't come around the corner from the play area and see a few DIS shirts and a couple pic nic tables taken over by them to our suprise it was a DIS meet at OKW. We stopped and said hi to everyone and introduced ourselves by our real names first then as my board member name we met some great people and Paige and I even won some prizes for the draws they were having. Paige won the Davey Crocket error pin from the milenium celebration collection of 101 pins it was even still in the original packaging. We recieved some DIS keychains and an antenna ball and some green DIS buttons which we wore the rest of our trip everywhere we went. There were quite a few people that showed up like Nativetexan and Towncrier and Doc even showed up for a bit. So we stayed and chatted with them for a couple hours then when I checked our room was ready we were in building 64 room 6421 it was looking out over the island green on the golfcourse. What a great room. We go to the room and unpack the van and fully plan on returning to the dis meet but by the time we got done we had some dinner then the youngest ones fell asleep they were pretty much done for the night so we never did make it back down. We had a great first day back at Disney with the suprise DIS meet and all the great people and the weather fully cooperated with everyone it was into the 70's when we arrived back at OKW. After dinner I walked down and got a couple movies from the Hanks rent and return it is great DVC owners and guests get to use the movies either DVD or VHS soon to be all DVD for free when you are staying there so we watched Dumbo and Aristocats then we called it a night.
I will have more from the rest of the trip later on hopefully before Friday if not it will be shortly after christmas when I post the rest of our trip reports I still have MGM another day at MK and Epcot to tell you about.