"Good Morning! No Sleeping!"- A Mother/Daughter January Getaway *Update 5/13*

[Jazzabelle508]

:stitch:"GOOD MORNING! NO SLEEPING!":stitch:

Hello Everyone and Welcome to The Show!

My name is Jenny and I will be your Skipper, Tour Guide, Alligator Wrestler, and Swimming Instructor on this TR!

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I am 20 years old and am a HUGE fan of all things Disney! I was raised in a very Disney filled household and have been to Disney at least once a year (sometimes twice a year) every year since I was born!

I know the theme parks like the back of my hands and have loved every Disney movie that I have seen. I have a ton of Disney music on my iPod and even have a full playlist devoted to Disney! I love the Disney documentaries and LOVE planning Disney vacations!

In addition to all things Disney I am also a HUGE fan of Harry Potter!

I have seen each movie and read each book multiple times, I went to all but the first three midnight movie releases, went to the last three midnight book releases and have taken two treks to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (one of which can be read about in this TR



Here are some of my Disney Favorites!

Favorite Theme Park: Magic Kingdom (EPCOT is a very close second!)
Favorite Table Service: Ohana and Le Cellier
Favorite Counter Service: Casey’s Corner and Pizza Planet
Favorite Snack: Earl of Sandwich Brownie Crème
Dream Resort: Yacht/Beach Club
Favorite Disney Princess: Ariel/Belle
Favorite Nighttime Firework Show: Illuminations


And now for my Mom (A.K.A My Disney Buddy)

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Coming with me on this Journey to the Happiest place on earth is my Mom. We happen to be super close and she happens to love Disney as much as I do!

She also is big on the Disney music, movies, planning and the parks! She is the main reason why I think that I love Disney as much as I do! My mom has raised my brothers and I with tons of Disney stuff!

She has taken my brothers and I on numerous Disney trips growing up so all of those combined with a couple of trips with just her and my dad would bring her trip total to at least thirty times!

She also loves Harry Potter but nowhere near as much as I do (I am a boarderline super fan here).


Here are some of her Disney Fun Facts
Favorite Theme Park: EPCOT (Magic Kingdom is a very close second!)
Favorite Table Service: Le Cellier/Ohana
Favorite Counter Service: Casey’s Corner and Pizza Planet
Favorite Snack: Earl of Sandwich Brownie Crème
Dream Resort: Wilderness Lodge
Favorite Disney Princess: Belle
Favorite Fireworks Show: Illuminations

Now for some Trip Facts

Trip Length?: 11 Days/10 Nights
Staying at?: POP Century
DDP?: Yes
Trip Title?: We find the good morning wakeup call featuring Stitch hillarious and frequently quoted it on our trip

Now that we have taken care of business, let’s get started!

Are you ready? Well I hope so because it’s “Off to Neverland!” :tink:

[Jazzabelle508]

Table of Contents :)


Real Life Updates

Link to my Food Review (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44182258&postcount=78)

Social Networking and Life Stuff (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44362073&postcount=99)


Life Update #3 (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44814164&postcount=113)


DAY 1- JANUARY 8th, 2012

WERE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!!! (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43805398&postcount=11)

A Stroll Down Memory Lane (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43836971&postcount=28)

The Most Magical Resort In The Wilderness (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43901529&postcount=37)

A Crazy Dining Experience (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43917749&postcount=46)

Best Surprise of the Night (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43947915&postcount=56)


First Night In Disney (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44013660&postcount=65)

I'm Walking Right Down The Middle Of Main Street USA (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44013789&postcount=66)

Day 1 Top Ten List (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44031958&postcount=69)



Day 2- JANUARY 9TH, 2012

A Star Studded Morning (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44033315&postcount=71) ... Continued (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44077683&postcount=74)

"I Can't Find my Mom"- Dining in the 50's (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44198582&postcount=80)

Playing With Some Toys and Some More Afternoon Exploring (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44208072&postcount=83)

Enchanted Objects, Finales and Extra Magic Hours, OH MY!! (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44215500&postcount=87)



Day 3- January 10th, 2012

"Your A Wizard Harry! I'm A What?" (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44372905&postcount=106)

Hogwarts, Three Broomsticks, Honeydukes, OH MY!!! (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44531640&postcount=110)

A Goblet Of Fire Fest (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44532393&postcount=111)

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44559438&postcount=112)

Return To Disney And The Dinner I Have Been Looking Forward To For A Year!!! (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44814401&postcount=114)

"This Lady Is Using Me As A Tripod" (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44877710&postcount=122)

[Disneyfreak616]

I'm here! So excited for this! :woohoo:

Edit: and I'm first!!! :yay:

[IheartDDuck]

Subbing! :thumbsup2

[Kelliroo3]

Sounds fun! I'm in. :thumbsup2

[Jazzabelle508]

I'm here! So excited for this! :woohoo:

Edit: and I'm first!!! :yay:

:welcome: and Yay :) Hope I live up 2 expectations!

Subbing! :thumbsup2

yay :) and :welcome:. Hope you enjoy it! P.S: I noticed you are from Chicago in your location section on the left side of your post, I'm also from the chicago area in the northwest suburbs :)

Sounds fun! I'm in. :thumbsup2

yay :) and :welcome: It was alot of fun! i have a lot of fun stories to share with everyone :)

[wakica]

Hahahaha, I LOOOVE your title :) It really caught my attention b/c that's our motto too on Disney holidays - NO SLEEPING! Well at least no sleeping in anyway :)

Looking forward to seeing more!

[Jazzabelle508]

Hahahaha, I LOOOVE your title :) It really caught my attention b/c that's our motto too on Disney holidays - NO SLEEPING! Well at least no sleeping in anyway :)

Looking forward to seeing more!

Glad my title is so enjoyable!

[__disneygirl]

I had to join in as soon as I saw your title... Mickey and Stitch calling in the morning is seriously one of my FAVORITE things in the world... my mom and I actually quote the phone call to each other almost daily. LOL! :stitch:

[Mrs. Sojourner]

Can't wait to hear all about it! :)

[Jazzabelle508]

WERE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!

January 7th 2012

The day before we left for Disney was kind of hectic. We spent the whole day packing and getting everything ready to go for the next day.

The night before we went to a local tanning salon and got pre-disney spray tans because we didn't want 2 be in disney looking completely pale.

After getting those done we did some last minute shopping and went 2 Corner Bakery. It was good but not anywhere near the level of food that Disney provides.

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Once we got back home we finished packing. As we were finishing packing our cat decided to go and sit on one of our suitcases. He does this on every trip anyone in our family goes on. It usually is a sign that he senses we are about 2 go on a trip and then pretty much goes everything he can to get some last minute attention before people leave him.
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January 8th, 2012

The next day I set my alarm for 6 am but didn't end up getting up untill 6:15 am.

I took a shower, dryed and straightened my hair, finished packing and dropped something off at my friend's house.

Once I was done with all that I still had a hour to go before my brother was coming to drive us 2 the airport.

During that time my mom and I began to talk about our trip plans as she finished her packing.

We realized after looking at the weather for the trip that the one day that it was suppose to rain and thundershower significantly happened to be our Harry Potter Day.

We made a last minute decision to move up our harry potter day to the day before and turned our original harry potter day into a shopping day.

We also decided to make a last minute switch on our coral reef reservations from Lunch to Dinner.

After we made those changes we only had 2 wait a few more minutes untill my brother came.

Once my brother came we loaded up his car and were on the road by 8:30. We made great time getting 2 the airport and were waiting for the skycap by 8:45.

Unfortunately we seemed to have picked the wrong side of the line and were waiting for 20 minutes before the skycap got 2 us.

We were behind this family that was moving to the dominican republic so they had A TON of luggage!

Pretty much everyone before us also had gone over there weight limit for there check in luggage and had 2 move things around so we were pretty nervous we were going 2 be over the weight limit.

Luckily by the time we FINALLY got our luggage checked in things went super quick and we were inside waiting 2 go through security in no time.

Once we were inside the airport everything went a lot quicker. We got through the security station quickly and without issue which is ALWAYS a good thing!

After we got through security we had a little bit more than an hour until our flight was scheduled 2 board so we decided 2 get some breakfast.

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The american terminal at our airport has a whole food court right past security which makes waiting for a flight after security a little bit better.

We decided after exploring our options that we wanted to get McDonald's. My mom got a egg mcmuffin and I got a cinnamon melt and a hash brown.

I do really love the cinnamon melt at mcdonalds, however i didn't take a picture of our food because it really wasn't anything 2 out of the ordinary and I needed to save room on my camera for all of the exciting Disney food that was 2 come!

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After we finished eating we sat in the food court area for a while because we didn't feel like just sitting at our gate when we were perfectly comfortable here. I worked on my trip journal while my mom took this picture and was figuring out whether or not the mc donald's in our airport actually had free wifi (It did not). We also played disney trivia and looked at disney food menus and different news articles about disney stuff.

After a while we decided we really should try and find our gate. We found it quickly and easily which was great because we only had 10 minutes until our flight boarded.

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When we got 2 the gate there weren't any seats available so I just stood next 2 the window and watched them prepare the plane 4 our flight and took this picture.

After a couple of minutes a seat opened up so I snatched it up despite the fact we were going to board our plane soon.

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Here was the screen that showed the flight details.

In no time we were boarding the plane. We were in one of the earlier boarding groups which was nice because we didn't have 2 scramble for a spot to put our luggage.

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I had a window seat and my mom had the aisle seat (It was a two person row). This was my view of the airport from the plane.

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Here we are about 2 take off!

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The flight went very smoothly and went by super quickly. During the flight I wrote in my trip journal, listen 2 music, watched some pre downloaded videos, and colored. I also took a pic of my view mid flight.

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In no time at all it was time to land in Orlando! Here is a picture of my view right after we landed.

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After we got off the plane we entered this mini terminal lobby area where they had a "life is good" store which happened to have what I refer to as "the disney shrine".

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After visiting that shop we went right 2 the airport shuttle (which at this point in the trip I refer to as our "first ride").

Once we got off the airport shuttle we went right 2 baggage claim. Our luggage came out pretty much as soon as we got 2 baggage claim which made me really happy!

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Once we got our luggage we went right 2 the budget care rental area and filled out the paperwork for our car rental.

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We ended up with a ford focus which initially we were excited about but throughout the trip we realized how much we didn't like that car. My mom had so many problems with turning the car into many different parking spots.

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After we loaded up our car we were on our way :)

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43836971&postcount=28)

[IheartDDuck]

For some odd and unforeseen reason I'm having trouble seeing your photos today. But, I'll comment on the text!

Since you live in the Chicagoland area, I'm going to assume that you flew out of O'Hare. Where free wifi would be awesome, but so un-Chicagolike. :lmao: I just never understand why places insist on charging for it, but who am I, right?

You guys arrived in Disney the day after we got home from Disney! I hope you had good weather for the week. We had good weather except for two days.

Can't wait to hear more.

[wdwgirl03]

Also joining in. :)

Yay for visiting WWOHP! I want to go back there so bad.

I love your little Polynesian pin and also your mom's castle t-shirt. :thumbsup2

[wakica]

My dd(13) saw that you coloured on the plane and now we are adding that idea to our travel stash!! What a GREAT idea :) It'll be so fun to colour some disney pics with my daughter on our way to Disney. Thanks for the great idea - See??? It's amazing how you can pick up on the little things by reading others trip reports to enhance your own vacation :thumbsup2

[Jazzabelle508]

I had to join in as soon as I saw your title... Mickey and Stitch calling in the morning is seriously one of my FAVORITE things in the world... my mom and I actually quote the phone call to each other almost daily. LOL! :stitch:

Yay :) and isn't it awesome! My mom and i LOVE that wake up call! It is so much fun to hear it every morning! and my mom and I quote that call 2!

Can't wait to hear all about it! :)

And I can't wait 2 share it!

Also joining in. :)

Yay for visiting WWOHP! I want to go back there so bad.

I love your little Polynesian pin and also your mom's castle t-shirt. :thumbsup2

Yay :) and I absolutely LOVE the WWOHP! I am so excited to talk about that day! We actually went right after they made the announcement about the WWOHP expansion so it was interesting to visit with that in mind.

Thanks :) My mom gave me that pin for that day since we were at the poly for that night :) and i also am a fan of my mom's castle shirt! it was very fitting for disney. I use to have a shirt like that with the grand floridian on it but I outgrew it since I got it in junior high!

For some odd and unforeseen reason I'm having trouble seeing your photos today. But, I'll comment on the text!

Since you live in the Chicagoland area, I'm going to assume that you flew out of O'Hare. Where free wifi would be awesome, but so un-Chicagolike. :lmao: I just never understand why places insist on charging for it, but who am I, right?

You guys arrived in Disney the day after we got home from Disney! I hope you had good weather for the week. We had good weather except for two days.

Can't wait to hear more.

yeah, I was having several issues with the photos today. I just fixed them though so hopefully everyone can see them now. I just had some issues with imageshack that needed to be worked out.

You would be correct in assuming I flew out of O'Hare. That airport happens to be right by where I live so it is wonderfully easy to get 2 from our house.
IKR? It is pretty much unheard of to have free wifi anywhere in Chicago! I really don't get why places charge for wifi either.

We had amazing weather for the most part. The first four days of our trip were AMAZING weather! In fact when it was snowing like crazy in Chicago the first time it was almost 80 degrees in Orlando. in fact it was in the high 70's and low 80's for a high for every day except for three days.

Stay Tuned :)

[Jazzabelle508]

My dd(13) saw that you coloured on the plane and now we are adding that idea to our travel stash!! What a GREAT idea :) It'll be so fun to colour some disney pics with my daughter on our way to Disney. Thanks for the great idea - See??? It's amazing how you can pick up on the little things by reading others trip reports to enhance your own vacation :thumbsup2

so glad I could help! i love learning things from TR's. This was my first Disney trip since I joined the DIS so i applied so much new knowledge that I learned from other TR's on this trip! Yeah, coloring disney pics is sooo much fun! It helps get in the spirit for the trip and to cheer you up when you are missing disney back home.

[iixheartxyouxox]

Hey, just found your TR! It's nice that you went on a mother daughter trip. I had a whole mother daughter trip planned for this past sept but had to cancel it due to a family wedding :mad: And thats funny about your cat, my dog always knows when she sees the suitcases whats happening but never seems to be upset lol. Can't wait to read more about your trip :goodvibes

[Jazzabelle508]

Hey, just found your TR! It's nice that you went on a mother daughter trip. I had a whole mother daughter trip planned for this past sept but had to cancel it due to a family wedding :mad: And thats funny about your cat, my dog always knows when she sees the suitcases whats happening but never seems to be upset lol. Can't wait to read more about your trip :goodvibes

Welcome! Thanks for following along :) Mother/Daughter trips are really special, I hope you end up getting to go on that mother/daughter trip another time! I totally get the wedding thing though and how that would affect any other vacation plans. My brother got married in december so we actually felt less prepared than usual for our disney trip because of that.

Isn't the whole animals sensing when you are going away thing amazing! I have no idea how he does it but sam always does this! Sam is a particularly people-obsessed cat so he loves spending time with everyone that walks through the room so not having people around for a lot of the trip was tough on him.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the TR :)

[newrygirl]

So excited to read your tr, we are trying to decide if we want to do a mother/daughter/sister trip. I have been to Disneyworld 10 times with my husband and kids but would love to do a trip with my mom and sister as my sister has never been, now if I can just get over the guilt factor. I am sooo looking forward to reading the rest of your trip report, dont keep us waiting too long:goodvibes

[PrincessCaitlin]

I'm in!!!

My mom and I are going on our first solo trip next month so I am excited to hear all about yours!

Glad everything went smoothly with your flight and getting your car!

Can't wait to hear about Disney!

[PlutosRHM55]

I'm here (to make sure you finish this TR)! :mickeyjum So excited to read all about it :)

[Jazzabelle508]

I'm here (to make sure you finish this TR)! :mickeyjum So excited to read all about it :)

Welcome! :) Don't worry, I am much more prepared for the task of TR writing this time around than i was last year. I'm excited 2 talk about it :)

I'm in!!!

My mom and I are going on our first solo trip next month so I am excited to hear all about yours!

Glad everything went smoothly with your flight and getting your car!

Can't wait to hear about Disney!

Welcome! :) and yay for your all girl trip! I was going 2 subscribe 2 your PTR but the DIS was acting up when I tried and i couldn't find it again :(

I am super excited 2 share about this trip and can guarantee some good stories!

I'm glad that the flight went smoothly as well! the flight there really wasn't very eventful which was nice, the flight home has a interesting story that I will mention later.

So excited to read your tr, we are trying to decide if we want to do a mother/daughter/sister trip. I have been to Disneyworld 10 times with my husband and kids but would love to do a trip with my mom and sister as my sister has never been, now if I can just get over the guilt factor. I am sooo looking forward to reading the rest of your trip report, dont keep us waiting too long:goodvibes

Welcome! :) I'm excited to share about it :) I love mother/daughter trips! I highly recommend going on one if you are thinking about it! I plan on doing a update tomorrow sometime!

[burly]

I'm in too. Wish i could have a vacation with just my mom...



KIM

[Queenofallthings]

Thanks so much for letting me know you started....great start too btw! Love all your pictures from travel day....I love travel days especially when they are taking us to Disney!

[Kelliroo3]

I love your Disney journal! Pirates. :) And of course, the coloring books! So fun.

Glad everything went smoothly with your travels. My cat used to do the same thing with the suitcases. They know that you are leaving! And, my Dad refers to the airport monorail at the first ride. lol. A great way to begin a fun trip!

Looking forward to more. I love hearing about what other people do on their mother daughter trips.

[Jazzabelle508]

I love your Disney journal! Pirates. :) And of course, the coloring books! So fun.

Glad everything went smoothly with your travels. My cat used to do the same thing with the suitcases. They know that you are leaving! And, my Dad refers to the airport monorail at the first ride. lol. A great way to begin a fun trip!

Looking forward to more. I love hearing about what other people do on their mother daughter trips.

I actually had that journal for a while but didn't know what to use it for, This is the perfect use! I am a big fan of the pirate franchise, especially Orlando Bloom :).

I am glad as well! The cat sitting on the luggage thing really was funny! Sam really does this a lot! I think I said this earlier in a comment but sam is very clingy when it comes 2 people so it is very stressful for him when we go on trips. He literally was playing musical chair with the already packed suitcases.

Thanks so much for letting me know you started....great start too btw! Love all your pictures from travel day....I love travel days especially when they are taking us to Disney!

Welcome! and no Problem :) and Thanks :) I normally don't take a lot of pictures of the traveling to Disney part of my day but since I was aware that I was going to be doing a trip report this time around I really tried to take many pics of my travel day. I am very fond of the traveling to disney days as well, traveling home days not as much.

I'm in too. Wish i could have a vacation with just my mom...

KIM

Welcome :)

[wakica]

I actually had that journal for a while but didn't know what to use it for, This is the perfect use! I am a big fan of the pirate franchise, especially Orlando Bloom :).

I am glad as well! The cat sitting on the luggage thing really was funny! Sam really does this a lot! I think I said this earlier in a comment but sam is very clingy when it comes 2 people so it is very stressful for him when we go on trips. He literally was playing musical chair with the already packed suitcases.



Welcome! and no Problem :) and Thanks :) I normally don't take a lot of pictures of the traveling to Disney part of my day but since I was aware that I was going to be doing a trip report this time around I really tried to take many pics of my travel day. I am very fond of the traveling to disney days as well, traveling home days not as much.



Welcome :)


LOL - I AGREE - Orlando Bloom is VERY nice :thumbsup2 and my cats used to do that SAME thing!!! They are SO ON TO US when we are leaving them. LOL. Now we just have a dog - he's too big to lay in the suitcase but he lays right around them and gets very mopey. They are smart!!!

[Jazzabelle508]

A Stroll Down Memory Lane

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In practically no time @ all we were approaching the Happiest Place on Earth's magical gates.

We did our standard countdown and then passed through those magical gates.

We were staying at POP Century and one of the really nice things about staying at POP is that if you enter from Osceola Parkway the resort comes up pretty quickly after that.

As quickly as we entered disney we were making our turn into POP's entrance street and then POP's entrance itself.

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Once we arrived at POP the first thing we did was check in. Since we did online check in the process was pretty quick and painless.

When we checked in we were told that our room was ready and that we were going to be in the 80's section. After we finished check in we had a couple more things we wanted to do in the main building.

The first thing we did was visit the concierge desk to pick up our luau payments, finish paying 4 the luau, and asked a few questions we had about the dining plan.

The last thing we did was buy our refillable mugs and explore the gift shop next 2 the food court.

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After we finished up at Everything POP we went over 2 our room. We had a great location that was right by both the main building and the computer pool. It was really convienent that we were near there :) I took some pics of our room as we unpacked and settled in and watched a little bit of Stacey.

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After we finished getting settled in we left for our dinner reservation. Before we left I went and took some pics of our view and the pool by our room.

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We were heading 2 magic kingdom for Extra Magic Hours but like I just said we had a dinner reservation we were going 2 first.

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43901529&postcount=37)

[IheartDDuck]

Hey hey, you've arrived! I love checkin. I think you guys were also in the building that we were in July. ;)

[MelMel11]

Count me in!!

[wakica]

woo hoo! bring it on :)

[__disneygirl]

You were in almost the exact same place we were in December! I loved staying in that section, so close to the busses. Ahh, I miss Pop so much!

[Kelliroo3]

Yay you arrived. Thanks for sharing the POP pics. I've visited there, but I have never stayed there. :thumbsup2

[PrincessCaitlin]

I love seeing the sign! I am so excited to be seeing it for myself next month!

Yay for Pop! Seeing those pics also helps me get pumped for next month!

Can't wait to find out where your dinner reservation was!

[Disneyfreak616]

Ahh Pop looks like so much fun! I really want to stay there someday! Is that Stacey I see on the TV?? :D :thumbsup2

[Jazzabelle508]

woo hoo! bring it on :)

Yay :) another update is coming up tonight :)

You were in almost the exact same place we were in December! I loved staying in that section, so close to the busses. Ahh, I miss Pop so much!

That's funny you were in the same section as we were, and yeah that location was great! Every morning it was so quick and easy to go refill our mugs and drive to the parks for the day. My mom isn't a fan of relying on only the disney buses to get us places but by the end of the trip we really contemplated taking a bus just for the heck of it because we were so close. Right before we left for florida we actually did our online check in last minute and made a spur the moment decision to ask for a perfered room and that decision really payed off.

Yay you arrived. Thanks for sharing the POP pics. I've visited there, but I have never stayed there. :thumbsup2

I absolutely LOVE pop! When I was in junior high and early high school we always stayed at all star because it was cute yet affordable but once we got old we began to phase ourselves out of the all star resorts and more towards Pop because we liked the overall theming and feel of the resort better.

I love seeing the sign! I am so excited to be seeing it for myself next month!

Yay for Pop! Seeing those pics also helps me get pumped for next month!

Can't wait to find out where your dinner reservation was!

That sign for Pop really is great and I love how much it stands out, You can't miss it! I also think the signs is super cute and it kind of reminds me of that movie with hugh grant and drew barrymore (music and lyrics) where he is one half of a washed up 80's hearthrob boy band because there band is called POP and there band used a lot of bright colors in there videos. The resort also has a lot of 80's themed stuff in their as well.

Get Excited because POP really is awesome, it has a similar layout and feeling that the all star resorts have but the feeling to me at POP is more classic Disney.

Stay tuned, I will answer the "where are we eating" question in my next update.

Ahh Pop looks like so much fun! I really want to stay there someday! Is that Stacey I see on the TV?? :D :thumbsup2

it really is fun! I highly recommend it! I think the best thing I can compare the Pop experience 2 is dining @ Chef Mickey's. It is fun, loud crazy, and cute and is an great overall experience but it is much more youthful and less elegant than most of the other resorts. I still love it there though and for me POP is a great place to stay :)

Yes you do see stacy on the TV, the whole trip I was quoting stacy! I even heard random people walking by me in one of the parks quoting her. If you ever read celebration magazine then they featured a whole interview with her, it was awesome and I totally re read it before i went 2 Disney.

Count me in!!

Yay :) :tigger: and welcome!

Hey hey, you've arrived! I love checkin. I think you guys were also in the building that we were in July. ;)

I love the whole arrival day and check in process, I literally think I was radiating happiness the whole day!

That's funny you were also in that building, such a small world (cue singing IASW children).

[Jazzabelle508]

The most magical resort in the wilderness!

Once we got in the car we knew exactly where we were going and in no time at all we were approaching our destination which was...

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Wilderness Lodge!!!!!!! We are major fans of this resort, if we could afford it we would totally stay here every trip but of course we can't afford 2 do that and we would definitely rather go 2 disney more times a year at a more affordable resort than cut down on how many times a year we go so we can stay at a deluxe resort.

Anyhow, We found a spot all the way over at the right end of the parking lot but not 2 far back. After we made a mental note of where we were parked we headed towards the lodge, but not without a few pictures entering the lodge.

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After we walked into the lobby we realized we still had about 20 minutes before our reservation so like the wilderness lodge fans we are we went 2 our favorite place in the resort which I am not sure i want 2 disclose its exact location but it is in a more quiet and relaxed part of the resort above the main lobby area.

Here are a few pictures we took of our surroundings.

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As we were soaking up the ambiance of this magical spot I took my camera and took a couple of pictures of the lobby area from where we were.

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After we finished up there we decided we should just go and check in for our dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe, a few minutes early. Luckily we did because we ended up waiting a half hour to get seated but I am getting ahead of myself here. When we checked in we got this pager and the briefed us on how it worked.

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After we finished checking in for our meal we decided to spend our time productively and continue exploring the resort.

We had a little debate about whether or not we could go outside with our pager but we ultimately decided to go outside anyway.

While we were outside we just soaked up the nice weather (I was in capris and a sweatshirt and my mom was in jeans and a sweatshirt, coming from Chicago that is amazing weather) and took a couple of pictures around the pool area since it was so pretty and we were picture happy.

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Once we were done outside we decided to check out the counter service area to see if they had anything we wanted to bring back 2 our hotel room.

Unfortunately they were out of the thing both my mom and I really wanted from there but luckily we were planning on going back 2 the wilderness lodge later in the trip so we held hope that the cupcake was still in our trip plans.

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After we checked out the counter service place we decided to kill some more time in the gift shop.

Before we went in we decided to pay a little visit 2 the disneyfied totem pole.

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I saw this really cute Wilderness Lodge mug in there but I had no real use for it so I didn't end up buying it.

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I also saw these cute/creepy Duffy style mickey ears that I wanted to model.

I know that there are a lot of mixed opinions about Duffy out there but I happen to be a fan of Duffy.

I think the concept is really cute and I like the story of mickey, minnie and Duffy.

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Even though I didn't buy those 2 things I didn't walk out of the store empty handed.

I saw a couple of cute charms that I liked so I bought them for my charm bracelet. Oh wait, I just realized I didn't explain about my charm bracelet 2 you guys.

Ok, so long story short ever since I was in 6th grade my mom and I both have had these cute and simple charm bracelets that we have collected tons of charms for over the years.

Our bracelets for the most part have the same charms on them but we each have a few charms that only one of us has.

I know this may sound like kind of a childish thing to still be doing being that I am almost 21 but it still brings me a lot of joy to collect the charms and to look at the ones I have.

We also got a antennae topper, a post card and some other stuff. After paying for our stuff we left the shop.

It was at this point that we began to wonder if we had simply missed our pager going off because we went outside.

So we decided to go and check to make sure we didn't miss our name being called.

While I took care of that my mom situated herself near the big fire place in the lobby.

When I went up to the check in area the guy that i was talking to just simply checked my pager number and told me we didn't miss getting called and that we were fine.

After checking on that I went 2 go wash my hands and met up with my mom.

She went 2 go wash her hands while I sat by the fireplace and wrote in my trip journal .

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Shortly after my mom came back she took the above picture of me and then as soon as she did that our pager went off :)

Up Next: Dinner @ WCC.

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43917749&postcount=46)

[Jazzabelle508]

:)

[IheartDDuck]

Love the Wilderness Lodge! Such a pretty place to just wander around and be. Looks like you guys made the most of your time before you got buzzed for your reservation.

Another Chicago girl here, so I know what it's like to feel the awesome weather when you're in Florida. Cold to most people, but not to us.

[Queenofallthings]

I am also of fan of WL but we have never stayed there, only dined there! I find it so beautiful and rustic....my dream home would be a log home so I guess this explains why I love it so much! Great pictures of both of you!

I laugh when we go when it's cold here and we still go swimming and people ask us if were Canadians....yup we sure are and to us this is warm in our winter months!

Can't wait to hear about your meal! We love that place!

[dara00]

joining in! I so wish my mom was a disney person or a travel person at all, but she's not. so someday I'll do the mother daughter thing with my daughter!

[Jazzabelle508]

joining in! I so wish my mom was a disney person or a travel person at all, but she's not. so someday I'll do the mother daughter thing with my daughter!

Welcome! and sad that your mom isn't disney person :( Hope you and your daughter get the opportunity to have a trip together.

I am also of fan of WL but we have never stayed there, only dined there! I find it so beautiful and rustic....my dream home would be a log home so I guess this explains why I love it so much! Great pictures of both of you!

I laugh when we go when it's cold here and we still go swimming and people ask us if were Canadians....yup we sure are and to us this is warm in our winter months!

Can't wait to hear about your meal! We love that place!

Yay for another wilderness lodge fan :) I haven't stayed there since my mom surprised me with a disney trip in my first year of high school so lately my only experience there has been dining also. I love the rustic feeling there as well. I just find the whole place very peaceful. I'm looking forward to the day we can stay there again.

That's funny how that is the dead give away of where you are from isn't it? I feel like I often get that look when in disney. Anything above 50 degree is warm 2 me in the winter months. This trip weather actually for the most part was nice even by florida terms. we had three nights that got really cold but it was a 11 day trip so that was nothing.

Love the Wilderness Lodge! Such a pretty place to just wander around and be. Looks like you guys made the most of your time before you got buzzed for your reservation.

Another Chicago girl here, so I know what it's like to feel the awesome weather when you're in Florida. Cold to most people, but not to us.

yay for yet another wilderness lodge fan reading this TR :) I love just being there. I feel like there is always something interesting to see and check out there. and I don't like just sitting and waiting if i am some place where I could do other stuff in the meantime.

and yep, gotta love chicagoeans (well, any northerners for that matter) reactions to the weather. Northerners put up with a lot of crazy winter weather so anything even remotely close to warm is great to us. although the weather yesterday and today was pretty great so I can't really complain about weather, especially considering this time last year we were dealing with snowpocolypse.

[wakica]

WL is gorgeous!! and what a BEAUTIFUL pool!!!

I LOVE the idea of those buzzers - who wants to stand around waiting??? It's nice to wander around and enjoy the atmosphere while you wait. Less like waiting then :)

Great start!!!

[Jazzabelle508]

WL is gorgeous!! and what a BEAUTIFUL pool!!!

I LOVE the idea of those buzzers - who wants to stand around waiting??? It's nice to wander around and enjoy the atmosphere while you wait. Less like waiting then :)

Great start!!!

Agree with everything you just said! I am the type of person who gets bored easily if they are waiting in the same area for 2 long. I love the fact that I can explore the area and walk around so the time goes by faster. Even though we were waiting a half hour for our table it really didn't feel much longer than 10 minutes which is something I like.

and Thanks :) I am thinking about doing another update tonight. If I don't do it tonight I will do it tomorrow.

[PrincessCaitlin]

WL is such a pretty resort! It would be perfect for a holiday trip :cloud9:

So cute about your charm braclet!!!

Can't wait to hear about your dinner!

[Jazzabelle508]

A CRAZY DINING EXPERIENCE

Once our pager went off we went into Whispering Canyon for our first meal of the trip.

As we were turning in our pager they were having the classic Pony Races for the kids.

I unfortunately wasn't at a good angle to get a picture of this and my camera was buried at the bottom of my bag so I didn't get a picture of these races but they were super cute and entertaining.

It brought me back to the days when I was a little kid participating in those races.

I loved doing them and they passed out cookies at the time so there was a reward as well.

When they stopped giving out the cookies when I was in fifth grade they handed out certificates instead which was still fun but we missed the cookies.

We had to wait for the races to end before being lead to our table, but once they were done we were immediately seated.

Here was where the disappointment of the dinner began. For those of you who haven't dined at whispering canyon before the restaraunt has a couple of sections.

The first section is the main section of the restaraunt and that is the one that most people are sat in and it is the one that has the most rucus (Sp?).

Then there is the other section that I like to call the quiet section. This section is tucked behind a corner of the restaraunt. They only have a few tables back there so it isn't anywhere near as crazy or fun as the main section.

Well, since I am telling this whole story you can probably guess which section we were in.

I tried to stay upbeat and positive about it but I was really disappointed with where we were. If the restaraunt weren't as crazy as it was I probably would have asked to wait a little bit longer for a table in the main section but I really didn't want 2 stress out the people working there even more and come across as being super picky.

When we got seated my mom and I pollitely asked the people in front if we could get some kids menus by insisting we were "kids at heart". My mom is a former kindergarten teacher so she likes to ask for kids menus when we go 2 disney restaraunts since they are so much fun.

After a little bit of teasing from the lady that brought us to our table we got them and began coloring.

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They were nice enough 2 give us 2 menus which was awesome! One was cars themed and the other one was winnie the pooh themed.

We weren't waiting very long at all when our server came up to our table. After introducing herself she took our drink orders right away.

My mom and I both got milkshakes, mine was chocolate and my mom's was carmel.

She was super excited to try it because she remembered this awesome milkshake from when she was a kid that was carmel flavored.

When she took our drink orders she also asked us if we were ready to order our meal as well which we were.

We both decided we wanted the canyon skillet. It had been a few years since we came there for dinner and my mom knew how amazing it was. I had personally had the skillet before because of my being a picky eater.

However, over the past few years since we had been there for dinner my palate has grown a lot so I got the skillet 2. After no time @ all our milkshakes came 2 the table. The first picture is the carmel milkshake and the second one is the chocolate one.

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I can't really say I didn't like the milkshake but I didn't love it. The taste was fine but the conistency was weird.

The shake was more like soft serve ice cream whipped into milkshake form rather than an actual milkshake.

It tasted more vanilla-y than chocolate-y to me (probably for the above stated reason).

I tried some of my mom's milkshake and hers was the same way except I tasted more of the carmel in hers than I tasted the flavor in mine.

She didn't particularly care for hers either. I know that a lot of people do like these but for some reason we didn't.

My entire family is extremely judgmental of any kind of ice cream based thing so we are probably being very over critical right now.

Pretty soon after we got our milkshakes the cornbread and the salad came out.

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I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THE CORNBREAD!!!! If I didn't need to share it with my mom I would have probably eaten that ENTIRE THING!!!!! I absolutely loved the taste and consistency of it. I have heard some criticisms of the cornbread online but I really loved the bread. My mom liked the bread a lot as well.

As for the salad, my mom really loved the salad. I was super excited to try some of the salad but then I was told it already had dressing on it. I like salads a lot but I am one of the few people in the world who prefers a plain salad. I think it goes back 2 the fact that I don't like viniger and most dressing have some type of viniger on them.

I tried a little bit of the salad anyway and thought the vegetables themselves were good but wasn't a fan of the dressing.

After we had our salad and bread we saw the table by us was doing the standard "We want ketchhup!" call. There server was hillarious (It was the same one who was teasing us about the kids menus). After they were done with that call the server came over 2 our table and was checking on us 2 make sure we were working on those kids menus we were "begging" her for.

It was pretty hillarious and made up for the somewhat subdued atmosphere we had been experiencing so far.

Our server was super nice and everything but she was one of the less wild and crazy servers (those of you who have dined @ WCC probably know those type of servers I am talking about).

She did a great job other than the wild and crazy thing though so I really can't complain.

As the server from the other table was checking on us our server came up with our skillet.

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I absolutely LOVED the corn and the chicken! I had 2 huge pieces of chicken and some corn. They were both awesome! I loved how juicy the chicken was! I also loved the seasoning on the chicken as well!

My mom had some of the ribs and brisket and some corn. She loved everything on her plate as well.

Neither my mom or I are people that eat a lot in one sitting so we filled up pretty quickly. We were both 100% satisfied.

I should alot mention that about half way through our meal I started to get a sore throat.

Now I am someone who doesn't get sick very often. I was starting to get a little nervous about my sore throat and just kept hoping it would go away. I told my mom about this and luckily she had some allergy pills I could take.

This was nice because then I could see if I was really getting sick or if my throat was just reacting 2 the climate change and the new enviroment.

We then decided 2 still go on with our evening plans since I wasn't feeling bad other than the throat and even that wasn't that bad and I wasn't going 2 waste my special disney time moping around. It would have 2 take either me feeling absolutely horrible 2 impact my plans.

After we finished eating my mom and I discussed our dessert options. I had read that the carmel apple pie was amazing on the disney food blog.

Another thing you should know about me is that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE DISNEY FOOD BLOG, I read there articles all the time! They had just recently came out with an article about WCC and raved about this pie. So of course being the disney food blog fan I am I had 2 get this pie.

My mom and I weren't very hungry but we did have the dining plan so we wanted 2 make as much use of it as we could. However, we definitely weren't going 2 finish 2 desserts so we got one carmel apple pie 2 split.

Pretty soon after we placed our order and got our check we got our dessert!

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While this pie was by no means bad it wasn't by any means great either.
I really liked the apple pieces themselves but I thought the top crust part was weird. It was kind of like graham cracker style crumb cake topping with cinnamon. I also wished it had some ice cream with it as well.

Despite all of this I still ate my fair share of the pie untill I literally couldn't take another bite.

Here is my overview of our meal:

Server: Dorothy, she was really nice and was super prompt and great about answering questions we had but she didn't seem 2 get in the spirit of the restaraunt.

Service: 3.5/5, we had some fun moments and we got our food, drinks and check quickly. However it wasn't as crazy as the typical wilderness lodge experience and we did wait a half hour for our table in the first place.

Food: 3/5, While the skillet, corn bread and salad were very good (especially that cornbread), the desserts could have been better.

First Visit? No, but it was our first dinner there in a long time.

Would I Return? Absolutely! Even though the experience wasn't as good as normal it is still a great restaraunt with a great setting and I am still glad this was our first meal.

Standout Dish: Cornbread :dance3:

After we paid for our meal we went off 2 our destination. Where will it be? Stay Tuned :) popcorn::

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43947915&postcount=56)

[Jazzabelle508]

WL is such a pretty resort! It would be perfect for a holiday trip :cloud9:

So cute about your charm braclet!!!

Can't wait to hear about your dinner!

Omg, I have been there the week before christmas and it is so unbelieveably gorgeous @ that time of year! They have a tree up in the main lobby and it is so much fun 2 be there seeing it.

And Thanks about the charm bracelet, I don't remember exactly how we thought of collecting the charms or why we bought them in the first place but it has been a really fun tradition we do on our trips.

and Yep I actually just posted about the dinner so you don't have 2 wait long 2 hear about it.

[wakica]

i'm so glad you posted about getting the kids menus!!! dd13 would love them but we would never have thought to ask for them now that she's older. I wonder if she could evn order off them still??? hmmm - she's a picky eater so that would be nice.
Enjoyed your review! I would have loved the shakes b/c ice cream and chocolate just can NEVER go wrong with me. ROFL but i'm NO conesour (sp??) lol. I want to have some cornbread now i bet it was wonderful!!! I'll have to try some - i havn't had it in AGES!!!

[PrincessCaitlin]

Aw too bad about the quite section!

I also love kids menus :laughing: I just love coloring in general :laughing:

Those shakes look soo good!!! I am sorry they didn't taste as good as they looked :headache:

Oh my Walt I could eat that entire loaf of cornbread :laughing: I love cornbread in general and Disney cornbread is pretty fantastic!

That food looks good and I am glad it tasted good too!

[IheartDDuck]

Hahaha, when I read your post, I was thinking that cornbread would probably be my favorite part too. I LOVE cornbread! I'm sorry that your meal wasn't the greatest, but at least it was still good.

[Mrs. Sojourner]

I'm sorry your meal wasn't as good as you had hoped, but glad that it didn't diminish your Disney enthusiasm! Wildereness Lodge is on the top of my list of resorts to explore when we are back in the U.S. Thanks for sharing the great pictures! I love to start a trip with EMH; there is just something magical about it. :)

[Queenofallthings]

I know exactly where they sat you....we were seated there when we went in Jan/Feb of 2010. I told the kids that it was probably because they were older teens and they kept the large room for the youger ones but they didn't care, they wanted to be in the middle of the fun too!

We always order the skillet...and I can't get enough of the cornbread....to.die.for!

[MickeyLuvrLauren]

I love your TR so far! Keep up the good work, I'm in!popcorn::

[__disneygirl]

Great review of WCC :thumbsup2 We love it there as well, but have only had breakfast. I really want to try the dinner though! I hope you ended up feeling better. Getting sick at Disney is the worst!

[ShaylaLynn]

Joining in! Pop Century looks so fun! That's where we were originally staying
but plans changed and now were at POFQ, oh well I think all the resorts are
beautiful! I had no idea they had a magazine!!! I'm so excited to know that
now!!!!! :goodvibes I will for sure be getting Celebration magazines now!!!! :woohoo:

[Jazzabelle508]

Hi Everyone :) Hope all of you are having a great weekend :) Mine went pretty well, On Friday I saw Beauty and the Beast in 3D since we were in disney when it was first released in 3D and both my mom and I wanted to see it :). I absolutely LOVED it in 3D! It didn't really have 3D effects but the 3D really enhanced the film. I absolutely LOVE beauty and the beast so of course I loved it in 3D. Beauty and the Beast was actually the first movie I ever saw in theaters as a 6 month old baby so that combined with my entire family's love of the movie has helped me be super into the movie as well.
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THE BEST SURPRISE EVER!!!!

After we finished up at Whispering Canyon we decided to go back outside to catch a boat to the MAGIC KINGDOM for EMH. I absolutely LOVE EMH @ MK! On our way I decided to take a couple of pics from our walk and

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All of the parks are great for EMH but Magic Kingdom is simply the best! The park was open till 11 that night which made it super conveinent to go over there that night.

Our main goals for the night were to ride Big Thunder Mountain a bunch of times that night since the next day it was going into refurbishment untill late May :(.

We were so sad about that because we LOVE Big Thunder Mountain (especially @ night!).

We were so sad that it was going 2 be closed for most of our trip. However, we were super excited when we realized it would still be open our first night there!

We were just hoping that it wouldn't break down before we got a chance 2 ride it. We were also hoping to get a couple of other rides in there as well.

The weather when we got outside was unbelievably nice still so while we had to wait for the boat for a while we didn't mind. We also happened to meet this really cute little girl and her parents in line. She was so spunky and outgoing and we really enjoyed talking to her!

While we were talking we found out that they happened to be from a town that is just an hour south of where we live so we spent a lot of time taking about that as well. We kept talking untill the boat came and then we found a seat near the front of the boat.

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It was such a pretty view! it was pretty dark out so unfortunately it was kind of hard to see all of our favorite landmarks but we didn't care because we planned to do this on another one of our MK days when it was light out and the view was still nice. Once we turned the corner on the side of the contemporary the castle came into view!

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Now we were there the second sunday of january and christmas was begining to wrap up before we got there. So imagine the surprise I get when I notice that the little tip of the castle that we can see from our view on the boat looks like it has white lights!

I see it without really interpreting it for the first few seconds and then i realize what I am seeing and then I say to my mom, "Mom, I think the castle is still decorated for christmas!"

My mom says ,"oh that's cool" But I have a feeling she didn't really see it. When more of the castle comes into view it is pretty obvious that the castle is still decorated! Unfortunately I couldn't get a good pic of the castle at this point so i'm apologize for that lack of photo in advanced.

We both really realize that fact at the same time and are so excited! I kept saying to my mom that I was glad that we still carried on with our plan to go 2 the magic kingdom that night rather than go back 2 the hotel so I could rest my throat (which was feeling a little better than earlier but I would have gone even if it was worse). Here are some pics I took from the boat on our journey!

When the boat dock my mom and i were some of the first people off the boat. As we were walking into the park we couldn't find the security people and were wondering if they weren't checking people who were entering for extra magic hours.

As soon as we both verbalized the question we saw the security guards and were checked and through the gates pretty quickly after that. Once we entered the park we decided the first thing that needed to be done was get a ton of entrance and castle pics!

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We first took my picture in front of the "Let the Memories Begin" sign and then we walked through the right side of the train station by the locker station and then we were on Main Street USA.

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Then we took a pic by the big tree right by the entrance to the park.

Then we took some more pics right down the middle of Main Street USA.

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Once we finished doing that we began the first part of our pluthroa (Sp?) of castle pics! I will let the pictures speak for themselves right here.

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After we finished up round 1 of castle pics we headed over towards frontierland to ride one of our favorite nighttime rides in the magic kingdom!

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44013660&postcount=65)

[Queenofallthings]

I cannot think of a better surprise than seeing the castle still lit up....it is stunning....you captured some beautiful moments!

[Jazzabelle508]

I cannot think of a better surprise than seeing the castle still lit up....it is stunning....you captured some beautiful moments!

I was completely surprised to see the castle decorations still up there! Last year we came to disney on January 3rd which was about a week before we got there this year and the disney christmas lights were only up on our first day then 2. I didn't think we would get 2 see any christmas lights this year because it was later in january when we got there!

Yeah we defintely maximized our picture taking opportunities this trip!

[Jazzabelle508]

Joining in! Pop Century looks so fun! That's where we were originally staying
but plans changed and now were at POFQ, oh well I think all the resorts are
beautiful! I had no idea they had a magazine!!! I'm so excited to know that
now!!!!! :goodvibes I will for sure be getting Celebration magazines now!!!! :woohoo:

I absolutely LOVE staying at POP!!!! It is so much fun!!!! I have stayed at port orleans before as well but it was a long time ago (like 15 years ago) so i don't really know that much about it anymore. I remember really enjoying the sea serpant pool though.

That magazine is great! I love getting a new issue and spending hours at a time reading it! I highly recommend it and it makes for great plane reading material! It has become part of my getting ready for a trip ritual to make sure I read some celebration magazines!

Great review of WCC :thumbsup2 We love it there as well, but have only had breakfast. I really want to try the dinner though! I hope you ended up feeling better. Getting sick at Disney is the worst!

My mom and I actually for the past few trips before this one had been going 2 breakfast instead of dinner there. While it felt weird to not be there for dinner at first I actually really enjoyed it for breakfast as well :). I learned a couple of trips ago that just because its early in the morning doesn't mean that they are any less crazy and energetic. we had this crazy fun server then and it was so much fun and a highlight of the trip! I think that previous experience was one reason why the more subdued experience this time around really made me sad.

I highly recommend there dinner! It is sooo yummy! Even though the dessert wasn't amazing this time around doesn't change the fact that I love it there and would go back in a heartbeat!

Don't worry! I did end up feeling a lot better the next day! I ended up taking some allergy medicine and did a lot of gargaling (sp?) and felt a lot better! I was so relieved that it was just allergies!

I love your TR so far! Keep up the good work, I'm in!popcorn::

Thanks and WELCOME!!!!!!!

I know exactly where they sat you....we were seated there when we went in Jan/Feb of 2010. I told the kids that it was probably because they were older teens and they kept the large room for the youger ones but they didn't care, they wanted to be in the middle of the fun too!

We always order the skillet...and I can't get enough of the cornbread....to.die.for!

I figured that our seating situation probably was for that reason as well, I agree with the kids though, I would rather be in the middle of it all. The other reason for us was probably that it was really busy and that just happened to be the first spot that opened up.

That whole skillet, bread combo was amazing! I love pretty much any kind of bread so it isn't that hard to please me with bread! If i don't like a bread then it must be really bad!

I'm sorry your meal wasn't as good as you had hoped, but glad that it didn't diminish your Disney enthusiasm! Wildereness Lodge is on the top of my list of resorts to explore when we are back in the U.S. Thanks for sharing the great pictures! I love to start a trip with EMH; there is just something magical about it. :)

Thanks :) That skillet and bread were still amazing! I would just get another drink and dessert next time around though. My mom had her eye on another dessert on the menu so we would probably get that next time.

Isn't everything about that resort just perfect! It's nice with a casual feel which is something i personally love in a resort! I don't think any other the disney resort aren't nice, in fact they are all wonderful, it's just that some just happen to be a higher level of nice and wilderness lodge for me is at the super nice level but doesn't go into the mode where you feel out of place in typical park clothes. I find it super relaxing!

No problem :) I love sharing my pics as well :)

Me 2 :) I absolutely LOVE EMH!!!!! I think it is amazing when you get 2 close the park! While I love EMH at every park I think magic kingdom EMH is particularly great!

Hahaha, when I read your post, I was thinking that cornbread would probably be my favorite part too. I LOVE cornbread! I'm sorry that your meal wasn't the greatest, but at least it was still good.

That cornbread really is to die for :)

Thanks, I'm glad that it was still good as well. i would have been really sad if it had been bad. I really did love that chicken and corn as well as the bread.

Aw too bad about the quite section!

I also love kids menus :laughing: I just love coloring in general :laughing:

Those shakes look soo good!!! I am sorry they didn't taste as good as they looked :headache:

Oh my Walt I could eat that entire loaf of cornbread :laughing: I love cornbread in general and Disney cornbread is pretty fantastic!

That food looks good and I am glad it tasted good too!


Aren't kids meus great :) I especially love them in disney because of the themes and i think that the games are great! I also am a fan of coloring in general! Defintely not just for little kids.

They do love good don't they? I happen to be pretty picky about ice cream so just because I didn't like it doesn't mean that I won't still recommend this. I think I probably would have liked this better if i hadn't had these super high expectations and had head more of a description of this particular shake before I had it. It really wasn't terrible, it just wasn't what I had expected. I am defintely more of a fan of the 50's prime time style mikshakes that are more chocolaty.

i had to use some pretty serious self control not to eat the entire cornbread by myself! I also am a pretty big fan of disney cornbread as well! I love the little muffin ones at chef mickey's :)

The food was great! I would highly recommend that skillet! even if you don't like every single thing on that plate it is still amazing! I polished off a lot of chicken and corn! I think I also nibbled on some cornbread after the meal as well :laughing:

i'm so glad you posted about getting the kids menus!!! dd13 would love them but we would never have thought to ask for them now that she's older. I wonder if she could evn order off them still??? hmmm - she's a picky eater so that would be nice.
Enjoyed your review! I would have loved the shakes b/c ice cream and chocolate just can NEVER go wrong with me. ROFL but i'm NO conesour (sp??) lol. I want to have some cornbread now i bet it was wonderful!!! I'll have to try some - i havn't had it in AGES!!!

Yeah, the kids menus are great :) They are pretty nice about giving you the kids menus if you ask for them. We personally always use the disney motto of kids at heart. I have never been told i couldn't have one to color on.

As far as eating off of the kids menus it depends on where you go. I haven't ever tried to order off of the kids menus since being on the dining plan since I was significantly older when we began doing that (in early high school). My experience was at table service restaraunts it really depends on the place. many places still let me order off of the children's menu when I was your daughters age. With desserts if you think the kids dessert sounds better than the adults dessert (which my mom and i have both found to be true) they are pretty leinent with letting you have a kids dessert if you ask in a way similar to how you asked for the kids menu. As far as counter service places are concerned they will pretty much always let you have a kids meal if you order it. I still do that sometimes if i am not feeling super hungry but want to eat something small anyway.

Thanks :) I still recommend those milkshakes despite them not being my cup of tea. I had very high and specific expectations of those shakes based on what I had read. if I had tried those milkshakes without any kind of expectations I probably would have liked it better. I found that to be true with a few things I tried this trip.

[IheartDDuck]

How awesome that you got there and the dreamlights were still on! That's one of my favorite times of year to go. The castle is honestly spectacular. My friend was surprised when we went, because she was under the impression the castle looked like that all the time. I had to explain to her that it was not the case. What a great surprise for your trip.

[wdwgirl03]

Yay for getting to see the castle lights and other Christmas decorations! It really is one of the best times to go. I love the dream lights. :goodvibes

I am so sad about the BTMRR refurb since it'll be closed still on our trip. Boo!

[PrincessCaitlin]

I still need to see Beauty and the Beast in 3d! I am so upset I haven't seen it yet since it my favorite movie of all time!

I love boat rides at night! MK and the resorts look gorgeous all lit up!

Great pics of the Castle!

[mike the canuck]

Looks like a fun trip. Following along

[Jazzabelle508]

Looks like a fun trip. Following along

Thanks and Welcome :) The trip was really fun, I have so many great stories to tell :)

I still need to see Beauty and the Beast in 3d! I am so upset I haven't seen it yet since it my favorite movie of all time!

I love boat rides at night! MK and the resorts look gorgeous all lit up!

Great pics of the Castle!

It was so good! I love that movie as well, I find it amazing that after all of these years that is still one of my favorite movies ever! I think it will still be in theaters for a while which is good.

Those boats are so magical and I love riding on them! It was so pretty to see the MK and the resorts all lit up! I was sooo unbelievably excited to see that the castle was lit up that the resorts being lit up took a back seat for that day.

Yay for getting to see the castle lights and other Christmas decorations! It really is one of the best times to go. I love the dream lights. :goodvibes

I am so sad about the BTMRR refurb since it'll be closed still on our trip. Boo!

I know, I think i was more excited about the castle and christmas decorations than I had been about anything else that day. i agree that christmas is one of the best times of year to be in disney!

:( about Big Thunder Mountain being down while you are there! I hate when one of my fav rides is down while I'm there!

How awesome that you got there and the dreamlights were still on! That's one of my favorite times of year to go. The castle is honestly spectacular. My friend was surprised when we went, because she was under the impression the castle looked like that all the time. I had to explain to her that it was not the case. What a great surprise for your trip.

It really was awesome! I literally was jumping up and down when I saw that the christmas lights were still up!

That's funny about your friend! She must have been disappointed when you told her that was only one time of year. I wish it were like that more often but once a year makes it that much more special!

It really was a great surprise!

[Jazzabelle508]

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't updated in a while, i just have been constantly distracted every time I have gone to update this TR.
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Our First Night!!!!!!

So after our castle picture extravaganza we decided to go over 2 Frontier land to ride Big Thunder Mountain before the refurbishment began the next day. Plus Big Thunder Mountain is about 10 times more fun at night than it is during the day.

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When we got to the ride we pulled out our resort cards, it took us a long time to get our cards out because we forgot about that aspect of EMH until we actually got 2 the front of the line.

Once we got our cards checked we got right in line for the ride. It was a longer line for Big Thunder Mountain but the line moved really quickly so it was only a 20 minute wait which isn't a bad wait!

We decided to go toward the left side of the line when it splits off into 2 different directions. We did that for three of the four times we rode that ride that night. Te fourth time we went toward the right.

The first time we rode it we ended up in the third row which was fun for me because I am pretty much never in the front section of the ride, we are pretty much always in the middle or back sections of the ride.

The second time we rode the ride the people sorting guests into rows and they ended up needing a part of two which was really conveinent for us because we got to skip slightly ahead in line and ended up getting the second row!

I loved being in the front car multiple times because I really got a good chance to compare ride experiences.

I noticed that the front is slightly faster and it stops slightly for a second before going down hill at the begining of the ride and when exiting both cave scenes.

After the second time we rode that ride we decided to go on it again because let's face it, that ride is so much fun and it was our only chance to ride it that trip so we defintely needed to take advantage of that opportunity!

i don't remember where we sat for the third time we rode that ride but I do know we went toward the left side again. I think it was during this ride when the ride stopped for a minute.

My mom and I just had to laugh because A) we were concerned this would happen before we got to ride it even once and B) this happened to us one time last year and they had to come and lead us through a back stage area to exit the ride. That was actually kind of fun because we got to see what is underneath big thunder mountain, we got great pictures and we got free fastpasses over it!

However, we didn't want that to happen on this particular night because we wanted to ride that ride as many times as humanly possible! Luckily this time around the ride started up again almost as quickly as it had stopped. We exited the ride and then went right back on for our fourth and final ride of the night. This particular time we decided to go on the right side because we just wanted to mix it up a little bit.

While we were waiting down there we heard someone calling our names. We then looked around for who was calling us and saw one of my grade school friends and her mom waving at us. I had gone to school with this girl since kindergarten but since we are in college we now go to different schools and I hadn't seen her in over a year.

She and her mom were just about to be finishing there vacation and ironicly enough were staying at the same resort as we were which was hillarious! We talked to them for a little bit and then our line paths split again and we hopped right on the ride.

This time we were seated right in the middle of the train. It was a great last ride on that ride!

After we finished up on big thunder mountain we decided to og over to fantasy land because we wanted to ride snow white's scary adventure because we weren't sure if that was also going to be closed the next day (I'll give you a little spoiler here: It was still open later in the trip, I think that ride has cried wolf itself and no one is going to believe they are actually going to close it until they really do close it). Anyway, on our way over we went over to a indian chief statue in frontier land right by country bear jamboree.

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my brother and his wife both went to the same school and there former mascot happened to be a indian chief (the mascot actually changed while they were in school because of legal issues with said mascot). We took the above picture for them. After taking that picture we saw these in Liberty square and just had to take a couple of pictures here.

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Once we got to fantasyland we decided to go on over to snow white's scary adventures. The line was pretty much non existent which worked out great for us! We decided to take advantage of this and take many pictures of the ride whilst we were in line.

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Once we "said goodbye" to snow white's scary adventures we went over towards dumbo since this was going to be it's last night open before the closed it down to make way for new dumbo and the ride was practically had no line.

Now, my mom and i aren't dumbo people, the line has always been super crowded and miserable and we never understood the appeal of that ride! however, this was the perfect time, place and atmosphere to say goodbye to that ride in.

We got in line for dumbo a few minutes before 11 so we got a unique site of the cast members taking apart the line poles. I tried to take a picture of this but the picture didn't come out very well.

We happened to be in the second to last group of people to ever ride the old dumbo ride which was kind of emotional and cool at the same time. my mom and i chose a pink dumbo when we got on the ride. We strapped ourselves in and took off on our flying elephants.

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While the view was really dark it was still kind of cool to see the magic kingdom in the dark. Even through the darkness we got to see the fantasyland expansion construction which was coming along nicely. we could see what we thought might be the new dumbo tent and the beasts castle.

After we finished on dumbo we decided to take a picture by the dumbo statue by the ride's exit. After we each took our individual pictures we met a nice cast member who took a really cute picture of both my mom and I in the car.

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After thanking the cast member for taking our picture we took our time leaving the park. We started out by taking some pictures around fantasyland.

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After we finished up in fantasyland we began our walk down main street USA

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44013789&postcount=66)

[Jazzabelle508]

"I'm Walking Right Down The Middle Of Main Street USA"

When We first exited the castle the first thing we noticed was that the walkway onto main street was open so of course that was the route we took.

As we were were walking down main street we took many pictures of and by the castle. Here is the onslaught (sorry for taking/using your word kristen, I just loved it and thought it fit perfectly here) of christmas castle pictures. I really feel the need to warn you that you are about to see many pictures of the castle from many angles.

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Once we finished taking all of those pics of the castle we took a break and took a picture by casey of casey's corner. This is one of our every trip pictures. My older brother happens to be named casey so that is why we are particularly in love with this picture spot.

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After taking our pic by casey we finshed up the night by taking pictures of the christmas spirit on main street USA.

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After we finished taking pics on main street usa we exited the park and went right towards the bus stop. There were a lot of people waiting for a boat so it ended up taking us a couple of boat loads of people before we left.

Once our boat arrived we opted to sit in the inside of the boat because my sore throat from dinner was starting to come back. It never got any worse than it was at dinner which was a good thing!

Once we got to wilderness lodge we went back 2 our car and drove back to POP, got ready for bed, watched stacey and wrote in our trip journals and went 2 bed.

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Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44031958&postcount=69)

[wdwgirl03]

Sounds like a fun night at the Magic Kingdom. That's cool you got to ride BTMRR so many times. I always like the back better than the front-the front seems too slow to me! LOL.

Awesome shots of the castle! So pretty. :lovestruc

[IheartDDuck]

Wow, that's awesome being able to get on BTMRR four times in a row. Good way to ring in your first night and the fact that it would be closed for the rest of the trip.

I know exactly which mascot you're referring to. It's how I always associated that school so it's weird that it's different now.

You're so right about Snow White! Every time I think it's going to be closed, it doesn't. It's going to surprise everyone when it happens.

[Jazzabelle508]

Hi Everyone :)

So Before I post the first installment of my first full disney day I realized i forgot to include something VERY important from Day 1! You see after each day in my trip journal after my notes for each day I included a top ten list for each day. My intention is to include that top 10 list after each day. Without further ado heres my top ten list for Day 1:
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TOP 10 For Day 1

1) ARRIVING IN DISNEY!!!!!

2) Cinderella Castle Decorated for the holidays

3) Riding BTMR 4 times in a one hour time period (I just realized I forgot to mention that when I was writing that update, Sorry everyone! well, now you know that fun fact)

4) Being some of the Last People to ride Old Dumbo

5) Snow White Still being open!

6) Weather

7) Our room being ready right away

8) Exploring Wilderness Lodge again :)

9) Riding the amazing wilderness lodge boats!

10) Eating @ Whispering Canyon Cafe

Thank you for remaining where you are for my top ten countdown, this TR will begin again immediately!

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44033315&postcount=71)

[wakica]

wow, those shots of the castle all lit up are BREATHTAKING!! I havn't been to WDW when the decorations were up since 1994!!!!!!!!!!! it's been so long i don't even remember them :( Thanks so much for sharing!!

[Jazzabelle508]

Day 2- January 9th, 2012

A Star Studded Morning

On this particular morning I woke up @ 7:45 in the morning which for me being from a place in the central time zone is more like 6:45 in the morning which initially felt super early to me and then I remembered that I was in disney so after that little reminder to myself I quickly woke up and got in the shower and got ready for the day.

After my shower I just got my stuff for the day together, fixed my hair and makeup and was ready to go.

My mom woke up first so once I was finished getting ready we were both ready to go so we went down to the food court and filled up our mugs with our standard hot chocolate (me) and coffee (my mom). We left our room @ 8:30 am and finished filling our mugs by 8:40 am.

We decided before we left our room that we would wait and get our breakfast in the park.

Once we got in the car and started driving we were at our destination (Disney Studios) in no time. DHS happens to be super close to pop which worked out great for us on that particular day because even though we didn't leave POP until 8:45 am we still got there a little before 9 am.

We got a great parking spot that was in the television section of the parking lot right by the entrance.

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Before going into the park my mom and I had some very important buisness to deal with and that buisness was our traditional anteanae topper ceremony!

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Basically the antenae topper ceremony is a fancy way of putting our anteanae topper on our car. We took a picture of us putting our anteanae topper onto our car and then walked up to the park entrance. On the way into the park we saw this billboard for POTC 4 which I thought was good but not amazing like the first and second one were. It was way better than the third one in my opinion though. Granted a big part in my opinon of the third one probably comes from the fact I am more of an Orlando Bloom girl than a Johnny Depp girl myself and if you have seen the third POTC movie you would understand how the third one would not sit well with me.

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Now is a good time for me to say that the weather on this particular day was AMAZING!!!!!! It was sunny with the perfect mix of blue and clouds in the sky. While our weather back home had actually been pretty nice lately we still we in full appreciation of being able to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt (or in my case a one strap tank top).

Anyway, we went through the security stand that is located before the buses unloading area and that had basically no line so we went through that quickly and happily and we were thrilled about getting through security so quickly and efficiently. once we got through security we went through the actual park entrance pretty quickly as well.

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When we got into the park it was a little after 9 so we knew immediately the first 2 things we needed to do were get lockers for our sweatshirts and jackets in case we needed them and we also wanted to get toy story mania FP as soon as possible as well!

So my mom went to get our lockers while I went over to toy story mania and got my mom and I FP for TSM.

On my way over to TSM I took these Pics.

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I had managed to avoid the complete chaos that is the first thing in the morning TSM FP line and managed to find a completely empty TSM FP lane.

I met a nice CM who gave me a FP that was for 12:30-1:30. I was surprised how late the FP was for how early it still was during the day.

After getting the FP I went immediately over to starring rolls where my mom and I agreed to meet up and get our breakfast.

I got there first so I found this great table in the sun with a perfect view of guests walking by so we could people watch.

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Pretty soon after I got our spot my mom was back from getting the lockers and we discussed what we wanted for breakfast. We both knew we wanted one of there amazing cupcakes (I know that isn't exactly the most healthy of breakfasts but hey were were in disney and how often can u have a starring rolls cupcake right?) but the real question was which one?

My mom and I decided that we wanted to try the red velvet cupcake and split it. We also got a couple of waters as well. While my mom went 2 get the cupcake I looked through camera pictures and updated Facebook.

In no time at all my mom was back and we got right to work on that puppy! We both were big fans of that cupcake! i loved the whole combination of the frosting, toffee bits and cupcake!

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We finished up the cupcake and then texted my dad good morning and then discussed where we wanted to go next.

I had heard somebody in passing say that the Rockin Roller Coaster had a 20 min wait which to us seemed like a great wait! We took some pics on our way over there.

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We got there and the ride was basically a walk on which was AWESOME!!!! Great disney karma right? For our first ride of the day we even ended up in the 3rd row which I LOVED!!!!!

I tried to pose for the camera but I only partially succeeded because of my bad timing when it comes to ride cameras.

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After riding the ride once we looked around the post ride store and saw a couple of things that intrigued our eyes but ultimately we didn't get them.

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After we finished up in the gift shop we decided we wanted to go on again since the wait was non exisitent and who knows when it would be like that again.

The second time we went on the ride the wait was a little bit longer but we really didn't mind because it still wasn't as bad as we have normally seen it and we met this cute little girl and her mom in line.

She and her mom were wearing first visit pins and it turned out that it was there first day of the trip as well! We really enjoyed talking about the different rides with her and passing on any knowledge we could possibly think of.

We talked them throughout the line which really helped the line go by quickly as well. I also took a couple of pictures of our view of tower of terror from the line and some pictures inside the line including one of the jonas brothers whom i was VERY big fans of in there hey day.

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It is so weird because half the bands up in the rockin roller coaster line are groups that I spent a lot of time listening to back in my junior high days and then other groups are brand new and i know nothing about.

I normally don't view myself as old in any way (i'm only 20 for goodness sake!) but when I babysit and the kids i'm babysitting are telling me about there TV shows they watch and the new kids channel bands they listen to and I have no idea who those groups are then I feel super old.

Anyway, in no time at all we were in the preshow area and then in no time after that we were in line for the ride. At this point we had been seperated from the family we had been talking to in line. This time we were towards the back of the ride and I did another pose for the camera.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/7016/p1010583s.jpg

After riding the ride a second time we went outside and noticed a bunch of people in yellow with cameras outside Rockin Roller Coaster. Pretty soon after we had gotten outside we noticed they were doing some promotional filming for the parks.

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It was at this point when I realized I saw those same camera men on my way over 2 TSM during the begining of the day rush and at the time i just thought they were preparing for some new show that Disney studios was having throughout the day.

We sat there for a little bit and watched them do the filming. There was a long line for people who wanted to talk in whatever it was they were making but I think i did somehow get within the cameras range the first time I saw them @ the begining of the day.

After watching the promotional crew for a little bit we went over to the creepiest hotel @ Disney Studios.


Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44077683&postcount=74)

[PrincessCaitlin]

Since I am behind I will post a tag line as to which update I am referring to :laughing:

First night

Such a great night! I love BTMRR! It is a totally different ride in the dark!

Cute pic of you and your mom in the stationary Dumbo!

Amazing Castle pics! I really don't think you can have too many!

Second day

Cute antennae ceremony!

I loved POTC4 I was really impressed with it because I wasn't a huge fan of the 3rd on either. I hope the 5th one is just as good! I also heard they are adding the mermaids to the start of the POTC ride! I think that would be awesome!

I am so excited to try that cupcake! I have heard so much about it!

Nice pose on RRC!

Sounds like a great start to a DHS day!

[Jazzabelle508]

Since I am behind I will post a tag line as to which update I am referring to :laughing:

First night

Such a great night! I love BTMRR! It is a totally different ride in the dark!

Cute pic of you and your mom in the stationary Dumbo!

Amazing Castle pics! I really don't think you can have too many!

Second day

Cute antennae ceremony!

I loved POTC4 I was really impressed with it because I wasn't a huge fan of the 3rd on either. I hope the 5th one is just as good! I also heard they are adding the mermaids to the start of the POTC ride! I think that would be awesome!

I am so excited to try that cupcake! I have heard so much about it!

Nice pose on RRC!

Sounds like a great start to a DHS day!



That is perfectly ok :)

Isn't BTMR amazing @ night? I seriously am such a huge fan of Magic Kingdom EMH!

Thanks :) I'm so glad we took our picture by that dumbo then because it was gone the next time we were there. The guy taking our picture did a great job!

I agree! There really is no such thing as 2 many castle pictures! I think I must have at least 30 different castle pictures from this trip alone.

Thanks :) I love that feeling of putting the antennae topper ON our car at the begining of a trip! We both felt like we should commemorate that moment of the trip somehow thus the antennae topper ceremony!

I enjoyed it as well! I loved the whole jack and blackbeard storyline. I wasn't so crazy about the mermaid and pirate/explorer storyline they threw in there but the jack sparrow moments more than made up for it!

There making a 5th POTC? That's awesome! I really hope they don't overdo the pirates franchise but another one is exciting! That so fun about the mermaid update as well! Even though I didn't like the mermaid romance I still liked the mermaids themselves. interesting take on the classic mermaid!

It is AMAZING!!!! I highly recommend it! I would suggest splitting it though because it is filling, especially early in the morning.

Thanks :) This trip i made it my personal mission to find every ride camera and try to make a pose on the ride pics at least once. I wasn't entirely successful but I did manage that goal for the majority of the rides we went on that had cameras.

It was a great start to the day :) I can't wait to do another update :) I think I am going to do ti tonight before I get super busy.

wow, those shots of the castle all lit up are BREATHTAKING!! I havn't been to WDW when the decorations were up since 1994!!!!!!!!!!! it's been so long i don't even remember them :( Thanks so much for sharing!!

Thanks :) That's sad you haven't seen the castle lights in so long! hopefully you see them soon! No Problem, I love to share them! :).

Wow, that's awesome being able to get on BTMRR four times in a row. Good way to ring in your first night and the fact that it would be closed for the rest of the trip.

I know exactly which mascot you're referring to. It's how I always associated that school so it's weird that it's different now.

You're so right about Snow White! Every time I think it's going to be closed, it doesn't. It's going to surprise everyone when it happens.

I know right! I loved being on that ride so many times! Nothing like BTM @ night (said in spongebob voice often on the trip!). I was super sad about it being closed for most of the trip but I am glad I got on it our first night!

yeah, my whole family grew up rooting for that school because my dad went there as well so it feels really weird to go there now and not see that mascot.

Haha yeah I really have no clue what is up with that ride, I know that is going to close @ some point because I keep seeing things about that ride's replacement so it is going to be really weird for me when that ride really does close down!


Sounds like a fun night at the Magic Kingdom. That's cool you got to ride BTMRR so many times. I always like the back better than the front-the front seems too slow to me! LOL.

Awesome shots of the castle! So pretty. :lovestruc

IKR!!!! and it was a really fun night! i have come to the conclusion that I perfer the back as well!

[Jazzabelle508]

A Star Studded Morning Part 2


After we finished up watching the camera crew outside rockin roller coaster we decided to go on Tower Of Terror.


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At this point it was probably around 10 or 10:15 in the morning and we couldn't get another FP untill 10:45. The wait time for this round of tower of terror was about a 20 minute wait total which was really nice! The outside part of the line moved really quickly so we took advantage of one really quick stop to take this pic of me.

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The millisecond after we took this pic the line moved again and it kept moving untill we got to the library style room where they tell the story about what happened at the tower of terror in the 1930's. After the movie was over we all loaded into the loading room.

This part of the line wasn't 2 long but we did have 2 wait for a bit before we went onto the ride from this point. While we were waiting here the little boy standing behind us was in the process of freaking out about the ride.

His family, my mom and I, and this group of girls that were around my age in front of us kept trying to help ease the little boy's mind by telling him that this was just a story and nothing was going to happen to him.

We ended up splitting from that group of people because the ride workers happened to call for a group of 2 and we happened to be nearby. That is one of my favorite things about being in a group of 2 because it seems like they call for parties of 2 more than any other number.

We ended up in the middle row near the center of the line. There are seriously no words I could use to help describe how much I love this ride!

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After we finished up on that ride we ended up having a few minutes left before we could get another FP. We both agreed that we wanted to get our next FP of the day @ tower of terror. Since it was such a gorgeous day outside we decided to simply hang out by the ride exit and soak up some rays.

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While we waited we decided that we were going to go 2 the 4 o'clock beauty and the beast show and the 5:45 american idol show since we really wanted to go and see both of those that day. After we enjoyed the weather for a few minutes we got our tower of terror FP (and we could get a new fastpass an hour after we got the TOT FP) and decided to check out the new star tours ride. On our way over there we found a few photo pass photographers and decided to get some pictures.

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After finishing up getting our pictures taken we then headed directly towards the new star tours line. The line moved really quickly so we ended up moving along really quickly which was both a blessing and a curse because that line looked really cool and I really wanted to check it out! My mom and I were both fans of the old star tours ride so we were sad to see the old ride go away but at the same time my brother and his wife (who had their honeymoon @ Disney over christmas) LOVED the ride and spent a lot of their DHS time checking out the different variations of this ride so we knew right away we wanted to check out this ride multiple times that day. Here are some of the pics that we took as we moved through the line.

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While my mom and I thought the ride was really cool we weren't getting the hype about this new version. However, we still got our FP for that ride later on. After we finished up on the ride we checked out the store and particularly liked a couple of things in the store.

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We finished up in the store and then left empty handed. When we were done in the store we got our FP's and then headed off 2 our lunch with some "family".

Continued In The Next Post

[Queenofallthings]

Those castle pictures are all amazingly beautiful! Great job:thumbsup2

That cupcake....yummy....can't wait to try one! It looks so delicious!

[Jazzabelle508]

Those castle pictures are all amazingly beautiful! Great job:thumbsup2

That cupcake....yummy....can't wait to try one! It looks so delicious!

Thanks :) I really love all of those pics :) Some of them were my mom's and some of them were mine, i don't remember which ones were my mom's otherwise I would have given her credit.

That cupcake really was amazing! I am a big fan of good red velvet cupcakes and those were good red velvet cupcakes! I defintely recommend splitting it personally!

[wakica]

:rotfl:LOVE the pic of your mom in the yoda hat!!!
Sounds like everything was going good!! Can't wait to hear the rest.

[Jazzabelle508]

Somewhat Real Life Update #1


Hi Everyone!

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, Every time I sit down to write this update I either get distracted or i can't find my trip journal. Normally I wouldn't care if I have the trip journal with me or not but in this particular case it matters to me a lot because it is a great update and I don't want 2 forget something really funny that happened.

Hopefully this can somewhat make up for the total lack of updates; I have started a Food Review for my entire trip. I hope you all come over there as well because as all disney fans (and especially us DISers say)
Gotta Love That Disney Food (http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2886325)

I should be back by the weekend at the latest with your latest Update pertaining to this TR.

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44198582&postcount=80) :)

[PlutosRHM55]

How is it I already get behind on this TR? I am SOOOO sorry, Jenny. But from catching up (caught up already btw), really good so far and you better finish this one or I will hold you to it ::yes:: I was totally shocked at how many rides are going under refurb and/or closing down at this time, I'm so sad, especially when I was at the parks a year ago around this time. Then with One More Disney Day... not okay... well at least you got to ride them one last time. Sorry your meal at Whispering Canyon wasn't as great as past ones, it does look like a really fun place though, may have to make ADRs there next time I go. Well... I can't wait to read more! :mickeyjum

[Jazzabelle508]

"I can't find my mom!"- Lunch in the 50's :)

So after we finished up on star tours we headed over to our lunch destination which was at...

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50'S PRIME TIME :) :) :) This is another family favorite and a must do for my mom and I every time we come to disney! The food is in my opinon some of the best on property and the atmosphere is truly wonderful as well. I love seeing what crazy things happen at this restaraunt!

Anyway, as we were walking over there it looked like it as about to rain (luckily it didn't) so we rushed over to the restaraunt and luckily there wasn't much of a line. My mom checked us in while I went to wash my hands.

When I was washing my hands i made a mental note of the soap color because these servers have been well known to ask you what color the soap is (that happened to my brother as a little kid at whispering canyon and I have seen multiple servers at 50's prime time ask that question as well so i am always prepared to answer that question). by the way, if you are curious what color their soap is at prime time the answer is blue.

When I came out of the bathroom i began to look to see where my mom was and as i did this I took a couple of pictures.

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They saw me taking this photo and decided 2 pose, love the result :)

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I looked all over the restaraunt and I couldn't find her so I tried calling her and as I was doing this the servers were calling us (they can be kind of seen in the above pic actually) to let us know our table was ready.

I went over 2 them and told them i was there but i wasn't sure where my mom was. No sooner had I finished saying that I saw my mom coming and then quickly added, "Never mind, she's coming. I think she was just washing her hands.

Once she came over there they started teasing her and scolding her for wandering off (in a nice way of course). It was obvious at this point that this was going to be a hillarious meal.

After that bit of humor courtesy of 50's prime time the older of the 2 men that were just teasing us lead us to our table. They asked us the standard "how's your trip so far?" and "where are you visiting us from" and then we got seated at our table. We were told that our server's name was going to be dorothy and she would be with us shortly.

While we waited for our server we took a couple of pictures from where we were sitting. one of the pictures was of something that reminded us of my grandma (she has these three amazing china collections all made by different craftsmen and we thought this might be another set of one of the ones she has).

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Naturally I also took a picture of one of the TV's they have in the restaraunt as well.

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In no time at all our server came up to us and introduced herself as aunt dorothy and took our drink orders. my mom got a diet coke and i got a chocolate milkshake.

We also ordered our main meals at this time as well and my mom got the chicken pot pie and I got the fried chicken with green beans instead of southern greens. a funny thing that happened as we were ordering was that our server sat down on the bench next to me and then pulled up a spare chair to put her feet up on as well.

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She was really hillarious the entire meal so that was a lot of fun considering we had gotten kind of duddy servers the past couple times we came to 50's prime time before.

While we were waiting for our food a couple of funny things happened. My mom and I were taking some pictures on our phones and our server came up and started scolding both of us for being on our phones and said "There were no such things as cellphones in the 1950's". My mom actually got yelled at twice about that.

Right after she yelled at us about our phones our server brought out our drinks. My mom enjoyed her pop but it was just pop so i won't go into detail about that.

We both shared some of my shake and it was AMAZING!!!!! I love their milkshakes here. They are so creamy and delicious and chocolately! I seriously think these are amazing!!!!

I didn't finish it though because I didn't want to be 2 full to eat my meal (normally i wouldn't care but those of you who have been 2 50's prime time before know that you want 2 finish your food there).

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As we were finishing our shakes and waiting for our main meal to come funny thing #2 happened. The younger of the 2 guys who were teasing my mom and I before (btw this guy was fairly good looking 2) We sat down came over to us and said, "i'm so glad you found your mom!". My mom and i just bursted out laughing that they would remember that and that it would come back 2 us!

Not very long after that happened our food came,

Here is what my mom had:

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My mom LOVED this! She loves the crust and the vegetables in particular. Although she ended up not quite finishing tis but that was 2 save room for dessert. Luckily for her our server didn't seem to notice this.

And now for what I had:

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I LOVED THIS!!!! The chicken is soooo amazing! I ate all of the pieces easily! The green beans were also to die for! I love there green beans at 50's prime time! I polished these off as well. The mashed potatoes were pretty good as well but I was getting super full already and i wanted to save room for dessert as well.

I then remembered that they do tend to spoon feed you if you don't finish something. however, I was getting really full so I then began to do that age old age trick of spreading it around my plate to make it look like I ate more of it than I did. BIG MISTAKE!!! yes, our server did notice and yes she did spoon feed me.

It was really funny and i could barely swallow it because I was laughing so hard. no worries though, i swallowed it with out choking.

Then my mom and i got our viewfinder to look at all of our dessert options. However, we knew what we wanted before getting our viewfinder. so what did we order? well we ordered the...

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S'MORE!!!!! My mom and I split and it was a perfect amount for both of us! I seriously LOVE these! They are super delicious!!!! We barely had to wait at all for these which was great as well!

After we polished those off we got our check and were ready 2 go to our next destination

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44208072&postcount=83)

[Jazzabelle508]

:rotfl:LOVE the pic of your mom in the yoda hat!!!
Sounds like everything was going good!! Can't wait to hear the rest.

I love it 2! she was having so much fun modeling both the yoda hat and another hat we found that was similar to the yoda hat but it featured a stormtrooper. It was going great, I love the first day of an vacation. I can't wait 2 share it, i actually just posted an update so spread the word haha :)

How is it I already get behind on this TR? I am SOOOO sorry, Jenny. But from catching up (caught up already btw), really good so far and you better finish this one or I will hold you to it ::yes:: I was totally shocked at how many rides are going under refurb and/or closing down at this time, I'm so sad, especially when I was at the parks a year ago around this time. Then with One More Disney Day... not okay... well at least you got to ride them one last time. Sorry your meal at Whispering Canyon wasn't as great as past ones, it does look like a really fun place though, may have to make ADRs there next time I go. Well... I can't wait to read more! :mickeyjum

Don't worry about it, we all get bust and I completely understand wanting to avoid the DIS when there isn't a future trip to look forward to as well.

Thanks, and I intend to! I have so many great stories so I intend to keep this one going. The trip that I had before this one was fun as well but this one was alot more entertaining and the weather was a lot more pleasent this trip as well which may affect that opinon as well.

Yeah, the rides going for refurbishment was depressing but we were thrilled that they would at least be open for one night of our trip. That was definitely our mission that first night. I understand why they do it at this time of year but it is still incredibly depressing for those of us who are there, maybe stagger the refurbishment dates a little?

I really wish I had gotten the chance to be in disney for one more disney day, that looked like it was so much fun! I know that the crowds were more than likely crazy that day but it would have been a fun thing to be a part of. Stupid school and distance from disney defintely made that not likely to happen.

Yeah, that meal was really depressing for me as well. I would still return in a heartbeat though. Just maybe on the early side of dinner instead of during crazy time. I still highly recommend it and let them know if you are celebrating anything. My trip that I went on before this one that I am writing about now I told them that I was celebrating my high school grduation (which I was despite it being 6 months beforehand) and they did this big elaborate crazy thing to celebrate my graduation. It was awesome and may have caused a little bit of my disappointment this time around. Our server that previous trip was particularly crazy and at one point was searching for a boyfriend for me which was hillarious! She couldn't find any boys my age since it was during breakfast so she got this older guy instead, it was the funniest thing EVER!!! she did a couple of other things as well but that was by far the funniest!

Stay Tuned :) popcorn::

[PlutosRHM55]

YAY! Time for some 50's Prime Time Cafe! Still angry I never made a reservation the first time I was in the world. Curse you SciFi! Anyways... gotta take note of the soaps in the bathroom. It seems to be a big deal at 50's if a veteran had to make sure to remember lol

LOL @ the waitresses posing for you, so funny. And that's so funny how your mom disappeared for awhile and the whole staff was looking for her then she shows up at the proper moment. Good thing they scolded her too :laughing: Yeah, this definitely seems like my kinda place.

:thumbsup2 to getting one of the funny waitresses! From what I've read about 50's, I've never heard of the waitresses or waiters putting their feet up while taking orders. :rotfl: That's hilarious they yelled at you about your cellphones, they really do have problems with those there, don't they? haha And the spoon feeding... oh I would just totally not finish my food on purpose so they would do that :laughing: Oh me...

Speaking of food, it does look really good. I'm usually not a chicken pot pie person but that looks quite yummy. I've heard a lot about their milkshakes and they definitely seem like the best so I'll have to make sure to get those too. And if they allow me (because I generally can't finish meals period)... that brownie is at the top of my list ::yes::

Can't wait to read more! :mickeyjum

[Jazzabelle508]

Playing With Some Toys and Some Afternoon DHS Exploring!

After we finished eating we began to walk over to Toy Story Mania. On our way over we took some pictures outside the American Idol Experience.

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Then we also saw some PP photographers and we got our pictures taken with them as well.

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After we got those pictures taken we then made our way to toy story mania where we bypassed a 45 minute wait all thanks to our fastpasses.

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My mom ended up winning our game but I was proud of my score as well.

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After we were finished with TSM we began to head over to tower of terror again to use our fastpasses. On our way over there we saw this lovely guy

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We got over to tower of terror and we noticed that once again there was a short wait so we made a mental note to ride again after we rode with the fastpasses this time.

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We sailed through the line and we ended up getting stopped a couple people from the room where they tell you the tower of terror story. While we were waiting to enter that room the two CM's working that part of the ride were discussing different ways to scare people as they entered the next room. It was at this point that I realized that I must watch 2 much keeping up with the kardashians because one of the CM's totally reminded me of khloe kardashian.

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This time when we went through the ride we ended up in the back row so of course we took full advantage of that and raised our arms all the way up!

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When we went on the ride again we ended up in the middle which was good untill we exited the ride and noticed my mom's face was blocked by someone in the front row who had there arms up. it was funny and unfortunate at the same time. We kept calling her mike wazoski.

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After tower of terror we debated what we wanted to do for a little bit and eventually decided on the Muppets. Here are a couple of pics we took on the way of the posters for 2 of our fav TV shows.

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We got to the show and walked right into the show which was both a good and a bad thing. It was a good thing because we were cutting it close to when we were planning to see the american idol experience and bad because i love the pre-show for the muppets. no worries though, we ended up getting more than enough time to explore the preshow area later in the trip.

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After we fullfilled our muppet quota for the day we then high-tailed it over to the American Idol Experience for the 4'clock showing (we decided 2 flip flop our american idol and beauty and the beast planned show times so we went 2 the idol 4 o'clock show and the beauty and the beast 5:45 show).

I seriously LOVE this show! it is super realistic and I love the whole concept. I actually have kind of a cool story to share about this attraction as well. The first time I saw this show was in august 2009. i had sporatically seen the show but I wasn't a loyal viewer. After seeing how much fun the disney experience was I decided to watch the real show the next season.

I was a senior in high school at this time and i was still living in my hometown and my town isn't so small that everyone knows everything about everyone but when something huge happens everyone knows about and if it is a good thing rallies behind it. That season American idol held a phase of their auditions in chicago and there were a couple of people from my hometown who auditioned for it. The week that that episode aired I went in for a haircut like I did month and as my hairdresser was cutting my hair American Idol came up. I mentioned that I was watching it for the first time that season and my hairdresser told me that someone who her partner cut the hair of for years auditioned for american idol and made it to the hollywood week. As the hollywood week everyone in our town became aware of this member of our town's success and it wasn't long at all until everyone was rooting for him. He then made the top 24 and that was when our entire town started having massive town voting parties and everyone did massive voting every night that he performed. He ended up making the top 3 and then ended up wining that season. It was such a cool thing to be a part of and I am so glad I chose 2 start watching the show that year. Every time I watch american idol now or go 2 the american idol experience I think of our experience that year.

Anyway, back 2 the present TR. The Idol experience is now a must do for our vacations and this trip was no exception. We ran over 2 the idol experience because the show was just about 2 start. We missed the pre-show but that was ok with us because we knew we were going 2 the finale later that night as well. We ran into the theater and found a seat just in time for the show 2 start. Here are some pics from the show.

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In our show the person that ended up going through 2 the final show that day was awesome (she is the one on the far left)! My mom and I both voted for her. She was a mom and had a more bluesy style voice. She had ran in the marathon the day before and her breath control really showed that! She also had this super fun backstory that she went 2 disney with her sons last july and they were walking down main street and this young woman bumped into her and the woman apologized and they exchanged laughs about what had happened. After the woman left she looked over at her sons and noticed they had this amazed look an their faces and when she asked them what was going on they told her that she had just had a run in with lauren alaina who was last seasons runner up on the real american idol (she was also my all time fav idol contestant). That made this lady my fav from the get go.

After we finished up at the idol experience we headed off 2 our next destination which happened to be at...

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44215500&postcount=87)

[PlutosRHM55]

Wow, way to double update lol ;) Love your Photopass pictures and the ones in front of the AI Experience, seriously that is a VERY fun show. And those are some interesting Photopass locations, I don't think I've seen them around there before, still very cool and I'll have to keep more of a lookout for them :thumbsup2

WOOT TSM! FPs can do wonders, can't they? :laughing: And I love how you were quick to get some pictures before you rode off. :thumbsup2 to beating your mom! DISers just have such a knack for this ride *giggles* Great picture with the Green Army Man, those guys are pretty awesome :)

YAY ToT! LOL @ your comparison of the CM to Khloe Kardashian, even though I'm pretty sure Khloe wouldn't be caught dead working at Disney World :lmao: Great ride pictures and I like how you have this slow progression forward. :teeth: Your poor mother though, I think her face was blocked in every picture... That's the reason why you ALWAYS sit in the front, they are the best seats and you won't worry about getting blocked in the picture ::yes::

:thumbsup2 to seeing the Muppets and the AI experience! Hopefully MuppetVision will be open when I go, not closed like the last two times :rolleyes2 That's so cool though, a guy from your hometown won American Idol! You probably already told me who it was, but can I ask... who was it? lol That's so funny how the lady who won on the show you saw bumped into Lauren Alaina. I don't watch AI anymore since I think they've kinda lost the true essence of AI after so many seasons and the original judges disappearing, but I watched last season and really liked Alaina, even though I think Haley should've won, seriously she had one of the most unique voices and what she did with songs... stunning! It was a shame she got kicked off and NOT Scotty. I wasn't a big fan of him, he just wasn't versatile like other AIs, you know Jordin Sparks, Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Hicks, etc. Well, I shouldn't get too hyped up on that since I only watched the finale really of last season so I'll just keep quiet (:

Can't wait to read more! :mickeyjum

[wakica]

So glad you posted so many details about 50's Prime Time b/c we are going there for the first time this trip :) Now I know the secrets!! HAHA, I won't tell dd and dh about the soap and I won't tell DH about finishing all the food on his plate and i HOPE he gets busted for it b/c he has this bad habit of leaving a little big on his plate ALL the time!! and i bug him about it so that would be great for him to be teased by them for doing it :thumbsup2 I WILL make sure that DD's plate is cleaned up though b/c she's a REAL picky eater and would be absolutely MORTIFIED if they teased her about it or or tried to spoon fee her :eek:

[dara00]

ok so who was the person who made the top 3 who was from your town?

[Jazzabelle508]

Enchanted Objects, Finales and Extra Magic Hours, OH MY!

After we finished up at American Idol it was finally time for us to use our Star Wars Fastpasses.

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When we got to the ride we saw that the jedi academy waas going on so we watched that for a little bit and then went back 2 our Star Wars Mission.

The line for fastpass was a lot shorter than the regular line which was great for us. When we got to the part of the line when the CM's check your fastpasses right before going inside I noticed a couple of pins that one of the cm's had was really cool.

I took a good look at the pins that he had and i quickly decided on this cute monorail pin. when we traded pins the CM told me all about the hidden mickey pins series and how pins that have a tiny hidden mickey on them are pins you can only get through trading which is something I thought was cool and i from that moment on had a personal mission to get as many of those kind of pins as possible!

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After we finished trading pins we went right onto the ride. This time both my mom and I really grew to love the ride. We LOVED the darth vader part of the ride and we knew what to expect now so I think that helped us to enjoy it more as well. While we didn't get any scenes that were different we got a couple of different characters in the ride and that made all the difference. The only bad thing about the ride had nothing to do with the ride itself but this obnoxious family sitting in front of us.

After we finished riding the ride this time we went right back on the ride. we waited for around 15 minutes and then got sorted in our row. We actually got to watch the entire pre-show for the ride which both my mom and I were super excited about because we finally understood the entire plot of the ride and helped us enjoy it even more than we were already. It was really cute as well.

After we finished the pre-show we hopped on the ride and were ready to go like always. This time we got darth vader again stopping us to look for the rebel spy. When they showed the picture of the rebel spy my mom and I started laughing so hard (well, i did. My mom didn't comprehend what had happened untill after the spy was off the screen). Why were we laughing you ask? Well, MY MOM WAS THE REBEL SPY!!!!!! It was soo awesome and I was so hoping that would happen to either my mom or I this trip. Both my mom and i then started making really strong mental notes for the rest of the ride about everything that happened during this journey so we could tell my brother and his wife who both LOVED this ride! Princess Leia was the person that came up onto our screen to tell the captain that they needed to keep my mom safe from the enemy. We also ended up in the city and the ewok planet as well. It was our best ride yet and we were so glad that our fellow passengers didn't kick her of the ship for being a danger to the ship and we were glad that darth vader didn't really try to kill her.

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After we finished on the ride we went into the gift shop and I had my mom pose for the above picture.

After taking that picture we took another picture on my mom's phone and texted it to all of our family and friends who would care.

Also I am going to say this now just because it fits so well here but we didn't discover it untill later that night when we got back to our hotel. I was watching stacey while catching up on my trip journal and it was on the DHS section of the video and her must do disney was on the new star wars experience. She then was actually on the ride and they ended up chosing her as the rebel spy (I'm sure that was planned for the sake of the video segment but it was still really cool!).

Anyway back to the present moment in the TR. At this time it was about 5:15 and we were going to go to the beauty and the beast live on stage show at 5:45. We were starting to get a little cold so my mom decided to get our sweatshirts from the lockers (we also had a change of pants as well but we thought it wasn't getting cold enough to need them yet so we just wanted he sweatshirts). Meanwhile both my mom and I also wanted to get a pina colada slush so while my mom was getting our sweatshirts I went into sweet spells and get our slush drink. We both agreed to meet in the beauty and the beast theater and whoever got there first would save our seats.

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There was a long line but it moved pretty quickly. In surprising no time at all I had the slush drink in my hand and I was at the theatre and got a seat in the back row because it was only about 10 minutes untill showtime. My mom got to the theatre with a couple of minutes to spare and we sat down and enjoyed the show and our drink (which was pretty good!).

The last time we saw this show everything about it had seemed a little off but this time they were back on track and sounded just as great as ever! We were particularly impressed with this show's Gaston. We are particularly judgmental of the gaston's we see in this show and this one defintely lived up to our standards.

After we saw the beauty and the beast show we decided to go back to the tower of terror and that wait was about 20 minutes (forgot to get a ride picture, sorry!).

After Tower of Terror it was almost time for the american idol finale. We weren't sure if we wanted to go inside the studio to watch the show or just watch it outside by the big screen in the main DHS square by the hat. We decided to let our timing decide and we wanted to make one more stop before settling down to watch the finale show.

What was our one more stop? well, I was in a debate earlier if I wanted a carrot cake cookie or not. I decided that i really did want one because it had been a while since I had it and I knew it was a great snack! Btw the cookie was just as amazing this time around and I got another one when we went back 2 DHS later in the trip. I was very pleased!

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After we got my cookie we still had 5-10 minutes before the show began so we decided to go into the main Idol theater. We got there shortly before the pep show ended so at least we got to see a little bit of it that day right? At least we got to see the original warm up guy as well and he is soo funny! I wish they would dump the other guy and just have this guy do all of the shows!

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This particular finale showing had 5 performers in it. The first girl was a 16 year old girl from colombia and she sounded great (I voted for her), there was another girl who I don't really remember super well, the third performer was a girl who was a waitress earning money for her college and she was from michigan, the fourth performer was the only guy in the group and he was a theater student who auditioned with a friend who was one of the other two performers in our original show, and the fifth performer was our person for the first show and my mom stuck by her and voted for her. The runner up of the show was the colombian girl and the winner was the college student/waitress. My mom and i did think she was talented so we didn't mind that she won. This was our first time not picking the winner of the disney show as our favorite. The vibe that I got from the performances was that the winner and the guy were the only two people up there that seemed like they were going to go audition or be able to go audition and the guy especially seemed like we was going to audition in the future.

After watching the Idol Experience finale it was time for extra magic hours. We first decided to go over to the animation academy.

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We watched the show which was cute like always and then started to explore the main animation play area.

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First we went into the drawing academy. We had to wait for a while because we got there when a class had just begun.

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That was fine for us though because we only had a couple of things we wanted to get done during extra magic hours. While we waited we talked to someone who ran in the marathon, played a little bit of guess that character and discussed our plans for the next couple of days.

The next day was suppose to be super nice and warm out and a great day to be outside and the day after that was suppose to be rainy and stormy and not as warm as the past couple days had been. Our original plans had us going to EPCOT on tuesday and Harry Potter land on Wensday.

Well, those of you who have been to harry potter land know that most of the experience involves being outside and walking around tight places outside. That really wouldn't be pleasent in rainy weather so we made the semi-last minute decision to switch our harry potter day to tuesday.

We still had a dinner at epcot that night so that wensday wasn't going to be spent in the parks. With those new plans in mind we decided to finish up what we wanted to get done in the parks and then go back to our room quickly because harry potter day is always super early.

Shortly after confirming our new plans the doors to the drawing class opened up and we rushed inside. Our animator had us draw dale of chip and dale.

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While I am defintely not the best artist in the world I am extremly proud that my dale actually vaugely resembles dale himself!

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My mom always tells me that she doesn't like her drawings either but I think this is amazing! Must be the kindergarten teacher inside of her.

After we finished up on Tower of Terror we went on tower of Terror again. I absolutely LOVE riding this ride at night! I love the added thrill it gives at night!

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After getting our thrill on at the tower of terror we exited the park, but not without a couple of pics :)

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After picking up our coats we went to our spot in the parking lot and then made the quick drive back 2 pop.

The Everything Pop Food Court was still open when we got back so we refilled our mugs with some pop and my mom got us a individual pizza to share and I went into the dessert line to get the Tie Dye cheesecake that both my mom and I were dying to try! The lines for both the pizza and the cheese cake were both really long and we ended up being done at the same time which was nice. While I was in line i saw the little girl that I had met at rockin roller coaster at the begining of the day. We started talking and while she had LOVED tower of Terror the poor girl got a headache on Rockin Roller Coaster because her head was banging around on the shoulder straps :( I felt horrible for her but luckily she was still in a good mood so that was good!

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After we got our food my mom and i went back to our room and ate our food and got ready for bed. The pizza didn't seem like it was all the day done but it was still edible so I ate it anyway (luckily nothing happened the next day as a result from that). While my mom and I liked the cheesecake it ended up being super rich so we couldn't finish it. After we finished eating we got ready for bed and set up our wake up call. My mom finished out the night playing on her I pad and i wrote in my trip journal and watched stacey. After we finished those things we went 2 bed.
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Top 10 List for January 9th, 2012 (no special order)

1) My Mom being the Rebel Spy on Star Tours

2) Our fun lunch @ 50's Prime Time

3) Meeting that cute little girl and her mom on RNRC and giving them our disney advice.

4) Great cast of Characters for beauty and the beast show

5) Riding Tower of Terror 5 Times That Day

6) My rediscovery of the carrot cake cookie

7) Our experience with the American Idol Experience

8) Reunion with Starring Rolls and the discovery of the red velvet cupcake

9) New Star Tours Scenes

10) Walking on Rockin Roller Coaster

Standout food(s): Carrot Cake Cookie and Milkshake @ 50's prime time

Continued In The Next Post

[Jazzabelle508]

So glad you posted so many details about 50's Prime Time b/c we are going there for the first time this trip :) Now I know the secrets!! HAHA, I won't tell dd and dh about the soap and I won't tell DH about finishing all the food on his plate and i HOPE he gets busted for it b/c he has this bad habit of leaving a little big on his plate ALL the time!! and i bug him about it so that would be great for him to be teased by them for doing it :thumbsup2 I WILL make sure that DD's plate is cleaned up though b/c she's a REAL picky eater and would be absolutely MORTIFIED if they teased her about it or or tried to spoon fee her :eek:

No Problem :) yeah there is definitely a distinct protocal for that restaraunt. you will love it! It is such a fun experience and I love going there and I hope you do 2!

I completely understand the picky eater thing. i am also a really picky eater so i have definitely had my fair share of being spoon fed things i didn't like. I actually go spoon fed the southern greens a few years ago and now i make absolute sure that i order the green beans instead. I recommend that for the sides and veggies that she substitute any thing that comes with the meal that she doesn't like with something else that she will eat. It will spare a lot of awkward being spoon fed moments later.

When it comes to dining at 50's primetime the teasing is a huge part of it and you definitely want to get as much of that in as possible. i have been know to break certain table manners rules and certain 50's prime time rules on purpose just to get that experience :confused:

Wow, way to double update lol ;) Love your Photopass pictures and the ones in front of the AI Experience, seriously that is a VERY fun show. And those are some interesting Photopass locations, I don't think I've seen them around there before, still very cool and I'll have to keep more of a lookout for them :thumbsup2

Sorry about that! I hadn't updated in a while before this point and i really wanted to do a little bit of catch up on these updates. And thanks :) I love that show 2 as you can probably tell :). There aren't always photopass people in those locations so we defintely wanted to make sure we got those pics when we got the chance.

WOOT TSM! FPs can do wonders, can't they? :laughing: And I love how you were quick to get some pictures before you rode off. :thumbsup2 to beating your mom! DISers just have such a knack for this ride *giggles* Great picture with the Green Army Man, those guys are pretty awesome :)

I love the whole concept of fastpasses! They really do have a huge impact on park touring. I don't know what I would do without them. I love those ride vehicles and 3d glasses so I wanted to make sure to get a pic of them boht. My mom looked at the one of both of us and got furious that I took it when she was looking down:rolleyes1. I think the secrets are simply in reading all of the tips to improve on the ride. last year I beat my mom everytime we went on buzz lightyear in the magic kingdom and it was because of all of those secrets i read about online. and Thanks :) I love those guys 2! I was sad I didn't get 2 see them do there show that they always do as well :(

YAY ToT! LOL @ your comparison of the CM to Khloe Kardashian, even though I'm pretty sure Khloe wouldn't be caught dead working at Disney World :lmao: Great ride pictures and I like how you have this slow progression forward. :teeth: Your poor mother though, I think her face was blocked in every picture... That's the reason why you ALWAYS sit in the front, they are the best seats and you won't worry about getting blocked in the picture ::yes::

I love TOT sooo much! I really do need to ride that ride as much a possible while in DHS! and Yeah I fund it hillarious how much she reminded me of her! Yeah i'm pretty sure they wouldn't be caught dead in disney world (except maybe if they had mason with them) let alone working there. I love all of those pictures as well! yeah we had to laugh at her bad luck with that. Our whole family has a tendency to have mike wazoski syndrome when it comes to being in pictures. Whne we did sit in the from we we soooo happy! One time our picture didn't show up and we were so upset because we were in front :(.

:thumbsup2 to seeing the Muppets and the AI experience! Hopefully MuppetVision will be open when I go, not closed like the last two times :rolleyes2 That's so cool though, a guy from your hometown won American Idol! You probably already told me who it was, but can I ask... who was it? lol That's so funny how the lady who won on the show you saw bumped into Lauren Alaina. I don't watch AI anymore since I think they've kinda lost the true essence of AI after so many seasons and the original judges disappearing, but I watched last season and really liked Alaina, even though I think Haley should've won, seriously she had one of the most unique voices and what she did with songs... stunning! It was a shame she got kicked off and NOT Scotty. I wasn't a big fan of him, he just wasn't versatile like other AIs, you know Jordin Sparks, Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Hicks, etc. Well, I shouldn't get too hyped up on that since I only watched the finale really of last season so I'll just keep quiet (:

I love both of those shows so much and we went back 2 both of them later in the trip so that won't be the last time you see them in this TR! yeah, we all thought it was amazing! I think that is one of the more fun experiences I have had in my hometown :) I love telling people that whole story and i love just thinking about that whole thing. I still have my 2 t-shirts the town made to get people to vote for this guy. The contestant was Lee Dewyze from season 9. Even though it is considered to be idol's worst season to date it is still a cool story. Our hometown was the one that had the lime green vote from lee shirts on. The even funnier part of that story that i forgot to mention in my update was that my brother actually knew him (not well but still). yeah I was filpping out about the lauren alaina thing. She really was awesome wasn't she? Haley was pretty talented but her singing style isn't a style i particularly like so it is hard for me 2 really see the talent there in general. however Haley was also from a town nearby me and my mom and I were at costco during her homecoming weekend and we saw her limo driving by which was so cool! i actually know a few people who are friends with her.

Can't wait to read more! :mickeyjum

I can't wait to share more :) I just posted an update actually so check it out when you get the chance :)

[Jazzabelle508]

ok so who was the person who made the top 3 who was from your town?

Lee Dewyze from the 9th season. Haley reinhart from season 10 was from a town right by mine as well and my mom and i saw her limo in a costco parking lot during her hometown visit. I also know a bunch of people who are friends with her as well.

For Lee my brother actually knew him as well. The whole experience of having an idol from your hometown 9no matter how unpopular that season happens to be) is one of the most amazing things ever. I love thinking back to that time in my life because i was finishing up high school so the whole experience had amazing timing! Unfortunatly he didn't perform at our high school (he attended my old high school fro his first three years of high school) untill after my graduation but it was so much fun to have the hometown visit ad concert. Our town like I said had a bunch of weekly voting parties for him and it really did bring everyone together and tuesdays were dubbed Lee Dewyze day.

[PlutosRHM55]

What a great way to end your day at DHS! :)

That's so awesome your mom was the Rebel Spy. Too bad she didn't get to really see it when it showed up. I'm really trying to claim my position as the rebel spy on my next trip ::yes:: A bit obsessed? Yes, I am. lol That's awesome you enjoyed the ride this time around! And so cool that it is now part of Stacey's Must-Do Disney :thumbsup2 to the CM telling you about Hidden Mickey Pins, very fun, very fun :teeth: And another thumbs up to the Rebel Spy t-shirt picture!

Oooooo... that slushy looks really good (never knew that place sold beverages) though I'm not a fan of anything pineapple related, but sometimes the more juice-like kind are usually what I end up liking. Glad to hear the show was better than your last experience! Gaston really does stand out in the Beauty & the Beast shows there, even though a bad Belle is what would ruin it the most, for me anyways.

:thumbsup2 to Tower of Terror and the Carrot Cake Cookie (gotta make a note to try that)! So jealous you got to see the Finale show of the AI Experience, I really want to see it next time. I totally agree about the warm-up guy too, he is awesome! The first time I saw the show, he teased my mom for being on the phone (we were in the front row), it was pretty funny. The Ryan Seacrest guy is just a bit too corny, doesn't work for me :sad2: OH and yeah, the answer to that question: Kodak Theater (so smart!) Sorry your person didn't win the finale though... another day, another show though! :)

:thumbsup2 to the Animation Academy! Still can't believe I've not gone there over my two trips of a culminated 11 days >:( And good thing you found out about the weather, that wouldn't have been fun in WWoHP :/ :thumbsup2 to drawing Chip & Dale and your last ride on Tower of Terror, definitely the best last thing to do right there ;)

Mmmmm... Tie-Dye Cheesecake, looks like a new must-have for me on my next trip (if I stay at POP) :goodvibes

Glad to see you had an overall nice day! Can't wait to read more! :mickeyjum

[wakica]

OOOOHHH! SO fun that your mom was the rebel spy!! I'm not going to tell dd and dh about that either - i hope one of them gets picked! lol. If not - we'll just have to ride it again and again. :laughing:

Sounds like it was a very full and fun DHS day :thumbsup2

Looking forward to seeing your WWOHP time!! We plan to go there - we do Universals every trip down but Harry Potter wasn't open yet the last time so this will be our first time in there :woohoo:

[dara00]

Lee Dewyze from the 9th season. Haley reinhart from season 10 was from a town right by mine as well and my mom and i saw her limo in a costco parking lot during her hometown visit. I also know a bunch of people who are friends with her as well.

For Lee my brother actually knew him as well. The whole experience of having an idol from your hometown 9no matter how unpopular that season happens to be) is one of the most amazing things ever. I love thinking back to that time in my life because i was finishing up high school so the whole experience had amazing timing! Unfortunatly he didn't perform at our high school (he attended my old high school fro his first three years of high school) untill after my graduation but it was so much fun to have the hometown visit ad concert. Our town like I said had a bunch of weekly voting parties for him and it really did bring everyone together and tuesdays were dubbed Lee Dewyze day.

so he wasn't just the top 3, he won, didn't he??

[Jazzabelle508]

What a great way to end your day at DHS! :)

:thumbsup2

That's so awesome your mom was the Rebel Spy. Too bad she didn't get to really see it when it showed up. I'm really trying to claim my position as the rebel spy on my next trip ::yes:: A bit obsessed? Yes, I am. lol That's awesome you enjoyed the ride this time around! And so cool that it is now part of Stacey's Must-Do Disney :thumbsup2 to the CM telling you about Hidden Mickey Pins, very fun, very fun :teeth: And another thumbs up to the Rebel Spy t-shirt picture!

I was sooo excited when her face popped up on the screen :) She did see her face up there but it didn't sink in untill it was off the screen :(. That is awesome you want 2 try to be the rebel spy! i'm not exactly sure how the rebel spy selection works but i think that if you are in the front of your line before entering in the cabin and are looking up at the screen while waiting you stand a pretty good chance @ some point. I don't think that goal is so obsessive but i had the same goal for @ least one of us so maybe i'm not the best judge on whether or not that is obessive. It was really funny when i was watching that because right before the rebel spy part i was thinking she should be the rebel spy. That was one of my fav pin trading experiences of the trip. i just keep them in bags while touring because i'm not a fan of the lanyards. I actually got the idea that if my mom or i were the rebel spy that we should take a picture with that shirt from another TR.

Oooooo... that slushy looks really good (never knew that place sold beverages) though I'm not a fan of anything pineapple related, but sometimes the more juice-like kind are usually what I end up liking. Glad to hear the show was better than your last experience! Gaston really does stand out in the Beauty & the Beast shows there, even though a bad Belle is what would ruin it the most, for me anyways.

It was! i would definitely say it is more slushy and less juicy so i'm not sure if it would be your cup of tea if you perfer your pineapple drinks more juicy. it also had less of a pineapply taste and more of a artifical coconut flavoring. i liked it but it is a drink that has mixed reviews. I was very pleasently surprised by the show! it had been a couple of years since we had last seen it so i'm guessing there were a few casting changes in between the 2 most recent shows we saw.

:thumbsup2 to Tower of Terror and the Carrot Cake Cookie (gotta make a note to try that)! So jealous you got to see the Finale show of the AI Experience, I really want to see it next time. I totally agree about the warm-up guy too, he is awesome! The first time I saw the show, he teased my mom for being on the phone (we were in the front row), it was pretty funny. The Ryan Seacrest guy is just a bit too corny, doesn't work for me :sad2: OH and yeah, the answer to that question: Kodak Theater (so smart!) Sorry your person didn't win the finale though... another day, another show though! :)

That show really is amazing! I love being outside as much as i like being in the theater so when your in that park it is easy 2 see the show. both tower of terror and the cookie were awesome! i agree about the ryan seacrest guy! and 2 funny about your mom! i can totally picture him doing that despite not being there. The interesting thing about your answer is that most of the people in our theater (myself included) said the same thing and it turned out 2 be the Nokia theater :(. yeah we were sad but all of that went away when we came back 2 the experience on our other DHS day.

:thumbsup2 to the Animation Academy! Still can't believe I've not gone there over my two trips of a culminated 11 days >:( And good thing you found out about the weather, that wouldn't have been fun in WWoHP :/ :thumbsup2 to drawing Chip & Dale and your last ride on Tower of Terror, definitely the best last thing to do right there ;)

I love the animation academy! it is so much fun! we go as often as we can 2 those drawing classes when in dhs! yeah we were both glad we changed those days. we were especially glad after those 2 days had past but i am getting ahead of myself here! i agree about tot as well! and it was really fun drawing them because i had never drawn them before!

Mmmmm... Tie-Dye Cheesecake, looks like a new must-have for me on my next trip (if I stay at POP) :goodvibes

It was pretty good! neither my mom or i eat alot of cheesecake which is i'm sure a big contributor to our opinons. despite it being rich i still recommend it!

Glad to see you had an overall nice day! Can't wait to read more! :mickeyjum



:)

[wdwgirl03]

What a great day at DHS! Glad you enjoyed the Prime Time Cafe. It's been a few years since I've been there but it's always fun.

Gotta love the American Idol Experience. The guy who comes out before the show to pump up the crowd (the one in your picture!) is hilarious.

That's cool your mom was the rebel spy!

[aspiringprincess1]

I'm here! I hopped over from your post on mine, and I wanted to let you know that I am reading along! I have to go back and catch up! Can't wait to read all about it! :)

[Jazzabelle508]

I'm here! I hopped over from your post on mine, and I wanted to let you know that I am reading along! I have to go back and catch up! Can't wait to read all about it! :)

Hi and :welcome: I love when I get people reading my TR from TR's that i've been reading, Hope you enjoy the TR :)

What a great day at DHS! Glad you enjoyed the Prime Time Cafe. It's been a few years since I've been there but it's always fun.

I absolutely LOVE that place! It is so much fun just to be there and being in the atmosphere of it all :)

Gotta love the American Idol Experience. The guy who comes out before the show to pump up the crowd (the one in your picture!) is hilarious.

Yep, I love that show so much! I love how easy it is to get super into the show and how you have someone you are pulling for just like on the TV show. and yeah that warm up guy is awesome! it's not that the one they have for the preliminary shows isn't funny, its just that the original is the best!

That's cool your mom was the rebel spy!

Yeah it was so awesome! I loved seeing her up on the screen! We talked about that moment for the rest of the trip! I really wanted at least one of us to be selected and I am so glad that it was my mom one of the times!

[PrincessCaitlin]

Back and catching up!

I love how rides always need groups of 1 or 2! I barely had a wait for Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster on our last trip since it was just me! It was so nice!

That Star Tours line is always fast! Standby and Fast Pass were always a walk on and I loved it :thumbsup2 The pics of your mom in the hats are so cute!

Love 50s prime time! One of my favorite places to eat at Disney! I also love the chicken! Never had the smores but they do look good!

Sounds like you got a lot done after your meal!

Cool story about American Idol who was it?

Very cool that your mom was the rebel spy!

I have been meaning to try one of those cookies! I am glad you enjoyed it!

Great updates! Can't wait to hear about Harry Potter!

[Jazzabelle508]

Back and catching up!

Welome Back! How was Disney? Hope you are feeling better!

I love how rides always need groups of 1 or 2! I barely had a wait for Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster on our last trip since it was just me! It was so nice!

me 2! I love traveling in a party of 1 or 2 just for that reason! I found that 2 be true in restraunts as well! I could easily get use to that!

That Star Tours line is always fast! Standby and Fast Pass were always a walk on and I loved it :thumbsup2 The pics of your mom in the hats are so cute!

I actually did have a little bit of a wait when we went on star tours later in the trip but for the most part there were no problems with that line. That ride was so much fun! I loved how every ride was a little bit different. We had heard a lot about the ride beforehand from my brother and sister-in-law and one of the things we were most looking forward to was seeing many of the different scenes. We actually got to see one of the scenes my brother and sister in law didn't get 2 see so we enjoyed telling them about it. I love the hat pictures 2! i personally wished she had gotten the yoda one just for fun but she probably wouldn't have worn it outside of disney.

Love 50s prime time! One of my favorite places to eat at Disney! I also love the chicken! Never had the smores but they do look good!

Me 2! I pretty much always get the chicken, it is sooo good! Those smore's area AMAZING!!!! I highly recommend trying them next time u eat @ 50's prime time!

Sounds like you got a lot done after your meal!

Cool story about American Idol who was it?

Thanks :) It was Lee Dewyze from Season 9.

Very cool that your mom was the rebel spy!

I KNOW RIGHT :) !!!! I was sooooo excited when I saw that my mom was up there! I was seriously hoping that one of us would get chosen! I made a big mental note once she was chosen that she should take a picture with a rebel spy shirt!

I have been meaning to try one of those cookies! I am glad you enjoyed it!

They are amazing! I highly recommend them! I went back later in hte trip for more of them and considering my things to try list in disney is always super long that obviously means I love it!

Great updates! Can't wait to hear about Harry Potter!

Thanks :) and that update is coming up soon! My pictures from that day are just out of order but once they are sorted I will start those updates :)



:goodvibes

[Jazzabelle508]

Social Networking and Life Stuff

Hi Everyone :) Sorry I have been so terrible about updating lately :( I have been super overwhelmed with midterms and a bunch of other school stuff. The good news is that I am currently on spring break so I defintely will be sending a bunch of updates your way this week! I keep having the next update all typed up and then I will get distracted, someone will need my computer or i will lose internet connection so I have defintely been experiencing a lot of technical difficulties! However, I plan on having a update all prepared for you tomorrow so that will defintely be good! In the meantime i wanted to invite all of you to follow me on twitter (if you have one or plan on getting one). My twitter name is jazzyjen508 and my picture is a disney picture so I should be easy to find! If you have a twitter and follow me I will also follow you as well. It has been a adjustment but I think I am finally getting use to twitter! I also wanted to invite you to follow me on instagram (if you have one or plan on having one). On this one my screen name is Jazzabelle508 and as with the twitter account if you follow me I will follow you as well (if you want me to that is).

Oh and ever since I got back from disney I have been doing weight watchers. I have been wanting to lose weight for a while now and I had heard a lot of people rave about weight watchers so I decided to try it out with my dad. Well, I am proud to say that as of today I have lost my first 10 pounds and I am so excited! The first 10 pounds were also my 5 percent goal so that is a double milestone for me :) :) :) I have literally been doing a happy dance all day today!

Well I think that is it for now. Thank you so much for following along and I plan on having another update up soon!

[wakica]

looking forward to your next update.

Enjoy your spring break :) :)

[209Disney]

Looking forward to another update!! :yay:

[Jazzabelle508]

looking forward to your next update.

Enjoy your spring break :) :)

Thanks :) I really need the break so I am so happy that I can just relax! and yeah the next update will be a great one! I am going to be visiting my favorite boy wizard :)

[Jazzabelle508]

Looking forward to another update!! :yay:

It will definitely be a good one :)

[wdwgirl03]

Just followed you on twitter (I'm mugirl0307). :) Looking forward to your next update!

[Jazzabelle508]

Just followed you on twitter (I'm mugirl0307). :) Looking forward to your next update!

Yay :) I am still getting use to twitter so it is taking me a while to get use to it but as soon as I am back on twitter I will follow you back :) and it will be a great one :) As a fellow harry potter fan i am sure you will appreciate it :)

[Jazzabelle508]

"Your a Wizard Harry!" "I'm a What?"

Hi everyone :) So here is that long awaited Harry Potter Land update I mentioned a while ago! Would our decision to switch days pay off? How would our experience this time around compare to our first WWOHP experience last year: Would the crowds be easier to manage? Would the universal employees be nicer and easier to handle? and most importantly how would our own universal survival guide tips work out for us? All of these questions and more will be answered in the next few updates as we leave the magical disney gateway in leiu of a land of harry potter awesomeness!

On this morning my mom woke up at 6:30 am and then I woke up at 6:45 am. The park opened at 9 that day and we wanted to make sure we were there when they opened the not-as-magical gates to universal to the other guests. We got ready pretty quickly and gathered up our stuff for both harry potter and Via Napoli that night since we weren't sure if we would be stopping back @ POP before going to Via Napoli that night. For me that also involved a change of clothes. As we were getting ready I was slowly realizing that this wasn't going to be what I consider to be a good hair day. I kept contemplating whether or not i should leave my hair down that day. Right before leaving the room i eventually decided that I would leave my hair down that day (The hair went back up into a ponytail after about 5 minutes in the park and it stayed up all day until we left universal). We left our hotel room at 7:45 am, got some coffee/hot chocolate to go in our mugs and then were on the road by 8.

One of my favorite things about having an iphone in Disney is the built-in google map app. It was so easy to get to universal and back! All we had to do once we entered our car was type in Universal Islands of Adventure for our destination and make our starting point the current location and then we got to universal no problem. In fact: we made such good time that we had plenty of time to stop at Kmart to run a couple of errands before going to universal.

Since my mom and I have only left disney property mid vacation once before (and the first time we just went to harry potter land and then rushed back to disney because we really didn't like leaving disney property mid vacation at ALL) it probably won't be very surprising when I tell you that i really don't know orlando very well outside of Disney and this was my first time going to a conveince store EVER in orlando! I actually was excited to see what life was like for people in orlando outside of the theme parks! In the Kmart in addition to typical Kmart stuff they also had some unique disney merchandise stuff. A lot of there stuff in that section was only ok. I did see a couple of shirts that I loved but they were both kids shirts which made me really sad. One thing that really surprised me was how grouchy the people were that worked in the store. I would think being that close to disney would instantly make you happier (it would make me happier) but apparently that isn't the case. After we got our stuff we hopped into our car and talked to my dad for a few minutes on the phone and then were back on our way to universal (which was only a couple of minutes away from the Kmart). During this part of our drive my mom and I began to discuss what it must be like to actually live in orlando and constantly having to deal with tourists and then were wondering how residents feel about living in the theme park capital of the world. Both my mom and I feel like we would love being this close to all of these great places but could also see how constantly dealing with tourists crowds could be annoying as well.

After a couple of minutes driving it was time to park the car. We payed our money for parking (btw parking is 15 dollars at universal which is really annoying and even with our tourist tips we couldn't get around that one.

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After we payed for parking we ended up being in the jurrassic park parking lot which was a bit of a walk from the city walk and park area but wasn't 2 far. It was closer than our spiderman spot last year so we were both happy about that one.

Once we parked the car we still had a few minutes before park opening so we walked quickly through the city walk area but still pointed fun and interesting things to each other (the most interesting thing we noticed was the robot outside of the bubba Gump shop!)

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After walking to the park entrance it was time for us to test out our first touring tip for ourselves (these tips had worked really well for my brother and his fiancee in december when they went to harry potter land but we really wanted to test it out for ourselves). The first tip of wisdom to future WWOHP visitors is this: If remotely possible travel into the WWOHP AS LIGHTLY AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!!!! Last year when we went we traveled lightly but both of us had tiny bags with our stuff in it. Well, at disney that wouldn't really cause any problems on rides to carry a small bag onto a ride as long as you were able to hold onto it and still be safe on the ride. However at universal they make you pay for ride lockers if you have any kind of bag whatsoever! We found this out the hard way and spent at least 10 additional dollars on ride lockers and the all day lockers are scarce and fill up easily and if you leave the area during a busy time to get to the parks main entrance lockers you will face a strong possiblity of not being let into the park. So the best possible way around this BIG inconveinence is to only carry into the park your phone, camera and money and nothing else! in fact if you have 2 or more people in your traveling party only have one person bring in a camera. All of this stuff is important to have when in harry potter land.

The nice thing about not having any bags was just being able to walk through the no bags line and it easily shaved a couple of minutes off of our time between us and Harry Potter Land. We walked quickly to harry potter land making a mental note to stop in Dr. Suess land when we were leaving and then in no time we saw this.

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HARRY POTTER LAND!!!! This was our main goal for this day! We planned on covering every nook and cranny of this area of the park. I am definitely a very big fan of harry potter! I have seen all the movies and read all the books (each several times). I have pretty much grown up with the whole thing so harry potter has been a big part of my childhood so obviously this meant that I absolutely HAD to go there even though it meant going to the place that shall not be named!

Last year when we went we went through a horrible time with the universal cast members and it almost made us not return this year. However, both my mom and I love harry potter way 2 much to pass up returning to harry potter land again.

When we got to harry potter land we made a beeline towards the wand show. This was the one thing we didn't get to see last year and we really wanted to see it. The wait ended up being 45 minutes which depending on the day isn't horrible. Luckily the cast member working the line was nice and pleasant which made the experience more enjoyable as well. However, the WWOHP seriously needs to make the ollivander show more crowd condusive because they clearly didn't know how to properly manage those crowds. All in all i did like the show but overall this wasn't worth being smushed like sardines the entire time. The kid they chose seemed like he was around the starting age of hogwarts which made him a good choice but the adults thought it was cooler than he did!

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After the show we went into the dervish and bang shop where we took a couple of pics with several of the character's wands

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After the wand show where did we go next? stay tuned to find out! (p.s: sorry this update was so text heavy, just had a lot of stories to tell from early in the morning that I forgot to photograph, next updates I promise whi have more pics :)

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44531640&postcount=110)

[wdwgirl03]

YEAH, the WWOHP is awesome!!! I love both of your t-shirts. :thumbsup2

[wakica]

I'm LOVING hearing about Harry Potter stuff. We are so excited for our first visit to Harry Potter land this year. Done Universal lots but it was before WWOHP opened.

My guess on the Target employees. They could quite possibly be working at the busiest Target around due to all the tourist traffic they get. Maybe that's why? I'd want to work at a nice quiet location if I had to work in a giant box store like that. lol. but who knows :confused3

[Jazzabelle508]

YEAH, the WWOHP is awesome!!! I love both of your t-shirts. :thumbsup2

Thanks :) and I agree! I loved the WWOHP :)

I'm LOVING hearing about Harry Potter stuff. We are so excited for our first visit to Harry Potter land this year. Done Universal lots but it was before WWOHP opened.

My guess on the Target employees. They could quite possibly be working at the busiest Target around due to all the tourist traffic they get. Maybe that's why? I'd want to work at a nice quiet location if I had to work in a giant box store like that. lol. but who knows :confused3

Thanks :) I'm glad I could give you some helpful advice on the WWOHP :) I had actually been to universal one time before WWOHP opened but I had only been there for half a day so WWOHP was my first full experience with universal.

That is what I figured as well, It was merely a point of curiousity for me.

[Jazzabelle508]

"Hogwarts, Three Broomsticks, Honeydukes, OH MY!!!!!"

While we were in Ollivanders my mom fell in love with one of the wands in the shop so she was debating whether or not she wanted to buy it. When she overheard one of the staff members say that you could buy it and then get it shipped to the front of the park to pick up later she was sold! We didn't have to wait very long in line before we paid which was very nice, especially considering how busy the shop was that day. We had a nice lady who was helping us which was nice and a big improvement from this visit last year.

After we paid for my mom's wand we left the store and headed for our next destination, HOGWARTS!!!!! Both my mom and I were super excited to ride forbidden journey again! We were also excited to try out some of our own touring tips for this ride. What do I mean by touring tips? Well, last year when my mom and i came to the wizarding world of harry potter we had several rather unfortunate experiences with this ride, all of which could have been avoided had we had several peices of tips and knowledge ahead of time. We both took note of these experiences and conjured up a list of tips that we wanted to pass on to ANYONE ELSE WE KNEW THAT WAS TRAVELING TO THE WWOHP!!!! We wanted to prevent all of these unfortunate things from happening to anyone else that wasn't use to universal's way of doing things. We have already passed these tips along to several people and luckily they all found the tips useful! My mom and I were super excited to try these tips out ourselves!

As we left the wand shop we went straight to the filches emporium shop inside the castle. The first thing we learned about was a secret passage way into the main ride line. Unfortunately this part has a really long back story so for that I deeply apologize. Remember when i emphasized in the last trip report update that you should travel very lightly? Well, that is about to be explained as well.

Last year when my mom and i went to universal we traveled fairly lightly but we both had tiny bags (mine when around my wrist and my mom's around her waist). We had both explored disney with these bags all the time. We had ridden rockin roller coaster, space mountain, tower of terror and exhibition everest with these bags and never had a problem. Well, when we got to forbidden journey we waited for about a half hour just in the part outside the castle before you enter the main part of the line. When we got to the front of the line we discovered that the line split in 2. One half went to the left right towards the line (this was for if you had no bags at all) and then the other part went towards the right toward the lockers. My mom and I assumed that when they said no bags they only meant backpacks and purses and any other kind of bag that wouldn't fit in the safety restraint with you. Like I said before we had both ridden several very similar rides to this one (rockin roller coaster and this ride have basically the same safety resitraint system). There is this guy at the front of the line that is directing traffic in both directions. Obviously my mom and I go left because we had both traveled very lightly. Imagine our surprise then when we get stopped by this man directing traffic. After he stopped us my mom wasn't very happy with him and disagreed about the bag not fitting (we still disagreed after going on the ride).

However, we did as we were told and put our stuff in the locker (which btw is a very miesrable experience in itself because the whole locker area is cramped and you can only have the locker for a certain period of time so each time you ride it you have to go throught the same experience. on top of all of that half the lockers don't even work properly!). It was here we discovered the single rider line. We wanted to go on it once the regular way and then check out the single rider line. We went on the ride once and then when we came back we discovered that you could walk into the sotre from outside and then walk through the locker area and then go right to the main ride line whilst skipping all of that outside traffic before you even enter the castle shaving about 30-45 minutes of you total wait time. When we did the single rider line for the first time that trip we absolutely LOVED IT!!!! Practically no one went in the single rider line because they wanted to go on it together so you bascially could walk right on the ride. you bypass most of the castle decorations and rooms and everything but you do see some of it and you totally bypass the super long line. my mom and I pretty much walked right on the line time after time after time. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! We went on it so many times that trip. combine that with my other tip about cutting through the store and you save yourself tons of time to spend doing other stuff.

Now that I told you that very long story about last year it is time to figure out how implementing those tips worked for us this year.

We walked right through the emporium at the ride's exit and then we walked right through the locker rooms (which btw weren't as crowded this year as they were last year but they were still crowded enough that I was glad we didn't have to use the lockers this year) and then went straight to the single riders line. OMG the single riders line was AMAZING this year!!!! We walked on that ride 5 times within a one hour period (might i add that was how long the wait was in the stand by line). We walked right on the ride each time which was awesome. Our first three times riding we kept seeing the same guy (who was very cute btw, he looked a lot like Evan from Greek actually) helping people onto the ride. On the thrid time we walked on he recognized us and said to me, "How many times are you guys going to go on this ride". To which I replied, "A lot". It was seriously so funny, i knew it was a matter of time until he recognized us. He had moved to the outside location later in the day and we saw him as we walked by. Here are some pics from our 5 rides in a row experience!

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After we got our fill of Hogwarts fun for the time being we decided to go over to three broomsticks for a early lunch. Another we learned from last year (this time it was the easy way at least) was that you want to get to the three broomsticks before the main meal time of the day and contrary to popular beilef the three broomsticks is not super crowded and it was the one part of universal in general that i would say is run well! They have a whole system where you have to order first and then they escort you to a table AFTER you have your food. It really helped with over crowding.

At this point in the day it was about 11:30 in the morning so it was almost the main part of the lunch rush. Luckily by the time we got there it wasn't 2 crowded. in no time we had ordered our food (which was two orders of butterbeer and a thing a fish and chips to share) and were seated and eating. When we ordered our food one of the people who was helping us was from a town that isn't far at all from where we are from. We talked for a little bit about what was going on in the area (he hadn't been there in a long time) and then we went on our merry little way. By the time we were eating the place was pretty crowded which wasn't a big deal to us because we had already been helped. Here are some pics of our experience!

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The display case of food:)

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FROZEN BUTTERBEER!!!!! This stuff is seriously AMAZING!!!! Last year my mom and I tried both the regular butterbeer and the frozen butterbeer, my mom and i both liked the frozen butter beer A LOT better than the regular one! My brother and his wife liked the regular one better but the vast majority of people who i have met who have tried butterbeer liked the frozen one WAY better!

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Butterbeer mustache pic #1

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Butterbeer mustache pic #2

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Our meal- Fish and Chips :) They are actually pretty good! I would say the disney ones are better but the harry potter food actually competes with disney food for me which i don't say very much about universal versus disney stuff.

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After we finished up in the three broomsticks we decided we wanted to just relax in the sun and enjoy the atmosphere before moving onto our next stop on the WWOHP tour. Before we went to find a spot to relax we decided to stop at honeydukes for another one of our fav WWOHP treats!!!

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Tongue Ton Toffees!!! Those of you who have read the books will already know why these are so awesome! For those of you who haven't read the book
these are an invention made by Ron Weasley's twin brothers in the 4th book (which is my fav of the harry potter books) and the results are interesting, bad and hillarious all rolled into one. Those of you who have read the books: this is one of my favorite fred and george moments in the series!

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What we came into honeydukes for! These are called cauldron cakes and they are AMAZING!!!!!!! My mom and I had read about these on a food blog before coming on our first trip so we had made it a priority to try them. This is probably one of the best things i have ever tasted!!!! The frosting is a combination of milk/dark chocolate and cinnamon, the filling is like a chocolate mousse and they have a little peice of white chocolate in the center. The frosting alone is AMAZING!!!! My mom when she first tried it was thrilled because she had found what she pictures to the the "Chocolat`e" chocolate. But the frosting is nothing compared to the cake itself (which is not something I say alot). The cakes was super delicious and moist!!! It was like i had died and gone to heaven!!! It is fairly rich so my mom and i split it and it was perfect for us! i highly recommend this amazingness to EVERYONE!!!!

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U-NO-POO!!!! This was another fred and george thing that I absoultely LOVE!!!! Last year I actually bought some of this just because I had to have u-no-poo!!! I love the campaign slogan they come up with!!! In case you haven't figured it out yet I think the weasley twins are AWESOME!!!! I didn't get any u-no-poo this year because I had only gotten it last year for the case but I couldn't leave without a pic :).

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After we left honeydukes my mom and I saw that the train conductor was outside taking pics in front of the train! Needless to say I needed a picture with him!

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After we finished with the conductor we decided to find a spot to enjoy the sun. We decided to head over towards the hogwarts stage because they show either the frog choir or the triwizard dancers every half hour. It was almost them for one of their shows and both were amazing last year! We were hoping to catch both shows, would we?

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I will leave off this part of the update here, will post more later, so need to catch up and get back on track with this TR!!!!

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44532393&postcount=111)

[Jazzabelle508]

"A Goblet of Fire Fest"

When we sat down by the stage there was about 10 minutes left before the show was scheduled to start. We passed the time by eating the cauldorn cake (which was just as amazing as I remembered it!), playing a couple of quick rows of travel bunco and taking a few pre-show pictures.

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In what felt like no time at all it was time for the show to start but they weren't out yet. There were a few people sitting down by us so we were all wondering if we had gotten the time wrong. Just as we were wondering that we saw the people in the show coming and we saw that we were going to be seeing the Triwizard dancers. We had seen them last year and they were amazing! The concept of this show is that it is based on the 4th book storyline of the triwizard competition and specifically the arrival of the two other schools in the competition (beaubaxtons and drumstrang). for the sake of the show and the movie beaubaxtons is the girls school and drumstrang is the guys school (in the book both schools are co-ed but the movies made hogwarts be the only coed school). In the show these two schools do the arrival dances they do in the movie. It is a really cool show! After the show they had a meet and greet where you could take a quick picture with the dancers so of course I took advantage of that opportunity.

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After the Triwizard show we decided to go and check out the dragon challenge before the frog choirs performance. My mom didn't want to actually ride this one but she wanted to go through the line with me because this is another one that had a really cool line and last year when I went through the line I didn't get any pictures in the line because i went through the line alone. The line was practically non-exisitent! The wait sign said the wait was 15 minutes, but it was definitely less than that. We took about 15 minutes to go through the line but that was just because we were going through really slowly and taking pictures as we went along. Speaking of pictures here are the ones we took throughout the line.

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Once we got to the loading area I chose the chinese fireball side and once my mom exited the line I got in line for one of the rows and in no time i was on the coaster flying through the sky trying to capture the golden egg the dragon is protecting (those of you who read the book will understand the reference here).

After I finished up on the dragon challenge it was almost time for the frog choir to start up so I met up with my mom and sat down by the stage and we played another round of travel bunco and waited for the show to start up again.

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44559438&postcount=112)

[Jazzabelle508]

"Something Wicked This Way Comes"

Before I begin this next update i want to first say sorry for doing so many updates in a row lately! I just really want to get this TR moving, I still have so many days to report on!

Now So not long after we finished up on the dragon challenge it was time for the frog choir to do their performance. We had seen these guys last year and knew they were AMAZING!!!! It was definitely a priority to see them perform again. Since it had been a year since we had last seen them I wasn't surprise to see that the frog choir was comprised of 4 entirely different people. I think the conductor was the same person we saw last year though which did surprise me. Luckily she did a good job leading the show which was good. The show that we saw was just as awesome as last year and the slytherin and the ravenclaw were both hillarious! They both were fighting to be the center of attention and that whole banter was hillarious! They also did some playful mimicking and talking back behind the conductor's back which was also hillarious! The hufflepuff girl this time seemed to kind of step back from all this while the gryffindor seemed indifferent towards it. As a communication major I thought all of these characters were very interesting, but maybe that is just me? all in all the show was absolutely HILLARIOUS!!!!!! Here are some pictures from the show!

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After we finished watching the frog choir we decided to ride the hippogriff ride since we were right there. The wait time for this said 20 minutes but I think it was more like 10. This is another interesting line so between that, talking with my mom about the frog choir show, our day so far and our plan for the rest of the day the line went by very fast and before we knew it we were on the ride.

I love this ride and hearing hagrid give the safety instructions and seeing buckbeak at the begining of the ride but I do know that it is viewed by many as a younger ride, But to be honest I think that any harry potter fan and anyone that likes rides like goofy's barnstormer or big thunder mountain railroad would still enjoy the ride. Here are some pictures from our time in that line and on the ride.

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After we went on the Hippogriff ride my mom and I decided it was time to ride forbidden journey again! This time we decided that we wanted to go through the main line so we could hear the full story again. we went through our little shortcut through the store again but this time we went towards the main line.

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We really didn't hit very many crowds in the line untill we reached the greenhouse room. We got very lucky because when we reached the line we got stopped in front of the warning sign that all rides had and found their little drawings describing which medical conditions would be aggravated by the ride amusing. We particularly enjoyed the drawing showing a person puking and a drawing describing epilepsy amusing because of these were drawn in such detail.

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All in all we waited in the main line for about 45 minutes which was better than we expected. We both realized though that we prefer the single rider line and felt that we didn't need to go through the regular line again in future trips and we really didn't miss much of the story in the single rider line after all. We would be missing some castle landmarks but we have several pics of those and we have seen them in person so we are good. Here are some pics we took the rest of the way in line (the ride was still amazing btw!).

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After we finished up on forbidden journey that time we went on the single rider line one more time before we exited the park. The best part was that my mom and I ended up in the same car together! That has happened a few times to us in the single rider line here. That really is the ultimate in the single rider experience. Say what you will about it, and i completely understand why people would rather wait longer in stand by for rides but my mom and I both absolutely LOVE the concept of single rider, we really feel like it is worth it to be seperated when you get to experience the ride queue together and you still are riding the same ride, just in different ride vehicles.

After we rode forbidden journey for the last time this trip we decided to get some more butterbeer before leaving and we wanted to get some more pumpkin juice to bring back as well. We stopped at a butterbeer cart to get the pumpkin juice and then went back to three broomsticks for the butterbeer. After a short wait we got our butterbeer we went out side to enjoy the gorgeous day some more and to have our butterbeer. While we were out there we discussed our whole trip so far and chatted about what our favorite things so far have been and what we were looking forward to next in the trip. After we finished up our drinks we realized it was almost time to leave for our dinner reservation that evening. We debated whether or not to get another cauldron cake for back in the room but we decided not 2. We said farewell to universal through a few goodbye pictures and then headed back through Suess land. Here are the pictures from that last part of our time in the WWOHP!

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My mom and I both agreed that we wanted to check out a ride in suess land before leaving so we decided on their version of the peoplemover. I think they called it the sneeches mobile but I really don't remember and I didn't write it down. However, it had a 20 minute wait so we then decided to check out there carasoul which had no wait. We then headed over there and both my mom and i chose to sit on a dog like creature (I forget what they are called in suess stories, yes I realise that is bad that I forgot a element of a suess story, I'm Sorry!!!! The ride was super cute and fun and both my mom and I enjoyed it! Here are some pictures of our journey through suess-land!

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After we finished up in suess land it was really almost time to leave. We then rushed to the front of the park so my mom could pick up her wand. Luckily it was a pretty easy process to pick it up and then we were on our way back to the parking lot. Here are some pictures we took as we were leaving universal

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After we exited the park it didn't take us super long to get to the parking area. However, it seemed like forever untill we reached our section of the parking lot! I seriously dislike the whole universal parking structure!!!!!! It is so complex and confusing!!!!!!!

Luckily we did find our car soon after finding our parking area. Having the mickey antennae topper definitely helps!

Once we found our car we got our park stuff and put it in front with us. I saw that there was a bathroom not 2 far from where we parked so I decided just to change there and that would save us from having to go back 2 the resort since my mom decided just to wear what she was currently wearing. We also decided to freshen up our makeup to save even more time there as well. Once we were all pampered and ready to go we were on the road in no time.

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44814164&postcount=113)

[Jazzabelle508]

Life Update #3

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been so long since the last time i updated this thing. I totally have lost track of time. I am entering the last week of my semester before finals so the past few weeks have been incredibly busy in many ways. Before I get on with my trip update which I will post in the next update I wanted to give a little bit of an life update because this has been an incredibly busy but wonderful month and i have several things to share with all of you.

Speaking of which I want to thank all of my readers who have stuck by me throughout the TR. I am aware that I have a lot of lurkers as well as posters which is perfectly fine because believe me I have lurked on many a TR but even if you could just leave me one comment and never comment again that would be nice as well just so I know if anyone is still reading. After finals end and summer starts I can pretty much guarantee more updates :)

Anyway i apologize for that mini lecture, I just have seen many TR's that I am reading give that same lecture and I figured it would be a good Idea for me to do the same. Now onto my life update :) :) :)

The first thing I wanted to update about was my school life. As I mentioned before this is the week before finals so as you can imagine the past couple of weeks have been filled with various projects that I have had to do. I have done 1 Presentation and 1 paper so far and I am about to give another presentation tomorrow and then all I have to worry about is three finals and 1 more paper so luckily after that I will have plenty of time to study because activities are pretty much winded down and my finals aren't till later next week so if I am not on here again for a while, now you know why. That isn't the fun part of my school life though, I just thought that it might be nice for all of you to hear about the academic side of it 2.

Now don't worry, there has been a super fun side to my school life as well, it makes all of the school work worth it. I'm not sure if I have mentioned this to anyone on here before but I am actually in a sorority at my school. I absoutely LOVE it and highly recommend greek life to anyone who might want to join at any point that could still do it (i'm always sober though so if that was ever a concern i am proof that you can be in a sorority and not drink at the same time). Anyway so I have had a busy month with my chapter as well. This month we have had a couple of fundraising events and we had our big formal (on April 28th) we have once every year which was fun like always. I have pictures from formal but i'm having issues with uploading pictures to photobucket so i'm not going to be able to post them, sorry.

The next thing that has happened in my life involves my summer plans. Last weekend (april 27-29) I auditioned for a community production of Joseph and the Technicolor dreamcoat. The auditions themselves were on friday night and then if you had a callback they were saturday morning. I came home friday for the audition and to prepare for formal the next day. When was preparing for the audition i almost had a panic attack because I was really struggling with the song I chose. Luckily i knew another song really well that I could re audition with (i auditioned with this same song last year but luckily they didn't notice). Luckily despite the audition not going as I planned it still went really well. I had done shows with this group before which helped with the nerves a little but of course i was still nervous. I ended up getting a call back to be a brother's wife which was fun because that involved a bunch of choreography. The company had two tiers of wives and i ended up being a second tier wife which wasn't shabby at all and I was really proud of myself, especially considering this is a boy's show with basically no girl leads (except one) so even with the double casting you are still competing against the best. My mom and brother are also in the show as well. My brother is one of the pharaoh's and my mom is one of jacob's wives. This show will be a big part of my summer so i'm glad i'm actually doing a fair amount of stuff in the show.

My last annoucement is about something that hasn't happened yet but is happening this week and I couldn't be more excited! Remember me saying that I am not much of a drinker. Well, part of the reason for that is because I am under 21. However, in about 25 hours from now that won't be true anymore. Yes everyone, I am about to have my 21st birthday!!!!! my birthday is on May 8th and I couldn't be more thrilled! I am the youngest in my family and I have always been a little resentful that i was the only one that couldn't drink. I think the thing that I am most looking forward about turning 21 is the freedom to be able to try different drink samples when I go out to restaraunts and go on vacation to places like Disney. I am really not a fan of the taste of alcohol so i'm pretty sure i won't be much of a drinker even after my 21st birthday.

Some even more exciting news than my own birthday is that my mom's brithday is also coming up. What day do you ask? well my mom's birthday just so happens to be the day after mine!!!!! Yep her birthday is this wednesday on May 9th!!!!!! She wouldn't want me to disclose her age on her so I won't but i will say she is excited it is almost her birthday as well. My mom and I (especially me) are both people who LOVE birthdays!!!! I always look forward to people's birthdays (especially my own, lol). I think part of the reason I love birthdays is because i was raised by someone who loves birthdays. I am super excited about my gift for my mom as well. I won't say what i'm getting her on here in case she comes across it but i do know she will LOVE it!!!!!

That is it for the life announcements for now. Stay tuned for an update :).

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44814401&postcount=114)

[Jazzabelle508]

Return To Disney and The Dinner I Have Wanted For A Year


So as we were leaving Universal we got a little bit lost trying to find the exit to the park and the expressway. Once we plugged the directions into our phone and figured out our surroundings we were ok though. As we were figuring out our surroundings we figured out that we had entered the resort through the back way. Once we found our way to the expressway we were smooth sailing to Disney!!!!!! In what felt like no time at all we approached this sign...

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THE MAGICAL DISNEY GATE!!! I have such a love for this thing it isn't even funny. I even have certain opinons about which gate you can go through to enter or leave Disney. I absolutely can't stand entering or exiting through the Downtown Disney gate. it just feels all wrong to me. It doesn't give the same impression of entering a secluded and magical place as the other two gates do. I think that is because of the shopping center that is right by there. anyway, no matter where we are going i make sure my mom takes the Disney Studios, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom exit. Why would I do that even if we are going to EPCOT you ask? Well, over my many, many, many, many years as a disney traveller I have learned that roads in Disney are much like the yellow brick road. Pretty much no matter what you will be on track if you just follow the signs. When we went back through the gate we immediately began to look for signs for EPCOT. It was a pretty quick ride to EPCOT once we got through the magical disney gate. When we got there I was pleasently surprised by how close we were able to park. We were in the amaze parking lot about 5 rows back from the front.

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Security and entering the park went by in no time at all and quicker than you can say "Qudditch" we were in the park. Oh sorry, did I say qudditch? i guess my mind is still on Harry Potter, i'm sorry!!!!!

Before going into EPCOT my mom and I decided that we were going to decide between Test Track (which btw is getting a whole new makeover as we speak, I'm excited to see what the new one will be like but i'm going to be incredibly sad if it gets rid of all of the essence of what makes test track awesome, which it looks like it might) and spaceship earth by how long the test rack line was. If the single rider line wasn't long we agreed we would do test track. We only had time for one ride before dinner which is why we were even having the debate in the first place.

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We went over by the fountain and looked at the wait times and saw that test track's wait time was about 15 minutes in the single rider line. That worked for us so we decided to head over there. btw this was my first time being at EPCOT on this trip so it was my first time seeing their new wait time center signs, I absolutely LOVED them!!!!!! I guess I have a weird thing about signs, can't help it; their AWESOME!!!!! This fountain has been known in my family since basically forever as "mom's fountain". Why do we call it mom's fountain? Well, my mom LOVES, LOVES , LOVES this fountain!!!!! I seriously think it is her absolute favorite thing in all of Disney World. If they sold fountains like this fountain my mom would absolutely need to own it!!!!

Anyway we got to test track and basically walked right through the first part of the line. We ended up getting stopped in the front of the first part of the line. While we were there I said to my mom that this didn't seem like it was going to be a 15 minute wait. Welll, i really should learn never to say stuff like that because it is always a jininx. We ended up waiting in that part of the line for 15 minutes alone. Then we walked right through the preview show room, which got me thinking about how i haven't seen that preview show in a while and I missed it and then we waited about 3 more minutes untill we got into our cars. Now it's time for a funny story. Right before we got seperated for the ride my mom pointed out a group of people that happened to be from our hometown and knew my brother (they barely knew him and didn't know me at all). Then right after she pointed them out it was time to board my ride. Right as I was boarding i realized that I was in the same car as the people whom my mom pointed out.

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It was really nice to be reunited with this ride!!!! I missed it sooo much!!!!! I tried to figure out where the ride camera was on the ride and i thought it was in the part where you almost hit the car. However, when i saw the ride photo they briefly show across the screen i realized it was probably in the barrier area, oh well it was the first time riding that ride of the trip so I had plenty of time to find the picture area.

Once I got off the ride my mom was already off the ride. She couldn't find my picture before it disappeared again so i don't have a picture of my ride but she did manage to get her picture.

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After we finished up on test track we decided we should head over to Via Napoli. On our way over we decided to call my brother and chat for a bit. After a brief conversation with my brother we decided to explore the mexico pavilion since we had some time. Here are some pics from our time in the mexico pavilion. We debated whether or not to sneak a ride on the 3 cableleros ride before dinner but that ride had an unusually long line so we skipped it for the time being.

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After leaving mexico we headed straight to via napoli.

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Once we got to italy we were about 5 minutes early so we decided to take a couple of pictures before checking in. This was our first time eating at via napoli and we were both super excited to try it, especially considering how many raving reviews we have heard about it.

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When we approached the restaraunt they had a long line leading up to this podium outside. We were confused about if this was the line we needed to be in or not so I stood in line to make sure we weren't stuck at the very end of the line when even more people came. My mom was very quickly able to discover that we were able to check in inside since we had reservations. This line had practically no one any where near it besides the hostess so we quickly checked in. We waited about 10 minutes before being seated which was more than ok with me since this was my first time here and I really wanted to do some massive picture taking as you will see in the pictures below.

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After 10 minutes the hostess called out name. We followed her and we ended up at a table on the right side of the restaraunt. Once we were seated the drink person (who was a girl named allessandra for us) came by and took our drink orders (mine was a sprite and my mom's was a diet coke). Once she came by at first I thought she was our waitress which initially disappointed me but she was great so I was ok pretty quickly after her taking our drink orders. Then I realized quickly after that that she was just our drink person so i started to play the game, who do you think our server is. Of course because I wanted a young, cute italian man to be our server I was only paying attention to the men who fit that description in our area. There were two guys that I was really hoping one of them might be our server and sure enough one of them came over to our table and introduced himself as simon and he was our server (cue halleliugah chorus). Both my mom and I knew exactly what we wanted as soon as he did the highlighting of our menu. We both wanted pizza so I got an individual cheese pizza and my mom got a individual mushroom and onion pizza. Once he took our orders my mom and i began to discuss the highs of our disney day so far and in no time at all our food came out and we got refills on our drinks pretty quickly 2. Here are some pictures of us at our table (the one of both of us was taken by the nice older couple sitting next to us), our server and our food.

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Like I said earlier I ordered the chesse individual pizza and I LOVED mine!!!!! It was very light and delicious which is exactly what I needed after having a bunch of delicious but heavy harry potter land food earlier. I loved how fresh everything tasted. Even though I wasn't super hungry I finished about 3.5/4 of my pizza. My mom ordered the mushroom and onion individual pizza. While I think she enjoyed it I knew right away she wasn't loving it as much as I was. She kept saying it was good but she had that facial expression and tone of voice people use when they don't mean something as much as they are saying they mean it. Don't get me wrong i think she liked it, I just don't think she loved it.

Once we were done with our meal it was time to order dessert. Both my mom and I were stuffed but since we were on the dining plan we were still going to get dessert. We decided to get one dessert to go for when we were back in our hotel room and then to split the other one right there. My mom and I agree to get a tiramisu to go for us to share later. meanwhile I got to chose our dessert we would share there and thanks to the DISboards I knew what I wanted about 11 months ahead of our visit. I am defintely one of those people who is obsessed with the disney dining section of the DISboards. Actually scratch that, I am definitely obsessed with Disney Dining in general. I love to look at all of the wonderful websites full of food pictures and articles. As a result of this obession I have a very long list of what I want to try if I ever go to or next time I go to pretty much every restaraunt on Disney property. For via napoli the item at the top of my list just so happened to be zeppoles. Zeppoles for those of you who aren't anywhere near as obsessed with disney food as I am zeppoles are ricotta cheese friters (basically mini donuts) that you can dip into metled chocolate and whipped cream. It look amazing and I definitely didn't have to think twice about getting it. It was at this point that the restaraunt started to get busier and the service began to slow down. Luckily for us it was about 7:15 at this point so we had plenty of time before illluminations which was our only other must do at EPCOT for the night. To pass the time my mom and I started to play the ABC game which is something my mom and I do to pass the time and We usually come up with a theme that all of your words have to fit with. Anyway a little while later our desserts finally came. Our server already packaged up our tiramisu which was nice and after the following pictures we finally tasted this dessert that I had heard so many things about for months.

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It was AMAZING!!!! Both my mom and I went into this trance when we ate it! All either one of us said while we were eating it was how amazing it was. I will say that I was very glad that we were sharing that because it was very heavy and very filling and I would never in a million years would have finished it! My mom said said several times since our visit how she wishes we could come here and just get those zeppoles. The tiramisu that we ordered to go was also good but it kind of got all messed up so I just have the picture of it on the menu for you for that reason. The zeppoles triumphed over it though. If i have read correctly isn't that actually allowed as long as you aren't trying to use the dining plan or have I misread that?


Anyway here is where some more of the night's drama comes in and the main reason why my mom doesn't want to come here again unless we just get dessert. While we finished our dessert our waiter came by our table with the check. My mom ended up getting really confused because we ended up getting charged for our meal despite being on the dining plan. After much trial and error with the system we figured out that in our desire to eat neither one of us ended up hearing that while individual pizza's are on the dining plan toppings are not (i know, weird right?). If you remember correctly my mom got a pizza with mushroom and onion. She then ended up being able to use the dining plan on everything else and just pay for the toppings. After that very frustrating ordeal we bid farewell to via napoli and headed for our favorite illuminations spot. Where do we like to go? How early do we get our illuminations spot? all of these questions and more will be answered in the next update.

Continued In The Next Post (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44877710&postcount=122)

[Jazzabelle508]

popcorn::

[CraigB03]

So happy your back. Been following along throughout. Just finished my exams so I understand the stress of it all..... good luck:). Happy birthday to both you and your mom, hope you both had great days. Looking forward to your next post.:yay:

[ChattaAlley]

:cake:Happy Belated Birthday :cake:

I just started this TR today and I am all caught up. Seems like you and your mom had a great time together. Can't wait to read the rest.

[IadoreWDW]

:rolleyes1 lurker here. Thought I'd make an apperance since you gave us lurkers a telling off :rotfl:

Loving your TR.

We are dining at 50s for the first time ever this upcoming trip.
I love the look of what you had! :thumbsup2

Your mum looks so much fun! :goodvibes


Sarah

[Jazzabelle508]

:rolleyes1 lurker here. Thought I'd make an apperance since you gave us lurkers a telling off :rotfl:

Loving your TR.

We are dining at 50s for the first time ever this upcoming trip.
I love the look of what you had! :thumbsup2

Your mum looks so much fun! :goodvibes


Sarah

Hello and offically welcome to the club :) Don't worry about it, I have barely commented on most of the TR's i've read so i completely understand why people do lurk, I just like knowing whether or not people are actually reading. Sorry if I made you feel gulity though :(

Thanks you! It was a really fun trip, sorry i haven't been very good with the updates, I promise that will change soon!!!

50's is AMAZING!!!!!! I highly recommend it! I absolutely LOVE the fried chicken there! it is sooo yummy!!!!!!!!!! I know for a fact that many people who eat there order the chicken and most of us who have ordered it love it. Have fun when you do there for the first time, I definitely think those who go to 50's should be aware of how crazy it can get. It is so much fun and the more you know about the place the better game plan you can have when you actually eat there. I have several times done things on purpose to help create that wonderful crazy enviroment. I will say that the amount of craziness depends on the server.

Thanks, she is soooo much fun and is a great travel partner!!!! We like alot of the same rides and shows and stuff so we rarely have a disagreement about what to do next.

:cake:Happy Belated Birthday :cake:

I just started this TR today and I am all caught up. Seems like you and your mom had a great time together. Can't wait to read the rest.

:welcome: and thank you for joining me on this wonderful journey known as my TR :) We do have a great time together, it is sooo great!!!! I love spending time with her :) and I can't wait to share the rest as well :)

So happy your back. Been following along throughout. Just finished my exams so I understand the stress of it all..... good luck:). Happy birthday to both you and your mom, hope you both had great days. Looking forward to your next post.:yay:

thank you, it is good to be back! I hate when I get distracted from a TR. Last year I had another TR but I ended up quitting the TR right around this time of the year. I got distracted from the TR and then once i sat down to continue it i realized I didn't remember what had happened next in the trip. I promise that will not happen again though! I actually took trip notes this time around to make sure that doesn't happen again. Another problem I had before was simply being impatient and I was getting a little annoyed at how long i was taking. This time I think I have more patience as well.

Anyway, yeah it is really stressful. I am actually just about to watch american idol and study and then do some more studying which is basically NO fun!!! This weekend luckily I have 21st birthday stuff to look forward to which is my motivation to study. Thanks, I really hope I do well as well! Thanks for the birthday wishes, I love that my mom and i are a day apart, it makes birthday time alot more fun. May is basically birthday month in my house because my mom, brother and I all have birthday's in may and i have a lot of friends with may birthdays as well. I kind of have a brian association with may and birthdays now which is really bad. and yeah we both had great days! I got to get my over 21 license and low and behold I actually have a decent picture on my license. Illinois actually had a change in driving laws right around the time I was learning to drive and getting my license and part of that new change was that the licenses looked different if you got them after January 1st, 2008. i was one of the last people to get a license in 2007 so i always had the boring old license while my friends all had the new license. The bright side to that thought was that i still got to follow the older less strict rules about driving as a newly licensed driver while the other people had to wait longer to reach certain driving milestones. I also found out that my grandmother gave me her car so I have my own car now which is something I am beyond thrilled about!!!!! I also got to try my first drink on tuesday as well so I was very happy about that!

And I am looking forward to writing my next post as well!!!!

[Queenofallthings]

I promise to be back on the weekend to get all caught up!!!:thumbsup2

[IadoreWDW]

Am I off the hook? :rotfl2:

I read all your TR last night listening to D-Cot (Epcot was my choice of tunes last night) and it got me all excited for my upcoming trip!

We are staying offsite :( I want to stay at Pop but it just wouldn't work out for us :worried:

50s adr is reservered! :thumbsup2

Looking forward to the next installment!

Sarah
Oh and belated happy birthday! All the best people are born in May ;)
(it's my 25th on Wednesday!)

[Jazzabelle508]

"This Lady Is Using Me As A Tripod!"

So when we finished up at Via Napoli it was about 8:00pm. We still had an hour untill illuminations but my mom and i are totally those people you see who sit down for the nighttime shows at least an half hour (most likely an hour) in advanced. Now you may look at those people and wonder why the heck we want to spend an hour of our lives sitting on the ground waiting for a 15 minute show to start when we still can be riding rides and exploring the parks. Well, the reason why we stake out our spot is really simple, my mom and I LOVE illuminations!!! It is easily our favorite nighttime show in Disney and we have illumination viewing down to a science. Depending on what else we were planning to do that night we usually start looking for a spot for illuminations. We have tried out many different spots over the years and we figure that the best places to go are either Italy, America or Japan. We will pick out a good spot in the front in whatever section we end up sitting in and then depending on what else we have done that evening we may get a world showcase treat to enjoy while we wait for illuminations to start. On this particular night we obviously were full so we just sat down and waited together and we ended up sitting in Italy by the water. This is probably my favorite spot in all of world showcase to watch illuminations. We countdown to illuminations based on those fun little announcements they make telling us how much longer till the show starts. We also pass the time by looking through our pictures and playing a few basic card and dice games that are easy to carry around while we wait. It may seem like this takes forever but it really doesn't. Before we knew it they were making the 2 minute announcement and it was time for the show to start.

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The show was simply amazing to watch like always but we had a bit of an unpleasent experience with a fellow guest while we watched it. This lady who was standing behind my mom was trying to get some pictures so she decided that the best way to do that was to lean against my mom like she was a tripod and watch the show and take pictures from this position. My mom then leaned over to me and said that this lady was using me as a tripod. It was right around this point that this same lady was begining to use me as a tripod as well. It wasn't so crowded that we were all forced to be smushed together either. I really have no idea why she decided to take her pictures like that. This lady was completely in control of what she was doing which is why this was so annoying. other than this lady the show was amazing, the weather was unbelieveably gorgeous the rest of the people by us for illuminations were perfectly pleasent and we didn't have to deal with all of that smoke.

Once the show was over and everybody clapped my mom and i both decided we wanted to walk the long way around world showcase to the exit because it was so pleasent out. Here is a pic we took as we were exiting the park.

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As we were exiting both my mom and I agreed that tonight was the perfect night for min golf. neither one of us were very tired, like i said the weather was great and the next day was a free day so we didn't even have to worry about the next day's schedule. When we exited the park it was about 9:45 and the mini golf place closed at 11 so we ran to our car and drove over to winter/summerland. My mom and I are both big fans of this mini golf course! For one it is a relatively easy golf course unlike fantasia so if you aren't great at golf like my mom and i are this one is the better choice. My mom and I also adore the theming here. both sides are incredibly cute!!! My mom and I pretty much always choose the winter side because it is more classical. When we got there there were only a couple of families at the golf course because it was so late. We talked to a couple of really friendly cast members and we got the game started pretty quickly. Neither my mom or I really had our best games on this day. Don't get me wrong, we still both had reasonable games we just were both out of our zones. We both thought maybe the fact that we had just had a full day at two theme parks and now were mini golfing without a break might have had something to do with it. Despite the game's challenges I ended up beating my mom by one point (kind of unusual so i was happy). Btw it is really funny that I am doing this post today because my family and I just went mini golfing at a place near my for mother's day. In today's game my mom beat me but I ended up placing 3rd out of the 5 of us so I was pleased. Here are some pictures from our winter/summerland golf adventure.

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After we finished up the game we ended up driving back to POP and refilled our mugs and then went back to our room where we tried some of the tiramisu which was really good!!! After trying the second dessert we both got ready for bed and watched some TV (Stacey, my name is earl and the office) while my mom played on her I pad and I wrote in my trip journal.

Continued in the Next Post

[IheartDDuck]

I totally have that shirt that you're wearing in your Via Napoli update. Gotta love Target! :thumbsup2

Okay, I'm so confused. You can't get a pizza and add toppings to it on the Dining Plan? Is it that they're concerned that people will just start loading the toppings on and rake up the costs? That's just strange. It should have been explained before you ordered your food, because they're supposed to ask if you're on the dining plan when you're seated and then explain the deal. Clearly that didn't happen.

[Jazzabelle508]

Am I off the hook? :rotfl2:

I read all your TR last night listening to D-Cot (Epcot was my choice of tunes last night) and it got me all excited for my upcoming trip!

We are staying offsite :( I want to stay at Pop but it just wouldn't work out for us :worried:

50s adr is reservered! :thumbsup2

Looking forward to the next installment!

Sarah
Oh and belated happy birthday! All the best people are born in May ;)
(it's my 25th on Wednesday!)

hahaha of course :) Sorry if that sounded really forceful, I definitely wasn't trying to be a witch about that but i feel bad if that is how it came across.

:( about POP not working out for you. Luckily There are plenty of good options offsite as well. Where are you staying? I always thought that those hotels right across from DTD looked nice. For me I would probably stay pretty much anywhere either on or off property (still prefer off property) just as long as I got to spend alot of time in Disney.

Yay for 50's!!!! I love it there and I'm glad i have persuaded people to go there :). I have heard amazing things about pretty much every menu item there so you can't go wrong no matter what :).

Thanks, it will probably be up this weekend once I start summer vacation. Hopefully I will be able to wrap up this TR by the time school starts up again :rolleyes1.

Thanks!!!! and IKR :). Exciting you are almost 25!!! My brother is also turning 25 this month, his birthday is this sunday. One of my really good friends also has a birthday this wednesday, May must really be a big birthday month huh, I seriously know tons of people with May Birthdays.

I totally have that shirt that you're wearing in your Via Napoli update. Gotta love Target! :thumbsup2

Okay, I'm so confused. You can't get a pizza and add toppings to it on the Dining Plan? Is it that they're concerned that people will just start loading the toppings on and rake up the costs? That's just strange. It should have been explained before you ordered your food, because they're supposed to ask if you're on the dining plan when you're seated and then explain the deal. Clearly that didn't happen.

I love that shirt!! It is so awesome:) I got few more shirts like it for my birthday which made me happy! Target and Walmart both have great clothes! My big brother gave me a target card for my birthday, good chance that money will be spent on clothes :lmao:

Yeah, that was really weird to us 2. I have no idea why they do that. Just get either a plain pizza or something else and you will be good. They did explain it to us before the meal but I think excitement about the meal and the italian accents made it so that message didn't come across.


I promise to be back on the weekend to get all caught up!!!:thumbsup2

Looking forward to seeing you back here :)

[wakica]

I'm baaack! I've been back for a week and a half now but had to catch up on life and then get started on my trip report which is getting nicely established now so it's catch up time.

Looks like lots of good times were had :) loved seeing all your Harry Potter land stuff. We thoughrouly enjoyed WWOHP and we aren't even huge potter people. It's just so neat, nice and cozy in that area that we found ourselves drawn back again and again!!

I've never seen that mini golf course so it was cool to see some shots of that place too.

Oh and we are like you and find our spot quite early for Illuminations but our reasoning is twofold - we want a good spot AND our feet are usually so achy by then that the long sit is much welcomed. lol

Looking forward to more :)

[havingadisneyday]

Ha! Tripod lady made me laugh... I know it isn't very "disney-like" but you should have waited for her to lean real hard, then ninja-like stepped quickly to your right or left. Maybe it would have been a lesson for her that even in Disney people need their personal space, even if its just an inch or two. But it does sound like you and your mom had a great time! I'm looking forward to visiting Wilderness Lodge in December just to see those decorations... never stayed there either, but love, love to hang out there. I'm enjoying your trip report (and congrats on your part in your community play!)