Test Track, Big Thunder, and Everest, Oh My! A First Time Trip with Lots of Thrills!

[wdwgirl03]

Cool that Aladdin asked to ride with you guys! What a great memory.

And you are not a dork for tearing up at the welcome show, geez, I've seen it how many times now and will still tear up every once in a while. It is a magical start to the day!

 

[MommyMcQueen]

So neat Aladdin rode with you!
Sorry your little guy got sick...thats the worst being sick on vacation!
Esp at Disney!! I hope you got to see the parade & fireworks later on!!

Glad they like BTMRR! My DD just rode it for the 1st time and loved it too!

Your right Country Bears does have a lot of slow songs...never really thought of that...but at least you know now!

Looks like overall a good day!

It was fun with Aladdin, I wish we would have watched the movie before we went though! I wanted to watch it with them, we just never had time to do it - oh well, they still enjoyed it.

Glad your daughter liked BTMRR too - it is a super fun coaster and not too intense for younger kids! They kept asking to do it again and again - we probably could have just gone back and rode it all day!

Cool that Aladdin asked to ride with you guys! What a great memory.

And you are not a dork for tearing up at the welcome show, geez, I've seen it how many times now and will still tear up every once in a while. It is a magical start to the day!

It was a magical start to the day and I'm really glad we made it to the show that morning. I know a lot of people do get emotional at WDW, I just felt so happy that morning - watching the kids enjoy it and just so happy to be there. I can't tell you how many times on this trip I said to myself "wow, I'm actually here!"

 

[martinolichfamily]

So neat that Aladdin rode Magic Carpets with your family!!

Thats great that the kids Thunder Mountain!!

Hoping ya'll made it to your character breakfast!

 

[emmysmommy]

I'm with everyone else - how cool that Aladdin joined you on the ride!!!

One day we will make rope drop .... I've seen the confetti littering the ground so I know it is not just an urban legend!

Again, I just have to say that your photos are so awesome!

 

[Cory's Gal]

Awesome updates Karen!! I am so glad you enjoyed the ice cream sandwiches!! They are a meal in themselves!! They are so yummy, I am thinking about them right now!! I proudly say that I am able to devour one all by myself, I shouldn't, but I do!! It's my top sweet treat at WDW I think!!
Your two MK days look like so much fun!! You got so much accomplished and had really minimal wait times!! LOVE the pics with the boys eating their Mickey Bars and it sounds like you were able to navigate the rain really well!! We still haven't stopped to enjoy the Dream Along with Mickey show! We always catch the last 2 minutes! I think the kids would really like it!
Awesome that you made it to the opening show and rope drop, two things I still need to do! How cool to ride the carpets with Aladdin! What a great memory! Gabe asked a ton of times too on JC if the animals were real, no matter what I said I think he had a hard time making up his mind! I hope you were able to make the character breakfast!!

 

[MommyMcQueen]

So neat that Aladdin rode Magic Carpets with your family!!

Thats great that the kids Thunder Mountain!!

Hoping ya'll made it to your character breakfast!

Thanks Heather - it was fun to ride with Aladdin and the kids really liked it! "Big Thunder" as they call it, was definitely their favorite ride until we went to Epcot - where I think Test Track then took top ranking!

I'm with everyone else - how cool that Aladdin joined you on the ride!!!

One day we will make rope drop .... I've seen the confetti littering the ground so I know it is not just an urban legend!

Again, I just have to say that your photos are so awesome!

Thanks again for the compliments on the photos - my photos are my souvenirs, as will be my scrapbooks when I get them done (like 2 years from now ) I just love taking pictures and I'm glad some of them turn out so nice.

Rope Drop was FUN!!! I'm so glad we made it one morning, it would be the only one we make at any park - we were always just a few moinutes late! The confetti was a surprise for me - I didn't know they did that!

Awesome updates Karen!! I am so glad you enjoyed the ice cream sandwiches!! They are a meal in themselves!! They are so yummy, I am thinking about them right now!! I proudly say that I am able to devour one all by myself, I shouldn't, but I do!! It's my top sweet treat at WDW I think!!
Your two MK days look like so much fun!! You got so much accomplished and had really minimal wait times!! LOVE the pics with the boys eating their Mickey Bars and it sounds like you were able to navigate the rain really well!! We still haven't stopped to enjoy the Dream Along with Mickey show! We always catch the last 2 minutes! I think the kids would really like it!
Awesome that you made it to the opening show and rope drop, two things I still need to do! How cool to ride the carpets with Aladdin! What a great memory! Gabe asked a ton of times too on JC if the animals were real, no matter what I said I think he had a hard time making up his mind! I hope you were able to make the character breakfast!!

Thanks Beth! And thanks again for the tip on those ice cream sandwiches!! They were probably my favorite treat too! I would have LOVED to have eaten an entire one myself, but I was trying so hard to be good! We did get them again later in the week, although I had to share it again!

MK ended up being our favorite park, no suprise really, and we did have 2 wonderful days there. I was glad we had the time to take it slow and spend some time in each land, could never have seen it all in just 1 day. I know a lot of people bag on JC, but we loved it - it was so funny, kids didn't really get the jokes but Dan and I were cracking up the entire ride. I know what you mean about trying to figure out if the animals were real - we would just get done telling them that they were not real, that they were pretend. Then 15 seconds later they'd see a new animal and ask again! We told then ALL of the animals on this ride are pretend - and they'd look and stare at them ...I think they were still convinced they were real!

 

[Charlefours]

Great morning at MK! What a special thing to get to ride with Aladdin (whether the kids knew them or not) I love BTMRR and I hope DD enjoys it as much as we did on our last trip.

I sure hope Mater felt better the next morning.

 

[beansf]

You have such a cute trip report. Your boys remind me of my nephews when they were little guys.

I love the mickey bar mishap picture. By far, it is the BEST photo I have seen in some time.

My husband and I are getting ready to make our first visit to WDW next month, so I love reading your first timer's perspective. We are on the QSDP and I am honestly a little concerned about my ability to navigate it. I hope I have some of those great CMs ready & willing to instruct the clueless.

 

[MommyMcQueen]

Great morning at MK! What a special thing to get to ride with Aladdin (whether the kids knew them or not) I love BTMRR and I hope DD enjoys it as much as we did on our last trip.

I sure hope Mater felt better the next morning.

Thanks Stephanie! I sure hope Lilian likes BTMRR too! You guys will have so much fun!

You have such a cute trip report. Your boys remind me of my nephews when they were little guys.

I love the mickey bar mishap picture. By far, it is the BEST photo I have seen in some time.

My husband and I are getting ready to make our first visit to WDW next month, so I love reading your first timer's perspective. We are on the QSDP and I am honestly a little concerned about my ability to navigate it. I hope I have some of those great CMs ready & willing to instruct the clueless.

Hi and Welcome! Congrats on your upcoming trip!!! I hope it is completely magical for you! I did like the QSDP although a lot of the restaurants offer a lot of the same stuff, but there are a lot of good choices you can mix it up with. It took us about 2 days to completely figure out what we could get - the meal-type deals were easy - if it was like a meal with fries (or another side item) then you got a drink and a dessert. Breakfast was the most confusing for us. If you got a "platter" then you got a beverage and an additional side item of fruit/water. (we were told only water, not juice for the 2nd choice, and only fruit, not a pastry). But if you got like a stack of pancakes or mickey waffles (that didn't come with anything else), then you also got a side item, like a muffin, and your beverage. We only did a couple of big breakfasts, and each time the CM helped us. Lunches and dinners were pretty easy to figure out. Snacks were easy to figure out too - I just always looked for the little symbol next to the item so see if it was included. Hope I didn't make it MORE confusing for you!!!

 

[MommyMcQueen]

Day 4: Character Breakfast, Riding the Rails, & Downtown Disney

We woke today about 7:00am after a pretty restless nights sleep due to Mater being up coughing. Neither Dan nor I had a very decent nights sleep since I slept next to Mater and McQueen slept with Dan – the kids movement throughout the night kept both of us up, and Mater was awake at 5am but managed to fall back asleep. After being up for a little while, Mater was doing well and while still stuffy, he wasn’t coughing much and seemed in very good spirits, so we decided to get ready for the Character breakfast!

We left about 9am, and hopped a bus over to MK. From there we took the walkway and got over to the Contemporary at about 9:45am. It was a very nice walk, and very short…I was happy that it was so easy to get to!

Our reservation wasn’t until 10:15am, so we shopping around a little bit and looked around the hotel. We then checked in and the gave us a pager and we went over to do the family picture that they offer there, then we waited until about 10:20am before being called back.

Once at our table, we went up to get our food, and the characters started coming out very quickly. While Mater and I were still up at the buffet, Donald came to our table and McQueen got to see him, but we didn’t get any pictures. Dan remembered to get the autograph books out so he was busy doing that and didn't get any pictures. By the time I got back with Mater, Donald had already left and I was a bit sad that we missed him, since Donald is Mater’s favorite. We started to eat and next up was Goofy!!!

He came over and gave the kids hugs, then we did a picture and he signed their books. They were a little leery of the characters at first, but after a little while they warmed up to them. After Goofy I figured out to get the autograph pages ready as soon as I saw the next character, and had the camera ready as well! Then came Mickey, who also signed, and did pictures, but he breezed along pretty quickly.

We had a small break from characters and ate a little, then Minnie came out and the boys were occupied watching her. I felt quite rushed and the kids had not eaten much, they were basically in this position the entire meal:

Minnie was very sweet and gave the boys “kisses” and hugged them both, she spent a little bit of time with them. After autographs she gave them each another big hug!

Then it was Pluto, and he was our best encounter by far. He was so silly and hung out for a couple minutes with the kids. During autopgraphs, McQueen told him he was his favorite and Pluto kind of motioned to himself as to say "Me???" and McQueen said Yes! Pluto was so excited he did a little dance – we all laughed.

Then he hopped in the booth by Dan and posed for a picture. It was so cute and funny.

Somewhere along the way the kids finished up their waffles and I went back up to get a couple more waffles for them, but we really didn’t eat very much at all that morning, I was so busy with books and pictures that I didn't eat much and could certainly have gone back up for more! I did love the breakfast and I’m glad we did it, but it was WAY too rushed. I don’t know if we were seated late for our section (everyone else was already there and seated with food when we got in, I think 1 table seated after us) and we were like the 5th table the characters stopped at – so it seemed like we were very rushed. After the last character everyone started to clear out and we still had half full plates of food that we quickly tried to eat up. The food was decent…Mickey waffles were yummy! I got "lured" into buying the family photo that they did – I knew I’d end up buying it if it came out good, and it did, so I didn’t hesitate to buy it even the cost was outrageous!

Once we finished our breakfast, we went up one level to get on board the monorail!

We only waited a few minutes then were able to get on board – the kids were so excited and it was pretty cool. We just rode around 1 loop, only took about 15 minutes, but it was fun to ride and they boys really like the monorail – every time we’d see one they yell “monorail!” (they had been doing this since our first night!) So it was fun to go on for a little ride, and get to see some of the resorts.

We got off at the Magic Kingdom stop and walked back to our bus stop and waited for the bus to take up back to our hotel. There were dark clouds rolling in and we were getting a bit nervous, it was beginning to get windy and we knew rain was on the way. The bus arrived and climbed on board and within a couple of minutes it began to rain…we were there just in time! It was raining very hard and blowing, and still coming down pretty hard by the time we got back to the hotel, so we ran inside and had to throw on ponchos to walk back to our building.

We made it back fairly dry, and hung out in our room for about an hour until the rain passed. The boys played and colored, Dan read his book, and I laid down a little bit since I had a bit of a headache.

Once it was clearing up and beginning to lighten up, we decided to pack up and head over to Downtown Disney to do some shopping. We were able to very quickly get on a bus and it only took about 10 minutes to head over. We got in and the first place we stopped at was Goofys Candy Shop!!

I was so excited to make the Make-Your-Own treats! We decided to get Mickey rice krispie bar treats, so we filled out the forms and they made us our custom bars.

The boys loved watching them make the bars – I think they were drooling at the sight of them!!! We got 3 bars – Dan got Reeces, McQueen got Oreo, and Mater and I split an M&M one. We got a table outside and took a few bites of out treats, and they were super good but incredibly sweet and we only ate a few bites each and took the rest with us. They were delicious!

After that we went through a bunch of stores – Once Upon a Toy, Team Mickeys, World of Disney, then we came to the Lego store.

(and a shot of "the ears" - they tried them on but didn't want any!)

As we approached the Lego store Mater yelled “I want to BUILD! and ran off toward the tables with the blocks. The boys played and built legos for about 20 minutes, and it was a nice break for Dan and I to sit for a bit and get off our feet.

We then went and looked around the store for awhile, then headed out. After that it was beginning to sprinkle again (although there were hardly any clouds above us!) and we were all getting hungry and it was time to get some dinner. We headed over to Earl of Sandwich, where we got some really good sandwiches – I got a club, Dan got a BLT, and the kids got PB&J. We ate outside since it was really busy inside, which was good because Mater ended up dumping his milk bottle and spilling it all over the ground. Luckily an employee saw and came over and mopped it all up for us. They have huge bottles of milk there for the kids meals, so there was A LOT that spilled, I was so embarrassed. But we finished our meal and it was very good.

After dinner we walked though a couple more shops, and then went back to the busses. It was about 5:30pm, we were all tired and ready to go back. We got on a bus right away and had a decent ride back. Mater was very bouncy and we decided that we would take the kids over to the playground they have there to run off some energy. They also wanted to swim, so we put on their suits and went for a walk around the grounds. We found the playset, then right away Mater had to go potty, so we immediately left and after the bathroom went over to the kiddie/sprinkler pool where the kids played for almost an hour. Dan and I grabbed a couple lounge chairs and the boys had a blast in the water and in the sprinkler jets there. We headed back about 7:30pm to get the kids cleaned up and ready for bed, and we had the kids in bed about 8:30pm.

It was a really busy day even though it was supposedly our “day off”. All in all it went well though, and we did have a lot of fun. There was a lot to see and do in DTD, and it didn’t seem like we looked at much, kind of rushed in and out of the stores – kids were antsy unless we were looking at toys. Shopping is always difficult with them and today was no exception. But the day did go better than I thought it would – Mater didn’t cough much and while you could tell he was a little sick, he wasn’t horrible and we weren’t stuck sitting in our room all day, which was my biggest fear.

Todays Highlights:
*Meeting the characters – the breakfast was really cute, a little rushed, but fun. It was fun to see the kids warm up to the character and interact with them, they were both nervous at first but by the end they loved seeing them. And they got some autographs in their books!
*Another great day of Disney transportation. I think the longest wait we’ve had was 15 minutes today, other than that all the busses were there within 1-2 minutes. This service has been excellent and I continued to be impressed.
*Very little rain today – we just had that 1 hour little storm move through and other than that the weather was excellent today. It was warm but not unbearable, and at night when we went to walk and took the kids to the pool, it was just beautiful out – seemed like low humidity and a very comfortable night.
*I was so thankful Maters cold was not getting worse and hoping he may be over the worst of it. I lay in bed last night worrying what we would do if he was too sick to go anywhere, and wondering how to cancel our character breakfast – I’m so glad and thankful that we didn’t have to cancel and that he does not appear to be getting any sicker.
*More pool time – it is so nice to relax around the resort and be able to go to the pools and have fun. The kids really are looking forward to pool time and I think will be wanting to go to the pools everyday. They wanted to do the big pool tonight but Dan and I didn’t really want to swim, but next time we will.

Next: Animal Kingdom – More fun, More thrills, and More Rain

 

[Lbg206]

Joining in on the fun! I am LOVING your TR so far and cant' wait to read more. Your boys are absolutely adorable and handsome little guys and you're so prettty too, you definitely have a gorgeous family and I'm having so much fun reading along on your first trip. For me I've been several times so I love reading first experiences. It takes me back to my first trip and also to feel the magic for "newbies" is so much fun!! We leave for our next trip in a little over three weeks and while we've been several times my aunt, uncle, and two cousins ages 5 and 7 are also going along for their first ever trip. It's great getting to hear about kids roughly their same ages and what they liked doing and not doing and such.

What kind of camera were you using? Your pictures turned out awesome with amazing clarity in most of them. I'm searching for a new one and would ove to know what kind of make/model you use.

Can't wait to read more!!

 

[martinolichfamily]

Great update Karen!
I shopping at DTD! It's so fun there!

We missed Earl of Sandwich this trip....maybe next time!

Those rice krispie treats looked great! They are huge!
Dont you just love Goofy's Candy Co!!?!?!

 

[MommyMcQueen]

Joining in on the fun! I am LOVING your TR so far and cant' wait to read more. Your boys are absolutely adorable and handsome little guys and you're so prettty too, you definitely have a gorgeous family and I'm having so much fun reading along on your first trip. For me I've been several times so I love reading first experiences. It takes me back to my first trip and also to feel the magic for "newbies" is so much fun!! We leave for our next trip in a little over three weeks and while we've been several times my aunt, uncle, and two cousins ages 5 and 7 are also going along for their first ever trip. It's great getting to hear about kids roughly their same ages and what they liked doing and not doing and such.

What kind of camera were you using? Your pictures turned out awesome with amazing clarity in most of them. I'm searching for a new one and would ove to know what kind of make/model you use.

Can't wait to read more!!

Thanks so much for joining and for all of your sweet compliments!! I'm glad you're enjoying the report so far!

My camera is an OLD digital Canon rebel, an SLR type camera. I got it about 7 years ago and it was the first digital Rebel Canon came out with, so it has been used and abused a lot throughout the years, and taken lots of bumps along the way. I purchased a new lens earlier this year, and used it on this trip. The lens has good and bad points. It has a great long range zoom but it is a slow lens - meaning it takes forever to focus. If I'd be patient and allow the lens to do it's thing, I got great shots. If I rushed it and forced the exposure before the lens was ready, I got slightly blurry shots. It was hard because with kids its hard to wait for the lens, sometimes you just gotta point and shoot to catch them in the moment! Overall I was happy with the camera and the pictures, although I was disappointed that some came out so blurry. I needed to often remind myself to slow down and wait for the lens and not rush the shot. You can get much better, faster lenses but they get pretty costly.

I also carried a Sony Cybershot point and shoot and all the pix from DTD (and the airport and travel pix) are from that...I didn't feel like carrying my big DLSR along that afternoon. The Sony takes some decent shots too, and it's nice and small and does video with sound which is why I brought it (in place of a camcorder). I've always been a diehard Canon user, Dan got me this for Xmas last year and it took me a while to be convinced , but it does take nice pictures.

Congrats on your upcoming trip! Hope you have a wonderful time!!

Great update Karen!
I shopping at DTD! It's so fun there!

We missed Earl of Sandwich this trip....maybe next time!

Those rice krispie treats looked great! They are huge!
Dont you just love Goofy's Candy Co!!?!?!

Thanks Heather! I too loved the shopping, we went back later in the week to shop 'til we dropped!

Earl was really good - unique sandwiches, although I got my standard favorite clubsandwich! I wish we had one around here!

The rice krispies were just huge - they started out big and with about 1/4 inch of chocolate on top and another 1/2 inch thick of toppings, they were just huge, we could hardly bite them! So good through, that chocolate they used just melted in your mouth...yummmm. I'd love one right now!

 

[MommyMcQueen]

Yesterday my PhotoPass CD arrived in the mail! I was very excited but just due to a busy day running around yesterday, I didn't have any time to work on the pictures! So this morning I was finally able to go through them and do some editing, and I'm pretty happy with a lot of them, some of them turned out pretty nice. A lot of the the kids are not really looking at the camera or smiling, but that is to be expected I guess.

I didn't use any of the online editing features that they have out on the PP site (I prefer to use my photoshop), I kind of wish I would have done a couple with borders, but I didn't. Some of the pix were kind of dark and some blurry, but I was able to save them with photoshop - I LOVE photoshop!

So here are a few pix from our first 2 days at MK! I'll post the other PhotoPass pix with the new updates as I do them!

I feel a bit behind in going through my pictures, and I can't post my next update until I get through the next days pix! I've also been trying to figure out in my head just how I'm going to scrapbook this trip - I think I know how I'm going to organize the books, but I've been trying to think about which pictures I want to use as I'm going through them...and there's just so many! I can't wait to finish up th editing and order pictures!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

2 great updates Karen! I am glad that Mater seemed better the next morning, even though it seemed to be a restless night sleep! Chef Mickey's looks so fun! Sorry you seemed to be rushed, it's hard to enjoy a meal that way. That's good to know though, we have thought about doing breakfast here, we have tried to do just one character breakfast each trip. We have had great experiences at both Crystal Palace and Donald's Safari. I do LOVE the pic of Dan and Pluto though! I too paid WAY TOO MUCH for our breakfast pic!!

The boys seemed to LOVE the monorail! That was one of Gabe's favorite things to do too! You all looked like you had a lot of fun in DTD too! Your Goofy treats look amazing!! It took me (and the kids) probably 3 days to finish just 1!! They are so yummy though and special!!

Your Photopass pics look great too! I wish we would have had a photographer take one of us in front of the train station! That is a great shot! I guess that will help motivate us to get to the opening show!!! Can't wait to hear about your next day!!

 

[MommyMcQueen]

Day 5: Animal Kingdom!

Today was our much anticipated AK day! Those of you who read my PTR know that my kids LOVE zoos and we spend tons of time at zoos and nature centers, so we were really looking forward to AK, and I didn't think we'd get everything done in 1 day, but I only allotted 1 day for the park.

We got up, ate a quick breakfast at the food court of muffins and juice, and loaded a bus to AK by about 8:30am. The bus ride seemed to take a while, and we didn’t make it to AK quite in time for rope drop, but just shortly after by the time we got through security and ticketing.

We did a few quick PhotoPass pictures, then headed back to Kilimanjaro Safari!

It was cloudy and you could tell that rain was coming, but it wasn’t as hot of a day as what we had been having. We waited about 10 minutes, then we climbed on board our safari jeep and started heading out. The kids were very excited and thought the jeeps were so cool.

On the tour we saw lots of great animals – elephants, giraffes, lions, hippos, rhinos, warthogs, flamingos and several different types of antelopes and deer. It was a fun ride and we got to see a lot of animals. After the safari, we walked through the Pagani Trail, which we saw more animals and exhibits, and the kids did their first Discovery Kids Club stop – they really seemed to like it and we decided that we’d try to stop along the way for them to do more of those.

Along the way we were posing for a picture on the brings when a nice family approached us and asked if we wanted a picture together, so they did one for us and we returned the favor – it ended up being one of my favorite pictures from the trip!

After walking through the trail, we headed over to the Lion King show, as it was about 25 minutes until the next show and it was now realling looking like rain, we were hoping to make it in the theater before the rain hit! We got there about 20 minutes before show time and as we were standing in line the rain started, but they started letting people into the theater so we made it in juts the nick of time!

The Festival of the Lion King was a very impressive and awesome show. (I love the Lion King movie anyway, its always been one of my favorites and I completely love the music in it.) We all really loved the show and the music was incredible, as were the costumes, and actors, and the whole production itself – easily the best show we’ve seen here. I could have sat there and watched it again!!

We were in the Lion section so nice and close to Simba – Mater liked that a lot! When we got out of the show the rain was coming down, so on went the ponchos and up went the umbrella again and we walked over to the character meeting area. There were some pretty long lines for most of the characters, but the boys met Chip & Dale and got their autographs, they had a shorter line and we didn’t have their autographs yet. It was really cute and fun – one of then, Chip or Dale (not sure which) grabbed Mater and kind of hugged him, and after that they stood together with his arms around him, it was really cute.

From there we walked over to Pizzafari to get some lunch, we were all getting hungry as it was about noon. Lunch there as surprisingly good, we each got personal pizza’s and Dan and I got Caesar salads with ours, and they boys loved their pizza too, and finished everything up! I think this was the first meal that they actually ate everything! Now that we were full we walked over to the Tree of Life, walked the trail and looked at the carvings for a little while, then went into the Tough to be a Bug show (again zero wait). It was a funny show but the kids did get a little scared during one point, but in the end they liked it.

After the tree of life, we stopped at another Discovery Kids stop and did that, then we headed toward Dinoland to try to occupy Mater a little bit, as he was beginning to he a bit cranky and irritable. I should mention that he was coughing a little worse today, and that walking was getting to him. Lunch perked him back up but he was still kinda whiny, you could tell he just wasn’t feeling well.

Once in Dinoland, we saw the next Nemo show was coming up in about 45 minutes, so we went to the Boneyard and let the kids run and play for about 20 minutes. They had fun and seemed to enjoy it, and played in the dig site for a while as well, it was cute and nice for them to get a little play time during the day.

We left there and headed over to the theater to see Nemo, and were able to walk right into the show and get a decent seat. The show began and Mater started getting more tired, cranky, and a bit fussy. He was coughing quite a bit and we could tell he was tired. He was stuggling to sit decent, tried to lay down in his seat but coundn’t seem to get comfortable, and his coughing seemed like it was getting worse, I had him sipping water the entire show to try to alleviate the coughing. We made it through the show, and it was a really cute show, but Mater’s mood made it a bit difficult to sit through and neither Dan or I were really able to enjoy it was much as we would have liked to, since we were so preoccupied with him, his coughing, and trying to get him to sit nicely. I had him sit on my lap a while which helped, he was on the verge of dosing off then decided to wake himself right back up!

Once we left Nemo and stopped at the bathroom, the rain had stopped and the kids (well, mostly Mater) wanted to check out Expedition Everest (he could see it and knew it was a coaster!), so we walked over to the Asia to get Fastpasses. Mater saw the ride and he REALLY wanted to ride it! We had to check his height and we went over to see what time FPs were for, and when we got there we were shocked to see the sign said it was only a 10 minute wait! So we measured Mater and he just made it – he was so excited he would get to go on! McQueen was leery about going on, so I told Dan to go on with Mater and McQueen and I would just wait the 10-15 minutes for them. So they headed in and McQueen and I went and got a spot to watch – went to the spot where you could watch the coaster come down the big drop and so we waited there and watched for them. After a few minutes we saw them come down and went in to meet them at the exit. Mater was so proud and excited that he did it! Dan said some older boys in the line by them were giving Mater high-fives for only being 4 and being so brave to go on the ride! Mater was all smiles and SO excited.

So after seeing them do it and Mater telling McQueen that it wasn’t any scarier than Big Thunder Mountain, McQueen decided he wanted to go on! So he and I went in and got in line, and in less than 10 minutes we were on! It was a great ride, although some of it is in the dark and some of it you do backwards, so it was a little scarier the BTM, but he did well although I don’t think he loved it – he was happy and proud of himself for trying it though.

After they both rode all of their conversations were “did you see the Yeti??”, “he broke the track”, “did you see the broken track?” It was so cute, they talked about it together for like a half hour straight!

By now it was time to make our way over to Discovery Island for the parade. We got there about 3:30pm and easily found a good spot, I ran and got some drinks and as soon as I got back the parade started. Dan just wanted a water and the boys and I split a big frozen lemonade!

It was a very cute parade and the boys liked seeing all of the characters in their safari vehicles and jeeps! At the end Mickey looked right down at us and gave us a big wave!

Once the parade was over, Mater was still coughing a lot and we decided to walk through the Marajara Jungle trek and then we talked about heading out after that.

Along the trail, we saw lot of different birds, some deer, and tigers. It was fun although raining again, so we kind of rushed through. I would have liked to taken more time but it just didn’t happen. By now it was about 4:15pm and we started to make our way over to Dinoland to see what the wait time on rides was over there. (I know I said were thinking about heading out, but I kind of kept pushing things along and saying “well lets go see this one last thing” and trying to get a few more things in before we left! Dan tolerated me and didn’t complain, although I think he wanted to leave much earlier!)

We stopped at a PhotoPass guys along the way and did a picture with Everest in the background, and shopped around in one of the shops a little bit, I had seen a t-shirt earlier that I liked, so we went back to the EE shop to look at it – I decided against it because they looked like they ran really small and I didn’t have any idea what size to get. (And I still regret not getting that shirt – I really liked it!) .

By this time I was carrying Mater and he wasn’t coughing nearly as much, but he was getting really tired. I didn’t mind carrying him, he needed a little break and it really seemed to help him cough less. We stopped in Dinoland and saw that there was zero wait for Triceratops Spin, so the boys and I quickly hopped on that.

Dan was a bit frustrated since he wanted to get going, so he took a rest on a nearby bench and waited for us. The ride was fun and the kids liked it. After riding that it was 5pm and the park was closing so we made out way to the front, stopped to buy a few things before leaving, and then headed out to the bus stop. Along the way we saw the characters one last time at the closing celebration they do at the end of the day. We waited about 10 minutes for a bus and got back to our hotel about 5:30pm. It was a very busy day, and a little bit stressful due to Mater’s coughing and bad attitude at certain points, but all in all it was a good day and we had a lot of fun, and we saw mostly everything that we wanted to.

We ate dinner at the Pop food court again since the restaurants were closed at AK aft 5:00pm. After that we just went back to our room, unpacked from the day, and got the kids to bed about 8:00pm. Mater was very tired and needed the extra rest, and McQueen fell asleep about 9:00pm.

Todays Highlights:
*Festival of the Lion King – what an amazing show, it was one of the best things we’ve seen here and one of the best things we’ve seen in general! Incredible show.
*Maters excitement and joy over doing Expedition Everest! He was so happy and excited that he did it – he kept telling McQueen how great it was. Dan said that he had the happiest look on his face then they were riding it. I’m so glad he enjoyed it and I think he found a new favorite ride!
*Chip & Dale meet and greet went really good – kids were not at all scared, both were giving high-fives and all excited to meet the characters, and they were able to take their books up and get autographs. It was really good and I hope we can see more characters for them at the other parks yet. They really enjoyed meeting them.
*The Nemo show was really good, the creativity was incredible, I wish we would have been able to pay a little closer attention and not be so distracted by Mater, but it was a really well done show and I still really enjoyed it, despite the frustrations.
*Again I have to say the little to no wait times were incredible. I never imagined we’d be able to walk-on Expedition Everest twice at 3pm, or walk right into Nemo or Lion King. The longest wait we had all day was for the safari and that was maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes at most. We had great timing on all of the shows and rides today, and it really paid off, we got to see a lot and avoided the heaviest rain!

Today we rode/saw:
*Kilimanjaro Safari
*Tough to be a Bug
*Festival of the Lion King
*Finding Nemo
*Expedition Everest
*Pagani Trail
*Maharaja Jungle Trek
*Triceratops Spin
*The Boneyard
*Characters: Chip & Dale

I loved AK but was a little disappointed in the rain – it was just on and off pretty much all day, we were able to time it fairly well with the shows and avoided some of the rain with those, we never really got caught in really heavy rain, just a light sprinkle all day long. If we would have had 1 more day in WDW I would have loved to come back again and explore AK a little more. We didn’t do the bird show which I would have liked to see, we didn’t do the train or Rafiki’s, and we rushed through a lot of the trails, and didn’t do much of the trail around the tree. But, I was happy we got to do EE!! I was not expecting or planning to do that, so it was a great surprise and lots of fun. We finished 3 of the 6 Kids Discovery club stops and the kids really seemed to enjoy those too, wish we could have done a few more! All in all a great day!

Up Next: Hollywood Studios: Meeting the “Real” Mater & McQueen, our first heat-related illness, and Are we the only ones back here?

 

[MommyMcQueen]

2 great updates Karen! I am glad that Mater seemed better the next morning, even though it seemed to be a restless night sleep! Chef Mickey's looks so fun! Sorry you seemed to be rushed, it's hard to enjoy a meal that way. That's good to know though, we have thought about doing breakfast here, we have tried to do just one character breakfast each trip. We have had great experiences at both Crystal Palace and Donald's Safari. I do LOVE the pic of Dan and Pluto though! I too paid WAY TOO MUCH for our breakfast pic!!

The boys seemed to LOVE the monorail! That was one of Gabe's favorite things to do too! You all looked like you had a lot of fun in DTD too! Your Goofy treats look amazing!! It took me (and the kids) probably 3 days to finish just 1!! They are so yummy though and special!!

Your Photopass pics look great too! I wish we would have had a photographer take one of us in front of the train station! That is a great shot! I guess that will help motivate us to get to the opening show!!! Can't wait to hear about your next day!!

Thanks Beth! Chef Mickeys was fun, and I am glad we did it. I don't know if other character breakfasts seem so rushed or maybe it was just me and not knowing what to expect? I'd definitely do another one somewhere else and give it another try. Ha! - glad I'm not the only one who got the pricey picture! I actually felt bad afterward and Dan was so nice - he was like don't worry about it -its a once in a lifetime experience and he was even glad we got the picture.

Yeah those bars took us about 3 days to finish too! Took a couple bites off of them each day when we got back to our room! They we good though - wish I could have brought some home!!

Thanks for the compliments on the Photopass pix - I tried to do as many as possible since I had pre-ordered the CD. They did turn out pretty nice and I'm really happy with them. We did the train stations ones on 2 different days actually, that morning that we did RD and later in the week when we went back in the evening they had someone still out there. You guys will make RD next time you go!

Karen

 

[MommyMcQueen]

A Different Kind of Update: One foot in front of the other

Through all my excitement the last couple weeks writing about our trip, I have completely forgotten to report about my running and how that is going.

Those of you who followed by PTR know that I started running in spring of this year, after a lifetime of absolutely hating running and everything about it! It has been quite a journey!

My goal was to run 3 times while I was down in WDW, since I was training for a half marathon coming up very soon. Plan was to run on each of my 2 off-park days, then run the morning we came home, since we had such a late flight.

You may have noticed that I did not mention going for a run on our first off-park day, the morning of our Character Breakfast. This is becuase I was completely lazy and did not run AT ALL on vacation. I will just spill it all now and confess, I didn't run any of my planned running days. The last morning we were there, we got breakfast and walked around the grounds and I swear, I saw like half a dozen people out running on the trail and I was so upset that I had not done it! In a way I was glad I didn't, we were busy enough every day and it would have cut into our time a little bit with a little later start those mornings, but I was also a little disappointed that I didn't do it.

So, coming home I was determined to run again, and I went out once last week and it was a horrible run - hot and humid and my legs and shins hurt, I couldn't catch my breath - I felt like I did last March when I started this whole process. It was awful. Then the week fell apart with kids getting sick and me getting stressed & very little sleep and I didn't run again that week.

So this week I decided it was time to get back at it, and went out the last 2 nights and did 4 miles each night - both were really good runs and it felt good to be back out there. Helps that the temps are in the 60s now and it is so comfortable out there! Next Sunday is the half marathon I had been training for and was planning to do before the vacation. I haven't registered yet and not sure if I'll do it at this point. I'm planning to go out for a long-ish run this weekend, like 7-8 miler and see how it goes. I did my 12 mile run 3 weeks ago and now with 3 weeks off from running I'm not sure I'll be at all ready for the half. Some friends who run are telling me to go for it and that I can do it, but I'm still not sure. If I do register it'll be super last-minute. I'm excited to think about doing it though...I just have to try one longer run and prove to myself that I can do it! EEK!!! I'm exited but SCARED.

 

[Angies1274]

Great updates!!

Aww...I felt the same way about Space Mountain when we rode for the first time in April. It made me nervous that the boys were sitting behind me instead of beside me. Apparently, all my worries were for nothing because they both loved it!! Yay for McQueen being so brave and Mater loving it!! Love the Mickey ice cream bar pictures!! So cute!!

We love the opening show at MK!! I tear up every time I see it!! How cool that Aladdin rode with you!! So glad your boys loved BTMRR! It's a favorite of my boys as well! They could ride it over and over again!

Your Chef Mickey's pictures turned out great! It's always so much fun there...sorry you felt rushed though. We love Goofy's in DTD! Those treats are so yummy!

Sounds like a fun day in AK! You got some really great pictures! for both boys riding EE!!

 

[emmysmommy]

Day 5: Animal Kingdom!


Todays Highlights:
*Festival of the Lion King – what an amazing show, it was one of the best things we’ve seen here and one of the best things we’ve seen in general! Incredible show.
*Maters excitement and joy over doing Expedition Everest! He was so happy and excited that he did it – he kept telling McQueen how great it was. Dan said that he had the happiest look on his face then they were riding it. I’m so glad he enjoyed it and I think he found a new favorite ride!
*Chip & Dale meet and greet went really good – kids were not at all scared, both were giving high-fives and all excited to meet the characters, and they were able to take their books up and get autographs. It was really good and I hope we can see more characters for them at the other parks yet. They really enjoyed meeting them.
*The Nemo show was really good, the creativity was incredible, I wish we would have been able to pay a little closer attention and not be so distracted by Mater, but it was a really well done show and I still really enjoyed it, despite the frustrations.
*Again I have to say the little to no wait times were incredible. I never imagined we’d be able to walk-on Expedition Everest twice at 3pm, or walk right into Nemo or Lion King. The longest wait we had all day was for the safari and that was maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes at most. We had great timing on all of the shows and rides today, and it really paid off, we got to see a lot and avoided the heaviest rain!

B]

I noticed your serious camera in one of your photos. What kind do you use? Whatever it is you have some awesome photos!!

We had heavy rains off an on on our AK day as well.

The boy's excitement over EE is so cute! We also rode it 3x in a row since the wait time was only 10 minutes the first time and we also had fast passes.

What a grat day!