~When I First Felt The Magic...FINALLY!~ April 2010 Trip Report

Great update! :goodvibes

I remember last year that my mom dragged me into Country Bear Jamboree and I had mixed-feelings about seeing the show but I turned out loving it! You can't hate classics at Disney <3

Love the It's A Small World pictures too! I couldn't go on last year because it was closed for refurbishments ): I hope to go on this year.

Keep it up!
 
"..and I was disregarded.."
haha love it!

let me guess, next will be splash mountain!?
 
Great update! :goodvibes

I remember last year that my mom dragged me into Country Bear Jamboree and I had mixed-feelings about seeing the show but I turned out loving it! You can't hate classics at Disney <3

Love the It's A Small World pictures too! I couldn't go on last year because it was closed for refurbishments ): I hope to go on this year.

Keep it up!

Thanks Val! :)

It is such a great show and no, you can't :goodvibes

It is a nice ride, though its a once over per trip for me. The standby-line annoys me and the ride... well you know, but I still love it. Definitely go on it! :mickeyjum

¡WDW!girlrox(:;41017692 said:
"..and I was disregarded.."
haha love it!

let me guess, next will be splash mountain!?

Teehee ;)
Thanks Lizzy!

Maybe.... maybe NOT! You'll just have to wait and see.
 
Hey,just started the TR but LOVE IT!!! I cant wait to read more!:banana:
 




CHAPTER 3: IN THE DIS-ZONE (Part 2)

After we escaped the clutches of the "Its A Small World queue, we searched through Fantasyland, for a passageway to Frontierland or Liberty Square. I took out my map and found away to get to Liberty Square, which was the closest to path to Frontierland. It also was apparently right around the corner from us.

I saw the Haunted Mansion as soon as we entered Liberty Square and requested to do that. I remembered then that a few good friends of my moms (and ours) were there, including the lady who helped put our trip together, so I told this to my mom. She called them up, when across the way, at one of the photo ops with the old shackles, was one of our good friends. They were waiting in line, so we took the chance and snuck up behind them. My mom went up and tapped her (the mother) on her shoulder and she turned around to see us and was totally surprised. She started chattering away after getting the photo and just talking with us for awhile. Then, she asked what we were doing next and my mom pointed towards Haunted Mansion. She agreed, though she already went on it that morning. Then, another one of my mom's friends, someone she works with shows up. We all gathered together and headed as a huge mob into the Haunted Mansion queue.

We seemed to be bouncing up and down our queue with our huge group. Everyone was talking with someone else or listening in on a conversation. We also were trying to split up the group so every person had a partner on the ride. I didn't really find anyone until later, since DOS went with my-mom's-first-friend-we-met's daughter (one of them, they are twins). So I didn't really have anyone, but ended up with my mom since she was so scared when we walked in, basically grabbing a hold of my arm and it only got worse.

The ride was very fun. I think everyone enjoyed it. My mom was pretty freaked out in the Pre-show and through most of the ride, she was holding onto my arm and screeching every so often. She also bombarded me with questions like "What happens now?" and all that stuff I showed know after my hours of research on Disney. She did like the end with the hitchhiking ghosts a lot, especially when he sat flat on my lap. It was pretty funny.

After we got off, we continued traveling with our group for a bit, when one of my mom's friends, the one she works said she had to meet up with the lady who basically put our trip together. They were at the Crystal Palace, our first dining reservation, so they were planning on meeting with them and left. Leslie, the other friend, and her daughters, Taylor and Mackenzie stayed with us for a bit. They said they were going to head back since they'd done a lot already today, bouncing between a lot of parks. Leslie also started talking about Hidden Mickey's which was fairly new to me at the time. We now were beginning to point them out, but she assured us those were everywhere, that they were much harder to find. We bid them farewell and continued on our way down to Frontierland.

As we entered into Frontierland, we saw this little hoedown thing going on, right near Country Bear Jamboree. We walked right up and started clapping to the western-styled music when one of the CMs in the hoedown came up and grabbed DYS to join along. His name was Nate, I remembered since that was my best friend's name (for any of you reading my other TR, know about him). My mom immediately took out her camera and started taking pictures left and right:

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After the hoedown thing was done, we continued on our way towards the fair end of Frontierland. We soon were arriving near Splash Mountain. DYS took one look at the ride and freaked out. She didn't want to go on it, though I think she could do it. We tried to coax her and she agreed so we got right in line.

The standby wait wasn't very long. We got to the loading area fairly quickly. DOS and I tried to make sure we were sitted up front because one, we're one of the very few people who actually like to get wet on these rides ("It is better down, down where it's wetter, take it from me!") and two, it is probably a lot scarier up front since there is no person ahead of you to topple onto as you fall out of the thing Haha Just kidding! Moving on... Soon we were loaded onto the ride, DOS and I up front, then my dad, my mom and DYS all crammed into the seat behind us, DYS all curled up against my mom, and we're off on our journey to find our laughing place (as I soon learned).

So... the ride was awesome! While I shockingly enjoyed some other rides more, it was very fun. I had watched some ride-throughs on YouTube, but seriously those things didn't help me. I was totally caught off guard with the roller coaster drop. It just comes out of nowhere but its fun and all the water you gain during the ride really does refresh you. After our adventures with Brer Rabbit, we continued on past to find Big Thunder Mountain.

I was still a bit leery about the whole roller coaster thing so I wasn't entirely sure if I would go on that one yet. Yet again, I was coaxed into it and agreed. We saw the wait and decided this would be a good time to get a Fast Pass. So we found the Fast Pass kiosks and got ours for a time that was really only a bit away. We decided to wait around there a bit, so DYS and I got bored and my mom took some pictures of us:

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We waited around until around 5 when our Fast Passes were ready. We got right into the Fast Pass line, but the CM monitoring said we needed to wait a minute since our Fast Passes for the exact time. I was really kinda taken aback since we had to wait a minute, when it was just a minute. How would that cause problems? We came back and he finally let us in line.

Soon as we got in line, we were ushered onto the ride. I was nervous, but decided to sit with DOS this time. Soon enough after getting into our seats, we were off on the wildest ride in the wild west! And soon enough we were back safely in the unloading zone. As you may have guessed, I really liked it, besides the fact I was getting thrown around on the ride and forced to hold onto those handlebars, I still loved the ride and rode it two more times after; once with everyone minus my dad than with just DYS. DYS really liked this ride too and it was the ride she rode the most and I rode the most, this trip. After our third ride, we decided to head out and check out some other attractions.

We headed into Adventureland and checked out Pirates of the Caribbean. There was practically no line so we got our own boat to ourselves which was pretty fun. DOS and I sat in front while my mom, dad and DYS sat behind us. We all liked the ride though we didn’t expect the drop, especially when it got so dark at the part.

Once we exited that, we began heading back to Fantasyland to check out some other rides we missed earlier. We first found, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, a 3-D show, well I should say 4-D and checked out that. DYS was a bit leery of this one since she wasn’t one for noises, but we ended up all enjoying it. I knew there were many 4-D experiences in Disney, so I was very excited to check them out after this show, it was so fun. I especially loved the Be Our Guest part of the show since I just performed my last Middle School play of Beauty & the Beast at this time and I was a castle servant, so I enjoyed seeing the original scene (well not so original).

After we exited that, we… well I know we splitted up here. I forget though where my dad and DOS went. I may have the times messed up, but I think DOS and my dad went to go ride Astro Orbitor at this time not earlier. I forget, but you already know how that turned out. I remember the fact that DYS, my mom and I went to ride Peter Pan’s Flight. I didn’t know too much about this ride, but it looked like fun. The wait was 45 minutes, but we had time so we just hopped in line, little did we know how awful this wait was going to be.

While we waited to get on Peter Pan’s Flight, which was probably the longest wait of our whole trip, though it was pretty awesome since we got to hold the time checker tag, still there was a little girl with her mom and I’m guessing the girl’s mom’s friend something or other ahead of us and you probably can tell where this story goes, but I’ll tell you anyways. The little girl had tons of energy and was swinging all over the place on the queue chains and she continued to do this for the whole 45 minute wait! It was awful, especially with my legs slowly becoming tired and having to carry DYS at some points. It just wasn’t very fun, even for my mom and sister.

Now, this is sorta an unpopular opinion, but because of all that happened, before I didn’t enjoy the ride. The ride was very quick and I didn’t feel it was worth the wait. I still liked the whole concept, but it just wasn’t as enjoyable as it could’ve been. I would probably go on it again next trip, but at this time I didn’t really like it.

After we got off, the sky was definitely getting very dark, it was almost night time. We kinda wandered about for a few minutes and noticed how it was edging closer to our ADRs at Crystal Palace. My dad and DOS found us and told us about their adventures, whatever those adventures ought be. The sky was getting very dark and we saw the Mad Tea Party another Fantasyland ride we had yet to ride. My mom and dad would rather not spin, so it was just my sisters and I that went on.

The wait wasn’t very long and soon we were on the ride. We got our own teacup, but were soon by a very jovial girl about DOS’s age. She told us how much she liked this ride and seemed to be bouncing up and down in her seat and just a little too happy to be with us. We smiled, but it sorta became a smile-because-she-is-and-we-don’t-want-to-upset-her smile, since she was just overly happy, she was very nice either way. While we were on the ride, my dad took some pictures:

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Then, as we got off:

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The ride didn't have a huge impact on me as to liking it or not. I've just been on too many rides like it and it didn't have too much of a magical touch about the ride. I always thought it wasn't under a cover, but I'm guessing that is how Disneyland is with their teacups, of course!

So, about now it was getting very close to our ADRs so we began heading out to Crystal Palace.

CHAPTER 4: A BUFFET OF CHARACTERS, CELEBRATIONS AND "TERROR!" coming soon!
 
GREAT UPDATE!!!!!!!:thumbsup2Did Alyssa like the hoe-down????:confused3

Thanks! :-) And oh, did I write Alyssa? I must've been thinking of someone else and it translated to my fingers and I didn't write DYS. That's not her name BTW, but I know where I wrote it so... yeah she did enjoy it. I mean... she was having trouble keeping up with some of the dances, like I think they did the electric slide or something so she wasn't exactly sure how to do that. Haha :D
 
your sisters are ADORABLE. want my younger brothers? (; just kidding, if I had sisters I'd actually have to share my things with them haha.
Great report :-)
 
your sisters are ADORABLE. want my younger brothers? (; just kidding, if I had sisters I'd actually have to share my things with them haha.
Great report :-)

Hahaha, yes, they are adorable (well one of them is anyway) :D :-) A brother would be nice... but I'm good with my sisters no matter how irritating they are :goodvibes And LOL @ sharing things.

Thanks Sara!
 
CHAPTER 4: A BUFFET OF CHARACTERS, CELEBRATIONS AND "TERROR!"

Now, it was getting very dark in the Magic Kingdom, probably close to their nighttime shows and their famous fireworks, which from looking at the times guide I picked up at the beginning of the day, were called "Wishes!" not the "Fantasy in the Sky Fireworks" that were present in 2000 celebration, which is where a lot of my early Disney knowledge came from after I borrowed the... well I've had it for years and my aunt let me have it, so I say its mine now :-))), the 2000 travel video. I think I needed an updated one since I'm pretty sure EPCOT doesn't have a Tapestry of Nations parade anymore Haha

Moving on... we found our way out of Fantasyland and were soon back at the hub now heading towards our first ADR. When we arrived at Crystal Palace, we saw a huge group of people waiting to get in and there was a line for check-in. Everyone was a bit nervous we were going to have to wait awhile since we still had like 15 minutes until our actual ADR time, but I'm sure they could accommodate us (maybe...). So, we found where the line began and got in line. It was a bit squished with all of the people out there, but we managed. :-)

The line was a bit of a wait since it looked like some didn't have reservations and some were having arguments with the CMs out there to help people get set. I just think its kinda rude, its not like these CMs want some mishaps to happen, they just... happen. Simple as that. Within 10 minutes, we finally made it up to them, after a much more experienced CM stepped in and got the ADRs finished quicker. They found ours and asked if we were celebrating anything. We told them, it was my dad's birthday (two months ago) and the CMs laughed knowing how he must have felt, because we were all smirking in the back and my dad wasn't supposed to know about this *laughs maniacally*

Then, the one handling the ADRs now noticed my dad's shirt. If anyone noticed in the pictures, it was a "Life is Good" shirt with a particular phrase on it (though it has a less... intense meaning). I won't mention what it is, but let you scavenge it out to have that "Aha!" then Hysterical Laughter moment, but, going back to the CMs, they said "None of that in Disney". My mom, dad and the CMs all laughed. We kinda never really talked about it after the trip, but it was funny how they picked up on that. Once everything was sorted away, they said they would call us and we went to sit down and wait.

It was about another 15 minutes later when they finally called us. We were brought in and seated off to the right of the entrance and very close to it. There weren't a lot of people, but you could see a huge group of cheerleaders taking up most of the area. I wasn't very surprised to see them, since we saw them all day. The CM then asked for our drink orders and went off to get them. We all got situated at the table, which was covered in Mickey shaped confetti. I started picking it up and stuffing it in my pockets. My mom and DYS started calling them hidden mickeys. We were pretty obsessed with those after Leslie mentioned to us about them.

Soon, another waitress, much older than the last one and she had a much more warm, motherly vibe about her and she was very nice as you probably guessed :-) . She gave us our drinks and plates then explained to us the buffet and how the characters rotate. We soon learned we were going to be the last table with the characters, behind the cheerleaders :( But, at least we got to meet them. She gave us a nice smile and left. After a few sips of our drinks, we then all headed up to get our food.

I don't exactly remember what everyone got, but I had the most on my plate. I was really splurging with my food choices on this trip. I don't know what had gotten into me, maybe it was the food I had received the day before at Sanaa that made me get off the old "only Chicken Fingers" thing I had going. No, I was going to try more, even though I generally do, but usually its stuff I've had before, so this time I was piling on the food.

The characters started coming soon after we started eating (The food was good for me, but not anything compared to my meal at Sanaa) First up was Eeyore with Piglet right up behind him. Even though I was older, I was probably the most excited at my table to meet the characters so I followed both of the character's path. My sisters and mom were also following them and my dad, though he was trying not to since it meant he was excited... Buzzkill!

My mom was getting her camera already and asking me why the pictures weren't showing up. I looked and found that the cartridge was filled. We didn't know if this was all day since it had been acting that way, so we were nervous we lost a whole day of photos because of this. We kinda shook this off and left all our faith in my dad's work camera which was A LOT nicer.

Eeyore was the first to come to our table and made probably the best entrance of all the characters. My mom was sitting so she was blinded from the oncoming characters, so when Eeyore came up, I shouted out "There's Eeyore" and my mom was sort of caught off guard and answered "Huh?" and then I said "Look behind you!" and she turned and Eeyore ran to the other side, then my mom's face went pale. She turned to the other side and Eeyore moved again. Then, she turned and he was right there, she screeched then started laughing as we all burst into laughter. Once we had all calmed down, it was picture time:

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Yeah I know my eyes are closed.

Soon after him, came Piglet, no little stories about... him? Sorry I don't know if a Piglet is a him or her? Is that weird? Should I know? Whatever... but we got pictures with Piglet next:

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Yeah I know I'm not looking and that Piglet's ear is in my face.

After Piglet, there were only two more characters to go... Tigger and Pooh! We could see Pooh coming and Tigger wasn't anywhere to be found. Pooh got a little caught up but he soon came to us. My mom and dad sang the Winnie the Pooh theme song and he hid behind his hands. Awww... so Pooh, then we got pictures:

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After Pooh, there was a big gap between characters. Tigger probably got stuck since I'm guessing he is the most popular. I could see him from the other side of the room but I don't think he would be near us anytime soon. I took this time to fill up my plate again.

When I came back, almost immediately came our waitress with a little Cupcake for my dad. Here are some pictures from that moment (one random one of my mom clapping when the lady came with it, because my dad was just so shocked by this, he looked so funny and kinda awkward):

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After that, the waitress took some of our drinks, since we drank them rather quickly and went to get refills. Before she left, she told us there was desert ready so we went up to get some. I remember that I got Apple Crisp, some cookies and then went to the Ice Cream machine to make myself a mouthwatering sundae. Tigger had now made it over to our side by this time, but was making slow progress so we had some more time to eat. Everything tasted really good and I liked the Apple Crisp and the Ice Cream, it was very creamy and it had a ton of little toppings on it, making it all the better. The waitress than brought our drinks as I was coming to the point, where I was fuller than full, as with everyone else, so we requested water for everyone along with the sodas (I had Root Beer, by the way).

Tigger was edging closer to us and just as he was coming to the table next to us, the cheerleaders around that area, went insane and started bombarding the poor guy. They hogged him forever. I felt so bad for him. I mean they went crazy over him. It got so bad, a CM had to come over and get the girls who were at the table across from us, the table he was supposed to go to after, and bring him over to us. She apologized and gave a good talking to them. Darn, cheerleaders! But, Tigger was here so... picture time again:

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So, there went our last character. The waters had arrived and we finished all our drinks, so the CM came over to give us the check and everything. We were using the DP, so we gave her that card and soon enough we were out the door. As soon as we exited, we noticed the castle all lit up and had to take some pictures:

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After we got those pictures, we noticed a parade going on around the Castle. I checked my times guide and found out the SpectroMagic parade had just begun. We all wanted to see it since it looked so cool, so we ran over and I got some more pictures with my phone:

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The parade was really cool and I was hoping to stay, but my dad was tired and we didn't want to push his buttons, since he wasn't exactly in favor of this vacation, so we started making our way out. We were able to get through the parade and the crowds to get out of the park. We got to our bus stop and found there was already a decent line of people, I guess we would be standing on the bus. :/

The bus ride from MK to AKL was a bit long so it wasn't exactly fun standing there, but we made it (and probably would have to get used to it). It was around 10 now, so it was basically time for us to go to bed.

We got to our room, everyone got changed, took a shower, very tired from the day. Both my sisters passed out pretty quickly, well... after opening up the pull-out beds. My sisters got the couch, I got the nice small chair. Not hugely happy about that. I stayed up a bit, since my dad went out to go enjoy the pool bar, and watched a little bit of movies, but it was a lost cause, so I brushed my teeth and went to bed, refueling myself for the next day.

CHAPTER 5: ALIENS, DANCERS AND OFFICERS, OH MY! coming soon...
 
Hey none of that "Darn cheerleaders!" now!
Haha(;
But great updates! Sorry I'm probably late on reading them, but oh well.
 
¡WDW!girlrox(:;41230459 said:
Hey none of that "Darn cheerleaders!" now!
Haha(;
But great updates! Sorry I'm probably late on reading them, but oh well.

Well, they were causing trouble and I wasn't talking about you specifically, just those darn cheerleaders (LOL) And it's okay :-) Hope you enjoy what you need to catch up on, Lizzy! :goodvibes
 
CHAPTER 5: ALIENS, DANCERS AND OFFICERS, OH MY! (Part 1)

Once again, I woke up early this morning. It was definitely hard staying in my bed again for another morning, when I'm so excited for another day in the World... Then, I noticed I had woken up at 4 in the morning, so I went back to sleep. I woke up again around 5 and about an hour or so after, everyone woke up. :rolleyes: I can never win.

Once everyone was up, I got my chance to take a shower, have breakfast and all that other stuff to get ready for the long day ahead of us. :-) Today we planned to go to Disney's Hollywood Studios and see the one show that was part of our itinerary in how we chose where to go: Fantasmic! Even on the outdated travel video of Disney I watched all the time, Fantasmic was mentioned and so it was one of the very few shows at Disney I basically knew about at the time. I couldn't wait to see it!

While everyone was getting ready, DOS decided to take a picture of the Kitchen table (covered with all our carry-on junk of course):

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Once we had everything packed, we were off. Before we left, we all refilled our mugs at the gift shop then it was off to the bus stop. There wasn't a lot out there for the bus and we ended up being the only ones to go on the DHS bus. It was awesome having the bus to ourselves. I think there was some seat switching throughout the ride, because we were very bored while on the ride. There were a few that came on at Jambo House, but not a lot and we were on our way.

We arrived at Hollywood Studios fairly quickly. I must say it was a lot closer to AKL than I expected. We were there in less than half the time it took to get to MK. We also got through the entrance fairly quickly though it was a little past rope drop. As we entered into the Hollywood Boulevard. As we walked down, we ran into some street performers or citizens of Hollywood and then we saw the Sorcerer Mickey Hat. We of course had to get a picture so, voila!:

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We saw some characters around the hat out already, but the lines were huge, so it was a lost cause for trying to get pictures. We decided to head for The Great Movie Ride right behind the Sorcerer Mickey hat. It seemed the park wasn't at it's peak hours so, there was nobody really at the Great Movie Ride. Out front, there was a CM telling people about the little autographs in the cement. She was very bubbly and nice, but I was too distracted with taking pictures to talk to her. Check 'em out:

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After taking all these pictures, we all headed inside to go on the ride. It was a pretty cool queue with some props from some movies than we enter into the movie showing room, where the same CM who was outside showing us all the autographs in the ground, came in to be our tour guide on the ride. We had a little bit of a wait there, but we soon got on. The CM I've been talking about was awesome as our tour guide! She was very bubbly, engaging and hilarious! She connected with the audience well. At the Indiana Jones part, where she magically showed up, she used her cloak to blow off the smoke, it was funny. And the ride was great too, though DYS didn't like it so much. I think the Alien part was the worst part, there is so much build-up, it can get pretty scary. Everyone else enjoyed it though. I forget if we went on again after this or we just headed back into Hollywood Boulevard to head onto Sunset Boulevard for Tower of Terror, when we were distracted by these people:

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Then, we saw these people:

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and soon these people:

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We all thought it would be interesting to see. We were all big fans of High School Musical, we saw all three! I was also in the play version in 6th Grade, where I played the skater dude who plays the cello. We had to watch the show:

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The show was... ok. I didn't think it was amazing. It looked like one of the singers, the guy with the blonde hair, had a dud of a mic and disappeared for part of the show and seemed pretty flustered with his hand mic. Besides that, they were all fairly good singers. I can't pinpoint which one was best, now, but I remembered the girls were better than the guys. I think the best part of the entire show, was when they left and my dad says "Corbin Bleu gained a lot of weight." I was laughing so hard. One, at his joke and two, that he knew who Corbin Bleu was. Hahaha

After this, we decided to head further back into the Studios to go visit some of our favorite toys...

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST...
 
The Alien part of TGMR is the best part!..The singing creepy people in the Wizard Of Oz part freak me out so much.. lol
 
lol,the thing your dad said was funny,i can't believe your dad knows who corbin bleu is!If i ask my dad he would ask who that is,great update!:thumbsup2
 

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