Surprised the kids, wife, and my readers w/ a 2 week trip to AoA!(*NEW* 11-7)

Poor Parker!! I hope he gets to feeling better after some rest back in the room! I LOVE the stuffies in a boat! So adorable.

I can't wait to see the new Dumbo area and everything over there! Disney is so clever - love the cool stuff in the penguin section! And the popcorn pins! Seeing all of it makes me so happy!
 
Awww, so sad Parker didn't feel good in the MK. Glad he knew when to call it a day. Noelle is so cute on Dumbo. :) Of course, I think she's cute everywhere. :rotfl:

Jill in CO
 
Poor Parker! Good for him to be able to say he needed to rest...some kids wouldn't want to go back to the room no matter what due to all the things around them that you know they want to do! Resting now hopefully helped him bounce back.

We loved the Big Top shop while we were there! I think all of us ended up buying something in that store. Great pics!
 


So many delicious looking/sounding things at Food and wine! I want to eat them all!!

I've always wanted to do pick a pearl, but I dont know what kind of setting I want! I like the carriage necklace a lot, but I'm not a big necklace person...lol.. I'll figure something out, probably do it in Sept anyways!

Glad you guys finally got that mickey bar, and that sucks that you didn't find the wine! Maybe you made it back and got it another time? Haha. Hopefully!

Oh no! Parker not feeling good is no fun!Hope he starts to feel better!
 
What a great mommy and daddy you both are! Poor little guy - hope he starts to feel better and can enjoy the rest of the vacation!
 
Poor Parker. To ask to go back to the room, you know he did not feel well

Hope the rest in the room makes him feel better

Love the towel boat. so cute

Big Top Souvenir Tent has the best snacks in there :thumbsup2
 


Awww, poor little man. You know it's bad when they want to go home, or back to the room as it were. :guilty:

Sure hope he feels better quickly, it stinks to be sick on vacation. :sick:

Hope y'all are having a great 4th of July. :)
 
Poor Parker. At least he toughed it out for a little bit. I love the Storybook Circus. It was our favorite when we were there. I wish we would have spent more time there.
i wish we would have thought to bring there suits in so they could play in the spitting water area, that looked like alot of fun for the kids.

it is a really awesome themed area.


Poor Parker !!! To be sick at Disney should be illegal!!! I feel so bad for him !!! Great pix of the sneak preview and the posters !!!
im with you there rosie, it should be outlawed, no sickness once you cross under that entrance sign.

i was happy with the poster pics even though we didnt end up doing anything with them...but maybe one day.


What fun!
:welcome: thanks for reading along

Poor Parker, that's a rough morning. I am LOVING the towel canoe/rowboat, that is just so cool!

Good for him for being able to say he wanted to go back, a lot of kids wouldn't and make themselves feel worse. :thumbsup2

I did not connect the dots on the Penguin case. Clever, very clever!

i wonder if they have a special training for those sort of things or if they just train themselves to do it.

yeah when they actually admit they cant do more you know they are not feeling good

most of the areas in that big top were themed and in something like that, the stufed animals were in cage type areas along the walls.


Poor Parker!! I hope he gets to feeling better after some rest back in the room! I LOVE the stuffies in a boat! So adorable.

I can't wait to see the new Dumbo area and everything over there! Disney is so clever - love the cool stuff in the penguin section! And the popcorn pins! Seeing all of it makes me so happy!
they are very talented with there animals in the rooms we had a great mousekeeper while there

you will be seeing it soon the summer time usually flys by

Awww, so sad Parker didn't feel good in the MK. Glad he knew when to call it a day. Noelle is so cute on Dumbo. :) Of course, I think she's cute everywhere. :rotfl:

Jill in CO

i was glad he didnt want to push himself either and told us that he was ready to go back.
 
Poor Parker! Good for him to be able to say he needed to rest...some kids wouldn't want to go back to the room no matter what due to all the things around them that you know they want to do! Resting now hopefully helped him bounce back.

We loved the Big Top shop while we were there! I think all of us ended up buying something in that store. Great pics!
i was proud of him for sure, the rest did help him out some which you will see in the next few chapters.

that is a great shop, we didnt buy anything in it as we didnt really spend much time in there the last day, and now that i think about it, not sure if we made it back in there or not the last day.:worried:


Poor Parker, it definitely is not fun being sick in WDW.

especially in disney when you know so much awesome is around you.

So many delicious looking/sounding things at Food and wine! I want to eat them all!!

I've always wanted to do pick a pearl, but I dont know what kind of setting I want! I like the carriage necklace a lot, but I'm not a big necklace person...lol.. I'll figure something out, probably do it in Sept anyways!

Glad you guys finally got that mickey bar, and that sucks that you didn't find the wine! Maybe you made it back and got it another time? Haha. Hopefully!

Oh no! Parker not feeling good is no fun!Hope he starts to feel better!
my wife doesnt wear necklaces a lot either but when she does she usually wears that one.

i wish we went back for another food and wine day, but we were only in epcot that one day, we did one day each park and 3 in the MK, figured the kids would like that best, but looking back we should have added another park day on so we could have went back to epcot on our off day, but didnt think about it at the time.

What a great mommy and daddy you both are! Poor little guy - hope he starts to feel better and can enjoy the rest of the vacation!
thanks for the kind words...another chapter coming up soon.


Poor Parker. To ask to go back to the room, you know he did not feel well

Hope the rest in the room makes him feel better

Love the towel boat. so cute

Big Top Souvenir Tent has the best snacks in there :thumbsup2

yep he held out as long as he could but i was proud of him to ask to go back, not easy for a little one to do with all that going on around him.

there stuff did look tasty but we never ended up buying any...what snacks did you guys get?



Awww, poor little man. You know it's bad when they want to go home, or back to the room as it were. :guilty:

Sure hope he feels better quickly, it stinks to be sick on vacation. :sick:

Hope y'all are having a great 4th of July. :)

yep it should be banned from vacations to be sick, but it happens and we made the best of it.

we had a blast on the 4th really good time, hope you did as well.
 
Chapter 60. Touring the Resort

after we ate our lunch i knew parker needed to lay down to rest, so instead of Noelle being loud in the room and bothering him, i decided to take her for a little walk around the resort.

this was to accomplish 3 things.

1. give parker quite time to rest and maybe fall asleep
2. allow noelle some down time to hopefully fall asleep in the stroller
3. give me a chance to get a bunch of pictures that i wanted to of the resort.


So with my partner in crime ready to go we had her strapped in and were out the door.

She was looking sleepy to me and i thought maybe she wouldnt make it out of the little mermaid section before she zonked out.
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but i think she was just fooling me as she perked right up after that.
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it was on to get some pictures of things that i had failed to do so far.

sebastian was on the one end of the pool
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and looking the other way aerial looks out over the pool
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we then ventured up to the top floor of the Ursula wing of our section and had a great view of the pool area below us.
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while up there i happened to notice a very subtle little item on the tip of her finger, i came to the conclusion that it was a lightning rode...they were also placed on the top of king tritons crown and the top of aerial i found later.
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then to the back side of the ursula section to see the bridge between the two resorts...the panoramic turned out okay it was a little bright as i was taking it into the sun direction and light is a little bit funny on the panoramic settings but i will still share it.
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i also figured that people might like to see the landscapping in this section, it varied from crushed shells to mulch in areas, i thought the crushed shells was a nice touch.
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as we were leaving the mermaid section i notice that someone had cut out the sod by the walkways, im not sure why as they just laid it down about a week ago after we arrived, it wasnt even in a certain pattern like where sprinklers would be just vary random...it reminded me of the movie with jim carrey where he steals the sod.

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after we left the sod area, it was on to explore the lion king section first was a hallway shot.
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then it was a view of the carpet, which later in the trip the rest of the family went in and saw with me and they really liked the foot prints of timon pumba and simba.
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we then went on around the pool to get some more pictures around there.

while at this location we noticed the big wig CM's standing there talking about something around the pool.

being the curious type noelle and i ventured over and under the disguise of taking pictures found out they were talking about replacing all of the bolts around the pool they were not happy with them.
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i did manage to get a picture of one of the entrances by the pool to the nemo section.

once inside the nemo section they had a huge picture on the wall by the elevator bank.
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and walking down the hall we saw a hidden mickey in the bubbles on the carpet...
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this prompted me to think there were mickeys in all the sections carpet...but we will check on that more later.

we then went out the back of the resort and walked the other direction from the bridge to see the rest of the info signs that we didnt see the other day walking back from lunch at POP.

here was the first one.
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lets check in with noelle and see if she is still awake.
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yep havent knocked her out yet.

the back stairs of the nemo section covering the stairs in that area.
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and right onto the cars section and there stairs covered up.

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and the front and back of the cars signs along the lake.
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with that i will go onto the next chapter and share more pictures of our walking tour.
 
Chapter 61. Touring the resort and looking for hidden mickeys

now with fresh hidden mickeys in my mind from nemo it was time to continue on in the cars section to find more hidden mickeys in there carpet.

but first the rest of the signs along the pathway.
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and the back of the stairs on this cars building.
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then into the building we went behind the luigis sign and instantly we found the hidden mickey on the carpet there.
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down the hall by there elvators there was a really cool picture of radiator springs with lighting in front.

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after careful consideration i realized that even though the hallways were empty i would not be able to fit this picture into my checked luggage so taking some pictures without getting any wall in it was next on the agenda.

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then one centered up a little more with more background down the main drag
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and just in case there are any luigis tire shop fans out there one of just his shop with lightning out of it.

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i think those would look really cool on a kids bedroom wall.

back out the main doors to take some pictures of the vehicles during the day time since the last pictures i took were night shots on our arrival day.

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i thought i almost knocked her out but she was still holding on and not sleeping.

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i was a big fan of the signs along the pool fence around the pool, i thought they would make great decorative pieces in my garage.
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ms sally
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going down one side of the street in front of the pool was these signs that i enjoyed.

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next chapter coming right up after this.
 
Chapter 62. Touring the resort finale

Coming back into the section the other side of the signs says something different.
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when we went into the main hall to walk around we saw a CM doing wet mop art on the ground.

this first one he finished and we easily knew what it was.
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this next one i wasnt so sure right away what it was.
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then it started to come together.

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and now you can see it really taking shape
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and almost done,
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we came back through here about an hour later and you could still make them out, i wonder what they put in that water to make them last that long

then i tried a few panoramic inside shots of the lobby.
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which were a little tricky with the lighting and the people moving but for the most part turned out okay.

across from the check in desks.
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then noelle and i went out towards the front of the resort to take some pictures of the larger than life images on the front.
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to get the next shot we had to walk across the parking lot towards the front to get it from the front...but there were enough sidewalks there that we did it safely.
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then back inside the resort to take some pictures of the food signs.

i didnt take them on the rotating ones on the stations themselves but on the wall...i figured it could give everyone a view of what they offer a little better and at least get a sense of what was there.

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and with that noelle and i headed back to our room to check on parker and candi.

we were gone a little more than an hour and that little stinker didnt fall asleep once.


till next time, have a good weekend everyone.
 
I am so excited to have just found this TR! My family is going for almost the same exact dates this year to the AoA (right after our anniversary too!). Your kids are so cute and I am having so much fun reading about the big surprise and your adventures so far (I am still at the beginning). Some of the pictures are missing from your old posts, but I realize this is from last year, and I am still enjoying reading along.

Can't wait to read more- you are really getting me excited about AoA! :yay:
 
I am so excited to have just found this TR! My family is going for almost the same exact dates this year to the AoA (right after our anniversary too!). Your kids are so cute and I am having so much fun reading about the big surprise and your adventures so far (I am still at the beginning). Some of the pictures are missing from your old posts, but I realize this is from last year, and I am still enjoying reading along.

Can't wait to read more- you are really getting me excited about AoA! :yay:
:welcome: glad to have you along, im glad you are enjoying the report.

you guys will have a blast at AoA we loved it there.


I looked into the picture situation, it looks like the ones you are looking at are linked to my photo account that is over the bandwidth limit, but it should reset tomorrow or sunday at the latest for those pictures, so you will be able to see them at that time.
 
Great Updates Dan!! That was some Tour of AoA, loved the carpet hidden mickeys, and the sidewalk painting .I have to starte looking for hidden mickeys this year, I mean like relly look not just occassionally spot one !!!
 
Thanks for all the great pics! I am getting really excited about staying at AoA this Fall!!!

The mop art was amazing. I have never seen that.
 
Great updates! Thanks for the tour of AoA! Lol....Noelle not falling asleep, she was enjoying the tour from Tour Guide Dad.
 

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