13 Days of Disney - Everything We Never Knew We Always Wanted - June 2016 TR Update 1/30

[summerw]

Hi, I'm enjoying your report. I feel for you in the foot thing. Our first trip, my mother ran over my foot with her scooter when she let ds3 drive two days into the 12 day trip. This last trip, the combination of several things caused a tenderness in my foot and I had to get cortisone two days before the trip. I also stubbed my toe so bad, I ripped off my baby toe nail a few days before my wedding, so I'm a lifer like you. Lol.

I can't wait to read the rest. I'd love to spilt stay between BC and BLT. I'd be interested in hearing which you thought was more peaceful?

 

[disneyaddicted]

I'm really enjoying your TR. Gosh how awful to have such bad foot luck, I hope your toe didn't bother you too much on your trip. I can't even imagine something being stuck in the bone, ouch. Just wanted to say I'm following this, now I need to get caught up.

 

[ArielSRL]

Star Wars themed DHS day! Love it! Glad you finally got a ride on RnRC. It's not my fave and I've skipped it a lot lately but wouldn't mind a ride in June.

Funny about Alex and the sunscreened eyes photos! Glad he ended up ok! Lol.

Love the light saber photos! Glad you enjoyed your BCV stay and the kids had so much Stormalong Bay time! I've probably asked you but did you set out to do a split stay or did you decide to do it based on availability of the points or ??

Looking forward to the BLT portion of your trip!

 

[1Grumpy9]

I have heard great things about going through the Launch Bay and trading with the Jawas. I guess I have to find some things to trade (just in case).

I have been checking the wait times just to see what it has been like during the summer and I think the 3rd track has certainly helped with the wait times for TSMM.

 

[disny_luvr]

We loved trading with the Jawas. I had read on here about it and asked my DH, who works at CAT, if he could find some interesting shiny trinkets at work. He came through and the Jawas loved them! They were walking around showing everyone, including their handler, and give us a ton of stuff in return. I got some great pics!

We loved meeting Chewie but, unfortunately, our interaction with him wasn't the greatest.

We also wanted to meet Kylo Ren but the line was loooooong. As we were leaving the area, I noticed there was a Disney Visa character meet and greet and I asked the CM who was meeting. She replied Kylo Ren and there was no wait! I knew from reading on here that his meet and greet could, shall we say, be intense, so just DH and myself went in and I only went in to take pics. Well, we had to walk down a small hall and a very odd CM was standing there and was positioned in a way that he could see on both sides of the wall. When it was time to go in, I went in first and as I turned the corner Kylo Ren was standing right there. I actually bumped into him, totally screamed and ran on the other side of the wall back into the hallway. My DH is laughing hysterically, I get my composure and we walk in. Kylo Ren would not leave me alone, he's in my face, clenching his fists, talking about the Resistance, where can he find the map, he knows I know and on and on. Never said a word to my DH. We take the pictures. I'm smiling but, like you, it's awkward. And, then when we are finished taking pics, he chases me out of the room. I'm screaming again, push the door open, and he retreats. People are looking at me and my DH is like get a grip. All I can say is never again; it was intense. And to think, I just went in to take pictures.

 

[NJlauren]

Joining in! Really enjoying following along!

 

[Jfsag123]

Hi, I'm enjoying your report. I feel for you in the foot thing. Our first trip, my mother ran over my foot with her scooter when she let ds3 drive two days into the 12 day trip. This last trip, the combination of several things caused a tenderness in my foot and I had to get cortisone two days before the trip. I also stubbed my toe so bad, I ripped off my baby toe nail a few days before my wedding, so I'm a lifer like you. Lol.

I can't wait to read the rest. I'd love to spilt stay between BC and BLT. I'd be interested in hearing which you thought was more peaceful?

Thank you! I'm sorry for your continued foot-astrophes as well. Fingers crossed we'll both have better luck in the future!

The split between BCV and BLT really was amazing. I would say BCV was more peaceful - very peaceful and somewhat removed from the activity of the lobby and main pool area, though with easy access to both. But I have to say BLT is my first love, and isn't really hectic either. We've found the rooms and hallways to be really quiet both times we've stayed. However, all you have to do is look out your balcony to see activity, regardless of where your room is. I love it, though, because I feel like I'm always in the thick of the MK atmosphere.

I'm really enjoying your TR. Gosh how awful to have such bad foot luck, I hope your toe didn't bother you too much on your trip. I can't even imagine something being stuck in the bone, ouch. Just wanted to say I'm following this, now I need to get caught up.

Welcome and thanks! It was a ridiculous freak accident of which I'm still suffering the consequences, but I've learned my lesson - house shoes at all times! Thanks for following along!

Star Wars themed DHS day! Love it! Glad you finally got a ride on RnRC. It's not my fave and I've skipped it a lot lately but wouldn't mind a ride in June.

Funny about Alex and the sunscreened eyes photos! Glad he ended up ok! Lol.

Love the light saber photos! Glad you enjoyed your BCV stay and the kids had so much Stormalong Bay time! I've probably asked you but did you set out to do a split stay or did you decide to do it based on availability of the points or ??

Looking forward to the BLT portion of your trip!

It was a great Star Wars-y day! We actually did set out to do a split stay. It came out of wanting to try other resorts, but not wanting to give up BLT either, as we just loved it so much. Once we decided to do a split we knew we wanted to try an Epcot resort in combination with BLT and I found a really good deal on points for BCV so we jumped on it.

I have heard great things about going through the Launch Bay and trading with the Jawas. I guess I have to find some things to trade (just in case).

I have been checking the wait times just to see what it has been like during the summer and I think the 3rd track has certainly helped with the wait times for TSMM.

That 3rd track has really seemed to work wonders. Good thing considering how much has closed.

Definitely try the Jawa trading! One of the trip highlights for us.

We loved trading with the Jawas. I had read on here about it and asked my DH, who works at CAT, if he could find some interesting shiny trinkets at work. He came through and the Jawas loved them! They were walking around showing everyone, including their handler, and give us a ton of stuff in return. I got some great pics!

We loved meeting Chewie but, unfortunately, our interaction with him wasn't the greatest.

We also wanted to meet Kylo Ren but the line was loooooong. As we were leaving the area, I noticed there was a Disney Visa character meet and greet and I asked the CM who was meeting. She replied Kylo Ren and there was no wait! I knew from reading on here that his meet and greet could, shall we say, be intense, so just DH and myself went in and I only went in to take pics. Well, we had to walk down a small hall and a very odd CM was standing there and was positioned in a way that he could see on both sides of the wall. When it was time to go in, I went in first and as I turned the corner Kylo Ren was standing right there. I actually bumped into him, totally screamed and ran on the other side of the wall back into the hallway. My DH is laughing hysterically, I get my composure and we walk in. Kylo Ren would not leave me alone, he's in my face, clenching his fists, talking about the Resistance, where can he find the map, he knows I know and on and on. Never said a word to my DH. We take the pictures. I'm smiling but, like you, it's awkward. And, then when we are finished taking pics, he chases me out of the room. I'm screaming again, push the door open, and he retreats. People are looking at me and my DH is like get a grip. All I can say is never again; it was intense. And to think, I just went in to take pictures.

I'm sorry, I just laughed so hard at your Ren story! But it's partly because I could relate so much. He is not a fun dude lol. Fortunately the Jawas are close by so we could shake off the Kylos with some trading.

What happened with Chewie?

Joining in! Really enjoying following along!

Welcome! Thanks for joining in!

 

[Jfsag123]

Day 7 – June 12: Epcot/Resort Change, Part 1

Six nights down, six nights to go – we had reached the halfway point of our trip. We love love loved the Epcot resort portion of our trip, but it was time to transition to the Magic Kingdom resort area portion of our trip.

You may recognize the date on this one. This was the day of the Orlando nightclub massacre. We woke up early, but not rope drop early since we were not rope dropping. I put on the Mickey cartoon channel for the kids so Rees and I could finish packing up, but decided to check facebook first. Of course, I saw the news. My first instinct was the check The DIS and make sure everyone on the team here was safe. I felt absolutely terrible for the victims, their families, the city of Orlando, and the larger LGBT community. I then wondered how this might impact the rest of our trip, then immediately felt guilty for thinking about that when so many were suffering. Spoiler: I would feel the same way again a few days later.

I followed the story as best I could, but continued preparing for the day. We needed to be out of BCV by 11:00 of course, so we had stuff that needed to get done. Our plan was to have bell services transfer a lot of our luggage and all of our food items from BCV to BLT, then pack whatever we had left in the car. We would then leave the car in the BC parking lot and enter Epcot through the IG. We planned to spend the late morning and early afternoon in Epcot until we got our room text for BLT, then exit through the IG, walk back to our car, and head over.

The first part of the day went off without a hitch. We got everything together and called for bell services, who arrived really quickly. This was great, as we had had a really hard time getting bell services up when we’d been checking out from BLT on our 2015 trip.

We were finished dealing with our luggage/check out by about 10:40, which was perfect, as we wanted to be in Epcot in time to catch Mary Poppins’ first meet at 11:00. The kids dressed in their Mary and Bert costumes this day.

I have to admit here that I was not as dedicated with the costumes this time. They wore several of them (more toward the latter half of the trip), but I was not on it with the accessories. I didn’t bother with shoes to match the costumes, which I had done in 2015. Also, I left Mary Poppins’ hat back in Texas. So here are Mary and Bert, Mary hat-free and both in Crocs lol.

We decided to take this one last shot on the balcony before heading out of our room for the last time. As we exited BCV we ran into a CM who stopped us to tell us how much she loved the kids’ costumes. She offered to take their picture in front of the Ariel statue.

We got into Epcot by about 10:50 and tried to figure out where exactly Mary’s meet was. We last met her in Epcot in 2013 and I knew they had slightly moved her location since then. We got multiple answers from CM’s and different websites showed different locations, so we just took our best guess and kind of milled around. It worked out fine in the end, as the character attendant came out early, saw the kids and knew who we were there for. There were other people standing around at this point too. The CM came over and got us, led us to the right spot then announced “the line starts behind Mary and Bert!” We were very grateful. While we waited for the fully grown Mary, the CM asked for the kids’ autographs, much to their delight. She was great.

Mary is one of our favorite characters to meet. You can see by Cora’s face in this first photo how much they enjoyed her.

After meeting Mary we poked around a bit more in the UK pavilion and, of course, had to take red phone booth photos.

I asked the kids if they wanted to change out of their costumes at this point, as it was pretty hot, but they asked to stay in them a bit longer. We were headed to the Mexico pavilion for lunch, so I told them they could keep them on for the walk to the other side of World Showcase, but then would need to take them off.

Before we could get very far, we were held up by a sudden surprise. As we walked between the UK and Canada, the gate swung open to reveal a bunch of characters. We had stumbled upon a character training at just the right time! One of the characters was Mary Poppins’ penguin, who immediately ran over to Cora and Alex when he saw them. However, Cora rushed over to Pluto, as she loves him, running right past the penguin!

Penguin was not pleased.

We got a quick picture with Pluto before moving over to visit with Penguin.

They did some nice dancing with him. Next up was Rafiki, followed by Mr. Smee.

I was really excited to see Smee! Next up was Eeyore, then Chip and Dale. The kids so did not care that they had met 3 of these characters just a few days before at Garden Grill.

We were also thrilled to see Donald in his traditional outfit, as we’ve only met him in his Mexico or silly sideshow garb. Rees, of course, had to get in on this one.

We then stopped by to see Pluto AGAIN! There were not many people back here so a lot of the times they characters were just standing free.

Finally, we saw Wendell from the Country Bears. He pointed out that he and Alex had the same color bowtie, which tickled Alex and turned him into an instant fan.

At this point we continued on our way over to the other side of WS, the kids absolutely in awe over what had just happened (honestly, we were a little in awe too). We did a quick change in the Odyssey bathrooms, then grabbed some food from the QS in Mexico. We are Texan through and through and start to get a little crazy if we go too long without tacos. Without our typical Tex-Mex places and taquerias to turn to, the Mexico QS had to do. I didn’t take pictures here because we sat outside and had to stay on our guard because we were dealing with some super aggressive ducks. One literally walked up and snatched a bite of food out of Cora’s hand! Watch out, those things are shady and have no fear.

With the surprise bunch of characters we already felt as though we’d accomplished a lot, though we hadn’t even hit our first ride yet. We would address that after our lunch.

To be continued…

 

[NJlauren]

OMG those outfits are amazing! Do you buy them of making them? I can not get over them at all! What a great CM!

Love the surprise meet! The Penguin, amazing!

Looks like a good start to the day.... But see a little negative foreshadowing.....

 

[nco91590]

OMG Those costumes are amazing!!!!!!!!!!! I might've missed it in your report, but do you make them or purchase those somewhere?

 

[Jfsag123]

OMG those outfits are amazing! Do you buy them of making them? I can not get over them at all! What a great CM!

Love the surprise meet! The Penguin, amazing!

Looks like a good start to the day.... But see a little negative foreshadowing.....

OMG Those costumes are amazing!!!!!!!!!!! I might've missed it in your report, but do you make them or purchase those somewhere?

Thank you both! I think I talked about this in my pre-trip report, but not my trip report. My mother-in-law makes the costumes. We are very lucky to have an amazing seamstress in the family! In the past I've been much more diligent with making sure the costumes were complete, but kind of dropped the ball this time. Here are Bert and Mary with hat and shoes from 2015.

And here's a sampling of some of our other past ones.

 

[NJlauren]

Thank you both! I think I talked about this in my pre-trip report, but not my trip report. My mother-in-law makes the costumes. We are very lucky to have an amazing seamstress in the family! In the past I've been much more diligent with making sure the costumes were complete, but kind of dropped the ball this time. Here are Bert and Mary with hat and shoes from 2015.

And here's a sampling of some of our other past ones.

Omg amazing!!!!! Love love love!

 

[cgersic]

Oh my goodness the costumes!! They both are just adorable! Your son is quite charming and your daughter a beauty! FUN!!!

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

Wow! Your mother in law does amazing work and your children look precious in the costumes.

We once stumbled onto the characters coming out from backstage as well. So nice being in the right place at the right time.

 

[ariane37]

I LOL'd about Cora walking right past Penguin to get to Pluto So funny! I remember seeing the Bert and Mary costumes on your FB page and loving them, I think they're my favorites of all the ones I've seen that your MIL has made. The kids are just adorable in them! You must save them all for when you have grandkids YEARS from now..........

Happening upon the Epcot character training - how special! We've walked up on that twice, the last time in Jan. when it was just Steve and I. I honestly offhand can only remember Rafiki and Donald, then in his traditional sailor outfit, too. That made me happy and I had my picture taken with him but they came out horrible, so it's for my eyes only The best part of your experience, besides Penguin of course, was Wendell I think! He is super rare. I've never met any of the Country Bears and would love to. Smee is cool, too.

I meant to say this on another post but your pictures of the Beach Club have made me even more excited for our Nov. stay than I already was. Since I already know we love the Epcot area and we're kind of "over" BW for now, I think BC will be a welcome change and it looks awesome. However since we've never stayed at BLT I'm looking forward to those pictures, too!

 

[Jfsag123]

Oh my goodness the costumes!! They both are just adorable! Your son is quite charming and your daughter a beauty! FUN!!!

Thanks so much! They love rocking those costumes.

Wow! Your mother in law does amazing work and your children look precious in the costumes.

We once stumbled onto the characters coming out from backstage as well. So nice being in the right place at the right time.

We really are lucky. Thank you!

Also lucky on the character training. I'd heard about it happening, but wasn't even thinking about it when we were walking by. Love those unexpected Disney moments!

I LOL'd about Cora walking right past Penguin to get to Pluto So funny! I remember seeing the Bert and Mary costumes on your FB page and loving them, I think they're my favorites of all the ones I've seen that your MIL has made. The kids are just adorable in them! You must save them all for when you have grandkids YEARS from now..........

I was a little put out with her lol. I mean come on, you've got Penguin right there and we just saw Pluto 3 days ago! And thanks so much for the kind words. I'm sure you have seen the Mary and Bert costumes on FB before. We have had them for years at this point. They are the kids' favorites, so my MIL just keeps altering them so the kids can still wear them as they grow. I'm pretty sure this trip was the last time, though. And yes, we will definitely be saving them. I've had people offer to buy them and other family members ask to have them, but there's no way Cora and Alex will give them up. We already have multiple containers of costumes they've outgrown - I'm going to have to invest in a storage unit!

Happening upon the Epcot character training - how special! We've walked up on that twice, the last time in Jan. when it was just Steve and I. I honestly offhand can only remember Rafiki and Donald, then in his traditional sailor outfit, too. That made me happy and I had my picture taken with him but they came out horrible, so it's for my eyes only The best part of your experience, besides Penguin of course, was Wendell I think! He is super rare. I've never met any of the Country Bears and would love to. Smee is cool, too.

I think Wendell was the best too! I'm really happy we've gotten to meet a few characters that aren't normally available through this and characterpaloozas. And Donald in his traditional outfit was a treat.

I meant to say this on another post but your pictures of the Beach Club have made me even more excited for our Nov. stay than I already was. Since I already know we love the Epcot area and we're kind of "over" BW for now, I think BC will be a welcome change and it looks awesome. However since we've never stayed at BLT I'm looking forward to those pictures, too!

It really is gorgeous. I'm glad the pics can help with your excitement, though I'm sure you don't need much help! BLT isn't beautiful in the same way that BC is, but takes my breath away every time. It just feels like home.

 

[ArielSRL]

.

I meant to say this on another post but your pictures of the Beach Club have made me even more excited for our Nov. stay than I already was. Since I already know we love the Epcot area and we're kind of "over" BW for now, I think BC will be a welcome change and it looks awesome. However since we've never stayed at BLT I'm looking forward to those pictures, too!

She totally has me longing for BCV. I keep having to stay strong to the VWL! I keep repeating all the reasons for my choice in my head....little kids and Stormalong Bay create stress, we want to be by MK, the boat, the boat, the boat......lol.

 

[ArielSRL]

Love, love, love all the costumes and character meets. You are truly, truly one organized lady when it comes to the costumes and the character meets! I aspire to be you in that dept but I doubt it ever happens!

I think I remember hearing about an issue with the move so I'm anxiously awaiting that part of the TR.

 

[ariane37]

She totally has me longing for BCV. I keep having to stay strong to the VWL! I keep repeating all the reasons for my choice in my head....little kids and Stormalong Bay create stress, we want to be by MK, the boat, the boat, the boat......lol.

I'll have a review of WL soon so hopefully I'll be able to strengthen your resolve to keep trying for VWL lol!

 

[bbjunkie]

I am absolutely loving your trip report. I had to jump in just to agree about how wonderful It is to meet Mary. My daughter was just trembling with excitement talking to her, too!