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07-18-2012, 02:57 PM
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#1 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ten Minutes from the Happiest Place on Earth
Posts: 325
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Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May 2012 (Complete)
Hello fellow Disney fans and welcome to my first trip report! I’m so excited to share the awesome trip that my wife and I took May 19-25, 2012. I haven’t decided on a title yet for sure, but here’s the working title:
Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish All right, so I know that a lot of times when I read TR’s I want to jump right into the action—get me to the first food pictures as quickly as possible—but this report is going to need A LOT of exposition. Bear with me, and I promise the payoff will be worth it. First off, let me introduce myself.  I’m Taylor and I’ll be your guide through this crazy week. I’ve been a Disney lover all my life. My first trip to Disney World was when I was in the womb, and since then I’ve gone to WDW seven times and Disneyland twice. While I’ve always had an underlying love for the company and the parks, I first became what I would deem as Disney-obsessed after returning from my 2008 trip to the World. I began to wonder what was out there on the internet to feed my desire to learn more about my favorite place on earth. I discovered Lou Mongello’s podcast the WDW Radio Show, and I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that it changed my life. Suddenly I had a weekly outlet to be able to escape my regular life and feel like I was in Disney for an hour or two at a time. Needless to say, I’ve been a huge fan of this podcast since 2008, and that will play very prominently into this trip. “How?” you ask. Well you’ll just have to wait and see. So here are my stats: Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom followed by Animal Kingdom. Favorite Rides: Soarin’ and Pirates of the Caribbean are my favorites at Disney, but I have to admit Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is the best ride I’ve ever been on. Favorite Disney Movies: The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 101 Dalmatians, Dumbo Favorite Disney Resorts: Animal Kingdom Lodge, Port Orleans Riverside Favorite Restaurants: California Grill, Via Napoli Anyway, before I get into talking about this trip, I need to introduce you to the other member of our cast.  My wife Tracy has been a fellow Disney fan all of her life. She went to the parks on both coasts as a kid, and in high school got to march in a parade through the Magic Kingdom with her marching band. She first really became Disney-obsessed in September of last year as we planned and then returned from our trip to Disneyland. Since then, she regularly reads the boards, participates in the chats, and listens to the podcasts. Here are her stats: Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom followed by a tie between Epcot and Animal Kingdom. Favorite Rides: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Haunted Mansion Favorite Disney Movies: Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, The Little Mermaid Favorite Disney Resorts: Animal Kingdom Lodge, Port Orleans Riverside, Polynesian Favorite Restaurants: Via Napoli for food; Crystal Palace for character meal; Casey's Corner, Katsura Grill and Tangierine Cafe for counter service Now here’s a brief history of us as a couple, with our Disney history intertwined. Tracy and I started dating in our junior year of high school. Here’s a picture of our first Prom together.  After graduating, I went off to college in NYC while she went to college in our hometown of Boulder, CO. We dated long distance for the entirety of college until Tracy graduated in December 2009 and moved to NY to join me. In 2008, after our sophomore years of college, we went to Disney World together for the first time.  We had so much fun sharing this wonderful place that had meant so much to both of our childhoods and making new memories there together. In 2009, we got engaged and started planning our wedding in June 2010  After our wonderful wedding, we went on a wonderful Disneymoon.  In 2011, we mixed things up a little and went on our first trip together to Disneyland!  And that brings us to this year. There’s some more exposition ahead, I warn you, but soon the PTR part of this will be over and I swear we’ll be on our way. Continued in Next Post
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1987 - WDW Visit in the Womb * 1990 - First WDW Visit * 1993 - First DLR Visit * March 1996 - Family Reunion at Treehouse Villas * March 1999 - Family Vacation at Treehouse Villas * March 2005 - One Day at MK with Friends * May 2008 - First Visit with then girlfriend (now wife) at POP * June 2010 - Disneymoon  at Best Western LBV * Sept 2011 - Return to Disneyland at PP * May 2012 - Grand Prize WDW Radio Trip at POR Royal Room * November 2012 - Move to CA to become DLR locals!Can We Move Here and Be Pancho’s Handlers? A Sept '11 Throwback Disneyland Trip Report Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May '12 WDW Trip Report We Moved to Disneyland!! Now What…? Stories from New DLR Locals Last edited by tayalltheway; 02-04-2013 at 01:46 AM. |
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07-24-2012, 07:20 PM
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Senior Mousketeer
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Merrimack, NH
Posts: 690
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So much fun, I can't wait to read the rest!
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Poly 86? Sports 12/97 CB 12/98 WL Nov/Dec 99
ASMu 9/01 POR 12/2003 WL 9/04 WL 12/04 ASMo 9/05 CS 12/05 POFQ 10/06 ASMo 2/09 WL 10/09 CS Nov/Dec 11 BC 8/12 WL 11/12 ASMo 1/13  |
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07-24-2012, 10:51 PM
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ten Minutes from the Happiest Place on Earth
Posts: 325
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1987 - WDW Visit in the Womb * 1990 - First WDW Visit * 1993 - First DLR Visit * March 1996 - Family Reunion at Treehouse Villas * March 1999 - Family Vacation at Treehouse Villas * March 2005 - One Day at MK with Friends * May 2008 - First Visit with then girlfriend (now wife) at POP * June 2010 - Disneymoon at Best Western LBV * Sept 2011 - Return to Disneyland at PP * May 2012 - Grand Prize WDW Radio Trip at POR Royal Room * November 2012 - Move to CA to become DLR locals!Can We Move Here and Be Pancho’s Handlers? A Sept '11 Throwback Disneyland Trip Report Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May '12 WDW Trip Report We Moved to Disneyland!! Now What…? Stories from New DLR Locals |
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07-25-2012, 09:32 AM
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#5 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ten Minutes from the Happiest Place on Earth
Posts: 325
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Chapter 7
From the Mississippi to Agrabah, Then Into Space We made a stop at the Winnie the Pooh gift shop for a little burst of A/C because by this time it was getting very hot. While there, we found this very nice Dumbo plush.  We recently watched Dumbo again for the first time in many years and fell back in love with that movie. It’s one of my favorite Disney classics. As we left there and journeyed further through Fantasyland, we got the first glimpse “over the wall” at the Fantasyland expansion.  Not to ruin the illusion, but Disney’s use of forced perspective seems to have gone to a new extreme with the Beast’s castle. Since the construction wall obscured my depth perception, it was hard to tell how far away the castle really was, but I’m sure it’s much closer than it looks, and hence it must be REALLY small. Making our way across Fantasyland, we stopped for a minute at Cinderella’s fountain.  All the Fantasyland wait times were ridiculous at the height of this Saturday afternoon, so we didn’t stop to wait for anything there. Instead we made our way to Liberty Square. We thought about the Haunted Mansion, but again it had quite the wait, so we decided to put it off till later. We decided to stop and take a picture in the stocks. I’m pretty sure this was the first time we had ever done this; not sure what took us so long.  That last picture was taken by some nice guests who we stopped to ask if they would take our picture. They assented and we struck the pose in the stocks. So we waited. And waited. And those stocks grew increasingly uncomfortable. Almost a full minute later, the guy handed me back my camera. We thanked him and checked the camera, expecting to see several shots after that eternity in the stocks. But there was just the one. I truly have no idea what he was doing all that time, and I guess I never will. Moving on. We decided this trip that one of our goals was to do some of the attractions we’d always bypassed in the past. One of those attractions that always seemed so time-consuming was Tom Sawyer Island. We boarded our raft, the Becky Thatcher.  The ride over to the island is short but pleasant.  Passing another raft.  The Old Mill  Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is Tracy’s favorite ride (and one of mine). This was right at the end of its lengthy refurbishment and we were supposed to leave the day before it reopened. At this point, we were still really hopeful that they would soft open a day early, but even that would have been several days after this day. Here is the nice view of the mountain that you get from Tom Sawyer Island.  Tom Sawyer Island was fun. Not sure if it would make it to my must-do list for every trip, but it was a nice diversion from the crowds on this busy day. We went into Injun Joe’s Cave, which was a little unnerving. It’s extremely dark in there and a little hard to know where you’re supposed to walk. Next we wandered over to the Fort Langhorn area. There were some nice audioanimatronic horses.  We sat for a while and wandered a few more of the paths. This rocking chair was very pleasant.  Before too long, though, we made our way back to the dock to take the raft back.  When we arrived back in Frontierland, we tried to decide where to go next. We returned to Pecos Bill’s for a free cup of water—one of the nicest changes that have come to WDW counter service restaurants since our last visit. Making our way back to Adventureland, we noticed that there was a relatively short wait for The Magic Carpets of Aladdin.  This spitting camel was funny.   This ride has one of my favorite pre-boarding spiels. “As Genie says… Para su seguridad, etc…” We boarded our carpet and enjoyed our rotations around Agrabah.  Hair blowing in the wind.  Nice view.  Just avoided getting spat on.  After our carpet touched back down, we realized it was time for our Space Mountain Fastpasses. So we headed back across the hub and stopped for another few Photopass pictures in front of the castle.  We got to Space Mountain and went quickly through the Fastpass line.  Almost 4 years ago Tracy and I were in a pretty bad car accident. We got rear-ended when trying to merge onto the highway and both got pretty bad whiplash. Since then, despite physical therapy galore, we both have pretty sensitive necks. Usually we just try to ignore our injuries as much as possible when it WDW, but some attractions have been known to irritate my neck. Space Mountain had never been particularly bad before, but on this ride I was in the back row of the second car. This made every bump and turn extremely violent. By the end of the ride, I was ready for it to be over. I could tell my neck would be hurting in a few minutes. At least the ride photo was taken before the pain started.  After the ride, it felt like a good time for a break. And luckily, it was time for us to head to our first ADR anyway. We made our way out past the castle.  And toward the monorail.  Neither of us was super hungry yet after our late lunches, but we knew we had to make room, because it was time for dinner! Continued in Next Post
__________________
1987 - WDW Visit in the Womb * 1990 - First WDW Visit * 1993 - First DLR Visit * March 1996 - Family Reunion at Treehouse Villas * March 1999 - Family Vacation at Treehouse Villas * March 2005 - One Day at MK with Friends * May 2008 - First Visit with then girlfriend (now wife) at POP * June 2010 - Disneymoon at Best Western LBV * Sept 2011 - Return to Disneyland at PP * May 2012 - Grand Prize WDW Radio Trip at POR Royal Room * November 2012 - Move to CA to become DLR locals!Can We Move Here and Be Pancho’s Handlers? A Sept '11 Throwback Disneyland Trip Report Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May '12 WDW Trip Report We Moved to Disneyland!! Now What…? Stories from New DLR Locals Last edited by tayalltheway; 01-22-2013 at 11:28 AM. |
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07-18-2012, 04:44 PM
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#6 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ten Minutes from the Happiest Place on Earth
Posts: 325
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We’ve Never Won Anything
Now it’s time for a few more pieces of backstory. Tracy and I have been living in NYC together since the beginning of 2010. I went to school for Musical Theatre with the goal being to become an actor. After graduating, I auditioned full time for about a year without much success. My only promising callback out of all those auditions was actually for the Voices of Liberty, though I didn’t make it past the first round of callbacks. Last fall I started having several health issues mysteriously, which is also important to know because of how it affected our trip. I have been diagnosed with vasovagal syncope, which basically means that I might pass out at any time depending on a series of factors. I haven’t ever actually passed out, but I am dizzy A LOT of the time and have heat and cold intolerance as well as problems with prolonged standing, so my life has changed a lot. Getting sick happened to coincide with our trip to Disneyland last September. I already hadn’t been feeling well for about a month and was starting to reconsider the path I had wanted to take in NYC. Between being dizzy all the time and having problems with cold in the winter and heat in the summer, Tracy and I realized that our plans had to change. Basically we decided to move, but we were locked into a lease until the end of August 2012, had almost no money saved up, and had no idea where we wanted to go. Cue our trip to California. Tracy’s brother lives in LA, so we got to spend a day with him touring various parts of the city before spending a week at Disneyland. We fell in love with the whole Disneyland resort as well as the climate, pace and everything that we found in California. We decided that was where we were going to move. Alas, we still had almost a year left here and a cross-country move is very pricey. We buckled down at our “day jobs” knowing that the more money we could save, the better off we would be for our move. Unfortunately, one consequence of this was that another Disney trip—specifically the return trip to Disney World that we dreamed about—was basically out of the budget, and hence out of the question. But just because we didn’t think we would be able to go to Disney World didn’t mean we couldn’t dream about it. Part of our dreaming included extra reading of the boards, reading of Disney books, and listening to the aforementioned WDW Radio Show podcast. February 11th, 2012 was Lou’s fifth anniversary of the podcast, and as part of the show, he hosted a trivia contest with his partner Beci Mankhen from Mouse Fan Travel. For the contest, there were 45 questions about Disney World trivia and the history of the podcast. Tracy and I worked together to figure out the answers, and we both submitted our entries for the grand prize—a six-night trip to Walt Disney World in a moderate resort with the dining plan included. Going into the live fifth anniversary show, we were excited but not too hopeful. After all, we’d never won anything before. We had a busy schedule that day, and were out and about the city for the bulk of the show, but we constantly tuned into the live stream on my phone both to enjoy the hijinks of Lou and the gang as well as to listen for the big reveal of the contest winners—just in cases. Lou put it off until the very end of the live show to draw the winner of the contest. By that time we were back home watching the show and getting ready to make dinner. A few minutes before the actual drawing, one of the WDW Radio team members read the names of the 17 people who had all gotten 100% of the answers to the trivia questions correct. Both Tracy and I were among the finalists and we finally allowed ourselves to start getting really excited. Between the two of us, here we were with better than a 1 in 9 chance of winning a trip to Disney! The minutes ticked on and finally Lou drew a winning name, but rather than reading it on the air, he called the person so as to be able to tell them directly that they had won. As we reached the height of our anticipation, we realized than neither of our phones were ringing. The person who did win didn’t answer the phone, but Lou left a message letting them know that they had won the trip, and they were going to Disney World. We were bummed. Not exactly surprised, but bummed. For some reason, I had really had a feeling that we were going to win. Tracy and I congratulated ourselves for making it that far and started making dinner. Then from the kitchen, I heard Beci on the stream saying just how impressed she was that 17 people had gotten all the questions correct. So impressed, in fact, that she was going to give away another trip. We put our cooking on hold and resumed our place on the couch as once again a name was drawn and Lou dialed the phone number of the prize winner. Again, our phones stayed silent, and once again Lou got the voicemail of the person he was calling. As he prepared to leave another message and we prepared to go on with our lives, Lou said, “well this is pretty anticlimactic. Should I just hang up and keep calling until someone answers?” Someone agreed with him, so he ended the call just in time. So the process started for a third time. Scott Otis, another member of the team, drew another name and Lou called. This time, as my heart was basically pounding out of my chest, my phone started ringing. I answered immediately and he told me I had won. I don’t really remember much of the conversation—I just know that Tracy and I got pretty hysterical and jumped around a lot. We thanked Lou and hung up the phone. In an instant, everything had changed. We were going to Disney World. In a year when things had pretty constantly kept going wrong, something went right. We had won something. Continued in Next Post
__________________
1987 - WDW Visit in the Womb * 1990 - First WDW Visit * 1993 - First DLR Visit * March 1996 - Family Reunion at Treehouse Villas * March 1999 - Family Vacation at Treehouse Villas * March 2005 - One Day at MK with Friends * May 2008 - First Visit with then girlfriend (now wife) at POP * June 2010 - Disneymoon at Best Western LBV * Sept 2011 - Return to Disneyland at PP * May 2012 - Grand Prize WDW Radio Trip at POR Royal Room * November 2012 - Move to CA to become DLR locals!Can We Move Here and Be Pancho’s Handlers? A Sept '11 Throwback Disneyland Trip Report Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May '12 WDW Trip Report We Moved to Disneyland!! Now What…? Stories from New DLR Locals Last edited by tayalltheway; 07-18-2012 at 07:58 PM. |
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07-18-2012, 07:52 PM
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#7 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ten Minutes from the Happiest Place on Earth
Posts: 325
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Three Long Months
After winning the trip, the planning began. We got to choose any time during value or regular seasons to have our 6 night vacation, and we had to submit our top three choices of moderate resorts to Beci. We knew that we wanted to go during as slow of a season as possible, but Tracy’s company has a policy in which you’re not supposed to be able to take vacation during your first six months of employment. She was hired at the beginning of December, which meant our first possible option should have been the beginning of June—when the summer season has already started. Tracy talked to her boss about taking her week of vacation just a hair early and was approved, so we were able to set our dates: May 19th-25th. This would also be a fun time to go because our wedding anniversary is June 19th, so we decided this could be an anniversary trip for us, knowing that the Disney calendar allows for some wiggle room when celebrating. Our next big decision was which resort we wanted to stay at. We’d never stayed in a moderate before; on our first trip together, we stayed at Pop Century. On our honeymoon, we could only afford to go to Disney if we stayed at one of the Downtown Disney resorts, so that time we tried out the Best Western Lake Buena Vista. After much deliberation about what we wanted from our resort on this trip, we gave these as our top choices for resorts: 1. Port Orleans Riverside 2. Port Orleans French Quarter 3. Coronado Springs Beci submitted our choices of days and resorts to Disney and told us we probably wouldn’t hear back for a week or so. Lo and behold, however, the next day she told us we’d gotten our top choice—Port Orleans Riverside. We asked about whether she thought there was any chance of getting a Royal Room. She told us that because it was a free trip, it was very unlikely for Disney to give us an upgrade, but that there was no harm in asking just in case, so she put in that request with our package. Only about a week after winning the trip, we were all booked. We were able to use miles to pay for one of our round trip plane tickets and found cheap flights for the other one, so we had as close to a free trip as we could have ever expected. Once the trip was booked, we started making our ADRs, and came up with a list we were very excited about. We hadn’t been on the dining plan since our trip in 2008 and were psyched to try out several new delicious table service options. Now it was time to wait. The months passed slowly, but we tried to keep ourselves occupied in the Disney mindset as often as possible, whether by reading trip reports, listening to podcasts, playing Disney music, or dressing up Duffy in new outfits.    We also learned how to draw Mickey and worked on honing our skills.   Eventually, time marched on and—in many ways before we knew it—the trip was upon us!! Continued in Next Post
__________________
1987 - WDW Visit in the Womb * 1990 - First WDW Visit * 1993 - First DLR Visit * March 1996 - Family Reunion at Treehouse Villas * March 1999 - Family Vacation at Treehouse Villas * March 2005 - One Day at MK with Friends * May 2008 - First Visit with then girlfriend (now wife) at POP * June 2010 - Disneymoon at Best Western LBV * Sept 2011 - Return to Disneyland at PP * May 2012 - Grand Prize WDW Radio Trip at POR Royal Room * November 2012 - Move to CA to become DLR locals!Can We Move Here and Be Pancho’s Handlers? A Sept '11 Throwback Disneyland Trip Report Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May '12 WDW Trip Report We Moved to Disneyland!! Now What…? Stories from New DLR Locals Last edited by tayalltheway; 07-25-2012 at 11:42 AM. |
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07-18-2012, 08:03 PM
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#8 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 467
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awesome trip report so far. congrats on winning. u look like a young jason segal in your prom picture! (which is a good thing.
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07-18-2012, 08:34 PM
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#9 |
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DIS Veteran
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Mississippi, Gulf Coast
Posts: 592
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 Congrats on winning!!!!!!  I'll be here for the rest of your TR.
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  Our WDW trips 2002,2003,2006,2007,2008,2009,2011 |
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07-18-2012, 08:47 PM
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#10 |
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DIS Veteran
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Mass.
Posts: 699
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so cool that you won a trip! Can't wait to read more!
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07-20-2012, 08:14 AM
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#11 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ten Minutes from the Happiest Place on Earth
Posts: 325
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Chapter 3
Coronation We walked up to the online check-in table and the cast member working there asked us for our information. She went into her files and pulled out our welcome packet as well as a map and our KTTW cards. The good news was that our room was ready and we had been put on the mansion side of the resort per our request. The slightly less good news was that she made no mention of a Royal Room. Oh well, we figured. We knew it was always going to be a longshot, and there was definitely an upside to having our room ready now. It meant all we had to do was go drop off our backpacks, change into shorts, and we could be on our way to the parks. But all the same, those Royal Rooms… We decided there was no harm in asking so we said, “we were just wondering if there was any chance we could get an upgrade to a Royal Room?” The cast member told us she wasn’t sure and would have to check with her manager, so she went over to the other side of the lobby to talk to him. We could tell it wasn’t an immediate no because the manager began checking on his computer. A few minutes later our cast member came back over and told us there were a few Royal Rooms, but they hadn’t finished being cleaned yet so if we were interested we’d have to wait for it to become available. We said that wasn’t a problem—we’d been prepared for that anyway—and she said the difference in price would be about $300. Tracy and I exchanged a look that basically said we agreed we didn’t want to pay for the upgrade. The Royal Rooms seemed great and all, but this free trip was going to start becoming a lot less free if we paid for that sort of add on. We told her never mind, and she went back over to her manager to tell him to nix the change. A moment later, however, she came back and said it was our lucky day. Apparently they needed to upgrade a few people to Royal Rooms that day anyway, so as long as we were fine waiting for it to be ready, it was ours.  She presented us with our scroll and our new map showing which building we would be in, and told us to look out for a text message to let us know when the room was ready. Even better, she said that mousekeeping was currently finishing up with our room right then, so it should only be about ten minutes!We thanked her profusely and gathered our things. Here’s Tracy with our scroll from Tiana welcoming us to our Royal Room.  We decided that if it was really only going to be a few minutes until our room was ready, we might as well explore the resort a little so we could still drop off our things at the room before heading to the parks. We explored the rest of the beautiful lobby.  Then we went to the Riverside Mill to pick up our refillable mugs.  We got ourselves some water and wandered the area around the lobby.    Then we picked up our Happy Anniversary buttons from a cast member at the front desk.  As we were checking out the water wheel, I got a text message.  Our room was ready! Room number 9585 was in the Parterre building. We started making our way toward the mansions.    It took us a little while to wander through all the twists and turns of the walkways, but eventually we found our room. We entered and were so excited with what we found.  The Royal Rooms are so cool! Obviously we’re probably not the target demographic for them, but there’s just something so classy about them that I think they are just as fun for a couple as they are for a family of young princess fans.      I’ll include a more thorough tour of the room in a later update, but for now we were excited to really get this trip underway. That meant we needed to get to a park and get some Disney food as quickly as possible! So we bade a temporary farewell to our Royal Room and went out to make some magic happen and let the memories begin! Continued in Next Post
__________________
1987 - WDW Visit in the Womb * 1990 - First WDW Visit * 1993 - First DLR Visit * March 1996 - Family Reunion at Treehouse Villas * March 1999 - Family Vacation at Treehouse Villas * March 2005 - One Day at MK with Friends * May 2008 - First Visit with then girlfriend (now wife) at POP * June 2010 - Disneymoon at Best Western LBV * Sept 2011 - Return to Disneyland at PP * May 2012 - Grand Prize WDW Radio Trip at POR Royal Room * November 2012 - Move to CA to become DLR locals!Can We Move Here and Be Pancho’s Handlers? A Sept '11 Throwback Disneyland Trip Report Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May '12 WDW Trip Report We Moved to Disneyland!! Now What…? Stories from New DLR Locals Last edited by tayalltheway; 01-21-2013 at 12:55 PM. |
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07-24-2012, 02:15 PM
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#12 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ten Minutes from the Happiest Place on Earth
Posts: 325
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Chapter 6
“Healthy” Dessert? Our other favorite counter service in the Magic Kingdom is Pecos Bill’s Tall Tale Inn and Cafe.  They really do have the best burgers in all the parks. I never believe it when people say all the quick service burgers in WDW are the same. I got a cheeseburger from the ABC Commissary on our last trip and it literally tasted like cardboard. But the burgers from Pecos Bill’s are delicious. And one cannot forget the best part of the restaurant—the fixin’s bar!! Disney fries, which are already good to begin with, taste worlds better when topped with nacho cheese. So here’s what we got to split: Deluxe 1/3 lb Angus Cheeseburger (topped with Bacon, onion rings and BBQ sauce), French Fries (topped with nacho cheese), Yogurt and a Bottled Water.  Now I can hear you saying to yourselves, “Wait!! Yogurt?????”  It’s true, we chose the healthy dessert option. I don’t think it’s ever happened before in Disney World, but we had already eaten an entire meal complete with dessert an hour before, and adding chocolate cake on top of that just didn’t sound good… We must really be growing up.Here’s Tracy enjoying the picture of Widowmaker on the wall behind her.  Second lunch was great! We both tried to show a little restraint and didn’t clean the plate entirely, but the burger was so delicious that I couldn’t leave more than a couple bites. We even finished the blasted yogurt. Next we headed out through Frontierland and back toward Adventureland.   Earlier that day, Pirate Goofy was in this area next to Pirates, and while we were sad to have missed him, we got a couple pictures in his area.   By this time we were within our Fastpass window for the Jungle Cruise.  This was our first trip since they started enforcing the Fastpass return times, so we had to make some major changes to our touring strategy. Even though we had never been on the boards or listened to any podcasts before our trip in 2008, we were lucky enough at the beginning of that trip to have a cast member let us know that the end of the Fastpass return window was irrelevant. So for all of our trips, we’ve loved collecting Fastpasses throughout the day and using them when convenient for us. When they changed this policy back in March we were so bummed to have to start using them within the hour-long window. On this trip, we ended up skipping several E-Ticket attractions because of health issues and personal preferences, as you’ll see in later updates. Because of this, Fastpass wasn’t as big of an issue as it could have been. On future trips, however, I think the short windows might be more of a bummer for us. Hopefully they’ll implement the new Fastpass system and get all its kinks worked out before it has much of a chance to affect us. Moving on from that rant! Here are some Jungle Cruise queue pictures.    Our skipper for this cruise was from Australia. He was pretty good, but he seemed like he’d been having a long day and wasn’t entirely into it, so some of the jokes fell a little flat.   Shockingly the elephants did not get us wet. Phew!   Next it was time to cross to the east side of the Magic Kingdom for the first time on this trip.  Hey there, Tomorrowland!   One of both of our favorite rides in all of WDW is the TTA (aka the PeopleMover, WED Way PeopleMover, or what have you).  There’s something so relaxing about it and yet so fun at the same time. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced as black of darkness as the portion of the TTA that goes through Space Mountain.  The first takeoff was pretty thrilling…  After the TTA, while I don’t have any pictures to prove it, I’m pretty sure we grabbed some Fastpasses for Space Mountain. Then we went to check out the newly-opened Storybook Circus.   This was one of those cases where the wait was way too long to be worth it to go on any of the Storybook Circus rides, so we moved along toward “Olde” Fantasyland. Continued in Next Post
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1987 - WDW Visit in the Womb * 1990 - First WDW Visit * 1993 - First DLR Visit * March 1996 - Family Reunion at Treehouse Villas * March 1999 - Family Vacation at Treehouse Villas * March 2005 - One Day at MK with Friends * May 2008 - First Visit with then girlfriend (now wife) at POP * June 2010 - Disneymoon at Best Western LBV * Sept 2011 - Return to Disneyland at PP * May 2012 - Grand Prize WDW Radio Trip at POR Royal Room * November 2012 - Move to CA to become DLR locals!Can We Move Here and Be Pancho’s Handlers? A Sept '11 Throwback Disneyland Trip Report Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May '12 WDW Trip Report We Moved to Disneyland!! Now What…? Stories from New DLR Locals Last edited by tayalltheway; 01-21-2013 at 01:53 PM. |
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07-24-2012, 03:03 PM
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#13 |
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DIS Veteran
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Bayou Country, La.
Posts: 21,964
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Can I join in on the fun? Actually, it's kinda too late to ask since I just read each and every update you've posted.
 Congrats on winning the trip and for getting the room upgrade! It looks like you two are having a great time so far and you're only on day one.
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2013 trip report: 1 crazy family+2 resorts+5 parks+1 snake+1 surprise= A Mickeystoontown Report: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3122381
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07-20-2012, 11:33 AM
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#14 |
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Mouseketeer
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ten Minutes from the Happiest Place on Earth
Posts: 325
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Hello all you readers out there! I'm excited you're here. Just wanted to let you know that this is gong to be the last update until at least Tuesday as Tracy and I are going to a family reunion at my uncle's house this weekend. Hope you all have a great weekend and please leave a comment to say hi if you're enjoying reading!
Chapter 4 The Place Where Dreams Come True We started making our way toward the main bus stop at Riverside. Judging from the map, this was our best option, though since we were so far on the outskirts of the resort, we wondered if there was any chance the bus stop at French Quarter might be just as close. I made a mental note to try it out sometime. Right outside of our door, we saw this guy hanging out.  We enjoyed some more of the scenery around the resort.     There are just so many flowers everywhere!   When we got to the bus stop, we didn’t have to wait too long before a bus pulled up to take us to our first park—the Magic Kingdom!  Magic Kingdom has always been the park of choice for both Tracy and I. It’s the park with the most magic, so it’s always our first stop on any Disney trip. As the bus drove under the Magic Kingdom arch and I caught my first glimpse of it out the window, I excitedly pointed and emphatically whispered to Tracy, “It’s the castle!!” She thought I said “it’s a caterpillar” and was looking for something a little different, but when I clarified I know she was excited. We pulled up to the bus stop and disembarked, making our way down the path toward the gates.  We could tell from the crowds at the turnstiles that the park was going to be quite crowded this day—we knew it would be on a Saturday—but that was okay. This day wasn’t about the attractions we could get done. It was all about soaking up the atmosphere and celebrating being home.  We got our first view of the train station and got ready to head inside.  We are the kind of people who swear by PhotoPass and always pre-order the CD, so the first thing we did after getting through the gates was to get our PhotoPass card and start getting pictures.  I love this sign as we enter the tunnel. We almost always enter the Magic Kingdom through the left tunnel.  Crossing Town Square, we saw our first characters of the trip.  And we had our first real castle sighting of the trip.  First of many PhotoPass shoots in front of the castle.  And now is the time when we would usually rush to our first ride. But it was approximately 1:30, we hadn’t eaten anything real pretty much all day, and we had KTTW cards loaded with dining credits burning holes in our pockets. It was time to eat. Continued in Next Post
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1987 - WDW Visit in the Womb * 1990 - First WDW Visit * 1993 - First DLR Visit * March 1996 - Family Reunion at Treehouse Villas * March 1999 - Family Vacation at Treehouse Villas * March 2005 - One Day at MK with Friends * May 2008 - First Visit with then girlfriend (now wife) at POP * June 2010 - Disneymoon at Best Western LBV * Sept 2011 - Return to Disneyland at PP * May 2012 - Grand Prize WDW Radio Trip at POR Royal Room * November 2012 - Move to CA to become DLR locals!Can We Move Here and Be Pancho’s Handlers? A Sept '11 Throwback Disneyland Trip Report Duffy is Going to be ECSTATIC! a.k.a. Thank God She Was Jewish - May '12 WDW Trip Report We Moved to Disneyland!! Now What…? Stories from New DLR Locals Last edited by tayalltheway; 01-21-2013 at 01:16 PM. |
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07-21-2012, 07:10 AM
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#15 |
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<3er of all things Disney!
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Kalamazoo
Posts: 143
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Great update. Thank you!!!! loving the pictures and loving you got the free update!
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Brandi Head
Sparking up the Romance at WDW...March 2013 Trip Report for Lovers http://www.disboards.com/showthread....3009981&page=8 He finally said YES to Disney, a ptr for March 2013 http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3009981 998 picture, 10 pairs of Shoes 2 Girls.. completed TR http://www.disboards.com/showthread....9#post25194679 |
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