"It's a Small Town" and "Slow Pass" - 3 days in Disney 1/2012

[dara00]

Originally Posted by OziJo

Your photos are gorgeous!!! It's pouring rain here in Sydney and between my photos and yours I'm missing the beautiful weather we had In Orlando and Hawaii.

thanks! yeah we had great weather in florida. luckily here in kansas city we are having 60 degree weather (Fahrenheit!) in january!

Originally Posted by DsnyMama

Love the update! Love the pics with Woody & Jessie!!

thanks! I love Woody and Jessie, they are so fun!

[Mrs. Sojourner]

It looks like you had some wonderful character interaction...and in record time! The crowds must have been pretty low? You got some really great photos too. I love the family one with Woody & Jessie!

P.S. I heart Keens.

[dara00]

Originally Posted by Mrs. Sojourner

It looks like you had some wonderful character interaction...and in record time! The crowds must have been pretty low? You got some really great photos too. I love the family one with Woody & Jessie!

P.S. I heart Keens.

yeah we were doing great time wise! The crowds picked up later on but I can't complain!

Thanks on the photos - I love that one too!

We love our keens too. Not sure if you noticed, but myself and the two big kids all have them. I got them for less than $25 per pair in December and knew they'd be perfect for the trip! Someone actually stopped me in a ride line later in the week and commented on how much she loves Keens!

[dara00]

After our super character meet and greets, we headed towards Fantasyland to get another fast pass and get on a ride before the parade / dance party at 11. On the way we passed through the hub. We had some photopass pictures done but I don't really like them. There are a lot of people in the background for some reason. Anyway, here are the ones I took:



Please note the pigeon on Walt's head!





Passing through the castle:



And we arrived at the ride we wanted:


This photo was taken at 9:37 AM and the first one I took on the ride was at 9:40. Nice. Now I know you've all seen countless Small World pictures, but I'll just share a few!




These were Gabbie's favorite - they say "ooh la la!" and she kept saying that during the trip!


Not sure what they're looking at...



I guess I should interject here with the story behind the first part of my trip title - "It's a Small Town." I really don't know when it started, but Zachary started calling this ride "Small Town." It's Gabbie's favorite ride, and when we asked Zachary what his favorite ride was he would say "Small Town!" It was just really cute and I had to quote him here!

At the end of the ride Simon looked like he was about to fall asleep! I guess he found it relaxing. On our way back to the hub, we almost got in the Fairy Godmother's line but decided to hold off, as it was already 11 AM!



Next up - the Move It Shake It Celebrate It Parade!

[Moodyzblu]

Great pics !

Love the kids shirts ! SO cute !

[dara00]

Originally Posted by Moodyzblu

Great pics !

Love the kids shirts ! SO cute !

I love the shirts too. I'm glad we got them!

[dara00]

We arrived in the hub just as the Move It Shake It Celebrate It Parade was arriving. This was a cute and high energy parade which we enjoyed seeing.







Chip and Dale came down near us to dance.





I thought the kids would rather dance near Woody and Jessie, but Gabbie wasn't interested and Dave tried to get Zachary close but it didn't really work, so we moved on. Next in the plan was meeting more characters! As we headed down Main Street, the kids wanted balloons so I told them they could have a picture of the balloons! Not a very good one though.



I also took a picture of this cute shop window:



and this pretend shop window:



Can you tell whose line we were getting into? As a hint, we also got our fast passes for Mickey and the Princesses while waiting!

[dara00]

Well since no one feels like guessing, I'll just tell you! We were in line for Mary Poppins! It was an interesting meet and greet - I don't think she liked me very much!

We had two goals when meeting Mary - show her Gabbie's Mary doll and get her to say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards. Showing the doll was easy enough - Gabbie was holding it! Mary commented that you don't see many dolls of her around, and I explained that Gabbie got her at Mary's show on Broadway.



Mary said this was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, so I right away said "can you say that backwards?" I got this look from her:



as she said "why yes, you can say it backwards..." and I interrupted her with "can YOU say it backwards??" That's the part I don't think she liked. So she continued, "Yes, you can say it backwards two ways. You can say it backwards by syllable like I do which is Dociousaliexpilisticfragicalirepus, and in my show I say it backwards by letter, which is Suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus!" I got those spellings from wikipedia! So this Mary can say it both ways! Impressive. Also note in the above picture that Gabbie's doll Mary has a similar umbrella to character Mary - Mary touched them together which was cute.



At this point, it was 11:30 AM, and my original plan was to watch the castle show at 11:40 - but there is no castle show at 11:40! Actually before we left I read that there was no castle show Monday at all, which turned out not to be true, but in any case, I moved that to our day 2 plan and it all worked out in the end.

We headed through the middle of the square to get this picture:


Simon had fallen asleep:



and while we were in line for our next meet and greet I ran into City Hall to get him that pin! I think there's supposed to be somewhere you can get pins where they'll write your name and the date on them, but I didn't know about that.

Anyway, we waited in a short line for Pooh and Tigger and met them at 11:45.



From there, the kids and Dave jumped onto a horse drawn streetcar (trolley?) while I walked with the stroller.



I walked through the stores and had to snap a few photos! I'm sure they'd be better if I had a better camera...





Since Simon was sleeping, we decided to hold off on lunch for a bit longer and get onto Splash Mountain!

[MelMel11]

Count me in!! Great pictures!!

[Moodyzblu]

Wow .. I'm impressed by Mary. I can't even read it backwards .. never mind SAY it !

Great pics !

[dara00]

Originally Posted by MelMel11

Count me in!! Great pictures!!

welcome! and thanks!

Originally Posted by Moodyzblu

Wow .. I'm impressed by Mary. I can't even read it backwards .. never mind SAY it !

Great pics !

I know! I can read the version from the movie, but not from the play. It was pretty cool, even though I interrupted her!

[dara00]

12:15 PM
After a stop at our favorite bathroom (the one between Adventureland and Frontierland) where we did some wardrobe adjustments (Gabbie took off her leggings and socks, I took off my socks, and Dave changed from jeans to shorts) we headed here:



We got a rider switch pass and (after they measured Zachary again and he was still tall enough to ride) Dave went first with the kids while I stayed with Simon. I wasn't sure how long it would take or where to walk to, so I mostly hung around right in the area of the ride and inside the shop at the exit.

It actually took awhile and it wasn't my turn until 12:40! When they came out of the ride, Dave said he didn't think either kid was going to want to ride with me. However, Zachary said he was willing. He was scared though - he kept his head hidden against me the whole time until after the big hill, as he called it! Simon had woken up, so I think Dave and Gabbie took him to the little play area while Zachary and I rode the ride.






Here's our picture - oh yeah, we were in the front row!



It was now 12:55 and we were ready for lunch! We headed over to Columbia Harbor House. Dave and I shared a tuna sandwich and vegetarian chili and Gabbie and Zachary both had mac and cheese kids' meals. Simon shared some mac and cheese, grapes, and yogurt.

By 1:40 PM, we were here:


It actually wasn't a 20 minute wait because by 1:50 we were in the stretching room! We didn't do the interactive queue though.








I had told the kids this was a "funny ghost ride" so they wouldn't be scared to go on. They didn't seem to care one way or another about the ride! We got the ghost that switched our heads around, which was funny - too bad they don't do pictures of your doom buggy with the hitchhiking ghosts!



After that ride, Dave went back to get fp's for Pooh and he didn't realize the FP machine isn't by the Pooh ride (it's in the middle close to Peter Pan actually) so it took him forever to get back. I was annoyed and calling him repeatedly because we were running behind on our next item on our plan - the 2:15 Pirate Tutorial show. When we finally made it over there though, the kids weren't really interested, so we just hopped onto the line for Pirates. It was about a 15 minute wait.



The kids were a little scared of the battle scene. We had a discussion with the people sitting behind us on whether the ride used to be really different before the movie came out. I don't remember it, but they said it was much better before.


Pirate Zachary

We finished up at Pirates at about 2:50 PM. I bet you can guess what came next!

[NLD]

Dara, found your TR~! It's great! Your family is adorable. And WOW, have you packed a lot into one morning at MK already. Looks like you're all having a blast.

Love the narrative and all the pics....

[Moodyzblu]

At least your kids will go on Splash, mine won't even consider it !

So, what was next ??

[dara00]

Originally Posted by NLD

Dara, found your TR~! It's great! Your family is adorable. And WOW, have you packed a lot into one morning at MK already. Looks like you're all having a blast.

Love the narrative and all the pics....

thank you! yeah we did a ton that first morning, it was awesome!

Originally Posted by Moodyzblu

At least your kids will go on Splash, mine won't even consider it !

So, what was next ??

I highly doubt they will want to go on Splash again any time soon...maybe in a few years. Next up...3 PM!