A Whole New World, A Whole New Life! -- A Jan-Feb-Mar 2015 TR -- *COMPLETED* 9/29
- Thread starter DisneyFreak98
- Start date
Grumpy's Wife
Dollar Tree gal here
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2005
It's taking me a couple of days but I've read all of your updates. I think that's a wonderful bonding experience for your family. I can't even imagine being in Disney for three months. This is surly one for the record books and a memory you and your family will never forget. I know the trip report is almost over but I do look forward to reading along til the end.
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Today we got up and got ready to head to Epcot! We were very excited, because we knew that when we got back to the RV later that night Nathan and Ginger would be there! They were staying with us for the weekend to visit and celebrate Mom’s birthday.
The park opened at 9:00, so we were up, ready, and out the door around 8:00. We caught an internal bus to the main bus stop, where we waited about 10 minutes for our Epcot bus to arrive. We made the short drive over to the park, headed through bag check, and found a spot to wait in line with everyone else who was there for rope drop. We waited about 20 minutes before being let into the park, and once inside we headed straight for Test Track. We made our way over there with the crowd, and we ended up waiting about 20-30 minutes before boarding our cars. We had a great ride together, and zooming across the track outside is definitely enough to wake a person up in the morning!
Once we got off we started heading in the direction of the Seas, and on the way we saw the Jamitors performing! They were all decked out for the Flower and Garden Festival, and I think they might have had a different name, but I can’t remember. We stopped to watch them for a bit, and we were once again amazed by their talent!
When the show was over we continued on our way to the Seas. There was no line for the ride, so we hopped on and enjoyed trying to find Nemo. We got off and spent some time looking around the aquariums.
There was a dolphin demonstration that started at 10:30, so we hung around until that started. The dolphins are so incredibly smart, which they demonstrating by playing some matching and object association games with them. It was really incredible!
The show ended around 11:00, and after looking around for another few minutes it was time to move on. The World Showcase was open now, so we decided to make our way over there. We hadn’t seen the O Canada! show yet, so we were going to see that first today.
We made it to the theater, where we waited about 10 minutes for the next show to start. We kids had never actually even seen this show, and our parents hadn’t seen it in years. It’s in Circlevision, which means the whole theater is one big circle that you stand in the middle of, and the screen in all around you. It takes a few minutes to get used to, but overall the whole show is really nice.
Once the show got out we continued on our way through World Showcase. We actually weren’t planning on spending much time at Epcot today, so we were making our way over to the boat dock to get a ride over to Hollywood Studios. While we were on our way passing through the UK we heard a Cast Member say that there were some princesses out meeting! They had that little backstage area that’s usually gated off opened up, and Belle, Ariel, and Merida were there meeting people! Needless to say I was thrilled, and of course jumped on that opportunity. We met Ariel first, and she was very sweet. I told her I loved seeing her in her dress, and she told me she liked mine too!
Next we saw Belle, who was also very sweet. She complemented my braces and told me how much Chip would like them, because he likes shiny things.
We decided not to meet Merida because I had already seen her at the Magic Kingdom, but it wouldn’t have taken long if we had wanted to. We literally met both Ariel and Belle in 5 minutes! We walked away extremely happy (at least me) and continued on our way to the international gateway. It was about noon now, so we decided to stop and sit on the benches there to eat the sandwiches we had packed for lunch before getting on a boat. One we were finished eating we looked around the shop right there at the gateway for a few minutes before exciting the park and getting in line to wait for the boat. We waited about 10 or so minutes for one to arrive, and we hopped on.
A word of advice, if you are looking to get from Epcot to Hollywood studios or vice versa quickly the boat is NOT your best option. That thing goes like 2 miles per hour, and it makes about 5 stops before getting to the other park. You are much better off just taking the boat to the first stop, getting off, and walking from there. We eventually made it to Hollywood Studios around quarter past 1:00, made it through bag check, and got into the park. Our first stop was to head over to the animation building. Baymax and Hiro were still meeting there, and we wanted to see them! We got there a little before 1:30, but the line was closed and their next time wasn’t until 3:30. So, we decided to go ride the Great Movie Ride in the meantime! The wait time was 45 minutes, but we didn’t have anything else to do so we still got in line. The wait time ended up being basically accurate, and we had a great ride. We even got the cowboy instead of the gangster, which was cool!
It was around 2:30 when we got off the ride, so we decided to head back to the animation building to see if we were able to get in line for Baymax yet.
People were already lined up, so we joined them. We kids stayed in line while Mom and Dad wandered around the building. Even though we had almost an hour to wait, we had a nice time just sitting on the floor and hanging out. Hiro and Baymax came out right at 3:30, and it was about another 20 minutes until it was our turn. Travis and I went up to say hi while Sam took pictures. They were super fun, and Baymax even showed us some of his kung fu moves! He was so adorable. We posed together in our super hero stances, and ended our visit with fist bumps from Baymax. It was a great interaction!
The Incredibles also meet in the animation building, but their line was closed and they wouldn’t be back for a while, so we decided to move on and head out. It was right around 4:00 now, and we had 4:20 Fastpasses for Tower of Terror, so we started heading over there. We got over there, and everyone but me and Travis headed up to the ride. Travis and I hung out in the shops on the street for a while, then we found a place to sit near the restaurants there to wait for them.
They met us there about 20 minutes later, and they had a great ride. It wasn’t quite dinner time yet, so we decided to walk around the shops for a little while. We wanted to eat at Pizza Planet tonight, so a little after 5:00 we started making our way over there. It was a bit crowded in there tonight, but it still didn’t take too long, and we had our food around 5:30.
We had a nice time eating, and pizza is always a favorite for everybody. We had Star Tours Fastpasses for 6:00, so once we were done we headed over there.
We waited 5-10 minutes, and we had a great sequence. Once we got off we decided to make our way back to the animation to see if we could catch the Incredibles for their next meet time, which was 6:45. We got over there and got in line at 6:40, and we only had to wait 10-15 minutes to see them. They were lots of fun!
Our next and final Fastpass was for Toy Story Mania, but it wasn’t until 7:40, which was 50 minutes from now. We decided we would head over that way and just walk through One Man’s Dream to kill time.
We had a nice time looking around, and we even stopped to watch the movie they have at the end. By the time we were done in there, our Fastpasses were ready, so we headed over to TSM! We waited about 10 minutes in the FP line, and we had a really great ride! I went with Dad, and I scored 267,600, which was pretty good.
We got out around 8:00, and we planned on seeing the 8:30 showing of Fantasmic, so we rushed over there. We were able to get in and get great spots on the right side of the theater near the middle. The show was great, but nobody (except for me) really cares for it that much, which is why tonight was the only time we watched it the whole trip. The boat that usually comes out at the end with all of the characters on it was under maintenance, so they were all out on the stage instead, which was a little weird, but still cool to see.
The show ended at 9:00, and we made our way out of the theater with everyone else. We weren’t ready to leave yet though, because the park was still open for another hour. We exited back onto Hollywood Boulevard, and we decided to get some treats before moving on. Everyone else got ice cream from Hollywood Scoops while I got the featured cupcake from the restaurant there, which happened to be the Cinderella cupcake. I had been eyeing it for a while now, and I was happy to finally get it.
We all sat down and enjoyed our treats together. The park was pretty empty now, because most people had either left after Fantasmic or were getting ready for the 10:00 show. Once we were done we decided to just go ride Toy Story Mania a couple of times before we had to go. We were able to ride twice before the line was closed off! I t was really funny because there were a couple people working tonight who had also been working the night we had rode like four times in a row, and they recognized us! I rode by myself the first time and scored 243,100 and the second time I rode with Travis and scored 270,000. We had a lot of fun, but the park was closed now so it was time to head home.
We made our way back to the front through a nearly-empty park, which was a really special feeling.
We made it to the bus stop where we waited about 10 minutes for a bus, and once we got back to the Fort we caught another bus back up to our loop. We made the short walk to the RV, where Nathan and Ginger were not waiting for us. They had texted earlier letting us know they would be a little late, so we all decided to wait up for them. It was only about 20 minutes before they arrived, and we were so happy to see them! They were tired from traveling, and we were tired from our day in the parks, so we didn’t stay up too late catching up. We all got ready and got to bed, because tomorrow we would be waking up to get back to Hollywood Studios for Early Magic Hours, then we would be heading to Magic Kingdom!
The park opened at 9:00, so we were up, ready, and out the door around 8:00. We caught an internal bus to the main bus stop, where we waited about 10 minutes for our Epcot bus to arrive. We made the short drive over to the park, headed through bag check, and found a spot to wait in line with everyone else who was there for rope drop. We waited about 20 minutes before being let into the park, and once inside we headed straight for Test Track. We made our way over there with the crowd, and we ended up waiting about 20-30 minutes before boarding our cars. We had a great ride together, and zooming across the track outside is definitely enough to wake a person up in the morning!
Once we got off we started heading in the direction of the Seas, and on the way we saw the Jamitors performing! They were all decked out for the Flower and Garden Festival, and I think they might have had a different name, but I can’t remember. We stopped to watch them for a bit, and we were once again amazed by their talent!
When the show was over we continued on our way to the Seas. There was no line for the ride, so we hopped on and enjoyed trying to find Nemo. We got off and spent some time looking around the aquariums.
There was a dolphin demonstration that started at 10:30, so we hung around until that started. The dolphins are so incredibly smart, which they demonstrating by playing some matching and object association games with them. It was really incredible!
The show ended around 11:00, and after looking around for another few minutes it was time to move on. The World Showcase was open now, so we decided to make our way over there. We hadn’t seen the O Canada! show yet, so we were going to see that first today.
We made it to the theater, where we waited about 10 minutes for the next show to start. We kids had never actually even seen this show, and our parents hadn’t seen it in years. It’s in Circlevision, which means the whole theater is one big circle that you stand in the middle of, and the screen in all around you. It takes a few minutes to get used to, but overall the whole show is really nice.
Once the show got out we continued on our way through World Showcase. We actually weren’t planning on spending much time at Epcot today, so we were making our way over to the boat dock to get a ride over to Hollywood Studios. While we were on our way passing through the UK we heard a Cast Member say that there were some princesses out meeting! They had that little backstage area that’s usually gated off opened up, and Belle, Ariel, and Merida were there meeting people! Needless to say I was thrilled, and of course jumped on that opportunity. We met Ariel first, and she was very sweet. I told her I loved seeing her in her dress, and she told me she liked mine too!
Next we saw Belle, who was also very sweet. She complemented my braces and told me how much Chip would like them, because he likes shiny things.
We decided not to meet Merida because I had already seen her at the Magic Kingdom, but it wouldn’t have taken long if we had wanted to. We literally met both Ariel and Belle in 5 minutes! We walked away extremely happy (at least me) and continued on our way to the international gateway. It was about noon now, so we decided to stop and sit on the benches there to eat the sandwiches we had packed for lunch before getting on a boat. One we were finished eating we looked around the shop right there at the gateway for a few minutes before exciting the park and getting in line to wait for the boat. We waited about 10 or so minutes for one to arrive, and we hopped on.
A word of advice, if you are looking to get from Epcot to Hollywood studios or vice versa quickly the boat is NOT your best option. That thing goes like 2 miles per hour, and it makes about 5 stops before getting to the other park. You are much better off just taking the boat to the first stop, getting off, and walking from there. We eventually made it to Hollywood Studios around quarter past 1:00, made it through bag check, and got into the park. Our first stop was to head over to the animation building. Baymax and Hiro were still meeting there, and we wanted to see them! We got there a little before 1:30, but the line was closed and their next time wasn’t until 3:30. So, we decided to go ride the Great Movie Ride in the meantime! The wait time was 45 minutes, but we didn’t have anything else to do so we still got in line. The wait time ended up being basically accurate, and we had a great ride. We even got the cowboy instead of the gangster, which was cool!
It was around 2:30 when we got off the ride, so we decided to head back to the animation building to see if we were able to get in line for Baymax yet.
People were already lined up, so we joined them. We kids stayed in line while Mom and Dad wandered around the building. Even though we had almost an hour to wait, we had a nice time just sitting on the floor and hanging out. Hiro and Baymax came out right at 3:30, and it was about another 20 minutes until it was our turn. Travis and I went up to say hi while Sam took pictures. They were super fun, and Baymax even showed us some of his kung fu moves! He was so adorable. We posed together in our super hero stances, and ended our visit with fist bumps from Baymax. It was a great interaction!
The Incredibles also meet in the animation building, but their line was closed and they wouldn’t be back for a while, so we decided to move on and head out. It was right around 4:00 now, and we had 4:20 Fastpasses for Tower of Terror, so we started heading over there. We got over there, and everyone but me and Travis headed up to the ride. Travis and I hung out in the shops on the street for a while, then we found a place to sit near the restaurants there to wait for them.
They met us there about 20 minutes later, and they had a great ride. It wasn’t quite dinner time yet, so we decided to walk around the shops for a little while. We wanted to eat at Pizza Planet tonight, so a little after 5:00 we started making our way over there. It was a bit crowded in there tonight, but it still didn’t take too long, and we had our food around 5:30.
We had a nice time eating, and pizza is always a favorite for everybody. We had Star Tours Fastpasses for 6:00, so once we were done we headed over there.
We waited 5-10 minutes, and we had a great sequence. Once we got off we decided to make our way back to the animation to see if we could catch the Incredibles for their next meet time, which was 6:45. We got over there and got in line at 6:40, and we only had to wait 10-15 minutes to see them. They were lots of fun!
Our next and final Fastpass was for Toy Story Mania, but it wasn’t until 7:40, which was 50 minutes from now. We decided we would head over that way and just walk through One Man’s Dream to kill time.
We had a nice time looking around, and we even stopped to watch the movie they have at the end. By the time we were done in there, our Fastpasses were ready, so we headed over to TSM! We waited about 10 minutes in the FP line, and we had a really great ride! I went with Dad, and I scored 267,600, which was pretty good.
We got out around 8:00, and we planned on seeing the 8:30 showing of Fantasmic, so we rushed over there. We were able to get in and get great spots on the right side of the theater near the middle. The show was great, but nobody (except for me) really cares for it that much, which is why tonight was the only time we watched it the whole trip. The boat that usually comes out at the end with all of the characters on it was under maintenance, so they were all out on the stage instead, which was a little weird, but still cool to see.
The show ended at 9:00, and we made our way out of the theater with everyone else. We weren’t ready to leave yet though, because the park was still open for another hour. We exited back onto Hollywood Boulevard, and we decided to get some treats before moving on. Everyone else got ice cream from Hollywood Scoops while I got the featured cupcake from the restaurant there, which happened to be the Cinderella cupcake. I had been eyeing it for a while now, and I was happy to finally get it.
We all sat down and enjoyed our treats together. The park was pretty empty now, because most people had either left after Fantasmic or were getting ready for the 10:00 show. Once we were done we decided to just go ride Toy Story Mania a couple of times before we had to go. We were able to ride twice before the line was closed off! I t was really funny because there were a couple people working tonight who had also been working the night we had rode like four times in a row, and they recognized us! I rode by myself the first time and scored 243,100 and the second time I rode with Travis and scored 270,000. We had a lot of fun, but the park was closed now so it was time to head home.
We made our way back to the front through a nearly-empty park, which was a really special feeling.
We made it to the bus stop where we waited about 10 minutes for a bus, and once we got back to the Fort we caught another bus back up to our loop. We made the short walk to the RV, where Nathan and Ginger were not waiting for us. They had texted earlier letting us know they would be a little late, so we all decided to wait up for them. It was only about 20 minutes before they arrived, and we were so happy to see them! They were tired from traveling, and we were tired from our day in the parks, so we didn’t stay up too late catching up. We all got ready and got to bed, because tomorrow we would be waking up to get back to Hollywood Studios for Early Magic Hours, then we would be heading to Magic Kingdom!
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DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Thank you so much! Everything is going very well here!
It truly was an unforgettable experience! Thank you so much for reading!
DaisyDuck001
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2006
What special times, like watching the fireworks from the Peoplemover. LOL about "Lake Tomorrowland".
Did anyone in your family get the cappuccino cupcake at Pizza Planet? I've read good things about it. Hope they will have it at Pizzarizzo when that opens.
You still haven't told us who you were for last Halloween! I'm still interested also to read about your stay in the Cars suite.
How is your family doing now? Did your sisters have the babies yet?
Did anyone in your family get the cappuccino cupcake at Pizza Planet? I've read good things about it. Hope they will have it at Pizzarizzo when that opens.
You still haven't told us who you were for last Halloween! I'm still interested also to read about your stay in the Cars suite.
How is your family doing now? Did your sisters have the babies yet?
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
We woke up nice and early this morning because we were heading to Hollywood Studios for 8:00 am Early Magic Hours! We were going to try to fit in as much as possible this weekend because Nathan and Ginger were only here for a couple of days. Everyone was up and ready to go around 7:00, and we headed out the door. We got down to the main bus stop, but when we got there Ginger realized that she had left her Magic Band back at the RV. She and Dad had to go back to get it, but they told us to go on ahead to the park without them if a bus came. We hoped they would be able to make it, but a bus came before they got back so we hopped on. We would just have to meet them at the park later. We arrived at the park, got through back check, and got in line around 20 minutes before 8:00.
It wasn’t too long before the park opened, and we headed inside, straight for Toy Story Mania. We basically walked right on, and we had a great time! I went with Nathan the first time, and I scored 252,400. Nate got 250,400, so we were very close. By the time we got off of the ride, Dad and Ginger had made it to the park, and they were waiting for us outside. We all got in line again because it was so uncrowded due to EMH. We waited like 20 minutes this time, and we had another great round. I went with Mom this time, and I scored 284,600, which I was very proud of! It was the high score of the day, which was very cool.
Once we got off we decided to go for one more round while the line was still short. This time the wait was around 30 minutes, and I rode with Travis. I scored around 280,000 again, but I didn’t beat my score from last time. The park was officially open by now, so the line had grown significantly. It was time to move on, so we headed over towards the Animation Building. We were planning on seeing the 10:30 showing of Beauty and the Beast, which was about an hour from now, so we decided we would just wander around the Animation Building to kill some time.
We looked around for a while, then we decided to watch the little show they have there, the one with Mushu. That’s always super cute. When it got to be around 10:00 we decided to make our way over to the theater to find our seats. We ended up with pretty good seats on the right side of the theater near the middle. The show was incredible, as usual, and I took a million pictures (as usual).
The show ended around 11:00, which was perfect because now our Fast Pass window for Star Tours was open. We made our way over there, where we waited about 5 minutes in line. We had a good sequence, but none of us got to be the rebel spy today. It was around 11:20 now, which is a little early for lunch, but everyone was hungry so we decided that now would be a good time to stop. We had packed lunch, but Nathan and Ginger were going to get food. The Backlot Express is right there, so that’s where we went. Nathan and Ginger ordered their food, then we all found a nice place to sit outside. We had a nice time eating and talking together, and once we were done we decided to head over to Muppet Vision.
We got there about 10 minutes before the next show was set to start, so we grabbed our 3D glasses and watched the always-entertaining pre-show. The show was over around 12:20, which was perfect timing because our FastPasses for Toy Story Mania were ready! We made the short walk over there and got in line, where we waited about 10-15 minutes. I went with Travis this time around, and I was very sad to see that my high score of the day from earlier had been replaced. That was okay though, and we had another great ride! Once we got off we spent some time hanging around the shops near the front of the park there. Our next and final FastPass was for Tower of Terror at 2:00, so we had some time to kill. It was around 1:00 now, so we decided to go ahead and ride Rock n’ Roller Coaster in the single rider line.
Everyone except for Dad rode, and he found a nice bench outside to sit and wait for us. In total the line took about 30 minutes, and even though we all rode next to strangers we still had a great ride. There actually ended up being two empty seats left on one car, so Sam and Ginger did end up riding together, which was fun.
Once we got off and met back up with Dad there was still about 15-20 minutes before the ToT FP, so we made a stop at the bathroom and then just hung out outside the ride until it was time. Travis and I didn’t ride, so we went up to the gift shop to wait for them. They came out about 15 minutes later, and they had a great ride. It was around 2:30 now, and we had done everything that we wanted to here at this park. We planned on heading to Magic Kingdom, but because we had an early morning and also because Magic Kingdom was open until 3:00 am today, we decided to head back to the RV to relax for a couple of hours before heading out again. We made our way out of the park and caught the bus back to the Fort. Once we got back and made it back to RV it was around 3:15, and we all just basically relaxed and hung out until a little before 5:00, when we got ready to head out for the Magic Kingdom! We were going to get dinner tonight, so we just threw a few things in the backpack before heading out the door.
We walked up to the boat dock, where we waited about 10 minutes for our boat to come. It was a beautiful day, so the ride over was very pleasant.
Once we got to the park, made it through bag check, and got inside, our first stop was dinner! We decided to eat at Pinocchio’s tonight, so we headed over to Fantasyland. It was pretty busy, but it still didn’t take too long to order and get our food. We got to sit at one of tables overlooking It’s a Small World, so that was cool! Most of us either got pizza or the Italian sandwich they have there, and everyone enjoyed their food.
By the time we were all done it was around 6:30. While we were right there in Fantasyland we decided to ride Small World, which had a 15 minute wait. That was a good ride, and afterward we headed over to Liberty Square, where we rode Haunted Mansion. We waited another 15 minutes for that, and had another great ride. Once we got off of Haunted Mansion, we made our way into Frontierland. Everything in Frontierland had a little too long of a wait, so we kept moving and made it to Adventureland. We got in line for Pirates there, which had a 20 minute wait.
We had a great ride, except for one little thing. Mom, Sam, and I were sitting in the front row, and when we went down the little hill at the beginning of the ride, we got totally wet! We’ve come off of Splash Mountain drier than we came off of Pirates that night. It was crazy! It was still pretty warm outside, so we dried off quickly, and it was fun to joke about.
Once we got off we decided to ride the Magic Carpets while we were there in Adventureland. We waited about 15 minutes, and had a lot of fun. I rode with Sam, Travis, and Nathan, and we were bouncing our carpet up and down like crazy. It was a little after 8:00 when we got off, so we still had time before we had to back at the Hub to watch Celebrate the Magic and Wishes, which started at 9:45. Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain lines were still pretty long, so we decided to go watch the Country Bears. When we got there the sign said 15 minutes until the next show, so we took a seat inside. Soon we were able to go into the theater, and we had a lot of fun singing along with the bears. It was about 8:45 when we got out, so we decided we would start making our way towards the center of the park to find a spot for the fireworks. We were planning on watching from near the Tomorrowland bridge tonight, and we weren’t sure what the situation of crossing the street would be like, especially with the Electrical Parade, so instead of going through Adventureland and crossing the Hub to Tomorrowland, we went the very long way around.
We had time to spare, so it wasn’t that bad, and we had a nice walk. We made our way through Liberty Square, Fantasyland, and finally to Tomorrowland, where we staked out the perfect spot for the fireworks. We were past the bridge, behind the rocks that are in front of the laugh floor building. It was perfect because with the rocks in front of, we didn’t have to worry about people blocking the way, and the rocks are small enough that they don’t block the view. The only thing was this one tree that kind of blocked the castle, but that was the only downside.
It was close to 9:15 now, so we had about 30 minutes until Celebrate the Magic started. We took turns going to get something to eat and saving our spot. Everyone ended up going to Auntie Gravity’s there in Tomorrowland and getting ice cream. Soon enough the lights went down and it was time for the show! It was incredible as always, but not quite as good from our viewpoint, only because of that one tree. We had all seen it before though, so it wasn’t a big deal. Once that was over there was just a few minutes until Wishes started. The view of the fireworks was perfect, and it was an awesome new vantage point to see them from.
One of the things we enjoyed the most about this trip was all of the different places we got to watch Wishes from. The fireworks ended around 10:15, but the park was open for EMH until 3:00 so the night was not over yet! We actually weren’t planning on staying that late, considering we had a packed schedule while Nathan and Ginger were here, but there’s just something about knowing you could be there for so long that makes you feel super cool.
We ended up going back over to Fantasyland to ride the Little Mermaid, which had a 10 minute wait. Then we went to Storybook Circus to ride Dumbo, which also had a 10 minute wait. That’s a lot of fun to ride at night, because the water is all lit up and everything. Once we got off it was only around 10:45. All of the major attractions like Space Mountain and the Mine Train still had waits longer than an hour, probably because the park was still officially open to everyone. We knew that wait times would get shorter as the night went on, but we didn’t think it was worth it to wait it out. So, we decided to pack it in and head back home. It took a while to make it out of the park, because that was what a majority of the people were doing, but we eventually made it out of the park and to the boat dock. It wasn’t long before a boat came for us, and we had a nice ride back to the Fort. We made the short walk back to the RV, and by the time we made it home it was around 11:30. We all got ready and went to bed, excited to be heading to Animal Kingdom in the morning!
It wasn’t too long before the park opened, and we headed inside, straight for Toy Story Mania. We basically walked right on, and we had a great time! I went with Nathan the first time, and I scored 252,400. Nate got 250,400, so we were very close. By the time we got off of the ride, Dad and Ginger had made it to the park, and they were waiting for us outside. We all got in line again because it was so uncrowded due to EMH. We waited like 20 minutes this time, and we had another great round. I went with Mom this time, and I scored 284,600, which I was very proud of! It was the high score of the day, which was very cool.
Once we got off we decided to go for one more round while the line was still short. This time the wait was around 30 minutes, and I rode with Travis. I scored around 280,000 again, but I didn’t beat my score from last time. The park was officially open by now, so the line had grown significantly. It was time to move on, so we headed over towards the Animation Building. We were planning on seeing the 10:30 showing of Beauty and the Beast, which was about an hour from now, so we decided we would just wander around the Animation Building to kill some time.
We looked around for a while, then we decided to watch the little show they have there, the one with Mushu. That’s always super cute. When it got to be around 10:00 we decided to make our way over to the theater to find our seats. We ended up with pretty good seats on the right side of the theater near the middle. The show was incredible, as usual, and I took a million pictures (as usual).
The show ended around 11:00, which was perfect because now our Fast Pass window for Star Tours was open. We made our way over there, where we waited about 5 minutes in line. We had a good sequence, but none of us got to be the rebel spy today. It was around 11:20 now, which is a little early for lunch, but everyone was hungry so we decided that now would be a good time to stop. We had packed lunch, but Nathan and Ginger were going to get food. The Backlot Express is right there, so that’s where we went. Nathan and Ginger ordered their food, then we all found a nice place to sit outside. We had a nice time eating and talking together, and once we were done we decided to head over to Muppet Vision.
We got there about 10 minutes before the next show was set to start, so we grabbed our 3D glasses and watched the always-entertaining pre-show. The show was over around 12:20, which was perfect timing because our FastPasses for Toy Story Mania were ready! We made the short walk over there and got in line, where we waited about 10-15 minutes. I went with Travis this time around, and I was very sad to see that my high score of the day from earlier had been replaced. That was okay though, and we had another great ride! Once we got off we spent some time hanging around the shops near the front of the park there. Our next and final FastPass was for Tower of Terror at 2:00, so we had some time to kill. It was around 1:00 now, so we decided to go ahead and ride Rock n’ Roller Coaster in the single rider line.
Everyone except for Dad rode, and he found a nice bench outside to sit and wait for us. In total the line took about 30 minutes, and even though we all rode next to strangers we still had a great ride. There actually ended up being two empty seats left on one car, so Sam and Ginger did end up riding together, which was fun.
Once we got off and met back up with Dad there was still about 15-20 minutes before the ToT FP, so we made a stop at the bathroom and then just hung out outside the ride until it was time. Travis and I didn’t ride, so we went up to the gift shop to wait for them. They came out about 15 minutes later, and they had a great ride. It was around 2:30 now, and we had done everything that we wanted to here at this park. We planned on heading to Magic Kingdom, but because we had an early morning and also because Magic Kingdom was open until 3:00 am today, we decided to head back to the RV to relax for a couple of hours before heading out again. We made our way out of the park and caught the bus back to the Fort. Once we got back and made it back to RV it was around 3:15, and we all just basically relaxed and hung out until a little before 5:00, when we got ready to head out for the Magic Kingdom! We were going to get dinner tonight, so we just threw a few things in the backpack before heading out the door.
We walked up to the boat dock, where we waited about 10 minutes for our boat to come. It was a beautiful day, so the ride over was very pleasant.
Once we got to the park, made it through bag check, and got inside, our first stop was dinner! We decided to eat at Pinocchio’s tonight, so we headed over to Fantasyland. It was pretty busy, but it still didn’t take too long to order and get our food. We got to sit at one of tables overlooking It’s a Small World, so that was cool! Most of us either got pizza or the Italian sandwich they have there, and everyone enjoyed their food.
By the time we were all done it was around 6:30. While we were right there in Fantasyland we decided to ride Small World, which had a 15 minute wait. That was a good ride, and afterward we headed over to Liberty Square, where we rode Haunted Mansion. We waited another 15 minutes for that, and had another great ride. Once we got off of Haunted Mansion, we made our way into Frontierland. Everything in Frontierland had a little too long of a wait, so we kept moving and made it to Adventureland. We got in line for Pirates there, which had a 20 minute wait.
We had a great ride, except for one little thing. Mom, Sam, and I were sitting in the front row, and when we went down the little hill at the beginning of the ride, we got totally wet! We’ve come off of Splash Mountain drier than we came off of Pirates that night. It was crazy! It was still pretty warm outside, so we dried off quickly, and it was fun to joke about.
Once we got off we decided to ride the Magic Carpets while we were there in Adventureland. We waited about 15 minutes, and had a lot of fun. I rode with Sam, Travis, and Nathan, and we were bouncing our carpet up and down like crazy. It was a little after 8:00 when we got off, so we still had time before we had to back at the Hub to watch Celebrate the Magic and Wishes, which started at 9:45. Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain lines were still pretty long, so we decided to go watch the Country Bears. When we got there the sign said 15 minutes until the next show, so we took a seat inside. Soon we were able to go into the theater, and we had a lot of fun singing along with the bears. It was about 8:45 when we got out, so we decided we would start making our way towards the center of the park to find a spot for the fireworks. We were planning on watching from near the Tomorrowland bridge tonight, and we weren’t sure what the situation of crossing the street would be like, especially with the Electrical Parade, so instead of going through Adventureland and crossing the Hub to Tomorrowland, we went the very long way around.
We had time to spare, so it wasn’t that bad, and we had a nice walk. We made our way through Liberty Square, Fantasyland, and finally to Tomorrowland, where we staked out the perfect spot for the fireworks. We were past the bridge, behind the rocks that are in front of the laugh floor building. It was perfect because with the rocks in front of, we didn’t have to worry about people blocking the way, and the rocks are small enough that they don’t block the view. The only thing was this one tree that kind of blocked the castle, but that was the only downside.
It was close to 9:15 now, so we had about 30 minutes until Celebrate the Magic started. We took turns going to get something to eat and saving our spot. Everyone ended up going to Auntie Gravity’s there in Tomorrowland and getting ice cream. Soon enough the lights went down and it was time for the show! It was incredible as always, but not quite as good from our viewpoint, only because of that one tree. We had all seen it before though, so it wasn’t a big deal. Once that was over there was just a few minutes until Wishes started. The view of the fireworks was perfect, and it was an awesome new vantage point to see them from.
One of the things we enjoyed the most about this trip was all of the different places we got to watch Wishes from. The fireworks ended around 10:15, but the park was open for EMH until 3:00 so the night was not over yet! We actually weren’t planning on staying that late, considering we had a packed schedule while Nathan and Ginger were here, but there’s just something about knowing you could be there for so long that makes you feel super cool.
We ended up going back over to Fantasyland to ride the Little Mermaid, which had a 10 minute wait. Then we went to Storybook Circus to ride Dumbo, which also had a 10 minute wait. That’s a lot of fun to ride at night, because the water is all lit up and everything. Once we got off it was only around 10:45. All of the major attractions like Space Mountain and the Mine Train still had waits longer than an hour, probably because the park was still officially open to everyone. We knew that wait times would get shorter as the night went on, but we didn’t think it was worth it to wait it out. So, we decided to pack it in and head back home. It took a while to make it out of the park, because that was what a majority of the people were doing, but we eventually made it out of the park and to the boat dock. It wasn’t long before a boat came for us, and we had a nice ride back to the Fort. We made the short walk back to the RV, and by the time we made it home it was around 11:30. We all got ready and went to bed, excited to be heading to Animal Kingdom in the morning!
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Yes, we have had the cappuccino cupcake! It definitely lives up to the hype.
Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be able to write a report about our trip for Halloween, but at the end of this report I'll put up a photo of us at the Halloween party!
The whole family is doing well! Yes, the babies have been born, and they're looking forward to their first trips to Disney, hopefully sometime in the near future!
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DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
This morning we were heading to Animal Kingdom! The park opened at 9:00, but we weren’t in a rush to get there super early because this was the only park we were going to today, so we had plenty of time. We got all ready, packed our bags, caught our buses, and arrived at the park about 30 minutes after opening.
We got through bag check and headed into the park, where we made our way to Africa. We had FastPasses for the Safari, so that was our first stop! The FP line still took about 15-20 minutes, but it wasn’t that bad. We boarded our safari vehicle and had an awesome time chasing animals through the jungle. We ended up seeing rhinos, elephants, zebras, and we even had a pretty good view of the lions!
Overall, it was a great safari. It was around 10:15 when we got off, and our next stop was the Pangani Forest Trail. We watched the cute little monkeys for a little while, we saw the okapis and some birds, and then we spent quite a bit of time with the gorillas. We spent about 30 minutes on the trail, and we had a great time.
Once we came off the trail we saw the African drummers out performing, so we stopped to watch them for a few minutes before taking a quick bathroom break and moving on.
Our next stop was Dinoland where we had FastPasses for Dinosaur.
We scanned our bands and got in line, which took about 10 minutes. We had a really fun time getting that Dino, and luckily we made it back safely. It was a little after 11:30 when we got off, so we were starting to think about lunch. We had brought lunch, but Nathan and Ginger were getting food and they wanted to beat the lunch rush, so we decided to just eat now. Restaurantasaurus is right there, so that’s where we went. Nathan and Ginger ordered their food, then we all sat together and ate. We had a nice lunch, and once we were done it was around 10 past noon. We had Everest FastPasses for 12:30, so we just started to make our way over to Asia. We were a little early for our window, so we stopped at the bathrooms there and then we just had to wait a few more minutes before we could scan our bands. Once our window was open we scanned our bands and got in line, which took about 15 minutes. We got to sit in the back of the train, which is always lots of fun, and we had a great ride.
Once we got off we decided to go spend some time on the Maharajah Jungle Trek before leaving Asia. We spent about 20-30 minutes visiting the tigers and the bats and the birds, and we had a very nice time.
There was a 2:00 Festival of the Lion King show that we were going to see, so we started heading towards the theater once we were done on the trail. We got there around 1:30, so we had about 30 minutes to wait.
They started letting people in around 1:45, so soon enough we were entering the theater. We had decent enough seats for viewing, but not great for pictures because of how high up we were. But I had enough pictures of the show already, so I wasn’t disappointed, plus it was nice to just enjoy the show with my eyes instead of through my camera lens for once. The show was absolutely incredible as always, and every time we see it I’m just reminded why this is one of the most popular shows in all of Disney.
Once the show was over and we made our way out of the theater, we had to decide what to do next. We had gotten done everything that we really wanted to, and the crowd level was pretty high today, so we decided now would be a good time to head back home. We made our way out of the park and to the bus stop, where we waited about 10 minutes for a bus to come. We made the 15 ride back to the Fort, where we caught an internal bus back to our Loop. We got back around 3:30, and we just spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out around the campground.
It was a warm day, so Travis, Ginger, Mom, and I went swimming. Dad, Nathan, and Sam sat around the pool for a bit, and then I think they went fishing. We had a lot of fun at the pool, even though there were a ton of people there. After swimming for a while we headed back to the RV where we got showered off and changed. It was after 5:00 now, so we started getting ready because tonight we were going to Downtown Disney! We were getting dinner there, so once we were ready we just threw a few things in our bag before heading out the door around 5:45. We caught our internal bus down to the main station, where we waited about 10 minutes for a DTD bus to come. We had a nice ride over there, and arrived around 6:15. We headed inside, and our first stop was dinner! We wanted to eat at Earl of Sandwich tonight, so that’s where we went.
However, when we got there we found out that the line was crazy long. We figured it would move fast though, so we decided to wait. After waiting for about 10 minutes, we heard an employee say that the line would probably take upwards of 30 minutes. We were all hungry, and we decided we did not want to wait that long, so we moved on to Plan B. We headed over to Wolfgang Puck Express, which is just across the way from Earl of Sandwich. The line was much shorter there; it was only about 10-15 minutes before we were ordering. Unfortunately we forgot that the service here isn’t as fast though, because after you order you sit down and they actually bring your food to your table. It was still pretty busy in there, so it was about 10 minutes before we got our food. We were literally all starving at this point, and once our food came there was very little talking at our table as we all ate. I got chicken nuggets and French fries today, which were so good.
Although, they may have just tasted better due to how hungry I was. Other people got the macaroni, the pizza, or the meat loaf, and everyone devoured (and enjoyed) their food. We had a great dinner together, and after we were done we headed outside to walk around for a while. We spent about an hour walking around, going into World of Disney, the Marketplace, and some of the other shops. Around 8:00 Mom and Dad decided to head back home while the rest of stayed. Nathan and Ginger wanted to go to Disney Quest before they left, so that’s where we went. We said goodbye to Mom and Dad, then started making our way over to the West Side. We got to Disney Quest and had a great time playing there.
We all played the Pirates of the Caribbean game together first, and we totally kicked butt. After that we all just kind of split up and played whatever we wanted. I know everyone else ended up doing the virtual roller coaster, and I did the little drawing class they have there. We drew Goofy! We also played some skee ball, basketball, and a bunch of the little arcade games. The last thing we did before we left was Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, which is always super fun. It’s basically bumper cars, but you also get to shoot balls out of a canon at your friends. I mean, what’s not to love about that?
Once we were done there we headed out of DQ and started making our way back to the Marketplace. When we got there we decided to get ice cream at the Ghirardelli store. The line took about 10 minutes, which was good because we needed time to decide what we wanted. They have so many different things to choose from! Nathan and Ginger got a sundae to share, and Sam, Travis, and I got two to share among ourselves. I honestly don’t remember what kinds we got, but I do know that they were incredible. We sat at a table outside and had a really nice time enjoying our treats. It was about 9:45 when we were done, and we decided to head home. We headed out to the bus stop, where we waited about 10 minutes for a bus to come. We had a nice ride back to the Fort, where we got the internal bus back to our Loop and made the short walk to the RV from there. Once we got back we all got ready and went to bed around 10:45. Tomorrow was a big day because it was Mom’s birthday! Amy and Jack were meeting us in the morning at Epcot, which is where we were going to spend the day.
We got through bag check and headed into the park, where we made our way to Africa. We had FastPasses for the Safari, so that was our first stop! The FP line still took about 15-20 minutes, but it wasn’t that bad. We boarded our safari vehicle and had an awesome time chasing animals through the jungle. We ended up seeing rhinos, elephants, zebras, and we even had a pretty good view of the lions!
Overall, it was a great safari. It was around 10:15 when we got off, and our next stop was the Pangani Forest Trail. We watched the cute little monkeys for a little while, we saw the okapis and some birds, and then we spent quite a bit of time with the gorillas. We spent about 30 minutes on the trail, and we had a great time.
Once we came off the trail we saw the African drummers out performing, so we stopped to watch them for a few minutes before taking a quick bathroom break and moving on.
Our next stop was Dinoland where we had FastPasses for Dinosaur.
We scanned our bands and got in line, which took about 10 minutes. We had a really fun time getting that Dino, and luckily we made it back safely. It was a little after 11:30 when we got off, so we were starting to think about lunch. We had brought lunch, but Nathan and Ginger were getting food and they wanted to beat the lunch rush, so we decided to just eat now. Restaurantasaurus is right there, so that’s where we went. Nathan and Ginger ordered their food, then we all sat together and ate. We had a nice lunch, and once we were done it was around 10 past noon. We had Everest FastPasses for 12:30, so we just started to make our way over to Asia. We were a little early for our window, so we stopped at the bathrooms there and then we just had to wait a few more minutes before we could scan our bands. Once our window was open we scanned our bands and got in line, which took about 15 minutes. We got to sit in the back of the train, which is always lots of fun, and we had a great ride.
Once we got off we decided to go spend some time on the Maharajah Jungle Trek before leaving Asia. We spent about 20-30 minutes visiting the tigers and the bats and the birds, and we had a very nice time.
There was a 2:00 Festival of the Lion King show that we were going to see, so we started heading towards the theater once we were done on the trail. We got there around 1:30, so we had about 30 minutes to wait.
They started letting people in around 1:45, so soon enough we were entering the theater. We had decent enough seats for viewing, but not great for pictures because of how high up we were. But I had enough pictures of the show already, so I wasn’t disappointed, plus it was nice to just enjoy the show with my eyes instead of through my camera lens for once. The show was absolutely incredible as always, and every time we see it I’m just reminded why this is one of the most popular shows in all of Disney.
Once the show was over and we made our way out of the theater, we had to decide what to do next. We had gotten done everything that we really wanted to, and the crowd level was pretty high today, so we decided now would be a good time to head back home. We made our way out of the park and to the bus stop, where we waited about 10 minutes for a bus to come. We made the 15 ride back to the Fort, where we caught an internal bus back to our Loop. We got back around 3:30, and we just spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out around the campground.
It was a warm day, so Travis, Ginger, Mom, and I went swimming. Dad, Nathan, and Sam sat around the pool for a bit, and then I think they went fishing. We had a lot of fun at the pool, even though there were a ton of people there. After swimming for a while we headed back to the RV where we got showered off and changed. It was after 5:00 now, so we started getting ready because tonight we were going to Downtown Disney! We were getting dinner there, so once we were ready we just threw a few things in our bag before heading out the door around 5:45. We caught our internal bus down to the main station, where we waited about 10 minutes for a DTD bus to come. We had a nice ride over there, and arrived around 6:15. We headed inside, and our first stop was dinner! We wanted to eat at Earl of Sandwich tonight, so that’s where we went.
However, when we got there we found out that the line was crazy long. We figured it would move fast though, so we decided to wait. After waiting for about 10 minutes, we heard an employee say that the line would probably take upwards of 30 minutes. We were all hungry, and we decided we did not want to wait that long, so we moved on to Plan B. We headed over to Wolfgang Puck Express, which is just across the way from Earl of Sandwich. The line was much shorter there; it was only about 10-15 minutes before we were ordering. Unfortunately we forgot that the service here isn’t as fast though, because after you order you sit down and they actually bring your food to your table. It was still pretty busy in there, so it was about 10 minutes before we got our food. We were literally all starving at this point, and once our food came there was very little talking at our table as we all ate. I got chicken nuggets and French fries today, which were so good.
Although, they may have just tasted better due to how hungry I was. Other people got the macaroni, the pizza, or the meat loaf, and everyone devoured (and enjoyed) their food. We had a great dinner together, and after we were done we headed outside to walk around for a while. We spent about an hour walking around, going into World of Disney, the Marketplace, and some of the other shops. Around 8:00 Mom and Dad decided to head back home while the rest of stayed. Nathan and Ginger wanted to go to Disney Quest before they left, so that’s where we went. We said goodbye to Mom and Dad, then started making our way over to the West Side. We got to Disney Quest and had a great time playing there.
We all played the Pirates of the Caribbean game together first, and we totally kicked butt. After that we all just kind of split up and played whatever we wanted. I know everyone else ended up doing the virtual roller coaster, and I did the little drawing class they have there. We drew Goofy! We also played some skee ball, basketball, and a bunch of the little arcade games. The last thing we did before we left was Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, which is always super fun. It’s basically bumper cars, but you also get to shoot balls out of a canon at your friends. I mean, what’s not to love about that?
Once we were done there we headed out of DQ and started making our way back to the Marketplace. When we got there we decided to get ice cream at the Ghirardelli store. The line took about 10 minutes, which was good because we needed time to decide what we wanted. They have so many different things to choose from! Nathan and Ginger got a sundae to share, and Sam, Travis, and I got two to share among ourselves. I honestly don’t remember what kinds we got, but I do know that they were incredible. We sat at a table outside and had a really nice time enjoying our treats. It was about 9:45 when we were done, and we decided to head home. We headed out to the bus stop, where we waited about 10 minutes for a bus to come. We had a nice ride back to the Fort, where we got the internal bus back to our Loop and made the short walk to the RV from there. Once we got back we all got ready and went to bed around 10:45. Tomorrow was a big day because it was Mom’s birthday! Amy and Jack were meeting us in the morning at Epcot, which is where we were going to spend the day.
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Today was Mom’s birthday! We were all up to get ready to spend the day at Epcot, which opened at 9:00. We had reservations at Via Napoli in Italy today, so we didn’t have to pack any food besides a few snacks. We got ourselves ready, got all of our stuff together, and were out the door around 8:00. We didn’t have to wait long for either of our buses, so we got to the park about 30 minutes before opening. We found a spot to wait in line, and within a few minutes Amy called saying she was here and asking where we were. She was able to find us, and the gang was all together! Jack wasn’t able to come unfortunately, but he sent his happy birthday wishes. The sky was looking a little dark this morning, and we were really hoping it wouldn’t rain, even though the forecast said there was a good chance of it.
Soon enough the park opened, and we headed inside and straight for The Land. We didn’t have FastPasses for Soarin’ today, so that was our first stop! We made it inside and in line in good time, but it was still very crowded. We ended up waiting about 20-25 minutes, which is still awesome because the wait ended up getting to around 2 hours later in the day. We had an awesome ride, and we were glad we were able to get that done. We had FastPasses for Test Track later, and there isn’t a whole lot else to do in Future World, so we decided to ride Living with the Land while we were there. That wait took maybe 5 minutes, which is typical, and we had a nice ride through the gardens.
Once we got off we headed out of the Land and over to the Seas. The ride didn’t have a wait at all, so we rode in our clam-mobiles and found Nemo before exploring the Seas. There was a dolphin presentation at 10:45, which we wanted to see, so in the meantime we just looked around at all the different fish and sea creatures. We saw some divers in the big tank, which was cool.
Pretty soon it was time for the dolphins to come do their thing, so we headed over to their tank. They did some very neat tricks for us and showed off their smarts with some matching games. They are truly magnificent animals!
The show ended at 11:00, and our lunch reservation at Via Napoli was for 11:40, so we made our way out of the Seas and headed towards World Showcase. By now it really looked like it was going to rain, and even as we were walking we started to feel little drizzles. World Showcase had just technically opened, so it was practically empty as we were walking through.
With the slight rain and almost no one in sight, the atmosphere was really nice and calm. We had a very nice walk, and eventually made our way to Italy.
Thankfully it didn’t start raining hard while we were walking! We checked in and they were able to seat us in just a few minutes because it wasn’t bust yet. We got a very nice table in a little room off of the main dining area, which was very nice. There were big windows so we could see outside, and there were only a few other people in the room so it was nice and quiet. We had an awesome time there! We had been once before, and we loved it then too, but this time was even better. The service was great, the food was incredible, and they gave Mom a special birthday cream puff thing. For our meal we all shared a couple of appetizers and then we ordered one of their ginormous pizzas. Everything was awesome, and Mom had an incredible birthday lunch!
As we were sitting there eating we were able to see the rain pick up. At one point it was a complete downpour! We tried eating slowly to wait it out, and it did end up dying down. By the time we got outside it was back to a slight drizzle, and it stopped altogether within a few minutes. It was around 12:30 now, and World Showcase was still super empty, probably due to the rain. We hung out around Italy and took some pictures for a little while before moving on.
We took our time strolling through the countries back towards Future World. When we got to Mexico we went inside to ride the Three Caballeros ride and look around the shop. The ride was basically a walk-on, and we had a nice time. We headed outside and made it back into Future World around 1:40. We just walked around some more checking out some Flower and Garden stuff.
Eventually we made our way over to Innoventions, where we played for a while. We checked out some of the different stuff in there, and before we left we decided to play Where’s the Fire. We lined up to play, and it was about 10 minutes before it was our turn. We split up so we could play against each other, and we had a lot of fun fighting fires. I remember playing that game when I was just a little kid, and I think we will all be pretty devastated if they eventually get rid of it.
Once the game was over we headed back outside. It was around 2:30, which meant that our Test Track FastPasses were ready, so we headed over there. We scanned our bands and got in line, which took about 10-15 minutes. There were 8 of us, which meant we couldn’t all go in one car, so we split up into groups of 4. We all had a really fun ride! Once we got off we decided to go over and ride Mission: Space. Dad sat out, and the rest of us split up. Travis, Amy, and I rode the green version while Mom, Sam, Nathan, and Ginger rode the orange version together. The wait was only about 15 minutes, and we all had a great trip to Mars. Travis, Amy, and I got out a few minutes before the others, so we met back up with Dad and played Mission: Space Race until everyone else came off the ride. It was almost 3:30 now, which meant it was almost time for our Spaceship Earth FastPass, so we all played for a few more minutes before heading out and over towards the front of the park. We got there right about 3:30, scanned our bands, and jumped in line, which only took about 5 minutes. I rode with Mom, and we had a great time.
Once we got off we decided there was nothing else we wanted to do in Future World, so we made our way back to the World Showcase. We started in Canada and just made our way through the countries, stopping to go into the shops or to look at Flower and Garden stuff. The rain was all done by now, and the sun had even come out! We made our way through Canada, spent quite a bit of time in the UK, strolled through France, and moseyed through Morocco and Japan.
We made it to the America pavilion a little before 5:00, and we noticed that the Voices of Liberty would be coming out at 5:00, so we went down to the theater and found some seats. They gave an incredible performance, and we really enjoyed it.
Once it was over it was around 5:15, so we started to think about what we were going to eat for dinner. Of course there were tons of offerings from the Flower and Garden booths, including the barbecue station right there in America. Everyone besides Mom, Amy, and I decided to get food there. I’m pretty sure most of them got the pulled pork sandwich, which was an excellent choice. They had picnic tables set up outside, so once everyone got their food we all sat together while they ate. It was a beautiful evening, so it was nice to just sit outside and enjoy it.
Once everyone was done eating, we kept moving on. We made it to Germany, where of course we had to visit the caramel store. Nathan and Ginger bought a bag of caramel corn to take home with them, and Amy got some to take home to Jack. I think we might have gotten some too, but I’m not sure because I couldn’t eat it anyways because of my braces.
After spending some more time in the shops there we kept moving on through the remaining few countries. We had already spent some time there earlier, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time there now. We made it all the way back through to Mexico, and once we were done there we headed back into Future World.
It was a little after 6:00 now, and we had done everything we wanted to for the day, so we were pretty much done. We could have stayed later and maybe ridden some things again, but we had an early morning at Magic Kingdom tomorrow, so we decided to call it a day. Mom, Amy and I still had to get dinner though, so Dad went with us to the Land so we could get something at the Sunshine Seasons while everyone else headed back home. We made our way over there where we all got some dinner. I got some teriyaki chicken sort of thing, and it was really good.
We all sat together and ate, and afterwards we picked out some treats to take home with us. Mom got some birthday cake, and I got a whoopee pie sort of thing. We got our treats to go and started making our way out of the park. We made it to the front and had to say goodbye to Amy, who had to go home. We would see her at least once more before leaving Florida, so we didn’t have to say our real goodbyes yet. She headed back to her car and we headed to the bus stop. We didn’t have to wait long for a bus, and after making a quick stop at Wilderness Lodge we made it back to the Fort. We caught our internal bus and made it to the RV, where everyone was just hanging out. Nathan and Ginger were leaving tomorrow, so they were packing some of their things up. It was around 7:00 now, and we just spent the rest of the night hanging out together at the RV. We all sang happy birthday to Mom before she ate her cake, and we went for a little walk before it got too dark. The whole day was great, and Mom had an amazing birthday. We all went to bed around 10:00 with plans of getting up for the 9:00 Magic Kingdom opening. Nathan and Ginger had to leave tomorrow, but their flight wasn’t until later in the day so they would have time to play in the Kingdom for a while before having to go!
Soon enough the park opened, and we headed inside and straight for The Land. We didn’t have FastPasses for Soarin’ today, so that was our first stop! We made it inside and in line in good time, but it was still very crowded. We ended up waiting about 20-25 minutes, which is still awesome because the wait ended up getting to around 2 hours later in the day. We had an awesome ride, and we were glad we were able to get that done. We had FastPasses for Test Track later, and there isn’t a whole lot else to do in Future World, so we decided to ride Living with the Land while we were there. That wait took maybe 5 minutes, which is typical, and we had a nice ride through the gardens.
Once we got off we headed out of the Land and over to the Seas. The ride didn’t have a wait at all, so we rode in our clam-mobiles and found Nemo before exploring the Seas. There was a dolphin presentation at 10:45, which we wanted to see, so in the meantime we just looked around at all the different fish and sea creatures. We saw some divers in the big tank, which was cool.
Pretty soon it was time for the dolphins to come do their thing, so we headed over to their tank. They did some very neat tricks for us and showed off their smarts with some matching games. They are truly magnificent animals!
The show ended at 11:00, and our lunch reservation at Via Napoli was for 11:40, so we made our way out of the Seas and headed towards World Showcase. By now it really looked like it was going to rain, and even as we were walking we started to feel little drizzles. World Showcase had just technically opened, so it was practically empty as we were walking through.
With the slight rain and almost no one in sight, the atmosphere was really nice and calm. We had a very nice walk, and eventually made our way to Italy.
Thankfully it didn’t start raining hard while we were walking! We checked in and they were able to seat us in just a few minutes because it wasn’t bust yet. We got a very nice table in a little room off of the main dining area, which was very nice. There were big windows so we could see outside, and there were only a few other people in the room so it was nice and quiet. We had an awesome time there! We had been once before, and we loved it then too, but this time was even better. The service was great, the food was incredible, and they gave Mom a special birthday cream puff thing. For our meal we all shared a couple of appetizers and then we ordered one of their ginormous pizzas. Everything was awesome, and Mom had an incredible birthday lunch!
As we were sitting there eating we were able to see the rain pick up. At one point it was a complete downpour! We tried eating slowly to wait it out, and it did end up dying down. By the time we got outside it was back to a slight drizzle, and it stopped altogether within a few minutes. It was around 12:30 now, and World Showcase was still super empty, probably due to the rain. We hung out around Italy and took some pictures for a little while before moving on.
We took our time strolling through the countries back towards Future World. When we got to Mexico we went inside to ride the Three Caballeros ride and look around the shop. The ride was basically a walk-on, and we had a nice time. We headed outside and made it back into Future World around 1:40. We just walked around some more checking out some Flower and Garden stuff.
Eventually we made our way over to Innoventions, where we played for a while. We checked out some of the different stuff in there, and before we left we decided to play Where’s the Fire. We lined up to play, and it was about 10 minutes before it was our turn. We split up so we could play against each other, and we had a lot of fun fighting fires. I remember playing that game when I was just a little kid, and I think we will all be pretty devastated if they eventually get rid of it.
Once the game was over we headed back outside. It was around 2:30, which meant that our Test Track FastPasses were ready, so we headed over there. We scanned our bands and got in line, which took about 10-15 minutes. There were 8 of us, which meant we couldn’t all go in one car, so we split up into groups of 4. We all had a really fun ride! Once we got off we decided to go over and ride Mission: Space. Dad sat out, and the rest of us split up. Travis, Amy, and I rode the green version while Mom, Sam, Nathan, and Ginger rode the orange version together. The wait was only about 15 minutes, and we all had a great trip to Mars. Travis, Amy, and I got out a few minutes before the others, so we met back up with Dad and played Mission: Space Race until everyone else came off the ride. It was almost 3:30 now, which meant it was almost time for our Spaceship Earth FastPass, so we all played for a few more minutes before heading out and over towards the front of the park. We got there right about 3:30, scanned our bands, and jumped in line, which only took about 5 minutes. I rode with Mom, and we had a great time.
Once we got off we decided there was nothing else we wanted to do in Future World, so we made our way back to the World Showcase. We started in Canada and just made our way through the countries, stopping to go into the shops or to look at Flower and Garden stuff. The rain was all done by now, and the sun had even come out! We made our way through Canada, spent quite a bit of time in the UK, strolled through France, and moseyed through Morocco and Japan.
We made it to the America pavilion a little before 5:00, and we noticed that the Voices of Liberty would be coming out at 5:00, so we went down to the theater and found some seats. They gave an incredible performance, and we really enjoyed it.
Once it was over it was around 5:15, so we started to think about what we were going to eat for dinner. Of course there were tons of offerings from the Flower and Garden booths, including the barbecue station right there in America. Everyone besides Mom, Amy, and I decided to get food there. I’m pretty sure most of them got the pulled pork sandwich, which was an excellent choice. They had picnic tables set up outside, so once everyone got their food we all sat together while they ate. It was a beautiful evening, so it was nice to just sit outside and enjoy it.
Once everyone was done eating, we kept moving on. We made it to Germany, where of course we had to visit the caramel store. Nathan and Ginger bought a bag of caramel corn to take home with them, and Amy got some to take home to Jack. I think we might have gotten some too, but I’m not sure because I couldn’t eat it anyways because of my braces.
After spending some more time in the shops there we kept moving on through the remaining few countries. We had already spent some time there earlier, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time there now. We made it all the way back through to Mexico, and once we were done there we headed back into Future World.
It was a little after 6:00 now, and we had done everything we wanted to for the day, so we were pretty much done. We could have stayed later and maybe ridden some things again, but we had an early morning at Magic Kingdom tomorrow, so we decided to call it a day. Mom, Amy and I still had to get dinner though, so Dad went with us to the Land so we could get something at the Sunshine Seasons while everyone else headed back home. We made our way over there where we all got some dinner. I got some teriyaki chicken sort of thing, and it was really good.
We all sat together and ate, and afterwards we picked out some treats to take home with us. Mom got some birthday cake, and I got a whoopee pie sort of thing. We got our treats to go and started making our way out of the park. We made it to the front and had to say goodbye to Amy, who had to go home. We would see her at least once more before leaving Florida, so we didn’t have to say our real goodbyes yet. She headed back to her car and we headed to the bus stop. We didn’t have to wait long for a bus, and after making a quick stop at Wilderness Lodge we made it back to the Fort. We caught our internal bus and made it to the RV, where everyone was just hanging out. Nathan and Ginger were leaving tomorrow, so they were packing some of their things up. It was around 7:00 now, and we just spent the rest of the night hanging out together at the RV. We all sang happy birthday to Mom before she ate her cake, and we went for a little walk before it got too dark. The whole day was great, and Mom had an amazing birthday. We all went to bed around 10:00 with plans of getting up for the 9:00 Magic Kingdom opening. Nathan and Ginger had to leave tomorrow, but their flight wasn’t until later in the day so they would have time to play in the Kingdom for a while before having to go!
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
This morning we were up to get ready for the 9:00 Magic Kingdom opening! We had to get up extra early because Nathan and Ginger were leaving today, so they had to get all of their stuff packed up. As everyone was finishing getting ready, Nathan and Ginger got all of their stuff together and Nathan went down to the Outpost so he could drop their luggage off. They were taking the Magical Express later that day, so they were able to leave all of their luggage and stuff there at the airline check-in desk, which was really nice.
As soon as Nathan got back, we were all ready to go, so we made the short walk up to the Settlement. It was still early for the Magic Kingdom boat, so we took the first Contemporary boat that came. We had a nice ride over there, then took the walking path to the Magic Kingdom entrance. We got there around 8:15, and once we got through bag check, scanned our Magic Bands, and found a spot to wait, we had about 25 minutes to wait until the opening show started. We were up pretty far and over to the right, so we didn’t really have a good view of the show, but we still sang along and enjoyed what we were able to see.
As soon as we finished the count down and the gates opened, we joined the very stressful rush to the Mine Train. Honestly, people can be so careless and inconsiderate, it’s like every man for himself. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been run into by strollers, shoved, or edged out by people during early morning rushes. We were all able to get there in one piece though, and we practically got to walk right onto the Mine Train. We had an awesome ride, and we were really glad we were able to get that done first thing.
Once we got off, we headed over to ride Peter Pan, which we waited maybe 5 minutes for. That’s another ride that gets a long line, so it was great to get that done. Once we got off Peter Pan, we rode a couple of other things in Fantasyland. We did Pooh Bear, and after that the Teacups, both of which had 5-10 minute waits. It was a little after 9:30 now, and Scoop Sanderson was scheduled to be out on Main Street at 10:00, so we didn’t want to go too far away. We headed over to the Hub and hung out there for a little while until all the citizens of Main Street came out.
It only took us a few minutes to spot Scoop, and he was very happy to see us! We spent some time trading pins and chatting. He was very sad to hear that Nathan and Ginger were leaving today, and that the rest of us would be leaving in just a few days. We had a nice time trading pins and catching up, but there were some other people waiting to see him and we had a lot to do before Nathan and Ginger had to leave, so we said good-bye. We did get a picture with him before we left, though!
By now it was just about time for our 10:20 FastPass for Space Mountain, so we made our way into Tomorrowland. We scanned our bands and waited maybe 10 minutes before blasting off! We had a really great ride, and I screamed the entire time (as usual). Once we got off we made our way through Fantasyland and over to the Storybook Circus, where we rode Dumbo. We waited about 10-15 minutes, and we had a great time soaring above the kingdom. Once we got off Dumbo we headed over to ride the Little Mermaid. That wait was also about 10 minutes, and we had a great voyage under the sea.
It was a little after 11:30 when we got off, so we were starting to think about where we might want to get lunch. The Tortuga Tavern in Adventureland was open today, which is a rare occurrence for us because it’s never open during the off-season, which is when we’re usually there. So, of course we really wanted to try it out! We made the hike from Fantasyland over to Adventureland, where we headed straight for the restaurant. It was very cool being inside, considering we had never been in there before. They serve Mexican food there, and it is very good. It didn’t take us too long to order or get our food, and we found a nice quiet table to sit at. I got the taco salad, which was amazing, and everyone else either got that or the burritos.
Everyone loved it, and we were hoping someday we’d be able to come back and visit again! Once we were all done it was almost time for our 12:40 Splash Mountain FastPass, so we started making our way over to Frontierland. We got there a few minutes after our window opened, scanned our bands, and got in line. The line ended up taking about 10-15 minutes, and we had an awesome ride. Sam and Dad got pretty wet this time around, but it was a pretty warm day so they didn’t mind too much! It was around 1:15 now, so we had a little more than 2 hours until Nathan and Ginger had to leave. They really wanted to ride Big Thunder Mountain before they left, so we went over there to check the wait time. It said 30 minutes, which we were okay with, so we hopped in line! It ended up taking right around 30-40 minutes, and we had fun playing with the interactive stuff they have in the queue now. We had an awesome ride in the back of the train, and Nathan and Ginger were glad that they got to ride one last time before they had to leave.
It was a little after 2:00 now, and our final FastPass of the day for Buzz Lightyear wasn’t until 3:00, so we had some time to kill. Nathan and Ginger had heard about the awesome Nutella waffle sandwiches at Sleepy Hollow, so we made our way over to Liberty Square so they could try it out! We ordered a couple to share, and we had a really nice time sitting outside and enjoying them together.
Once we were done with our delicious treats it was about 2:30, so we decided to just start slowly making our way towards Tomorrowland. We made our way through Fantasyland, then stopped in at the circus to look around the souvenir shop there.
Eventually made our way to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, and by the time we got there our FP window was just about ready! So, we scanned our bands and headed inside. We waited about 5 minutes, and we all had a great ride. Once we got off it was around 3:15, and we really didn’t have enough time before Nathan and Ginger had to leave to ride anything else, so we just looked around the Tomorrowland gift shop for a little while until it was time to start making our way out of the park. We made our way down Main Street, out of the park, and to the boat dock where we waited about 10-15 minutes for a boat to come. We had a nice ride back to the Fort, where it was time to say goodbye to Nathan and Ginger. All of their stuff was waiting for them at the Outpost, so they caught an internal bus to the front while we walked back to the RV. We would be seeing them in just a little while, so it wasn’t too hard to say goodbye. They made it to the Outpost, where they waited for their Magical Express bus. They had a safe flight home, and they were already thinking of coming back in September!
We made it back to the RV, where we all just hung out and relaxed for a little while. We made sandwiches for dinner and ate outside at our picnic table around 5:30, and after dinner we went for a nice walk together around the campground. When we got back we talked about what our plans for the rest of the evening would be. Earlier we had talked about going back to the Magic Kingdom, because they were open until midnight. Sam and I were the only ones interested in going back, so we decided that we would go while everyone else stayed and hung out at home. We ended up leaving the RV around 7:30 to walk up to the boat dock. We only waited a couple of minutes for a boat, and we had a really nice ride back over to the park. The sunset tonight was gorgeous, and it was views like this that made it harder and harder to think about leaving in a few days.
By the time we got off the boat, went through bag check with my camera bag, and got into the park it was around 8:15. There was an electrical parade starting at 9:00, so we decided to find a place to watch! I wanted to try photographing it again after learning a few things from the other time we watched it. Main Street was already pretty crowded, so we made our way over to Frontierland where the crowd was a little thinner. We found a great spot with about 30 minutes to spare until parade time. In the meantime we got some mickey ice cream bars and sat on the ground to wait. Soon enough it was 9:00, but because we were in Frontierland and the parade started on Main Street, it took another 20 minutes to get to us. We didn’t mind waiting though! Pretty soon the music started and we could see the lights in the distance. We had an awesome time watching the parade, and I was really glad we got to see it again. I felt like I was able to get some better pictures this time, too!
The parade was over around 9:40, so we still had over 2 hours until the park closed. Another thing I really wanted to do one last time was visit the Princess Fairytale Hall. I still needed to get Rapunzel, Anna, and Elsa’s signatures for some of my friends back home, plus I just really love princesses. Because it was later the line wasn’t as long as it normally is, so we made our way over to Fantasyland to see some princesses! We got in line for Cinderella and Rapunzel first, because their line was shorter. We waited about 15-20 minutes before it was our turn. Sam was very kind and took pictures for me while I met them. I met Rapunzel first, and she was very sweet. She was thrilled to see a photo of herself, and she was very happy to sign it. Cinderella was next, and she really loved my Olaf shirt. She talked to me about how crazy Elsa’s ice powers are, and how she wouldn’t like to live in a castle made out of ice.
We said thank you and goodbye to the princesses, and headed back outside. The line for Anna and Elsa was still pretty long, so we decided to go ride something in the meantime to see if the wait would go down. The teacups were close by and only had a 10 minute wait, so we did that. Sam did all the hard work spinning us while I sat back and enjoyed the ride. We had a lot of fun, and once we got off we headed back over to see what the wait time was now. It was down to 30 minutes, so we decided to get in line now. It actually took closer to 40 minutes, but we didn’t mind waiting. Once it was our turn we had a lot of fun with the Princess and Queen. Anna was an absolute riot! We made up an awkward little hand-shake/hug greeting, and she talked almost non-stop about how much she loves chocolate. Elsa was more reserved, which is expected from the Queen, but she did help me practice how I would use ice powers if I had them. They were both a lot of fun, and also very excited to sign the photos of themselves.
It was after 11:00 when we got out, so we decided to head home. The park was pretty empty, so we had a nice walk down Main Street and out of the park. It was so hard to believe that we would only be back one more time before having to leave Disney. It felt like we had been there forever, but at the same time it went by so fast. We caught the boat back to the Fort and walked to the RV, where everyone else was already in bed. We got ready quickly and quietly, and we headed to bed too. We were all going to sleep in tomorrow morning, then spend some time at Blizzard Beach a later in the morning.
As soon as Nathan got back, we were all ready to go, so we made the short walk up to the Settlement. It was still early for the Magic Kingdom boat, so we took the first Contemporary boat that came. We had a nice ride over there, then took the walking path to the Magic Kingdom entrance. We got there around 8:15, and once we got through bag check, scanned our Magic Bands, and found a spot to wait, we had about 25 minutes to wait until the opening show started. We were up pretty far and over to the right, so we didn’t really have a good view of the show, but we still sang along and enjoyed what we were able to see.
As soon as we finished the count down and the gates opened, we joined the very stressful rush to the Mine Train. Honestly, people can be so careless and inconsiderate, it’s like every man for himself. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been run into by strollers, shoved, or edged out by people during early morning rushes. We were all able to get there in one piece though, and we practically got to walk right onto the Mine Train. We had an awesome ride, and we were really glad we were able to get that done first thing.
Once we got off, we headed over to ride Peter Pan, which we waited maybe 5 minutes for. That’s another ride that gets a long line, so it was great to get that done. Once we got off Peter Pan, we rode a couple of other things in Fantasyland. We did Pooh Bear, and after that the Teacups, both of which had 5-10 minute waits. It was a little after 9:30 now, and Scoop Sanderson was scheduled to be out on Main Street at 10:00, so we didn’t want to go too far away. We headed over to the Hub and hung out there for a little while until all the citizens of Main Street came out.
It only took us a few minutes to spot Scoop, and he was very happy to see us! We spent some time trading pins and chatting. He was very sad to hear that Nathan and Ginger were leaving today, and that the rest of us would be leaving in just a few days. We had a nice time trading pins and catching up, but there were some other people waiting to see him and we had a lot to do before Nathan and Ginger had to leave, so we said good-bye. We did get a picture with him before we left, though!
By now it was just about time for our 10:20 FastPass for Space Mountain, so we made our way into Tomorrowland. We scanned our bands and waited maybe 10 minutes before blasting off! We had a really great ride, and I screamed the entire time (as usual). Once we got off we made our way through Fantasyland and over to the Storybook Circus, where we rode Dumbo. We waited about 10-15 minutes, and we had a great time soaring above the kingdom. Once we got off Dumbo we headed over to ride the Little Mermaid. That wait was also about 10 minutes, and we had a great voyage under the sea.
It was a little after 11:30 when we got off, so we were starting to think about where we might want to get lunch. The Tortuga Tavern in Adventureland was open today, which is a rare occurrence for us because it’s never open during the off-season, which is when we’re usually there. So, of course we really wanted to try it out! We made the hike from Fantasyland over to Adventureland, where we headed straight for the restaurant. It was very cool being inside, considering we had never been in there before. They serve Mexican food there, and it is very good. It didn’t take us too long to order or get our food, and we found a nice quiet table to sit at. I got the taco salad, which was amazing, and everyone else either got that or the burritos.
Everyone loved it, and we were hoping someday we’d be able to come back and visit again! Once we were all done it was almost time for our 12:40 Splash Mountain FastPass, so we started making our way over to Frontierland. We got there a few minutes after our window opened, scanned our bands, and got in line. The line ended up taking about 10-15 minutes, and we had an awesome ride. Sam and Dad got pretty wet this time around, but it was a pretty warm day so they didn’t mind too much! It was around 1:15 now, so we had a little more than 2 hours until Nathan and Ginger had to leave. They really wanted to ride Big Thunder Mountain before they left, so we went over there to check the wait time. It said 30 minutes, which we were okay with, so we hopped in line! It ended up taking right around 30-40 minutes, and we had fun playing with the interactive stuff they have in the queue now. We had an awesome ride in the back of the train, and Nathan and Ginger were glad that they got to ride one last time before they had to leave.
It was a little after 2:00 now, and our final FastPass of the day for Buzz Lightyear wasn’t until 3:00, so we had some time to kill. Nathan and Ginger had heard about the awesome Nutella waffle sandwiches at Sleepy Hollow, so we made our way over to Liberty Square so they could try it out! We ordered a couple to share, and we had a really nice time sitting outside and enjoying them together.
Once we were done with our delicious treats it was about 2:30, so we decided to just start slowly making our way towards Tomorrowland. We made our way through Fantasyland, then stopped in at the circus to look around the souvenir shop there.
Eventually made our way to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, and by the time we got there our FP window was just about ready! So, we scanned our bands and headed inside. We waited about 5 minutes, and we all had a great ride. Once we got off it was around 3:15, and we really didn’t have enough time before Nathan and Ginger had to leave to ride anything else, so we just looked around the Tomorrowland gift shop for a little while until it was time to start making our way out of the park. We made our way down Main Street, out of the park, and to the boat dock where we waited about 10-15 minutes for a boat to come. We had a nice ride back to the Fort, where it was time to say goodbye to Nathan and Ginger. All of their stuff was waiting for them at the Outpost, so they caught an internal bus to the front while we walked back to the RV. We would be seeing them in just a little while, so it wasn’t too hard to say goodbye. They made it to the Outpost, where they waited for their Magical Express bus. They had a safe flight home, and they were already thinking of coming back in September!
We made it back to the RV, where we all just hung out and relaxed for a little while. We made sandwiches for dinner and ate outside at our picnic table around 5:30, and after dinner we went for a nice walk together around the campground. When we got back we talked about what our plans for the rest of the evening would be. Earlier we had talked about going back to the Magic Kingdom, because they were open until midnight. Sam and I were the only ones interested in going back, so we decided that we would go while everyone else stayed and hung out at home. We ended up leaving the RV around 7:30 to walk up to the boat dock. We only waited a couple of minutes for a boat, and we had a really nice ride back over to the park. The sunset tonight was gorgeous, and it was views like this that made it harder and harder to think about leaving in a few days.
By the time we got off the boat, went through bag check with my camera bag, and got into the park it was around 8:15. There was an electrical parade starting at 9:00, so we decided to find a place to watch! I wanted to try photographing it again after learning a few things from the other time we watched it. Main Street was already pretty crowded, so we made our way over to Frontierland where the crowd was a little thinner. We found a great spot with about 30 minutes to spare until parade time. In the meantime we got some mickey ice cream bars and sat on the ground to wait. Soon enough it was 9:00, but because we were in Frontierland and the parade started on Main Street, it took another 20 minutes to get to us. We didn’t mind waiting though! Pretty soon the music started and we could see the lights in the distance. We had an awesome time watching the parade, and I was really glad we got to see it again. I felt like I was able to get some better pictures this time, too!
The parade was over around 9:40, so we still had over 2 hours until the park closed. Another thing I really wanted to do one last time was visit the Princess Fairytale Hall. I still needed to get Rapunzel, Anna, and Elsa’s signatures for some of my friends back home, plus I just really love princesses. Because it was later the line wasn’t as long as it normally is, so we made our way over to Fantasyland to see some princesses! We got in line for Cinderella and Rapunzel first, because their line was shorter. We waited about 15-20 minutes before it was our turn. Sam was very kind and took pictures for me while I met them. I met Rapunzel first, and she was very sweet. She was thrilled to see a photo of herself, and she was very happy to sign it. Cinderella was next, and she really loved my Olaf shirt. She talked to me about how crazy Elsa’s ice powers are, and how she wouldn’t like to live in a castle made out of ice.
We said thank you and goodbye to the princesses, and headed back outside. The line for Anna and Elsa was still pretty long, so we decided to go ride something in the meantime to see if the wait would go down. The teacups were close by and only had a 10 minute wait, so we did that. Sam did all the hard work spinning us while I sat back and enjoyed the ride. We had a lot of fun, and once we got off we headed back over to see what the wait time was now. It was down to 30 minutes, so we decided to get in line now. It actually took closer to 40 minutes, but we didn’t mind waiting. Once it was our turn we had a lot of fun with the Princess and Queen. Anna was an absolute riot! We made up an awkward little hand-shake/hug greeting, and she talked almost non-stop about how much she loves chocolate. Elsa was more reserved, which is expected from the Queen, but she did help me practice how I would use ice powers if I had them. They were both a lot of fun, and also very excited to sign the photos of themselves.
It was after 11:00 when we got out, so we decided to head home. The park was pretty empty, so we had a nice walk down Main Street and out of the park. It was so hard to believe that we would only be back one more time before having to leave Disney. It felt like we had been there forever, but at the same time it went by so fast. We caught the boat back to the Fort and walked to the RV, where everyone else was already in bed. We got ready quickly and quietly, and we headed to bed too. We were all going to sleep in tomorrow morning, then spend some time at Blizzard Beach a later in the morning.
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Today we got up and got ready to spend the day at Blizzard Beach, which opened at 10:00! We got all ready and packed our backpacks before heading out a little after 9:00. We caught both of our buses with no problem, and we arrived at the park and were waiting for it to open with about 20 minutes to spare. It was a little more crowded than the last time we were there, but there still weren’t too many people there for rope-drop. We brought the refillable mugs we had bought one of the other times we were at a water park because you can pay a cheaper price to use them again if you bring them back, so we paid to reactivate those while we were waiting.
Twenty minutes went by fast, and soon we were entering the park and searching out a spot to leave our stuff for the day. We found a nice shaded spot with lots of chairs in the area of the wading pool, so we set up there. I didn’t have my journal with me today, so I can’t tell you what order we did anything in. Basically we just started at one end of the park, then made our way in a circle all the way around. We came back around to our stuff around noontime to eat the sandwiches we packed for lunch, then we headed back out to ride some of our favorite slides again. We did the family raft ride, Teamboat Springs, at least 3 or 4 times, because that’s definitely everyone’s favorite. No one was brave enough to conquer Summit Plummet today, but Dad and Travis did take on the smaller but still intense Slush Gusher. We also enjoyed taking a ride on the lazy river around the park, just relaxing and enjoying the day.
By 3:00 we had done everything we wanted to do as many times as we wanted, so we started getting ready to head out. We went and got changed out of our swimsuits, then packed up all of our stuff. Before we left though, there was one more thing we had to do, and it involved a sand pail full of ice cream! So, we headed over to IC Expeditions, the ice cream stand. We had learned from the last time we were here, and just got one for all of us to share, which was plenty. We had a nice time just sitting at a table in the shade and enjoying our treat.
Once our bucket was empty, it was a little after 3:30 and time to head home. We grabbed our gear and made our way to the bus stop, where we waited about 10 or so minutes for a bus to arrive. We had a good bus ride back to the Fort, where we caught the internal bus to our loop and walked back to the RV. It was around 4:00 when we got back, and we just spent the rest of the afternoon at the RV. Some of us took showers or just hung out. We didn’t really have much food left besides sandwich ingredients, so we decided to order food from the restaurant up at the Settlement. They do takeout, so you can just call in your order then go up and pick it up. We got the family fried chicken meal, which comes with 10 pieces of fried chicken, corn bread, and 2 sides. We got mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. It’s actually a super great deal (around $25 after tax) and it was plenty of food for the 5 of us. We called in our order then went to go get it a little after 5:30. Dad and Sam went to go pick it up, and once they made it back we all sat down to eat. We had a nice time eating together, and the food was very good.
After we finished eating we all went for a walk together, which was very nice. It was a beautiful evening. We got back to the RV from our walk around 7:00, and we decided to just hang out there for the rest of the night. I’m pretty sure the movie tonight was one of the new Tinkerbell ones, and we didn’t really care to see it. So we stayed in tonight and watched some TV together before heading to bed around 9:30. Tomorrow we would have to psych ourselves up because it was our last day at both Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We were going to start the day at AK then head to HS later. It was hard to believe that these were the very last days of our trip, but we were ready to make them the best!
Twenty minutes went by fast, and soon we were entering the park and searching out a spot to leave our stuff for the day. We found a nice shaded spot with lots of chairs in the area of the wading pool, so we set up there. I didn’t have my journal with me today, so I can’t tell you what order we did anything in. Basically we just started at one end of the park, then made our way in a circle all the way around. We came back around to our stuff around noontime to eat the sandwiches we packed for lunch, then we headed back out to ride some of our favorite slides again. We did the family raft ride, Teamboat Springs, at least 3 or 4 times, because that’s definitely everyone’s favorite. No one was brave enough to conquer Summit Plummet today, but Dad and Travis did take on the smaller but still intense Slush Gusher. We also enjoyed taking a ride on the lazy river around the park, just relaxing and enjoying the day.
By 3:00 we had done everything we wanted to do as many times as we wanted, so we started getting ready to head out. We went and got changed out of our swimsuits, then packed up all of our stuff. Before we left though, there was one more thing we had to do, and it involved a sand pail full of ice cream! So, we headed over to IC Expeditions, the ice cream stand. We had learned from the last time we were here, and just got one for all of us to share, which was plenty. We had a nice time just sitting at a table in the shade and enjoying our treat.
Once our bucket was empty, it was a little after 3:30 and time to head home. We grabbed our gear and made our way to the bus stop, where we waited about 10 or so minutes for a bus to arrive. We had a good bus ride back to the Fort, where we caught the internal bus to our loop and walked back to the RV. It was around 4:00 when we got back, and we just spent the rest of the afternoon at the RV. Some of us took showers or just hung out. We didn’t really have much food left besides sandwich ingredients, so we decided to order food from the restaurant up at the Settlement. They do takeout, so you can just call in your order then go up and pick it up. We got the family fried chicken meal, which comes with 10 pieces of fried chicken, corn bread, and 2 sides. We got mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. It’s actually a super great deal (around $25 after tax) and it was plenty of food for the 5 of us. We called in our order then went to go get it a little after 5:30. Dad and Sam went to go pick it up, and once they made it back we all sat down to eat. We had a nice time eating together, and the food was very good.
After we finished eating we all went for a walk together, which was very nice. It was a beautiful evening. We got back to the RV from our walk around 7:00, and we decided to just hang out there for the rest of the night. I’m pretty sure the movie tonight was one of the new Tinkerbell ones, and we didn’t really care to see it. So we stayed in tonight and watched some TV together before heading to bed around 9:30. Tomorrow we would have to psych ourselves up because it was our last day at both Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We were going to start the day at AK then head to HS later. It was hard to believe that these were the very last days of our trip, but we were ready to make them the best!
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Today was our first last day in the parks. We got up and got ready to head to Animal Kingdom this morning, which opened at 9:00, and later that day we would spend our final hours in Hollywood Studios. Nobody was sad though, because we were ready to make our last days the best ones!
We were up and ready to go around 8:00, so we headed out to the bus stop. We didn’t have to wait too long for either of our buses, and we arrived at the park with about 30 minutes to spare. We had to stop to get one last family picture in front of the sign before heading to the gate to wait for opening.
The park opened just before 9:00, and we headed straight for Mt. Everest.
We made good time getting over there, and we practically walked right on. We had an awesome ride, and it was a great way to start the day. Once we got off we headed right over to the safari, because we didn’t have any FastPasses for this park. We had made them for Hollywood Studios for later. So, we got over there and the line hadn’t gotten too long yet, so we ended up waiting about 20 or so minutes. We had a good safari with a lot of good views, including the lions and zebras!
Once we got off, we headed over to the Pangani Forest trail, where we had a good time walking through and seeing some birds, meerkats, hippos, and gorillas. The baby gorillas were out playing today, so we had a lot of fun watching them. We spent about 20 minutes on the trail before moving on.
We were up and ready to go around 8:00, so we headed out to the bus stop. We didn’t have to wait too long for either of our buses, and we arrived at the park with about 30 minutes to spare. We had to stop to get one last family picture in front of the sign before heading to the gate to wait for opening.
The park opened just before 9:00, and we headed straight for Mt. Everest.
We made good time getting over there, and we practically walked right on. We had an awesome ride, and it was a great way to start the day. Once we got off we headed right over to the safari, because we didn’t have any FastPasses for this park. We had made them for Hollywood Studios for later. So, we got over there and the line hadn’t gotten too long yet, so we ended up waiting about 20 or so minutes. We had a good safari with a lot of good views, including the lions and zebras!
Once we got off, we headed over to the Pangani Forest trail, where we had a good time walking through and seeing some birds, meerkats, hippos, and gorillas. The baby gorillas were out playing today, so we had a lot of fun watching them. We spent about 20 minutes on the trail before moving on.
We wanted to take our last opportunity to spend some time at Rafiki’s Planet Watch because that’s one of Mom’s favorite places to go, so we walked over to catch the train. We waited just a few minutes before a train arrived, and we had a nice ride over. We saw the baby rhino in his pen with his mom on the way, and we also got a glimpse of the lions on pride rock form the backside of the safari.
We got to Rafiki’s around 10:30, and we ended up spending about an hour there. They were doing some medical procedures on one of the little deer-like animals, so we spent a while watching that. It was very interesting.
We also spent some time looking at the other small animals they have there, and at the petting zoo. We headed back to the train station a little before 11:30, and we were very glad that we had the opportunity to visit Rafiki’s one last time. We hopped on the train that was waiting for us at the station, and made the short ride back to Harambe village. Once we got back we decided to stop somewhere to eat the lunch we packed. We knew where some tables were around the backside of the tree of life sort of in between Africa and Asia, so we headed over there. The tables were empty, so we sat down to eat our sandwiches. We had a good lunch with a great view, and just sitting there under the tree of life was one of the moments that we were just soaking in as long as we could.
Once we finished eating we decided to head over to Dinoland because we hadn’t been there yet today. We rode Primeval Whirl first, which had a 15-20 minute wait, and we had a great time spinning around. It was a little after 12:30 when we got off, and we wanted to catch the 1:00 Finding Nemo show, so we figured we didn’t have time for anything else in Dinoland. We were a little disappointed we wouldn’t be able to ride Dinosaur on more time, but it’s not anyone’s favorite ride or anything so we were okay. We headed over to the theater to get in line for Finding Nemo the Musical, where we waited about 10-15 minutes before being let in to find our seats. We got great seats on the left side of the theater in the front of the second section. It was another 10-15 minutes, then the show was starting! The show is always absolutely spectacular, and today was no exception. We had a great time singing along to the songs, and I was able to get some pretty good photos.
The show let out around 1:40, and it was time to start heading out of the park. We stopped in the gift shop near the front of the park for a few minutes before finally heading out for good. We said our good-byes as we exited, but there was no time to be sad because it was time to head to our second park of the day, Hollywood Studios! We made our way to the bus stop for the park, and waited just a few minutes for on to come. We arrived at the park around 2:20, got through bag check, and made our way into the park. It’s always a little weird coming to a park later in the day. It almost feels like walking in during the middle of a movie, like everything’s already started and your walking in and trying to catch up with everyone who’s already there.
Our first stop when we got there was the Great Movie Ride! We waited about 15 minutes, and we had a very good ride. It was about 3:00 when we got off, and the next thing on our agenda was the Frozen sing-a-long, but that didn’t start until 3:50 so we had some time to kill. It was an extremely warm day today, so we decided to get some slushies from a place we saw called Peevy’s.
This is one of the seasonal places that’s only open when it’s really hot or during the busy season, so we had never seen it open before. The line was fairly long, so it took about 10 minutes until it was our turn to order, but we didn’t mind waiting. They had like 6 different flavors of slushies, and they all looked awesome. I don’t remember what flavors everyone else got, but I got the raspberry lemonade, which was delicious. With our icy drinks in hand, we started making our way towards the theater for Frozen. By the time we got over there we still had about 30 minutes to wait, but there was already a pretty substantial line so we just hopped in. It was about 10-15 minutes before they started letting people into the theater, and we ended up with okay seats to the right side of the theater and pretty far to the back.
Pretty soon the show started, and we joined in with all of the little girls singing along to the Frozen soundtrack. The royal historians were totally hilarious, and the whole show was a lot of fun. This was one of the first things we did on the very first day that we arrived in Disney, so it kind of felt like we came full circle.
The show let out about 4:20, and we made our way out of the theater to see that it had started raining. We quickly made our way over to the closest cover, which was across the street from the Studio Catering Co. restaurant near Toy Story Mania. There’s a gift shop right there as well, so we hung out there for a little while waiting for the rain to die down.
It started to lighten up within 10 minutes, so we started moving on. We had FastPasses for Tower of Terror that had started at 4:45, so the window was already open. Everyone except for me and Travis headed to ride while we headed up to the gift shop to wait for them. It was only about 15 minutes before we saw them coming off of the ride, and we joined up with them and headed outside. It was around 5:15 now, so we decided to find somewhere to eat dinner. We still wanted to see the Muppets and ride Star Tours tonight, so we decided to go eat at the Backlot Express, which is in the same area.
We made our way over there and got in line to order, which didn’t take too long; we were all sitting down with our food by 5:40. Travis and Sam got buffalo chicken nuggets, Mom and I got salads, and Dad got a hot dog.
We all enjoyed our food and had a great time eating together. This was the place where we ate on our first night in Disney, so we were all feeling a little sentimental. It felt like that night was an eternity ago, but it also felt like we were just sitting there with our whole trip in front of us a few days ago.
After we finished eating and made a stop at the bathroom we headed over to get in line for the Muppet show. We got inside and waited about 10 minutes before the next show started. The pre-show is almost as good as the actual show though, so we were glad we had time to watch it. Soon we were let into the theater and we had a great time watching the shenanigans of Kermit and friends one last time. Once the show let out we made our way over to Star Tours for our last trip with captain C-3PO. We had a FastPass, so it was about 10 minutes before we were boarding, and we had a wonderful flight with a good sequence. I was even the rebel spy, which was totally cool!
It was almost 7:00 when we got off, and our last FP of the day wasn’t for another hour or so, so we decided to go ride Rock n’ Rollercoaster in the meantime. Dad hung out outside while the rest of us got in the single rider line. The line was actually still pretty long, and it ended up taking almost 40 minutes. This ride is a favorite though, so we didn’t mind waiting. We had a rocking ride, and once we got off we found Dad waiting for us near the exit. We apologized for it taking longer than we thought, but he didn’t mind the break. It was just about time for our final FP of the day, which was for Toy Story Mania, so we made our way over there. By the time we got over there our window was open, so we scanned our bands and got in line, ready for the last go on one of our favorite rides in all of Disney. It was about 10 minutes before we were boarding, and we had a great ride. I went with Mom, and we had a lot of fun going at it and shooting away at all the targets.
It was about 8:20 when we got off the ride, and the park closed at 9:00. We had done everything we wanted to for the day, so we decided it was time to say good-bye and head home. We stopped on the way out for our final family picture in the park before exiting and making our way to the bus stop.
We waited about 10 minutes for a bus to come, and had a nice ride to the Fort. We caught our internal bus and got back to the RV around 9:00. We spent some time hanging out together before heading to bed around 9:45. Tomorrow was our final day at Epcot!
We got to Rafiki’s around 10:30, and we ended up spending about an hour there. They were doing some medical procedures on one of the little deer-like animals, so we spent a while watching that. It was very interesting.
We also spent some time looking at the other small animals they have there, and at the petting zoo. We headed back to the train station a little before 11:30, and we were very glad that we had the opportunity to visit Rafiki’s one last time. We hopped on the train that was waiting for us at the station, and made the short ride back to Harambe village. Once we got back we decided to stop somewhere to eat the lunch we packed. We knew where some tables were around the backside of the tree of life sort of in between Africa and Asia, so we headed over there. The tables were empty, so we sat down to eat our sandwiches. We had a good lunch with a great view, and just sitting there under the tree of life was one of the moments that we were just soaking in as long as we could.
Once we finished eating we decided to head over to Dinoland because we hadn’t been there yet today. We rode Primeval Whirl first, which had a 15-20 minute wait, and we had a great time spinning around. It was a little after 12:30 when we got off, and we wanted to catch the 1:00 Finding Nemo show, so we figured we didn’t have time for anything else in Dinoland. We were a little disappointed we wouldn’t be able to ride Dinosaur on more time, but it’s not anyone’s favorite ride or anything so we were okay. We headed over to the theater to get in line for Finding Nemo the Musical, where we waited about 10-15 minutes before being let in to find our seats. We got great seats on the left side of the theater in the front of the second section. It was another 10-15 minutes, then the show was starting! The show is always absolutely spectacular, and today was no exception. We had a great time singing along to the songs, and I was able to get some pretty good photos.
The show let out around 1:40, and it was time to start heading out of the park. We stopped in the gift shop near the front of the park for a few minutes before finally heading out for good. We said our good-byes as we exited, but there was no time to be sad because it was time to head to our second park of the day, Hollywood Studios! We made our way to the bus stop for the park, and waited just a few minutes for on to come. We arrived at the park around 2:20, got through bag check, and made our way into the park. It’s always a little weird coming to a park later in the day. It almost feels like walking in during the middle of a movie, like everything’s already started and your walking in and trying to catch up with everyone who’s already there.
Our first stop when we got there was the Great Movie Ride! We waited about 15 minutes, and we had a very good ride. It was about 3:00 when we got off, and the next thing on our agenda was the Frozen sing-a-long, but that didn’t start until 3:50 so we had some time to kill. It was an extremely warm day today, so we decided to get some slushies from a place we saw called Peevy’s.
This is one of the seasonal places that’s only open when it’s really hot or during the busy season, so we had never seen it open before. The line was fairly long, so it took about 10 minutes until it was our turn to order, but we didn’t mind waiting. They had like 6 different flavors of slushies, and they all looked awesome. I don’t remember what flavors everyone else got, but I got the raspberry lemonade, which was delicious. With our icy drinks in hand, we started making our way towards the theater for Frozen. By the time we got over there we still had about 30 minutes to wait, but there was already a pretty substantial line so we just hopped in. It was about 10-15 minutes before they started letting people into the theater, and we ended up with okay seats to the right side of the theater and pretty far to the back.
Pretty soon the show started, and we joined in with all of the little girls singing along to the Frozen soundtrack. The royal historians were totally hilarious, and the whole show was a lot of fun. This was one of the first things we did on the very first day that we arrived in Disney, so it kind of felt like we came full circle.
The show let out about 4:20, and we made our way out of the theater to see that it had started raining. We quickly made our way over to the closest cover, which was across the street from the Studio Catering Co. restaurant near Toy Story Mania. There’s a gift shop right there as well, so we hung out there for a little while waiting for the rain to die down.
It started to lighten up within 10 minutes, so we started moving on. We had FastPasses for Tower of Terror that had started at 4:45, so the window was already open. Everyone except for me and Travis headed to ride while we headed up to the gift shop to wait for them. It was only about 15 minutes before we saw them coming off of the ride, and we joined up with them and headed outside. It was around 5:15 now, so we decided to find somewhere to eat dinner. We still wanted to see the Muppets and ride Star Tours tonight, so we decided to go eat at the Backlot Express, which is in the same area.
We made our way over there and got in line to order, which didn’t take too long; we were all sitting down with our food by 5:40. Travis and Sam got buffalo chicken nuggets, Mom and I got salads, and Dad got a hot dog.
We all enjoyed our food and had a great time eating together. This was the place where we ate on our first night in Disney, so we were all feeling a little sentimental. It felt like that night was an eternity ago, but it also felt like we were just sitting there with our whole trip in front of us a few days ago.
After we finished eating and made a stop at the bathroom we headed over to get in line for the Muppet show. We got inside and waited about 10 minutes before the next show started. The pre-show is almost as good as the actual show though, so we were glad we had time to watch it. Soon we were let into the theater and we had a great time watching the shenanigans of Kermit and friends one last time. Once the show let out we made our way over to Star Tours for our last trip with captain C-3PO. We had a FastPass, so it was about 10 minutes before we were boarding, and we had a wonderful flight with a good sequence. I was even the rebel spy, which was totally cool!
It was almost 7:00 when we got off, and our last FP of the day wasn’t for another hour or so, so we decided to go ride Rock n’ Rollercoaster in the meantime. Dad hung out outside while the rest of us got in the single rider line. The line was actually still pretty long, and it ended up taking almost 40 minutes. This ride is a favorite though, so we didn’t mind waiting. We had a rocking ride, and once we got off we found Dad waiting for us near the exit. We apologized for it taking longer than we thought, but he didn’t mind the break. It was just about time for our final FP of the day, which was for Toy Story Mania, so we made our way over there. By the time we got over there our window was open, so we scanned our bands and got in line, ready for the last go on one of our favorite rides in all of Disney. It was about 10 minutes before we were boarding, and we had a great ride. I went with Mom, and we had a lot of fun going at it and shooting away at all the targets.
It was about 8:20 when we got off the ride, and the park closed at 9:00. We had done everything we wanted to for the day, so we decided it was time to say good-bye and head home. We stopped on the way out for our final family picture in the park before exiting and making our way to the bus stop.
We waited about 10 minutes for a bus to come, and had a nice ride to the Fort. We caught our internal bus and got back to the RV around 9:00. We spent some time hanging out together before heading to bed around 9:45. Tomorrow was our final day at Epcot!
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Grumpy's Wife
Dollar Tree gal here
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2005
Great updates. I can only imagine how sad it was for your family after being there so so long.
DaisyDuck001
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2006
The cappuccino cupcake sounds awesome. I hope they will have it at Pizzerizzo when that place opens, as I didn't get to try that cupcake yet.
It looks like it was really special celebrating your mom's birthday at Via Napoli.
How were you able to get FPs for the Great Movie Ride and Toy Story Mania for the same day? Aren't those both Tier 1?
After waiting about 11 months to find out what your Halloween costume was, I found your Halloween picture on Instagram. Cute costumes! Although, I didn't recognize who Sam was supposed to be.
How did you all enjoy staying in the Cars suite last year? Was it comfortable? The AofA suites seem geared mostly towards families with younger kids, so I'm curious how well it worked for your family.
What are you doing nowadays?
It looks like it was really special celebrating your mom's birthday at Via Napoli.
How were you able to get FPs for the Great Movie Ride and Toy Story Mania for the same day? Aren't those both Tier 1?
After waiting about 11 months to find out what your Halloween costume was, I found your Halloween picture on Instagram. Cute costumes! Although, I didn't recognize who Sam was supposed to be.
How did you all enjoy staying in the Cars suite last year? Was it comfortable? The AofA suites seem geared mostly towards families with younger kids, so I'm curious how well it worked for your family.
What are you doing nowadays?
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Yeah, you're right, they are in the same tier. I just had my days mixed up; our other FP for that day was Star Tours.
Sam's Halloween costume was Michael Darling, to go along with our Peter Pan theme.
We had an awesome time staying in the Cars suite! There was plenty of space for us, and the themeing was really immersive and adorable. It seems like a place that small children would absolutely love, but we all enjoyed it just as well.
Our family is all doing well, and we continue to keep very busy! Travis is a sophomore in high school now, Sam is in college full time, and I'm starting nursing school in the spring. Mom and Dad are also doing great, as is the rest of the family!
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Today was our final day at Epcot! The park opened at 9:00, and we really wanted to get there on time, so we made sure we were down at the main bus stop at 8:00. It was hard to believe, but this was our last time waiting for a bus to a park at this bus stop. It was a beautiful morning though, and we were ready to have a great day! It wasn’t too long before our bus showed up, and we were on our way to Epcot. We arrived at the park, got through bag check, and found a spot to wait in line. Amy and Jack had the day off work, so they were coming to meet us and hang out for the day! This would be the last time we would see them for a little while, so we were glad to be able to spend the day with together.
The two of them met up with us pretty soon after we got there, and after just a while longer it was time to head inside!
The first thing on our agenda for the day was Test Track, because we didn’t have a FastPass for that later. We made it over there in good time, and only had to wait about 5 minutes. Once we got off, we went around to get back to the center of the park, where we got in line at the pin kiosk to get our Easter egg hunt maps!
Every year around Easter there are big painted eggs hidden all around World Showcase, and (for a price) you can get a map with stickers and find them all!
Once you complete it you can take it back into one of the stores and you receive a prize. They only have a limited number of maps they sell, and it’s a pretty popular activity, so there was quite a line to get them. After waiting 10-15 minutes, we got our maps and tucked them away for now, because World Showcase wasn’t open yet.
It was around quarter until 10:00 now, which was when our FastPass for Soarin’ started. So, we just made our way over to the Land, and by the time we got there our window was just about to open. So, we got in line and waited about 15 minutes before taking off to soar over California. Once we got off the ride and headed back outside it was a little before 10:30, so we still had over half an hour until World Showcase opened. Today was Friday, which meant the Festival Center was open, so we decided to head up there and look around for a while. We strolled around the building and checked out some of the different exhibits set up in there. We had already seen everything in the center a few times before, so after about 15-20 minutes we headed back outside.
We slowly made our way toward the International Gateway, stopping at the butterfly house on our way, as well as checking out some of the other topiary and gardens. There were a bunch of artisans set up in little tents near the gateway today, so we checked out their stuff for a while. There was someone with blown glass, some artists, people who worked with metal, and also a woman who made little fairy houses. That was probably the coolest thing we saw.
By the time we were done checking all of that stuff out, it was 11:00, so we headed inside World Showcase. We started in Mexico, where we looked for our first egg. We weren’t sure exactly what they looked like or how well they would be hidden, so it took us a little while to find the first one. We looked inside and outside, but it was seriously harder than we thought. After about 20-30 minutes of feeling totally stupid, we decided to take a break. We walked over to Norway where there are some nice benches by the water to eat the lunch we had packed. It was a beautiful day, and it was just really nice to sit outside and enjoy it. Once we were done we went back over to Mexico, where we were determined to find this egg. We headed up the stairs and looked around, and this time we found it almost right away.
There was Donald, sitting up there in a window across the street, practically mocking us. Once we found him though, and we got an idea of what the eggs would look like and how they were hidden, the rest were much easier. After we found Donald in his hiding spot, we headed inside the pavilion to ride the Three Caballeros. The wait was only around 5 minutes, and we had a good ride. After we got off and spent a few minutes looking around the shop, we headed back outside and into Norway to continue our hunt. This one took us a while too, because Chip was hiding very well, but after looking around inside the stores and outside, eventually we found him up on the roof.
We continued on our way to China, where we easily found Figment.
China has some of my favorite shops, so we spent some time there before moving on. We also decided to get some candied strawberries from the Flower and Garden booth there, which were really good! We passed through the African Outpost, which is pretty small, so we didn’t have any trouble finding Thumper there.
Next was Germany, where we had a little more trouble spotting Goofy. We looked around in the Germany pavilion for a while before finding out that he was actually hanging out over by the trains! Next was Italy, where we found Perry almost right away on a rooftop. It was more of a lucky spotting, because he was kind of outside the pavilion. If we hadn’t seen him as we were approaching before walking in, we probably would have been looking for him forever! We hung out in Italy for a few more minutes before moving on. Aren’t these guys so cute!
Up next was America, where we spotted Mickey chilling out way up high.
It was around 1:00 now, and at 1:15 the Voices of Liberty would be starting their performance. We headed inside to find a spot to wait, and soon they all came out in their beautiful colonial attire. Watching them perform is always special, and their talent always blows us away.
After their performance was over it was time to move on to Japan, where we found Daisy hiding in the gardens.
We hung out in Japan for a few minutes before we headed into Morocco, where Dale was chilling on the roof.
Up next was France, where we found Minnie in the garden.
We spent some time in France, and while we were there we noticed a guy working on a painting. It was very beautiful, and we had never seen anyone doing anything like that before. He wasn't a cast member or anything, just a regular guy. It was very interesting!
We continued on our way to the UK, where the White Rabbit was hiding in a window sill.
The street band was performing while we were there, so we stopped to watch them for a few minutes before hitting the final stop on our hunt, which was Canada. We easily found Pluto up on the roof there, and with that we successfully completed our egg hunt!
It was just a little after 2:00 when we completed our maps. Once we were done we headed to the Port of Entry shop, where you can pick up your prize. We bought 3 maps, and you get one prize per map. The prizes were little character eggs, and they were adorable. I got a Tinkerbell one, Travis picked Mr. Toad, and Sam got the White Rabbit. Here’s Travis with his Mr. Toad.
After we got our eggs, we headed back outside. We remembered that we hadn’t taken our final family picture in the park yet, so we stopped to pose with Mickey and Minnie on our way back into Future World.
We had FastPasses for Spaceship Earth that started at 2:40, which meant we had about 15 minutes to wait. We decided to just slowly make our way over there, and by the time we got there our window was just about open. We waited maybe 5 minutes before boarding the ride, and we had a great final journey gong back in time and touring our grand and miraculous spaceship Earth.
Once we got off we headed back towards the center of the park. It was pretty humid today, so we stopped at Starbucks to get some cool drinks before moving on. It was around 3:15 now, and there wasn’t a whole lot left in the park that we wanted to do. We decided to walk around and check out some of the Flower and Garden topiary and gardens set up in Future World before heading home. As we were walking we noticed that the already-cloudy sky was getting darker by the minute. We felt the first drops of rain start to fall, and we headed for the nearest cover, which was the Festival Center. We hardly even made it there before the skies opened and the downpour began. It was some pretty intense rain, and you could see people everywhere scrambling to get indoors or under cover. We stood outside under the awning and watched the rain fall for a while before going inside the building to wait it out. You can sort of tell how hard it was raining here.
After about 15-20 minutes it subsided, and we ventured back outside. It was almost 3:45 now, and we decided we had done everything we wanted to for the day. We made our way back to the front of the park, where we said our final good-byes to Epcot.
We also had to say our good-byes to Amy and Jack, which was pretty sad. We weren’t sure when we would see them again, but we knew it wouldn’t be too long before one of us would visit the other. After exiting the park they made their way to the parking lot and we headed over to the bus stop. We waited about 10 minutes for the bus to arrive, and after the stop at Wilderness Lodge we arrived back at the Fort. We waited a few minutes for our internal bus, and we made it back to the RV a little past 4:30. We hung out around the RV until dinnertime, which was around 5:30. Tomorrow we would be getting food in the park for both lunch and dinner, so we tried to eat up what food we had left in the RV tonight.
Around 6:30 Travis and I decided to take this opportunity to go for one last evening swim at the pool. We rode our bikes down and had a great time swimming around and going in the hot tub. It was so hard to believe that it would all be over soon. We had spent so many nights here, swimming in this pool, feeling like it would never end. But it finally was ending, and even though the thought of seeing all of our friends and family again made us happy, it was still heartbreaking to have to wake up from this dream. After a while we rode back home, where we got showered off and changed. We spent the rest of the night hanging out at the RV together and watching TV until we headed to bed around 9:30. Tomorrow would be a very early day at the Magic Kingdom. The park opened at 8:00, and we were ready to make our last day the best day!
The two of them met up with us pretty soon after we got there, and after just a while longer it was time to head inside!
The first thing on our agenda for the day was Test Track, because we didn’t have a FastPass for that later. We made it over there in good time, and only had to wait about 5 minutes. Once we got off, we went around to get back to the center of the park, where we got in line at the pin kiosk to get our Easter egg hunt maps!
Every year around Easter there are big painted eggs hidden all around World Showcase, and (for a price) you can get a map with stickers and find them all!
Once you complete it you can take it back into one of the stores and you receive a prize. They only have a limited number of maps they sell, and it’s a pretty popular activity, so there was quite a line to get them. After waiting 10-15 minutes, we got our maps and tucked them away for now, because World Showcase wasn’t open yet.
It was around quarter until 10:00 now, which was when our FastPass for Soarin’ started. So, we just made our way over to the Land, and by the time we got there our window was just about to open. So, we got in line and waited about 15 minutes before taking off to soar over California. Once we got off the ride and headed back outside it was a little before 10:30, so we still had over half an hour until World Showcase opened. Today was Friday, which meant the Festival Center was open, so we decided to head up there and look around for a while. We strolled around the building and checked out some of the different exhibits set up in there. We had already seen everything in the center a few times before, so after about 15-20 minutes we headed back outside.
We slowly made our way toward the International Gateway, stopping at the butterfly house on our way, as well as checking out some of the other topiary and gardens. There were a bunch of artisans set up in little tents near the gateway today, so we checked out their stuff for a while. There was someone with blown glass, some artists, people who worked with metal, and also a woman who made little fairy houses. That was probably the coolest thing we saw.
By the time we were done checking all of that stuff out, it was 11:00, so we headed inside World Showcase. We started in Mexico, where we looked for our first egg. We weren’t sure exactly what they looked like or how well they would be hidden, so it took us a little while to find the first one. We looked inside and outside, but it was seriously harder than we thought. After about 20-30 minutes of feeling totally stupid, we decided to take a break. We walked over to Norway where there are some nice benches by the water to eat the lunch we had packed. It was a beautiful day, and it was just really nice to sit outside and enjoy it. Once we were done we went back over to Mexico, where we were determined to find this egg. We headed up the stairs and looked around, and this time we found it almost right away.
There was Donald, sitting up there in a window across the street, practically mocking us. Once we found him though, and we got an idea of what the eggs would look like and how they were hidden, the rest were much easier. After we found Donald in his hiding spot, we headed inside the pavilion to ride the Three Caballeros. The wait was only around 5 minutes, and we had a good ride. After we got off and spent a few minutes looking around the shop, we headed back outside and into Norway to continue our hunt. This one took us a while too, because Chip was hiding very well, but after looking around inside the stores and outside, eventually we found him up on the roof.
We continued on our way to China, where we easily found Figment.
China has some of my favorite shops, so we spent some time there before moving on. We also decided to get some candied strawberries from the Flower and Garden booth there, which were really good! We passed through the African Outpost, which is pretty small, so we didn’t have any trouble finding Thumper there.
Next was Germany, where we had a little more trouble spotting Goofy. We looked around in the Germany pavilion for a while before finding out that he was actually hanging out over by the trains! Next was Italy, where we found Perry almost right away on a rooftop. It was more of a lucky spotting, because he was kind of outside the pavilion. If we hadn’t seen him as we were approaching before walking in, we probably would have been looking for him forever! We hung out in Italy for a few more minutes before moving on. Aren’t these guys so cute!
Up next was America, where we spotted Mickey chilling out way up high.
It was around 1:00 now, and at 1:15 the Voices of Liberty would be starting their performance. We headed inside to find a spot to wait, and soon they all came out in their beautiful colonial attire. Watching them perform is always special, and their talent always blows us away.
After their performance was over it was time to move on to Japan, where we found Daisy hiding in the gardens.
We hung out in Japan for a few minutes before we headed into Morocco, where Dale was chilling on the roof.
Up next was France, where we found Minnie in the garden.
We spent some time in France, and while we were there we noticed a guy working on a painting. It was very beautiful, and we had never seen anyone doing anything like that before. He wasn't a cast member or anything, just a regular guy. It was very interesting!
We continued on our way to the UK, where the White Rabbit was hiding in a window sill.
The street band was performing while we were there, so we stopped to watch them for a few minutes before hitting the final stop on our hunt, which was Canada. We easily found Pluto up on the roof there, and with that we successfully completed our egg hunt!
It was just a little after 2:00 when we completed our maps. Once we were done we headed to the Port of Entry shop, where you can pick up your prize. We bought 3 maps, and you get one prize per map. The prizes were little character eggs, and they were adorable. I got a Tinkerbell one, Travis picked Mr. Toad, and Sam got the White Rabbit. Here’s Travis with his Mr. Toad.
After we got our eggs, we headed back outside. We remembered that we hadn’t taken our final family picture in the park yet, so we stopped to pose with Mickey and Minnie on our way back into Future World.
We had FastPasses for Spaceship Earth that started at 2:40, which meant we had about 15 minutes to wait. We decided to just slowly make our way over there, and by the time we got there our window was just about open. We waited maybe 5 minutes before boarding the ride, and we had a great final journey gong back in time and touring our grand and miraculous spaceship Earth.
Once we got off we headed back towards the center of the park. It was pretty humid today, so we stopped at Starbucks to get some cool drinks before moving on. It was around 3:15 now, and there wasn’t a whole lot left in the park that we wanted to do. We decided to walk around and check out some of the Flower and Garden topiary and gardens set up in Future World before heading home. As we were walking we noticed that the already-cloudy sky was getting darker by the minute. We felt the first drops of rain start to fall, and we headed for the nearest cover, which was the Festival Center. We hardly even made it there before the skies opened and the downpour began. It was some pretty intense rain, and you could see people everywhere scrambling to get indoors or under cover. We stood outside under the awning and watched the rain fall for a while before going inside the building to wait it out. You can sort of tell how hard it was raining here.
After about 15-20 minutes it subsided, and we ventured back outside. It was almost 3:45 now, and we decided we had done everything we wanted to for the day. We made our way back to the front of the park, where we said our final good-byes to Epcot.
We also had to say our good-byes to Amy and Jack, which was pretty sad. We weren’t sure when we would see them again, but we knew it wouldn’t be too long before one of us would visit the other. After exiting the park they made their way to the parking lot and we headed over to the bus stop. We waited about 10 minutes for the bus to arrive, and after the stop at Wilderness Lodge we arrived back at the Fort. We waited a few minutes for our internal bus, and we made it back to the RV a little past 4:30. We hung out around the RV until dinnertime, which was around 5:30. Tomorrow we would be getting food in the park for both lunch and dinner, so we tried to eat up what food we had left in the RV tonight.
Around 6:30 Travis and I decided to take this opportunity to go for one last evening swim at the pool. We rode our bikes down and had a great time swimming around and going in the hot tub. It was so hard to believe that it would all be over soon. We had spent so many nights here, swimming in this pool, feeling like it would never end. But it finally was ending, and even though the thought of seeing all of our friends and family again made us happy, it was still heartbreaking to have to wake up from this dream. After a while we rode back home, where we got showered off and changed. We spent the rest of the night hanging out at the RV together and watching TV until we headed to bed around 9:30. Tomorrow would be a very early day at the Magic Kingdom. The park opened at 8:00, and we were ready to make our last day the best day!
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
The day had finally arrived; our last day in Disney. After 3 months the dream was finally coming to an end. We were up before the sun to spend our last day in the best possible place we could think of - the Magic Kingdom. After getting ready, we headed out the door and made our way to the Settlement. We had a beautiful sunrise to greet us this morning.
We waited at the dock for a boat for about 10-15 minutes before one arrived right around 7:00. We had a nice boat ride to the Contemporary, and from there we took the walking path to the park. After going through bag check and scanning our bands, we got a good spot to wait for the park to open. We were on the right side, pretty close to the front. We didn’t have a very good view of the opening show, but that was okay because we were on a mission to the Mine Train this morning.
The show started at 7:45, and at 8:00 the gates were open! We made our way as civilly as possible with the crowd over to the Mine Train. We around the back past the Teacups to get there, which we had found to be the best route. We made it into the line, and waited about 10 minutes before boarding. We had a great ride in the back of the train, and it was a great way to start the day! Once we got off the Mine Train we headed over through Belle’s village to ride the Little Mermaid.
We basically walked right on, and we had a great ride. After we got off we continued on our way and headed into the circus! We rode Dumbo first, which was also a walk-on. I rode with Travis, and we had a lot of fun bouncing around. Up next was the Barnstormer which, you’ll never guess, was also a walk-on! We ended up riding in the front, which made the already-tame children’s coaster just laughably un-intense. We had a lot of fun though, and we screamed like we were fearing for our lives on the biggest roller coaster we’d ever ridden. We were making tons of jokes and hamming it up on almost every ride we went on today. I think it was a combination of extreme exhaustion, trying to have the most fun on our last day, and an attempt to cover up how sad we were to be leaving tomorrow.
Once we were done at the circus we headed back over to Belle’s village to get some giant cinnamon buns at Gaston’s Tavern.
We all shared two, which was plenty, and we had a good time hanging out in the tavern while we ate them.
By the time we were done it almost 9:00, which meant that the park was now open to the public. We had a FastPass for the Mine Train that started at 9:05, so we left the village and headed back over. We scanned our bands and got in line, which took about 5 minutes. We had another incredible ride, and it was great that we had been able to get a FastPass because we got to ride it twice this morning! Once we got off we decided to go ride the Teacups. We waited just a few minutes for that, and we had a great spin! Mom, Travis, Sam, and I all went in one teacup while Dad waited for us outside (spinning isn’t really his favorite).
Once we got off we continued on in Fantasyland. Before our next ride we stopped in at Castle Couture so I could get coated in glittery pixie dust! Once I was thoroughly sparkled up, we headed to our next attraction, which was Mickey’s Philharmagic. There was no line, so we just had to wait the 10 or so minutes until the next show started. We had a great time watching Donald chase the Sorcerer’s hat with the help of his Disney friends. It was almost 10:00 once the show let out, and our next FastPass was at 10:15 for Peter Pan. The carousel had almost no line, so we decided to ride that in the meantime. We had fun going around on our majestic horses, pretending as if we owned the Kingdom.
By the time we got off it was just about time for our FP, so we went over to Peter Pan to scan our bands and get in line. We waited about 5 minutes before boarding our pirate ships and heading off to Neverland. It was a great ride, and we were really glad we were able to do it with a FastPass today. Once we got off our last stop in Fantasyland was It’s a Small World. We waited about 5-10 minutes for that, and we had a good ride. I tried not to take as many pictures today and just enjoy things more (although I still somehow ended up with more pictures than anyone should probably have).
Once we got off small world we made our way through the Tangled area after stopping to use the bathrooms there. These honestly has to be the most amazing bathrooms on Disney property.
We continued on our way to Liberty Square, where we got in line for Haunted Mansion.
We waited about 10 minutes for that, and we had great time touring the mansion in our doom buggies. It was about 11:15 when we got off the ride, which was perfect because we had an 11:30 reservation for the Liberty Tree Tavern! We headed over to the restaurant, and our name was called within just a few minutes. We tend to like to make lunch reservation a little earlier, because the restaurants are always less crowded. We were seated at a nice table by a window, and we had an awesome meal. The service was great, and everyone enjoyed their food. I got the cranberry-apple salad, Mom got the pot roast, and the three boys shared two Thanksgiving meals together.
We had a great time eating and talking together, and once we were done we headed back outside. It was about 12:15 now, and the river boat would be launching at 12:30, so we decided to wait for that while we were already here in Liberty Square. The boat was right on time, and we had a great time floating around Liberty Square and Frontierland. The river boat had tons of great views, and if you pay attention there are a lot of little details all around the riverfront.
We were just soaking up every moment, knowing that this time tomorrow we would be in the car on our way back home. We made it all the way back around to the beginning and hopped off the boat around 12:45. We had a FastPass for Big Thunder Mountain that started at 1:15, so we decided to start heading over that way now. We were still a little early by the time we got there, so we looked around the Splash Mountain gift shop until our window was open. We headed over and got in line, which ended up taking about 10-15 minutes (it took a little longer because we waited for the back of the train). We had an awesome time on the wildest ride in the wilderness, and we screamed and laughed a little louder this time, knowing it was probably our last.
It was around 1:40 when we got off, and the park was definitely noticeably crowded. We decided that now would be the perfect time to take a little break. Because it was Easter season, the Grand Floridian hotel had an Easter egg exhibit set up in the lobby. We saw some pictures of it online, and it looked amazing. We really wanted to see that, so we made our way out of the park and to the boat dock. We waited 5-10 minutes for the Grand Floridian boat to arrive, and we had a nice short ride over to the hotel. We got off and headed inside to the main lobby, where the eggs were set up. They were absolutely incredible! Every one of them was made entirely out of chocolate and other edible materials. They were decorated so beautifully; some of them were Disney themed and others were not, but each one of them was stunning. I have several pictures of every egg, but here are just a few of my favorites.
We spent around 20-30 minutes there, checking everything out and also visiting the gift shop they have there. Once we were satisfied and had seen everything, we decided to head back out to the boat and back to MK. By the time we made it back to the park it was around 2:45, and we were ready to go again! I wanted to meet Aladdin and Jasmine today, because they were the last characters whose autographs I needed for friends back home. So, we headed over to Adventureland to find out when their next meet and greet time would be. We got there and asked the attendant, who said that the line for the current time was closed, but they would be out again at 3:45. It was just before 3:00 right now, so that wasn’t too bad. In the meantime we decided to ride the Magic Carpets, which we waited around 15 minutes for. I went with Mom and Dad, and Sam and Travis went together. We had a great ride, and by the time we got off people were already lining up for Aladdin and Jasmine, so I got in line too. Everyone else sat in the shade and waited for it to be my turn. They came out right on time at 3:45, and it was about another 15 minutes before I made it to the front and it was my turn! Aladdin and Jasmine were very sweet, and they were thrilled to sign the photo I had of them. In case you couldn’t tell from the picture, I spent most of my time waiting in line directly in the sun.
Once we said thank you and goodbye, we decided to go cool off and watch the Country Bear Jamboree. We crossed over into Frontierland and walked over to the theater, where we only had to wait a few minutes for the next show to start. We stomped our feet and clapped our hands right along with those bears for the last time, and we couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic for all the times we had sat here before, with so much more of our trip in front of us. Now it was almost all behind us, and the country bears were just one more thing we had to say goodbye to.
It was around 4:30 when we got out of the theater, and it seemed like the park had become even more crowded than before. The park was open until 2:00 am, so we decided to take a break and go back to the RV for a while, then return to the park after dinner. We made our way to the front of the park, where we exited and got in line for the boat.
We waited around 10 minutes for one to come, and we had a nice ride. Once we got to the Fort we stopped at the Settlement gift shop, where Dad bought a Fort Wilderness pin and I got a sweatshirt that I had been eyeing for quite some time. Once we were done in the shop we walked back to the RV, where we hung out for a little while. Around 6:00 we decided to go down to the pool and get dinner at the little quick service food stand there. We made our way down, passing through the movie and campfire arena and going by the Meadows and the pond where we had gone fishing.
Sure, we were going to miss the parks and everything, but Fort Wilderness was the place that had truly been our home for the past three months, and we were going to miss it just as much, if not more.
We made it down to the pool, where we all got hotdogs from the Meadows Snack Bar. We had an awesome time sitting by the pool, eating dinner, and enjoying our final night. We reminisced a little about how different things were when we arrived so long ago. Back in January you would hardly see anyone out and about around the Fort, especially at the pool. But now, almost into April, everything was always buzzing and you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing tons of people.
Once we were done we headed back to the RV, where we hung out until we were ready to head back to the park around 7:15. We walked up to the Settlement to wait for our last boat to the Magic Kingdom. I nearly cried as we were standing there waiting for our boat, because we were blessed with one of the best sunsets of the whole trip on our very last night. Our boat didn’t come for nearly 20 minutes, but for once I didn’t mind waiting at all, because the sky kept on changing the later it got. Even once the boat came and we were on our way to the park, I got some amazing pictures.
Once we got off the boat, wet through bag check, and entered the park it was just about 8:00. The park was open for six more hours, and we were ready to go! We started in Adventureland and decided to ride Pirates first.
The crowd level was still pretty high, but not as bad as earlier in the day. We waited a little over 30 minutes for Pirates, which wasn’t too bad. We had a good ride, and once we got off we had to decide what to do next. We had already done everything we wanted to in Adventureland today except for Jungle Cruise, but the wait for that was still over an hour. So, we decided to continue on our way into Frontierland. Splash Mountain was almost a walk-on, but for good reason because it was a rather chilly night. We decided to skip that, and instead we thought it would be a good idea to ride the railroad! So, we headed upstairs to the station where we waited just a few minutes for the train to pull up. The train doesn’t stay open late, so we actually ended up being on the final train of the night, which was pretty cool.
We had a fun time riding in the dark, and we got off at the Storybook Circus stop. We spent a little time running around the circus and checking things out before moving on. We even found these fun house mirrors up in the empty seating area next to the tent where you can meet characters.
We left the circus and decided to ride Winnie the Pooh, since we hadn’t done that earlier. We waited about 20 minutes for that, and we had a good ride. It was about 9:45 when we got off the ride, and Wishes started at 10:00. Fifteen minutes is usually not enough time to find a spot for the fireworks, but we weren’t going to watch from Main Street tonight. We headed over to New Fantasyland and stood right across from the entrance to Be Our Guest restaurant. The perspective was actually really cool, and we had a good view of both the fireworks they shoot off from afar and the ones shot off at Cinderella’s castle. The ones at the castle were behind us, and the rest were right above Beast’s castle. It was a great final spot to see Wishes from, especially after having seen it from so many different places already.
Another great thing about watching from there was that we didn’t have to fight any crowds one the fireworks were over. We decided to head over to Tomorrowland once Wishes ended, so we went around by the Teacups to get there. The park continued to get less and less crowded from here on out now that Wishes was over, which was really nice. Our first stop in Tomorrowland was the Speedway, which we waited about 10 minutes for. Travis and I went together, and we had a ton of fun jerking the car all over the place and screaming. The Speedway is another ride that’s really different and fun to ride at night. We got off the ride a little after 10:30, and our next stop was the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. We really wanted to ride Space Mountain tonight, but the wait was still crazy long so we decided we would come back later for that.
We got in line for Monsters and waited about 15 minutes for the next show. We had a lot of laughs, and it was great to see the show one more time. After that we went on Buzz Lightyear, which we waited about 10 minutes for. We had a lot of fun on that, but no one was a Galactic Hero tonight. Once we got off of Buzz we knew we needed one last ride on the Peoplemover, so we headed up there. We basically walked on, and we had an amazing final tour of Tomorrowland from the sky. It was a little after 11:30 when we got off, and we went back to check the wait time for Space Mountain. It was still too long, so we just continued on our way and decided to head back into Fantasyland. We decided to ride the Little Mermaid again, which we waited 10-15 minutes for. We had a great final journey under the sea, and once we got off we kept moving forward. Even though it was a chilly night, we decided to stop and get some ice cream from Storybook Treats! There wasn’t much of a line, so it only took a few minutes. We took our root beer floats and ice cream sundaes and sat down at the tables there. We had a great time just sitting and watching the empty park while we ate our treats, enjoying every minute of our final time in the park.
Once we were done we were ready to keep going! We had done everything in Fantasyland already today, and we really didn’t feel the need to do anything else again, so we moved on through the Tangled area and headed into Liberty Square. We decided to ride the Haunted Mansion, which we only waited about 10 minutes for. It was past midnight by now, and all the wait times were down now that the park was much emptier. We had a great time with the 999 happy haunts, and once we got off we continued on our way into Frontierland. It was still too cold for Splash Mountain, so we decided to ride Big Thunder again. We only waited about 15 minutes, and we had a great ride in the back of the train. I always love riding Big Thunder at night, and it was great to be able to do it on our final night.
It was 12:45 by the time we got off, and there wasn’t a whole lot left that we wanted to do. We still wanted to ride Space Mountain, though, so we made our way through Adventureland, across Main Street, and back over to Tomorrowland. The wait time was down to 25 minutes, which we were fine with. We hopped in line for our final ride of the night and the final ride of our trip. We had an amazing time, and I made sure to scream louder than ever for everyone’s entertainment. It was a fantastic way to end the day and our trip! We got off the ride at 1:30, and everyone was ready to call it a night. We moseyed our way out of the park through Fantasyland so we could go through the castle on our way. I of course had to stop to take some last-minute photos of the castle and Main Street.
We took our time, but eventually we could delay it no longer and it was time to exit the park. We waited just a few minutes for our boat to arrive, and we waved goodbye sadly until the Magic Kingdom was out of sight. We arrived back at the Fort where we walked home to the RV and all climbed into bed. We had to be up early the next morning to do some last-minute packing up so we could be on the road at a decent time. We all closed our eyes and enjoyed our last night sleeping in the most magical place on earth.
We waited at the dock for a boat for about 10-15 minutes before one arrived right around 7:00. We had a nice boat ride to the Contemporary, and from there we took the walking path to the park. After going through bag check and scanning our bands, we got a good spot to wait for the park to open. We were on the right side, pretty close to the front. We didn’t have a very good view of the opening show, but that was okay because we were on a mission to the Mine Train this morning.
The show started at 7:45, and at 8:00 the gates were open! We made our way as civilly as possible with the crowd over to the Mine Train. We around the back past the Teacups to get there, which we had found to be the best route. We made it into the line, and waited about 10 minutes before boarding. We had a great ride in the back of the train, and it was a great way to start the day! Once we got off the Mine Train we headed over through Belle’s village to ride the Little Mermaid.
We basically walked right on, and we had a great ride. After we got off we continued on our way and headed into the circus! We rode Dumbo first, which was also a walk-on. I rode with Travis, and we had a lot of fun bouncing around. Up next was the Barnstormer which, you’ll never guess, was also a walk-on! We ended up riding in the front, which made the already-tame children’s coaster just laughably un-intense. We had a lot of fun though, and we screamed like we were fearing for our lives on the biggest roller coaster we’d ever ridden. We were making tons of jokes and hamming it up on almost every ride we went on today. I think it was a combination of extreme exhaustion, trying to have the most fun on our last day, and an attempt to cover up how sad we were to be leaving tomorrow.
Once we were done at the circus we headed back over to Belle’s village to get some giant cinnamon buns at Gaston’s Tavern.
We all shared two, which was plenty, and we had a good time hanging out in the tavern while we ate them.
By the time we were done it almost 9:00, which meant that the park was now open to the public. We had a FastPass for the Mine Train that started at 9:05, so we left the village and headed back over. We scanned our bands and got in line, which took about 5 minutes. We had another incredible ride, and it was great that we had been able to get a FastPass because we got to ride it twice this morning! Once we got off we decided to go ride the Teacups. We waited just a few minutes for that, and we had a great spin! Mom, Travis, Sam, and I all went in one teacup while Dad waited for us outside (spinning isn’t really his favorite).
Once we got off we continued on in Fantasyland. Before our next ride we stopped in at Castle Couture so I could get coated in glittery pixie dust! Once I was thoroughly sparkled up, we headed to our next attraction, which was Mickey’s Philharmagic. There was no line, so we just had to wait the 10 or so minutes until the next show started. We had a great time watching Donald chase the Sorcerer’s hat with the help of his Disney friends. It was almost 10:00 once the show let out, and our next FastPass was at 10:15 for Peter Pan. The carousel had almost no line, so we decided to ride that in the meantime. We had fun going around on our majestic horses, pretending as if we owned the Kingdom.
By the time we got off it was just about time for our FP, so we went over to Peter Pan to scan our bands and get in line. We waited about 5 minutes before boarding our pirate ships and heading off to Neverland. It was a great ride, and we were really glad we were able to do it with a FastPass today. Once we got off our last stop in Fantasyland was It’s a Small World. We waited about 5-10 minutes for that, and we had a good ride. I tried not to take as many pictures today and just enjoy things more (although I still somehow ended up with more pictures than anyone should probably have).
Once we got off small world we made our way through the Tangled area after stopping to use the bathrooms there. These honestly has to be the most amazing bathrooms on Disney property.
We continued on our way to Liberty Square, where we got in line for Haunted Mansion.
We waited about 10 minutes for that, and we had great time touring the mansion in our doom buggies. It was about 11:15 when we got off the ride, which was perfect because we had an 11:30 reservation for the Liberty Tree Tavern! We headed over to the restaurant, and our name was called within just a few minutes. We tend to like to make lunch reservation a little earlier, because the restaurants are always less crowded. We were seated at a nice table by a window, and we had an awesome meal. The service was great, and everyone enjoyed their food. I got the cranberry-apple salad, Mom got the pot roast, and the three boys shared two Thanksgiving meals together.
We had a great time eating and talking together, and once we were done we headed back outside. It was about 12:15 now, and the river boat would be launching at 12:30, so we decided to wait for that while we were already here in Liberty Square. The boat was right on time, and we had a great time floating around Liberty Square and Frontierland. The river boat had tons of great views, and if you pay attention there are a lot of little details all around the riverfront.
We were just soaking up every moment, knowing that this time tomorrow we would be in the car on our way back home. We made it all the way back around to the beginning and hopped off the boat around 12:45. We had a FastPass for Big Thunder Mountain that started at 1:15, so we decided to start heading over that way now. We were still a little early by the time we got there, so we looked around the Splash Mountain gift shop until our window was open. We headed over and got in line, which ended up taking about 10-15 minutes (it took a little longer because we waited for the back of the train). We had an awesome time on the wildest ride in the wilderness, and we screamed and laughed a little louder this time, knowing it was probably our last.
It was around 1:40 when we got off, and the park was definitely noticeably crowded. We decided that now would be the perfect time to take a little break. Because it was Easter season, the Grand Floridian hotel had an Easter egg exhibit set up in the lobby. We saw some pictures of it online, and it looked amazing. We really wanted to see that, so we made our way out of the park and to the boat dock. We waited 5-10 minutes for the Grand Floridian boat to arrive, and we had a nice short ride over to the hotel. We got off and headed inside to the main lobby, where the eggs were set up. They were absolutely incredible! Every one of them was made entirely out of chocolate and other edible materials. They were decorated so beautifully; some of them were Disney themed and others were not, but each one of them was stunning. I have several pictures of every egg, but here are just a few of my favorites.
We spent around 20-30 minutes there, checking everything out and also visiting the gift shop they have there. Once we were satisfied and had seen everything, we decided to head back out to the boat and back to MK. By the time we made it back to the park it was around 2:45, and we were ready to go again! I wanted to meet Aladdin and Jasmine today, because they were the last characters whose autographs I needed for friends back home. So, we headed over to Adventureland to find out when their next meet and greet time would be. We got there and asked the attendant, who said that the line for the current time was closed, but they would be out again at 3:45. It was just before 3:00 right now, so that wasn’t too bad. In the meantime we decided to ride the Magic Carpets, which we waited around 15 minutes for. I went with Mom and Dad, and Sam and Travis went together. We had a great ride, and by the time we got off people were already lining up for Aladdin and Jasmine, so I got in line too. Everyone else sat in the shade and waited for it to be my turn. They came out right on time at 3:45, and it was about another 15 minutes before I made it to the front and it was my turn! Aladdin and Jasmine were very sweet, and they were thrilled to sign the photo I had of them. In case you couldn’t tell from the picture, I spent most of my time waiting in line directly in the sun.
Once we said thank you and goodbye, we decided to go cool off and watch the Country Bear Jamboree. We crossed over into Frontierland and walked over to the theater, where we only had to wait a few minutes for the next show to start. We stomped our feet and clapped our hands right along with those bears for the last time, and we couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic for all the times we had sat here before, with so much more of our trip in front of us. Now it was almost all behind us, and the country bears were just one more thing we had to say goodbye to.
It was around 4:30 when we got out of the theater, and it seemed like the park had become even more crowded than before. The park was open until 2:00 am, so we decided to take a break and go back to the RV for a while, then return to the park after dinner. We made our way to the front of the park, where we exited and got in line for the boat.
We waited around 10 minutes for one to come, and we had a nice ride. Once we got to the Fort we stopped at the Settlement gift shop, where Dad bought a Fort Wilderness pin and I got a sweatshirt that I had been eyeing for quite some time. Once we were done in the shop we walked back to the RV, where we hung out for a little while. Around 6:00 we decided to go down to the pool and get dinner at the little quick service food stand there. We made our way down, passing through the movie and campfire arena and going by the Meadows and the pond where we had gone fishing.
Sure, we were going to miss the parks and everything, but Fort Wilderness was the place that had truly been our home for the past three months, and we were going to miss it just as much, if not more.
We made it down to the pool, where we all got hotdogs from the Meadows Snack Bar. We had an awesome time sitting by the pool, eating dinner, and enjoying our final night. We reminisced a little about how different things were when we arrived so long ago. Back in January you would hardly see anyone out and about around the Fort, especially at the pool. But now, almost into April, everything was always buzzing and you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing tons of people.
Once we were done we headed back to the RV, where we hung out until we were ready to head back to the park around 7:15. We walked up to the Settlement to wait for our last boat to the Magic Kingdom. I nearly cried as we were standing there waiting for our boat, because we were blessed with one of the best sunsets of the whole trip on our very last night. Our boat didn’t come for nearly 20 minutes, but for once I didn’t mind waiting at all, because the sky kept on changing the later it got. Even once the boat came and we were on our way to the park, I got some amazing pictures.
Once we got off the boat, wet through bag check, and entered the park it was just about 8:00. The park was open for six more hours, and we were ready to go! We started in Adventureland and decided to ride Pirates first.
The crowd level was still pretty high, but not as bad as earlier in the day. We waited a little over 30 minutes for Pirates, which wasn’t too bad. We had a good ride, and once we got off we had to decide what to do next. We had already done everything we wanted to in Adventureland today except for Jungle Cruise, but the wait for that was still over an hour. So, we decided to continue on our way into Frontierland. Splash Mountain was almost a walk-on, but for good reason because it was a rather chilly night. We decided to skip that, and instead we thought it would be a good idea to ride the railroad! So, we headed upstairs to the station where we waited just a few minutes for the train to pull up. The train doesn’t stay open late, so we actually ended up being on the final train of the night, which was pretty cool.
We had a fun time riding in the dark, and we got off at the Storybook Circus stop. We spent a little time running around the circus and checking things out before moving on. We even found these fun house mirrors up in the empty seating area next to the tent where you can meet characters.
We left the circus and decided to ride Winnie the Pooh, since we hadn’t done that earlier. We waited about 20 minutes for that, and we had a good ride. It was about 9:45 when we got off the ride, and Wishes started at 10:00. Fifteen minutes is usually not enough time to find a spot for the fireworks, but we weren’t going to watch from Main Street tonight. We headed over to New Fantasyland and stood right across from the entrance to Be Our Guest restaurant. The perspective was actually really cool, and we had a good view of both the fireworks they shoot off from afar and the ones shot off at Cinderella’s castle. The ones at the castle were behind us, and the rest were right above Beast’s castle. It was a great final spot to see Wishes from, especially after having seen it from so many different places already.
Another great thing about watching from there was that we didn’t have to fight any crowds one the fireworks were over. We decided to head over to Tomorrowland once Wishes ended, so we went around by the Teacups to get there. The park continued to get less and less crowded from here on out now that Wishes was over, which was really nice. Our first stop in Tomorrowland was the Speedway, which we waited about 10 minutes for. Travis and I went together, and we had a ton of fun jerking the car all over the place and screaming. The Speedway is another ride that’s really different and fun to ride at night. We got off the ride a little after 10:30, and our next stop was the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. We really wanted to ride Space Mountain tonight, but the wait was still crazy long so we decided we would come back later for that.
We got in line for Monsters and waited about 15 minutes for the next show. We had a lot of laughs, and it was great to see the show one more time. After that we went on Buzz Lightyear, which we waited about 10 minutes for. We had a lot of fun on that, but no one was a Galactic Hero tonight. Once we got off of Buzz we knew we needed one last ride on the Peoplemover, so we headed up there. We basically walked on, and we had an amazing final tour of Tomorrowland from the sky. It was a little after 11:30 when we got off, and we went back to check the wait time for Space Mountain. It was still too long, so we just continued on our way and decided to head back into Fantasyland. We decided to ride the Little Mermaid again, which we waited 10-15 minutes for. We had a great final journey under the sea, and once we got off we kept moving forward. Even though it was a chilly night, we decided to stop and get some ice cream from Storybook Treats! There wasn’t much of a line, so it only took a few minutes. We took our root beer floats and ice cream sundaes and sat down at the tables there. We had a great time just sitting and watching the empty park while we ate our treats, enjoying every minute of our final time in the park.
Once we were done we were ready to keep going! We had done everything in Fantasyland already today, and we really didn’t feel the need to do anything else again, so we moved on through the Tangled area and headed into Liberty Square. We decided to ride the Haunted Mansion, which we only waited about 10 minutes for. It was past midnight by now, and all the wait times were down now that the park was much emptier. We had a great time with the 999 happy haunts, and once we got off we continued on our way into Frontierland. It was still too cold for Splash Mountain, so we decided to ride Big Thunder again. We only waited about 15 minutes, and we had a great ride in the back of the train. I always love riding Big Thunder at night, and it was great to be able to do it on our final night.
It was 12:45 by the time we got off, and there wasn’t a whole lot left that we wanted to do. We still wanted to ride Space Mountain, though, so we made our way through Adventureland, across Main Street, and back over to Tomorrowland. The wait time was down to 25 minutes, which we were fine with. We hopped in line for our final ride of the night and the final ride of our trip. We had an amazing time, and I made sure to scream louder than ever for everyone’s entertainment. It was a fantastic way to end the day and our trip! We got off the ride at 1:30, and everyone was ready to call it a night. We moseyed our way out of the park through Fantasyland so we could go through the castle on our way. I of course had to stop to take some last-minute photos of the castle and Main Street.
We took our time, but eventually we could delay it no longer and it was time to exit the park. We waited just a few minutes for our boat to arrive, and we waved goodbye sadly until the Magic Kingdom was out of sight. We arrived back at the Fort where we walked home to the RV and all climbed into bed. We had to be up early the next morning to do some last-minute packing up so we could be on the road at a decent time. We all closed our eyes and enjoyed our last night sleeping in the most magical place on earth.
DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
This morning we were up bright and early, but there was no heading to rope-drop at a park or spending the day around the campground. We had to get busy to finish packing the RV so we could check out and start our journey home. We were all packed and ready to go around 9:00, so we hitched up the RV to the truck and said goodbye to loop 1400 as we pulled away. We drove down to the Outpost where we exited Fort Wilderness for the last time. Everyone was pretty bummed as we drove away, but we had fun talking about our trip and all of the things we had seen and done. The trip home was very uneventful, and there’s not much to write about, so I guess this is where the trip report ends. I have had a lot of fun retelling our adventures for all of you, and I truly hope you have had just as much fun reading about them. I know this has dragged on due to how crazy things got once we got home and how little time I had to write once school started, but I appreciate everyone who stuck with me and everyone who joined in along the way.
I know I said I planned on writing a report of the trip we took to Disney last September, but unfortunately I’m just not going to be able to do that. It was hard enough to find the time to finish this one up, and my life continues to get even busier, if that’s even possible. I'm sorry I won't be able to share those adventures with you all, but I promise we had an amazing trip though! We had a great time at Mickey's not so Scary Halloween Party; most of us dressed up as characters from Peter Pan, except for Amy and Jack who dressed as Joy and Anger from Inside Out. It was a great experience, and a lot of fun.
We are all doing well, and our family continues to grow all the time. We don’t have any trips on our calendars right now, but hopefully sometime soon we’ll be able to return to our home away from home.
Thank you again, and that’s all folks.
I know I said I planned on writing a report of the trip we took to Disney last September, but unfortunately I’m just not going to be able to do that. It was hard enough to find the time to finish this one up, and my life continues to get even busier, if that’s even possible. I'm sorry I won't be able to share those adventures with you all, but I promise we had an amazing trip though! We had a great time at Mickey's not so Scary Halloween Party; most of us dressed up as characters from Peter Pan, except for Amy and Jack who dressed as Joy and Anger from Inside Out. It was a great experience, and a lot of fun.
We are all doing well, and our family continues to grow all the time. We don’t have any trips on our calendars right now, but hopefully sometime soon we’ll be able to return to our home away from home.
Thank you again, and that’s all folks.
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Graciegirl5
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 2, 2015
Thank you so much for sharing your adventure! I found your trip report just a couple of days ago and have been reading it every chance I get. You are an excellent story teller and I've thoroughly enjoyed your report. Best wishes to you and your entire family--they sound pretty amazing! (PS. I'm a homeschool mom of only 3, so your mom is incredible in my eyes!)
DaisyDuck001
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2006
Regarding the Cars suite, I understand that the theming would be fun for anyone of any age who enjoys themed places, but I'd read somewhere that the beds and chairs at the AoA suites are not so comfortable for adults. Did your family find the beds and chairs comfortable there?
I agree with the previous poster that your mom is amazing. One thing that struck me about your trip report is that during that three months, she sure made a lot of sandwiches! Anyway I really enjoyed your whole trip report, about how your family had the chance to live the dream for three months. Did you all get a special monthly rate on renting the campsite?
What is Sam studying in college?
I am so glad that your whole family is doing great!
Just as the end of your trip was bittersweet for you all, I've enjoyed your trip report so much and I'm a little sad that it's all over. I'll miss reading your stories. But I also thank you for sharing your three-month adventure with all of us readers. I wish you the very best in your nursing studies and whatever else the future holds for you. Someday when you all plan another trip, please keep us posted on when it is. It would be nice to say hi to you all in person someday if we're ever there at the same time.
I agree with the previous poster that your mom is amazing. One thing that struck me about your trip report is that during that three months, she sure made a lot of sandwiches! Anyway I really enjoyed your whole trip report, about how your family had the chance to live the dream for three months. Did you all get a special monthly rate on renting the campsite?
What is Sam studying in college?
I am so glad that your whole family is doing great!
Just as the end of your trip was bittersweet for you all, I've enjoyed your trip report so much and I'm a little sad that it's all over. I'll miss reading your stories. But I also thank you for sharing your three-month adventure with all of us readers. I wish you the very best in your nursing studies and whatever else the future holds for you. Someday when you all plan another trip, please keep us posted on when it is. It would be nice to say hi to you all in person someday if we're ever there at the same time.
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