DisneyFreak98
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
Today was Saturday, and it was also Valentine's Day! We got up early this morning and it was cold. The boys left to go play golf around 8:00 while Mom and I stayed back at the RV. While the boys were gone Mom and I hung out at the RV, I got some schoolwork done and uploaded some PhotoPass pictures.
Around 10:00 we started getting ready to go to Magic Kingdom! When we were in Disney two years before we were there for Valentine's Day, and they did a whole special True Love Week. There were special characters and other different things, but we didn't know beforehand so we couldn't really take advantage of it. We weren't really sure what to expect this year, but we were counting on there being some special stuff!
The boys got back from golfing a little after 11:00, and they all got changed and ready for MK. We ate leftovers for lunch a little after 11:30, and afterwards we cleaned up and finished getting ready. We made sandwiches for dinner and packed the rest of the stuff we needed, and we were out the door around 12:30!
We walked down to the boat dock, and when we got there a boat was waiting for us! We hopped on and had a chilly ride over to the Kingdom. As we approached the boat dock, we could already tell that the park was wicked crowded. We figured it would be crowded because it was Saturday, Valentine's Day, and also President's Day weekend, but it looked worse than we had anticipated. As we went through bag check and entered the park we began to realize that it was much worse than we had anticipated. You could hardly even move on Main Street there were so many people. I mean, you couldn't even see in front of you. It was really intense.
We stepped off to the side to develop a game plan. After checking the app for wait times and seeing that even rides like the Barnstormer and It's a Small World had 45 minute waits, we began to lose hope. The shortest line was actually Pirates with a 30 minute wait, so the boys decided to head over there while Mom and I met some characters there in the hub.
We got in line for Marie from the Aristocats first; we only waited about 10 minutes for her. I had never met her before, and she was really sweet!
After we met her we checked out the times guide to try and figure out the best order to meet other characters in. We decided on Mary Poppins next because her line was short. We were the last people in line for this greeting time, so that was fortunate!
We spoke to the character attendant there about any special characters that might be out for the day. We found out that the only out of the ordinary characters were Snow White and Aurora, and they didn't even have their princes with them! We also found out that the Princesses in the Fairy Tale Hall didn't have their princes with them either. I thought for sure that they would be there for Valentine's Day, and I was kind of heartbroken. We even had FastPasses for the Fairy Tale Hall for that reason. I was bummed, but what can you do?
We found out later that the princesses in Epcot had their princes meeting with them. I was so disappointed that I picked the wrong park!
While we were waiting in line we saw the most adorable little brother and sister. I guess the little girl has Down Syndrome, and Mary Poppins is her favorite character. So, she dresses up like Mary, her little brother dresses like Bert, and they visit Mary Poppins several times a week. It was the most adorable thing I have ever seen in my life! The character attendants even know them by name.
Soon enough it was our turn to meet Mary. She was very nice and very proper. Her penguin was with her too, so that was cool!
When we were done meeting Mary, Sam called to inform us that wait for Pirates was not in fact 30 minutes, but 1 hour. They were on their way back to Main Street so we could figure out a new plan, so we went over to the Ice Cream Parlor to meet them. Getting up Main Street was a struggle, and it was even worse for the boys trying to get back. It was just before 2:00 at this point, and Main Street was already lined with people waiting for the 3:00 parade.
The boys finally made it back, and after discussing our options the boys decided to go back to the RV while Mom and I stayed to meet some characters. The boys figured they would have more fun hanging out at the Fort, going fishing and playing shuffleboard/basketball, than they would staying and waiting 1 hour+ for rides that they could ride another day with a minimal wait. So, we got what we needed from the backpack and the boys made their way through the crowd and out of the park.
Mom and I looked at our options and decided to meet Aurora next. She was meeting at the front of the park, so we made our way down there to get in her line. Her line was closed at the moment, but she was coming out again at 2:30 so we decided to wait. We were first in line for her next time, so that was good.
Well, it turned out that the character attendant in charge of the line totally messed up and let way too many people in the line before closing it. Aurora was supposed to leave at 2:00 and come back at 2:30, but she wasn't able to leave until 2:20. The character attendant in charge of Aurora informed us that she was sorry, but Aurora wouldn't be returning until 2:55. We had already stood there for 20 minutes and we didn't really want to be there for 35 minutes more, plus there were other characters to meet, so we decided to just leave. We were a little upset at the poor management, but the girl who messed up was a College Programmer who was still earning her ears, so we understood.
The next character we decided to wait for was Peter Pan! We headed over to Adventureland to get in his line. His next meeting time wasn't for almost an hour, but he has a nice waiting area where you can sit on the ground and lean against the wall. We were 3rd in line, so that was good, and we settled in for the wait. While we were sitting there we met this super nice girl. She lives in the Orlando area and goes to Disney all the time, so we talked to her for a while about the parks, characters, holidays at Disney, and other stuff like that. She had this super cool photo book that she made that she was having all the characters sign, and I thought that was a super idea.
Soon enough it was 3:30 and Peter was coming out! After 2 other people it was our turn, and we had a really nice meet! Peter was funny, and we talked about pirates and treasure. He informed me that I was smart to hide my "treasure" (braces) in my mouth so that the pirates couldn't get it!
Once we were done meeting Peter, it was time for our Princess Fairy Tale Hall FastPasses! Even though the princes weren't there I was still going to see the princesses! So, we headed on over to Fantasyland. We scanned our bands and it was only about 5 minutes before we were meeting the princesses. Cinderella was first, and she was really sweet. We talked about princes and balls, and she asked me if I had a prince to take me to the ball. When I told her no, she offered to let me borrow her prince!
Next was Rapunzel! She was so precious, and I got like 3 hugs from her. She noticed how our hair was the same color, and I told her about how mine used to be very long (although not as long as hers) before I chopped it all off. She told me about how it takes at least 2-3 hours to brush her hair, but that's mostly because she gets it all tangled when she uses it to play jump rope!
Rapunzel is my favorite "new" princess, so I was really glad I gt to meet her.
After we left the Hall, we decided to meet one more character before calling it a day. I had been wanting to meet Buzz, so we headed over to Tomorrowland to see him! When we got there we saw that his line wasn't too long, so we hopped in it. It ended up only taking about 10-15 minutes, but it seemed longer because there were a lot of kids yelling and screaming. They were older kids, so they totally knew what they were doing, too. They kept shouting at Buzz and yelling at each other. It got so bad at one point that the character attendant had to ask them to quiet down.
Pretty soon it was our turn to meet Buzz, and it was so great! He was a charmer, and very sweet.
Buzz was our last character of the day, so once we were done meeting him we started making our way out of the park. It was still crazy busy, so we were glad to be getting out of there. We realized that we had spent the whole afternoon at MK without riding a single ride, which had never happened before! It was kind of strange.
We made our way to Main Street, and before leaving we decided to get a picture together. We found a PhotoPass photographer and got some really cute shots!
After that we decided to make a quick stop at the PhotoPass center to try and figure out a little problem I was having with our Memory Maker. There were some photos missing from our account, but they were showing up on their computers there. I was hoping that maybe they had fixed it!
Once we were done there we made it out of the park and to the boat dock, where a boat was waiting for us! It was pretty packed, and we had to stand, but we didn't mind. We made it back to the Fort and walked home, and by the time we got back to the RV it was close to 5:30. When we got back I checked our PhotoPass account for the missing pictures, but they still weren't there! I was kind of frustrated and very confused, but I didn't know what else to do.
We ate sandwiches for dinner, then at 6:00 we headed down to the campfire to play Disney trivia! Chip and Dale were there playing with us, and we had a lot of fun. We almost won, but we lost to a couple of girls who were looking up the answers on their phones. We still had fun, though!
We didn't feel like staying for the sing-along, so once trivia was over we headed back to the RV. When we got back the boys decided to go down to the Meadow and play tennis while Mom and I stayed back at the RV. We just chilled out and I worked on this trip report for a bit while they were gone, then when they got back about 20 minutes later they told us how the Meadow was insanely crowded! I guess there were a ton of people at the pool, on the tennis courts, at the Bike Barn, and just everywhere.
After they got back we all just chilled out for a while and watched TV before going to bed around 10:00. Even though this day didn't go exactly as we had planned, it was still an amazing day! Tomorrow we planned on going to church in the morning and Downtown Disney later in the day!
Around 10:00 we started getting ready to go to Magic Kingdom! When we were in Disney two years before we were there for Valentine's Day, and they did a whole special True Love Week. There were special characters and other different things, but we didn't know beforehand so we couldn't really take advantage of it. We weren't really sure what to expect this year, but we were counting on there being some special stuff!
The boys got back from golfing a little after 11:00, and they all got changed and ready for MK. We ate leftovers for lunch a little after 11:30, and afterwards we cleaned up and finished getting ready. We made sandwiches for dinner and packed the rest of the stuff we needed, and we were out the door around 12:30!
We walked down to the boat dock, and when we got there a boat was waiting for us! We hopped on and had a chilly ride over to the Kingdom. As we approached the boat dock, we could already tell that the park was wicked crowded. We figured it would be crowded because it was Saturday, Valentine's Day, and also President's Day weekend, but it looked worse than we had anticipated. As we went through bag check and entered the park we began to realize that it was much worse than we had anticipated. You could hardly even move on Main Street there were so many people. I mean, you couldn't even see in front of you. It was really intense.
We stepped off to the side to develop a game plan. After checking the app for wait times and seeing that even rides like the Barnstormer and It's a Small World had 45 minute waits, we began to lose hope. The shortest line was actually Pirates with a 30 minute wait, so the boys decided to head over there while Mom and I met some characters there in the hub.
We got in line for Marie from the Aristocats first; we only waited about 10 minutes for her. I had never met her before, and she was really sweet!
After we met her we checked out the times guide to try and figure out the best order to meet other characters in. We decided on Mary Poppins next because her line was short. We were the last people in line for this greeting time, so that was fortunate!
We spoke to the character attendant there about any special characters that might be out for the day. We found out that the only out of the ordinary characters were Snow White and Aurora, and they didn't even have their princes with them! We also found out that the Princesses in the Fairy Tale Hall didn't have their princes with them either. I thought for sure that they would be there for Valentine's Day, and I was kind of heartbroken. We even had FastPasses for the Fairy Tale Hall for that reason. I was bummed, but what can you do?
We found out later that the princesses in Epcot had their princes meeting with them. I was so disappointed that I picked the wrong park!
While we were waiting in line we saw the most adorable little brother and sister. I guess the little girl has Down Syndrome, and Mary Poppins is her favorite character. So, she dresses up like Mary, her little brother dresses like Bert, and they visit Mary Poppins several times a week. It was the most adorable thing I have ever seen in my life! The character attendants even know them by name.
Soon enough it was our turn to meet Mary. She was very nice and very proper. Her penguin was with her too, so that was cool!
When we were done meeting Mary, Sam called to inform us that wait for Pirates was not in fact 30 minutes, but 1 hour. They were on their way back to Main Street so we could figure out a new plan, so we went over to the Ice Cream Parlor to meet them. Getting up Main Street was a struggle, and it was even worse for the boys trying to get back. It was just before 2:00 at this point, and Main Street was already lined with people waiting for the 3:00 parade.
The boys finally made it back, and after discussing our options the boys decided to go back to the RV while Mom and I stayed to meet some characters. The boys figured they would have more fun hanging out at the Fort, going fishing and playing shuffleboard/basketball, than they would staying and waiting 1 hour+ for rides that they could ride another day with a minimal wait. So, we got what we needed from the backpack and the boys made their way through the crowd and out of the park.
Mom and I looked at our options and decided to meet Aurora next. She was meeting at the front of the park, so we made our way down there to get in her line. Her line was closed at the moment, but she was coming out again at 2:30 so we decided to wait. We were first in line for her next time, so that was good.
Well, it turned out that the character attendant in charge of the line totally messed up and let way too many people in the line before closing it. Aurora was supposed to leave at 2:00 and come back at 2:30, but she wasn't able to leave until 2:20. The character attendant in charge of Aurora informed us that she was sorry, but Aurora wouldn't be returning until 2:55. We had already stood there for 20 minutes and we didn't really want to be there for 35 minutes more, plus there were other characters to meet, so we decided to just leave. We were a little upset at the poor management, but the girl who messed up was a College Programmer who was still earning her ears, so we understood.
The next character we decided to wait for was Peter Pan! We headed over to Adventureland to get in his line. His next meeting time wasn't for almost an hour, but he has a nice waiting area where you can sit on the ground and lean against the wall. We were 3rd in line, so that was good, and we settled in for the wait. While we were sitting there we met this super nice girl. She lives in the Orlando area and goes to Disney all the time, so we talked to her for a while about the parks, characters, holidays at Disney, and other stuff like that. She had this super cool photo book that she made that she was having all the characters sign, and I thought that was a super idea.
Soon enough it was 3:30 and Peter was coming out! After 2 other people it was our turn, and we had a really nice meet! Peter was funny, and we talked about pirates and treasure. He informed me that I was smart to hide my "treasure" (braces) in my mouth so that the pirates couldn't get it!
Once we were done meeting Peter, it was time for our Princess Fairy Tale Hall FastPasses! Even though the princes weren't there I was still going to see the princesses! So, we headed on over to Fantasyland. We scanned our bands and it was only about 5 minutes before we were meeting the princesses. Cinderella was first, and she was really sweet. We talked about princes and balls, and she asked me if I had a prince to take me to the ball. When I told her no, she offered to let me borrow her prince!
Next was Rapunzel! She was so precious, and I got like 3 hugs from her. She noticed how our hair was the same color, and I told her about how mine used to be very long (although not as long as hers) before I chopped it all off. She told me about how it takes at least 2-3 hours to brush her hair, but that's mostly because she gets it all tangled when she uses it to play jump rope!
Rapunzel is my favorite "new" princess, so I was really glad I gt to meet her.
After we left the Hall, we decided to meet one more character before calling it a day. I had been wanting to meet Buzz, so we headed over to Tomorrowland to see him! When we got there we saw that his line wasn't too long, so we hopped in it. It ended up only taking about 10-15 minutes, but it seemed longer because there were a lot of kids yelling and screaming. They were older kids, so they totally knew what they were doing, too. They kept shouting at Buzz and yelling at each other. It got so bad at one point that the character attendant had to ask them to quiet down.
Pretty soon it was our turn to meet Buzz, and it was so great! He was a charmer, and very sweet.
Buzz was our last character of the day, so once we were done meeting him we started making our way out of the park. It was still crazy busy, so we were glad to be getting out of there. We realized that we had spent the whole afternoon at MK without riding a single ride, which had never happened before! It was kind of strange.
We made our way to Main Street, and before leaving we decided to get a picture together. We found a PhotoPass photographer and got some really cute shots!
After that we decided to make a quick stop at the PhotoPass center to try and figure out a little problem I was having with our Memory Maker. There were some photos missing from our account, but they were showing up on their computers there. I was hoping that maybe they had fixed it!
Once we were done there we made it out of the park and to the boat dock, where a boat was waiting for us! It was pretty packed, and we had to stand, but we didn't mind. We made it back to the Fort and walked home, and by the time we got back to the RV it was close to 5:30. When we got back I checked our PhotoPass account for the missing pictures, but they still weren't there! I was kind of frustrated and very confused, but I didn't know what else to do.
We ate sandwiches for dinner, then at 6:00 we headed down to the campfire to play Disney trivia! Chip and Dale were there playing with us, and we had a lot of fun. We almost won, but we lost to a couple of girls who were looking up the answers on their phones. We still had fun, though!
We didn't feel like staying for the sing-along, so once trivia was over we headed back to the RV. When we got back the boys decided to go down to the Meadow and play tennis while Mom and I stayed back at the RV. We just chilled out and I worked on this trip report for a bit while they were gone, then when they got back about 20 minutes later they told us how the Meadow was insanely crowded! I guess there were a ton of people at the pool, on the tennis courts, at the Bike Barn, and just everywhere.
After they got back we all just chilled out for a while and watched TV before going to bed around 10:00. Even though this day didn't go exactly as we had planned, it was still an amazing day! Tomorrow we planned on going to church in the morning and Downtown Disney later in the day!