KovuLover
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2015
PART 1- INTROS AND THE JOURNEY FROM DOWN BELOW (Well, you know!)
Hello Everyone!
First off, this is my first real post EVER to the Dis! (Please take it easy on me, haha! )
My family's vacation was over a year ago and I did not take notes as the days went on, but I will do my best to give an accurate and detailed account of our trip. I did not take notes, but I did take pictures like a madwoman so I will let those speak for themselves as much as possible! We also had Photopass and had every photo added to our account, so I will add those as well! In total when I arrived back home and uploaded all of my photos, I had over 3,000 on my camera alone. I'm sure everyone that has been to Disney can attest to the fact that everything in the parks and resorts are worthy of a photo.
To start off, introductions!
My family consists of my mother (Doreen), my father (David), my sister (Katie) and myself (Kristen). A family of generational alliterations, cute right? My sister's boyfriend Sean also accompanied us on our trip. Here is a picture of the five of us mid-trip in Disney (I didn't have a photo of the 5 of us before we went to Disney together, oops!)
The order goes: Sean, Katie, Doreen (henceforth known as Mom), David (henceforth known as Dad) and myself!
And I also thought that I would add in this little guy for which I chose my user name. May I introduce the world to my Kovu! I grew up with The Lion King 2 as my favorite Disney movie (not that I don't like the original, don't get me wrong) and I still believe to this day I could sing every word to every TLK2 movie song from memory. When I adopted Kovu from a shelter, I knew that he was going to be my little lion man for life and the name was destined to be his. This photo was taken when I was packing for our trip and he knew what the suitcases meant. Unfortunately I couldn't take him with me, but he certainly tried!
I'm from Massachusetts (can you tell by how pale my family is in the photo?), and the Friday morning we were scheduled to leave there was a BLIZZARD hitting the area. We were all in a state of panic, wondering if we would miss days of planned dinning, activities, and attractions. As the forecast kept telling us the worst would be Friday and Saturday, our hopes dwindled. We thought that all hope was lost when we received an email from JetBlue on Wednesday that due to the storms, they were allowing anyone who was flying on Friday or Saturday to change their flight to Thursday at no additional cost or fees. My mom quickly looked to see what seats they had left on flights to Orlando and there were few and far between, but enough to fit the 5 of us. She quickly changed our flights to Thursday in the early afternoon and let everyone know to let their employers know that they would not be in the next day. Fortunately for us, we were all able to get the day off with no issues and we thought the worst was over.
WRONG!
The storms came in earlier than expected (yay New England's unpredictable weather) and our flight kept getting delayed and pushed out farther and farther into the afternoon/evening. The later in the evening that it kept being pushed out, the more we began to despair. Our chances of getting out worsened as time went on as the storms were getting stronger and conditions for the planes worsened. The picture below showed what it looked like outside of our terminal as we prayed to the Disney gods that we would be able to leave the snow and begin our vacation.
Our plane finally landed (arriving from Orlando) and when I say the people on board were ushered off, I mean it. I've never seen anything like it at an airport. The employees at the terminal informed us that they planned on getting everyone off, the plane cleaned, the luggage unloaded, our luggage loaded, the plane fueled, the plane de-iced, and us up into the air within 20-30 minutes. We thought that sounded INSANE, and by normal standards it was. They were not joking though, and the precision to which everything was coordinated and executed was amazing. In a very short time we were boarded on the plane and in our seats ready for takeoff. There was absolutely no waiting on the runway for our plane to take off. We turned the corner onto the runway, paused for a brief moment, and then just like that we were up into the air!
Once we were off and through the hazy snow storm on our way to paradise, we all knew we could FINALLY breathe a sigh of relief. We would need to find a hotel to stay in for the night as our check-in was not until Friday, but that didn't matter one bit. We would be there to experience everything that we had planned on and would not have to miss out on anything we had hoped to see. It was a good thing that we changed our flights we later came to find out, as the airport closed within an hour of our leaving (it was a sold out flight) and did not reopen until SUNDAY. If we didn't get out when we did, we would have missed out on 2.5 days of our vacation! Thanks to JetBlue and my Mom's quick reservations, we were on our way to take in everything that Disney had to offer!
The pictures on this TR will be two different sizes. This is because they are from two different sharing sites but I decided to keep them this way to have a distinction between my photos and my sister's/dad's photos. My photos are the larger ones, and their photos are the smaller ones (except for the Character Dance Battle which are small because of the method in which I took the screenshots). I want to make sure that I do not take credit for their work, and keeping them the different sizes instead of moving them all to the same site makes it easy to do this!
That's all for now! Part 2 to be posted soon!
CHAPTER INDEX
PART TWO- HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS
PART THREE- ARRIVAL AT MAGIC KINGDOM
PART FOUR- BIG THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER
PART FIVE- TANGLED AREA AND LUNCH!
PART SIX- WE HAVE LIFTOFF!
PART SEVEN- LET'S MOVE SOME PEOPLE!
PART EIGHT- SPLASH DOWN!
PART NINE- IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS! (PART 1)
PART TEN- IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS! (PART 2)
PART ELEVEN- EEYORE HAS MOVES, TIGGER HAS GAME, TWEEDLE DEE IS PICKING HIS NOSE?
PART TWELVE- AN END TO HS AND ONWARD TO MK!
PART THIRTEEN- THE SPECTACULAR CINDERELLA CASTLE DURING THE HOLIDAYS
PART FOURTEEN- IT'S ELECTRIC(AL)!
PART FIFTEEN- MAKE SURE YOU KNOW JUST WHAT KIND OF VACANCY YOU'RE FILLING
PART SIXTEEN- CHRISTMAS TIME AT ANIMAL KINGDOM
PART SEVENTEEN- THE TREE OF LIFE
PART EIGHTEEN- DINOLAND USA
PART NINETEEN- EXPEDITION EVEREST FROM AFAR
PART TWENTY- OUR MEETING WITH THE YETI
PART TWENTY-ONE- HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A HIPPO'S TEETH?
PART TWENTY-TWO- THE AFRICAN SAVANNA!
PART TWENTY-THREE- THE PANGANI FOREST EXPLORATION TRAIL AND MAHARAJAH JUNGLE TREK
PART TWENTY-FOUR- MICKEY'S JAMMIN' JUNGLE PARADE AND DIVINE
PART TWENTY-FIVE- OPENING CELEBRATION AT MAGIC KINGDOM!
PART TWENTY-SIX- DREAM ALONG WITH MICKEY STAGE SHOW
PART TWENTY-SEVEN- BE OUR GUEST EXTERIOR, ENTRANCE, ORDERING ROOM, AND MAIN BALLROOM
PART TWENTY-EIGHT- BE OUR GUEST WEST WING, SECOND BALLROOM, AND FOOD!
PART TWENTY-NINE- WHEN BEING STUCK ON A RIDE ISN'T NECESSARILY A BAD THING
PART THIRTY- IT'S A SMALL, SMALL WORLD!
PART THIRTY-ONE- WISHES NIGHTTIME SPECTACULAR AND MISC MK PICTURES AT NIGHT
PART THIRTY-TWO- MOVE IT! SHAKE IT! PARADE AND THE FRONTIER HOEDOWN!
PART THIRTY-THREE- SEAN'S ENCOUNTER WITH LADY TREMAINE!
PART THIRTY-FOUR- SPACE MOUNTAIN PHOTOPASS
PART THIRTY-FIVE- HAUNTED MANSION AND BUZZ LIGHTYEAR'S SPACE RANGER SPIN!
PART THIRTY-SIX- ROCK N' ROLLER COASTER AND STAR TOURS
PART THIRTY-SEVEN- INDIANA JONES EPIC STUNT SPECTACULAR!
PART THIRTY-EIGHT- FANTASMIC!
PART THIRTY-NINE- FINALLY AT EPCOT! CHRISTMAS TOPIARIES, TEST TRACK AND PLUTO!
KovuLover
Hello Everyone!
First off, this is my first real post EVER to the Dis! (Please take it easy on me, haha! )
My family's vacation was over a year ago and I did not take notes as the days went on, but I will do my best to give an accurate and detailed account of our trip. I did not take notes, but I did take pictures like a madwoman so I will let those speak for themselves as much as possible! We also had Photopass and had every photo added to our account, so I will add those as well! In total when I arrived back home and uploaded all of my photos, I had over 3,000 on my camera alone. I'm sure everyone that has been to Disney can attest to the fact that everything in the parks and resorts are worthy of a photo.
To start off, introductions!
My family consists of my mother (Doreen), my father (David), my sister (Katie) and myself (Kristen). A family of generational alliterations, cute right? My sister's boyfriend Sean also accompanied us on our trip. Here is a picture of the five of us mid-trip in Disney (I didn't have a photo of the 5 of us before we went to Disney together, oops!)
The order goes: Sean, Katie, Doreen (henceforth known as Mom), David (henceforth known as Dad) and myself!
And I also thought that I would add in this little guy for which I chose my user name. May I introduce the world to my Kovu! I grew up with The Lion King 2 as my favorite Disney movie (not that I don't like the original, don't get me wrong) and I still believe to this day I could sing every word to every TLK2 movie song from memory. When I adopted Kovu from a shelter, I knew that he was going to be my little lion man for life and the name was destined to be his. This photo was taken when I was packing for our trip and he knew what the suitcases meant. Unfortunately I couldn't take him with me, but he certainly tried!
I'm from Massachusetts (can you tell by how pale my family is in the photo?), and the Friday morning we were scheduled to leave there was a BLIZZARD hitting the area. We were all in a state of panic, wondering if we would miss days of planned dinning, activities, and attractions. As the forecast kept telling us the worst would be Friday and Saturday, our hopes dwindled. We thought that all hope was lost when we received an email from JetBlue on Wednesday that due to the storms, they were allowing anyone who was flying on Friday or Saturday to change their flight to Thursday at no additional cost or fees. My mom quickly looked to see what seats they had left on flights to Orlando and there were few and far between, but enough to fit the 5 of us. She quickly changed our flights to Thursday in the early afternoon and let everyone know to let their employers know that they would not be in the next day. Fortunately for us, we were all able to get the day off with no issues and we thought the worst was over.
WRONG!
The storms came in earlier than expected (yay New England's unpredictable weather) and our flight kept getting delayed and pushed out farther and farther into the afternoon/evening. The later in the evening that it kept being pushed out, the more we began to despair. Our chances of getting out worsened as time went on as the storms were getting stronger and conditions for the planes worsened. The picture below showed what it looked like outside of our terminal as we prayed to the Disney gods that we would be able to leave the snow and begin our vacation.
Our plane finally landed (arriving from Orlando) and when I say the people on board were ushered off, I mean it. I've never seen anything like it at an airport. The employees at the terminal informed us that they planned on getting everyone off, the plane cleaned, the luggage unloaded, our luggage loaded, the plane fueled, the plane de-iced, and us up into the air within 20-30 minutes. We thought that sounded INSANE, and by normal standards it was. They were not joking though, and the precision to which everything was coordinated and executed was amazing. In a very short time we were boarded on the plane and in our seats ready for takeoff. There was absolutely no waiting on the runway for our plane to take off. We turned the corner onto the runway, paused for a brief moment, and then just like that we were up into the air!
Once we were off and through the hazy snow storm on our way to paradise, we all knew we could FINALLY breathe a sigh of relief. We would need to find a hotel to stay in for the night as our check-in was not until Friday, but that didn't matter one bit. We would be there to experience everything that we had planned on and would not have to miss out on anything we had hoped to see. It was a good thing that we changed our flights we later came to find out, as the airport closed within an hour of our leaving (it was a sold out flight) and did not reopen until SUNDAY. If we didn't get out when we did, we would have missed out on 2.5 days of our vacation! Thanks to JetBlue and my Mom's quick reservations, we were on our way to take in everything that Disney had to offer!
The pictures on this TR will be two different sizes. This is because they are from two different sharing sites but I decided to keep them this way to have a distinction between my photos and my sister's/dad's photos. My photos are the larger ones, and their photos are the smaller ones (except for the Character Dance Battle which are small because of the method in which I took the screenshots). I want to make sure that I do not take credit for their work, and keeping them the different sizes instead of moving them all to the same site makes it easy to do this!
That's all for now! Part 2 to be posted soon!
CHAPTER INDEX
PART TWO- HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS
PART THREE- ARRIVAL AT MAGIC KINGDOM
PART FOUR- BIG THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER
PART FIVE- TANGLED AREA AND LUNCH!
PART SIX- WE HAVE LIFTOFF!
PART SEVEN- LET'S MOVE SOME PEOPLE!
PART EIGHT- SPLASH DOWN!
PART NINE- IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS! (PART 1)
PART TEN- IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS! (PART 2)
PART ELEVEN- EEYORE HAS MOVES, TIGGER HAS GAME, TWEEDLE DEE IS PICKING HIS NOSE?
PART TWELVE- AN END TO HS AND ONWARD TO MK!
PART THIRTEEN- THE SPECTACULAR CINDERELLA CASTLE DURING THE HOLIDAYS
PART FOURTEEN- IT'S ELECTRIC(AL)!
PART FIFTEEN- MAKE SURE YOU KNOW JUST WHAT KIND OF VACANCY YOU'RE FILLING
PART SIXTEEN- CHRISTMAS TIME AT ANIMAL KINGDOM
PART SEVENTEEN- THE TREE OF LIFE
PART EIGHTEEN- DINOLAND USA
PART NINETEEN- EXPEDITION EVEREST FROM AFAR
PART TWENTY- OUR MEETING WITH THE YETI
PART TWENTY-ONE- HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A HIPPO'S TEETH?
PART TWENTY-TWO- THE AFRICAN SAVANNA!
PART TWENTY-THREE- THE PANGANI FOREST EXPLORATION TRAIL AND MAHARAJAH JUNGLE TREK
PART TWENTY-FOUR- MICKEY'S JAMMIN' JUNGLE PARADE AND DIVINE
PART TWENTY-FIVE- OPENING CELEBRATION AT MAGIC KINGDOM!
PART TWENTY-SIX- DREAM ALONG WITH MICKEY STAGE SHOW
PART TWENTY-SEVEN- BE OUR GUEST EXTERIOR, ENTRANCE, ORDERING ROOM, AND MAIN BALLROOM
PART TWENTY-EIGHT- BE OUR GUEST WEST WING, SECOND BALLROOM, AND FOOD!
PART TWENTY-NINE- WHEN BEING STUCK ON A RIDE ISN'T NECESSARILY A BAD THING
PART THIRTY- IT'S A SMALL, SMALL WORLD!
PART THIRTY-ONE- WISHES NIGHTTIME SPECTACULAR AND MISC MK PICTURES AT NIGHT
PART THIRTY-TWO- MOVE IT! SHAKE IT! PARADE AND THE FRONTIER HOEDOWN!
PART THIRTY-THREE- SEAN'S ENCOUNTER WITH LADY TREMAINE!
PART THIRTY-FOUR- SPACE MOUNTAIN PHOTOPASS
PART THIRTY-FIVE- HAUNTED MANSION AND BUZZ LIGHTYEAR'S SPACE RANGER SPIN!
PART THIRTY-SIX- ROCK N' ROLLER COASTER AND STAR TOURS
PART THIRTY-SEVEN- INDIANA JONES EPIC STUNT SPECTACULAR!
PART THIRTY-EIGHT- FANTASMIC!
PART THIRTY-NINE- FINALLY AT EPCOT! CHRISTMAS TOPIARIES, TEST TRACK AND PLUTO!
KovuLover
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