DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
SusieBea said:
Oooh room service while the beast sleeps. Good idea! maybe we'll do that on our last night if it's in the budget.
First Trip Home - An AKV Value Room With a Potty Training Toddler(Trip Cost Added!)
- Thread starter DisneyRegulars
- Start date
Oooh room service while the beast sleeps. Good idea! maybe we'll do that on our last night if it's in the budget.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
Anyone have a suggestion for a picture service to use with an android phone? I had used photobucket in the past, but I can't access my photo albums on my phone. I'd like to get some pictures up.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
Definitely a successful Disney morning! We woke up to the Tigger alarm which was great because we had forgotten to set an alarm of our own. We did some rising and shining and sunblocking and were outside the Magic Kingdom with 5 minutes to spare before the opening ceremony. I don't know why but this opening ceremony has made me all teary eyed both days that I've watched it. I've turned into such a wuss.
Here are my boys before the show:
First thing we did was go see Mickey. We were maybe 7th in line, it moved quickly. Tigger really wanted to go see Mickey and Minnie but once again refused to interact with them. No high fives for Mickey, but he's getting better, he didn't scream this time. I was genuinely surprised by how little time they let you spend with Mickey and Minnie, maybe all of 20 seconds, and then Minnie actually physically pulled me out of the way. Wow. Good thing Tigger wasn't that into them or I would have been ticked. Why don't they just have two Mickeys and let you have twice the time?
Our Mickey picture:
After our brief Mickey interaction we hopped on the train and got off at Fantasyland. Here our first stop was the bathroom, and something AMAZING happened. Tigger actually requested to go in the regular bathroom with me. There were even other people in there and other toilets flushing and he still wanted to go in. I didn't even have to coerce him, he wanted to go. How awesome is that? Totally awesome! I think the empty bathrooms on the backside of the Imagination pavilion at Epcot showed him they weren't actually scary. Albeit a small triumph, this was probably the highlight of my day because now every other trip to the bathroom will just be that much easier. Of course after his bathroom trip he just had to play Angry Birds for 5 minutes. So many fun things around and he still wants to play Angry Birds. People probably thought we were the oddest parents ever as we sat to the side in front of Casey Jr. Splash area and our son played on our phone. But it works so I'm not about to mess with his incentive system here.
Playing Angry Birds with sommuch fun looming in the background, silly child:
The rest of the morning kind of felt like this: Dumbo, dumbo, dumbo, barnstormer, dumbo, dumbo, winnie the pooh, dumbo, dumbo, dumbo, lunch, small world, small world, small world, small world, small world, peter pan.
Some ride pics, the barnstormer:
Dumbo with Dad:
Dumbo posing:
After every ride Tigger wanted a snack. He had ZERO sense of urgency and no concept that lines would be getting longer as he sat very patiently eating his snacks. Lesson learned on this day was to pack smaller bags of snacks, that way it wouldn't take him nearly as long to eat them.
The endless snacking:
We did have one minor melt down. It was one of those ones that I knew would happen. He wanted to hold the fast passes that came out of the machine. I did not want him to hold them, he was already holding a previous fast pass. Mayhem ensued, there was hitting, screaming, general lousy child behavior. I put him in a time out against the nearest wall I could find wherein he decided he 'would show me' and took his shoes off and through them. This landed him a first class ticket out of the park. We started to head out, but he shaped up and apologized (which is all I was looking for) so we stayed for lunch, then went on small world twice followed by Peter Pan. Tigger ate all of 3 french fries and 1 bite of chicken and 1 bite of apple. I'm not entirely sure how he is surviving this trip, but he's been in a good mood so I think he'll be okay.
I walked Grizzly and Tigger to Main Street where we let Tigger pick out 1 new toy for being such a brave boy and using the big bathrooms. We both thought for sure he would pick another Daisy. He first grabbed a blue platypus, then was holding a small Lotsa bear which he said was stinky, then he found a little Daisy which he later traded for a big Daisy, but then right next the the Daisies were a whole bunch of Minnies and he was immediately sold. He chose a big one, but not the biggest one.
Here he is on the monorail looking very sleepy and happy with his new friend:
I sent Dad and Tigger on their way and stayed to go see the Hall of Presidents because I wanted to catch Obama incase he is not there next time we visit. I haven't seen this show in at least 4 years. I really liked it! There were some speeches, Abraham Lincoln in particular, that were a bit too long, but the darn thing made me teary eyed too. I'm such a Disney wuss.
On the way out I stopped in the gift shop to see if they had my sweatshirt and of course they did not. I will never ever learn to just buy something the first place I see it. This is not the first time this has happened to me. I may have to go back to Epcot to get it, but that's okay because that is also the home of delicious caramel squares and it would sure be a pity if I had to get another one of those.
Two pixie dust moments today. When I grabbed fast passes to Winnie the Pooh it spat our Suprise Fast Passes to Dumbo. Yippeeeeee! Second moment was when I asked for the Annual Pass Discount at the store, it was only supposed to be 10%, but the sales clerk gave me the Premium Annual Pass Discount so I got 20% off the giant Minnie. While the beast is sleeping I'm going to play with imgur and try to get some pictures up. Wifi is non-existent in our room so I only have my phone 3g and it is slow for photo uploading. We'll see you after nap. The plan is once again to go see the Kidani pool. Maybe the third time will be the charm.
Here are my boys before the show:
First thing we did was go see Mickey. We were maybe 7th in line, it moved quickly. Tigger really wanted to go see Mickey and Minnie but once again refused to interact with them. No high fives for Mickey, but he's getting better, he didn't scream this time. I was genuinely surprised by how little time they let you spend with Mickey and Minnie, maybe all of 20 seconds, and then Minnie actually physically pulled me out of the way. Wow. Good thing Tigger wasn't that into them or I would have been ticked. Why don't they just have two Mickeys and let you have twice the time?
Our Mickey picture:
After our brief Mickey interaction we hopped on the train and got off at Fantasyland. Here our first stop was the bathroom, and something AMAZING happened. Tigger actually requested to go in the regular bathroom with me. There were even other people in there and other toilets flushing and he still wanted to go in. I didn't even have to coerce him, he wanted to go. How awesome is that? Totally awesome! I think the empty bathrooms on the backside of the Imagination pavilion at Epcot showed him they weren't actually scary. Albeit a small triumph, this was probably the highlight of my day because now every other trip to the bathroom will just be that much easier. Of course after his bathroom trip he just had to play Angry Birds for 5 minutes. So many fun things around and he still wants to play Angry Birds. People probably thought we were the oddest parents ever as we sat to the side in front of Casey Jr. Splash area and our son played on our phone. But it works so I'm not about to mess with his incentive system here.
Playing Angry Birds with sommuch fun looming in the background, silly child:
The rest of the morning kind of felt like this: Dumbo, dumbo, dumbo, barnstormer, dumbo, dumbo, winnie the pooh, dumbo, dumbo, dumbo, lunch, small world, small world, small world, small world, small world, peter pan.
Some ride pics, the barnstormer:
Dumbo with Dad:
Dumbo posing:
After every ride Tigger wanted a snack. He had ZERO sense of urgency and no concept that lines would be getting longer as he sat very patiently eating his snacks. Lesson learned on this day was to pack smaller bags of snacks, that way it wouldn't take him nearly as long to eat them.
The endless snacking:
We did have one minor melt down. It was one of those ones that I knew would happen. He wanted to hold the fast passes that came out of the machine. I did not want him to hold them, he was already holding a previous fast pass. Mayhem ensued, there was hitting, screaming, general lousy child behavior. I put him in a time out against the nearest wall I could find wherein he decided he 'would show me' and took his shoes off and through them. This landed him a first class ticket out of the park. We started to head out, but he shaped up and apologized (which is all I was looking for) so we stayed for lunch, then went on small world twice followed by Peter Pan. Tigger ate all of 3 french fries and 1 bite of chicken and 1 bite of apple. I'm not entirely sure how he is surviving this trip, but he's been in a good mood so I think he'll be okay.
I walked Grizzly and Tigger to Main Street where we let Tigger pick out 1 new toy for being such a brave boy and using the big bathrooms. We both thought for sure he would pick another Daisy. He first grabbed a blue platypus, then was holding a small Lotsa bear which he said was stinky, then he found a little Daisy which he later traded for a big Daisy, but then right next the the Daisies were a whole bunch of Minnies and he was immediately sold. He chose a big one, but not the biggest one.
Here he is on the monorail looking very sleepy and happy with his new friend:
I sent Dad and Tigger on their way and stayed to go see the Hall of Presidents because I wanted to catch Obama incase he is not there next time we visit. I haven't seen this show in at least 4 years. I really liked it! There were some speeches, Abraham Lincoln in particular, that were a bit too long, but the darn thing made me teary eyed too. I'm such a Disney wuss.
On the way out I stopped in the gift shop to see if they had my sweatshirt and of course they did not. I will never ever learn to just buy something the first place I see it. This is not the first time this has happened to me. I may have to go back to Epcot to get it, but that's okay because that is also the home of delicious caramel squares and it would sure be a pity if I had to get another one of those.
Two pixie dust moments today. When I grabbed fast passes to Winnie the Pooh it spat our Suprise Fast Passes to Dumbo. Yippeeeeee! Second moment was when I asked for the Annual Pass Discount at the store, it was only supposed to be 10%, but the sales clerk gave me the Premium Annual Pass Discount so I got 20% off the giant Minnie. While the beast is sleeping I'm going to play with imgur and try to get some pictures up. Wifi is non-existent in our room so I only have my phone 3g and it is slow for photo uploading. We'll see you after nap. The plan is once again to go see the Kidani pool. Maybe the third time will be the charm.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
DannysMom said:
IMGUR worked great! thanks!
lilpooh108
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2010
Following along!! Love your TR! We have a 3YO who we just finished potty training so I can totally relate.
Have you tried the baby care centers to avoid the scary bathroom noises? I am reading your TR on my phone so I might have missed if you've already used the BCCs.
We're going to be in a value 1bdrm for our Dec trip. Would you mind posting some pics of the room? I'm trying to figure out how cramped the room will be since we are using the fold out couch this time. Not sure where to put DD and our 5 month old. Does it look like a pack and play would fit with the couch folded out?
I also don't sleep well with a child in my bed--and DD decided (like your Tigger) that she needed to watch her DVD player (which we only use on planes) at 3am, in bed with me, on our last trip to Aulani. My DH conveniently slept through that so I can totally relate.
Have you tried the baby care centers to avoid the scary bathroom noises? I am reading your TR on my phone so I might have missed if you've already used the BCCs.
We're going to be in a value 1bdrm for our Dec trip. Would you mind posting some pics of the room? I'm trying to figure out how cramped the room will be since we are using the fold out couch this time. Not sure where to put DD and our 5 month old. Does it look like a pack and play would fit with the couch folded out?
I also don't sleep well with a child in my bed--and DD decided (like your Tigger) that she needed to watch her DVD player (which we only use on planes) at 3am, in bed with me, on our last trip to Aulani. My DH conveniently slept through that so I can totally relate.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
lilpooh108 said:
I will take some pictures tonight of the value room. I've been skimping on the trip reports the last few dates as I've been sneaking out during naps to do some shopping. I think you will be able to find space for everyone in the room, but it will be cramped. For example, if I sit on the bed in the master with my legs hanging off, we can't close the door! It's tight! Once you get over that it's actually been quite nice.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
Yikes...some very bad image links will try again in a sec...
Ok here we go again, hopefully without bad picture links:
Here are some room pics per request:
Firstly I apologize for the horrendous back lighting but it was either death by back light or dark dreary photos. Lets start the tour with my favorite part, the stroller nook by the front door:
Oh, yeah, also please excuse the mess. These were taken our last day in the room so things were getting a little cluttered, especially in the kitchen.
View from the front door:
Here is a view of the kitchen from the living room:
The living room looks a lot bigger if you move the table off to the side:
These next photos we will call fun with the pac n play:
Option 1, Pack and Play goes at the foot of the pull out couch:
Option 2, Pack and Play beside the pull out couch:
Option 3, Pack and play in the hall:
I'm not sure if we were supposed to, but our room actually had two pack and plays in it. I think one may fit in the bedroom, but I didn't try it, and it would be quite tight.
Here is our bedroom setup with the airmattress at the foot of the bed and about 1/5 of it under the bed:
And here is an additional picture just because I like it (only the Minnie is new this trip!):
And here is how small the bedroom is, can't even close the door while sitting on the bed:
Heading home at 7:45am tomorrow. Woe this vacation was too short. I'll fill in those missing days shortly. Thanks for following along so far!
Ok here we go again, hopefully without bad picture links:
Here are some room pics per request:
Firstly I apologize for the horrendous back lighting but it was either death by back light or dark dreary photos. Lets start the tour with my favorite part, the stroller nook by the front door:
Oh, yeah, also please excuse the mess. These were taken our last day in the room so things were getting a little cluttered, especially in the kitchen.
View from the front door:
Here is a view of the kitchen from the living room:
The living room looks a lot bigger if you move the table off to the side:
These next photos we will call fun with the pac n play:
Option 1, Pack and Play goes at the foot of the pull out couch:
Option 2, Pack and Play beside the pull out couch:
Option 3, Pack and play in the hall:
I'm not sure if we were supposed to, but our room actually had two pack and plays in it. I think one may fit in the bedroom, but I didn't try it, and it would be quite tight.
Here is our bedroom setup with the airmattress at the foot of the bed and about 1/5 of it under the bed:
And here is an additional picture just because I like it (only the Minnie is new this trip!):
And here is how small the bedroom is, can't even close the door while sitting on the bed:
Heading home at 7:45am tomorrow. Woe this vacation was too short. I'll fill in those missing days shortly. Thanks for following along so far!
lilpooh108
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2010
OMG thank you so so so so so much for the pictures, especially the ones of the pack and play next to the folded out couch! 
I really appreciate it!
By the way, our toddlers do have a lot in common, LOL. We bribed DD during potty training by giving her my iphone to play with while she sat on her Baby Bjorn potty. I finally had to draw the line at letting her bring it on the real potty. We also use that First Years stroller for our WDW trips and my DD is terrified of speaking to other kids her age. She just started a new preschool and we've been bribing her to make friends.
Anyways, thanks again! Have a safe trip home!
I really appreciate it!
By the way, our toddlers do have a lot in common, LOL. We bribed DD during potty training by giving her my iphone to play with while she sat on her Baby Bjorn potty. I finally had to draw the line at letting her bring it on the real potty. We also use that First Years stroller for our WDW trips and my DD is terrified of speaking to other kids her age. She just started a new preschool and we've been bribing her to make friends.
Anyways, thanks again! Have a safe trip home!
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
OMG thank you so so so so so much for the pictures, especially the ones of the pack and play next to the folded out couch!
I really appreciate it!
By the way, our toddlers do have a lot in common, LOL. We bribed DD during potty training by giving her my iphone to play with while she sat on her Baby Bjorn potty. I finally had to draw the line at letting her bring it on the real potty. We also use that First Years stroller for our WDW trips and my DD is terrified of speaking to other kids her age. She just started a new preschool and we've been bribing her to make friends.
Anyways, thanks again! Have a safe trip home!
You are welcome! Your DD does sound just like my son. The other day Tigger actually played with a neighbor kid for the very first time and I just about died of happiness because I thought he would never have friends. Now at least I know there is some hope. The only problem with the First Years stroller is that we are not the only one with that stroller. In every stroller parking there is always at least one or two others and they always trick us. We kept Tigger's hat on our stroller handle and a few times we were sad because we thought someone had taken his hat, only to realize a few moments later that it wasn't our stroller.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
First things first, I'm at home now and just looked at my posts on a regular laptop. The pictures are ridiculously humongous. Why is that? Is there any easy way to make them smaller or do I have to go back and resize all the photos individually? Sigh...they looked fine on my phone and in the DIS Ap.
Okay...so these events happened a few days ago now and things are already fuzzy. I love having these reports to look back on or I would never remember half of our trips...
So we roused Tigger from his nap, fed him something that he probably didn't eat (see already I have no clue about dinner), and made our way over to the Kidani pool. The best thing about swimming in the evening hours is no sunblock is required!! We took the van over which was waiting for us when we stepped outside the Jambo house lobby.
The Kidani pool was everything I had hoped for. Tigger loved parts of the splash area. We spent quite a bit of time stepping on these water jets. The longer you stepped on the jets the higher and higher the water sprayed when you took your foot off. Grizzly could get them to spray probably 15 feet in the air. They were awesome. Tigger also like the tube slide in this area, and despite the really long walk to get to it, was willing to go up to the top of the slide by himself. This is a huge step because he doesn't even leave the room we are in at home, and the top of the slide was a good 50 foot walk up stairs and out of site of Mom and Dad. He always amazes me at Disney.
After the splash area we went into the big pool. Here they have a little mini water slide. This is by far the best toddler feature I have ever come across. The slide is maybe 8 feet long and goes slow enough to easily catch your child at the end, but fast enough for them to want to do it again and again. Tigger loved this slide soooooo much. I had wanted to go to Blizzard Beach this trip and this slide clinched the deal for me. If he liked this little slide surely he would love Blizzard Beach. Dad and I also took turns going down the big slide which was very fun. Better than the BWV slide, the long turn on the end felt very very fast.
We made our way back to Jambo house via the van. The van was once again waiting for us, and they had towels for us to sit on on the way back. Tigger got a kick out of getting to wear the real seat belts.
We got Tigger in bed and then took a suggestion from above and ordered us some room service. Yum! I don't know why we never thought of this earlier. I had a seafood stew and Grizzly ordered two deserts to share. He opted to fetch himself a burger from Mara. We got a selection of tarts so we could try the famous Zebra Dome and some sort of apple cake like thing with a fancy name. Of the tart selection I liked the zebra dome, but the other two things were just 'meh'. The apple thing was okay. The stew was yummy. Everything together with our beers was just wonderful to relax and eat something special without having to wrangle a toddler.
Up next...Tomorrow we hit Blizzard Beach. So excited
Okay...so these events happened a few days ago now and things are already fuzzy. I love having these reports to look back on or I would never remember half of our trips...
So we roused Tigger from his nap, fed him something that he probably didn't eat (see already I have no clue about dinner), and made our way over to the Kidani pool. The best thing about swimming in the evening hours is no sunblock is required!! We took the van over which was waiting for us when we stepped outside the Jambo house lobby.
The Kidani pool was everything I had hoped for. Tigger loved parts of the splash area. We spent quite a bit of time stepping on these water jets. The longer you stepped on the jets the higher and higher the water sprayed when you took your foot off. Grizzly could get them to spray probably 15 feet in the air. They were awesome. Tigger also like the tube slide in this area, and despite the really long walk to get to it, was willing to go up to the top of the slide by himself. This is a huge step because he doesn't even leave the room we are in at home, and the top of the slide was a good 50 foot walk up stairs and out of site of Mom and Dad. He always amazes me at Disney.
After the splash area we went into the big pool. Here they have a little mini water slide. This is by far the best toddler feature I have ever come across. The slide is maybe 8 feet long and goes slow enough to easily catch your child at the end, but fast enough for them to want to do it again and again. Tigger loved this slide soooooo much. I had wanted to go to Blizzard Beach this trip and this slide clinched the deal for me. If he liked this little slide surely he would love Blizzard Beach. Dad and I also took turns going down the big slide which was very fun. Better than the BWV slide, the long turn on the end felt very very fast.
We made our way back to Jambo house via the van. The van was once again waiting for us, and they had towels for us to sit on on the way back. Tigger got a kick out of getting to wear the real seat belts.
We got Tigger in bed and then took a suggestion from above and ordered us some room service. Yum! I don't know why we never thought of this earlier. I had a seafood stew and Grizzly ordered two deserts to share. He opted to fetch himself a burger from Mara. We got a selection of tarts so we could try the famous Zebra Dome and some sort of apple cake like thing with a fancy name. Of the tart selection I liked the zebra dome, but the other two things were just 'meh'. The apple thing was okay. The stew was yummy. Everything together with our beers was just wonderful to relax and eat something special without having to wrangle a toddler.
Up next...Tomorrow we hit Blizzard Beach. So excited
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
So we got ourselves up and out the door to Blizzard Beach with 15 minutes until park opening. I brought a backpack in with us. The backpack contained sunblock for us, sunblock for Tigger, peanut butter, ritz crackers, and changes of clothes for Tigger. I planned on renting a locker. I didn't plan on having to pay $15.00 to rent a locker!!!! Holy cow. I thought maybe $5.00, but $15.00? Yikes. I got one anyways even though I should have just walked by bag back to the car. So I ended up paying $15.00 to store about $20.00 worth of stuff. Grrr...Plus I also rented three towels so that was another $6.00. So before even riding any slides this day had cost us $131.00. We were going to have fun darn it.
Except we didn't really have fun. Next to the night we spent trying to get Tigger to use the potty this was day was just about as much fun. We started off our day with Teamboat Springs to avoid any long lines later. Big mistake. Other people reported that their young guys loved this ride. Tigger, not so much. I would say he tolerated it, but it scared him. The final icing on the cake was a waterfall that you have to go under at the end. Tigger hates getting water splashed on his head, so this waterfall really freaked him out. I did my best to lean over him and cover him but he still got wet. Poor guy. Not the best start to the day. We headed over to Tikes Peak hoping there would be things there that were more his speed.
The good news is, for anyone with a non-wuss toddler this place was really awesome. There are some larger slides at the base of the peak, one tube slide, one body slide, and a set of straight racer slides that you can slide down side by side or put a kid on your lap and take them down. Now if you have a wuss child like mine, this is what will happen:
You will start will the side by side racer slides. They look innocent enough, there are no scary turns or tunnels. They are just a long slide into about 8 inches of water at the bottom. You will put your kid on the middle slide, you'll sit in the next slide over and then your kid will freak out. You'll put him on your lap to go down with you instead. This will be your second biggest mistake of the day because when you hit the 8 inches of water it will become 36 inches of splash and make the boy who hates getting his head wet soaked and once again upset. The remainder of your day will then be spent wishing you had your $131 dollars back.
Okay, enough with the second person. So Tigger of course never went down the straight slides again, and the curvy body slide and the tube slide were completely out of the question. That left a series of tiny tiny slides at the top of the peak. These slides were really cute, but they didn't hold his attention for too long. He swam around like a crocodile in the pool area for a bit and then after maybe 25 minutes we had worn out Tikes Peak. I'm sure other kids could play here for hours. I was disappointed that Tigger didn't want to.
We then tried our first attempt at the lazy river (Runoff Rapids I think). Epic fail. Tigger wanted nothing to do with any of the tubes. They have giant pool noodle type things and he didn't like those either. Oh no! What were we going to do? We tried the wave pool but this really wasn't all that much fun. It's hard to keep an un-lifejacketed toddler above water in a pool full of waves. What's that? Just put a life jacket on him? Ha! We tried and tried to coax him into a life jacket. I even went so far as to put one on myself at the Kidani pool and go down the tiny kiddie slide with it on. No luck. It would have been easier to life jacket a wily squirrel.
At this point I decided that one of us was at least going to have fun, so I went and rode a tube slide. The only single rider tube slide you can go on is a dark tunnel one. It was fun and scary and I really wished I could go on the other two tube slides but they were only for double tubes and someone had to watch the beasty. Then it was Dad's turn to ride a slide and he chose the toboggan racers. We were hoping Tigger would want to try these, but he of course wanted nothing to do with the scary mats.
We tried the lazy river again and this time got Tigger into a tube by putting both of us (Mom and Tigger) in the center. He liked this. We went around until we got back to Tikes Peak area. We played at Tikes Peak for a bit, mostly crawling around in the pool area acting like a crocodile. We then ate lunch and I ran over to ride a mat slide while Dad was going to take Tigger back to the wave pool. Wait did I say we ate lunch? Sorry that was a lie because Tigger still wasn't really eating. I think he ate 1/2 a peanut butter cracker. Maybe.... Apparently Tigger started being a pain and when I got off my mat slide Dad and Tigger were waiting for me. We left the park and were home for naptime by 1:30. It was a such a disappointing trip, especially given the out of pocket cost, and there really was so much there that he should have loved. I will be giving it a couple of years before we try again.
Grrr...So far this was not the magical trip I had been so excited about...Will it shape up after naptime?
Except we didn't really have fun. Next to the night we spent trying to get Tigger to use the potty this was day was just about as much fun. We started off our day with Teamboat Springs to avoid any long lines later. Big mistake. Other people reported that their young guys loved this ride. Tigger, not so much. I would say he tolerated it, but it scared him. The final icing on the cake was a waterfall that you have to go under at the end. Tigger hates getting water splashed on his head, so this waterfall really freaked him out. I did my best to lean over him and cover him but he still got wet. Poor guy. Not the best start to the day. We headed over to Tikes Peak hoping there would be things there that were more his speed.
The good news is, for anyone with a non-wuss toddler this place was really awesome. There are some larger slides at the base of the peak, one tube slide, one body slide, and a set of straight racer slides that you can slide down side by side or put a kid on your lap and take them down. Now if you have a wuss child like mine, this is what will happen:
You will start will the side by side racer slides. They look innocent enough, there are no scary turns or tunnels. They are just a long slide into about 8 inches of water at the bottom. You will put your kid on the middle slide, you'll sit in the next slide over and then your kid will freak out. You'll put him on your lap to go down with you instead. This will be your second biggest mistake of the day because when you hit the 8 inches of water it will become 36 inches of splash and make the boy who hates getting his head wet soaked and once again upset. The remainder of your day will then be spent wishing you had your $131 dollars back.
Okay, enough with the second person. So Tigger of course never went down the straight slides again, and the curvy body slide and the tube slide were completely out of the question. That left a series of tiny tiny slides at the top of the peak. These slides were really cute, but they didn't hold his attention for too long. He swam around like a crocodile in the pool area for a bit and then after maybe 25 minutes we had worn out Tikes Peak. I'm sure other kids could play here for hours. I was disappointed that Tigger didn't want to.
We then tried our first attempt at the lazy river (Runoff Rapids I think). Epic fail. Tigger wanted nothing to do with any of the tubes. They have giant pool noodle type things and he didn't like those either. Oh no! What were we going to do? We tried the wave pool but this really wasn't all that much fun. It's hard to keep an un-lifejacketed toddler above water in a pool full of waves. What's that? Just put a life jacket on him? Ha! We tried and tried to coax him into a life jacket. I even went so far as to put one on myself at the Kidani pool and go down the tiny kiddie slide with it on. No luck. It would have been easier to life jacket a wily squirrel.
At this point I decided that one of us was at least going to have fun, so I went and rode a tube slide. The only single rider tube slide you can go on is a dark tunnel one. It was fun and scary and I really wished I could go on the other two tube slides but they were only for double tubes and someone had to watch the beasty. Then it was Dad's turn to ride a slide and he chose the toboggan racers. We were hoping Tigger would want to try these, but he of course wanted nothing to do with the scary mats.
We tried the lazy river again and this time got Tigger into a tube by putting both of us (Mom and Tigger) in the center. He liked this. We went around until we got back to Tikes Peak area. We played at Tikes Peak for a bit, mostly crawling around in the pool area acting like a crocodile. We then ate lunch and I ran over to ride a mat slide while Dad was going to take Tigger back to the wave pool. Wait did I say we ate lunch? Sorry that was a lie because Tigger still wasn't really eating. I think he ate 1/2 a peanut butter cracker. Maybe.... Apparently Tigger started being a pain and when I got off my mat slide Dad and Tigger were waiting for me. We left the park and were home for naptime by 1:30. It was a such a disappointing trip, especially given the out of pocket cost, and there really was so much there that he should have loved. I will be giving it a couple of years before we try again.
Grrr...So far this was not the magical trip I had been so excited about...Will it shape up after naptime?
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
So during Tigger's nap I ran out to Epcot on a mission. This mission had two parts: 1. purchase the fuzzy lined sweatshirt that I couldn't stop thinking about, and 2.retrieve another salted caramel square from Germany. The bus pixies were with me everywhere I went this trip. Well actually this particular bus pixie was only partially there. The bus arrived right as I walked up, but there was a scooter that needed to board. The driver made the bus kneel down, but when he pressed the button to unfold the ramp nothing happened. He then proceeded to kneel and unkneel the bus and press the ramp button over and over again. What is the definition of insanity again? Isn't it something like trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Well this driver was hell bent on testing this theory. Surely if he knelt and unknelt the bus and pressed the ramp button again it would work. No? Okay, just one more time? Still no? Maybe 6, 7, 8 more times will do the trick? No? Hmm... how to load the scooter? You also have to remember the ear piercing beeping that happens every time the bus kneels. This was a lovely 15 minutes. Finally, the bus driver bends down and ... drum roll please... picks up the ramp!!!! It didn't even appear heavy! Why the heck he didn't do this 6 kneels ago I will never know. So eventually I make it to Epcot with slightly less hearing.
I head into Mouse Gear. The small sweatshirt is too small. The medium sweatshirt is too small. I'm about to try on the large sweatshirt when I first notice the GIANT mickey plastered on the back of the sweatshirt. Darn! Wish I had seen that before. I wanted this sweatshirt for work in my freezing office, but I can't go around with such a large Mickey on my back. The smaller mickey on the front was already pushing it. Disappointed once again I headed over to get my caramel. Yum! I also stopped by Canada and got a leather bracelet engraved with Tigger's name. The kid loves jewelry so I wanted to get him something of his that he could wear. (I'm a bit of a tom-boy so I'm not sure where this jewelry fetish comes from, I haven't even worn a wedding ring since I became allergic to it during pregnancy) Anyways, the bracelet was white and had the fab five on it. When I gave it to Tigger later he immediately looked at all the characters and asked "where's daisy?". You never notice how often they leave Daisy out until you have a Daisy obsessed toddler. The post cards they send you after your trip...yeah no Daisy on those either. I made it back home by 4:30, and we got some mac n cheese and hot dogs ready for dinner while Tigger finished his nap.
After nap we headed for the Magic Kingdom hoping for a slightly more magical evening than our morning at Blizzard Beach. Will we make it until Wishes? If so, it will be maybe the 4th time in Tigger's life that he has stayed up past 9pm. Hmmm.... not sure how this will go.
I head into Mouse Gear. The small sweatshirt is too small. The medium sweatshirt is too small. I'm about to try on the large sweatshirt when I first notice the GIANT mickey plastered on the back of the sweatshirt. Darn! Wish I had seen that before. I wanted this sweatshirt for work in my freezing office, but I can't go around with such a large Mickey on my back. The smaller mickey on the front was already pushing it. Disappointed once again I headed over to get my caramel. Yum! I also stopped by Canada and got a leather bracelet engraved with Tigger's name. The kid loves jewelry so I wanted to get him something of his that he could wear. (I'm a bit of a tom-boy so I'm not sure where this jewelry fetish comes from, I haven't even worn a wedding ring since I became allergic to it during pregnancy) Anyways, the bracelet was white and had the fab five on it. When I gave it to Tigger later he immediately looked at all the characters and asked "where's daisy?". You never notice how often they leave Daisy out until you have a Daisy obsessed toddler. The post cards they send you after your trip...yeah no Daisy on those either. I made it back home by 4:30, and we got some mac n cheese and hot dogs ready for dinner while Tigger finished his nap.
After nap we headed for the Magic Kingdom hoping for a slightly more magical evening than our morning at Blizzard Beach. Will we make it until Wishes? If so, it will be maybe the 4th time in Tigger's life that he has stayed up past 9pm. Hmmm.... not sure how this will go.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
We get to the MK and it's around 6pm-ish. First thing we do is take a couple pictures on Main Street in front of the castle, but Tigger is being a turkey and won't stop holding his lips. This is what we end up with:
I think we headed first to Winnie the Pooh, but on the way Tigger saw the tea cups and wanted to ride those. Actually, maybe we rode Barnstormer first? I really have no idea. But I can assure you we were having fun. At one point Tigger was taken to the bathroom over by Space Mountain and on the way he saw the Astro Orbiter. Sold on the spot he absolutely wanted to ride the Astro Orbiter. The line said 25 minutes. Ugh. We stood in it and half way through Tigger requested to go to the bathroom again. This was kind of awesome because it was the first time ever he asked to go. So I hopped out of line and took him.
This bathroom trip was trying....and I had to muster all of my patience. By this point we had a whole potty routine that we HAD to follow or heaven forbid the sky would most certainly fall. It consisted of putting the post-it on the sensor. Then we had to clean the seat with toilet paper. This to Tigger meant he had to clean every surface in the stall. Grrrr..... It was during his cleaning that he pressed the flusher button and that got him freaked out a bit. Then he couldn't clean a spot off the seat even though he scrubbed and scrubbed. I sat him on the potty and he declared he didn't have to go. I knew he had to go so I encouraged him to try. That didn't help. I asked him if he didn't want to go because of the spot on the seat and he said 'yeah'. So we switched stalls and had to do it ALL AGAIN. GRRRRRRRRRRR.... But he went the second time, and by the time we made it back in line it was almost our turn for the elevator ride. I guess all in all 20 minutes in the bathroom was better than 20 minutes in a boring line but geez, so frustrating. You never know what will get a child all bothered.
So the Astro Orbiters....We finally get up to the ride and the sun is setting and the castle looks gorgeous:
Tigger of course flips out and now doesn't want to ride. I decide that I will ride anyways and I get in my rocket. Once in I show Tigger that there is a seat belt and that he will be safe. This makes him feel much better and he gets in the rocket with me. The boy is obsessed with seat belts. Before we take off I snap this picture:
Then our rocket took off. And I was plastered against the back side wall of the rocket and could not stop laughing. Have these rockets always been so fast? I've only ridden them twice before and I don't remember them going so fast. I really had a good time. I think Tigger liked them too, and he especially liked hearing me laugh because he still talks about that. While I don't think they were really worth a 25 minute wait I would totally ride these again with a shorter line. Lots of fun!
After the rockets we made our way over to Winnie the Pooh at Tigger's request. We got in the Pooh line at 7:48. At 8:30 we were still in the Pooh line. In fact we never ended up riding Pooh Tigger just played will all the line distractions for nearly an hour. He would have played longer but he needed to go to the bathroom again so we ran out looking for a place to pee. He loved the ball popping thing and the honey bees on a track. He probably spent 30 minutes alone just moving the bees around on the track and making sure they were all back at the beginning. It was really fun to have this entire play area all to ourselves as everyone just ran on by to ride the ride. Since we had to leave to pee we decided to grab a spot in front of the castle for Wishes. We got an absolutely amazing place to sit and while Tigger played his Angry Birds I ran and got us a bucket of popcorn. Well actually I just walked a few feet and then waiting in line for 15 minutes for a bucket of popcorn. I got back to our seat just as the show was starting. This was Tigger's first popcorn and he adored it. I was just glad he was eating something. The show was great and Tigger REALLY REALLY liked it. He requested to ride the 'sitting castle ride' several times during the remainder of our trip, but we never made it back to the MK in the evening.
After Wishes it was time to leave the park. What follows is a lesson in how not to leave the park in three easy steps:
Step 1: Forget your stroller in Fantasy Land and have to swim like a Salmon upstream to go retrieve it.
Step 2: Bring a toddler with you who has suddenly become obsessed with peeing in every restroom he can find.
Step 3: After being one of the last 500 or so guests to leave the park, decide to take the resort monorail back to the TTC because the line is shorter. This turned out to be the WORST IDEA EVER!!! We counted 5 express monorails to 1 resort monorail. By the time a second resort monorail came, the huge line for the express monorail had been gone for several minutes. We'll never make that mistake again.
We got back to the hotel fairly late, maybe 11ish (yuck!) and just plunked Tigger in bed with no bath. I know, totally yucky because he was still covered in Blizzard Beach sunblock, but sleep was more important that cleanliness at this point. The next day was our last day and we had a very light schedule planned. We were going to let him sleep in and then head over to Hollywood Studios to catch Playhouse Disney with Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse guys. Woe..I can't believe it's our last day already. This vacation has been way to short.
I think we headed first to Winnie the Pooh, but on the way Tigger saw the tea cups and wanted to ride those. Actually, maybe we rode Barnstormer first? I really have no idea. But I can assure you we were having fun. At one point Tigger was taken to the bathroom over by Space Mountain and on the way he saw the Astro Orbiter. Sold on the spot he absolutely wanted to ride the Astro Orbiter. The line said 25 minutes. Ugh. We stood in it and half way through Tigger requested to go to the bathroom again. This was kind of awesome because it was the first time ever he asked to go. So I hopped out of line and took him.
This bathroom trip was trying....and I had to muster all of my patience. By this point we had a whole potty routine that we HAD to follow or heaven forbid the sky would most certainly fall. It consisted of putting the post-it on the sensor. Then we had to clean the seat with toilet paper. This to Tigger meant he had to clean every surface in the stall. Grrrr..... It was during his cleaning that he pressed the flusher button and that got him freaked out a bit. Then he couldn't clean a spot off the seat even though he scrubbed and scrubbed. I sat him on the potty and he declared he didn't have to go. I knew he had to go so I encouraged him to try. That didn't help. I asked him if he didn't want to go because of the spot on the seat and he said 'yeah'. So we switched stalls and had to do it ALL AGAIN. GRRRRRRRRRRR.... But he went the second time, and by the time we made it back in line it was almost our turn for the elevator ride. I guess all in all 20 minutes in the bathroom was better than 20 minutes in a boring line but geez, so frustrating. You never know what will get a child all bothered.
So the Astro Orbiters....We finally get up to the ride and the sun is setting and the castle looks gorgeous:
Tigger of course flips out and now doesn't want to ride. I decide that I will ride anyways and I get in my rocket. Once in I show Tigger that there is a seat belt and that he will be safe. This makes him feel much better and he gets in the rocket with me. The boy is obsessed with seat belts. Before we take off I snap this picture:
Then our rocket took off. And I was plastered against the back side wall of the rocket and could not stop laughing. Have these rockets always been so fast? I've only ridden them twice before and I don't remember them going so fast. I really had a good time. I think Tigger liked them too, and he especially liked hearing me laugh because he still talks about that. While I don't think they were really worth a 25 minute wait I would totally ride these again with a shorter line. Lots of fun!
After the rockets we made our way over to Winnie the Pooh at Tigger's request. We got in the Pooh line at 7:48. At 8:30 we were still in the Pooh line. In fact we never ended up riding Pooh Tigger just played will all the line distractions for nearly an hour. He would have played longer but he needed to go to the bathroom again so we ran out looking for a place to pee. He loved the ball popping thing and the honey bees on a track. He probably spent 30 minutes alone just moving the bees around on the track and making sure they were all back at the beginning. It was really fun to have this entire play area all to ourselves as everyone just ran on by to ride the ride. Since we had to leave to pee we decided to grab a spot in front of the castle for Wishes. We got an absolutely amazing place to sit and while Tigger played his Angry Birds I ran and got us a bucket of popcorn. Well actually I just walked a few feet and then waiting in line for 15 minutes for a bucket of popcorn. I got back to our seat just as the show was starting. This was Tigger's first popcorn and he adored it. I was just glad he was eating something. The show was great and Tigger REALLY REALLY liked it. He requested to ride the 'sitting castle ride' several times during the remainder of our trip, but we never made it back to the MK in the evening.
After Wishes it was time to leave the park. What follows is a lesson in how not to leave the park in three easy steps:
Step 1: Forget your stroller in Fantasy Land and have to swim like a Salmon upstream to go retrieve it.
Step 2: Bring a toddler with you who has suddenly become obsessed with peeing in every restroom he can find.
Step 3: After being one of the last 500 or so guests to leave the park, decide to take the resort monorail back to the TTC because the line is shorter. This turned out to be the WORST IDEA EVER!!! We counted 5 express monorails to 1 resort monorail. By the time a second resort monorail came, the huge line for the express monorail had been gone for several minutes. We'll never make that mistake again.
We got back to the hotel fairly late, maybe 11ish (yuck!) and just plunked Tigger in bed with no bath. I know, totally yucky because he was still covered in Blizzard Beach sunblock, but sleep was more important that cleanliness at this point. The next day was our last day and we had a very light schedule planned. We were going to let him sleep in and then head over to Hollywood Studios to catch Playhouse Disney with Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse guys. Woe..I can't believe it's our last day already. This vacation has been way to short.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
Okay, so normally I would be asleep right now, but I took a 5.5 hour nap this afternoon after returning from our trip, so I'm a little bit awake. It also helps that tomorrow is my sleep in day (Grizzly and I take turns sleeping in one day on the weekends) so I'm not feeling any pressure to get to sleep.
Back to the trip...After such a late night I needed a little extra rest. I asked Grizzly to get up with Tigger and then get me up when breakfast was ready. It was bacon day . Grizzly made some lovely bacon and eggs in a basket for everyone. The eggs in a basket were actually eggs in a mickey head and were very cute. We headed at a leisurely pace over to Hollywood Studios and arrived around 9:38. I looked at the times guide and noticed the first Disney Junior show was at 9:40. Instead of running over and getting a lousy seat we opted to bring Tigger over to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. While I did this Grizzly went and rode Rockin' Roller Coaster and grabbed me a fast pass for Tower of Terror.
Last visit to the playground Tigger was TERRIFIED of everything so I felt we wouldn't be in here long. I was wrong. He immediately gravitated towards the giant spider web thing and we went through twice. It was so hot and humid in this park this morning, even though it was before 10am I was dying in that web. Also Tigger's late night was evident this morning and he had a couple mini melt downs inside the net because I had helped him up and 'he wanted to do it'. Geez...you can't win with this kid sometimes because if I had waited any longer to help him at that one tricky part he would have also ended up falling to pieces because it would have been 'too hard for me!!!" Grrrr. So Grizzly eventually finds us. Tigger wants to sit on the ant and then we have to pry him out of the park to go watch his show. I know we could have stayed longer, but it was soooo hot, all I wanted to do was watch his show and then head to the pool. Before we even get in line Tigger is requesting to go to the bathroom. That's right! Our boy who never asks to go has done a complete 180 and asks to go all the time now. Dad brings him while I get in line. Right before I enter the show room Dad hands Tigger back to me over the rail. We get a seat on the far right side. Dad ends up with standing room at the back. When Tigger spots Dad he bolts and joins him. I'm left sitting watching a kids show with no kid.
However this proved to be an okay spot because I could look behind me and see Tigger's huge smile as his favorite songs played. He even did some of the requested hand motions, like the crocodile chomping which I thought was cool.
He loved the show. Grizzly came out all crooked from holding him for so long. We headed back home to change and head to the Kidani pool for another swim before nap time. All in all a short and sweet visit to the Studios.
Back to the trip...After such a late night I needed a little extra rest. I asked Grizzly to get up with Tigger and then get me up when breakfast was ready. It was bacon day
. Grizzly made some lovely bacon and eggs in a basket for everyone. The eggs in a basket were actually eggs in a mickey head and were very cute. We headed at a leisurely pace over to Hollywood Studios and arrived around 9:38. I looked at the times guide and noticed the first Disney Junior show was at 9:40. Instead of running over and getting a lousy seat we opted to bring Tigger over to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. While I did this Grizzly went and rode Rockin' Roller Coaster and grabbed me a fast pass for Tower of Terror. Last visit to the playground Tigger was TERRIFIED of everything so I felt we wouldn't be in here long. I was wrong. He immediately gravitated towards the giant spider web thing and we went through twice. It was so hot and humid in this park this morning, even though it was before 10am I was dying in that web. Also Tigger's late night was evident this morning and he had a couple mini melt downs inside the net because I had helped him up and 'he wanted to do it'. Geez...you can't win with this kid sometimes because if I had waited any longer to help him at that one tricky part he would have also ended up falling to pieces because it would have been 'too hard for me!!!" Grrrr. So Grizzly eventually finds us. Tigger wants to sit on the ant and then we have to pry him out of the park to go watch his show. I know we could have stayed longer, but it was soooo hot, all I wanted to do was watch his show and then head to the pool. Before we even get in line Tigger is requesting to go to the bathroom. That's right! Our boy who never asks to go has done a complete 180 and asks to go all the time now. Dad brings him while I get in line. Right before I enter the show room Dad hands Tigger back to me over the rail. We get a seat on the far right side. Dad ends up with standing room at the back. When Tigger spots Dad he bolts and joins him. I'm left sitting watching a kids show with no kid.
However this proved to be an okay spot because I could look behind me and see Tigger's huge smile as his favorite songs played. He even did some of the requested hand motions, like the crocodile chomping which I thought was cool. He loved the show. Grizzly came out all crooked from holding him for so long. We headed back home to change and head to the Kidani pool for another swim before nap time. All in all a short and sweet visit to the Studios.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
We made it to the pool by about 11:00am. Again the van service over to Kidani was awesome and totally beat walking in the heat. I think we waited maybe 3 minutes for the van. This trip to the pool Tigger spent much less time in the splash area and only wanted to go down that cool little water slide once. Instead we spent most of our time in the zero entry part of the pool. Tigger was pretending to be a crocodile and he would come bite off bits of us, then he would run to the store to buy replacement parts for whatever had gotten bitten off: "Here Dad, here's a new knee for you".
I had seen the Tandoori Caesar salads on the bar menu last trip and wanted to try those. I ordered two and was very disappointed. For one thing they didn't have tandoori chicken on them, but rather curry chicken. These are two VERY different chicken flavors. It tasted fine, but I was all geared up for some tandoori chicken. (I lived in India for two years, I know my Indian food pretty well and you can't fool me into thinking curry chicken is tandoori chicken, it wasn't even red!!!) Other than that the only thing that made it a caesar salad was the caesar dressing we put on it. The salad consisted of three ingredients: ice burg lettuce, cheese, curry chicken. Edible yes, but not worth the money. Tigger had maybe 1 peanut butter cracker and Grizzly bought him a frozen drink which he ate about half of. So far this trip Tigger has subsisted solely on a box of Cheezit Party Mix and a couple peanut butter crackers.
We had two delicious Safari Ambers to go with our meal. I finally asked who made the beer and the bartender told me cheekily "a very distinguished brewery call Budweiser" except he said Budweiser with a french accent. I asked if it was just a relabeled form of their American Lager or something and he said that they did make is specially for Disney. He told me you can only get it at the lodge and Animal Kingdom. When I told him it was also available in Epcot he seemed very distraught about not having exclusive rights to the Safari Amber.
Dad and Tigger swim for a bit after lunch until Tigger requests a swim diaper change. I notice there are actually some small bits in his diaper so we call it quits and head out. I'm very glad I actually bothered to put him in a swim diaper. We'd given him two doses of a laxative and so far had seen no results so I was playing it safe.
Next up...while Tigger naps I set out on a shopping mission. Will it be a success? You'll have to wait until at least tomorrow because now the time is getting to me and I'm suddenly exhausted. Bed here I come!!!
(While I've been typing this I think I heard Tigger fall out of bed. He insisted on sleeping with his giant Minnie and his giant Mickey from our last trip, so there was barely any room for him on the bed. I should probably go check on him before I hit the sack. Off to bed, see you tomorrow)
I had seen the Tandoori Caesar salads on the bar menu last trip and wanted to try those. I ordered two and was very disappointed. For one thing they didn't have tandoori chicken on them, but rather curry chicken. These are two VERY different chicken flavors. It tasted fine, but I was all geared up for some tandoori chicken. (I lived in India for two years, I know my Indian food pretty well and you can't fool me into thinking curry chicken is tandoori chicken, it wasn't even red!!!) Other than that the only thing that made it a caesar salad was the caesar dressing we put on it. The salad consisted of three ingredients: ice burg lettuce, cheese, curry chicken. Edible yes, but not worth the money. Tigger had maybe 1 peanut butter cracker and Grizzly bought him a frozen drink which he ate about half of. So far this trip Tigger has subsisted solely on a box of Cheezit Party Mix and a couple peanut butter crackers.
We had two delicious Safari Ambers to go with our meal. I finally asked who made the beer and the bartender told me cheekily "a very distinguished brewery call Budweiser" except he said Budweiser with a french accent. I asked if it was just a relabeled form of their American Lager or something and he said that they did make is specially for Disney. He told me you can only get it at the lodge and Animal Kingdom. When I told him it was also available in Epcot he seemed very distraught about not having exclusive rights to the Safari Amber.
Dad and Tigger swim for a bit after lunch until Tigger requests a swim diaper change. I notice there are actually some small bits in his diaper so we call it quits and head out. I'm very glad I actually bothered to put him in a swim diaper. We'd given him two doses of a laxative and so far had seen no results so I was playing it safe.
Next up...while Tigger naps I set out on a shopping mission. Will it be a success? You'll have to wait until at least tomorrow because now the time is getting to me and I'm suddenly exhausted. Bed here I come!!!
(While I've been typing this I think I heard Tigger fall out of bed. He insisted on sleeping with his giant Minnie and his giant Mickey from our last trip, so there was barely any room for him on the bed. I should probably go check on him before I hit the sack. Off to bed, see you tomorrow)
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
Grizzly was in charge of putting Tigger down for a nap while I began my quest. This would be a challenging quest as it involved getting into a park I didn't have a ticket to. I had seen a bathing suit at Blizzard Beach the day before and I decided I really needed to go back and get it. Except it was at Blizzard Beach, and I didn't have any ticket to get into Blizzard Beach. Instead of taking the bus all the way over there only to find out I wouldn't be let in, I stopped at the concierge and asked what their opinion was on my chances of being let in. She seemed to think they were slim, but I asked if she could call someone at Blizzard Beach and ask. She requested 'Guest Services' at Blizzard Beach and whomever she spoke with said that they have a 30 minute shoppers pass wherein you can run into the park for 30 minutes and if you come back in time and are dry they refund your money. It sounded perfect so I walked down to the bus stop and my bus pixie brought the bus right as I was walking up. Perfect timing again!!!
I noticed that my Blizzard Beach bus was also a Disney Hollywood Studios bus, so I made note to go back to the same stop because I wanted to go to HS next. I asked the ticket agent about the shoppers pass and she kind of laughed at me and was really mean. She told me they stopped that over 2 years ago. When I told her my concierge had just spoken to someone at Blizzard Beach she was indignant and said that her phone hadn't rung in over an hour. Grrrr... This was a nasty cast member. I asked if there was any way I could get in to just go try on a swimsuit. She kind of growled at me but eventually decided to give me a Florida Resident after 2pm ticket. Yes I was in! I went and tried on the cute Billa Bong flamingo covered bikini. I chose a small and medium to try on not knowing what would fit best. The answer, NEITHER. I'm not sure who this company is making swimsuits for but the bottom did not cover nearly enough of my bottom. Way to small. Why they are even selling this at a water park is questionable because it certainly wouldn't stay on on any of the slides. Sadly I left the park empty handed and headed over to HS.
Cue the bus pixie as my bus showed up just as I got to the stop. I hopped on and headed over to HS with two goals. First, ride Rockin Roller Coaster, second check out my Muppet Store in the back of the park. My mission went smoothly and I found this great new hat:
I adore wearing silly hats in Disney and every visit we bring back our ears and goofy hats to wear again. Grizzly enjoys matching hats with me, and we hope that Tigger will want to someday too.
I texted Grizzly on the way back that he should be ready to run over to Animal Kingdom to ride Everest when I got back. When I got back he was still on the couch. Hmm...Why aren't you ready? Get a move on, someone needs to ride Everest this trip and it will take you less time because you can drive the car. Get moving!!! So he moved and he returned in high spirits as he had time to ride Everest and Dinosaur before his 5pm curfew.
I noticed that my Blizzard Beach bus was also a Disney Hollywood Studios bus, so I made note to go back to the same stop because I wanted to go to HS next. I asked the ticket agent about the shoppers pass and she kind of laughed at me and was really mean. She told me they stopped that over 2 years ago. When I told her my concierge had just spoken to someone at Blizzard Beach she was indignant and said that her phone hadn't rung in over an hour. Grrrr... This was a nasty cast member. I asked if there was any way I could get in to just go try on a swimsuit. She kind of growled at me but eventually decided to give me a Florida Resident after 2pm ticket. Yes I was in! I went and tried on the cute Billa Bong flamingo covered bikini. I chose a small and medium to try on not knowing what would fit best. The answer, NEITHER. I'm not sure who this company is making swimsuits for but the bottom did not cover nearly enough of my bottom. Way to small. Why they are even selling this at a water park is questionable because it certainly wouldn't stay on on any of the slides. Sadly I left the park empty handed and headed over to HS.
Cue the bus pixie as my bus showed up just as I got to the stop. I hopped on and headed over to HS with two goals. First, ride Rockin Roller Coaster, second check out my Muppet Store in the back of the park. My mission went smoothly and I found this great new hat:
I adore wearing silly hats in Disney and every visit we bring back our ears and goofy hats to wear again. Grizzly enjoys matching hats with me, and we hope that Tigger will want to someday too.
I texted Grizzly on the way back that he should be ready to run over to Animal Kingdom to ride Everest when I got back. When I got back he was still on the couch. Hmm...Why aren't you ready? Get a move on, someone needs to ride Everest this trip and it will take you less time because you can drive the car. Get moving!!! So he moved and he returned in high spirits as he had time to ride Everest and Dinosaur before his 5pm curfew.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
We chose to spend our last night at Downtown Disney. While we both really wanted to go to MK, we knew that would leave us out to late and we would be way too tired for our journey home the next day. We brought Tigger to the toy store and let him pick out one toy. I showed him Lotsa again, the strawberry smelling bear, and after that he went around smelling ALL the animals to see what they smelled like. He wandered around and held various animals for various lengths of time. He held a giant Nemo for the longest time before he found the Daisy section. He then put Nemo back in favor of Daisy. This is his third Daisy that he has picked out. Since he really liked Nemo too we got him both Nemo and Daisy. He now owns three Daisies.
While we were shopping it began raining. Hard. I would say like cats and dogs, but it was really more like elephants and hippos. It was the first rain of the trip. We darted over to Earl of Sandwich and got some dinner. Tigger ate a tiny bite of his peanut butter sandwich, and the whipped cream off his strawberry shortcake. After dinner Grizzly ventured out with Tigger to go play in the fountains. They had a blast and when the rain slowed down I was able to grab a couple of pictures:
Before we left Grizzly wanted to find a new something, so we wandered around the Disney store for a bit until he found his hat. I started hunting for the Oswald ears I had seen on someone earlier in the trip, but was having no luck. A cast member suggested asking information, so I asked. This was awesome! They could look up any product sold anywhere in the entire park. They also knew what was in stock and what wasn't. She told me the only place that had the Oswald ears was in the Emporium in the MK. Hmm...It was 7:30pm at this point and the MK closed at 9pm. But I HAD to have those ears. While we were waiting to ask information Tigger covered himself in stickers:
I had Grizzly drop me off at the MK. He was certain there was a drop off area, so he drove over towards BLT. There wasn't one. We turned into BLT and the guard said dropping people off was strictly prohibited, and that I would have to go to the TTC. Ugh. Grizzly made a right out of BLT instead of a left and we quickly saw signs saying we weren't supposed to be there. At this point I may or may not have illegally jumped out of the car. But in the end I made it into the MK and across Main Street into the Emporium just before the Electric Parade started. I had to ask two separate cast members where the Oswald ears were but eventually found them and then scurried out of the park. In mid parade there is a gap and they let people run across the street. I was one of those people and I made it back onto a bus before the masses of people joined us.
Back home at the resort I gave Grizzly another mission. He was to run back to downtown disney to get our ears embroidered. We chose our nickname 'llama' to be on the back since we both call each other llama all the time. Our other ears say Grizzly and Weasel. So off he went on his mission while I packed up our room. He returned with treats and we spent the final last evening drinking the remainder of our beer and snuggling on the couch. Here are my new totally awesome ears, I can't wait to wear them next trip:
Also in the picture is my fleecy couch blanket that I will never again travel without. It was so nice to be cozy on the couch with it all week.
Now previous to his return I posted up a post with lots of pictures. Except since I was working on my phone I had written down all the IMGUR links by hand. Well apparently my hand writing wasn't very clear, and about half of my links ended up being wrong. VERY WRONG. As various pictures of *****es had shown up. YIKES!!!! Luckily I noticed this and was able to delete the post within about 30 seconds. But total YIKES! I replaced the links, most of them were only off by one capital letter, like I had typed b, but the link needed a B. Lesson learned from this: FIND A WAY TO COPY AND PASTE THE IMGUR LINKS!!!
I slept on the couch this last night so that I could get some sleep and our alarms wouldn't wake up Tigger. Note to those putting a child on the pull out couch. DO NOT put them in the middle of the couch. The middle is very uncomfortable, some sort of bar is there. Either side of the bar however is fine.
I'm not going to do an entire post on our trip home. Just know that it was uneventful and our direct flight to Buffalo actually was direct. Yeah for 2 hr and 35 minute flight. Much more pleasant than the way down.
While we were shopping it began raining. Hard. I would say like cats and dogs, but it was really more like elephants and hippos. It was the first rain of the trip. We darted over to Earl of Sandwich and got some dinner. Tigger ate a tiny bite of his peanut butter sandwich, and the whipped cream off his strawberry shortcake. After dinner Grizzly ventured out with Tigger to go play in the fountains. They had a blast and when the rain slowed down I was able to grab a couple of pictures:
Before we left Grizzly wanted to find a new something, so we wandered around the Disney store for a bit until he found his hat. I started hunting for the Oswald ears I had seen on someone earlier in the trip, but was having no luck. A cast member suggested asking information, so I asked. This was awesome! They could look up any product sold anywhere in the entire park. They also knew what was in stock and what wasn't. She told me the only place that had the Oswald ears was in the Emporium in the MK. Hmm...It was 7:30pm at this point and the MK closed at 9pm. But I HAD to have those ears. While we were waiting to ask information Tigger covered himself in stickers:
I had Grizzly drop me off at the MK. He was certain there was a drop off area, so he drove over towards BLT. There wasn't one. We turned into BLT and the guard said dropping people off was strictly prohibited, and that I would have to go to the TTC. Ugh. Grizzly made a right out of BLT instead of a left and we quickly saw signs saying we weren't supposed to be there. At this point I may or may not have illegally jumped out of the car. But in the end I made it into the MK and across Main Street into the Emporium just before the Electric Parade started. I had to ask two separate cast members where the Oswald ears were but eventually found them and then scurried out of the park. In mid parade there is a gap and they let people run across the street. I was one of those people and I made it back onto a bus before the masses of people joined us.
Back home at the resort I gave Grizzly another mission. He was to run back to downtown disney to get our ears embroidered. We chose our nickname 'llama' to be on the back since we both call each other llama all the time. Our other ears say Grizzly and Weasel. So off he went on his mission while I packed up our room. He returned with treats and we spent the final last evening drinking the remainder of our beer and snuggling on the couch. Here are my new totally awesome ears, I can't wait to wear them next trip:
Also in the picture is my fleecy couch blanket that I will never again travel without. It was so nice to be cozy on the couch with it all week.
Now previous to his return I posted up a post with lots of pictures. Except since I was working on my phone I had written down all the IMGUR links by hand. Well apparently my hand writing wasn't very clear, and about half of my links ended up being wrong. VERY WRONG. As various pictures of *****es had shown up. YIKES!!!! Luckily I noticed this and was able to delete the post within about 30 seconds. But total YIKES! I replaced the links, most of them were only off by one capital letter, like I had typed b, but the link needed a B. Lesson learned from this: FIND A WAY TO COPY AND PASTE THE IMGUR LINKS!!!
I slept on the couch this last night so that I could get some sleep and our alarms wouldn't wake up Tigger. Note to those putting a child on the pull out couch. DO NOT put them in the middle of the couch. The middle is very uncomfortable, some sort of bar is there. Either side of the bar however is fine.
I'm not going to do an entire post on our trip home. Just know that it was uneventful and our direct flight to Buffalo actually was direct. Yeah for 2 hr and 35 minute flight. Much more pleasant than the way down.
DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
I thought I would add one final post with a sort of trip summary of the highlights and the low lights. Here goes:
The Good
1. The Value 1BR at AKV
I know I started off disliking this room, but in the end it worked for us.
We had enough space, and this trip only cost of 117 points so we can't complain.
2. Potty Training
I was completely and utterly shocked by how well Tigger did.
Not a single accident the entire trip. He ended up using the big bathrooms, and he even started asking us to go.
It couldn't have gone better. Go Tigger!!!
3. The Kidani Pool
Loved this pool and can't wait to have it nearby for our trip next January.
Hopefully there will be a day warm enough to swim.
4. Interactive Queue Areas at the MK
The Dumbo play area and the Winnie the Pooh play area were better than the rides in Tigger's eyes. Well done Disney.
5. Just getting a chance to hang out with my boy and play and have fun for an entire week.
6. The Bus Service was awesome this week!!!! Thank you pixies!!
7. The grouchy cast member who let me into Blizzard Beach without a ticket in order to go buy a swimsuit.
The Bad
1. The woodpecker that lived in our fridge. He was so loud I even opened the freezer to see if there was an ice maker I could turn off, there wasn't.
2. The 13 hour marathon nap Tigger took our first day preventing us from leaving the room. Followed by a 3am wake-up.
3. The night we spent trying to get Tigger to poop. He ended up only going once the whole trip on the very last day. Poor guy, he was definitely uncomfortable many times.
5. Having the trip be 1 day shorter than normal. I didn't realize how much shorter 1 day really is. We didn't even make it over to animal kingdom this week and our time in Epcot and HS totaled maybe 4 hours.
6. Blizzard Beach!!!! Epic fail for us. Complete waste of $131. Lesson learned, we'll not be returning for a few years.
It's been a pleasure trip reporting with you. Sorry about the mammoth pictures, if anyone knows an easy way to make them smaller I'm all ears.
We have a trip planned in January, but I'm not even going to get excited about it. We are taking my MIL, and things have the potential to go terribly wrong. So I figure if I don't get excited the trip will not be ruined because I wasn't expecting anything. If the trip turns out great, then BONUS TRIP!!! See you in January for a Kidani 2 BR stay.
The Good
1. The Value 1BR at AKV
I know I started off disliking this room, but in the end it worked for us.
We had enough space, and this trip only cost of 117 points so we can't complain.
2. Potty Training
I was completely and utterly shocked by how well Tigger did.
Not a single accident the entire trip. He ended up using the big bathrooms, and he even started asking us to go.
It couldn't have gone better. Go Tigger!!!
3. The Kidani Pool
Loved this pool and can't wait to have it nearby for our trip next January.
Hopefully there will be a day warm enough to swim.
4. Interactive Queue Areas at the MK
The Dumbo play area and the Winnie the Pooh play area were better than the rides in Tigger's eyes. Well done Disney.
5. Just getting a chance to hang out with my boy and play and have fun for an entire week.
6. The Bus Service was awesome this week!!!! Thank you pixies!!
7. The grouchy cast member who let me into Blizzard Beach without a ticket in order to go buy a swimsuit.
The Bad
1. The woodpecker that lived in our fridge. He was so loud I even opened the freezer to see if there was an ice maker I could turn off, there wasn't.
2. The 13 hour marathon nap Tigger took our first day preventing us from leaving the room. Followed by a 3am wake-up.
3. The night we spent trying to get Tigger to poop. He ended up only going once the whole trip on the very last day. Poor guy, he was definitely uncomfortable many times.
5. Having the trip be 1 day shorter than normal.
I didn't realize how much shorter 1 day really is. We didn't even make it over to animal kingdom this week and our time in Epcot and HS totaled maybe 4 hours. 6. Blizzard Beach!!!! Epic fail for us. Complete waste of $131. Lesson learned, we'll not be returning for a few years.
It's been a pleasure trip reporting with you. Sorry about the mammoth pictures, if anyone knows an easy way to make them smaller I'm all ears.
We have a trip planned in January, but I'm not even going to get excited about it. We are taking my MIL, and things have the potential to go terribly wrong. So I figure if I don't get excited the trip will not be ruined because I wasn't expecting anything. If the trip turns out great, then BONUS TRIP!!! See you in January for a Kidani 2 BR stay.
lilpooh108
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2010
Loved the rest of your TR! Good job w/the potty training! It was cute to read about your son smelling all of the stuffed animals 
Sorry to hear that your trip to Blizzard Beach was not fun. DD also hates water hitting her head. I would have been if i had to pay $15 for a locker. Didn't realize it was that expensive!
Thanks for the tip about not putting a child in the middle of the sofa bed.
Hope your upcoming January trip goes well!
Sorry to hear that your trip to Blizzard Beach was not fun. DD also hates water hitting her head. I would have been
if i had to pay $15 for a locker. Didn't realize it was that expensive!Thanks for the tip about not putting a child in the middle of the sofa bed.
Hope your upcoming January trip goes well!
Share this page
GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE
Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.
Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!
Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.
Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!
