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

[dara00]

I'm not sure why it took me SO LONG to find this TR but I finally did, yay! Your kids are precious! I'm kinda in awe of how much yall did and how many characters you met on your first day!

thanks for checking in! yeah, we did awesome on our first day, I was so proud!

 

[dara00]

I am seriously thinking I want to do the Wine & Dine 1/2 Marathon on November 10.

It's been a goal of mine to become a runner. I'm nowhere near there yet...I'm doing the couch to 5K and I'm up to 5 minute run times. Basically I'm doing 2 miles in 30 minutes. Which isn't horrible, but I want to be able to run more and walk less...which is what the Couch to 5K has you do each week. I am planning to do a 5K in June. My husband said if I can manage that, then we can do the 1/2 marathon in Disney!

So November is sooner than the official 1/2 and full marathon in January, but here is why I want to do this one:

I'm not a morning person. This one is at night!
November 10 is my birthday!

So my plan would be to fly down on Thursday night. (Just my husband and me!) On Friday we'd go to the expo and get all signed up. Saturday we'd rest. We'd be up most of the night on Saturday night doing the race and the after party, so we'd sleep on Sunday and possibly fly home Sunday night. If we can, it would be great to add in a park day on Monday and fly home Monday night! I don't know that I want to spend the money for park tickets when we'll only have partial days at the parks, so the plan might be just to be at Epcot at night after the race. Maybe my husband would be willing to stay on site if we weren't also paying for park tickets???

 

[dara00]

It was now 10 AM and we had on our plan that we wanted to meet Alice at 10:30, so we took the opportunity to do a few more rides. First requested - Small Town!

Next up - Slow Pass! (the Peoplemover, or as Zachary says now, the Peoplemove.)

I like this ride for seeing all the sights. The kids enjoyed it too - mostly!

The part the kids didn't like so much was the inside of Space Mountain! They are just a little scared of the dark. So I took a picture!

More views from the ride:

Exiting the ride, I had my one scary experience of being alone with the kids at the park. Gabbie and I (holding Simon) stepped onto the moving walkway to go back down to Tomorrowland. And Zachary didn't step on! So I was moving farther away from him and he was afraid to step! Luckily, a man (obviously a father) came up behind Zachary and quickly asked if he could pick him up. I said yes, and Zachary was delivered safely to my side!

It was now 10:30, but we didn't make it back to Alice right away - we got distracted by shiny things. Pins! I had thought we wouldn't have much time for pin trading and didn't buy any ahead of time, which might have been a good idea. But suddenly we decided to become pin traders. I bought Gabbie a Tinkerbell set with the lanyard and 4 pins. Zachary picked out a black Disney lanyard and a pin set of Buzz and the alien guys from Toy Story (2 pins). I got a locking back set for my Kermit wearing Mickey ears pin that kept falling off! I made conversation with the CM at the stand - she was from a town in NJ that I knew (I grew up in NJ and moved to Kansas 2 years ago), only I was confusing her town with a different town! Oh well, I tried.

So, I don't have pictures or info on when exactly the kids traded pins, but I do know that Zachary switched out his alien pin for a Mickey pin which he later traded for a Donald and then traded that one for a different Mickey pin! He was so cute with trading - he would look at the pins and then very seriously point out which pin he wanted. I had to remind him that to get a new pin he would have to trade one of his! He knew he wanted to keep Buzz, so he kept trading his other pin.

Gabbie was a little more picky about which pins she wanted. She thought she would trade 3 Tinkerbells and keep 1, but she wasn't sure which to keep. She had an Ariel pin at one point and then she had a cute Minnie Mouse, but that one fell off and she lost it. She wanted a Mary Poppins pin so I bought her that one and put a locking back on it - after I finally figured out how to use the locking backs! In our next line I was fighting with the mechanism and ended up dropping and losing the key that locks the pins! Luckily at another stand later the CM there taught me how to do it, and gave me a new set! More about pin trading later. And since I've babbled on, I'll end this update here!

 

[marDgreen88]

Hahaha, I was wondering what your title meant!

I totally agree, the views from the PeopleMover are incredible!

 

[OziJo]

Ooooo we didn't do the "Slow Pass" ride. Now I wish we had. Nice pics

 

[dara00]

Hahaha, I was wondering what your title meant!

I totally agree, the views from the PeopleMover are incredible!

If you look back to Day 1 (in the chapter links), I explained when he first started calling it that! It had something to do with fast pass and that ride not having fast passes, I think!

Ooooo we didn't do the "Slow Pass" ride. Now I wish we had. Nice pics

It's a nice relaxing one which we wouldn't have gotten to do without coming back for day 2! you'll have to try it next time!

 

[dara00]

11 AM

Like I said before, I tried to get my locking backs to work on my pin while we waited for our next character greet. I'm not too sure what the kids were doing in line, but they weren't complaining! After we waited for a bit, it was our turn to meet Alice and the White Rabbit.

I love this picture!

From there, we headed towards Main Street with the goal of meeting Snow White. We stopped on the way for some photopass pictures and of course some of my own!

Gabbie did the magic Tinkerbell shot:

Zachary didn't want to get a magic shot. By the time we got to Snow White, her line was closed. We took note of when to come back, got fastpasses for the Princesses and Mickey (where the CM tried to stop me, thinking I was trying to enter Mary Poppins' line), and decided to take a ride on the railroad.

View from the railroad station:

Originally I wanted to just take the train to Frontierland, but I couldn't fold the stroller with the things I had underneath, so we decided to go all the way around. Next up: all the things we saw along the way.

 

[marDgreen88]

Great pictures! I'd love to meet the white rabbit.

 

[Moodyzblu]

I love the pics of Alice and the White Rabbit !! They're my dd, Jills, favorites.

The pics of Gabbie and Tink are great .. how cool is that ??

 

[PirateKate]

I can't believe how much you all did on the first day! I don't think I'd ever be able to stick to that much of a schedule with my boys. Actually, I probably couldn't stick to the schedule even without them.

Running the half marathon sounds exciting. I'm thinking of trying it, too. Or maybe the Tower of Terror Ten Miler instead. Just in case those last three miles are the hardest.

 

[dara00]

Great pictures! I'd love to meet the white rabbit.

He's really cute!

I love the pics of Alice and the White Rabbit !! They're my dd, Jills, favorites.

The pics of Gabbie and Tink are great .. how cool is that ??

Thanks! It was our first (and only) magic photopass picture and it was fun!

I can't believe how much you all did on the first day! I don't think I'd ever be able to stick to that much of a schedule with my boys. Actually, I probably couldn't stick to the schedule even without them.

Running the half marathon sounds exciting. I'm thinking of trying it, too. Or maybe the Tower of Terror Ten Miler instead. Just in case those last three miles are the hardest.

I know, I was so proud we pulled it off. Day 2 was much more relaxed.

I originally was looking at the info for the Tower of Terror Ten Miler but just below it I saw the info for the Wine & Dine 1/2 and saw it's on my birthday, so I was sold! From what I've read so far though, everyone says mile 12 is the hardest!

 

[Nermel9]

Hi, I'm sorry it took me so long to realize you have a TR going on! I'm here now, though! I just wanted to sub, but I have to go back and catch up, so it might take me a day or two, but I'm here!

 

[dara00]

Hi, I'm sorry it took me so long to realize you have a TR going on! I'm here now, though! I just wanted to sub, but I have to go back and catch up, so it might take me a day or two, but I'm here!

thanks for joining in!

 

[dara00]

11:50 AM
We got ourselves settled on the train, towards the back, as the conductor told us that the people in the back get a longer ride.

The train can be interesting because you get to see the outskirts of the lands. This was behind Frontierland:

The work on BTMR (it was cute, the construction workers all waved!):

Part of the Jungle Cruise:

They also have lots of pretend scenery to look at:

Then we went behind the Fantasyland construction and I took a picture of the poster.

When we got back, we had to go down the exit ramp and back up the entrance ramp to get our stroller back - fun. Then the kids got some pressed pennies under the train station. When we got back onto Main Street we saw:

We also saw the Mayor a bit farther down on the street but he was talking to someone else. We were hungry, so we kept going. I tried to get a few balloon pictures:

We went to Cosmic Ray's Cafe for lunch. I got a veggie burger and for the kids I asked if I could have cheese sandwiches instead of turkey for the kids' meals they offer. They said yes, but it was confusing for the workers to figure out what we wanted and we had to wait a little while, meanwhile blocking all the people behind us. Oops. Luckily though a CM helped me carry our tray to the condiment bar and a table. Simon had fallen asleep, so the big kids had their sandwiches and chocolate milk and we saved yogurt and grapes for Simon.

Next up: we watch a show!

 

[marDgreen88]

I can't believe I've never ridden the train before! Lots of cool sights to see!

 

[dara00]

I can't believe I've never ridden the train before! Lots of cool sights to see!

haha, yeah, the train is great fun if you're 4!

 

[dara00]

1:15 PM
It was time to watch the Dream Along With Mickey show! This had been on our original day 1 plan but it didn't end up fitting in. Today it worked out perfectly. Simon was still sleeping:

Zachary was very interested in the show - he'd watched a bit of it on youtube and wanted to see it for real!

Some pictures of the show:

Zachary watching again:

Ooh, fireworks:

After the show, we were ready to meet more characters. On our way, Gabbie tried on some hats:

Stay tuned to see who we planned to meet next!

 

[marDgreen88]

Aw, gotta love Dream Along with Mickey! It's such a cute show. In one picture, Goofy looks like he's really gettin down!

 

[Moodyzblu]

I actually enjoy the train ride ! It's nice and relaxing (like the people mover )

So sad to see BTMR is closed. We're gonna miss it on our trip.

Gabbie and the hat pics so cute !!

 

[dara00]

Aw, gotta love Dream Along with Mickey! It's such a cute show. In one picture, Goofy looks like he's really gettin down!

We enjoyed it! The day before I'd heard the random fireworks from the show and didn't know what they were from! it's cool that they have random fireworks during the day.

I actually enjoy the train ride ! It's nice and relaxing (like the people mover )

So sad to see BTMR is closed. We're gonna miss it on our trip.

Gabbie and the hat pics so cute !!

Yeah I guess it was kinda relaxing. We got to do another slow "relaxing" ride later, stay tuned!

I think Zachary would have liked BTMR and I'm sad it was closed too. Another reason to go back!

Thanks!