Lace up your sneakers for Christmas week til New Years if you think you can keep up!!

[Grumpy's Wife]

You did more by 11:00 in the morning than some people do all day. We always do the early EMH's. You just proved how much you can accomplish while everyone is still sleeping. I have two teenagers who like to sleep in but they know when we are at Disney we are at all the parks by rope drop. They really don't complain because they appreciate the little to no lines. What time did the Magic Kingdom open that you had to wake at 5:30?

 

[Purpleblanket]

You did more by 11:00 in the morning than some people do all day. We always do the early EMH's. You just proved how much you can accomplish while everyone is still sleeping. I have two teenagers who like to sleep in but they know when we are at Disney we are at all the parks by rope drop. They really don't complain because they appreciate the little to no lines. What time did the Magic Kingdom open that you had to wake at 5:30?

MK opened at 7 am. We used Ridemax.com for plans and we were at our bus stop at 6 am and arrived at MK about 6:45 am.

We are so glad we did this. It was nice to do the parks without the crowds!

Debbie

 

[Purpleblanket]

Good Morning!
Adding a few more photos from our morning at MK

Country Bears Jamboree:

Waiting for MK to open:

Around the Pop Century Hotel:

This is in the lobby:

This is the arcade off the lobby:

The Christmas tree in the lobby:

More of the room:

The Dream along with Mickey Show:

more pics to follow in next installment. I couldn't get them all on here.

 

[Purpleblanket]

The Christmas Parade:

The Grand Floridian Again:

More towel animals waiting for us when we went back to hotel for our afternoon break:

By this time... it's about 1:00 pm and we've gone back to our room and had some lunch at the food court. It's time for a nap and a shower to get ready for our ADR's at Cinderella's castle at 6 pm.

At about 2 pm DS announces "Mom.... I don't think I'm feeling well, but I think it might be something I ate!" as he runs to the bathroom!
OH NO!!!!
Stay tuned to see if we make our ADR!!!

Debbie

 

[NateNLogansDad]

Hey Deb! Just found your Trip report and am loving the pics. I CAN NOT WAIT to go back!

I read all about your trip down to FL with customs and the bag and everything with my jaw sitting in my lap. Poor things! We have been there, done that, and planning around it happening again.

Now with the kids sick, this is looking like my luck 100%

I hope you guys still had a great time and can't wait for the next installment.

 

[Purpleblanket]

Hey Deb! Just found your Trip report and am loving the pics. I CAN NOT WAIT to go back!

I read all about your trip down to FL with customs and the bag and everything with my jaw sitting in my lap. Poor things! We have been there, done that, and planning around it happening again.

Now with the kids sick, this is looking like my luck 100%

I hope you guys still had a great time and can't wait for the next installment.

Thanks for stopping by!! I was afraid I'd bored everyone with my long "intro"
but I think it was therapeutic for me to write about it and just get it out so I can forget about it!
You never know what will happen when travelling and how do you be prepared for everything that may happen? I guess you do your best and then you have to go with it. I had sent myself a quote to my trip file because I didn't know where to store it and DS at home sent it to me at the time.
It said " LIFE IS WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE, IT'S HOW WE DEAL WITH IT THAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE" - I sure needed to hear that then.

Debbie

 

[NateNLogansDad]

I just made that my status of Facebook

One thing that really made a difference for me this year was my first Smartphone. I love having the internet in my pocket. I emailed myself EVERY piece of information I could possibly need before we left and saved it all in my Disney Folder. I also saved it on my laptop, kept the itinerary and plane tickets in my bag and a copy in Tina's. I'm an idiot most of the time and redundancy has saved my butt several times so far

 

[Purpleblanket]

Well we left off as Jamie was starting to feel sick.
So we figured we would just take it as it comes and see how he feels.
He had all afternoon to "be sick" and take it easy.
So for the next 3 or 4 hours he spent it going back and forth to the bathroom.

We knew we needed to leave the hotel by 5 to make it for our ADR at Cinderella's Royal Table and by then he announced that he felt better and wanted to come but probably wouldn't eat anything.
Now, if we were at home and just going out for any ole dinner we would have cancelled, BUT this is CRT and we'd already paid for it.

So with plastic garbage bags in tow... we head for the bus.
We are almost at MK and so far.. so good. but just as we pull in and people are getting off the bus he's not looking so good again. My DH shielded him as he "you know what" in the bag! At least we were stopped and people were getting off the bus so he didn't cause a scene or gross anyone out.

From there, we just slowly made our way to the castle stopping along the way so he could rest.

This was a really nasty bug. Just 24 hours... cleans you out, makes you weak, you need to sleep and then you're good to go again!!
So he was now at the weak needing to sleep point.

We checked in for dinner and he could barely stand. Just sat on the bench.
When it was time to take photos with Cinderella he just couldn't do it.

We asked for a table closest to the bathroom (for obvious reasons) so that kind of sucked but it's what we needed to do.

He spent dinner with his head on the table! Poor kid and did a couple trips to the bathroom. Our server was excellent and we ordered sick son's dinner to go (since it was already paid for)



Waiting to go into the Castle ( I know... I'm such a mean mom taking a photo of sick kid)

This is how he spent his time at the dinner table:

In the meantime, the rest of us might as well have fun with our new magic wands! Maybe we can put cast a magic spell to make Jamie feel better!

BTW.... He's going to kill me if he ever finds this TR on the DIS BOARDS!!

Then dinner came out.
Chloe had the chicken pasta dish;

I had the prime rib:

And Rene had the duck:

And we spotted "Gus-Gus and Jaq" hiding in the upper corner spying on us!

And then the Princesses came to visit! I think this was the hardest part for Jamie.... that he missed the visits with the princesses. But they all felt sorry for him and wished him well

So after dinner was over.. Jamie still wasn't doing too well and DH took him back downstairs and was going to take him back to hotel except that he couldn't even walk. The Castmates working at the front desk found them a wheel chair and DH took Jamie back to the bus and to the hotel and got him settled into bed and we made arrangements that we would meet back up with him when he got back to the park.
In the meantime, Chloe and I continued on with the plan for our evening in MK

Since we were ahead of time on our plan I told her we could go to all the little shops in Fantasy land now that she missed earlier in the day.
so we roamed around Snow White's store and Winnie the Pooh store and Peter Pan's store. She bought a couple "grumpy" t-shirts at snow white which was pretty appropriate!!

Con't next post

 

[Slatas]

I'm following along... Great TR so far, love all the awesome photos. Its great to read when people include all the drama in their TR's, so I don't feel like I'm the only one that things happen to...

 

[Purpleblanket]

I'm following along... Great TR so far, love all the awesome photos. Its great to read when people include all the drama in their TR's, so I don't feel like I'm the only one that things happen to...

And I thought I was the only one!!

Thanks for joining in!! Some of my photos aren't the best quality, but they get the point across!!


Debbie

 

[Purpleblanket]

So for the rest of the evening Chloe and I roamed around until DH came back to join us.

We shopped a bit and then rode the Carosel and then we went to Mickey's Philharmagic! We loved that!

Then on to Minnie and Mickey's house and we rode the Barnstormer!
For 2 grown women getting on the barnstormer, it was probably more funny than lame. But it was fun and we laughed.

Minnie's Fridge:

Chloe loved Minnie's list of things to do for her day and she enjoyed Minnie's Diet Cookies too!

And we watched her cake rise too:

Then over to Mickey's house:

By this time... we got the text from DH that he was just about back at the park. Chloe and I took the Railroad to the front of the park to meet up with him in and get a spot for the Main Street Electrical Parade!

I know.. I know.. it feels like this day goes on forever!! lol
I told you we got a lot done!

 

[TanzUnited99]

Have just caught up with your TR and can't believe the way the trip started! Am glad you managed to get all your plans back safely especially after the amount of time invested in them

on getting lots done on your MK day! Is making me rethink my idea of choosing sleep over early EMHs. Looking forward to reading more

 

[Purpleblanket]

Have just caught up with your TR and can't believe the way the trip started! Am glad you managed to get all your plans back safely especially after the amount of time invested in them

on getting lots done on your MK day! Is making me rethink my idea of choosing sleep over early EMHs. Looking forward to reading more

Thanks for joining in! Yes.... I highly recommend getting up for those EMH!
You can sleep later in the afternoon when the parks are crazy busy!! And then later in the evening when everyone takes the little ones back to put to bed you can enjoy the parks again!

And yes... thank goodness I got all my plans back!!! The ridemax plans worked out just great! I highly recommend the site! It was worth the 20 bucks!

Debbie

 

[Purpleblanket]

So we left off with Chloe and I getting on the railroad to meet up with Rene:

Once we met up with Rene we decided to Ride Buzz Light Year as there was no wait time;
I tried to manouever both controllers and had really bad scores with both!!

And if you think we haven't done enough today, well we decide to end it with the Wishes Fireworks!!! But... before we get our spot for wishes we realize that we still have 4 fastpasses to splash mountain and 5 fastpasses for Space Mountain!!
Since we'd already done space mountain and it was really Jamie that wanted to do it again we decided to find a nice unsuspecting family to give them to!!
So we went on a hunt!! We spotted what appeared to be Mom, Dad and 3 kids around the ages of 12 - 15 and asked if they'd like 5 fastpasses to Space
Mountain!! It was about 9;30 pm and the lines were crazy and the fastpasses were gone for the day!! Well... this family was so excited when they realized what we were offering! So that felt so good to "make" someone's day!
Then to try to give away the splash mountain tickets! That was another story as it was so cold tonight. Nobody wanted them!!!

We decided we needed to find a group of young teenagers that don't care about the cold!! SUCCESS!! We made another group happy!!

Then on to watch the Wishes Fireworks!!

Then we found a spot for the Wishes Fireworks and finished off the evening with the Main Street Electrical Parade:

There is no way to do the fireworks justice with a photo! They were just so awesome. That's all I can say.

So now we are going to call it a night!! And go see how poor Jamie is making out back at the hotel.

Here's a recap of everything we did on Day 2 at MK:
Rope drop in the morning
Tomorrowland Speedway
Mad Tea Party
Met Mary Poppins
Winnie the Pooh
Snow White's Scary Adventure
Peter Pan's Flight
It's a small World
Haunted Mansion
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Pirates of the Caribbean
Jungle Cruise
Aladdin's Magic Carpets
Got fastpasses for Splash Mountain -even though we decided to pass them along later
Tiki Room under new management
Country Bear Jamboree
Space Mountain
Met Donald Duck and Jasmine and Alladin
Carosel of Progress
Dream along with Mickey Show
Merry Christmas Parade
rode the monorail to Grand Floridian to check out the gingerbread house and christmas decorations

Went back to hotel: Rested, showered, had lunch, and attended to a sick kid back at hotel

Dinner at Cinderella's Castle
Mickey's Philharmagic
Minnie and MIckey's house
Goofy's barnstormer
Buzz Lightyear
Wishes Fireworks
Main St Electrical Parade

Actually the fireworks were before the parade! so we finally left the park at about 11;30 pm and we got back to Pop shortly after midnight!

My Goodness... I can't believe we actually got this much done myself!!

Next up is another big Day: Day 3 at Animal Kingdom!!
Do you think my kids can keep up?

Debbie

P.S. If any of this posting is out of order, I apologize!! I've had so much trouble with Photobucket tonight and I'm done and it is what it is!! lol

 

[TanzUnited99]

Wow that list is very impressive!

Thanks for the advice...will definitely take it on board. Had already looked into Ridemax and will be using it in the near future

Hope Jamie feels better soon, everyone manages to keep up at AK and you have another great day!

 

[Purpleblanket]

DAY 3 - Dec 29/10 - Animal Kingdom in the morning

Today is another 7 am EMH hours and again we are planning on 2 parks today so we want to take adavantage of those early hours at AK.

I set the alarm for our 5:30 wake up call from Mickey and fall asleep promptly.

5:30 came real fast!! I got up and got myself ready!! (Those curtains separating the sink area from the rest of the room are just great at Pop Century as it lets the rest of the group still have darkness for sleeping while I was getting ready at the sink area)

Once me and DH were up and just about ready we tried to wake DS and DD.
They mumbled that they weren't coming!!

DS still needed some more sleep and DD just wanted to sleep in and be more spontaneous today!! OKAY!! We said, but we're off and we'll see you later when we come back to hotel for our afternoon break!

So it was just DH and myself that headed out into the cool Florida morning heading for AK!

We arrived just before 7 am! (I've read on the dis boards that they do a little morning show.. but we didn't realize that and we never saw anything or heard anything)

First thing we did was head to EE for a fastpass.

Then we went to Kilimonjaro Safari's and they hadn't opened yet (because they said it was too cold) and Castmates were handing out fastpasses and asked us if we'd also like a fastpass for the LionKing Show. Of course we said yes!! So now with 3 sets of fastpasses, we went a different direction to enjoy our morning!

We walked over to Dinosaur and rode that!! It was so much fun!
We felt like we were right in the movie "Jurrasic Park":

From there, we walked around DinoLand but we didn't feel the need to do any of the rides in there.
It was such a cold morning and the Castmates had great big heaters blowing heat on all the folliage all over the park!
We enjoyed walking around and taking in all the sights and checking out some of the stores. All with no crowds!

We eventually wondered back to EE and rode that! We both enjoyed it!!
DH is not supposed to ride the intense rides since he had a heart attack a couple years ago, but he decided that since the sign says you shouldn't ride if blood pressure is high that he should be fine because his blood pressure is good.
He's glad he rode, and both of us found that our imagination of what the ride would be like is actually more intense than the actual ride.
After the ride, we landed up in the store!! And we found this little guy!
I had to take a photo as DD had rec'd it as a christmas gift from one of her brothers and had already named him "Henry" - so I had to take a photo and tell her I found Henry at Disney!

Next installment we get in line for the Lion King Show!

 

[Purpleblanket]

Our fast pass time for the Lion King show was for the 10 am show. It was now about 8:45 or 9:00 am so we went over to the tree of life and went to see "Its tough to be a bug"! This was DH's favorite show at all of WDW!! He especially loved the very ending!! (I'm not going to tell you what happens in case any readers are heading over there!!) But, I'll tell you, it's just fun.:

After Its tough to be a bug, we decided to get in line for the Lion King Show.
We couldn't wait to get inside since it was so cold! (And I hate saying that, especially now as I sit at home in Manitoba freezing my butt off in -30 Celcius weather!!)
At Lion King we were in the Lion Section so we made sure we roared really loud!

The lion king show was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed it.

From there, we headed back for the Kilimonjaro Safari as they were opened up now and we had our fastpasses.
We had a very entertaining tour driver and enjoyed seeing lots of animals out and about that morning:

The Safari and photos will continue in next installment.

I've got to stop for now as I've got clients arriving soon for haircuts!!
( I work out of my home and I have a salon in the basement! FYI) lol

 

[TanzUnited99]

Great pics of AK! Looking forward to reading more

 

[rpbear]

Wonderful trip report and I love your pictures. Can't wait to read more.

Lucy

 

[Purpleblanket]

Good Morning!
Continuing on with the Kilimanjaro Safari:

We actually saw a lot of animals out this morning!
After the safari we were ready to head back to our hotel as we had done pretty much everything we intended to do here. It was about 11:30 am.
On the way out, we walked through the rain forest cafe store!

We hopped back on the bus to go back to Pop and stopped for some lunch at the food court before going to see how Chloe and Jamie were doing!

A recap of the Morning of Day 3:

Rope drop for 7 am at Animal Kingdom
Got Fastpasses for EE, Festival of the Lion King and Kilimanjaro Safaris.
Rode Dinosaur
Explored Dino land
Saw " It's tough to be a bug" show
Rode EE
Roamed around and took lots of photos, explored the tree of life
Saw Festival of the Lion King
Did Kilimanjaro Safari
Lunch at Pop Century

Now off to see what those 2 kids of mine are up to!!
and to see if they are ready to head out to Disney Hollywood Studios!