Mission Impossible: Will he even like Disney this time? Our June 2012 TR

[BridgetR3]

When I last left you we were watching the Indiana Jones show. After it finished, we decided to see if we could go on the "cowboy side" of Great Movie Ride since we had a while for our FPs for Toy Story. We walked up to the entrance of GMR and asked if they were doing the cowboy side. The CM said that they were and told us to tell the girl at the desk where you enter the ride room. We said o.k. and joined the line......the EXTREMELY long line.

As we walked up they moved the queue to the longer path so we had to wait outside for a few minutes. What should I do while waiting? Take pictures of course.

And this my friends is where the line stopped. When I say stopped I mean stopped. We stood still for a good 25 minutes. At this point, I'm getting REALLY nervous because we are just about in the doorway of the BIG holding room with the movie screens. I begin to realize that we may not make it to our TSM FP time. See a pattern here?? What is it with stuff messing up my TSM time?!?!?!?

People were leaving the line left and right so it eventually started moving again. Another 25 minutes pass and we are FINALLY at the door to the ride. Yes we waited 50 minutes to ride GMR for the second time on the same trip. Did I mention that it is raining outside? Yeah I think EVERYONE took shelter in here.

So finally we are up to the front and we tell the CM that we want the cowboy ride. Her answer - "Oh, o.k. Well one just left so it will be a 10 minute wait." Now I'm REALLY worried about missing our FP time as we only have 35 minutes left to make it. I seriously considered leaving after waiting for those 50 minutes. DH REALLY really wanted to see the "cowboy side" of the ride so he convinced me to stay and risk missing TSM for GMR. What has gotten into this man??!?!? I'm so in love.

Soon we got to see this.....

And we're off....

Well let me say this - IF I had known that the "cowboy side" simply meant that you stopped in the western scene to change drivers, I would NEVER have waited in line 50 minutes for it. We honestly thought it was a totally different side. Yikes!! So the disappointment was immense and to think that I may have missed my TSM for this is almost too much to bear!!!

However, our CM guide was amazing! We had her twice on our trip (for both times we rode it) and she was great!

As soon as the ride came to a complete stop, we took off.....hightailed it.....ran all the way (of course I mean walk) to TSM. And.........










we were late............




















but still within the 15 minute window so they let us in. I was so excited!!!!!

Getting our glasses on!

My super cutie posing with a smile finally...

Our ride!

YAY!!! Look at that score!!! I'm on the left!

DS10 and Nannia enjoying the ride.

TSM is by far my favorite ride at Disney. I wish the lines weren't so ridiculously long so that we could ride it more than once on any given day.

So we exit TSM and begin talking about what we want to do next....

Notice the ominous dark blue skies in this pic.......

DS6 and I decide to go draw something at the Animation Building. DH and Poppa decide to go ride TOT and RNRC. Nanna and DS10 just want to sit somewhere and follow DS6 and I.

What character will we draw? Will we be able to see Fantasmic or will the rain cause us to miss it this trip?

 

[Deesknee]

Oh my Gosh! I can't believe you had to wait that long for The Great Movie Ride!!! That is one of those classic must do rides for us, but I have been greatly disappointed with the CM's leading the ride lately. We noticed this past trip all of the on ride CM's were woman. I find it interesting you got a woman too. One of them we couldn't even hear, at all.
I love TSM! So glad you didn't miss it. I agree the wait in line for is torture. The very first time we went on it, it was evening EMH. We spent nearly the entire EMH in line. A total of 2 hours!!! And we all agreed, it was worth it!
Love the picturs of your son!

 

[BridgetR3]

Oh my Gosh! I can't believe you had to wait that long for The Great Movie Ride!!! That is one of those classic must do rides for us, but I have been greatly disappointed with the CM's leading the ride lately. We noticed this past trip all of the on ride CM's were woman. I find it interesting you got a woman too. One of them we couldn't even hear, at all.
I love TSM! So glad you didn't miss it. I agree the wait in line for is torture. The very first time we went on it, it was evening EMH. We spent nearly the entire EMH in line. A total of 2 hours!!! And we all agreed, it was worth it!
Love the picturs of your son!

Yes, that line was crazy. Poppa thought we were crazy when we got to the end of it and rode the SAME RIDE!!! We really thought it was different. Well at least I did.....DH just went along because I'm always right, right??

Our CM this trip was really good. She was loud but getting a "bad one" could make for a long ride.

2 hours in line for TSM!?!?! WOW!!! I would hate to wait for anything that long!!! The longest we have ever waited at Disney was for the GMR this time. I have a "If it's longer than 45 minutes, we don't need to ride it." attitude. We usually FP those or go back later but TSM doesn't work like that. I could see us waiting for it if we didn't get FPs.

I hope you have a great day!

 

[Deesknee]

Thanks, Hope you have a nice day also.

I'm with you 45 mins. is about my limit. And because we go in early Nov. usually we don't have more than a 20 min. line, if we plan it right. But this time TSM had just opened a short time before. Plus we don't usually do TSM EM's because like I say we don't usually have lines & we prefer DHS in the day, so we figured no big deal, but honestly, the line stated the wait was WAY less than 120mins. I can't remember how many it said, but I remember being in line & we were debating on getting out, but decided not to. I don't think I would ever wait again for 2 hours, but as far as rides go, that one is about the closest to being worth it, especially if someone has never been on before. That & Soarin... if you've never done it before.

 

[heart]

Just read the entire trip report up to this point today. Have really enjoyed "going along for the ride!"

 

[BridgetR3]

SO those clouds look ominous.....let's see if we can have one....just ONE....rain-free park day!! After leaving Toy Story we come across quite a character. My boys were SOOOOO excited to see......





















.....

.....a squirrel!!! That's right folks!! We went ALL the way to Disney to see a squirrel not a mouse! Ummmmm hello?!?!?!? We live in the country next to a BIG plot of woods FILLED with squirrels.

This squirrel was very used to being around people and didn't even move when I got nearer for a close up!

So after we met Mr. Squirrel we continued our journey to the Animation Building.

YAY!!! We are going to draw! Andrew was very excited until we saw the line.....then he panicked because it was a rather long line and he was afraid we wouldn't get in. The kind CM at the rope assured Andrew that there was plenty of room for the two of us and he allowed us inside the area.

So we got the back row again but luckily this time we were at the little stools with lights and not at the couches. The CM drawing with us wanted everyone to guess who we were drawing. As we drew more and more of the picture, people kept guessing but no one was right. Finally a little girl who was 8 guessed it right. She received the artist's drawing for guessing correctly. We drew Grumpy!!!

Very dark picture of my man working on his creation!!

Remember he is 6. Here is his Grumpy.....

lol....YIKES!!! That's rough but he was soooooo proud!!!! At the end of the show they picked a few drawings to put on the big screen and his was one of them!

A few adults came to him after class and told him that he had a really nice drawing. He was so excited that people liked it!

My sweet boy and his drawing before we left the room!

My drawing of Grumpy....I enjoyed this drawing and this artist much more than the last time. Can't wait to try it again!

While we were drawing Nannia texted to tell me that they were going to Beauty and the Beast before the rains hit and that they would save us a seat if we wanted to go. As soon as we finished drawing, we took off for Beauty and the Beast in hopes of getting there before the rains also. I texted DH to see if they were going to make it and he said that they decided to ride RNRC and TOT one more time before Beauty but that he didn't think they would make it on time. He was o.k. with missing it.

Stopping to take a pic and then we went to find Nannia and DS10

I loved the curtains at the show!!! Sometime during the show, the skies opened up and the music had to compete with the close lightning strikes to be heard. We still enjoyed the show!!

And with that, the show was over.....but the rain wasn't so we sat and waited. We texted the boys for them to meet us at the show but they were waiting it out at RNRC. Finally 45 minutes later, the skies cleared and the storms ended.....and off we went in search of DINNER!
CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST!!!!

 

[BridgetR3]

I suggested the ABC Commissary because I remembered that it was indoors and wouldn't be wet like the chairs outside by Fantasmic. We headed in that general direction although we got turned around a little because all of our maps disappeared......

This pic doesn't show the rain well. It makes it look drier than it was.

"Can someone ask for directions?? I think we are lost. Do we really have to climb up that hill?" lol.....

The Commissary!! Yay, right?? Nah we took one look at the menu and decided that there was nothing we really wanted to eat......so where to now? I list the options again and Nannia and Poppa choose Pizza Planet. REALLY??? The LOUD restaurant from our previous HS day?? Well whatever ya want! lol......

DS10 and I while getting in line at Pizza Planet....it was still drizzling outside so we kept on our ponchos. These ponchos REALLY paid for themselves in uses on our vacation. As it turned out we never did have a rain-free park day. Our only rain-free day was DTD on our rest day.

We found a couple of tables outside to eat at since it was loud and COLD inside. The tables and chairs were wet but we had on ponchos so it didn't matter. After eating dinner, we headed towards Fantasmic in hopes of seeing the show. I wasn't sure that they were going to have it because of the crazy weather and the threat of more storms later that evening but we figured we would give it a shot.

Yay!! Look I see the sun!!

I think I would like to eat here one day. We like a lot of the foods they serve but I'm not sure how DH would take to having to eat his veggies. lol....

After the rain, the temperatures felt so good that we were walking slowly enjoying all of the scenery. We also had no wheres to go except Fantasmic and there was plenty of time to get there.

As you can see, most of my pictures are of an empty park. It seems that LOTS of people left during the rain which made me hopeful that the lines for Fantasmic were not that long. The last time we came the lines stretched all the way out to the restrooms that are across from the outside food places. We waited 1.5 hours from there to get in. This time I didn't care where we sat....I just didn't want to wait in those lines again.

We found the people. They were all on this side of the park!

I was surprised that we were able to just walk into Fantasmic this time!!! The only time we had to stop was for me to put our stroller up!!!

Something I didn't realize until this trip is that the Mickey driving the boat is in gray scale just as he would be on Steamboat Willie!!! Steamboat Willie is a favorite of mine so I tried to quickly zoom in and grab a pic!

Success!!!! I am having this one printed and framed for my sewing room!

I have to admit that this trip's Fantasmic was A LOT better for us than the last trip's show. The show was the same but my boys knew what to expect so I was able to enjoy it. I would definitely return to this one again even though I don't enjoy it quite as much as Wishes.

We decided to leave and have a snack at our hotel after the show. Grabbing our mugs, we found......

.....Sharkie eating the pillows.......

......a rabbit in the grass.......

.......laughter and smiles over beignets.

With that our last night as Disney came to an end. I was ready to be home. It was tough traveling with family because we all had different ideas of how to tour the parks or what to see. All in all though it was a great trip. Don't leave just yet, we have one more day in the parks!

 

[BridgetR3]

Just read the entire trip report up to this point today. Have really enjoyed "going along for the ride!"

Thanks for joining us!!! I just posted another update. I hope to finish up this week to start our PTR!

 

[Deesknee]

LOVE your photos of Fantasmic. We missed it this time. Glad you got good seats!

Pizza Planet again...that's funny.
Sorry you had such rainy weather.

No... don't finish this week. What will I read after the Christmas holiday????

 

[BridgetR3]

I really enjoyed Fantasmic this time which is a serious change since last time I said that it didn't matter if I ever saw it again. Of course last time it was low 50s high 40s for the temperature and the misting water from the "screens" was hitting us through the whole thing. My boys were terrified and hiding under the benches most of the time. This time they sat and watched the show and the water felt so good after a hot day!

Thanks for the compliment on the pictures! We were pretty close but at an angle.

I have just a little bit more of our Disney trip but after Christmas you can read my PTR for our SURPRISE June trip!!!

 

[Deesknee]

I really enjoyed Fantasmic this time which is a serious change since last time I said that it didn't matter if I ever saw it again. Of course last time it was low 50s high 40s for the temperature and the misting water from the "screens" was hitting us through the whole thing. My boys were terrified and hiding under the benches most of the time. This time they sat and watched the show and the water felt so good after a hot day!

Thanks for the compliment on the pictures! We were pretty close but at an angle.

I have just a little bit more of our Disney trip but after Christmas you can read my PTR for our SURPRISE June trip!!!

YAY for a surprise trip & more PTR!

 

[BridgetR3]

While enjoying coke and beignets until midnight (literally) on our last night at Disney, we decided that on our last day we would go to MK and allow everyone to ride just one more ride of their choice. This way we would only be riding a few rides and not trying to run around the park crazy. We decided that we would also allow the kids to play SOTMK even though by this time in our trip I really didn't like the game. (It's boring!!!)

So our favorites were.....

Dumbo - me (I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to see the new queue that was supposed to soft open on this day.)
Pirates of the Caribbean - DS10
PeopleMover - DS6
Peter Pan - DH

Real adventurous people aren't we?!?!?! lol.....

Also remember that I have the FastPasses for anything left over from earlier in the week when DS6 chickened out on Splash.

Anyways, after making our mental list of favorites, we went to sleep with visions of Cinderella's Castle in our heads!!

Awake bright and early to pack up our luggage and check out of our resort as well as drop off our luggage to ME.

At least one of us is smiling......I was trying not to cry since it was our last day.

He was super excited to be able to bring his own suitcase down.

DS10 was exhausted and hung on everything in sight.

My sweet goofballs

Posing with our favorite doorman...he is SO sweet!

We left our luggage and caught a bus to MK.

YAY!!!

As soon as we walked into the park we stumbled across a horse drawn carriage. YAY for another first!!!!

I convinced my crew to ride it down Main Street instead of walking to give us something different to do.

I think I was the only one who understood that we would get off at the castle. So they first all thought I was crazy for wanting to "waste" our time by riding it down Main Street and back. I honestly would do that too.....lol....

In the back of the carriage is my crew. This is before they realized that it was a one way trip. By the way, I had no idea that they thought we were just riding......so I'm happily taking pictures oblivious to everything around me.

Hate the way the bakery scrim messes up the Main Street picture....that right there is reason to go back.

Wow.....

SO our "ride" was over and I began to get off. My "crew" asked me what I was doing and that's when I realized that they had no clue we were riding instead of walking. Thank me now for saving your legs!


CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST....

 

[BridgetR3]

While on the bus I received a tweet that let me know that the splash area was open in New Fantasyland. Thankful that I chose Dumbo and already at the end of Main Street, we headed straight over to New Fantasyland. Unfortunately the queue for Dumbo was not open but was supposed to open sometime around 3-4 p.m. We missed it by mere hours! (Another reason to go back)

If I had finished my TR when I was supposed to, you would have been able to see the new part before it opened BUT..... being as slow as I am, this is old news.

LOVE that the stork is bringing a baby elephant. Yes, I've seen Dumbo....it's still a neat part. Was this part on the old Dumbo? (I've never ridden it before this trip.)

Random family in an elephant....

The details are amazing....

the water feature is not as pretty during the day....

My "date" waiting on me....

Love the scenes on the sides of the ride

Yes I was camera happy but it was new and soooo pretty!

Nannia and DS6

LOVE IT!

O.k. so this may sound stupid but I thought it was SOOOO neat that they had "peanuts" embedded in the concrete. Only at Disney do you see the small details like this!!

After getting off of Dumbo we walked over to Casey Jr. Splash Area. They should have called it the "Soak area" because when the train parts went "off" whoever was standing there got completely SOAKED. We made two general observations that day. 1. My kids would probably never play in it because we wouldn't want them that wet. 2. Someone is going to fall and bust their head by running on the wet concrete. Weren't we "negative Nelly" that day?!?!? I have heard that they did eventually turn down the water so it isn't a soaking station anymore.

They were filming the splash area that morning for local news station (I think!?!).

Notice all of my pics show it with no water?? They had turned the water off while the guy was filming close ups of the props.

New this morning, the walkway between Tomorrowland and New Fantasyland was open. We decided to walk this way for something different.

As we passed

a train pulled up.

Wouldn't want to be on these tracks.......(Disney really thinks of everything!!!)

LOVE that I was able to catch the steam coming out from under the train.

With that we walked over to Tomorrowland to ride our next "Must Do". Since this day is LOADED with pictures, I will break it up over the next week or so. Hope you enjoy the scenery!

 

[Deesknee]

Great pictures as always. I too thought of accidents while observing the wet play area. It reminded me of years ago when we took our older kids to Universal Studios. They had a Curious George wet play area. Our kids got wet & seeing as we generally go in November.... damp most of the day. We will most likely steer away from that area, just as we did with the old Donald Duck water area. But, I agree it is done very nicely, except for the water.

 

[BridgetR3]

So we walk along the path back to Tomorrowland to ride.....

I know it probably wasn't but it sure felt faster than normal on this day so most of my pictures from the ride look like....

and

and

but I did manage to get a good one

or two.

DS6 on the way down the "escalator" from the ride (What do you call that again? moving walkway or is there a technical term for it?)

After looking around we noticed that the line for Buzz was REALLY short like 5 minutes short so we couldn't resist one last ride on Buzz. However, I have to say that Buzz needs a refurb!! On this round all three of our cars had a broken something (trigger, screen, handle....). DS10's screen read 999,999 the entire time. He claims that he beat us all but we know the truth!

Getting out of Buzz we were all getting a bit hungry but no one could decide what we were hungry for. Wait......what is that?!?!?!? What are all those people crowded around?!?!?!? Really ??? Is it.....PUSH!??!?! It is!!!

We watched PUSH for about 15 minutes. Unfortunately he did not talk to us but he did talk to LOTS of other kids around us and it was VERY funny!!

After watching PUSH, we decided to grab a quick bite at Cosmic Ray's.

Here comes another first for me.....Nannia kept talking about this alien thing that would sing the whole time they were eating here last September. This was my fourth time eating here and I had NO CLUE what she was talking about. We all sit down to eat and see this.....

Yeah I had never seen this guy. I assume we always found a seat outside of this room. I thought he was cute although he could get annoying after a while I suppose but then again so could "It's a Small World". It's all about moderation right??

More super cute pictures!

Making silly faces for the camera.....don't know what DS10 was doing....they were playing some kind of pretend game show thing while we waited on the others to exit the restroom.

Leaving Cosmic Rays we see ALICE!!

She waved. My kids didn't know who she was. GEEZ....I'm a bad parent for not introducing my kids to the classics!

Seven Dwarves Mine Train Coaster

Remember these....

Yep we are about to use them!!!

For what?!?!?

Yep Peter Pan! DH loves Peter Pan. Not sure what the attraction to it is but he loves the ride and it was his pick of the day.

This pic is a good visual of the ever growing crowds. The wait was about 40 minutes for Peter Pan.

Our last ride of the trip....

A family favorite!

Here's my sweet pirate -

Remember this picture! It comes into play at the end of our day.....boy was it a doozy moment too.

Writing this TR I feel like a bad parent who loves one child more than the other but you have to know the personalities of my children. DS10 is serious and to the point. He doesn't have much patience and pictures are useless. DS6 is a character and loves to ham it up for the camera. It's not that I hate DS10. It's just that he doesn't pose for the camera as much. Next trip, I'll try to make sure it's more equal!

With that our rides at Disney were done....well, not quite. We decided to take the train back to the front so that the boys could do SOTMK a few more times before we had to leave.

CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST.....

 

[BridgetR3]

Did ya'll pick up our tickets?? We need a ticket to ride the train.

DS10 looking out at the crowds.

He was deep in conversation with DH about something but I can't for the life of me remember what was the big conversation. I want to say it was our plane departure time and whether we should be heading back to the hotel so we wouldn't miss our flight. Yes he is a worrywart.

While in line it began to rain while the sun was shining. Still raining while we stopped at Fantasyland.....

But thankfully by the time we arrived back at the front it had stopped.



Here are some pics of them playing SOTMK -

We slowly wandered through stores as they played. After a while, we decided we needed one last Disney snack and what other place is better for a last snack than Main Street Bakery!

Yummy Cinnamon roll!!!! I'm really not sure how I feel about Starbucks replacing Main Street Bakery. I'm not for it but then again I'm not a coffee drinker.

We had a few more minutes to waste and realized that the parade would be starting soon so we positioned ourselves right at the train station to make a quick exit after the parade and enjoyed the show!

Oh to be the Grand Marshal one day!

Love the fish bowl!!!

Jafar was clearly not happy to see us.

TweedleDee and TweedleDum LOVED the baby next to us.

I love the Tremaine sisters. Too bad they weren't on our side.

And with that the parade was over.....our time at Disney was over.....it was time to head "home" one last time before leaving.....

CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST...........

 

[BridgetR3]

One last pic of Cinderella's Castle....

One last pic of the entrance....

One last pic at the hotel.....

Good-bye Port Orleans......

We headed over to the Magical Express wait area to retrieve our luggage and wait for our NOT SO Magical Express. They have a cute bunny there that they feed carrots too.

He's adorable.

After standing there for about 15 minutes, the lady looks at DS6 who is playing pirates and swinging his sword madly in the air and says, "You do know you can't bring that on the plane right?" I ask her what she is talking about and she says, "That sword. You can't bring swords on the plane." She was polite about it but it was a sad moment for DS6.

DS6 began to cry and I was trying to console him when I hear Poppa say, "Well there's nothing you can do about it. You need to go throw it away." Now yes, I do understand that rules are rules. No, I wasn't asking anyone to bend the rules for my child but he's 6 and you have to sugarcoat things a little better than that.

So I pulled DS off to the side and tell him that we are going to find a sweet boy to give his sword to. We went searching for a family that would take the sword from us. It was actually harder than I thought it would be. The first two families turned us down (I think they thought we were selling it - at least one family was foreign and spoke VERY broken English so they may not have understood). Finally we found a sweet family to give it to. DS6 dried up his eyes and told the little boy to take very good care of it and we were off back to ME.

Our ME bus was an hour late and was full when it arrived. We were able to get on the bus but not everyone who was waiting was able to get on. It was semi mass chaos. People were pleading with the driver to let them stand just so they wouldn't miss their flight. Our flight was one of the first ones so we were allowed to get on and they were told that a second bus would be there shortly. I sure hope it came. I felt very bad for the other people. We boarded and had to make DS10 and DS6 sit on our laps so that we would fit.

DS6 was exhausted from the day, the trip, the drama of the lost sword and fell right to sleep.

With that our Disney trip was over. We had an uneventful flight home and a great time staying with DH's family for the weekend.

 

[Deesknee]

I wanted to comment on all your comments and pictures to make this TR last a little longer, but all I can think of is.... your poor son. I have one that gets completely attached to objects. She would have been so so sad. But, how sweet he could make another child happy. Yay for smart moms. And Grampas have to learn to let mom's handle things.

I love Peter Pan. It was THE ride that made me believe in the magic of Disney. Your sons not knowing Alice is funny. When my triplets were younger we ran into Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum. They didn't have a clue. It was so funny.

Well, sorry your trip had to end, but maybe we can look forward to another PTR?

Thanks for all the hard work putting this together!

Dee

 

[BridgetR3]

So I'm excited to announce that I've started a PTR for our next trip!!!!

You can find it here -

We're following Dad to work......SURPRISE!!!!

I can't wait to share all the details of our planning there!

Thank you Dee for sticking along!!!

 

[Deesknee]

YAY! I'll be there!