Mission:Visit Disney Once a Month for a Year. A Florida Newbie's Tales.

[mousetravel]

I am about to change the title of this report to reflect that I am trying to go at least once a month this whole year! My birthday is in June so chances are we will be heading there for something around the 23rd. What are your dates???

June 13-19

 

[KatGarcia]

June 13-19

We are talking about going that weekend....we shall see.

 

[KatGarcia]

So...... Raising a baby mostly alone has proven to take u a LOT of time and then I put off coming back on the boards because I know ill be soooooo behind and finally tonight I decided to go for it and here I am.

We have been every month so far.....and I will get to all the trips, I promise!

Thanks to anyone who is still out there!!!!

 

[mousetravel]

Yay, you're back!

Pretty sure I need to buy this for Lily when she is big enough to fit one!

Love this! I might have to buy it for the baby that I babysit if I can find it when we go back.




We added 2 days to our trip, so our dates now are June 13-21. If you go during that time, maybe we can meet up!

 

[KatGarcia]

So I'm back. This is one doosey of a day so be prepared. Now if any of you know me , or read any of my previous reports, im usually a mid-day break person. Now being a local its much more difficult to do that. This was one LONG day.

Grab your seat belts and keep all limbs inside the vehicle!

We started our day at home. Arrived on property about 9am or so. The plan was for Chris, Lily & I to meet up with the other car of friends at The Poly and take a bus to DHS from there, where we would meet our CM friend who was getting us in for the day. The Poly had other ideas.

We had no issues getting in because we had a scooter waiting at concierge for Chris. We told then that at the gate and got right in. We went in and did some pin trading (they have an AWESOME book at concierge) and saw our CM buddy who is always there.

After this long day I was going home with people in the other car and we planned to move all my stuff (i.e. the tons of baby crap i tote around for traveling with an infant) so we could enjoy our day and Chris could go home whenever he felt like it since he had to work the next morning. They wouldn't let our friends in. They weren't letting anyone in without a reservation. I even asked a manager if they could just pull up and let us do the stuff switch, he said no. I asked this kinda loudly and upset like and no one seemed to wanna help us.

I love me some Disney and the service is one of the things i love most, so not getting a simple drive by for our friends really screwed up our day! Apparently i embarrassed Chris , who scooted away to the bus stop without Lily & I. Don't worry there weren't any buses to take him away anyway.

One did come as Lily & I walked up but it had a scooter on it already. The CM on bus duty told us another was on the way asap. Not so much. We argued a bit and made up and still no bus. Our friends had since gone, parked at DHS and were waiting with our CM friend. Still no bus. Where is the darn magic???

After about 30 minutes with NO bus we could get on the CM gave us a FP to DHS good for one ride (ANY ride OTHER THAN Toy Story, BTW) and apologized. He was great and the FP helped ease the mood a bit. The bus that came shortly thereafter helped more.

We found our friends with no problems, got our tickets and let our CM friend go back to work. (Thanks again, Nick!) We then made our way to our first destination.....

So lets remember that Chris hadn't ever been to a WDW park and the other friends we were with, Bill & Allison- collectively known as Billison, hadn't been to DHS. They just wanted to ride Star Tours. We were there mainly because thats where our friend worked so we figured we would do a bit there before heading to Epcot for the afternoon. Also note that Chris is a "pooh sized" fellow and we had a lot of talks about what he could and couldn't go on because of his size. We all thought Star Tours had a bench seat in the back.....

Having a baby, who was at the time a little over 2 months old, I knew touring would be different. We sat out Star Tours, instead opting to head for a diaper change with plans to meet everyone in the dump shop after the ride.

I got to the shop pretty quick and found Chris scooting around pin trading. When I asked him what happened he told me he wouldn't fit the ride and he wouldn't say anymore. Soon after Billison came out, not knowing what had happened.

Before I tell the story let's look at some crappy phone pictures I took.

My little Disney Princess all cozy in her stroller.

So....The 3 of them used the FP the Poly Bus guy had given us and proceeded to pass about 3 CMs who directed then where to put the scooter and where to get onto the ride. When they got to the vehicle Chris saw the seat he was directed to and just turned around and left, knowing he wouldn't have fit the belt to get strapped in. He got his scooter and headed to the store. NOT ONE of those CMs said anything to him that he may not fit, or may be uncomfortable. He was mortified and pretty much ready to go home at that point but we convinced him to stay. He no longer wanted anything to do with rides at all and it was our first ride of the day. *sigh*

He wouldn't hear anything about going to do The Muppets, so Billison went without us and we went pin trading and were meeting them at The Villians Store, which Chris did want to see.

I was really bummed for most of the rest of the day over the Chris thing. He was in a sour mood as well and he wouldn't believe us that he could get onto any rides or shows, it took a ton of convincing for him to do anything really, aside from pin trading. I was so psyched to show him WDW and he didn't really see anything all day. And Star Tours wasn't the only thing that happened either, but we will get to that!

Some pics along the way...

Lily got a bit restless so I put her in my carrier and i thought it would be a funny PP pic to show her when she gets older.

We did make a stop at The Writer's Stop (or is it shop?) for the fabled carrot cake cookie. OMG! SO good! We shared it as we walked.

Waiting for Billison in the shade.

A spin around some stores and a stop for some snacks and we were on our way out of DHS and headed for the friendship boats to Epcot!

See you sometime MGM...er...DHS. Whatever. LOL

 

[jenseib]

awww....poor Chris

 

[daisy_77]

I am having fun reading your month-by-month TR. Your DD is so adorable!! I love all her little Disney onesies!

I feel bad for Chris. I can only imagine how he felt. Hopefully he ends up feeling the Disney Love!

I look forward to reading more about your WDW adventures with Lily!

 

[KatGarcia]

awww....poor Chris

Yea.

I am having fun reading your month-by-month TR. Your DD is so adorable!! I love all her little Disney onesies!

I feel bad for Chris. I can only imagine how he felt. Hopefully he ends up feeling the Disney Love!

I look forward to reading more about your WDW adventures with Lily!

Thanks so much for reading!!!

We are going for July 4th so hopefully I cna get caught up before then! LOL

 

[KatGarcia]

After a lovely ride on the friendship boats we arrived in Epcot. We were all planning on eating whatever struck us in the world showcase so our first stop was The UK so Bill could get some fish & chips. The rest of us wandered around the UK and pin traded in the shops. We picked up some free tea samples in the Twinnings shop and got a bunch of good pin trades. I left everyone else to make their way around while I found a shady bench to feed Lily on and people watch. We all met up again and watch the street performers for a bit before heading over the bridge to ‘ole Pari .

Some of the flower & garden stuff was out already! score!

We wandered around and pin traded (are you sensing a theme yet??) and decided to all meet up at the tables in the back of the bakery to rest a bit. Alison got a ham & cheese croissant and met us at the tables. Bill decided to try and organize the pins they had already traded and see what he got....because he started with about 300 pins to trade! Yah.

Next we headed for a bathroom break and then to Morocco where I was hoping to have lunch. This is where things get a bit nutty again. Since Chris was in such a stinky anti-disney mood he decided he would make the most of it by getting really good pin trades. To do that he had to, what we call, snipe the pins first (I.E. run to every cast member before the rest of us). It got a bit out of control and later we all talked about how we need to avoid doing that and enjoy the time there instead. But I digress.

My Grumpy Pants decided Morocco wasn’t where he wanted to eat, so i stayed quiet even tho i had shown him the menu prior to the trip and figured we would find something somewhere, eventually.

Can you tell I LOVE this pavillion????

Onward to Japan!

I never saw this before!

We missed the candy lady by a bit so we just headed into the shop to wander, pin trade and check out all the cool stuff.

We stopped on a bench here:

This is where i realized that one of the things i have always loved about the world showcase is the smells. We were underneath a honeysuckle tree. I LOVE that smell and will forever associate it with that moment being there with my friends and baby.

BTW Lily was happy as a clam hanging in the stroller, napping off and on and checking out all the sites Disney had to offer. She is such a mellow baby and so adaptable, i'm VERY lucky.

The next bad thing happened in America. We were doing a once over of CMs for pins and stopped at the kiosk outside it. Bill is just walking along and a seagull flies into his face & knocks off his sunglasses! He kicked at the bird and then some woman picked a fight with him about having kicked at the bird. It was a whole big drama. The CM at the kiosk said she saw people get hit by flying birds ALL THE TIME. It was really bad. We all had to duck and cover our way through and I closed Lily up in her seat so she didnt get hit. Nuts.

When we got to Italy i mentioned the pizza window they had open since they were doing all the renovations on the restaurants in the back. Chris, Lily & I went all over looking for it and finally asked someone and they said it was only open on the weekends. Grrrrr. So no food again. I was secretly wanting that darn shwarma plate but again, I digress.

Some Italy pics perhaps?!

The pin sniping continued to go on as we went so we kinda whipped through the countries pretty quickly. Finally Chris decided to get some brats in Germany. So we each got one and shared a soda. We got lucky and got a covered table inside. Bill organized his pins again (LOL) and I fed Lily again after lunch. Then we proceeded to harass all CM’s for their pins and I took some pics.

Mr. Grumpy Pants himself.

ALMOST got a good one!

I thought about getting something from the new caramel store but again, we were ripping through those countries.

A snack was needed in China so in we went. Billason got some ice creams from the QS spot. Chris got his pins together and we rested a while at a table there.

Cont.....

 

[KatGarcia]

We just missed the Chinese Acrobats as we were leaving but I did NOT miss my favorite drink in Epcot....a Peach Snap!!! I know I took a pic but dont know where it is, i know i took it because Chris made a joke that the stroller was in the pic with an alcoholic drink. But he liked it too so he didn’t have much to say about it.

The other thing I knew I couldn’t leave without was in Norway....

Ahhhh sweet school bread how i missed you!

While everyone else made their pin trading pass around the shops I got and ate my school bread by the stroller with Lily and took a few pics.

When we were in Mexico I left to meet up with some new people we were adding to the party, Laura (my BFF) & her hubby Michael. They had work that day and came afterwards.

Apparently Chris LOVED the Mexico Pavillion. Turns out he had run out of pins to trade so he was actually seeing the park, not just lanyards.

Laura & Michael were meeting us near to Spaceship Earth so we made our way towards the front of the park.

It took a while to get everyone together, we split up for potty breaks, pin breaks etc. Lily & I plopped on a bench near the Character Greeting spot. I thought about taking her in just to see Minnie but the line was really long. Finally we were all together, all 7 of us. Some people decided they wanted to ride Soarin’ so Chris, Lily & I wandered Mouse Gears and some other places while they all rode Soarin” and we later found out, Mission Space too. Sometime around 7ish we were on our way to our final stop for this One More Disney day...the Magic Kingdom.

Finally we arrived. I was so excited to take Lily on a ride! I have the carrier and was told I could take her on anything that had no height requirements. I felt comfortable knowing she would be in the carried right with me.

AND I was so happy to finally show her the castle, even if she didnt know what she was seeing.

The first thing on the agenda was more important than a ride tho....dinner. I chose CHH thinking everyone could find something, be it a salad or tuna so thats where we went. I got magical tuna. I missed that tuna! We got a table in the handicapped section because Chris had the scooter, that was nice to not have to wait for a table or search. only drawback, no upstairs seating. I love the view from upstairs. But the food was great, as always, and we all enjoyed our dinner. Newly recharged after a long day we were on our way.

Now it was finally time for a ride. Lily’s very first official Disney ride.....................

The Haunted Mansion. LMAO.

I know. But it was right there and they all wanted to go on. She was mostly asleep for the whole thing anyway. She had her dinner at CHH too so she was almost ready for sleeps. But she fit great in the carrier and wasnt bothered by being on the ride at all. Chris however had another bad moment. We all convinced him that he could go on it because its a big car. He rode alone and until we got off the ride and were out and about we didnt know he had a problem here too.

Apparently the bar wouldnt go to where it wanted to and the ride stopped for 30 seconds and as soon as he moved to get up (he was ready to flee at that point) it clicked into place and no one was the wiser. This bothered him immensely and really didnt want to do anything more at that point. I only got him on one more attraction the whole time actually.

So do you guys know about the new card game in MK? Well all the guys on this trip LOVE games like this so we had make sure to stop and get these cards. We all got them so that the guys could take ours. Chris was ready to go so he was disinterested in everything so he passed on the cards even.

Somehow we talked him into doing Philharmagic since he didnt have to transfer from the scooter. He loved it. Its one of my favs for sure. The line for Snow White was long so we skipped it, even tho it was about to close. Oh well, sorry Snow.

We made our way to TL and took a lovely spin on the Peoplemover. I LOVE this attraction, esp at night. It was a nice relaxing ride, Lily slept the whole time, in fact she slept the rest of the night in the carrier.

About the time we got off the Peoplemover my friend and DISer MyMuse was there and we met up for a quickie hello. It was after Midnight at that point. She got to see Lily for a second at least!

We had one more snack we all needed....a Dole Whip of course! Laura was nice enough to buy one for me. We both sat down, took a bite and made a weird face, they tasted like plastic. We both thought it could be the spoon so we took a lick, still funky. She took them back up and was told they would all taste the same because it came from the same batch. so they offered us other flavors. I had vanilla with pineapple juice. Not the same. I have no idea why it tasted weird.

Chris & Bill left to transfer my stuff to Bill’s car and so Chris could go home and Bill could get a few hours sleep before he had to work the next day. We walked through Adventureland and rode Pirates. Then we did the Tiki room. It was after 3am at that point and we wandered our way through the shops on our way out of the park.

We had done 3 parks in 16 hours. I have never done that much Disney before.

We made our way to the monorail so we could get to the TTC and get to Laura & Mike’s car. Well it was PACKED. We didn’t get to the TTC until after 4am.

We stopped at Denny’s for some eats and got to the house around 6am or so. My awesome baby slept the whole time! I mean she slept through the transfer from carrier to car seat and from the car to Denny’s and back to the car.

The only drawback to the infant that sleeps through the night? She wakes up about the same time every day...7-8am. So I got about 45 min sleep and had to get up for her first bottle. I did it to myself and will never complain about taking care of her. Let’s just say we took a lot of naps together that day, when she slept I slept.

Because of all the bad/unmagical things that happened that day I decided to write to Disney, just to express my feelings about all the things that happened, esp. those that could have been avoided. I actually got a call back a few days later from a guest relations CM ! She was sooooo nice and apologetic about everything. SHe offered to speak to CHris to apologize to him personally. She assured me that my letter would be forwarded to the right places, esp to Star Tours managers to make sure the CMs are trained correctly in situations like ours. She even gave me Fast Passes to use for up to 6 people for each park, I just have to give them a # at guest relations and I get them. So nice of her and def not necessary but really appreciated. I hesitated in telling Chris I did it but once I did he said it did change his mind a bit about the whole thing. He has since been to property but not to the parks...but that will change in a few months...but there are several more trips to tell you about....stay tuned.

 

[daisy_77]

Yay an update!!

WSC is one of my favorite parts of WDW. Hopefully next time you will get your schwarma (spelling??) platter from Morocco. I do love your pics from Epcot! So pretty!


The Haunted Mansion is the perfect first ride! Way to go Lily!!

She sounds like such a good little baby! Perfect little companion for Disney trips.

I am glad you were contacted by Disney regarding some of the lack of customer service issues. Hopefully next time Chris has a better experience.

 

[jenseib]

I hadn't realized this was that one more day day. How fun.
I've been there too, when you go late into the night and the kids don't and still rise and shine at the normal time...UGH LOL

 

[KatGarcia]

Life update....

we have moved to Tampa finally, Chris got the transfer we have been waiting for for months. the catch was we had to move in a week, the week we spent 4 days in disney with his family!! (We stayed off site). so we packed up before we left, made 2 trips the hour and a half it is to where we lived (Ocala) and now are staying with friends for another week until we get into our apartment. We have a 2 bedroom waiting for us with a washer/dryer and a dishwasher- im so excited! I have never had either before. and finally my cats have a home to roam in!
I got AP's for my birthday in June from Chris so we have been back often, we are even going up wed and possibly thurs next week. I have LOTS to report back.
Lily is 7 months now and amazing, she is the best kid ever! She LOVES disney and the characters esp! dealing with my ex has been....challenging as well.
Anyways thats whats been up with me...how is everyone else??
I promise to update ASAP!

 

[jenseib]

Sounds like life has been busy but hectic and fun all in the same.

 

[daisy_77]

Happy to hear everything is going well in your life. Can't wait to read about your latest trip adventure!

 

[kimisabella]

Hi Kat! I was wondering around the DIS and found your TR. Don't know if you remember me, but, we met in the gift shop of the Poly a few years ago... (The August when Hurrican Fay was there!)

I can't believe all the changes you have gone through since then - so happy for you! We should hook up on FB!

 

[KatGarcia]

Hi Kat! I was wondering around the DIS and found your TR. Don't know if you remember me, but, we met in the gift shop of the Poly a few years ago... (The August when Hurrican Fay was there!)

I can't believe all the changes you have gone through since then - so happy for you! We should hook up on FB!

So i have been super lazy with this TR but I def remember you! Look me up on FB for sure!!!!