Pure Magic Wrapped Up In Pixie Dust - A January 2013 Trip Report - *UPDATE 2/11*

[celeste.]

Pure Magic Wrapped Up In Pixie Dust - A January 2013 Trip Report​

Hello, everyone, and welcome aboard my 2013 trip report! My name is Celeste and I'll be your skipper, guide, social director, and dance instructor for the next three months.
..............
We just got back from a great Disney vacation yesterday and I am ready to start my trip report! I have three other trip reports that are linked in my signature if anyone would like to check those out. And I know you're just dying to. Anyway, my family and I were in Disney World from January 8-January 14. It was out first time going in the winter and it was GREAT! It wasn't anywhere near as hot or crowded as it is in July and August. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside, which is an absolutely beautiful resort! It was our first time staying at Riverside, but we stayed at French Quarter on our last trip. We had the regular dining plan (with one table service and one quick service meal each day) and we ate at some fantastic restaurants. So, as I said before it was a great trip and let's get on with the introductions!

Introductions:

I'll start with myself (of course). My name is Celeste and I'm 19 years old. I'm a freshman in college so this was my first Christmas/Winter break in between semesters so naturally we went to Disney World!! I work at a grocery store as a florist and a cashier. So you will be seeing many pictures of flowers around Disney. I also love Disney movies as well as Disney World, obviously! Here are some of my favorite Disney-related things:

Favorite Movie: Beauty and the Beast & Toy Story
Favorite Character: Minnie, Belle, and Woody
Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite Ride: Expedition Everest
Favorite Restaurant: Raglan Road and Toy Story Pizza Planet

This is my sister Tina. She's 21 years old and a senior in college. This is one of the few pictures from the trip that she's actually happy in, haha. Here are some of her favorite Disney things:

Favorite Movie: The Little Mermaid
Favorite Character: Ariel
Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite Ride: Splash Mountain
Favorite Restaurant: Ohana

These are my parents. They love Disney just as much a I do! Here are some of their favorite Disney things.

My Mom's:

Favorite Movie: Lady and the Tramp
Favorite Character: Minnie
Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite Ride: Soarin'
Favorite Restaurant: Ohana

My Dad's:

Favorite Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean
Favorite Character: Mickey
Favorite Park: Epcot
Favorite Ride: Big Thunder Mountain
Favorite Restaurant: Ohana and Raglan Road

We also had a few bonus travelers with us!

From left to right: My uncle John, Me, my aunt Cathy, Tina, Donald , my aunt Mary Lou (on the Dis: MLinDisney), my cousin Kim (on the Dis: KimPup), my Mom, and my Dad.

My first update is coming soon so stay tuned!!!
​

 

[celeste.]

Table of Contents​

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Pre Trip & Arrival​

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January 7 and January 8​

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We're Going To Disney World!​

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Day One​

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January 9​

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"Sun's coming up, coming up down on Main Street." - Part One​

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"Sun's coming up, coming up down on Main Street." - Part Two​

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"It's not going to rain today. My lumbago isn't acting up." - Part One​

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"It's not going to rain today. My lumbago isn't acting up." - Part Two​

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On This Winter's Night​

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Day Two​

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January 10​

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"You're only going to ride FIVE times?" - Part One​

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"You're only going to ride FIVE times?" - Part Two​

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Life is a Highway - Part One​

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Life is a Highway - Part Two​

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Wishes!​

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[MLinDisney]

Looking forward to this one!!!

 

[celeste.]

We're Going To Disney World!​

January 7 & January 8​

So the day before we left I finished up all my packing, charged my camera, phone and iPod. I love getting all of my stuff together before the trip. It really makes it feel like the trip is coming. Sorry I don't have pictures of me packing or of our luggage, but I'm pretty sure it looks like just average luggage.
The night before we left (January 7) I went to work. And since I don't have too many pictures for this particular update, I will share with you my floral creations that I made that night.

My first topiary! Flower and Garden Festival here I come!

A regular foam flower arrangement:

Okay, moving along. I know you guys enjoyed that little interruption and you are now rushing out to your nearest florist to buy yourself an arrangement like that.
The next day was January 8. Our departure day! My mom had to work that day so we had a flight that was later in the day. This was the first time we ever flew into Disney at night. My aunt, MLinDisney, wasn't arriving in Disney until the next morning so she drove us to the airport!
We actually got through security really quickly, which was surprising because we flew in from JFK in New York and it's usually nuts when we go early in the morning.
Here is my dad and my sister looking oh so excited before boarding the plane.

Our flight was pretty uneventful. I listened to my Plane Playlist on my iPod which included some Disney songs along with some regular songs.
When we landed, we got our luggage very quickly and ran (well not really) over to the Magical Express. We are first time Magical Express users and we really enjoyed it! And would you believe that I didn't take any pictures of the whole Magical Express experience?! I did take some coming home though. But you've probably all at least seen the Magical Express before so just picture in your minds.
We were staying at Port Orleans Riverside so we were the second stop on our bus. The first stop was the Contemporary, which I enjoyed because we got to see some of Wishes from the bus!! We also got our very first glimpse of the castle and noticed that it was still lit for Christmas! I was so so excited when I saw that. I've always wanted to see the Disney Christmas decorations!
We made it to Riverside and got our luggage from under the bus and then proceeded to check-in.
Here is a blurry picture of my dad fiddling with his suitcase.

The check-in area at Riverside is so beautiful! I think that Riverside is one of the nicest moderates in WDW.

My mom came back from the check-in desk very quickly, since we did online check-in. ("Not to be confused with booking your reservations online"...haha that line in the Magical Express video had me cracking up. People are so dumb though so they had to put it in for all of the confused people out there. ) We got out room number, 8283, and it was in a mansion just as we had requested! We were in the Acadian building which was so pretty. All of the mansion buildings are great and pretty close to the food court, too!
And for some reason I have no pictures of when we first entered our room. Oh wait, I know the reason. I was so hungry my stomach was starting to eat itself.
Some of our bonus travelers (haha), Cathy and John, arrived the day before and were also staying in the Acadian building. We went over to their room to say hello and then walked over to Riverside Mill to get some dinner! I got a bacon cheeseburger with red velvet cake for dessert. My dad and my sister got meals from the make your own pasta station they have there. And my mom got some sort of chicken sandwich. The food was very good, but I do not have any pictures. I didn't take too many pictures tonight, but I promise I have many, many more in the next update and all of the other updates in this report!
After we ate we were all very tired and it was probably around 10 o'clock so we went back to the room to get ready for bed. After all, we had a Magic Kingdom rope drop to make in the morning!

Coming Up: Magic Kingdom!!!
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[Terrie..]

Can't wait to read more!! Love POR - one of my favorite resorts.

 

[marDgreen88]

Hey! I'm joining! Excited to hear about it!

Your floral arrangements are SO pretty! Oh man, one day I filled in at floral and there was nobody there to help me and it was the biggest fail of my life. The grocery store life... gotta love it.

Wow, POR has such a pretty lobby! I honestly had no idea. Both of the Port Orleans resorts are the moderates that I prefer (even though I've never stayed at or even set foot in ANY of them). Can't wait to hear about more!

 

[MeMom]

You can help me along on the March trip report
when I come back with dozens of pictures of plants and flowers

that I wlll have no idea any of the names of.

Red velvet cake - yum! We have hit up that pasta station before. Good stuff.

Yes, POR has a very pretty lobby. I used to think when I get around to staying there that I would want Alligator Bayou, but then I saw more Mansion pictures and thought that was cool, too.
Which now means I have to stay there twice - once in each section!
Disney really does know how to work people like me.

 

[celeste.]

Looking forward to this one!!!

Thanks for reading along!

Can't wait to read more!! Love POR - one of my favorite resorts.

Thank you! POR is great!!

Hey! I'm joining! Excited to hear about it!

Your floral arrangements are SO pretty! Oh man, one day I filled in at floral and there was nobody there to help me and it was the biggest fail of my life. The grocery store life... gotta love it.

Wow, POR has such a pretty lobby! I honestly had no idea. Both of the Port Orleans resorts are the moderates that I prefer (even though I've never stayed at or even set foot in ANY of them). Can't wait to hear about more!

Thanks for joining in!
And thank you, my first two months in floral was the biggest fail of my life, haha.
Everything at POR is beautiful. I think it may be the nicest moderate, you should definitely stay there (or visit one) one day!

You can help me along on the March trip report
when I come back with dozens of pictures of plants and flowers

that I wlll have no idea any of the names of.

Red velvet cake - yum! We have hit up that pasta station before. Good stuff.

Yes, POR has a very pretty lobby. I used to think when I get around to staying there that I would want Alligator Bayou, but then I saw more Mansion pictures and thought that was cool, too.
Which now means I have to stay there twice - once in each section!
Disney really does know how to work people like me.

The red velvet cake was delicious...much better than I expected!
The Alligator Bayou was also very nice, but some were very far from the main lobby. But I hear the rooms are really nice, they have almost a Wilderness Lodge feel to them.
Thanks for reading!

 

[celeste.]

"Sun's coming up, coming up down on Main Street." - Part One​

January 9​

So, I last left off with us going to bed before a fun-filled day at the Magic Kingdom! Yay! It's finally our first park day!
This morning we got up very early and headed down to Riverside Mill at around 6:30. That was a mistake. Nothing actually opened until 7:00. So we filled up our mugs and waited for everything to open up. We met Cathy and John at Riverside Mill and discussed our plans for our day at Magic Kingdom! Finally when 7:00 rolled around we went up and got some breakfast. I got a create your own yogurt parfait with yogurt (of course), granola, strawberries, and brown sugar. It was delicious!! I didn't think it would be that good. Now, I don't really remember what everyone else got but I believe a bunch of us got yogurt parfaits and my dad got oatmeal.

Here's me and Tina at breakfast.

Excited for our day at Magic Kingdom!!

So after we ate we headed back to our rooms and decided we would meet Cathy and John at the bus stop at 8:00 so we could be at Magic Kingdom for rope drop!
When we got to the bus stop I don't think we waited for a bus for too long. I don't really think we waited too long our whole trip for a bus. The POR buses were great!
We made it to Magic Kingdom without a hitch and it didn't appear to be too crowded at all! Also, this was the first time we were seeing the new ticket machines where you just wave your card in front of the Mickey head. It was very cool and much faster. There was hardly ever a line for those machines when meanwhile the lines were crazy for the regular tickets!
It was so much emptier than it usually is when we come so we took some time to take pictures in from of the train station. Would you believe we never took our picture in front of this before?!

Me in front of the train station & Magic Kingdom sign:

Family picture!

After we took our pictures we went over to our usual waiting spot. We like to enter on the left because we usually go right over to Big Thunder Mountain at rope drop. Pretty soon the welcome song was playing and they were getting ready to open the park!

Notice the Christmas decorations are still up!!

Soon the song was over and the rope was dropped and we were on our way down Main Street. I am in love with the Christmas decorations! I didn't think they would still be up because before this trip I read that they usually take them down the Sunday after New Year's. But we later learned that this was the last day of the decorations and that they would take them down that night. We just made it!

Christmas Tree!

Main Street all decked out for Christmas!

Closer view of the castle.

After a few pictures we were on our way to Frontierland to ride Big Thunder Mountain!! Usually people are trying to trample us and we need to weave in and out of crowds, but today we seemed to be some of the only people in this section of the park!

I love January!

We soon arrived at Big Thunder Mountain ready to ride the wildest ride in the wilderness! We all got on line and there really weren't too many people on line for the ride. It's usually pretty empty in the summer, but not this empty!

After we rode it once, we got back on line and rode again! After our second time, my parents decided that they wanted to ride a few more times while me, my sister, Cathy, and John headed over to Fantasyland to ride Peter Pan and some of the other rides over there before the wait times were too high.

Peter Pan was first!

Then came one of my favorites, It's A Small World. Cathy and I love this ride, but John and Tina aren't huge fans, but we made them ride with us anyway.

It was only 9:45 when we got over to ride this one!

I know you guys are all dying to see some of my amazing pictures from everyone's favorite ride, so I will share them with you!

This is my favorite room in the ride!

When we got off of this ride, we decided to finish up the "old" Fantasyland rides and wait for my parents before we went to the "new" Fantasyland. So we rode Winnie the Pooh.

A quick picture of the castle along the way!!

We found my parents on the way over there and they didn't want to ride and neither did Cathy so John, Tina, and I waited to ride! And also, after my parents rode Big Thunder Mountain a few more times, they got my sister and I fastpasses for Space Mountain!!

You can get a good view of the Beast's Castle from the queue of this ride!

Here's the rest of our party waiting for us to get off the ride:

I love this ride, it's one of my favorites in Fantasyland! I love how you bounce up and down.

Now it was time to head over to the New Fantasyland! I was so excited. This is what I was most looking forward to this trip besides the new Test Track! Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie and I was glad they themed a large portion of the New Fantasyland around it!

Here is some of the construction they are doing for the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride!

Once this opens I think the New Fantasyland will look much better because it will flow more with the old Fantasyland.

Then we entered the new portion. It's really pretty and looks just like the town in Beauty and the Beast!

Continued in the next post
​

 

[celeste.]

"Sun's coming up, coming up down on Main Street." - Part Two​

January 9​

Since there's not really much to see in the New Fantasyland since it's mostly restaurants or food places, we headed right over to The Little Mermaid's Under Sea adventure!

The queue was very, very cool for this ride!

There was literally no wait for this ride. We walked right on. The wait time said 5 minutes, but that's probably because the queue is twenty miles long and you have to walk all the way through it. I was expecting the wait to be long for this ride because it was new.

A picture from the ride:

Here is my sister and my dad in the clam shell next to us:

Overall the ride was okay. I liked how you ride in seashells/clam shells, but I feel that there should've have just been something more to the ride. My sister loved it, though, but halfway through the ride my mom said "When's the actual ride going to start?" Haha, that's how you know a ride isn't that good.

A picture after the ride...lol my dad is blinking!

The unloading/loading area. Hey look! It's Cathy and John unloading!

And a picture outside of the ride.

The theme of the queue and everything was really great, but the ride I thought was just average.

After that we looked around the New Fantasyland some more and then decided to head over to the Storybook Circus and Tomorrowland for some more Magic Kingdom fun!

Coming Up: More Magic Kingdom!
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[MUFFYCAT]

Great job! I love your pics and intruductions. I see Tina smiling alot.
Looking forward to reading some more.

Raglan Road was my favorite restaurant also!

 

[geckodani]

I'm in! And I now have that song stuck in my head. ♫ It's all pure magic, wrapped up in pixie dust... ♪

 

[marDgreen88]

Wait!! They changed the way you get into MK now? Really? I had no idea that happened already! So no more finger prints?! Sorry, I'm just so surprised!

So cool that yall got to see the Christmas decorations! YAY!

Ahhh omg, I've been trying SO hard not to look at any picture of New Fantasyland because I want to see it all in person for the first time! So... I think I have to skip the rest of the update! Boo I'm lame, sorry! Can't wait for more though!

 

[celeste.]

Great job! I love your pics and intruductions. I see Tina smiling alot.
Looking forward to reading some more.

Raglan Road was my favorite restaurant also!

Thanks for reading along!
Tina only smiles for pictures.

I'm in! And I now have that song stuck in my head. ♫ It's all pure magic, wrapped up in pixie dust... ♪

Thanks for joining in! & it's a catchy tune!!

Wait!! They changed the way you get into MK now? Really? I had no idea that happened already! So no more finger prints?! Sorry, I'm just so surprised!

So cool that yall got to see the Christmas decorations! YAY!

Ahhh omg, I've been trying SO hard not to look at any picture of New Fantasyland because I want to see it all in person for the first time! So... I think I have to skip the rest of the update! Boo I'm lame, sorry! Can't wait for more though!

They still fingerprint you, but you just wave your card instead of putting it into the machine. It's faster and has less glitches!
haha, I couldn't wait to look at pictures of New Fantasyland! But it will probably be amazing to see it all for the first time in person!
Thanks for reading!

 

[tag0519]

Joining in! Great report so far. Looking forward to the rest of the trip.

 

[PeaceLuvTheMouse]

My mom and I are going back in a few days, so I'm reading up on the New Fantasy Land as much as I can! Can't wait to hear more about your trip@

 

[celeste.]

Joining in! Great report so far. Looking forward to the rest of the trip.

Thanks for joining!

My mom and I are going back in a few days, so I'm reading up on the New Fantasy Land as much as I can! Can't wait to hear more about your trip@

Thank you! Hope you enjoy your trip.

 

[FancyNancy]

Loving your TR so far! Subbing in!

 

[rachel09985]

I am in! Sounds fun! I have read your aunts dining reviews before!

 

[Marsheliz]

Great start! Love your writing style!

The Little Mermaid looks just like Nemo at Epcot, is it pretty similar?

I cant wait to check out new fantasyland!