Snow White Does the Creep on the Trip that Almost Wasn't A Dec 11/Jan 12 TR 7/24 NEW

Hi everyone! Thank you to all my friends –old and new- who have joined me on my new TR! It’s so nice having you all read along! Oh, and happy St. Patrick’s Day! I decided I would do this post in green so no one would pinch me. ;)

December 28, 2011

When I left off we were just driving under that big beautiful PERFECT Disney World sign! :cloud9:We were there! We made it! After the months of wondering and hoping, we actually got to go! It was so nice having John home with me period, but having him home and being in our favorite place on Earth was almost like awesome overload.

We made our way straight to our resort so we could check in before heading to a park. It wasn’t even 11 o’clock, so we figured our room wouldn't be ready yet, but we thought we’d give it a try anyway!

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Can I just say how grateful I was for this gorgeous weather?! If you remember from my December 2010 TR, I spent most of the trip so cold that I felt like random body parts were going to start falling off. This time around it was warm and sunny- the perfect weather for a first day at Disney! :goodvibes

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We went inside and were happy to see a very short check-in line! The CM that helped us was super nice! She asked if we were celebrating anything, and I told her John had just gotten home from a deployment. She gave us each an “I’m Celebrating!” button. She wrote on them for us, and his said “being home” and mine said “having him home.” SO CUTE. I loved her, but apparently not enough to write her name down in my TR journal. Whoopsie! :rolleyes1

Next she sprinkled a little pixie dust on us and gave us two pieces of good news! First, we were granted our request for a king room! WOO HOO! And second, our room was ready!! I danced a little jig (I’m being serious- I literally danced in the lobby of ASMo) and we headed off to our room!

We were in a preferred room in the Fantasia building.

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Our room was right next to the pool, which would have been really convenient in the summer, but I didn’t really have any intention of swimming this trip. It still turned out to be pretty neat because they showed movies in the evening right next to the pool so it was about five feet from our door!

Here’s our view of the pool:

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We were in room 8762!

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Awww yeah! King sized bed! :woohoo: If you’re wondering about my obsession in all of my TRs with king beds, please keep in mind that my husband is eight million feet tall and kicks like a mule when he’s asleep. I need all the room I can get.

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Towel Mickey!

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This looks like a perfect place for some STACEY!

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Here’s a close up of our other towel creation- a Christmas wreath!

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So at this point in our room exploration everything was going swimmingly. We were able to check in early, we had an awesome room location, a king sized bed, and not one but TWO towel creations. I was beyond thrilled with everything…until I went in the bathroom.

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My immediate reaction was “Whaa…?” :confused: because I was completely confused. Then I realized that we were in a handicap accessible room. This would not have been a big deal AT ALL, except I am really big on taking baths. Long story short, I have a long standing health thing that makes my muscles weaker than normal, so I tend to be a little sore by the end of the day, especially when I’m being really active. It’s not a big deal, but I like to take hot baths in the evenings to relax my muscles. I called the lobby and asked if we could be switched to a regular room, but the lady on the phone told me we would have to give up our preferred room and king sized bed. I didn’t know this, but apparently the only rooms at ASMo with king sized beds are handicap accessible rooms. I really wasn’t happy about not having a bath tub, but John really seemed to like our location and I knew how hard it would be to give up that big bed, so I sucked it up and said it would be okay. Now, if you remember from my first post and the where portion of the introduction, you’ll know this didn’t last. However, there’s more reasons for why we switched resorts, so I’ll get to that later!

Despite my unhappiness with the tub-less bathroom, I was still ecstatic just to be in Disney! Plus our room was really cute. Look at these adorable coat hooks!

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In case you were wondering just how ecstatic I was, here’s some photographic evidence!

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After we finished checking out the room we decided to go to the food court and grab some lunch before going to our first park of the trip! On our way there I took a few more pictures. John posed in front of our building!

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The pool looked so inviting!

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Everyone was out enjoying the beautiful weather in the parks, so the food courts was nice and empty!

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I decided to get an Italian sandwich for lunch. For a side I got some kind of Greek cucumber salad. For my dessert I got a chocolate chip cookie!

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The sandwich was really good! It was huge though, and the bread was really dense, so I was only able to eat about half! The cucumber salad was very yummy! I ate almost all of it. The cookie was okay, but not great. It was really hard. Despite that, it was still better than Svenhard’s berry horn!

John went with one of his favorites, the chicken penne alfredo. He got a chocolate muffin for dessert.

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He said everything was really good. He was really hungry too, so I’m pretty sure he ate every bite!

Overall it was a pretty good meal! We were just thrilled to be eating DISNEY FOOD again! It was so wonderful being back in the place where even the worst food is better than regular non-Disney food!

Up next: We head to the first park of the trip! Which one will it be? Stay tuned!
 
Yeah for being at Disney!!

That is such a bummer on the rooms not having a tub!! I've never taken a bath in a hotel in a regular tub (I'm too big...) but my husband and I like to use the hot tub at the end of the day to relax. This is the main reason we stayed at CBR the first time. I wanted to guarantee a King bed and finding out we could use the hot tub even late at night was a bonus! Its a bummer that the values don't have hot tubs!!
 
I'm here Joni! Sorry I'm late, but I've arrived nonetheless. Can't wait to hear all about this latest trip! :mickeyjum
 
Yay for getting your requests at ASMovies! That CM was so sweet! I love CM's that really go out of their way to make your stay a little more magical! :wizard: Of course, I never write their names down in my TR notes either! :rolleyes1

Your room actually looks really cute! I've heard such terrible things about Movies, but it looks nice! That's too bad about the tub though, the bathroom looks really, really strange without one!

Yay for Disney food! :woohoo: I love that Chicken Penne Alfredo, it's one of my favorite things to eat at Disney now! Like, I'd drive myself all the way to Pop just to eat that! :cloud9:
 


Oh I looooovvveeee Disney food!!! :lovestruc I'm glad the CM was nice who checked you in!! That is always helpful and it makes you that much happier to be there!:goodvibes I'm happy you finally made it, but no tub?? I'm sorry!! :sad2: Hopefully it all works out. I can't wait to hear about your first park!!!!
 
Aww, I love the I'm Celebrating buttons! :cloud9:

I got one of those rooms at All Star Music too and it was so weird! Gotta love that king bed though.

That's such an adorable pic of you! I can totally feel your excitement :yay:

I didn't realize the All Stars had Chicken Penne Alfredo too! I thought it was only a Pop thing. That's my favorite thing to eat there. Yay, Disney food!
 


That is SO CUTE what the CM wrote on your buttons! :cutie:

Aww, I love All Star Movies! I stayed there in Dec. 2010. I've stayed in all the All Star Resorts and Movies was actually my favorite, so I love seeing all these pictures!

Oh no! I'm sorry about the bathroom thing. :sad2: Now you've got me all curious about what happened with your resort!
 
Yay, ANOTHER TR!!:banana: I've been following your June TR as well! Off to a great start; but, I'm really interested in finding out why you switched resorts and where you ended up:eek:

Side note: your Svenhard pastry bit literally made me laugh out loud:rotfl:
 
Just found your TR and I'm hooked! I'm very intrigued as to why you switched hotels!

Going to check out your other TRs now :)
 
Just discovered your TRs this weekend and really enjoyed reading all your great posts! Your sense of humor made me LOL on multiple occasions :lmao: and I'm looking forward to this new TR and the conclusion of the other one. Can't wait to read more! :thumbsup2
 
Yeah for being at Disney!!

That is such a bummer on the rooms not having a tub!! I've never taken a bath in a hotel in a regular tub (I'm too big...) but my husband and I like to use the hot tub at the end of the day to relax. This is the main reason we stayed at CBR the first time. I wanted to guarantee a King bed and finding out we could use the hot tub even late at night was a bonus! Its a bummer that the values don't have hot tubs!!

Yay! We were so excited! :goodvibes

I agree, being able to relax in a hot tub after a long day is very nice! I just need some kind of warm water to relax my achy muscles! I was so sad without my tub! :sad1:

I'm here Joni! Sorry I'm late, but I've arrived nonetheless. Can't wait to hear all about this latest trip! :mickeyjum

:welcome: You're not late, you're right on time! ;) I'm so glad you're here!

Yay for getting your requests at ASMovies! That CM was so sweet! I love CM's that really go out of their way to make your stay a little more magical! :wizard: Of course, I never write their names down in my TR notes either! :rolleyes1

Your room actually looks really cute! I've heard such terrible things about Movies, but it looks nice! That's too bad about the tub though, the bathroom looks really, really strange without one!

Yay for Disney food! :woohoo: I love that Chicken Penne Alfredo, it's one of my favorite things to eat at Disney now! Like, I'd drive myself all the way to Pop just to eat that! :cloud9:

That CM was really sweet! She really helped start our trip off right! Haha I'm glad I'm not the only who forgets to write down names!

It was a cute room, but unfortunately we ended up having lots of other problems! More on that later!

That's one of John's favorites too! By the way, I went back and changed it because I had it down as fettucine! I couldn't remember what those noodles were called! :rotfl:

Oh I looooovvveeee Disney food!!! :lovestruc I'm glad the CM was nice who checked you in!! That is always helpful and it makes you that much happier to be there!:goodvibes I'm happy you finally made it, but no tub?? I'm sorry!! :sad2: Hopefully it all works out. I can't wait to hear about your first park!!!!

Me too! Disney food is THE BEST! :lovestruc You're right- nice CMs really do make you even happier to be there! I was really bummed about the tub, and unfortunately more stuff came up later! But it all worked out! :)

Aww, I love the I'm Celebrating buttons! :cloud9:

I got one of those rooms at All Star Music too and it was so weird! Gotta love that king bed though.

That's such an adorable pic of you! I can totally feel your excitement :yay:

I didn't realize the All Stars had Chicken Penne Alfredo too! I thought it was only a Pop thing. That's my favorite thing to eat there. Yay, Disney food!

I loved them too! It was so sweet! :lovestruc

The king bed is amazing, but the room definitely was weird!

Haha thanks! I'm such a nerd, but I had to photograph my excitement! :goodvibes

John gets that all the time! I've never had it but it must be good because everyone seems to love it! I need to try it someday!
 
I'm in...great start!

Jill in CO

:welcome: Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it! :)

Loving this so far!! Can't wait to read more!!

:welcome: Thanks so much! I'm so happy you like it so far!

That is SO CUTE what the CM wrote on your buttons! :cutie:

Aww, I love All Star Movies! I stayed there in Dec. 2010. I've stayed in all the All Star Resorts and Movies was actually my favorite, so I love seeing all these pictures!

Oh no! I'm sorry about the bathroom thing. :sad2: Now you've got me all curious about what happened with your resort!

I know, I was so touched when she did that! :goodvibes

That's so cool that you've stayed in all the All Stars resorts! Of the three I've only stayed in ASMo!

I was bummed about the bathroom, and even more bummed about what happened later, but it all worked out! :thumbsup2

Yay, ANOTHER TR!!:banana: I've been following your June TR as well! Off to a great start; but, I'm really interested in finding out why you switched resorts and where you ended up:eek:

Side note: your Svenhard pastry bit literally made me laugh out loud:rotfl:

:welcome: I'm so glad you're following both my TRs! Thanks for reading!

Hahaha poor Svenhard! What a mess! :rolleyes:

Just found your TR and I'm hooked! I'm very intrigued as to why you switched hotels!

Going to check out your other TRs now :)

:welcome: I'm so glad you're hooked!

Yay! I hope you enjoy the others!

Just joining in. Enjoying the TR so fare.

:welcome: Thanks for reading!

Just discovered your TRs this weekend and really enjoyed reading all your great posts! Your sense of humor made me LOL on multiple occasions :lmao: and I'm looking forward to this new TR and the conclusion of the other one. Can't wait to read more! :thumbsup2

:welcome: Thanks so much! I'm so glad I can make you laugh! Keep reading! :goodvibes
 
Hey everyone! So before I do my update, I just wanted to let you know- I finally joined the 21st century and got a Twitter account! :woohoo: I would love to follow all of my DIS friends, so please let know if you’re on there too! My name is @Joni_Russell so I hope to see you over there!

Okay, onto the update!

December 28, 2011

When I left off we were finishing lunch at the ASMo food court and heading to our first park. Which park was it? Well…

DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS!

John was really excited about it, and so was I!

Unfortunately our excitement quickly grew to nervousness…as we were driving to the park I started panicking about the possibility that the park would be full! :scared: If you’d been to Disney at Christmastime then you know it’s not uncommon for the parks to reach capacity very early in the day. It was already after noon, and MK was already closed. As we started to approach our turn to get into DHS I noticed that the line of traffic was VERY long, and barely moving! I instantly started to panic. It took forever for us to make the turn that would lead to the parking lot, and when we did I saw a terrifying sight! The reason the line was moving so slow was because people were turning around and leaving! THE PARK WAS FULL! :sad:

Welcome to my nightmare, like no joke. I was so full of nervous energy that I instantly burst into tears. We’re talking full on weeping. I was absolutely devastated! This was messing up my whole trip plan! We had and ADR in DHS that night! I wasn’t going to get to see the Osborne Lights! My life was over!

A CM was standing there guiding cars, and John pulled up and wound the window down to receive the bad news.

John: “The park is full, right?”
CM: (Looking at our resort parking pass) “Not for you!”

He then proceeded to hand us a special magical pass that basically said, “Hello, you lucky resort guest, you. Because I’m Mickey Mouse and I love you for staying in one of my magical resorts, I’m going to let you come into this park even though it’s full. You’re welcome.” Okay, that’s not what it really said, but you get the point.

So, I HAD NO CLUE THAT HAPPENED. :cloud9: I seriously did not know that you could get into a full park if you were a resort guest. Surely that doesn’t apply all the time, but it didn’t matter! All that mattered was that my life wasn’t ruined! I got to go in! YAY!!! I couldn’t help but have a little bit of a smug face as we drove past everyone turning around. Stay at a Disney resort, people! IT JUST MAKES SENSE.

I tried to get John to smile for a picture, but he wouldn’t so I tickled him. Now it looks like I’m scratching his ear like a dog. Oh well, I’ll post it anyway!

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So anyway, we parked halfway to Timbuktu and hopped a tram to our first park of the trip!

I just love the atmosphere at DHS! I can’t get enough of it! I took a few pictures on Hollywood Boulevard…

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And then we headed down Sunset Boulevard to see this bad boy!

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Unfortunately the wait was like 70 minutes. Neither one of us was quite ready to jump into a long standby line, so we decided to wander around a bit more and just absorb that Disney atmosphere!

What exactly contributes to that “Disney atmosphere” you ask?

Well, one thing is definitely…

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BALLOONS! I’d like to stop for a moment and recognize how grateful I was at this point for my new camera. If you’ve read my other TRs, I’m sure you can appreciate how much better these pictures are! Plus, I finally had a FLASH and a functioning zoom lens! Hence my creepiness, which is coming up soon!

All of the wait times for rides were INSANELY long, but I didn’t mind. I had something else in mind... any guesses what it was?

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Red velvet and that little Joni's smile
Red velvet with that slow Disney style
A new religion that'll bring ya to your knees
Red velvet if you please…

Yes, I just changed the lyrics to “Black Velvet” to accommodate a cupcake. But you would understand my need to sing about it if you’ve ever had one of THESE CUPCAKES! My usual treat at Starring Rolls was the Butterfinger cupcake (which John got), but ever since I had read Jess (DisneyFreak508) talk about how amazing the red velvet cupcakes were, I had to try one. Well, she was right- THEY’RE HEAVENLY. Omg I’m not even kidding you...beyond words good. The most delicious, moist red velvet I’d ever tasted, with cream cheese frosting that had CHEESECAKE in the middle! No joke, freaking cheesecake. Oh, and crumbly Heath bar deliciousness on top. So basically, if Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima, and Duncan Hines (is that even a person?) got together and created a magic cupcake, this would be the cupcake that their cupcake wanted to grow up to be like. EAT ONE.

Okay, moving on. After my bite of heaven I was ready to continue wandering. We went into the Art of Animation store to drool over the paintings and figurines. I think I stared at this for about twenty minutes:

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So gorgeous!

Next we stopped at the pin shop that is in the Sorcerer Mickey hat, and I bought a new pin!

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I love Pluto pins, and I love buying special pins to commemorate cool events that are going on during my trip! Isn’t it cute?

The wait time for all of the rides was still ridiculous, so we decided to go see one of John’s favorite shows: Indiana Jones! If you remember from my December 2010 TR the show we were watching got cut short because it was too cold outside. Then we decided to skip it in June 2011, so we hadn’t seen it in a while!

And so begins the first portion of this trip in which I go creepin’! Let’s see what I can zoom in on during the Indian Jones show!

Just as a reference point, here’s how far we actually were from the stage.

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First I did the creep on the extras!

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Oh my gosh, can I just say…that announcer lady’s voice was SO IRRITATING. Bless her heart, seriously. It was like it cut right through my ears and straight into my core. It was so screechy and high pitched. She was a beautiful lady but THAT VOICE. I’m really not sure why Disney chose to give her the one job where she basically does nothing but talk. Oh well, moving on.

Next I creeped around the “extra” who is actually a super impressive acrobat.

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Then Indy himself came out, and I reached a new level of creepiness!

Please enjoy these zoomed in photos:

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My creeping continued into the next scene.

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I’m pretty proud of this one! Check out his blurry head.

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Oh, hello there Indiana. Long time no creep.

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FIYAAHHHH!

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Ya’ll, I creeped all over that show with my zoom lens. Don’t worry- this isn’t the last you’ll see of my creepiness! There’s plenty more to come!

After the show we still weren’t willing to wait in any lines, and we had an ADR coming up soon so we really had no choice. To kill a little time we went into a few more shops, and I made another awesome purchase!

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The monorail shirt! YAY! :woohoo: I’ve wanted this shirt forever, and I asked for it for Christmas but Disneystore.com sold out. I was so excited when I found it because I thought there wouldn’t be many, but there ended up being about ten million in every shop. Oh well, I had one, which is all I cared about!

Up Next: Our first ADR of the trip! Where was it? Stay tuned!
 
Yeah!! Glad you were able to get into the park! Even if the ride lines were horrendous! At least you could enjoy a show and do some shopping. Better than not being in Disney!!

The room thing sounds Ominous!
 
Omg, TWO parks were full to capacity? That's my nightmare too, goodness. But that's awesome that yall got in! PIXIE DUST YALL. That would have been terrible if you had to miss your ADR!

:lmao: Oh my gosh... your lyric change is absolutely brilliant. I WANT ONE! OH I WANT ONE. They look amazing, they sound amazing, and now they have a theme song. And if it HAS a theme song, I WANT IT!

Love your pin! I'm not gonna lie, a little bit jealous of that pin!

I'm so ready to do the creep with you. (I think the guy in the backwards hat suspects you...) DANG, your camera can ZOOM! Hahah um, Indiana Jones looks tired, or loopy, or... something. :wave2:

MONORAIL SHIRT. Amen. Hmm my guess is 50's because if I remember correctly yall really liked that place before? BUT we'll see!
 
I followed you! My name on there is @babybritney :)

Yay! What a magical moment of thinking you weren't going to get into the park and then you did. Staying on property is the only way to go, people!

Ahh, the Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcake aka the love of my life. :love: Jess's TR was the reason I knew I had to try it as well. God Bless that girl, I swear. haha

YAY the monorail shirt!! Best shirt ever!!!
 
"that announcer lady’s voice was SO IRRITATING. Bless her heart, seriously. It was like it cut right through my ears and straight into my core."

I have to just say that the southern phrase "bless her heart" is just about the finest American idiom there is :lmao: Women from the northern states are just completely jealous that we do not have such a delightfully perfect way of punctuating a statement. I am totally sincere here -- perfect use of a perfect phrase!:lovestruc

My son and I are heading to WDW for ten days in August and you have convinced me to try the red velvet (we have never been to starring rolls -- gasp!).

I continue to be enthralled with your reports and I am genuinely concerned about what ever happened to make you switch resorts ---

Wish I was at the world right now...

Hope you enjoyed your ADR and I and completely jealous about the shirt -- LOVE the monorail tee!:goodvibes
 

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