Ten Sleeps in Disney World!! - An Aug Trip Report *5/9 Departure Day & Final Thoughts

[jenjolt]

Ahhhhh...I love this update!! Your kids look like they had an amazing breakfast, after the rough start of course....eww to having to wait 40 minutes!!!! However, the character interaction looked wonderful and there were tons of smiles all over the place. The food looks really yummy too!!!

I'm sorry George still wasn't feeling well, I'm glad you guys were able to roll with the punches and still have a great time!!! I can't wait to hear about your time at Disney Quest, for some reason that place has always fascinated me.

Okay as far as hockey goes...we are Red Wings fans in this house!!! We watch every game we can and I'm hoping to snag some tickets to the Dallas game for my hubby so he can go with his best friend who lives in Houston.

OH and you are way too kind to me!! I'm glad you are enjoying my TR!! I have greatly enjoyed reading every minute of yours!! You have done a fabulous job!

 

[mickeysmyboy]

Woo Hooo for hockey and a fun weekend! I hope it cheered you up

Great update!! I'm sorry George was still not feeling well!! I hope he got better

That Ohana wait was crazy!! DH and I waited 50 minutes for our Chef Mickey breakfast in March! UGH! I was just about to give up because we were starving when our buzzer went off!

I love all the character pics! It looks like the kids had a great time at Ohana!!

Can't wait for more!!

 

[Angies1274]

Great Update!!!

Aww...sorry that you had to wait so long for breakfast. But...Ohana's!!!YAY We love it there!! I was so sad that we weren't able to make it last trip. The juice is really yummy isn't it? It's Nick's favorite!! Love all your pictures!! It looks everyone was having a great time with the characters and that Baby Simba definitely made an impression on them---very cute!!

I hope George is feeling better!!---and that you made it to DTD on time.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I was two updates behind....so sorry. I am glad that you have finally gotten over the crappy days. Seems like I've had a few of those myself lately.

I'm sorry that George was feeling under the weather and didn't make it to breakfast with you guys. With the wait you had...forty minutes!....he could have rested there. I love the pictures and the video. The kids had a great spot in the parade!

 

[PracPerfPatricia]

Ooo-I love to watch Hockey---I've actually been to some Flyers games...which if you know me is saying something...because I can probably count on one hand the professional sports games I been to...ok maybe 2 hands but not fully...

(my brother busts on me because I don't really like football-I don't know why...but I've always found hockey fun to watch...--I like a little baseball too...but hockey is just exciting because it's fast...and I love the ice skating...too...good for your little-well one little and one medium men...)

I'm glad you and Ariana had a good time in the Disney store...I knew you'd like all the Snow White stuff...(we don't have one too close to us anymore...)

Thanks for the photo of Alice......I'd have hated for you to get dragged off to some Dis jail somewhere though...kinda wierd about the photos...I took some in the Dis store in NY-maybe no one saw me or maybe they just didn't care there...

We love O'hana's breakfast too-although 40 minute wait-not fun...

I agree with you-I think Ohanas is one of the best Character meals...the food and the interaction is always good... ...Stitch usually makes things lots of fun...

Oh...I hope George didn't get too sick from the sun...

Oh and Congrats on the promotion

 

[jordanyosh]

Ohana for breakfast looks great other than the wait!

The pix of the kids with the characters can't be beat. The fact that you had baby Simba was no doubt a factor!

What kind of juice is it?

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Ahhhhh...I love this update!! Your kids look like they had an amazing breakfast, after the rough start of course....eww to having to wait 40 minutes!!!! However, the character interaction looked wonderful and there were tons of smiles all over the place. The food looks really yummy too!!!

Yeah the wait was a bummer, I could have explored the resort a bit more if I'd known, but hey, our good timing luck had to run out sometime! Isn't it funny how much fun you can have with the characters and they can't even talk?

I'm sorry George still wasn't feeling well, I'm glad you guys were able to roll with the punches and still have a great time!!! I can't wait to hear about your time at Disney Quest, for some reason that place has always fascinated me.

We really didn't know what to expect at Disney Quest... would it be just another arcade? ... would it be lame? .... or really super fun? Coming up!

Okay as far as hockey goes...we are Red Wings fans in this house!!! We watch every game we can and I'm hoping to snag some tickets to the Dallas game for my hubby so he can go with his best friend who lives in Houston.

Ah! My sincerest apologizes for cheering on the Penguins last season, but you had your fun the year before!

OH and you are way too kind to me!! I'm glad you are enjoying my TR!! I have greatly enjoyed reading every minute of yours!! You have done a fabulous job!

Thank you!

Woo Hooo for hockey and a fun weekend! I hope it cheered you up

Great update!! I'm sorry George was still not feeling well!! I hope he got better

Thanks! It did help a lot, and the Disney Store helped bring the excitement of the upcoming holidays back too. I'm afraid I had let the gloomies set it but we're back on track now.

That Ohana wait was crazy!! DH and I waited 50 minutes for our Chef Mickey breakfast in March! UGH! I was just about to give up because we were starving when our buzzer went off!

I love all the character pics! It looks like the kids had a great time at Ohana!!

Can't wait for more!!

Thank heavens those are the exceptions.... at least they have been for us. In our four trips that was a first.... luckily they've been worth the wait! Ohana remains our favorite

Great Update!!!

Aww...sorry that you had to wait so long for breakfast. But...Ohana's!!!YAY We love it there!! I was so sad that we weren't able to make it last trip. The juice is really yummy isn't it? It's Nick's favorite!! Love all your pictures!! It looks everyone was having a great time with the characters and that Baby Simba definitely made an impression on them---very cute!!

I hope George is feeling better!!---and that you made it to DTD on time.

I tried to duplicate the juice once and while tasty, I haven't quite matched it. I'm inspired to try again ... I'll let you know what I come up with!

Disclaimer: No animals were hurt in the making of this story. Baby Simba had a, shall we say..... unfortunate accident yesterday. Although a constant and faithful companion for Ariana at home, Baby Simba is not allowed to accompany her into her therapy sessions.

Yesterday, at the start of her session, she was not quite ready to say goodbye to him and he became the subject of a tug-of-war with Alex. This battle of wills and strength resulted in.... yes, its true.... Baby Simba's head came off.

Alex was mortified and Ariana was devastated with tears streaming down her face. But George, her knight-in-shining-armour, was successful in sewing him back together in what, quite proudly I may say, looks like the nasty deed never happened.

 

[ZeroToHero]

Oh no!!!!! Poor Simba. But hey, he'll always be a'head to me! (...That reminds me of something Timon & Pumbaa would say - some cheesy joke that makes no sense...)

Glad he was able to be put back together.

 

[Mickey_Mom]

I was two updates behind....so sorry. I am glad that you have finally gotten over the crappy days. Seems like I've had a few of those myself lately.

Oh back to you! Do you have a Disney Store around you? Big help!

I'm sorry that George was feeling under the weather and didn't make it to breakfast with you guys. With the wait you had...forty minutes!....he could have rested there. I love the pictures and the video. The kids had a great spot in the parade!

You're right, he could have! That would have been the better thing all around considering how late we ended up being. Yep, really late.

Ooo-I love to watch Hockey---I've actually been to some Flyers games...which if you know me is saying something...because I can probably count on one hand the professional sports games I been to...ok maybe 2 hands but not fully...

(my brother busts on me because I don't really like football-I don't know why...but I've always found hockey fun to watch...--I like a little baseball too...but hockey is just exciting because it's fast...and I love the ice skating...too...good for your little-well one little and one medium men...)

I can totally picture you enjoying hockey! I love football too... NFL over CFL, very unpatriotic of me I know....

I'm glad you and Ariana had a good time in the Disney store...I knew you'd like all the Snow White stuff...(we don't have one too close to us anymore...)

Thanks for the photo of Alice......I'd have hated for you to get dragged off to some Dis jail somewhere though...kinda wierd about the photos...I took some in the Dis store in NY-maybe no one saw me or maybe they just didn't care there...

Mmmmm, Disney jail might be kinda fun. Who might the guards be if they were characters? Certainly Donald, the Queen of Hearts, perhaps Malificent.... I'd taken pictures of about three quarters of the store before anyone approached me.

We love O'hana's breakfast too-although 40 minute wait-not fun...

I agree with you-I think Ohanas is one of the best Character meals...the food and the interaction is always good... ...Stitch usually makes things lots of fun...

Oh...I hope George didn't get too sick from the sun...

Oh and Congrats on the promotion

I won't hesitate to book them again next time. I still haven't explored the resort like I wanted to but if we get there at Christmas its a definate.

Thanks on the promotion!

Ohana for breakfast looks great other than the wait!

The pix of the kids with the characters can't be beat. The fact that you had baby Simba was no doubt a factor!

What kind of juice is it?

The pic with Stitch is my desktop picture... .makes me smile every time I see it.

The juice is an equal mix of passionfruit juice, orange juice and guava juice. Definately going to try to re-create it.

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Oh no!!!!! Poor Simba. But hey, he'll always be a'head to me! (...That reminds me of something Timon & Pumbaa would say - some cheesy joke that makes no sense...)

Glad he was able to be put back together.

Groan! Ok, that was bad. He did a good job! If they hadn't told me about it, I wouldn't have known.

 

[wdwgirl03]

*sigh* Good old Polynesian. Love that place! Believe it or not we never ate at Ohana. Sounds like a lot of fun though!

 

[Lady Lallie]

I love this update!! I really really really REALLY want to go to Ohanas now. Jen, are you reading this?

Oh, poor baby simba! I'm so glad he could get put back together!

 

[jordanyosh]

The pic with Stitch is my desktop picture... .makes me smile every time I see it.

The juice is an equal mix of passionfruit juice, orange juice and guava juice. Definately going to try to re-create it.

MMMMM.........that juice just sounds too good.

 

[Mickey_Mom]

*sigh* Good old Polynesian. Love that place! Believe it or not we never ate at Ohana. Sounds like a lot of fun though!

Really? You should, its fun! I'm determined to go tour the Poly ... any insider insights?

I love this update!! I really really really REALLY want to go to Ohanas now. Jen, are you reading this?

Oh, poor baby simba! I'm so glad he could get put back together!

You're on itinerary version 6.0 now right? I hope you get there! Baby Simba is as good as new.

MMMMM.........that juice just sounds too good.

Mmmmmmm... I wish I had some right now. I would love to start each morning with Ohana juice.

 

[preschoolmom]

Poor baby Simba!

Hi, I followed your trip report link from the Adventures in Autism report. I'm enjoying your report!

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Poor baby Simba!

Hi, I followed your trip report link from the Adventures in Autism report. I'm enjoying your report!

Glad you've joined in! Frankly I'm glad I didn't see Baby Simba in his injured state. I think I would have cried along with Ariana.

 

[Happydog]

Oh finally caught up!!! SO I cannot believe that your son is ice skating, let alone playing hockey!!!! WOW!!!!! Very cool!

And I love the Disney store mini report, yours is very big it seems! We have one that just opened but it seems really small....

Great Ohanas post for breakfast, sorry the wait was so long, but the Stitch looks so cuddly!

Cant wait to hear about DTD and Disney Quest!

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Oh finally caught up!!! SO I cannot believe that your son is ice skating, let alone playing hockey!!!! WOW!!!!! Very cool!

And I love the Disney store mini report, yours is very big it seems! We have one that just opened but it seems really small....

Great Ohanas post for breakfast, sorry the wait was so long, but the Stitch looks so cuddly!

Cant wait to hear about DTD and Disney Quest!

Hi there! Demetri worships three things: his big brother, hockey, and his big brother playing hockey so he's been very motivated from an early age to do the same.

Our Disney Store is a decent size..... perfect to let the kids roam at their will but still keep an eye on them. There's even benches right outside the entrance you can sit and enjoy a coffee but I haven't reached that point yet.

Disney Quest coming up!

 

[Mickey_Mom]

So, what were the chances of us walking to the Poly bus area, catching a DTD bus and walking to Disney Quest in ten minutes? Were we late meeting George? Oh yeah. And not just a little late, try and hour and fifteen minutes late. It seems everything was conspiring against us this morning. The bus leaving the Poly to DTD was a longtime coming, we got off at the wrong bus stop so we had to walk all the way from one end of DTD to the other and we needed a bathroom break in between .

We did however, of course, stop for a quick pic of the boys hamming it up.

Now if you remember, George was the one who decided that using cell phones in WDW was too expensive and setting places and times to meet would be just fine. His theory had already been proven wrong our first park day when Ariana and I had waited an hour and a half past our meet time beside Cinderella’s Carousel. I had been pretty gracious in my forced smile and ‘on with the show’ attitude then, so while I was rushing through DTD anticipating George’s grumpiness, I was fairly confident he’d see the similarities between then and now and just brush it off. I mean, sometimes things just happen outside of our control – who would have thought we’d have to wait forty minutes for our Ohana breakfast… it’d never happened before - and without the ability to call him and tell him how behind we were, I had no choice but to just show up late. Kinda like he did when he was returning the rental car back on day two. Right?

Ummmm, no. Not so much. We were met by Grumpy himself complaining that he’d had to wait two hours – where he got two hours from I never asked, if he arrived early that was his call, not our fault right? – and then he morphed into his “whatever” persona for the rest of the morning. Ugh! So much for remembering our wait back on day two - he said I should have left the kids at the Ohana breakfast, found a courtesy phone and called him at the Pop to tell him we were late. As if! Problem with that –outside of me not wanting to leave the Ohana breakfast…. remember how well timed it was – Pluto, Lilo, Stitch, Mickey, parade, bing, bang, boom-done? ….. is if he’d been waiting two hours for us, then my call from the Poly would have gone unanswered in the room because he would have already left. So Mr. Grumpy Gills was given lots of space to get over things and we rode up the elevator to be dropped off on the third floor of five floors. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen on the elevator ride so I didn’t have my camera ready, but a cute video of the Genie came on before we ‘shot up’ and were let out.

We split up into groups, set a place and time to meet – we just never learn do we? – and Ariana and I left to do the nearest attraction. I was so confused navigating thru this building. There are stairs all over and you move to the different levels very easily, so when Ariana and I went down a few stairs to do our first ride, we’d actually gone down from level three to level two. We weren’t sure there was going to be much for Demetri or Ariana to do at Disney Quest but I was happy to see the sign for our first ride….

Great! Ariana loves playing Aladdin video games on line and she picks up quickly the object of games so I thought it would be a good start for her. The line was fairly short and soon enough we were fitted with a helmet that virtual reality helmets would click onto while you’re sitting on what looks like a motorcycle to play the game. Caution! Those helmets are heavy! While I was playing I found my chin slowly drooping into my chest and it would hurt my nose to lift my head back up again. I’m a tad claustrophobic and I wondered how I would feel with the helmet on but fortunately that didn’t come into play. The game itself is quite cute and you can work in teams to meet your end goal of freeing the Genie…. I could “see” Ariana within the game as Abu on a magic carpet and she did better than I did. I had a brief moment of panic once I realized that should Ariana bolt while I was strapped into the ride, I might not know it first of all, and then it might take me a minute to get unhooked and chase after her, but luckily the timing worked out and as the ride ended, Ariana flung the helmet off and came to me. Turns out while she finished the ride, she hated the heaviness of the helmet and made it quite clear the rest of the day that she didn’t want to have anything to do with virtual reality helmets again. “Goodbye Aladdin! Goodbyyyyye!” Was her way of telling us in no way, shape or form, was she strapping one of those things on again! I wondered why I was suddenly feeling ill and realized while I didn’t get claustrophobic, I did get a queasy stomach out of it. Not such a great start, but we had five floors to explore!

We went down another few stairs outside the ride exit and ended up on the first floor. We waited in line for what turned out to be the best ride of the day – Pirates of the Caribbean.

Holy cow, this ride is fun! You wear 3-D goggles, much more comfortable! – and as a team of five or six you enter the room and are on the bow of the Black Pearl. One of the team volunteers as the Captain and steers the ship while the rest of the crew pops canons out at passing ships. When you sink a ship, you claim their gold! The canons are like the TSM guns, you pull a ball on the end of a string, and the room goes all the way around so you’re fully immersed in the action. The ending is awesome but I won’t spoil it for anyone wanting to experience it. Now we’re talking!

Right by the POTC was the Virtual Jungle Cruise. As we were waiting in line we saw groups of people having a blast so we decided to try it out. You sit in a paddle boat that shifts and moves underneath you while you paddle your way through rapids in a world full of dinosaurs and creatures.

I have no idea what the objective of this ride is because Ariana could not maneuver her paddle so we only ever went in circles! Not so fun with the two of us, but would have been better with more people.

We decided to try for the floor by floor approach and the last thing on floor one was a shop. We opted to forgo the shop to see more things before our meet time and headed up to floor two. Running past Magic Carpets of Aladdin… “Goodbyyyyye Aladdin!” our next adventure was CyberSpace Mountain where you design and ride your own roller coaster.

You enter a room with touch screen terminals and it takes you through step by step designing your roller coaster. You choose track, loops, cork screws, bumps, everything, and then at the end it tells you your thrill level. I was definitely going for a tame thrill ride after the Magic Carpets queasiness so my thrill meter was pretty low. After you finish up you go to the Launch Bay area and you enter a room where you climb into a typical roller coaster seat. They close the door behind you and your roller coaster appears on the screen in front of you and your coaster seat moves along the track as you designed it. Now I love me some awesome roller coasters but one of the best parts for me is the wind in your hair and the scenery (as blurry as it sometimes gets!) all around you. This mechanical, virtual roller coaster gave me the thrills of a coaster but none of the visuals so I left with just more queasiness – ugh. Very, very fun experience, but my tummy was not agreeing with me.

Staying on the second floor, we skipped Sid’s Create a Toy (we couldn’t figure out how to do it) and I took a seat on some benches to calm my tummy down while Ariana created some masterpieces on the Living Easels.

She LOVED this and created picture after picture with a touch of her finger. You start with a background picture of your choice and add whatever you like. You can start over or undo anything and you can even purchase your pictures if you’d like. In these pictures, she’d chosen an underwater theme and though you can mix and match, she put fishies everywhere and of course added Ariel too.

After somewhat calming my tummy down, we skipped the Animation Academy and moved onto the third floor. I would have liked to have done the Animation Academy to learn how to draw Disney characters, but it was a thirty minute class that hadn’t even started yet and I’m not sure Ariana would have been able to sit through it. So our next adventure was Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blaster.

I should mention at this point the lines had been pretty nonexistent and were mostly walkons. This was the first one we’d encountered with a bit of a line, but even still, we only had to wait maybe five minutes. This was a very fun ride! You sit in a spacecraft bumper car where one person steers and the other fires balls out of a ‘blaster canon’ at other spacecrafts. If you hit the spacecraft in a certain spot, it shuts down and spins crazily for about five seconds! Ariana was steering and it took her a bit to get the hang of it but then she did an awesome job of bumping the other cars and I even hit one with the ball in the right spot to make it spin.

Interspersed with all of these rides where arcade games but we were ignoring these for now while enjoying the zero lines everywhere. We were still on the third floor and so our next ride was the Mighty Ducks Pinball slam.

Essentially it’s a monster pinball game that you control on your own pad that moves in every direction while you’re hanging onto handles that move your player around on the giant screen and you try to score in the net. For the life of me, I could NOT figure out what I did that made the thing on the giant screen do what it was doing and so I ended up just moving around in every which direction on my control pad looking like someone with ants in my pants! A lot of pointless fun!

Third floor conquered, we were approaching the time we were supposed to meet back up with everyone so we headed back to the area where the elevator lets you off and we all arrived at the exact same time. Woo-hoo! Finally, a break in the waiting game! I asked the boys if they’d been on the Pirates ride and they hadn’t so I told them it was a must do and we headed back down to the first floor. The line was a bit longer now so while George, Ariana and I waited in line, the boys did a walk on to the Virtual Jungle Cruise.

This pic gives you a better idea of how you sit in a shifting boat and the second pic is without a flash so you can see a bit of the screen.

As the boys finished up, it was our turn for Pirates and George decided he was going to be the Captain. We had a blast and the boys declared it the best ride there!

We decided to grab a snack and headed up to the fourth floor to the Wired Wonderland. Ariana and Demetri chose a monster cupcake which they only partially got through…

… and they quickly discovered the computers at some of the tables had free internet. Everyone checked their messages and we sent a quick email to our cousin who was housesitting…

and we were off for more games.

Alex found the Guitar Hero section and that was it for him…. “This is where I’ll be Mom!” …. And Demetri made a new friend…

He then found one of his favorite games of all time….

Check out that form! Ha-ha!

There were classic arcade games there, Pac Man, Dig Dug, Galaxia, and my personal fave Donkey Kong, and it was soooo much fun playing them all. No tokens, no limits, just playing all day long. There was a Kid’s Zone for children aged 2 to 7 which really did have games they could play and do well at. Demetri and I tried another virtual reality game that you need a helmet for and I felt that familiar queasiness set in again but he really wanted to try it…. Something about fighting a super villain with a light saber kind of weapon I think? A tad more violent than I would have preferred for him to play but I didn’t realize that ahead of time….

There was a sports themed area which had rows upon rows of Nascar games… we had to pull Alex out of there eventually! Honestly, it was chock full of stuff that everyone would enjoy and was a huge hit! I was so glad it was part of our water parks & more option…. After seeing the place first hand, we felt comfortable enough that Alex could go back by himself anytime. Definitely recommend Disney Quest!

Next up: Planet Hollywood and Shopping

 

[ZeroToHero]

Ooo, that does look really cool! I want to go nowww!!!

I should have an update for my TR soon, and you'll see I have reason to be sad....