Well Begun is Half Done...When Plans Go Awry (UPDATE: 4/30)

[danceintherain]

The way back was much easier to figure out than the way there. Kami called while we were in the car to let us know that she was in the airport in Orlando! I figured she’d probably be arriving within the hour, so we hurried back, unpacked the groceries, and got Gideon’s bed set up.

His sleeping arrangements were a bit of a concern for me while I was planning the trip.
He grew out of a pack n play shortly after his second birthday, and we’ve been taking a small folding foam couch with us when we take him to see his grandparents. It’s too big to fit in a checked bag though, and he’s pretty much outgrown it as well. We thought about getting one of those Cars sleeping bag air mattresses at that point, but DH suggested that he’d be able to continue to use the fold out couch even after he was too big to sleep on it.

I considered getting the Cars airbed for this trip, but it would not have solved all the potential problems.
G is a great sleeper at home, but he sleeps in his own room, in his own bed. Whenever we allow him to sleep in the bed with us (or anyone else for that matter) he usually stays up all night talking. It’s super cute….for the first hour….then answering the “What doin’ Mommy?” gets old fast.
I knew that the best way to increase the likelihood of him sleeping well was to match his home sleeping situation, or at least the one he experiences when at Grandma’s, as much as possible.
However, I also knew that we needed a back-up plan in case he didn’t take to sleeping alone in a strange environment and another in case he would only sleep with his mother.

This was the only potential trouble (in my planning) with having my sister along for the trip. If he would sleep in the bed with her, great! If he would sleep in the bed with Logan, I could sleep with her, so great! If he would only sleep with me, then that would leave Logan and Kami sharing a bed, which would be a bit awkward. For this reason, I wanted to make sure that we had another sleeping option for an adult, which took the small Cars bed out of the running.
I settled on a twin air mattress, and opted to splurge a bit and went for the Aerobed with a built-in pump, so we wouldn’t have to take a separate pump. I ordered it at the beginning of March, because I wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to do a test run with him before our trip. We went to my Mom’s house during her Spring Break, so I got a full week’s worth of testing out of it. I also purchased a set of Cars sheets to put on it to make it more appealing. It worked like a charm. The trip to my Mom wasn’t perfect, but he slept fine, and whined for his “Wightneen Queen” bed when we got home. Now he sleeps with the pillowcase every night.

The trip to Disney was even better! We put the mattress in the vanity area in the bathroom, so we could close the curtain after he went down, and the rest of us wouldn’t have to be in complete darkness. He thought it was great that he could just peek out to check on us (because you know…we were going to abandon him as soon as he fell asleep). We tried to get most of our bathroom stuff out of the way before we put him down at night, but none of what we did after he was asleep seemed to bother him. He did wake up some, but that’s not all that different than at home, so I rate it as a success! During the day, I just tipped it up in the “closet” area, so it wasn’t in the way while we were dressing or for housekeeping.

We promptly put Gideon to bed, and I went off to wait for my sister at the front of the resort. I got to hear a performance at the Scat Cat Club while I waited. I made a mental note to bring Logan back some time, but we never did make it.

It seemed to take forever for her bus to arrive, but soon enough she was there, so I escorted her to our room and explained a few things to her.
When we got back to the room, she indicated that she was hungry, so she and Logan went off to find sustenance, while I stayed with G.
She got a kid’s meal of Mac & Cheese, bottled water, apples, and grapes ($5.99). Logan got 2 milkshakes (one for me - $8.98) and an order of 6 Beignets ($4.29). They brought it back to the room. The total was $20.52

My milkshake was ok but not as good as some I’ve had in the past. I think I got chocolate, and it was a little too chocolaty for me. The beignets weren’t all that impressive either. They probably would have been better warm, but it was 9:30pm at this point, so I’m sure the last batch had been made a long time before that. Kami is a big fan of Mac & Cheese, so she thought it was good.

At this point, I was starting to worry about our refrigerator. I know that it takes a while for things to cool down once you fill one up, but ours seemed to be not working at all. Also, I didn’t want to wait until the next morning to figure it out just to find that it hadn’t been working and have spoiled milk for the week. We called maintenance, and they sent someone down. He looked around a little bit then informed us that in order for the fridge to have proper circulation, you can’t really fill it up all the way. You have to leave the vent in the back unobstructed, which means it can only be about half full. I adjusted our stuff accordingly, and it seemed to work a little better for the rest of the trip. At least none of the food spoiled…

After we ate, we all got ready for bed and crashed. We had an early day in the morning!

 

[danceintherain]

Surprise, surprise! I was the first one up the next morning. Well….actually G was, but I was the one who got up with him, so he would be moderately quiet for the other adults. If he had been the kind of kid who sleeps in, putting him in the bathroom would not have worked, but he’s not. We still set an alarm, but I’m pretty sure he was up before it on this day, even though it “felt” earlier to him.
I think I had the alarm set for 7:15, and he and I were up brushing our teeth at 7:06am

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(see his bed leaning up against the wall?)

After I completed all the stuff I could reasonably get done without waking up the others, I moved out into the main room, and started waking them up.

I sent G over to wake up Aunt Kami, because he hadn’t seen her yet. He was VERY excited.
We all got dressed, and decided to eat in the room that morning, since we had the donuts and milk. We had a hard time getting G to focus enough to eat, but I think he ate at least one donut before we headed out.

{For those of you who read my pre-trip report, I made some changes to our schedule after I found out that Kami thought Soarin’ was a must do. I originally had Hollywood Studios planned for our first day, and our split day planned for later in the week, but I ended up deciding that it would be better to do Epcot first thing in the morning, then Animal Kingdom in the evening, and the Animal Kingdom was open an hour longer on Sunday than it was on Thursday. I was hoping this extra hour would help us get more done, even though the crowds were supposed to be slightly larger (most recommended vs. recommended on Easy WDW).}

I knew we needed to arrive a little earlier this day, because we still had to activate our Armed Forces Salute tickets before we could get into the parks. We opted to use the rental car and drive to the parks, since we had it, and we wanted to see if we liked it more or less than the buses. We were among the first families to arrive at Epcot that morning and easily walked from our parked car to the front of the park without riding the tram. Logan went to a ticket counter to activate our tickets, and Kami entertained G while I looked our plans over.

I was surprised when the ticket CM exchanged our AFS ticket media for new RFID enabled tickets. From what I read online, people usually kept the original ticket media. I was a bit concerned, because the emblem on those tickets was supposed to help Logan get picked for the Flag Retreat at the Magic Kingdom, but I figured the convenience of having access at ALL the turnstiles outweighed a long shot AND at this point I wasn’t even sure that the Flag Retreat would be running, since it wasn’t listed on the website a few days before and I hadn’t gotten the chance to check again.

Armed with our RFID enabled tickets I marched the rest of the family away from the card eater type turnstiles and off to the right side with the new turnstiles. I had read on EasyWDW that ALL (barring malfunction) the turnstiles would be open at park opening and this afforded us a front of the line spot, instead of behind several other families towards the middle.

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This was a GREAT location. Shortly before Rope Drop, Goofy and Daisy came out on that side of the park, and Goofy was hanging out with the group at the turnstiles to our left (darn it, I should have gone ALL the way down). G was soo excited when he saw Goofy and Daisy in the distance, and I think it helped him warm up to the situation a bit without pressure.

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After they let us in, Goofy moved into the park a little, but I took the opportunity to be the second family in line to meet him. I was a bit worried about still having a short line at Soarin, but there really weren’t that many people in the park yet, and I knew we could get Fast Passes for Soarin if necessary, since there wasn’t really anything else we really needed them for.
I definitely didn’t want to miss out on this great character meeting opportunity, and G seemed willing.

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He was a little apprehensive at first, but as soon as I got up there with him and Goofy asked for a “high five” G was totally game. I was so happy we stopped.

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If only all our park openings of the week had gone like that…

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[danceintherain]

After we finished with Goofy, Logan decided to hang back with G, while Kami and I rushed off to Soarin’. We planned to meet him at the Seas when we were done.

My former concerns were unwarranted. We pretty much walked on to Soarin’ and may have even been among the first group on – at the very least it we were the second. We also ended up seated in the middle, which likely would not have happened if we had headed straight there. It was lovely as usual, and we enjoyed having a little bit of sister time.
I asked Kami if she wanted FP for a second ride, but she said no, so we went to find Logan and G.

Their experience had been a little less magical.
Logan had decided to attempt to take G on the Nemo ride while they waited.
The queue wreaked havoc with his POTS. Apparently about halfway through he had to stop and rest for a minute to keep himself from passing out.
They finally made it through though, and then G freaked out. I guess he started screaming and trying to get away, so they exited, and hung out in the aquarium area until we met them.

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That part was really great. They were pretty much the first people in there, so they were the first people at the tanks. Apparently, all the fish rushed over to them as soon as they saw them.

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After we met up with them, I checked to make sure Logan was ok and we wandered around together for while. Then I decided that I would try to take G on Nemo, because the first Turtle Talk show wasn’t for a while longer.

Kami and I took him around there…and it became apparent pretty quickly why Logan would have a hard time in that queue. I expect it had something to do with the lighting and the way the queue curves around so much. Why can’t they make a direct shot for when it’s a walk on?
I found myself getting a little “sea” sick just being in there, and I don’t even have POTS!

We got to the loading area, and G did start squirming and maybe crying a bit, but I scooped him up and carried him on. Once we were settled in our “clam mobile” he was fine, and seemed to enjoy it pretty well.

We found Logan, and headed in to Turtle Talk with Crush. This show is so cute, but I don’t think I’ve ever done it with a child. I sat down in front with him, so he wouldn’t be nervous. When we got in there, he seemed a little bored and kept asking to go “out.” It started quickly enough though, and he thought it was pretty great. The other kids were very cute with their questions too. (mental note: come up with some questions for G to ask the next time around)

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After that, we decided to head over to meet Chip & Dale.
G LOVES Chip & Dale. They’re a close second to Donald Duck in his estimation. I knew that Epcot would be the best place for him to meet them, due to our schedule for the rest of the week. It was good that we made a point of it, because we didn’t come across them again for the rest of the trip.

He got VERY excited when he first saw them, so we hurried over and got in line. We were only in line for a few moments when they went on a break, but I knew that this character meet was considered “continuous” so they would be back shortly. To my great pleasure, at least one family in front of us left the line while they were gone.



I MIGHT have said “this break should only be a few minutes” but I probably just quietly smiled to myself knowing that them leaving meant a shorter line for us. I think I at least told the people in line behind us. I’m selective with my knowledge.

G was so excited about seeing them, jabbering on and on about them, until it was our turn… I was trying to get a video, since Logan was sitting on a bench nearby to rest. I tried to send Kami up first to “prove” that it was fun, but he didn’t want any of it, so I put my camera down, and accompanied him to them.
He was very shy, but we got some cute Photopass photos.

At this point, we decided to try for Sum of All Thrills, since Kami had never done it before, but the line was very long, so we headed towards Test Track.

Logan decided to skip this one too, so Kami and I headed into the Single Rider Line.
At this point (10:11am) the Standby Line was 60 minutes long, and the FP return times were at 12:15-1:15. I knew that we didn’t want to stay in the park that long, so into the Single Rider line we went.
The 10 minute wait time was much more conducive to my attention span.

Per EasyWDW I knew that you could design a car now, but you would wait longer and half the time the car didn’t even show up during the ride. I told Kami, and she said she didn’t care, so we bypassed around 20 people building their cars, and went straight into the line.
According to the time stamps on my photos, we went from outside the queue to in our cars in 11 minutes. I think we probably would have waited closer to 20 if we had designed cars.

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EasyWDW was right about the cars showing up. In my car, they showed up for everything except the final tally (which of course is probably the one people care about the most). Kami had no idea what I was talking about when I asked her about hers (she was definitely right about not caring).

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I was a bit shocked to see that they no longer have the scanners to put your Test Track photos on regular photopass cards. I hadn't read that anywhere while I was researching Photopass+. I'm not a big ride photo person anyways though, so I got over it quickly.

While we were riding, Logan took G into the Cars play area. Apparently, it was short lived, because G pushed another kid! He’s usually so much more of a lover not a fighter, but I think he’s finally realizing that he has to be a little more assertive to get what he wants. I hope we can convince him to use different methods in the future.

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[pwdebbie]

Yay, another update! Sorry your dh had problems with the queue for Nemo but I totally understand because my dh does also. In fact, the whole Seas pavilion is rough on him. I have to say that I love Turtle Talk with Crush -- this is a must-do on every trip. Keep the updates coming!

 

[danceintherain]

I was seriously considering abandoning this trip report, but now that I'm pregnant with seriously awful heartburn, I think it will be a sufficient distraction for a while.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Logan and G met us right outside Test Track gift shop. Apparently, we had missed them when we came out, so they came running after us. We decided to go back in, and get G a pressed penny.
He was very excited about this, and chose the one he wanted carefully.

After that, we decided that G needed a bit of a break, so we put him in his stroller with the hood down. He was getting hot, hungry and cranky (probably the reason behind the pushing). We gave him some snacks and his water bottle, and let him rest for a bit.
I really wanted to find the Oz garden area, so we went searching for it.

First we stopped in the butterfly garden…

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We finally found it, and played some of the carnival games. We got like 6 packets of marigolds, so it would be nice if they changed that up a bit.

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At that point, it was almost 11am, so we decided to head around to the World Showcase.
Logan decided that he needed some cold water though, so we stopped in one of the shops to pick some up.

Then we were off to see the world. Since we had such a short amount of time in Epcot, we didn’t plan on very much of the World Showcase at all.
First we headed to Norway for the Maelstrom. G was a little apprehensive, but he got on it fine.

We spent a little time looking around.

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Then headed back into Mexico. I REALLY wanted G to see Donald Duck (his favorite) as much as possible, and Mexican Donald seemed fun.
So we waited…

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I tried to keep G entertained, but he was cranky, and wanted to go inside the building.

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11:30 rolled around and there was no sign of Donald. I was headed back to where Logan was sitting, when I saw him in an alcove a little past the Mexico building. There was already a line forming!

We headed over and got in line. This time I told Logan to take G, so I could take pictures and video.
G was still a little shy, but I think it was more that he was tired and cranky.

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After finishing with Donald, we headed into the Mexico pavilion, because I wanted to ride the Gran Fiesta Boat Tour. I knew G would get a kick out of this one. He was again, apprehensive getting on, but he LOVED it!

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He was making Donald Duck noises much of the time, and he LOVED the fireworks at the end (maybe I made the wrong choice to plan on skipping all the fireworks?).

The plan at this point was to head to the United Kingdom pavilion, so Logan could get his Fish & Chips and the rest of us would look for something else to eat.
He was fairly adamant, on this point, while I was planning the trip, so I didn’t plan on a Table Service meal for this day, because I knew it would be useless.
He decided that he didn’t really feel up for Fish & Chips though, so we all decided to go to the Electric Umbrella. I would have preferred something from the World Showcase, but I knew it would be hard to find a single place where we all wanted something. I also knew that it would be a bad idea to wait until we got back to POFQ before we ate, since we all didn’t have that great of breakfasts and G could easily fall asleep in the car on the way back.

Kami got some more Mac & Cheese, fries, & grapes and we got an apple juice as her drink for G ($5.99)
Logan got the Angus Bacon Cheeseburger with fries ($9.39)
I got the Chicken Nuggets & Fries to share with G ($8.69)
Total: $25.63

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I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that they had pumpable Honey Mustard with the condiments along with the usual mustard, ketchup, and mayo. One of the things that used to annoy me was that many places at Disney didn’t have Honey Mustard at all. I don’t like ketchup or regular mustard, so I’d eat my chicken and fries plain, if I couldn’t find honey mustard. This made me stay away from ordering chicken nuggets or strips at Disney most of the time.
The food was good. Nothing spectacular about it, but it sufficed.

Afterwards, we stopped for a few photopass photos, then did Spaceship Earth. The line was a little longer for it that I usually like for that particular attraction (posted at 15 minutes) but I knew we wouldn’t get an opportunity to do it later. Logan decided to wait outside.

We ended up waiting around 8 minutes.
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G especially liked pushing the buttons at the beginning, but he had a hard time reaching them towards the end. It was the first of many attractions during this trip that I might not have done if I had remembered how long it was. It’s the iconic attraction for the park though, so I probably would have been a little bummed if we had skipped it.

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[gtpoohbear]

Yay- what a happy surprise to find in my subscribed thread!! So glad you decided to continue, and congrats on the little one you are growing

That's cool that he liked some of the rides at Epcot, Owen was terrified of most of them. Hoping for better luck next spring, lol!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[danceintherain]

Yay- what a happy surprise to find in my subscribed thread!! So glad you decided to continue, and congrats on the little one you are growing

That's cool that he liked some of the rides at Epcot, Owen was terrified of most of them. Hoping for better luck next spring, lol!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

G did ok as long as I was with him. He didn't particularly enjoy riding with his Daddy for some reason. He got better throughout the trip though. We only had one other incident when he absolutely refused to ride something, and it was the most unlikely thing.

 

[pwdebbie]

Congrats on the new baby-to-come. When are you due? I hope the heartburn goes away soon.
I was really glad to see an update here. Don't you dare abandon this thread!

 

[danceintherain]

Congrats on the new baby-to-come. When are you due? I hope the heartburn goes away soon.
I was really glad to see an update here. Don't you dare abandon this thread!

I'm due the first week of March. We're moving at the end of this month though, so I've hardly had time to even think about it.
If we manage to find a place and move in at the beginning of January, I'll only have 8 weeks before my due date, and G came 10 days early!
I'm happy we're moving now, instead of after the baby comes though, because Logan needs to be there the first week of May now (originally it was towards the end of the month) so if we waited, I'd be moving with a 1-2 month old baby, instead of a very pregnant belly.

 

[danceintherain]

We had a hard time finding the car on the way back. We knew where it was, but we walked down the wrong aisle at first, then underestimated how far down we were. It still only took us a few minutes to figure it out, and very likely took less time than it would have for a bus to come.

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We made it from the park exit to our parking spot (we parked in the same place right at the front of the lot pretty much every time) at POFQ in around 15 minutes and G was napping less than 10 minutes later. The tram may have evened things out as far as timing goes, but we were so close we didn’t have to bother.

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This is when I realized one of the main benefits to having a car at Disney, for us anyways.
We left the stroller in the trunk!
Even if G had fallen asleep during the ride, our room was less than 100 yards away from the parking lot, so it would not have been a big deal for us to carry him the distance. We didn’t need the stroller for it. Nor did we need it for around the resort in most cases.
Not having the stroller in the room was nice. It’s quite large, and it seems silly to collapse it between uses. It was just another thing to add to our pros list for rental cars after the trip.

G napped for his usual 2 hours and woke up around 3:45. I think Logan may have slept a little longer, but we were headed to the Animal Kingdom around 4:30. The drive took no time at all, although Logan and I argued a bit about whether we should park far away, or try our luck closer to the entrance. He ultimately chose to park far away and I was taking a photo of our lot sign at 4:40. The timing was great, because the tram pulled up right when we go to the end of our row. We were the last stop, so we went straight to the entrance from there.

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I was a bit skeptical about doing the Animal Kingdom in the evening, in place of having a Rope Drop there, but EasyWDW wholeheartedly recommended it, and we needed to skip Rope Drop SOMEWHERE if we wanted to get what we wanted done at the Magic Kingdom. In general, Josh recommends that you do the same thing you would do for a morning at the park, but backwards. So instead of doing Everest and Kilimanjaro Safaris first, you do a show and some of the walking trails. But you definitely want to make it to the Safari before it closes at dusk.
We had a fairly short list of things we wanted to do so I figured even if the park was more crowded than I anticipated, we would be able to get everything done easily.

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Since the next showing of Festival of the Lion King wasn’t until 5:30, we headed straight back to Kilimanjaro Safaris. I figured we’d get Fast Passes then ride the train out to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. The posted wait was only 10 minutes though, so we decided to go ahead and do it. We were diverted towards the accessible car, and got on immediately.

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Riding the Safari at this time was lovely. The lighting was absolutely gorgeous.

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…and there were animals everywhere.

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We even had two giraffes walk across the road in front of us.

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Kami was a bit disappointed when she realized that we no longer were in search of Little Red, but she got over it.

Shortly after we came out, it started to rain.

We were walking behind another family, and I witnessed an amusing (to me) interaction between the parents.
Mom: It’s starting to rain.
Dad: Yeah.
Mom: The girls don’t have their jackets. Why don’t you go to the car and get them?
Dad: (Silence)

Ok. Think of where we were…in the far reaches of Africa… I immediately started imagining this poor guy trekking all the way to the front of the park… waiting for the tram… walking to his car… and the rain stops as soon as his hand hits the door handle.
This was another moment, when I should have spoken up, but I was laughing too hard on the inside. Also, if I HAD said something, it probably would have rained for longer.

We walked around the corner to take the last train to Rafiki’s Planet Watch, even though I knew it was closing in about 15 minutes. (another…I forgot how long the ride was situation… we should have done the planet watch first..oh well) Logan still thought we should go ahead, because G loves trains. Also, it got us out of the rain for the remainder of the shower.

When we got to the other station, we found out that the petting zoo was closed early from the rain anyways, so it definitely wasn’t worth getting off the train. I wanted to make the 6:30 showing of the Festival, so we stayed on for the round trip. G definitely loved it and I always enjoy seeing where the animals sleep.
We also picked up another pressed penny.

Where to next?

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[wiigirl]

Great update!

 

[danceintherain]

I thought this was kind of fun...

G riding the Safari at 3 months old

G riding the Safari at 2 years old
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[danceintherain]

We packed G into the stroller, and headed out. I was so grateful that we brought the City Mini with the good rain cover. There were so many strollers that didn’t have rain covers at all. At least he got to sit in a dry seat!

We walked back through Africa and towards Camp Minnie-Mickey. We got to the Festival of the Lion King just in time for the next show, and sat in the elephant section.
The theatre was only about half full, and the bench in front of us was empty.

The show started, and G was VERY excited about it. He’s seen the Lion King movie a few times, and it’s not even close to his favorite, but he thought all the singing and dancing was great fun. He was dancing, singing, and clapping along the whole time. Completely riveted by the show.


He was even sufficiently awed when the token characters came out.


About halfway through the show, he climbed on the bench in front of us, and sat there for the rest of the show.

I was thrilled with this, because while he wasn’t cranky for the most part, he wasn’t particular excited by anything we had done thus far (except the train). He was shy with the characters and apprehensive on the rides. This made me realize that the shows would be a big hit.

After the show ended, we decided to meet some of the characters. EasyWDW recommends that you avoid the Greeting Trails right after a show let out, but we weren’t really near much else, and I knew we’d be leaving the park soon.
I wanted to meet Baloo & King Louie in particular.

The interaction with them this time around wasn’t all that great, and I think since G wasn’t at all familiar with their characters, he wasn’t at all excited about meeting them. Also, the line was longer than any I’ve ever waited in for them. I’m used to them being a walk up, so that wasn’t particularly pleasant.

After we finished with them, we decided on Minnie, since the line for Mickey was longer and we had already seen Donald earlier in the day. G did a little better with her, but I could tell he was getting tired.




Afterwards, I had planned on us eating at Flame Tree Barbeque, but it had already closed. We considered our other options, but everyone else was ready to leave, so we headed out. The only other thing I had really been planning on was the Boneyard in Dinoland, and I knew G would have been too tired for that, and I wasn’t sure that it would still be open. I would have loved to be able to do Everest, but I knew no one else would want to do it, and it seemed silly to make everyone hang back so I could do one ride.
I saw on the times board that the wait time was only 10 minutes, so EasyWDW’s advice was absolutely correct. I think we’ll definitely consider the Animal Kingdom in the evenings more often from now on.
It was around 7:30 when we left, and we were all hungry.

Driving a car isn’t quite as much fun when you’re parked far away at the end of the day. We got on a tram right away, but we sat there for a long time before it left, and of course since we were the last stop, we had to sit through all the others. I still likely took less time than most of our journeys with the buses.

I had been considering trying to walk up at Boma or something (we didn’t end up eating there when we stayed at AKL) for dinner but Logan and G were too tired for that. It was probably just as well, because it took us close to an hour from the time we left the park until we paid for our food. If we had been waiting around for a walk up reservation, it would have been longer, and we still would have had a ways to drive before we’d get to our beds.

We all got pasta. Kami got Spaghetti with Meatballs ($8.49). I got the Chicken Alfredo to share with G ($8.49) and Logan got the Chicken Parmesan ($10.99). Total = $29.79
All of it was very good, but we made the mistake of sitting in the area with the TV, so G wasn’t paying attention to eating much. He ended up eating some breadsticks, and I think I gave him an Uncrustable when we got back to the room.

Then it was bedtime. We put G to bed then Logan made a dessert run for the rest of us.
He got a shake ($4.49). I got a cupcake ($2.29). Kami got a cookie ($2.39). Total = $9.77
The cupcake was good. It was pretty generic – vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. It satisfied my cupcake craving though. I’m sure the shake was about the same as the ones we had gotten the night before, and Kami finished her cookie off.

After we finished our sweets, we all went to bed. I knew that if we needed to get to a park early any day, it would be the next day.

 

[AprilRenee]

Just found this report. We'll be taking our 2.5 yr old next jan (he'll be 2yrs 9months) and I'm loving hearing how your trip went! Please keep going!

I especially like your sleeping solution. I wonder if an air mattress would fit in the bathroom area at Pop? Caden (my son) is also good sleeper but a "my own bed, my own room" kinda kid.

 

[danceintherain]

Just found this report. We'll be taking our 2.5 yr old next jan (he'll be 2yrs 9months) and I'm loving hearing how your trip went! Please keep going!

I especially like your sleeping solution. I wonder if an air mattress would fit in the bathroom area at Pop? Caden (my son) is also good sleeper but a "my own bed, my own room" kinda kid.

It's worth asking over on the Pop Century thread. The rooms are smaller, so it may not work. The twin size barely fit with a few inches of space right in front of the door into the toilet, so we could squeeze in and out. Pop only has the single sink, so I think the length may be shorter. Maybe one of those small Cars themed air mattresses would work better?
I know people have brought air mattresses to the values and used them, but I think it usually involves moving the table and chairs.

It was definitely very helpful. We got to stick to his bed time really well, and it was great for nap time too. I really think if he had been sharing with someone, he would have been up all night trying to talk.

 

[danceintherain]

One of the only drawbacks of the Armed Forces Salute tickets is that they only include admission for 4 days. You can add on the Water Parks & More option, but I’m not really a Water Park person and I knew they’d be a challenge with a 2 year old anyways. Disney Quest would have been an option, but it doesn’t hold a huge appeal for me.

My original plans included the option, for lack of a better one, but then I found out that Universal was offering a FREE ticket for service members through June 2013. I had wanted to head to Universal ever since the Harry Potter section opened, but there was never a good opportunity for us, especially since we’ve never had a car while we were at Disney. We still had to buy a ticket for me, but my Mom agreed to pay for Kami’s ticket, so it was basically half price for us. I also knew that even if the offer was re-extended in the future, we’d have to pay for a ticket for G. I figured this was an ideal time for us to try it out (now that they’re adding a London/Diagon Alley portion as well…we’re probably going to have to make a trip back, but we won’t HAVE to buy tickets to Islands of Adventure again if we don’t want to – it does make me wonder if they’ll redo a few things a bit. Ollivander’s definitely needs to be rethought, and it doesn’t fit in Hogwart’s or Hogsmeade anyways. Of course…if they change that part too much, we probably will want to do IoA again but I digress to a bridge we won’t be crossing for quite a while) The other bonus is that Kami is a HUGE Harry Potter fan as well, so it was nice to be able to share that with her.
So off to Universal we go. This is why we needed the rental car in the first place.

I think G slept awful that night, culminating in a final cry for his mother around 4am. I helped him the best I could, and put him back to bed. When the alarm went off around 6:30, I was soo tired though from the interrupted night’s sleep, so I ignored it.
The next time I woke up, it was 7:20!
I guess the restlessness affected G as well, because he slept until then too. My ever persistent child failed me as an alarm clock for the first time in my life.

I frantically got out of bed and started pushing everyone towards readiness.
The drive to Universal from Disney only takes about 30 minutes, but then there’s a very long walk from the parking garage to the entrance to the park, so the full trip usually takes people closer to 45 minutes.

I knew that we all needed a more substantial breakfast this morning, so we had planned on eating in the food court. When we got there, I realized that I had left the camera in the room, so I told them to get breakfast to go and that I would be back in a few minutes. I emphasized that we needed to get on the road soon, because the park today would be different.

I don’t know what transpired. Maybe they discussed how early we had gotten to Epcot the morning before, and how we didn’t really NEED to be that early, so they would protect me from myself and control the situation for me. It reality they probably just thought “hungry. Eat.”
Either way, when I returned with my camera, they were all seated at a table (in the area with the TV again, even though we had discussed not sitting there again the night before) eating.
I ran off to grab lids for our plates (it’s odd to me that they don’t have better take out containers) and ate a few bites of my biscuits and gravy while I waited for them to finish. (I’m going to skip the food run down here, because I don’t have the receipt, but it was all good) I also tried to convince G to eat, but he was distracted by the TV again. I think either one or both Kami and Logan decided they had to use the restroom.

Soon enough, we were on our way. I made Kami sit up front and navigate for Logan, so I could sit in the back and finish my breakfast, and continue to try to get G to eat something. We got there easily.

When we pulled up to the toll booth, we were asked if we wanted Premium Parking. I knew we were already late and I figured it couldn’t hurt, so we paid the extra $5 for a total of $20. This afforded us a spot on the ground level of the parking garage, which meant we didn’t have to take an elevator or escalator before we began our walk to the park.

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Honestly, I don’t know what they were thinking when they designed the parking at Universal. I suppose a giant parking garage wouldn’t have been appealing right outside the parks, or maybe their revenue increases when people have to stop along the way to use the restroom…


or get something to eat…

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because the walk is so long.

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Either way…it’s not a fun walk. There are things to see, but I had very little interest in seeing those things.

I was trying to move quickly, but it still took us at least 10 minutes to make the walk.
To make matters worse, there was a sign indicating that strollers weren’t allowed on the moving walkways.

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When we got to the entrance, I sent Logan off to activate his free ticket, and moved towards the line.

There was a HUGE crowd. I’m talking…Magic Kingdom Rope Drop crowds, and unfortunately Islands of Adventure doesn’t let people through the turnstiles to a holding area before they officially open the park. I don’t think they have as many turnstiles either. I had read on EasyWDW that they usually start letting people in around 15 minutes early, but we didn’t arrive until right around 8:45, and they weren’t letting anyone in. So we waited.

I’m one of those people who pretty much always picks the wrong line. (Such as when I chose to do self checkout at Winn Dixie a few days before, and got stuck behind the slow pokes)

In this case, we happened to pick one of the only lines that was lined up for a single turnstile. Most of the other lines were feeding into 2 or 3, but by the time we got there, the crowds were so thick, it was difficult to see to the front.

They might have opened the gates a few minutes early, but it took 10-15 minutes for us to get to the front of our line. By the time we were in the park, it was already after 9am.

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Enough after, that I knew our plan for the day was messed up. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a backup plan, so we headed to Ollivander’s anyway. I thought that maybe there still would be few enough people in the park that it wouldn’t be affected yet. I was wrong.

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[wendy3]

I'm late to the party, but I'm in! Great trip report so far. Your son is adorable, and I'm really enjoying your trip. Congrats on the new baby, and I'm exciting to hear about Universal.

 

[danceintherain]

I'm late to the party, but I'm in! Great trip report so far. Your son is adorable, and I'm really enjoying your trip. Congrats on the new baby, and I'm exciting to hear about Universal.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[wiigirl]

Great update!

 

[danceintherain]

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I researched the Wizarding World of Harry Potter pretty well before our trip, but it’s still not as familiar to me as Disney. I knew enough to know that Ollivander’s garners crazy long crowds due to the way it is structured.

It’s very similar to Enchanted Tales with Belle, except everyone is fed into a single room, so the capacity is about half (although the Belle show is longer, so it’s possible that the duration balances out the second room). It also has less guest participation, so it’s even less appealing to wait in line for.
Since the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was practically our only priority for this day, and I knew we could utilize the Single Rider Line and/or Child Swap for the Forbidden Journey, there was no reason NOT to head to Ollivander’s first.

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I thought that maybe the line would only be around 20 minutes, since the park had JUST opened, but I should have known better. I could see every person in the line, so it would have been easy enough to count each room full, and know how many rooms it would be before we were let in. I also knew that the line maxed out at around 40 minutes (very similar to ETwB) so we easily could have done everything else in the area with shorter waits and come back and wait in the same length of line here again later.
There were around 60 people in line ahead of us.

Each show can accommodate around 20 people

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and lasts for about 10 minutes

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We were looking at a minimum of 30 minutes in line.

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20 minutes passed…and we were close to getting into the next show….soo close that we ended up immediately outside the door.

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Oh well…

The show was really cute. We had a brother and sister chosen.
At first they were each given a wand to try…they backfired.
So he had them switch.
Then he described their wands, and how they had cores from the same Phoenix, like they had the same mother, and said something about how they were different but at their core their hearts were the same. I teared up a bit.

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We probably won’t do it again until we have kids the appropriate ages to be chosen, or if we’re traveling with someone new.

It was around 10am, when we got out of there.
We thought about buying some stuff, but it was all so expensive.

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I then decided that we should look in the other shops a bit, because they’re all really small and fill up as the day goes on. We bought some chocolate frogs, but passed on most of everything else.

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Then we decided to head over to get some Butterbeers.
We went inside the Hogs Head, because I read that it’s best to get them from there, instead of in the Three Broomsticks side. The whole place was completely abandoned though, so we probably could have gotten them anywhere. We found a table, and sat down.

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After I said that I wanted the souvenir mug, both Kami and Logan decided they wanted one too. If I had realized that they’re not machine washable and plastic, I probably would have skipped them, because I hate washing glasses by hand. (now they're both displayed on the bookshelf next to the Harry Potter books)

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The butterbeer was ok. I didn’t hate it, but it probably would have been better later in the day, not so close to breakfast.
Kami and I ended up switching, because I liked the “fizzy” kind better, and she liked the “frozen.”

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Nobody finished theirs, and most of it ended up in the garbage, then we had three sticky mugs to deal with for the rest of the day.
It was a fun experience though.

After the butterbeers, we headed to the Forbidden Journey to see what the wait was like. Logan decided to sit it out, and Kami didn’t know whether she would like it or not, so I went to find the Single Rider Line alone.

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It’s pretty much impossible to find. I asked the person manning the line, and she pointed off to the right. There was a sign on the interior of the castle once I got in there past the lockers. I also read that there’s a “tour” line you can walk through without riding, but we never went to find it.

Even though the posted stand by wait for the ride was 60 minutes, the single rider line was pretty much a walk on. I wanted to take photos on the ride, but a very Percy-like attendant told me to put my camera away, which was easier said than done, because there wasn’t anywhere to put it (I wrapped the strap around my wrist and held it in my hand). I guess I can understand why they don’t want cameras on the ride, because it’s jerky.

It was a really fun ride. Kind of a more intense version of Soarin’ with extra scenery.
When I got out, I told Kami that she would probably really enjoy it, but that it would be a no go for Logan. So she went to find the line...

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