Zip-ah-de-doo-da, Zip-ah-dee-EH! Two Canadians Visit WDW for the 1st Time - COMPLETE!

[ariane37]

Very nice pics of Dream Along With Mickey I did enjoy it (many, many times) but I'm very excited to see Mickey's Royal Friendship Fare in Nov. I don't like many of the changes Disney does, but I did believe it was time to change the castle stage show

So what meal at BOG was your favorite? I'm sure you've seen me say this before but dinner is by far ours. Seeing your pictures is making me excited for our dinner there in November!

 

[fallonkendra]

Fantastic trip report! I'm actually from Edmonton, myself - my boyfriend and I are leaving Oct 27 for our WDW trip! He hasn't been since he was a very small boy (Before HS and AK even opened!).

I think you are the first Edmontonian I've met on here! Do you have a PTR started for your trip? If you write a trip report once you get back, I'll be in for reading it!

That French onion soup realllly makes me want to book an ADR for lunch there!!!!

So much cheese! It was really good though!

I love your pictures from Dream Along with Mickey! I've never stopped to watch it (I'm terrible at stopping to watch shows), but it looks fun from the picture!

I'm very impressed that you experienced all three rooms at BOG! I've still only sat in the ballroom (which is fine, because I love the ballroom).

I thought Dream Along With Mickey was really cute!

I figured we were doing all three meals at BOG, why not sit in the three different rooms The one we sat in for lunch was really quiet, which was nice - the West Wing is dark and loud, and the ballroom was really busy.

Very nice pics of Dream Along With Mickey I did enjoy it (many, many times) but I'm very excited to see Mickey's Royal Friendship Fare in Nov. I don't like many of the changes Disney does, but I did believe it was time to change the castle stage show

So what meal at BOG was your favorite? I'm sure you've seen me say this before but dinner is by far ours. Seeing your pictures is making me excited for our dinner there in November!

I'm looking forward to seeing the new castle show in January! I'll be on the lookout for your trip report after your November trip so I can see your thoughts on it!

I think for overall food and experience, dinner was my favourite meal at BOG as well (those green beans with the truffle oil! ). That said, I would not hesitate to eat any meal there again!

 

[fallonkendra]

Day Seven - Part Four - January 11, 2016​

After finishing up our lunch at BOG, we headed out and went to the Storybook Circus area. We had rode Dumbo last week when we were there, so today we decided to go on the Barnstormer. The wait was a little longer than I'd normally like for a ride like that, but it really wasn't even that long (20 minutes or so). It was a fairly standard little kid rollercoaster that was cute, but very short and not something we feel the need to go on every trip.

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We started slowly making our way around the park. We stopped to use a FastPass at Haunted Mansion (when we dropped our Peter Pan FP+ after walking on to it first thing in the morning, we were able to pick up this one). After riding, we stopped for a few Photopass pictures

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It was then time for our final FP+ of the day - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! This is one of my favourite rides, but for some reason this was the first time we had ever went on it during daylight...We picked up on so many little details that get lost when riding it at night!

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We checked the MDE app and it was saying Haunted Mansion had only a 15 minute wait so we headed back there and rode it again (we both love it!). We actually took our time going through the queue line, and let a few people go ahead of us so we could check out all the little details (but I didn't actually take any pictures of anything...). What a great queue line, so much detail! I also seem to find new little things on the ride every time I go on this.

We slowed down after this, we were in no rush to get anywhere. We did stop by a Fastpass kiosk to pick up a 4th FP+ for the day, but it was hours away. We went on the Riverboat in Liberty Square, but I found a bench to sit down on and ended up not being able to hear a thing. I could have moved, but I was enjoying sitting down for a few minutes. I also took zero pictures on this, I was just enjoying the relaxing boat ride. We then decided to check out the Country Bear Jamboree - so cheesy! I'm not sure if I was just overtired, but I found this show hilarious.

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Luke decided to grab a Dole Whip, and we found a place to sit down and enjoy it.

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After he finished his snack, we headed back to Tomorrowland. Once we got there, we decided to go to the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor. It was pretty much the same show as we had seen last week with a lot of the same jokes, but it still made me laugh (again, I might have been a little overtired/exhausted by this point). After leaving that, the PeopleMover had a short line so we jumped on that. I really enjoy this, it's a great way to see some of the park while taking a bit of a rest - and going inside Space Mountain was really cool! From there, we went to use our 4th FP+ of the day - to Space Mountain again!

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Ugh. For some reason a few lights were on around the outside of the building which encases this roller coaster, so it wasn't as dark as normal. I could kind of see the track in front of us, but not perfectly clear (there wasn't enough lights on for that), and for some reason this made me feel really sick/nauseous. I've never had that happen on Space Mountain before. I was a little sad, since this was our last ride at Magic Kingdom and it was not the best way to finish

It was about 6:15 by this point, and since I wasn't feeling great after that ride, we decided to just head to the Hub to secure a spot to watch the Electrical Parade (which started at 7pm). I'm not usually one to stake out a spot that far in advance, but it just seemed like the right thing for us to do at this point. Along the way I stopped to buy a thing of popcorn - I needed a snack to hold me over until our supper ADR and the smell of popcorn in the parks had my mouth watering for days before I finally gave in and purchased some. (I LOVE popcorn, but it often does not love me or my Crohn's). We found a place that we figured would be a good spot to watch the parade, and then sat on the ground to eat and wait. Disney is not cheap with the oil or the salt on their popcorn! It was exactly what I wanted though, and I ate almost all of it (and had no issues after, hurray!).

We ended up waiting almost an hour by the time the parade reached us, but we had an alright view to distract us while we waited

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[Saphire5742]

So I was just recently rereading my TR when I noticed your TR link in your signature. No clue why I didn't notice it before but I'm here now and happily following along. Off to catch up now.....

 

[ariane37]

I don't think you were overtired in Country Bears; it definitely is cheesy and yes, also hilarious! We don't do it every trip, just once in awhil,e but Chris has requested we do it in Nov.
Hmm, I think I might feel nauseous if I saw the Space track, too. I think NOT being able to see the track is a good thing and of course you go in not expecting to see it, so having lights make it visible.....yeah. Don't think I'd like that.
Also BTW, it's great to try every ride so you can say you've done it, but the Barnstormer is SO not worth it IMO! It's like, 20 seconds long lol?!

 

[SarahDisney]

I've actually never done Country Bear Jamboree, but from what I know of it ... I can definitely imagine it being funny in its cheesiness.

I'm sorry to hear that Space Mountain made you sick, that's definitely sad. But I'm glad the popcorn lived up to expectations (and really, that's the most important part!)

 

[Saphire5742]

Slowly cathcing up...

Here are some of my favourite pictures I took, starting with a sweet photobomb of our selfie:

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That is too funny (the photobomber, not you of course).
And you got some pretty great shots of the animals

I kind of feel like Disney cheaped out when making Dinosaur, just making a lot of it dark.

I feel the same way. They could've made it a more exciting ride. I found it to be a little boring

We saw that Primeval Whirl only had a 20 minute standby time, so we jumped into line for that.

You are a brave soul. I got dizzy just watching a rider experience vid on youtube prior to my trip (which I watched to get a sense on how spinney it was). can't do teacups either

There were only like 3 kids who actually went up, and Luke felt bad, so he went and joined them. He followed Goofy around the room twice clapping his hands and laughing, while I taped the entire thing.

Fun!

I still was not feeling good, and had to make yet another bathroom break shortly after we left the restaurant. We decided to get in line to go see Festival of the Lion King, but before the doors even opened I decided I couldn't do it, and I was full-out sick. After yet another trip the bathroom, I sadly had to call and cancel our supper reservation for the night - at 1900 Park Fare I was so excited about going to see the Grand Floridian, and now there was no way we could make it work into our schedule - I was really sad, but I know my body well enough to know it was not an option for tonight. At that point, we decided to call it a day and just go back to our hotel room - it was only about 2:30.

That sucks that you weren't feeling well. Hopefully it only lasted the one day.
Oh and LOVE your character pics at Tusker

WE ARE GOING BACK TO DISNEY! We actually booked our flights already to go back during marathon weekend 2017, where Luke will be going for a half-marathon this time!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Off to read your next day...

 

[Saphire5742]

Just finished reading day 5 and going to have to start my end of shift duties (it's been a quiet night). I'll just stop here for now and do a quick comment so far.

Ok for some reason the system decided to quote whole posts instaed of what I just highlighted.
Anyway love that SE photo at the beginning of the race. Congrats to Luke for completing it. His character photos are so cute.
Too bad you didn't have the best experience over at 50s. My meal there was one of the highlights of my trip. At least you got to witness some funny shennanigans.
LOVING all your photopass pictures.
I'm also in the never seen Star Wars group. Never felt compelled to see it. As such skipped all the relevant attraction at HS but maybe I was too hasty considering how much you enjoyed it.
Congrats on conquering your fear and riding RnRc. I don't think I've seen anyone look quite so terrified in a ride photo. That along with ToT are my two favorites at HS.
Your comment that World of Color is your fave night show gets me excited for when I'm there next year. Hopefully Fantasmic will return by that time too.
Glad you had a good time at Hoop. Sure it's silly but that's what makes it fun. I definitely enjoyed the show more than the food. Well except for that glorious corn bread. What I wouldn't give for another one right now.

 

[fallonkendra]

So I was just recently rereading my TR when I noticed your TR link in your signature. No clue why I didn't notice it before but I'm here now and happily following along. Off to catch up now.....

It's great to have you here!

I don't think you were overtired in Country Bears; it definitely is cheesy and yes, also hilarious! We don't do it every trip, just once in awhil,e but Chris has requested we do it in Nov.

This article has become a bit of a running joke between Luke and I now: http://www.theonion.com/article/study-96-percent-of-humans-would-rather-be-animatr-21152

Hmm, I think I might feel nauseous if I saw the Space track, too. I think NOT being able to see the track is a good thing and of course you go in not expecting to see it, so having lights make it visible.....yeah. Don't think I'd like that.

Yeah, it was not enjoyable. I'm fine with seeing the entire track (like California Screamin' at DCA), but I just wasn't expecting it on Space Mountain.

Also BTW, it's great to try every ride so you can say you've done it, but the Barnstormer is SO not worth it IMO! It's like, 20 seconds long lol?!

It's such a quick ride! Luckily the line wasn't too bad, and I'm glad we did it

 

[fallonkendra]

I've actually never done Country Bear Jamboree, but from what I know of it ... I can definitely imagine it being funny in its cheesiness.

It's definitely worth checking out if you have spare time!

I'm sorry to hear that Space Mountain made you sick, that's definitely sad. But I'm glad the popcorn lived up to expectations (and really, that's the most important part!)

That popcorn was so salty and oily - delicious!

 

[fallonkendra]

For some reason, I'm really fighting with quoting messages right now, so I'll finish responding to comments soon. It took more than a few attempts just to write the responses above... I'm not ignoring you @Saphire5742 !

Let's see if I can get this trip report wrapped up in the month of October...

 

[fallonkendra]

Day Seven - Part Five - January 11, 2016​

After waiting for awhile, the Main Street Electrical Parade reached us! Enjoy this plethora of pictures haha, I took a few (Also, I apologize, the order is all messed up, but you get the idea):

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If you couldn't tell by the amount of pictures I took, I LOVED this parade! Although, about 6 weeks after this we were in Disneyland and had a chance to see the Paint the Night parade and that blew the Electrical Parade out of the water! Paint the Night was absolutely incredible, by far the best parade I've ever seen in my life. I don't want to take anything away from MSEP, it was great, but just not the best that Disney has to offer.

After the parade went past us, no one moved. We realized people were planning on standing where they were to watch Wishes (it was an amazing spot right by the Hub in front of the castle). However, we had a late supper ADR to get to! It was very slow moving, and it's a good thing we didn't have far to go but we made it to Crystal Palace in time! It did take us close to 20 minutes just to get across the Hub though, so in hindsight we didn't chose the best viewing location for the parade - just keep that in mind if you need to move to another location in the parks in between the parade and the fireworks.

It had been a long day by the time we got to Crystal Palace, but the Pooh characters are among my favourites so I still enjoyed it (even if we did have end-of-the-night buffet food). For food pictures/ reviews, head over to my dining report (link in my signature!). Here are a few character pictures:

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It's hard to tell, but the bow in my hair was Eeyore inspired . Even though it was the end of the night, the characters were fantastic! While Piglet was over, Wishes started so Piglet grabbed my arm and was pretending to be scared of the loud noises outside. Eeyore saw my hair bow and gave me a HUGE hug, and then linked arms with me and tried to walk away with me (his handler was also awesome and started making jokes about how Eeyore wasn't allowed to steal me).

The restaurant itself is also gorgeous!

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The park was obviously closed by the time we left the restaurant, but people were still trickling out out of the park. We were walking down Main Street when we heard a noise, so we turned around and got to see the kiss goodnight from Tinkerbell! I had already put my camera away, so no pictures of that. Since we had avoided most of the rush of people, we only had to wait about 5 minutes for a bus before we were on our way back to our hotel. We sadly had to do a little bit of packing, and then we fell asleep fairly quickly.

 

[Saphire5742]

It took more than a few attempts just to write the responses above... I'm not ignoring you @Saphire5742 !

Didn't think you were. No worries.

Finally all caught up now. Great days you had there at Epcot and MK. And I'm really enjoying all your photos.
So cute that there's a snowman on Living with the Land in the winter.
I think the Canada pavilion is one of the most beautiful. My tentative planned trip to Canada will have to be postponed but I will definitely get there someday. Very cool that you got to see how maple syrup is made way back when. But I guess that would be a standard field trip in Canada.
WS is my favorite part of Epcot. Hopefully you got to see more on this trip or you get to spend more time there on your next trips.

I especially LOVE the early morning MK photos. And the private shots with the castle.
I'm kind of jealous that I missed the stage show since it had closed when I was there in preparation of the current one. I've since had to resort to youtube for that.
Funny that your two Space photos look almost identical.
And Crystal Palace is definitely gorgeous. It's one of the reasons I booked it myself. But mine was for PPO breakfast and because character meals usually take longer than regular ones, I was not able to so much take advantage regarding rides. So worth it though!

 

[ariane37]

I have never managed to see the Kiss Goodnight even though I say I'm going to make it a point every trip. One of these days.....
We last ate at CP in 2014. It wasn't our first time there, and we always find the character interaction to be great.
I'm going to miss MSEP so much!! It's my favorite parade aside from Boo To You. I've heard great things about Paint the Night too and hope to get out to DL sometime while it's still going on.

 

[namedafteru]

Myself, I was born and raised a Leafs fan, and the Oilers are my Western Conference team since I now live in Edmonton (and you'll find Luke decked out in Oilers gear at every game except when the Jets are in town). We're really hoping to be able to get tickets to the outdoor game in Winnipeg next October!

I was really enjoying this trip report until you said you were a Leafs fan! (I'm from Ottawa area so Sens all the way!!) Seriously I'm really enjoying your trip report. DH and are driving down in February. His first trip, my 11th.

 

[SarahDisney]

I love your MSEP pictures! I haven't seen Paint the Night, so MSEP is still my favorite
Although it can definitely be a madhouse trying to get through the hub after the parade.

And I love the character pictures from Crystal Palace. Sounds like it was a great experience - I've heard so many stories about characters being great with kids, but (probably selfishly) I love when the characters have fun with adults - we're allowed to love awesome characters too!

 

[fallonkendra]

Didn't think you were. No worries.

Finally all caught up now. Great days you had there at Epcot and MK. And I'm really enjoying all your photos.

Thanks! I took soooo many pictures on this trip at times!

So cute that there's a snowman on Living with the Land in the winter.

I didn't realize he's not there all the time! Now I have to go look at your pictures from Living With the Land...

I think the Canada pavilion is one of the most beautiful. My tentative planned trip to Canada will have to be postponed but I will definitely get there someday. Very cool that you got to see how maple syrup is made way back when. But I guess that would be a standard field trip in Canada.

Just let me know when you are planning a trip to Canada, and I can give you some pointers It's a HUGE country, so you'd never be able to see it all in one trip.

I think I learned about maple syrup through Girl Guides haha (Girl Scouts/whatever else they are called around the world). We would also typically do a family sleigh ride at least once a year, where we would go to a sugar shack.

WS is my favorite part of Epcot. Hopefully you got to see more on this trip or you get to spend more time there on your next trips.

We've planned 2 Epcot days on our next trip, so I'm hoping to see much more of WS!

I especially LOVE the early morning MK photos. And the private shots with the castle.

Those pictures almost make it worthwhile to have stood in the cold waiting to be let in for like an hour! I love those so much that we decided to go back to BOG for breakfast to get more (and to try and ride 7DMT without waiting for hours).

I'm kind of jealous that I missed the stage show since it had closed when I was there in preparation of the current one. I've since had to resort to youtube for that.

It was cute, and I'm glad I saw it. I wouldn't feel the need to go out of my way to see it though.

Funny that your two Space photos look almost identical.

I can never think of what to do for the picture on that one...

And Crystal Palace is definitely gorgeous. It's one of the reasons I booked it myself. But mine was for PPO breakfast and because character meals usually take longer than regular ones, I was not able to so much take advantage regarding rides. So worth it though!

I'm starting to get a little sad that we aren't going back to Crystal Palace on our next trip for a meal, but I'll just have to add it to our list for our 2018 trip... It's such a beautiful restaurant, and I loved the character interactions!

I have never managed to see the Kiss Goodnight even though I say I'm going to make it a point every trip. One of these days.....

I hadn't even planned on seeing it, it just happened! I was pretty excited about it, Luke had no idea what I was talking about haha...

We last ate at CP in 2014. It wasn't our first time there, and we always find the character interaction to be great.

The characters were so good here! It was the end of the night, so the restaurant wasn't completely full which meant they weren't in such a rush. I've also loved the Pooh characters my entire life, so I was loving life the entire time (even though I was exhausted).

I'm going to miss MSEP so much!! It's my favorite parade aside from Boo To You. I've heard great things about Paint the Night too and hope to get out to DL sometime while it's still going on.

I'd love to see Boo To You someday, but I have no idea when that will ever happen! Paint the Night was so incredible, you need to see it if you ever get a chance! Maybe they will bring it to WDW?

I was really enjoying this trip report until you said you were a Leafs fan! (I'm from Ottawa area so Sens all the way!!) Seriously I'm really enjoying your trip report. DH and are driving down in February. His first trip, my 11th.

Boo, Sens! My best friend from high school is a huge Senators fan and one of my little cousins goes to school there so has become a Sens fan as well. I'm not a fan, but in a ranking of my favourite Canadian NHL teams, they do place better than the Habs or the Canucks haha!

I love your MSEP pictures! I haven't seen Paint the Night, so MSEP is still my favorite
Although it can definitely be a madhouse trying to get through the hub after the parade.

When I saw MSEP, I thought it was the best parade ever, but it only held that title for 6 weeks haha. I think it's just because Paint the Night has slightly newer characters? There's still lots of classics too, but it's just such a fun parade!

And I love the character pictures from Crystal Palace. Sounds like it was a great experience - I've heard so many stories about characters being great with kids, but (probably selfishly) I love when the characters have fun with adults - we're allowed to love awesome characters too!

I agree! We're allowed to have fun at Disney too haha! The characters at Crystal Palace were some of the best we encountered on our entire trip! I highly recommend it, even though the food was just ok (but that's only because we were there at the very end of the night, so the food had been sitting for awhile...).

 

[fallonkendra]

Sorry for the huge delay in getting another post up! Work has been crazy busy lately, and then it was Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and it snowed last weekend as well , so I was busy trying to get our yard ready for the winter (putting away my planters, trimming everything back in my garden since it was now dead - but it was still in full bloom the day before the snow hit - etc). I've also been running a few times each week in preparation for my first 5km race this upcoming January at Disney! I really want this trip report wrapped up before January though, since we are spending 9 nights in Florida at WDW and 5 nights in California at DL, so I will be busy writing those trip reports!

The next post for this trip will hopefully be up sometime this weekend

 

[fallonkendra]

Day Eight - Part One - January 12, 2016​

We woke up fairly early this day, since we sadly had to leave All Star Music . While we finished up with the packing we didn't do the night before, we ate a few snacks from our stash we had ordered online (cookies for breakfast is something I can get behind every day of the week ). After we finished packing and getting ourselves ready for the day, I took a few pictures of our room (the ones you saw at the very beginning of this report) and then we said goodbye to it. Originally, this was going to be a non-park day - original plan was to head to Disney Springs for a few hours before calling a cab and going to our next hotel, but after I got sick on our Animal Kingdom day last week, I knew I had to get back there. One day over the weekend, we had stopped by the front desk at our hotel and we were able to upgrade our 6 day tickets to 7 day tickets, and it only cost us $10/each! That same day, I signed into my Disney account and was able to grab some great Fastpasses.

We dropped our luggage off with bell services, and they placed it into storage for us for the day. We then caught a bus to Animal Kingdom again - and I was determined to do the park justice this time! According to the time stamp on the following Photopass pictures, we arrived by 9:40am - so we weren't doing too bad on this morning!






After entering the park, we stopped for more Photopass pictures in front of the Tree - it was our last day in a Disney park, and I was determined to get our money's worth out of pictures!







We walked along, and decided to jump in line to meet Russell and Dug! I love Up! I had actually never saw it, but within the first month of dating Luke made me watch both Up and Wall-E, since they are two of his favourite movies.

We had a bit of a wait for this, maybe 20 minutes or so, but it was worth it! This was a cute meet-and-greet!






After telling Dug what a good dog he was, and admiring all of Russell's Wilderness Explorer badges, we headed over to Dinoland to use our first FP+ on Dinosaur.



I mentioned when we went on it last week, and I'll mention it again - this ride is just ok. If you've ever been on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, you'll understand how that is so far superior to Dinosaur. That said, we will more than likely go Dinosaur every time we're at Animal Kingdom...

We were getting pretty hungry by this point so we stopped at the Yak & Yeti quick serve. I'll leave the actual review for my dining report, but we probably would have been better off just staying hungry . The best part of the meal was the sitting area - it was outside and huge! At first we thought it was just a few tables, but they stretched back and around the building. It wasn't busy at all, so we had no problem finding a table.

 

[SarahDisney]

Another day when we were at the same park and didn't see each other! But we were kinda rushing through the park that day, so I probably wouldn't have noticed you even if we crossed paths.