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

[fallonkendra]

Just an update on the wildfire situation: over 80,000+ people have now been evacuated, and there are no reports of deaths or injuries. The fire is still not under control, but it has currently moved away from the city. This is expected to change as winds pick up within the next hour or so, officials seems to fear the worst is yet to come. As of right now, it is estimated that 1600 structures have been damaged - one entire neighbourhood is gone. Gas stations have exploded, hotels and restaurants and businesses have burnt to the ground. It's a very scary situation, but I have been in contact with every family member and friend I know who still live there, and all of them are out of the city and safe. If you just do a google search, you will see terrifying images that are like something out of a movie. I know people who have lost everything. If you're financially able, here's the website to donate to the red cross fund set up.
https://donate.redcross.ca/ea-actio...=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=NO-DM

 

[SarahDisney]

Wow, that wildfire situation is terrible. I'm glad to hear that all of your family and friends are okay, and I will definitely keep everyone in my thoughts and prayers. I hope they can get the fire under control soon and people can start to make an attempt to get back to normal life (if that's even possible after something like this).

 

[Dentam]

Wow, so sorry to hear about the fires there. Something similar happened south of here a couple of years ago but not as many homes and businesses were lost. Lots of evacuations though and some homes burned down. Sending prayers to everyone dealing with this!

 

[fallonkendra]

Today the wildfire is still out of control, and has now done significant damage to a few other neighbourhoods of the city. Last night, we found out that there were a number of houses on fire on the same street my aunt and uncle live on, but the information they've received is telling them their house is still standing, just smoke damage and water damage from the bombers dropping water to contain the fire. The airport received damage last night as well, although it is not destroyed (there was a webcam set up on the outside of the building that had scary pictures yesterday as the fire approached it). Yesterday morning, the fire was about 7500 hectares, the last update was that it was over 85,000 hectares - that's how fast and out of control this thing is. They've had to evacuate more communities, it is now over 88,000 people displaced from their homes. One of my uncles was up there working at site for a short-term job, and was staying in one of the work camps. He and his friend decided to get out yesterday morning while the highway was open to traffic, and they stayed at my house last night. They were telling me that despite being 30+ miles away from the fire, ash was falling out of the sky like snow. The stories are horrific.

The good news - this province (and country) is stepping up to help in a big way. I live in Edmonton now, which is a major city about 4-5 hours south of Fort McMurray. Many restaurants here are offering free meals to the evacuees (they just need to show proof of address), gyms, yoga studios, etc are all opening their doors for free. the West Edmonton Mall, one of the largest malls in the world offered free admission to the waterpark, the amusement park and the mini-golf courses located inside the mall so families could take their children to have a bit of fun. The donations to the Red Cross are now over $11million, and still growing. Local pet food manufacturers have donated pallets and pallets of new food for evacuees to feed their pets that escaped with them. Cell phone companies have turned off long distance charges and text message rates for all customers who had a Fort McMurray address. Hotels are offering rooms at incredibly discounted rates (rooms that normally would have cost $150/night are being rented out for $50/night or less). Some banks are waiving fees and increasing overdraft limits. Thousands of cell phones have been donated from a major provider for anyone who lost their phone in the fire. Airline companies are flying up to rescue anyone who was forced into evacuating north of the city - the only way to get south is currently blocked by fire. (They are able to land on the landing strips owned by all of the major oil companies). The oil companies have opened the doors of their camps for people to stay, and they are using their private planes to fly people to Edmonton.

The number of times I have been brought to tears over the past few days is crazy - fear for everyone when the evacuation order was first announced, sadness for everyone who has lost their homes (and tears last night when we thought my uncle had lost everything), disbelief that a city I once called home was facing such a catastrophic event, but also happy tears at seeing how everyone is going above and beyond to help. The past few days have restored my faith in humanity, and I know the city will be rebuilt with the help of this province, this country and the entire world. Material things can be replaced and rebuilt, and the most important thing so far has been there are still no reported deaths.

I promise to get back to my Disney trip report soon, but this has taken top priority in my life. Sorry to be writing about something much more downtrodden than a trip to Disney.

 

[Terra Nova guy]

I have been amazed and saddened by all the pictures and video I have seen from Fort Mac. As you may know, many in that city are originally from Newfoundland, so there has been a lot of news coming back to us. My cousin and wife live in Fort Mac and escaped the flames, but do not yet know if their house survived. I am wishing the best for everyone and hoping that the weather turns around soon so the fires get under control. Thank you for sharing the news and message. And don't worry about the trip report. The boards and your readers will still be here whenever you feel up to writing again.

 

[Dentam]

They've been covering this on our news here as well now. I haven't seen any photos or anything since I worked a 12 hour day today and only caught the news report on the radio on the way to work. It sounds awful though and I feel for everyone going through this. It's wonderful that so many businesses are stepping up to help though and that so much money has been raised for the Red Cross already. I heard on the radio report that the weather forecast was supposed to improve - chance of rain I think they said - so I hope the fire is able to be contained very soon.

 

[fallonkendra]

Wow, that wildfire situation is terrible. I'm glad to hear that all of your family and friends are okay, and I will definitely keep everyone in my thoughts and prayers. I hope they can get the fire under control soon and people can start to make an attempt to get back to normal life (if that's even possible after something like this).

Thank you Sarah.

Wow, so sorry to hear about the fires there. Something similar happened south of here a couple of years ago but not as many homes and businesses were lost. Lots of evacuations though and some homes burned down. Sending prayers to everyone dealing with this!

Thank you. They still have not announced an updated figure on the number of homes damaged, but the fire itself is now over 160,000 hectares.

I have been amazed and saddened by all the pictures and video I have seen from Fort Mac. As you may know, many in that city are originally from Newfoundland, so there has been a lot of news coming back to us. My cousin and wife live in Fort Mac and escaped the flames, but do not yet know if their house survived. I am wishing the best for everyone and hoping that the weather turns around soon so the fires get under control. Thank you for sharing the news and message. And don't worry about the trip report. The boards and your readers will still be here whenever you feel up to writing again.

Fort McMurray is known as NFLD's second largest city, so I have no doubt you know people living there. I'm glad your cousin is ok, did they find a place to stay for the next few weeks/months?

They've been covering this on our news here as well now. I haven't seen any photos or anything since I worked a 12 hour day today and only caught the news report on the radio on the way to work. It sounds awful though and I feel for everyone going through this. It's wonderful that so many businesses are stepping up to help though and that so much money has been raised for the Red Cross already. I heard on the radio report that the weather forecast was supposed to improve - chance of rain I think they said - so I hope the fire is able to be contained very soon.

The weather unfortunately still has not improved much, but the fire has not burned anything within the city in a day or two now. It seems like this thing is making headlines around the entire world, which makes sense. This is going to affect the economy on a global scale. I'd expect to see oil and gas prices skyrocket very soon due to the huge decrease in production since this happened.

 

[fallonkendra]

The wildfire is still out of control, and there are still hotspots in the city that can grow at any time, but for the most part the fire has moved outside the city limits for now. It has grown to a beast, 160,000 hectares in size - and is expected to possibly double. This has some interesting graphics of the size of the fire in relation to other cities, but keep in mind this was put together when the fire reached 85,000 hectares a few days ago, it is now almost double that... http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/05/06/fort-mcmurray-fire-maps_n_9857952.html

All that said, this was a nice read about the weird things people packed with them as they were fleeing. It's nice to see a bit of humour in an otherwise bleak week. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-mcmurray-fire-what-people-brought-with-them-1.3571040

I am going to try and get back to my trip reporting, hopefully within the next day or two. I'm still quite a bit away from finishing this report, but I'd like to get it wrapped up sooner than later so I can spend more time on my PTR for our trip in January 2017!

 

[ariane37]

I had no idea this was going on up there - not sure if it's because it's not being reported on my news or because I just don't watch the news that much, but I'm so sorry. I'm glad there are no reported deaths so far but the damage nonetheless is devastating. Hoping for an end to it all soon and keeping everyone in my thoughts.

 

[fallonkendra]

I did not plan on it taking me almost a month to get back to writing another update on my trip report - I hope people are still interested in reading! It's been a bit of a crazy month, but things are starting to get back to normal now, so I promise to get back to my trip today! It should be up soon!

 

[Dentam]

Yay! Looking forward to your next update! I hope the fires have died down there.

 

[fallonkendra]

Day Four - Part Four

When I finished my last post, we were at Pizza Planet. After leaving there, we went to Muppet Vision 3D. We both thought it was really cute, but I don't know if we would do it more than once per trip. For some reason I didn't take any pictures by the Muppet Theatre... When we got over there we pretty much walked straight in with no wait.

After leaving there, we walked along the Streets of America. The Osbourne Lights were still up, but not turned on (this was also in the early afternoon, so they wouldn't have been turned on anyways). I'm sad I never had a chance to see the lights in all their glory . When we first started planning our trip, the last night for the lights to be turned on was January 2nd, and we weren't arriving in Florida until the 5th so we would miss them completely. However, shortly before we arrived in Orlando, I checked again and they had been extended until January 6th - which we already had planned as a Magic Kingdom day. I know a lot of people would have just switched to the 6th being a Hollywood Studios Day, but I would have had to move all of our Fastpasses at that point, as well as dining reservations. I knew I'd never be able to move our Be Our Guest dinner that we had on the 6th, it was so hard to get in the first point! So we just accepted that the Osbourne Lights would be something we'd miss out on. All that said, we were still able to see how many there were! Hopefully they relocate those somewhere else on property for next year!

While we were on the Street of America, we stopped for some Photopass pictures!

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I love that second one! After those pictures we walked along Commissary Lane to the Centre Stage area. We were on our way to the Pixar area, but for some reason we had a really hard time finding it at first. Eventually we found it, and it was time for our second Fastpass of the day - Toy Story Midway Mania! We had been on this ride in California, and it's essentially the same ride in both parks. I love the theming of the area around it in Florida though, so cute and the attention to detail was fantastic. I can't wait to see what they do with the Toy Story expansion they are currently working on! (I feel it should be noted that Luke put the first Toy Story on about 20 minutes ago, so we're actually watching it right now).

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The queue line looked so cool, but there's no way I'd ever wait in line for an hour. I actually ended up winning, I believe that's a first! From there, we had tons of time before our next Fastpass, so we hopped in line to meet Woody and Buzz Lightyear. The line was fairly long, but the queue line was designed to look like different scenes from the movie so I had fun with that.

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About 25 minutes later, it was our turn to meet Buzz and Woody. It was an ok character meet and greet, but it felt like what I would consider a snap and shove - it felt like the Photopass people just wanted to snap our picture and shove us out to get to the next person. Maybe because we were just two adults without any kids, but I felt really rushed at this. We did end up with three Photopass pictures though, and they turned out decent!

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[fallonkendra]

Day Four - Part Five

After rushing through the Buzz and Woody meet-and-greet, we stopped to have some Photopass pictures taken with the Pixar sign in the background.

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Looking back at all of my pictures now, my outfits looked a bit ridiculous. I had short sleeve and sleeveless Disney dresses, but it ended up being a bit cold the entire time we were there, so I ended up wearing my sweaters that I planned on only wearing at night. Same for the leggings, I had planned on wearing spandex shorts under my dresses, but due to the cold I put on my long leggings every day. Also - yes - it wasn't actually cold, I am Canadian but I guess I'm weak haha.

We took our time, exploring the park a bit as we headed towards our third Fastpass - Tower of Terror! Last year when we went to California, I swore there was no way I was going on that ride, but I was still interested in taking a look at the building up close. When we got to it, there was only a 15 minute wait, and Luke was really excited to go on it. I hesitantly agreed, and ended up absolutely loving it! So we knew that it had to be a FastPass for our Hollywood Studios day! The fourth dimension at WDW is really cool, and I'd say that alone makes the ride better in Florida. However, I feel like the view from the open window is much better in California and therefore makes the ride more terrifying (but still awesome). I also loved the video you get from this ride with Memory Maker.

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Just because it's hilarious, here's a cropped,close-up of our on-ride photo...

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We then stopped at a store close to Tower of Terror so I could buy a mug I had my eye on - seriously how cute is this?!

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I sent my new Chip mug directly back to our hotel, and I also bought the ears I had decided on - the Minnie sequin ones. We stopped on the street leading to the Tower of Terror to have more Photopass pictures taken - I was determined to get my money's worth out of that thing! I love that you can actually see Luke's medal he got earlier that day for the 10km race!

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We found a Fastpass Kiosk and made our 4th selection of the day for Fantasmic, now that our initial three had been used. We checked the time, and figured we had enough time before our supper reservation to go watch the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, so we waited in line and then found seats. I'd say that show is just ok, I found there to be a lot of dull moments. Instead of the 45 minute show that it is, I think it could be awesome shaved down to a 20-25 minute show. Mind you, I might also be saying this because we were awake at an unnatural hour that morning, and this was one of the first times we had really sat down in hours... Anyways, as we were watching the show we realized we were getting close to our reservation time, so we had to be those people who get up before the show is over and leave. I felt bad about it, but I didn't want to be late! After checking in for supper we ended up sitting outside the restaurant waiting for our names to be called for almost 15 minutes - turns out we would have had enough time to finish watching the Indy Stunt Show. Oh well, such is life.

 

[Terra Nova guy]

The queue line looked so cool, but there's no way I'd ever wait in line for an hour.

I feel the same way. The queue looks interesting, and I like the ride, but I've always fast passed it. I just can't justify the stand by wait time.

We then stopped at a store close to Tower of Terror so I could buy a mug I had my eye on - seriously how cute is this?!

I have seen this mug on my last two trips and both times I went back and forth in my head about buying it. I decided not to get it, but I still think about it now and then. Next time I just need to get it. I can't remember if they had a Mrs. Potts teapot to go with it, but that would be fun. Although I would probably never get it home in one piece.

We stopped on the street leading to the Tower of Terror to have more Photopass pictures taken - I was determined to get my money's worth out of that thing!

My family does the same thing. We stop at almost every photographer we see, sometimes in the same location on different days, just to get the best pictures and to make it worth the cost.

 

[ariane37]

Ha ha I think you look adorable in all your outfits so far! The same thing happened to me on our Jan. trip. It was so much colder than I thought it would be, so I either didn't wear most of the tops I'd brought or had to cover them up with sweaters and jackets. Also had to wear different shoes b/c my feet would've froze in my flip-flops! But who cares, especially when the majority of the clothing in question has Disney characters on it

Love the picture of you looking up at Luke The one time we purchased Photopass we did the same thing, we hit every PP photographer we saw. Definitely worth it in the end.

ToT - my favorite! Glad you ended up enjoying it!

 

[SarahDisney]

We were in the same boat as you for the Osborne Lights - we didn't want to have to rearrange everything to see the lights. I really hope they do pop up somewhere else on property, but I don't know how likely that is.
I totally thought it was cold ... or at least colder than I expected! Definitely required some extra layers sometimes. I do love the part of your dress that is visible, though!

I love the Chip mug - so cute!

 

[mlegerto]

Great update! Can't wait to hear where you ate dinner at Hollywood Studios!

 

[fallonkendra]

I feel the same way. The queue looks interesting, and I like the ride, but I've always fast passed it. I just can't justify the stand by wait time.

I think the longest we've ever waited in line for a ride at Disney was 45 minutes, and even that was torture for me. I guess I'm impatient...

I have seen this mug on my last two trips and both times I went back and forth in my head about buying it. I decided not to get it, but I still think about it now and then. Next time I just need to get it. I can't remember if they had a Mrs. Potts teapot to go with it, but that would be fun. Although I would probably never get it home in one piece.

I still haven't used it, it's just sitting on our kitchen counter looking adorable. But it was one of my favourite ones that I saw! I know I've saw pictures of a Mrs. Potts cookie jar that's shaped like a teapot, but I don't remember even seeing that at the parks.

My family does the same thing. We stop at almost every photographer we see, sometimes in the same location on different days, just to get the best pictures and to make it worth the cost.

By the end of the trip, I definitely felt like the cost was worth it, especially with all of the on-ride photos we have! I won't hesitate to purchase it again for our next trip!

 

[fallonkendra]

Ha ha I think you look adorable in all your outfits so far! The same thing happened to me on our Jan. trip. It was so much colder than I thought it would be, so I either didn't wear most of the tops I'd brought or had to cover them up with sweaters and jackets. Also had to wear different shoes b/c my feet would've froze in my flip-flops! But who cares, especially when the majority of the clothing in question has Disney characters on it

Haha, thanks! Yeah, I'll definitely pack a little differently for our next trip (which is also in January). Although with my luck, watch it end up being a heat wave or something...

I had enough Disney clothes to do the 7 days at the parks on this trip, but for our next one we're staying a little longer...guess that just means I need to buy more Disney outfits!

I can't imagine wearing flip-flops at the park! I can barely walk in them as it is, let along for hours! I'm so glad Luke convinced me to go to a Running Room to be properly fit for a pair of athletic sneakers before we went to Disney. I ended up liking them so much, I bought two pairs that day! (They are the two pairs you'll notice I alternate between in the pictures from this trip).

Love the picture of you looking up at Luke The one time we purchased Photopass we did the same thing, we hit every PP photographer we saw. Definitely worth it in the end.

I already told Luke I'm going to be buying it again for our next trip! We just started finally printing off our pictures from this trip, and we put a bunch into one of those collage frames on the weekend. Now we just need to decide where to hang it! I want to do an entire wall in Disney pictures from all of our trips, and keep adding to it over the years but I just can't pick which room of our house to do it in!

ToT - my favorite! Glad you ended up enjoying it!

I love it now too! On our first trip to Disneyland, I freaked out and refused to get on California Screaming (the giant roller-coaster). On our last trip, I said I'd give it a chance - I really had to talk myself into going through with it, but I ended up loving that too!

 

[fallonkendra]

We were in the same boat as you for the Osborne Lights - we didn't want to have to rearrange everything to see the lights. I really hope they do pop up somewhere else on property, but I don't know how likely that is.
I totally thought it was cold ... or at least colder than I expected! Definitely required some extra layers sometimes. I do love the part of your dress that is visible, though!

I totally wasn't expecting the weather - we were leaving Canada to go to Florida in January...and we ended up needing to wear a light jacket most of the time... Oh well, we were still at Disney!

I love the Chip mug - so cute!

Thanks! I thought it was adorable!

Great update! Can't wait to hear where you ate dinner at Hollywood Studios!

Thanks! I'll try and post my next update within the next few days!