1st Timers Attempt to do the World in 3 Days...My Trip Report with pics-DAY 2 ADDED!

[UGAFan0829]

First timers-Our attempt to do the World in 3 days…A trip report

Let me start out by introducing ourselves. It’s just me, Missy, 27 and the DH, Mike, 29. It’s a first-time for the both of us.

Our stay is at the All-Star Movies Resort from Sept. 6-10, in a preferred room, with a request for a king bed.

I took the day off on Wednesday, the 6th in order to get everything packed and ready. Normally, I have things gathered and packed at least 2-3 days before our trip. This time was a little different. We had attempted to make this trip at least 3 times in the past, and for different reasons, we always had to cancel. So to say the least, I was a little nervous about the trip and was scared to be excited in fear that something would happen that would prevent us from making the trip. The DH just started his job a few months ago, so he technically did not have any vacation time. Thankfully the company that he went to work for was nice enough to let him have 2 days off since he let them know about needing the time before he was hired.

We live in N. GA, about 7 ½ to 8 hours from Disney, all depending on traffic. I was in high hopes that the DH could get off from work a little early so that we could get on the road a little early. I had already planned to get everything ready and then sleep a little so that I could drive as far as possible so that the DH could sleep and then we could switch out if need be. Unfortunately, much to my dismay, I took about a 2 hour nap about an hour before the DH got home. Which, he by the way, didn’t make it home until a little after 5 pm. Of course, he had to take a shower before he left since his line of work requires a lot of manual labor and sweat!! I needed to get ready myself, which meant we both had to take showers. Needless to say, I wasn’t ready when he got home, like I should have been. That nap was nice, but I was worse after I woke up that I had been before I went to sleep. Anyway, enough details…we ended up leaving at about 7:30 pm, so we both knew that it would be very late when we arrived in Orlando. We also knew that our plans called for us to be in the Magic Kingdom the next day with an ADR at the Crystal Palace for 8:05 am. The park would also be opening early for EMH, so we knew that no matter how late we got there, we still had to be up early the next morning.

I was able to get us all the way to the state line which is about 4 hours, and then we switched. The DH made the rest of the way, and we arrived in Orlando at about 3 am. We finally made into Disney, and got to the resort at about 3:30. I wanted to be excited, and deep down inside I was, but I was very tired.

We went through the guard shack and made our way to the Movies resort, passing Music and Sports on our way. Here are some of the pics that I took on our way in:

When we arrived at the check-in counter, of course we were the only ones there. The guy at the counter just stared at us as we walked in. Maybe we looked like zombies or something? Anyway, when we finally reached the counter, he just looked at us like we had 3 heads, so I told him that we needed to check-in. He went through all the steps, and gave us all our info. We were in the Toy Story 10 building, 1st floor. Of course I remembered that I should have asked about the king bed request once we were almost to our building. Anyway, we unloaded all our luggage and made our way to the room. I was a little disappointed to find that we had 2 double beds. And I don’t know if it was because I was really tried, but those beds looked awful small. I figured since it was so late, that we would just call tomorrow to see if they might be able to switch us. Besides, I knew that we weren’t guaranteed a king room, and I forgot to ask. Here are some pics of our room. Remember, it is a preferred room. (Not really sure what makes it preferred as I couldn’t tell that we were really close to anything. And the only reason that we got a preferred room was because that was all that was left when I made the reservation.) Here’s the pics:

We thought the popcorn light was really cool!
Now you see it:

Now you don’t! (Doesn’t take much to amuse us…LOL!):

And lastly, the view from our room:

So we set our wakeup call for 6 am! We had breakfast with Pooh in the morning, so we had to be up and ready to go! We then tucked in for our first night at Disney. As tired as I was, I was so excited, it took forever to finally get to sleep!

Next up will be day 2...Our first full day in Disney…we visit the Magic Kingdom, and have breakfast with Pooh and all his pals!

 

[Princess19]

Great start! Can't wait to hear the rest!

 

[Vickie46]

great report.. can't wait to hear the rest.

 

[UGAFan0829]

Day 2 Part 1:

So we awoke, bright an early at 6 am to a cute little wake-up call courtesy of Disney! As soon as I woke up, I made a mental note to call the front desk to see if we could switch to a king bed. The DH and I are not little people, so there was not a lot of room! At first I tried to keep a positive attitude that we would make do no matter what size bed we got, but I knew that if we wanted to get a good night’s sleep, that we would have to change.

Anyway, enough about that…we had a breakfast to get to, and a park to take in! Our reservation at Crystal Palace was for 8:05 am. I remember that when making the reservation, they asked us to try and arrive 15 minutes early, and I had every intention of doing just so. The park also opened at 8 for EMH, and I wanted to try and get in just a few minutes before to try and get some good uncrowned pics of the castle since I’d heard that it was hard to do once the park opened.

Since we drove our own vehicle down, and was a little unsure of how Disney transportation worked, we decided to drive to the MK. Probably not the best decision, but hey we were rookies! So we leave our resort and follow the signs to MK. We park and see that we have to take the monorail to the park entrance. No big deal, right? Wrong. I thought that we were actually at the park and just had a little ways to go, but we were actually at the TTC, and had to stop at the GF and Poly before actually arriving at MK. It really wasn’t a big deal, we just weren’t prepared for it time wise. By the time we got off the monorail and walked to the real entrance of MK, it was 5 after 8...the time of our reservation. We went through bag check, which was thankfully very short and breezed through the entrance. We walked very quickly to the CP, and checked-in. Thankfully the CP is rather close to the entrance of the park. I was so relieved when I realized that they were still going to let us in. I had this image in my head that they were going to tell us that they had already given our reservation to someone else. We waited for only a couple of minutes before they let us in. We were seated and they told us all about how the characters would come around, etc. The DH went and fixed his plate, and of course I stayed put just in case. This was my first time in Disney, and my first character meal, I didn’t want to miss a thing, folks, even if it meant paying for a meal that I never ate. Soon after the DH returned Piglet made his way to our table. I was soooo excited! Shortly after Eeyore made his way around and then I was finally able to make a break for the buffet line. I ended up not eating much even though the food was pretty good. I was just too excited to worry much about eating. Sorry that I didn’t take any pictures of the food. But here are a couple of pics of the DH and I with the characters:

After we left CP, we headed back to Main Street so I could take some of the traditional Castle pics. Then we headed over to Frontierland. We weren’t sure how wet we would get on Spalsh Mountain so we stood and watched a few boats come down and decided to check out ourselves. The wait time for the stand-by line was posted as 10 minutes, but it was a lot shorter than that. We practically walked right on.

I wondered why it took so long for the boats to actually come down once they went up the first hill, and we found out after we rode it. Glad that we decided to, it was a cool ride.

We then headed over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad where the time was again posted as 10 minutes, but wasn’t really that long.

 

[UGAFan0829]

Day 2 Part 2:

After that, we wondered over The Haunted Mansion in Liberty Square, and then headed over to Fantasyland where we rode a few more rides including It’s A Small World, Peter Pan’s Flight, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and Mad Tea Party. We also watched Mickey’s PhilharMagic which was really fun! Here’s some pics of us getting ready to go 3-D:

After that, we headed over to Tomorrowland and did Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Command (which I beat the DH by a huge amount on), and Stitch’s Great Escape (which neither the DH, nor I was impressed with.)

It was then getting close to time for the Disney Dreams Come True Parade, so we decided to make the trek back over to Main Street to get a good spot for. We really enjoyed the parade and were glad that we decided to get a spot early since the sidewalks filled up fast. Here’s a few of pics that we took:

After the parade it came a light shower, which started right after the parade ended. So we decided to get a afternoon snack, so we headed over to Casey’s Corner. I’m not usually a hot dog fan, but these were really good. It was still raining after we finished, so we decided to take a ferry boat over to a couple of the resorts to check them out. The DH always wanted to stay at the Wilderness Lodge, so we thought we would check it out first. It’s a beautiful place, and we definitely hope to stay there on a future visit. After we visited the WL, we came back to the MK and took a bus over to the Beach and Yacht Club, which is where I have always wanted to stay. They are both beautiful resorts, and on the bus ride over we met a very nice family from VA who were staying at the Beach Club.

We then returned to the MK, and decided to take the train around the park, and ended up getting off at Mickey’s Toontown Fair since I’d read that you could meet a lot of the characters there. We ended up touring Mickey and Minnie’s houses, which were both really cute, and then headed over to the Judge’s tent to meet Mickey.

After we left MTTF, we decided to take a trip back over to Adventureland to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. I have to admit that we haven’t seen the movies, but decided to ride it anyway since everyone was talking about it. It was actually a pretty cool ride even though we were clueless about the movie. On the way over to the ride, we stopped off at Aloha Isle to try a Dole Pineapple Float. I’d read a lot of posts here on the DIS about the whips, but we decided to try the float, which I think is about the same thing. They were really good, and was a nice treat on a hot day!

It was then getting close to time for SpectroMagic, and I knew that we would need to find a spot for it pretty early. I was right, when we got to Main Street, people were already getting their spots. So we went ahead and found a spot that was close enough to the castle so that we wouldn’t have to move to be able to see Wishes as well. Here are few pics from SpectroMagic, which is a really beautiful show:

Right after the SpectroMagic parade was Wishes, which is what I wanted to see the most. This is a really sweet show, and the fireworks are beautiful. I think everyone needs to see this show at least once. The fireworks were amazing:

These pictures really don’t do the show justice. It’s something that you just have to see for yourself. The colors of the castle at night are just beautiful and it really brings back the child in you. It warms your heart and makes you wish that you were a princess living in that castle all over again. And it refreshes your heart, and makes you remember that dreams really do come true. I know mine did…Just standing there watching the show was a dream come true for me, as it was something that I had always dreamed about, and now I was finally doing it!

After the show, we headed over to the monorail along with other thousands of people. We finally made it back to the TTC and found our vehicle and headed back to the resort. It was then that I remembered that we needed to call the front desk to see if they could get us moved to a king room. When we got back to the room this is what we found:

This is my Pooh bear. My husband gave him to me, and I always take him with me when we go on trips. As you can probably tell by now, Pooh is my favorite, so I thought it was really cute when we got back to the room and he was all tucked in and ready for bed!

The DH remembered to call the front desk to ask about getting switched, and unfortunately, they didn’t have anything available, but they did put us on the list to be moved, so we kept our fingers crossed!

After that we tucked in with Pooh and got ready for a day at Epcot and dinner at Chef Mickey’s.

 

[Monte Cristo]

Pirates of the Caribbean. I have to admit that we haven’t seen the movies, but decided to ride it anyway since everyone was talking about it. It was actually a pretty cool ride even though we were clueless about the movie.

Some around here would consider this BLASPHEMY.

Just kidding. Great report, looking forward to the next installment.

 

[never_enough_pooh]

Great trip report so far! I can't wait to read more!!

Your pics of Wishes are absolutely beautiful!!!!!

 

[FSUMARCHIEF]

Howdy! Great pictures - except for one thing. The hat your husband is wearing. I mean - come on! I'm surprised they didn't kick you out of the park for that!

hee hee!!!

Blessings!
MarkyMark

 

[DeterminedOne]

Nice report and pics. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[UGAFan0829]

Howdy! Great pictures - except for one thing. The hat your husband is wearing. I mean - come on! I'm surprised they didn't kick you out of the park for that!

hee hee!!!

Blessings!
MarkyMark

Haha! I hear ya! Actually, wait until you see what I'm wearing in my MGM pics! I just know you'll love it! HAHA!