3 pirates and a monkey conquer WDW and The Magic

[mom4mad]

Let me start by saying this is my first trip report, so please forgive me if it is boring. I am writing this at the prompting of my DH- Marc. He thinks I am slightly obsessed with the DISboards, in fact, calls it "my porn". Anyway, I have gleaned a lot of helpful tips and had hours of fun reading others' reports. I figured it was my turn to contribute to the fun!

We booked this reservation while onboard the Fantasy back in 2013. We have rebooked it twice since then. We are finally going!!! The rebooking was a consequence of DH's cousin getting married in Jacksonville, FL. The bride and groom weren't sure of the date until late 2014, so we kept rebooking until they were. Thank goodness it wound up being before our rebooking window to retain our onboard credit/discount expired. This will be our 5th Disney cruise.

So the plan is: 4 days at wdw, 3 days in Jacksonville for wedding, the 7 days on cruise. This is our first time doing WDW as a family. DH and I both went as children sometime in the 1980's. Yikes! That makes me feel old.


Let me introduce our motley crew. This is DH- Marc.

He is a stay at home dad and the best husband a girl could ask for. He was a teacher until we had the first of our DD's-Maddie.She is 9 and has been cruising on Disney since she was two. In fact, she disembarked her first cruise on her 2nd birthday. She absolutely loves the kid's clubs!


DD#2 is Miranda, aka "Monkey". She is 5 and got this nickname because she has always been monkey see monkey do with her big sister. She is a really fun kid. Unlike the rest of us, this is only her fourth cruise. She is the one on her Dad's shoulders in the first picture.

And finally, there's me, Mylinda.


Yes, that is the correct spelling and I do hate my parents for giving me a weird name. I am an OB/GYN in real life, but really want to be one of the sting ray caretakers on Castaway Cay when I grow up.

Have to go feed the family. Bye for now.

 

[mom4mad]

Day 1

After a long night of packing, my DMIL, came to pick us up bright and early at 7:30 am. DD's had spent the night with her the previous night so that we could pack. She also took them to the neon dance party at Maddie's school the night before we left. So, after a quick change of their clothes, all 5 of us, and our 7 bags and 3 backpacks were crammed into DMIL's minivan. Thanks goodness we flew Southwest-two free bags each! I shudder to think of the baggage fees. DMIL surprised us with already having picked up breakfast at McDonald's. This was very helpful as we were already a half hour behind schedule. We ate on the way to San Diego airport. DMIL dropped us off at the curb and after a lengthy good bye with her grandchildren, sent us on our way. Thankfully the check in process was swift and easy and we were soon sitting at our gate awaiting boarding.

Living in Southern California, I have to say that any airport is easier to deal with than LAX. However, San Diego has really become our favorite. It is so easy to get in and out of, isn't crowded most of the time, and isn't too big. Also, San Diego is a nice place to drive through.

We were in boarding group B. We were able to get a whole row(three seats) and the aisle seat of the row across and behind. This worked out well as DH sat between the DD's which gave him a little extra room. It also meant that I had an entire 4+ hours basically to myself to decompress from the last very hectic week of work.

The flight was little bumpy, but the girls did well. We arrived at MCO and proceeded directly to the Magical Express area. This happened to be on the exact opposite side of the airport from where we landed, so was a little bit of a trek. Good training for the following day at Magic Kingdom! We got there without getting lost-yay! One thing I didn't know was that you have to have your Magic bands to board the bus. This is how they check you in. I knew not to pack them in checked bags so we had them, but they were literally still in the box they were shipped in. It took us a few minutes to get them on, figure out whose was whose and adjust the strap-especially for Miranda. With this done, it was a cinch to check in and board the Magical Express.

The trip to our resort was as pleasant as possible considering it is still a bus. It was comfortable and had great air conditioning. It also had televisions playing Disney cartoons and information about Walt Disney World. Our resort was the Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary. There was only one more stop after ours. In total, the trip was about 40 minutes, but actually felt like less.

So we got checked in. Marissa at the front desk was very informative and we received a rather big welcoming booklet with everything you need to know for your stay. Seriously-there had to be about 20 pieces of paper in it! I don't think we ever read through all of it.

The lobby is very modern, as you would expect from the name. It still has the movie area for the kids sort of tucked around the corner from the front desk. Mine were able to find it within about 3 minutes of our arrival. The monorail does in fact run right through the hotel, but it is tucked off to the side on the 4th or the 5th floor. The Bay Lake Tower is connected to the main resort by a bridge on the 4th floor. We crossed the bridge and went to our room on the 2nd floor. We had a studio. This was the first time we had stayed in a studio. Usually we have a one bedroom. Since we really were only going to be in the room to sleep, we decided to save our points. We had a lake view and could also see a little of the pool area.

We dropped our bags off in our room and decided to check out the Top of the World lounge on the top floor. By now it was after 8:00pm and we hadn't eaten since McDonald's on the way to the airport, other than a few snacks on the plane. We ordered the angus sliders with horseradish sauce and pretzel bread with cheese and mustard dips. I had a glass of Conundrum-a white wine. It is a very nice wine and I went on to have several more glasses of it during our trip. There is a great view from this lounge and is quite relaxing after a long day of travel. We were back in our room by 9:00pm and I called the bell desk for our Garden Grocer order to be brought up. We had ordered some simple frozen dinners for our first night and then some snacks, milk, and yogurts. We also ordered an entire case of bottled water and a bottle of wine. We microwaved dinner and ate. At 9:30 pm, I called the front desk about our luggage. They assured me it would arrive sometime that night. When I asked about the estimated time of 3 hours after your plane arriving, the cast member kind of giggled that the luggage always takes longer than that to arrive due to delays at the airport.

At 10:00pm the Floating Water Pageant happens on the lake. We were able to see and hear the entire thing from our balcony. Now, from a Disney standpoint, it is a minor diversion. But, we all enjoyed it and it made us feel like our vacation had really begun. So 10:30pm rolls around and still no luggage. DH was by this time slightly perturbed as his CPAP machine was in our checked bags. He called the bell desk and again was assured that the bags were all on the way to our resort. They were able to confirm that all five checked bags had made it as well. Long story short-luggage didn't arrive until after 11 pm!!! That was almost 6 hours after we arrived in Orlando.

Then, the drama continued because he couldn't find his CPAP cord. After multiple phone calls to our house sitter, we determined it wasn't at home either. We tore apart all of the luggage and never could find it. Finally, well after midnight, he ordered a new cord through Amazon to be shipped to the hotel. It wouldn't arrive for 2 days. Then we went to bed. Not the way we wanted to begin this vacation...

 

[mom4mad]

Day 2

Bright and early, after about 6 hours of sleep, off to the Magic Kingdom we went. The plan was to be there at rope drop, but given the previous evening, that didn't happen. We grabbed our yogurt out of the fridge, and our granola bars. At this point, we noticed the yogurt wasn't as cold as it should be. The refrigerator wasn't turned on! It was cold enough to eat this morning, but clearly ruined for the rest of the trip. I cranked the fridge up to high and we left. We stopped by the front desk to ask about where there might be a cord to buy for a CPAP machine. They referred us to the business center. No luck.

We set off to the Magic Kingdom. It is only about a 7 minute walk along a path directly from the Contemporary. The nice lady, Marissa, who checked us in the night before gave us excellent advice-walk to the Magic Kingdom, but take the monorail back. The Contemporary is the first stop on the way BACK to hotel, but it makes other stops after the Contemporary. Therefore, it never goes directly from the Contemporary TO the Magic Kingdom-making it a much longer trip to get to the park.

Now I am going to take a minute to explain our plan for the parks. I had read The Unofficial Guide to WDW. There is an option to purchase access to touringplans.com. You get a discount if you bought the book. These touring plans saved us a ton of time-especially at Magic Kingdom. You select the attractions you wish to see, your fastpass reservations, any dining reservations, and any breaks you wish to take. Then it processes all of these and gives you a plan for the day. We knocked out Peter Pan, Small World, Mickey's Philharmagic, the Little Mermaid Voyage, Seven Dwarfs Mine train, the Carousel,Tom Sawyer Island, and lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern by noon! We didn't start at the park until 9:00 am.

Lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern was excellent. It has a nice colonial atmosphere and is a cool place to relax for a bit. DH had the turkey meal, I had pot roast, DD's had the kid's turkey and the flatbread pizza with bbq chicken and pineapple. Everything was delicious except for the flatbread pizza-don't get that. It was like a cracker with dry chicken and canned pineapple and bbq sauce.

Next, we headed over to Enchanted Tales with Belle to use our fastpass. The line was about 45 minutes even with the fastpass. But let me tell you it was worth the wait! Only small groups are admitted for each show which provides for some great one on one interaction with Belle. The kids each get to be a character in the story and act it out with Belle. There are a couple of helpers that facilitate it all. Miranda got to be the Beast because she had the best roar! Madeline was a plate-what can I say, we can't all be the Beast. Being the Beast, Miranda got the most interaction with Belle, and we got some fantastic pictures which I cannot figure out how to upload here! (If anyone knows, please tell me!) After Belle, we had a scheduled break. DH had left his hat at the Liberty Tree Tavern, so I ran back to get it while he and the girls went to meet Merida at the Brave venue. The kids can color, do archery with individual instruction from a cast member(another good photo op), and meet Merida. It didn't take too long to get through the line either. After this, we went back to the hotel for a break. This was at approximately 2:00pm. The monorail was a welcome respite from walking at this point.

Miranda and I stayed in the room and took a nap while DH and Madeline went to the pool. They were there for about an hour and then returned to the room. They took a short nap before our dinner reservation at The Wave restaurant in the Contemporary. Our reservation was at 5:00 pm. We arrived at about 5:10 pm and were shown right to our table. The girls and I had the Swordfish-yes, they have swordfish on the kid's menu! DH had a vegetarian curry that he enjoyed. The swordfish was excellent. All three of us girls ate ALL of it! I had another glass of Conundrum too Then back to the Magic Kingdom for the evening. We arrived back in the park at approximately 6:10pm. DH and the girls wanted to try the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game and I wanted to get the girls "first visit buttons". So DH and Madeline went to the fire station for a deck of starter cards, and Miranda and I went to City Hall. We played the first adventure and decided we liked it so much Miranda and I went back to get two more decks from the fire station. The game is played by going to different portals. Your cards each contain a spell. You stand in front of the portal and hold up a key card which opens the portal-the portals reminded me of a magic mirror. It plays a little cartoon explaining the adventure, gives you an opportunity to use one of your spells, and then tells you which portal to go to next. It is really very well done. After about an hour of this, I managed to convince everyone we should go on a ride or two. We headed for Pirates of the Caribbean, then Indiana Jones. We then caught the train back to Main Street Station to get a good spot for the Main Street Electrical Parade and Wishes fireworks show.

At this point I had a hankering for ice cream. DH and Miranda stayed at the train station to find a good spot and Madeline and I went in search of ice cream. The ice cream parlor on Main Street had a line so long I think they could justify instituting fastpasses for it! We were not waiting in that line and there wasn't even a Mickey bar in sight! We settled for some cotton candy from the candy store and waters. We had a great spot on the second level of the train station to watch the parade. I should probably confess that I have what is likely an unhealthy attachment to this parade. In short, I LOVE IT! I was so sad when the parade left Disneyland. I made DH, who was then my Dboyfriend, go to the park the last day of the parade and video both performances that evening. For Christmas that year he got me a light bulb from the actual parade-I still have it. It came in a neat little display case and is even from the turtle which is my favorite float. Anyway, the parade was spectacular as always. We had a little break in between the parade and fireworks, and just stayed in our spot. Shortly before the fireworks started, a very nice lady came over and asked if we would like her family's spot as they were leaving. They had a table exactly centered on the castle-so YES! We moved

The fireworks show was just great, much better than anything I remember seeing before. We made a beeline for the monorail back to the Contemporary after it was over. DH stopped at the front desk and asked if they might have an extra cord that would fit his CPAP machine. After explaining what it looked like, they gave him something that looked like it might fit. As I still wanted ice cream, we stopped at the little market inside the Contemporary for some chocolate Haagen Daaz, then back to our room we went. The cord fit! We were as happy as Cinderella when the glass slipper fit!! We all shared the ice cream and quickly got into bed where we were fast asleep.