4/2013 "The Plan" works (minus HS) and Hey guys - it's another Derp ride

[elfling8]

Welcome to my first trip report! We had a great week in Disneyworld from April 15-21st.



Cast of characters - from left to right:
Me: part time preschool teacher and full time mom, 41. Last time I visited the world there was no AK, and HS was MGM and I got a picture taken with Gonzo.
DD10: Proudly sporting some vinylmation mouse ears bought mid-trip.
DH: Got to celebrate his 40th birthday with a great big mug o beer at the Biergarten
DS8: Overcame some rollercoaster fears and rode all but EE!
We always do a shadow picture waiting for the bus on the first day of school, and DH had the idea to do this one while we were in HS.

A little more background:
My wonderful inlaws gave us this trip for Christmas. We were all so excited and surprised! I went in full on Disney planning obsession almost immediately, and luckily had a good friend helping me plan.
As far as the title of the trip goes, if you aren't familiar with the term "Derp" it is an internet meme where there are pictures of someone or something caught in the most horrible expression you could possibly be caught in. Everytime we got on a ride that was included in the photopass+ I'd yell to the crew - "hey, it's another Derp ride!" Also, "the plan" that worked so well will be detailed below

More to come soon!
April 15: We're going to Disney - POR here we come!
April 16: MK
part 1 BOG part 2
April 17: AK & Ep
April 18: MK
April 19: HS & Wishes Dessert Party
April 20: Epcot
April 21: Home again home again jiggity jig
A few photopass pictures

 

[pwdebbie]

Woo hoo! I've never been someone's first follower before!

 

[elfling8]

April 15th
Our flight was scheduled for 2:50, but we got a call from Southwest that it was delayed a 1/2 hr. We had actually managed to get all packed and ready to go the day before, so we spent the rest of the morning (after taking the dog to the kennel) driving eachother nuts.

Finally at Manchester, NH airport, all parked and going through security. DD's bag gets xrayed and re-xrayed and pulled out for a detailed search. Turns out the culprit was the m&m's tube of quarters and pennies Live and learn - next time we take those out of the bags!
We are sitting waiting for our flights and DH looks over at me and says "Call your mother". I ask why - he repeats and when I look at him puzzled he shows me what he was reading on his phone. My Uncle and cousin were running the marathon and my cousin's fiancee was watching. Called my mom quickly and she had already heard from my cousin's fiancee. Both had finished the race already and were fine. Relieved to hear that and scared for the rest of the people there, and also glad we had decided not to fly out of Logan, it was time to board.

DD took this picture of some cool clouds:


Uneventful flight, got to MCO about an hour later than we were scheduled to, but we were there! No lines for ME, I think we waited about 5 minutes until we got on our bus. DS chose the front row of seats. These guys greeted us:


I think we got to the room and through check in (also fairly quick and uneventful) around 8:30pm. Happy and surprised that we got our requests (AB section, 2nd floor) plus a corner room! (picture from later in the week)


We quickly changed into bathing suits and took a swim. The kids were impressed that I thought to pack them in the carry-ons
DH went to the general store and grabbed some milk and snacks. We hit the sack around 11, and ME dropped off our bags at 1am. The kids slept right through it. Here are two more pictures of the view from right outside our room. These were taken later in the week before we headed out in the morning.

 

[elfling8]

Woo hoo! I've never been someone's first follower before!

Welcome aboard!

 

[wiigirl]

In for your TR!

 

[danceintherain]

Welcome back!

 

[MsHershey]

I'm in. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[crk1977]

Great start to your trip report. Can't wait to read more!

 

[sharilee]

I am really enjoying your TR, T- 6 days til we leave, I am sooooo excited!

 

[wdwgirl03]

Joining in, saw your link on the April TRs thread.

 

[n3rf]

nice start to the trip report, like the POR pics can't wait to see more

 

[jewelsb]

Great TR so far!! Can't wait for more! It helps pass the time til we leave!

 

[dgagnon519]

I am in, we will be staying POR for the first time. So excited.

 

[LovingDisny]

nice start! subbing.

 

[tinkerbells mum]

Subbing!! You got there just as we left, we stayed at POFQ. We always take shadow pictures as well and have got really cool ones of us with our "ears" on this time! Really looking forward to reading all about you're trip xx

 

[elfling8]

Thanks everyone! I have some more stuff uploaded to photobucket, and I'm going to try to get our first park day up tonight or tomorrow.

 

[nutz2notz]

Great start. Looking forward to more.

 

[elfling8]

Most of us slept pretty well the first night except for me. DD was in the pull-down bed, DH and DS in the bed closer to the bathroom and I closer to the door. I never sleep well the first night in a hotel room, and between the 1am luggage arrival and the air conditioner freezing my head off whenever it cycled on, it was a restless night for me. But, who cares!!!! Alarm goes off at 6:15 (that is sleeping in for DS) and we hop out of bed and get dressed.

We left the room pretty close to our 7am goal to head off to the Crystal Palace for breakfast with Pooh and company at 8:20. We went to the North bus stop at POR, waited about 5 minutes and had a nearly empty bus. It was neat getting into the park before everyone else. We had to wait a few minutes for our reservation, but we were a little early. We took the obligatory castle picture and wandered nearby and watched some squirrels and ducks. Time to go in!

We had time to grab our food before the first character showed up. We all got a little bit of everything. First Piglet showed up. We were so excited we forgot all about the autograph books. Then Tigger, Pooh and Eeyore. We did remember the books for them. We finished up at CP right at rope drop. I sent the crew ahead to go wait at Peter Pan while I ran back to the front of the park to pick up our Photopass+.

I caught up to them pretty quickly, we got right onto Peter Pan (my favorite of the older rides). After that "the plan" was to head over to Pooh. When we walked out of Peter Pan, DH saw the line (or lack thereof) for IASW and said - that's the only way you will get me on there, if we can just walk on. So, we took our first deviation from the plan and did Small World. DH survived (just barely).
Back on track, we headed over to Pooh. On the way we checked out the Dwarves mine construction.

Very jealous of all you who get to go after it opens! Pooh was about a 5 minute wait. What a fun ride! Tea Party was closed. We rode Barnstormer twice (don't remember if we grabbed a FP or not - don't think we needed to). Next on the list was Dumbo. I went through the line with them to see the playground (kids passed - wanted to ride) then I bailed out. I have migraine associated vertigo and circles and I do not get along. I was very pleased that I did not feel bad on most rides, and got to ride everything I was hoping too! Next Under the Sea, and we were pretty much done with our morning Fantasy Land plan, with NO LINES

Keep in mind, we were coming from highs of 40 degrees if we were lucky in MA, and it was by now 90. I had hot grumpy kids (one in particular does not do well in the heat and was in what would become the daily mid-day meltdown) I did pause to take this pretty picture:

We were passing by BOG, and it was about 11am. I said, hey, we should see how long the line is to eat, even though it is early. CM at the front said maybe 15 minutes!!! BOG for lunch it is. I have a few pictures, and I'll put them in the next post in case anyone going soon wants to be surprised and doesn't want to see them. I had not planned on eating here, since I had heard the lines were so long, but couldn't pass up the opportunity. Castle was gorgeous. Touch screen ordering system was pretty awful. People kept having to start over. We wanted to add a dessert as a snack credit, and would have had to start from the beginning again so we just paid OOP. Once we sat down the food came very quickly. We split the kids meal turkey sandwich and the braised pork with mashed potatoes. Both good. Stew a bit salty, but we ate it all. It was plenty of food for the 4 of us after our big breakfast. Here is dessert:

I feel like this is getting long, so I will break here, add the BOG pictures, then continue our first day.

 

[elfling8]

Spoiler pictures warning - if you don't want to see any pics of the inside of Be Our Guest, skip this post!

Entryway


Suits of armor


Main dining room - windows. Wish the snow had come through in the pics.


ceiling


Belle and Beast


fireplace

 

[elfling8]

So, after BOG we headed to the Haunted Mansion. Wait was about 20 minutes. I think we may have sent DH ahead to grab a FP for BTMRR before we got in line but I'm not sure. If not we grabbed one after. Once we got on, the ride kept stopping for a few minutes at a time. It got going pretty quickly though. Then I think we rode BTMRR twice. People were tired, so we decided to ride the train back to the front of the park and go back for a swim. This cutie greeted us when we got back to our room:


We had a good long swim, then had dinner in the food court at POR. We split some more meals - cheeseburger, kids pizza, mahi mahi sandwich - all good, and plenty to share between the 4 of us. We went to the main South depot to catch the bus. Lots of people waiting, and this rude group of young guys came along at the last minute and planted themselves at the area the buses usually stopped, and when a bus finally came they all got on first. I'm sure some people who had been waiting awhile did not get on. That was our one bad bus rider experience.

When we got back to MK, we stopped and got Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom cards. It sent us back to Fantasy Land, which was good since the plan was to do Fantasy and Frontier that day. We did Philharmagic (DS kept calling it Phil-harp-magic), played some sorcerers, hit some shops, rode BTMRR again (and maybe again?), DD and I got some FP for Splash, ate some churros, lost some quarters in the frontierland arcade....... DS did not want to ride splash, and our FP was for right about the time MSEP was starting. DS and DH went to watch the parade while DD and I rode Splash Mt. We saw some of the parade from the ride, and got off just before it ended and stood on the bridge to watch the end. We found the two boys, found out the train was no longer running (insert whine here) and headed out of the park. We waited a really long time for a bus - pretty much during the whole fireworks show. Then magically buses started appearing. You would think they would want to clear the backlog before the fireworks ended. There is my one complaint about the bus service itself for the trip.
Back to the room and straight to bed! I had gotten a hanging shoe cubby thing, and we had put our PJ's in them. Swapped them out for the next days clothes when we changed so we'd be all ready to go in the morning!

For those who were just subscribing to see derp-y ride pictures given the title of this TR, I bring you:

Derp of the day!!!![/COLOR]

DD and I are in the 2nd row. The dude in the front just cracks me up