A Canadian's First Family Trip to the Most Magical Place on Earth

[shoppgirl]

Hello everyone! This is my first attempt at a Disney World trip report. I have written many for previous cruises and Las Vegas getaways. There are some amazing trip reports on the Disboards, and I spent countless hours reading some of them. I hope to be able to enlighten some of you with my family's first trip together to the most magical place on earth!

A little background:

My husband and I have been to WDW twice before. I was able to go for my very first trip when I was 11. DH's favourite saying of the week was "I had to wait until I was 23 to go to WDW" to our girls. We then went together on a road trip down after graduation from our graduate programs during our dating years about 14 years ago.

DD6 whom I will refer to as Belle loves everything Princess. She is my shy, reserved, quiet older child. DD4 whom I will refer to as Tink is the complete opposite! She can be loud, demanding, and outspoken at times. But she is full of love and craves the same love from the people closest to her.

I had been waiting ever since the birth of my oldest to take my family to Disney. DH and I struggled with the decision as to when we should take the girls to Disney. Not while the younger one is still in diapers, not while the younger one is still napping, wait until they're older to appreciate and remember it...the conditions go on and on. Finally in January of this year, the girls had just turned 6 and 4, I really felt that they were old enough and mature enough to handle going on a vacation. And what better place than to the most magical place on earth?????

We went from not going until at least 2009, to going in August 2008 in a matter of 3 days. I started bugging DH that we should seriously consider going one Saturday morning. By Monday afternoon, I had our airplane tickets booked!!!!!

We live in Toronto, but flying out of YYZ is SO EXPENSIVE. We had flown out of Buffalo once before and it was pretty painless and CHEAP. So I check the Jet Blue website, and bang! Flights for the 4 of us was at least $1700 CHEAPER!! Cha Ching! Book it now! I was shaking for hours after booking these tickets as I couldn't believe we were actually doing it!

Now to where do we stay? I thought that since we were saving tons on the airfare, let's splurge on the resort. With 2 young ones that have never travelled anywhere in their lives before, we wanted something convenient and easy for getting around. What better place than a monorail resort??? And what better monorail resort than the GRAND FLORIDIAN?????? I had heard about how beautiful this resort is and couldn't give up the opportunity to stay here. At the time of booking, the only room we could get was a Garden View (oh boo hoo!). I grabbed that room right away.

We did not book a vacation package, but room only. My plan was to buy our theme park tickets at the local Disney Store in Canadian dollars, at par. We had to wait until July, a few weeks prior to our trip before we could get those tickets!

So, thanks to the Dis Boards, I was able to plan a magical trip for my 2 little princesses and hubby. He actually thanked me for all the planning I did after our trip, even though he made it a point to make fun of me for reading the boards and trip reports every night for the last 8 months! So here goes the trip report....I hope you enjoy it as much as I will enjoy re-living every special moment.

Here are the quick links to my installments:

Day 1 Let's Go to Walt Disney World!!!

Day 1 A Dream Come True

Day 1 A Magical Moment

Day 2 Magic Kingdom Part 1

Day 2 Magic Kingdom Part 2

Day 2 Magic Kingdom Part3 Final

Day 3 Magic Kingdom Part 1

Day 3 Magic Kingdom Part 2

Day 3 Magic Kingdom Part 3

Day 3 Magic Kingdom Part 4 Final

Day 4 Epcot Morning

Day 4 GF Wonderland Tea Party

Random pics of the Grand Floridian

Day 4 Shopping at Downtown Disney and a Night on the Beach

Day 5 Chef Mickey's Breakfast!

Day 5 Animal Kingdom

Day 5 An Evening at the GF

Day 6 Our Last Day

Day 6 Our Journey home and Final Thoughts

 

[LLWDW]

I'm in. Can't wait for more. I like to hear a Canadian perspective. Especially on a summer trip because I'll never be able to do that.

 

[BlueSkies]

Shopgirl looking foward to the rest of your trip report and cant wait to see the pictures..... the next best thing to being at the GF is reading abouts other folks trips and enjoying their pictures
glad you had such a great time

 

[shoppgirl]

Monday August 4th, 2008

Today is THE DAY!!!! We're finally going to WDW, the place where the Princesses live, where Fairies fly, where Magic happens! Our flight on Jet Blue out of Buffalo was scheduled to depart at noon. We filled the back of the SUV with 3 large suitcases, 2 strollers and 4 carryons. The girls bounced out of bed at 6:45 and we were all ready to go in the car by 7:30!!!

The plan was to drive to Buffalo via the Peace Bridge. We normally cross at the Queenston Lewiston Bridge, but it is always SO BUSY. What a great tip I read on the Disboards to use this new border crossing! I highly recommend it for those fellow Canadian cross border travellers. We reached the border by 9:00 am, about 1 hour 10 minutes from our home. We made it through customs in less than 10 minutes!!! Even easier than at Pearson Airport. From here to Buffalo International Airport was only an additional 15 minutes.

That's Belle on the left and Tink on the right. So happy to finally be at the airport for their first ever airplane ride. We parked at Preferred Long Term Parking Lot A. We could have technically walked to the terminal from our parking spot, but a shuttle bus spotted us as we parked and came right up to the car to offer us a ride to the terminal.

We quickly checked in at the Jet Blue counter. I did on line check in the day before so all we needed to do was check our bags in. Security was painless and the girls did well for their first time. There were no questions asked when I told them they had to take their shoes off, and no reluctance to walk through the metal detectors. You would have thought they were seasoned travellers instead of novices.

Now that we were settled in at our gate, we were ready to go. But wait.....I looked at the board, and I saw those dreaded words: DELAYED. WHAT???!?!? What does that mean? DELAYED???? We can't be delayed. I have ADRs!!!! Turns out our airplane was grounded somewhere because of mechanical problems and they had to find another plane! They even went as far as saying they may have to cancel the flight altogether and maybe even offer to fly us to JFK to see if we can catch a connecting to MCO. DH said there is no way we're doing that! Luckily, they were able to find a plane from Boston to come in and then take us to MCO. We were THREE AND A HALF HOURS DELAYED!!!!! My poor girls were waiting forever. We were so proud of them for how they handled the wait though...very minimal complaining. Luckily, the airport had a small children's play area:

I was devasted by the delay because we had 5:50 ressies at 1900 Park Fare. Our original time of arrival was 2:17, plenty of time to make it to the hotel for dinner. Now we weren't scheduled to land until 5:45. DH tried calling the hotel to explain our dilemma and hope that they would be able to reschedule, but of course they couldn't do anything and the dining/ADR line was useless too, other than to tell us they were completely booked for the evening. I kept saying to myself that I had read on the Disboards to never book an ADR on the day of arrival!!!!! Now I know why!!!! I was just thankful it wasn't something like CRT where it was prepaid and I would have not only lost an opportunity to dine there, but lost the money I already prepaid!

JetBlue compensated us immediately for the 3.5 hour delay by giving us free inflight movies! Yippee! (Can you hear that sarcasm???) We did get $50 vouchures though for future flights. The pilot got us to MCO rather quickly though and it was a smooth flight in.

My girls' first flight:

The flight attendants were so nice to the girls too. They got their first flight wings too!

Coming up: Do we make it to 1900 Park Fare?????

 

[mickeynut1]

I'm on board as I can't wait to hear about your entire trip as well as see all the pics . We are booked for our first GF stay in July 2009 and I can't wait . Reading about it being your girls' first plane ride took me back 7 years. Our 2 DSs were 8 & 6 when they had their first plane ride (they're now 15 & 13 ). When we were boarding the plane in Chicago, the pilot told them to hold tight when we landed at MCO and wait for everyone to get off the plane so they can look inside the cockpit (they were trying to peek in there as we were walking by). After landing at MCO, we patiently waited for everyone to exit the plane and the boys got a real treat....they actually got to SIT INSIDE the cockpit . My oldest sat in the pilot's seat and my youngest sat in the co-pilot's seat and they turned their heads back, looking at us, so I could take the picture.........talk about a GREAT way to start our vacation . But sadly, that's something we'll never see again . But seeing your girls on the plane (who are adorable, by the way ), brought back memories of that first plane ride. Looking forward to reading all about your adventures and seeing lots of pictures from your magical trip to the World and the Grand Floridian .

 

[kaysmommie]

Love your trippie so far. Looking forward to hear how your DD's liked Disney and GF. Hoping you made it to 1099 Park fare. It's such a great dinner. please post lots of GF pics

 

[phabric]

I will be interested in reading more.

 

[heaven2dc]

I'm definitely on board! Your girls are so darling and so patient - 3 1/2 hour delay I booked an ADR planned at Teppan Edo for 2 p.m. lunch on my last trip in January and my DBFF decided she didn't want to arrive as early as I originally wanted to (around 11 a.m.) and booked our flights to arrive at 1:30. so needless to say I had to scramble the night before cancelling my ADR and we did end up eating at 7:30 which was perfect. After dinner, we walked out onto the balcony and watched Illuminations - it was fantastic! so needless to say I got upset for nothing

Can't wait to read more!

 

[angela3676]

 

[tinkerbell*Xo]

Your Girls are so Beautiful
Isn't it wonderful to be able to fly Jet blue out of the states? We Fly out of Syracuse Jet blue it saves so much money!! The snacks are great too!!
The delay is really unfortunate though!! Can't wait to see if you made your ADR!!

 

[shoppgirl]

THANK YOU so much everyone for your kind words! I am so glad that you are enjoying my report so far. I have plenty more to say and show, so please stick around!

 

[shoppgirl]

I love Jet Blue...apart from the delay. I enjoyed the free satellite TVs, and on this flight, free movies (Tink watched Kung Fu Panda!), and we loved all the snacks we could eat and free drinks. This does not exist on Air Canada!!!

We finally land at MCO by 5:40ish. What a relief to finally be here. My girls handled the descent really well, as I was worried about the ears. The little boy behind me was having trouble and told everyone "My ears don't work". After potty breaks, we wound our way through MCO to the Magical Express.

Let me say I LOVE the Magical Express!!!! I loved checking our luggage in BUF and never having to worry about them again until they got delivered to our room. Check in at ME was quick (waited in line for 15 seconds!). Unfortunately our wait in line for the buses took a little longer. Our bus took guests from GF, Wilderness Lodge, and Polynesian(I think). We waited about 10 minutes for the bus to come so that we could load. We then had to wait another 20 minutes on the bus to fill before leaving MCO!

The CM was kind enough to let us (we were the only ones in the GF line) to go first to the bus, so I got the girls front row seats on the ME! Tink has NEVER been on a bus before, so she loved sitting right up front and seeing everything, including the WELCOME TO DISNEY sign!

The drive to the Grand Floridian seemed to take forever, but that was only because we had been travelling for almost 11 hours by now. We were the last group to be dropped off. When we exited the bus, we were greated by a CM from the resort, Katina. She immediately informed us that as part of the Year of a Million Dreams, we WON A DREAM!!!!!!

What is that dream you may be asking????? We were UPGRADED to SUGAR LOAF CLUB LEVEL AT THE GRAND FLORIDIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can I say OMG!!!??? I always thought that the only way we could ever stay club level at the GF was in my dreams! But now I am LIVING IT! Katina walked us in through the resort, giving a quick tour on the way to our room. She pointed out 1900 Park Fare to us and I told her our awful story about missing the ADR due to travel delays. She said not to worry, she will try to work something out for us!!!!!

Here is the Sugar Loaf building at GF!! (this photo was taken on our 3rd day, and you have a preview of our BBB experience now!)

We walked past the concierge desk inside SL and Katina mentioned our missed ADR at 1900 PF. The lady at the desk said she would look into it and give us a call in our room. It was also at this time that I asked for 1st Visit buttons for the girls. Katina brought us up to our room on the second floor. We have a great view of the Marina. We completed our check in right in our room. She asked if there was anything else I needed and I requested a microwave for the room. After that, she left and the girls went wild in the room! They loved the beds, they loved the balcony and I had to stop them dead in their tracks because I wanted to take photos of the room before they destroyed it!

Our wonderful view:

Love the balcony:

Amazing beds! So comfy. Already received turndown service and it was only 7:15.

Nice sized bath with separate toilet/tub area.

We received a phone call from concierge saying that they can GET US IN AT 1900 Park Fare at 8:00!!!! WOW!!! I couldn't believe it. I was so happy for my girls that they could dine with Cindy and Prince Charming on our first night.

Next installment: Another dream come true at 1900 Park Fare

 

[MainStMandy]

WOW!! What a great report!! I actually got teary eyed...your girls are just too adorable!

 

[TimNDansMom]

I'm loving your trip report and can't wait for the next installment. I'm so glad you were able to go to PF after all! Your daughters are adorable!!

 

[SuAnne]

Wow what a great start to your first trip! Your girls are so adorable. Can't wait to read more!

 

[shoppgirl]

It was now 7:45 and we had 15 minutes to get to 1900 Park Fare. I still needed to buy the girls their autograph books! We headed down to the main building and made our way over. We passed by Sandy Cove and went in to look for the books. They had pink Princess photo/autograph books, and red Mickey ones. I think they were about $11 each. There were also the smaller all blank page books for signatures only. I was also looking for the Pressed Penny books, but they only carried them in the main shop, M. Mouse Mercantile, on the 2nd floor.

When we got to 1900 Park Fare, we were asked if we had a reservation. We said technically no, but concierge had called down for us and we were told to come by at 8:00. The 2 CMs at the desk had no clue as to what we were talking about. After a few tense seconds, one gentleman said, no worries, we'll work it out for you.

As an aside note, I just wanted to say that due to some fabulous reading on the trip reports (and I'm sorry I can't remember who to give credit to for this), I knew about that dreaded hallway of a dining room in Park Fare!!!!

I thought to myself that I came all the way here to have dinner WITH Cindy, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine and the Step Sisters, I don't want to be hiding (I mean, I don't want my girls to be hiding! ) in this narrow dining room away from ALL the action! So I specifically told the CM PLEASE do not seat us in here! I pointed to his seating chart. He totally understood me, and said it will be just a few moments. So he gave us a pager and we went out to the lobby to wait. We were only waiting for a few minutes when the pager went off and we went back to the check in desk. He was about to tell us our table was ready when he must have done a double check and realized that our table was IN THE DREADED HALLWAY!!! So he said to wait a few more minutes while he ran in to try and find us something else!

A few more minutes pass and he comes out and says "Your table is ready!". Yippee! Another CM brings us into the dining room, we keep walking until we reach this table:

I thought what a cute little table in its own corner!!!! PERFECT! Right beside the buffet, and in the main dining room!!! We can see everything!!! I was happy! Another happy moment for me (I mean the girls!)

We decided to hit the buffet right away since the characters were not doing their rounds in our section yet. Although the girls hadn't had a good meal all day, they were too excited to eat. They literally spent the whole night doing this:

Our first visitor was Lady Tremaine:

The girls were overwhelmed by this whole experience, I think they forgot how to talk! Thus the character interaction was minimal, kept at a greeting, a signature and a pose for a picture. That's OK though. That was enough for my girls this time around. Lady Tremaine did thank me for knowing who she was and getting her name right when I told the girls to say thankyou to Lady Tremaine!

Our next visitor was Anastasia:

She was really nice to the girls (in a mean step sister kind of way!) and told them to stand up on their chairs to take a picture with her. They liked that idea! She gave some great facial expressions for all my shots (I think I took about 6 of them, every one different!)

Now comes Prince Charming:

He really tried to talk to the girls (I can't remember what he said), but all the girls could do was smile at him!

It was at this time that they announced the arrival of Cinderella. Prince Charming had to excuse himself to go greet her.

So finally Cinderella comes to meet the girls!!! What an exciting moment for them. All they could do was smile and be awestricken by the presence of this beautiful princess!!!

She struck up yet another one sided conversation, but it was wonderful anyways!

Our next magical moment happened soon after. It was time for the dance. Cinderella had a dance with Prince Charming. Then they had their dances with the children in the room. Cinderella personally pointed to the girls to go and DANCE WITH HER!!!!! I was so happy for them! They were having a little magical moment of their own now:

This is why I did not want to sit in the hallway!!!!!

After this special moment, it was time for dessert. We were still waiting for Drizella!! The girls were able to sit now and eat a little dessert, and I certainly was ready for mine!

Totally delicious!!! Every one of them!!

The really nice CM (I forgot to make note of his name) came by to see how we were doing. We asked about seeing Wishes from the resort and where the best spot was to view them. He highly recommended that we find a seat under Narcoossee's covered patio, so that we could also hear the accompanying music. What a great recommendation as you will later see.

Finally, our last visitor to come was Drizella!

She was quite funny, although it took me a few seconds to get her humour! She asked the girls where we're from, and they said Canada. So from there on, she kept saying:

So you're from Canada eh?

Can I sign your book, eh?

Do you want to take a picture, eh?

It must have been a long day for me, because it wasn't until she said it a few times did I get what she was talking about, eh?

Now that we had met everyone, sampled a little food, ate a little dessert, it was time to go.

Although it was getting late, and the girls had been up since 6:45 in the morning with no naps all day long, we wanted to end this wonderful day with a viewing of Wishes. We got to Narcoossee's and found a bench to sit on. (We did not block any diners sitting at the window table!) Wishes started promptly at 10:00 pm (most of the diners came out to watch it from the patio)

I wish I knew how to use my camera better for these night time shots of fireworks!!!

Anyways, what a great ending to a great day...delays and all. The Grand Floridian really came through for us today. Everyone we met today at the Grand was wonderful and really helped to start our trip on such a magical note.

Next: Touring Plan? What Touring Plan?

 

[AGPrincess]

Great trip report!! I love all the photos, and it is SO cool that you had pixie dust waiting for you as soon as you stepped off the bus! Can't wait for more!

 

[mickeynut1]

I am loving your report and can't wait to read more . Congratulations on the awesome upgrade . I'm glad everything worked out for you at 1900 Park Fare and that the girls got to dance to Cinderella .

 

[shoppgirl]

I am loving your report and can't wait to read more . Congratulations on the awesome upgrade . I'm glad everything worked out for you at 1900 Park Fare and that the girls got to dance to Cinderella .

Thank you! You will LOVE the Grand next summer! I was SO TEMPTED to book the bounce back offer (30% off deluxes) but DH said we should try a different vacation next year!

I am sure the next 11 months can't come fast enough for you. I will be posting plenty more pictures of this fabulous resort later on!

 

[shoppgirl]

Great trip report!! I love all the photos, and it is SO cool that you had pixie dust waiting for you as soon as you stepped off the bus! Can't wait for more!

Thank you AGPrincess. It was really special to be welcomed at the Grand with an amazing dream!