A College Girls Disney Adventure

[Jazzabelle508]

Hi Everyone, My name is Jenny and I am a huge Disney fan. I am new to the Dis but after exploring the site I have decided to attempt and write a Trip Report from my most recent trip, January 3rd through 12th 2011.

Now for the formal introductions

The girl on the left is me. My name is Jenny and this was my 20th (I think) to the world. I love Princesses and anything girly. I do like the more gender neutral characters as well such as mickey and the rest of the Fab 5, Pooh Bear, Tigger and Stitch. My favorite park is a tie between Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. I also am a huge Harry Potter fan and that meant that I would have to travel to the place that must not be named this trip (Universal) for the WWOHP!!!!! I also am a big kid at heart.

The girl on the right is my lovely mother. She is totally AMAZING!!!!! She is a mother of three and we happen to be super close.Our birthdays are even super close. anyway she like me is a huge harry potter fan and was willing to travel to the place that must not be named for a day. She is a huge Stitch and pleakley fan and her favorites are simlar to mine. Her favirite park is EPCOT. She is also a big kid at heart.


Here are the Chapter Links for the TR:

Day 1:
Our Arrival Day: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40062370&postcount=4


Day 2:
Wizards, Magic, and More Part 1: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40120287&postcount=7

Wizards, Magic and More Part 2: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40183228&postcount=12

Wizards, Magic and More Part 3: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40183540&postcount=13

Wizards, Magic, and More Part 4: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40184550&postcount=14

Back in the Shelter of Disney: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40186635&postcount=17

Day 3:
A Date with the Animals: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40215656&postcount=20

A Contest for You: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40240563&postcount=22

Celebrating With Chef Mickey Part 1: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40304870&postcount=27

Celebrating with Chef Mickey Part 2: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40305186&postcount=28

Day 4:
Back to the Studios: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40372829&postcount=34

Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride Part 1: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40499350&postcount=38

Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride Part 2: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40499977&postcount=39

Life Update: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40507722&postcount=45

Day 5:
EPCOT in the Morning: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40529803&postcount=50

Steak Plus Kid's Menus: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40548585&postcount=52

A Glimpse of the World: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40548943&postcount=55

Another Life Update: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40593374&postcount=57

A Tour of the Epcot Resorts: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40613720&postcount=62

Illuminations Prep Time: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40614264&postcount=63

Day 6:
Marathon Crunch Time: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40615255&postcount=64

Pooh, Tigger, and more: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40652384&postcount=70

Magic Kingdom Day 1 Part 1: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40865521&postcount=79

Magic Kingdom Day 1 Part 2:

Magic Kingdom @ NIIIGGGHHHTT:

Day 7:
Will the POP Century prediction be true:

One Wild Meal:

Magic Kingdom Day 2 Part 1:

Dining with the Princesses:

Magic Kingdom Day 2 Part 2:

Day 8:

Morning at DHS:

Dining with the Ultimate Mom:

DHS After- Lunch:

Finally visiting DTD?:

Day 9:
Before we became 5-year olds for the day:

The Magical Tour of Duffy Part 1:

Reliving being in England:

The Magical Tour of Duffy Part 2:

Day 10:
Leaving POP for the Last time that trip:

Our Last EPCOT morning:

Dining with the Fish:

One Last Trip around the World:

The Coldest and Most Depressing Night of all:

Day 11:
Our Night at the airport:
Hope you enjoy getting to know us and hopefully you enjoy hearing about our trip. I will sign back on later when I tell you all about our air travel and 1st day in the world. also, since i am still getting use to the Dis formatting, please give me some time to get use to posting stuff

 

[laur05]

im in

 

[SirtanJedua]

Count me in too!

Can't wait!

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Thanks everyone! I apologize in advanced for the lack of pictures i'm still figuring our how to get the pics on the site.ok, So I guess I will start off by telling everyone about the day we left for our trip. So on our departure date (January 3rd, 2011) we had to leave for the airport at 4am to catch our 7am flight from O'hare to Orlando. While we waited we decided to explore our terminal and look for any last signs of holiday decorations. We actually did find a few so here are some of my fav decorations my mom and I saw.

After exploring the airport we decided to play with some of the Disney apps on my ipod touch. then before we knew it, it was time to board the plane. Once on the plane and settled in the air we decided to watch some TV shows on my mom's ipod. When we were landing we got to see the swan and dolphin and EPCOT from the plane which made us very happy! Once we got to Orlando (at around 10:30 in the morning) we got our luggage, our rental car and some pics all within 15 minutes and we on the road to Disney World. Getting there is usually stressful because my mom is constantly concerned with whether or not we are going the right way. but this trip it went very smoothly because we got directions from google maps before we got there.
within a half hour we were checked in with our home for the week (pop century and were off 2 Disney studios). Here are some pics of our trip up to this point

When we got to the studios it was insanely crowded because we were there during the marathon. So we decided to stick with doing some of the not as well known attractions. We first went to Starring rolls cafe and tried the marble cupcake- YUM!

Here's the pic

the frosting was soooo good! I would definitely share these though. After our treat we went to the American Idol experience. We had gone to this last year and thought it was soooooo cool! It is alot like the show. each show time has 3 contestants who sing a song and get critqued by the judges. One judge is suppose to be like Randy Jackson, another is suppose to be like Kara Dioguardi/Jennifer Lopez/Paula Abdul and the last judge is suppose to be like Simon Cowell. all of them were true to their real life personalities (btw they have different names but who they really are is quite clear). Then after all of them perform the audience votes for their favorite person. then that person performs again for the last show of the day which features all of the days winners. this show is suppose to be like the finale and the winner of the last show gets a dream ticket which gets them to the front of the line for the real auditions. After that we went to muppet vision 3d which was funny as always. after muppet vision 3d we were cold so we went to get our sweatshirts. )btw theday was gorgeous and sunny- high in the low 70's/high 60's). after our trip back to the car we had dinner at pizza planet and played in the arcade. after dinner we went looking around the shop attached to the sci-fi dine in while we waited for the osbourne lights to come on. once the came on we went around and took the following pics

After the Osbourne Lights we decided to head on over to EPCOT for illuminations. We walked right on over to germany since we didn't have alot of time left before illuminations started. We bought ourselves a cupcake from the new carmel shop in germany and it was sooooooo good! Then we settled in Italy by the gondolas and waited

Illuminations was amazing (as always). Afterwards we took our time leaving the park. After we got back to Pop Century we went to our room (which wasn't ready yet we we checked in. We discovered that it was easier to just park in the check in lot than our decade parking lot which we took full advantage of during the trip. After unpacking we unpacked and got ready for the next day.

Next Time: Our Day at Harry Potter Land (at Universal) and our night at Winter/Summer land Mini Golf.

See you next time

 

[Reddog1134]

Hi Jenny,

Welcome to Disboards. I'm looking forward to reading about your trip.

I noticed you were having problems with your pics. It looks like you need to host them on a site like Photobucket or Picasaweb. Then paste the link into the "insert image" option.

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Thanks soooooo much!!! i just uploaded my trip pictures to photo bucket

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Hi Everyone

So on our 1st full day of our trip we actually went to Universal Islands of Adventure to visit the new Harry Potter Land (I know that this is a Disney blog and everyone is probably appalled that I even mentioned the word Universal in here. Don't worry, my heart truly lies with Disney World and I kept comparing universal to Disney and despite not having harry potter Disney still wins in every aspect. I hope that you can bare with me for talking about universal for not even a whole day of my trip.). So getting to universal was alot easier than I thought it would be. We got to the park very easily and didn't have any issues when we got 2 parking. The parking at universal is sooooo unorganized it is appalling. they didn't have any lanes in the ramp going up into the parking lot and parking was $20. after getting through the mess of it all (luckily unscathed as well) we parked in the spiderman section of the parking lot and headed off 2 see harry and his friends. We left Disney really early just to make sure we would be there at opening and it was still insanely crowded. We walked through the city walk where they of course had a few advertisements for Harry and his friends.

We managed to get in the park fairly quickly (which was a big surprise) and then walked right on over to Harry Potter Land. On our way over we started to see the castle right around Suess landing

We also began to see signs for the wizarding world of harry potter there 2

After a few minutes we finally saw the entrance to Hogsmeade (No wait)

The whole feel of hogsmeade was sooooo realistic! Everything looked exactly as it did in the movie which to a big time potter nerd like myself is the coolest thing ever! The bad side to that is that everything was super crowded cuz the demensions of the shops and whole hogsmeade area were accurate as well. When we entered hogsmeade I was sooooo excited. I had been waiting to see this since the moment I heard it was being done. The first thing we did was take pictures of the hogwarts express area. You could even take a picture with the conductor which we did as well.

http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k517/Jazzabelle508/Harry Potter Land/P1000451.jpg

I do wish it had been easier to wander around and really get the feel of Harry Potter Land. Everyone around Hogsmeade was soooo pushy. Definitely didn't feel the same friendly vibe as Disney (That was more of a universal thing but still). Once we walked through hogsmeade (I still can't get over how cool that sentence is) We went in the line for the Forbiden journey. This is the signature ride of the wizarding world of Harry potter and obviuously the most popular ride there. The line started by the butterbeer cart located right by hogwarts castle and does a bunch of weaving around before you even got inside the castle. We did get some pretty pictures of the castle her though

Once we finally approached the official entrance to the ride, they divdied the line by bags and no bags. If you didn't have any bags you could got further, people with bags had to go inside and get lockers for while they are riding. Let me make this extremely clear. when they say bags the mean ANY cloth device you are using to carry personal belongings. My mom tried to go on with her fanny pack and the guy running the line said in a very rude, slythern like way no you can't do that. We then tried to explain how we managed to get on Rockin roller coaster (The safety bars are very similar in the fact they go over the shoulders) with a fanny pack and he still said no and insisted this ride was different so we had to succumb to the lockers). We also began to notice that all the nasty people in the park we encountered we wearing slytherin robes (and most of the staff wore that houses robes). Once we checked our bags into a locker we went on the ride. Once we got inside of the ride you get to see many cool landmarks including a bunch of the statues inside the school, Many of the talking portriats including the fat lady, dumbledore's office, the defense against the dark arts classroom, the herbology greenhouses, and the iconic sorting hat. Now I will being to explain the story of this ride to you. Dumbledore is welcoming you to the school and wants you to watch a history of magic lecture, however Harry, Ron and Hermione re appear and tell everyone that they are going to sneak you into a quidditch game and relieve you of having to watching one of professor bins lectures. This is all in the preshow. When you actually board the ride you are whisked off on an enchanted bench and follow Harry and Ron to the game. Unfortunately Hagrids dragon is loose and you get chased by the dragon and narrowly escape. You also end up being chased by a bunch of spiders in the forbidden forrest and almost get smashed by the whomping willow. Then you finally make it to the game and get 2 watch a little bit of it before the dementors show up. You then begin to get the life stucked out of you by the dementors before Harry says expecto patronum. You then are whisked off 2 a celebration in the great hall and disembark the ride. After the ride you can go into the gift shop and purchase a picture from the ride. This is also where you go 2 get back 2 the locker room. This ride also has a single rider section that you can go through the locker room to get 2. The gift shop has an extra entrance so you can go through the gift shop through that entrance, cut through the locker room and enter the single rider line without doing the outside part. the line at that point is sooo disorganized it is unbelivable. you could probably do that with stand by but I know you can do that with single riders. My mom and I went on the forbidden journey ride 6 more times thanks to single rider. After doing forrbiden journey we also checked out flight of the hippogriff which is a very tame family style roller coaster that is suppose to be like you are flying on a hippogriff. It is actually a really fun ride and had practically no wait so we went on that 4 times throughout the day. You also go through Hagrid's garden which is fun. After doing both of those rides we went into the three broomsticks which I will talk about next time.

 

[Merman]

Enjoying your tr so far! Glad you are including Universal (aka the park that must not be named). We're going to Disney in 8 months and were thinking of spending a day at the park that must not be named so very interested to see if you enjoyed it and thought it was worth the trip and spending a day away from the mouse!

 

[Jazzabelle508]

I'm glad 2 hear that my harry potter blog is appreciated, I was worried that it wouldn't be as much appreciated on a disney site. I liked the harry potter section alot, I just don't personally care for the way universal presents themselves. people are so much nicer and happier at disney. I did enjoy harry potter land ALOT though.

 

[MushuGirl06]

I cant wait to hear about the rest of your trip!

It's weird because I was in disney around the same time you were, Jan 1 to 6th and I stayed at POP century too!

 

[hollisterluva92]

Hi Jenny, I'm Deva (sounds like day-va)! I'm also a college freshman! I love your tr so far, can't wait for more updates! I'm doing a ptr for my next trip! The link is in my siggie!

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Hi everyone, sorry this has taken so long to post again. I had accidentally erased all of my writing and didn't have enough time to rewrite the whole thing again. After that I just didn't have another opportunity to give you another post. With out further ado here is part 2 of Day 2.

After we rode flight of the hippogriff and forrbidden journey a few more times we decided to get lunch at the three broomsticks. Here is what you will see when approaching the restraunt.

When we arrived at Three Broomsticks at around 11:30 in the morning and then went through the line fairly quickly. Here are some of the things you'll see in line

Before I get into the actual meal I would like to point out that the service here was really good! They got people into the real line very quickly, They had a super organized order-taking system where you given a number and you walk up to the counter that has that number and give them your order and pay. After you done ordering you can go up to the pick up counter that matches the counter you ordered at. After you have your food you are greeted by a staff member and they give you a table to sit at like at steak in shake (For those of you who don't know steak-in -shake is a burger restraunt common in the illinois/ Chicagoland area). Now for the actual meal my mom and I shared a thing of fish and chips and each got our own butterbeers. The fish and chips were deilicous and the butterbeer was good 2! I personally perfered the frozen butter beer which I will tell you about when we get there. Here are some pictures from the our meal

Needless to say we enjoyed our meal alot and defintely reccomend it! also, You may have heard about how crowded three broomsticks can get and are probably thinking that you should just get some butterbeer from a cart and call it a day but on the day we were there the carts had really long lines and three broomsticks had less intense lines. It was just starting to get crowded after we sat down. In the next post I will tell you all about shopping around hogsmeade and what that was like.

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Ok, So I am determined to finish day 2 today and therefore and going to give you the next installment of Day 2. So after we finished our lunch we decided to go shopping. Since honeydukes was right next door we went there first. Here are some pictures of the establishment.

Before I move on from Honeydukes I would like to point out that these cauldron cakes are AMAZING!!!!! The handle is made from a kind of cininmon like chocolate (like the one in the movie chocolate as my mom would point out). The actual cake is really moist and chocolatey and ranks amongst some of the best chocolate cakes I have ever had. and then in the middle there is a light chocolate mousse frosting which is also delicous!!!! DEFINTELY GET THIS IF YOU ARE EVER IN HARRY POTTER LAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok now for Zonko's

Now for the rest of hogsmeade

Next up- Dragon Challenge, Frog Choir, Triwizard Tournament, and frozen butterbeer!

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Now for the dragon challenge! ok, So after we went shopping I went on the dragon challenge (This was the one ride my mom absoutely DID NOT want to go on with it's 3 near misses so she sat out and held our bags. We also could not go through with our bags and the lockers were full so she wasn't in the best mood. This was also when we realized we could not get a pernament locker with out having to wait a couple of hours to get into the park area. needless to say I was excited and nervous to ride this ride. I absolutely LOVED goblet of fire (it was my favorite harry potter book) so obviously this was a must do no matter how scary the ride looked. Here are some of my pictures from the ride queue.

After you get through most of the line you reach a fork in the road. If you turn left you will be on the chinese fireball (The dragon viktor krum rode) and if you turn right you will be riding the hungarian horntail (The dragon harry rode). before I go on I would like to let you know that I practically walked on this ride both times and the flight of the hippogriff was also a walk on everytime we rode it. anyway back to this ride. Once you reach the loading area (which is similar to the loading area at six flags where you just pick a row and stay in it). You definitely want to be wearing gym shoes if you go on this ride. I was wearing crocs the first time I went on and there was no place to put your shoes like there is at six flags. I was totally worried that my shoes were going to fall off so I pressed my ankle against the top of my foot the entire time and luckily my shoes stayed on. The 2nd time I rode I switched shoes with my mom who was wearing gym shoes. The first time I rode the ride I was on the Chinese fireball and the 2nd time I was on the hungarian horntail. Both rides were great, I would reccomend going on twice with a different dragon each time. I perfered the chinese fireball personally but the horntail was fun 2.

my mom while she was waiting for me took these awesome pictures of the ride (we aren' sure if this was while I was on the ride but we are going to pretend i was on when these were taken)

After I rode the dragon challenge we decided to sit down and watch the shows that were by hogwarts. The first show we saw was the triwizard tournament. This show features dancers from beaubaxtons and durmstrang. Once again as a big time fan of the goblet of fire I was very happy. The guys did a acrobatic routine while the girls did a ribbon dance. Both of these dances were performed to that school's theme music in the movie.

here they are

After that there was a few minutes left until the 2nd show so we waited for that to start. Once the 2nd show began we discovered that it was a group of four hogwarts students (one from each house) and they were conducted by a fellow student and were accompanied by 2 frogs. This show was really good! The choir sang about 6 songs. some were themes from the movie and others were songs with lyrics that were also in the movie. It was really good! Here are a couple pictures for the show

After we did that we decided to go and try some of the frozen butterbeer. We went back 2 the three broomsticks and ended up sitting outside which was nice Here are some pictures

I don't know why the frozen Butterbeer tasted so much better than the original but it did! This one was like a milkshake it was soooooooooo good! After we had those we decided to call it a day and go back to Home Sweet Disney.

 

[Busymom85]

Thanks for doing the review of Universal too. I look forward to the rest of your review.

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Thanks for doing the review of Universal too. I look forward to the rest of your review.

No Problem Hope you enjoy it

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Ok so we left off with my mom and I leaving universal. So our final impressions of it were that we LOVED harry potter land! Even though the service for the most part was less than stellar the realism and theming more than makes up for it. I would go back again in a heartbeat . Now i will get back to the main part of our trip DISNEY!!!!! So we got back to Pop Century at around 6:30, by this point it was POURING rain (luckily it wasn't raining while we were at universal). So we were going to get our jackets and go to winter summer land and downtown disney. However, seeing the rain put a halt on our plans. We decided to relax in the room and check the weather in a couple of hours. After those couple of hours we realized that it had stopped raining so we walked on over to the cafeteria and got some dinner and went to winter summer land mini golf (we decided to go 2 downtown disney another day). For our game at winter summer land it was still really wet around the holes so neither my mom or I had our best games. Here are a couple of pictures from our game.

Ok so these next couple of pictures have a story, in the winter course there is a snowman that will squirt water at people that go and get there balls after getting there ball in the hole. I was standing near the hole and had to get the balls. Since it was nighttime in january I didn't want to get wet so I put up my hood and tredded carefully. My mom kept laughing at me and when I did get both balls out the squirt went farther than we thought and was closer to hitting my mom.

here are some final pictures from the day.

After the game we headed back and went to bed at around 10:30 to rest up before our first full Disney Day - Next Up: Boma's and Animal Kingdom

 

[Purpleblanket]

Hi Jenny

I love all your photo's of Harry Potter Land!!! I love the books and really need to go back to Florida to do that!!

My DD is probably about your age, just a bit older. She just graduated from University last spring and has a bachelor of music and bacelor of education degrees!!
I wish we were better travel companions but she wants to stop and smell every petal on every rose and I just want to see lots of stuff and not wait in lines!!

It's great that you and your mom both enjoy Disney.
But I do think that Disney is a different kind of trip. Me and my daughter enjoy weekends away to go shopping or summer at the beach. but that's different!!


I look forward to reading more about your trip.
We left Pop on Janurary 1st and my 2 kids left on Jan 2nd!!

Debbie

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Hi Jenny

I love all your photo's of Harry Potter Land!!! I love the books and really need to go back to Florida to do that!!

My DD is probably about your age, just a bit older. She just graduated from University last spring and has a bachelor of music and bacelor of education degrees!!
I wish we were better travel companions but she wants to stop and smell every petal on every rose and I just want to see lots of stuff and not wait in lines!!

It's great that you and your mom both enjoy Disney.
But I do think that Disney is a different kind of trip. Me and my daughter enjoy weekends away to go shopping or summer at the beach. but that's different!!


I look forward to reading more about your trip.
We left Pop on Janurary 1st and my 2 kids left on Jan 2nd!!

Debbie

That's great that you and your daughter enjoy disney . I really liked the WWOHP but it definitely is not disney.

 

[Jazzabelle508]

Hi Everyone

So I have some time and just finished my homework so i've decided to give you another trip update. So where did we leave off, oh yeah We had just finished our first full day in Florida. So the next day we woke up around 8 am for our 8:45 seating at Boma's at Animal Kingdom Lodge. If you haven't eaten there it is a buffet with a combination of american and african offerings. When we got there we were seated right away (which is ALWAYS nice ). We got our drink orders and then immediately went up to the buffet. I got some Ham, Bacon, Eggs, Fruit, and French Toast. My mom on the other hand got some sticky buns, Bacon, Eggs, and ham. They were all very good. Sorry I don't have any pictures of what we ate, but I do have some pictures from Boma's and us exploring the resort.

After We explored the AKL we went off 2 Animal Kingdom. Just so everyone on here knows. Out of all the parks, Animal Kingdom is my mom's and mines least favorite. We like to spend some time here simply because we feel that we should go 2 all the parks. We do have a few favorite rides here though. Ok back to the report, We got to the park at around 10:30 in the morning. The first thing we did was head of 2 get a fastpass for dinosaur. We got lucky and one of the machines was broken so they were giving away passes. we decided to head off 2 Kilmanjaro safaris and get a fastpass for that ride as well since we were having such good luck. The we went back to Dinoland U.S.A and went on primeval whirl which was soooooo much fun! After that our dinosaur fastpasses were ready so we went on that ride. I ALWAYS find some way to get freaked out on this ride. Even though I am almost 20 I still am the one freaking out in the picture. Of course this time I did not disappoint and was completely embarassed afterwards. I seriously don't know why I freak out on this ride and not any of the other thrill rides at Disney. Anyhow, after the ride my mom and I headed off to Killimanjaro safaris and had a ride up in the front row! It was the absolute best! Next Up: Exhibition Everest, It's Tough to be a Bug and swimming at the hotel. I apologize for the lack of pictures. I don't have very many pictures from this part of the day.