A Heaping Helping of Disney with a Side Dish of Drama - June 2013 TR

[bluejasmine]

Im in! Looking fwd to reading!!

 

[lsenquiz]

I'm in. Curious as to where you were when you stopped for the bulldozed McDonalds as that exact same thing happened to us recently

The car rides of today are much different then they were when we were little. I usually do not hear a peep out of our DS8 unless he's hungry or needs to stop for the bathroom.

 

[BridgetR3]

We stopped at the exit that said something about Baptist College Florida....DS6 still talks about the missing McDonald's. He's scarred for life!!

Yep car rides are much different now a days. I don't often hear "Are we there yet?!?!"

We are on the road with DH this week while he works and although the hotel we are staying in has "free wifi", you have to pay to get faster service and the service we have is AWFUL!!!! I can't even upload pictures. So it will have to wait until we get home tomorrow night. Sorry ladies!

 

[teekathepony]

I'm in!!

Almost there!

 

[BridgetR3]

So when I last left off, we were going under this....



It wasn't long before I was at the custom house checking into our home for the weekend. The sweet CM behind the desk told us that she had good news and bad news - the good news was that our room was already ready ; the bad news was that we were on the second floor . (Remember Caribbean Beach has no elevators.) Since it was only a two night stay, I figured we would be fine climbing stairs and told her that it was o.k.

We were in Martinique building .....



in a corner room. Yay for two windows!! We quickly threw all of our things into our room, got our park bag and took off to Magic Kingdom. But first a few pictures....





We arrived at a full bus stop. I couldn't help but wonder how long the other families had been there or where they were headed. Would Magic Kingdom be packed? Was this a sign of how our buses would be on the trip? Soon though a Hollywood Studios bus came and the stop emptied out....thank you Star Wars Weekend!!

After waiting a miserable 5 minutes...lol....we were on our way!! So we board the bus and pick one of the sets of four seats where they face each other thinking our boys would come sit by us......did they?

NO!!! They had found girls.....



Geez....we never rank as high as ladies! We chatted with the family of the girls on the bus which made the trip a little shorter. Soon, we were at Magic Kingdom. Getting off the bus, the Monsters University monorail passed. DH said, "THAT'S the wrap???" in complete disbelief followed by "You think they could have done more." Let's just say he was not impressed!

Now time for the most important part of the trip.

I took our keys and went to Guest Relations to upgrade them to Annual Passes. The CM I had was very helpful and knowledgeable but fairly slow in her work ensuring that everything was done correctly. I didn't mind her making sure it was all correct. It's just that we were ready to go!! So she takes the tickets off of our Key to the world cards and gives us each a separate Annual Pass. I had no trouble with the cost of the annual passes so she obviously knew about price bridging and all without me asking for it. I asked two or three times to ensure that our room keys would still open our rooms and still take charges. She ensured me that it would.

After she finished, I realized that I had forgotten to get a Tables in Wonderland card. So I sent my restless family off to grab some Sorcerer's cards next door at the first station while I made the purchase. Soon we were on our way down Main Street looking at this....



It had rained a little bit while we were in guest relations but not enough to make people break out ponchos yet. We had a quick discussion about where to start. Somehow we ALWAYS end up starting in Tomorrowland and we ALWAYS ride Peoplemover first. Before we hopped on Peoplemover, we grabbed FP's for Buzz Lightyear.



If you look at the people on the ground, you can see that in the time it took us to get on Peoplemover (all 3 minutes) it has started to rain and people are beginning to wear ponchos. Oh you don't see the rain???



Yep there it is.....

A few more ride pics of my sillies......







Yep DS6 is already tired of me taking his picture. Gonna be a long week if he doesn't get over that.....

Well DH was disappointed that they did not saying, "Paging Mr. Morrow, Mr. Tom Morrow" on this ride. We just assumed that it had accidentally skipped it for some reason and hoped that we would hear it on the next ride through. (It's the important things ya know??...lol...)

After Peoplemover, we still had a few minutes before we could go on Buzz and it had quit raining so we decided to see how car sick the kids could make us. DH got off easy because DS11 could ride by himself so DH got his own car. I on the other hand rode with DS6...



Whiplash anyone?



The orange car is DS11 while the red car in the distance is DH



"Look Mom no hands!!"

At the end of the ride, DS6 says, "Whew that was a rough ride." ROFL....it will be a LONG time before he gets his license!

Yay!! It's time for Fastpasses!



Yes Buzz we will help save the galaxy!

In the fastpass line, we were in front of a sweet family that was trying to convince their son who was around 4 or 5 to ride. They kept talking about how they were sure it wasn't so funny that it would give him the hiccups (huh?). Being the nosey person I am, I turned and told the cute little guy that it wasn't actually all that funny but that it was a cool ride where he could shoot lasers with Buzz Lightyear. The daddy looked at me as if I was an alien and said, "Wait this isn't that laughing one..." Poor dad thought he had grabbed fastpasses to Laugh Floor and had no clue who Buzz was. I hope the sweet boy enjoyed his ride but we got separated at the fast pass/real line merge and I never saw them again.



Yes Buzz we take our mission seriously!!! In fact so seriously that I got around 900,000 points on this ride!!! It was my first time ever getting over 150,000. AND since it was adults vs. kids, we won!!! YAY!!!



Sorry for the blurry pic, but DS6 got over 300,000 and was VERY excited to be the winning kid!

I found Buzz to be working a little better than in years past. It seemed like our lasers were more on target this year and the scores were better. I'm not sure if DS11's was working well or not because he usually has a better score but he usually also has an adult steering for him.

No ride is complete without a picture with Zurg....



Up next is lunch......So where are we going to eat??? Any guesses???

 

[vassar36]

Love your report ! can't wait to read more.

 

[teekathepony]

Great start! People mover is a great first ride. I love that thing!

Oh dear, too funny about the family in line for buzz. It could have been really funny to see their reactions if you hadn't corrected them!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[RachelNinja]

Being on the TTA is the perfect place to be when the rain suddenly comes pouring down!

 

[merbobear]

I hope that boy had fun on Buzz! I'm sure he did..how could you not? But lol at the dad

I maxed out my score on our first trip around the galaxy this year, but sadly it was a fluke as I never managed to hit the magical 999999 screen again our entire trip!

 

[BridgetR3]

So I couldn't figure out how I had lost so many pictures while doing my updates and suddenly today I remembered that I had used my phone to take photos as well......sometimes it pays to use all of your brain cells.

So just for one post I'm going to go back and share pics along the way that were ummmm....."missing"......

We never really hit bad weather on the way to Disneyworld but the sky did get wild for a little while.





It did rain for a little while after these photos but nothing like what we hit on the way home.....



the breakfast of champions before hitting the parks on our first day



A semi-smiling Peoplemover photo



Proof of my score!!!



DH's pitiful score of 42,300




DH and I waiting for Tomorrowland Speedway (excuse my hair....I'm blaming the rain....)

O.k. next up later today - more of day 1

Anyone have a guess of where we ate lunch??

 

[lovethattink]

How about Be Our Guest for lunch?

 

[lsenquiz]

Looks like our TRs are going to be similar. We both got APs, we both forgot to get our TiW when we first got our annual passes and we both start in tomorrowland when we go to MK!

We are big Buzz Lightyear ride lovers and rode over 30 times this trip

I am guessing Columbia Harbour House for lunch.

 

[BridgetR3]

How about Be Our Guest for lunch?

I would have loved having BOG for lunch but that line each day was insane!!!

My family doesn't wait in line for rides much less waiting an hour to an hour and a half for lunch.

Looks like our TRs are going to be similar. We both got APs, we both forgot to get our TiW when we first got our annual passes and we both start in tomorrowland when we go to MK!

We are big Buzz Lightyear ride lovers and rode over 30 times this trip

I am guessing Columbia Harbour House for lunch.

Yep, Lisa, they seem to be very similar so far!! Sadly that was the only time we rode Buzz this trip. I'm not sure how that happened.

Good guess on lunch but we honestly have never eaten there. DH doesn't really like seafood and although I do like seafood, I'm more of just a boiled/fried kind of girl so it doesn't really work for us.

 

[BridgetR3]

O.k. on with the report.......

We were looking for somewhere to have lunch and it was sprinkling with BIG rain drops. Everyone must have had the same idea we did by trying to get out of the rain. We usually avoid the crowds by eating an early lunch and an early dinner but because of our BIG breakfast we were hungry the same time as everyone else in the park. So we stopped in here......




but people were standing along the walls eating their lunches while holding their trays. We knew that this approach would NOT work for us so we moved on.

We ended up going over to Pinocchio's Village Haus which is new to us. Every time we ride It's a Small World the boys say that they want to eat where they can see the people on the ride but we've never actually stopped to eat here. The reason? We aren't really a thick crust pizza kind of family and salads well they just don't fill us up! I remember reading on a blog that Pinocchio's had recently (in the last year) switched to flat bread.

I got a kid's flatbread pepperoni. The boys got flatbread cheese. DH was being a skeptic and got the adult chicken nuggets.....he regretted that decision.



I LOVED my flatbread!!! The texture, the taste, the pepperoni....it was all wonderful!! It was a perfect size for me with the two sides. My two sides were french fries and grapes.

This is now a must do on our next trip. After dinner we grabbed fast passes for Peter Pan. It's a family favorite of ours and always has an AWFUL line so we use fast passes for it. We checked the waits at It's a small world but they were around 40 minutes so we decided to skip it for now.

So where do you go after dinner?? To the bathrooms of course!!



Only at Disney will you take pictures of the restrooms....actually I wanted to take some pictures inside of them as well but felt weird doing it so I didn't. Let's just say that the paintings on the inside are SOOO pretty! At some point in the restroom I dropped my camera. Not a light little ding off the floor but a crash and bounce with another crash about 2 feet away. Certain that I had ruined my camera on the first day of vacation, I gingerly picked it up and turned it on afraid to look. It seemed to be fine. I couldn't see any cracks, dents, or dings but I wasn't sure if it had damaged something inside. I decided to be very very careful with it from now on!



Waterfall at the bathroom



Rapunzel's tower

After leaving the restroom area, we checked to see if we could conquer DS6's fear of Haunted Mansion but with a 45 minute wait, it was not happening right now! SO we kept walking.....




His sad face???



A sad face?? Geez my kids don't know what sad is! lol....


That's a little better!



Poor baby, they need a shorter one for the little kids!


we decided to try Pirates and were excited to see that the wait was only 10 minutes.



How many times a day do you say this? We say it A LOT!



The line was actually outside. It's not often we will wait if there is a long line but hey it's our first day and we have nothing better to do so let's have some fun....





We saw the mermaids!! DS6 and I did at least. DH and DS11 would see them later in the trip. They are so cool but they go by so seldom that you could miss it if it isn't timed perfectly. I wish they swam by more often.

Next we decided to try something new. I knew that Magic Kingdom had just added the Pirate's Adventure quests. We told the boys about it and asked if they wanted to do that. Of course they did. So off we went to grab our first quest.




One of the special areas where you use your card....I REALLY liked this quest MUCH better than the Sorcerer's thing. This one actually makes things happen to items in the park which is neat rather than just on a screen.

We were so focused on finding the next place on our map that we weren't really paying attention to where we were going and we all got squirted by.....



CONTINUED IN NEXT POST.....

 

[BridgetR3]

.....those silly camels of Agrabah.




After receiving this clue for our hunt, we saw that the Tiki Room was about to start (it was actually like 2 minutes til show time) so we had to drop by. We LOVE the song and will willingly sit through it at least once every trip for the a/c!





More of the pre-show







In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room, In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room where all the birds sing words and the flowers croon, In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room.....Yay, now you are singing along with me! Sorry I had to....

After the show we grabbed waters and headed out to finish our quest....




Notice his red eyes as he talks to us.....



Here???



Oh there!!!



Neat little ending to our quest. We all really enjoyed it and said that we would definitely do another one later. Would we ever get back there to do it again?

Well by this time it's hot and we are ready to conquer fears....the boys' fears at least. You see, my boys are terrified of the 50 foot drop on Splash. They both rode it the first time we went to Disney and screamed like little girls the ENTIRE ride (those poor poor people who had to endure that in our boat with us.....). DS6 tried to be brave last year and decided to ride it again. We got fastpasses and got in line but he chickened out at the chicken exit. This year they both decided that they would ride it one last time to see just how bad that drop really is.



The line was fairly long but the wait time was only 25 minutes according to the board. I began to worry that maybe 25 minutes was just long enough to scare them away again.

Would we make it past this sign.....



Would we ride the ride or would it defeat us yet again?

You can leave your guesses if you want to!

 

[eeyore344]

They are big, brave boys. So I vote "YES" they got on!!

 

[waltsgirl4ever]

I vote yes! And i will admit...i sang along to the tiki song! And maybe a few minutes after too!

 

[lsenquiz]

Great update. I have a couple questions.

1) What are the mermaids you saw? I feel lost and out of the loop because I had not idea what you were talking about

2) We did not learn about the pirate quest until the day we were coming home so did not try that. We are in the middle of the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game (we plan to finish on our September trip) but I will say it is a big time committment. I am wondering if we should switch to the pirate one?

3) My plan this last trip was to see everything we had not seen before. However, I made an exception for the Tiki room because it got such bad reviews. After seeing Country Bear Jamboree for the first time ever my DH says if we can sit through that surely we can sit through the Tiki Room . So it has been added to the September must do list.

Congrats on getting the shackle pictures. It was always so crowded everytime we went by so we never got them. Fingers crossed for September.

My guess is you got the boys on the ride this time and they loved it!!!!

 

[BridgetR3]

I answered your questions in your quote.

Great update. I know have a couple questions.

1) What are the mermaids you saw? I feel lost and out of the loop because I had not idea what you were talking about

On POTC, between the time BlackBeard speaks to you in the "mist" and the room with the skeletons on the beach, there are mermaids. They "swim" on each side of the boat in the little waterway between those two. It's actually a projection of some sort through the water. If you go to youtube and search for "mermaids on pirates of the caribbean ride" it will bring up a short video of them.

2) We did not learn about the pirate quest until the day we were coming home so did not try that. We are in the middle of the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game (we plan to finish on our September trip) but I will say it is a big time committment. I am wondering if we should switch to the pirate one?

Honestly I think you could finish your sorcerers and then do this one after or in the middle of. This one is not nearly as long as Sorcerers as it's only supposed to take 1.5 hours total.

3) My plan this last trip was to see everything we had not seen before. However, I made an exception for the Tiki room because it got such bad reviews. After seeing Country Bear Jamboree for the first time ever my DH says if we can sit through that surely we can sit through the Tiki Room . So it has been added to the September must do list.

If you can sit through Country Bear you can sit through anything!!!! I'm glad you added it to your September list. It silly, corny, and old but it's cute.

Congrats on getting the shackle pictures. It was always so crowded everytime we went by so we never got them. Fingers crossed for September.

My guess is you got the boys on the ride this time and they loved it!!!!

 

[lsenquiz]

On POTC, between the time BlackBeard speaks to you in the "mist" and the room with the skeletons on the beach, there are mermaids. They "swim" on each side of the boat in the little waterway between those two. It's actually a projection of some sort through the water. If you go to youtube and search for "mermaids on pirates of the caribbean ride" it will bring up a short video of them.

Thanks. We will look for them when we ride in September