A newbie, a nana, two princess, and......the Planner! (Updated 1/4--DTD & head home)

Just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't forgotten about you. I have our day at Hollywood Studios left to go, as well as some time at Downtown Disney from our departure day. However, I'm not feeling well, and I have a lot of pictures to upload from HS..........especially of the Beauty and the Beast musical. I promise I'll get to it as soon as I'm feeling better.
 
I'll check it out when we get back. Take care of your babies...TR can come later. ;) We hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas Holiday. :santa:
 
I hope anna is doing better. I think we are booking our two week vacation in the morning (my birthday also!!! hehe) wasn't it anna's bday a few days ago? Happy late bday! Seven days in disney I think the 23rd we go down (of jan) and then seven days on the disney cruise! Pretty excited. What dates are you going again? Feel better!
 

Hi ! It's always good to have a new reader. I agree, I would have loved the BBB when I was little. Now I just get to spoil my little ones a bit (just while we're on vacation though ). We had a lot of fun dressing up for the Halloween party......DH and I hadn't dressed up since we were kids, so it was something really fun for us to all do together.
 
I hope anna is doing better. I think we are booking our two week vacation in the morning (my birthday also!!! hehe) wasn't it anna's bday a few days ago? Happy late bday! Seven days in disney I think the 23rd we go down (of jan) and then seven days on the disney cruise! Pretty excited. What dates are you going again? Feel better!

We will be there Jan 21-28, so it looks like we'll have some overlap :cool1: . Let me know when you get everything booked, and we'll have to find a time to meet up. Anna's birthday is actually today.............and a happy belated birthday to you!

Hi ! It's always good to have a new reader. I agree, I would have loved the BBB when I was little. Now I just get to spoil my little ones a bit (just while we're on vacation though ). We had a lot of fun dressing up for the Halloween party......DH and I hadn't dressed up since we were kids, so it was something really fun for us to all do together.

It is always great to have a new reader. You're right, it is nice to be able to spoil the little ones on vacation......Anna had the time of her life, and I want vacations to be something she'll always remember. We had fun dressing up too. The woman who made my costume did an amazing job, and I got lots of compliments :)
 
Ok, I am currently trying to get my last day's worth of picture uploaded to photobucket so that I can finish up my report. My goal was to have it done before we leave for our January trip, and that means I don't have much longer left. Here are a few other pictures until I have some more Disney ones ready :) .

The girls in their Christmas dresses
Christmas2008003.jpg


All of us in front of my in law's tree
Christmas2008122-1.jpg


Anna with the Hannah Montana birthday cake my cousin made for her
AnnasBirthdayParty006.jpg


Ok, off to try to deal with photobucket to see if I can get some more Disney pictures ready to go.
 
Well, I'm finally getting photobucket to cooperate, so lets see if we can get at least part of this day done :thumbsup2 .

We started our day with an early reservation at Hollywood and Vine so we could get into the park before opening. Here is Anna refusing to have her picture taken :)
DisneyWorld603.jpg


And again when I tricked her into looking at me....
DisneyWorld606.jpg


We were one of the first families allowed in, and the park was almost completely empty. DH snapped a few pictures.
DisneyWorld607.jpg


DisneyWorld609.jpg


DisneyWorld610.jpg


Although I don't have any pictures of our food here, it was your typical breakfast fare, and it was pretty good. Anna really got into the characters here because she watches a lot (sometimes too much) playhouse disney. Although Addy still wouldn't let the characters near her, she did think Goliath was pretty interesting, but only if he wasn't looking at her.
DisneyWorld611.jpg


DisneyWorld613.jpg


DisneyWorld614.jpg


DisneyWorld615.jpg


After we finished breakfast, we joined the crowd of people waiting to be admited to the park. We had already formulated a plan, and Adam was going to make a run for Toy Story Mania fast passes and the rest of us would catch up with him. It was insane when they finally started letting people in :scared1: ......made me glad that I had the girls away from it. It's no wonder you hear about people getting trampled and stuff. My mom, the girls, and I slowly followed the crowd, and even the lines for the fastpasses were ridiculous! We got some with a return time of about 10:30.

Then, DH and I decided we wanted to ride Tower of Terror and Rock n' Roller Coaster while mom was still there to watch both of the girls. We headed for Tower of Terror first, and there was virtually no wait. I was honestly kind of dreading this ride because I hate the feel when your stomach drops faster than the rest of you. We ended up in the very front row, and I started screaming as soon as the doors opened. I was probably about a foot out of my seat the entire ride and, I admit, it's probably good there weren't any kids close to me because I let a few words slip that wouldn't have been very appropriate :sad2: .

Once we got off, we headed straight for Rock n' Roller coaster. I'd never ridden this before, and I was really looking forward to it. It was still being built when I was at Disney in 1999. There was only a short wait here.....maybe 15 minutes. Dh was a little nervous about the takeoff, but we both really enjoyed the ride. However, DH and I agree that the roller coasters at Disney are too short....especially for the line you sometimes have to wait in to go on them.

By the time we got finished with both of these rides, it was time for our Toy Story fastpasses.
DisneyWorld621.jpg

Addy rode with me and Anna, so I didn't have much of a chance this time around. We enjoyed the ride, and I like it a lot better than Buzz Lightyear, but I'm not sure I see what all the hype is about. We were able to get a second set of fastpasses for much later in the day when we got off, which we were kind of surprised about.

We just missed the showing of the Little Mermaid, so we went to do some looking around and waiting for the next show. I took lots of pictures of Anna by the Hollywood theatre, but we didn't do the ride because I was worried that some of the parts might scare her.
DisneyWorld622.jpg


DisneyWorld623.jpg


DisneyWorld624.jpg


DisneyWorld627.jpg


DisneyWorld628.jpg


DisneyWorld629.jpg


And, of course, being from Kansas we had to do a picture with the ruby slipper imprint.
DisneyWorld630.jpg


Continued in next post..................
 
By the time we finished taking our pictures......it was getting close to show time again for the Little Mermaid, so we headed that direction. We took a few more pictures while we waited for them to let us into the theatre.

First, me, my mom, and Addy
DisneyWorld631.jpg


DH and Addy
DisneyWorld632.jpg


All the ladies
DisneyWorld634.jpg


Addy
DisneyWorld635.jpg


DisneyWorld636.jpg


DisneyWorld638.jpg


Sisters
DisneyWorld639.jpg


DisneyWorld640.jpg


We all really enjoyed the show.....even Addy who was only afraid in at a few parts. This was the first time I had seen anything like this, and, I have to say, I was pretty impressed. We wandered out through the gift shop, and got Addy her very own set of ears.
DisneyWorld647.jpg


We did a little more wandering around to pass some time until the Beauty and the Beast stage show. This turned out to be the one and only time during the entire trip that Addy fell asleep in the stroller. She didn't sleep for very long though because she woke up as soon as I had to take her out for the show.
DisneyWorld648.jpg


DisneyWorld651-1.jpg


And one of Anna trying on some Disney dinggle boppers (as we call them).
DisneyWorld649-1.jpg


Now, it was almost time for Beauty and the Beast........one of the few things my mom had actually requested to do while we were at Disney. DH took about 100 pictures during the show, but I'm only going to post a few of the best ones. He was having a little too much fun with our new camera :laughing: .
DisneyWorld655.jpg


DisneyWorld729.jpg


DisneyWorld711.jpg


DisneyWorld728.jpg


Once again, we really enjoyed the show. Needless to say, we don't have anything like that around here, unless you count the local high school musical :rolleyes: . These shows actually convinced DH that we need to go see a show on Broadway someday. I told him only if it was a Disney show :).

By this time, mom and Addy were getting pretty worn down, so they decided to head back to the hotel. Mom really wanted to see Fantasmic, so they decided to come back about an hour before the show started. I was a little concerned about keeping Addy up this late, but I figured if she was really tired, she could just sleep in my lap. I knew how awesome the show is, and I didn't want mom to miss it.
 
princess: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, ANNA!!!princess:

glad you guys got to do TSM - not everyone gets fastpasses! great pictures too. i love beauty and the beast! i didn't get to do it this last time and i've heard rumors they're going to do away with it. i hope not!
 
princess: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, ANNA!!!princess:

glad you guys got to do TSM - not everyone gets fastpasses! great pictures too. i love beauty and the beast! i didn't get to do it this last time and i've heard rumors they're going to do away with it. i hope not!

We actually got to do TSM twice that day (the second time was later in the afternoon), and, I'll admit, it was fun. The second time, Anna and I combined our scores in an attempt to beat DH.........he still won though :confused3 . We were shocked that we were able to get a second set of fast passes after everything I've read.

I hope they don't do away with Beauty and the Beast.........we really enjoyed it, and it's a nice place to sit down and relax a little. It even entertained Addy, and that says something. She liked it better than The Little Mermaid, probably because she was further away from any loud noises.

I'm hoping to finish up Hollywood Studios today, but I just found out that my grandma is in the hospital, so I'm not sure if that will work.
 
oh, no. i'm so sorry to hear that. :hug: i hope everything is okay.

I talked to her yesterday evening, and she was feeling much better. Her bloodwork came back a little off though, so they made her stay overnight. We're hoping they let her come home today.
 
By the time Beauty and the Beast was over, Addy was more than ready to head back to the hotel, as was my mom. The last thing that we did before they left was pick out Mickey ears for everyone and had our names embroidered on the back. Now, I have to tell you that I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of wearing them, but we wanted to do it as a family and, as you'll soon see, it was probably a lucky thing that we did ;) . We walked them out and then headed for the Muppet 3D show.

DH and I are both old enough to remember the Muppet Show, and Anna knows some of the muppets from the DC almost live clips that they show on Disney Channel right now. We took a few pictures before heading in.

DisneyWorld725.jpg


DisneyWorld727.jpg


DisneyWorld726.jpg


We thought the show was pretty cute......DH loves the two old guys that sit up in the balcony :lmao: . On the way out, we saw the Cars meet and greet. DH loves Cars, especially Mater, so we had to stop. There was a bit of a line, and no real shade to stand in while you waited, but we probably only waited about 30 minutes.

DisneyWorld730.jpg


DisneyWorld731.jpg


As we were walking away, Anna say a face painting booth and insisted that she had to have her face painted again. She wanted DH and I to have it done too, but we passed today. I'm glad we did too because we spent the same amount of money that we had at the Animal Kingdom, and they didn't do nearly as good of a job here (as you will soon see). Plus, the ones from the Animal Kingdom basically had to be scrubbed off, and this one was almost completely gone by the time we made it to Fantasmic. However, Anna enjoyed it, and that was what was most important to me.

DisneyWorld733.jpg


DisneyWorld734.jpg


DisneyWorld735.jpg


Now, we had an early reservation for Mama Melrose, but none of us were really hungry. We decided we'd we just pass on it and spend a little more time wandering. Boy, were we glad we did!!!!! We were just walking around trying to decide what we wanted to do, and a CM came up to Anna and started asking her about her ears.........genius that I am, it took a minute for it to click for me, but it was a DREAM TEAM CM!!!!! As you saw in the last picture, Anna's Mickey ears had a princess crown on them. The CM was asking her which princess was her favorite, and then he asked her if she'd like to meet some of the local celebrities. Although she wasn't quite sure what to think, she said, "Sure." He told us to meet him at the front in 15 minutes.

We headed that way almost immediately and there were two other families there when we got there and 3 or 4 other Dream Team CMs. They told us that each family would get to go in by themselves. Since we'd gotten chosen last, we went in last, but we probably only waited 10 minutes or so. While we waited, we chatted with the CMs. They all gave Anna stickers, and, when they noticed that Anna and Adam weren't wearing first timer buttons, they gave them each one. They also gave me an Official Citizen button because they said I was the tour guide :) .

Once the other families had gone in, we were shown to a room with several other CMs and four princesses! Anna was exstatic. She was especially excited to see Belle in her blue dress because she'd seen all the other princesses at Askershus. She got to spend as much time with them as she wanted, and the CMs were happy to take pictures for us. Some of the pictures didn't turn out though because the CM had a baseball cap on and it blocked the flash from popping all the way up. Here's some of the best ones.

DisneyWorld736.jpg


DisneyWorld737.jpg


DisneyWorld738.jpg


DisneyWorld743.jpg


DisneyWorld744.jpg


DisneyWorld745.jpg


The princesses were all very sweet and working to get Anna to come out of her shell (she was being a little shy). They told her they would wave to her at Fantasmic, so she thought that was pretty cool. We stayed about 15 minutes, and when we left, they gave Anna a special certificate.

DisneyWorld747.jpg


Continued in next post.
 
Oh that is the sweetest thing! What a special dream. And that Belle is so pretty. She looks like the one in the movie! She'll never forget that! I also love the ears! They're so cute.

I hope your grandmother is better now.
 
what a cool dream! i don't think i've ever seen that dream before. i'm sure anna was just thrilled!

i can't believe in 5 trips to WDW in the 2 years of a million dreams that i didn't one ONE!!!!
 
Oh how awesome for you guys!! That is a wonderful experience you guys will be able to treasure forever! I got chills reading it! :)

Hope your grandma is doing better.
 












Receive up to $1,000 in Onboard Credit and a Gift Basket!
That’s right — when you book your Disney Cruise with Dreams Unlimited Travel, you’ll receive incredible shipboard credits to spend during your vacation!
CLICK HERE






DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest DIS Tiktok DIS Twitter DIS Bluesky

Back
Top Bottom