Oh, the joys of living an hour from Disney. I thought I'd write up our most recent day trip to the World.
Cast: Me, Lisa, 42, single Mom. More than 20 trips to the world now that we live so close!
DD, almost 15. Loves thrill rides!
DS, 13 1/2. Loves technology. Mission Space and Innoventions are his favorites!
DS's girlfriend, just turned 14. AP holder for almost 7 years, but has seen more of the world in two trips with us than those 7 years!
Background: Our kids are off school for the Strawberry Festival. But I'd rather use my AP and spend the day at Disney! DS asked his girlfriend to come with us on Sunday, and we were set.
We picked up DS's GF at 7:30, and were pulling into EPCOT's parking lot by 8:35. I had to renew our APs, so we headed to the ticket window. I had bought seasonal APs for last year, but this year I had friends visiting in July, so I went for regular APs. I also had one day tickets from free dining which I was using to "upgrade" to our new APs, and I wanted the DVC discount price. Unfortunately, this was a bit complicated to execute. Two CMs, one manager, and one phone call (plus 30 minutes) later, we had 3 new passes! I handed them out. DD, here's your pass. It's got the 7 dwarves on it. Hmm. Mine has Mickey on it. DS? What's yours? Oh, Cinderella and Prince Charming? DD teased him about this all day long! I'm sure that pass will get "lost" within the first week so he can try for something different!
Once inside the park, I took all the APs and went to get Soarin FPs. The 3 kids headed to test track for a quick ride. The Soarin FPs were valid at 10:05. I got to the TT ride exit just as the kids were coming out. They had walked right through. DD split up to go over to Mission Space. But the rest of us went through the standby line to ride TT again. I have never been through the standby line. It was neat walking through the cone room, since I've actually toured the plant that makes the radios they test there. We were in our cars within 10 minutes and had a great ride!
We met DD at the restrooms in front of test track, then we all headed over to Club Cool to try out a few of the sodas. We killed time by riding Journey into your Imagination, and by then our FPs were ripe for Soarin. For some reason, the regular FP line was closed, so we went in the exit. While we were in line, we spoke to a couple of guys who had the dream fast passes. They were talking about things to do with their family the rest of the day, and I encouraged them to try out the street shows in World Showcase.
Within 5 minutes, we were loaded into Soarin. DS's girlfriend had never been on this ride, because her dad is afraid of heights. She absolutely LOVED it! So we pulled another set of FPs on our way out that were good for 2:00. We split up again at this point. DS wanted to ride Mission Space, but his girlfriend gets motion sickness. Since DD had already ridden MS today, she decided to stay with the girls, so DS headed over to MS on his own. The ladies decided to ride the Energy Adventure. There was a family behind us whose little girl had the same name as my DD (Kaylie), although it was spelled differently. We finished our adventure, and the girls went over to MS to meet up with DS who was in the middle of the space race competition.
I caught a set by the Jamminators while I was waiting on the kids to come out. I hadn't seen them in quite a while, so it was nice to see the whole set. Once we were reunited, everyone was getting hungry, so we headed over to World Showcase. I had planned on Electric Umbrella, because DS's girlfriend is a very unadventurous eater. But EU was closed for rennovation. The China CS was closed too (which is DS's favorite). We ended up getting a plain hot dog in Germany for DS's girlfriend, then heading over to Japan (Yakitori House) for the kids lunch. They all ate, then we headed into the store to get dessert. DD picked out some candy, and DS got a box of chocolate and coffee flavored cookies.
After they were full, the kids headed over to France to see the movie. I left them and picked up some Fish at the Yorkshire Fish Stand. They charge you quite a bit less if you don't want the fries (which I don't eat). I grabbed a table in the garden, and as I was sitting down, I saw the guy from the Soarin line. He said that his wife had been picked for the World Showcase Players show and thanked me for telling them to watch it! I finished my lunch and headed back to France. The kids came rushing up to say that the girls had been picked to hold the rope for the chair guy's show. Apparently the movie wasn't starting for quite a while, so they watched the chair guy instead.
We decided to head over to MK so that DS's girlfriend could ride the mountains. She had never been on any of them, since no one in her family would go. We caught the monorail over and entered MK about 2:00. I sent the kids over to ride Space Mountain while I got FPs for Splash (2:40 return time). I caught the train over to TomorrowLand and met them just as they got off the ride. The kids said that they were doing previews for the Laugh Floor, so we headed over there next. We waited for about 25 minutes, so we probably just missed a show. This was a really cute show! It's still got a few technical glitches, but I think it has the potentially to be really good. It's certainly better than Stitch! They have cameras and put little captions underneath people. One of the first pictures they put up was DS's GF. And it said "I'm dating a monster." DS was soooo funny! He said "Hey!!!! I'm NO monster!" and started shaking his fist at the screen! They had a little girl and it said "I make monster faces", and she started scrunching up her face!
Once we finished the show, we caught the train back over to Frontierland to use our FPs. DD decided she didn't want to get wet (it was about 65, sunny but still a bit breezy), so she went over to get BTMRR FPs for us. We were through the line in about 5 minutes. We split up to get through a little quicker. I got splashed quite a bit at the beginning but didn't get wet in the drop. I met up with DS and his GF, and they were almost completely dry.
The kids were a bit hungry, so we went after some french fries. The McDonalds stand between Frontierland and Adventureland was under renovation, so we went into Pecos Bills instead. I ordered two sides of fries and asked about cheese sauce. The lady asked how many and I said 2. Yes they do charge for cheese now (50 cents each side). But honestly, there was as much cheese as there was fries, so one side would have been MORE than enough for both fries.
After they finished snacking, we headed to BTMRR. For some reason, one of the passes wasn't reading right, so we only had 3 valid FPs (we only had 3 for Splash too, so it was good DD didn't want to go). I sat this one out and just enjoyed the sunshine. The kids were back within 15 minutes. And DS's Girlfriend had a blast again! She really does like riding the thrill rides. We decided we need to take her back to MGM to ride RnR (it was closed our last visit), then one day to AK for Dinosaur and EE and she'll have done all the big rides!
We reloaded back on the monorail, but this time we waited to ride up front. Again, this was something DS's GF had never done. Luckily we had a good pilot and he gave us all co-pilots licenses. Back in EPCOT, we used our Soarin FPs (which we had no problem doing even though they were past the return time), then headed back out of the park. We were back home by 7:30.
It was a great time!
Cast: Me, Lisa, 42, single Mom. More than 20 trips to the world now that we live so close!
DD, almost 15. Loves thrill rides!
DS, 13 1/2. Loves technology. Mission Space and Innoventions are his favorites!
DS's girlfriend, just turned 14. AP holder for almost 7 years, but has seen more of the world in two trips with us than those 7 years!
Background: Our kids are off school for the Strawberry Festival. But I'd rather use my AP and spend the day at Disney! DS asked his girlfriend to come with us on Sunday, and we were set.
We picked up DS's GF at 7:30, and were pulling into EPCOT's parking lot by 8:35. I had to renew our APs, so we headed to the ticket window. I had bought seasonal APs for last year, but this year I had friends visiting in July, so I went for regular APs. I also had one day tickets from free dining which I was using to "upgrade" to our new APs, and I wanted the DVC discount price. Unfortunately, this was a bit complicated to execute. Two CMs, one manager, and one phone call (plus 30 minutes) later, we had 3 new passes! I handed them out. DD, here's your pass. It's got the 7 dwarves on it. Hmm. Mine has Mickey on it. DS? What's yours? Oh, Cinderella and Prince Charming? DD teased him about this all day long! I'm sure that pass will get "lost" within the first week so he can try for something different!
Once inside the park, I took all the APs and went to get Soarin FPs. The 3 kids headed to test track for a quick ride. The Soarin FPs were valid at 10:05. I got to the TT ride exit just as the kids were coming out. They had walked right through. DD split up to go over to Mission Space. But the rest of us went through the standby line to ride TT again. I have never been through the standby line. It was neat walking through the cone room, since I've actually toured the plant that makes the radios they test there. We were in our cars within 10 minutes and had a great ride!
We met DD at the restrooms in front of test track, then we all headed over to Club Cool to try out a few of the sodas. We killed time by riding Journey into your Imagination, and by then our FPs were ripe for Soarin. For some reason, the regular FP line was closed, so we went in the exit. While we were in line, we spoke to a couple of guys who had the dream fast passes. They were talking about things to do with their family the rest of the day, and I encouraged them to try out the street shows in World Showcase.
Within 5 minutes, we were loaded into Soarin. DS's girlfriend had never been on this ride, because her dad is afraid of heights. She absolutely LOVED it! So we pulled another set of FPs on our way out that were good for 2:00. We split up again at this point. DS wanted to ride Mission Space, but his girlfriend gets motion sickness. Since DD had already ridden MS today, she decided to stay with the girls, so DS headed over to MS on his own. The ladies decided to ride the Energy Adventure. There was a family behind us whose little girl had the same name as my DD (Kaylie), although it was spelled differently. We finished our adventure, and the girls went over to MS to meet up with DS who was in the middle of the space race competition.
I caught a set by the Jamminators while I was waiting on the kids to come out. I hadn't seen them in quite a while, so it was nice to see the whole set. Once we were reunited, everyone was getting hungry, so we headed over to World Showcase. I had planned on Electric Umbrella, because DS's girlfriend is a very unadventurous eater. But EU was closed for rennovation. The China CS was closed too (which is DS's favorite). We ended up getting a plain hot dog in Germany for DS's girlfriend, then heading over to Japan (Yakitori House) for the kids lunch. They all ate, then we headed into the store to get dessert. DD picked out some candy, and DS got a box of chocolate and coffee flavored cookies.
After they were full, the kids headed over to France to see the movie. I left them and picked up some Fish at the Yorkshire Fish Stand. They charge you quite a bit less if you don't want the fries (which I don't eat). I grabbed a table in the garden, and as I was sitting down, I saw the guy from the Soarin line. He said that his wife had been picked for the World Showcase Players show and thanked me for telling them to watch it! I finished my lunch and headed back to France. The kids came rushing up to say that the girls had been picked to hold the rope for the chair guy's show. Apparently the movie wasn't starting for quite a while, so they watched the chair guy instead.
We decided to head over to MK so that DS's girlfriend could ride the mountains. She had never been on any of them, since no one in her family would go. We caught the monorail over and entered MK about 2:00. I sent the kids over to ride Space Mountain while I got FPs for Splash (2:40 return time). I caught the train over to TomorrowLand and met them just as they got off the ride. The kids said that they were doing previews for the Laugh Floor, so we headed over there next. We waited for about 25 minutes, so we probably just missed a show. This was a really cute show! It's still got a few technical glitches, but I think it has the potentially to be really good. It's certainly better than Stitch! They have cameras and put little captions underneath people. One of the first pictures they put up was DS's GF. And it said "I'm dating a monster." DS was soooo funny! He said "Hey!!!! I'm NO monster!" and started shaking his fist at the screen! They had a little girl and it said "I make monster faces", and she started scrunching up her face!
Once we finished the show, we caught the train back over to Frontierland to use our FPs. DD decided she didn't want to get wet (it was about 65, sunny but still a bit breezy), so she went over to get BTMRR FPs for us. We were through the line in about 5 minutes. We split up to get through a little quicker. I got splashed quite a bit at the beginning but didn't get wet in the drop. I met up with DS and his GF, and they were almost completely dry.
The kids were a bit hungry, so we went after some french fries. The McDonalds stand between Frontierland and Adventureland was under renovation, so we went into Pecos Bills instead. I ordered two sides of fries and asked about cheese sauce. The lady asked how many and I said 2. Yes they do charge for cheese now (50 cents each side). But honestly, there was as much cheese as there was fries, so one side would have been MORE than enough for both fries.
After they finished snacking, we headed to BTMRR. For some reason, one of the passes wasn't reading right, so we only had 3 valid FPs (we only had 3 for Splash too, so it was good DD didn't want to go). I sat this one out and just enjoyed the sunshine. The kids were back within 15 minutes. And DS's Girlfriend had a blast again! She really does like riding the thrill rides. We decided we need to take her back to MGM to ride RnR (it was closed our last visit), then one day to AK for Dinosaur and EE and she'll have done all the big rides!
We reloaded back on the monorail, but this time we waited to ride up front. Again, this was something DS's GF had never done. Luckily we had a good pilot and he gave us all co-pilots licenses. Back in EPCOT, we used our Soarin FPs (which we had no problem doing even though they were past the return time), then headed back out of the park. We were back home by 7:30.
It was a great time!
We are heading to Disney again in mid June, I am just loving all these trip reports.
