A Taste of Spring - 30 million blooms, 1000 pics, 6 wonderful nights

[jenseib]

Busy morning already!
I would rather ride soarin any day over TSM, so I plan to be one of the herds to get a FP there. I like TSM, but I don't get the whole hype over it.
I'm debatin on the Fairies. Claire has never had a huge interest in the past to see them, but she is getting more into Tinkerbell now. I don't want to wait an hour to see her though. What is her first appearance time? Maybe we can just see the others and be good.

 

[Colleen27]

Busy morning already!
I would rather ride soarin any day over TSM, so I plan to be one of the herds to get a FP there. I like TSM, but I don't get the whole hype over it.
I'm debatin on the Fairies. Claire has never had a huge interest in the past to see them, but she is getting more into Tinkerbell now. I don't want to wait an hour to see her though. What is her first appearance time? Maybe we can just see the others and be good.

She's out at 9:30 and then not until 10:50. The problem is that with the temporary location the two sets of fairies alternate using the space. Tink and Terrence were out from 9:30 until 10:10, and then Rosetta and Vidia took their place from 10:10 until 10:50, and it continues on like that.

If you want to see Tink I'd suggest having Skip take Claire straight for the Pixie Hollow line at rope drop while you make the run for Soarin' FPs. They hold people at the rope in front of Innoventions until 9 sharp and then start the stampede over to the Land, but the other side of the park usually isn't as tightly crowd-controlled - you can be at Test Track or Pixie Hollow a few minutes before 9.

 

[peanut520]

Fabulous trip report. i am heading to your dining reviews now! can wait to read more! and thanks for all your dining planning tips.

 

[Colleen27]

We were headed alllll the way to the back of Epcot for our lunch at Chefs de France. What a lovely walk that is!

I can't even imagine the patience these guys must have.

We spotted the boat just pulling up to the dock near Canada as we got to the World Showcase loop, so we hopped aboard and saved a bit of walking.

Pocahontas was complaining about a headache, I think because of the forgotten sunglasses. She'd been switching back and forth between her glasses and my non-prescription sunglasses all day, and unfortunately the clip-ons that Disney sells don't fit her plastic frames so we couldn't just buy a pair to solve the problem. I told her if she wasn't feeling better after lunch I'd run back to the room for her sunglasses, but a rest and some air conditioning made for a vast improvement and the afternoon sun wasn't as harsh/glaring as the morning.

Still, we started the afternoon slow with signing up for the 2pm perfumes tour in the France gardens.

The tour itself was a walk around to these Guerlain planters that were scattered around the pavilion. Each contains the plants and flowers used in a specific perfume sold in the shop there in France.

The tour was interesting enough to me, but the girls got bored with it pretty quickly. Pocahontas is far more interested in how the flowers grow than in how to make them into perfume so it just wasn't her thing at all, and the labels on the planter boxes contained a lot of the same information as the tour. I don't think it is something I'd recommend doing with kids; it didn't add that much that I didn't get from walking around the gardens on my own and keeping Boo busy made it hard to enjoy the experience.

With the tour behind us and another 40 minutes to kill in/near France so the girls could see Marie, we decided to head over to see if the Beast was out with Belle. He was, and this was one of the longer character lines we waited in, about 15 minutes under the afternoon sun.

Belle commented on what a brave little princess Boo was, because she went right up to the Beast without hesitation. Well, Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie so she knows the story well, and Pocahontas and one of her friends who all but lives here on the weekends started calling DH "Beast" back when he had his hair long. So Boo sees the Beast as nothing but friendly and proudly told Belle "My daddy beast too".

With a few minutes still to fill, we did something we've never done before - the Impressions de France movie. DH doesn't have much interest in these things unless he's really desperate for air conditioning, so I hadn't seen the movies in France or Canada before this trip.

Boo fell asleep again. Something about the movies, just turn down the lights and she's out. Actually, she fell asleep for a few minutes at the end of Captain EO too, but woke up by the time we got to the stroller.

This time, she slept on my shoulder through the movie but woke up as soon as we were back out in the sunshine, just in time to find Marie.

She really liked how soft Marie is.

Finally done with France we had the rest of the afternoon to make our way around the World Showcase towards Mexico, where we had dinner reservations for the evening.

The water wise garden was our first stop. This is a very nice display area of container gardens and planting techniques intended for home gardeners, and it has a little play structure for the kids. So Pocahontas and Boo played, DM rested her feet, and I went exploring.

Pictures coming in the next post...

 

[Colleen27]

More of the water wise garden.

Lavender hanging to dry, this whole area smelled amazing. I dry my own in our basement and the smell lingers for weeks.

This was really neat, a living wall; the planter is about 10" deep and irrigated with tubing throughout.

Then it was off to Morocco to find the Kidcot stop. Not surprisingly, Pocahontas wasn't interested in a Duffy the Disney Bear on a stick but she had her Guide to the Magic to use as a passport so we were making short stops at each Kidcot location anyway.

Pocahontas posing at a festival merchandise booth. I've ordered one of these adorable fellows for my garden. DH will hate it, but I collect flamingos and it isn't every day I see one with Mickey ears on!

Aladdin and Jasmine had quite a long line and were just leaving for a short break, and it was hot enough that we really didn't want to stand out in the sun to wait for them. They ended up being the other two of the three characters Boo missed for her autograph book, because the line on Monday was even longer.

So we kept moving, on to my favorite of the World Showcase countries.

The outdoor seating area for Yakitori House is so nice and peaceful; I've never seen it busy and the sound of running water is so soothing.

Where the tin toys exhibit used to be there is now an exhibit about how traditional Japanese animal legends have morphed into popular anime series. Pocahontas and I both loved this, being total geeks for anime and Japanese pop culture.

In the original Japanese, the moon rabbit legend is the origin of Sailor Moon's name.

Boo with her first kaki gori. The spoon was just too slow.

This is something I would like to learn to do some day - bonsai. First I have to learn to keep potted plants alive, though.

I love this one - bougainvillea bonsai, so colorful and elegant.

Look at that, I made it through two whole countries before the photo limit break this time!

 

[Colleen27]

In the American pavilion, we were greeted by a couple of green mice.

I love their theme for this area. I was involved with a couple of urban garden projects when I was in college and living in Detroit and now Pocahontas participates in a 4H community garden program in our town, so it is a cause/movement close to my heart.

I am so copying this idea for my yard. Our house is an 1880 Victorian, so quirky gardens work with the age and style of the home, and I love the idea of an antique claw-foot tub as a planter!

I'm so jealous of Donald's corn patch. Mine won't look that good until August!

I have woodworking plans for this style planter in my ideas file. I think I'm going to have DH build a couple for strawberries this year.

The whole time I was taking these pictures, Boo was doing laps on the garden paths. This area always seems to be empty, even though the park was semi-crowded, and it was a perfect place for her to burn off a little extra energy.

The girls didn't feel like seeing the American Adventure show, so next it was on to Italy where we were greeted by the topiary version of Boo's "big puppy dog".

I love the clustered container planters they use to bring gardens to the Italian pavilion even though it doesn't really have any green space to speak of.

Pocahontas liked the masks above the Kidcot stop.

On the path to Germany is Rapunzel's tower.

On to Germany and saving the world in the next post!

 

[Colleen27]

Boo always loves the train garden.

In Germany we did our first Kim Possible mission, which was a lot of fun. The interactive elements that the mission triggers are really amusing, especially the singing steins, and it takes you to places in the country you might never have noticed before.

Victory!

While we were here I just had to stop at Karamel Kuche for a couple of goodies. We didn't actually get around to eating them until we got home, though!

The Dwarves topiary are so adorable, the poses have so much personality.

Snow White is better photographed earlier in the day, by the way. Otherwise you end up with your shadow on her skirt.

Near the Outpost are some of the cutest figures of the entire festival.

Then we were off to China in search of Mulan. Pocahontas loves her (a sword fighting princess is just cool to a 9yo tomboy!) so we had to find her.

Time for another break so I can fit the rest of China in one post!

 

[Colleen27]

The whole China pavilion is just so pretty that I always take a million pictures.

For Flower & Garden they had the figures of the Chinese zodiac on display in the gardens.

I really missed the acrobats this trip. They were one of our favorite World Showcase performers for years, and for Disney to let them go and replace them with nothing is just beyond disappointing. Mulan now meets where they used to put on their show, rather than on the porch of the Reflections of China building.

Boo has no idea who Mulan is, but that didn't stop her from giving a big hug.

The panda topiary are adorable. They're eating live bamboo.

After the break, I'll wrap up our long Epcot day.

 

[Colleen27]

At this point it was getting pretty close to our ADR time so we scooted along for a very quick stop in Norway to get Pocahontas her passport stamp before heading to Mexico for dinner.

These carvings over the door of the church in Norway are just amazing, so incredibly intricate.

The Mexican pyramid at sunset.

Dinner in a very pretty restaurant.

After dinner, we did a little ride commando time. It was supposed to be an early night, but the girls weren't tired and we still had Soarin' fastpasses to use, so I set a new goal of being on a bud before Illuminations ended and we headed back to FutureWorld.

On the way, we saw Pooh's friends.

And finally got to the Land, where I tucked my camera away for the night.

We babyswapped Soarin' with our FPs, and I noticed something that came up again on our Magic Kingdom day - the word is definitely out about the fact that Disney doesn't enforce fastpass return times. We waited about 25min using the fastpass line, not quite long enough to defeat the purpose but much longer than we're used to waiting with a FP.

After Soarin', we headed for the gate with a quick stop at Spaceship Earth for Pocahontas. Boo fell asleep on the ride and had a nice little nap on the way to the bus.

When the bus turned into Pop, she did the cutest thing that she ended up continuing for the rest of the trip. When she saw the Pop Century logo she said "I'm home!". And because she had that nice little nap, the next thing she said was "Go swimming?". Fortunately it only took the walk to the room for the girls to decide it was too cold to swim, so we settled down to watch Phineas and Ferb in bed instead.

Both girls were fast asleep before I'd even gotten back from running for our nightly mug refill, which was a good thing because the plan for the next day was a very long day at the Magic Kingdom!

 

[lovesdumbo]

"My daddy beast too".

Too funny!!!

I love Marie! She is nice & soft! The girls look so great in their swirly Mickey tops!

Where the tin toys exhibit used to be there is now an exhibit about how traditional Japanese animal legends have morphed into popular anime series. Pocahontas and I both loved this, being total geeks for anime and Japanese pop culture.

Cool! Can't wait to see that!

I've never noticed that sewing machine-I'll have to find on my next trip.


Loving all your photos!!!

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

I'm here..too bad we never ran into each other while we were there, but I am loving your report!! I started mine, but it will take me some time to get it really going..so much still to do around the house with laundry catch up and school work catch up and I'm still feeling pretty crummy....keep the posts coming, it's like re living our trip isn't it?

 

[sandym718]

Catching up, too busy yesterday to read....GREAT photos, the World Showcase and Flower and Garden shots are just stunning!

 

[jenseib]

Wow, thos pictures are amazing. You saw so much at WS. I don't think I knew half of that existed. I can't wait to go and see for myself.

 

[amandaluvsgoofy]

I love the clustered container planters they use to bring gardens to the Italian pavilion even though it doesn't really have any green space to speak of.

I LOVE this idea!! Our house kind of has a Mediterranean look to it and I wasn't sure how to pull it off. This is perfect! Gotta go out and buy some plants and pots!!
And I need to mention, I've never thought about going during the Flower & Garden Festival, but your pictures are awesome! It really makes me want to consider a trip at this time!!

 

[Colleen27]

I'm here..too bad we never ran into each other while we were there, but I am loving your report!! I started mine, but it will take me some time to get it really going..so much still to do around the house with laundry catch up and school work catch up and I'm still feeling pretty crummy....keep the posts coming, it's like re living our trip isn't it?

It really is! DH already has me running numbers for the next one, and I keep telling him he has to give me enough time to finish this trip report and get the laundry caught up before I get into that planning-obsession again.

Catching up, too busy yesterday to read....GREAT photos, the World Showcase and Flower and Garden shots are just stunning!

Wow, thos pictures are amazing. You saw so much at WS. I don't think I knew half of that existed. I can't wait to go and see for myself.

Thank you both. I love my camera, and I love taking pictures. One of these days I'm going to go to WDW solo so I can take my time with my composition and exposure, rather than click-clicking away in tourist mode, but for the time being I'm just glad Disney has lots of pretty things for a total amatuer to capture.

I LOVE this idea!! Our house kind of has a Mediterranean look to it and I wasn't sure how to pull it off. This is perfect! Gotta go out and buy some plants and pots!!
And I need to mention, I've never thought about going during the Flower & Garden Festival, but your pictures are awesome! It really makes me want to consider a trip at this time!!

It was the pictures that got me too. A friend from another forum went in '06 and I've been trying to get there for it ever since. It was such a lovely time to be there, great weather and so much to see and do!

I'm slacking off on the updates for today. It was just too pretty here to spend much time at the computer when there are garden beds to start cleaning up for planting, but rest assured that nice weather in Michigan in March doesn't last long. I'll probably get an update done tomorrow because winter is supposed to be back.

 

[Moira222]

I just LOVE all of your photos and the girls are so cute. i love their matching outfits. My DD will only wear an outfit if I don't want her to.

I will catch the last weekend of Flower & garden festival...your photos have me so excited for it.

off to bed for me, 5:45 comes FAST

 

[Colleen27]

I had all sorts of wonderful rope drop intentions for our Magic Kingdom day, but then Disney threw me for a loop and pushed the park opening back to 8am. Even on this trip, when we were all getting up earlier than we do with the guys along, that was a bit too ambitious a goal.

So after 6 trips, I still haven't seen the Magic Kingdom opening show.

We got to the park about 8:30 and the first thing out of Boo's mouth was "I'm hungry", so instead of heading straight for Fantasyland we made a slight detour to grab a couple muffins from the Main Street Bakery.

It was kind of funny, as we were sitting at a little table outside while the girls ate my mom commented about the castle looking plain. After a few minutes we realized it was the first time she'd ever seen it without some sort of themed decoration - our first trip was during the cake-castle year, then we were back during the "Happiest Celebration" with the golden accents, and then at Christmas with the icicle lights.

With the bottomless pit temporarily satisfied, we journeyed on to Fantasyland. We stopped by to check on the line for the Tangled play & greet and decided not to bother; it wasn't even 9 yet and the first show was full and there was a line forming for the 10:15. The cast member working the line suggested coming back around 10ish for the 11:15 set, but I didn't want to see it bad enough to spend that long in line.

Then it was on to the rides!

First up was the tea cups, just because we came to them first. This is the one and only ride in all of Disney World that I absolutely will not go on, but luckily DM doesn't mind spinning rides. She just doesn't do fast or high; dizzy is a-ok. So she took the girls on while I wandered around taking pictures.

Then it was on to Winnie the Pooh. I'd read when the new queue first opened that to really get a chance to play with it you have to use the standby line, so we wanted to hit this one early. It was posting a 20 minute wait already at 9ish, but I doubt the line was really that long. I think it took us about 10 minutes of the girls playing in the queue while people who actually wanted to get to the ride passed us by, then another 10 minutes when we actually joined the line. This area is such an improvement, and I love that they're applying the concept to other rides!

I didn't take pictures of the honey screens, but they're well worth spending some time playing with. There are surprises there to discover.

We did eventually get to the ride itself, which Boo loved except for the dream sequence. That scared her a little bit.

Dumbo was posting a 35 minute wait and Boo was more interested in the carousel, which was a walk on, so guess which direction we went in?

Pocahontas pouted a little because Boo got to pick the horses this ride. I promised when we came back later, she'd get her turn to pick.

To be continued...

 

[Colleen27]

The construction tarps are over the back of the castle now, and blocking the windows at CRT.

Pocahontas needed to use the little girls' room, so we headed over to the ones behind Pinocchio Village Haus and came across this fellow.

I grabbed us a set of fastpasses for Peter Pan and we went over to Small World. This was Boo's favorite ride on the last trip, and I was prepared to ride twice in a row if she wanted to. And of course she did.

By now it was getting close to 10am and we had to head back to the front of the park for the girls' haircuts. DM decided that she didn't really want to walk all the way back to the gate, so instead she got in line for Tangled while I took the girls to the barbershop.

On the way back to the front of the park we discovered a new favorite thing for Boo - the trolley welcome show. Since we had a few minutes to spare we watched until they hopped back onto the trolley to drive off.

We checked in for our haircuts about 5 minutes early, and we were next up. They were surprisingly un-busy; this was our first time there since they started taking appointments and it was a nice change from the line-out-the-door we were used to. Both girls were called about the same time and since they were both just getting a split-ends trim it didn't take long at all.

The barber that cut Boo's hair was perfect, and he earned himself a very nice tip by listening when I told him we were just looking for a ceremonial first haircut without much actually taken off. He only cut about 1/2 an inch off her pretty curls!

She was very happy with her "big girl" haircut and "earning" her ears.

Boo was too fascinated by all her stickers to cooperate with our traditional barber pole picture.

Then it was back down Main Street to meet DM at the Storybook Garden. It was only 10:50 when we left the barber shop, so we were in no hurry.

At home, we tease Pocahontas about being "little mommy" because she's always right there to take care of her baby sister.

We stopped to watch a bit of the castle show on our way back through.

I love the little things at Disney. This might be the prettiest trash can I've ever seen.

 

[Colleen27]

We rejoined my mom in line for Tangled about 5 minutes before they started letting people in, and the girls passed the time by calling DH. This was the day where it really got to be obvious that they were missing him, and I think they called him 4 times.

This concept for a meet and greet is cute, but the capacity is just horrible! There was enough of a line left after our show was full that I'll bet some of them didn't even get into the next one.

Another thing that wasn't so great about this setup is that the table is much too high for younger children to color on. Pocahontas had a good time with her coloring page, but Boo couldn't reach the table and didn't want to sit on the ground to color. She ended up coming back to sit with us and read the Alice in Wonderland book that was in the diaper bag instead of coloring with the bigger kids.

She rejoined her sister for the little dance.

We were about in the middle of the pack for the meet & greet line, so the girls goofed around a little while we were waiting for our turn with Rapunzel.

Boo was very impressed with the cast member who was taking Pascal around to meet the kids.

This was another occasion where the characters were very impressed by Boo's book. Flynn Rider especially liked seeing himself in her book. The characters were really great, very in character, and took their time with the girls which I guess is the upside of the really low capacity. The girls really enjoyed the whole experience, and I was glad my mom had the patience to wait because I wouldn't have.

By the time we were done, it was about time to check in for our noon lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table.

I posted a full review of lunch on my dining reviews thread, but as far as character interaction went this was some of the most rushed of the whole trip. Much more so than in the parks. Cinderella didn't even comment on Pocahontas' dress, and none of the characters really said much. It was just a quick signature, quick picture, and then off to the next table. Belle was the only exception; she spent a minute chatting with Boo about how she has the same dress hanging in her closet, and she really should wear it more.

The girls didn't notice the difference, but in my view that kind of defeats the purpose of character dining; usually we do it for two reasons - to avoid lines and to have better/longer interaction with favorite characters. This trip it really fell short, and I'm thinking maybe next trip we'll just stick to planning meals for good food and meet the characters in the park.

And speaking of better interaction in the parks, who did we come across after leaving the restaurant but Peter Pan? He was adorable, so in character, commenting on his friend Tink's signature in Pocahontas's book and telling Boo that his friend Wendy has curly hair just like hers.

Boo really liked him. I just love the look on her face in this shot.

After seeing Peter Pan, we headed out, taking the very long way via Frontierland so that I could grab a set of Splash fastpasses before we left.

Fastpasses in hand, we hopped the train around to Main Street to head out of the park. Since we had such a late night planned, I wanted to make sure the girls had plenty of time to rest.

The Toontown stop for water is really depressing with the most undecorated giant construction fence along the side of the tracks. Donald's Boat was still there, peeking over the Toontown fence. It has since been demolished.

We had a short wait for a bus to get back to Pop, and we ended up with the bus all to ourselves. Boo was so cute as we pulled into the resort, telling us "I'm home!" and asking to see her "big puppy Lady".

 

[jenseib]

What a fun day.
I know that the tarps on on the castle, but do you know why? What is being done that they need to cover up those windows?
I don't think we wil lwait for Rapunzel. I know DD wants to see her, but I just can't stand in line for hours like that. I would go nuts, and I'm sure she would too.