Allison's Magical 3rd Birthday Trip!

[DISLOVE]

I'm finally going to write a trip report! I always have the best of intentions but I just got home last night and here I am!

The Cast
Me - Kristy, 29 year old, absolutely obsessed with DW
DH - Eric, 30 year old disney fan who enables my obsession
DD, Allison, now 3 year old disney fan who loves the simple things in life

We chose to stay at All Star Movies on this trip. The purpose of this trip was to celebrate Allison's third birthday and we thought it would be a good hotel for that purpose. We booked through Dreams Unlimited and had Sue Ellen as our TA. We were able to secure the Free Dining package, $49 airfare from Southwest, and almost $300 in Disney Visa Rewards points. This trip from beginning to end cost us about $1000 total. Amazing!

We flew out of Manchester, NH at 7:30 am on Monday, Sept 12th. We took advantage of Magical Express and the process was painless even though we did not have our vouches. After landing, we were at the resort within an hour. The video on the bus was okay, nothing all that exciting but was a nice teaser. We checked in and were thrilled that our Fantasia room was ready! We had a quick lunch at the Food Court and then headed to the room to change for swimming!

Mom2of2, Pat, brought by the stroller from the DIS stroller swap. It was nice to meet another DISer. The stroller was clean and in reasonable repair, although it was hard to push because it kept trying to go to the right. It was nice to have a stroller with a basket underneath and a bit of shade for Allison. We don't use a stroller at home anymore so it had been awhile since I had to push one around.

After a fun swimming adventure we jumped over to Magic Kingdom to have dinner at Crystal Palace. Before dinner we had Allison's hair cut again at the Barber Shop. This is always fun and she got a kick out of the pixie dust! Then we did the Magic Carpets and the Tiki Room, Allison loved both of those! Dinner was yummy as usual, the character interaction was good except that Tigger never came to our table. And we were there a LONG time. I was disappointed but Allison didn't even notice!

We were back in the room around 8 pm and got ready for bed! It was a great day and I was feeling AWESOME about our trip.

Day 2...

 

[guangs]

more please...... I love reading trip reports. We are leaving 9/30 so I'm curious what it's like at disney right now.

 

[DISLOVE]

I waited so long to finish this trip report that the day by day events are a little sketchy. I'm going to skip the blow by blow style and give you the overall trip details.

Although this was her third trip, Allison was a little overwhelmed. We did our best to keep her on a schedule and keep her happy. She was exhausted most of the time, despite our best efforts.

The best parts of our trip...
* Meeting Mickey and Minnie at the Magic Kingdom. Allison was a little aprehensive about them, so her baby JJ Alice went first. They rocked and cuddled her doll and then she went over to join them for a great picture.
* The Beauty & The Beast show at MGM. This is Allison's favorite story (and movie) and she really enjoyed it. She does not care for Gaston (he thinks girls shouldn't read, afterall!) and she was yelling "You are yucky Gaston!" But she absolutely loved the story.
* Dinner @ Crystal Palace. We did this on our first night, when Allison was still in great spirits.
* Swimming at our pool at the All Star Movies. This was one of Allison's favorite things to do. It was HOT HOT HOT and the pool was welcome relief.
* The fountains at EPCOT and the Magic Kingdom (Donald's boat and the Pooh playground). Allison could have played in these fountains all week long. Hmm. I wonder if she would have been happier, if we had just let her do that.
* Magic Express! This was so simple, so perfect. I hope that they continue this service.
* Eric took Allison back to the room one of the days. I spent time alone at Animal Kingdom, I did Kali twice and had a blast. I jumped over to the Magic Kingdom and rode Splash Mtn 7 times, 6 times without even getting off. I love the September crowds!

The not so perfect parts...

* Cinderella's Royal Table. I know that the castle is magical, but they need to seriously overhaul the food and service here. I almost think that they take the crowds for granted, service was mediocre. The food was yucky. The princesses were AMAZING.. that made the cost bearable. I took my child out of the castle under diress and spent the rest of her birthday at the hotel. (SIGH)
* Allison's favorite part of EPCOT is the Living Seas. It was closed, and we spent quite a bit of time looking for Crush throughout the park. That was sad.


That's it for now.. Any questions? I'd be happy to answer anything about this trip.