AN AP-ALOOZA with a baby! October TR turned year of Disney! NEW 2/7 AUG FINISHED!

[kmedina]

Your apron is cute. Aria's dress is adorable. It is a shame your cat got lost. Have you found the cat yet? Glad you had a great time hosting the party. I love the ornament.

 

[TMGosizk]

It sounds like you had a very fun party and I hope you have had some good news about Jake!

Love the Alice in Wonderland ornament, too! The personalization is a great touch!

I hope you have a fantastic time in the World and really enjoy VWL!

 

[Imagineer5]

Oh no! That's very sad news. I do hope Jake returns before you leave for Disney. He's a beautiful cat and very loved, I'm sure. Please let us know how it all goes. Your Christmas party sounds like lots of fun! And wow, you might have already left for Disney by now! I hope you have an AMAZING time full of fun adventures! Can't wait to hear all about it!

Responding about Jake below but the party was a ton of fun!

Your apron is cute. Aria's dress is adorable. It is a shame your cat got lost. Have you found the cat yet? Glad you had a great time hosting the party. I love the ornament.

Thanks I love that apron too! lol. The ornament was a fun find! Responding about Vwl and Jake below!

It sounds like you had a very fun party and I hope you have had some good news about Jake! Love the Alice in Wonderland ornament, too! The personalization is a great touch! I hope you have a fantastic time in the World and really enjoy VWL!

Thank you! They did a great job - I wasn't sure where to put the personalization but I guess they have done it once or twice lol

Thanks so much for the well wishes on Jake - No luck on Jake before we left. Really upsetting and put a real damper on getting excited to leave (and honesty upsetting to be here when I know he is outside freezing somewhere). In laws are staying at our house though so that makes me feel a little better.

We left this morning!! I'm laying in our Vwl room while aria is napping and Andrew is playing on the iPad! Room is really great and the exact location I was hoping for - first floor near the pool!! There is a little alcove near the door so we put the pnp there and going in and out the back is working great. Though they have sidewalk cleaners out or else we'd be sitting outside. Leaving in an hour to head to HDD! So excited!

 

[kmedina]

So sorry about Jake. Hopefully, he is found soon. I fell in love with WL last trip. One day, I really want to stay at VWL. Have fun!

 

[Imagineer5]

So sorry about Jake. Hopefully, he is found soon. I fell in love with WL last trip. One day, I really want to stay at VWL. Have fun!

Wl is beautiful! Though we got spoiled by Blt and bcv walking to the parks. No Jake yet.


Random but this is from our Mk day Friday http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3209402

We were the mk photo family of the day!! Didn't know that existed lol.

Sitting in Epcot while aria naps a chilly 73 degrees lol. Going to be tough going home to 20 tomorrow. Can't believe this trip is almost over already, it just begun!

 

[Dugette]

Hope your trip has gone well. That is really cool about being the photo family of the day! (I'd never heard of that either). Really hoping for good news about Jake.

Caught up on your Downtown Disney TR day also. Crazy day, but you got a lot done! Nice ornament.

Oh, you also mentioned walking to the Poly from Shades of Green. We were on a bus from the Poly with people who were doing that. Sounded like it wasn't bad to get over there at all. I guess there is a shuttle that takes you to the end of the road and then you can pretty much just cross the street and take Poly transportation.

 

[Imagineer5]

Hope your trip has gone well. That is really cool about being the photo family of the day! (I'd never heard of that either). Really hoping for good news about Jake.

Caught up on your Downtown Disney TR day also. Crazy day, but you got a lot done! Nice ornament.

Oh, you also mentioned walking to the Poly from Shades of Green. We were on a bus from the Poly with people who were doing that. Sounded like it wasn't bad to get over there at all. I guess there is a shuttle that takes you to the end of the road and then you can pretty much just cross the street and take Poly transportation.

Thanks for the input! home now, boo. 4 nights went WAY too fast, but for a long weekend trip 4 nights was much better than the 3 we did last december!!

 

[Imagineer5]

Already home from our december trip! It was AMAZING. Between Aria yelling "MINNIE!!!" and running up to her, to singing and clapping for the whole 2 hour meal at HDD, it was such a fun weekend. COLD (well, much warmer than home!) but still amazing.

I'll continue on with August prob. tomorrow, I can't wait to start a whole new TR for the 2013-14 AP but I will probably wait until August is all completed.

Thanks again for reading along everyone!

No good news on Jake - we didn't get one phone call or sighting while we were gone.

 

[deedee2177]

Glad you had a great trip. Can' wait to read all about it.

I'm sorry you didn't get any news about Jake

 

[mandas08]

Sorry you haven't heard anything about Jake, but I'm glad to hear your trip went so well. What a special moment of her running up to Minnie. Glad to see she is going to love the characters. (I unfortunately haven't had that experience with my son haha) Cant wait to read all about it.

I'm very tired of the cold here, cant wait to get to Florida and not walk around in 6 inches of snow.

 

[Dugette]

Sorry that there hasn't been any news about Jake.

I'm so glad that the trip went well and Aria caught on to the character magic. So cute! Glad she liked HDD too. Can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[Imagineer5]

Sorry that there hasn't been any news about Jake.

I'm so glad that the trip went well and Aria caught on to the character magic. So cute! Glad she liked HDD too. Can't wait to hear all about it!

Thank you!! Me too, it was such a hit!! I totally confused it with Mickey's Backyard BBQ and kept waiting for farmer mickey to come out, but other than that it was fun... lol

 

[Imagineer5]

EPCOT day! August 5th

My plans for the day were as follows (again using Kenny the Pirate’s extreme character touring plan and putting in what I wanted to do/see)
DAY 3 – EPCOT, dinner at Maya Grill

Arrive at turnstiles by 8:30, park opens at 8:45
-Meet Daisy & Goofy at 8:45 – on the far right in an alcove before turn corner to spaceship earth
-ride spaceship earth
-Head to character spot to meet mickey, Minnie & Pluto
-9:30 Chip & Dale
-Ride Nemo, check out tanks, etc. Be in France for RD at 11
-Meet Belle right at 11
-Check out France Bakery, ice cream or some other snack!
-head to Morocco for 11:45 meet w/ Aladdin/Jasmine OR
-Go back to UK for 11:30 meet w/ Alice, 12 for Mary Poppins (can skip Alice if we met in MK!, eat!)
-Head to Germany for 12:30 meet w/ Snow White
-Head to China for 1 meet w/ Mulan
-Aria NAPS, I can go to Karamel store to buy snacks, shop, get a wine tasting, etc
-Tigger & Pooh meet in UK toy shioppe 1-4:10
-Duffy 11:30-2:30, 3-6:40
-Visa greet after 4 West
-Head over to Coronado springs for dinner


Our plans derailed somewhere around Belle but we still had a wonderful day!!

So got the day started with some eggs and fresh fruit in the room and then headed to EPCOT – had a parking spot right up in the first row (well, first behind handicap row) and we were 2nd or 3rd family in line. I found it interesting that at our EPCOT day just last weekend, the park did NOT open at 8:45, but it did this day.


The sippy cup she has!?? AWFUL. I hate these ones, the lids HAVE to screw on otherwise they will leak IMO. The snack cup is great, but this one didn't make it home as Aria pulled off the lid this day while I was walking and I didn't see it in time.

Waiting in line for the park to open. BTW, what I did since it was just me there to carry everything & Aria was I left the backback at the base of the stroller and just kept my wristlet and camera out. Sometimes I hooked the wristlet onto the camera so it was just one strap to worry about. This was a bit risky as I usually had the ipad in the backback but luckily no one meddled with my stuff. Don’t tell my DH I did that, he would not be happy I took such risks.

Oh and for my wonderful readers: TIP TIME: the left hand side of security (NOT where the monorail lets out, on the other side) is always empty to go through security. We always walk over that way.

Back to the TR – so once we were through the gates (I can’t even say gate or turnstyle, they were all those MM+ kiosk thingys whatever they are called) we searched for Daisy & Goofy. I only saw Goofy out but we headed right over there. Aria was being shy but we took a few photos.

Then hopped onto Spaceship earth, we always have to start our day with that of course! IDK why I always take photos on this ride, but alas here are the same scenes as always

Aria’s photo was messed up. Boo!

Next on the plan was the Character Spot! Zero wait so we walked right through to meet Mickey

Then Pluto (aria says do NOT touch me!)

And Minnie

No magical moments here, oh well.

Next up was Chip N Dale and we were actually a couple minutes ahead of schedule so Aria ran around the area and I took some photos.

The meet with Chip N Dale was really cute and they joked around with her

Still ahead of schedule and I forgot Living with the Land on my touring plan, so we headed over that way before Nemo. We always love this ride and I love how it always seems different. They must switch the plants out fairly regularly.

yum

I want a room like this at home

continued in next post!!

 

[Imagineer5]

Next up was Nemo – rode that (one of my least favorite rides, if I’m being honest). Did I tell you all that in college I participated in a design a ride engineering contest for Disney? It was my senior project. I lost. LOL but my idea was a roller coaster type of ride based on Finding Nemo. It had two sides – a 40”+ side and then a tame version and my idea was that families could choose which side to ride and then meet up at the end. Anyway, my idea came way before the Nemo ride surfaced and I’m still upset that 1) I didn’t win and 2) that the actual Nemo ride is boring compared to my idea. LOL

But, the Seas pavilion is always fun. Aria loves to pose in there for whatever reason and loves to run around and see the tanks. Just a nice place for her to run around and burn off some steam (in AC!) especially early morning when there are very few people.

I always get this photo, so I had to ask a nice lady to take it this time

We saw Turtle Talk, can't miss that!

Next we headed back to France to line up for Belle. Also did a quick outfit change as she was already pretty sweaty and I wanted her in her Alice dress for meeting Alice later... It was about 10:45 at this point and there were already 5 or 6 families in line ahead of us. I was glad that a CM started an official line though at the rope, so that there wasn’t a mad dash to create a line after he dropped the rope. The meet was super fast with Belle, and we took a couple pics and she hardly said anything. I was a little disappointed in that, but whatever.

Since we were in France and it was only 11:05 I decided to go to the bakery and grab some food for lunch and store it in the stroller for later. Then we headed back over the bridge – I hoped Aria could meet Alice again with a Photopass photographer this time.

Love this architecture.

No luck, poor Alice apparently doesn’t warrant a photopass photographer at any location, boo! But we got a couple more pictures anyway thanks to the CM handler and then we looked for a spot to sit and eat some lunch. I wasn’t going to make the 11:45 meet with Aladdin & Jasmine, so we opted to wait for the 12:45 meet instead and relax for a bit. My sandwich was a chicken caprese and it was pretty good. Aria wanted no part of lunch though (I think she was just too hot, poor thing). We ate in the seating at the Tangierine Cafe as it was nearly empty and near the Jasmine meet.

and then I got two desserts since they both looked great – a lemon tart and a chocolate mousse bomb. Both were delicious and aria had a little of each.

Then we got into line for Aladdin & Jasmine – there was already quite the line forming but luckily it was inside in AC. They were fantastic – really spending time to talk with the families and make jokes, Aladdin was adorable and overall a totally awesome meet. Aria didn’t really know what was going on but we talked about Abu and the tiger and her shoes…lol.

I decided to skip trying to meet Mulan and Snow White – instead we went and rode Maelstrom with no wait and then the Mexico ride with no wait – gave us both some time away from some lines and the heat. There was a thread somewhere with people talking about how the outside part of Maelstrom is looking into Norway. Honestly this wasn’t news to me, but I took a photo anyway.

Then photos from Mexico…she was having fun on the ride and then playing around the fountain

To be continued!

 

[JulieODC]

Even if you didn't do everything you planned, it sounds like a pretty productive morning to me!!

 

[mandas08]

First, Aria's outfits are just adorable. She always looks so darn cute. It isnt nearly as much fun dressing a little boy...haha

Front row parking- This upcoming trip will be our first with a car. I am a bit worried about the whole parking/tram situation, but I hope it works out because I'm not really a huge fan of the buses and really want to have a bit more freedom this trip.

Bummer your Spaceship Earth pic didn't turn out. At least you got part of her face...probably better than I would have done

Finding Nemo- I actually really like this ride. Now I will agree that yours does sound a bit more fun, but I like that I can always count on it to be a walk on when we visit...haha. Our lo always really enjoys it, although last trip I think all the darkness and fish trying to get us scared him a bit. I think this upcoming trip will be better now that he is older and knows more fo the characters.

 

[wiigirl]

Great update!

 

[Imagineer5]

Even if you didn't do everything you planned, it sounds like a pretty productive morning to me!!

Hahaha thank you!! I've gotten pretty good at piling on the things to do in a short period of time, even with Aria in tow!

First, Aria's outfits are just adorable. She always looks so darn cute. It isnt nearly as much fun dressing a little boy...haha

Front row parking- This upcoming trip will be our first with a car. I am a bit worried about the whole parking/tram situation, but I hope it works out because I'm not really a huge fan of the buses and really want to have a bit more freedom this trip.

Bummer your Spaceship Earth pic didn't turn out. At least you got part of her face...probably better than I would have done

Finding Nemo- I actually really like this ride. Now I will agree that yours does sound a bit more fun, but I like that I can always count on it to be a walk on when we visit...haha. Our lo always really enjoys it, although last trip I think all the darkness and fish trying to get us scared him a bit. I think this upcoming trip will be better now that he is older and knows more fo the characters.

Aww thank you!! I am really having a blast doing it too.

I love love love having a car. Even next August if we stay onsite at BLT or something, I want to have a car. MK is the only park that it makes having a car kinda silly, the rest of the parks & DTD really make a car worthwhile IMO. Also, we love to eat at resort restaurants and check out other resorts, and I don't like dealing with crazy transportation schemes LOL.

Aria loves Nemo so we always ride it. They recently took away that scary fish part (it's more lit up now and not moving) so not as scary, I guess. My ride was going to be AWESOME! LOL! (but of course!!)

Great update!

Thanks!!

 

[Imagineer5]

Finishing up EPCOT day!!

Since we were right there, I thought a Duffy meet should cap off the morning before her nap…LOL…the wait wasn’t too bad, maybe 6 families deep, though out in the sun it was pretty hot to be standing there even for 15 minutes. The meet was fine but again Aria didn’t want duffy to touch her. BTW, she high-fived her first character last weekend!!

While waiting in line, they have these "books" to read that tell the story of Duffy.

Playing peek a boo in the stroller. Note the lid-less snack cup LOL.

Now it was nap time for Aria – she was definitely ready for it and fell right asleep. One nap a day makes a huge difference in how well she naps in the stroller! I put the muslin blanket over the stroller to block out the sights but tried to stay in AC as much as I could during her nap. I first spent some time in China

and then made my way around Italy to my destination of choice – Italy!! On the way, the skies started to look extremely ominous and they opened up just as I got to the pavilion. I quickly popped into the first store and headed as close as I could get to the Tutto Gusto then made a run for it and ran inside. They were so sweet – got me a nice table with ample space to put the stroller next to me (with Aria still sleeping) and I had a wonderfully relaxing hour or so with a wine flight and cheese platter.

Awful pic but I just love it in here

At this point I texted Andrew about what a great time I was having if he’d been there he admitted that the rain would have turned him off from doing anything relaxing like that…

When I was finished I paid for the check and headed out with a still-sleeping Aria.

She woke up shortly afterwards though and I gave her an outfit change to freshen up a bit, poor munchkin was sweaty. Then we headed to the UK for a Pooh & Tigger meet (yes, the 2nd time out of 3 times we would meet them lol). The line wasn’t too bad and they let us bring the stroller inside, and the meet was cute. Once again Aria liked Pooh but she definitely has a grudge against Tigger. Still does – he totally freaks her out on the Pooh ride LOL.

I love the UK Pooh meet in Christopher Robin's room, super cute

We spent a little time playing in the UK

Mommy, why did you lock me in here!?

Then we had some fun in Canada

Quick photopass stop

 

[Imagineer5]

continued from previous post!

And then we needed some AC badly so headed into Innoventions (east? IDK) to kill some time and let Aria run around. She was having a blast running in circles in one of the play areas. We also were near the fire engine and I had a photo from there emailed to me.

Next up we went to the Visa meet & greet for a quick photo shoot – I have no idea why Andrew & I stood in a 30 minute long line for this last year (October trip? I don’t even remember). Lately it has been no wait at all. We walked right up and headed inside for the photo which I thought turned out pretty cute and I have it on my desk at work. (from the photo shoot we went to the camera shop to have the free picture printed).

A quick ride on spaceship earth with no line (and another bad Aria pic, boo, this time was really weird)

And a couple more photopass pictures –

And it was time to head out of the park for the day and head to the Coronado Springs resort!! I had another TS restaurant to tick off of my to-do list – Maya Grill! Plus I’d never actually been to CSR so I wanted to check it out, too. We headed straight to dinner –

The restaurant is really nice inside. It was fairly empty (ADR was for 5:30) which was nice and I love Mexican or tex-mex so was excited for this meal. We were seated at a large table and I ordered some milk for Aria but refrained from getting a full kid’s meal for her. Instead I started with the

Southwest Spring Rolls - medley of black beans, sweet corn, roasted red peppers and Monterey Jack cheese rolled into crispy spring roll wrappers and served with a tangy mango BBQ dipping sauce $8.95

Which were absolutely fantastic & I had to share with Aria because she loved them too. I also had an amazing margarita (trying to recreate that fantastic one from San Angel Inn, and while different it was great as well – maybe a mango?)

We also enjoyed the tortilla chips & salsa – aria loves that as well so it was a big hit. For my main dish, I honestly don’t remember. Nothing jogs my memory from the online menu. Overall though the meal was really, really great. A little ipad action at the end for Aria while I continued to eat, plus some stacking cups (side note – they are quite loud when thrown onto tile floor…) and she was pretty good, as well. I would definitely return if convenient to go to the resort, though the resort itself didn’t attract me as much as the other mods.

After dinner we walked around checking out the pool for a moment but I realized if we left ASAP we could get in a little pool time before bedtime for Aria, so we hightailed it out of there and enjoyed the evening with a quick dip in the pool, some TV and jumping on the bed and then eventually a little wine for me while Aria slept. Phew, what a day! I will say, it was very nice having her nap in the stroller and being able to really enjoy the park vs. trying to get everything in in the morning and coming back for a nap.