And that was without even a single drop of rum! UPDATES 5/16 Tower of Terror 10 Mile race

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Well I doubt anyone is still subscribed to this, but if by chance you remember this report I am finally coming back to continue. Brian and I went to DL in January to run the Star Wars half marathon, then immediately after that we started to pack up the house and we moved to Austin, Texas in the beginning of February. Ever since then, we have been unpacking and I've been having some pretty rough Disney withdrawal. Anyway, I'm sort of settled in and I'd like to relive some Disney memories, so I am going to continue this report and will also be doing a simultaneous report about the DL trip. So I hope you will want to join me Again, or for the first time.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I'm still here! And we are currently planning our first trip to Disneyland so any tips you have for that will be welcome!

 

[ashw100]

Yes, so glad your back. Can't wait for more antics, blooper pics, and now DL TR.

 

[nataliej_vk]

Yippy your back!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

I'm still here! And we are currently planning our first trip to Disneyland so any tips you have for that will be welcome!

Ahh then you'll have to come over to my DL report that I am about to start on I have tons of tips.

Yes, so glad your back. Can't wait for more antics, blooper pics, and now DL TR.

Oh don't worry, all those things and definitely bloopers are coming.

Yippy your back!

Back and all ready to write!

 

[stacy~**]

I've been wondering where you disappeared to! Glad to see you back and insanely jealous of your move out of Ohio. I hope you are enjoying things in Austin. I'm bummed we never crossed paths here but maybe one day we will.

We've been watching the Star Wars movies. We aren't finished yet but I am excited to look back through your May report after we finish them since it was all pretty foreign to me before!

Get to writing....I want to hear about this trip!!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Friday morning we were up super early. Friday was basically a bonus day because we hadn't planned on being there that early. So we decided to do something epic with this bonus day. This was going to be our character hunting day! We wanted to see just how many characters we could find in one day in all 4 parks.



How many of these characters will we see?!

We made it to MK at opening, 9 am.



We knew that characters came out around town square at opening, so we decided to sit back and see who would come out.

We saw our first target...err character and rushed to meet her.



We challenged her to a supercali-off, and no surprise to anyone here, Mary blew us away. Ms. Poppins can supercali it up down back to front and sideways. Practically perfect in every way, as they've always said.

Then we stopped for a quick, very sunny picture in front of the Halloween decorations.



While waiting for our next character, we saw a very interesting green pumpkin:



Next character:



Aurora! I love my 'I'm having a serious conversation with this character' face that I seem to use on them all.

This Aurora was amazing! If they don't already, Disney should definitely use her in their commercials.



On our way to Snow White, we saw the trolley show.



Unfortunately, her line was already closed off so we made a beeline to a place we knew we could check many characters off our list:

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm45/rachelashbrook/Disney%20Universal%20Fall%202014/Day
%202/20140926_094546_zpsljd9uqnl.jpg

I like that you enter through Pete's mouth. He did always have a big mouth, but I didn't know it was that big. Ba dum dum ching. I'll be here all night folks.

And speaking of Pete, why in the world isn't he meetable in his own sideshow?

Anyway, we arrived with one minute until opening, so we waited in line with a few other groups. We waited for the girls first, since I'd always thought their line grew faster.

Here is Minnie posing with her poodles with the group ahead of us met with Daisy. Minnie had quite a long time to pose with the poodles, since the group in front of us had 12 tote bags for each
character to sign. Now, I really don't mean to complain too much, especially since we are adults meeting characters and some people think that we are taking the characters time away from kids, butugh. It took the characters a very long time to sign 12 tote bags.



We finally got our turn with Daisy and she took quite a liking to Brian.





I wasn't too jealous though, since Donald is my main duck I'm ok with Brian taking Daisy out to buy her some new shoes every once in a while.

Then it was our turn to meet Minnie.





Next up we moved over to the boys' side of the room and only had a few minutes wait until it was time to meet the Goof himself. We asked him about crashing his motorcycle into the wall. He agreed with us that he probably shouldn't be allowed to operate any type of motor vehicle.



And then it was time for the number one duck himself!!





We had a very interesting conversation:





Sadly we had to say goodbye.



We had 2 more characters we wanted to visit before we left the MK.



Where were we headed?...



Well, no, I mean, that picture makes it look like we were headed to the Haunted Mansion, but really we were just waiting in line for...



The 2 rootinest tootinest cowpokes in the wilderness. Woody and Jessie might take offense at my giving that title to the chipmunks, but oh well.

It was time to say goodbye to the MK for now and head off to our next destination...




It was actually very odd. The monorail arrived with rain on it, yet we never saw rain at MK or Epcot. Which goes to illustrate how random and strange Orlando's rain can be.

So it was almost 11 and we'd already seen 8 characters and we were hopeful that we could make Epcot in time for the character training.

Would we?! Keep in mind I am always late for everything...

 

[ashw100]

Awesome character meets. I can't believe anyone would begrudge an adult meeting a character and 12 totes is ridiculous, sorry. Can't wait to see who you meet in Epcot. I've always wanted to do the character training at Epcot or HS.

 

[wiscbugs]

I'm glad you got out of Ohio...I wouldn't want to be by all those Buckeyes either

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

I've been wondering where you disappeared to! Glad to see you back and insanely jealous of your move out of Ohio. I hope you are enjoying things in Austin. I'm bummed we never crossed paths here but maybe one day we will.

We've been watching the Star Wars movies. We aren't finished yet but I am excited to look back through your May report after we finish them since it was all pretty foreign to me before!

Get to writing....I want to hear about this trip!!

I was planning on trying to get to the Disney store when you were working, but moving was soooo much harder than I thought. Everyone tells you its more work than you think, but I don't think I believed anyone. Add to that in Columbus it was about 15 degrees and snowing the days we were trying to pack the truck and I was still getting over an awful sickness I got at the tail end of the DL trip...ugh. Maybe some of our trip dates will match up. We are pretty much insane, but we decided to do a long weekend trip for SWW and the 24 hour party again We had Southwest points for the flights and will be sharing a value room with Brian's mom and sister, so we're trying to keep it pretty cheap. I think Brian agreed because the move was kind of hard on me, I've never lived anywhere except Pennsylvania and Ohio and my parents were always just 2 and a half hours away.

Awesome character meets. I can't believe anyone would begrudge an adult meeting a character and 12 totes is ridiculous, sorry. Can't wait to see who you meet in Epcot. I've always wanted to do the character training at Epcot or HS.

12 really was ridiculous! I'm glad you agree. Well, looks like your in luck, because you get to hear about Epcot character training and the Characterpalooza!

I'm glad you got out of Ohio...I wouldn't want to be by all those Buckeyes either

Haha I miss Ohio State We lived about 5 minutes from campus and I'm sad we're so far now. It was so funny, we actually ended up watching the national championship game on my laptop at a junky hotel in Death Valley. We had our DL and California trip planned for then, so we had to take drastic measures to watch the game.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Love "bonus" days and love when people use those extra days to do something different - and seems like you are off to a great start meeting characters!

And speaking of Pete, why in the world isn't he meetable in his own sideshow?

I remember when it was first announced this would be a part of New Fantasyland and people were speculating Pete would be there and that since it was a "side show" it would have other "rare" characters - but obviously that was not to be

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Love "bonus" days and love when people use those extra days to do something different - and seems like you are off to a great start meeting characters!

I remember when it was first announced this would be a part of New Fantasyland and people were speculating Pete would be there and that since it was a "side show" it would have other "rare" characters - but obviously that was not to be

Thanks! I started to read your pre-trip report, if I ever get some more free time I need to start commenting. When I was in middle school I made a kind of serial humorous story publication thingie in school that I called 'and now for something completely different'. Ah Monty Python.

Yeah I remember that speculation too. Disney really does usually let down us character hunters

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

When you last left your intrepid heroes (us), we were racing towards Epcot. If we were to meet our goal of meeting as many characters as possible, we were going to have to play all the wild cards. That first wild card was the Epcot character training.

*Disclaimer* I get a lot of my character info from Kenny the Pirate. If you need to know anything about character meets, go to his page. Best resource out there. Wish there was a Kenny the Pirate for DL, but that is a complaint for my other trip report.

So anyway, this is what Epcot character training is: on random days, there are 5 spots that I know of where characters come out to get some experience meeting guests.

1. The big gate in between America and that little donut/coffee stand. It is right across from the theater and next to the big outdoor seating at America.
2. Next to Figment
3. By the International Gateway
4. At the gate in between Canada and England
5. In a little plaza across from the EO ride

The worst part is, these trainings can happen at random times as well. I think we had the most success from 11-12:30. Usually the most characters will show up at the American gate in between 11-12.

We jumped off the monorail and headed quickly down the ramp. Did anyone else notice how long it takes to get down that ramp from the monorail to Epcot? Oh my gosh it is like a mile. The ramp is fine if your not in a hurry, but I really wish they'd put in some stairs so if you are in a rush you can get down quickly.

So we continued to make our way as fast as we could, hoping we weren't rushing for nothing. It is super hard for me to walk right by Spaceship Earth and not ride it. I love love love that ride.

Finally we made it to America...and best timing ever!! We were so lucky! I wish I had a picture of all the characters coming out, but ah well, you'll have to see them one by one.



Smee was a proper gentleman.



Hook just doesn't know what he has there. No appreciation.



Then again, Hook doesn't really have an appreciation for anything, besides fine clothing and being annoyed at Pan.

I think my photo with Hook didn't come out

Sometimes there are attendants here, but most of the time you have to switch off for pictures or ask the people behind you to take your picture.

Next up was Pinocch.



His bow tie was a little bit askew and I let the handler know so Pinocchio could look his best.

Next up was that rascal, Stitch.



I think we were making muscles...not exactly sure what I'm doing. I'm not very coordinated or good at doing...stuff.

Here he is showing Brian what pose they were going to do:







Many of the characters loved Brian's Captain America shirt.

Next up was the main mouse himself:



I like the woman accidentally photobombing in the back. I think her face says 'OMG! Look at all those characters!'.

Our mad character meeting was interrupted by these guys:



This was actually a happy interruption. It was the Fife and Drums last day. I won't even get into that too much, except to say shame on you Disney, especially since you didn't even replace them with anything else. Way to be distinctly un-American.



Mickey was directing them. This picture kind of shows how not busy these character trainings are. We met all these characters in about 15 minutes.

After seeing off the Fife and Drum, Brian had some flirting to do with Minnie.



Here she is assuring me she isn't after my man:





That was our last character for the training. Mission accomplished! At this point we were starving, and it was way past due (haha we'd been there not even a full day) to test out some Food and Wine booths.



I remember this as being delicious...but I apologize, I have no idea where it was from or what it was, my notes from this day are not great. Trip report fail I just lost one of my health hearts.

Next up we realized that Snow White was about to come out in about 10 minutes. So we joined the line and were about 3 groups back. We chatted with a lovely couple behind us. They happened to live in Austin, Texas and we told them we were moving there. It's a small world after all. It's a small, small world.

I remember this day as being blazingly hot. I was glad we met our new friends, because the wait for Snow White was brutal otherwise. Finally it was our turn and Snow...kind of freaked me out. She talked exactly like Betty Boop and I just couldn't handle it so I let Brian do the majority of the talking while I stood there trying to get my world straight.




We needed a break from the sun so we ducked into China next to check out the exhibit.



I wish I could see this stuff in real life. I bet it is pretty incredible.

After we had cooled down I had to take a million pictures of China. I think it is one of the prettiest pavilions.





But really, we were just killing time until my hero came out to do meet and greets:



I think we only waited 5 minute sin line because we got there early. Also, ugh, what are my eyes doing. Let me just give a quick teaser, I have one of the best blooper photos from this meet and greet. I'll be doing that when I finish this day, so that is definitely a pic to look forward to.

I really wish Mulan met in her Ping disguise, but whatever, she is one of my favorites. She is always talking about fighting and training and she is the best.




The super sunny day was quickly turning gray and rain was threatening, so we rushed to our next character destination.

 

[stacy~**]

Sorry the move has been hard. I'm sure you will adjust more as time goes on.

I'm guessing I will just miss you in May. I am helping Olivia drive her car down for the DCP! We are arriving the week before the 24 hour day (May 15) and I will be leaving on May 19 (Tuesday). It doesn't surprise me at all that you are doing the 24 hour day again!! We aren't doing our long family trip until July.

Love your character meet day! Nice to see Aurora was so great. I often think her friends just aren't very good fits.

Can Chip and Dale always be in some type of clothing? They are soooo cute!

I see you just posted another update....I'm going to post these and go read the next one.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Sorry the move has been hard. I'm sure you will adjust more as time goes on.

I'm guessing I will just miss you in May. I am helping Olivia drive her car down for the DCP! We are arriving the week before the 24 hour day (May 15) and I will be leaving on May 19 (Tuesday). It doesn't surprise me at all that you are doing the 24 hour day again!! We aren't doing our long family trip until July.

Love your character meet day! Nice to see Aurora was so great. I often think her friends just aren't very good fits.

Can Chip and Dale always be in some type of clothing? They are soooo cute!

I see you just posted another update....I'm going to post these and go read the next one.

The DCP?!?! No way!!! What will she be doing?? Maybe I can stop to see her at work, unless she would think that was weird that one of her mom's friends was looking for her hah. Ugh I'm so jealous. It really is one of my biggest life regrets that I didn't do that.

Yeah we're arriving Wednesday night and are doing Universal Thursday since that is our last day of our AP, then it will be Disney from then on out until Tuesday.

I agree about Aurora, she is usually a giant yawn (hahaha), but this one was just so amazingly perfect.

I think all the regular character need to be available in more outfits.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I didn't even know about the character training meets - that is pretty cool to know. I have seen in other trip reports some character meets in EPCOT that seemed kinda random - especially by the IG - wonder if that happened to be part of the training

Instead of stairs it would be cool if they put in a fireman's pole to slide down from the monorail platform

That's a cute picture of Mickey directing the fife and drum!

We have found several of the lines for the princess meets in EPCOT - Snow White's but also Belle's - are really out in the sun and you often have to get there very early if you want to be able to meet the princess so it can definitely be a bit much at times

I tend to think each of the pavilions is the prettiest ... until I get to the next one

 

[burly]

Looking forward to much more...

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

I didn't even know about the character training meets - that is pretty cool to know. I have seen in other trip reports some character meets in EPCOT that seemed kinda random - especially by the IG - wonder if that happened to be part of the training

Instead of stairs it would be cool if they put in a fireman's pole to slide down from the monorail platform

That's a cute picture of Mickey directing the fife and drum!

We have found several of the lines for the princess meets in EPCOT - Snow White's but also Belle's - are really out in the sun and you often have to get there very early if you want to be able to meet the princess so it can definitely be a bit much at times

I tend to think each of the pavilions is the prettiest ... until I get to the next one

Yep, they do character training by the IG, you'll see we stumble upon one later in the trip.

I agree with you on the pavilions. They are all so different and amazing, I really wish they'd make a few more.

Looking forward to much more...

Thank you!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

The day was quickly turning dark and stormy. We didn't want to stop our character hunting, so we made for a very logical place:

Mexico!!!

One of my favorite pavilions. There is something incredible about that wonderful little town, in perpetual nighttime, inside the pyramid. I like to stroll around and pick out which house I'd like to live in. I also think Mexico has some of the best souvenir shopping. I've bought a couple wood carved animals, a toucan statue for my adventurer's bar and a 3 caballeros tshirt.

Side note: my goal in life, once we get a house, is to build my adventurer's bar. Ideally, we will be living in an area of the US where it is warm most of the year so my bar can be outside. I've taken inspiration from the Adventurer's Club and Trader Sam's. I'm going to put all of my little knick knacks I pick up from all the places I've traveled, and it's going to have 'Disney' type touches, like a coat rack with Indiana Jones' and Jack Sparrow's hats, and Starlord's jacket, like they all stopped in to the bar and ran off leaving their affects. I even want to design a signature drink.

Anyway, back on topic. My favorite was meeting inside because of the rain and there was only one group ahead of us!

Donald noticed Brian's Captain America shirt and wanted us to make muscles with him.






After Donald, we checked the next item off our list:



The classic margarita! These drinks are so strong and good here. We did the tequila tasting our last trip so we feel like we are experts. You don't need many of these drinks to get into the Disney spirit, if you know what I'm sayin

Right after we got our drink these guys started playing:



Mariachi El Cobra! They don't usually play inside but were because of the rain. I kind of think they should perform inside more often, it really boosts the small Mexican town atmosphere.

I really like mariachi bands. If you want to listen to a great mainstream mariachi band, check out Mariachi El Bronx's song, 48 Roses, its on youtube or Spotify.

After partaking of our drink and the musical talents of the band, we were ready to part with some of our money and found a bark painting to purchase. I just tried looking for it to share a picture, but it is still packed away somewhere. These are my favorite type of Disney souvenirs, original artwork from the countries. I can display them and it makes Brian happy because there is no way to tell it is from Disney, but it always reminds me of our lovely rainy afternoon in Mexico.

We peeked outside and the rain had stopped for the time, so we made for our next destination. Before we arrived, ti had started to rain again. Which was actually a good thing, because it caused me to make my favorite purchase of the trip. We were speed walking through China and spotted those adorable animal umbrellas. I am pretty sure they are for children, but that has never stopped me before. So for $12 I bought the dragon umbrella. Seeing as how it would (SPOILER ALERT) rain non-stop for the next few days, it was a great value.

We finally made our next stop:



Another excellent pavilion to explore and get lost in.

Before we discovered a whole new world, we had some new friends to meet:





I like it when Disney lets there be more than one character so that they can play off each other.

No other World Showcase characters were scheduled to come out for a while, so we left through the International Gateway and took the boat to DHS to keep our next appointment.



What pretty blue skies...hahaha.



Gray skies over TOT? How fitting.



As you may have guessed, on a character hunting day we were headed for characterpalooza.

Which turned out to be a bust...We had time for one character before the rest were pulled back inside due to rain.



Not that this penguin wasn't lovely, he really was. But we were disappointed that we couldn't add more characters to our total. Usually you can get 8-10 characters at a palooza.

To help with the disappointment, we shared a carrot cake cookie at the Writer's Stop.



I dare anyone to be in a bad mood after one of those puppies.

So after our busted characterpalooza, we hopped on a bus.



We liked this sign because it had Urban Meyer from OSU advertising the new college playoff, which was a good move by the marketing people. Kind of prophetic, but that is a story for another Disney trip (i.e. my DL trip report I'm writing).

We arrived back at the most magical place on Earth and it was raining again But at least we had our new umbrella.

Once we arrived at our next character stop we only had a few minutes to wait until they came out. Can you guess who is under the huge umbrellas towards the left side of the picture??



Tiana and Naveen! *Best moment of the trip alert*. That is right, we were about to have an amazing time!



They spotted our umbrella while we waited in the queue and they were both enamored, to say the least.

Tiana wanted to be a dragon, so Naveen pretended to battle the dragon, using his umbrella as a sword and his cape as his shield.



Then Tiana wanted to know what the umbrella's name was. I was pretty shocked to realize that I had not yet named the umbrella, since I usually name every inanimate object I get (mostly stuffed animals) and give it a back story too. I asked if either of them had any good suggestions so they spent a few minutes studying the dragon.



Naveen went first. The back of the umbrella had the great wall of China on it, so I think he took inspiration from that and suggested Wall-e.



Tiana gave him a Look and was like uh no.





Then she came up with Dungeon! Like dungeons and dragons, I assume. I like the way you think, Tiana!

Naveen took Dungeon back to look him over again and agreed, along with the rest of us, that Tiana always has the best ideas.



We all posed for a final picture together and said our goodbyes.



If you were ever on the fence about visiting these 2...do it! So much fun. The only thing is that Naveen doesn't usually met with Tiana until the late afternoon, so you have to time it right. So worth it though. Best character interaction of the trip. It also made Dungeon that much more special, not everyone gets to be christened by a princess.

I'll leave off here for now. It was approaching dinnertime, so I'll make a character count up to this point in the next post.

 

[Sailormoon2]

Thoroughly enjoying this report What a great "game" you two came up with...I love the idea of character hunting. Sadly our impending trip is a 4 day park commando-athon so there will be no time for characters. LOL!