Are you Push?? Our sister trip around the World - COMPLETED 6/13!

[rachel09985]

I love the photos in front of the France fountain!

Wow about what that girl in front of you said!!

Kids need a reality check sometime!

 

[teekathepony]

I love early park mornings, but there's something kind of special about early AK mornings. Maybe it's all the animals looking a little sleepy. Also being able to walk right on EE is pretty special!
I love Dinosaur now, but the first time I ride anything I'm a nervous wreck thinking things are going to jump out and scar/grab/poke/hurt me!
AKL is so gorgeous. Oh that view!
How awful about the foul mouth on that girl in front of you. And about her grandmother? In Disney World? Terrible.

 

[cfw213]

I love reading your report! My sister and I have taken 2 trips together and were trying to plan this years. There were a number of places and things in your trip report that reminded me of our trip Last December we stayed at SSR and it was amazing so you'll love it when you stay there!

Thanks for following! I couldn't imagine not traveling with my sister. SSR is so beautiful, I can't wait to stay there.

Ah! Your AK morning was the morning that we saw you but I wasn't sure so I didn't say hi! I'm pretty sure we were on the same bus! We went to AK then hopped over to teh GF for breakfast!

Looks like a nice relaxing morning there! Man, I wish I would've known about Disney being able to move luggage, I would've had them do that for me going from AKL to AoA!

I'm excited to read about AKL!

Haha you're right, that was the morning we saw you!! Sooo convenient that they can move your luggage. We just called when we got back to AKL and they brought it up.

Your tank tops are totally adorable! How did you make them?!

Ah the photos of AKL look fantastic! It's definitely up there on my list of places I want to stay! I appreciate the honest comments about it though- those are important things to know.

Thank you! We bought cheap tank tops at Target and we got white iron on photo paper. Then we found the animal print Mickey heads online and printed them off, then ironed them on. They are in pretty bad shape after one day of wear...Jess' is peeling off and mine is kind of rubbed off. But they were so cute, we're going to do it again.

I love the photos in front of the France fountain!

Wow about what that girl in front of you said!!

Kids need a reality check sometime!

Yeah, it was pretty crazy! By the way, I took my photo class this weekend and I am officially OBSESSED with my camera - thank you so much for the recommendation!

I love early park mornings, but there's something kind of special about early AK mornings. Maybe it's all the animals looking a little sleepy. Also being able to walk right on EE is pretty special!
I love Dinosaur now, but the first time I ride anything I'm a nervous wreck thinking things are going to jump out and scar/grab/poke/hurt me!
AKL is so gorgeous. Oh that view!
How awful about the foul mouth on that girl in front of you. And about her grandmother? In Disney World? Terrible.

AK is my favorite EMH morning. It's just SO peaceful, I don't know how people don't just LOVE AK. I feel the same way about Dinosaur...I enjoy it just fine now, but only because I know where all the scary stuff is.

 

[cfw213]

After we hung around our room for a while, we started to get hungry, so we figured it was time to depart for our next destination - we were heading back to Magic Kingdom! We walked down to the busses right out front of Kidani, and a Magic Kingdom bus appeared quickly. I haven't decided if I like the "line-up" bus lines at the values or the way they are at AKL, where it's kind of a free-for-all. I do like the benches at AKL though, so we could sit and rest. I did notice that AKL is FAR from Magic Kingdom, probably a 25 minute ride. But we made it by around 1:00pm and head off to get some lunch. We decided to try Pinocchio's Village Haus! We both had a flatbread and were able to grab a seat by Small World.



I went with the yummy Disney chocolate cake and Jess tried the gelato, which she said was very good! This was our dining view:



The flatbreads were a nice change-up from the standard chicken nuggets we had been ordering and I actually really enjoyed them. They were way better than "regular" Disney pizza and we will definitely return. It was especially nice to watch the boats while we ate our lunch. All in all, 5 stars for Pinocchio's!

After lunch, we decided to try something we hadn't done before in Fantasyland - the Carousel! It was nice after-lunch ride, very relaxing. We didn't wait for it and were able to grab to horses the first time it stopped.




Hello Fantasyland!


Since we were on a roll with new things this afternoon, we stopped by Hall of Presidents. We had tried to do this last time but they closed the doors right before we got there and we didn't want to wait. This time the doors were open when we arrived so we walked right into the cool theater. I definitely thought it was interesting, although I thought the film was a little long. Then again, I'm not a history buff! There was definitely some snoring in the theater, but not from me! The presidents speaking at the end was really really cool and realistic. I probably wouldn't make it a "must-do" every trip, but my dad really loves history so we will take him to check it out this October.

After that, I wanted to hit up Pirates again! The only time we had ridden it so far was the first night of our trip, and that was just not enough. We DIDN'T stop here...


Or here


So we hiked it over to Adventureland, and it was down! Womp womp. We ended up walking over to Jungle Cruise, but it had a 30 minute wait! So we grabbed a Fastpass and then decided to ride the Magic Carpets.






Jess laughed at me because it's such a silly little ride, but we had some time to kill and we'd never done it before. We piled into our carpet and took a spin around Adventureland. We still had a couple minutes so we walked the Swiss Family Treehouse. I told Jess I wasn't doing it this time because once you've seen it, it doesn't change! But we had some time so we did it anyway and guess what? Nothing new! Pirates was still down, so we head to the Jungle Cruise.

 

[cfw213]

Once we were finished the Jungle Cruise, we decided we were pretty much done on that side of the park, since Splash had too long of a standby wait. So we made our way over to Tomorrowland! But we stopped for lots of Photopass pictures.









As we were crossing over, we got caught up on the parade!








Then we took some MORE photopass pictures!


Silly!


I love this one!


I think these are new magic shots...

 

[cfw213]

Once we were all done our photoshoots, we finally made it to Tomorrowland! There were no crowds over here and we were able to jump on Buzz with no wait!





We also tried Astro Orbiter and I will NEVER AGAIN ride it. First, they shoved us all this elevator that was about 115° and it was SO PACKED. I'm not a fan of people that close to me and it was really really uncomfortable. Then, we both had to sit in this little ride car. We are both fairly small people and it was seriously uncomfortable. The whole time the thing was moving I was just trying to keep my body upright and not vomit all over Jess. It was so unenjoyable, I will never again go near it. /endrant

After the hell that was the Astor orbitor, we decided to take a nice relaxing ride on the Peoplemover! Where of course you can't go wrong...


By now it was around 3:30 and we had time for one more ride, so we walked onto Space! That's how you know there are some low crowds in September . We were getting tired, so we decided to head out. We stopped at the confectionary. I don't have a picture or notes, but I *think* I got a peanut butter cup, and I don't think Jess got anything. We waited a bit for the bus, and we were back at the hotel by 5:30. We called for our bags and they brought them right up! We tipped the bellhop, then changed into our bathing suits. But the sky was looking pretty dark! We took a few more balcony pictures, then head down to the Kidani pool. They had a really cool slide there and zero entry. It looked like it was going to downpour, so we only swam for a little while and walked back to the room to check out some more animals!




This guy loved hanging out in front of our balcony.

We just made it inside when it started to POUR. We had an 8pm ADR that we had to make it to, so we showered and got ready to read out, hoping the rain would stop soon!

 

[wiigirl]

Love the pics!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Awesome updates!!


I love all the magic shots. It's pretty great that there were no crowds in Tomorrowland. We weren't big fans of Astro orbitor either!

Love the animal shots at AKL! It seems like an amazing place to stay.

 

[teekathepony]

I've always wanted to sit by the window at Pinocchio's but it's always too busy in there.
Great PP pics! Love all the magic shots!

 

[cfw213]

Love the pics!

Thank you!

Awesome updates!!


I love all the magic shots. It's pretty great that there were no crowds in Tomorrowland. We weren't big fans of Astro orbitor either!

Love the animal shots at AKL! It seems like an amazing place to stay.

Thanks! This is the first time we did PP, and I loved all the magic shots!

I've always wanted to sit by the window at Pinocchio's but it's always too busy in there.
Great PP pics! Love all the magic shots!

Thank you! We will definitely go back to Pinocchios!

 

[cfw213]

Once again, life has gotten super crazy!! I have been planning our October trip like crazy, and I have lots to share in a new PTR, but I don't want to neglect this TR! So onto the next update!

We were ready for our next meal, so around 7 we boarded our bus to Downtown Disney! After dinner, we had some serious shopping to do. We arrived fairly quickly, and the rain was still coming down hard. We pulled on our ponchos and trekked out! We had a reservation for 8pm, and we arrived around 7:30, so we stopped to pick up our Disney Visa's. I don't remember exactly where it was we had to get them, but I remember it being quick and easy. We walked through Aribbas Brothers (I know that's spelled wrong but I'm too lazy to look it up right now) and that place is amazing!! If I had lots of cash I would collect those instead of Jim Shores!

We decided to check in to T-Rex a little early.


That place was an absolute madhouse! There was a hugggge line at the check-in podium. We asked someone standing to the right of the podium if we had to get in that line to check into our ADR and she said yes. After lots of confusion and discussion with other people in line, we realized we did *not* have to wait in that massive line since we had an ADR. After standing around in the rain for another 10 minutes, we got our pager and were seated another 15 minutes or so later. I will say, this restaurant is pretty cool inside! We were seated near some kind of dino (how is that for scientifically accurate, eh?) in the "main" room.

Our dining buddy...he made lots of noise!


We were directly to the left of this room:


Anyway, I ordered a chicken sandwich on a pita and Jess got a burger. The service here was sllloowwwwww and we were near the brattiest family. I try not to judge because I don't have kids (although I do have years of babysitting experience), but wow these kids were crazy! They weren't even watching their kids and their 2(ish) year old was literally doing somersaults around the table next to them, and their other kid kept standing up on the chair (not in a booth). We weren't so close to them that it detracted from our experience, but if I were the table next to them I would have been fuming. I know Disney is a kid's destination, but this is the only place we had issues with it.

Anyway, once we got our food, it was actually quite good!


Jess chowing down!


For dessert, we shared the mini donuts which were very good!


We just wanted to get out of there ASAP at that point. Even though the food was good, I probably wouldn't go back, or at least not for a while. There are so many other good restaurants to try! We finished up dinner around 9:15, then it was time to shop!

Our rating for this meal is as follows:
Food: 3. The food here was pretty good! Nothing amazing, but the dessert was especially tasty
Service: 3. Service here was not so good. Our waiter was fine, but it was a busy Friday night so it was crazy
Ambiance: 3. It was loud and crazy in here! I love the theming but it was quite noisy
Wait time: 3. Crazy check in!

Would we visit again? Eh...maybe, but its not the top of my list!

Ranking: 7. This was our least favorite meal

 

[katt789]

I have no idea where I left off on reading, I know I read lunch at Chefs, but the pictures with Pooh look new to me…Lawl. So I’ll just start there!

I feel the same way about WS, it’s all about characters, snacks, drinks, and photopass pictures, bahaha! I can do without browsing through a huge cultural shopping mall.. Awesome photopass pics!! I have to agree with the new Pooh meeting area, I love that it’s Christopher Robin’s room!

K…I think I just missed an update in the middle, because I remember reading about your move already….Bahaha.

Haha, love that you guys did so much in MK that you hadn’t done, and not that you would expect from people without kids haha. Love the photopass pictures!! So many magic shots! Yay! We were also in the MK that afternoon/evening!

I somehow missed out on the AKL pool completely, I don’t swim much on Disney vacations, and figured if I was going to in Sept it would be at AoA! I’ve been a fan of TRex in the past, it’s usually a walk up dinner on arrival day for us, and it’s always been great! Maybe it was just extra crazy that day?!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Your food at trex looks really yummy! I've wanted to try it but I think we'll probably hold off until we have kids to bring. We have rainforest cafes around here and it seems like a similar concept to me.

Plus, you're right- there are so so many yummy restaurants to try!

 

[teekathepony]

T-Rex looks great, I'm excited to eat there this coming trip!

 

[cfw213]

I have no idea where I left off on reading, I know I read lunch at Chefs, but the pictures with Pooh look new to me…Lawl. So I’ll just start there!

I feel the same way about WS, it’s all about characters, snacks, drinks, and photopass pictures, bahaha! I can do without browsing through a huge cultural shopping mall.. Awesome photopass pics!! I have to agree with the new Pooh meeting area, I love that it’s Christopher Robin’s room!

K…I think I just missed an update in the middle, because I remember reading about your move already….Bahaha.

Haha, love that you guys did so much in MK that you hadn’t done, and not that you would expect from people without kids haha. Love the photopass pictures!! So many magic shots! Yay! We were also in the MK that afternoon/evening!

I somehow missed out on the AKL pool completely, I don’t swim much on Disney vacations, and figured if I was going to in Sept it would be at AoA! I’ve been a fan of TRex in the past, it’s usually a walk up dinner on arrival day for us, and it’s always been great! Maybe it was just extra crazy that day?!

Haha glad you're caught up now! I'm terrible at commenting but I read all of your updates! The AKL pool was really nice, the slide was great! We're definitely looking forward to spending more time there this fall. It was a Friday night that we were there and it was pouring, so people probably just wanted to get inside!

Your food at trex looks really yummy! I've wanted to try it but I think we'll probably hold off until we have kids to bring. We have rainforest cafes around here and it seems like a similar concept to me.

Plus, you're right- there are so so many yummy restaurants to try!

The food was good! I think it's actually owned by Rainforest...same thing, just different decor.

T-Rex looks great, I'm excited to eat there this coming trip!

The food was definitely yummy

 

[cfw213]

After dinner, it was time to SHOP!! We tend to browse all week and then make our selections towards the end of the trip. First our detail our adventures then I'll share pictures of our goodies.

We finished up dinner around 9:15, and head over to team Mickey, where Jess bought a golf shirt for her boyfriend. I then browsed Basin for a while, which was amazing!! I was disappointed that they don't sell the Disney resort body products though...I know I saw them in the dump shop for TOT but I expected that they would be here. I ended up getting a bar of soap with Mickey heads and a bath bomb for myself and some dog soap for Oscar.

We then head to the Christmas store where of course I had to buy my annual ornament! I walked over to the kitchen store and got a Mickey head trivet (which I love and use everyday!) and some hand towels. I also bought this little measurement converter thing which I thought would be handy but I've never used. I actually can't even remember where it is???

We saved our big stop for last, World of Disney! We got there around 10 so we had plenty of time to browse around. We definitely took our time! I'm sure I'll miss something, but I know I got a t-shirt, picture frame (which is in my office, still with the stock photo!), a nice pen (which I use everyday at work!) and a Mickey head necklace.

By the time we were all finished, we were exhausted! We made one more stop at Goofy's so I could use up another snack credit on a custom rice krispie treat - I ended up getting the same as last time, while Jess just got a twirly lollypop. We head to the front to wait for a bus, which took quite a long time.

And here's our haul!






Jess chose the Pluto pillow pet (which I'm jealous of - I am SO buying one next time), a photo album, her pressed penny book (which you can see has quite a few!), a t-shirt, her BF's golf shirt, a lollypop and phone case.

The rest of the junk is mine! You can see the frame, the coasters I got Bryan are in the back, and in front of that is the bath bomb from Basin, then to the right is the hand towel and the trivet. Then there's my ornament (it was glass and I never took a picture of it out of the box), my Basin soaps, the phone case, my Mickey waffle air freshner, my metal car detail and the cute postcards I got! Also is a keychain, a dog tag for Oscar and my shirt.

Whew, we may have went overboard!! We were totally exhausted when we got home and it was well after midnight, so we hit the hay for our very last day in Disney!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Ah you guys got awesome stuff! I love it. The pressed penny book is such a neat idea because I feel like otherwise they just end up everywhere.

 

[cfw213]

Ah you guys got awesome stuff! I love it. The pressed penny book is such a neat idea because I feel like otherwise they just end up everywhere.

Thanks! We definitely bought more stuff that we normally would have thanks to the free Disney gift cards we got when we signed up for the Visas!

 

[cfw213]

Well, the time was upon us and our last day in Disney had arrived! But, we didn't have alot of time to dwell as we had a very full day ahead of us! Originally the plan this morning was to head to Hollywood Studios, but if you all remember correctly, I had screwed up our ADRs, so we had our Crystal Palace breakfast this morning. I had re-booked to go to Kona, but we were originally planning on CP, so when one opened up for our last morning, we scooped it up.

As we were getting ready to head out the door, Jess was reading Twitter and saw that Christie and Chloe from Dance Moms were eating at Kona that morning!!!!!! We were sooooo angry because we love that show and it would have been amazing to see them/sit near them. But, oh well! We headed out the door for us bus to MK at around 8:45 - I am guessing our reservations were for around 9:30am, so we didn't try to make rope drop.

I love the decor of Crystal Palace, it's so pretty!




Love that beautiful crane...


We were seated quickly after waiting outside for a few minutes and we had *just* missed most of the characters. Our waitress told us to wait to get food as Tigger would be around shortly and he was!





Also, my shirt this day was a $10 find from Target! I always try to buy their Disney clothes when they have them...so cute and cheap and they always have new stuff.

After we met him, we went and stocked up on some food. My first plate:



A yummy croissant, mini Mickey waffles, puffed french toast, cheesy potatoes (yum!), a cinnamon danish and I think some regular potatoes.

Jess's first plate:
Mini Mickey waffles, sausage, bacon and potatoes!

My favorite was the puffed french toast - it was delicious!

My second plate: fruit!


After that, we got stuck waiting for the rest of the characters forever. We were totally done eating and hadn't yet seen Pooh, Piglet or Eeyore! We had really wanted to get to DHS to grab a TSM fastpass, but it wasn't looking like it was going to happen at this point. We debated just leaving, and it it had been just Pooh we would have, but we wanted to meet Piglet and Eeyore! They eventually made their way around...







Tigger also came around again once more before we got to Eeyore and he definitely didn't remember already meeting us! We didn't take another picture and he was probably a little confused. Since we had already paid, we were all finished and left around 10:45 for Hollywood Studios!

My LAST dining review!

Food: 4. I'm not a buffet person normally, but this breakfast buffet had a lot of good choices and fresh fruit. I probably wouldn't go for dinner, but that's just because I'm not usually a fan of dinner buffets.
Service: 3. Service here was not bad. Our waitress was fine, but we just hit the characters at a bad break and it took a while to see them all.
Ambiance: 4. This restaurant is beautiful! I also like the little break they took to dance with the kids.
Wait time: 5. We only waited a few minutes to be seated.

Would we visit again? Yes! I want to try some other breakfast buffets but we would come back!

Ranking: 5. It's pretty low, but we had some fabulous meals this trip!

UPDATED: Here is the link to my new PTR!!! This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest for fun.. Bonus points for anyone who guesses what movie it's from!

 

[katt789]

Wait WHAT?!! Christie and Chloe were there that week?! Ah!! That’s insane, they’re my favsies from that show too!

CP is always a great one for breakfast, I definitely love the food, ambiance and characters, so much fun! Sucks that you caught the characters at a bad time, it’s the worst when you’re just sitting there waiting for them to come around and just want to get going into the park!