Bear Hugs & Piggy Kisses - Baby's 1st Trip ~ Updated 12/6: Aulani TR Started!!!

[IheartDDuck]

All right, it's taken me a while to get caught up, but I'm here and commenting now!

Okay first....love the little Ewok. So adorable!

Holy cow!!!!!! I'm completely and utterly shocked, but that's amazing that you got flights from a website glitch! A friend of mine got $18 flights to Vegas one time for the same reason.

I really love to sleep too. I'm with you there. The only reason that I spring out of bed on Disney days is because my body just doesn't allow me to sleep.

Oh man, lunch down! I would be sad if my yummy lunch went all over the floor too. Hazard of having a little cutie, right?

Hahahahaha. Oh man, that picture of Izzy head straight back sleeping is priceless!

Kids and phones, man! I often wonder what we did back in the day when we didn't have phones. The boys are always like "can I use your phone? can I use your phone? can I use your phone?"

We really enjoyed the ease of use with the Magic Bands too. So nice not needing to ever dig around for something.

Complainers at Disney just irritate me! I'm not saying no one can ever complain, but sometimes I just shake my head at people being stupid. What do people want anyway? Portion sizes are already too big. She probably wouldn't have been able to finish her dinner if the chicken was bigger. But you don't hear people complain at all when they leave food behind.

Too bad you didn't get the memo that it was party time with Izzy! When we took Joaquin on his first trip, we were really fortunate. Every time it was time to go to sleep, he just knocked out.

I need to try Sorcerer's! I always forget it's there, truth be told.

Sounds like Dug had a great solo night at the Magic Kingdom!

I would have been upset by that moment at the entrance too. I understand we're all getting used to it, but it doesn't mean you need to be rude about it.

I tried LeFou's Brew the firs time on our last trip and really liked it. I like the apple flavor though. I am intending to go there in the morning though and get a giant cinnamon roll.

The BOG line just gets crazy. I was so grateful for our FP+!

Wow! I can't believe it took you guys that long to find a nice CM. That stinks!

Oh man, that stinks! Getting on the wrong monorail! I've come close to doing that before, just because I was tired and not really paying attention.

After that experience, honestly, I would have asked immediately to speak to her supervisor. And I normally never do that, but that would have been the last straw at that point.

Awesome that you got a nice CM after that though that made your waffle sandwich!

The sleigh ride looks like a lot of fun. I'm glad they were able to get you on the later time.

 

[reelmom]

Awesome updates. We have never been to Fort Wilderness. My husband wants to stay there next time. He is not a huge Disney fan so I may break down and stay at the cabins since he seems interested. I am cheap so it is hard for me to pay the price for them. But I think it would give him a lot of down time options. He is a country boy( actually I would call him a redneck) and he doesn't like to do open to close parks, go, go,go like the rest of us. He would probably spend his whole time fishing. Hmmm, that might not be a bad idea. Maybe I will look into it now. LOL. Anyways, the sleigh ride looks neat. I would like to go on the haunted one at Halloween time. Oh yeah, Izzy is as adorable as always!!

 

[Dugette]

Sleigh ride looks like fun! I would like to go explore Ft Wilderness some more one day, they had so many fun things to do there! I loved all the watercraft rentals and trails and things!

Izzy did so good staying up through the sleigh ride too! Nice that she got to enjoy it!

Cant wait to read more!

Yeah, there is a lot of neat stuff to do at Fort Wilderness. And we've only done a small fraction of it. Izzy did a great job that night - I had been a bit worried about doing the sleigh ride that late, but it was the only time we could get. Turned out just fine, though.

Ok I think I caught up on most of your trip reports in the last day!! Love them! I didn't realize until I messaged you that this one was still ongoing, so I'm definitely joining in!

I'm home recovering from neck surgery and live in PA, so yeah....snow snow snow and lots of time to read!

Joining in!

Glad you're joining in here! I'm glad my TRs can keep you company during your recovery/snow. Thanks for reading!

I'm finally caught up!

What a mess you had to deal with and I'm sorry you did not get any friendly CMs for quite some time. I'm glad you finally got to use your FP on Pirates! Yay for a CM that let you get something to eat too. I'm glad everything worked out with your sleigh ride, it sounds like the magical end to a MK night. I'm glad you didn't have issues transferring Izzy that night!

It was such a weird run of bad CM luck to start the trip. Nothing like walking into the MK twice in one day just shaking your head about the unmagical interaction you just had. So glad our luck turned around and really glad we got to eat dinner that night! The transfer worked well and I think we only had a few minutes of middle of the night crying when she woke up in the stroller and had to get changed before going back to bed. Not fun, but not too bad.

All right, it's taken me a while to get caught up, but I'm here and commenting now!

Okay first....love the little Ewok. So adorable!

Holy cow!!!!!! I'm completely and utterly shocked, but that's amazing that you got flights from a website glitch! A friend of mine got $18 flights to Vegas one time for the same reason.

I really love to sleep too. I'm with you there. The only reason that I spring out of bed on Disney days is because my body just doesn't allow me to sleep.

Oh man, lunch down! I would be sad if my yummy lunch went all over the floor too. Hazard of having a little cutie, right?

Hahahahaha. Oh man, that picture of Izzy head straight back sleeping is priceless!

Kids and phones, man! I often wonder what we did back in the day when we didn't have phones. The boys are always like "can I use your phone? can I use your phone? can I use your phone?"

We really enjoyed the ease of use with the Magic Bands too. So nice not needing to ever dig around for something.

Complainers at Disney just irritate me! I'm not saying no one can ever complain, but sometimes I just shake my head at people being stupid. What do people want anyway? Portion sizes are already too big. She probably wouldn't have been able to finish her dinner if the chicken was bigger. But you don't hear people complain at all when they leave food behind.

Too bad you didn't get the memo that it was party time with Izzy! When we took Joaquin on his first trip, we were really fortunate. Every time it was time to go to sleep, he just knocked out.

I need to try Sorcerer's! I always forget it's there, truth be told.

Sounds like Dug had a great solo night at the Magic Kingdom!

I would have been upset by that moment at the entrance too. I understand we're all getting used to it, but it doesn't mean you need to be rude about it.

I tried LeFou's Brew the firs time on our last trip and really liked it. I like the apple flavor though. I am intending to go there in the morning though and get a giant cinnamon roll.

The BOG line just gets crazy. I was so grateful for our FP+!

Wow! I can't believe it took you guys that long to find a nice CM. That stinks!

Oh man, that stinks! Getting on the wrong monorail! I've come close to doing that before, just because I was tired and not really paying attention.

After that experience, honestly, I would have asked immediately to speak to her supervisor. And I normally never do that, but that would have been the last straw at that point.

Awesome that you got a nice CM after that though that made your waffle sandwich!

The sleigh ride looks like a lot of fun. I'm glad they were able to get you on the later time.

Yay, glad you're all caught up! We're even now, I think!

Rather than comment back on everything, I'll just say: I agree!

Awesome updates. We have never been to Fort Wilderness. My husband wants to stay there next time. He is not a huge Disney fan so I may break down and stay at the cabins since he seems interested. I am cheap so it is hard for me to pay the price for them. But I think it would give him a lot of down time options. He is a country boy( actually I would call him a redneck) and he doesn't like to do open to close parks, go, go,go like the rest of us. He would probably spend his whole time fishing. Hmmm, that might not be a bad idea. Maybe I will look into it now. LOL. Anyways, the sleigh ride looks neat. I would like to go on the haunted one at Halloween time. Oh yeah, Izzy is as adorable as always!!

Sounds like it might be a good thing to try for your husband's sake. Yeah, not super cheap, but you do get a nice cabin. It would be fun to really take advantage of all the fun things there (Hoop de Doo, carriage rides, fishing apparently...). That haunted one would be really cool! Also, it would be easy for your husband to just take a boat back from the MK while the rest of you stay out late. Oh, and thanks!

 

[Dugette]

Before I get into our next day, I found a few more Photopass pictures from the previous day. They are actually the same photos, but with borders. Just thought I’d share, since I missed them before:









Okay, back to the beginning of Day 3! We did much better this morning at getting everything together, applying sunscreen, and getting out of the room on time:



We were making the walk along the path from the Poly to the TTC this morning, so we could catch a monorail over to Epcot for 9am park opening. I think we may have grabbed some granola bars or something that we’d brought with, since we wouldn’t be eating breakfast right away.

On our walk through the Poly grounds, we noticed that there had been some very busy spiders. These webs were HUGE:



I don't want to meet the spider that created that monster!

As we got closer to the TTC, we approached a construction wall. The gate for our path was open and a Cast Member was nearby, just kind-of watching us. We walked on past, then turned around and saw them pull the gate closed and then a truck drove by on the other side:



They seemed to do a very good job of keeping the construction as unobtrusive as possible, by the way. It really didn’t take away from the ambiance of our stay at the Poly, which is something we’d been worried about (they are building DVC at the Poly and doing a fair amount of construction work to accomplish that).

We arrived at the TTC:



And waited on the monorail platform, right in front of the “control tower”:



Izzy munched on some snacks (or her paci, I guess) while we waited:



Soon enough, a monorail arrived and we were on our way to Epcot:



On purpose this time! It’s much more fun when you actually intend to go there!

Well, except…

Once we got into Epcot and began the loop around the place, our monorail started moving very slowly. Like inching along. They made an announcement that there was a “training exercise” taking place. Okay, that’s fine, monorail operators should get proper training, no dispute there. But right before park open??!! I mean, who made that call? “Hey, let’s take the last train of people going to Epcot for park opening – you know, the ones who will get there just in time – and let’s slow their train down to a snail’s pace for training exercises so that they have no chance of getting there on time after all!”

The nice thing about moving so slowly is that you can get nice, non-blurry pictures of the things you’re going past:









We finally arrived at the monorail station and made our way into the already-opened park. Our first destination of the day was Test Track:



We didn’t have any Fast Pass+ for this morning, as we used them for our post-park-hop at DHS later that day (also, I think the paper Fast Passes were still covered up). So, we decided to have Dug go through standby right away at Test Track (he wanted to see the queue anyway), then have me ride after with a Rider Swap. Yes, our first ever Rider Swap!

I think we parked the stroller in the stroller parking area, so Izzy probably wanted to be carried (or freed). We went up and asked for a Rider Swap and the Cast Member gave me one – similar to a paper Fast Pass, but good all day and allows up to 3 riders, I think. I tucked that away and went to let Izzy play/wander outside a bit.

Meanwhile, Dug was snapping pictures of the models in the queue:











I don’t think I ended up seeing these, as my Rider Swap allowed me to use the Fast Pass entrance. Dug enjoyed checking things out, though.

Up next: More Test Track. And a toddler “driving” cars.

 

[Denovagirl]

Cute PP pics!!

 

[Leshaface]

Yeah, you'd think they'd do training in the middle of the day, not at park opening These are paying guests people, let's get them to the parks! However, those are great photos you got from the monorail. It goes in there so fast, it's hard to look at everything around you, so you got some great photos.

I really love rider swap. I love that they actually thought of families with small children who couldn't ride. Thanks Disney!

 

[Jackiemarie21]

Cute pics! I love the Minnie dress! Or should I say minnow pants?
It does seem silly to have a training exercise first thing in the morning, but what do I know?

 

[Dugette]

Cute PP pics!!

Thanks, I was having fun with borders!

Yeah, you'd think they'd do training in the middle of the day, not at park opening These are paying guests people, let's get them to the parks! However, those are great photos you got from the monorail. It goes in there so fast, it's hard to look at everything around you, so you got some great photos.

It seemed really odd that they would do training right before park opening. But at least we got a good view of everything we couldn't go ride yet.

I really love rider swap. I love that they actually thought of families with small children who couldn't ride. Thanks Disney!

Yes, it worked out great for us. Especially when she napped in her stroller. Very helpful.

Cute pics! I love the Minnie dress! Or should I say minnow pants?
It does seem silly to have a training exercise first thing in the morning, but what do I know?

Or it could be a minnow dress. Yes, she's wearing it for the Character Spot we'll visit later in the morning. She and Minnie have the same dress.

It just seemed so odd to have a slow-motion train ride into Epcot at that time of day when there weren't technical problems or anything. Just seems like they could have found a more convenient time for training, since there were guests on the train with places to be. Ah, well. It all worked out okay. Probably just had to wait a bit longer than we should have at Test Track. Things could be worse.

 

[dtr_angel]

oh man, I hate when that happens on the monorail! Although my DH's opinion is when they say something fancy like "training exercises" or "regularly scheduled maintenance" that they are really just not working and they are trying to fix the problem

 

[amazingact21]

On purpose this time! It’s much more fun when you actually intend to go there!

I can imagine!




I'm glad the construction at the Poly wasn't too bad. I know when they were building the DVC villas at the GF it looked pretty out of place. And there really wasn't anything to do about it since it was right along the monorail path.
Maybe because the Poly's new suites will be on the water it won't look as rough?



8:45am, perfect training time....
That's annoying, but at least you had a good outlook on it and got some nice shots of the park from up high.



Yay for Rider Swap! They are an amazing thing. Turning something that could be a nightmare into a managable situation.
Looks like Dug had fun checking out the standby line, too!

 

[Dugette]

oh man, I hate when that happens on the monorail! Although my DH's opinion is when they say something fancy like "training exercises" or "regularly scheduled maintenance" that they are really just not working and they are trying to fix the problem

He is probably right and I am probably falling for it! I think this is the first time I've heard "training exercise", but I know I've heard "regular maintenance" before!

I can imagine!

I'm glad the construction at the Poly wasn't too bad. I know when they were building the DVC villas at the GF it looked pretty out of place. And there really wasn't anything to do about it since it was right along the monorail path.
Maybe because the Poly's new suites will be on the water it won't look as rough?

That might be it. If we were wandering the beach more, that might have been more apparent. But we did a photo shoot on the beach and still weren't affected. I think it helped that we were there during the earlier part of the construction - the updates I'm seeing now seem to be more noticeable.

8:45am, perfect training time....
That's annoying, but at least you had a good outlook on it and got some nice shots of the park from up high.

Exactly. Strange, but gotta make the best of it.

Yay for Rider Swap! They are an amazing thing. Turning something that could be a nightmare into a managable situation.
Looks like Dug had fun checking out the standby line, too!

Yes, Rider Swap was great. Glad we took advantage of that on this trip.

 

[Dugette]

So, while Dug was waiting standby and taking pictures of model cars, Izzy and I were amusing ourselves outside of Test Track. First thing I did was take her over to the little “practice” car they had (just to clarify, I made sure nobody was around who actually needed to use it to practice a wheelchair transfer). She loved playing in that:





While we were playing with the car, an older lady with a baby in a stroller approached. She commented on how cute Izzy was (aw, nice!) and said that she was the great-grandmother of the baby in the stroller. Wow, she did not look like a great-grandmother – I would have easily believed grandmother! She was very sweet and we chatted for a bit. It was kind-of fun that Izzy served to start up a lot of random conversations on this trip. More than we'd ever had at WDW before, at least. There were a lot of nice people there that week!

Meanwhile, Dug apparently passed these things:







Back outside, Izzy had tired of the car and gone to check out the landscaping:



I love the backdrop of that picture. You know you are in Epcot!

While we were admiring the flowers, Dug designed this car:



We moved over to the Test Track sign with bars around it:



Izzy had fun hanging off the bars and peeking through the bars. Luckily, she did not climb through them – I’d seen an older toddler do that behind his mom's back and then take off across the inside area of the sign – his mom had trouble getting him out of there. We’re on the back/side of the Test Track sign in this picture, by the way:



I texted Dug as he was about to board to let him know that we were going to move inside to the ride-exit/display area. Because there were real cars for Izzy to play with in there:





That last one is one of my favorite pictures!!!

While we were playing in that blue car, Dug was riding in this one:



His results:



Then we switched off and I headed into the Fast Pass line with my Rider Swap. No problems at all and I was on my way. Dug must have taken this picture in the showroom while I was doing that:



It wasn’t long before I was designing my car. I think the Fast Pass queue bypasses a lot of things, but you still design a car. Just without having to wait very long beforehand. Here’s mine:







Dug and Izzy admired a red car while I did that:





I enjoyed my first ride on the “re-imagined” Test Track. I had really liked the old one, but this was fun too. I’d have to ride it more than once to know which I liked better, though. I’m glad they still had the switchback area with some sort of funny sign – I always liked that part.

I think that there was some sort of weird loading. I’m pretty sure they put me in the front row with two other people and nobody in back. It was strange. There were a number of oddly-loaded vehicles going out. I see in Dug’s picture he was the only one in his row. Huh.

At the end, right before going back into the building, we hit a traffic jam. All the cars were lined up and we were stuck here (looking forward, then right):





We eventually got back in successfully. Darn morning rush hour traffic!

Here’s how I did:



Afterwards, I met back up with Izzy and Dug in the showroom. Dug had been doing all the little photo scenarios with Izzy. I guess he staged some very cute photos, but they are only available for 30 days (emailed to him), so we cannot see them now! So, note to trip-planners, screen shot your pictures or something! Kind-of a bummer.

After all that, we were on our way to a more Izzy-oriented activity:



Time to meet some characters!

Up next: Lots of cuteness. And Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie.

 

[Denovagirl]

Love Izzys outfit! Looks like she is so content just exploring things! Glad to see the switching off seems to be going fine for you guys, since that's what well be doing a lot of on this trip!

 

[amazingact21]

Doesn't sound like either of you had to wait too long to get on Test Track, which is good to hear. I'd hate to think my experience of a 45 minute FP wait was normal.


You know, one of the reasons I picked Dec. to go to Disney was because I wanted to do it before Landon was mobile. I was terrified he'd be so much more challenging to deal with if I had to run after him, but reading your update and seeing Izzy explore everything around TT makes me less hesitant about taking that age.
It looks she had so much fun testing out all the cars and hanging onto the rails outside. So far, a nice start to your Epcot day.

 

[Dugette]

Love Izzys outfit! Looks like she is so content just exploring things! Glad to see the switching off seems to be going fine for you guys, since that's what well be doing a lot of on this trip!

Thanks, it was actually in the Halloween Costume section at a consignment sale I went to last fall. I had already got her Halloween costume there (Toy Story Alien), but I grabbed this because I figured she could wear it at WDW - worked out great!

Yes, she was very content exploring. I think it helped that she was little and a new walker - everything they can toddle over to on their own is still fresh and new and exciting. And she still is like that - we were in an appliance store earlier today and you'd think it was the world's most amazing toddler playground based on the way she was running around and giggling amongst the fridges, etc.

Switching off worked great for us and we didn't have any issues at all. In fact, it actually worked out really well when we get to Soarin' later in the trip. I don't think Dug would have gotten to ride without the Rider Swap.

Doesn't sound like either of you had to wait too long to get on Test Track, which is good to hear. I'd hate to think my experience of a 45 minute FP wait was normal.

No, I don't think your FP wait was normal. Mine was pretty quick. Not instant, but not bad at all. Dug did take a while in the standby line, but I guess that's to be expected. It wasn't terrible, but it took some time and probably seemed longer to me because I had to keep finding things to amuse Izzy safely while we waited.

You know, one of the reasons I picked Dec. to go to Disney was because I wanted to do it before Landon was mobile. I was terrified he'd be so much more challenging to deal with if I had to run after him, but reading your update and seeing Izzy explore everything around TT makes me less hesitant about taking that age.
It looks she had so much fun testing out all the cars and hanging onto the rails outside. So far, a nice start to your Epcot day.

I think it probably does depend somewhat on the individual kid, as Izzy has always been one that enjoys checking out her surroundings, but I thought this was a great age to go! She was mobile, but not particularly fast (she's faster and steadier now - though still stumbles a lot), so she never got far if she did "take off." And, as I mentioned in my other comment, the whole world is still so new and exciting at that age, so anything and everything is fascinating, at least for a minute or two (a wall? hey, cool!) Plus, I remember the days before she could stand and it always bothered me when I wanted to use both hands for something and couldn't find a good place to lay/sit her for a moment - at this age, you can just have them stand for a minute or walk and hold your hand. Very helpful at times. I think you'll have a good time with him at this age on your next trip. It will be very different, for sure, but magical nonetheless.

 

[OasterP]

Oh my gosh Izzy is adorable!! I love her outfits.

As for the monorail - I'd definitely say that "training" at that hour probably means....oops something is broken.. Or at least I kind of hope because otherwise really bad planning on their part!

 

[Dugette]

Oh my gosh Izzy is adorable!! I love her outfits.

Aw, thanks! It was fun to finally use all these Disney outfits I'd accumulated!

As for the monorail - I'd definitely say that "training" at that hour probably means....oops something is broken.. Or at least I kind of hope because otherwise really bad planning on their part!

I think you're probably right - they don't want to panic everyone and have us worrying about being stranded on the monorail all day. So, "training" it is!

 

[Dugette]

So, after riding Test Track, the other must-do before “breakfast” was hitting the Character Spot. We wanted to see how Izzy would do meeting characters. And she was wearing a Minnie Mouse dress, so we had to meet Minnie, of course!

Luckily, it was still fairly early and the line wasn’t too bad. I think we maybe waited 15 minutes or so, though. We were able to keep Izzy sufficiently amused while we waited. Plus, she liked watching the kids in line around us. Older kids are great amusement.

Soon enough, it was our turn to meet the Big Mouse himself. I set Izzy down to see if she would walk up to Mickey on her own. And she did, but with a bit of hesitation (probably thinking, “Um, Mommy, Mickey is way bigger than he was at home….”). I’ll try to intermingle the iPhone and the Photopass pictures here. You’ll know which is which because the PP ones all have some sort of border/sticker and the iPhone ones are all a bit blurry compared to them. Here’s how things played out:























Not bad! She was a bit timid, but who wouldn’t be meeting a larger-than-life celebrity? She warmed up to him when he showed her that he knew her favorite game (Peek-a-boo). And everyone gets a high-five, of course! Not a bad start.

Up next was Goofy. She’s not as familiar with Goofy, but I thought she’d be fond of all dogs. She was not real sure about him, though. It went fine, overall:













Up last was Izzy’s favorite: Minnie Mouse! Minnie was so excited to see Izzy in her matching dress:



Izzy was somewhat fascinated by Minnie:









And a nice wave bye-bye (she was just starting to wave sometimes at that age):



Overall, a pretty good interaction. Izzy wasn’t overly enthused, but she wasn’t scared either. And, honestly, the Character Spot was probably the “roughest” character interaction we had the whole trip. It only got better from there, as she got more comfortable. So, if that’s the lowest point with a 14-month-old, I would consider character interaction a SMASHING success!!

Although, I think these two pictures are kinda funny. It’s like she’s saying, “Mommy, what are you thinking? This is a weird doggy. I’m confused and overwhelmed by all of this.”:





Up next: Time for “Breakfast”!

 

[Denovagirl]

Awwww! Mickey was SO CUTE with her, playing peek-a-boo!! It's amazing how great CM's are at Disney, even the ones who are in costume still manage to go above and beyond. Love it!!

I love the photos where Izzy is looking at the characters while everyone is posing. It's too funny, and most of our group photos with characters Maddie was doing the same thing! Just staring, or touching their ears or whiskers, lol!!

I think you're right, she did SMASHING! I always felt bad for the parents whose kids would scream and cry and wouldn't take photos, all that money you spend and time waiting in line and your kids don't like the characters, I'd be bummed, because I, myself, got soooo into meeting them!! It was so fun and hilarious to do!

I can't wait for MOREEEEEEEE!

 

[cindianne320]

Adorable! Both my 14-month olds (separate trips of course!) had a tough time with characters- liked them only from afar! I was so glad my oldest LOVED characters this last trip. Hoping my DD is soon to follow.

Can't wait to see who else you met!