Bibbidi-Bobbidi-DEUX our own kind of marathon ~ A Nov '14 TR ~ Updated 11/2 ~ THE END

[ThePin Princess]

You're running it too? Yay!! Have you done a RunDisney race before? I had our whole trip planned around the race, so I'm glad that I was able to register for it right when it opened, I couldn't believe how fast it sold out! Eeek, I can't wait, it sounds like so much fun!! I'm trying to talk Joe into wearing a costume with me.

I haven't done one yet, but I'm doing the Enchanted 10K in February as my first! I know they sell out SO fast it's mind blowing! I registered as soon as it opened cause I didn't want to miss out on it!


The Land! I haven't been there in so long, but the food sounds and looks soo good! Great room also! Looks very spacious and home!

 

[desheag]

Joining in!! Love all the updates! Your family is so adorable!!

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

OK, finally here to check in Rachel.

I actually travelled through Philadelphia for the first time last September, so it's kinda fun to see the airport here. I actually remember seeing Guava & Java.

I so wish I only had a 2.5 hour plane ride to Disney.

Wow, isn't it amazing to have a FP for noon when you were actually home that very morning?

The kid's outfits still blow me away. It's just amazing.

 

[familyabgar]

Great start, Rachel! I love how all your kids seem to really go with the flow. Bronwyn has really grown up since your last TR!

 

[disneyjes]

Oh what a great day!! I adore the outfits the kids wear! Can't wait to read more! Thank you for sharing.

 

[HumblePie]

Joining in. You have a beautiful family!!

 

[Marsheliz]

I am glad you guys enjoyed your dinner here. I have contemplated a ressie here before myself.

Still loving all the outfits!! I hope I have a girl SO bad. I want to play dress up!

 

[MomoMama]

Oh, what a great first day!
I see you had the dessert trio I missed...they look so good!
After reading your report, I am considering a stop at the Garden Grill next time.
The Goofy dress is my favorite s far! I have seen a similar Goofy inspired dress before and thought that was a great idea. Something different from princesses or Minnie...very unique! BTW, you were not worried the airline could lose your luggage? I may be paranoid, but we carried on all DD's dresses because of my fear of losing them... well it was possible because DD only had one or two outfits per day.

 

[6travel]

Thank you for posting about Garden Grill. We have an ADR there on our upcoming trip.

 

[annegirl]

Joining! Followed over from my trip report and then I realized I had read your last trip report.
I LOVE all of the girls outfits. Our girls get a lot of outfit changes too but not as many as yours. Every single outfit is amazing!
The food all looked so good. We just may have to try to go to that someday.
Your room looks amazing!!!

 

[missangelalexis]

Joining in!!

You all look so happy on the plane (no surprise though)!

I'm glad all your travels went so smoothly!

Mm the pork slider, one of my faves.

Great character spot pics!

I love all the outfit change for the kids, so adorable.

Your dinner at Garden Grill sonds like it was so fun!

Your villa looks gorgeous!

Can't wait to hear more

 

[khertz]

I'd say that's a really great first day!

The pics from dinner are just so cute. The individual pics of Isla and then Bronwyn are just so precious. You can definitely see that all of the kids were having a blast at dinner.

All of the kids' faces on Test Track are priceless!! So funny how they all had different reactions, especially Isla with her almost peeing her pants.

What a great place to lay your head after such a long day.

 

[merbobear]

Oh I am so glad I stopped by the DIs today and checked my subscriptions. I saw your previous TR still sitting there in my subscribed topics, and thought "Well I know this family was planning a second trip..." So I went looking and here I am at your current TR! Love all of the kids' outfits so far AKL is a beautiful resort, hope you enjoyed your stay there!

Btw I noticed you are going back in May. That is when my family always travels to WDW. I actually host a planning group over on facebook, feel free to join us if you would like!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/DisneyWorldMay2015/?fref=ts

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Garden Grill is one of my favorites! The food is basic, but so so yummy and I love that the characters some around twice. Glad you enjoyed it!

Your villa looks beautiful! Sounds like a great amount of room for all you guys to settle into. It does look a little dark but I suppose that's a small price to pay. Can't wait to hear about your next day!

I'm so glad that I pushed for the Garden Grill ADR (Joe hadn't wanted to try it) ... it was definitely a great place to eat! The kids kept talking about how much fun it was.

Oh my goodness, the villa had SO MUCH ROOM! It was so nice to not feel cramped.

Great start! I love all the outfits!

Thank you!

It's awesome that your kids are so good about all the changes! It's great you can have pictures of the kids with outfits that are so well coordinated to your activities. I would love to know where you order these outfits from! I have awhile before I'll be taking my daughter to Disney but I absolutely love all these outfits

I love to coordinate for the fun experience at the time but also to have those great pictures after the trip. Now you have me singing the "Taking Pictures is Making Memories" song haha

You can find some great Disney customs on Etsy, Ebay and designers/groups on Facebook. I've been buying for a little while now that I have my little group of Disney customs-loving FB friends that I can buy from after their trips.

I haven't done one yet, but I'm doing the Enchanted 10K in February as my first! I know they sell out SO fast it's mind blowing! I registered as soon as it opened cause I didn't want to miss out on it!


The Land! I haven't been there in so long, but the food sounds and looks soo good! Great room also! Looks very spacious and home!

Yay! I can't wait to read about your 10K in Feb.

Joining in!! Love all the updates! Your family is so adorable!!

Thanks for joining in!

OK, finally here to check in Rachel.

I actually travelled through Philadelphia for the first time last September, so it's kinda fun to see the airport here. I actually remember seeing Guava & Java.

I so wish I only had a 2.5 hour plane ride to Disney.

Wow, isn't it amazing to have a FP for noon when you were actually home that very morning?

The kid's outfits still blow me away. It's just amazing.

Rob! I think I remember when you were at the Philly airport.... didn't you have yourself some Chik-fil-A?

I know, right?! It was pretty cool to be able to be in a park before noon. Definitely makes those early morning flights SO worth it.

Great start, Rachel! I love how all your kids seem to really go with the flow. Bronwyn has really grown up since your last TR!

My kids definitely get that easy-going "go with the flow" attitude from Joe because I don't have an ounce of that in me. haha

I know! I look back at pics from our last trip and they have all grown up, especially Bronwyn! Makes me a little sad

Oh what a great day!! I adore the outfits the kids wear! Can't wait to read more! Thank you for sharing.

Aww, thank you!

Joining in. You have a beautiful family!!

Happy to have you here!

I am glad you guys enjoyed your dinner here. I have contemplated a ressie here before myself.

Still loving all the outfits!! I hope I have a girl SO bad. I want to play dress up!

Yes, you should definitely try it if you a get a chance!

Girls are SO much fun to dress! But so dangerous for your wallet!

Oh, what a great first day!
I see you had the dessert trio I missed...they look so good!
After reading your report, I am considering a stop at the Garden Grill next time.
The Goofy dress is my favorite s far! I have seen a similar Goofy inspired dress before and thought that was a great idea. Something different from princesses or Minnie...very unique! BTW, you were not worried the airline could lose your luggage? I may be paranoid, but we carried on all DD's dresses because of my fear of losing them... well it was possible because DD only had one or two outfits per day.

Jorie's Goofy dress was one of my favs too! And it was fun to see Goofy go nuts over it.

Oh I am paranoid as well! I was SO worried about the airlines losing our luggage! I pack as many of our customs as I can in our carry -ons.... and actually our last trip I was able to carry on most of them. But this time I had a little more so I had to pick and choose which ones I would carry on and which ones I would put in the checked luggage. Eeek! It was a huge moment of relief to see that they had all arrived to our room safely.

Thank you for posting about Garden Grill. We have an ADR there on our upcoming trip.

Oh good, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Joining! Followed over from my trip report and then I realized I had read your last trip report.
I LOVE all of the girls outfits. Our girls get a lot of outfit changes too but not as many as yours. Every single outfit is amazing!
The food all looked so good. We just may have to try to go to that someday.
Your room looks amazing!!!

Thanks for joining in!

Joining in!!

You all look so happy on the plane (no surprise though)!

I'm glad all your travels went so smoothly!

Mm the pork slider, one of my faves.

Great character spot pics!

I love all the outfit change for the kids, so adorable.

Your dinner at Garden Grill sonds like it was so fun!

Your villa looks gorgeous!

Can't wait to hear more

Happy that you're following along!

I'd say that's a really great first day!

The pics from dinner are just so cute. The individual pics of Isla and then Bronwyn are just so precious. You can definitely see that all of the kids were having a blast at dinner.

All of the kids' faces on Test Track are priceless!! So funny how they all had different reactions, especially Isla with her almost peeing her pants.

What a great place to lay your head after such a long day.

It sure was a great first day! And it only gets better from there!

That pic of Bronwyn is one of my all-time favs.... it makes her look so sweet and innocent. bwahahaha

Oh I am so glad I stopped by the DIs today and checked my subscriptions. I saw your previous TR still sitting there in my subscribed topics, and thought "Well I know this family was planning a second trip..." So I went looking and here I am at your current TR! Love all of the kids' outfits so far AKL is a beautiful resort, hope you enjoyed your stay there!

Btw I noticed you are going back in May. That is when my family always travels to WDW. I actually host a planning group over on facebook, feel free to join us if you would like!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/DisneyWorldMay2015/?fref=ts

So glad that you found this TR!

Yay, I'm already a member of your group. Planning a trip for just the two of us has been SO different. We really have to prioritize what we want to do and see since it's a shorter trip. And oh I can't tell you how many time I have changed our ADRs, lol. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Flower & Garden Festival. I was a little bummed by the cooler temps in November, I'm hoping its warmer when we're back in May.

 

[TeresaNJ]

Wow! You packed a LOT into that first day! I can't believe you were all still standing by the time you got back to Kidani, lol. Your kids are adorable, and I love the outfits! Looking forward to the rest of your report.

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Day 2
Friday November 7th

My alarm was set for 6:30am. Those early mornings don’t seem so bad when you’'re waking up in Disney!!! We all got up and ready, excited to get our day started. The kids ate some breakfast in the room and I had to check out our view.



Not quite the Samawati Springs pool that I had hoped for, but that’s okay…... a great view would have been wasted on us since we were never in our room long enough to enjoy it.

We headed to the bus stop and while we waited, I pulled out my Starbucks mocha Frappuccino (thanks to Garden Grocer!) and the School Bread from the day before.



I took one bite of the School Bread and was in heaven! Now I’'m sure it would have tasted even better when it was fresh but I definitely enjoyed it. Yum-O!

I don’t remember having to wait long for a bus to arrive and we were at the front gate of Hollywood Studios by 8:30. I was surprised at the amount of people waiting to get into the park. September crowds had definitely spoiled us. Touring Plans had predicted a crowd level of 5 for that day but it ended up being a 6 out of 10. Crowd levels were only a 2 out of 10 on our last trip.

The kids spotted Mickey while we waited to be let in.



We had one thing on our mind that morning…. Jedi Training! Joe had picked a slower moving line, so I took Donovan and Jorie along with me and we rushed ahead.



I made my way up to the hat and realized that I didn’t know where I was going. I seem to do that a lot. I spotted a CM and asked where we sign up for Jedi training, she pointed us in the direction of the ABC Sound Studio.
Joe had taken a faster route around Echo Lake and arrived at the same time as us. We parked the strollers and hopped in line. The line was long and slow moving. Once inside the building we could hear them announce as each show filled up. I was getting nervous when there was still a pretty long line of people in front of us and they were well into the afternoon shows. When we finally arrived at the desk, the first available show was 4:10. We had a 5pm dinner ADR, so it wasn'’t ideal but we took it. Donovan and Jorie were thrilled at the chance to try this!

We had just enough time to head back to the front of the park and drop off our bag in a locker before heading to….....



Pixar Place for our 9:00-10:00 FP+ for Toy Story Midway Mania!! We scanned our Magic Bands just in the nick of time.





When we were getting ready to board, the CM asked us how many were in our party and the ages of the kids. They told us that we needed to ride 3 and 3. They would not let Donovan and Jorie ride alone together because of Jorie only being 6. Bummer because that left two people without a gun to shoot and where's the fun in that?!

I took Donovan and Isla along with me. Isla said that she'’d ride in the middle without a gun. We got Jessie!



As the couple was getting off in front of us, I heard the lady say to the CM that her gun was not working. I saw him fiddle with something at the operator’s booth, and then nodded for us to get on, so I thought he had fixed the problem. Yeah well he didn'’t….

I realized this when we entered the practice game. I started tugging on the pull-string like crazy and my gun wasn’'t throwing a single pie! The competitive side of me was really annoyed! I tried a few more times throughout the ride and …. NOTHING.

Yeah Man, Check out that score!



Definitely "Worst" in Vehicle. Donovan was thrilled that he beat me. hahaha

When the ride was over I told the same CM at the control panel that my gun was not working. He nodded and said okay and then said something to another CM. And that was it…. no apology, no offer to ride again. Nothing. Okaaaaay? I walked out of that ride so disappointed. I had used up one of my FP+ on one of my favorite rides and didn’t even get to enjoy it. Grrr….

I needed something to lift my spirits so we decided that we would go over to the Animation Courtyard to see a very special princess. My girls absolutely love Sofia the First and could not wait to meet her! We hopped in line and waited about 15 minutes or so.











Sofia loved checking out the girls’ dresses. She wished that her dress had a big bow in the back like Isla'’s did.



And she was so excited that the girls were wearing crowns and amulets just like hers.

After our quick visit to the Kingdom of Enchancia, we walked over to line up for the next Disney Junior Live on Stage show. The 10:30 show was just starting so we decided that we’'d come back for the 11:20 show. So how about a sweet treat while we waited?

We headed not too far away…, to the corner of Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards.

Starring Rolls! It was our first time here and the kids had to check out everything they had to offer!



So many choices!





We decided on the Butterfinger Cupcake (did you have a doubt in your mind?) and the Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcake.





We split each one 6 ways so that everyone got to try each one. And oh they were delightful!


NEXT

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Next we stopped for some PP pics before heading back to line up for the show.







On with the show!



We waited in line for a few minutes while the FP+ people went in first, and then we were let in to fill in the rest of the seating area. A warning for those of you who have never done this... there aren't any seats, you find a spot on the floor (which is pretty gross if you think about it... just don't think about it )









The kids were loving the show, especially Bronwyn who is a Disney Junior addict.



Even Donovan, who thought he was too old for Disney Junior enjoyed it. It's a really fun, high energy show with your fav characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins, and Jake & the Neverland Pirates. There is a ton of singing & dancing, oh and BUBBLES!!! It's gotta be good if there are bubbles, right?!

After the show we stopped for a quick bathroom break and change before it was time for our next FP+, The Frozen Sing Along!

We were supposed to arrive between 12:10-12:25. We were cutting it close on time and when we got to the area of the show there was a rope up allowing a large group of people to cross the street (maybe the show before ours letting out?) but preventing us from getting to the FP+ line. By the time we got in line and up to the side doors of the theater, it was past our FP+ time and they were allowing people in the back entrance of the theater as well. We grabbed the best available row which was to the left and second row from the back. The whole theater quickly filled up and people were standing along the sides and back of the room. It was packed!

I was so excited to see what all of the hype was about!



Bronwyn's idea of a smile.



I'm not sure what I was expecting but I was pleasantly surprised. It was such a cute show! I even heard Joe laugh out loud a few times. Some of the one-liners are definitely geared towards adults and went right over the kids' heads.





The girls squealed with delight when they saw "the real" Anna & Elsa come out on stage.



We had so much fun singing our hearts out. And the verdict? We all LOVED it - but that not surprising since we are a family of Frozen-lovers. We have yet to become sick of it. I'm not sure if we ever will. The movie still gets put one at least once a week at our house!




NEXT

 

[TruLovesKiss]

And keeping along with the Frozen theme, of course our next stop would be......





Once inside we passed through the store and stopped for a photo in front of the bridge.



Little did we know that Anna & Elsa would be joining us in the Memory Maker version.



From the looks of it, Bronwyn was done with having her picture taken. Lol



The kids were excited to play in the snow.



While I lined up with them, Joe headed for the Sweet Treat Bar to order some adult beverages.



Aww look, they're playing so nicely together. Not really, they were fighting over who got to play with which toys.





Time for some alcohol. Lol My "Blue Snow Queen" - a mix of Citrus Vodka, Blue Curacao, Peach Schnapps, Sweet-and-Sour Mix, and Pineapple Juice.



So yummy and it glowed!!


Then it was time to get some food in our bellies. On our way we ran into some cool characters.



Donovan had dressed as a Green Army Man for Halloween, so he thought it was so cool to meet him.

And Max!





The kids ate Uncrustables that we had packed in our cooler bag. Joe and I were on a mission to find something that I had read about on the DisneyFoodBlog.

Macaroni and Cheese Bread Cone


Well after not seeing it at a couple of the QS dining places, I looked online and I found out that they were removed from the menu, darn!

So we ended up ordering an Onion Straw Cheddar Angus Burger and a Chicken NUGs kids meal at Rosie's All American to share. We grabbed a seat nearby along a wall and quickly realized that we were in a smoking section. Yuck! So we ate fast and got out of there.



Our Frozen fun had come to an end, so it was time for ...yup you guessed it, an outfit change. We were heading to the lockers when we stopped for our first pin-trade of the trip.



Good pick Bronwyn! Love that Goofy pin.



NEXT

 

[Biggie Smalls]

I wish I had someone taking my photo when I scrolled down and saw that DELIGHTFUL mac and cheese cone. I might have said a bad word and drilled all over my shirt. Im sooooo sad FOR you that you couldn't get it!

Your daughters Sofia dresses were amazing! Do you make them all yourself? I really think that if you make them yourself you should totally start a business!

I would have been so bummed out too about TSMM, you handled it way cooler than I think most people would have. There is no way I would have not wanted to ride again so kudos to you for being the better person!

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

I think I remember when you were at the Philly airport.... didn't you have yourself some Chik-fil-A?

You better believe I did!!!!! It was my first encounter with Chik-fil-A and I was NOT missing out.

********

Despite it all, that's still a pretty nice view there Rachel.

Hahaha, I love the fact that you didn't wait when you got inside MGM. And clearly it worked out since you arrived at the same time. Incidentally, I wonder what we'll do now that we won't be able to say "I made my way up to the hat"?

Oh I don't like that you didn't get to ride again with a working gun. I've heard of them doing that before.

My goodness, the characters must absolutely love when you all show up with the kids dressed up like them.

Red Velvet Cupcake. That will be breakfast in the near future.

I'm still a Frozen guy too and enjoyed this show as well. I wish more people sang, but the one liners were pretty darn entertaining.