Birthday Fun & Pixie Dust! May '14 TR | What I bought update!! 7/1

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Hello everyone! I just got back from my trip and holey moley am I excited! I took a lot of pictures and could not wait to share with all of your fabulous DIS people This trip was very different from my past trips. It was a trip of firsts. We tried a lot of new things...some worked, some didn't. We were originally supposed to go with two of our friends, another couple. But, because of unfortunate family trouble, they had to cancel about a week before the trip. All of a sudden, the double date became just a date! It was a little bit of a scramble to get everything changed over, and to rework plans to fit just two people instead of four. But (somehow magically) we were able to sort it all out. So without further ado, here are your hosts!

Please excuse the bad quality iphone photo! That's me on the left, Carla, 22 years old (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a baby) and my boyfriend Grant, 27 years old. We have been together for almost three years and I have only gone to Disney parks with him. This was our fourth trip to a Disney park together! We're both students, but have part time jobs. I work with start up bloggers in blog and graphic design, and he works as a social worker assistant. This trip was a much needed break!

TRIP OVERVIEW:
Day 1 | Travel day / Magic Kingdom
Day 2 | Animal Kingdom / Hollywood Studios
Day 3 | Break Day
Day 4 | Magic Kingdom / Epcot

Next time I'll talk about our travel day and arriving at Magic Kingdom! Thanks for following along! ​

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Hello again everyone! The first day of our trip was r i d i c u l o u s. But in the good way! We were picked up by taxi at 5:40 am and got to the airport at 6:00 am. We got through security in record time, about 15 minutes or so right on time for our flight. We flew JetBlue for the first time and it was very, very nice. It was a direct 2 hour flight and they provided free television.

Pictured above: my Minnie ears (which I always pack last) and my Don't Forget list for my travel day. I actually remembered to bring everything. Crazy, I know.

My boyfriend let me have the window seat so I could take pictures. I've always thought that clouds were the craziest things.

The best thing about JetBlue was the boarding and unboarding (is that a word??) process. They load everyone up from the back up, so it moves a lot quicker than other flights. I think it's my favorite airline now. Oh, and did I mention free snacks???

Once we arrived, we made a beeline to get our car rental. This is where the new things had started. We have never rented a car for a trip before, and we were hoping and praying that it wouldn't end up being $298304982.65 and that we wouldn't have to go through all the traumatic reports we have heard about renting cars. But it was oddly very easy. We used Alamo, and we had prebooked and prepaid. It was about $13.00 a day before all the fees and then another $14 a day for fees. It was a crazy good deal. And the car we got was a cute little Fiat. I bet we looked so hip. By the time we got the car and got on the road it was around 9:45am. Our plan was to get to the resort first (Port Orleans Riverside) and see how long our room would be, and then go to Target to pick up supplies. My boyfriend convinced me to just do the online check in and go to Target first, as well as picking up breakfast and much needed coffee at Panera.

We officially got to PO Riverside at around 11:30 and they had our room ready!! I'm convinced that this is because I did not put any room requests. We walked around the resort for a bit, enjoying the scenery. It was our first time staying at a Disney resort, and we were soaking in every minute! The resort is beautiful. Just, breathtaking. I was drawn to it because my family is from Louisiana, and I must say: Disney got it right. Spot on.

I mean just look at it! So beautiful!! It was finally setting in. I was back in my happy place! I actually had my camera battery charging at the hotel, and I actually forgot to take pictures of our room. Whoops! But we stayed at Alligator Bayou. It's not the fanciest of rooms, and it was very rustic, but I loved it. It was a good choice for a first time stay, I feel. Thank goodness we rented a car, though. It was pretty far away!

We got to Magic Kingdom at around 1:00pm, with no ADRs (we had to cancel them when my friend cancelled) and 3 fastpasses and no real plans! We were truly wingin' it! Stay tuned for the pixie dust!

 

[LifeTheDisneyWay14]

I love this report so far - you're an amazing photographer! And you guys are an adorable couple

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

I love this report so far - you're an amazing photographer! And you guys are an adorable couple

Awh thank you!!

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Hello again friends! Picking up where I left off, we drove to Magic Kingdom and arrived there around 1:00pm. The drive was about 15 minutes from Port Orleans Riverside, and the tram and monorail ride from the TTC was about another 15 minutes. We hadn't had any lunch, but we weren't really hungry so we decided to find something to snack on and see what rides had short wait times. But first, we needed some more of that extra magic! We went to get magic bandits for the both of us and a pin for the boyfriend. We were celebrating his birthday, after all! We wanted bandits to match our bands and our personalities, so we went with Miss Piggy and Kermit!

I love this extra pixie dust! ​

Then I almost tripped over Marry Poppins. No joke. If Grant hadn't pulled me away I probably would have knocked her right over. So I grabbed the opportunity to be a little bit of a paparazzi and try to grab some photos. Does anyone know the character she was talking to?

Afterwards, we headed over to Plaza Ice Cream Parlor. It was getting really late, and I knew the parade was starting soon. We have this tradition of waiting for a parade while eating ice cream. And we had to get a good spot, because we still hadn't seen Festival of Fantasy! We hadn't even watched a video of it or anything, so this was all brand spanking new for us.

The pixie dust was really flowing, because we after getting ice cream, we only had about 30 minutes before the parade but we found an amazing spot. It was just outside of the hub, right in front of the castle and it made for great photo taking. It was very, very hot, and we were sitting on the burning pavement, but it was so, so worth it!

This picture of Bashful is definitely one of my favorite pictures EVER! He's just so cute.​

Can I just say that I am beyond excited that Tangled and Peter Pan got their own float?? I had a moment when these guys went by. I know, I know, I'm 7 years old. But seriously, what an amazing parade, am I right?? It was just so beautiful! I love all of the characters and I'm very glad I got a good seat.

After the parade, it was time to check MDE for wait times again. We still had an hour until our first FastPass+. The Little Mermaid ride was around 15 mins so we jumped on that opportunity. It's a ride we both really like (but probably mostly me). The wait ended up being almost twice that, though. Not that 30 minutes is a long time, it was just very interesting. I remember reading on here that wait times are often inflated, so I believe that there must have been some breakdown.

This ride makes me so happy. Ariel was my first favorite princess After Ariel we still had a bit of time before our first FastPass+ time ran out so I convinced him to go on Teacups! We are actually a little sensitive to rides that go around in continuous circles, but it's a Disney World classic, so why not at least try?

I'm so very happy that we did try ​

The ride did leave me a little bit queasy, but for the most part it was fine. The trick, we realized was to not move the wheel and not focus on the other moving teacups too much. Afterwards, we went to our first FastPass+, Peter Pan. It was around this time that I turned off my camera because the battery was low. I wanted to save what I had for the night time, because this was going to be the only time I was going to be able to take nighttime MK pictures for a while

So we rode Peter Pan with no problem. The standby line was a 40 minutes wait, but we only waited a whopping minutes for the ride. Works for me! After that, we decided to see if we could squeeze in another ride. We checked MDE and Pirates was only 15 minutes! So we rushed on and we were j u u u s t about to get on before the ride broke down. I took an iphone photo so that I could tweet my feelings about the situation.

Yeah, those are the boats down there. We decided to wait it out, but it ended up being another 20 minute wait! No matter, it was Pirates, and it was fun! Our next FP+ was Space Mountain and we got there at around 6:40 with only 5 minutes left on the clock. The wait time was a peachy 5 minutes and the ride went smoothly. The last ride we did was was our last FP+ which was Thunder Mountain! Best. Ride. Ever.

Then, we did some shopping. Hello, Christmas store!

Then, around 7:30 Grant said something about dinner and I suddenly remembered that we didn't have an ADR anymore. I started panicking just a little bit because I had planned to start waiting for the electrical parade in about 30 minutes. We made the decision to try and find somewhere to eat and try to make it to the 9:00pm Electrical Parade and get a good seat.

Did we make it work? Stay tuned....

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Here are some extra pictures I took at MK that day.

I actually did curtsy in front of Cinderella! I also wonder where I can get a replica of this statue for my future yard.

This trip I started doing this weird thing where I would take pictures of the loading sections of rides (especially ones with buggies) and pictures of merchandise in the stores. I did feel a little silly trying to snap pictures of the Little Mermaid shells while everyone else was quickly trying to get off. I thought I would get in trouble with the CMs, but one of them moved me over to the ride hand side and told me I had about 5 seconds. Thank you kind person!

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Hello everyone! Picking up where I left off: PANIC. Trying to get a table service dinner at Magic Kingdom at 7:30 was NOT going to happen, so we started looking for quick service options. We used MDE to look at menus and had a hard time picking something we were interested in. We are both vegetarians We first stopped by Tortuga Tavern but it was mysteriously closed. We we walked a little further down to Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn. It was a disappointing experience for me. Grant got a veggie burger and enjoyed it, and I got the taco bowl. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of options for a veggie taco. I should have gotten the burger.

As we were eating, we realized that we weren't going to make the parade and get a good spot. At this point it was 8:30 and we were all the way in Fronteirland. Bad, bad planning on my part. Take notes everyone! Make reservations! We opted to wait until 11 pm and watch the parade run again.

We took our time finishing our food and we headed to Main Street, getting there just as the parade started. We walked around for a little bit trying to find a good spot, but there was nothing. So we took this opportunity to shop around, and buy some more snacks to make up for the bad meal. Once the parade went down Main Street, we quickly took ourselves to the hub and sat our butts down at a good spot to watch Wishes. We both love Wishes and this was going to be the only time we would see it this trip. But our Wishes spot was very quickly turned into the worst spot ever. I am only 5 feet tall and it seemed like all the tall people in the world were standing in front of me. I totally missed the projection show and there was a lady next to us that was cursing loudly to her child I was starting to stress out, just a little bit.

So, in the middle of the projections show, Grant and I started nudging ourselves towards the left and back on the sidewalk, thinking I could watch the fireworks from the edge instead of the middle. It was a diagonal sort of nudge and we found ourselves a couple feet from the sidewalk and ride in front of the hub walkway. So there was nobody in front of us because the cast members have cleared it. This was the absolute best view ever for someone as short as me. For all you other shorties, definitely aim for this spot.

Our view for Wishes was amazing.

After Wishes we were really tired. Don't forget, this was our flight date as well. We sat by the Crystal Palace to rest our feet while watching the mass exodus of strollers. Part of me is glad we didn't try to leave when everyone else did. That's when I got the idea that we should watch the parade from the entrance of Main Street so that we would be first out the store when it was over. We parked ourselves right in front of the entrance to the park and it was e m p t y. We pretty much had the area to ourselves!

I wish I could post more pictures, but I took a lot of them on commission for a website and they don't want any other copies floating around the internet. After the parade we pretty much galloped to the monorails. It was only a 5 minute wait thank goodness. Even so, it took another 30 minutes to get to the TTC, tram back to our spot and get to our hotel. I was surprisingly ok with it, even though we had to be up at 7 the next day.

Next time: Animal Kingdom early in the morning! Thanks for following along!

 

[ElenaJane]

I love your graphics they are so fun!! And your pictures!!

Love that we were there at the same time. We are also vegetarians and it can be tough finding good options. However, I think WDW has come a longgggg way in the last decade. BoG for lunch had quinoa salad for Pete's Sake!

Can't wait to read your next updates!

 

[LBelle0890]

Subscribing in! You and your DBF are precious. I love that you chose POR. Disney does make it feel just like Louisiana I've stayed there from time to time, and I live there! Look forward to the rest of your TR.

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

I love your graphics they are so fun!! And your pictures!!

Thank you!! I'm having way too much fun re-living our trip

Love that we were there at the same time. We are also vegetarians and it can be tough finding good options. However, I think WDW has come a longgggg way in the last decade. BoG for lunch had quinoa salad for Pete's Sake!

Can't wait to read your next updates!

When I first started planning I was so surprised with how many vegetarian options there were! It's amazing how quickly I was able to find food for us. I'm just waiting for them to add soy chicken to the menus Thanks for reading!

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Subscribing in! You and your DBF are precious. I love that you chose POR. Disney does make it feel just like Louisiana I've stayed there from time to time, and I live there! Look forward to the rest of your TR.

Thank you! We call each other our Disney dates. I was really happy with POR. Next time I might try French Quarter if I don't upgrade to a Deluxe resort. Now that I know what being an onsite guest is like, I am totally hooked Thank you for reading!

 

[mlegerto]

Great TR so far! Can't wait to read more while I plan our Disneymoon for next summer!!! Eeeeeeeek

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Great TR so far! Can't wait to read more while I plan our Disneymoon for next summer!!! Eeeeeeeek

A Disneymoon! What a great reason to be at Disney! Thanks for reading along!

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Hello again everyone! Picking up right where I left off:

We woke up at around 7. And that was late. After a full day of travel and Magic Kingdom and then not getting back to bed until after midnight, our 6:15 am alarm clock was most definitely silenced. So we didn't wake up until 7. Well, I woke up at 6:50. I had to drag Grant out of bed at 7:15. Our original plan was to get to Animal Kingdom at 8 for extra magic hours, but our bodies were just not feeling it. Thankfully, we had rented a car. We got to the Riverside Mill, the food court at Port Orleans Riverside at about 7:40am on the dot.

Originally I had tried to avoid going to food courts for my trip. I had made an ADR at Kona for breakfast. But I was actually and happy that I was at the Riverside Mill instead. If it had been anywhere else, it was not going to happen. It was a little busy and loud, but very quaint at the same time. There were a lot of food options for us vegetarians and everything was very affordable.

We ate as quickly as we could without hurting ourselves and then left for Animal kingdom at 8:10am. We definitely missed EMH rope drop, so I was crossing my fingers that it wouldn't be too crowded. We had NO Fast Passes for this park...they were all saved for Hollywood Studios later that day.

But when we got to the park, at 8:40, it was pretty much empty. We made a beeline through Harambe to Kilimanjaro Safari making it there at 8:30 or so. And look at all the people that were in front of us!

Yeah, it was pretty empty. I am officially a EMH convert. And we had a whole bench to ourselves so I didn't get crushed by people trying to take pictures. We sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the ride and the animals

I had forgotten how much I loved this ride! Next on our list was Expedition Everest! It sounded a little daunting to ride a roller coaster at 9 in the morning. So we took a little stroll around the park. The last time we were there, we kinda skipped over Harambe. I know, we are awful.

This park is all sorts of beautiful. I can understand why it's Grant's favorite. But it was time to stop looking at the beauty and to go scream our butts off instead!

The EE line was about 30 minutes long but it felt a lot shorter than that. I was being entertained by this conversation a group of middle school boys were having with each other. I don't think I've ever heard the word "dude" uttered so many times in a single conversation.

Also, the queue for this ride is great. For those of you that have never been on it, it basically takes you through a "Yeti Museum" so that you can see the "proof" of the Yeti existing. It's pretty convincing.

The ride was really fun! I was a little worried about my camera and my purse because I had seen someone lose their bag on the big drop last time. So I shoved my camera and bag in the little pocket in front of the seat but left the strap out. Then I put the strap around my leg. That way, if it gets out of the pouch somehow, it will still be looped around my leg. It's a silly sounding thing, but it worked for me.

After we got off EE it was around 10:15am, so we went to see what other animals we could visit before our 11:30 lunch reservation. By this time the crowds were getting really big, so going other rides probably wasn't going to happen. We went through the Maharajah Jungle Trek and we actually got to see tigers this time. They were sleeping of course, but still so cute! And, you know, deadly.

It only took us about 20 minutes to get through it because we had seen a lot of it before, and I didn't really stop to take pictures. Then we hightailed it to the Pangani Exploration Trail to see if we could see the hippos or the gorillas again. Unfortunately, we didn't see either. But there were a lot of fish!

It took us another 20 to get through that walk-through, so we took about 10 minutes to poke our heads in the Oasis exhibit, but if we didn't get going soon we were going to miss our reservation at The Rainforest Cafe! We got there just in time, with a little bit of rushing. It was a l l l the way back at the park entrance.

Next time: Grant gets a birthday surprise, and then we go to Hollywood Studios! See you guys there!

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

It was time for Grant's birthday surprise! Don't get excited, it wasn't that crazy, y'all. He was thoroughly enjoying the Rainforest Cafe. In the middle of our meal I went to "use the bathroom" and basically chased our server into a corner. I gave him my credit card and told him to not only pay for this meal, but bring out some cheesecake for his birthday. He was very, very nice about it and agreed. Bringin' on the pixie dust! So of course the server came back with not only a slice of cheesecake with a candle in it, but an entourage of other servers that started serenading Grant. He looked so taken aback and I was laughing so hard I ended up with the hiccups.

I think he liked the surprise. And that cheesecake was awesome.

After eating we decided to go back to the hotel. It was 12:45ish when we left the park and just after 1pm when we walked into our room. We took an hour and a half glorious break. Hooray for car rentals! Hooray for naps! We felt much better when we left the hotel at 4:00 for Hollywood Studios! I was really excited to actually experience this park. The last time we were there we only spent 2 hours and didn't really do much. We weren't huge fans of it, but we were ready to give it another chance.

The first thing I noticed were the change in palm trees in the parking lot. These are California palms

So pretty! So Hollywood!

Our first fastpass was The Great Movie Ride! It was a bit of a waste of a FP because the line was only 10 minutes long. But I guess that a 1 minute line is better, right?

This is such a cute ride! The show we got was with the gangster. As we went into Munchkin Land, he said, "What is this? Jersey?" After the ride we had a bit of time before our next fast pass, so we headed to The Magic of Disney Animation, a first for us! While we waited for the drawing class I put my paparazzi skills to the test.

I love Mr. Incredible!! And Ralph!! And Vanellope!! I wish I could have met them, but their lines were too long. We only had 5 minutes or so before our class. We sat down in the class (bless the air conditioning! ) and I was immediately really excited by the little light up screens. Grant kept telling me that he couldn't draw and this wasn't going to end well. And I said, "n o n s e n s e, this is a class, you'll do greeeat!"

So we drew Jiminy Cricket, one of my favorite characters. Some people were doing an amazing job, and I felt like I did ok.

Now, before I show you Grant's, let me first tell you: I love Grant. I love him very much. But he's bad at drawing, and taking direction. When I looked over to how he was doing I started laughing so hard I thought I was going to have to leave the room.

After we finished the class, we spent at least 10 minutes comparing each other's work and laughing so hard I got the hiccups. Yeah, I'm probably going to frame that.

I'll be back next time to talk about the rest of Hollywood Studios and a Boardwalk evening

 

[ElenaJane]

"They were sleeping of course, but still so cute! And, you know, deadly. " Love it!

I am no artist, and I feel bad for saying this, but OMG, Grant's picture...that's a whole new take on Jiminy Cricket! I am sure he meant to do it in an abstract way!

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

"They were sleeping of course, but still so cute! And, you know, deadly. " Love it!

I am no artist, and I feel bad for saying this, but OMG, Grant's picture...that's a whole new take on Jiminy Cricket! I am sure he meant to do it in an abstract way!

The best thing was that he was trying SO hard.

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Hello friends! Thanks again for following along. Picking up where I left off: After laughing out butts off for a good while at our drawings, we headed to our fast pass for Toy Story Mania! I have been dying to go on this ride, but the fastpasses would always run out. So hooray for the new MM system! That was one thing I was happy about.

Can I just say: BEST RIDE EVER!! Everything about this ride was amazing. First of all, it's Toy Story. The first movie was my childhood in a nutshell, so being transported to "Toy Size" was so much fun.

I mean, just look at it! We were in Andy's room!

I totally lost. My strategy of "scream and while furiously trying to hit as many as possible" did not work out that great. But I think I did ok for a first timer! After this ride, we looked around the rest of the park. I especially loved the Muppet area. But we didn't have too much time before it was lunch time! Continuing on our Toy Story spree we headed off to Pizza Planet!

If you haven't figured it out, we are a bunch of geeks. Honestly, I think I only really like this place because it's Pizza Planet. I thought it was just a bit overpriced so I just went with a kid's size pizza and Grant went with a veggie pizza. But it was tasty! It wasn't plasticy or greasy.

It was definitely not filling, though, so we went in the hunt of desserts and found some churros.

By this time, it was only around 7:30. A lot of ride lines were at their maximum (around 50 minutes) for some odd reason so we decided to just call it a day night for this park. So long Hollywood Studios!

Then on the way home we spontaneously decided to check out the boardwalk!

It was really nice to hang around here. It was very relaxing and we actually got "home" at a reasonable time!

Next time was our "break day" but still loads of fun. Stay tuned!

 

[ElenaJane]

Those kid pizzas actually look like a great size! It might because it is dinner time and I am starving, but man, they looked good!

TSMM is a great ride. I just wish the lines weren't so crazy! Build another ride HS, so this one eases up a bit!

 

[RachelNinja]

Looks like such a fun trip so far! I really am enjoying your photos. You said you were commissioned to take some WDW photos? That's really cool! Can't wait to read more!