Brits are coming - pirates, princesses, hotels & PICTURES!! Pt 1

[seobaina]

Ok, I've never done one of these before so stick with me.

My best friend, Karen, and I hit WDW for 17 nights in April / May 2008. Yes it sucks to be home and not there anymore!! So this is my way of writing it up while I remember it all and also slowing down the post-Disney blues!

Over the 17/18 days we stayed in 3 hotels, took part in a P&PP, were made over at BBB, attended the Aloha, met lots of characters, ate almost EVERYWHERE and had SO MUCH FUN!!!

So, over the next few days I'm gonna type it up and post pics of the time for anyone who is interested. I'll discuss the good, bad, ugly, pretty and the moments that made me cry (with happiness).

So, here's the cast:

I'm on the right as you look at it, and my best friend of 12 years, Karen, is on the left. We're both 32, both English and met at University while both taking our undergrad degrees. Karen now works in Finance and I have 3 jobs - teaching sound postproduction, building up my own small film company and...believe it or not...working for Disney. I've worked for Disney for nearly 14 years (part-time) in a UK store. Does this give me a unique view of the 'World'?...well, when there I'm still just a guest but yeah, I guess it means I expect even more from cast and show!

Anyway, I've been to Disney World 4 times but Karen's first ever trip was in 2006. We went as a group of 6 adults and it was fun but crazy trying to keep everyone happy...so this time we left everyone else at home and did a girls-only trip! 17 nights of FUN FUN FUN...and yep, I miss it already!

Hope this is of interest to some folks out there...if not oh well, I guess I'll have fun writing it.

Enjoy x

 

[seobaina]

Ok, the stats. We left the UK on April 23rd and the trip was to celebrate Karen and my birthdays - hers is early April (but too busy at her job to go then) and mine is the 24th. We stayed in Orlando til May 10th and during that time we were at Port Orleans French Quarter, then Animal Kingdom Lodge, then Caribbean Beach Resort!

So here goes....

We flew with Virgin from Manchester airport. Our flight was at 11:30am so we were there at 8am. No offense to those who love Virgin but we were VERY unimpressed. It didn't help that there was an hour delay when we got to the airport and checked in, and then a further hour delay just as we went to board. Both were for 'mechanical problems', which I gotta admit is not very reassuring to hear.

Finally on board we faced a 9 hour flight to Orlando. Movies were good, food edible...not enough drinks (or even water). Pretty view though:

But who cares about the flight, we're going to DISNEY!!!! And isn't this the most beautiful sight?

 

[seobaina]

With our hire car sorted (we were upgraded to a minivan as they didn't have any compact cars available ) the two of us headed to our hotel and Disney World.

Our first 14 nights were to be at Port Orleans French Quarter and I've gotta say, I really loved it. It was peaceful and really lovely to look at. Our room was a standard one and had plenty of space for the two of us and all our things.

I got very excited because we were met by my first ever proper towel animal

After settling in we went to the supermarket to get some breakfast things, then ate at Golden Corral and headed back to the hotel. It was getting late (very late our time) so we pretty much just looked at the hotel and went to bed. Gotta be ready for Disney right?

 

[seobaina]

Next morning - My Birthday!!!! We decided to have a lazy day - well we did have 17 days to go and hey, we approach Disney like a military operation, so gotta save energy. With Chef Mickey's booked that evening and BBB booked at lunch, we got up late and, after breakfast, we headed down to the dock to get the boat to Downtown.

Failure number one . If staying at POFQ allow plenty of time when using the boat cause it gets filled with guests from Riverside. After two boats allowed only 2 FQ guests on each due to space, we realised we weren't gonna make it and ran for the car to drive down there instead.

Once at DTD we went straight to BBB which was FUN!!!! I went for the Diva look and Karen went for Punk Princess.

Gotta say thanks to a family that were there having their daughters princess makeovers. The mother and grandmother were lovely to us and kept saying how great we looked Also, for any adults thinking you're too 'old' to do this - according to my FGMIT the oldest princess they have had there was 92!

 

[seobaina]

All made up we decided to have lunch and wander around DTD. Very sweetly the first cast member we met whilst walking bowed and said 'Hello Princesses'

We headed into the Christmas shop and Art of Disney

Then had sandwiches at the Earl of Sandwich before heading on to the Lego store:

Which has the funky new Indiana Jones Lego.

Then we went to the AMAZING World of Disney

Finally we headed back to the car to drive to MAGIC KINGDOM!!!

 

[seobaina]

As we knew we only had a couple of hours at MK before we'd need to go for dinner anyway, and still had two days set aside for the park, we figured we'd take the scenic route to get there.

The ferry was pretty quiet (but it was mid afternoon by now) and there is still nothing like seeing that castle coming closer into view!

After activating our park tickets we entered and I couldn't stop smiling as soon as I saw this

The park was REALLY busy - I guess it was a busy time of day though and I think we'd caught the end of some spring break holidays. We'd be warned it would be busy and, as you can see below, it definitely was! With a bit of map studying, we decided to watch the 'dream along with Mickey' show before hitting adventureland.

Love this sight:

 

[seobaina]

After a ride on Pirates (one of my faves) and a climb up the Treehouse, we bumped into some old friends:

Then with time running out we went to take a photo by the castle before heading to the Contemporary and Chef Mickeys.

 

[seobaina]

We'd done Chef Mickey's for breakfast before and it is just as much fun for dinner! Our server was great, the food was good, and the interaction was so much fun. We were even given a placemat and two cakes. Every time the server went past he gave us matches to light the candles so that characters coming round would join in LOL

My face when I first saw Mickey

Karen ordered some strange blue drink which she said was lovely

Ok, here's the food pics for you food porn fans:

 

[seobaina]

And the character pics:

Donald blew out my candles with me:

And isn't this the cutest thing?

 

[seobaina]

After a long yummy dinner we headed back to the hotel where we took ages getting our BBB hair untangled. Don't worry though, the gel they stick in ends up leaving your hair nicely conditioned! For your amusement however, here our some pics of us trying to take the hairdo out

With the extension bits just taken out and the first small bands broken:

And the aftermath, pre-shower, with all the bands out

Ok, that's it for now. Hope you're enjoying this, I'll try to continue tomorrow.

 

[Rebecuberduber]

Wow, 17ays on Disney -- awesome! Sounds like a dream vacation, just you and a good friend. Love the pics. Can't wait to read more!

 

[PennyLane1084]

OMG that's a loooong trip. I just subscribed. The TR is just delightful so far. Can't wait to hear more!

 

[winkers]

Great pictures! I really enjoying your report.

 

[Tonya2426]

Looking forward to the next installment. (And I love the BBB after shots!!!)

 

[seobaina]

Thanks for the feedback everyone Glad you're enjoying it.

Ok, day two we actually spent outside the parks because it was a Friday and end of spring break holidays. We decided to go to the Florida Mall instead but we did still do some Disney things too.

In the morning we went to Team Disney and the Disney University so that I could look at some cast member areas. Now I'm not allowed to take backstage photos but I did take some of the buildings and access areas.

This is the Team Disney building:

and driveway

This is the Disney University building, near the cast store:

and some of the awards that exceptional cast (and long serving) can win:

 

[seobaina]

Afterwards, and before hitting the mall, we went to have a quick look at Celebration. We would have loved to stop and have an ice cream but we were running out of time so we didn't :-( Looked lovely down there though. We did poke our nose in the model apartment that they are showing right now and it seemed really nice. Mind you, to us Brits ALL USA houses seem HUGE!

Here's some pics of Celebration for anyone who's not been:

The apartment building:

 

[seobaina]

Afterwards we went to the mall, barnes and noble, etc...all non-disney.

Next morning, Saturday, again we needed our Disney fix so we decided to go to EPCOT.

We're big fans of EPCOT so we'd allowed for lots of time here over the two weeks. Because it was so busy we figured we'd go straight for the World Showcase and leave the rides for another day.

We were lucky because it was the Flower and Garden festival while we were there. If you've never been it's very beautiful:

Our first stop was, of course, Mexico. I dunno if it's a British thing but we tend to go to the left first.

We went inside the temple to have a look at the shops and spent some time talking to a cast member from Mexico. He said he'd been here for 10 months and was loving it. I asked what he'd loved most and he said the friends he'd met and the fact that he now felt he had family all around the world. Highly recommend chatting to the cast if they're not too busy btw, it's interesting to talk to them about their homes and experiences.

We did do the ride inside Mexico, as there was no line, and we were going to try to eat there too. We'd got up late and been lazy getting going, so it was already lunchtime. However, the queue for a seat was 40 mins long and we weren't that hungry.

Between Mexico and China we bumped into our first character there - Donald! I know we'd met Donald but he was dressed up, so we figured we'd say hello.

I'm sure other posters have said it but we find it far easier to meet characters in Epcot than in MK.

 

[seobaina]

After seeing Donald we went to Norway where we attempted to grab a snack.

Unfortunately Karen wanted to try a 'local' snack and we ended up with this (sorry, can't remember the name):

She said it was 'alright' but gotta admit I wasn't a fan, sorry.

Moving from Norway to China we stopped to spot some trolls in the garden. Took us a while but eventually someone pointed one out to us, then we found others and pointed them out to others.

Moving into China we noticed that there were new displays for all the Chinese horoscopes.

Each one had a description of the personality type associated with it. Karen and I were both born in the year of the dragon and typically the write-up on that one wasn't there So if anyone gets a photo of it please send me a copy.

 

[seobaina]

As we moved around the garden I spotted this cast member on her break. She just looked so sweet starring out at the garden.

Stepping out of the garden we saw a familiar face with hardly any queue so we went to say hello! The cast member with Mushu said that Mulan would be coming to join him in 10 mins so we sat on the side and talked to some other guests while we waited. Sure enough, she came out to join him and we went up to meet them both.

Mushu looked at my t-shirt and told Mulan he wanted to be my 'beast' so we danced together.

With cuddles and photos done we went shopping and spent FAR too much money in the Chinese stores - nice t-shirts and bags, etc.

 

[seobaina]

Leaving China we grabbed a large chocolate fudge sundae - highly recommended btw - and walked our way into Germany. Dopey was already there signing so we joined the line only to be told he was disappearing for a while. As we were in no rush we decided we would hang around til he came back so we wandered around a bit taking photos. There was this gorgeous SW display:

As we were walking we saw Flick and Princess Atta. Neither had a line so we figured we'd say hello.

Btw, it's kinda difficult to hug a bug cause they have big heads that kept knocking off our hats, etc

While waiting for Dopey we were told that again they were going soon and some of the families up front were taking AGES!!! The family behind us were chatting too us as we waited and were were all getting worried that we'd miss them. Finally, however, we got our shot with Dopey and Snow White (YAY). And Snow White was extra fun. She saw my t-shirt and asked if I'd met Belle yet. We said no but we were heading to see her next in France. She asked us to help. Apparently they were having a game of 'tag' that day, so she asked us to 'tag' Belle next for her. We agreed of course .

It was getting late by this point, and we had dinner reservations that night, so we figured we'd just go and meet Belle and Beast on their last slot of the day, before leaving.