But Did You Die? A December 2019 TR *COMPLETE 12/13*

[ashw100]

Sounds like a great night at DHS- lots of Star Wars fun! N was a trooper going on ToT!

I was very proud, he was so brave.

Me too! It just takes out all the personality!

Exactly, I can't even imagine if we didn't have actual people to capture some of the special moments when the boys were babies and would never have responded to a box.

Haha, if I had a kid actually excited to talk to me about the ride, I would love it when I do single rider!

He was really so sweet, I'm glad we got put with someone who didn't like kids.

I just found and read your whole report! We also did a Dec 2019 WDW trip, with two boys ages 8 and 3. They loved everything Star Wars even though my youngest was too short for ROTR. We asked to wait for a booth at the Cantina and it didn't add too long to our wait, but maybe we just got lucky or maybe they took pity on me because my little one was too tired to stand. That cookie was gross. I've never seen my kids reject cookies but they were both not having the one that came with the blue bantha. We didn't take the booth space up for very long though because my eldest had to get to Jedi Training. We built droids and to my amazement they still play with them sometimes. There's a new app that enables you to control the droid using your phone, play tic tac toe against it or even teach it a choreographed dance (better with the R2s, of course). Other than the expensive droids, we managed to find two cheap-ish souvenirs in GE, the small plush shoulder Porg with the magnet, and a deck of Sabacc cards that we still play with. I think they were between $15-20 each. It's nice to reminisce a bit about that trip. It really feels like it was a lifetime ago.

Thanks for reading, the best way to relive the vacation memories is through TRs. December feels like a different world, I miss that world, at least we both have our memories.

 

[ashw100]

This Guy’s Got Puns

I was awoken at 6:00 this morning, to a text from my mom.

We’re here!!!

Where do we go?

Of course I had to call her. She was turned around in the airport, as they always have a rental car as well, but I got her where she needed to be. It felt like forever waiting for them to get to the hotel. C, who was also up went with me downstairs to meet them. We went with them to the Marketplace to get everyone breakfast and them their refillable mugs. When we got back to the room, we had a wonderful reunion with everyone. We got ready and had our breakfast.

The original plan had been for my mom and dad to take a nap in our room if their room wasn’t ready, which it wasn’t. My parents had taken a red eye from Seattle, and had little to no sleep on the plane, so I know they were exhausted. They decided they just wanted to power through, so we all headed out to Animal Kingdom.

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We got our first group shot

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We had gotten to the park about 20 minutes early, and I expected once we got into the park, we would meet the wall of people near the Tree of Life.

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See all that open space…

The park had actually already opened and there was no wait for Navi River Journey, so we made our way into Pandora, a first for my parents.

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The Pandora drummer were out and they were talking about calling a banshee. We were just walking by, not stopping. They asked if anyone knew what a banshee sounds like and all the sudden I hear this loud, tribal yell from behind me and it’s my dad. Haven’t even gotten on a ride, and he’s already embarrassing me.

After shocking all the drummers and audience watching, we just slinked away toward the queue for NRJ.

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My parents are usually pretty easy to please when it comes to rides, but even they were unimpressed with this one. We looked around Pandora some more.

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Our plans were pretty flexible this morning until our next fastpass, so we decided to wander a bit to figure out what to do next. I remembered Dug and Russell’s cute decorations and we decided to try and meet them next.

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Sadly on Russell was meeting, and N didn’t want to say hello, but the other two were happy to meet their favorite Wilderness Explorer.

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They chatted about all the animals they would see that day. It was a very fun meet. My mom and dad were both suffering having forgotten their sunglasses, so we stopped at Island Mercantile to buy some sunglasses. This then turned into C and J wanting to get something as well. J ended up with some pretty cool Star Wars sunglasses, and C bought a snowman hat he had been eyeing all trip.

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My mom and I stopped at Starbucks to get coffee for the adults, while my dad and Joe took the boys to the Gorilla trail. I have no pictures, but I know they checked out the animals and each of the boys picked up a new Wilderness Explorer book.

Meanwhile mom and I were getting the caffeine.

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I also purchased the Starbucks Disney coffee cup ornament. When I worked at Starbucks, every year I would buy the red cup ornament, and it was nice to add a Disney one to my collection. We walked over to the entrance to Rafiki’s Planet Watch and waited for the guys.

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They were taking forever, and I was worried we wouldn’t make our next thing, but eventually they did show up.

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On the train ride over we even got to see some animals.

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We were heading to Rafiki’s for the Animation Experience. I thought this would be a hit with my boys. They absolutely love drawing and art, so it was a no brainer.

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How cute is this hat though?

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Ready to draw

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We actually had the same animator that we had in July, and he is so good. He makes sure the whole process is entertaining and he has so many puns. If you can’t tell by now, I appreciate a good pun. We got to draw Ka, and It was a good time, expect for one thing. I didn’t anticipate how frustrated the two younger ones would get. N ended up giving up completely and drew Mickey Mouse instead, J didn’t give up but he was so frustrated that it ended in tears. So word to the wise, if you have perfectionists kids like me, maybe skip this one.

My drawing

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Joe’s

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C’s and in the background you can see J trying to cover his up.

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I think everyone did an amazing job, but I’m mom so my opinion doesn’t count apparently .

 

[ashw100]

Sticking Grandma and Grandpa with the Kids

When we were leaving they were doing a demo with sheep, but I don’t remember what it was about.

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On the walk back to the train, I had promised the boys they could do the Wilderness Explorer stops.

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We had our first FP of the day, and no one wanted to ride expect Joe or myself. We ended up taking some MBs and heading off on our own.

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Walking over to Asia

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Our FP was for EE.

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Without fail every time, Joe gets him name here, and I never do.

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First ride

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We used the boys MBs to ride a second time, this time front row.

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I could ride that ride, 100 times in a row, I love it so much. But we did have to get back to the rest of the group. It was nice to have some alone time for a little while as well. Meanwhile, the boys were in the Boneyard.

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We all met back up for Dinosaur, our second FP of the day.

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J claims this is his favorite ride, but his face says otherwise.

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N decided he did not like this ride, which is unfortunate because we all love it.

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It was lunch time, so we decided to head to the only QS I want to have at AK, Satu’li Canteen. I went with my traditional, but also added on a Dreamwalker Sangria. Man that was good! Satu’li can do no wrong.

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It was time for our final FP of the day, and a new ride for my parents and N. He was excited.

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The moment of truth came, we measured and HE MADE IT!!! Hooray, now we can all ride.

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Blurry, but had to show you his excitement to ride this ride.

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We all had an amazing flight, all the newbies were blown away. It was a really good time had by all. We stopped to get a round of Night Blossoms.

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We also stopped to get N his light up Mickey Sword, now that he had surpassed his 24 hour hold time.

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[Lesley Wake]

They asked if anyone knew what a banshee sounds like and all the sudden I hear this loud, tribal yell from behind me and it’s my dad. Haven’t even gotten on a ride, and he’s already embarrassing me.

I love it! Sounds like something my dad would do!

 

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like a great morning with your parents at AK!

 

[cindianne320]

What a great day at AK! Your parents look so young- I would have thought your mom was your sister!

 

[ashw100]

I love it! Sounds like something my dad would do!

Lol, it think it's a requirement that dad's must be embarrassing.

Sounds like a great morning with your parents at AK!

It was!

What a great day at AK! Your parents look so young- I would have thought your mom was your sister!

Lol, we get that all the time. They were VERY young parents, and I'm super grateful for that.

 

[rdkeim]

What a fun morning with your parents. Them going on no sleep is impressive. I understand the frustration with the animation class - I might have been near tears once myself For me it was the fact that it was so fast paced. You had a productive morning - hope the rest of your day went well!

 

[ashw100]

What a fun morning with your parents. Them going on no sleep is impressive. I understand the frustration with the animation class - I might have been near tears once myself For me it was the fact that it was so fast paced. You had a productive morning - hope the rest of your day went well!

It is pretty face paced, hopefully some form of this will stick around and we can try it again when they're a little older.

 

[ashw100]

Mufasa Telling the Story of Christmas

We went back to the resort, my parent’s room was ready and thankfully they were only a few doors down from us.

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Everyone except me headed to the pool. I went on even better excursion…to the laundry room. We were in desperate need of getting some laundry done. On my way back to the room after dumping off my clothes, I took some pictures of the fun decorations and displays outside the Marketplace.

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Laundry and swimming, done we walked over to Epcot for the evening. We had a dinner reservation at a new to us restaurant, Biergarten. We were seated on the upper tier with a good view of the stage.

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We got our steins filled, C was very excited about it.

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I went with my favorite, the Grapefruit beer.

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We have actually bought this at home, and I don’t like it as much as in the parks. I think the big reason is that it is so much better from the tap. We all went up to the buffet, the food was tasty, but not super memorable. I am not sure what it was about this particular restaurant but the buffet lines were soooooo long. We eat quite frequently at Disney buffets, and the wait is never more than a few people deep. Every time we went to the buffet it was 10-15 people waiting just to get to the start of the buffet.

After a little while, the polka band came out on stage.

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The bad thing about being so far away from the stage is that the boys didn’t want to go down and dance. We still had a good time though. N was pretty tired and cranky at this point, so my mom and Joe, took all the boys out to explore some more kidcot stations, while my dad and I settled up. The server was nice enough to bring us the chocolate coins that were handed out at the stage, since my kids were too shy to go down there.

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Earlier in the day we had grabbed a FP for Soarin, which is one of my mom’s favorite rides. I wasn’t thrilled about traipsing all the way across the park, when we had to be back in the World Showcase soon, but we did it anyway.

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After Soarin around the world, my mom mentioned wanting to ride this iteration of Spaceship Earth one last time, so we walked over there.

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J was sad his picture didn’t work again

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Now it was time to trek all the way to the other end of the park, and we needed to do it quickly. My mom had a hard time keeping up with me at my normal pace, but with us practically running through the park, there was no way. We went ahead, hoping to secure out seats and they would join us when they caught up. We got to where the Morocco pavilion meets the Japan pavilion, and the line started there for Candlelight Processional.

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I grabbed a drink from the Sapphire Holiday Kitchen, The Andalusian “Poinsettia” Cocktail: Sparkling Wine, Orange Liqueur and Cranberry Juice topped with Orange Blossom Water.

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It was good, a little dry for my taste, but I enjoyed it.

It took a while to get into the theater and the wind was cutting through us like knives toward the end. It felt so good to sit down and be under cover when we did finally get in. I called my mom to see where they were, and she told me they were on their way back to the room. Their sleepless night combined with my nonstop touring, wore them out. I was sad they wouldn’t be joining us, but it didn’t surprise me in the least. It had been a long day for them.

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Our view

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Our narrator for the evening was supposed to be Chita Rivera, but due to health concerns had to drop out at the last minute. Instead we got Alton Fitzgerald White, he voices Mustafa in the Lion King on Broadway. He was very good, I felt like he really was into the story.

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I had no idea what to expect from this show. Other than the description and maybe seeing a clip here or there, I went into this no expectations, but man was I blown away! The choir was absolutely beautiful and with a narrator as good as White, I was completely drawn in the entire time. As someone who only celebrates Christmas secularly since I became an adult, it brought me right back to my childhood singing those carols in church and particularly midnight mass. The entire production was so moving that when it got to the section where the entire theater sings Silent Night I cried, it was that beautiful. I recommend this show for anyone, even if you’re not religious the songs are so beautiful.

N fell asleep almost immediately and J fell asleep at some point as well.

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It was difficult trying to get out of there, J was not happy we woke him up to walk. I wanted to stay for the park close, but no one wanted to stay with me, so we all left. By the time we got to the Beach Club, everyone (except N who was still fast asleep) had gotten then second wind.

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We went into the lobby to check out the carousel.

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The Gingerbread creations across property are so cool. This one was particularly good, since the carousel actually moves.

We walked back to our hotel, taking pictures along the way.

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When we got back to the room, I was texting my brother to find out where they were. Their flight had gotten in and they were on their way to the hotel. We got the boys ready for and bed and to sleep. I really wanted to sleep too, but I wanted to see my brother first. They were going to be on their own in the morning and I needed to make sure they knew what to do. I finally got the text that they were settled in their room, so I went over to say hello. I had to get a very blurry picture of my niece in her cute Frozen jammies.

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I gave them a quick run down of the day, with specific instructions on when and where to meet us for lunch. Hopefully, their morning would go smoothly. I said goodnight, and promptly went to bed.

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[Verstehen]

OMG that hair on that baby!

What a magical family holiday! Really enjoying your report.

 

[ashw100]

OMG that hair on that baby!

You should see her when she was born

What a magical family holiday! Really enjoying your report.

Thank you

 

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like a nice night- lots of walking and hustling around! 'm sorry your parents didn't make it to the CP but glad you enjoyed it!

 

[ashw100]

Sounds like a nice night- lots of walking and hustling around! 'm sorry your parents didn't make it to the CP but glad you enjoyed it!

It was a good night, I am bummned they missed CLP though.

 

[ashw100]

Why is it Raining in Florida?

We did something we desperately needed this morning, and slept in. Even my watch wanted to tell me how good I did.

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Eventually we went downstairs to the Marketplace to get breakfast. We ended up with a breakfast sandwich and Mickey waffles.

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Meanwhile, the rest of my family was over in the Magic Kingdom. Based on their pictures, it looks like they followed my plan and had a successful morning.

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We were in no rush to get ready, N took more time to watch cartoons.

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The day was starting out quite dreary, and Joe was checking the radar for me. According to him, the afternoon would be bad, but it would be fine for the evening. We needed the evening to be rain free, so I was hoping the radar was right. Once we were ready for the day, we went down to the bus stop. We finally got on a new bus.

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We picked up a lot of people at the Beach Club, as usual, and a family with three boys sat across from us on the bus. It was there first day, and the boys were very frustrated about the rain. One asked, “why is it raining in Florida?” Poor kid, clearly has no clue about Florida weather.

We were on our way to Disney Springs, for a fun afternoon.

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The first place we headed was the Christmas Tree Trail, I knew Santa didn’t open until 11, but I wanted to see if we could get on the wait list before. Well I walked over and saw a closed gate across the tree trail, so I figured we would just come back at 11.

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The next priority for the morning was to get our pictures taken at the Photopass Studio.

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N was unhappy that I made him wear his flannel shirt and he was determined to make everyone know it too.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2i36iGt]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2i36iEK]

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So this whole time, I had NO idea he was making these horrible faces. From an outside perspective its pretty comical, but I was really hoping for some good pictures, so I was not pleased in the slightest when I saw the pictures after we left the studio. The thing is, the PP didn’t even try to get him to smile, just kept snapping away. Since I had no clue grumpy pants had ruined all my pictures, we went to the second location to get some more shots.

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I don’t know what changed here, but this one is hanging on my wall, so I guess it wasn’t a total loss.

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Oh look Grumpy is back.

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We went around to some of the stores after that, I found a spirit jersey for Rise of Skywalker that I really wanted, but didn’t jump on. At 11, we went back to the Tree Trail and I realized my mistake. Since I didn’t walk all the way over the first time, I missed the stand where they actually were checking people in early. Now the wait was an hour and a half. This would be cutting into our lunch reservation, but I just hoped it moved quicker.

We did some more shopping and wondering around.

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Lego Store

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While we were shopping in World of Disney, we got a text saying we could head over to the tree trail. We made our final purchases and walked over to the tree trail.

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[MyGoofy26]

Oh my goodness, the mean mugging gets funnier the longer it goes on. Poor kid has no clue that moms are patient and those pictures WILL be your revenge come graduation.

 

[missangelalexis]

Omg N's faces in those photos! I understand your frustration when you were hoping for nice family photos!

I love the festive Christmas decorations at DS!

 

[cindianne320]

OMG- those pictures are priceless- I can't believe the photog didn't say Anything!

Hope the weather worked out for you!

 

[Verstehen]

I know you were mad, but oh my gosh his face is so funny. I'm glad you got at least one good one!

 

[HumblePie]

Haha! Those photos are amazing! You will be able to enjoy them for years to come! Show them at his wedding