Celebrating 10 years of marriage with the mouse: Photopass Pics Added

[mansionterror]

Today we would be visiting Epcot but first we had an appointment at the Poly. We had an 8:00 appointment with a photopass photographer. We all got up early and got ready to go. We hopped in the car and drove to the Poly, got parked and actually beat the photographer to the booth. We were the first appointment of the day. We did this last year at the Grand Floridian and I guess I will say there are pros and cons to both resorts. Colby is light haired so he has major issues with squinting in the sun, last year the photog made sure to make good use of the shade so there would not be as many “closed eye” photos. Our photog this year didn’t do as well, however we did get some nice family shots and she did use some good locations.

Can you see the castle behind us?

After we finished up at the poly we went back to the room so that Colby and I could change our clothes. We then headed over to Epcot. Even with our late arrival the crowds were not too bad. We ran over to the character connection to see the characters and quickly discovered that we would have to come back later in the week (first thing in the morning) to avoid the lines. We went back over to Spaceship Earth and jumped in the short/fast moving line. Colby and I sat in one car and James in another. I have to say that I like the changes, we enjoyed answering the questions and watching our video on the decent back down to earth. After our ride we stopped to listen to the Jaminators. James really loved this group and actually stopped to listen several times during the week.

We headed over to the land to get fastpasses for Soarin and then we headed over to the Seas to ride Nemo and see Turtle Talk. Colby loves both of these attractions and we always end up back at the seas several times each trip.

We stopped at the Electric Umbrella for lunch, James and I had cheeseburgers and Colby had nuggets. We then headed over to the land to fastpass Soarin and ride Living with the Land. Colby really loved Soarin this year and had a blast. This would be Colby’s first ride on the land, last year he slept through it. He really enjoyed seeing all the foods and live animals.

Earning My Ears...so cute

We stopped at the Kidcot station (the only one Colby did) and visited with the CM there for awhile. Colby colored a lady bug for his mask while I waited and James took a smoke break.

Continued in next post.

 

[mansionterror]

Somewhere in the mix we rode Journey into the Imagination, which Colby loved and remembered quite well from last year, as soon as we were moving he had his nose plugged and I remembered to plug my ears at the end. We got fastpasses for Test Track and then headed over to World Showcase to walk around a bit. We never spend a lot of time in World Showcase so this year we made a point to spend more time there and really soak it all in. All the flowers were still out from the flower and garden festival. It made for some pretty shots.

As soon as we stepped into Mexico we met up with Fiesta Donald. Colby carries an autograph book and we try to see as many characters as we can. After talking to Donald we headed into the Mexican pavilion to take a look around and ride the River of Time. We enjoyed the ride and goofed around in the pavilion taking photos.

FIESTA!!

At this point we headed over to Norway to brave the Malestorm. Colby LOVED this ride and insisted we come back and ride it again. I hadn’t ridden it since I was a child so it was almost new to me as well. We ran through the movie and almost got caught in the doors. After the ride we had to mess around with the big troll.

I love his battle face.

We moved on to China and stopped for awhile to watch the acrobats and then sat down outside the pavilion while James took a smoke break. We then went into the pavilion to look at the clay soldiers and different items for sale. Colby really liked a lot of the items for sale in the store and played for a while. As we left the pavilion we ran into Mulan and Mushu. The princesses really took to Colby this year and Mulan was no exception. He got a big hug and kiss (much to his dismay) from Mulan. The photog had us all get together for a big family photo and we moved on.

This is the most beautiful area, so peaceful and serene.

Doesn't he just look thrilled!

Continued in next post.

 

[mansionterror]

I had to throw this one in for good measure...this is what my husband does when he waits for Colby and I with the characters:

At this point it was our window for Test track so we headed over there to use our fastpasses. It began to rain while we were in line and we kept hearing messages about them possibly shutting it down. We finally got up to our car and I buckled my belt into the wrong place and we couldn’t get Colby buckled. The car took over and I started to freak out thinking he was going to fall out, luckily they have that second area and they released all the belts and we got fixed and went on our way. Colby didn’t like the ride as much this year and as much as I tried to prepare myself for it that stupid truck still scared the crap out of me. As we blasted through the doors we got a major surprise, it was raining so our entire car got soaked and the rain hurt. I couldn’t believe they ran test track when it was raining like that. Here is our lovely ride photo:

Colby looks terrified...and well so does James. I don't know what in the world I was doing.

After test track we visited the Seas yet again to get in another ride on Nemo. James opted out of this ride and met us at the exit where Colby expressed his need to go yet again. A cm overheard and sent us through a door to go right back on no wait. We spent some time looking around at all the tanks and headed on out to the park exit.

We found Nemo, Marlin & Dory

We got back to the room to find a new towell animal...a turtle!

Next up Day 4: We visit 2 Kingdoms in one day. Thanks to all that are reading and sticking with me.

 

[mkluvsmickey]

I enjoyed your update - sounds like a perfect Epcot day.

Love the pic of Colby with the Mulan lipstick kiss - too funn!

How nice of the CM to let you right back on Nemo - gotta love the little things.

Looking forward to more.

 

[mansionterror]

I enjoyed your update - sounds like a perfect Epcot day.

Love the pic of Colby with the Mulan lipstick kiss - too funn!

How nice of the CM to let you right back on Nemo - gotta love the little things.

Looking forward to more.

Michelle...thank you for reading and posting. I tell you I barely got the photo of the kiss before Colby had rubbed it off his face.

I hope that everyone else is still here.

 

[Nee Nee and Biddy]

We were at Epcot the same day you were and my son wore the exact same shirt your son is wearing! He also got some lovin' from Mulan:

I'm enjoying your report! Can't wait to see when you go next...we might be there too!

 

[noahdove]

Oh, I hope Mulan is around when my kids are there she looks like she loves what she does Your pictures are wonderful...How many may I ask did you take? I hope I have enough for our trip

 

[tink1957]

Wow, what great pics, it sounds like you had a wonderful day. That pic of Colby with the lipstick was just too cute.

 

[mansionterror]

We were at Epcot the same day you were and my son wore the exact same shirt your son is wearing! He also got some lovin' from Mulan:

I'm enjoying your report! Can't wait to see when you go next...we might be there too!

Welcome to the report Nee Nee. Your son is such a cutie!! Looks like you had lunch/dinner with the princesses, did your family enjoy it? We will be headed back in November for a very short trip. Our next big vaca will be in June 0f 2009, probably the first week again.

Oh, I hope Mulan is around when my kids are there she looks like she loves what she does Your pictures are wonderful...How many may I ask did you take? I hope I have enough for our trip

Welcome Noahdove! This Mulan was very sweet and just really seemed to love children. I LOVE taking photos, it is a hobby and a passion of mine. I took over 800 pictures and ended up with almost 400 on photopass. Use photopass, especially if you are the picture taker...it ensures that you get in some photos too.

Wow, what great pics, it sounds like you had a wonderful day. That pic of Colby with the lipstick was just too cute.

Thanks Tink! Colby didn't mind the kiss but hated the evidence left on his face.

I'll have more report ready on Monday or Tuesday.

 

[lklasing]

Just found your TR and am loving it. You are such a cute family! Colby is blessed to have y'all, as I know you are blessed to have him. I can't wait for more installments!

 

[mansionterror]

Just found your TR and am loving it. You are such a cute family! Colby is blessed to have y'all, as I know you are blessed to have him. I can't wait for more installments!

Thank you so much and welcome! I hope to have a new installment up in the next day or so.

 

[mansionterror]

Hello readers. I have not forgotten you or my report. This was Colby's last week of preschool and his last day is today so I have been a bit pre-occupied...I promise an update on Monday.

 

[tyandskyesmom]

DH: James or Jamie. He is 37 years old and along for the ride. This will be his 5th trip to the world. He knows we are going on this trip and for how long but pretty much leaves the planning up to me. He works for a liquor distributor and for the first time in a long time really enjoys his job. He loves all things NASCAR. He loves car movies and anything with Burt Reynolds (huge Smokey and the Bandit fan). He won’t admit it but he too knows Grease from stop to finish…including the dance moves.

I had to laugh when I read this because my DH knows Grease pretty well too but would claim to dispise it if asked!

I hope these aren't huge...I resized in Photobucket before posting.

I am having issues with sizing my pictures in my trip report too...at first they were huge and I thought I fixed them but now they are tiny! It's driving me bananas!

We decided to drive from East Tennessee (where we live)

Ok...so I have to admit, this is part of what grabbed me. Recently, we have been trying to find a cheaper, different kind of mini-vacation spot and we were intrigued by some cabins in the Mountains...my problem is that I am not very familiar with that area (because it is not in the land of Mouse!) so have a lot of research to do!

He got a big hug and kiss (much to his dismay) from Mulan.

Tyler's (now 9 1/2) first kiss was Snow White! But he loved the red lip marks left on his cheek!

Looking forward to more...

 

[mansionterror]

I had to laugh when I read this because my DH knows Grease pretty well too but would claim to dispise it if asked!



I am having issues with sizing my pictures in my trip report too...at first they were huge and I thought I fixed them but now they are tiny! It's driving me bananas!



Ok...so I have to admit, this is part of what grabbed me. Recently, we have been trying to find a cheaper, different kind of mini-vacation spot and we were intrigued by some cabins in the Mountains...my problem is that I am not very familiar with that area (because it is not in the land of Mouse!) so have a lot of research to do!




Tyler's (now 9 1/2) first kiss was Snow White! But he loved the red lip marks left on his cheek!

Looking forward to more...

Hi Sherry! Welcome. If you need any help with the cabin research let me know and I will do what I can...we live about 30 mins from Townsend and 45 from Pigeon Forge.

New installment coming up.

 

[mansionterror]

This morning we got up got ready to head to Animal Kingdom. Animal Kingdom is never a full day park for us…it is just too hot. We immediately headed over to Asia to ride Everest. Colby isn’t tall enough to ride yet so we parent swapped. James went first while Colby and I waited. It was only a little after 9 and we were already sweating. As we watched different groups go down the hill Colby commented on how he was never going to ride Everest (a theme will develop here), we moved inside the gift shop to cool off, look around and wait for James. When James came back I took my turn with the Yeti. After this point we then headed over to Dinoland to ride Dinosaur (a favorite of Colby’s from our last trip). There was no wait so we headed on in, Colby was excited and ready to ride until we sat down and got buckled in, it was then that Colby decided he was ready to get off. He spoke up a little late and we were off. He held on to me for dear life but escaped the Meteor unscathed. Here are some pictures from our morning.

It is kind of hard to see cause this is the redneck version but still funny! The lady beside me and her family behind had never ridden before.

After Dinosaur we headed over to the Character meeting with Pooh and friends. I think this is a nice meet because you are in the shade and always have great interactions. Be prepared for lots of character photos…we met quite a few on this day. We spent quality time with Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore & Tigger (my personal fav). I just love this interaction…you never feel rushed. It was kinda of funny as we were leaving though…Tigger was the last one we met, we left him and headed up the exit and passed Tigger (wait didn't we just see you) coming from the entrance. I hope Tigger #1 knew his doppelganger was on the way or that would have been interesting for the children... On the news at 5:00, Tigger meets his long lost twin brother, guess he isn't one of a kind after all.

We stopped for our first ice cream of the trip. Who says you can’t have icecream before lunch? After our icecream we headed over to Camp Minnie Mickey and there we met Goofy, Minnie, Daisy, Mickey and Koda from Brother Bear. It is funny because I swear we spent more time waiting in lines to meet characters than to get on rides.

I was so excited to meet Daisy because I was wearing her on my shirt however the Photopass photog cropped me out of the photo…so no photo of me and Daisy. Here are some photos from the next part of our day.

Some of these photos will have to be added later as I don't have my photopass cd with me today.

We headed over to the Safari to get fastpasses before heading over to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. On the way over we met Lilo and Stich as well as Terk from Tarzan. Somewhere during this period we stopped off for lunch at Pizzasafari. This was a very crowded restaurant, we had to wait in line for a long time and then try to find a table while pushing a stroller and carrying trays. The food was decent but nothing to write home about. James and I had pizza and Colby had Spaghetti.

We had never been to Rafiki’s so we really enjoyed the sideways train ride over. We actually had to wait on the train for quite some time as a young guest had gotten off before and overcome by heat, passed out right there on the walkway. She got up on her own and her family helped her on her way. Once we arrived we immediately got in line to meet Rafiki, Pocohantas and Jimminy Cricket. We spent a little time exploring the exhibits. Colby really enjoyed looking at the different animals behind glass and James watched an animal have surgery. Colby got to listen to a cast member talk about what they feed the animals in AK and explore the various foods and other things (you'll see what I mean in the pictures). We went out to the petting zoo but quickly decided it was way to hot to pet those animals and I didn't want to stink the rest of the day so we headed back to the train and over to Safari.

Animal (Which I can't remember) Poop Just the thing every Mother wants to take a photo of their 4 year old with.

Next up the rest of Animal Kingdom and finally the Magic Kingdom. Stick around and thanks for reading!

 

[mansionterror]

Hello everyone...I didn't get any responses from my last report so I forgot about it a bit when life made itself known. Anyway I am now officially a proud Kindergarten parent and we have slowed down a bit so I am back with more trip report. I hope I still have some readers. I take you back to your regularly scheduled trip report...in COLOR to add some kick! Now where was I?

We went on our 2 week safari cut short by poachers and saved the baby elephant. The safari is one of our favorite rides as a family, Colby really enjoys pointing out all of the animals.
Before heading out of the park for the day we did stop and enjoy some of the parade. You can’t help but dance when you hear that song. Sorry no pics because we watched from a distance. On our way out we stopped for some pics with the big tree. I will have to add the photopass pics later.
Here are some pictures from the rest of our time at AK.

Welcome...we stared at this for quite awhile, while they waited for some birds to clear the trail. I didn't think we would ever get movin it was funny to hear the drivers getting digs in at each other while we waited.

The ever famous Baaoob (I know I spelled that all wrong) tree.

Colby is a ham when it comes to photos, he loves to pose.

He loves to take photos too, sometimes they end up crooked or blurry but he tries.

Next up Day 4: Part 2 The second Kingdom, sure stays open late.

 

[mansionterror]

We left AK and headed over to Magic Kingdom the second park for the day. We were excited to hear that MK was staying open till 2:00 AM that day so we would have lots of time to do our favorites. Not that we planned to keep Colby out till 2:00 we were going to play it by ear. As we walked into the park we saw 2 of our favorite trouble makers and had to stop for a visit.

This was their short performance of the Matrix...unfortunately I snapped at the wrong time but you can tell a little what they are doing.

After playing with the munks we headed down mainstreet for our first view of the castle, doesn’t matter how many times you see it, it gets more and more beautiful!!

Hey...I see some Lime green, do you?

I do not remember how we toured the park but I have to tell you that we are a “back and forth” kind of family so we just went to what we liked and what had short wait times.

We headed towards the Haunted Mansion first but it has quite a wait time so we skipped it for the moment and went over to fantasy land. There we grabbed fast passes for peter pan and received bonus Philharmagic passes. We headed over to one of Colby’s favs, small world where Colby pointed out everything I should take pictures of.

There was a lizard on this wall so when Colby climbed up to see it I asked him to pose - this ended up being my fav picture from the whole trip.

Just because it is funny...try explaining to a 4 year old why you think it is funny

We then headed over to Buzz to defeat Zurg (another fav of Colby’s) and then back over to fantasy land for Pan and Philharmagic. I will tell you in year’s past Colby had not really cared for this attraction…he really loved it this year and was so proud that he kept the glasses on and his ears unplugged. After the show we headed back to HM and finally got to see our favorite 999 haunts, this ride never ever gets old for me or my family. We LOVE it! After escaping the mansion we moseyed over to Frontierland for Thunder Mountain, Colby cried on (just out of the blue and he had ridden before) this until we got going. When we were finished he said that it wasn’t so bad after all and really enjoyed it.

We trekked over to Adventureland next to visit our favorite Captain, we knew that Pirates would be closing down for refurb so we wanted to ride as much as possible before that happened. When we came out it was pouring down rain so we hung out in the shop for awhile before getting our ponchos and heading out, the rain didn’t’ last too long so we rode Jungle Cruise before it got dark. Afterwards we headed over to Tomorrowland to ride the TTA and see the castle all lit up in the dark. This is another park fav and we could ride it over and over easy. After our ride through Tomorrowland we hit Buzz again and then headed to Fantasyland to find a place to watch the fireworks, we stood next to the Carousel area and that was like watching a tennis match… a lot of back and forth going on there. I managed to snag a few decent pictures.

Afterwards we did Philharmagic again and rode the Carousel before heading towards the front of the park. On our way out we did stop for a few to catch some of Spectro – it was beautiful, we will definitely need to plan to stay for the whole parade next year. I have to admit I found the Cirque guys at the beginning to be amazing and hard to take my eyes off of. They were just a lot of fun. We went back to the room for a late night snack and to bed because tomorrow we had a breakfast date. Here are pictures from the rest of our day.

How Colby enjoys a milkshake.

Beautiful Castle

Captain Colby Sparrow

I love this picture...the look of pure determination on my child's face.

Coming up: Day 5 – Another day at our favorite Kingdom

 

[patches07]

Love your trip report your little boy is so cute. Can't wait to read more.

 

[mansionterror]

Love your trip report your little boy is so cute. Can't wait to read more.

Welcome and thanks Patches!! Hope you keep reading!

 

[mkluvsmickey]

I'm still here too! Loving your report - great pictures and Colby is just adorable - he has some great poses! Looking forward to more.