Christmas Magic & Freezing Temps! Dec 10 TR (Upd 6/26, the last night!)

[jenseib]

Those are fabulous pictures. Thanks so much for sharing

 

[francis6306]

The pics of your DD's are so cute!

Also I can't wait to eat at the character meals

Those are fabulous pictures. Thanks so much for sharing

Thanks!!! I think they are pretty awesome myself!

 

[francis6306]

So... after our amazing breakfast we headed to...

The Safari!

It was so much fun to see Cortlyn experience the Safari for the first time!

it was so much fun! As we were walking out, there was a photopass photographer, so we got some pictures taken.

Cortlyn thinks she belongs to Nita's family too sometimes...

 

[sbprincess]

Awe! I wish we had had one more day and we could have done AK too. Since it's always so much hotter there, maybe the cold wouldn't have felt so bad!

So, why am I just now seeing these pictures of Catie?!?!

Oh, and the picture at Tusker House where Mickey is behind Cortlyn and her face is buried in her banana...omg! That is hilarious!

So sad, it's almost over

 

[teachermommy78]

Love the pictures of the girls!!! I got my cuteness fix!!! I'm so sad your trip is almost over!

 

[Pimama]

LOVE the baby pictures, priceless. I had a newborn photo shoot with my last baby and wish I could go back in time and do them for the first four. The window of opportunity form those beautiful, sleepy pictures is too short.

 

[DISNEYaddict4evr]

Don't kill me here but I have never understood the draw to the Safari... maybe I just had bad animal viewing every time, but i always felt it was more enjoyable to watch and look at the animals on my own pace, but I guess for those who have never been on an African safari I can somewhat see the draw, but even then I hate that the ride makes you feel rushed

 

[francis6306]

Awe! I wish we had had one more day and we could have done AK too. Since it's always so much hotter there, maybe the cold wouldn't have felt so bad!

So, why am I just now seeing these pictures of Catie?!?!

Oh, and the picture at Tusker House where Mickey is behind Cortlyn and her face is buried in her banana...omg! That is hilarious!

So sad, it's almost over

Um, because you are NEVER on Facebook! There are quite a bit uploaded there!

Love the pictures of the girls!!! I got my cuteness fix!!! I'm so sad your trip is almost over!

I know! Next trip will have to be longer!

LOVE the baby pictures, priceless. I had a newborn photo shoot with my last baby and wish I could go back in time and do them for the first four. The window of opportunity form those beautiful, sleepy pictures is too short.

I agree! I wish I could have done it with my first. But I just didn't know anyone that could do them affordably. I don't want to have to pay a gazillion dollars for them!

Don't kill me here but I have never understood the draw to the Safari... maybe I just had bad animal viewing every time, but i always felt it was more enjoyable to watch and look at the animals on my own pace, but I guess for those who have never been on an African safari I can somewhat see the draw, but even then I hate that the ride makes you feel rushed

Really? I remember having an awesome time on the ride in High School and it did not disappoint on this trip! I didn't get a lot of good pictures because I was focused on Cortlyn and experiencing it through her eyes, but I really enjoyed the Safari. But we all have our own personal favorites.

 

[francis6306]

So, after the Safari, we split up from Nita's family. They wanted to go walk through something- I forget the name of it but I knew our time at AK was limited since Cortlyn had to nap.

We walk back towards TH, and we saw a little shop that had some hats that Cortlyn liked for her Pops!

And it had a LOT of noise makers!

Then we walked out and found the Lion King show. I was excited to see this, because I love Lion King. Cortlyn really enjoyed it! Here are some videos:




When we came out of the Lion King, we found a place that had funnel cakes! They were sooo good.

Then Cortlyn took the map and told us where to go!

So... do you remember my kid and the Characters?? Remember how she HID from SEVERAL characters???? Well. She decided that she wanted to meet Minnie Mouse. We were close to Camp Micky Minnie, so we decided to stand in line for Minnie. I figured she would line Minnie, since she was so happy to see Daisy.

While we were in line and almost to the front, a CM stepped in front of us and said that Minnie had a special guest and would we mind letting Minnie's guest to get in front of us. How could we say no? I mean, this was the ONE character that Cortlyn ASKED to see. Well, we let this handsome young man in front of us and he started talking to Cortlyn and asking her about her trip. He was so sweet to Cortlyn! So, then it was his turn to see Minnie...

Do you think Mickey should be concerned??? I wish I had started videoing when Minnie saw that it was him- whoever HE may be- because she nearly jumped in his arms. He was so good to "introduce" Minnie to his new friend! It was neat to be a part of that little bit of Disney Magic, even if it wasn't really ours! Funny thing is, it got a little confusing at the moment and we ended up with Minnie's friend's pictures on our photopass as well as our own pictures with Minnie. He had a photopass and we did too and I remembered (after the fact) that our photopasses were scanned back to back. I'm not going to post those pictures though, since they really aren't mine to share.

 

[DISNEYaddict4evr]

How neat is that!! I wonder if maybe if is her significant other and he just got back from overseas or something.

Sure glad to see Cort warming up to the characters, next trip should be just right when she meets all of them

 

[francis6306]

How neat is that!! I wonder if maybe if is her significant other and he just got back from overseas or something.

Sure glad to see Cort warming up to the characters, next trip should be just right when she meets all of them

Yes, it has to be a boyfriend or something. Of course, when I asked him, he just said that "Mickey and Minnie are good friends of mine." I kinda wonder if he also was a cast member at some point- because he had the "on stage" persona down. Plus, he disappeared just as quickly as he appeared!

 

[francis6306]

Okay, we're almost done.

So. If you have read all this then you will remember my daughter and her LOVE of the characters right? Well, after we met Minnie, I thought we'd be ready to go ride some rides and explore the park. Well. Cortlyn had other plans.

"I wanna see Mickey Mouse!"




You WHAT?!?!?!

Well, OKAY! Forget the character meal that we just left with Mickey...

Yay, okay... we saw Mickey!

"I wanna see Goofy!"

Excuse me?!?!?!

"I wanna see Daisy!"

We've seen her 3 times... Okay

"I wanna see Chip & Dale!"

Do you know who they are?

"Donald!"

Excuse, me. Who are you and what have you done with my daughter??

I couldn't believe it! So, we spent most of our Animal Kingdom morning (remember the mandatory naptime for the kiddo, right?) meeting characters! Crazy! I'm glad that we got to do it though. She thoroughly enjoyed the characters and was so happy to meet each of them. It's great to have these pictures of her with them. And seeing them here wasn't so bad. We met pretty much everyone in a very short amount of time- it wasn't very crowded at all.

So, of course, I thought- YAY! She's cured of her picture phobia. So, I thought we'd get a nice family shot in front of the Christmas Tree at the entrance of the park.

Sigh...

 

[jenseib]

Mom and Dad a re just not the "right" kind of charaters to pose with.

So glad she saw all the characters though. Great memories for you all.

 

[DISNEYaddict4evr]

well atleast you will always have Camp Mickey together and pictures to prove it. maybe she felt that the Christams costumes meant they worked for the big cheese "Santa" and that meant that had cleared all security checks and were safe to meet.

 

[sbprincess]

Cortlyn sure is one funny little girl! I'm sure she used some sort of 3 year old's logic that she just can't articulate. It would be nice to at least know what that was though, right?

I'm glad you got those pictures before the trip was over!

Oh, and you need to change your signature to include your other princess!!!

 

[francis6306]

Mom and Dad a re just not the "right" kind of charaters to pose with.

So glad she saw all the characters though. Great memories for you all.

I guess you are right! She only wants pictures with people that are famous! Doesn't she know I have all these fans??!!?

well atleast you will always have Camp Mickey together and pictures to prove it. maybe she felt that the Christams costumes meant they worked for the big cheese "Santa" and that meant that had cleared all security checks and were safe to meet.

You might be on to something with that! Although, she didn't want to meet Santa this year. After all the heck I had with these guys, I didn't push it either!

Cortlyn sure is one funny little girl! I'm sure she used some sort of 3 year old's logic that she just can't articulate. It would be nice to at least know what that was though, right?

I'm glad you got those pictures before the trip was over!

Oh, and you need to change your signature to include your other princess!!!

I DO! You're right, I will go change it now! And I'm glad we got the pictures as well! I would have been bummed if we didn't get any more character pictures. I just wish I woulda known, I might have made a few other ressies!!!
And WAIT a minute. You can comment on my TR, but you can't return a phone call?

 

[francis6306]

Okay, so this is the end of our lovely trip report! How can it be over? Its only taken me 6 months to write it!!!

This will be pretty short, our evening in Downtown Disney!

I had never been to DTD before this trip, not sure if I mentioned that before. It was really a cool little spot. I'm so glad that we went! Tonight, we had one mission. Earl of Sandwich!

I had shown my husband the "holiday sandwich" but in the end he passed on that. He decided on the Hawaiian BBQ:

I got the full Monty

And we got Cortlyn a toasted PB&J

We walked around a little, shopped a little, but sadly, Baby was making mommy slightly uncomfortable, so it was time to go back to the hotel room. Cortlyn saw the statues of Mickey and Minnie at the Pinshop and she HAD to play with them.

So that is the last night in Disney. The next morning, we packed up and headed out to Atlanta to see our family for the holidays. OOooooh what I would give to have had ONE more day at Disney. We left there and headed into an ice storm in Atlanta- took us for-ev-er to get his parents house that day!

Cortlyn STILL talks about disney, so if you are traveling with a toddler, don't listen to those people that say that they won't enjoy it or remember it. It was SO magical to travel with a toddler, when all the magic is real and the Princesses are perfect.

My husband caught the Disney Magic bug! Makes me wish we had gone together before we had kids- but we have the future to look forward to! He totally understands why I wanted to go so badly. Before the trip he had said we weren't going to be going every year or anything like that. He had "decided" that our next trip would be when Catie (the baby) was 2.5 like Cortlyn was. While, that was a great idea/plan, he is already trying to help me figure out when we could go again!!! He just accepted a new position at Indiana State University, and his schedule looks really full. We're hoping something works out for us to get to go back, but if we have to wait a while, that's okay too. Now that he understands Disney and loves it like I do, that's all that matters!

The End

 

[mom2rtk]

I'm so glad you got those awesome photos with the characters at AK! I think the reason she wanted to play with the Mickey & Minnie statues at DTD is because they were just her size.

I'm also glad you got to go with Cortlyn at this age. With that adorable new baby now safely here, I'm sure you're already quite thankful to have had that special time with her alone first.

Enjoy.... you have a beautiful family. I hope you get back to Disney soon with BOTH princesses!

 

[francis6306]

I'm so glad you got those awesome photos with the characters at AK! I think the reason she wanted to play with the Mickey & Minnie statues at DTD is because they were just her size.

I'm also glad you got to go with Cortlyn at this age. With that adorable new baby now safely here, I'm sure you're already quite thankful to have had that special time with her alone first.

Enjoy.... you have a beautiful family. I hope you get back to Disney soon with BOTH princesses!

Yes! We have this special trip with our "only" for our memories. I'm so glad we went!

 

[DISNEYaddict4evr]

it's over

now what do I do? How can it be over?

Thank you so mcuh for sharing your families memories with all of us. I know I thoroughly enjoyed reading, so thanks for help keeping the magic alive for all of us here who need to go back to Disney soon