Disney on a college budget-can we do it?!

[tmk0051]

oh hey! I've never done a trip report so bear with me! My roommate and I are headed to Disney on Saturday for spring break and I thought this might be fun! We are seniors in college and are taking a trip as a final hurrah and also, roomie is getting married in June so this is a fun little girls trip!

We are truly doing this college style- driving from Texas, staying with her sister for free, and bringing lunch & snacks into the park. (please don't yell at me--instead think back to your college days!) I had to babysit some terribly behaved little preschool boys and scrapbook about 70 pages (I have a little business) to earn the money for this trip!

So, here is the cast of characters!

[/IMG]ME! I'm Tressa! (I tried to put in a picture of me but it failed. How do I do that?): I'm a 22 year old college kid, nanny, sorority sister, and volunteer youth minister...and its my 4th Disney trip! I went last year for spring break with 2 of our other friends and loved it so much that I started planning as soon as I got back! Favorite disney character? Wendy Darling and Peter Pan!!

This is Jaci! She is a 21 year old college kid, nanny, sorority sister, and she will be getting married in June! I think this is either her 2nd or 3rd trip. Her family lives in Pensacola and Orlando so we have places to stay on our roadtrip! Favorite character? Ariel!

My friend Avery works in the costuming dept on the college program, and she will be joining us as much as she can!

Up next...maybe I will learn how to post pictures, otherwise this will be boring! Also, bows galore!

 

[OhMari]

I looked at the picture and you brought it in from Snapfish, I don't know why it didn't work. I bring pictures in from Shutterfly.

My dd is going to be down there next week, and she is driving with 4 other girls from Wisconsin. Is your mom as worried as I am?

 

[tmk0051]

I'll try shutterfly- I just need to play around some more. I'm not so great with tech stuff. I am pretty sure my mom thinks I'm crazy! For awhile she was kind of apprehensive but I think she got over it. And she's letting us take the family gps.

 

[tmk0051]

The fun thing my friends and I did last year was make cute shirts! I had a Tink shirt last year and decided to be Wendy this year. Here is the back:

And the front:

I make bows and sell them to my friends (I have a tiny etsy store but thats a project I haven't really paid much attention to) Here are the bows I'm going to wear! The zebra with black accent is Jaci's for animal kingdom, and she has an Ariel one as well.

And in our apartment we've had a countdown for a long time that we put stickers on!

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And here's our snack box! We are bringing in our own snacks and lunches, but will eat dinner at the park.

So, here's our plan. We are driving from Dallas to Pensacola on Saturday and staying with Jaci's grandparents for the night. On Sunday we will drive to Orlando, drop our stuff off at her sister's and dash into Orlando for the afternoon, hopefully to catch Soarin and/or Test Track and eat French pastries. Other than that, we 're over Epcot!

On Monday we will be hitting a full day of Magic Kingdom! My favorite! We will be getting there for rope drop and everything! Tuesday is Hollywood Studios for Fantasmic (the 2nd showing) and Wednesday we'll be hitting rope drop at Animal Kingdom bc its Jaci's favorite. On Thursday we'll do another day at Magic Kingdom, only a little more relaxed and so we can watch the fireworks one last time before we leave on Friday.

 

[indiesgirl4ever]

count me in! Hope you have a great trip!

 

[dd50]

Have a wonderful time.

 

[tmk0051]

we're back! this will take me awhile because of that whole graduating in May thing But I'll start today!

We drove from Dallas to Pensacola in a little over 12 hours on 3/13. The trip went by quickly- we listened to a book and made fun of Louisiana. We did get turned around on a creepy bog in LA and were really scared for about 20 minutes until we found the road again. ALSO- the GPS failed us and we just used google maps on jaci's iphone.

We got to her grandparents house and her grandma made us chicken and potatoes and bread for a late dinner! so sweet! Jaci's brothers and their friend arrived just after us.

On sunday 3/14 we got up really early to start the drive to Orlando! We decided to just drive straight to disney first instead of going to her sisters. I have knowlege of a super cool place to park and we put the address in the iphone and BAM- we were driving past disney university and the back of toontown! And screaming! Then when we were at the transportation/ticket center, I caught a glimpse of the castle across the lake and screamed. Jaci pretended not to know me.

On the monorail to Epcot Jaci made friends with a family and chatted with them while I pointed out the window like a 5 year old- "There's the castle. There's the contemporary. There's the epcot ball."

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Not an amazning pic but we were running to Soarin. Of course since it was almost 5 they were out of fastpasses and there was a 140 minute wait. We decided to wander the countries.

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In England we played in the phone booths and came across someone cool:

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Alice was really sweet! We also saw Mary Poppins but Jaci wasn't interested and I met her last year. We did see this precious little girl run to her and they hugged and hugged. I love Disney.

In France we came across a cat. Jaci loves cats and we got in line so we could show our sorority sisters that she met the one cat at disney world- marie.

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Thats me with the cat- Jaci's pic must be on her computer

Hidden in the back of France was Princess Aurora! She was smart to hide- no one really knew she was there.

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She asked us "Are you here for dancing?" and we were like "uhh...yes!" thinking like a dance party or something. She wished us luck at our competition and we realized that she meant like high school dance team. whoops!

We also saw Belle and the Beast and Genie and Aladdin but they had outrageous lines. We ate dinner in China- Jaci had some kind of soup and I had been eating snacks in the car all day so I got a kids meal sweet & sour chicken and didn't even finish the rice.

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We also spotted Mulan in China and followed her, but she disappeared into cast member land.

In Germany, we found Snow White!!

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She is my sister's favorite and sometimes hard to find, so I was SO excited. the golden book is a Snow White book I had Snow White sign for her (she is 17 and LOVES it btw. I got the book for 50 cents at an antique store.)

In Norway, I was taking a picture of a building and this guy posed without me knowing. He's now my bestie.

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When Jaci found out there are margaritas in Mexico, she immediately said "well, I'm going to walk to Mexico and get a margarita!" And she did.

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After our tour of the countries, we checked on the test track wait time. The single rider wait said 25 minutes, so we said sure! The strange part was that there was no line at all! The cast member asked "want to ride?" when we got up there and let us right on past the standby and fastpass people. So strange, but I'll take a zero wait time!

We thought maybe we'd have the same luck with Soarin, and headed over there. We stopped to take an epcot ball picture:

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The soarin wait time was an hour and there was 1.5 hours til fireworks so we got in line. I love that ride!

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We watched Illuminations and Jaci teared up because she said they were inspirational. Then there was the mad dash to the monorail. We could see Wishes happening in the car leaving the TTC parking lot and it was perfect to make me excited for the next day!

Up next...Is it possible for Frontierland to be empty? Where did Jaci's iphone go? And can we handle Fantasyland at 4pm?

 

[DVC'96]

Sounds like you guys had a great time! Can't wait to hear more...

 

[tmk0051]

We slept at Jaci's sister Mary's apt. Her brothers and their friend were staying there too, but Mary didn't mind and her roommates seemed cool about it. Her brothers/friend didn't go to Disney, they just went to Orlando and hung out.

On 3/15 we woke up super ealy for our day at Magic Kingdom! We wanted to get there for rope drop but that didn't happen-we got to the gates minutes later tho. We also forgot to make lunch at Mary's so here's what we did:

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Made sandwiches in the parking lot! We got lots of strange looks.

It didn't matter because we soon saw the view of the castle down main street!

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looking back at all my pictures, I have random castle shots everywhere. I think I just took a picture of it every time we passed it, like it was going away or something!

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We veered left and headed to Frontierland to get a FP for splash mountain.

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Frontierland, and its not wall to wall people! crazy!

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Splash without a thousand people crowding it! how can this be? I love 9:15 am Disney.

We got our fastpasses for between 11:30 and 12:30. BTMR had a 5 minute wait! We really didn't wait 5 minutes, more like 2!

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After Thunder we zoomed over to Tomorrowland for Space Mountain. The plan was to ride it, then get a Fastpass for later- plan successful. We only waited about 15 minutes. We had a blast and got out still a little early to get another FP.

While we were waiting, the talking trash can was out! We have all this on video- I went up to it and it said "take a picture with me!" so Jaci pretended to take a picture while it was still recording. The trashcan said "Tag me on facebook! byyyee Wendy!" I yelled "He called me Wendy!" laughing and he said "yeah! I'm Peter Pan!" and then I just screamed. It was the funniest thing. if anyone saw the screaming fangirl...it was me!

We got a FP to sride space again, then decided to see what the haunted mansion line was like. We stopped to take a picture-

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Then in the line for HM we caught madame leota with her eyes open!

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We also tried to find leota's ring in the pavement but didn't, sad day. We ventured into Fantasyland and of course the rides were out of control but since Ariel is Jaci's fav, we waited in the grotto to meet her!

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Me with Ariel. I'm not going to pass up the opp to meet a princess!

Thats all for right now- I have to get some stuff done before babysitting. enjoy!

 

[YukiPhnx]

I'm caught up and waiting for more!

I LOOOOVE those bows of yours! I've been meaning to start my own business of mini top hats and hair bows.

That blue bow you're wearing matches the one Ariel is wearing!

And I love that encounter you had with Push. He's just wonderful

 

[tmk0051]

We got very sunburned in that hour wait for Ariel, but chatted with a really sweet family. I left for 2.5 seconds to grab fastpasses for Peter Pan's Flight. Also, at some point we did go on Splash Mountain and got pretty wet!

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We ate our parking lot lunches in the Ariel line. I made Jaci take my picture in front of Wendy-

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Then we escaped the chaos of fantasyland. We stopped to watch the castle stage show and I almost peed my pants when Peter Pan and Wendy started dancing.

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After the show we tried to find something to do but everywhere was crowded, loud, and full of strollers. So we took a break to get seats for the 3pm parade. I went to grab fastpasses for Philharmagic, but they were out. I remember I texted my friend Avery (she works at DW) and said "I think that hell might look like fantasyland at 2pm." It was pretty bad. )

I got better pictures of the parade on our 2nd Magic Kingdom day and so I won't post many here.

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^^I used to be TERRIFIED of this guy (and all other muppets) as a kid. what a creeper.

The parade...well here's the thing. Last year, I thought we had missed the 3pm parade because we were resting on the transit authority. When we finally got off it was 3:30 and my friends wanted to ride Stitch. I said heck no and started to fill up the water bottles instead. Then the parade started on the tomorrowland side of the park! and THEN the Peter Pan float stopped RIGHT in front of me and they all danced.

I don't think that moment can be redone, haha.

This years parade was shorter and they didn't dance But I still liked seeing all the characters.

After the parade we used our other space mtn fastpasses and then got in line for Pirates. There was a CREEPY family in line in front of us- the dad was practically making out with his preschooler son and the mom and daughter weren't much better. We thought they might be European but then they spoke like Americans...sooo just very affectionate??

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Adventureland was nuts as well! The bathroom line stretched to Frontierland!

. At this point, Jaci is like "Ok, seriously, we need to find my phone." She had been missing it all day, thinking she left it in the car and all day I would pretend not to hear her bc lets face it, Disney transportation can take awhile. It was like, 4:15 and the park was driving us crazy. So I gave in and we took a trip to the parking lot.

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She had left her iphone on the hood of her car ALL DAY and no one stole it!!

We decided to relax in the car for a little while

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It was a great decision and I told Jaci that sometimes I won't be convinced of a good idea until it happens. Here's another funny story- We got out of the car and went to the tram pick up and had to chase the tram down. The guy goes "You ladies want a ride?" and then told us the rules specifically. Then everyone got off the tram and we had a tram party all by ourselves. Jaci has us goofing off on video and the tram guy talked to us as well!

On the monorail we met a really sweet family with twin girls who asked us questions about Texas. From the monorail we could see lots of people leaving the park- a good sign! We all cheered bc they were leaving!

We definitely got our 2nd wind! We rode Jungle Cruise:

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(a PLASTIC snake!)

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THE BACK OF WATER!

And of course, Peter Pan's Flight!!

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My batteries died, but I rode it later on that week.

We ate dinner at Cosmic Rays. Watch this magic:

A $12 meal

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wow! 2 $6 meals!

This was our dinnertime view

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love it!! we took some pictures after we ate:

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After dinner we headed to Philharmagic!

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(and both confessed to tearing up in our favorite character scenes...shhh...)

continued in the next post- 25 picture limit!

 

[tmk0051]

The small world wait was really short so we hopped in line! I think we may have gotten to line jump on this one.

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There were some dolls getting married at one part and I said "I'm going to tag you and wesley!" This was Jaci's reaction:

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Mickey and Minnie's houses are where we started our Mickey-won't-propose jokes. Since Mickey won't propose, Minnie is NOT going to call him 3x a day or make him lunch:

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or clean his kitchen:

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And mickey won't propose bc he likes being a bachelor with a man room

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fun times! We headed to the hub and caught the top of spectro bc there were so many people, but we watched it again later that week. Then we watched wishes!!!

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I just love that show!!

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The funny part during wishes was this whiny grown woman behind us who kept whining "i'm colllddd!" to her boyfriend/fiance/husband/whatever. It wasn't even cold and I was in shorts! then she would whine "When we get home, can we make something warm to drink?" she sounded about 5 years old. We were laughing. And we will randomly says "i'm colllddd!" to each other is a pity voice.

Tomorrow- we head to Hollywood Studios!