Does the Pixie Dust count if you don't KNOW about it? Finally Finished :( 11/24

[LuccaDrake]

Hey there! I finally made it! I am seriously going to start my TR this weekend if anyone's still interested in reading it. I've been so exhausted from trying to catch up on stuff at work. Apparently, (and I'm serious) that place can't run without me. But we won't get into that. To catch up on a previous message, I would love to chat with you sometime about adoption. We have already gone to the informational meeting but still need to send our application in. We had thought about doing the classes this winter since we don't do any winter sports, but it's getting a little late for that I think. Anyways, I can't wait to read about the rest of your trip. We enjoyed CM's as well, but I'm sure Ash was beside herself at having brownies for breakfast!

~Beka~

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Hey there! I finally made it! I am seriously going to start my TR this weekend if anyone's still interested in reading it. I've been so exhausted from trying to catch up on stuff at work. Apparently, (and I'm serious) that place can't run without me. But we won't get into that. To catch up on a previous message, I would love to chat with you sometime about adoption. We have already gone to the informational meeting but still need to send our application in. We had thought about doing the classes this winter since we don't do any winter sports, but it's getting a little late for that I think. Anyways, I can't wait to read about the rest of your trip. We enjoyed CM's as well, but I'm sure Ash was beside herself at having brownies for breakfast!

~Beka~

I want to read your TR so get to it!!! I would be happy to give you some info on the other matter. Feel free to call/email whenever. Personally, I don't think you too late to sign up for classes this winter. States are dying for foster parents!

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

I know the suspense has been killing you. Did we make it to rope drop??? I will let you know AFTER this commercial break!

Here is the missing picture from day 1! Us and my baby brother meeting up quickly the airport

And this one is sweet so I thought I’d include it!

Ok, clearly I’ve been watching too much reality tv. Sadly, we did not make it to rope drop. As we were jogging along the path to MK we heard the dreaded sound of the train and singing. Normally, these sounds would have been music to my ears…but not today. I wanted to cry. But as I was determined to RELAX on this vacation, I shrugged and said “oh well” as we got to the front of the park which was already covered in Mickey Mouse confetti.

We were going to stop and have the photopass photographers outside the entrance take our picture but there was a huge line so we skipped it. Instead we stopped the kind folks inside!

BUT before we did that, we had some business to attend to…our first in-the-park character…and a newbie at that. Not that HE’s new…we just haven’t met him before

We also met his pal Pinocchio

We also had the most magical moment of any Disney trip…this first view of the castle!!!

After our Photopass pics, we were onto the RIDES! We let DD pick how she wanted to tour the park and pick what our first ride would be. Her choice???

Which is fine with me cuz it affords Mommy a little eye candy

Not trying to ruin anything on purpose here but I’ve been on POTC several times since it’s been renovated…in WDW and DLR and I STILL think this guy is going to soak me

After POTC, per tradition, DD had a sword fight with DH. I saw per tradition because LITERALLY every time she rides it, she has to sword fight him as soon as they get in the shop. This day, we road it twice in a row so that’s 2 sword fights!

She also always has to try on the huge sombreros

After riding POTC twice, we convinced DD to ride something else. She had originally proclaimed the Flying Carpets “babyish” but eventually gave them a 2nd chance (Dumbo and the Flying Dinosaurs at AK sadly were not granted a 2nd opportunity)

We then headed over to the Jungle Cruise. I’m still trying to figure out WHY the line gets so long for this ride. I’m guessing that it’s nostalgia on their parents part because it’s not THAT great of a ride! But this particular voyage was really good because we got a very “PUNNY” captain. Here she is. I forget her name, but watch out for her and try to get in her boat…she’s good. She did tell the boat not to worry because the cannibals only eat little girls with Minne Mouse dresses and hair bows but DD never picked up on it so the rest of the boat had a laugh at her expense!

After that we headed over to get a spot for the pirate tutorial. We were only the 2nd family waiting so that was good news. DH took the opportunity to take a potty break. DD OF COURSE announces that she NEEDS popcorn right at the moment her left. What to do, what to do. We had a great spot for the tutorial. If you’ve been there, you know there is a very close Popcorn vendor. The park was dead (which even for Sept is odd for a Sat morning) so I told her that she could go on her own. She was THRILLED!!!
Here is the big girl getting her popcorn

We waited. The pirate tutorial never started. About 10 minutes later, a nice pirate came out stating that Captain Jack had run into some trouble

Oddly, POTC broke down at the exact same time. So the pirate went and stood with the POTC CMs to tell people that the village was closed due to some battle and Captain Jack making trouble..it was kinda funny.
In the meantime, we got in line to meet Captain Hook and Smee.

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

If you remember, I had gotten an autograph book from PrincessDisneyBelle for DD. The pages had some favorite characters but I knew we would see a lot more so I added in a ton of pages for the characters. Overall the book was a huge hit. Every character made a big deal about it…but none as big as Smee. You see, I didn’t make Smee a page. Captain Hook had a page and I thought they could sign the same page. But Smee was not hearing it. He spent quite some time miming his anger at me.
Here is hook signing his page

Here is Smee starting to get mad

Now this went on for awhile. I don’t have any pictures of it because I was laughing so hard and trying to convince Smee he could sign Hook’s page. While Smee was figuring out what to do, DD checked out Hook’s hook

While this was going on…Smee decided to draw his own page. See each page had a picture of the character in one ear and their name in another (so that they could sign in the head). So on the back of Hook’s page, he drew himself and wrote Smee. After that, he was happy

After that, we thought it would be fun to have a little battle with Hook

After Hook, we headed over to meet Peter and Wendy. We waited for quite some time and it was getting really hot.

After the picture, DD announced that it was time to go get wet. So we headed over to Splash Mountain. We all rode together first. I channeled my inner redneck and took a picture of a picture

They rode again and I went to catch them

After that was BTMRR. It was DD’s first time on it. She LOVED it. I knew I was doomed for the rest of the trip. I love being blessed with a tall child but at Disney, it scares me. I just fear that’s she going to freak out and I can’t stop the ride!
After BTMRR, I decided that we should stop at Pecos Bill and have lunch. DD kept saying that she wasn’t hunry. I was afraid that she was having motion sickness from BTMRR. Nope, turns out that she was exhausted. This happened while we got the food!

I got the chicken wrap, DH had a burger. The chicken wraps are huge. I ended up waking up DD and giving her a bunch of the chicken out of it for her lunch. After the break, she was refreshed and ready for some more riding!
Next up with Haunted Mansion and then onto Fantasyland. At that point of the day, Fantasyland was pretty packed. We did do IASW and Philharmagic.

On IASW, we saw the first of many inappropriate outfits for a family park. Seriously, are you kidding me…do you not NOTICE the children around you. If this is you, I apologize…I did crop off your head, but I felt the need to share to warn other people not to dress like this or your pic will end up on the internet!

At this point is when we decided that we were all getting tired and hot and that NOW would be a good time for a swim…so back to AKL we went!

 

[Lady Lallie]

I love the character interaction you had with Smee. So great. I love reading about moments like that in the park. That is the kinda stuff that Disney is all about.

That outfit is just hideous!! My goodness, it's likes she has nothing on at all.

I love the picture of the castle and the Partners statue. Very nice!

 

[sohappy]

Fun installment. Cooper read it with me. He wanted to know all about Ash. He calls her "ash-a-lin-gah". Can you tell i stressed the G on the end? On the Peter Pan picture, he said "I don't know that girl" I told him it was Ash, he said "no I know her silly, the other one". So apparently, our kids know each other a lot better than we though!

 

[HeatherN]

I am loving your trip report.I can't imagine being there with no crowds, that must be amazing! Your daughter is adorable.

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

I love the character interaction you had with Smee. So great. I love reading about moments like that in the park. That is the kinda stuff that Disney is all about.

That outfit is just hideous!! My goodness, it's likes she has nothing on at all.

I love the picture of the castle and the Partners statue. Very nice!

I told you I had a good Smee story! It really was funny. I was laughing so hard I had tears rolling down my eyes. I should also mention that I'm one to be completely ready to meet a character, very quickly take a picture and leave because I don't want the people in line getting mad at me. This day, I couldn't have cared less. I'm sure they weren't thrilled though

Fun installment. Cooper read it with me. He wanted to know all about Ash. He calls her "ash-a-lin-gah". Can you tell i stressed the G on the end? On the Peter Pan picture, he said "I don't know that girl" I told him it was Ash, he said "no I know her silly, the other one". So apparently, our kids know each other a lot better than we though!

How cute is that? I bet his says it so cute with his accent! Yup, Ash calls them her friends too. You gotta love kids. Everyone is their best friend...even if they don't know their name You can tell him that all the kids at her school call her Ashie because they couldn't say her name. As long as you don't call her Ashley. She will clickly overpronounce the LING part and correct you!!!

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

I am loving your trip report.I can't imagine being there with no crowds, that must be amazing! Your daughter is adorable.

yes, we do enjoy the no crowds thing! I'm a little sad that this will be our last Sept trip for a long time (DD starts school next year and the school is really strict about taking your kids out...at all...they won't give any makeup work). BUT it was fun while it lasted

 

[justtobeme2]

More more more!

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

More more more!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

So after a brief swim and nap, DD went out on the balcony to have her daily chat with the animals. She liked to stand on the balcony every day and ask them how they were doing, if they had gotten enough to eat, etc. I really think this kid is going to be a vet. Animal care is very interesting to her.
NOW I am going to mention 90 times in this update that I did NOT make the gorgeous dress featured below. I say this because in sending my vacation photos to family and my IRL friends, they all loved the dress. But, did anything else…like the stuff I sewed…get compliments??? NOPE! Now I know that I’m a newbie at sewing and can’t make pretty patchwork twirl skirts but when I was IN Disney I got compliments on the stuff I made but yet my own folks couldn’t throw me a bone!!!! Ok, that’s the end of my rant!!!!

Anyway, while she was napping, I got her surprise ready…the dress from SoHappy…aka Cinderella’s Mice! So I hung up the dress and the note from the mice inviting her to 1900 Park Fare for dinner. DD was very excited to get dolled up. I am already sad thinking about the day when she outgrows the dress because she loves it that much.

Here is the dress surprise

After that we all got ready and hopped on the bus to MK. On the way, the number of compliments was insane. Strangers took pictures of her, people wanted to know where they could buy one (sorry…it’s a Stacey Original!), etc, etc. We got off the bus at MK and waited for the monorail. I’ll post the pics so you can get another look at the dress!

We rode the monorail over to GF. We had some time so we took the monorail all the way around one time. DD was very excited to discover that you can see the castle from the monorail

We got into GF (man that hotel is gorgeous…doesn’t scream “DISNEY” but it’s gorgeous. There was a wedding going on in the lobby so we stopped and checked that out) and then headed into 1900 PF. They sat us very quickly. The staff immediately declared that DD had the best dress they had seen in a long time. They sat us at the table that the characters visit first. This was actually kinda nice because if you are up getting food, you knew that if the announcement started, you had to book it back to your table for pics! While we were waiting for characters, DD stole my P&S camera and shot some pictures. They came out shockingly well!

Some more shots of the dress

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Food was excellent as always! Strawberry Soup…YUMMY! Pina CoLava’s YUMMY! Whatever else I ate, YUMMY! DD again had mac & cheese and strawberries. Oh well! Several CMs came over during the meal to ask about the dress and where they could buy one. I wish I had Stacey’s email address with me, cuz she’d be making some serious cash right now! Even Drizella came completely out of character to ask if you could get that dress on Ebay. AND as a shoutout to the Disboutiquers…both Drizella and Anastasia mentioned that people make dresses with THEM on it instead of Cindy!!!
Now, how about some characters?!?! First up…Cindy and her Prince. Now had this been just their meal, maybe they would have shined but at 1900 PF they are completely outshined by Lady Tremaine and the stepsisters.

Next Anastasia. She was quite good. DD asked her to sing. She didn’t sing Sing Sweet Nightingale but she did do a medley of Disney hits that she changed the words to. It was very funny. As you can see, she loved the dress

She was very mad that DD looked better than her so she tried to cover up her dress. The picture is blurry but you get the point

She also came back later to perform I’m a Little Teapot

After she left, Drizella came over. She had a similar reaction to the dress. She also refused to sing but promised DD that she would be back later to get her for something.

What she came back for was to get DD up for the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo dance

All the above characters were good. The stepsisters were even fantastic…but they still didn’t hold a candle to Lady Tremaine. She was by far our favorite ALL WEEK. She’s HILARIOUS. And the best is that she gives single adults and big families the same treatment. There was a middle aged couple next to us. When she had gotten to their table, the wife had gone to get dessert. She spent a good 10 minutes SCREAMING at the wife (“Elaine, Elaine” “Elaine get back to the table” “ELAINE”)…Elaine was oblivious. Finally she started yelling to the CMs working the food stations not to give Elaine any food until she answered her. If you could have seen more Elaine’s face when she realized that Lady Tremaine had been screaming at her.
Anyway, enough about Elaine (who obviously needs a hearing test!). Here is Lady Tremaine at our table. She was appropriately mean about the dress and banned DD from 1900 PF until she returned with a dress that featured her

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

It was a long day and was getting late. We gave DD the option of going back to the hotel or going to MK to watch the fireworks . She of course picked the fireworks! So off to MK we went.

I love Main Street at night!

Oooh…another view of the castle…Sooo pretty

We decided to let DD pick the touring plan again and this time she wanted to head right and go to

We rode the People Mover (or whatever it’s really called) for the first of many times. We rode Buzz…again the first of many times. And we did the Laugh Floor (first of only twice…not too bad!) here are some pics…including the obligatory redneck pic of a pic and “Child trapped in Zurg’s cage”

After that, it was time to snag a spot for Wishes. We sat on the walkway out of Tomorrowland under Tink’s wire. In all our trips to Disney, we have yet to see Tink fly. It’s always been lousy out so while Wishes went on, Tink did not fly. But this time was beautiful and we were hoping that we were going to see her. While we were waiting DD made glow stick bracelets to hand out.

Pretty soon…we saw this:

Here is a terrible closer picture of Tink. I can not believe how fast she goes. I just couldn’t get a decent shot

After that, we had an excellent Wishes show and headed out for the day. I was surprised that we only need to wait for 2 buses before we got on. We all had to stand but that was ok. However it was at this time that I noted another pet peeve. Young men sitting while PREGNANT women are standing. It amazed me that nobody got up for these obviously pregnant women. There were also several women standing holding young infants…and yet, these guys all sat. I’m sure that if their mothers could see them, they would have gotten a good whack in the head. Since I’m not their mother, I just rolled my eyes in disgust at them. I then thanked God that I married a man who wouldn’t let a woman stand…let alone a pregnant one.
To reward you for “listening” to my rant…here are some Wishes photos

 

[sohappy]

Another great update! And wow! you are giving me a HUGE ego boost. I am so glad that it fit her well. She looks amazing in it.

When I had the outfit in my car to mail out. I went to lunch with a friend. When she saw it she said, "wow, you can sew, huh?" I didn't know whether it was a compliment or not!! I would much prefer the ones that you got. I might have to just save this page and read it when I feel bad about myself.

I can't wait to read more!!

 

[Lady Lallie]

Wow. I want to go to dinner at 1900 Park Fare! Lady Tremaine and the stepsisters sound like great characters. That Cindy dress is just beautiful. Seeing all these great customs really makes me want to sew. I am awful at it but I love the cute clothes!

The pictures of Tink are way better than what I got of her! Beautiful fireworks too. Did you have a tripod?

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Another great update! And wow! you are giving me a HUGE ego boost. I am so glad that it fit her well. She looks amazing in it.

When I had the outfit in my car to mail out. I went to lunch with a friend. When she saw it she said, "wow, you can sew, huh?" I didn't know whether it was a compliment or not!! I would much prefer the ones that you got. I might have to just save this page and read it when I feel bad about myself.

I can't wait to read more!!

Thank you again! I knew that you would like this particular update! This kid is going to be wearing that all winter...throw a long sleeved t underneath and some tights and you are good to go! She's mad that I won't let her wear it to school.

BTW. I do still have the buttons. She wouldn't let me sew them on when she "found" it in the hotel room. She wanted to put it right on. So it never got sewed. I should actually do that!

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Wow. I want to go to dinner at 1900 Park Fare! Lady Tremaine and the stepsisters sound like great characters. That Cindy dress is just beautiful. Seeing all these great customs really makes me want to sew. I am awful at it but I love the cute clothes!

The pictures of Tink are way better than what I got of her! Beautiful fireworks too. Did you have a tripod?

Oh you have to go there. Put it on your 2010 ADR list! The food is great but the characters are just the best. (at breakfast, the Mad Hatter comes over and steals all your tea)

yes, I wish I could sew like Stacey. It would probably require me getting a new sewing machine. But I think I have too many hobbies. I have to decide what to spend money on

I did have a tripod with me on the trip but i didn't have it that night. I did have it for Hallowishes. To be honest, I don't think there was huge difference in the fireworks pics but there is a huge difference in the parade photos. My Boo to You pics only came out because of the tripod.

 

[Lady Lallie]

Oh you have to go there. Put it on your 2010 ADR list! The food is great but the characters are just the best. (at breakfast, the Mad Hatter comes over and steals all your tea)

yes, I wish I could sew like Stacey. It would probably require me getting a new sewing machine. But I think I have too many hobbies. I have to decide what to spend money on

I did have a tripod with me on the trip but i didn't have it that night. I did have it for Hallowishes. To be honest, I don't think there was huge difference in the fireworks pics but there is a huge difference in the parade photos. My Boo to You pics only came out because of the tripod.

We were supposed to go for breakfast one day but we ended up canceling because we were being lazy.

I didn't that great pictures of Boo to You either. My firework pictures are a lot more blurry too, I don't think I am very steady.

I think I am going to attemp the sewing thing. My mom has a machine that I can borrow so I think that might become my winter hobby.

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

We were supposed to go for breakfast one day but we ended up canceling because we were being lazy.

I didn't that great pictures of Boo to You either. My firework pictures are a lot more blurry too, I don't think I am very steady.

I think I am going to attemp the sewing thing. My mom has a machine that I can borrow so I think that might become my winter hobby.

you should develop sewing as a winter hobby! Make sure you check out the Disboutique thread if you want any advice. These ladies (and a couple of gents) are amazing
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1923786