Escape from Real Life to Paradise: A New Trip with New Memories - Completed 4/3

[cstorm65]

Fun update, Jon. I enjoy the Carpets first thing in the a.m. when they aren't so crowded too. And who doesn't love Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I love your DW's Minnie headband...it's perfect. And Dumbo and Pooh...two of our favorites. And Minnie and Daisy are so much fun.

It was a great morning. We kind of did it in backwards order from what we normally do going from Adventureland around to Fantasyland, but it worked out really well!

I agree with you. I LOVE the Mine Ride, but just wish it had been a bit longer. I know they were limited on space and the whole concept fits in for the kids and adults to ride together, but a tad longer would have made it better.

I agree...but I can't complain too much, it is still pretty good!

Such cute pictures of Braxton with Daisy!

He loves Daisy and Minnie...such a lady's man! If we ask him "Do you want to go to Disney World and see Mickey and Goofy and Donald?" He will look back and say, "And Minnie and Daisy?" He won't let us leave out the girls!

I understand your sentiment about the Mine Train. I felt it was a little short, too. The views are great and so is the theming, but I hate when rides just come up a little short.

At least it is done well and like you said the theming is great. All in all it is still better than most rides, I think we just all wanted something incredible based on the length of time and the build up to the opening of this ride.

Great pics with the gang at CP- especially Pooh. And great story of that CM - and goes to show sometimes small acts can have a big meaning.

It was a great breakfast. I can't believe I forgot that waiter's name though...he was awesome!

Sounds like a great morning with getting on rides. There must be jus millions of off-timed pictures taken over the years at Dumbo - but the one you wound up with at the end nd was definitely worth it.

Yes, I had so many missed shots of them, but got lucky with that one!

Definitely agree with you about Mine Train. There are two lifts and two quick sections and two slow sections with scenes to watch - I think even if all those were E instead of two it would be a really great ride. As is it is very good but probably not worth the standby wait times it gets.

Agreed. It is still a well done ride, just the length is the only negative. Like you said, one more nice section of quicker stuff would have been really nice.

 

[cstorm65]

Tuesday, July 1 – Part 4 – The End to a Hot and Muggy Morning

As we finished the ride we started to really notice how hot and muggy it was. It was very hot for being just past 11:00 so we decided we would finish up the couple of things we wanted to do in Tomorowland and head back for a nap. First of all I had booked myself a FP on Space Mountain while DW had one for her and DS on Buzz Lightyear. Here are some great ride photos.

After getting our final couple of rides in I stopped at the FP+ kiosk outside of Buzz to try and grab a FP for the evening. We wanted to stop back in that evening and do the Mickey Meet at Town Square Theatre. Lucky for us they had plenty of availability for that and so we booked our 4th FP that day for the Mickey Meet at 5:00 PM. On the way out DW stopped in the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor to get some ice cream while I stopped on down the street for a Starbucks Frappuccino. DW’s ice cream even had ears!

We were at the bus stop by around noon and there was a boat waiting. I’m sure they had been alerted to the fact that we were leaving so they needed to be ready for us! I got a few nice pictures from the boat ride.

DS was exhausted after the early morning ADR and some Magic Kingdom time!

When we got back DW ran some clothes down to do a load of laundry so we could pack a little easier. We still had a full day tomorrow, but kind of wanted to get some of the packing done so it wasn’t so sad on our final day. I laid down with DS for a nap while she did that. She also grabbed some food from Roaring Forks for lunch. Every meal we had from there was pretty good and this one was no exception.

DS was tired and napped for about three hours this afternoon. When he got up he was ready to play with his football!

By about 4:00 we were getting ready to head back to the Magic Kingdom so we could meet DS’s favorite character. He was all dressed up in his Disney World shirt for the meeting.

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Up Next: Pick a Resort…Any Resort​

 

[KatMark]

Fun ride photos!

That ice cream looks really yummy...despite the fact that it is -23 with the windchill here right now.

Naps after an early morning, and a hot one to boot, are always a good thing.

DS looks ready to go now.

 

[cstorm65]

Fun ride photos!

I can't wait until DS is older and we can have a family ride photo with crazy faces!

That ice cream looks really yummy...despite the fact that it is -23 with the windchill here right now.

Wow...-23. I like cold weather, but my definition of cold is 30 or 40, not -23!

Naps after an early morning, and a hot one to boot, are always a good thing. DS looks ready to go now.

He is a really good napper, especially when he's tired on vacation, but he does wake up ready to go and full of energy!

 

[cstorm65]

Tuesday, July 1 – Part 5 – Pick a Resort…Any Resort

We left about 5:00 on a boat bound for the Contemporary. We loved the boat transportation. It takes longer to get to the Magic Kingdom than the bus does, but it is so nice and relaxing. Also, the ability to go to the Contemporary or Fort Wilderness by boat is a nice bonus.

Once we got to the Contemporary DS was captivated by the monorail pulling into the hotel.

We then jumped aboard to road it all the way around to the Magic Kingdom. We were not in a big hurry to do anything tonight so getting their quickly was not an issue and DS loves riding the monorail.

The first order of business was to get a family picture in front of the train station.

Then the only other thing we wanted to do was to use the 4th FP+ we had picked up earlier to meet Mickey Mouse, so we headed into Town Square Theatre. DS was in a phase of wanting his hands in his pockets, and it hit him while we were waiting:

We waited about 5 minutes before DS got to run to his favorite character, the main Mouse himself!

DS obliged us with a picture before DW and I joined him.

This was a great meet. The look in DS’s eyes when he gets to meet Mickey is worth the entire trip. We didn’t get talking Mickey for whatever reason, but it was a great meet nonetheless.

When we came out we decided to go into the emporium for a few minutes to finalize some of our plans on what souvenirs we wanted to buy. When we came out of the emporium we heard the Move It, Shake It parade coming back down Main Street so we hung around, as DS loves the music and characters in this parade. I even let DS get a better view.

It was just after 6:00 at this point and we really didn’t want to do much at the park as we had a full day here tomorrow for our last park day, but we did need to eat. So I asked DW to pick a resort, any resort you want to eat dinner at. So at about 6:15 we boarded the monorail to DW’s choice…
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Up Next: The Return of Marty!​

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Nice ride photos - and a 3 hour nap? Definitely needed that break - sounds like things worked out really well.

Great meet with Mickey. Always great when you get those moments that makes it all seem worthwhile

Great idea to just "pick a resort" for dinner - hope it worked out

 

[KatMark]

Little boys and their love of monorails.

on the hands in the pockets. I love it.

What absolutely priceless pictures of DS with Mickey Mouse. His smile is precious.

And can't ask for a better seat for a parade than on daddy's shoulder.

Oh...now I'm curious as to where dinner is.

 

[cstorm65]

Nice ride photos - and a 3 hour nap? Definitely needed that break - sounds like things worked out really well.

We certainly like the breaks, and it really pays off to give DS time to get a good nap in.

Great meet with Mickey. Always great when you get those moments that makes it all seem worthwhile

It really was great. DS was so excited that he could hardly wait through the family in front of us as we were right there in the room with Mickey watching them get to meet him.

Great idea to just "pick a resort" for dinner - hope it worked out

We'd never done that before, so it was fun!

Little boys and their love of monorails.

on the hands in the pockets. I love it.

Yes he loves the monorail last time. He would just sit in the window and watch things pass by. And I guess I had so much fun watching him that I forgot to take pictures on the monorail...or could it be that I'm still a little boy to when I step on the monorail?

What absolutely priceless pictures of DS with Mickey Mouse. His smile is precious.

It was a great meet.

And can't ask for a better seat for a parade than on daddy's shoulder.

One of my favorite pictures of the trip is the last one where he was reaching out to wave at Mickey, who's float was coming next.

Oh...now I'm curious as to where dinner is.

Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend, but until then I'll leave you wondering!!

 

[cstorm65]

Tuesday, July 1 – Part 6 – The Return of Marty!

So I had given DW the option of choosing a resort to head to for some quick service dinner and she picked a resort that we had never been to before…the Grand Floridian. I have to apologize that for whatever reason I had the camera put away and we were having such a relaxing evening I didn’t even bother to take a picture of hardly anything we did there. I know it is bad for trip reporting, but it was such a nice relaxing evening exploring a new resort.

We arrived at the resort at around 6:30 and headed off to find Gasparilla Island Grill for some dinner. We spent a few minutes in the lobby and DW loved one of the shops that had women’s clothing. The prices are pretty crazy, but it was fun to look around nonetheless. The lobby of this place is beautiful. Not quite a appealing to us as the Wilderness Lodge, but beautiful.

We found the quick service restaurant and tried to decide what to have. DW decided that she and DS would just split the Margherita Pizza. They both enjoyed it and said the flavor was really good. The crust was not quite as crispy as DW would have liked, but it was good.

I ended up deciding on the Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich. It sounded really good by the description on the menu, but unfortunately it wasn’t that great. The chicken was pretty dry and the bread was a little too hard for a sandwich. The concept sounded good, but was just not executed all that well.

After dinner we explored a little more and the got back on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom at around 7:30. We headed to the boat dock to go back to the Wilderness Lodge and to our surprise the boat captain Marty was working the Magic Kingdom docks. This is the guy who sings constantly while driving his boat. Tonight we heard him give a great rendition of “Happy Birthday” to a little girl who he saw had a button on. We were just amazed at his spirit and great attitude again.

When we got back we put our swimming suits on and headed down for a little after dark swimming, which is one of our favorite things to do. DW loved the pool, especially sitting right at the area where the stream meets the pool. We headed back to the room at around 9:00 and stopped and got some ice cream at Roaring Forks on the way. We ended up packing most of our clothes into bags to night so we wouldn’t have to worry about it on our last full day tomorrow, which ended up being a god thing. We were in bed by 10:00 tonight and sad that our last full day had arrived, but excited about some things we had planned on that day.
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Up Next: Can We Get Some Help Here!​

 

[KatMark]

The only time my husband will go to WL and GF is at the Christmas season to see all the beautiful decorations. The shops at the GF are on the pricey end.

Sorry your meal wasn't very appetizing. I don't do Disney (or Florida) pizza, but the pizza at least looked edible.

How fun that you got the singing boat captain.

I love evening swims at Disney. There is just something magical about it.

Boo...last day coming up.

 

[cstorm65]

The only time my husband will go to WL and GF is at the Christmas season to see all the beautiful decorations. The shops at the GF are on the pricey end.

I can't wait until we can get down over Christmas. It's just so hard with both of us being in education. That two weeks we get at Christmas is a break from the busy time of school, so it is nice to just relax. We will get down there at some point though!

Sorry your meal wasn't very appetizing. I don't do Disney (or Florida) pizza, but the pizza at least looked edible.

DW likes the flatbreads and said it was enjoyable, just not quite crispy enough. I am like you...I don't usually even order pizza except at Via Napoli.

How fun that you got the singing boat captain.

He is great!

I love evening swims at Disney. There is just something magical about it.

Agreed!

Boo...last day coming up.

Sad day, but we have some fun things planned!

 

[cstorm65]

Sorry for the delay in this update. My external hard drive, which has a lot of my travel files and trip report files on it has broken down. I found out last Wednesday and now I have a place trying to recover my files for me. So hopefully they get all of my stuff back. It has my itineraries for our upcoming trip and everything on it, so hopefully good news is coming. I did manage to get an update done though today...so enjoy!​

July 2 - Part 1 - Can We Get Some Help Here?

We were up and ready for our final full day at Disney World by 7:30 this morning and I found something very sad hanging on the door of the room.

Despite the sad moment of finding that Magical Express notification we were determined to have a great day at the Magic Kingdom. We were at the bus stop around 8:00 and the bus showed up in less than two minutes. We were going to try and arrive about 8:30 so we did have to sit for too long, but now we were going to be early! We took a good family selfie on the bus:

Then DS figured out what we were doing and he tried to hide.

We did get stuck in a little bit of the cast member traffic that happens in the mornings so we didn’t get to the Magic Kingdom until about 8:15, but were through the turnstiles quickly and in our traditional spot on the right hand side. The opening show started as it had been at about 8:40 and the park opened at 8:50.

Now, we thought had a perfect plan for this morning. DW was going to stop and get her a Starbucks drink while DS and I went on and rode the Tomorrowland Speedway before a line grew there. Now, this was a big mistake by us. This was my first time ever on this ride as DS was too young on our last trip. The ride was great. DS we too short to drive, but he actually didn’t care and enjoyed the ride a lot. The problem was this...I didn’t account for the fact that Disney has about 100 cars lined up to start the day, but only about half of them fit into the loading area, the others are just sticking out on the track. So when we got done with our ride I saw a long line of cars sticking out of the loading area and thought how are we going to get off this ride. As it turns out...we weren’t, not until people came and filled up all of those cars that were in front of ours so that we could get to the unloading area. And let me just say the Tomorrowland Speedway was not that popular this morning. DW had found us and was standing on the fence, in the shade, sipping her cold Starbucks beverage while we were sitting in the sun letting valuable park touring time tick away. I was trying to wave some workers down, but I guess they were busy loading the throngs of people (actually about 3 people) trying to get on the ride. Finally after sitting there for about 20 minutes enough cars had moved and we were able to move up and get off the ride. I was not a very happy camper, but it was just 9:15 and all would be okay!

We rode Buzz Lightyear, but I guess the picture didn’t get linked to my account for this one. We then headed back here, to one of DS’s new favorite rides of this trip:

We rode The Barnstormer and DS loved it as much as he had the other day we did it. We then headed over and hopped aboard the train to get us to our next stop. A couple of picture son the way:

It was about 9:45 when we arrived at our next stop of the morning.
​

Up Next: This Boy Has Never Seen a Dance Party He Didn’t Like​

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I know it is bad for trip reporting, but it was such a nice relaxing evening exploring a new resort.

How dare you let your own personal happiness get in the way of proper trip reporting!

Seriously that sounds like a wonderful evening of taking it easy and just enjoying being a family on vacation in Disney World

Sorry the food wasn't better though

And really, bummer about the Speedway - I can't believe their plan is to just let guests hang out until other people come along to free up space - glad t didn't mess things up too bad in the end.

 

[cstorm65]

How dare you let your own personal happiness get in the way of proper trip reporting!

I know...I feel like such a rebel!

Seriously that sounds like a wonderful evening of taking it easy and just enjoying being a family on vacation in Disney World

It was very nice. Especially the evening swim after the sun has gone down behind the Lodge!

Sorry the food wasn't better though

I'm sure we may have just ordered the wrong thing, it certainly wasn't bad, just expected a little better.

And really, bummer about the Speedway - I can't believe their plan is to just let guests hang out until other people come along to free up space - glad t didn't mess things up too bad in the end.

I know...I guess it doesn't happen that way too often because you would think they'd have a better plan to avoid that, but oh well, it turned out to be a great morning nonetheless.

 

[KatMark]

I hate when that Bus thing is hanging on the door.

Nice job on the bus coming right away.

A good plan that just was a little off time wise. I would have gone with your wife for a Starbucks; those fumes on the Tomorrowland Speedway get me every time. I can't believe you had to wait 20 minutes to get off the ride.

A ride on Buzz and then a train ride...a great start to the day.

 

[KatMark]

Duplicate post...oops.

 

[cstorm65]

I hate when that Bus thing is hanging on the door.

I agree...you just wish you could go right down to the front desk and add another day! Unfortunately the airlines would probably frown on that!

Nice job on the bus coming right away.

We had great transportation everywhere from Wilderness Lodge except for Downtown Disney, but I think that is the case with DD at most resorts.

A good plan that just was a little off time wise. I would have gone with your wife for a Starbucks; those fumes on the Tomorrowland Speedway get me every time. I can't believe you had to wait 20 minutes to get off the ride.

It was a nightmare. You could not have paid people to ride the Speedway that morning and in turn we were just sitting there. DS kept saying "Daddy, we get out?" We definitely won't do that again!

A ride on Buzz and then a train ride...a great start to the day.

It was a nice easy rope drop and we saved our legs getting to Frontierland.

Duplicate post...oops.

We'll forgive you!

 

[cstorm65]

July 2 - Part 2 - This Boy Has Never Seen a Dance Party He Didn’t Like

Our next stop was to get in a ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, one of our favorite Disney attractions. DW rode first and then I was able to use the child swap for a ride. After this we headed over and got a ride on Pirates of the Caribbean with no wait at all at 10:15. Followed by DW taking DS on The Magic Carpets of Aladdin. After this DS was asking for a hot dog. Here was his “please get me a hot dog” face.

The best we could do for him in Adventureland was a corn dog. Let me say this corn dog was hot! DS kept saying “I’m ready to eat” but we had to let this thing cool down, but finally he got to enjoy his corn dog.

Our next stop was one of our favorite things to do, or at least one of DS’s favorite things, the Move It Shake It Street Party. We walked to the area in front of the castle about 5 minutes before the parade started.

Then just after 11:00 the floats started coming down the street and DS was loving the opportunity to dance!

Finally DS saw Mickey and had to wave at him!

At some point DS wanted us to hold him because he couldn’t see Mickey from ground level anymore, so DW obliged.

We love catching this parade, especially since you don’t have to get a spot an hour ahead of time. After the parade it was about 11:25 and believe it or not we had done all we wanted to that morning and were ready to head back for a break. We stopped in the Emporium to make some souvenir purchases as we had one of those awesome 20% off coupons that you get at quick service restaurants that say you must use them before noon or some time like that the next day. I think I have pictures of all our souvenirs from the trip at the end, but for now I’m just finding a picture of the shirt I bought. I looked and looked all week for a t-shirt I liked and finally found one here.

Once we finished we stopped in the confectionary just to browse and DW really wanted one of these huge rice crispie treats.

After finishing up our shopping we headed to the boat dock around 11:40 and were back at the lodge by noon for a nice break time.
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Up Next: You Mean That Ride is Broken Down Too?​

 

[KatMark]

LOVE Big Thunder Mountain (just got FP+ for that in May three times).

I'm not sure I've ever had a corn dog. I know I can't eat Casey's hot dogs...they give me heartburn.

I loved the Move It Shake It Parade. You are right...never have to line up an hour before it. Love how DS is waving to Mickey.

 

[cstorm65]

LOVE Big Thunder Mountain (just got FP+ for that in May three times).

We do too! It is DW's favorite ride in the Magic Kingdom. I just can't wait until DS is tall enough (and brave enough) to ride it with us. Not sure about this June on that one. He will be tall enough as it he is already 40", though will just have turned 3 years old in April so not sure if he will be "brave" enough to be ready for it.

I'm not sure I've ever had a corn dog. I know I can't eat Casey's hot dogs...they give me heartburn.

Well DS gave it two thumbs up and said it was "yummy in my tummy"!

I loved the Move It Shake It Parade. You are right...never have to line up an hour before it. Love how DS is waving to Mickey.

This was our second one of these on this trip. We caught it by chance on the day we came in just to meet Mickey. It is a nice easy to watch parade!