Everything is Coming Up MamaBelle! A 1/22-1/30 Trip Report

[MamaBelle4]

I will complete this trip report (I hope). I started one at least once before and just didn't finish it So wish me luck!

Quick introductions are in order. This trip included the following people:



From left to right: DD12, PapaBelle, DD9, AuntieBelle, DD8, DS3 (held by AuntieBelle), DD5 and me!

Our plans were to drive down leaving around 3am on Friday morning, stay at a Holiday Inn in Savannah, then check into our resort on Saturday. Sunday was DHS, Monday was MK, Tuesday was Animal Kingdom, Wednesday was Epcot and Thursday was Magic Kingdom again. Check out on Friday. Next post: Departure day and the excitement that brings.

 

[MamaBelle4]

We woke up early on Friday, I had a last minute grocery pick up scheduled and wanted to get the rest of our snacks for the road. We came home and did that last minute cleaning. Everything was going well.

Too well.

I was rinsing out the tub in our guest bathroom when, all of a sudden, boom, no water pressure.

A pipe burst in our basement. Of course it did.

So I called DH and asked him to leave work early to fix it before we left, and he gave me directions on how to turn off the water supply to the filter housing so the remainder of the water in the lines wouldn't eek out. Luckily he was able to leave early and get that situated before we were scheduled to drop off our puppy at my parents' and pick up our rental car.

We dropped off this troublemaker:


And picked up this "beauty" as we were splitting the kids between my sister's car and our rental:



I sent DH home to get some rest and lingered with the kids enough that he could catch some zzzs. Then I drove them home and loaded up the rental with the luggage and the snacks for the ride down. I only caught a little bit of sleep, myself, to make sure everyone was ready to bust out the door - but that's okay because the next day was ADVENTURE DAY (my designated term for road trips with the kiddos!)

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more about your adventures.

 

[cheryllarsen]

What an adorable family!

 

[cheryllarsen]

Great read. Thanks for posting!

 

[MamaBelle4]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more about your adventures.

Welcome and thank you!

What an adorable family!

Thank you and welcome as well!

Great read. Thanks for posting!

 

[MamaBelle4]

Travel Day #1:

I got everyone up at the ungodly hour of 2:30am. We hurriedly loaded in the cars and stopped for gas and coffee (people fuel). I would have made, but since you can't refill your reusable mugs at this time they would just junk up the car.

We made pretty decent time since no human being is willingly up and travelling at that hour. We stopped at Zaxby's in NC for lunch. We don't have them all the way up here in PA and we are big fans, especially DD12.

We were in Savannah by around 5pm (I think). We checked into our hotel and I ran to the local Aldi.

Why? Wine of course! Aldi does not sell wine in PA, so when I travel to a state that does, I tend to stock up. I bought 6 bottles . We then grabbed Chinese food from a local shop for a quick dinner so we could all go to bed early. I thought "4 combination platters will be enough for the 8 of us to share."

Oh how wrong I was.

2 would have been enough. I have never been given so much food for one meal in my life. We wound up throwing most of it away There was no way to transport it and no way we could eat it all.

I put on the most boring PBS documentary I could find and everyone was out in minutes For the record, I enjoy documentaries, but I am sadly alone in that regard.

 

[MamaBelle4]

Travel Day #2, Part #1

We got up and at'em pretty early. Yes, we realized our room wouldn't be ready until 4pm, but no harm in getting to Disney a little early, plus I had a surprise in store!

PapaBelle and I headed to iHop to pick up a breakfast order - which was a surprise in and of itself. We don't have any iHops near us and DD12 loves breakfast food. She was thrilled when we came back . We were reloaded in the cars and back on the road by about 9:00am.

After potty/snack breaks and traffic including an accident where someone ran an armored van off the side of the road on 95S, we made it to the hotel by 2pm. And our room wasn't ready, of course, I had expected that. I was hopeful it would be ready by 4pm since we brought coffee creamer with us and I didn't want to let it sit out.

We took advantage of our time to grab a snack at the pool bar and got a quick snack before walking around the Pembe Savannah with a CM guide. She was so friendly and told us a ton of information. I didn't get pictures because I was carrying DS3 at the time.

Then we decided to walk to Jambo house to poke around a bit, and boy, y'all weren't kidding about the grandeur of the main lobby.



It was stunning! We then headed outside to see who would come to visit us in the observation area:



Then DD9 conned her father into picking her up so she could see better, and turned and gave me the most obvious "I'm gloating" smile



It was now 5pm, and we still did not have a room assignment (after clearing up a wrong room assignment that we had erroneously been sent earlier), so I decided I would head to the desk to see if they could refrigerate our coffee creamer for us while we were waiting for a room assignment. Wouldn't you know it - while I was in line, I got the text message saying our room was ready.

I had told PapaBelle and AuntieBelle (who were moving the cars) that I would tell them the wrong room number intentionally, 1 up from what we had been given. See, I lied to the kids and told them we did not have Savannah view and I didn't want to spoil the surprise since the older two had already figured out that odd numbers = parking lot, even = savannah. So I told everyone our room was 7541.

Anyone know what the problem with that fib?

Here, let me clue you in. This is where 7541 should have been:



Frosted glass windows. Only I would choose a lie about a room that didn't exist. I changed course and told them I read the text message wrong and that we really had room 7531, but would just wait at the elevators for PapaBelle and AuntieBelle.

I can't share the video of the kids realizing they had been duped because my video is all shaky and terrible, but suffice it to say they were all thrilled! We sat out on our balcony and watched the zebras and the giraffes and the other animals until it started to get dark and we decided to head to Disney Springs for dinner.

 

[rdkeim]

Following! You're off to a good start!

 

[footballmouse]

 

[piglet1979]

Following along

 

[Vero4us]

So fun giving your family a nice surprise! Following along

 

[Isabelle12345]

Following!
I am amazed that you made a Disney trip AND a road trip work out with 5 kids...
I can’t wait to read more!

 

[MamaBelle4]

Following! You're off to a good start!

and thank you!

Following along

So fun giving your family a nice surprise! Following along

The surprise was thanks to one of my friends. We were originally booked for SSR, which is a resort I love because of the proximity to DS, but my one friend had points that were going to expire that she wasn't going to use, so she booked one night for us in AKV Savannah view, and I had enough points to do the rest! It was so generous of her!

Following!
I am amazed that you made a Disney trip AND a road trip work out with 5 kids...
I can’t wait to read more!

The kids are actually pretty good in the car, surprisingly. Usually (non covid years) we do dance, and because the dance studio is so far away, they end up in the car 4x a week for an average of 5-6 hours each night. And I took them, solo, on a 6 hour drive to meet our puppy before we could get him. It is easier now that they're getting older.

 

[MamaBelle4]

Travel Day #2, Part #2

As we were walking down to the bus, I remarked, "Maybe we ought to get the stroller in case DS3 goes to sleep." We decided it wasn't worth the walk back to the room.

Ahahahahahahahaha. Well that was a foolish call.

He was asleep on my lap before the bus even started moving. That's fine, we weren't planning on being at Disney Springs for long anyway.

Ahahahahahahahaha.

https://images.app.goo.gl/4LcQMv2jeLPEjigbA
We got to Disney Springs and had our first health screening of the trip - spoiler, we all passed.

We stood in the middle of DS, looking at the directory, trying to decide which QS to try, when I said, "Why don't we check Wolfgang Puck and see if they have any availability?" So we did, not really expecting anything, afterall, we were a party of 8 on a Saturday night.

The host told us it would be about 90 minutes, so we opted to put our name on the list. AuntieBelle promised to get the kids Ghirardelli anyway. So we made the trek, passing DS3 between the three adults because that little boy gets heavy fast.

No sooner than we got in line in Ghirardelli, does my phone chime: "Your table is ready!". It had been 10 minutes. Which is great, but also not great.



I hit confirm and we hiked it back to the restaurant.

Wouldn't you just know it? The literal second we sit down, that little boy pops up and opens his eyes. Stinker.

We all had different pizzas (well, that's not true, it was 2 and 2 and 4). I really enjoyed both of the adult choices. Can't go wrong!

Our service left a lot to be desired though, if I'm being honest. Sometimes I feel like because we have a large party and an automatic 18% gratuity, we get less than stellar service. This was one of those occasions. After our food was dropped off by food runners, she did not check on us until everyone was done eating. It took her 10 minutes to bring us our boxes and she didn't even bring the check at that time. It was another 10 minutes, and I had the payment ready, then she almost gave our receipt and card to the table next to us instead of us. I had already sent everyone else out because the kids were getting antsy.

We elected to save the ice cream and trip to Goofy's for another day that week so we could head back to our home for the week and get some rest!

 

[tundra1]

I love seeing the photos of AKL. We were there in November and it brings back such great memories! You have a beautiful family. I can't wait to read more!

 

[MamaBelle4]

I love seeing the photos of AKL. We were there in November and it brings back such great memories! You have a beautiful family. I can't wait to read more!

Thank you! And

 

[MamaBelle4]

Park Day #1, DHS

DHS opened at 9am on the day we visited. I got up at 6am to shower, do my hair, etc. I had an alarm set for 6:30, 6:45, 6:50 and 6:59. Anyone want to guess why?

Of course! I didn't want to miss my chance at getting our party on the ROTR boarding group. While everyone else was getting ready, I was sitting on the balcony, coffee in one hand, feverishly refreshing my phone with the other.

The second the clock rolled over to 7am, the option to join a boarding group appeared on my MDE. I clicked it and got us boarding group 33.



Everyone finished getting ready and we headed down towards the bus stop at about 7:50. This was the only time this week that we actually got to the park near the "unofficial" opening. At about 8:20am, we were in the park.

First stop? MMRR.

Let me clear the air here, I hated the idea of this ride. Hated replacing the GMR, and I'm not a fan of the animation for these Mickey shorts. But I knew DS3 would love it.

Guess what? I did too! It is really masterfully done. A really fun ride. It was AuntieBelle's favorite ride of the day.

After that, we headed to SDD. DS3 was tall enough and said he liked it. I chose to believe him.



Let's be honest here, he doesn't exactly look thrilled.

DD5 on the other hand:



We then scurried on over the Aliens. I don't know what the correct abbreviation is, but I DO know what the incorrect one is

I texted PapaBelle at that point (poor dear was alone since MMRR since he doesn't "do" rides). We were on our 3rd ride of the day. And it was *9:12am*. I was stunned and I couldn't quite believe it!

Aliens is okay. Nothing to write home about, tbh.

PapaBelle was heming and hawing on whether or not he was going to ride MFSR with us, so we decided to go with TSM, a classic we all love. Probably should have rode MFSR since he did choose to ride it with us, but that's okay.

TSM was nearly a walk on. It was actually a theme of the week. A lot of the rides that were posted as 10 minute or even 20 minute waits, were just the physical walking through the queue. I was good with that!

After PapaBelle absolutely slaughtered me (and the rest of us) on TSM, we decided to try our chances at MFSR. It was about a 30 minute wait, so still not bad. Before getting in line, I rushed over to ROTR to ask what would happen if our lunch reservation and our boarding group were at the same time (as it was really beginning to look like they were going to be).

The CM told me not to worry about it. Enjoy my lunch and they would be sure to take care of us (besides, the ride was currently down, so the times they were projecting were likely off).

I hurried back to my group and enjoyed our time in the queue. I am not a big Star Wars fan, but it is still absolutely incredible, the amount of detail that Disney puts in everywhere. Just the time they take to make the buildings look aged or damaged. It isn't necessary but it certainly makes you feel more immersed in the land.

Snapped a quick pic in the queue.



I really enjoyed the ride. Myself and DD8 were the pilots while PapaBelle and DS3 were the gunners. Neither PapaBelle nor DS3 enjoyed the ride. I don't think DS3 enjoyed sitting in a seat by himself so far away from us (it isn't that far, but I couldn't reach him), and it was too much for PapaBelle.

I was trying to help DD8 follow the instructions. She was told to move a lever to go into light speed, so I pointed out the lever. She said, "But I don't want to go any faster!"

We decided, at that point, to head to Sci-Fi to see if they could take us early. We weren't starving or anything, but everything we wanted to do that morning was going so much faster than we anticipated. They took us back about 10 minutes after getting there.

We didn't get to sit in a "car" because of our party size, but the kids loved the restaurant.



The food was good enough. It wasn't spectacular, but it was, good enough.

As we were finishing up, I checked MDE and saw that our boarding group was ready! We paid our bill and headed over and I purposely did not read any reviews or anything of this ride, so I had no idea what was coming our way! Next post will contain spoilers.

 

[MamaBelle4]

********************THIS POST WILL BE SHORT AND WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS *********************

Continuance of DHS - ROTR. This post will only contain my review of the ride and nothing else about the rest of our day in DHS, that will be in the next post.

First, to let you know my "kind" of rides:

My favorite: Expedition Everest
Most impressive: FOP
Most immersive: ROTR

You actually feel like a full on character in the movie. It was incredible.

When we got taken into the pre ride show, I was less than impressed. "Is this it? This is what I got up early for?" Remember, I had avoided all reference to the ride, so I had no idea what was in store.

When we were marched past the stormtroopers, it was intimidating. In a very good way. The general (I don't know, maybe?) yelled at my group for not being in single file. It was jarring, again, in a good way.

Then we were taken to colored dots on the floor. The general told us to remember our dots, so I looked down, and muttered "orange" to myself.

Or, at least, I thought it was too myself. He then said/half yelled, "Did I tell you to say it outloud?" We were then locked into an interrogation room. I won't go into full details of the ride, but holy cow was it very well done.

And the reason it is as well done and as popular as it is, is because of the incredible job the CMs do. Fantastic. 10/10 recommend, even if you only have the most basic knowledge of the star wars world. It is impossible not to enjoy it.

 

[piglet1979]

What is the drop like. I am so scared to ride this as I don't like drops? I can do splash. Not my favorite but I tolerate because I like the ride. I also feel sick with the screens. I have issues on Soarn. Is it just a short time with the screens?