Ex-Park Commandos Try Magic Bands and FP+ (Now Trip Report)

[DisneyRegulars]

So it's official, I can't for the life of me refrain from trip reporting no matter how annoying the typing is, and no matter how much I want to play Cookie Clicker. (Have you played this game? Bizarrely addicting, especially when you are competing against all your coworkers, including your boss.)

I guess I will start with the obligatory checkin experience and room report. We arrived right around 5:30 pm and I left Grizzly in the car with Tigger to go steal all the Welcome Homes for myself. The lobby was a ghost town except for about ten checker inner people and a concierge or two as well as three official looking people in ties. I went to the receptionist that said hi first. She checked me in, showed me my Paddock room on the map, and must of seen my face drop slightly as she showed me just about the farthest paddock room you could get from the pool. She immediately offered to change my room and I wasn't even going to ask. So I requested a room closer to the paddock pool since she offered. We then played a game of 20 questions and telephone all at once it was great. I thought it was very funny that the people at the SSR checkin desk have to call somebody offsite to see what rooms are available at SSR. Our three way conversation went something like this: "would you like building 55 or 56. First floor or second floor? Pool view or lake view?". I basically had my pick of the place. I chose 55, first floor, lake view, room 5541. It's the perfect location. We are about 50 ft from the Paddock pool, have a beautiful view of the lake, and can't hear any of the pool noise. It's also great to be on the first floor. I love love love this location.

Now the room...On first impression I loved the room. I love the decor. The entryway is humungous, plenty big enough to act as a second bedroom for a kid in a pack n play. Everything seemed to be in good condition and working order. It was only after living in the room for about 12 hours that I began to notice some oddities. For example, I swear the designers of the rooms sat around and said to themselves " now the design looks good, but I just don't think there are enough doors. Doors people, doors, it needs more doors". And then they went to town adding doors. Full size, heavy, wooden, brass hardwared doors. I swear half the cost of these units is in the doors alone. There are 7 full size doors in this 1 bedroom place. To put that in perspective, my four bedroom 3 bathroom house only has 11 doors, in the whole house. After a while it begins to feel like you are in a funhouse full of doors. It once took me three tries to find the toilet. I'm sure after a few days I will get used to it. Finding all the towels was fun too. With all the wall space taken up by doors the towel racks are in odd somewhat inconvenient places, like in the toilet cubby for example. Everything else is great.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

So after dropping our bags off in the room we immediately left and drove to Downtown Disney to forage for an Earl of Sandwich. Tigger requested mac n cheese so I brought him over to Wolfgang Puck Express while Grizzly braved the EoS line. We passed the time while we waited by making funny faces and taking turns taking pictures of each other. Turned out to be a pretty fun way to wait for mac n cheese. Here is some of the embarrassing evidence:

.

Tigger ended up refusing to eat his mac n cheese because it was the wrong shape. Um....wrong shape? Yeah, there are some battles I'm just not willing to fight and one of them is food, so Tigger had some fruit while Grizzly and I had a side of mediocre mac n cheese. Warning for parents of shape picky kids, the mac n cheese at wolfgang's is long spirally macaronis, not spirals, and not macaronis, like macaronis that just keep on spiraling. This shape apparently did not appeal to Tigger. Who knew? Grrrr.

The best part of the evening though was not the unexpected side of mac n cheese, but was the impromptu fountain romp. Actually this was both the best and WORST part of the evening. Okay, so to fully appreciate this you have to go back about ten years to Grizzly and I's first trip and all seven or so trips after, but before Tigger. We loved to sit around this fountain and watch the kids, and looked forward to the day when we could take our own kids to Disney and watch them play in this fountain. It is so cute to watch all the little kids running around chasing the jumping water.

Fast forward to our first four trips with Tigger. He wasn't too impressed with this fountain, kind of hated getting wet, and would only play in it if one of us was right there with him. Well this trip we finally got what we had always wanted, to watch Tigger running around wildly chasing the water with a bunch of other cute kids. I'm here to tell you, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!!!!! It is actually not at all fun to watch your kid in this fountain. It is terrifying. It seems they made the fountain floor out of ice. It is apparently the most slippery surface they could find. Instead of watching your kid gleefully play in a fountain, it becomes an exercise in praying he doesn't slip backwards and smack his head on the hard ground. TERRIFYING. Tigger must have slipped and fell at least ten times, one time even being clobbered by a much larger kid, but he stilled stayed out there, and he sure had a blast. He keeps talking about it. Next time we go, which has to be soon or I will lose my mind fielding all the requests to go back to the 'chasing water foutain', I will try his water shoes to see if they make it any less slippery. Here's a picture of him, he's smiling and having a blast, but boy is this a scary place for parents, well at least for Grizzly and I:

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Sunday was our first park day and it was awesome. Tigger requested that I sit in the back seat with him on the way to the Magic Kingdom. I found this particularly funny because we have the world's smallest rental car, so I squeezed in the back of our Chevy Sonic just to humor him. Here we are all cozy in our Mickey Ears:

We had a small hickup getting into the parks as Tigger's Magic Band didn't work. We found ourselves holding our breath every time we tried using these bands today. Turns out we just needed to get his AP activated at guest services. We had picked it up in July during our anniversary trip, I didn't realize there was a separate activation step. I was worried about his Magic Band no longer working, but it worked just find, although getting a three and a half year old to put just one finger on the finger thing while standing on tippy toes to reach the mickey emblem is quite challenging. I could just here his little mind going, " but if one finger is good, surely all five fingers will be even better!!!". They did the full opening show today which made me happy.

Our FP + schedule for the day was the following:
9:00am to 10:00am Little Mermaid (bonus fast pass)
10:25 am to 11:25 am Peter Pan
12:10pm to 1:10pm Thunder Mountain
1:10 to 2:10 Splash Mountain

It's definitely a little different having so much of your day planned out for you, but we were still able to accommodate a bunch of Tigger's random requests ( Aladdin's Carpets anyone?), and found time to even enjoy a Lefou's Brew. Notice Tigger has his brown fleecy blanket with him. He insisted on taking this blanket with him today, and brought it on all the rides.

Anyways, to rewind a bit we headed straight to Thunder Mountain despite are later fast pass. Tigger loved it so much we rode 2 times in a row with zero wait, we even got the last car both times. While over in that part of the woods we showed Tigger Splash Mountain and talked about it and how he might get wet, he declared it was too scary. We then road Aladdin's carpets before heading to Little Mermaid just to see if the Magic Bands would work. They did!!!!!! Despite not having any access to change fast pass plus reservations, all our existing reservations still work. Lets hope I planned well!

We also tried getting paper fast passes with both our room keys and our PAP cards, and both worked. So cool, we are going to go fast pass crazy this trip.

After little mermaid we stopped to have our Lefou's Brew and await our 10:25 window of fast pass craziness where we rode Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, met Cinderella ( Tigger was terrified!), and rode the carousel. Tigger was finally brave enough to ride a horse this time. Every other trip we have ridden in the carriage. At the end of the day, despite our three trips on Thunder Mountain, he declared that the carousel was his favorite:

While waiting for our Thunder Mountain FP+ we headed over to storybook circus and rode Dumbo and the Great Goofini before taking the train over to Frontier Land. We were planning on leaving after Thunder but Tigger insisted he now wanted to ride Splash. We rode Pirates to pass the time before Splashing it up. Tigger loved it. I got soaked.

Now for the Fast Pass Plus pro's and cons:
Pros
1. We didn't need to run all over the park for headliner fast passes.
2. They worked as they were supposed to, and the fast pass mickey heads work much faster than the turnstile mickey heads.
3. It was nice not to have to worry about getting out fast pass tickets or other tickets to get fast passes.
4. It was surprisingly easy to remember our FP+ times, and I never even really needed to check the ap.
5. My son managed to keep it on and didn't lose it.
6. It was so awesome to be able to go out to the pool and not have to worry about where to leave the room key.
7. Every time the receiver mickey head turns green you feel a great sense of relief. And like you won the lottery!
8. I am the keeper of all tickets, and it was really nice for Grizzly to have his own ticket/ door key/payment card on him at all times, no more " here take the card" reminders. It was great!

Cons, and these are really minor:
1. I found paying with the MB really awkward, just the height of the counters coupled with my height, just made it weird to try and get the mickey head on my band to match with the mickey head on the counter. Same thing with the turnstiles. I felt like I was constantly in some sort of contortionist contest. I always won as I'm sure I always managed to find the derpiest way to get my magic band to touch the various ill placed mickey heads. Grizzly and Tigger didn't seem to have a problem.
2. The turnstiles are set up such that you have to wear the band on your left hand, well at least the ones we ended up at were. Just try getting a three and a half year old to cross his hands, good luck! We ended up just giving up and switching all our bands to the left.
3. The bands are not terribly comfy. They are hard, and it is a lot like wearing a useless watch. I really wanted it to have a watch face because I kept checking the time only to be met with a blank mickey head. Maybe in the future they will offer a watch variety as an upgrade you can pay for. I know I would choose that option.

Up next tomorrow we head to Epcot and enjoy breakfast with the Princesses. After Cinderella today I'm totally unsure of how it's going to go.

Thanks for following along, let me know if you have any questions.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Oh no! I can't sleep. I will never learn. I had some coffee heath bar ice cream today while Tigger napped, and now I will most likely be up until 2 am, and that's if I'm lucky. Woe. So lying here awake I was thinking about a few things I forgot to mention. One was that I only wanted to throttle Tigger one time today. While we were passing time waiting to ride Splash I suggested we eat lunch and Tigger adamantly refused and insisted he wasn't hungry. Except everything about his tone said instead " I need a nap". Should have just gone home and napped I suppose. Instead we rode Pirates and when we got off Tigger immediately declared he was hungry. Cue desire to strangle young offspring. ( also know that this is all said in jest, no flaming please, no offspring were strangled in the writing of this trip report). So we rode splash with a hungry Tigger and started to leave the park, except serendipity stepped in. We could have left via the fastest route through Adventureland, but anyone with a hungry tired three year old knows that you don't walk by Aladdin's carpets unless you are prepared to ride Aladdin's carpets, either that or be witness to the worlds greatest meltdown. We did not want to do either, so we headed out through Frontier Land. This route brought us by the Sleepy Hollow snack shoppe, and my memory vaguely remembered something about yummy waffle sandwiches. We stopped for lunch. They were delicious, but Grizzly's sweet and spicy chicken was more yummy than my prosciutto and swiss. I need to go back to get my own chicken one. I ordered Tigger the nutella and fresh fruit sandwich with the fruit on the side. Typical three year old ate the fruit and had only 1/4 of the chocolate covered waffle. What is wrong with this kid? Grizzly and I didn't mind this one though as I'm sure we were both thinking the same thing as we watched Tigger slowly eat his fourth of a waffle, " please please please don't eat that whole waffle". Our evil scheming worked and we swarmed in like starving vultures once he said he was done.



One more thing about our room that bugs me. They have installed these nifty little sensors that automatically turn on the bathroom fans when you walk in the room. I get why they have them, but I hate them and here's why:
1. It makes it impossible to be stealthy and quietly go to the bathroom from the master bedroom because three bathroom fans get turned on in the process.
2. Do I really need that noisy fan on when putting on sunblock or brushing my teeth?
3. The time when I most need the fan, when I'm in the shower, the sensor doesn't sense in the shower and so the fan shuts off!!!!!! Talk about poor design.
4. The time when I second most need the fan, to clear out bathroom stink, the fan also shuts off because no-one is in the room to activate it.

These autofans are dumb dumb dumb. Grrrrrrrrrr...

Alright, off to wander the internet while I wait to get sleepy.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Alright here's a small preview of the best trip ever:

Despite the torrential rain we kept getting caught in, despite Grizzly trying to kill himself in a parking lot, despite our halloween party getting destroyed by a 3 year old with too much empathy, despite fighting a cold, it really was an awesome trip. Can't wait to tell you guys all about it. Oh, and the fast pass plus system was pretty great too.

 

[teacherlisa1978]

Alright here's a small preview of the best trip ever: Despite the torrential rain we kept getting caught in, despite Grizzly trying to kill himself in a parking lot, despite our halloween party getting destroyed by a 3 year old with too much empathy, despite fighting a cold, it really was an awesome trip. Can't wait to tell you guys all about it. Oh, and the fast pass plus system was pretty great too.

What a wonderful picture! Can't wait to hear all about it!

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[catherines_mama]

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

I'm back. Well actually I'm in Atlanta at the moment, but I'm back to trip reporting. The cold that I had over vacation walloped me on Sunday and I could do nothing more than lay on the couch and feel miserable. Unfortunately, I have left a now very sick Grizzly in charge of Tigger for a couple days. Hope they survive, there is no food in the house. Anyways....

Monday was our designated Epcot day. The schedule for the day started off with our first ever character meal at Akersus( I vaguely remember going to Chef Mickeys when I was 5ish, so I'm going to count this as the first character meal for everyone in the family). We were excited. Everyone says that the face characters are good ones to start with, so that's why we were doing the princess meal first. That and Tigger is obsessed with Cinderella and Snow White at the moment. Our fast pass selections for the day were:
10:20-11:20 Test Track
11:25-12:25 Mickey and Friends Meet and Greet
12:50 - 1:50 Soarin

Our breakfast reservation was at 9:20am and the park was scheduled to open at 9am. We arrived around 8:40 and the lines at the turnstiles were pretty long. We figured it wouldn't hurt to ask and walked over to the breakfast reservation turnstile and asked if we could go in early because of our breakfast reservation and they let us right in. So coooool! We first stopped by Test Track to grab a fast pass (Yes the fast pass machines worked before park opening). And then headed to buy Tigger his first autograph book. When faced with the choice between blue with Mickey and Pals or pink with princesses he chose pink with princesses. We were not surprised.

Akersus was amazing. Grizzly and I really enjoyed the breakfast, especially the potatoes. My other favorite thing was this really ugly brown colored cheese on the buffet. It looked really scary, but I decided to try it anyways and it was delicious. Very sweet, and almost tasted more like caramel than cheese.

Here was our opening picture with Belle. Tigger would not go near her on his own, and the photographers were very patient, as it took a lot of work to get him to smile. Notice he is still carrying around his brown blanket today.

Tigger was not entirely fond of the princesses, he jumped right out of his chair when Sleeping Beauty knelt down beside him. He was so fast he beat my camera shutter:

Snow White came next and charmed the pants off him though.

When Cinderella came around he was all suave and charming. Look at him all cool and collected with Cinderella:

He's wearing a Japanese kimono that my Taiwanese friend gave me when he was born. I think this is his third trip now wearing it, but really, where else is he going to be able to wear a kimono without looking like a weirdo? He gets lots of comments from both CMs and guests wearing it. Hopefully it will still fit in January.

After our relaxing and yummy breakfast breakfast we headed over to Test Track. Tigger had a blast designing the car. When we started going around the fast part of the track he screamed out in glee "THIS IS FUN!" which made everyone in the car laugh including the other family that was with us. We had just enough time to use both our FP+ and our paper FP for Test Track. We were about to grab another FP for Test Track but noticed the return time was already 5:55pm! Holy Moly Batman!!! It was only 10:40am and already the fast pass return time was 5:55pm? That really surprised us as the crowd level for the day was supposed to be a 1, the FP+ system must really be eating away at those paper FP quantities. That or people like us double dipping are eating away at the FP quantities.

We made our way over to try our luck with the Character Meet and Greet. During our Magic Kingdom day Tigger had a great experience with Chip N Dale, so we had high hopes for this meet and greet. It went awesome! Tigger loved it. Here Mickey tried valiantly to pose Tigger but Tigger just did not get it no matter how many times Mickey lifted his arms up:

The other characters were also a hit. In case you hadn't noticed already this may become a bit of a character and Tigger bonanza trip report. I just can't help it. We've been waiting for 4 trips for him to not be terrified of the characters, and I'm worried by the next trip he will have already figured out that they are not real.

He was always very interested in what the characters were signing. I think the autograph book really broke the ice for him.

We then headed over to Club Cool to feed Tigger some Beverly, hoping to catch a picture of a disgusted face, but the turkey liked it!

Spent some time on the Figment ride and in Innoventions before hitting our Soarn FP+. The FP+ system has really changed our touring style because we would have never normally spent too much time in Innoventions, but we had time to kill, and so we leisurely enjoyed ourselves in there. Among other things we watched a 3D storm movie which was well worth the 15 minutes. We were all pleasantly surprised by it, and in true Epcot style learned a thing or two as well.

Tigger loved Soarin. After Soarin I sent Grizzly and Tigger home while I went on a chocolate caramel square mission. Up next my mission turns into a soggy wet adventure as the first of many torrential down pours caught me off guard.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

On a semi related note because I spoke about it earlier, I was able to change my May 2014 anniversary trip reservation to the Grand Floridian on Monday!!!!! I'm super psyched. We even managed to get a standard view studio. Both days on either side of our reservation were unavailable, so we just squeaked in. CAN NOT WAIT!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Right as I sent Tigger and Grizzly off to the hotel it started to sprinkle. Before letting them leave I put my rain coat over Tigger so he wouldn't get to wet. He hates getting wet if he isn't in a swim suit. The last thing either of us wants is a wet Tigger. Probably would have been a better idea for me to keep that rain coat. Silly silly me. Brilliant idea giving the rain coat to the kid going back to the hotel.

Not more than 10 seconds after they reached the car did the sprinkle turn from a gentle sprinkle to a torrential rain. I hadn't even made it to the loop around World Showcase yet. As everyone hurried to put on ponchos and huddle in stores I decided to brave the rain. I think there was me and maybe about 0 other people walking around Epcot without rain gear. The rain was warm and I really didn't mind getting wet. I even stopped to find the hedge maze in the United Kingdom because I had never seen it before. I even walked through the hedge maze in the pouring rain by myself. I mentally put it on my list of things to show Tigger, but we never even made it back to Epcot. (How is that even possible? 8 days at Disney and we only spent a mere 3 hours in Epcot? Thank goodness for DVC and the ability to go back).

After hedge mazing it up I continued my walk to Germany to find my coveted salted caramel milk chocolate squares. I cannot begin to tell you how many stares I received as I walked around without rain gear. MANY! By the time I got to Germany I was soaked soaked soaked with water dripping off everything and rolling down my face even. The girl at the checkout had the audacity to ask me if it was raining out. I didn't know if she was trying to be funny or was genuinely curious. I managed to contain my sarcasm and simply answered 'a little bit'. Continuing my loop around the World Showcase now with 4 yummy caramels and caramel popcorn in hand I stopped and got a Safari Amber. Yum! So I happily strolled alone through the rain sipping my beer, continuing to get soaked, and casually observing all the people huddled under shelter. Most people in ponchos had long since vanished. I almost had the park to myself. It was kind of blissful in a drowned rat sort of way.

When I finally reached the front of the park I asked some nice looking guys that were huddled under the turnstile roof if their hands were still dry. They were from Oklahoma. They thought it was funny I wanted them to take my picture in the rain. So here I am in Epcot, by myself, soaked to the bone, in the pouring rain:

It was only in waiting for the bus ride back that the planned seemed a little less than wise. The wind picked up in the bus stop and it got rather chilly. I was doing a fair bit better than the mom and son from Scotland who were next to me in line though. They too had gotten caught in the rain without rain gear, and the mom was wearing a short yellow cotton dress that had become completely see through. We both laughed about the rain as she tried to hold her dress off her skin so her undies wouldn't show. The bus ride back was FREEZING. It took me hours and hours including a 30 minute hot hot hot shower to get warm again.

Rain became a common theme on this trip. Something in our previous trips we haven't had to deal with before, but we always seemed to manage to make the best of it.

Up next...the weather man says it's going to stop raining between 7:00pm and 8:00pm. We say sounds like just the right amount of time to ride Tower of Terror! Will Tigger enjoy it?

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Once I returned from Epcot drenched we huddled in our room. Tigger snoozed the afternoon away and Grizzly and I watched episodes of Revolution while watching the rain pour down. It rained ALL afternoon.

Once Tigger woke up around 5pm-ish, we attempted to go 'play in the rain'. We all put on our swimsuits and went outside to find some puddles to stomp in. Tigger lasted about 30 seconds in the rain before deciding it was raining just too hard to even play in. Yup, it was raining too hard to even jump in puddles. Back inside we go. I check 2 different weather services and one says it will stop raining from 7pm to 8pm. Perfect. We make plans to head over to Hollywood Studios for a 7pm arrival. We dress Tigger in my rain coat because he doesn't have any rain gear of his own:

It ended up being a blessing that it was raining on our departure day because I wore my raincoat and brought an umbrella with me only because I have a 10 minute walk from my office where I park the car to the airport. If it hadn't been raining on departure day I would have have no rain gear at all.

Heading to Hollywood Studios ended up being the perfect plan. Due to the entire afternoon of heavy rain the place was a ghost town. We headed straight to Tower of Terror which we described to Tigger as a 'crazy elevator ride'. He liked it enough to request to go on it again, but after the second time he was done for the rest of the trip. This became a sort of theme with our trip. Ride something scary, ride something scary again, then refuse to ride the scary ride for the rest of the trip. For some scary rides it took more rides than others, but by the last day he would only ride the Barnstormer.

We then rode Toy Story Mania twice as well (maybe 3 times, I can't remember). When we first arrived the queue said 50 minutes, and the CM warned us it was a 50 minute queue as we got in line. Looking at the ghost town around us, we ignored the CM and literally walked onto the ride. Maybe a 3 minute wait max, and that was only because Grizzly was wearing Crocs of Death and had to walk really slowly through the queue to avoid slipping on the wet wet soggy tiled floor. Don't worry, the Crocs of Death will have their way with him, but that's not until tomorrow.

After Toy Story for the second time we headed home for a relatively early evening. Tomorrow is the Halloween party!!!!!!! We can't wait.

Stay tuned. Up next we have the MNSSHP and a highly entertaining folly that involves poor poor Grizzly going on a wild goose chase, and culminates with him being attacked by a parking lot. (Yes you read that correctly, attacked BY a parking lot).

 

[DisneyRegulars]

I don't have too many stories from the morning of the halloween party. We went to Disney Quest because my son loves arcade games even though he has no clue how to play them. He liked it. I wasn't having a very good time, but I think there were other reasons around that, mostly revolving around having the beginnings of a cold combined with a very inopportune case of PMS. Needless to say I was a grump Tuesday morning. I can also report that Cold Eeze absolutely works. I started taking it Monday night after getting back from HS and having the beginnings of a sore throat. I ended up with a mild cold, the worst of which was a really runny nose. Grizzly got the same bug and missed three days of work this week and also got a fever, terrible cough, and pounding headache. Cold Eeze I a believer!!!

So to the party. We donned our Care Bear outfits and headed to the park for a 5:30pm arrival. I was not feeling well at all, so I have to admit, we took the parking tram (oh the shame!):

We had attached our MNSSHP tickets to our Magic Bands and they worked! Entering the park we were immediately greeted by several cast members who banded us with wrist bands, and gave us our trick-or-treat bags. The bags they provided held plenty of candy for us. We only filled our bags half way, and had more candy than we could eat for the rest of the trip.

First stop, picture in front of the castle:

Tigger's first request was to ride the people mover. Space Mountain happened to be down tonight so we got to see the track inside space mountain. What a cool treat.

Tigger's second request was to ride the race cars. If it were up to Tigger all we would have done for the entire trip was ride the race cars. So we went, I tried to capture some pictures of us, here is the best one, but what I would like to point out is how blue and clear the sky is:

We rode the race cars 1 more time before dragging Tigger away to go ride Thunder Mountain with our one remaining FP+ that we had scheduled for the evening. After riding Thunder we rode Splash with 0 wait. Once off Splash it was time for the Halloween festivities to begin. We started by trick or treating on the trail that winds through the Splash queue area. There were A LOT of people, and the line moved quite slowly.

My two goals for the evening were to watch the 8:30 parade and Hallowishes at 9:30. We slowly made our way over to Barnstormer at Tigger's request. The plan was to trick or treat along the way, but every trick or treat place was just toooooo packed to bother with. We rode Barnstormer, and then started walking over to Tomorrowland so we could do the Tomorrowland to Storybook Circus trick or treat trail. Well, just as we were nearing the entrance to the trick or treat trail every cloud in the sky (where did these clouds even come from?) decided to let loose and it started POURING. We happened to be right near the space mountain fast pass machines to we ducked under there. IT WAS RAINING. This was not the kind of rain that you could just go on about your day and ignore. This rain wanted you to know it was there. By the way it was about 8:15 now, and it was clear that the parade would be cancelled. We moped for a few minutes while we made a plan. We abandoned the stroller by the fast pass machines, and ran over to the People Mover. We rode the People Mover twice while sitting and munching on our candy. After that, clearly the best thing to do in the rain is ride the race cars right? Well according to Tigger it is, so that's we did. Except, I had learned a lesson the other day at Epcot, and knew that I would not be a happy camper if I didn't first buy myself a poncho. So one poncho later we started riding the race cars. In the pouring rain. We had an absolute blast. We each took turns riding with Tigger. By the time we had gone around twice the rain had settled down. We made our way back to our stroller which had stayed nice and dry, and proceeded down the trick or treat trail.

And this my friends is where the happy evening ends. Done. If you don't like unhappy endings, just skip the rest of this post because it gets bad. Very bad.

We waited in line for the Barnstormer. And waited. And waited. Finally everyone in front of us got turned around and left. So we left too. Well all of us except Tigger's heart. That was left with the Barnstormer, and the people stuck on the train. Tigger was devastated. Not because we couldn't ride the Barnstormer, but because he was incredibly distraught about the people that were stuck on the second of the 2 barnstormer trains. He saw them as we walked away. This ruined the rest of the evening.

We made our way towards the castle to get a spot for Hallowishes. We accidentally saw Celebrate the Magic. This show was incredible. Tigger missed the whole thing because he kept turning around and asking me: "Why did the Barnstormer get stuck? Those people are missing all the fun! How are they going to get off?" Whenever he would mention the stuck people his poor lip would quiver and he would nearly bawl. It was the most pathetic sad thing Grizzly and I have ever witnessed. Neither of us knew quite what to say. All through both shows he just kept asking about the Barnstormer and how the people would get off. We would point to random people in the crowd and say "see that person, they were on the Barnstormer, see they got off". Tigger refused to believe us. We offered to take him over to the Barnstormer to show him that it was running fine and everyone was off but he was just too upset and kept saying "I just want to go home and go to bed I'm tired". So we headed home. We tried to cheer him up by letting him pick out a hat, but that didn't work either.

On the way out Tigger requested to ride a 'school bus' back to the resort, so Grizzly strolled Tigger over to the buses, and then headed off with the stroller to drive the car home. Dun dun dun.....

The bus for SSR was waiting there and right as we were about to step on the driver closed the doors. She had closed the doors to let a wheel chair on board, but Tigger didn't realize this and COMPLETELY panics screaming "WE BETTER GO GET DAD WE'RE GOING TO MISS THE BUS!!!!!" because in his mind there is only one bus. Somehow I manage to calm fragile little Tigger down and we finally board the bus. The ride home is uneventful with the one exception that as the bus is leaving the MK I remember that I have the car keys with me!!! Unfortunately I also have Grizzly's phone because I was protecting both from the rain.

I sit and wonder how far Grizzly will get before he realizes he doesn't have the car keys. Turns out he got all the way to the row the car was in before it sunk in that he would have to go all the way back across the lake, back to the buses, into the room to get the car key, back to the MK on a bus, and all the way back to the parking lot on a boat. He finally reaches the parking lot for the second time with keys in hand. He's walking along the path to the car because we hate parking trams. Except this time we had parked in the Villains lot, and we aren't as familiar with the Villains side of things. Grizzly somehow gets off the walking path. He realizes he is not longer on the path, but instead walking directly through the parking lot where he could get hit by a car. He thinks he hears someone shouting at him behind him, so he turns to look. Meanwhile one of those curbs at the front of the handi-cap spaces jumps out and attacks him. SMACK! Down goes Grizzly hard onto his side onto one of the curbs. Curb 1 Grizzly 0. The evidence appears 2 days later as a bruise the size of an entire loaf of bread all along his side (he wouldn't let me take a picture). The limping and excruciating pain start immediately the next morning.

So in the end I'm not sure how I feel about our MNSSHP evening. We did have a very good time, but I'm not sure it was any better than any other wet rainy evening we could have spent in the park. We missed the parade due to rain. And sorry to say, but I thought Hallowishes was TERRIBLE. Really awful. Grizzly agreed too. After the awesomeness of Celebrate the Magic, the simplistic ghost effects on the castle during Hallowishes just seemed lame. Plus the music was not very inspired. The whole show just seemed to me like they put it together in about 30 minutes without much thought using their B list imagineers. Disney sure could do better. I would much rather have just seen regular Wishes. Tigger ended the evening distraught because of the Barnstormer debacle, and Grizzly ended the evening on a Disney transportation marathon culminating in falling in the parking lot which left him badly injured for the rest of the trip. So why on earth do I want to go back and do it again? What does Disney put in the water?

Up next we have a late morning at Animal Kingdom where our FP+ came in very handy for our late start. Oh, and more character meals and yummy bread pudding.

 

[murraylieb]

"There are 7 full size doors in this 1 bedroom place. To put that in perspective, my four bedroom 3 bathroom house only has 11 doors, in the whole house. After a while it begins to feel like you are in a funhouse full of doors. It once took me three tries to find the toilet. I'm sure after a few days I will get used to it."

The doors are crazy. My kids once locked all the doors while playing so we couldn't even get in the bedroom or bathroom and had to call maintenance to come unlock them.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

The doors are crazy. My kids once locked all the doors while playing so we couldn't even get in the bedroom or bathroom and had to call maintenance to come unlock them.

Oh geez! I can totally see that happening by accident because the doors are so disorienting, but I would still want to throttle the kids.

 

[NoleFan]

You're trip reports are awesome!

 

[AprilRenee]

Wow! What a night. I'm so sorry!!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Your trip reports are awesome!

Awww, thanks! (Blushing)

Wow! What a night. I'm so sorry!!

Thanks for reading along! It definitely was one of our more trip report worthy Disney days.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Knowing we would have a late night at the halloween party we purposefully scheduled a late breakfast at Tusker House in Animal Kingdom for 10:30am on Wednesday. All our Fast Plus + times (Safari, Festival of Lion King, and Kali River Rapids) were scheduled for after breakfast as well. This allowed us the option to sleep in and get to the park when we were ready without any pressure to be at rope drop. +1 for FP+! Turned out to be an even better decision because once again it was raining, but by the time we finished breakfast the rain had stopped.

So our first stop this morning was Tusker House for a character breakfast. Translation from Tigger's perspective: A $17 doughnut with rainbow sprinkles and pictures with unrecognizable characters. Very often we can easily forget that Tigger is 3. He is a very wise 3 year old, and can talk and tell stories like an 8 year old. This restaurant reminded us very much that Tigger is 3, and we enjoyed every minute of it. Tigger could just not comprehend that the characters were the same characters he knew and loved because they were all wearing different clothes. It never occurred to me that this would be a problem. In particular, he was absolutely certain that he was not meeting Mickey because Mickey did not have on yellow shoes, but instead had on hiking boots. For some reason the rest of the outfit didn't bother him, but he became fixated on the shoes. When we said we had met everyone and it was time to leave he whined: "But I haven't met Daisy yet!". When we assured him that he had in fact met Daisy, and even showed him the picture of him and Daisy:

he still did not really understand that it was Daisy because 'Daisy had no bow'. I felt a little bad for him because Daisy is his FAVORITE character, and he was all excited to meet her, and then didn't even realize that he had. Poor Beast.

I also learned something else during this meal. If a character is coming, TAKE THE FOOD AWAY FROM TIGGER. He is a very slow eater/chewer, so the only pictures we got with imposter Daisy are of him chewing (see above). For all other characters I made sure to take his food away when the characters were at the next table.

Here are better non-chewing pictures with imposter Mickey (notice boots and wariness on Tigger's face), imposter Goofy (even a weirdly dressed Goofy is still goofy), and imposter Donald (footwear is acceptable), :

I would have liked to get better pictures but due to the rain we left our nice camera back in the room and were stuck with just my cell phone. I don't normally dress Tigger in African garb, but I figured the outfit given to me by my friend in Ethiopia fit right in with the Animal Kingdom Africa theme, and again, where else could he wear this outfit?

Time to get back to work. Still to come...will Tigger be brave enough to try Dinosaur? Will we be foolish enough to let him ride it?

 

[cabloom]

I mostly lurk and rarely post, but I just wanted to say that I LOVE your trip reports and am anxiously awaiting the next installment. You seem like such a fun family!

 

[traceyg]

Well, just as we were nearing the entrance to the trick or treat trail every cloud in the sky (where did these clouds even come from?) decided to let loose and it started POURING. We happened to be right near the space mountain fast pass machines to we ducked under there. IT WAS RAINING. This was not the kind of rain that you could just go on about your day and ignore. This rain wanted you to know it was there.

Thanks for the reminder to pack the ponchos!

And if my DH balks over a little red Mr. Smee hat I will show him pictures of your husband and let him know that that's what cool dads wear!