"For a few Fastpasses more!" TR-Nov 9-18, 2013 (Cruise TR LINK added April 10th)

[JulieODC]

That Minnie photo is sooo adorable!!

MMMM, school bread!

And, your meet and greet with the girls is just adorable! What a fun idea!

 

[skier_pete]

All right - I admit I am getting pretty excited for my trip, and with only a little time until I do on-line checkin for our flights tomorrow, well there is little to do but post another udpate!

Day 7 – Magic Kingdom
Can you believe seven days into the trip and we’ve yet to hit a Magic Kingdom rope drop? Well, we took care of that this morning.















It was a bit of an overcast morning, and the crowds were fairly light as would be expected the morning before a MVMCP. (The forecast was for rain to come in later in the day – and they weren’t wrong on this!)





We were planning on meeting Tinker326’s family, but they were running a bit behind. It didn’t much matter to us because our #1 goal was to ride one our family favorites – Peter Pan’s Flight. While you probably wouldn’t list it as any of our favorite rides, overall it is high on the list for all three of us, and it is usually a rope drop target. We hadn’t ridden it yet only because it was closed earlier in the week, so while we had a FP+ for later in the day, we still wanted to hit it first thing. (Our record for the most times on any one ride in a single trip is this one, and the number is 7.)

After that, I grabbed a paper FP for Little Mermaid. I knew Tinker326’s family had a FP+ set up for 10 -11 AM, so we got one that matched. We got a text from the other family saying they were just entering the park, so while DW was using the potty, DD and I decided to hop on the carousel. (I have to tell you – and Tinker326 may or may not realize this – that I pocketed my usual morning “go-go-go” attitude because they were nice enough to share their family time at MK with us. I took a very “whatever” attitude this morning, but I have to tell you deep down inside, it was really killing me a little bit.)

Anyways, back to the carousel. There were very few people on it, so I said to DD, “Do you want to ride Cinderella’s horse?” Rather than searching,we asked a CM, and they were able to point it out to us!





For those NOT in the know – it’s on the second ring inside, and you can tell that it is Cinderella’s horse because it has a gold bow on the tail. (this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip – BTW.)



As we got off the ride, DD gave a quick check at the Sword in the Stone (never know when you might be the next King/Queen of England!)





Tinker326 and family came through the castle and we met up with happy greetings. After some debate, we ended up heading for Winnie the Pooh since the LM FPs were too early. We walked through the queue, checking out the play areas and then had a nice ride with the Heffalumps and Woozles.

After spending a few minutes with the evil step-sisters, we headed into new Fantasyland, and made a quick stop at Gaston’s tavern for a picture.



We then headed to the Little Mermaid, where we unnecessarily used our FPs (the standby line was nothing at all). If I had been them – I would’ve swapped out my FP+ for something else, but since we had paper ones, there wasn’t much use in passing it up!





Next up was into Storybook Circus and a ride on Dumbo. There was no wait at all for Dumbo, though the kids spent a few minutes in the play area. DW and Tinker326 were originally going to ride together, but I guess the kids weren’t allowed to ride alone, so they were forced to split up.





Do they somehow think 10 year olds are going to fling themselves out of Dumbo? I don’t know, but I got to ride with DD.



Next up, many of our party want to ride Barnstormer, but for whatever reason, DD did not (I think she wanted a snack). So, most of the group went with the great Goofini, and the two of us went and looked at snacks. DD wanted a caramel apple, but they were charging $10 (!!!) so I vetoed this. Instead she got a cupcake with way too much frosting. You know you’ve put too much frosting on your cupcake when a 10-year old scoops it off.

Next up…well you have two choice s to hear what’s next. Wait for my next update, which will probably take about two weeks – or go over a check out Tinker326s TR, because perhaps she will move back ahead of me in the next two weeks.

Until next post…see ya’ll real soon! It's off to the Carribean for us!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Great update. Looks like you got a few rides done early morning.


Have a great trip and enjoy the Caribbean. Catch you on your return.

It's right in the middle, hiding BEHIND the branches of the fern. Not a traditiional 3-circle but a full face in profile.

Thanks! I see it now.

 

[STLMickeyMom]

Thanks for the hint on the hidden Mickey--I couldn't find it for anything! Tricky one!!

Good job making it to rope drop! We just never seem to make it. The tremaines look like they're having a great time!

I'm so jealous of you all going on your cruise!! Have a great time!

 

[skier_pete]

Back from the Caribbean! A wonderful trip - but did not replace my first love -WDW. Try to get back to THIS trip next week!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Welcome back!

No rush. Settle back in to normal life and we'll still be here when you next post.

 

[Tinker326]

You know, I totally missed this last update. You just posted over on mine that we were caught up.. and I'm like.. uh, what? I thought I was ahead!

Lo and behold... I missed an update. Fail. (on my part!)

Sorry about making you wait. I understand the type A tendencies that make this highly irritating. Getting 6 out the door combined with the fact the monorail was down.. it just didn't happen. Plus my mom was on her own time & wanted to stop and see things- so I had to let it go too! If only I sold them to the pirates sooner.................

Ok, I have to laugh about that picture of DW & me in Dumbo.. and then Becca and DW. I need those pictures. Funny!

Yhea, yhea, yhea again on the pointing out on the poor use of FP. I was still learning the FP+ ropes. I solemnly swear to do better next time.

So now we really are even-steven. And I'm back up to date..........

 

[skier_pete]

You know, I totally missed this last update. You just posted over on mine that we were caught up.. and I'm like.. uh, what? I thought I was ahead!

Lo and behold... I missed an update. Fail. (on my part!)

Sorry about making you wait. I understand the type A tendencies that make this highly irritating. Getting 6 out the door combined with the fact the monorail was down.. it just didn't happen. Plus my mom was on her own time & wanted to stop and see things- so I had to let it go too! If only I sold them to the pirates sooner.................

Ok, I have to laugh about that picture of DW & me in Dumbo.. and then Becca and DW. I need those pictures. Funny!

Yhea, yhea, yhea again on the pointing out on the poor use of FP. I was still learning the FP+ ropes. I solemnly swear to do better next time.

So now we really are even-steven. And I'm back up to date..........

No worries about the waiting. It really didn't bother me (much). I had told myself that I would accept anything we did that would not have been my first choice for the opportunity for DD to hang with some kids her age...so don't feel bad at all. You really made our trip better, for all of us and especially for DD, so take any critical comments as they're meant...very minor comments.

Lastly...I'm moving on back ahead of you!

 

[skier_pete]

OK...back with a BIG multi-post update. I am going to try and run off the rest of this trip by the end of March. So we'll start with a big update covering the remaining 10 hours of the day on Friday.

We left off with the group in Storybook Circus having just rode Barnstormer. The rest of the group was ready for a snack …so we headed back towards new Fantasyland and got ice cream and popcorn before our first FP+ attraction of the day, Storytime with Belle!

Now, this was the first time for all of us going through this. And it’s interesting, this is an extremely popular and well designed attraction, but really more than anything it is a glorified (yes, really, really glorified) meet and greet for Belle. At the time we arrived, the Standby was at 75 minutes. With FP+, we were able to get in with only 5 minutes of waiting. That was admittedly pretty sweet, and I have to say I would never, EVER, EVER wait for 75 minutes for this. Some neat technology, and cute for the little kids, but really not my cup of grey stuff.

The first room they have the magic mirror that transports you to the beats castle. I couldn’t really get a picture of it, but the technology was pretty amazing. In the next room, they hand out assignments to kids, with the talking wardrobe from the movie.



DD didn’t get one of the prime spots, but they had parts for anyone that wanted to volunteer!



We then moved into the main hall, where Lumiere is there on the mantle.



Much like Radiator Springs Racers, the audio-animatronics are astounding in terms of the level of fluidity and accuracy to the animated character. The story of Belle meeting the Beast is then told through interaction with folks. Then they march around the room.



There’s no autographs being signed, but Belle poses with whoever wants to:










Once this was over we had a little time before we had to split up, so we decided to hit the last of the Fantasyland attractions and a family favorite – It’s a Small World. (It’s DD and DW’s favorites, and I like it a lot too!)

















They had put in the interactive monitors in the final room. Are these on line yet?

 

[skier_pete]

After Small World, we left Tinker326’s family and went to get some lunch. We first passed by the beautiful Tangled Pottys.



And we went to eat at Columbia Harbor House, one of our favorite Table Service restaurants. I got the fried shrimp, DD got the chicken strips and DW got the fish and shrimp. We sat on the bridge over the walkway to Liberty Square and watched the people walking by.

We then headed to BBB. Now, DD is 10 years old, but this will be the first time she did the BBB. Truthfully she has never had interest before, and she sort of kept going back and forth on it. In the end, I think she kind of liked it. Judge for yourself.



































Post BBB we were supposed to meet Tinker326s family over in Adventureland, but I am not sure what exactly got in the way for them. We ended up going to Haunted Mansion, but after waiting about 10 minutes the line stalled out for 10 minutes, and we decided to skip out for a later date. We headed over to Adventureland and did another Pirate’s Treasure Hunt.



We were again trying to wait for the other family to do Pirates’, but they didn’t arrive, so we decided to do it on our own. This was good because when we got off they still weren’t there, so we pulled a FP for Jungle Cruise later. And took a quick purchase of Tropical Serenade.



Continued in next post.

 

[skier_pete]

We had to head over to Fantasyland for our next FP+, but on the way there was something I wanted to try: a nutella waffle from Sleepy Hollow snacks. When we got there, the waffle maker was down (NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!) but then I saw that they had something that I had wanted in Epcot a few days earlier, the American Dream (they called it something else here).



Yup, that’s right, it’s blue and red slushie mixed with soft serve ice cream! Whoever thought of this is pure genius. At this point, it also started to sprinkle a bit, but we were able to make our way over to FL without getting too wet, because we were set up to finally meet Rapunzel, one of the few characters that DD actually WANTED to meet. The new meet and greet as expected was beautiful, but again I think this whole thing with these massive queues and buildings devoted to Meet and Greets is a little over the top.

Anyways, pictures!




First up was Rapunzel. You can tell Adriana was really enjoying the interaction.











Then, Snow White. I complained to Snow White about the $10 Candied Apples,







This story book was near the Snow White M & G.




DW and I wanted to watch Philharmagic. DD gets all worked up about any 3D movie, but we usually drag her to this one. She made it through. We then had a FP+ for Peter Pan, and rode it for the 2nd time of the day.

We then were going to try and meet up with the Tinker326 and family, and this time SUCCESS! We rode Jungle Cruise together. By this time it was around 4:30 PM and they had to head out for their Hoop-De-Doo review ADR, while we a little more time before our dinner plans.

Well, DD decided that she REALLY wanted to do the Sorcerer’s of the Magic Kingdom. DW wanted to shop, so I agreed to take DD through this. So first we had to head to the front of the park to pick up our cards. (I really don’t want to bother to describe how this “game” is played.) Then, our first Mission was in Fantasyland. As you may or may not remember, my foot injury was still giving me trouble, and by this point it was absolutely THROBBING. And in addition, at this point, it started to really RAIN. Not a downpour per se, but a nice steady rain. So we go through one in Fantasyland, and then she wants to do a second one. Ugh, what we do for our kids!

I was not really impressed by this. The Agent P missions and the Pirates Treasure one are both kind of neat, but they have interactive pieces where something happens. The SofMK you go to a screen and watch a movie, hold up a card, and then watch some more movie. Then move onto the next movie. I can’t tell if it matters what card you hold up. The cards have values but again I couldn’t tell whether it mattered. By the second go-round I was bored silly by the whole thing. DD seemed to like it, though.

 

[skier_pete]

By this point it was dark and raining harder. We had our ponchos on, which were keeping us fairly dry, but we were ready to GO. We headed out of the park to yet another first restaurant, and kind of at this point its sort of amazing we haven’t landed here before.





Yup, it’s Ohana! We got there and the area was packed with people, but we only waited about 10 minutes for a table. I think maybe our attitude here didn’t help, but we were tired and wet and we ended up getting seated out against a wall. I had the seat that was facing outside, and this may have been a wonderful location in daylight, but in the rain I basically spent the evening looking out at inky blackness.

Here’s some shots of the kitchen and dining area I never got to see:







The food came out and there was LOTS of it. First was bread and salad:





Then, some appetizer Pot Stickers, and chicken wings:



Then also noodles, which DD didn’t care for because of the spiciness.



After that came the MEAT. Long skewers of chicken, pork, shrimp and steak.



It was actually all pretty good, but the service was very sporty. Some things came quickly, other things we had to ask for to show up. I have to say though – the quantity actually made it a bit of a turn off, there was so much food that it was hard to really get to enjoy all of it.

The entertainment might have been good, we were kind of too far away to tell.



And then DDs stomache started bothering her. She didn’t get sick or anything, but she wasn’t much into the food. She didn’t even really get into her big bowl of ice cream,



I think however the dessert was my favorite part. The bread pudding was really, really good!



So, after dinner, we were ready to get the hell back to our hotel. We swung back to the MK and caught a bus there easy as pie (again, good evening bus Karma) and we were pretty much all tuckered out for the day. We had another wonderful towel animal waiting when we got back:



A busy day with quite a bit of walking, we did quite a bit, but left several things on the table. No Haunted Mansion, and still no Splash or Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!

The Good
-Crowds at MK were pretty light through most of the day. I really felt sorry for anyone that paid for the Christmas party that night. At least it cheered me up that we didn’t have THAT experience.
-Fun with another family.

The Bad
We did a LOT today, but I admit much of it was not amongst my favorite things. (Lots of Fantasyland, character greets, Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.)
Staring out into the dark for an hour at O’hana.

The Ugly
Rain, rain, go away! (Spoiler alert – it doesn’t.)

FP vs FP+
We only got two paper FP, one of which we never needed other than to accompany Tinker326’s family. The FP+ gave us both of our M&G plus Peter Pan, so we cut out about 3 hours worth of lines for this. So again, FP+ is the winner.

 

[Tinker326]

Eh, I think the hold up was my family wanting to ride everything we passed on our way to get back to the meet up. I couldn't say no to them! I remember we did ride Haunted Mansion. And then Becca insisted on some time on Big Thunder..... seems everything we did this day was slo-mo.

I agree with your thoughts on Enchanted Castle. I really don't have any desire to do it again. Once was enough. People hyped it up so much I was a bit let down......

Like that picture of DD looking at herself in the mirror with a smile. Seems to me she did indeed like that experience!

I have only eaten Ohana's once for dinner- 2008. It was OK. I like breakfast there a whole lot more!

And drat you for pulling way ahead! I probably won't get another update till maybe Thursday.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Great updates.


Good for DD for trying out BBB. Do you and DW look at those pictures and shudder a little? She's looking so grown-up in some of them.

We did a FP+ for ETwB as well. None of us got picked and we didn't volunteer; so it was a "cute show" for us. I don't think I'll be rushing back for it. I definitely wouldn't wait more than 5 minutes for it.

'Ohana dinner looks tasty. I've never gone because it is such a meat-lover's meal. It would be wasted on my DH.

That American Dream is pure genius.

Pity about the rain. Hope it didn't rain the next day.

 

[skier_pete]

Eh, I think the hold up was my family wanting to ride everything we passed on our way to get back to the meet up. I couldn't say no to them! I remember we did ride Haunted Mansion. And then Becca insisted on some time on Big Thunder..... seems everything we did this day was slo-mo.

I agree with your thoughts on Enchanted Castle. I really don't have any desire to do it again. Once was enough. People hyped it up so much I was a bit let down......

Like that picture of DD looking at herself in the mirror with a smile. Seems to me she did indeed like that experience!

I have only eaten Ohana's once for dinner- 2008. It was OK. I like breakfast there a whole lot more!

And drat you for pulling way ahead! I probably won't get another update till maybe Thursday.

It's funny, that day I really didn't sweat it that weren't able to get back together, because I was figuring we would just see eachother the next day. Too bad the weather had other plans.

Great updates.


Good for DD for trying out BBB. Do you and DW look at those pictures and shudder a little? She's looking so grown-up in some of them.

We did a FP+ for ETwB as well. None of us got picked and we didn't volunteer; so it was a "cute show" for us. I don't think I'll be rushing back for it. I definitely wouldn't wait more than 5 minutes for it.

'Ohana dinner looks tasty. I've never gone because it is such a meat-lover's meal. It would be wasted on my DH.

That American Dream is pure genius.

Pity about the rain. Hope it didn't rain the next day.

Your hopes would have been dashed. The next day may well have been the worst weather we've had at a Disney park in the approximately 70+ days we've been there in the last 7 years.

 

[khertz]

Lots & lots of updates to catch up on!!!

So great that you got to hang out with another DIS'er. I'm sure DD liked having other little girls to spend some time with.

DD looks like she definitely enjoyed BBB! Beautiful makeover!!

I have to admit, I really liked Princess Fairytale Hall. And you met my favorite friend of Rapunzel! She was the first princess we met with Paxton, and will probably always be my favorite.

I'm sure Snow White told you that you should avoid those candy apples anyway, nevermind the price tag!!

Yuck for the rain coming in.

 

[JulieODC]

Awwww, the BBB photos are so fun!!

We must have been trying to get a waffle at sleepy hollow at the same time --- I was so excited to try the spicy chicken one, waited in line, only to find out that the waffle machines were broken. So sad!!!

 

[ymxbfalcon]

My "real" life has been keeping me a little busy of late, but I had some time to spare this afternoon and used it to get caught up on your trip report. Despite a few bumps in the road, it sounds like a fun vacation, and I'm enjoying reading along.

 

[skier_pete]

Lots & lots of updates to catch up on!!!

So great that you got to hang out with another DIS'er. I'm sure DD liked having other little girls to spend some time with.

DD looks like she definitely enjoyed BBB! Beautiful makeover!!

I have to admit, I really liked Princess Fairytale Hall. And you met my favorite friend of Rapunzel! She was the first princess we met with Paxton, and will probably always be my favorite.

I'm sure Snow White told you that you should avoid those candy apples anyway, nevermind the price tag!!

Yuck for the rain coming in.

She had a total blast hanging with kids her age. It was too bad it ended up being much more limited than we planned (I'm more talking about the next day.)

And yes, Snow said she generally avoids the apples.

And thank you from DD for the compliment. She tends not to be a make-up girl, but really enjoyed this.

Awwww, the BBB photos are so fun!!

We must have been trying to get a waffle at sleepy hollow at the same time --- I was so excited to try the spicy chicken one, waited in line, only to find out that the waffle machines were broken. So sad!!!

Maybe you were there just before us. There was no line when I walked up. I was not disappointed that I was able to get the "American Dream" instead though - if you look back on our 2nd day I had tried to buy one in Epcot and they had suspended them during F&W.

My "real" life has been keeping me a little busy of late, but I had some time to spare this afternoon and used it to get caught up on your trip report. Despite a few bumps in the road, it sounds like a fun vacation, and I'm enjoying reading along.

Hope the reason your real life is keeping you away is a good one! Thanks for stopping in when you can. Another bulk update should be coming later today!

 

[skier_pete]

One week after we arrived in Florida, we woke to a terrible, horrible rainy morning. We had planned to spend the day at Animal Kingdom and meet Tinker326’s family again for the day. Well, it turned out that they decided with the rain that they weren’t gonna be coming out anytime soon. This was a big-time disappointment to DD, but I can’t say as I blamed them. It was NOT a fun day in the park, but since this was approaching our last park day, we didn’t really have other options. We were already planning on heading back to the hotel mid-afternoon, so we decided to stick it out. We didn’t get to the park at rope drop – again a horrible wait for the bus in the morning. But by the time we got to the park it was POURING!

We texted with Tinker326, and found that they were hunkered down in their hotel room. Can’t say as I blame them, but it was a big-time disappointment for DD. She didn’t even get to say good-bye to her friends.

However, we soldiered on and put on our ponchos.



We had not really planned a full day at AK, and since certain things were off the table (i.e. No Boneyard) we decided that we would get the couple of things we really wanted to do first and see how the day went if the rain died down. We decided to ride the Safari early, but since it was already 9:30 when we standing in the front of the park, we decided to swap around our FP+, and so moved the Safari to, well, 15 minutes from that moment.

So we trekked back and even though the line wasn’t real long (maybe 20 minute wait) we still got our FP+ in. I decided because of the crappy weather we should ask if we could sit right before the driver, and that’s what they let us do.



It was so wet out I used our water camera as the primary camera for this, so not the greatest picture quality, but some pretty close shots. Except this one, the Okapi is WAYYY in the back.



The Rhino was as close up front as I've ever seen it.









The funny thing is with the rain the animals were out in droves and hanging around the feeding areas, so we had lots and lots of close passes by the animals.









Not often you see both Lions out on the warming rocks!









Look the Zebras!





To be continued