Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho. It's off to the Grand Floridian We Go! June 2014 (Update: Video)

[FancyNancy]

We ate at CRT for the first time back in January for dinner. I loved the beef tenderloin! We were seated at the table that the princesses all went to first so we thought we had the best seat in the house! lol

 

[TheMaxRebo]

That's great that you had so many of you together for the birthday breakfast! And chocolate mousse inside white chocolate certainly sounds like a birthday breakfast to me!

That's a great picture of pickle with Cinderella ... and very cool that they signed your cast! Never thought of it but it totally makes sense.

We've always found Snow White and Ariel to be the most engaging of the princesses (not that the others were bad) - though on our last trip Tianna may have topped them all

 

[ZehnJahren]

This looks like such a great time! I've still never eaten at CRT, but your pictures make me want to try it. Everyone looks like they're having a great time - smiles all around!

 

[PrncessA]

Love all of your updates!

Pickle looks like a beautiful Birthday Princess. She looks like she is having such a great time! I didn't know they had "Birthday Princess" sashes. That is so cool!

Isn't amazing how they turn the hair into a bun. My DD decided on a "Honey boo boo" hair do with pink hair but I watched them turn other girls hair into buns. I knew going in that the pink hair was going to be DD's choice. Going first thing in the morning seems like the perfect thing to do! We went later in the day and it was packed and crazy!!

Love your family pictures at CRT! That is a group!!!

I feel like Ariel has so much more material to pull from when it comes to talking to guests, rather than the normal "princess" talk. My kids had a great talk with her about dinglehoppers at Akershus!

 

[KelleyK75]

It looks like everyone had a great breakfast. The white chocolate slipper looks really good. That's awesome everyone signed your cast.

 

[MarbleBob]

Buahaha! DBF and I have this ongoing....joke? thing? Where we point out anytime someone on tv or movies is left handed. I had to tell him/show him Cindy!

Hmm...every TR I read at a Princess meal, Ariel is by far the best or favorite interaction. It's a trend I can't help but pay attention and look for now!

Wow! I forgot what a big group you had! And the picture was two people short!!

That's great about the left handed people

I really enjoyed CRT. It really is so beautiful in there! Pickle looks so beautiful. Did you order the glass slipper dessert or was that a surprise from Disney for her birthday?

Thanks!

I was pretty much along for the ride on Pickle's birthday and wasn't really involved with the planning, I'm not certain, but I think that my mom ordered it for her.

Your daughter looks so sweet! Such wonderful memories for her! I'm glad you had a great time at Cinderella's Castle.

Thanks!

We ate at CRT for the first time back in January for dinner. I loved the beef tenderloin! We were seated at the table that the princesses all went to first so we thought we had the best seat in the house! lol

Awesome! We ate there for dinner just once. The meal was really good, but what it really memorable is that we finished up right before the fireworks started. They ushered us out in front of the castle, down the ramp to the rope barrier. And put us right in front of the rope. We got to see the fireworks from about as close to the castle as you can get. It was awesome!

That's great that you had so many of you together for the birthday breakfast! And chocolate mousse inside white chocolate certainly sounds like a birthday breakfast to me!

That's a great picture of pickle with Cinderella ... and very cool that they signed your cast! Never thought of it but it totally makes sense.

We've always found Snow White and Ariel to be the most engaging of the princesses (not that the others were bad) - though on our last trip Tianna may have topped them all

Thanks Phil! Yes, quite a way to finish off a breakfast. (I don't recall a chocolate slipper ever being on the front of a Wheaties box. A breakfast for champions? Who needs it when you can have a breakfast for princesses!)

This looks like such a great time! I've still never eaten at CRT, but your pictures make me want to try it. Everyone looks like they're having a great time - smiles all around!

Yes, we had a great time indeed. CRT is a lot of fun. It should be on every Disney fan's bucket list to try at least once!

Love all of your updates!

Pickle looks like a beautiful Birthday Princess. She looks like she is having such a great time! I didn't know they had "Birthday Princess" sashes. That is so cool!

Isn't amazing how they turn the hair into a bun. My DD decided on a "Honey boo boo" hair do with pink hair but I watched them turn other girls hair into buns. I knew going in that the pink hair was going to be DD's choice. Going first thing in the morning seems like the perfect thing to do! We went later in the day and it was packed and crazy!!

Love your family pictures at CRT! That is a group!!!

I feel like Ariel has so much more material to pull from when it comes to talking to guests, rather than the normal "princess" talk. My kids had a great talk with her about dinglehoppers at Akershus!

Thanks! I wasn't expecting the birthday sash either, but it added a nice touch That's cool that you guys had great interactions with Ariel too

It looks like everyone had a great breakfast. The white chocolate slipper looks really good. That's awesome everyone signed your cast.

Yeah, it was fun having them sign my cast. I got a few comments on it throughout the trip

 

[MarbleBob]

Day 7 - Monday the 9th - Part 4 - Buddy Time

So after breakfast, we were ready to start touring the park! Pickle wanted to see Anna and Elsa, but Buddy didn't want to have anything to do with that... So he and I split up from the group to use our FP+ for Space Mountain and whatever else we felt like riding. Stephanie and the girls went to use their FP+ for Anna and Elsa and then the Storytime with Belle. Our goal was to meet up with everyone a couple hours later to ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train as a big group.

So, Buddy an I said our goodbyes and headed towards Tomorrowland, and straight to Space Mountain!



Buddy is our roller coaster junkie in the family. Pickle surprisingly isn't afraid of them, and Princess has grown to like them in the last couple years, but Buddy has LOVED them since he met the height requirements. Probably stemming from his love of trains and anything that runs on a track that he developed as a toddler



A quick selfie!



And here we go!!!



I was really nervous that my arm would get bumped around too much, but it really wasn't too bad. Sigh of relief! We got off the ride grinning and had fun riding the "moving sidelwalks" on the way out.

What next?!?! I suggested a few rides and Buddy thought we should ride the Great Goofini Barnstormer. We hadn't seen it since the Fantasyland makeover, so we thought it would be fun, even if it's not as intense as Space Mountain.

So we headed past the speedway and tea cups end entered the Sotrybook Circus area. I love all the great colors in here!



We hopped in line, which took about 20 minutes. Not too bad, except for it was starting to get really hot out.



Here it comes!



And let's go!!



Yahoo!!



After that, Buddy decided that he wanted to do a loop around the park on the train. No problem here! It was getting hot and the idea of relaxing on the train seemed great to me!!!

We did the entire loop. When we got back, Buddy suggested we go around one more time. Sure, no problem here! I could stand to rest my eyes for a few minutes on the next go around. (It was hot, but the breeze was nice!)

After the second loop, we decided to start making our way over towards Seven Dwarfs Mine Train to rendezvous with everyone else.

Hey look, the marching band!!



"The Main Street Philharmonic"



And then over to the right, we stumbled upon Aunt Denise and Baby.



Look at her Tinker Bell costume. Isn't she adorable!



It turns out that Beth and Steve had taken Chip and Dale over to meet Pooh and Tigger.





In the meantime, we got a text saying that everyone else was cooling off at Gaston's. Our SDMT FP+ were about ready, but I was more than happy to walk back there, get cold drink, and enjoy the air conditioning for a few minutes!!!





And there's the birthday girl. "So how was meeting Anna and Elsa?!?!"



In the next post, we'll backtrack and share how the rest of the morning went for the girls.



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[jedijill]

Pickle is absolutely beaming after the makeover! Money well spent!

Love the chance meeting with FGM....breakfast looks great....glad you could get almost everything there at once.

Sounds like a fun morning! Baby Tink is so cute and I love Chip and Dale's matching shirts.

Jill in CO

 

[Chrispygal]

Following along - loving your trip review so far.

 

[FancyNancy]

I was actually wondering how your arm would do when you wrote you were riding Space Mountain. Glad all was ok! You guys need to have Buddy talk to my DD10. She has finally agreed to go on the Barnstormer with me on next months trip! She is just not a coaster kid. It pained me to see 7DMT fastpasses available on my booking day and not be able to book them. I will be able to ride it on my April trip because DM is joining in the fun and she can watch her while I ride!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Glad to hear your arm did ok on the coasters - was a bit curious to find out

Great that you got some time to relax on the train - I fully support that! And a cool down at Gastons sounds pretty good too!

 

[annegirl]

That's fun that you guys split up to do your things. I bet Buddy will always have such great memories of riding rides (and the train) with just his dad.

 

[MidnightParade]

Sounds like a fun late morning with you and Buddy! Nice when its so laid back and how awesome are you letting him choose everything!

 

[hill6]

Great review. Love the trip to Marceline. Great way to see what influenced Walt

 

[MarbleBob]

Pickle is absolutely beaming after the makeover! Money well spent!

Love the chance meeting with FGM....breakfast looks great....glad you could get almost everything there at once.

Sounds like a fun morning! Baby Tink is so cute and I love Chip and Dale's matching shirts.

Jill in CO

Yes, money well spent indeed. Wouldn't have changed a thing.

Following along - loving your trip review so far.

Hi Chispygal, nice to have you following along.

I was actually wondering how your arm would do when you wrote you were riding Space Mountain. Glad all was ok! You guys need to have Buddy talk to my DD10. She has finally agreed to go on the Barnstormer with me on next months trip! She is just not a coaster kid. It pained me to see 7DMT fastpasses available on my booking day and not be able to book them. I will be able to ride it on my April trip because DM is joining in the fun and she can watch her while I ride!

Yeah, that's a bummer for your DD. I'm not sure that 7DMT was any worse than the Barnstormer. If she isn't traumatized by Barnstormer, you might see if you can squeeze in a FP+ sometime later in your trip.

Glad to hear your arm did ok on the coasters - was a bit curious to find out

Great that you got some time to relax on the train - I fully support that! And a cool down at Gastons sounds pretty good too!

Yes, I feel like I'm getting old. I remember when I thought the train was sort of boring and I was only interested in roller coasters. Now, I tend to prefer a nice relaxing ride on the train and/or the TTA People Mover over a ride on Tower of Terror or Rockin' Roller Coaster

That's fun that you guys split up to do your things. I bet Buddy will always have such great memories of riding rides (and the train) with just his dad.

I sure hope so! The last time we dragged him to a princess meet and greet in Disneyland, he was fairly annoyed. Hahaha.

Sounds like a fun late morning with you and Buddy! Nice when its so laid back and how awesome are you letting him choose everything!

Yes, sometimes easier said than done, but being laid back and going with the flow is so much more enjoyable than trying to be a control freak at Disney!!!!

Great review. Love the trip to Marceline. Great way to see what influenced Walt

Thanks! I'm already looking forward to making another trip to Marceline




Stay tuned everyone, Stephanie just started writing another "guest post"... describing her morning with the girls.




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[KelleyK75]

It looks like you and Buddy had a fun morning.

 

[DaeHyFoog]

Day 7 - Monday the 9th - Part 5 - It's All About the Princesses

Hi, everybody! I'm back to do a brief guest post. I'm Matt's wife, Stephanie, if we didn't meet before.

DisneMimi, Princess, Pickle, and I had some serious Princess hunting to do. Of course, we had just met Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, Snow White, Aurora, and Ariel, so we were already off to a great start. However, we were the proud holders of Anna & Elsa fast passes!

When we left Cindy's, we had about ten to fifteen minutes to wait until our FP+ return window, so we headed to Sir Mickey's to look around. We had fun looking at the beanstalk and seeing Willie the giant peeking into the store. Pickle's been raised on the old Disney cartoons, so it was neat for her to see Mickey and the Beanstalk brought to life. Little did I know that Sir Mickey's was ground zero for Frozen merchandise at MK. Pickle looked around and quickly decided that what she needed to spend some of her birthday money on was this notebook.



(We'll be back to it in a little bit.)

After browsing, it was time! Pickle had no idea that the normal line for Anna & Elsa is five hours or so, but she was excited nonetheless.







Hi, Aurora! Fancy meeting you again so soon, since we just saw you at breakfast.



The girls and I decided to head to Journey of the Little Mermaid. DisneMimi had already ridden this and wasn't interested in coming with us. We had ridden, and loved, this one at DCA back in October. I was looking forward to seeing the amazing queue, and taking our first ride on this version in New Fantasyland.







The ride definitely wasn't walk-on like we experienced in California, but the wait was never more than 20 minutes or so on this trip.

Pickle brought out her brand new notebook and started to use it as an art journal of things she was seeing. I loved this, especially since it was all her own idea.





You can see fishing nets, a chain, starfish, and seashells. (I think that is Rapunzel on the next page.)

While the girls were having fun drawing and checking out the interactive queue, I was on the hunt for one of the most amazing details I've ever heard of that imagineers have included at WDW. There is an amazing hidden Mickey in this queue. It's a special Mickey that was designed to be seen on Mickey's birthday, and was a surprise to guests when it first made its appearance. The imagineers designed the outline of Mickey into the rock work in two different sections, an upper and lower. The sun lines up with these two sections on Mickey's birthday, November 18 (given astronomy, it should line up also sometime towards the end of January/beginning of February, too.) Here's more info about this hidden Mickey http://hiddenmickeyguy.com/news/special-hidden-mickey-just-mickey-mouse-his-november-18-birthday It's amazing to me that the imagineers went to such great lengths! I kept searching the queue until eventually I found it. Of course, my picture doesn't show how spectacular the effect really is. Check out the hidden Mickey link to see what it looks like if you're there at the right time.



The girls and I hopped into our clamshell. It was a fun ride, and special to get to spend a little "just girls" time together. We had some time to wait before meeting up with everyone, and we decided to head into Gaston's, when guess who we ran into...? It really is a small world after all.

 

[DaeHyFoog]

I couldn't get on with my day until I figured out when the other appearance of this Hidden Mickey should be. Since November 18th is four weeks and five days before the winter solstice (December 21st), the other time this hidden Mickey should appear would be four weeks and five days after the winter solstice--January 23rd. (This assumes my calculations are correct, the winter solstice date/time doesn't fluctuate too much, and that my reasoning is sound. Hah!)

I don't know if the Hidden Mickey is designed to appear at astronomical (historical) noon on November 18th or Eastern Standard Time noon. I doubt Orlando's astronomical noon is calibrated exactly with eastern standard time noon, so keep that in mind if you're searching for this. Also, the Hidden Mickey should appear for a few days before and after Nov. 18th and Jan. 23rd at noon, although the proportions/image might not be as perfect as on the actual date.

Maybe one day we'll have to visit the Magic Kingdom to see this with our own eyes! It would be a bummer if it was cloudy.

 

[annegirl]

Wow! That is such a cool hidden Mickey. We will be there on November 18th!! So now I know we need to ride this that day.
I love Pickle's idea of the art journal. So creative.

 

[jedijill]

Yay for meeting Anna and Elsa and not spending 5 hours in line. Love the notebook and all the drawings.

I was lucky enough to get a Hidden Mickey tour during the NFL previews and the CM pointed out that particular Hidden Mickey...so very cool! Did you see the Hidden Nautilus and Hidden Steamboat Mickey?

Jill in CO