I do get to go! I do get to go! A trip that almost wasn't! Update 1/25

[Hillary12.8.07]

I'm finally joining in!!!

I'm so glad you started a TR, I missed you this summer!! And we FELL IN LOVE with OKW too...I'm gonna try to start my TR this weekend. We just stayed in a studio but we loved it...I think it convinced DH that we need to buy into DVC oneday.

And I love your hair and your shirt too! I cant wait to read more!

 

[tinkgurl]

The hippo is in the water right to the right of the entrance to RainForest Cafe.

Oh THAT hippo! First time I was by him, he scared me and made me jump!

No laughing here! Those moments as a child at WDW, maybe meeting a character or seeing the castle for the first time, are precious and stay with you for the rest of your life.

So true!

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Aw I can't wait to exchange pics of what we got!

I'm finally joining in!!!

I'm so glad you started a TR, I missed you this summer!! And we FELL IN LOVE with OKW too...I'm gonna try to start my TR this weekend. We just stayed in a studio but we loved it...I think it convinced DH that we need to buy into DVC oneday.

And I love your hair and your shirt too! I cant wait to read more!

Hill! I'm so glad you're here now! I guess we'll both be doing a TR at the same time! When I first found out we were staying at OKW, I was nervous and sad because you know I love staying at the WLV. But after staying at OKW, we wish we would've stayed there sooner! We can still go visit WL, which you'll see that we did later in my TR!

 

[tinkgurl]

Thought I'd share the Disney statues I got:

Precious Moments:

The Jim Shore statues I saw on Main Street and really wanted!:

 

[wdwgirl03]

Joining in on your report! I love your old pictures. It's so much fun looking at pictures of past Disney trips. And your Precious Moments statues are adorable...I have a couple of them myself. My sister got that Tink one for graduation this year!

 

[troobabiee7]

How cute!!! I love those little statues! I'd love to start collecting them but I have nowhere to put them I'm glad you got what you wanted!

 

[tinkgurl]

Joining in on your report! I love your old pictures. It's so much fun looking at pictures of past Disney trips. And your Precious Moments statues are adorable...I have a couple of them myself. My sister got that Tink one for graduation this year!

Thanks for joining in! I'm glad you are enjoying the pictures! I think the Precious Moments are adorable too! I also have an Ariel one and one with a little girl holding Tink in her hand.

How cute!!! I love those little statues! I'd love to start collecting them but I have nowhere to put them I'm glad you got what you wanted!

Read above post about the other Precious Moments I have...I can't wait to show you all the clothes and other stuff I got!

 

[Hillary12.8.07]

Those are awesome! I love them. I love the Precious Moments, I want to collect them, so far all I have is the Mickey ears wedding one. And I love Jim Shore too, I got a Christmas one for my bday. I love seeing other people who collect the same stuff, so fun!

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas!!

 

[xoktenox]

Your statues are sooo cute, I love them! Like Melissa said I would love to start collecting them but there is absolutely nowhere to put them in my room...it is filled to the max Can't wait to see what else you got!

 

[tinkgurl]

Day 1 Continued

We left off waiting at our bus stop for the MK bus! I was so antsy I couldn't sit still! Being that it was our first time to OKW, we didn't realize that there were so many other bus stops along the way! Luckily, we were one of the first stops before heading to the other ones so we were always guaranteed a seat! (Unless we gave them up for someone who needed it!) While waiting, it seemed like a bus for every other park came and went...and what was really fifteen minutes or so seemed like HOURS to me! I just wanted to get there already!

Finally a MK bus came! And we were on our way. I love getting on our first WDW bus! I love the purple seats, I love the little ads along the top, I love the new voice that talks about where we're going, I love the music that plays along with each park, and I love the anticipation of getting to the parks!

And finally, we went under the MK gates and headed under the water bridge and by the Contemporary. I could see WL through the trees and had to say hello to our old home and that we would be over to visit! Yes, I'm a big ol' sap. As we stepped off the bus and onto the pavement, I took a deep breath in. I was finally back to my happy place. My favorite place on Earth. And no matter how many times I've been there, I always get goosebumps.

We first went to find our stone with our names on it in front of the MK. Ours is towards the bus stops so we didn't have to walk far. Every year we always take a picture of one of each of our feet by our names. It's a tradition for us! I won't post that picture on here for personal purposes.

Walking under the Train Station!

Ahhhh, there it is!

After taking in all the sights of Main Street for the first time, we headed to our traditional first ride: The People Mover (Yes, we still call it that!) We love this ride so much that I can't keep track of how many times we ride it each trip! Here's some pics from our first ride around:

As I stated before, I didn't keep track of everything we did so here's some more pictures from the day! Sorry!

After Mickey's PhillharMagic:

After riding It's a Small World, we were stopped by a CM with a touch screen clipboard and were asked to answer a few questions about our experience on the ride. After she was done, we were given stickers and sent on our way. Darn it! I was hoping for some free fast passes or something!

While heading past the Haunted Mansion, a ton of people started running past us and we saw a huge flock of people holding their cameras up in the air to take a picture of someone! We wondered who it was, so we started speed walking (haha) around the crowd and into Frontierland to catch a glimpse of who all the fuss was about and got this picture:

It's Shaq! He was with his family (walking in front of him) and several CM's

Okay, I guess we didn't take very many pictures! So...let's fast forward to dinnertime! As some of you may remember from my last TR, we always eat at Chef Mickey's our first night there! We were excited to head over to the Contemporary and check out the new changes that had taken place since last time we were there. Here we are taking our time looking around before our reservations:

Then, we headed downstairs to go outside and take our traditional picture in our Mickey ears.

As some of you may remember from my last TR, DSis and I always sit on the same side and try and do a different pose each year. Here's last year's pose with DB/F in there as well:

And here's this year's:

But, before we got the good one, DDad was making faces and dancing funny behind DMom while she took our picture and we couldn't stop laughing:

****Continued in next post****

 

[tinkgurl]

And then we realized we could start heading up to the Concourse level! We checked our name in at Chef Mickey's and headed over to the Outer Rim lounge to get a drink while we waited for our buzzer to go off, which we always do when eating at CM. We weren't there 10 minutes and it went off! As some of you may remember from my last TR, I LOVE dancing, singing to the song, and twirling my napkin with everybody. Last year my DSis thought I was so entertaining she videotaped me! But sorry, I'm NOT sharing that with you.

Mickey! I was up getting food!

Goofy!

Pluto!

Donald!

Our ADR was for 8:50 because it was the only time we could get in so we were ready to call it a night after eating because we were still tired from driving! Here we are outside our room:

Up next: DTD

 

[xoktenox]

Great update! Looks like you guys had a nice day in MK. You saw Shaq! Thats so cool but I feel bad for him and his family because they probably have a pretty hard time enjoying the parks to the fullest with people following them around all day. (Even though I definitely would have followed him and gotten his picture like everyone else haha)

Chef Mickey's looks like so much fun! We're not eating there in April but we will be over there to check out the Contemporary and your "home" the WL

 

[punkin413]

The Jim Shore statues I saw on Main Street and really wanted!:

i have these two! i started a collection of them during our trip last april. i got the peter one, a captain hook and a tink, but not the one you saw. and then in september i got the wendy, john, michael one and a sorceror mickey. this trip i got a christmas-themed jim shore piece but you'll have to wait and see on my TR which one! i love jim shore pieces. and they're not outrageously expensive either! i can buy one every trip and not go broke doing it!

 

[Mr. & Mrs. Smith]

Thanks for sharing some more with us. We will be heading over to WL on our first day to eat at WCC. I don't remember being there before so I'm excited. I'll say high to your home for you!

 

[kschafer]

Hey I finally made it over!

Gosh, your pics of OKW are wonderful to see. We really liked the laid back and spacious feel of this resort! Did you have a 1 or 2 bedroom? We just had a studio and your room looks REALLY nice

Can't wait to read more

 

[KeepSwimmingDory]

Love your description of arriving at Magic Kingdom and enjoyed all your pictures. I love looking at the Jim Shore and other artists Disney stuff on Main Street.

I got this tinkerbell for Christmas.

Can't wait to read more about your trip.

 

[tinkgurl]

Great update! Looks like you guys had a nice day in MK. You saw Shaq! Thats so cool but I feel bad for him and his family because they probably have a pretty hard time enjoying the parks to the fullest with people following them around all day. (Even though I definitely would have followed him and gotten his picture like everyone else haha)

Chef Mickey's looks like so much fun! We're not eating there in April but we will be over there to check out the Contemporary and your "home" the WL

I agree about Shaq and his family not being able to enjoy the parks fully. We said too right after we saw him! But...one perk of being famous: getting to walk to the front of the line!

i have these two! i started a collection of them during our trip last april. i got the peter one, a captain hook and a tink, but not the one you saw. and then in september i got the wendy, john, michael one and a sorceror mickey. this trip i got a christmas-themed jim shore piece but you'll have to wait and see on my TR which one! i love jim shore pieces. and they're not outrageously expensive either! i can buy one every trip and not go broke doing it!

Wow that's so cool that you have those! I can't wait to see your Christmas one! I hope that you took Tink pictures for me like you said you would!

Thanks for sharing some more with us. We will be heading over to WL on our first day to eat at WCC. I don't remember being there before so I'm excited. I'll say high to your home for you!

We love WCC! And I know that there's always mixed review on the place but I think that everyone has their own opinion and you should experience it yourself before deciding whether you like it or not! And please do say hi for me! That's so nice of you!

Hey I finally made it over!

Gosh, your pics of OKW are wonderful to see. We really liked the laid back and spacious feel of this resort! Did you have a 1 or 2 bedroom? We just had a studio and your room looks REALLY nice

Can't wait to read more

Hey! I'm glad you're here now! We had just a 1 bedroom, which is what we always get. Usually, it's DDad and DMom in the bedroom, me and DBF on the pull out couch and DSis on the air mattress. This year it was just me on the pull out . Next year, we are going to try and get a 2 bedroom! DDad and DMom think it's time that me and DBF got our own room instead of having to sleep in the living room!

Love your description of arriving at Magic Kingdom and enjoyed all your pictures. I love looking at the Jim Shore and other artists Disney stuff on Main Street.

I got this tinkerbell for Christmas.

I'm so glad you enjoyed my description. That's what I love about doing a TR, I get to share with all of you my feelings about WDW that I can't do with family and friends.

I just got that Tinkerbell last year! Isn't it beautiful?! Thanks for sharing that you got it!

 

[punkin413]

Wow that's so cool that you have those! I can't wait to see your Christmas one! I hope that you took Tink pictures for me like you said you would!

i have a confession to make....we didn't do a lot of shopping this trip. i did take a picture of a couple of things for you but we were too busy looking at christmas decorations and FIGHTING CROWDS to do a whole lot of shopping. the only shops we went into were mouse gears, where i stayed all of 30 seconds once i got in there and saw the crowds, villians in vogue (which of course didn't have any tink stuff) and another little store across the way (which i will have a picture from), the christmas store at MK, the art of disney store (which i will have a picture from) at MK and that's about it! pathetic, i know. the crowds were just too heavy this time for us to feel like we had time to shop, ya know? we were too busy running everywhere to get everything in! i was exhausted.

 

[jwwi]

I really like your Jim Shore pieces. I bought a Mickey Santa in Nov 07'. I didn't pick one out when I was there in Oct 08', but I got a really cute Mickey with Santa from my DSIL this weekend. She didn't even know that I started to collect them. I was very happy when I opened that Christmas present.
I really like OKW, the rooms are Huge! I also like the theme and colors of the resort. Fun pictures from the CR too.

 

[MeMom]

I love all your new treasures! I thought of Dawn as soon as I saw the Peter Pan ones, because I knew she had gotten some of those this year. I thought I would come home from our November trip with the Jim Shore Christmas Eeyore, but I had to be very tight with the money this time, so I'll save it for a future trip when there's more room in my souvenir budget.

Looks like a fun night at Chef Mickey's!

The feeling when you arrive at Magic Kingdom is easy to relate to if you 'get it' like we do. People who don't really understand the magic have fun, usually, and enjoy being there, but some of us just get that special feeling being there!

 

[ehstrojette]

Love your Tat.. I could never get one but i love to see other peoples, yours is very good.

Look forward to the rest of the TR