I think we ate at every character meal.. TRIP REPORT w/pics! FINISHED!!!!!!!

[Credit Man]

You have a beautiful family. I am so enjoying reading your report. Thanks for posting.

 

[1stTimeDisneyer]

Thank you for sharing! I cannot wait to read more.

 

[smithpack]

I'm in for this TR, especially after reading about Juliana's cancer. I could not even imagine having my child being perfectly healthy their first year, and then finding out they have cancer at a well visit. I can only imagine what an emotional roller coaster that would have been. You have such a beautiful family, and I am sooooo looking forward to reading about your well deserved vacation. I love the character meals!!!

 

[MagicShell]

I am enjoying your trip report. You have a beautiful family. I am sorry to hear all you have gone through, but it is good to hear your daughter is doing well now. The best part of Disney World to me is seeing the look on your children's faces. We did two character meals last trip and I wish we had done more, they were so fun. I can't wait to read more.

 

[bucknuts]

Just found your trip report today. Im onboard, great report so far.

 

[tink1957]

Great report so far, Juliana looks so cute in her Cinderella dress. It sounds like she had a wonderful birthday.

Can't wait to read more.

 

[serene56]

Cant wait to read the rest- The Park Fair is a place I "think" we may try for dinner one night

 

[that's nice]

I'm trying to reply to everyone but there are quite a few. Thanks to everyone for reading my TR. I have to upload a few more pics then I'll be working on the next installment. Hopefully I can have something today!

Tim

 

[that's nice]

I wake up to the phone ringing at 7:05am. I answer and Stitch was yelling at me. I forgot where I was for a minute. Oh yea DISNEY! We were going to MK to spend the whole day there. We had a breakfast ressie an Crystal Palace at 8:25 and at Tony's at 5:25pm for dinner. So we got up got ready and walked out to the bus stop about 7:50 or so.

I have to be honest, with never staying on-site and using the busses, I was a little leery of the whole process. I must say, I was impressed. We still had our rental for the week, but I figured we'd try out the busses. We waited about 5-7 minutes for the bus. Picked us up from bus stop #4 then it stopped at #1 (at CSR the order of stops are 2,3,4,1). When we pulled away from #1 it only took a few minutes to get to MK and it drops you off right in front! No tram, no boat, no monorail. I'm talking the front gate. I know the time by the stamps of my pics and I took this one at 8:18. Check out the flag in this picture. It was standing straight out. It was pretty cool (maybe 45-50 degrees) and windy.

So that is really fast to be walking into MK. They checked our bags then we stayed to the right to walk into the park early for our breakfast. It was kinda cool to be going in before the park opened. I kinda felt like a VIP. We saw a photopass guy on Main St. and stopped for a pic. He took 2 with our camera as well.

I checked in at Crystal Palace at exactly 8:25 and there wasn't a long line.

He's a pic of the castle while we were waiting. The sky was SO clear and blue.

Thank goodness we got there when we did because the line was soooooo long 5 minutes later. We were shown our table and before we even sat down there was Pooh! Melody had to grab the camera quick and snap some shots.

Juliana had Mickey waffles, some fruit, and some eggs. Melody had an array of fruit, eggs, and Mickey waffle too. I won't deny that I ate like a total PIG on this trip... I was eating everything! I had a made to order ham & cheese omelet, breakfast potatos, ham, fruit, and i'm sure some other things..LOL
I would suggest this breakfast buffet to anyone. The food was real good and I liked the omelet station. They also had pastry, muffins, breads, even salmon... they covered every breakfast option except for French toast. While we were eating the characters were coming around so we snapped some pics. Also about every 1/2 hour the characters had a mini parade with the kids. It was cute.

Well after breakfast Juliana got another treat. A cupcake for her birthday and a card signed by all- Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, and Tigger.

We didn't get to take any pics with Tigger. He was so far from us and it was almost 9:30 so we just got our stuff together and left. (but stopped for a pic first)

So I know that the lines to the fairy's get long quick so we were headed over to toontown. It wasn't open yet so we jumped on the teacups.

Juliana being silly.

While we were on the teacups toontown opened. So we got off and went straight to the fairies.. The wait was 20min and the princesses were 5. So we jumped into the princess line. And got to meet Aurora, Cinderella, and Belle.

Then jumped into the fairy line already 40 minutes. I'm thinking to myself if this is worth it? But Juliana likes Tinkerbell so I'm here for her so we wait. We got to meet Iridessa first and she was great with Juliana.. She talked to her for 5 minutes (now I see why this line hardly moves). She was so nice and cute with her.

Tink was next. She was nice as well but not as engaging as Iridessa.

Then finally Rosetta. She was really nice and engaging to Juliana as well.

So by the time we got done with the fairies. It was almost 11am..... Where does the time go when you are at disney? So I'll talk about the rest of our day in the next installment!

 

[bumbershoot]

Subscribing!

I have an almost 5 year old boy, and when I saw the first pic of Julianna I though "I wish this little girl could be E's friend, she looks like a little spitfire!", and then I read about her tumor, and yes indeed, she probably IS a little spitfire. She's gorgeous, too.

 

[topdog]

Great report!!

You have a beautiful daughter. Sorry to hear about her medical condition. Hang in there. I can certainly relate to those tough time. My SIL's granddaughter was born with hydrocephalus. She just turn 1 yr old a few weeks ago and had many surgery than my lifetime.

I commute to downtown Hartford at Trumbull street once every few months. It's a lot of driving. I live in PA and it's 200 miles each way, about 3.5 hrs driving.

 

[that's nice]

So it is about 11 and we are walking out of toontown. Over to fantasy land. I can't believe how many people there are. The place is PACKED! I don't know if it is because of the big storm in the N.E. and people got stuck here or what but it was crazy. I stopped at Pooh and got a FP (that will come in handy later). Headed to small world and there was a 10 minute wait. This is Juliana's favorite ride. She sings the song all the time. The line moved pretty fast and we jumped on just after 11:15. I know a lot of people dislike small world but I like it. LOL

A nice couple took our picture at the beginning of the ride.

The line for the Carousel wasn't bad so we rode.

Then right over to PhilharMagic. Last year Juliana didn't like this show (and she screamed through Bug's Life till Melody took her out) but she loved it this time. She was getting off my lap trying to grab the 3D stuff coming at her. It was really cute. This is us about to go in.

After the show it was after 12, so Melody and Juliana found a spot in front of the castle for the Move it - shake it parade. I went to find lunch. I basically missed the whole parade, Mel said it was really cute and Juliana liked it too.

I walked over to Pecos Bill and got the chicken wrap meal. We were on the DDP so I got a water, yogurt, fries, and chocolate cake with it. Needless to say the wrap was was horrible. Mel and I were gonna split it so she got first dibs. She took 2 bites and didn't want it. I had a few bites and I agreed with her- it wasn't good. But she ate the yogurt and had a few bites of Juliana chicken fingers. I had a few fries. To tell you the truth I was still kinda full from breakfast. We walked around for a while and road some more rides. Had a FP for Peter Pan from earlier and rode. We waited about 40 minutes for dumbo. What else is there to do in the dumbo line than wear 3 pairs of glasses?

After Dumbo, we went down to Main St. to get a snack and to try to find a spot for the parade. There were some CM getting kids together to play duck-duck-goose. So Juliana went to play... except she never played before. Any time a kid was picked as the goose and started running, Juliana got up and started running too. It was funny.... there were people near us laughing too.

Mel came back from Main St. bakery with one of the biggest cinnamon rolls I ever saw. It was really good. If you are on the dining plan you should get one of these and take it back to your room and have it for breakfast. It might even be enough for 2 people. We watched the parade... I took video of it. Then we went over frontierland. We rode the jungle cruise (got FP earlier) and the carpet ride.

We were kind of all over the park. Headed to tommorowland. Got a FP for Space Mountain and went to Monsters INC. It was a cute show.. we never saw it before. Then it was 5:20... Five minutes to get to Tony's. I checked in and we waited maybe 5 minutes to be seated.

We decided to get one salad and split it. It was the perfect amount for 2 people. I got the N.Y. strip cooked med-rare- it was awesome. It was so tender, I barely needed a knife to cut it. Melody tried it and she like it a lot too. She had the seafood diavoli. It was good too. Had a little spice to it which we like. They could of put a little more seafood in it. But it was still good. Juliana had Penne with sauce and a meatball. The meatball wasn't great but the sauce was good. For dessert I had the gelato. I've read so much about it on the DIS, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It is like a creamier ice cream. I don't know.. It was good but I wouldn't go out of my way to try to get it. Mel had strawberry mousse cheesecake. She really liked it. And it looked cool too.

Pic of Juliana posing.

We finished dinner and went to the pooh ride, then found a spot for Wishes. I ran to do space mountain, then met back up with the girls for the fireworks. We have seen the fireworks a few times but never from the front of the castle. I don't know fireworks are fireworks right????????? WRONG! It is worth it standing in the circle in front of the castle to see them. I was holding Juliana in one arm and taping with the other. Tinkerbell flew right over us. Juliana was in awe... I was watching her and it was the best feeling ever. I was getting chills during the song "and all our wishes will come true" There is something about that voice... maybe because it sounds like a kid. I donno but it was worth staying in the crowd to watch them. Snapped a shot of Main St. and the castle while we were trying to fight the crowds on the way out. It is a little blurry.

Even though there was a lot of people trying to get out, it went pretty smoothly. Just watch out for those train tracks on Main St., especially with a stroller. Sometimes they get real deep. But got to the bus stop. CSR stop is #1. Waited about 3 minutes bus showed up and we were on for the short ride back. We were all tired after a great day and needed some rest for our next days adventures at DHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[PopArtGal]

I'm in! As soon as I saw your daughter's bad, I knew I had to check it out.

Your TR is lovely so far... can't wait to hear the rest.

 

[Ela1972]

You're trip report is great. I have just found it.

I am looking at it with DD4 and she is getting so excited. We head off in 10 days and are also staying at CSR.

I am glad your daughter had a wonderful birthday she is gorgeous!!
Looking forward to more!!

 

[kadesha]

Kadesha,
Sorry to hear about your DD. Every time Juliana goes to her oncologist she gets her blood-work done. Of course they check her kidney function. They told us you can live a normal life with 1 kidney. She just has to be careful when/if she starts playing sports. They told us that anything extreme should be avoided.... skydiving, deep sea diving, etc. But what about skiing, horseback riding, hockey, etc. She just turned 3 so we have some time to talk to doctors about these things.

One thing that we have to do is make sure she stays hydrated. Every day we have to push her to drink water. We sound like a broken record. "Juliana where's your water?" "Juliana get your water" "Can you please drink your water?" She must be sick of hearing it, cuz we get tired of saying it. But its what we have to do.

Tim

My DD has to be careful with sports too. We used to have horses and all she wanted to do was ride! We moved and no longer have the horses and I'm so glad. The horseback riding really worried me. Anything that could cause her to take a hard blow to her "good" kidney I worry about. People think I'm neurotic but they just don't understand. I feel like a broken record about pushing liquids too. For us it's water and cranberry juice. I know I say something about drinking at least 50 times a day! lol! I also have to be really picky about what kinds of OTC medications I give her, keep an eye on her salt intake, and blood pressure. Having a damaged kidney in there really increases her chances for developing high blood pressure.

Ok--enough of that! I've got to catch up on all these character meals now!

 

[kadesha]

Your pics from MK are so great!! Can't wait to read more!

 

[mat5]

Great trip report, really like your pics of WDW

 

[DearDaisyinDurham]

Wonderful pictures!

Totally agree about the Wishes soundtrack. When "Dis'ing" either Dis radio or one of the cd's from the park is playing, and that song is - can it be possible? - yes even more addictive than IASW or Tiki room.


ETA: about the room noise thing, DH is a big "white noise" person, so we always request a fan & it blocks the noise really well.

 

[debdebdebby13]

Subscribed! I love reading TR's of families with kiddos our DD's age. Your little girl looks like a complete sweetheart!

 

[ProudMommyof2]

What a great MK day! I think the only thing worth having at Pecos Bill is a burger decked out with the fixins bar.
We are going to stay and watch Wishes from Main St this time too. Our first trip we stayed at Wilderness Lodge and were spoiled with an obstructed Wishes from our balcony so we never fought the crowd on Main St- this year for sure!!!