I'm not a travel Agent TR

[ashleighbass06]

So, for the past four or five years my mom has been promising to take me somewhere for spring break and its never happened. So in December I sat her down and bugged her until she agreed to take me to Disney World!

So, we made our reservations and got our plane tickets online. Only to find out about a week later when we got our DME information that we booked the flight a day later than our hotel reservations! So, we had to cut our trip short by a day because the airline was going to charge us $400 to change flights! This is when I discovered that I am not a travel agent...next time we will probably use one!

So its just me (Ashleigh, 21) and my mom (Sue, she probably wouldn't appreciate me posting her age ) staying at All Star Music March 8-12!
This is us in front of the International Gateway:

Its only a week away now, but I decided that I wanted to do a TR, so I might as well start with a PTR explaining our funny situation!

I'll probably post our itinerary and ADRs soon!

8 Days!

Table of Contents:
1. Our Itinerary
2. Day 1: Arriving in Orlando, Animal Kingdom, & First Evening at WDW
3. Disney Chow-Down Day 1
4. Day 2: EPCOT & Touring the Boardwalk
5. Day 3: Quick Tour of DHS then a journey to Magic Kingdom
6. Day 4: Dreary/Rainy Last Full Day in WDW
7. Dinner at the Plaza
8. Day 5: Rained Out Final Day in the World & Why I hate Airports
9. My Review of All-Star Music
10. My Favorite Eats in the World
11. My Favorites and Dreaming about my Next Trip
12. Wrap-Up & I Keep Dreaming
ENJOY!

 

[ashleighbass06]

Currently, our itinerary is as follows:

Monday, March 8
Arrve at All Star Music around noon.
Animal Kingdom until close
5:35 ADR Sanaa at AKL
Then, Downtown Disney or Boardwalk until we're too tired to go on.

Tuesday, March 9
EPCOT for morning EMHs.
4:30 ADR at Teppan Edo
Stay unil Illuminations then come back to ASMu.

Wednesday, March 10
Hollywood Studios
3:35 ADR Mama Melrose
Then head to Magic Kingdom for Wishes & Spectromagic

Thursday, March 11
Magic Kingdom for EMHs.
5:00 ADR at Plaza
Stay until close, then head back to ASMu.

Friday, March 12
Either Downtown Disney or Boardwalk until 11:15 DME for our 2:15 flight.
Strangely, we have a layover in Ft. Lauderdale and should be back in Detroit around 7:30.

Anyone have opinions about Boardwalk? Do you think it would be better on Monday or Friday (Evening vs. Morning)? I have had the toughest time finding info on it, but I've wanted to go the last couple trips.

Gosh, I hope we have enough time! Looking at this, I wish we had that extra day!

 

[magicallyDisney001]

WDW in only a week! How exciting! I haven't actually stayed at the Boardwalk yet, but I always like to save the last day of the vacation for unwinding and relaxing a little bit. Otherwise, it feels too rushed. So personally, [assuming that you want to explore the Boardwalk just to walk around] I would save the Boardwalk for Friday. Looking forward to hearing more!

 

[ashleighbass06]

Glad to see that I have a reader! I don't really have much more to say before the trip but I'm sure I will fill you in when I get back! I hope I will have some good stories!

 

[disneyj914]

Hey Ashleigh, I'm so jealous your trip is so soon! My mom and I went down in Sept for my 25th bday and we did the boardwalk at night bc we wanted to go to Jelly Rolls....its a great place to relax and have a couple drinks and just be goofy. sooo if you're interested in going out on the Boardwalk I would recommend going at night.

 

[ashleighbass06]

SPRING BREAK IS HERE!

Today I did some last minute shoping and finally started packing...I have lists of things I can't forget haha!

Bought new park shoes today...I've been wearing them all day to break them in. Gosh, I do everything last minute!

Very timely, Travel Channel had a WDW marathon on Friday. Did anyone else watch it?

 

[ashleighbass06]

I'm home!
It was a great (and slightly wet) week at WDW and I was sad to come back to Michigan! I just finished editing my pictures and will let you all in on the details soon!

I do want to say that I love to people watch and as a child development major and future teacher, I love to watch parents interacting with their children. Disney is definitely a great place for that! I have some good stories of crazy parents...lol

Stay tuned!

 

[ashleighbass06]

The first day of our Disney Trip began Monday at 5:30 AM. Our plane took off from Detroit at 9 and landed early at 11:15. We got right on a packed DME bus and we were on our way to the happiest place on earth!

We checked in, had lunch at the QS restaurant at the hotel, dropped our carry-ons off at the room, then we went to

It was only minutes from the next showing of Finding Nemo, so we got in without waiting in line (which was luckily the theme of the whole trip). It was SO good! I highly recommend it! I was a little bummed to find out that none of the songs were on the 4 parks 1 world CD, which I bought later.

I wanted to do Everest, but it had a 45 minute wait and my mom was a little scared of it, so we skipped it with the intention to come back later if we have time. So, we went to Kilimanjaro instead. As a photographer, I LOVE that ride because you can get some AMAZING animal photos:

The girrafes were really active!

Then we did the Pangani Exploration trail and when we got out we caught the end mob of the parade and followed it out of the park at like 4:45.

We had 5:30 ADRs at

in Kidani Village at AKL.
I had the Green Curry Shrimp and Short Ribs with Vanilla Coconut Rice Pudding for dessert. My mom had some sort of cornish hen with turnips and fruit (sorry for being so unspecific) and the dessert sample. I will post photos of the food later, I don't want to overwhelm this post.

After dinner we did some shopping at Downtown Disney and got back to the room not too late and caught some Zzzzs.

 

[Birdman1511]

Glad you had fun.. anymore pictures???

 

[Señor DonDuck]

Congrats on the Nemo show timing. Bring on the food pics.

 

[reyasmommy]

We were at AK the same day as you were. It was absolutely beautiful that day, wasn't it?!

I HOPE I wasn't one of the "crazy" parents you're speaking of?

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[MarieTheCat24]

Wow! I'm incredibly jealous of your giraffe picture. I love giraffes, but whenever I've ridden Kilimanjaro they've always been further away from the vehicles. It'd be cool to see them up close like that.

 

[ashleighbass06]

I HOPE I wasn't one of the "crazy" parents you're speaking of?

Don't worry, I don't remember any crazy parents from AK. Also, most of them seemed like they didn't really want to be there and I don't think thats you

Bring on the food pics.

Ok, here are the pictures from Sanaa:

This is the cornish hen (sorry, its a little blurry):

This is the green curry shrimp/short ribs combo:

This is the dessert sampler (yum):

If I remember correctly, from left to right it was gelato, chai cream, and chocolate cake.

This is the vanilla coconut pudding:

Day 2 coming soon!

 

[heaven2dc]

I can't believe you're already back from your trip! Day 1 sounds like you really got to see and do a lot. I love your pic of the giraffe I hope you got to ride EE after all. and I can't wait to hear of your visit to the Boardwalk. Even though you didn't stay there, it's still fun to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere.

 

[ashleighbass06]

On our first full day, we did EPCOT with morning EMHs.

It was Flower & Garden Festival and this was our welcome into the park (and yes that's me)

The plan was to go straight to the land and get our fastpass for Soarin' but we got a little sidetracked and rode Spaceship Earth first. After seeing the new version I can see how some people are upset by it. One of my favorite parts was always the newspaper boy and now he's turned around and if you listen really hard you can almost hear him...But the ending is pretty cool and we actually rode it again later to get a different ending.

Anyway, then we got to Soarin' got our fastpass (although my mom couldn't understand how there was already a 40 minute wait at like 8:20) and headed to sunshine seasons for breakfast. My mom had this croissant berry pudding that was AMAZING (I don't have a photo, sorry)! If anyone has a recipe PLEASE send it to me! Then, we road Livin' with the Land. We still had time before our fastpass return, so we did the Seas with Nemo & Friends. My only comment about that is that I wished the real fish weren't only at the end...but it was cute

Since we still had time we did the final ride on that side of the park, Imagination and finally it was time for

and I LOVED IT! Definitely one of my favorite rides of the trip!

Then, we headed over to Test Track and rode single rider (only a ten minute wait, I'm in!) and we were ready to do World Showcase before like 5 before 11. We went to the right and checked out Canada and England. I LOVED the Twinings Tea garden:

SO CUTE!

We parused the rest of World Showcase and had lunch at Sommerfest (in Germany). If I didn't mention earlier, we were on the dining plan and I feel like this meal was probably one of the best deals. We got a bratwurst, a HUGE pretzel, and a large drink. We split it and were both stuffed (sorry again, not photo. I didn't take pics of our CS meals).

Then, we went back to America and saw The American Adventure (once again, great timing). Gosh, I love that show. Really tugs at the heartstrings. And the singers before are amazing!

We continued touring WS and stopped in Norway to get the highly rated schoolbread. OMG! It was just as delicious as everyone said! While we were eating I think I saw the second most photographed animal on Disney property (second to Mickey of course):

He was eating out of people's hands and practically smiling for photos!

Then we did Grand Fiesta Tour...It was the first time I saw it. It was pretty much the same as I remember El Riviera del Tiempo but with the Cabelleros (sp?). After that we stil had tons of time before dinner so we ran back to do Ellen's Energy Adventure.

After Ellen we took a friendship boat across the lagoon (again we got there just as people were loading) to Japan for dinner at Teppan Edo.

After dinner we still had plenty of time before Illuninations and didn't really know what to do. So, we decided to take the International Gateway over to Boardwalk. We got there just as the sun was about to set and we just walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere.

After relaxing for a while we took the boat back to EPCOT to get ready for the nightly show. Since we still had time (although no room in our stomachs) we went back to Norway for another dessert, but we ended up using another CS meal because we had so many. We got the Ham & Apple sandwich, a chocolate sweet pretzel, and a milk.

Then we settled down to watch the fireworks.
I don't have any pics from Illuminations but I do have this one of Spaceship Earth as we were leaving:

I'll try to post Day 3 Tomorrow!

 

[reyasmommy]

Great update and photos.

I actually love the new version of Space Ship Earth. (IMHO)

Soarin' is one of my favorite rides too. I think it's my DD's all time favorite now. She was finally tall enough to ride this time around and she couldn't stop talking about it for days. She still tells random strangers that she flew like Tinkerbell when she went to Dizzy World.

Look forward to reading more.

 

[Señor DonDuck]

Nice update and appreciate the food pics.

 

[IDoBelieveinFairies!]

Great update and photos.

I actually love the new version of Space Ship Earth. (IMHO)

Soarin' is one of my favorite rides too. I think it's my DD's all time favorite now. She was finally tall enough to ride this time around and she couldn't stop talking about it for days. She still tells random strangers that she flew like Tinkerbell when she went to Dizzy World.

Look forward to reading more.

I must say I liked the pictures.

What did you think of the Boardwalk? I love going there to wind down, I love to stay in the Epcot area, so not unusual to find us there.

I have yet to see the new Space Ship Earth, is there a lot of difference? It was being done last time we were there, so we missed it.

We love Soarin too, I talked Grandma into doing it, she was 73. If she had her way we would do Soaring a minimum of 2 times a day.

Funny how we measure our days and our children measure theirs by if they were tall enough to ride a certain ride. My youngest was thrilled that last time she could ride all the roller coasters! She is only 11 yet she is as tall as my 17 yr old!

Glad to hear that she was thrilled in her role as Tinker Bell in Dizzy World, precious!

 

[IDoBelieveinFairies!]

t was only minutes from the next showing of Finding Nemo, so we got in without waiting in line (which was luckily the theme of the whole trip). It was SO good! I highly recommend it! I was a little bummed to find out that none of the songs were on the 4 parks 1 world CD, which I bought later.

I wanted to do Everest, but it had a 45 minute wait and my mom was a little scared of it, so we skipped it with the intention to come back later if we have time. So, we went to Kilimanjaro instead. As a photographer, I LOVE that ride because you can get some AMAZING animal photos:

We almost skipped Finding Nemo thinking daughters might be too old, but we loved it!

I loved picture of the giraffe, very nice! When we go on that ride, we tend to have these ackward photos, (usually because we put Grandma on the ends and she insists on taking the photos) Did I mention she has visual problems?

The dessert tray looked amazing

I noticed you went at one of our favorite times of the year, we love to smell everything in front of France,. I am sure we could just pull up a chair and park it in that area!

 

[ashleighbass06]

For the third day of our trip, we planned to do Hollywood Studios, but we didn't think it would take all day. I don't care for the Tower of Terror (I don't do freefalls) and my mom refused to try Rock 'n' Rollercoaster (She doesn't like anything more intense than space mountain). Online it said that the Great Movie Ride was closed, so we were only planning on being there until our ADRs at Mama Melrose at 3:35.

Well, we couldnt even stretch it that long. The first thing we did was Toy Story Mania:

He wasn't being interactive. I was disappointed, but I ABSOLUTELY loved the ride! One of my favorites. I loved it so much that we got a fastpass right when we got off (we considered getting a fastpass before riding standby but I swear the line for the FPs was just as long as the standby line).

I noticed on our times guide that it said the Backlot Tour was closed (not really disappointed about that at all. I mean, how can you have a backlot tour w/o a backlot?) and not the Great Movie Ride. So, we headed over to the Chinese Theater and it was pretty much the same as I remembered it. My mom said she wishes they would update it/change it. I guess I agree a little. Maybe get rid of some of those films no one has ever heard of...IMHO.

Then, we headed over to Muppet Vision:

I love that show. Definitely one of the best 3D films on property. After that we didn't really have anything else we wanted to do...it was 11:30, our ADRs were for 3:35, our fastpasses were for 12:50, and Mama Melrose didn't even open until noon....we decided to see Indiana Jones, even though my mom said she'd seen it so many times she knew about the secrets (I don't want give any spoilers). But, it was a way to kill time and when it was over Mama Melrose was open and we got in 3.5 hours early and had to wait like 2 minutes.

OK here are the food pics:
I had the Chicken Parmesan

My mom had the Wood Grilled Tuna

For dessert I had the Warm Chocolate Truffle cake and my mom had the Tiramisu (it looked so delicious I forgot to take pictures, sorry).

After lunch we went back to TSM. It was just as great a second time! Then we decided to head over to the Magic Kingdom.

On the way out I saw this girl. I signed her petition to become famous. lol

There's probably a bus to get to MK from DHS, but we decided to take the long way: boat to EPCOT, monorail to MK. The boats were slow going, but we were in no hurry, we were 3 hours ahead of schedule.

Once we got on the monorail, we wished we would have just taken the bus. Our monorail stopped twice and one stop alone was ten minutes. It didn't help that the people in our car were talking about the monorail crash this summer. I really don't want to hear about how someone died on thing I'm stuck in right now!

But, we eventually made it...and in one piece.

Us in front of the castle...I love the photopass thing! Now you can get everyone in your group in your pictures! And it works because we're going to buy some of them. lol

We started our Magic Kingdom journey in tomorrowland. I was really excited about the Laugh Floor so we went there first. And it was SO FUNNY! We went again later and they used my joke!! Its like I'm famous now lol! After that we went to Buzz Lightyear, which was kind of a let down after TSM...I recommend doing Buzz before TSM that way it is more fun.

Then, we went to our all time favorite ride, Carousel of Progress. I always feel like a dork on this ride because I just have to sing along. "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow..." Then we decided to take a spin on the TTA, another classic, although I kind of missed the old narration with the forward facing tentacles...

When we got off, we waited what was only supposed to be 20 minutes for Space Mountain, but they kept opening new parts of the queue and I swear we were there longer than our 35 minute wait for TSM that morning...It was good as always. We had one screamer in our train that made it a little rough...she did make the photo pretty funny, though.

After that, we headed over to Adventureland to:

I hadn't been on the Jungle Cruise since I was little and afraid of it....I LOVED it! Our skipper, Robert, was HILARIOUS and kept picking on me because I was sitting in the front seat and he probably felt better picking on me than the 5 y/o girl across from me. Although this is where one of the crazy parent stories comes in...well, this is more a crazy child story. There was a little boy in the middle at the front who jumped up and tried to attack the skipper several times (once calling him a banana head). At the end the skipper said to the dad, "You need to get that kid some Ritalin" and dad just agreed.

We got off in a good mood and tried to find Pirates...somehow we missed it and decided to see the Country Bears because DBF loves it and couldn't believe I'd never seen it...Its probably just not my style but I didn't get it and found it even a little creepy...

I was kinda hungry at this point and we headed over to Columbia Harbour House, but it was closed already. So, we headed back over to Pecos Bill and it had just closed. It seemed all of the CS restaurants in the park had closed except for the ones on main street which had ridiculous lines, so I settled for popcorn while we waited for Wishes.

Wishes was great! I do wish we had a better spot. We were right by the castle and had an obstructed view. I only have a P&S camera, but I tried to get some pics:

I love the person in front of me videoing it on their iPhone. lol

I LOVE this one!

Then, in the mob on the way out, I saw a girl almost get strangled by balloons. It was frightening. Why were they still out during the mad dash out after Wishes? I feel like that was bound to happen.

Anyway, Day 4 coming soon. Thanks for reading!