Is LATE Really Better Than NEVER? A Late-breaking TR

[aspcamhreditor2]

Installment 15
CRT is a Dream Come True

Cast Review …
Me (PrincessMom)
DH (Grumpy/Goofy)
DD#1 (Doodle) 6 & 1/2 yrs old
DD#2 (Moo Moo) 3 & 1/2 yrs. old

Day #2 – The first full day at parks and the one where we have breakfast at the castle.

Our week-long trip was off to a rousing start thanks to a great first day spent at MGM and Epcot which we cut short slightly in order to be well-rested for our first-ever trip to the castle today. Owing to our location (WDW) and the today’s plans, everyone was up and around in fairly good order. Our ADR was for 9:20, and although I had grand plans to arrive when the park opened and to do a couple of activities before BREAKFAST, I opted to followed a slightly more laid-back plan and simply start at CRT.

After much gnashing of teeth, I let the girls “dress-up” for the day. I had always SWORN I would NOT be party to the whole “costume-in-the-park" thing ... First, how comfortable would THAT be? Second, we don’t have “play” quality costumes that I would feel comfortable letting the girls waller around a theme park in. Finally, wouldn’t they just take up more room in the suitcase? But, after reading other TRs, I decided “dressing the part” for our magical castle breakfast wouldn’t be so traumatic.

So, when we headed out, the girls did so in style. Doodle wore her Mary Poppins costume while MooMoo went as Cinderella. We had purchased the MP costume from a specialty costume maker when we did a Mary Poppins “jolly holiday” entry for a costume class at our national championship horse show (one girl as MP, one girl as a penguine, one adult as Dick Van Dyke’ character. The pony went as the carrousel horse. For the record, we were national champion that year.)

The MP dress was extremely nice. However, we’d left the hat at home due to space constraints and crushing issues in the suitcase. I still regret that decision today. Should have just found room for the darned thing!

MooMoo wore a Cinderella dress we had purchased for Doodle when she was in her Cinderella phase. It, too, came from a costume designer. Although it was better than most store-bought Cinderella costumes, it wasn’t quite as nice as the MP. Nor was it as original … something I would momentarily regret at breakfast. Of course, at CRT you see lots of Cinderellas with some Snow Whites, Belles & Auroras thrown in for good measure. I soon learned that MPs were MUCH more rare … good ones at least. So, Doodle as MP got QUITE a bit of attention.

Would that cause problems? Stay tuned to find out…

 

[AGPrincess]

bump...

I never read your latest installments! I loove the pics. And your DH is so right. That launch at Rockn' Roller is AWEsome.

I really want to hear about CRT! Doodle's MP costume sounds TOO cute. Was MP at CRT to see it??

Waiting for more!

 

[aspcamhreditor2]

Sorry ... I'm not really such a slacker ... but we've had end of school, HUGE work deadline, b-day party for each daughter and first communion.

I have the next installment ready ... just want to pull in some pics. Have GREAT pics from CRT.

Leaving at 3 a.m. to drop horses off w/ farrier and then meet my father to go with him to a cancer treatment appointment. It's 250 miles to the horse shoe-er and then my Dad's. Then, it's 2 more hours to IUPUI's hospital.

It's almost 10 pm ... why am I still up?

Promise to post next installment w/ pics by first of next week!

Amy

 

[phillmolly]

ohhhhh, I can't wait for more!!! BTW what happened to Auntie???

 

[blue_river]

I'm all caught up

Thankfully, you've slowed down a bit on your posts or I'd have been way too far behind


Waiting to hear if Doodle as MP caused problems

 

[abbybeth]

This is a fun TR, so I'm subbing!

We're going for the first time in September and will be staying at POFQ, so it's nice to find yet another endorsement!

 

[aspcamhreditor2]

BTW what happened to Auntie???

She only makes an appearance in the middle of the trip. At the rate I'm going, you won't meet her for a while.

Next installment is ready. Am working on the pics now. Should post soon!

Amy

 

[AGPrincess]

I know you must be pretty busy (I know my mom is w/ all the kids at home and everything), but we're all eager for more!

 

[DebIreland]

Hey! Just giving this a well-deserved bump! Hope you're okay! What happened next?

 

[aspcamhreditor2]

SORRY!

Wow ... life got away from me for a while ... work deadline, 2 kidlet's birthdays, 1st horse shows of the season, etc.

Didn't want to post next installment w/o pics. Got 'em now. Just going to upload them.

Will be back w/ next installment later tonight!

Amy

 

[aspcamhreditor2]

Installment 16 ... Breakfast at The Castle!


Cast Review …
Me (PrincessMom)
DH (Grumpy/Goofy)
DD#1 (Doodle) 6 & 1/2 yrs old
DD#2 (Moo Moo) 3 & 1/2 yrs. old

So … we are on our way to CRT with the girls oh-so-cute as Mary Poppins and Cinderella. This day was cooler and overcast. Although staying on property, we had rented a car to give ourselves the absolute most flexibility in terms of coming & going. We drove to the TTC and caught the ferry over to the MK. We were glad to have jackets going across Seven Seas lagoon!

With a 9:20 ADR and no ability to get up early for rope drop, we didn’t arrive much in advance of breakfast. However, we did take a minute to appreciate the festively be-decked Main Street from the top of the street. Wow! Looking down Main Street toward the castle always takes my breath away and leaves me welling up. However, this time the view had the added touch of ALL those Christmas decorations on Main Street. Although they somewhat blocked the castle view, the decorations were soooo festive. We were glad to be visiting WDW at Christmas time.

After enjoying the view and moseying down Main Street at a nice pace (park was relatively light in the crowd department) to allow for the requisite gawking … soon, we were on our way to the castle. We checked in and waited our turn for our pic of Cinderella. This is one of our only regrets about the entire trip. Given how rushed meeting Cinderella seemed, I didn’t trust my gut instinct that the ONE photo the CM took wasn’t good. I should have insisted on something different or more … or at least tried harder to take our own pic. Soon, we are off to our appointed ADR, only to learn later that the pic w/ Cinderella was HORRIBLE and we would, therefore, have NO pics of the interaction between the girls and the star of CRT. A regret … given DD#1’s long-time obsession with Cinderella and DD#2’s new appreciation for her.

Although pricey, I didn’t find the meal disappointing. To me, not only were we paying for the food, but the atmosphere and the character interaction as well. We have NO regrets about CRT. I found most of the food tasty breakfast items. We started off with some yummy pasteries. The plated breakfasts included scrambled eggs, bacon, stuffed French toast … and in looking at the pics … I know the girls had Frencht toast sticks. Doodle ate very respectably and MooMoo ate at least her bacon. Both DH and I enjoyed the stuff French toast and we did not go away hungry.

Now … about the advantage of having one child dressed uniquely enough to garner attention: Apparently the staff at CRT only see one or two Mary Poppins for every several dozen princesses. That morning, Doodle was the only MP during our breakfast shift. Apparently the CM who was our server rarely sees MP and wwwaaaayyyy made over Doodle. She brought others by the table and, thanks to her, Doodle got a lot of attention. I worried that the unbalanced attention would be problematic for our younger DD. However, MooMoo didn’t mind so much. At 3 & 1/2, she was very tentative with characters on this trip. She liked to keep her distance from fully costumed characters but would manage basic interacation with face characters. Moo is much like her mother, she likes what she likes. It might take her a while to warm up to something AND she’s going to take “new” action on her own time. There is no rushing this kid into anything! CRT ended up being the perfect choice for her in terms of meeting characters … face characters, quieter & calmer setting, etc. Moo was a touch tentative at first but ended up talking to all the princesses and getting a hug from each as well as posing for pics.

I found the character interaction at CRT superb! Plus, I thought the princesses, MP, Snow White and fairy godmother did a fantastic job of assessing the “readiness” of the child for the interaction so none of them overwhelmed MooMoo.

After the disappointing “rush” with Cinderella herself downstairs, I was pleasantly surprised with the time each character spent with our girls. Am glad I caved on the costume issue. I don’t know if that REALLY made a difference in the character interaction we received, but I think having the unique MP trick up our sleeve certainly didn’t hurt. We got several pics with each character. Each character made CERTAIN they interacted with both girls. Being huggers, our girls did as much of that as they wanted. As parents, we got the pics were pretty much wanted and the girls each got autographs for their books.

Snow White was very tender and gentle with Moo. What a pro! She simply ALWAYS included MooMoo in a very understated way. Thanks to the gentle attention she showed our younger DD, Snow White really helped set the stage for Moo to have good experiences with face characters as least.

One of my favorite pics ... I just love how SW is holding Moo's hand!


Of course, the STAR of the character interaction that day was Mary Poppins herself.

Pip pip and cheerio! MP was “spot on” with our girls. She gave our MP (Doodle) a “special” autograph for her book. I realized in horror that the pics didn’t turn out. OH BLESSED DIGITAL CAMERAS! Thankfully, I made DH look at those pics really quickly to be sure … can you imagine if we’d ended up with no pics of our MP and the “real” MP??? The wonderful CM who was our server helped us avoid certain calamity on this one. We told her IMMEDIATELY that our one-on-one pics with MP didn’t turn out and she helped arrange a second interaction with MP for pics. The staff was all incredibly wonderful about this.

Here … I’m going to digresse about photos for a second… WHY, you may ask?

Well this is a subject that comes into play several times during this trip.

Just so you know, my husband is a gadget lover. We’re on our 3rd digital camera since our older DD was born in ‘99. He’s on his 3rd…. or is it 4th??? … video camera in 15 years. In late 2004, he bought his dream camera … some digital Canon Rebel that, at the time of purchase, was basically a semi-professional camera. Sorry, not being a gadget-head, I can’t tell you the EXACT model. DH reads photos chat groups like I read The DIS. He loves photography magazines. He is constantly “trying” the artsy things he reads about on-line or in publications. We take A LOT of photos. So many so that DH decided to splurge and buy a small portable hard-drive for our WDW trip so we could download that day’s pics and have room for more the next day. A blessing … but also a curse now that I’m trying to scrapbook this trip.

DH loves taking photos and he gets some good ones. However, I’m the details person in this relationship …like that is a surprise to any one of you DIS-er’s reading this little saga. As the details person, I actually have a better NATURAL eye for photos. Additionally, I take a lot of kid & event photos for the horse-breed magazine I do. Plus, I scrapbook so I have a totally different concept of what makes a good photo.

What does all that mean in relation to this here TR? Well, let’s just say we had some tense moments in terms of photos … all because stupid digital cameras have that instantaneous & self-gratifying immediate playback. And, DH, is … well, a guy. Yes, DH might have taken a wonderful pic of Doodle w/ a character, but he would routinely miss an EVEN BETTER photo a fraction of a second later ‘cause he JUST had to look at the first pic. While this would be a major sticking point later on, it didn’t factor in at CRT. Hence, we didn’t realize our MP pics weren’t good until a few minutes LATER … like AFTER MP had left our table. Thankfully, we got a second chance to get some pics with the MP. However, the lesson wasn’t lost on my husband … and the near MP photo fiasco would later cause some serious contention when DH got a little too into IMMEDIATELY checking the pic he just took!

Overall, we would rate CRT VERY HIGHLY … good atmosphere, top notch character interaction, good (if pricey) food. The breakfast at the castle was a definite highlight.

So … how do you top a perfect CRT breakfast? Or, does the day just go down hill fast?

 

[AGPrincess]

What a great update! And I totally loved the pics...The one with Snow is too cute!

Doodle's MP costume is REALLY pretty! I'm so glad you found out the photos were bad in time...gotta love digital.

Can't wait to hear about the rest of the day!

 

[aspcamhreditor2]

Installment 17 -
Heading out into the MK after enjoying breakfast at CRT

After a WONDERFUL start to our day at CRT, we headed out into MK. Yes … we were exiting the castle during the latter part of middle morning right smack into Fantasyland. Although some of you are cringing, I am pleased to tht this did not break bad for us!

First, we got the girls clothes changed … no point in being uncomfortable in costumes all day. Then, we began our MK trek. I had no completely mapped out plan. I am NOT a TGM-type of WDW guest, Rather, we kept to a GENERAL plan of when/where, letting the girls do some choosing and effectively employing FP s with a combo of great waiting times when we could. (Ahhh, a benefit to traveling at a non-peak time. As long as it’s practical with where our girls are in school, we Grumpy/Goofy parents have NO qualms about ditching school for “special” vacations.)

So our wait times that morning were minimal …. All well less than 20 minutes and some attractions were basically walk-ons.

However, we did have one hurdle we had to clear …The “planner” in me had a near run-in with DD#2. Unfortunately, MooMoo is pretty opinionated and once we talk about doing something, she wasn’t always good about buying into minor switches in the general touring plan simply because … as planner … I tried to make the most of wait times, lines & our own positions to help us experience the most in the least amount of time. We had a near meltdown when we deviated from IASW into Philharmagic simply because I realized we could get right into Philharmagic.

So, after breakfast we did Dumbo, the carrousel and Snow White fairly quickly and effectively.

We were headed to IASW when I realized timing was perfect for Philharmagic. Let the MooMoo / Mama run-in begin! As we waited in the interior area for Philharmagic, Moo was typical and was determined “phil” was going to be terrible and she wasn’t going to like it simply because this attraction was delaying her riding of Small World. Like I’ve explained, Moo can sometimes be singular in her focus. Fortunately, Moo’s civil disobedience is fairly self-contained … or at least parent directed …so we spare others around us tantrums, meltdowns or public displays of anger.

I was hoping that the things I’d read about Philharmagic were true…. If so, perhaps they could alleviate Moo’s “I’d-rather-be-doing-IASW” funk.

Would it work? Would Moo actually put in the “stupid glasses”? (“Why do I need stupid glasses? I don’t want to see this stupid show?)

 

[AlyssinWonderland]

Ahhh your girls are so cute! I'm late to join your trip report, but it is coming along so nicely! Sounds great so far and I can't wait to read more! Thanks for posting!!!

 

[aspcamhreditor2]

Installment 18 ... Does Moo put on the "stupid" glasses and see the "stupid" show?

As I noted last installment, we were actually taking a detour into Philharmagic into this attraction on our way to IASW. This change of plans did NOT meet with DD#2’s approval! However, timing was great, and as we ducked into Philharmagic we were able to escape some drizzle. Little did we know this would be one of our most favorite experiences of the trip.

If you knew Moo, you'd understand she is NOT HAPPY in this pic! But, you see ... she DID put on the "stupid" glasses!

As I reported last time, Moo Moo was little put off. she wanted to go on IASW. However, we were trying to be efficient and it looked like we could get right in. So, Philharmagic it was! Although there was some grumpiness about not doing things Moo’s way, it was soon forgotten when the show started. WOW! Philharmagic is soooooo cool. Neither girl had ever experienced good 3-D, and both thoroughly enjoyed it. DH & I alternated between watching the girls react to everything (ie, like trying to grab the floating gems out of the air) and watching the show. To this day, both girls will still periodically bring up Donald’s final crash into the wall. A stuffed duck butt sticking out of the wall is primo comedy to a 3 & 6 yr. old!

Finally, with Philharmagic happily under our belt, we head to It’s A Small World … much to Moo’s great delight.

ISAW … okay, for my husband & me, this ride is a guilty pleasure. Perhaps we are some of the few adults who actually like this ride and look forward to. What’s not to like? The girls love this ride and are captivated by it. Capitvated girls are sometimes quite and always good, so that’s a plus. Then, consider that’s it’s dark, it’s cool and you get to sit down. All of that stuff way out-weighs some music that can get on your nerves. Besides, IASW had just been re-done. I couldn’t wait to see it and it didn’t disappoint! Although the re-vamped IASW had me momentarily dis-oriented and turned around, I found the refurbishments charming. The colors were breath-taking. Overall, I’d rate this one pretty high. Most importantly, the girls love this one.

So, now it’s approaching mid-day and the crowds are starting to grow slightly. We duck out of Fantasyland the back way and find ourselves near Haunted Mansion. After poor experiences with ToT and Maelstrom, the girls were VERY tentative about this one. However, we finally all agree to ride HM, and we split up with each parent taking a girl in doombuggy. I got Doodle and she was MINORLY freaked but she did eventually relax enough to enjoy it. She liked the dancing ghosts and was surprisingly UN-affected when the ghost joined us. She realized that was just “Mickey Mouse Magic.” DH reported a fairly amenable ride with MooMoo. So, no small children were further traumatized in the riding of this attraction. Although NOT a favorite of the trip, Doodle does still periodically refer to HM experiences.

After this, we headed back to the POFQ for a nap followed by an evening at MGM.

 

[LITTLEKID58]

Awesome......TFS..............

 

[aspcamhreditor2]

I just about have the next installment done. I simply need to get some photos together.

Thanks for reading.

 

[aspcamhreditor2]

Installment 19 ... What To Do Now?


1 Day ... Well Started? Check
Rested & fed? Check
More time for parks? Check

What to do w/ a little time on our hands, no real plan BUT a working park hopper pass? We headed back to MGM for the evening … and it turned out to be one of my FAVORITE nights of the trip!

First, we think we’ll check out Voyage of the Little Mermaid. I don’t think the girls remembered it much from the last trip, but I knew it would be just up their alley. We were in the little holding area when it happened … of course … MooMoo HAD to go to the bathroom. We knew the timing wouldn’t work well, so DH told DD#2 and me to go ahead & see the Little Mermaid and that we’d catch up later. Doodle LOVED this show. When we came out, DH & DD#2 were no where in sight.

What to do? What to do? Of course, we’d left the cell phones at the hotel so we couldn’t even call to say “Where the heck are ya?” So, Doodle & I wandered around a little just taking in the attractions lit up at night. Then Doodle sees it: The Great Movie Ride. We had avoided this attraction on 1st foray to MGM earlier this trip since my DH is not a big fan, thanks to a bad experience during our 2003 trip. However, during this trip, DD#1 would mention vague references to some ride she wanted to do … but couldn’t remember enough details for her parents to figure it out. (I know … what kind of a DIS’er does that REALLY make me?) So she and I are casually strolling by TGMR when Doodle all but shrieks, “Mama, Mama, this is it! This is the ride I want to go on.” (No, sadly, we never did figure out her references). I am soooo glad we had temporarily lost DH and DD#2 or we probably would never have done TGMR. DD#1 LOVED it. She enjoyed the corny story. I personally love the movie nostalgia so I was glad she and I had a special mama/daughter memory for the trip. (Although, I am pretty sure the folks in the tram seat behind us have an altogether DIFFERENT kind of memory thanks to Wizard of Oz singing provided by Doodle & Me!)

After enjoying The Great Movie Ride, we headed back over to the Mermaid area to try to find DH & MooMoo. I was worried that DH would have a little bit of mad going on since the whole meeting up thing wasn’t working like clockwork. However, when he & Moo showed up, they were soooo excited. First, they had taken in the Mermaid show just after we did and Moo loved it. Then, since they couldn’t find us, they too wandered around and found the most AMAZING thing. We just HAD to come with them!

What, pray tell, was soooo amazing out MGM?