welcome! and thanks!
Wow .. I'm impressed by Mary. I can't even read it backwards .. never mind SAY it !
Great pics !
I know! I can read the version from the movie, but not from the play. It was pretty cool, even though I interrupted her!
"It's a Small Town" and "Slow Pass" - 3 days in Disney 1/2012
- Thread starter dara00
- Start date
welcome! and thanks!
I know! I can read the version from the movie, but not from the play. It was pretty cool, even though I interrupted her!
12:15 PM
After a stop at our favorite bathroom (the one between Adventureland and Frontierland) where we did some wardrobe adjustments (Gabbie took off her leggings and socks, I took off my socks, and Dave changed from jeans to shorts) we headed here:
We got a rider switch pass and (after they measured Zachary again and he was still tall enough to ride) Dave went first with the kids while I stayed with Simon. I wasn't sure how long it would take or where to walk to, so I mostly hung around right in the area of the ride and inside the shop at the exit.
It actually took awhile and it wasn't my turn until 12:40! When they came out of the ride, Dave said he didn't think either kid was going to want to ride with me.
However, Zachary said he was willing. He was scared though - he kept his head hidden against me the whole time until after the big hill, as he called it! Simon had woken up, so I think Dave and Gabbie took him to the little play area while Zachary and I rode the ride.
Here's our picture - oh yeah, we were in the front row!
It was now 12:55 and we were ready for lunch! We headed over to Columbia Harbor House. Dave and I shared a tuna sandwich and vegetarian chili and Gabbie and Zachary both had mac and cheese kids' meals. Simon shared some mac and cheese, grapes, and yogurt.
By 1:40 PM, we were here:
It actually wasn't a 20 minute wait because by 1:50 we were in the stretching room! We didn't do the interactive queue though.
I had told the kids this was a "funny ghost ride" so they wouldn't be scared to go on. They didn't seem to care one way or another about the ride! We got the ghost that switched our heads around, which was funny - too bad they don't do pictures of your doom buggy with the hitchhiking ghosts!
After that ride, Dave went back to get fp's for Pooh and he didn't realize the FP machine isn't by the Pooh ride (it's in the middle close to Peter Pan actually) so it took him forever to get back. I was annoyed and calling him repeatedly because we were running behind on our next item on our plan - the 2:15 Pirate Tutorial show. When we finally made it over there though, the kids weren't really interested, so we just hopped onto the line for Pirates. It was about a 15 minute wait.
The kids were a little scared of the battle scene. We had a discussion with the people sitting behind us on whether the ride used to be really different before the movie came out. I don't remember it, but they said it was much better before.
Pirate Zachary
We finished up at Pirates at about 2:50 PM. I bet you can guess what came next!
thank you! yeah we did a ton that first morning, it was awesome!
At least your kids will go on Splash, mine won't even consider it !
So, what was next ??
I highly doubt they will want to go on Splash again any time soon...maybe in a few years. Next up...3 PM!
As it turns out, in Frontierland, the 3:00 parade is at 3:25.
We had been told to find a spot to watch the parade near Country Bears. We found a spot on the other side of the street, across from the Trading Post store, which was under construction. It didn't make a beautiful backdrop for my photos, but oh well.
At 3 PM, the Main Street Philharmonic came by:
And then we hung out and waited.
Zachary made up some game with his water bottle. He said it was Big Thunder Mountain. He must have heard us talking about that ride, since it was closed and he didn't get to go on it! (he might have even liked it, who knows!)
Oh, here comes the parade!
Next up: We use our fast passes!
Oh, and in real life news - we are going to see Aladdin, the play, today!
OziJo
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2011
Love all your character and parade pics. That's the difference between traveling with teenagers and traveling with younger kids, teenagers will only stop for character pics if they don't have to wait ie our Toy Story pics) the character is "cute" not just cutesy (ie Peter Pan) or can have breakfast too (ie Crystal Palace all you can eat buffet breakfast)
As to the parades they weren't in our schedule but manged to a glimpse of a couple.
As to the parades they weren't in our schedule but manged to a glimpse of a couple.
Love all your character and parade pics. That's the difference between traveling with teenagers and traveling with younger kids, teenagers will only stop for character pics if they don't have to wait ie our Toy Story pics) the character is "cute" not just cutesy (ie Peter Pan) or can have breakfast too (ie Crystal Palace all you can eat buffet breakfast)
As to the parades they weren't in our schedule but manged to a glimpse of a couple.
aw, yeah we love meeting characters. I didn't do much of it myself when I was a kid, so I live vicariously through my own kids! And we really enjoyed the parades too.
yes, I was sitting and snapping pics. I didn't do it on purpose, it was just what worked at the time! I'm not a very good photographer in general! But thanks, glad you liked them!
3:40 PM
We headed over to Fantasyland to use our collected Fast Passes. First stop was here:
This was the one and only ride where the CM gave us a hard time for coming back after our FP window was past. I haven't heard about Disney no longer allowing you to come back late, but that's what this CM wanted us to believe.
Anyway, we enjoyed the ride and next up we had magic FP's for this:
We were led into the corner of the holding room where we stood and waited - same as we would have without the FPs. I guess these are worth it when there's actually a line outside of the room.
We loved this show, as usual. Simon wouldn't wear his glasses, but seemed very interested in watching anyway. Zachary said he felt like we were moving at certain points in the show. Everyone liked Donald hitting the wall at the end of the show.
And now for a small flash back:
We bought this Minnie Mouse for Gabbie at her first trip the Disneyland when she was 17 mos old:
Then, Minnie returned to the land on our most recent trip in 2009:
Don't ask me what Zachary's holding, it was some bear he had!
But we couldn't find Minnie Mouse anywhere before we left for this trip. So, after PhilharMagic, we found Gabbie a new Minnie Mouse. We actually found the same one, wearing the princess shirt, but slightly bigger.
There's the new Minnie, riding the teacups. I don't do the teacups, so Dave took the kids while I walked over to get in line for our next character meet up.
Taken on my way:
Next up:
A few more rides and characters, and what exactly is Slow Pass?!
corgi_monster
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2007
I'm loving all the pics on your TR. Can't wait to find out what a slow pass is!
thanks for the comment! and I will explain it coming right up!
When we left off, I was headed across Tomorrowland to get in line for our next character greet - Buzz Lightyear! Dave was taking Gabbie and Zachary on the teacups. They joined me in line and Zachary excitedly pointed out the Peoplemover, telling me he wanted to ride Slow Pass. HUH? Honestly, I don't know where this came from, but for some reason Zachary, in all of his 4.5 year old wisdom, renamed the Peoplemover as Slow Pass. He had heard us talking about using our fastpasses, so I guess he figured with no fast pass for that ride, it must be a Slow Pass. OK then. I assured him we'd ride it tomorrow.
At 5:10 PM it was our turn to meet Buzz. It seems we waited about 20 minutes for him - our longest wait for a character!
When Buzz stamped his name onto our photo cards, the photos got stuck to the stamp! Luckily that didn't ruin them.
Zachary also tried pushing the red button on Buzz. It was pretty funny, but I will let you find out yourselves what happens if you are so inclined!
Carrying on the Buzz theme, we used our earliest obtained fast passes for the Buzz ride. I'm hearing this strategy won't be allowed on future park visits - makes things much harder to plan!
I rode with Zachary. For some reason I felt like my laser wasn't working at all, but I was getting some points. Zachary wasn't getting any. So I reached over and shot his laser for him, one time. And this happened:
huh?
On our way out we had to stop for this picture:
thanks as always for your comment!
5:30 PM and one more ride fast pass to go! Believe it or not, we basically stuck to my strict schedule all day!
Our last ride:
Now we had one more thing on the schedule before the parade. We had originally thought we could sit and wait for the parade while eating a dinner we'd bought to go. That didn't quite happen, but it still worked out in the end. Our last order of business - use our fast passes to meet the Princesses and Mickey and Minnie!
On our way there, we stopped at the bakery to buy some food to eat for dinner.
Gabbie had a quick wardrobe change - her Sleeping Beauty dress went on over her other clothes. We used our fast pass but I don't think we really needed it. At 6:30 PM we were meeting Aurora - and then my camera battery died! So we have two photos by me and the rest on photopass!
Cinderella wasn't there, so we'd have to come back tomorrow! We headed to Mickey and Minnie next. Mickey came and knocked on a door, then led the group to his room. While we were getting our autographs, Simon announced loudly "ELMO!" lol.
We headed outside and the Main Street Electrical Parade was about to start. We had wanted to watch from Frontierland, but we decided to just grab a spot on Main Street. We were a few rows back, which didn't matter since I didn't have a camera! We ate while we waited the few minutes for the parade to come. And then Zachary had to go potty so he and Dave left, the lights turned off, and I didn't know if they'd find us when they got back! But they did.
After the parade, we stopped at the bakery again to get an ice cream cookie sandwich, and made our way closer to the castle for the Magic, the Memories, and You show. We were on one of the paths off to the right, towards Tomorrowland. Gabbie sat on a garbage can. I wish I could have gotten pictures of her watching! The castle show was really neat, but all the pictures were not from today - there were Dumbo pictures and Dumbo is closed!
Next up were the fireworks, which we enjoyed thoroughly. Tinkerbell flew just about right over our heads!
With everything we had wanted to accomplish that day done, we headed out of the park. We took the local monorail and the kids decided they want to stay at a monorail hotel next trip! Zachary had been waiting all day to ride the monorail, so he was very happy.
Back to the car and back to the hotel for the night - I took some time to go over my plans for day 2, and everyone went to bed!
Day 2, Tuesday January 17
We all got up and ate breakfast at the hotel, but today was the day I was on my own with the kids! Dave got us out and into the van and he set out to rent another car and drive to Tampa, where he'd be working for 3 days. We'd be driving to meet him tonight, but first we had another day in the Magic Kingdom to enjoy! We had debated whether I should take the kids to a different park than the one we'd already done, but ultimately I decided I would need more than a full day at Epcot and we weren't planning to stay a whole day, and we wanted to do DHS on Friday, so the only other option was Animal Kingdom. I asked the kids what they thought and they opted to repeat Magic Kingdom, to do the things we missed and the thing we enjoyed and wanted to do again.
So the kids and I drove off to the Magic Kingdom! We arrived at 8:10 AM and parked here:
Perfectly close, as we were not going to take the tram with the stroller!
When we got to the front we saw that only the local monorail was running, so we hopped on. Zachary was thrilled:
And the kids enjoyed seeing the monorail resorts and talking about staying there one day.
We entered the park only to have to leave again to use the bathroom, but were situated in the middle by 8:40 AM.
I snapped a few pictures:
The kids played a bit:
And we spotted this doll waiting for the show as well:
(we won't even let Gabbie take her American Girl out of the house!)
At about 8:55 the mayor came out and explained that the characters ride on the train once per morning. Zachary told everyone this for the next week or so! Then they did their Good Morning show, which was very cute and we all enjoyed!
And then it was time to enter and hurry off to greet Rapunzel!
We headed straight down Main Street headed towards Rapunzel's meet and greet. I thought it was pretty cool that we were walking along with most of the characters! As we veered off to the right, we met another mom heading to the same place - but she'd sent her husband ahead to get into line! So she was ahead of us, but we still made it on time for the first group to enter the garden.
In front of us in line was a lady in a motorized scooter. She was told she would have to park her scooter, as the line entered on a ramp but exited by stairs. I was worried for her, but she said she could manage it! We got to talking and it turns out she was alone in the park while her husband was golfing (I think?) and she was meeting characters! She had a handmade scrapbook for autographs, but she quite liked our photo cards. I asked her if she goes on the disboards and she said yes! So I told her where I found them.
Of course, we had to ditch our stroller as well, which is slightly hard with Simon not wanting to stand still! But he was happy!
By 9:30, it was our turn to meet Rapunzel. I'm not sure if she is looking at Gabbie's Rapunzel doll or her Mickey/Minnie nails in this photo!
Books were signed and photos taken:
While I read other trip reports I wonder why neither of my boys got any princess kisses! (and also, why no one comments on mine!)
Next on our plan was to meet the Fairy Godmother, but she wouldn't be out until 9:45, so we had time to do a ride. We chose Pooh! There was no wait, and we wanted to check out the interactive queue!
That's Simon's head blocking the photo!
With other people starting to come in behind us and Simon wanting to run in the other direction, I hurried the kids past this last part of the line. I later found out that there were characters hiding in the honey! I told Gabbie this and she told me she knew! She saw Rabbit in there! Why didn't she tell me? Well, because I was saying let's go! Sigh.
We were on the ride at 9:40 AM.
And we were third in line for the Fairy Godmother at 9:50. Who was first? Our friend in the motorized scooter from the Rapunzel line! What a cool lady!
What is Gabbie doing in this photo? lol!
Next up: the two most requested rides of our trip!
marDgreen88
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2011
I'm not sure why it took me SO LONG to find this TR but I finally did, yay! Your kids are precious! I'm kinda in awe of how much yall did and how many characters you met on your first day!
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