J5 and Family--The Vincelettes Hit WDW-Updated 4/19

[My2Qtz0205]

We are going Oct. 16-23rd. I flew Southwest down to Orlando in late September 2007 for a convention down there. We had a wonderful experience with them. We were flying into a tropical storm, but the flight was extremely smooth! Our flight home was delayed by thunderstorms, but Southwest rerouted airplanes so our delay was only by about 1 1/2 hours. I also like that they don't have baggage fees, and that it's nonstop. I am NOT a good flier, so it just makes it easier on me if I only have to get on and off once!

While we were in Orlando my friends and I did go to Disney one evening for the MNSSHP. I am excited about taking the kids to see it.

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

Hi, everyone! Here's what happened next:

After we rode Buzz Lightyear we headed back towards Fantasyland and the Castle. We stopped and took a picture on Dumbo:

We had a little time to kill before our lunch ADR, so we wandered in a couple of stores. A CM sprinkled pixiedust on the girls while we shopped in Tinkerbelle's Treasures. I stopped and took a picture of Aurora's dress for my sister because Sleeping Beauty is her favorite.

We visited Cinderella's fountain, and were able to meet the Fairy Godmother.

This is where I overheard one of the funniest conversations...well I heard 1/2 of it! We were parking our stroller and getting ready to check into the castle. A lady was standing there with several other people-there were probably 4 or 5 of them. Apparently they had split up from another part of their group, and she was on the phone with the other half of them. She said, "Where are you?-Oh, you're at Tom Cruise Island."
To her group-"They're at Tom Cruise Island. They are just getting off Tom Cruise Island. Let's head over to Tom Cruise Island and meet them."
I swear she said TOM CRUISE ISLAND at least five times-and never realized her mistake nor was ever corrected by anyone else in her group. I thought it was so funny!

Okay, well maybe you had to be there.

It was time to storm the castle! Johanna had been saying for weeks that she couldn't wait to meet Cinderella. She was going to hug her, she was going to dance with her, she was.......going to be asleep when we got to the castle! Yes, my baby was asleep through our Cinderella meet and greet. She didn't get her picture taken, and she didn't get to dance with Cinderella. However, she woke up just a few minutes after, and since there was no one else in line waiting to meet Cindy I asked if it would be possible for her to just say hello. Cinderella got down on Jo's level, and Jo gave her the biggest hug! It was perfect-except that I forgot to get a picture.

They called us and upstairs we went. We ate here for lunch on our first full day of our 2007 trip, and decided it should be a tradition.

We looked over the menu, and they had made some changes since our last visit. Last time I had salmon with risotto and I loved it-I was sure I was going to get that again, except now they have a different salmon dish on the menu. Oh, well-Jason and I both ordered Major Domo's Pie and it was delicious!

Faith had a hot dog, and Jo had buttered noodles (which they gave her for free since she was under 3 and didn't have the dining plan.) I can't remember what Ruby had-maybe pasta too.

The princesses all came to visit:
Aurora

Belle

Ruby doesn't look very impressed, does she?

Jasmine

Snow White

Next was the wishing ceremony

We had some yummy desserts-The girls all had ice cream, and I had something else new to the menu-It was rice pudding with some kind of pistachio something or other. AllEars hasn't updated their menu to reflect the changes, and I can't quite remember what it was. I do, however, remember that it tasted good!

That was it for this meal. I love this tradition!

What's next?? Meeting Stitch, More Rides, and Wishes

 

[Slatas]

great TR so far!

 

[disneyfun2007]

Hello and great start to your trip report. I love your daughter's face in the one pic with the princess. Priceless...... Can't wait for more and u are doing a great job so far.

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

great TR so far!

Hello and great start to your trip report. I love your daughter's face in the one pic with the princess. Priceless...... Can't wait for more and u are doing a great job so far.

Thanks!


I thought that picture of Ruby was funny. She is going to be 7 in July, and it seems like she growing up so much! Two years ago she was thrilled to meet the princesses, but now I think she feels too grown up for them.

A couple of days ago she asked me to send her grapes in her lunch in a plastic baggie rather than in the Mickey Mouse container I usually use. She said other kids in her class were making fun of her for liking Mickey. She's in FIRST grade! I told her "Mommy likes Mickey Mouse and I am sure a lot older than you."

I asked Faith, who is 8 and in 2nd grade, if she wanted me to stop using the Mickey container too, but she said she didn't care!

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

We are going Oct. 16-23rd.

While we were in Orlando my friends and I did go to Disney one evening for the MNSSHP. I am excited about taking the kids to see it.

My sister and I are going Oct. 27-30, so we'll just miss you. We are going to the Halloween party again, probably on the 27th. That's what we did last year-went to MNSSHP on the day we arrived so we didn't waste one of the days on our ticket. We spent the time before the party checking out our hotel (POP), visiting the Poly, and riding the monorail. I think this year we are going to try to have lunch at Downtown Disney before we head to Magic Kingdom.

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

Well, our bellies were full, princesses were met, and it was still a beautiful day at WDW.

After lunch we split up again. Jason took the girls to use the Space Mountain fastpasses, and I took Johanna to Buzz Lightyear. Remember my "good" score of 88,000 last time? Well this time I got:

When we exited Buzz, Jo spotted Stitch! She wanted to meet him-so off we went. Now, Jo is not shy, and she LOVES to talk! She has an excellent vocabulary, and I have been told many times by many people that she talks really well for her age. People usually think she's older than she is. Let me just tell you, she will strike up a conversation with a complete stranger-anytime, and anywhere! She had a lot to say to Stitch:

I can't remember what she had to say, but it probably had something to do with "This is my Mommy and my Daddy and my Faith and my Ruby are on the roller coaster and I rode Buzz Lightyear and we saw Cinderella!"
I love this picture:

After meeting Stitch we rode Buzz again. After we rode Buzz we met Stitch again. What can I say? She's two-and she loves characters!

After meeting Stitch a second time we rode one of my favorites-the People Mover. At least that's what I call it.

Finally we met back up with the rest of the J5 crew. (By the way, J5 is my husband's nickname at work. When he started working there were two or three other guys named Jason. Our last name begins with V-as in the roman numeral five-thus he became known as J5! Just thought I should clear that up.)

So we wandered back to Fantasyland. Stopped and got fast passes for Winnie the Pooh, and took some pictures.

We rode IASW but skipped Peter Pan. I just do not understand why the line for this ride is always so long! Mickey's Philharmagic was closed for refurb so we headed toward Liberty Square. We decided to ride Haunted Mansion. Jo was fine, until the lights went out! Then she started to cry- a lot. We were horrible parents and got on the ride anyway. I thought she'd calm down once we started moving and there were things to look at-but I was wrong. Poor Jason had her in his buggy-but I could still hear her crying. I hope we didn't scar her for life!

We hung out in Liberty Square. I know I paid way too much money for a box of Nerds. (But, I seem to remember that Jason took Ruby on HM and Faith and I took Jo to walk around-so that would be during the 2nd ride of HM-so my above story about Jo freaking out must have happened before lunch. Sorry for the mix up-I didn't take pictures at HM so forgot when we rode it!)

Here is a happy Jo-all candy makes her happy-not just lollipops!

Jason took Ruby on Pirates. Faith and I looked for Hidden Mickeys in Adventureland. (Faith can be a little bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to dark rides-but not on fast, tall, spinny, or thrill rides! ) She got spit on by a camel:

Continued in next post...

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

Can you guess where we ate dinner??

Casey's! It was our first time eating there, and let me just say:
We'll definitely eat there again.

Time for Wishes. We stood in the little circular walkway area near Casey's and Crystal Palace. It was a great viewing spot-although there is a tree that is a little in the way. However, for me, the view was just fine-and there weren't TONS of people like there are on Main Street. Here are a few pictures:

Ruby sang the "Star Light, Star Bright" song for the rest of the week.

As soon as Wishes was over, this is what Jo did:

That is what she did all the way out of Magic Kingdom, on the boat ride home to Wilderness Lodge, up to our room, and getting her diaper/clothes changed. She never even opened her eyes!

Up next: DHS in the morning, swimming in the afternoon, Spectro in the evening

 

[ProudMommyof2]

Great update!!

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

It's morning of our 2nd full day-Monday-and the plan is MGM during the day and Spectromagic Parade in the evening.

First, here are a couple of early morning shots of the view from our balcony:

We didn't quite make park opening, but we were there soon after (maybe 9:15 or 9:30). I told Jason his mission once we entered was to make his way to Toy Story Mania, and I'd follow with the girls. When I made it over there with the girls, Jason was still in a pretty long line at the Fastpass machines. I stood over to the side (Maybe near the Prince Caspian Meet and Greet area-is that where that is??), and I noticed a lady standing near me. She had at least 2 little boys with her, and I recognized their shirts as being the work of the Creative DISigns board. I asked her about the shirts, and we began to chitchat. I didn't ask for her name, but I do remember that her husband was in the military and that they had sons only. (More than 2 I think!) So, HI, if you are out there!

After Jason got fastpasses, with a return time of 1:30 or so, we headed over to the Playhouse Disney show. We really enjoyed the show, and I am sure any of you with preschoolers are very familiar with all of the characters. I did overhear one Dad say to his wife that he wished Genevieve from Choo Choo Soul would come out and dance for us!

We thought about going to visit Bolt, but there was a weird long line so we skipped it. We had a little time to kill before our ADR at Hollywood and Vine, and I suggested we go to the Great Movie Ride. We got in line. We waited. We waited. We waited, and then we got to the room where they play movie clips. We forgot all about this!! The line was much much longer than we realized, and I was worried that we wouldn't make our lunch ADR. Then we got on the ride-

See the look of anticipation on Jo's face? It didn't last long: she didn't like this ride so much! Especially when there was a gun fight and fire! She still tells people "We went on the Great Movie Ride and there was fire and it was very scary and I hid on Daddy and Ruby." We aren't the only parents who have tortured our kids in this way, are we??

We raced over to Hollywood and Vine-and were late by about 10 or 15 minutes. It wasn't any problem though, and we were seated really quickly.
Johanna was in HEAVEN at this restaurant. She danced with June, did the parade around the dining area, and hugged every character!

My JoJo with JoJo:

Dancing with June:

The food here was only okay, but the meal was a really happy experience for us. I am going to skip posting the pictures of food unless someone really wants to see them.

After we left we took some pictures outside near the water.

Jo made a friend-who tried to leave with us! Jason actually had to take her back over to where her parents were.

Jason took Faith and Ruby on the Star Tours while I walked around with Johanna. She was getting tired and grumpy! We tried to meet Lightning McQueen and Mater but she was really not cooperating. Eventually we met back up with the family, and Faith and Ruby got tattoos:

They wanted their face painted, but at this point we were thinking of heading back to the hotel in a bit to swim. I knew it would be a huge waste of money, so I talked them into tattoos instead. I think they are a much better deal!

Because the area under the hat was closed, they were doing the HSM 3 show on the Streets of America. It was close to show time, so we sat down to wait:

They made us move! HaHa-but the man promised that once the floats were in place we'd move again and be right up front. We waited...
Technical difficulties-should be starting in just a few minutes. We waited...
Canceled! Oh, well!

Off to Toy Story Mania! I had been waiting for this ride and it did not disappoint! I can't wait to ride it again because I thought it was so much fun even though I didn't score too well.

There was too long of a wait for Rock and Roller Coaster, but Jason and the girls went on:

Jo slept-briefly-while I baked in the sun!
Time to leave...We decided that some down time at the hotel would refresh everyone!

We enjoyed the things we did here, but for some reason this park just doesn't work well for our family. We haven't figured out a way to really get the most out of it. It was also a little busy.

Up Next: Swimming and Spectromagic

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

We hopped on our bus:

When we got back to our hotel room, we had a little surprise:

So cute! The girls loved this! It was the only bit of Mousekeeping magic that we got all week though.
Jason took everyone down to the pool. I don't know what I did-maybe went to the shop? I have no idea!
I went down to take some pictures-

They loved the slide.

Jo pretty much had the kiddie pool to herself. Weirdly, I thought I saw my doctor here! But, I haven't seen him in a while, so I wasn't sure it was him. But wouldn't that be strange???

Here's the geyser:

And some trees:

After swimming, we cleaned up and ate dinner at Roaring Forks. I found out that they didn't distinguish between kids counter service and adult counter service, which was great because Faith is a picky eater and she wanted the pepperoni flatbread pizza. The chicken nuggets/tenders that is the adult meal is a lot better than the kids meal, too.

Here is our boat ride to Magic Kingdom-what a gorgeous sunset!

That is the Grand Floridian across the lake.

Ferry boat

The Spectromagic Parade will have to wait for next time!

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

When I left off we were on the boat from Wilderness Lodge headed to Magic Kingdom to see the Spectromagic Parade. We hadn't seen the parade in 2007, and it was on my "Must Do" list for this trip!

I had read somewhere online that a great place to see this parade was right in front of Tony's because you had a good view of the floats both coming and going. This was our view as we waited:

Here are some of my Spectro pictures:

It was great! We loved our viewing spot, and I thought my pictures turned out pretty well.

After the parade we headed into the shop where you can design your own Mickey Ears. I really only planned to look around, but next thing I knew Faith and Ruby were designing away! This whole process took a lot longer than I anticipated. The girls took awhile to make decisions, then we had to wait for the embroidery of their names, there were technical difficulties with the machines....It took a long time, but here is the result:

It was EMH, and it was busy! I know we went to Tomorrowland, but the waits were long for everything. Eventually we made it Adventureland, and Jason took Faith and Ruby on BTMR. I shopped with Johanna. This is what we bought:

A little stuffed Daisy to join the 3Mickeys, Nemo, Eeyore, Pooh, Goofy, two Minnies, Snow White and Belle that we already have at home!

We headed back to the resort.

Up next: Our "Down" Day-Jason rides a SEGWAY, more swimming, and dinner with Pooh and friends

 

[MaryAz]

Just found your report today. Great so far. We are headed to the World for our first trip in May. We also have a 2 year old with a big vocabulary and plan on taking her on The Great Movie Ride. Think we will skip the HM cause boy can she scream Glad your hubby like WCC we are eating there on our trip as well.

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

Just found your report today. Great so far. We are headed to the World for our first trip in May. We also have a 2 year old with a big vocabulary and plan on taking her on The Great Movie Ride. Think we will skip the HM cause boy can she scream Glad your hubby like WCC we are eating there on our trip as well.

Thanks for reading! I am sure that there are some two year olds out there who aren't bothered by HM. Jo rode it when she was 8 months old and was fine-but I guess at that age they really have no idea what is going on.

On The Great Movie Ride we had the part with a western shoot out. (I think the other ride gets a gangster scene, but I am not sure.) I think John Wayne was on one side, and then the building catches fire and you ride past it on your boat. There is also a dark part from the ALIENS. You might want to ride without her first to see what you think.

 

[My2Qtz0205]

Still reading along, and absorbing suggestions!

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

Still reading along, and absorbing suggestions!

Glad to hear it!

Off Topic: We went to Busch Gardens today to check out the new Sesame Street area. It was cute, but crowded! I waited entirely too long to ride a little boat ride with Johanna, and then we hightailed it out of that area! I might try to hit it again with the kids during the week.

Jo did get to hug Grover, Abby Cadabby (I don't know if that is how you spell her name), and Zoe.

There's a cool water play area that will be nice when it's warmer.

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

Hey, I just realized I am now a Mouseketeer and no longer "Earning My Ears." I don't know when that happened, but COOL!

 

[Ferrillo]

I am anxious to read your next installment. We are headed to WDW in Sept with my two girls (5 and 7), my brother and his family and my parents. Can't wait. My girls hate the HM as well. They won't go near it.

 

[ProudMommyof2]

I loved the boat ride to MK when we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. Isn't it just magical?

 

[VAisforDisneyLvrs]

I am anxious to read your next installment. We are headed to WDW in Sept with my two girls (5 and 7), my brother and his family and my parents. Can't wait. My girls hate the HM as well. They won't go near it.

Thanks for reading! My 6 year old likes scary things-she rode HM twice this trip. My 8 year old rode it once, because we all rode it, but she chose to skip it the 2nd time. She says that it was because her ankle hurt.

I loved the boat ride to MK when we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. Isn't it just magical?

That boat ride was AWESOME! I loved walking out to the dock in the morning.