Link to Trip Report 7/6 - Page 5 - Cruising the Dream & Exploring the Wilderness

[cstorm65]

That pic is adorable!!!

Looks like a good plan! As I have never been on a cruise so I can't really comment on anything except, they have cooking classes?! Thats so neat! Will keep that and the Castaway Cay 5K in mind for when we eventually do a cruise!

Thanks for reading along!

 

[overthemoon4mickey]

Hi! I just finished reading your trip report. I have been reading it in the mornings while blow drying my hair. I told DH that "we could be friends with theses people"! We have a similar touring style except we had stroller nappers. We went last went in June of 2012 and are heading back this June for 2 weeks. We were hit pretty bad with rain in that trip and we paid close attention to the rain you mentioned In your TR. We know rain is going to happen and we are prepared. We all have the quick dry shirts and shorts purchased and we all have quick dry shoes ( crocs, keens, Tevas, and sperry sandals). I even bought long clear rain jackets online just in case we need them. Who know perhaps we'll bump into to ya'll and get to see that adorable Braxton!

By the way I love the photo of Braxton eating the teddy bear ear and the ones of ya'll in front of the castle on the last day. The way Braxton is leaning into April while you hold him is so cute! What an adorable family!

Much luck and pixie dust on the upcoming trip... I'll be reading along!

 

[MarbleBob]

Joining in! Sound like a fabulous trip!! We did a 4 night cruise on the Wonder in 2010 and a 5 night cruise on the Fantasy in 2012. Both times at Nassau and Castaway Cay. I don't recall there being character breakfasts or Disney Jr. show two years ago, so things may have changed a bit, but if you have any specific questions, I'll be happy to give it a go.

With respect to getting off at Nassau, I really wasn't too impressed. I'm sure it would be better to do an actual shore excursion, but just walking around the port and exploring the town wasn't that big of a deal. We aren't big shoppers though. If you like to browse shops and stuff, then you might like it more than we did. All that being said, it isn't much of a hassle to get back on the cruise ship, so I'd suggest you at least go walk around for an hour or two (and maybe get your passports stamped for the fun of it.)

 

[cstorm65]

Hi! I just finished reading your trip report. I have been reading it in the mornings while blow drying my hair. I told DH that "we could be friends with theses people"! We have a similar touring style except we had stroller nappers. We went last went in June of 2012 and are heading back this June for 2 weeks. We were hit pretty bad with rain in that trip and we paid close attention to the rain you mentioned In your TR. We know rain is going to happen and we are prepared. We all have the quick dry shirts and shorts purchased and we all have quick dry shoes ( crocs, keens, Tevas, and sperry sandals). I even bought long clear rain jackets online just in case we need them. Who know perhaps we'll bump into to ya'll and get to see that adorable Braxton!

By the way I love the photo of Braxton eating the teddy bear ear and the ones of ya'll in front of the castle on the last day. The way Braxton is leaning into April while you hold him is so cute! What an adorable family!

Much luck and pixie dust on the upcoming trip... I'll be reading along!

Thanks for reading along and glad you enjoyed the reports. We are trying to find a better way to cover the stroller in this trip. We had secured two large ponchos over it with clothes pins on our last trip while we were in the Imagination Pavilion, but that was no match for the 50 mph winds of the tropical storm. I spent several hours that night with a hair dryer held up to the stroller! I guess we are going to have to break down and buy an actual stroller cover. Glad you enjoyed the pics. He is pretty special. That day in the Magic Kingdom he just kept leaning on April in every picture, it was quite funny. Maybe we will bump into each other!

Joining in! Sound like a fabulous trip!! We did a 4 night cruise on the Wonder in 2010 and a 5 night cruise on the Fantasy in 2012. Both times at Nassau and Castaway Cay. I don't recall there being character breakfasts or Disney Jr. show two years ago, so things may have changed a bit, but if you have any specific questions, I'll be happy to give it a go.

With respect to getting off at Nassau, I really wasn't too impressed. I'm sure it would be better to do an actual shore excursion, but just walking around the port and exploring the town wasn't that big of a deal. We aren't big shoppers though. If you like to browse shops and stuff, then you might like it more than we did. All that being said, it isn't much of a hassle to get back on the cruise ship, so I'd suggest you at least go walk around for an hour or two (and maybe get your passports stamped for the fun of it.)

Thanks for the help. That is kind of what we were thinking is just getting off to experience it and to get our passports stamped for fun. We had thought about the glass bottom boat tours because DS loves fish, but we figured he was still a little young for a two hour tour on a small boat where there is no air conditioning and not much seating. It just sounded like something we want to do in a few years when we go on another cruise.

Thanks for reading!

 

[cstorm65]

Day 6 – Thursday – Disembarkation/WDW Check In

I’m back!! Track season is over and we had a lot of success at our state championships this last weekend. Now I can hopefully finish up this PTR before our trip gets here.

It is our disembarkation day and since we have early dinner seating so it is my understanding we will have the earliest breakfast time. That is ok because…we are going to Walt Disney World! We will get through the mess of getting off this ship, which I hope is actually pretty easy and we will take our rental car to check into our resort:

We plan on checking in around the 11:00 time period and then have plans to head to Animal Kingdom at around 1:00.

It is going to be a hot afternoon, but we think we can mix in the Finding Nemo show and some other things like that so that we stay out of the heat. I also think that with the help of FP+ you can really tour Animal Kingdom fairly quickly and that is what we are going to do this afternoon. We just want to hit the Safari, Everest, Dinosaur, Finding Nemo and mix in all of the other stuff. We also have a FP+ reservation for the Character Outpost as we figured that was a good use of the 3rd FP+.

We then have a 5:00 PM dinner reservation here:

We wanted somewhere we could get out of the heat for a while and we like this style of food. After we are finished with dinner we plan to head out of the park by 6:30 pm so that we can get back to the resort and get our room ready if we couldn’t get in earlier in the day. I will also have to run our rental car back to the Dolphin tonight as we won’t need it the rest of the trip.

By the way Alamo did not charge me any extra fee for picking up at the airport and dropping off at a separate location. Most car rental companies will nearly double the price to drop off at a different location, but Alamo seems to be the most reasonable if you want to do that. I may or may not (“wink…wink”) get back to the Wilderness Lodge by walking through Epcot and stopping for a treat. I haven’t decided what yet…any suggestions on a quick walk through Epcot?

Here is the cute kid picture for the week:

That will do it for Thursday. Hope everyone has a great weekend!​

 

[MarbleBob]

Congrats to you and your team for the successes at state championships

I like your plans for the first day at WDW. Looking forward to see how you like Wilderness Lodge. We've stayed there three times in the past and I'd have to say that it's my all around favorite Disney resort.

 

[cstorm65]

Congrats to you and your team for the successes at state championships

I like your plans for the first day at WDW. Looking forward to see how you like Wilderness Lodge. We've stayed there three times in the past and I'd have to say that it's my all around favorite Disney resort.

Thanks. Great to hear about Wilderness Lodge. We upgraded to a Woods view room a couple of months back as we heard the standard view is sometimes a backstage/loading unloading area so we wanted to at least have a tree view of some sort, so hopefully that works for us.

 

[cstorm65]

Day 7 – Friday

Well, on to day six of our trip and our first full day in the parks. This morning we will be getting up for rope drop here:

We are using our FP+ experiences today in our evening park so we are not going to have any in the morning. We are trying a couple of different techniques for using the FP+ on this trip and so we are going at this Magic Kingdom morning without fastpasses and we will see how it works. At rope drop we will head here:

We are really excited to ride this and want to get it out of the way before any type of crowd builds. What we will probably do on this is let either me or April ride and grab a child swap and come back later in the morning and use the child swap pass. We don’t want to waste valuable rope drop time when we can ride in the FP line later with the child swap. We also plan on getting in Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, the Barnstormer, and the Goofy/Donald meet. Finally, we will end the morning with our Be Our Guest lunch FP+ at 11:15. We are probably going to get out of the park around 12:30 or so if we can so we can get a nice afternoon break.

After a nice afternoon break we plan to head to Epcot for the evening. We have Soarin’ FP+’s booked as well as the completely unnecessary Nemo and Imagination FP+’s. In between our FP’s we have a dinner reservation at:

We are looking forward to this meal, as Braxton has never met chip and dale before. After dinner we have a couple of more rides before leaving the park. We want to get out by 9:00 at least so we get back to the hotel before the IllumiNations crowd lets out.

That will do it for Friday. Talk to you all later!​

 

[MidnightParade]

Oh Yay Wilderness Lodge! Its just so gorgeous, I'm envious of you guys! Its a must try me sometime in the Disney future.

They'll probably still be doing the slow walk down Main Street at Rope drop on your MK day so that will be a lot easier and calmer for you guys. If you hadn't heard people were stampeding down main street at RD to get in line for Anna and Elsa. There is video of it on easywdw, its bananas(and not the fun dancing kind )! I'm sure some of that will be for 7DT once its open. So exciting to get to ride it! Plus with the standby line you'll get to experience more of the interactive queue! woot!

Yay for Chip and Dale! They are my favorite and really are the best!

 

[cstorm65]

Oh Yay Wilderness Lodge! Its just so gorgeous, I'm envious of you guys! Its a must try me sometime in the Disney future.

They'll probably still be doing the slow walk down Main Street at Rope drop on your MK day so that will be a lot easier and calmer for you guys. If you hadn't heard people were stampeding down main street at RD to get in line for Anna and Elsa. There is video of it on easywdw, its bananas(and not the fun dancing kind )! I'm sure some of that will be for 7DT once its open. So exciting to get to ride it! Plus with the standby line you'll get to experience more of the interactive queue! woot!

Yay for Chip and Dale! They are my favorite and really are the best!

We are really looking forward to the Wilderness Lodge! We are rope drop people so we will definitely be there and see how it goes. Lucky for us DS has no interest in Anna & Elsa so we won't have to worry about getting there.

Thanks for reading along!

 

[cstorm65]

Day 8 – Saturday

School is out!!!!!! We had our teacher check out day today and we are now free for the summer. So that means we can now kick it into high gear and start planning our Disney trip. The packing will probably begin soon!

We are on to our plans for Day 7 of our trip, a Saturday. We are doing something we don’t usually do by going to EMH at Hollywood Studios. Our plan is to get in early and get the two thrill rides out of the way so that we don’t have to worry being down here the rest of the day:

We also have a 10:00 am breakfast ADR this morning here:

For the Disney Junior Plan ‘n Dine. Braxton likes most of these characters so it will hopefully be a great character dining experience for us. We have our FP+ experiences lined up after breakfast. We are using them at Toy Story, Star Tours, and Great Movie Ride. I love Star Tours, although DW does not like it quite as much so I may get four rides out of the deal after we get child swap passes. She will ride it, but simulator rides like that get her slightly sick to her stomach.

We are planning to leave the park around 2:30 or 3:00 and go back to the hotel for a little rest before we head to our dinner ADR at one of our favorite places in all of Walt Disney World.

Ohana!!

After dinner we don’t have anything else planned for this night and will probably just head back and do some nighttime swimming at the Wilderness Lodge and maybe roast some marshmallows.

That’s it for this day. We are now just waiting for our Magic Bands to ship and we have all of our FP+ reservations made so we are just about ready to start packing and begin the agonizing and slow last few weeks that lead up to the trip. Hope everyone has a great weekend.​

 

[cstorm65]

Day 9 – Sunday

I hope everyone is in the middle of a great Memorial Day weekend! This is one of the greatest holiday’s we have in America, as there are no people more worthy of a holiday in their honor than those who defend our freedom.

Well, back to the report and we are moving on to Sunday. We are getting up and heading here for rope drop:

We are hitting future world this morning and we are doing it without FP+. Our plan is to hit Test Track and the Character Spot right as the park opens without much wait and then everything else is pretty well do-able without a FP. We do not have Soarin’ on the plan for this morning as we did it with a FP+ a few days prior. We are saving our FP’s on this day as we are planning to hop to Magic Kingdom around 6:00 PM. This is hard as you can now get FP+’s after park hopping, but we are not wanting to risk there not being any availability at the things we want, so the plan is to do Epcot without FP+ this morning.

Our plan is to hit Test Track, Character Spot, and Innoventions before making our way around the left side of the World Showcase (a.k.a. the side that starts with Mexico). We will of course take in the Gran Fiesta Tour and Maelstrom on our way. We then have a 12:45 ADR here:

I have been craving Via Napoli for a while now and am really looking forward to our first visit here. What kind of pizza does everyone get??

We will then head back to our resort at about 2:00 for an afternoon break and then hop over to the Magic Kingdom around 5:30 pm. We are trying a FP+ strategy to take advantage of Child Swap. I have a FP for Big Thunder and will get a CS pass for DW to use later and then DW has a FP+ for Splash Mountain and she will get a CS pass for me to use later. That way we each get a ride on both for only one FP+ each. I hope this is not construed as dishonest. We are just taking advantage of the child swap pass while we have it. We have another FP+ later for Peter Pan and then a final one for Space Mountain later in the evening.

We will probably have dinner at one of my favorite counter services…

I’m not sure why I like Pecos Bills so much, I think it is a mix of several things, but I love it. After using our FP+’s we don’t have plans to see the parade or Wishes from anywhere special nor do we plan on getting out of the park early. We are sleeping in the next day, so we can stay a little later than normal.

That’s it for Sunday. I’ll be back in a few days with Monday. We are getting close!!!​

 

[cstorm65]

Packing List Update and What Things We Need to Find

I was making a list of things today that we still needed to find for our trip and thought that this would make a good PTR update and maybe some of you can help with a few of these items. We have our packing list pretty well complete, but I have been working to get through a mountain of laundry that piled up over the last couple of weeks of the school year. Not to mention we are preparing for a quick trip to Galveston, TX in the coming days for a family vacation/reunion with my grandparents and their three kids’ families.

So here is a list of things some of the major things we have managed to secure up to this point:

1) New Swimsuits for all three of us…I lost mine when we moved to a new house last summer, DW just wanted a new one, and the 2 year old…well, he just grew! A Lot! But we all have new swimming suits thanks in part to Memorial Day weekend shopping.
2) Stroller Rain Cover – I ordered this through Amazon and got convenient 2 day shipping because we have Amazon Prime. We tried ponchos and clothes pins last year to cover the stroller in rain and it ended as a disaster. You’ll have to go to my last Trip Report to read about that. I still don’t know what we were thinking!
3) Water Bottles to carry into the parks and on shore during the cruise.
4) Various Clothes – We spent quite a bit of time this holiday weekend securing some new summer clothes for all three of us. I bought a majority of mine at a sporting goods store as I had about $300 in gift cards from the last two track seasons as parents give us coaches a gift, so it was nice we didn’t have to pay for a lot of our new clothes.

Here now are things we still need to get prior to our trip:

1) Dramamine/Bonine – I’m not sure which direction to go on this one, I guess it is better to have both in case one doesn’t cut it. We honestly have no idea whether we are going to need this or not as we haven’t cruised before, but we are going to have something with us just in case. If anyone has any thoughts on this topic I would love to hear them!
2) Over the Door Shoe Holder – We are going to steal this trick from many others to keep things organized in our cruise stateroom.
3) Fish Extender Gifts – We have started and have purchased some things for these, mostly the kids in the group. We are still working on ideas for the adults though. We have a great group from here on the boards, but have a lot of adults/teenagers to create a gift for. We have a lot of ideas, but need to decide on one pretty quick. DW is taking the lead on this and she scours Pinterest day and night for ideas.
4) Odds and Ends – We have some small odds and ends that we still need to take care of such as a new phone charger cord for April, hand wipes, re-stock the first aid kit, and things like that.

So we are in decent shape, but still have a few things to do…the fish extender gifts being the largest part of that. I almost forgot too…we did go ahead and order the CARES Harness to use on the airplane. Here is what it looks like:

We are not so much concerned with safety…I know that sounds bad…but hear me out. Obviously safety is a big part of it, but we also think it may make the airplane seat feel a little more like DS’s car seat and so he may be much more likely to actually sit there and play in his seat and watch some shows on the iPad. I hope that makes sense and you all don’t think we are terrible parents! I ordered this through Amazon as well and it should be here in a day or so. We are going to be able to try this on our flight to Houston in the next couple of weeks and then again to Orlando.

Well, I guess that about does it for now. I’ll come back in a few days with the Monday plan. I’ll leave you with some more cute kid pictures since I haven’t done that in a few updates. Have a great week everyone!!

​

 

[MidnightParade]

Oooh haven't eaten at Via Napoli but have heard such great things about the pizza and tiramisu! I'll probably end up with just pepperoni unless they are willing to add on some pineapple for me! nomnomnom

Pecos Bills is great! There is just something fun and magical about it I think.

I totally get why you would use the CARES. Makes it more familiar to him which equals happier and calmer kid!

 

[cstorm65]

Oooh haven't eaten at Via Napoli but have heard such great things about the pizza and tiramisu! I'll probably end up with just pepperoni unless they are willing to add on some pineapple for me! nomnomnom

Pecos Bills is great! There is just something fun and magical about it I think.

I totally get why you would use the CARES. Makes it more familiar to him which equals happier and calmer kid!

Yes, we are very much looking forward to Via Napoli! DW loves pineapple on her pizza also...we may check and see if they will do that for her.

The harness should come in today...I'll let everyone know how it works on our trip to Houston/Galveston.

Thanks for reading along.

 

[cstorm65]

Day 10 – Monday

Hello everyone. Hope everyone is enjoying the first little bit of summer. We are moving on do Monday, Day 10 of our trip plans with this update. After three rope drops we are taking this morning to sleep in and hang out at the resort. We are kind of flexible on what we are doing on this day. Our goal is to first of all spend some time here:

After this I have some FP+ times reserved at the Magic Kingdom in the afternoon. Our plan would be to head in use our three FP’s and head out of the park and maybe see the Festival of Fantasy parade on our way out. We don’t really want to be in the park more than 2-3 hours since it will be hot. I do want to have a late lunch when we get there here:

At Sleepy Hollow and eat one of these:

I never managed to get one of these on our last trip and so it is a priority this time.

After leaving the Magic Kingdom our only other plans are to get over to Epcot to take in IllumiNations. April loves this show and we want to see it for sure on this trip. We will probably just head over around dinnertime and snack in the World Showcase. The fish and chips seem to be calling my name, but the Boulangerie & Patisserie in France will also probably get a visit from us. You all know this already, but the desserts there…wow! I also want to try to get around and catch the American Adventure show as we missed it on our last trip. Some people don’t like it much, but I love it and the Hall of Presidents and the patriotism they inspire.

Well, that is about it for Monday since it is a day without a lot of plans. I’ll leave you with another cute pic of DS and I’ll be back in a few days to lay out Tuesday plans. Have a great Friday everyone!

​

 

[MidnightParade]

Sounds like a nice and easy day planned! I like those kind of days, especially when you get to enjoy the resort!

Ooooh I have a meal planned for Sleepy Hollow as well as must try that chicken waffle! nomnomnom.

Good luck trying to decide on dessert in France! I was just reading about the brioche pressed ice cream sandwich. I have no idea what that would be like but it sounds interesting!

 

[MEK]

Great updates! Your plans look great. Once again I have to say that I am jealous of your uber long trip. It's going to be wonderful. And yay for having the school year behind you! Having a summer vacation must be great!

Lovely family pictures! Just great!

Cynthia and I tried this omelet sandwich from sleepy hollow that was so good. It had ham, cheese, and eggs and was wrapped up in a waffle. So good. I highly recommend it for breakfast!

 

[cstorm65]

Sounds like a nice and easy day planned! I like those kind of days, especially when you get to enjoy the resort!

Ooooh I have a meal planned for Sleepy Hollow as well as must try that chicken waffle! nomnomnom.

Good luck trying to decide on dessert in France! I was just reading about the brioche pressed ice cream sandwich. I have no idea what that would be like but it sounds interesting!

Yes, I actually simplified this day even more this weekend. I think I am about to do an update and will share how this will now be an even easier day!

That ice cream sandwich sound good, I'm not sure what it means either, but it sounds good!

Great updates! Your plans look great. Once again I have to say that I am jealous of your uber long trip. It's going to be wonderful. And yay for having the school year behind you! Having a summer vacation must be great!

Lovely family pictures! Just great!

Cynthia and I tried this omelet sandwich from sleepy hollow that was so good. It had ham, cheese, and eggs and was wrapped up in a waffle. So good. I highly recommend it for breakfast!

Being a teacher is hard at times, but there are so many great positives to it (and you get a long summer vacation!). Well, now I am going to have to go to Sleepy Hollow for lunch and breakfast, or maybe we can hit it up around 10:45 or so and April can order the breakfast sandwich and I can order the chicken and waffle lunch sandwich. Thanks for reading and commenting! I'm about to get back over to your report also...hopefully your computer problems are better so we can see some more great pictures!

 

[cstorm65]

Itinerary Updates

The first thing I need to do is confess…I made some minor updates to some of the days that I have already talked about. On Day 7 we were planning on doing Magic Kingdom in the morning without FP+ and then Epcot all evening, then on Day 10 we were planning on doing Magic Kingdom in the afternoon after sleeping in and then Epcot right after through IllumiNations. DW and I discussed it though and that was a little two much for a sleep in day, so we completely cut out our Magic Kingdom stuff on Day 10. I moved our FP+ reservations to Epcot that day and then cancelled our evening FP+ reservations on Day 7 at Epcot and selected some for Magic Kingdom that morning. We will keep our Garden Grill reservation on Day 8 for dinner in Epcot, but other than that it will be mostly a Magic Kingdom Day.

Day 11 - Tuesday

Now, on with Tuesday plans. We are getting up on Tuesday for an early 8:05 breakfast at one of our favorite places. DS loved it here on our last trip and loved meeting our friends at the Crystal Palace.

As far as our FP+ plans for this day I am kind of testing out the new system by booking all of our FP’s to be used before 1:00 when we leave for our break. I will then check availability and see what FP we can get for the evening time. I am kind of just curious as to what kind of availability there will be for selecting the 4th FP and beyond while in the parks.

We have FP+ for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Winnie the Pooh, and Space Mountain. We will head out for a break back at the Wilderness Lodge around 1:00 and then come back to the Magic Kingdom around 5:30 or so for the evening. We will have a couple of Child Swap passes that we will probably save for tonight at Seven Dwarfs and Space Mountain. I also would like to see if we can get a FP+ for the Jungle Cruise right when we get back and then see if we can get a 5th FP for something after we use that one.

I think our last goal for this day is to see the Main Street Electrical Parade. We are considering jumping on the train since I think we are just taking an umbrella stroller that I can fold up small, and riding the train around to the front of the park and finding a decent spot right there so we can exit the park between the parade and wishes.

Well, hope everyone is having a great week!

I’m also going to leave you with a few pictures we took last summer while waiting for our Crystal Palace reservation in an empty park…it is a great time!

​