** Live TR ** 3 Years of Planning & it’s finally here! Our first trip to the world :)

[CrystalCarrington]

Heya guys!

Sorry for the delay - We've had a nightmare with my laptop! Gonna do a maaaaassive update in a bit, with the last week or so!

Bare with me!

x

I can't wait to read the rest of the post! I'm so excited for you

P.S. If I had a Daisy and a Jasmine meeting their namesakes would be first on my list lol we're character nuts in our home. I can't tell you the times DD has asked to change her name to Belle

 

[jennie3675]

Can't wait for the next instalment!!

 

[Linda67]

Fab TR - really enjoying it

 

[Holstar]

Just gotten home!

About to post a ton of reports! Super sorry for the essays and three million photos you're about to be bombarded with

Thanks for being super patient! Technology hates me!

xx

 

[Holstar]

We wanted to do more more day in HS, as it has two of the girls’ favourite rides – Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster.



The heat was EXTREME yesterday though, so we again stuck with the plan of relaxing during the hot day, and going at night. We arrived at HS about 5:30pm, had a wander, did some shopping and took a few photos – and then went to Sci-Fi Diner for 6:30!





We got to Sci-Fi Diner and the girls were in complete awe! They couldn’t take their eyes off the screen and thought it was so cool! It seems like every night they have a new favorite restaurant, which I think speaks volumes about the standard of Disney dining.



I wasn’t expecting it, but the food was pretty amazing! I had the steak, and in all honesty, it’s the best one I’ve had in a long long time. The girls cleared their plates, and the server was incredibly accommodating of our youngest who is a picky eater – they let her pick off of the children’s menu and doubled the portion size. I don’t even know where to start with the desserts – they were simply amazing! Finally, for the first time all day, the girls were happy and not fighting! Amazing!



We were in there for a really long time actually, much longer than I had planned – and we almost completely missed our fastpass for Rock n Roller Coaster – I thought it was later in the evening, so we literally ran across the park to make it, arriving dead on the minute it was about to expire!

The girls loved it as usual, but we all felt a little sick afterwards – definitely need to let your food settle! Sadly, that couldn’t be the case, as we ran straight to Tower of Terror for our next fastpass which was amazing as usual! Our girls do crack me up sometimes, and they joked and laughed the entire way though.

We then did Star Tours again, and then ran back to Rock n Roller Coaster, arriving about two minutes before park closing, and walking on for a final ride.

I’m actually quite sad that we wont be doing this park again – I’ve loved it! We have five (including today) days left on our Disney tickets, maybe we’ll do HS one evening if we have time – we’re in MK tonight until 2am (and our Be Our Guest reservation!), Blizzard Beach all day tomorrow, MK again Tuesday for our photo shoot and then the water parks Wednesday and Thursday, with MK Thursday night to say goodbye to Disney before moving to our villa and doing non-Disney stuff.

I feel sad already, evening thinking that we’re half way through and half way closer to going home. I can’t be alone feeling this way!

As a slight side point - I took this picture of the girls on skype to mum back home - they've not let go of their teddies!

 

[Holstar]

Today was equal parts fun and exhausting… we’d planned a late night at MK (it was open until 2am with EMH!) so we slept all morning, and then went to Typhoon Lagoon in the afternoon. I think, realistically, we probably shouldn’t have done Typhoon Lagoon during the day as we were exhausted by 9pm, but either way… it was fun!







After Daisy’s accident on the slides the last time we went, she was keen to go back and do the things she couldn’t do last time. So, we got there for about midday and mainly swam in the wave pool for a couple of hours (I LOVE that big wave!) and then did a couple of slides.

I really do love Typhoon Lagoon, but I don’t know… I think I prefer Blizzard Beach. I loved the slides there, no accidents… the floor seemed smoother (am I mad?) and I guess, ultimately, our previous experience there hadn’t been marred by a head injury!

We headed back home around 4:30pm, and got ready for dinner… at Be Our Guest! I was so freaking excited to get this reservation!









We were seated in the main ballroom, and it is as stunning in real life as it is in the photos we’ve seen. It looks JUST like it does in the film, and I was absolutely over the moon!











The food was out of this world…. For just one credit, we were amazed. How is this place not two? It was the best meal we’ve ever had – everything was perfect, and they were so accommodating of our youngest, who is a tad picky with food. We had the gray stuff for desert…. So amazing! Our girls sat at the table singling Be Our Guest the whole night!







After Be Our Guest, we headed straight to Ana and Elsa. The advertised wait time was 75 minutes, but we were through in about 20. I’ll have a little moan about wait times properly in my final report, but I’ve found the wait times to be so inaccurate! It’s quite frustrating – not just the wait times in the ap, but those posted outside of rides!

A&E was amazing… Our youngest is obsessed with Elsa, and wore her dress and crown. She loved every single second of the interactions… the look on her face when Elsa was talking to her… oh my gosh, I’m almost crying (again!) just typing this up! It was perfect











After A&E, we took a stroll around Fantasyland… did the teacups and the carrousel and then walked over the girls favourite, Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. First splash, and then Big Thunder. The wait time for Big Thunder was 5 minutes, so Ben took the younger two around again whilst Daisy and sat it out… by the time they were back, she was leaning on me practically asleep so with some sadness we called it a night. I think we made it until midnight, so no moaning I guess – the girls have been ready for bed by 10/11pm almost every night, so it wasn’t completely unconceivable that they were just too exhausted for this one.

 

[Holstar]

Today was just a super chilled day. We were checking out the next day, so we wanted to just relax!

The girls slept in as late as they wanted (1pm!!!) and then we went swimming all afternoon. We had a late lunch at Old Key West, and then headed back to start packing.

It’s really horrible isn’t it? I hate the feeling that I’m leaving somewhere I love.

To cheer ourselves up, we headed over to the Beach Club for some icecream. This had been where we had originally booked to stay, when we booked three years ago, so it was interesting to have a walk around and compare.



… I loved it! We’ve made some decisions about future Disney trips, which I’ll reflect upon closer to the end of our holiday I think. But, when we come again, we’d like to try the Beach Club.



And the ice cream! Oh my gosh! Amazing!

After icecream, we went back to our villa for a super late dinner…. We’d picked up this maaaaaassive pizza from Walmart – I’ve never seen anything like it! And, it was super yummy!

 

[Holstar]

This was our busiest day by far and I’m so excited about sharing our day with you

This holiday has truly been a once in a lifetime trip for us. I have no doubt that Ben and I will return, but there’s just no way we could afford to bring our nieces. We pretty much destroyed our savings for this – as we wanted to do one big thing before be have to settle down, buy our first home, get married etc. So, after this…. I have to become an official grown up!

Because of how special this holiday has been to me, Ben booked us a photoshoot in Magic Kingdom with the most amazing photographer! That shoot was today!

We met inside the parks, and took a wander around, up to the castle, onto a few rides… it was amazing! I usually don’t like photos of me, but I wanted to share this little sneak peak of us! I’m so happy!



I can’t talking highly enough of our photographer – she was simply amazing! She got on well with us all, just clicked so quickly! And her work is breathtaking! I’ll post more when we get them through!

After our shoot, we took a trip around on the train (I can’t believe we’ve not done this before!) and then headed towards our new home for the next 8 days. We’d packed all of our stuff into the car early that morning, pre-shoot, so no need to go back to OKW.

The villa is amazing! Four bedrooms – one king, one double, one triple and one twin – it easily sleeps 9.



















There are some issues, which the management company have been very quick to respond to – such as the ant problem in the master bathroom and there were quite a few bugs in the pool, so they came around and sorted both. But other than that, it’s perfect!



After unpacking and having a splash in the pool, we got ready for our big dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table – which was totally amazing! I loved everything about it – I love how they call you to your table, and our server was amazing! The girls, who are not typically princessy at all, loved the interactions! And, I got a wand! I can’t express how happy I am that I got my own wand! Hahahahaha!













What was really cool, was that when we were leaving, they’d closed off the castle for the Electrical Parade – so we got to walk through when it was completely deserted! We took loads of super cool photos of us by the castle with no one else around!





We then headed over to Tomorrowland Terrace – we were seated super close to the front, which was amazing, not that we’d be doing too much sitting around the table. We ate some cake and cookies, and then made our way up to the wall about 9:40 – just in time for the show. We were stood in the most perfect position – and it was amazing!











Aside from some behaviour issues with the middle miss, it was the perfect ending to a perfect day!

 

[lush]

Love all the updates, especially the fab photos. We're hoping to do BOG and CRT so it's been great seeing your photos of both of those meals. I think my favourite is the photo of the girls watching Wishes, those reactions are definitely priceless, I must remember to try and catch those moments while we're away!

I would also be really interested in seeing your photos from your shoot because this is something I've been considering booking for our holiday. The one you've added is beautiful.

 

[dixonsontour]

Fantastic photos - looks like you are having an amazing time

 

[BigMommaMouse]

Love the update. You guys are the best Aunt and Uncle ever. The memories from this trip will last a life time.

Your photos are amazing. What kind of camera are you using?

 

[Holstar]

Love all the updates, especially the fab photos. We're hoping to do BOG and CRT so it's been great seeing your photos of both of those meals. I think my favourite is the photo of the girls watching Wishes, those reactions are definitely priceless, I must remember to try and catch those moments while we're away!

I would also be really interested in seeing your photos from your shoot because this is something I've been considering booking for our holiday. The one you've added is beautiful.

BOG was just... breathtaking. It was the one I was most excited about, and oh my gosh... it completely blew my expectations out of the water.

And, I'll definitely put up more as they come! We got that amazing photo a couple of days after the shoot, we should see a couple more in the next couple of days, as a sort of little sneak peek! I think the overall turn around time is about three weeks for all of the photos! I can't wait to see them... some of them looked so beautiful!

Fantastic photos - looks like you are having an amazing time

Awww thanks! It was the best three weeks of my life! Will put up the rest of the reports in a couple of hours.... I pretty much passed out at 8pm, just woken up now, but gonna try and go back to bed for a couple more hours!

Love the update. You guys are the best Aunt and Uncle ever. The memories from this trip will last a life time.

Your photos are amazing. What kind of camera are you using?

Thanks! It's just a super basic DSLR... I can't for the life of me remember the model, it's a canon though - it was about £250-300 from John Lewis a couple of years ago. I'll let you know the model number in a couple of hours - gonna go back to sleep for a few more hours now!

 

[Holstar]

So, I briefly mentioned before that we had some behavior issues with Jasmine last night. In light of that, we decided that all of the girls could probably do with a day off – a day to just relax and sleep and play. So, we spent today just lounging around the villa!

We spent the day in our PJ’s or in our swimming costumes, watching tv, playing in the pool and eating what was left of our Disney snack credits!

It was pretty amazing just to have a day completely off, although both Ben and I were a little sad to be missing the parks, with so few days left.

 

[Holstar]

We had originally hoped to spend our last day tomorrow at Magic Kingdom, but what with the party that evening, it wouldn’t really be worth it. So, we opted to spend today in MK.



We got up super early and headed in for rope drop – and we went straight for 7DMT! At 9:15am, the wait time was 60 minutes, however we walked on in less that 15. It was very cool – I loved how interactive the queue was, and I loved the inside bits of the ride – but it was super short. I guess that’s my only criticism.









We did a couple more rides in Fantasyland together – Peter Pan, the Teacups and the Carrousel. And, then we decided to give the girls some freedom. For the last two weeks they’ve been begging to go off by themselves, and today we relented! Just three hours – with a clearly defined meeting time and place.







Whilst they went off and did their own thing, so did Ben and I! It was super cool to just have time to ourselves.







And, I finally got to meet Woody! The queue was ridiculous…. Easily an hour. It seems totally bizarre that the longest queue we waited in was to meet Woody. There were only about 20 people in front of us in the queue, and it’s such a rubbish thing to moan about but it was the lengthy playing and messing about by Woody and the CM’s that took such a long time. Everyone was moaning about it in the queue.

But, it was totally worth it! I got the biggest hug ever and I was one happy 25 year old all afternoon!

We went home, had a bit of a swim and then headed back in around 5pm for the evening. We tried to tick off everything we haven’t done in the Magic Kingdom (along with some of our favorites) – we managed to finally tick off the Tomorrowland Speedway, Jungle Cruise and The Magic Carpets of Aladdin.







We watched wishes from the bridge near Splash Mountain, and then found a seat just behind the statue of Walt and Mickey, right in front of the castle for the Kiss Goodnight.



It was the perfect end to our last day in Magic Kingdom and we were all more than a little teary when we walked up Main Street

 

[wilma-bride]

Thank you dfor the updates, I'm glad you enjoyed your last few days.

Just moving this over to the Trip Reports board so you can finish it off and then I'll link it from the Index

 

[marylizcat]

I have really enjoyed reading your report and seeing the photos. Are you going to give us a final summing up of your thoughts?

 

[Holstar]

I will do!

I'm still having massive problems with my laptop (where the photos are downloaded to!), and I still have one massive final few days report to upload... and then it's the final summary!

I feel so rubbish at this! But it's coming, I promise!xx