Lots of Characters, Lots of Firsts but Lots of Drama: Why We Say NEVER AGAIN!! 3/21

[pixidustmom]

I so love with TR writers use the options to skip ahead. Thank you for doing that. I got to read your full report from a some free time last night and tonight. I think Lillian is so cute. I look forward to reading more.

 

[Rozz]

Beautiful!

Just wanted to let you know that I'm enjoying your trip report!

 

[mousescrapper]

Hi Stephanie...

so sorry I got behind in your TR...so thank you to your links. Epcot is looking real nice! Glad Lillian loved Soarin and love all your pic's from the Seas too.

I too love all the characters and how they really do such a great job making each visit special. What fun to get to see all those great friends.

I agree Lillian just looks so cute and having quite the time watching and being w/ all them. such wonderful memories!

looking forward to more

J~

 

[TwiddleDeeTwiddleDum]

The picture with Donald WAS cute!

5 minute line for Soarin? I am really jealous

 

[dekkerdisneydreamer]

Hi Stephanie,
I found your TR and am up to date thanks to your great links! So far, everything seems to be going great! I'm glad the drama is at a minimum thus far, but I can only imagine that it gets worse due to your TR title.....
You have a very lovely family, I look forward to reading more!

Good luck in finding a PhD program, I have a friend writing his dissertation and it's a heck of a project!

 

[wlwilliams9]

Happy 30th Birthday!! ​

 

[Charlefours]

Just seeing your Nemo pictures made me start singing 'In a bigggg blue world...' lol

Love all the character pictures! I wish we had gotten more of them on our trip. Your DH and I have something in common; Donald is my favorite too!

Whenever I get stressed, I start to sing (to myself usually) Just keep swimming, just keep swimming Addictive songs in Finding Nemo evidently.

Aww, such a fun visit with the fab 5 is so worth pushing off rest for! You can definitely tell how sleepy Lillian was getting though-- I hope you guys do get back to your resort soon!

Thank you. I hope to have an update up tomorrow.

Great Fab 5 visit!! although, tired she still appeared to be enjoying her time with the characters...we loved visiting with the Fab 5 at Epcot it was great!!
hope you are able to get all of you list done and you find time to enjoy and relax!

Thank you Connie. She loved meeting the characters

sounds like a fun day so far....I love all the pics and lillian looks like she is having a blast even if she is a bit tired. Cant wait to read more. l love all your pictures

Thank you Lindsay! I still haven't added up the number of pictures I took but I have enjoyed going through them. It is like reliving our trip.

 

[Charlefours]

I so love with TR writers use the options to skip ahead. Thank you for doing that. I got to read your full report from a some free time last night and tonight. I think Lillian is so cute. I look forward to reading more.

Michele to my TR. I am glad the links are beneficial. Thank you--I think she is pretty cute too but I am biased.

Beautiful!

Just wanted to let you know that I'm enjoying your trip report!

Thank you!!! I really like the picture too despite its flaws.

Hi Stephanie...

so sorry I got behind in your TR...so thank you to your links. Epcot is looking real nice! Glad Lillian loved Soarin and love all your pic's from the Seas too.

I too love all the characters and how they really do such a great job making each visit special. What fun to get to see all those great friends.

I agree Lillian just looks so cute and having quite the time watching and being w/ all them. such wonderful memories!

looking forward to more

J~

You're fine Julie! I have to get caught up on everyone's reports still too. There are just not enough hours in a day.

We really enjoyed meeting the characters too. It was a first for DH and I too as we only meet a few of the Princesses (at lunch at CRT) and Mulan last time.

 

[Charlefours]

The picture with Donald WAS cute!

5 minute line for Soarin? I am really jealous

Thank you. I just love how she giggled and covered her mouth. We lucked out with the crowds.

Hi Stephanie,
I found your TR and am up to date thanks to your great links! So far, everything seems to be going great! I'm glad the drama is at a minimum thus far, but I can only imagine that it gets worse due to your TR title.....
You have a very lovely family, I look forward to reading more!

Good luck in finding a PhD program, I have a friend writing his dissertation and it's a heck of a project!

Sheresa to my TR. I am glad you found the links handy. The drama reaches it height Sunday night.

Thank you!

 

[Charlefours]

Happy 30th Birthday!! ​

Thank you Wendy!

 

[lexmas]

So sorry I've gotten so behind! It seems like a wonderful time at Epcot so far! I love seeing the pictures of Lilian because she just seems so very tiny, and I think it's SO easy when you live with a four year old to think they're so very grown up, when they're really still babies, and I hate to think that I'm missing that with J.J.. I want to appreciate his tiny-ness for as long as possible!

That picture with Donald is the cutest one that I've seen! I love it so very much! It seems like your day is going smoothly so far. J.J. really loved those balloons in the land as well, and I am so happy that Lilian got to ride Soarin'! The doctor's office said J.J. was 39 inches without shoes last week...so he's getting close! I'm glad she loved it! Too bad about your MIL and motion sickness.

What fun character meets! I bet it made Lilian feel so special that everyone was writing happy birthday in her book. So very cute!

You've gotten so much done so far! I can't wait to see how skipping your break goes...we did that more than our fair share...and while everyone was fine, it just shows how we're incapable of leaving disney on schedule!

I hope you had a wonderful birthday!

 

[floridascgirl]

I just stumbled upon your TR and thanks to the TOC links, I've been able to quickly catch up. I've never traveled with a large group before, but I can only imagine that there could be some stress-filled moments. However, your trip seems to be fairly smooth thus far. I'm sensing that this might change in the near future, hence your title.

Just curious...

1). Were you using a DSLR camera? If so, what type of lens did you travel with?

2). Was your trip spreadsheet on Excel? Mine's on Word right now, but I'm looking to convert it. I like your setup.

 

[Charlefours]

So sorry I've gotten so behind! It seems like a wonderful time at Epcot so far! I love seeing the pictures of Lilian because she just seems so very tiny, and I think it's SO easy when you live with a four year old to think they're so very grown up, when they're really still babies, and I hate to think that I'm missing that with J.J.. I want to appreciate his tiny-ness for as long as possible!

That picture with Donald is the cutest one that I've seen! I love it so very much! It seems like your day is going smoothly so far. J.J. really loved those balloons in the land as well, and I am so happy that Lilian got to ride Soarin'! The doctor's office said J.J. was 39 inches without shoes last week...so he's getting close! I'm glad she loved it! Too bad about your MIL and motion sickness.

What fun character meets! I bet it made Lilian feel so special that everyone was writing happy birthday in her book. So very cute!

You've gotten so much done so far! I can't wait to see how skipping your break goes...we did that more than our fair share...and while everyone was fine, it just shows how we're incapable of leaving disney on schedule!

I hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Hi Christa! No need to apologize to me--everyone is so busy (me included). I am glad you were able to stop back by.

I know what you mean about appreciating the kids while they are so tiny--Lilian seems to be growing up so quickly. I have been looking back at pictures from when she was teeny and I cannot believe she has gotten to be so big.

That is one of my favorite so far but I admit I am not finishing going through them yet. I need to finish that up before school starts again. I hope JJ is tall enough when you go in January to ride Soarin' and TT.

We did get a lot done in the morning. Overall, given our party size I am happy with what we accomplished.

Thanks! I had a great birthday. DH and Lilian surprised me with flowers and I had a birthday cake for the first time in I don't know how long.

I just stumbled upon your TR and thanks to the TOC links, I've been able to quickly catch up. I've never traveled with a large group before, but I can only imagine that there could be some stress-filled moments. However, your trip seems to be fairly smooth thus far. I'm sensing that this might change in the near future, hence your title.

Just curious...

1). Were you using a DSLR camera? If so, what type of lens did you travel with?

2). Was your trip spreadsheet on Excel? Mine's on Word right now, but I'm looking to convert it. I like your setup.

to my TR! I am glad you thought the TOC links were handy. There were moments of drama but it was still a great trip. Though, there are things I will definitely NEVER do again.

1) I did use a DSLR. I brought two lenses with me--the one that came with my camera (15-55mm) and my prime lens--50mm f 1.4 which are the only two lenses I have at the moment. I have more on my wish list but these have been sufficient so far.

2) I actually ended up doing the one I made in Word. I started it both Word and Excel but settled on the Word version.

 

[Charlefours]

I left you off as we were at the cusp of a decision—do we go back to the resort for the intended break or do we push through the night. I had wanted to go to F! this evening, so I really felt a break would be needed. So what did we decide? We elected to go ahead and push through. Hmm…do you think we would make it to F! later that evening?

We decided lunch was the first priority—we were all hungry. We did not want to backtrack to Sunshine Seasons, so we decided to walk over to Electric Umbrella since we were so close. I snapped a picture on the way over:

For our lunch, we got:

3 chicken nugget meals, two with fries and one with grapes--$23.67
3 drinks--$7.17
2 strawberry cheesecakes--$7.18
1 chocolate chip cookie--$1.99
----------------

$40.01 but we used 3 QS dining credits​

We got gifted an extra order of fries and grapes too. So much food!! It wasn’t overly crowded luckily (even though it was 1:30ish—1:27 according to my receipt) so we were able to sit down and enjoy the cool weather for quite a while. Thoughts on Electric Umbrella: the food was decent but nothing to write home about so I would head back there in a pinch but would much rather venture over to Sunshine Season for lunch next time. DH took a snapshot of Lily “sneaking” a drink of my pop since she does not get it at home.

So after our lunch, we took the necessary bathroom stop and made our way back out into Epcot. We did not have anywhere we needed to be until our dinner ADR at 5:10. We decided to go back up front to go onto SSE. We hoped the wait would be decent and we were lucky—no wait! We walked straight onto the ride. We did not ride this on our first trip so this was a new ride for us! Lily decided she wanted to ride with Daddy so they took the front seats and I took the back seat. I had fun taking pictures throughout SSE but I won’t bore you with all of them. Here is a sprinkling of them:

I took a snapshot of the others traveling with us:

Hmm, do you think they liked it or not?

After learning our future, we popped out of SSE to see our faces on the giant screen.

We enjoyed our first trip on SSE—but we like those type of things. Lilian liked it too. DMIL and DFIL found it interesting but took a bit of a snooze on it. My Dad seemed to enjoy it. All in all it was a good one.

~Continues in next post~

 

[Charlefours]

Others needed to take a potty break so Lilian ran around and I took some more pictures:
 

It was about 2:30 and I have to say the crowds were not horrible:

We knew Lilian was so tired—remember the pictures from the character connection?

We decided we would walk over to Ellen’s Energy Adventure to see if we could get Lilian to take a nap. As we walked over to Ellen’s we noticed the MS wait time was up around 45 minutes. Hmm, well we kept moving and knew it would be there another time for the thrill seekers to ride it.

Stroller parking was at a minimal congestion:

We had experienced Ellen’s the first trip so we thought hey, cool and dark ride hopefully Lilian would just want to snuggle and go to sleep. We made it into the building—once again it was a walk on. We went into the pre-show holding area and Ellen was just beginning.

See what Ellen is doing Lilian? That is what we want you to do on this ride:

Think it happened? Nope, no way! It was LOUD!! Holy smokes, I do not remember it being that loud. Am I completely blanking on that part? The verdict for our group—it was pretty good. Not our favorite but not a bad spot to cool off since it was a hot and humid day.

~Continued in next post (next page)~

 

[Charlefours]

We decided now would be a prime time for the guys to ride MS. Off they went and I got to hear a bit of the Jaminators:

So what did Lilian do while we were waiting for the guys? Certainly not napping—

She LOVED the fountain! She was on cloud nine

One of my favorites of the day, if not from the whole trip:

You can see she loved it and got soaked!

I knew I did not have an extra outfit packed for her so when DMIL asked me what I was going to do I told her I would just run into Mouse Gears to get something. You may not think it was the smartest move to let her have a ball playing in the fountain but, for me, I would do it again in heartbeat. I did scribble a note to myself to make sure I packed Lilian’s bathing suit the next time we headed off to Epcot. DMIL decides she would pop over to Mouse Gears and bought Lilian a Minnie Mouse dress, a towel and Tink panties. Now don’t cringe at me—I let her wear the panties without washing them. EWWW but it was either that or her going commando which was not an option in my opinion.

The thrill seekers finished up with MS before DMIL finished her escapades so I asked them about MS. The wait time was only five minutes! That is just insane to me considering it was a Sunday but it was about 4:00 so I guess it was getting a bit late. DH, DBIL and DFIL thought it was good. My dad’s response—it was not big deal! He felt it was hyped up too much that it need to be much more intense.

By the time we got Lilian switched out her wet clothes to her dry ones, we decided we would start working our way over to WS and the International Gateway. We had our ADR tonight at Beach Club at Cape May Café for the Clam Bake Dinner Buffet.

Minor Drama Moment:
I mentioned to DH that we should grab TT FP since we were not sure if our evening plans (F! at DHS) would happen or not since we had no break. He argued with me!! My Dad did too—insisting that we could not use them after the window closed. I finally just said I would go get them because I wanted to have them just in case but if not, it was not a big deal I could use them in the scrapbook later on. Minor drama moment over something so silly!! You can tell that we were all fried because we were arguing over getting a free FP!

I snapped a few pictures while we were getting them:

It was such a gorgeous but HOT day:

On the way over, DH and I popped over to the PP to have our picture taken:

It reminds me of one of these photos we had taken during our first trip. Definitely something to keep up!

Up Next: The end of Day 2--dinner review, evening plans and the second worse dramatic moment of the whole trip plus my daily breakdowns

 

[Charlefours]

Happy Holidays I hope you have been having a truly magical holiday season. ​

 

[mousescrapper]

was just sitting down to have a bite to eat and see if anyone had posted anything... love the EP updates I was suspicious you wouldn't have left...kuddos to you and letting Lillian get soaked in the fountains...I am so not that Mom

we ALL love SSE too and my Dad snoozed on Ellen's ride I don't remember much noise past the dinosaurs though

hope your dinner is good and for the upcoming drama....

Merry Christmas too!

 

[KatMark]

I will catch up on on the updates later. I just wanted to stop in and wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

 

[mommyof2Pirates]

Loved the updates. I cant wait to hear if you made it to F. about the tiff you had with dh over fast passes. Yes the heat and fatigue sets in and the silly arguments begin.

I hope you had a very merry christmas!!!!!