Mortimer Walt! A Spring Break Success story...updated x2 7/20 (the perfect last day)

[Carable]

Mortimer Walt! A Spring Break Success story...

Hello, dear DISfriends, I have returned from one pretty amazing trip to the World and I just can’t NOT write about it even if I am up to my eyeballs in a million other things (end of the school year, planning our next Disney vacay, birthday parties, summer activities, etc). I went into this trip with my Trip Journal thinking it would just be for me to write up and put into a book for the family, but as the week went on and my family got into the food porn and taking funny pictures I just wanted to share how good a busy week went for our little family of four with all the changes. It isn't a complete trip if you don’t share it with random Disney-obsessed strangers, right?

Dates: April 11-18 (week before Easter)

Where: Caribbean Beach Resort – pirate room

Who: I’ll keep this intro short and sweet so you don’t have to scroll past it every time you hopefully check for updates. Here is “us”

Top 3 Disney things:
DH, Chuck - Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear & Test Track
DS, Nolan (8) – HS stunt shows & animation academy, Buzz Lightyear, Disney Popcorn
DD, Finley (6) – Mickey Ice Cream bars, Barnstormer, Haunted Mansion
Me, Cara – Nutella Fruit Waffle from Sleepy Hollow, Haunted Mansion & TSMM

I’m the Disney Fanatic, you can read the whole boring story at the beginning of my last TR (linked below), but real life had gotten in the way the last few decades. We went when the kids were little, but it didn’t work out well. We went last year and a WHOLE new world opened up. I, then, got a dream job of elementary school librarian this year and we are now able to save money to go on more Disney trips!

We had toyed with the idea of DL, as that is where I went when I was younger on spring breaks, and I really want to share the West Coast with my kids. But, it didn’t quite happen. Maybe next summer? Then, we had a ton of snow here at the beach and we weren’t sure if they would take spring break from us, so we had to wait until that was announced. So, this trip didn’t get booked until late February. We were going to drive until my husband had a reality check and we quickly bought the cheapest plane tickets we could find, which would come at a cost other than money (you’ll see soon). I then dug into the world of MyMagic+ and researched as librarians are prone to do and created a loose plan to keep our waits to a minimum during one of the busiest times of the year. I didn’t want it as scheduled or food heavy as last trip as it was too much for my crew, I wonder how I did with that? I will say there was plenty of action on the MDE app in the days leading up to the trip and even during the trip.

So, if you wish, please join me as I relive our magic. Feel free to comment, I love to make new friends! Let’s get this ball rolling.​

 

[Carable]

Chapter Links

Travel Day

Day 1 - Resort & Epcot
Part 1 - Walk the Plank, Matey!
Part 2 - FP+
Part 3 - Where's Donald?

Day 2 - DTD & MK
Part 1 - A Magical Day
Part 2 - A Magical Day
Part 3 - Finally. A Magical Evening.

Day 3 - A Park Free Day
Part 1 - Breakfast of Champions
Part 2 - An {almost} Perfect Evening

Day 4 - HS & MK
Part 1 - A Race to Andy's Room
Part 2 - The Big Cheese

Day 5 - MK & Epcot
Part 1 - An Arendelle Kind of Morning
Part 2 - A Festival of Sleepiness
Part 3 - Bonjour Epcot

Day 6 - HS
Part 1 - We Go out with a Bang (and a Spray)

Day 7 - Home
Part 1 - Time to Go Home and Final Thoughts

 

[Carable]

Travel Day

I usually brush past these myself as I stalk trip reports, but if you've ever had to do a long flight late at night with kids...you may want to read this one!

Let’s get the obligatory travel post over and done with. So, remember how I mentioned the last minute plane tickets? Yeah, well, we ended up flying out of a smaller airport (which I loved), but it required going through our VERY BUSY, VERY CROWDED bridge tunnel through the Chesapeake Bay. Oh, and it didn’t depart until 7pm…and with one stop we wouldn’t get into MCO until after midnight….and the resort until much later than that. Couple that with kids that pass out by 8pm every night, and that could be a recipe for disaster. But I had a PLAN! We named this day OPERATION PIRATE SHIP BED, with a mission to make it safely to our beautiful pirate room. It was broken up into 8 phases:

Phase 1: Get to the airport and check-in
Phase 2: Wait for the plane (it was delayed) to ATL.
Phase 3: Fly to ATL
Phase 4: Make it to our other plane and wait patiently.
Phase 5: Fly into MCO
Phase 6: Retrieve luggage and ride the ME to CBR.
Phase 7: Check-in to CBR
Phase 8: Fall into our piratey beds and sleep in the next morning. We did get the corner room we requested.​

DH and I were able to take off ½ days at work, so we picked up the kids from school a bit early too (I’m not sure how they got any work done knowing they were going to the World that evening).

This allowed us to get to the tunnel early before the traffic was too bad. We came home, finished our last minute packing, and hopped in the car for Phase 1. The kids wanted to wear their pajamas on the plane ride, and I was happy with that. Sadly, the traffic was already built up with an accident, so we drove the long way to the OTHER bridge tunnel, and made it there eventually. My parents met us to take our car to their house to wait out the trip…so we made a stop at Cracker Barrel to play checkers and eat a bit.

Getting ready for Phase 3. You may recognize a certain lizardy friend from my last report...

I have a bit of an obsession with little guy. He took a little vacation in Epcot last trip, but he was magically shipped home and he really wanted to go back again this time. My DH really got into this during the trip!

By Phase 4:

Not many pictures after this...for obvious reasons. I did get one blurry picture of the eerie empty airport, we were running to grab the fake-o-rail at midnight.

We went through the Phases pretty well, and the excitement of the trip kept everyone in good spirits. The kids rocked this long, late journey. I learned a few things:

Nonstop flights are worth their weight in gold
Airports are a little spooky late at night
When checking in during the dead of night, sitting at the front of the ME and having one person quickly get off and get in the check-in line is priceless.
God bless Disney for putting cartoons on in the lobby so the kids could keep occupied during check-in. Even with online check-in, it still took quite a bit to get organized.
Good Bellhops = lifesavers (ours got a good tip)​

Next up....Resort Review & Epcot ​

 

[disneyhousewife]

Subbing! What a cute family!

 

[hhockman]

I'm here Cara. I didn't know you had a trip report from last time. Or I knew and I forgot, one of the two. Need to go read that. I'm excited about this because the boys and I are staying in a Pirate room at CBR in September. I can't believe Finley is 6! I forgot she was so close to Nolan's age.

I've been at ATL late at night before. One time I had a flight to New York (through Charlotte) at 5am. I'd gone to a concert in Atlanta the night before so I just went to the airport after the concert. So I sat at my gate from midnight to 5am. It was creepy.

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[Disney Khaleesi]

I'll be subbing in! You were there around the same time we were-we went the 12th-20th. Actually, I think I saw you at Magic Kingdom! But obviously I didn't know you then. Buuut...maybe I'm crazy. We'll see, won't we?

 

[Carable]

Subbing! What a cute family!

Thank you so much! I appreciate the sub, hopefully I can keep you entertained.

I'm here Cara. I didn't know you had a trip report from last time. Or I knew and I forgot, one of the two. Need to go read that. I'm excited about this because the boys and I are staying in a Pirate room at CBR in September. I can't believe Finley is 6! I forgot she was so close to Nolan's age.

I've been at ATL late at night before. One time I had a flight to New York (through Charlotte) at 5am. I'd gone to a concert in Atlanta the night before so I just went to the airport after the concert. So I sat at my gate from midnight to 5am. It was creepy.

Can't wait to hear more!

Hi girl!!! Good to see you here as well. One of these days we will meet up in Disney like a good old-fashioned DISmeet. I'm excited to hear about your trip this fall.

I'll be subbing in! You were there around the same time we were-we went the 12th-20th. Actually, I think I saw you at Magic Kingdom! But obviously I didn't know you then. Buuut...maybe I'm crazy. We'll see, won't we?

Welcome! We spent a lot of time in the MK, so that is quite possible. That would be crazy if you end up in the background of one of my photos, goodness knows I have a ton of them. I appreciate the sub!

 

[Carable]

Day 1 - Part 1 - Walk the Plank, Matey!​

​

We decided on CBR because hubby wanted something a little more than POP (although I'm dying to stay there one day) and thought we should do something for Nolan since the last trip was so Princess heavy. We saw these Pirate Rooms at CBR and were sold. Now, we had just come from a stay at Bay Lake Towers last vacation, so we were spoiled beyond imagination, but I came to love most things about CBR. My son walked in, looked in the bathroom and then said, "Where's the rest of it?" LOL...yeah, sorry son, no two bedroom villa for you this time around. Can't fault a kid for saying out loud what I was thinking. Sadly, this is the only room photo I have from day 1 as you can rightly assume I took no pictures at 2:30am when we finally got to the Pirate Ship Bed.

Let’s get to the good stuff, shall we? After our 2:30am bedtime, you can probably guess that we slept in…until 9am to be exact. I don’t think my daughter has EVER slept in until 9am in her 6 years of life. DH talked me into getting a rental car this time, but we still wanted to do the ME, so the DIS pointed me into the direction of the AAA Car Care Center. It was a GREAT idea. Sweet guy sacrificed some sleep and got up around 8am, took the internal shuttle to Port Royale, and was picked up promptly by AAA. He quickly got our car with no hassle or big wait, and he was on the road home to CBR. We were up and about by the time he was back, so we wandered over to Port Royale to check it out and grab some breakfast. So here is my honest review of that area, although we did not eat at Shutters so cannot comment on that restaurant.

LOVED:
Building theming and gift shop (although I wished the Caribbean colors were brighter the whole time I was there, don’t know why, I’ve never been to the Caribbean so how would I know?)
The kids liked the arcade (but I liked Contemporary’s better)
The staff at the gift store were amazing
Absolutely loved the courtyard, beaches, islands and pool (kids are still talking about that slide)

DIDN’T LOVE:
The quick service restaurant at all. It was so confusing and SO crowded and the CM’s were not helpful at all. The food was overdone and didn’t look anything like the pictures they showed above the stations.​

Now, we were only used to the Contemporary’s QS, which is set up differently and was also busy, but there were kiosks to order from and friendly CM’s to help you and the food was great. We didn’t eat there again after this meal, it just wasn’t worth it.

It's Day 1 folks!

Here’s the cute but too crispy Mickey Waffle!

I did buy one length of stay refillable mug (had to get the new design, people) and we got our money's worth!

Then the kids and I went to check out the pool while DH went back to take a nap. We had an absolute blast in the water! Highly recommend the pool in this resort. There weren’t nearly enough chairs, but it all worked out ok for us.

We went back to the room, quickly bathed and got en route to Epcot. Here is a picture of the famous rental car….famous? You ask… well, we like to name our cars in this kooky family and this was no exception. Can you guess what they picked? One kid wanted Mortimer and one wanted Walt and you can’t pick one over the other can you? We tried to blend the name…Wortimer…Malt??? Just didn’t work, so Mortimer Walt just stuck…and he became an integral part of our Spring Break.

I will say I followed EasyWDW recommendations for park plans this trip and I found it worked really well in these busy days. Magic Bands had worked at the resort to open doors and pay for breakfast, and they worked like a charm at Epcot and with FP+. Yeah! Now, I just hoped the Memory Maker was working, so we took this little session.

Our first stop…Club Cool…Nolan had been talking about this place since last year so we had to go there first! My favorite this year was Peru.

The Beverly

We were now ready to try out this FP+....would we like it, would the lines still be huge...did we do Test Track or Soarin first???? You'll find out in the next post... ​

 

[shannn]

I'm in~

Your family is adorable and I'm working on my MLIS right now so I have to join in!

 

[shannn]

Your family is adorable and I'm working on my MLIS right now so I have to join in!

 

[plutofan0902]

I'm in. The Pirate rooms are cuter than I thought!

 

[BOG Obsessed]

Following along
Love the shot of your husband trying the Beverly.

 

[Newsies]

What a cute family!! I love Pascal!! Subscribing xx

 

[Carable]

Thank you so much for all the comments, it really makes me the DIS all the more. I have the rest of Day 1 ready to go, but we just got back from a long afternoon/evening of baseball and still have tons to do before I can hit the hay. But I should be able to get on here tomorrow to finish up Day 1, I have a LOT of pictures to share.

I'm in~

Your family is adorable and I'm working on my MLIS right now so I have to join in!

Thank you! Getting my MLIS was the best decision I ever made, it is truly the best job ever.

I'm in. The Pirate rooms are cuter than I thought!

I did like the theming, although it was beginning to show signs of wear already. I would definitely request a corner room as all the dark wood and carpet make it feel smaller than it is. I've got a fun story about the pirate ship beds coming up! Thank you for commenting.

Following along
Love the shot of your husband trying the Beverly.

Thank you so much for following me! DH knew it was the bitter one and he definitely played it up for the benefit of the kids.

What a cute family!! I love Pascal!! Subscribing xx

Thank you for the compliment and the sub. If you love Pascal you will not believe some of the places he ends up on this trip.

 

[hhockman]

Love the picture of the slide. I'm excited about that. We're not doing water parks this trip, so that pool will have to do...well that and the pool at the Hard Rock Hotel...which plays music underwater. I have a feeling it's going t be a split decision between the kids.

Can't wait to see EPCOT. It's been a long time since I've lived vicariously through the DIS. Love Nolan's shirt!

 

[Carable]

Love the picture of the slide. I'm excited about that. We're not doing water parks this trip, so that pool will have to do...well that and the pool at the Hard Rock Hotel...which plays music underwater. I have a feeling it's going t be a split decision between the kids.

Can't wait to see EPCOT. It's been a long time since I've lived vicariously through the DIS. Love Nolan's shirt!

The boys will love it there! The mornings are the best when the pool opens because nobody is there and they can just do the slide over and over with no wait. Are you guys doing Universal, too? The kids were able to wear all the shirts I made them last trip, yeah!

 

[Carable]

Day 1 - Part 2 - FP+

We left off with a lovely laugh at Daddy for trying the Beverly and headed on to....

FP+ Nemo, which wasn’t really needed but what do you do with their tiering system?

Adorable as usual and then we went in to see Crush at Turtle Talk. I just love this show and marvel at the talent involved. Finley raised her hand to ask questions, but never got picked. Maybe next time. I'll skip the blurry pictures that were taken here...you can thank me later.

No trip complete without being eaten by Bruce.

And...here we are with the first souvenir of the trip...she lasted, what, 30 minutes? And, Disney, whoever made these little plastic bags with "deluxe" jelly doll princesses is an evil genius. My kids wanted them ALL, luckily only two eventually made it home.

Then we began a theme that ran all week…the unstoppable eating machines that were my children. They were always hungry this week, so this became a very common sight. Mickey Bars!

On our way to our next fastpass we stopped by here for a few fun pics.

Gooaaaaal!

Finn was grumpy about something...can you tell?

We were headed to...

FP+ Test Track….just love this ride. For some reason I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to design a car with FP, but I was wrong. Yeah. Nolan smoked us. I tried to get everyone to do a silly pose, but only I did and you can’t even see me. This is the one of the kids favorite rides, but with the tiering system we only got to ride it once.

Playing the games afterwards...

Then we wandered around Mousegears since I missed that last time! Grabbed a few pins and a vinylmation nerd. And then on to....

FP+ Spaceship Earth….LOVE going inside the golf ball. We played the race game at the end, which is fun. Nolan spied our faces as we got off.

That's my girl...making funny faces for the camera.

We played some more games! All in all, the FP+ worked great for us. No problem using them, although teaching the kids to match Mickey's was harder than I thought and I don't understand why we had to scan them twice, but it was very quick. I loved having them set up, but the agonizing the weeks before about what we wanted to do and when was more stressful up front, but paid off during the trip. We were much more relaxed and honestly, if we arrived at 2pm at Epcot a year before we wouldn't have been able to even do Test Track, and maybe not even Spaceship Earth with the crowds. So now our FP+ were all used up and no additional ones we could add at this time, it was off to a spectacular 1st Disney Dinner...wonder where we went??? Continued in the next post... ​

 

[disneyshea]

Subbing. You have a beautiful family. Can't wait to read along.

 

[DynamicDisney]

Excited to read your trip report, Cara!! Loved my solo trip in February, but need to start planning the Spring 2015 trip for the family!!

 

[disneyhousewife]

I love your pictures!