My First Disney Trip - What's In a Name?

[Allison Joy]

Okay. Fair warning. Since this was my first trip, I have NO IDEA how to go about doing a "proper" trip report. I don't know if there are rules about how many pictures we can post or... anything. So bare with me?

So I've loved Disney, but had never been on a Disney trip. It was to the point that I was thinking of planning a solo trip, for my first ever Disney trip, a bit of a scary proposition, since the most traveling I've done on my own is for conferences where I knew people once I got there.

But then my friend got a teaching job, and messaged me one day with "So. About that Disney trip." And so we planned a trip for her, her mom, and me.

Be forewarned, sarcasm is a second language to me, so much of my "complaining" is really just me laughing at myself or the situation, and I'm not actually (that) upset.

"Negative" Days and Day 1: Pre-trip and departure

Our trip was May 29 to June 4.

In preparation, I did a StarWars marathon a couple of weekends before, my birthday weekend, which was fun. I'd never actually seen the Star Wars movies. I'm now an official Star Wars fan. I entertained my friends with a running commentary via Facebook status updates. So at the time of my trip, I was a newly minted Star Wars fan.

For my birthday, my parents got me a $50 Disney Gift card to spend at Disney. That's a WOOHOO! That changed into a *smacks forehead* "Oh my gosh. Did I really do that? Really?" moment.

Yep. Totally lost my gift card. As in, since it never has shown up, I'm pretty sure it got left on the kitchen table and taken out with the recyclable. *shakes head in dismay* I felt (feel?) SO silly and stupid. Told Mom so I didn't have this "guilt" hanging over me if she asked about it. So that put a bit of a damper on the pre-trip, but I still didn't let it stop me from enjoying the trip itself.

The next morning, I drove myself to the airport, and first went to the wrong parking area. Well. Gee. This trip is just NOT staring out well, is it? In St. Louis, Southwest has it's very own terminal, and I followed the signs for the Southwest terminal, forgetting that all long-term parking (except for the $20+ per day parking) is at the main terminal. Got there in plenty of time, though.

So I was wearing this shirt (I didn't get any picture of myself actually in the shirt.) expecting to get a lot of comments on it, seeing as I was flying Southwest, and they like to have fun on their flights.

You know who I got the most comments from? Even more than at Disney? The TSA agents in St. Louis. I kid you not. Had an entire conversation with them as I moved through security, making sure they didn't send me through the metal detectors where my hip replacement would set things off, and I'd have my second experience with the "enhanced" pat-down. Especially since, at age 33, I certainly don't look like someone who would have a metal hip! (Another story, but I don't mind sharing. Quite the opposite, actually... let me know!) Once is enough, thank you very much!

After landing in Orlando, I found the Disney Magical Express bus, and met my friend and her mom at the resort. (They are from Alabama, so they drove while I flew.)

We stayed in Port Orleans Riverside, and I found something even in the resort that made me feel at home...

Hey! I live there! (Well, metro area, at least)

And then this one...

Hey! I've lived there too! Never thought I'd see my college town (Cape Girardeau) at Disney. So that was kind of fun.

We did a bit of exploring at Disney Springs, went back to our room, and that was Day 1.

 

[Allison Joy]

Day 2 -- Epcot

Day 2. My first "real" experience with Disney World.

Since Epcot is all about the World Showcase, I wore my "flags of the world" t-shirt. Oh, and since my friend's mom's birthday (Mama Wanda) is in April, mine is in May, and my friend (Ruth) is a teacher and is already back to work for her birthday in August, we decided we were ALL celebrating our birthdays. And since we see each other less than once a year in real life, it works!

One of the fist things we did was meet Sadness and Joy. I was super excited about this, because my middle name is "Joy." (Thus my avatar here) (You'll see "duplicate" names come up a couple more times here, thus my thread title)

This is me telling Joy that my middle name is Joy, and her reaction. (I think). And then the obligatory hug.

And this is my current FB profile picture. (Okay. Going off course here a bit. Are we allowed to have actual photos as our profile picture, and most people just don't, or is using a real picture discouraged? I'd love to switch to this one, if allowed.)

So after that, I actually rode my first Disney ride, Fast Track.

I think (??) I took my glasses off, just to be on the safe side.

We also did Mission Space, both intensities, which I LOVED! I'm a NASA geek, and I probably would have been content riding that repeatedly. But then, as evident by my shirt, I also think other countries are pretty cool.... or at least their flags. Flag nerd! We ate dinner in Germany, but didn't quite have time to visit all the countries, because I walk slowly (see first post about hip "stuff.") and while I walked a LOT that day, I slowed down as they day went on. I'd love to go back some time. You can't leave the World Showcase unfinished, can you??

I also got to meet Mulan. On, and the fireworks show at the end... WOW! I'd NEVER seen anything like that, and I think my mouth was hanging open in amazement all however many minutes it is. (when I wasn't attempting to get pictures myself, which I eventually gave up on)

So that was day 2. Day three was a "rest" day, where we hit Disney Springs again, and explored some of the other resorts, which was fun. Fort Wilderness had an interesting problem where the music was just blasting, and apparently no one knew how to turn it off. It did get fixed eventually while we were there, but it had been that way all day, and we felt bad for all the Cast Members who had to deal with it.

I'll continue with days 4 and 5 later. Maybe later tonight, maybe tomorrow. But right now I'm hungry.

 

[mercydisney]

Enjoying your trip report!

 

[Allison Joy]

Okay. So I got my "rest" days mixed up. lol

Day 3 was actually Hollywood Studios.

So for Hollywood Studios, we did Tower of Terror and Rock 'n Roller Coaster. Loved both of those, even if I do look a bit terrified in the ToT one... We had to laugh at the contrast. Most of the left side (as you look at the picture) is enjoying themselves, while on the right side we kind of all look like we're about to die. In my defense, I kept expecting it to go down in on big swoop, and kept expecting the next drop to be "THE BIG ONE." None were as big as I was anticipating.

We did the Frozen Sing-along, which I loved, even as an adult. And, I GOT TO MEET OLAF!! Yes, I realized that as a 33-year-old adult, I should probably not be quite as excited as I was, but I love Olaf. Named my new car Olaf, even (My car is silver, so a "wintery" color, and he got me home in the snow, so... yeah.) So I told Olaf my car was named after him, and gave him a warm hug. Because, you know. He kind of likes those.

(Random thought: Thank goodness for the save/draft feature on this forum! I had to close my browser unexpectedly, and I come back and voila, here it is!)

Now, being a newly minted Starwars fan, I had to get myself a light saber, right? And seeing as I can relate to Yoda's short stature, I asked for a Yoda light saber. While that wasn't technically one of the options for "build your own light saber" a Cast Member helped me make my dream come true. Later, I got a Princess Leia Minnie.

This was the day it rained the most, and so we headed inside quite a bit, and had a LOT of fun in the Star Wars bay. When we went in to meet Chewie, I asked Ruth and Mama Wanda if I should stand closest to Chewie, just so we could get the height difference. Chewie himself answered in the affirmative. The cast member taking our pictures was also named "Allison" and she tried to convince Chewie we were clones.

We also did the Toy Story ride, which was fun. My friend creamed me, point wise, but it was still fun!

We ate at the 50's diner, which was SO much fun. The group in our little area was hilarious. One of them actually worked there, but was there as a guest, and so the other Cast Members had a bit of fun with her and her love for iced tea. I now kind of want to go back in December with a card and say "Now you can't say you didn't get my Christmas card!"

To get out of the rain, we did the Little Mermaid show... only to get "rained" on inside! But that was fun.

Unfortunately, Fantasmic had to be cancelled due to the rain. Being from Alabama and Missouri, the three of us in my group were cloud watching, and commenting on the "pretty" thunderheads. At one point, there was some sort of power surge, apparently, and Disney had some power issues. But you'd have never known. We only found out because we were chatting with a Cast Member about what they do in weather emergencies, and then the next day, our waitress mentioned something about the lightening messing with the dinning/magic band system a bit.


So day FOUR was actually our rest day, and I still have days 5 and 6 to go.

 

[Allison Joy]

Day 5: Animal Kingdom

Day 5 was Animal Kingdom.

We did the Safari and a few of the walking trails, and I got a few decent pictures of my own.

Towards the middle of the day, we did the River Rapids ride. Anyone want to guess who won the prize for "wettest on the boat?"
Yep. I was soaked. Drenched is more like it. From head to toe. You know. One of those people you look at as they are walking through the exit line, and you're thinking "Oh man. That person REALLY got it."

To dry off, I went on Expedition Everest. All three of us were supposed to go, but the others didn't want to go. So I went on my own. And once again, even if I look terrified in the picture, I loved it.

We met Rafiki, and he was SO much fun. He wouldn't let Mama Wanda get by without seeing him, and approached us in line before we could even get up to him.

We did the Finding Nemo musical, and that was awesome. I especially enjoyed Squirt in the adult equivalent of a mid-air Johnny Jump-Up.

We also met Flick and Pocahontas. We did the Dinosaur ride and ate at Tusker House, so we got to meet even more characters then.

Day 6, findal day at the parks, may have to wait a bit. I'm waiting to see when I get to Skype with my bother and 5 1/2 month old niece! (They live in Maine, I live in Missouri. I got to see her once already, and I shall try to be content with Skype. At least we do have that!)

 

[Allison Joy]

Okay. Last post here, for the official trip report, I think.

Day 6: Magic Kingdom

Don't know that there's a whole lot that's new, different, or interesting to share, really. Rode some rides, met some characters, ate some good food. That's the short version.

This is probably the one where we went on the most rides. We did Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Buzz Lightyear, and a few others, which I can't recall off the top of my head.

We ate breakfast at Be Our Guest. Our order came, but not the bottled water Ruth and I had ordered. They tried to get the fixed, and pretty soon, we had.... and entire extra meal for each of us. It seems as if they just put our exact order in the system again. Which means the waters still weren't there. But since they would have had to discard the food anyway, they offered us our second meals, and we all had about 1 1/2 breakfasts. It was kind of like the Hobbits who have second breakfast. Or something like that. We finally did get our waters... and a free Fast Pass. Nice! We used that to meet Anna and Elsa, and walked right in.

Rides:

We ate dinner at Cinderella's castle. The funny thing is, as I figured out after the trip, not only were we in the same park the same day as some friends of mine from St. Louis (I had no idea they were even doing Disney) and not only did we both to Cinderella's castle the same day, we even ended up at the same table! They were there for breakfast, and we were at the same table for dinner. *Cue music for "It's a Small World."*

We also met Ariel and Gaston. Gaston was as arrogant as ever.

Even though it was only adults in our group, we did Enchanted Tales with Belle. As an education major (never ended up teaching, but work with kids at my church) I loved it and thought it was adorable.

We ended the day with Splash Mountain, watching some of the fireworks as we rode. Somehow, our boat was all women!

As we walked out, we decided to try one more ride... "It's a Small World." Something that was cute to do once, especially how they have your names at the end, but something I could also do without on any subsequent trips... One round of that song is plenty for me.

So the next day, we used our final snacks from our meal plan at Disney Springs, said our goodbyes, and we headed back to our respective homes. I truely enjoyed my trip, and hope to go back some day. I would LOVE to go during December and see the Candlelight Processional. I'm a church choir nerd, and I was also in the church orchestra in high school (honestly, large ensemble would be a more approrpaite term. We were a bit small to be a real "orchestra") so that is right up my alley.


'Till we meet again, Disney!