My First Ever Trip Report! June 16-24 COMPLETE

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like you all powered through EMH and had a fun time!

 

[cinderaimee]

I LOVE the lantern photos and am so jealous of the extra late EMH! It looks like you guys had a great time. I'm glad the crazy weather blew through when you were taking a break and didn't ruin your plans.

 

[twinprincesses09]

Day 5- Resort/Rest day

Knowing that we would have a late night at MK, I had planned this day as a resort day. We had no plans for the day, other than resting and hopefully getting in some pool time if the weather cooperated. Luckily it did!! After sleeping until sometime after 10am, we got up and readied ourselves for a day at the pool. First, we grabbed breakfast at the Mara, AKL’s quick service restaurant. We got there just before they stopped serving breakfast at 11am. Hubby and I both got the bounty platters and the girls got the kids breakfast platters as well. Then it was off to the pool. It was already somewhat crowded, but we managed to get 2 lounge chairs over by the zero-entry side of the pool. The girls were so excited to finally get some swimming time. They absolutely loved the pool side games hosted by the cast members. I truly believe they would have been happy to just visit the resort and stay by the pool all day! Anyway, here are some pictures of them having fun!









After we had been there a few hours, I did decide I needed to do a few loads of laundry. So, by about 2pm, I headed back to the room for a bit while hubby stayed with the girls at the pool. We were staying 3rd floor Kudu trail, and the laundry room was just below us on the 2nd floor. So, I gathered up our things, took them down, and got the washing machines started. Then I headed back to the pool to wait. I believe it was around this time, that I decided to indulge and get some drinks from the pool bar. I got a Sunshine Margarita, hubby got a Lava Smoothie, and the girls each got a Strawberry Smoothie. I was a little disappointed in my Sunshine Margarita. It wasn’t as sweet as I would have liked, but of course, I finished it anyway. When I received notification that they were done, hubby walked back to change them over to the dryer, for which I was grateful. Then we all headed over to use the hot tub for a bit. The girls only stayed in for a few minutes, as they were quickly drawn to the playground area. When it was about time for the dryers to be done, hubby decided he was done with the pool for the day and headed back to get the laundry out, take a nap, and shower. He’s not a big pool person, and had already stayed longer than I thought he would! The girls and I could happily stay there all day. So the three of us headed back over to the pool. I think we ended up finally leaving about 530pm to head back to the room to shower and get ready for dinner.

After showers, we decided to head out to Disney Springs for dinner. However, it was about 6:15pm and I knew that the AKL has a campfire from 5:30-6:30 where guests could make s’mores. So we headed out to the overlook to find it. I was expecting it to be at the Arusha fire pit area, but we didn’t see anyone there. But we could smell the faint scent of smoke, so we followed our noses around a few corners and found the campfire. Each guest is allowed to make 1 s’more, but can also roast as many marshmallows as they would like. So we made our s’mores, ate them and roasted a few more marshmallows before the fire was put out promptly at 6:30pm.



Then we hung around for a few minutes getting closer views of the animals and enjoyed sitting in the rocking chairs around the fire pit (it wasn’t lit at this time) for a little while.





Then we headed on out to Disney Springs. We didn’t have any plans for dinner, so I pulled up a few menus on the MDE app for the bus ride there. We debated between D-Luxe Burger, Wolfgang Puck Express, and Chicken Guy. Ultimately, we decided to go with Wolfgang Puck Express as it seemed to have the most variety. On the walk over, we stopped to take a few photos along the way.



Once there, they were pretty crowded and it took some time to order. I got the chicken alfredo, hubby got the bacon-wrapped meatloaf, A got the chicken tenders, and C got the mac and cheese. Overall, I was pretty disappointed in this meal. The chicken alfredo wasn’t too great, I’ve definitely had much better. While A ate most of her chicken tenders, C didn’t really like her mac and cheese. But hubby did enjoy his meatloaf. Nonetheless, it was all fine, if a little bland. Then we set out on the search for dessert. We had passed Ghirardelli’s on the walk over, and I was really wanting some ice cream. First though, we stopped by Pin Traders so the girls could do some pin trading. And there was a photopass booth there, so of course, the girls had to take some pics.





Then we continued on our search for ice cream. But when we got there, the line was way out the door, and none of us wanted to wait that long. Besides it was getting late, and we had an early morning again the next day. So we headed for the bus and got back to the resort about 9:30pm. We walked down to the pool area to check out the Usiku festival that was supposed to be going on. But other than music playing and some colored lights, there wasn’t much going on. They did have make-your-own glow in the dark slime that you could purchase for $5 each. The girls really wanted to do it, but we had no cash on us, and they didn’t accept magic bands for payment. So they were pretty upset about that. But we told them we would get some ice cream from the Mara before bed, so they got over it pretty quickly. We got some Mickey bars and Mickey ice cream sandwiches. Not as good as Ghirardelli, but it would have to do. Then it was back to our room for lights out.

Looking back, I would have preferred to stay at the resort and not to have gone back to Disney Springs. I wish we had tried one of the restaurants at the resort, but the girls are not adventurous eaters (nor am I). But we could have gone back to the Mara, or ordered room service. Disney Springs was very crowded, and it was tiring just walking to the restaurant and back through the crowds. I didn’t realize it was so far over to Wolfgang Puck Express. We had really wanted to explore the activities at the hotel a little more, but never seemed to have time.

 

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like a fun day!!

 

[twinprincesses09]

Day 6- HS

After a restful day by the pool, we were ready to return to the parks. We had Hollywood Studios planned for this day. Instead of our usual midday break, we had plans to do the park open to close to fit everything in. I had planned HS for later in the trip to give us a better chance at getting FPs for Slinky Dog Dash. However, the earliest I could get them was 12:55-1:55pm. So, we planned to get to the park early again today and possibly try to get a ride on SDD at rope drop. I had read awful things about rope drop at this park since SDD opened, the narrow walkways and crowds pushing, etc. So I wasn’t set on it by any means. If it seemed we weren’t toward the front of the crowd, we were just going to head to Alien Swirling Saucers instead.

After an uneventful bus ride, we arrive at the entrance to HS by about 8:20am. We get through security quickly since I am bagless today (no rain in the forecast), and head into the park. Crowds really weren’t that bad. I would say we were about 7-8 people deep from the front of the rope on Holllywood Boulevard- not too bad. Unfortunately, as timed near closer to park open, I noticed more and more people were gathering over near Hollywood Derby Brown on the sidewalks. I had read in other posts that this often happened, but that castmembers would often hold people back farther up and not let them join the crowd headed to Toy Story land. Unfortunately, that did not happen this day. So by the time we headed through the entrance toward Animation Courtyard and turned right, a significant number of people had gotten ahead of us. The wait still might not have been too bad, but somehow hubby and A had gotten separated from C and myself. At least at this point, I was hoping hubby and A were still together. A and I stepped over to the side out of the way in front of the Walt Disney Presents theater to watch for them. We soon saw them in the crowd and joined up with them, but by that point, I knew we would be too far back in line for SDD to make a ride possible that morning. So, we headed toward Alien’s instead, and were in line taking this picture at 8:56am.





It was a really cute ride, but over quickly. I’m still unsure what happened, but when the ride stopped instead of having us exit through the regular gate, they had us exit back into the queue and line up for a ride on the other side. So we got a bonus ride!!





Then, we did exit and headed toward Toy Story Mania at 9:10am. The wait was posted at 20 minutes, and that was pretty accurate. Of course, we had to stop for a picture with Mr. Potato Head.





While exiting, we saw these two headed over to their meet and greet.





I asked the girls if they wanted to go and meet them, but they didn’t want to stand in line. And while I think it would have been a cute meet, I was fine with skipping them as the line was already long. There was little shade and it was already really hot outside. So instead, we headed out of Toy Story land for the time being, stopping for a few pictures on the way out.



We were a little ahead of schedule, so we decided to head down toward the Incredible Celebration. We knew that the dance party didn’t start until 10:30am, but thought we would check it out anyway. They did have a cute place set up to take pictures. So of course, we had to do that….




Then we headed over to meet Edna Mode as there were only a few families waiting.




It was almost 10am by this point, so we decided to head toward our first FP of the day Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster 10-11am. But first, we noticed Vampirina meeting in animation courtyard. This was a new character for us, and even though A and C were getting a little old for the Disney Jr characters, they were excited to meet her. The line wasn’t too bad, but of course she had to go and take a quick break with only one family in front of us. But we still were taking this picture at 10:10am.





Then we continued on down Sunset Boulevard, stopping to take some pictures…





And were on RnR by 10:35am.






to be continued in next post....

 

[twinprincesses09]

We hadn’t had any real breakfast yet, only a few breakfast bars, so we decided to get some pretzels and catch the 11am show of Beauty and the Beast before our next FP (ToT at 11am-12pm). A and C opted for the regular Mickey pretzels, while hubby and I went for the cream cheese stuffed pretzels. They were really good, and A ended up eating most of my cream cheese pretzel instead of her own.

After the BatB show, we headed over to ToT to use our FP and were dropping in at 11:45am.





Next, we walked back and caught the new Lightning McQueen show. We were able to get in a few minutes before the next show. The show was cute, but I wouldn’t feel the need to do it again. Especially since my girls aren’t big Cars fans.

Next we headed back out toward Animation Courtyard to fill some time before our SDD FP at 12:55pm. The girls were anxious to see the Voyage of the Little Mermaid show. It tried talking them into waiting until I could get a FP for it later in the day, but they were insistent, so we went ahead and got in line. I was unsure if we would make it into the next show, as the inside waiting area was already full. Fortunately, we did get into the next show which was 12:30pm.

After that, I saw that Doc McStuffins had a short line. And even though the girls weren’t really all that interested in meeting her again, I talked them into it and we only had one family ahead of us.



Next, we decided to go ahead and see the 12:55pm Disney Jr show since it was getting ready to start and I was ready to sit down for a few minutes. While the girls still wanted to sit up on the floor by the stage, I was happy to sit on one of the benches in the back. By this time, I realized I was getting a huge blister on the bottom of my heel. I’m not sure why. Although we had done a lot of walking, these weren’t new shoes and I had worn them a few days before to Epcot without a problem. They had gotten soaked at Epcot and on the balcony in the storm a few days before, but hubby was thoughtful enough to sit with a hair dryer and dry them all for us the day before. But anyway, the show was soon over and we had a SDD FP to get to!! So we headed back out toward Toy Story Land, and let me tell you, it was hot by this point. I had heard how hot it was back there midday with little shade, but experiencing it made me realize just how true it was. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long with the FP and were on the ride by 1:30pm.




While the ride is really cute and fun, there is no way I would wait longer than 20 minutes or so in standby for this ride. Especially in the hot sun.

As we made our way out of Toy Story Land, the blister on my foot was really hurting to the point where it was hard to walk. I hadn’t brought my bag with me today, so I didn’t have any bandages on hand. So, we headed toward the front of the park to visit the first aid station and get a bandaid. After applying the bandage, it still hurt, but at least not as bad since my shoe wasn’t directly rubbing on it anymore.

On the way to first aid, I had went on the MDE app and made our next FP for Star Tours with an almost immediate return. So we headed that way. After a quick trip through the galaxies, we headed over for our late lunch reservation at Sci-Fi.



We checked in right at our reservation time of 2:10pm and they told us that there would be a little bit of a wait, so they took my phone number and said they would text when they were ready. Hubby decided to head to the restroom while we were waiting and the girls and I headed over to get cups of water while we waited. Within about 2 minutes, I was getting a text that our car was ready, so we walked the few feet back over to the hostess stand. Since hubby wasn’t back from the restroom yet, they wouldn’t seat us until he arrived. I was afraid we would lose our spot in line, but luckily I saw him come back down the hall from the restrooms and was able to tell the hostess he was back before she moved on. After getting seating in our car and ordering, we took a few pictures….






Then settled in to rest and wait on our food. It arrived pretty quickly. The girls had each gotten chicken tenders and fries. Hubby got the beef and blue burger and fries. I got the cheese steak sandwich and was surprised that they let me order onion rings as they were no longer on the menu, and I had heard that they were no longer serving them. Everyone enjoyed their food except for me. The cheesesteak was extremely dry, and very fatty. It was like eating chewy rubber. We had eaten here a few years ago, and I really enjoyed it, but had gotten a burger. I wished I had stuck to the burger this time as well! But I managed to eat most of it since I was hungry, and the onion rings were good. I probably should have sent it back and ordered something else, but I hate doing that in restaurants as I’m always afraid someone will do something to the food!

While we were having lunch, I was able to make a FP for the 3:30pm Frozen show. So we left the restaurant by about 3:15pm and headed that way. Although they were already letting people into the theater and seat were filling up, there were several empty seats all the way up front on the far side, so we ended up in the front row. It wouldn’t have been my preferred seats as it made seeing up on stage difficult, but the girls were super excited to be so close.




After the Frozen show, we headed back down Sunset Boulevard toward ToT hoping to meet some characters at character palooza. I had wanted to do this on our other visits, but it never worked out as we were usually not in the park at the right times. But since we were spending the whole day here without taking a midday break, we were able to finally work it in our plans. So, we got some sort of strawberry frozen drinks at the beverage cart at the exit to ToT and sat on the wall to wait. There was one other family that was hanging out there as well, and I figured they were there for the same reason. We waited a little past the scheduled time, but finally the gate opened. Donald and Minnie were the first characters there. So after a few minutes of interaction with them and a few pictures,






we headed back out the gate to wait on the next set. The girls were getting restless with the waiting and hubby ended up taking them into the ToT gift shop to browse while I waited. A little while later, the gate opened again and I hurriedly got the attention of hubby and the girls and we went in to meet Baloo. He was the only character this time. We had already met him once this trip at AKL in the lobby, but took a picture with him again anyway.



Then, we once again headed out to wait for the next characters. About 15 minutes later, we were let in to meet Bert. Unfortunately, my phone had gone dead by this point, so my husband took pictures with his, but I never did get them from him.

to be continued in next post....

 

[twinprincesses09]

After meeting Bert, we decided to head to our next FP. I had snagged us FP for another ride on TSMM, so we headed back to Toy Story Land for the third time that day. After losing to my hubby once again, I was done for the day. As I said earlier, we had planned to stay all day at HS to see the fireworks, but it was about 6pm at this point and I knew I wouldn’t make it. The girls were tired and whiny and I felt like I was melting and probably dehydrated. Hubby had really wanted to see the Star Wars show as we had seen it before and really enjoyed it. I told him I would take the girls back to the hotel and he could hang out in Launch Bay (he could spend hours in there, but the girls and I get bored after a few minutes) and stay and see the show. Or he could come back to the hotel with us, then return to HS for the show later. But he decided he was done for the day too. So we headed out of the park after stopping for a few more photos.







Once back at AKL, we changed into our swimsuits and cover-ups, headed down to the Mara for dinner, then swam until the pool closed at 10pm. Well, the girls swam anyway. After getting in for a while to cool off, hubby and I retreated to the lounge chairs and collapsed, drained from the heat of the day, while keeping an eye on the girls.

Overall, we had a pretty good day. There was a few things we missed. I really wanted to do the Olaf meet and greet, as well as the Mike and Sully meet. Hubby had wanted to spend some time in Launch Bay and we all wanted to see the Star Wars firework show. But it was just so hot and I was almost wishing the rain from the previous days would return to cool things off a bit. We should have kept with our usual schedule of taking a midday break instead of attempting to stay at the park open to close. But all the things we missed, we had done before, so it wasn’t such a big deal to change plans.

 

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like a fun day at DHS! And a nice night at the pool!

 

[jrmint427]

I'm joining in, and enjoying your trip report!

I think I enjoy the planning almost as much as the trip itself!

I am the same way!

When I told her, she said that she didn’t see any requests on our reservation and our assigned room did not meet those requests, so she changed us to a room that did, even though it still wasn’t ready.

So glad they could accommodate your request! We stayed in a partial view room at AKL last year and really enjoyed it. We saw almost as many animals as we did with a savannah view.

So since we had 6 days this trip, we decide we would do AK twice.

AK is also a favorite park for our family, so we do 2 days there when we have time for extra park days!

So she lead us to a side door and handed us off to another CM who escorted us to our seats. RESERVED FRONT ROW SEATS!! I was so excited! This is my favorite show in all of Disney.

How awesome!! Your front row pictures came out great.

I had heard you are seated in the order of arrival for a PPO breakfast, regardless of your reservation time, so we decided to try to be there early to make it to Soarin’ before rope drop.

We learned this the hard way (that they seem to seat by arrival, not by ADR time), but good to know for the future.

We saw all 4 characters within the first 10 minutes.

That was our experience at Garden Grill too! We really liked that so we could focus on eating after all the characters had stopped by.

So we had about a 35 minute wait in the FP line for Spaceship Earth!

That is crazy! The ride had to have been down for a bit before this.

 

[twinprincesses09]

Day 7- Animal Kingdom

Sorry it’s been so long since my last update! I’m going to try to finish this report up fairly quickly, as I am forgetting details.

Knowing we had a long day planned at HS the day before, we decided to go a little easier today. So after sleeping in until about 10am, we made it down to the Mara for a quick breakfast. We had planned to spend the morning by the pool, and head back to Animal Kingdom by afternoon. Instead of using the pool at Jambo House, we decided to head over to Kidani Village to check out their pool. So after breakfast, we headed out to the front and caught the shuttle over to Kidani. We spent a few minutes wandering around the lobby and visiting the savannah overlook, trying to figure out which room was ours (we could see Kidani from our room). Then we headed over to the pool. The pool there was a smaller than the one at Jambo, but the girls really enjoyed the slide there better. They also once again had fun playing the pool games.







And hubby and I were enjoying just stretching out and relaxing with the occasional dip in the pool to cool off. It was really hot again today (I know, Florida in June, what else did I expect??) So we ended up staying longer than we had originally planned. However, we didn’t have any FP plans until evening, so it wasn’t hard to rearrange.

By about 4pm, we decided to head back to the room to get ready for AK. We ended up making it to the park by about 5pm, since it was so close to the resort. Just in time to make our first FP for FOP before it expired at 5:25pm. But first, more photopass pictures.





After another thrilling flight on FOP, we headed the back way into Africa to catch the 6pm show by the Harambe Village Acrobats. While we were waiting a few minutes for the show to start, I bought some dole whips over at Tamu Tamu Refreshments and we enjoyed them during the show. The girls like the show and joined in some dancing at the end.





Next, we headed over toward Asia as we wanted to catch the 6:30pm show of Bollywood Beats. While we were waiting, the girls played a little corn hole.




Then we enjoyed show.





Afterwards, it was time for our next FP for EE for 6:55-7:55pm.




Continued in next post....

 

[twinprincesses09]

Continued from previous post....

After barely escaping the Yeti, we decided it was time to eat. Since our next stop was the Boneyard to let the girls play for a while, we decided to eat at Restaurantosaurus so the girls could get the sand buckets the kids meals come in to play with. We made it to the boneyard about 7:45pm and left just before it closed at 9pm. We then went on to our final scheduled FP for Dinosaur at 9pm. The girls and I decided to try to act scared in the picture this time around. Somehow, hubby got left out of our plans.





We headed back around to Expedition Everest for one final ride for this trip, and this picture was taken at 9:43pm.





We had plans for our last ride of the night to be FOP as we wanted to see the queue and was hoping for a shorter line late at night. The park was scheduled to close at 10pm. So as soon as we were off EE, we hurriedly walked toward Pandora. Luckily, we made it just in time and got in line at 9:59pm. We ended up waiting right at an hour for the ride. While I think the queue is wonderfully done, I wouldn’t wait that long for it again.

We ended up leaving the park just after 11pm and luckily were just a short ride from the resort. We went straight to bed as we had early morning planned for the next day.

 

[twinprincesses09]

Day 8- Magic Kingdom

Today was our last park day, and we always try to end our visit at Magic Kingdom. We were a little slower moving this morning after a late night the day before. And we were tired from a busy, but fun week. But we still made it to the park and through security by 8:45am. We took a few minutes to browse in the gift shops on Main Street, since we had watched the park opening show on our prior MK day. The girls ended up both buying a toy Groot that sat on your shoulder.





Then we went and joined the crowd at the entrance to Frontierland just before the rope dropped. We were headed to BTMR. When we got to the ride, it wasn’t open yet, and we ended up having to wait about 5-10 minutes or so before they started letting people into the queue. Once in line, we moved steadily forward to the loading station, but it took longer than I had anticipated. They were only loading on one side. But after a fast and twisty ride, we were soon off. I was hoping to get a second ride before moving on, but because of the delay at opening, we didn’t have time before our next stop.

We were headed to see a prince and princess.


From prior experience, we knew if we didn’t get to this meet early, the wait would be long (and hot!) So we were there just a few minutes before 9:30am when they began to meet. We watched them take a spin on the Magic Carpets and were second in line to meet them for the day.




Our first FP for the day was Pirate of the Caribbean at 9:05-10:05am. However, while in line to meet Jasmine and Aladdin, I got an alert telling me that the ride was down and it had converted to an anytime FP. So after our meet, we headed back up in that direction, and noticed that the ride was now open. We quickly jumped in the standby line since there wasn’t much of a wait, and ended up only waiting 10 minutes to board.

Since we had time before our next FP, we decided to head to the Tiki Room since it had been several years since we had seen the show. The girls enjoyed it, and it gave us a chance to sit and rest. Next, up were Dole Whips of course! I mean what kind of parent would I be if I didn’t let my kids have ice cream for breakfast at least one day at Disney!





After we finished our morning treat, we headed over to Splash to use our next FP of the day. This picture was taken at 11:05am.





Next we decided to spend some time out on Tom Sawyer island. The girls had a blast going through the caves and wandering around. While I was waiting on the girls and hubby who were exploring the fort area, I decided to try mobile ordering again. As I mentioned earlier in my trip report, I had not had any luck getting it to work the whole trip. However, this time, I entered a different credit card account, and lo and behold, it finally worked! So, I placed an order for us at Peco Bills. When the girls were finished exploring, we headed that way.





It was now about 12pm and Peco Bills was packed! Luckily, hubby was able to get us a table, while I went to pick up our order. The lines to order were so long. I was very glad I was able to get mobile ordering to work as I only waited a few minutes.

Both hubby and I got the chicken nachos. They were so large that we should have just shared an order. Especially after we added toppings. The girls each got the mac and cheese.

Feeling satisfied, we headed to our next FP for SDMT, and were riding by 1:20pm. We were in a different car from the girls, and unfortunately hubby and my picture never showed up in our photopass account. But you can see his head in the lower corner, and my arm raised up in the girls’ picture.





After a busy morning, we were ready to head back to the hotel for a rest and swim. However, on the way out, we made a detour to visit one last princess. Snow white meets over near Town Hall and usually doesn’t have much of a line. Today, there was no one else there, so we were able to walk right up and meet her.



When we got back to the hotel, we decide a nap was first priority. Afterwards, we headed down to the pool for about an hour around 5pm. The girls were sad that this would be there last swim at AKL.





continued in next post....

 

[twinprincesses09]

After quickly changing and getting ready to head back to the park, we did manage to make it back to the campfire to make s’mores one more time. Once again, we got there with only minutes to spare as they stopped at 6:30pm. Then we browsed through the gift shop once more on our way to the buses and made it back to MK by 7:30pm.





I had made a FP earlier in the day for Haunted Mansion, so we headed over that way and were riding by 7:50pm.



Next up was dinner. We decided on Columbia Harbor House since we had never eaten there. I did mobile ordering again and it worked like a charm. Even though it really wasn’t needed as there were no lines at this time of night. Hubby got the lobster roll, which he enjoyed. I believe the girls and I ended up getting a kids meal and an adult meal of chicken tenders which we split between the three of us.

We had a little fun taking pictures in the stockade.



Then we headed over to the Jungle Cruise. I had made us a FP that began at 8:45pm. As we were walking through Adventureland, we suddenly hear someone calling out C’s name. I kept going, assuming they were talking to someone else. However, my husband and girls stopped, then called me back. It was C’s kindergarten teacher!! We hadn’t seen her in several years as the girls had just finished 3rd grade, and her teacher had actually moved a year after she had C in class. It was truly an amazing coincidence and I wished I had thought to get a picture of them together. It truly is small world!! (;

We continued on to Jungle Cruise and entered the FP line. We were almost to the front of the line, when the engine died on one of the boats as it was returning to the dock. So, they had to use another boat to pull it out of the way and tie it off. So that delayed us about 15 minutes. Not terribly long, but we only had about an hour before the park closed and had hoped to do several more rides. I know many people love the Jungle Cruise, but it’s definitely not a must do for us, so I hate that we spent so much time on it.

Afterwards, we debated on where to go next with the little time we had left. We thought about BTMR, but girls didn’t really want to ride again. So we headed back to Fantasyland and ended up on IASW. There were no lines and we were the only ones in our boat.



The girls wanted to ride again, but we still had our anytime FP from earlier in the day that I wanted to use. We decided to head over to Space Mountain, but detoured to take one last spin on the teacups.




Then, we scanned our bands for our anytime FP and headed into Space Mountain just minutes before 10:00pm. It seemed like a really long wait, but this picture was taken at 10:20pm.





Afterwards, we were all tired and my feet hurt so bad I wasn’t sure I would make it out of the park. So we took our time heading out, stopping to take pictures along the way. We made it to the train station and took our last picture in the park right at 11pm.





By the time we made it back to AKL, it was about 11:40pm. Since we had started the day with an ice cream breakfast, we decided to end it the same way. So hubby and C headed down to the Mara for Mickey Bars while A and I sat in the lobby taking selfies.






Then we headed back to our room, ate our ice cream, and called it a night.

 

[twinprincesses09]

Day 9- Departure Day

After 8 nights at AKL, 6 park days, and too many rides to count, it was time for us to say goodbye. But before we did, we had one last breakfast planned. So, once we got up that morning, we packed up everything. We had a rental car reservation with Disney’s care car center. I called early that morning and made arrangements for my husband to be picked up at AKL by the shuttle and taken to pick up the car. We decided it would be easiest for him to go alone and me to stay behind with the girls and all our luggage. We finished the final packing and left our room right around 11am. But of course we had to take a few more pictures of our gorgeous view first! And we were lucky enough to get to see a baby zebra this morning! This was the first time we had seen this little guy (or gal) out on the savannah!






But we made our way down to the lobby and out to our waiting rental. We were headed to the Boardwalk. We parked at the Boardwalk Inn and made our way down. We ran into this topiary on our way out and had to get a picture. Usually we visit late May/early June and get to see the topiaries all around Epcot from Flower and Garden. But this year, we were visited a little later than usual.





Finally, we made our way to our breakfast destination!





We figured what better way to end our trip than a Bon Voyage Breakfast Adventure! I loved that this breakfast could be booked later than other character breakfasts, and had made reservations for 11:30am. When we got there, they told us it would be a few minutes until we were seated and took my phone number to notify me via text when they were ready for us. So, we walked back out onto the Boardwalk for a few minutes to take some pictures. But it was already so hot, so we decided to wait inside in the AC. After about 10 minutes of waiting, it was time to be seated.

Now, as I stated before, I did a horrible job of taking pictures of food. Mostly because what we ordered wasn’t anything special. But you will be happy to know, I did a much better job here. Here are the girls with the frying pan of pastries.



And of course, my little Rapunzel with her frying pan!



Being it was going on 12pm and we hadn’t eaten all day, we made quick work of these and our waitress happily brought us more. Since it was a bit later in day, I decided to go with something a little heavy than I usually would chose for breakfast and went with the King Triton’s Shipwreck Al Forno (Calzone with Scrambled Eggs, Bell Peppers, Salumi, Bacon, Sausage, Blend of Cheeses, and Sunday Gravy). Hubby chose the same.





The girls each chose Flounder’s Flapjacks with eggs, sausage and bacon.







But the highlight of the breakfast was of course the characters! We had been lucky enough to meet Flynn Rider at Disneyland the previous year. But were still excited to meet him again. A has had a crush on “Eugene” for years!



to be continued....

 

[twinprincesses09]

continued from previous post....

Rapunzel soon followed her prince!




Then we met Prince Eric and Ariel in quick succession.





The girls even got up and participated in the parade around the restaurant.



Overall, it was a great breakfast. I would definitely do it again. The food was great and the character interaction fun!



By about 1245pm, we were saying our goodbyes!





But our vacation wasn’t over just yet! We still had a 2 nights planned in Siesta Key! We stayed at a cute little motel just minutes away from the beach that I would recommend- Captiva Beach Resort. Although it was nothing fancy, it was definitely cute in an old-fashioned motor inn kind of way. Outside the rooms was a little courtyard with seating, ping pong, and bocce.





We stayed in a one bedroom king, with sleeper sofa, 2 full baths, and kitchen. Best of all, the beach was only a few minutes walk away! And the beach was incredible! The sand was white and soft as sugar! The water was warm and crystal clear! I just wish we could have stayed here longer!







But it was a great way to end an exhausting, but fun week!

 

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like the rest of your trip was great! Thanks for sharing!

 

[DLo]

What a fun trip . Thanks for taking the time to share

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Joining VERY late. Twins are so much fun! Mine turn 20 on New year's Eve. AKL is one of my favs. What a great trip!!!!

 

[Isabelle12345]

Awesome trip report!!
Thanks for sharing!!!
It looks like you had an amazing time! And your daughters are adorable!

Thanks for sharing the tip about the Aladdin/ Jasmine meet and greet. I was trying to find info about the best time to meet them and my plan was to do exactly what you did... glad it worked out! Were you in line before 9:15? And how was the line at 9:30?

The Bon Voyage Breakfast seemed like a hit! Can’t wait to try it on our next trip!

Thanks again for the great trip report, packed with lots of very helpful advice!!!

 

[twinprincesses09]

Were you in line before 9:15? And how was the line at 9:30?

I would say we were in line about 9:20-9:25. I only recall 1 family in front of us. They came out promptly at 9:30, rode the Magic Carpets, then came over for the meet. Our picture was taken at 9:38am. The last time we did this meet (2 years ago) we had a similar experience. I would say getting there by 9:15-9:20 would be ideal. It is right next to a little gift shop, so you could always have one person stand in line while the kids browsed. On our first trip we scheduled the meet for a little later in the morning, and had a really long wait- probably 30 minutes or more. Luckily though it is also right next to Aloha Isle, so I got us dole whips while hubby and kids stood in line. We had time to finish them before it was our turn. But I definitely recommend doing the meet early if possible!