My First (of many I Hope!) Trippy! POP/Free Dining Sept 2009 - Updated! Day 1 Part 1

[MandyTG]

The Cast Members-
Myself- Mandy/Mom/Wifey/Trip Planner/Disney Obsessor - 31
Brian/Dad/Hubby - 32
Sawyer/Big Brother - 3 1/2
Skyler/Little Brother - 9 3/4 months

This is my first trip report, so please bear with me!

(You can find my Pre-Trippy here.)


We had a long drive down to Disney. About 1000 miles that we stretched over 2 days. We left at 7 a.m. Saturday morning and were driving to Mobile, AL for the night, then on to Disney the next day. Saturday was a great trip! The weather was good. Cloudy, which is nice when riding, so you don't have the hot sun shining on you making you hot.

We were stopping for lunch at my Aunt Gail's in Pearl, MS and only had to make ONE stop between here and there! Then, we had a long stop at my Aunt's, who made us a yummy lunch of ham, mac & cheese, rolls, and TWO desserts!

Aunt Gail (with Sawyer), showing off her Year of a Million Dreams ears.

With our belly's full and our riders rested, we climbed back in for the final leg of our trip for the day. Again, we only had to make ONE stop. I was so excited. This is trip is going to be a breeze! Plus, I was really excited about the drive the next day. It was all in Florida and I thought I would see all sorts of interesting scenery. I have traveled the roads between Arkansas and Alabama too many times to count, but I have only been down to Disney 3 times, and the last time I was 10. So the idea of beaches, palm trees and orange groves danced in my head . . .

We did see some pretty things on our first day.


A rainstorm . . .



Beautiful clouds . . .



And a faint rainbow.

We spent the night in Mobile (Saraland/Satsuma, technically) at my Aunt Lunetter's. We got to visit and meet my newest cousin, Cayson. He is just a couple months younger than Skyler and they all had so much fun playing together. Sawyer too!

We got going the next morning by 8 a.m. Today we would drive about 8 hours. We were staying at Best Western/Lake Buena Vista Resort Hotel at Downtown Disney and I hoped for a few hours to window shop and have supper. We would check into our Disney resort early Monday morning so we could be at Magic Kingdom by opening ceremony.

One of my favorite things, the Mobile Bay tunnel! I have been through this thing many times. Not just on the way to Disney, but Pensacola, Gulf Shores and other times as well. I love how it makes it seem like you are driving through a worm hole or something!

So . . . all the hopes I had for a smooth second day of car tripping were ruined by 10 a.m. We were already on our THIRD stop! Arrrrrrrr! The day did not improve! I also forgot to account for the fact that we would be loosing an hour when we crossed into the Eastern Time Zone, so we were going to get to Orlando even later!

We stopped for lunch in Tallahassee and ate at Five Guys Burger and Fries.

Our burger "all the way" and cheddar bacon dog with fries.

It supposed to be this famous burger place (our president has famously eaten at the location in DC) and I try to find places to eat that we don't have around here. That's part of the vacation fun for me. Five Guys was okay. We liked the Hot Dog better than the burger, but it was good too. We were just ready to get on the road and get to DISNEY WORLD!

The rest of the day didn't get any better. Tons of stops, plus, hardly any interesting scenery! I was very disappointed! There were a few palm trees here and there, but it was mostly pine trees.

Palm tree at a rest stop. They do have nice rest stops in Florida. Some even had WiFi!

I have seen plenty of pine trees, thank you! AND, the only orange grove I saw was deserted. I see way more orange groves when visiting my sister in South Louisiana! I know when I was younger I saw more orange groves! My dad told me that most of the orange groves were around my cousin's in Lakeland, and since we didn't go there this trip, I guess I missed out . . .

We finally got to our hotel at about 8 p.m. (eastern, so 7 for us). We took all our junk up to your room, I changed clothes, took care of Skyler, and out the door we went to Downtown Disney! Hurray! Our first official Disney outing!

So, Sunday night at Downtown Disney = lots of locals = crowded! It was already getting dark, we were hungry, tired, grouchy and Sawyer kept saying he wanted to ride rides! (Because we made the mistake of telling him we were at Disney World!) We ran in a couple of shops on our way down to Earl of Sandwich (where we were having our supper. Our first Disney meal!) Unfortunately this one was not free, since we weren't checked into our Disney Resort yet, but it wasn't too bad for Disney food.

Brian's Club Sandwich



My "Original". Roast Beef with cheddar cheese, creamy horseradish sauce. It was good and it was real sliced roast beef. Not like the "roast beef" at Arby's. I also had a side salad.



Sawyer's PB & J.

A display at the LEGO store.

Sawyer with Mickey and Minnie at the Pin Traders store.

After we ate, we let Sawyer ride the little train he had spotted. He was blissful. Finally! A ride! He was so cute riding that little train!

Look how excited he is just to ride this little train! So precious!

Downtown Disney. You can see the Characters in Flight balloon. You can pay money and go up in it 400 ft. Sawyer wanted to go on it, but maybe another time.

After that, a little more browsing, but no purchases yet. I could spend FOREVER in just the World of Disney store, and spend LOTS of money! But I was good, plus Brian was there frowning at me . . . I'm sure he just kept hearing 'cha-ching, cha-ching" whenever I would stop and "ooo" and "ah" over something.

This was a display in The World of Disney Store. I have no idea if it's always there, or if it was special for halloween, but I found it very creepy. It's from "Pirates" I guess. I would much rather there had been a Jack Sparrow display . . . or a Will Turner display for that matter . . .

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of Downtown Disney. Yes, it was crowded, but there were so many cool things going on, it had a kind of carnival atmosphere. There was a dance party going on in the little amphitheater. It was kids and their parents and someone was on stage leading them in dances like "Cha, Cha, Slide", "YMCA" and "The Birdie Dance". You could tell they were all having so much fun. It made me happy just to listen.
Also, there were different performers around and on the way out, we stopped and watched a juggler for a bit. I was already loving my Disney bubble.

Unfortunately we weren't completely in the bubble yet, since we had to go back to our "Official" Disney, but not run by Disney, off-property hotel for the night. But no time to be sad about it, we just went straight to bed! We had an early/busy morning ahead of us! Magic Kingdom, here we come!

 

[MandyTG]

We were up early on Monday morning and quickly got ready and our suitcases repacked from the one night stay at downtown Disney.
We were at POP by 8 a.m. to get checked in and get our tickets to try to make it to Magic Kingdom by rope drop.

There were no lines at POP and everything went smoothly although they were unable to give us our "Magic Your Way" cards due to the system being down. So, the gave us temp passes for the time being and told me to bring back receipts from meals that I wanted to be reimbursed.
We were off! On our way to the Happiest Place on Earth! We drove, opting not to take the buses. We figured with a 3 year old, a baby, 2 strollers and 2 bags it would just be easier to take our car.

We parked close to the front (Minnie lot) and walked to the Ticket and Transportation Center in about 5 minutes. We had asked Sawyer a few times if he wanted to take the boat or the "train" and he had said 'boat' every time, but when he his first look at a monorail, he quickly changed his mind. "I want to ride that!" he said pointing.

First monorail ride!

We were on a train in a couple of minutes and zipping along happily. It was already 10 till 9 at this point, so I was pretty sure we missed the opening celebration, but as we approached the Magic Kingdom monorail platform, I could see the train with all the characters still waiting to pull into the station. I was a giddy as a 3 year old myself! "I saw Mary Poppins!" I exclaimed to excitedly for a 31 year old woman. "That means it hasn't started yet!".

As we excited the monorail car we could here the announcer welcoming everyone as the celebration started. We quickly went through bag checked and then stopped to watch the rest of the show before going through the ticket booths. I wanted to soak it in.

I fought tears as the performers and characters danced and the chosen family threw the pixie dust to officially open the park for the day. I'm not sure if hubby saw the tears of not, but he was polite enough not to tease me about it. Plus, I had already warned him that I would probably cry a lot.

We went through the ticket booths and under the train station onto Main Street! I really didn't have a plan today. I had a few things I wanted to do, but other than that, I just wanted to explore and get reacquainted with the park.

When we first got in the park and were standing on Main Street, Sawyer said that he wanted to ride the Lightning McQueen ride! It was so cute but sad because I had to tell him that there wasn't one! Poor guy! Now we have to go to Disneyland in a few years when they get their Lightning McQueen ride!

After the castle photo-op, we went to the Chapeau to get the boys their Mickey ears with their names embroidered on the back. We choose classic black Mickey ears a la Mickey Mouse Club. As we were waiting, one of the Main Street "characters" came over to us and told Sawyer that you can always tell a gentleman because he goes with the "classic". She was really sweet and fun.

Showing off our ears!

Next, we went to Main Street Bakery to have a little breakfast while we waited for the hats to be ready. This was also the first time (of MANY) that I utilized the Baby Care Station in the park. I took Skyler there to nurse him while Brian and Sawyer waited to get our cinnamon roll.
The Baby Care Station was very nice. There was a nursing room with 4 rockers, a changing room, a bathroom, and room for preparing bottles and feeding babies in high chairs and also a place for the rest of the family to wait with a TV and coloring sheets.
Skyler and I got bake to the bakery just as Brian and Sawyer were sitting down to eat. The bakery was very busy and crowded, but not unpleasant.

We all shared a cinnamon roll (YUM!) and a crumb cake (Brian couldn't resist).

Fueled to start our day, we picked up our ears, the we were off to Fantasy Land!

Finally here!

We chose Peter Pan's Flight for our first ride since I knew it was one that had longer wait times as the day went on. We waited in the "queue" (there are no "lines" at Disney World) for about 10 minutes before it was our turn to fly to Neverland.
Although I enjoyed the ride, it was a but short and showed it's age, but it was classic Disney, so I was content.

After Peter Pan, we bounced over to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. We had another short wait but we discovered our favorite ride! It was so fun and colorful and I loved how your "honey pot" (ride car) would be a part of the action, bouncing with Tigger and floating and bobbing in the flood waters. We really loved this ride! Plus we are a little partial to Pooh!

After exciting Pooh, the next showing of Mickey's Philharmagic was about to start. We had a short wait in the queue, but we waited the longest at the actual theatre doors. It seemed forever and everyone was getting restless.

This is how Sawyer amused himself while waiting to go in the theater.

The show was really cute though, and worth the wait. Poor hubby though lost his 3D glasses along the way, so he wasn't able to enjoy the full experience.

Our last ride of the morning was It's A Small World. We had a longer than anticipated wait here because they had just had to stop the boats to let someone on one of the special accessible boats, this was making the boats backed up just a bit, but not bad, and if we have to wait a few more minutes for someone to get to enjoy the ride, I say we can use those minutes to count our blessings that we don't require the special boat.

We're next!

I made Brian takes pictures of all the giraffes and elephants we saw around Disney World.

How can you not love Small World. It's just so cute and happy. Plus, it's a long ride so you get to soak it in. Some of the rise are so short you have a hard time remembering you even rode them! Sawyer really liked this ride and asked to ride again, but the line had gotten pretty long and we were on our way to see Dream Along with Mickey on our way out of the park for lunch and a rest.

I got teary again watching this show. Right before tthis, Mickey asks Minnie to dance and she says, "But I'm not a princess" and Mickey says, "You've always been a princess to me, Minnie!". So cheesy, but it got me . . .

We watched Dream (although Skyler and I left a little bit before the end to revisit the Baby Station) and then grabbed lunch at Casey's Corner on the way out.

Playing in the fountain at the Baby Care Center.

Watching the Piano Man at Casey's.

Good hot dogs, but the corn dog nuggets where a favorite of Brian and myself.
Now we left the park for our afternoon break and I will break here as well!


I almost forgot! On the way out we ran into the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It, parade/street party. We never purposely set out to watch this but we ended up seeing it at least 4 times because it happens so often! But Sawyer got to see Woody and Jesse , so he was excited!

Day One to be continued! Coming up next— An evening at the Magic Kingdom; Liberty Tree Tavern, Spectromagic and Wishes!