My first PTR featuring a TR from May 2010

[baseballfairy]

Hi everyone!

I am new to the DIS but thought I would write up a little PTR for our Aug/Sept 2011 trip and TR for our May 2010 trip. Now before I go into too much detail on this I will give some background and introduce all of us.

Me:
Disney fan for as long as I can remember!
Favorite Movie: I love just about all of them, but prob. Lion King
Favorite Character: I love the princesses and fairies, but my favorite character has always been Eeyore.
Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite Ride: Tower of Terror

I have been to Disney World 3 times although one of those trips I
was 2 or 3. The other trips were Feb 2005 and May 2010. It is my
absolute favorite place in the world! I have also been to Disneyland twice once when I was 6 and the other when I was 16.


DH:

Was not a Disney fan until I converted him, haha. He made fun of my
Disney obsession until our May 2010 trip when he caught the magic.
Now he is just about as crazy as I am about it!
Favorite Movie: Not sure but I think it's Lion King too
Favorite Character: Sorceror Mickey
Favorite Park: DHS
Favorite Ride: TSM



DS: 4 ( almost 3 on our 2010 trip)

Favorite Movie: Star Wars (although last year it was Toy Story)
Favorite Character: Buzz Lightyear and Donald Duck
Favorite Park: I don't think he knows yet
Favorite Ride: Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin


DD: 2 1/2 (was 1 1/2 on our 2010 trip)

Favorite Movie: Toy Story
Favorite Character: Woody
Favorite Park: She's not sure...
Favorite Ride: Probably the carousel and hopefully we will get to
do Dumbo this year!

ETA: Since this is a PTR after all I am going to put in our plans for this year as compared to last year. We have a lot more on our list this time thanks in part to this board!

This year we are staying on-site at All-Star Movies Resort. I have never stayed on-site before so we are all excited about that and we are taking advantage of the free dining plan. Here is our itinerary for the week!

Sunday, August 28 - Arrive in Orlando, Epcot - Akershus at 8:05
Monday, August 29 - Magic Kingdom
Tuesday, August 30 - Animal Kingdom/DTD that night
Wednesday, August 31 - DHS - Hollywood and Vine at 8:00, Mama Melrose 3:50 (Fantasmic Package)
Thursday, September 1 - O'hana at 7:35, then Universal Studios
Friday, September 2 - Crystal Palace at 8:25, MK, 1900 Park Fare at 8:25 pm
Saturday, September 3 - Epcot, Coral Reef at 4:30
Sunday, September 4 - Head home

We have never done character dining here before so we are excited about all those experiences! I like searching for characters but DH is not such a fan so this is a good compromise for us.

Now before I start our trip report let me preface by saying this: May 2010 was our first trip as a family and WE DID NOT PLAN. AT ALL. No ADR's, no iterneraries, no scoping DIS boards for tips, no character finders, nothing! I went purely on my memory of how things were when I went five years ago, during which I only visited two parks - MK and DHS. I didn't know sites like this existed and we figured we would just wing it. We accomplished things sure, but nothing like what we are planning on accomplishing this time! So I guess I will do our TR for last year and finish with our plan for this year and what we are doing differently. We didn't even plan what parks we were doing
which day, we just decided the night before! (Shocking and crazy, I know.) We did not make it to a single rope drop, I think the earliest we got anywhere was 10:30.


The breakdown of what we ended up doing:

May 9th - Arrive in Orlando, DHS
May 10th - MK
May 11th - AK
May 12th - Universal
May 13th - DHS and MK
May 14th - Head home



We only had a few things that were on our "must do" list. DS was Toy Story crazy at this time so Pizza Planet, TSM, Space Ranger Spin and meeting Buzz, Woody and Jessie were high on the list. I wanted to take DD to meet the Princesses and Fairies. We really wanted to go to AK because I had never been. Somewhere in the trip I wanted to meet the Fab 5 too. DH wanted to ride Haunted Mansion and I had to get a funnel cake.
And that was it...that was our list, lol.

This year we have a lot more on our to-do list! We skipped Epcot last year because my sister said there wasn't a lot there but after looking on this board and doing some research it seems like there is so much to do there! So much so I told DH we needed two days. I have made the kids massive autographs book for all our character dining and we will do some hunting in the parks too. There are some rides we didn't get to do last year because DS wasn't tall enough but this year he is so that will be fun.

Number one on our to-do list is Jedi Training Academy! That is why we booked H&V for 8, we are hoping we can get done eating and be in line before 9. We have never seen Fatansmic before either which is why we went ahead and did the dining package. We didn't really watch any parades last year other than Spectromagic and we walked in during the afternoon parade one time so we saw the end of it. I would like to watch more of those and we didn't see any shows! FOTLK is a definite must as is Nemo and Beauty and the Beast.

I also realized that I didn't really take as many pictures as I would have liked and I definitely want to utilize photopass more. I have the list of where the photographers are and the locations for the magic shots ready for this trip!

Now here are some details of our trip last year and hopefully we get more accomplished this year, thanks to this board I have a plan!

 

[StephaniexMarie]

I'm in!

 

[baseballfairy]

I'm in!

Welcome! You will be there right before us!

 

[baseballfairy]

May 9, 2010

We arrived in Orlando and found where we would be staying. We were buying points from one of my mom's friend's and staying at their condo. It was beautiful and HUGE! We had a full kitchen and washer/dryer. (Me and all my good intentions thought; oh there is a full kitchen, I will cook and save us money! I think I used the microwave once to heat up DS's leftovers, lol.) There were 3 bedrooms, one of which was like it's own hotel room. The condo was located right across from the WDW gates so the location was great!

The kids checking out the room...

We hadn't planned on doing any parks this day so we unloaded our belongings and decided to go to the pool. After we left the pool, DH said we should have bought tickets for today to a park. So we decided to call and see how much it would be to add an extra day. It was not much at all so we decided to go for it. We packed up the kids and headed to DHS arriving around 4:30 or 5pm.

Once we entered the park we headed over to Pixar Place and TSM. The line was 80 mins or more and Fast Passes were gone so we decided to wait until later in hopes that the line would go down. So we headed to the next place
DS really was looking forward to...Pizza Planet!

I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed by Pizza Planet. I thought it would look a bit more like it did in the movie but it's basically
just an arcade. DS loved it though and did not want to leave!

The crane machine doesn't even have aliens in it!

When we finally left he was so upset, he didn't really enjoy meeting
Lightning McQueen and Mater. He loves Cars so I thought he would
be excited but I guess Pizza Planet was more exciting.

After McQueen and Mater we headed back over to Pixar Place. TSM's
line was at about 60 mins so we just decided to get in line. The queue area was so cute and the line moved a lot faster than 60 mins so it wasn't bad.

When we got off the ride, DH and DS decided to get back in line while DD and I looked around Pixar Place. I bought the kids autograph books because I hadn't even thought of that before our trip. After that we decided to call it a night.

Next Day, MK!

 

[StephaniexMarie]

Love your pictures! They're making me so excited for our DHS days.

 

[baseballfairy]

We got up the next morning and headed to Magic Kingdom!

When we walked in this guy was up front meeting people so we jumped in line. Our first character we met at Disney World was...

[

Pluto!

After Pluto we headed to Tomorrowland. (I know now that EVERYONE does this so this year we are going to Adventureland first!)

In Tomorrowland we headed to Space Ranger Spin but DH and DS decided to ride Stitch's Great Escape first. Then we headed over to meet Buzz Lightyear! While we were waiting for the Space Ranger himself we saw that Stich really had escaped...

Then it was time to meet Buzz! (DD was asleep during this.)

DS was not sure about characters at this point!

After meeting Buzz we rode Space Ranger Spin then we went and got fast-passed to ride again later. After this we walked through Fantasyland but the lines were a bit long and DH didn't want to wait for anything so we kept walking to Frontierland.

In Frontierland we met Woody and Jessie!

After this we walked to Adventureland and rode Pirates of the Caribbean. After this we headed back and used our FP for Space Ranger Spin. Then we decided to head back to the room for a bit and come back that night for the Spectromagic Parade.

We went back to the park that evening and rode Buzz again...(can you tell what was DS's favorite ride?) Then we got a spot for the parade.

My pics of the parade are not that great but here are a couple shots...

Snow White came right to us!

DD enjoying the parade

After the parade we headed out because DH didn't want to stay for the fireworks and DS was asleep. (This year DH promises to actually wait in line for some rides and watch the fireworks!)

Next up was AK.

 

[baseballfairy]

Love your pictures! They're making me so excited for our DHS days.

Thanks! I wish I would have taken more!

 

[baseballfairy]

The next morning we got up and hit AK. None of us had ever been to
AK so we were all excited!

We got in the park and headed to Kilamanjaro Safari. We had to
wait about 20 mins then we were off

After the safari we headed over to the kid Dinoland area. DH's favorite things to do are those carnival type games so we had to spend a lot of time and money over there...

After that I took DS to the Boneyard while DH rested with DD who had fallen asleep. After the Boneyard we headed over to Everest. I rode first and got
on pretty fast, then DH rode. After Everest we walked through the
Maharajah Jungle Trek because I wanted to see the Tigers. After
that we decided to ride the train around the park because DH and I
wanted to sit for a while! Then we headed over to Camp Minnie/Mickey
to meet characters. I decided we should meet Mickey, Minnie,
Donald and Goofy here because I thought the lines would be shorter.
The lines went pretty fast, Mickey and Minnie's were the longest
but not bad.

The kids having a "pen fight" in the line for Mickey

DD loved Minnie!

After meeting those four we met Thumper or as DS calls him, "Pumper"

After meeting characters we decided to head out. Once we were out of the
park we realized we couldn't remember where we had parked the car. Next
we wandered around the parking lot for a good hour trying to
find our car! We finally got close enough for the alarm to go off but it was
definitely a memory.

We went to the Winter Summerland putt putt course that night which was
fun. DH and DS love putt putt and we played both courses.

The snowman squirts water!

After putt putt we headed back to get some rest...