Oops! I Did it Again!! New Years in Disney 2014 **Completed 5/23/14!!**

[nilla]

Wow, those are some seriously awesome photos. I'm especially loving the Haunted Mansion shots, but I'm biased

Speaking of HM, our kids never had a problem with it. In fact, our daughter fell asleep in it when she was 8 months old.

I'm following along, so please keep writing! Oh, I also can't stand the Country Bears

 

[KelleyK75]

Following along Great TR and pictures so far!

 

[Britbrie]

Following along, and all caught up!
Yay for another Christmas TR. Looks like I just missed you, we were staying at POP from Dec 22-28th. Placed in 1960's Building 5 with a lakeview.
Looking forward to all your updates.

Oh wow! You were just hours away from missing us! Did you do a TR? If so, I'd love to read it!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Britbrie]

Wow, those are some seriously awesome photos. I'm especially loving the Haunted Mansion shots, but I'm biased

Speaking of HM, our kids never had a problem with it. In fact, our daughter fell asleep in it when she was 8 months old.

I'm following along, so please keep writing! Oh, I also can't stand the Country Bears

Thank you so much! I guess it just depends on the kid! haha. That's pretty awesome that your daughter slept through it though!

Glad a fellow Country Bear Jamboree hater is with me! Thanks for reading!!

 

[Britbrie]

Following along Great TR and pictures so far!

Thank you so much! Hope you keep enjoying it!

 

[Britbrie]

I first want to say thank you to everyone who had read this so far! I remember when I was younger and my family would drive 14 hours to Orlando, trip reports would keep me occupied for hours. So, I am very happy to finally write one!

So, we started off Day 3 (New Years Eve) with the plan of going to the Magic Kingdom and staying until the fireworks. In preparation for our day, we slept in a little later and we made later FastPass+ reservations.
We got to the Magic Kingdom, and everyone was pretty hungry… so I suggested we try Be Our Guest.

My parents used to put Beauty and the Beast in our VCR alllllllllll the time when I was a little kid, so I have been ecstatic to try Be Our Guest. Obviously getting a reservation was impossible to get, so I had to convince my parents to stand in line for an undetermined amount of time.

My mom was pretty hungry, and I wasn’t so sure I could convince her… but thanks to my magical persuasive skills she agreed. We headed over to New Fantasyland, and I snapped a picture of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train construction.

When we got to Be Our Guest, the line was CRAZY long. I mean obviously I knew it would be… it was NYE, the MK, and new restaurant, and Beauty and the Beast themed. DUH. The CM’s that were in charge of the lines told us it was an estimated wait time of 2 hours. My mom’s face dropped, but we stuck it out. In the meantime, I took some pictures of the scenery… people all mean mugged me because I got out of line, but I don’t care its Be Our Guest!

I was sooooooo obsessed with taking pictures of the statues! The detail is beautiful.

 

[Britbrie]

It got kind of warm outside, and my wrist started hurting due to holding my camera… but I was too excited to care! I was about to eat in the Beast’s castle!!!!!

Finally, after months of stalking the Be Our Guest posts on the Disboards… and countless viewing of the menu, I was actually there!! The décor was amazing, and every detail was accounted for including the knights in shining armor that spoke to you.

One of the knights started coughing when my dad was standing right next to him, so in response my dad started brushing off his shoulder. A few people started laughing, but my dad is silly… mom and I were not amused.

When we finally got to the kiosks to place our order, we had seen the menus for about an hour so everyone knew what they wanted. I ordered the croque monsieur, and the Master’s cupcake. I personally loved the Be Our Guest food, even though it was cold when I finally got my sandwich.

Mom ordered the Carved turkey sandwich, and the no-sugar added Lemon raspberry cream puff. She enjoyed her food, and would definitely eat here again. Dad ordered the prime rib sandwich, and the strawberry cupcake… he wasn’t too concerned with his food as he was with taking pictures though. (He had a field day with the rose!)

OMG the ballroom is so pretty. Just saying.

I loved that the ballroom was decorated for Christmas, but I think the Christmas tree should’ve been bigger… it is the Beast’s castle after all.

So, overall impressions of Be Our Guest were very good. I am clearly obsessed and want to try it for dinner on our next trip.

 

[Britbrie]

After we ate, we had a while to wait until our FastPass+ picks… so we decided to go check out the wait on the Haunted Mansion. Of course it being NYE in the Magic Kingdom it was very crowded and hard to navigate through. The CM’s had tape on the sidewalk to guide and separate traffic, not that it was particularly effective (but good effort Disney!).

The wait for the Haunted Mansion was pretty long; I want to say it was over an hour, so dad decided he wanted to do the Steamboat again. I swear he’s obsessed with the steamboat, and the railroad… but no big deal, it’s better than the Country Bear Jamboree.

This time I took charge of the camera during the steamboat ride, while mom and dad enjoyed the view.

After we explored the Magic Kingdom for a little while, we went shopping on Main Street to search for souvenirs. It was getting close to time for our reservation at the Plaza Restaurant, so we headed over to the check in podium. Once we were checked in dad took the camera and went to shoot some pictures again.

In the meantime, mom and I began to notice something we had never really seen happen during the day at the MK… people were camping out at 4 pm. There were families with blankets, ice chests, computers, games, etc… all waiting till midnight for the fireworks. They were causing quite a delay in traffic, and honestly, I can’t imagine spending all day sitting on the concrete just to see the fireworks.

After several families walked right up to the podium and got seated, we started getting aggravated and worried they had forgotten us. Finally an hour and a half after our ADR time, we were seated. We took a look around and noticed that most families were just sitting around even though they had already paid. The crowds outside were very bad, so obviously people were just looking for a place to sit and rest… but come on people were waiting to be seated.

The Plaza Restaurant wasn’t as good as it used to be this time; hopefully it was just off because it was super busy, because I actually like eating there! At this point, we were trying to decide if we wanted to fight the craziness of the Magic Kingdom or leave and try another park. We decided to use our Fastpass+, and then head over to Hollywood Studios.

We caught the last part of the parade and snapped some shots of Minnie and Mickey.

 

[Britbrie]

We went to Tomorrowland, and walked right onto Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. After crushing my mom with my score, we went to ride the People Mover to kill some time before our Space Mountain fastpass. When we got off of the PM, dad and I went to ride Space Mountain while mom went and shopped around Tomorrowland. After Space Mountain, we had a fastpass for the Jingle Cruise but decided to go ahead and skip it.

At that point we exited the park, and only the guests staying on WDW property were being allowed in. For some reason, I still thought the Ticket and Transportation Center would take you to every park via bus… so we got on the TTC monorail. Once we exited the monorail, we were greeted with the harsh reality that the TTC no longer had buses to go to the other parks. No, instead of catching the monorail all we had to do was get the bus at the MK and be on our way to Hollywood Studios. (Dumb mistake…)

Oh well, after my mistake we finally made it to Hollywood Studios and were much happier with our choice to switch parks. We went and looked around some of the stores, and then headed over to the Osborne lights to grab a Mistletoe Margarita. (Those things are actually really good).

After walking around Hollywood Studios, dad was getting pretty tired so he decided to go back to the Pop Century and go to bed. (Lame, I know…)
So, left alone mom and I went to walk through the lights and eventually went to watch the band. When it was finally midnight, the band played through the countdown and laughed it off… when they finished their song the fireworks went off and confetti fell.

Overall, we were very happy with the switch from MK to Hollywood Studios. After the countdown, we decided to head back to the Pop Century and relax.

Up next… Day 4: Animal Kingdom, Bugs, Lobster, and Boma.

 

[Britbrie]

I woke up on Day 4 kind of early (according to my standards). You see on my days off, I usually sleep until 10 am or later and rarely do my hair and makeup until noon (Sad, I know… no shame). So, after everyone got ready we decided to go to Animal Kingdom and spend a half-day there.

Everyone was pretty hungry, so by the time we got to AK we were planning on going to our usual choice, Flame Tree BBQ. Since Mama Melrose’s didn’t charge us, or use any dining credits we were over by one credit… so mom suggested we go to a table service for lunch. We discussed our options, and everyone agreed to go to the Rainforest Café.

After a 15-minute wait, we were seated and our drink orders were taken. I started to question on if I wanted to eat a huge meal or not as Expedition Everest was calling my name. Eventually I decided to try the steak and lobster (dad ordered the same thing)… while mom got the Rumble in the Jungle wrap.

I was very happy with my choice, and ate almost all of it (don’t judge me… you would have too).

After we ate, we all ordered our desserts and asked for the check to settle the tip. After waiting for a little while, we started to inquire where the waiter had gone. We usually aren’t in such a hurry, but after all the waiting we had done we were about to miss our Fastpass+ window for the safari.
Once we received our check, dad mentioned that we had missed our Fastpass time. The manager of the Rainforest Café came up to my dad, and offered to walk us over to Guest Services to get them to issue a rain check fastpass for us to use on the safari.

Dad agreed, but told the manager he didn’t want to be an inconvenience or anything… but he was assured he wasn’t. As we walked to Guest Services within minutes we were issued a rain check, and the manager returned to the Rainforest Café.

Let me just say, I know that it is their job to make guests have an enjoyable experience, but that was a great display of guest service! After entering the park, we headed for the safari and went through the fastpass line with no problems.

Some animals we saw along the way to the safari:

Since it was raining on and off this day, I decided to leave the 7d at the hotel, and use the Nikon Coolpix. (After the awesome safari we had, I wish I wouldn’t have).

The crocodiles don’t really interest me too much, since we have alligators in Louisiana. (I know they aren’t the same… but close enough. Haha)

Termite Mounds:

 

[Britbrie]

The Giraffes were all trying to grab a bite to eat, so the safari guide made a quick stop for us to take some pictures.

Now you can see why I wish I would have had the 7d with me! Grrr. Oh well. But this giraffe was super friendly!

The elephants weren’t really doing anything but being lazy, so there weren’t too many good picture opportunities. Fortunately, I caught this one in the midst of handling his business. Oops!

Flamingoes/creepy white birds.

Sorry for the blurry picture, but this guy was hard to take a picture of.

Even the cheetah was out and about… but he wasn’t in the mood to take pictures.

Apparently none of the ‘cats’ wanted to take pictures…

 

[Britbrie]

I do have to say I was pretty upset we didn't get to save Big/Little Red though, it just wasn't the same. Oh well...

After the safari, we headed over to It’s Tough to be a Bug where we had a short 10 minute wait with a FastPass. It was completely unnecessary to have a fastpass for that show, but oh well.

In the middle of the show, when the black widows come down there were a couple of scared kids that had to be taken out. I remember when I was little I was terrified of the hornet stings, and black widows too. I never had to be taken out of the room, because I just closed my eyes… sometimes I still do. Haha.

After It’s Tough to be a Bug, mom decided to go back to the Pop Century to meet my aunt (who lives in Orlando) for lunch. After we went our separate ways, dad and I had a little bit of time to kill until our fastpasses were available for Expedition Everest. We went to grab him a cup of coffee, and I decided we could go shopping in some of the stores.

After getting his coffee, it started sprinkling again and we entered the nearest store we could find. When I walked inside the store, I slipped on a puddle of water and had to catch myself using the door bar. The associate standing there giggled, and said sarcastically ‘Be careful…’

I usually try not to let things bother me at WDW, because it’s the happiest place in the world… the way she said her comment all rude/sarcastically just put me in a horrible mood. I wanted to go up to her and say, “instead of standing there, why don’t you get a towel and wipe up the water you _________.” Dad knew I was mad and about to say something, so he redirected my out the door and we headed towards Expedition Everest. Lady probably wouldn't want me getting fiesty redhead on her butt! haha.

After Expedition Everest, we decided to go back to the Pop Century to rest up before our ADR for that night. I was still in a grouchy mood from the CM that giggled at me slipping, so dad suggested we stop and get coffee on the outside of the park. I passed on the offer, and we boarded the bus back to the Pop.

Once we arrived, I texted my mom and found that she and my aunt were sitting in the laundry room doing our laundry. We went to meet her, and dad helped carry the finished laundry back to the room.
Dad went to the Classic Hall to go play Mrs. Pac-Man, while I hung out with my aunt and mom. After talking for a little while, we needed to go back to the room to get ready for our ADR and return to the AKL.

After we got ready, we had a little over an hour before we needed to be at Boma for our ADR. We decided to take the bus to Hollywood Studios, and then take the resort bus to AKL. After our travels, we finally reached AKL for the first time since they built the villas.
AKL used to be our favorite hotel on Disney property to stay on, we even spent two weeks staying in a savannah view a few summers ago. The addition of the villas has made the AKL super packed and busy, so it wasn’t really like home to us anymore.

Once we checked in for Boma, we went and took a look around the marketplace and the lobby. Not much has changed, which is always a good thing when it comes to AKL. Our beeper went off, and we were seated off in the back. The restaurant was super busy, but we were excited to be back at one of our favorite Disney restaurants.

Our waitress took our drink orders, and we all got up to grab a plate. When I got up to the meat carving station, I was very sad to see that Prime Rib was no longer offered.

We filled our plates, and went back to the table. When it was time for dessert, I went and loaded my plate up with zebra domes. Oh those things are delicious.

We finished paying the bill, and drank the last of our drinks before going back to the marketplace.

Once back at the marketplace, I had decided to purchase some H2O sea marine shampoo and conditioner. My hair was very dry, and I needed some good conditioner. After making my purchase, we took the bus back to Hollywood Studios, and then headed back to the Pop Century. Once back at the hotel, mom and I went shopping in the gift shop while dad went back to the room.

Once mom and I were done looking around, we went and sat in the food court and hung out for a little bit before calling it a night.

Up next… Epcot and DTD.

 

[nilla]

Great shot of the lioness up on the rock! We've never seen the lions do anything that cool. I've questioned if they're animatronic

Awesome story about the manager at Rainforest, not so awesome story about the CM later. I bet she was a plant from Universal

Loving this trip report! I may not comment for a bit because I want to reserve my 1000th post for my TR (nutty like that), but I'll following along!

 

[Britbrie]

Great shot of the lioness up on the rock! We've never seen the lions do anything that cool. I've questioned if they're animatronic

Awesome story about the manager at Rainforest, not so awesome story about the CM later. I bet she was a plant from Universal

Loving this trip report! I may not comment for a bit because I want to reserve my 1000th post for my TR (nutty like that), but I'll following along!

Thanks, I wish I would have had my 7d when she jumped up there! And, I completely understand about the 1000th post... I really appreciate you reading!!

 

[Britbrie]

Sorry for the delay in updating over the weekend, our air conditioning went out so we tried to stay outside for the most part. So, on to day 5… which has very few pictures, mainly from my instagram.

For this day, had dinner plans with our family that lives in Orlando so we didn’t want to have too strenuous of a day in the parks. We chose to go to Epcot to eat at one of my favorite Disney restaurants, San Angel Inn. ☺
The bus took a very long time to come pick up the Pop Century guests, while waiting we saw 4 buses back to back for Hollywood Studios. Finally after a long wait, one of those new two bus contraptions came to get us.

Once we reached Epcot, it started raining pretty hard so we went ahead and used our FastPass+ for Spaceship Earth. At the start of this ride now, they take your picture to be used at the end of the ride. Of course my dad likes to have fun on this ride, so he made a crazy gesture, and his photo ended up not showing up (thank goodness. Haha). One thing I don’t like about the end of the ride now, is the survey of questions they ask. Both times that we rode it, we were asked the same questions and the outcome was pretty lame. I suppose though this would be a fun aspect of Spaceship Earth for kids.

After Spaceship Earth, we decided to head over to Starbucks and grab a drink with our snack credits. With our coffee in hand, we headed towards the World Showcase to go see if we could eat at San Angel Inn. (We originally did not plan to eat a table service, so we didn’t make ADR’s for this day).
The hostess presented us with our pager, and we went to look around the Mexico pavilion. I contemplated buying a few items, but decided against it because our pager started going off.

Once seated, we were given our drinks and chips with two different salsas. Dad got up and started taking some more pictures of the volcano.

We placed our orders, and within 10 minutes or so our food was at our table. I of course ordered the Pollo a las Rajas (my most favorite dish ever). Side story: we purchased the Cooking with Mickey cookbook a few years ago, and this recipe was in it. We have made this dish dozens of times, but it is never as amazing as it is eating at the San Angel Inn. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of my food because I ate it so quickly, but I did manage to snap a picture of my mom’s plate of food.

For dessert I ordered the Crema Bavaria, which was just OK. I probably wouldn’t order it again; it had the texture of flan and tasted kind of weird.

 

[Britbrie]

After we ate, it started raining again so we headed towards the Land to go use our FastPass for Living with the Land. At this point in the day, mom decided to go back to the Pop Century to get the remaining laundry done.

Dad and I used our FastPasses, and then went to use the last FastPass of the day at Soarin’. Usually on Soarin’, I like to be on the first row so I don’t have to see people’s feet dangling, but unfortunately this time we were on the third row. They had a lot of people who obviously didn’t pay attention to the pre-boarding instructions, so they tried to just sit where ever. This caused quite a hold up in the ride starting.

Once we were finished with Soarin’, we decided to head back to the world showcase to go to Japan and purchase some candy. (It’s a tradition).
Along the way we made a few stops and looked around the pavilions.

Once in the Japan pavilion, we looked around for a little bit, and ultimately came up with our candy choices. For those of you who have never purchased candy in the Japan pavilion, let me fill you in… all of the packages are naturally in Japanese, so you kind of don’t really know what you’re getting (unless you speak Japanese, of course).

When I was younger, my dad discovered the Botan Rice candy, which I was obsessed with! I would purchase 10 boxes of it each trip to last until the next time we went.

The Botan Rice candy is unique because the inner wrapper around the candy is rice paper, so it’s edible. They also put a plastic wrapper on the outside, I guess to keep them all from sticking to each other. The candy itself tastes kind of citrusy, and is very chewy.

I however, picked out a different type of candy that I have now deemed ‘soup candy’. I have a love of the flavor of green tea, so on the front of the package it looked like a cup of green tea. The bag also had a picture of a lemon, and what looked like a bowl of chocolate… so I’m thinking ‘Can’t go wrong with lemon, and chocolate… let’s try it’.

After making our purchases, we walked over to the World Showcase boat launch and decided to take the boat back towards the start of the WS, so that we could head towards the exit. It was pretty rainy this day, so we were kind of over Epcot.

Once on the boat, dad opened up the Botan Rice candy, and without peeling off the plastic wrapper he popped the whole thing in his mouth and started chewing. I noticed what he did, and told him his mistake. Immediately, he realized he was eating plastic so he spit it out. It gave us quite a laugh while we were riding on the deserted boat.

While dad enjoyed his plastic rice candy, I opened up my ‘soup candy’… I grabbed the “lemon” flavor and as soon as it hit my taste buds I immediately thought chicken noodle soup. Ew.

Once we reached a garbage can, I spit it out… and moved on to the green, which was in fact green tea. Phew. Since I have purchased this soup candy, I have tried to pawn off the ‘chicken noodle soup flavor’ onto my employees at work but no one has taken the bait yet. Haha.

We made it to the exit of Epcot, and snapped a couple of pictures before it started raining again!

We got back to the Pop Century, and everyone began getting ready to go to Downtown Disney to meet up with our family.
After we were ready, we went to the bus stop and waited for a longgggg time for the bus. Once we got to DD, we decided to go to Paradiso 37. We had a quick 10-minute wait, and were seated at a table by the window and the bar.
A few minutes later our family arrived, and drink orders were placed. Since we had just eaten at San Angel Inn for lunch, I ordered a cheeseburger and margarita. (Good combination).

The food received mixed reviews from everyone, and ultimately I do not think we would return to Paradiso 37.

We took some pictures and parted ways for the evening.

Once we left Paradiso 37, we went and shopped at the Christmas Shoppe and purchased a few ornaments for our tree. After looking in a few more stores, we decided to head back and call it a night.

Up next: Hollywood Studios!

 

[nilla]

We're eating at San Angel for the first time this year, and I'm pretty excited now

I'm also interested in the chicken soup candy. Not kidding. We always get candy there, too, so that may be an option.

Sounds like a great trip! How were the crowds after New Year's?

 

[Britbrie]

We're eating at San Angel for the first time this year, and I'm pretty excited now

I'm also interested in the chicken soup candy. Not kidding. We always get candy there, too, so that may be an option.

Sounds like a great trip! How were the crowds after New Year's?

Ya'll will love San Angel Inn! I hope you guys try Pollo a las Rajas, it's definitely their best dish in my opinion!
The Japan pavilion definitely has some crazy candy, I still have a full bag of that stuff. haha. After New Year's the crowds weren't as bad, we saw a lot of people checking out on the 2nd and 3rd. So, those days weren't too crazy busy. The Fastpasses were honestly the only way we were going to do a lot of attractions, otherwise we would've waited for hours!
I just read some of your old trip report from 2012, can't wait to read the rest/see a new trip report!

 

[Britbrie]

The next day, we woke up and decided to go to Hollywood Studios for the day. After everyone got ready, we lined up at the bus stop and waited… and waited… and waited.

Finally we got to Hollywood Studios, and decided to go see the Legend of Jack Sparrow show that we had passed a few days prior. At the show entrance, they passed out time cards for your party to come back. According to our time, we had enough time to go grab dad some coffee down the street. After getting coffee, and sitting in the sun for a little bit we headed back to the show.

Once inside, we realized it was a standing show with a view of a ship. Throughout the show, there were characters displayed on screens and told a story throughout. Overall, it was a time killer for us, and is mainly meant for smaller kids/young teenagers. The atmosphere was very nice, and you could tell they did a lot of work to build the scenery/stage.

This was the narrator of the show:

In the show, they had a siren that sang to the audience…

Jack Sparrow:

After we watched the show, we had fastpasses for Star Tours. Mom, decided to go sit somewhere in the sun (it was pretty cold outside), while dad and I went to ride. Once inside the fastpass line, we only waited about 5 minutes until we were ready to board.

 

[Britbrie]

This was our first time riding Star Tours since they updated it, and overall we were happy with the changes. They definitely needed to change things up a little bit!

After Star Tours, we were all getting pretty hungry, so we headed over to the Commissary. When I was younger, we tried to Commissary a few times and everyone in the family deemed it as our least favorite counter service. (We decided to eat there this trip because dad and I wanted burgers.) Mom decided to skip the commissary, and sat while dad and I ate. Once we were done, we headed over to the Backlot Express so that mom could get a chicken sandwich. After eating our gross burgers, dad and I wished we had gotten something at the Backlot Express. Mom said her sandwich was really good, and she was happy she didn’t waste her meal credit at the Commissary.

I know there are Commissary fans, and I’m not knocking it at all, it’s just not my favorite!

After everyone had eaten lunch, we headed over to the Lights, Motors, Action! Stunt Show. We were kind of late for our FastPass time, so they were sending everyone up to the top of the bleachers to fill in the last few seats available.

We started heading up the stairs, but Mom’s knee (that she had hurt the day before tripping over a curb or something) was starting to hurt. I headed over to the nearest CM and asked if there was anyway at least she could sit lower, as her knee made it unable for her to climb the stairs and he led us over to the wheelchair seating area.

After we were seated it was a few minutes till show time, so I took some pictures of the set.

They brought out Lightning McQueen for everyone to take pictures, which was much better than just leaving him outside like they used to.