Party of 5's First family trip to WDW! Just back from POR 6/16 *update 8/13 thoughts

Great pictures! I'm so confused by all the FP's you get. I thought you could only have one at a time. You seem to be getting them all over the park! BTW, were you operating from a Tourguide Mike itinerary? And also confusing to me is why are you walking all over the park BEFORE rope drop? Does each land have its own rope drop? You seem to be an expert at this so any advice would be appreciated! By the way, your kids are darling and so sorry about your hat! The same thing happened to me when I was seven in WDW and, as you can see, I never got over it!!
 
It is alittle of both, it isn't something they truly advertise, but if you ask the CM , they will tell you anytime AFTER.. Now it isn't set in stone, some of the really popular rides if some one WAS going to say something it would be there etc.. But Tour Guide Mike's whole structure is based on using "expired" FP..

We didn't have one single CM even bat an eye the whole week, and even if they would have, they still would let you on, and tell you the whole next time thing... If you think about it, it is really hard to actually use that FP during the window unless you are just sitting around and waiting, think about all the back and forth you would have to do and wasted time if they really enforced it. You could be in the bathroom, eating, left the park etc.. there are soo many things that do take you away from the window.
Now I have heard time and time again, that the CMs are really going to start cracking down etc... and maybe in the future they will, who knows? but for our trip we didnt' have any troubles.

Thanks a lot for the info. I think we'll be trying this next time. We ALWAYS get the fast passes and plan our time and day around them. We usually go to the parks commando syle so leaving and coming back was never an option for us. I want to spend 8-10 days there next time so that we have the opportunity to leave and enjoy the hotel. Thanks for the info, again, and the updates. I enjoy reading your TR:thumbsup2
 
Hi! I just found your TR report today. It looks like ya'll had a great trip. I have really enjoyed reading thru it. Can't wait to read about the end of your last day :) You do a great job touring the parks. It seems like you were really able to pack a lot into a day!! That's awesome! Also your kids are so adorable!! (And your husband reminds me of that actor Greg Grunberg.)
 
A lovely stary to your last park day!!! You got some great pictures -- both of you and your family and with the characters!!! What a shame about your hat on BTMMR :(.

Can't wait to read about your special dinner and the rest of your MK day!


Thanks Jackie, I know I was so bummed about my hat.
stay tuned...

I am sad it is your last day... was it less crowded than the Wednesday earlier in the week- it sure seems so. Sorry about missing Minnie.. that sounds like my DH too.

I love your pictures in the morning on Main street those are so great... and the Ariel and princess ones too!

we were soo sad it was are last day, sad to that the TR is almost over..
I didn't think Wednesday was that bad , I would say it was about the same except it was more crowded Sun pm b/c of EMH
WE will HAVE to see Minnie next time for sure!

Great update...and Great pictures!!! I LOVE the one of you DH and kids...too perfect!:thumbsup2


Thanks so much! The picture of Dh and the kids was for Father's day, they told me to not get in the picture! :laughing:

Great pictures! I'm so confused by all the FP's you get. I thought you could only have one at a time. You seem to be getting them all over the park! BTW, were you operating from a Tourguide Mike itinerary? And also confusing to me is why are you walking all over the park BEFORE rope drop? Does each land have its own rope drop? You seem to be an expert at this so any advice would be appreciated! By the way, your kids are darling and so sorry about your hat! The same thing happened to me when I was seven in WDW and, as you can see, I never got over it!!


I know the whole FP thing, can be cofusing that is for sure. The easiest thing is to just look at the bottom of your current FP it will tell you when your next window is to get another set.. it usually is about 45-1 hour later, but can be pushed back more than that later in the day and depending on the ride etc.. but the current set will alwasy tell you, and if in doubt if you use your FP and it is unable it will just spit out a ticket that say it isn't valid with the time it is..
YES I HIGHLY recommonded Tour Guide MIke, it was worth every penny! and he explains the why's behind all his tips...the site can be tricky but if you have the time, there is ALOT of info there!

We really weren't walking around the park, other than the front section by the castle. Each area of the park does have a seperate Rope Drop so you can't go any futhur than those ropes.. Does that make sense?HTH

Thanks so much!

Thanks a lot for the info. I think we'll be trying this next time. We ALWAYS get the fast passes and plan our time and day around them. We usually go to the parks commando syle so leaving and coming back was never an option for us. I want to spend 8-10 days there next time so that we have the opportunity to leave and enjoy the hotel. Thanks for the info, again, and the updates. I enjoy reading your TR:thumbsup2

You should check out Tour Guide Mike if you haven't yet, lots of valuable info over there. I personally think alot of the time it depends on the time of year you go and the park hours for whether it is worth your time to leave and come back, during the summer for sure! Thanks for reading! :)
 

Hi! I just found your TR report today. It looks like ya'll had a great trip. I have really enjoyed reading thru it. Can't wait to read about the end of your last day :) You do a great job touring the parks. It seems like you were really able to pack a lot into a day!! That's awesome! Also your kids are so adorable!! (And your husband reminds me of that actor Greg Grunberg.)

OMG I am laughing my head off, I had no idea who that actor was until I just googled it... and so remember him from Felicity. That is so funny b/c he used to hear that alot when that show was on...:laughing:
Thanks so much for reading and joining us! I did ALOT of reserch and planning before, so we did get alot in I thought too, but still so much we didn't see.
Thanks again! Good luck with DD number 3 :)
 
Love all the pics! I think the pic in front of the castle (1st time visit) is a great family pic! I love the photopass borders, they didn't have all those last year. Sorry you lost your favorite hat. Sounds like you squeezed a lot in for your last full day. We will definitely have to hit the parks early to ride all the rides with no wait! Great tip on the MK stores on Main Street! :thumbsup2
 
Great update--got so much done!!! So sorry to hear about your hat though!!! I can't wait for the next part, but sad too that this is your last full day!!! UGH!!! Have a great evening!
 
Great update! I LOVE all the early morning pictures, they turned out fantastic!:thumbsup2 You guys really got alot done that morning! I LOVE the pic. of Lauren with Ariel, it really looks like she is so focused on what she is saying! Sorry about your hat!:sad2:
 
Love all the pics! I think the pic in front of the castle (1st time visit) is a great family pic! I love the photopass borders, they didn't have all those last year. Sorry you lost your favorite hat. Sounds like you squeezed a lot in for your last full day. We will definitely have to hit the parks early to ride all the rides with no wait! Great tip on the MK stores on Main Street! :thumbsup2


Thanks so much! yes the photopass borders are neat.

Great update--got so much done!!! So sorry to hear about your hat though!!! I can't wait for the next part, but sad too that this is your last full day!!! UGH!!! Have a great evening!

I know, so sad.... I also don't know when we will get back probably not until 2010 :( I'm so jealous of everyone who gets to go yearly.

Great update! I LOVE all the early morning pictures, they turned out fantastic!:thumbsup2 You guys really got alot done that morning! I LOVE the pic. of Lauren with Ariel, it really looks like she is so focused on what she is saying! Sorry about your hat!:sad2:

I was surprised how much Lauren did enjoy her meeting with Ariel.
We did seem to get alot done in the am, it also helped when we would just come back to the same park in the pm b/c we would then save our FP for pm and with the child swaps we always had a ton of rides to ride with out waiting in those pm lines... Thanks!
 
Great trip report! I love reading other family of 5 reports. We're in one of those September break counties, so we'll be back down then.
 
Great trip report! I love reading other family of 5 reports. We're in one of those September break counties, so we'll be back down then.

I know what you mean, me too.. I remember your TR.. infact just finished reading :) your boys are soo cute! Are you going to do another TR??

where are you staying this time?
 
I know what you mean, me too.. I remember your TR.. infact just finished reading :) your boys are soo cute! Are you going to do another TR??

where are you staying this time?

Thanks!

we're staying....off property (shh!). The in-laws are coming, too, this year, so it seemed like the most reasonable option for so many people. I will defnitely try to do a TR. In fact, reading yours I'm getting inspired to start a pre-trip....
 
subbing for the last day


Thanks for joining in! Glad to have you :)

Thanks!

we're staying....off property (shh!). The in-laws are coming, too, this year, so it seemed like the most reasonable option for so many people. I will defnitely try to do a TR. In fact, reading yours I'm getting inspired to start a pre-trip....

Yes you should start a PTR let me know if you do...
Well I know the price is hard to beat sometimes off property... Did you all ever check the cabins? I think they just changed them to a mod instead of Deluxe.. don't know if that means they changed the price too...
 
Sunday June 15th, Day 8
Up next part 2...our special dinner…and back to MK…

So after we got back to the room, it was raining. We all changed into dry clothes and took a little a rest. We had Dinner ADRs @6:20 for Kona Café! I was very excited to try this place since it seems to be a hidden gem.

It was also an EMH @ MK tonight , since this was our last night we decided to “try” and stay as long as the kids would last. We also decided we didn’t want to deal with the buses tonight so we drove to Kona, so we could take the monorail over to MK afterwards.

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these are at the Poly

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Kona café doesn’t look like anything special, it is sortof in an open area looks very no frills… but the food is sooo good!!! Sorry no pictures my DH thought taking pictures of food was a little over the top, plus I always forgot to do it! Anyway I ordered the Beef Teriyaki sooo yummy~ DH had the pan Asian noodles with shrimp, he said it too was good.. I don’t remember what all the kids had, but I do know that Lauren ordered the grilled chicken strips and wanted honey mustard to go with it. The waiter later came over and said they didn’t have any, but he would “make” some… He came back over with a bowl and regular mustard and put all sorts of honey in it.. He got an A+ for effort that is for sure! It didn’t taste quiet the same, but she said she liked it enough. The meal was very good, one of our favorites. After dinner we were praying the rain had stopped.

It was still sprinkling a little, we walked right out and hopped on the monorail and in less than 5 min we were at the gate! I sooo want to stay at the poly or contempt sometime for the monorails!

Since it was still raining (it couldn’t make up it’s mind if it was stopping or not) we got out our ponchos and were ready to hit the park.
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It was close to 8 o’clock I think. I think the rain kept some of the crowds away for a little while anyway. We headed toward Fantasy Land and grabbed a FP for PP, then went to ToonTown. Checked the line for one last attempt for Minnie, nope still a long line no one wanted to wait in. We got in line for Goofy, was about a 15 min wait or so.. Since this is the only coaster Emma can do, she just loves this, we ended up doing it twice ponchos and all! After wards the rain seemed to be stopping so we took off our ponchos, and hoped we wouldn’t need to take them out again!
We decided to take the “secret red trail path” from TT to Tomorrow Land again no one on it! Dh took the kids on Space Mountain with our FP from the morning, and got our Child swap. I took Emma on Buzz, since they weren’t done yet ,Emma wanted to do the Carousal of Progress again. A show was just starting too, so we went in that they were waiting for us when we got done. I then did SM while Dh took Emma on TTA one last time. It was getting close to wishes, there was some mixed opinions on whether everyone wanted to see it again…. I made the executive decision of staying and watching, I mean it’s WISHES people!!! They were glad we did in the end, I did agree to leave before it was completely over to beat some of the crowds.

We headed back over to FL and grabbed some FP for Pooh and for some strange reason the return time for another set of FP was in like 5min, so I grabbed some for Mickey’s Philharmagic too. I could tell Emma was getting tired and not sure how long she would last.

We did Pooh and I could tell Emma was about to fall asleep, Peter Pan is one of her favorite rides so thought she would wake up for that. Dh was carrying her over and in line and she fall asleep.. Literally on the walk over!
I knew my plan for a really late night was about to be over, Joey was ready to go too. I suppose Lauren and I could have stayed but as much as I hated to admit it, I was getting tired too.

Tonight I did notice that even with the FP a lot of the return lines were longer than they had been. I guess b/c of it being an EMH pm…
Anyway I knew that we would not be using all the FP we had collected, so I decided to start to give them away… I swear people just look at you , like you are crazy or trying to scam them. I can’t believe how many people don’t know you can use the FP later then the time on the ticket. I asked several CM’s during the trip and they all said anytime after just NOT before ….

So the standby line for Peter Pan was I think over an hour, I found this family that was right behind us (they were in the standby line and we were in the FP line if that make sense with the lines)I asked how many in her family, and she said 5.. I said if you all can get out of line, I have these FP that you can have and use now. She gladly took them ( I am sure they still had at least a 30 min wait) and were just a few families behind us by the time they got up to us, they all said thank you! I also put my Philharmagic Fps on someone’s stroller, hopefully someone got to use them..

At this point Emma is crashed~ We got our wrist bands, b/c the kids still wanted to go do Splash at night and headed over to Frontier Land. Dh said he didn’t want to do splash and get wet.. So I said I would take the kids, but Lauren and I decided to put back on our rain ponchos just in case… Joey said he would take his chances… I have never done this ride at night, and it was pretty cool! I am very glad we had on our Ponchos, Joey did get wet but thought it was soo funny… When the ride was over I had another set of FP to give away, again I can’t believe how hard it was to give away fast passes…! Finally found a family with teenage girls that wanted to do it again, so they were very happy!

Then Dh took the kids over to use our last set of FP for BTMR , the kids retold our earlier ride to DH with me and my hat!

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Emma was sound asleep! The last Spectro was just passing us by on the bridge there by Splash, so I watched that for a few minutes. Then before I knew it they were back from BTMR and it seemed like everyone was ready to call it a night! So much for my plan to close the park down.. Ha-ha..

It was about 11:30 and we decided to head out, I would like to try an EMH pm sometime when the kids are older, I think it would be fun to be riding all those rides when we otherwise would be sleeping…

It was very sad to be walking down main street for the last time, I honestly have no idea when we will be back. It seemed like this trip took forever to plan and save for!

We left and jumped on the monorail back to the Poly, since our car was there from dinner. It was so quick and easy! We were back in our hotel room and ready for bed in about 15 min from when we left! So much better than those buses!!!

Up next : checking out…. (sobbing)
 
Annette,
So sorry that your report is ending too. What a fun late night... using up the FPs from earlier. Sorry you could not close it down... it is hard to do when you are at rope drop that day too!

I know what you mean about not knowing when the next WDW trip will be:confused3
 
Oh Annette!!! Sounds like a great night, but I totally know what you mean about leaving---so sad, you can't even put it into words! We are in the same boat with you--not knowing when we are going back, but it needs to be soon!!! Megan is still asking me every day when we go back to Mickey's house!! I just wish I knew when, so we could prepare ourselves--even if it was a ways away!
 
Where did you get those cute ponchos? and where did you get those Hawaiin leis (sorry for my spelling)? Your pictures are so cute (even in rain ponchos)! The pic of Emma asleep in the stroller is a classic. Who doesn't have that photo in their Disney library? I love Disney at night and can't wait to go! I am so sad your trip report is coming to an end! And I know what you mean about people looking at you funny when giving out fp's. We went to the boardwalk the other night and had to leave early b/c one of the kids got sick. Anyway, parking was hard to get and a car was waiting for our spot within seconds. We pulled out and I got out of the car, walked up to the car taking our spot and handed her our parking pass which was good for the rest of the night. She thanked me but I could tell she was dubious about the whole thing. I told my dh (who thought I was crazy for jumping out of the car) that I believe in karma - what goes around, comes around. A week later, we were on that same boardwalk, and a man came up to me and handed me a Pokemon doll he had just won (but didn't want for himself) and saw that I had kids. Unbeknownst to him, my kids LOVE Pokemon and were in heaven! I thanked the man and turned to my dh and said "see, karma!".:)
 




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