Princesses, Slushes, LEGOs, and a maxed CC - Sept 2009 1st Timer TR

[longing2Batdisney]

GREAT PHOTOS! of it ALL!!!
great job Joshua on Splash mountain...I still have yet to conquer it!!! one day

 

[crocko]

I love Samantha's Ariel dress. I haven't seen one like that before.

I'm gonna guess you didn't take Samantha on the Haunted Mansion. lol

I don't really remember too many Disney characters on IASW in May, maybe Aladin but that's all. I'll check for you next week.

Nope...we didn't do Haunted Mansion this trip....Samantha definitely wouldn't have liked it.

Great details on MK day ! Love how you got a picture of every ride and attraction you did , I need to try and do more of that on our next trip . That Ariel was one of the best looking I've ever seen also and the pictures of her and Samantha turned out great My DS who was 2 at the time we went this year was also very scared of the dark rides , must be the age ? Your DS is very brave for wanting to do Splash Mountain , my DS who is also 5 wanted no parts of it and still doesn't ! LOL Can't wait to read more , your details are great !

Thanks...trying to get this done fast enough so that the details don't slip through....

The Winnie the Pooh ride is great! I love the part with Tigger and the Heffalumps & Woozles song.

Alright for Joshua going on Splash! AWESOME ride!

Yeah, as a kid I loved watching the original Pooh movie, so I love seeing the scenes played out on that ride.

Woo Hoo! Way to go, Joshua, braving the 50 foot plunge!

I gotta agree with you on the chocolate cake at most of the counter service restrauants - the icing is just too sweet or something, and there is way too much of it - yuck! I've recently learned that many of the CS places will allow you to substitue a bottle of water for the dessert on the DDP. I'm going to try that out in December because I'd much rather have a water for later than most of those desserts.

Great tip! May have to try that in November.

GREAT PHOTOS! of it ALL!!!
great job Joshua on Splash mountain...I still have yet to conquer it!!! one day

You gotta give it a try. Very fun ride!

 

[crocko]

What do I need to do to get my "boo'ed" image to work?

 

[stacikristine]

What a fun update! It looks like it was a great MK afternoon! That stinks that Big Thunder was down, but awesome that you got FPs! That is really funny that Snow White was advertising her video I hope you got to try out the pool--I hear it's AWESOME!!! That's one thing we forgot to look at when we visited.

 

[longing2Batdisney]

What do I need to do to get my "boo'ed" image to work?

my img letters are captilazied; unlike yours don't see how that would make a difference but maybe also mine is not underlined...hmmmm!!!

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s162/

MNWDWmaniac/icon_mickey_halloween.gif --broke it up so you can see how it appears on my siggie

give this one a try: I had problems when I tried to add it to my siggie, too!
Good luck!

 

[Charlefours]

Fun times at MK! Yay for making the 50 foot plunge--I have never done it, I am not one for big drops.

I think of all the parks, MK is the one I am looking forward the most to take DD to--I am just trying to figure if we are going to do it first. I know we will be there on Tuesday but perhaps we should brave the Sunday crowds? What do you think?

 

[jenny105]

What do I need to do to get my "boo'ed" image to work?

I think you may have posted as a link and not as an image...

 

[aaaateamsgrandma]

Yay Joshua. That is big of him to do Splash. Glad he liked it. Did he mind getting wet?

 

[MagicShell]

Your son is very brave to ride Splash Mountain. I am glad he liked it.

 

[jordanyosh]

Great line mojo even if BTMRR went down..you scored FPs...

It's always great to get pix of the Characters in other costumes....

Good parade pix.....

 

[chicagoshannon]

Crocko- I used the little mountain icon to insert the boo. Not sure how else to do it.

Hopeing to see another update before we leave.

 

[crocko]

What a fun update! It looks like it was a great MK afternoon! That stinks that Big Thunder was down, but awesome that you got FPs! That is really funny that Snow White was advertising her video I hope you got to try out the pool--I hear it's AWESOME!!! That's one thing we forgot to look at when we visited.

Yeah...it was funny, first time I'd seen a parade that came with a pre-show commercial

my img letters are captilazied; unlike yours don't see how that would make a difference but maybe also mine is not underlined...hmmmm!!!

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s162/

MNWDWmaniac/icon_mickey_halloween.gif --broke it up so you can see how it appears on my siggie

give this one a try: I had problems when I tried to add it to my siggie, too!
Good luck!

I'll keep trying....

Fun times at MK! Yay for making the 50 foot plunge--I have never done it, I am not one for big drops.

I think of all the parks, MK is the one I am looking forward the most to take DD to--I am just trying to figure if we are going to do it first. I know we will be there on Tuesday but perhaps we should brave the Sunday crowds? What do you think?

How many days do you have? If you can make it to MK twice, even better!

I think you may have posted as a link and not as an image...

yeah....that sounds like a problem I had previously.....

Yay Joshua. That is big of him to do Splash. Glad he liked it. Did he mind getting wet?

Getting wet was his whole reason for going on the ride! He loved anything at Disney World that allowed him to get wet.

Your son is very brave to ride Splash Mountain. I am glad he liked it.

Me, too!

Great line mojo even if BTMRR went down..you scored FPs...

It's always great to get pix of the Characters in other costumes....

Good parade pix.....

Yeah...seeing Frontier Donald was cool

Crocko- I used the little mountain icon to insert the boo. Not sure how else to do it.

Hopeing to see another update before we leave.

Hope to get Day 2 finished today....

 

[crocko]

Day 2 (Magic Kingdom Day)
Chapter 4 -- Where's the LEGO store?



With the parade over, we had decided it was time to go ahead and leave the park for the day. MNSSHP was that night and we wanted to get out before the party crowds jam-packed the place.

See ya real soon? Definitely!!

Samantha woke up on the walk out and both kids were being silly on the bus ride back to AKL.

The plan for the evening was to hit Downtown Disney, but we had a little bit of afternoon left, so before heading back to the room, we let the kids play around the splash pad area of the Kidani pool – Samawati Springs! Samantha chose only to get a little wet.

Then, back up to the room to get everyone ready to head out to Downtown Disney.

Here’s what our 2-bedroom suite balcony looked like:

Okapi-sighting

Then! Off to Downtown Disney….
We got off at the Marketplace bus stop and quickly headed to the Earl of Sandwich to get some dinner. We at there twice during our 2008 trip and it was great both times. This night? Still very good! Sandwiches are hot & yummy and we all got a strawberry shortcake dessert that was nice & tasty.

After dinner, time to do some preliminary shopping….

At the Pin Traders, Samantha found some friends

We made sure to get over to the World of Disney!

Very important, in our opinion, to hit this store early in the trip so you can get a good feeling for what product is available. Then, if we see something unique at the parks, we know to buy there instead of waiting to get back to WOD.

Outside of WOD, Samantha found some more friends:

You may notice in those two pictures, that she has something new in her hands. Grandma was nice and bought her a baby Minnie this evening. You may notice in future pictures that baby Minnie got to do quite a bit of sight-seeing the rest of the trip.

Now, looks like we’re close to the LEGO store. Here’s a picture from Joshua (see if you can tell which person in the picture is real)

Background story, before heading into the LEGO store. For his birthday in July, Joshua got a few LEGO pirate boxes. He has loved playing them and noticed at Target that there is a big LEGO pirate ship. He became completely fascinated with this item. One day while at Target, he just sat on the floor and stared at the pirate ship box. He eventually said to me, “I just like looking at it.” So, we decided that he could use some of his Disney vacation money to buy the pirate ship (I called in advance to make sure that the DTD store had the pirate ship in stock and that the cost was the same as in Oklahoma).
So, up to this point in the trip, Joshua has had fun, but he constantly would ask when we could go get his pirate ship. Well, here we are…the moment has come.

That is one happy boy right there.

It was getting fairly late at this point, but before leaving we wanted to pop into Once Upon a Toy to give it a quick lookover.

Well, the night went quickly, but we at least got some good “window-shopping” accomplished. Time to head back to Kidani and get settled in. Before bed, though, the kids were given some time to play….

What a great Day 2 and first full day at Disney World!




Up next: What happens when 7 people get turned into toys?

 

[aaaateamsgrandma]

How sweet is Samantha and Baby Minnie? I know of no boys who don't love the Lego store. I have spent small and large fortunes in the past 15 years on Legos. The pic of Samantha with the Lego people is quite cute.

Darn those Disney people. They make everything so appealing to childlren and their grandmas.

 

[jenny105]

That lego bag is almost as big as he is!! Wow!
Great to read about DTD. We missed out on it this trip!

I see you got your Boo working!

 

[crocko]

How sweet is Samantha and Baby Minnie? I know of no boys who don't love the Lego store. I have spent small and large fortunes in the past 15 years on Legos. The pic of Samantha with the Lego people is quite cute.

Darn those Disney people. They make everything so appealing to childlren and their grandmas.

Oh, I should have mentioned...that's not actually Samantha with the LEGO family....just some random little girl.

That lego bag is almost as big as he is!! Wow!
Great to read about DTD. We missed out on it this trip!

I see you got your Boo working!

Yeah, he wanted to carry it, but he quickly let me carry instead.

Yes! I got the Boo working!

 

[chicagoshannon]

That AK play area looks awesome! Thanks for updating!

I could spend hours in Once Upon a Toy. That place is HUGE!

 

[aaaateamsgrandma]

Oh, I should have mentioned...that's not actually Samantha with the LEGO family....just some random little girl.

That's hilarious. I even looked at the clothes and I thought her hair is different, maybe it is the coloring or lighting. I didn't remember any pic of Samantha with a paci.

 

[crocko]

Day 3 (Hollywood Studios Day)
Chapter 1 -- I don't like the Elevator Ride



It’s time for Day 3!
This would be a Hollywood Studios Day. The park had early 8am opening, so we made sure to get there for the EMH rope drop. Before coming on the trip, I had discovered Dom’s Stars Wars DISigns and he made some cool logos for Bridgette, myself, and the kids.

Here’s Joshua’s:

Alright, we got on the early bus and make our way to Studios.

Ah, Tower of Terror…..how I have waited to see you again……

We got there very early and managed to get at the front of one of the entrance lines. Since we were early, some pictures while waiting

Let’s get some lotion on!

About 10 minutes early, they let everyone in and we hustle up to the rope line. The crowds behind us:

In December, we got a fun pre-show before rope drop….but no show today. Right before drop, though, the Toy Story Mania walking crew came out to get ready to intercept us.

Finally….rope drop, and we speedily walk amongst the crowd to get to TSMM – find stroller parking – park the strollers – everybody here? – Yes? – alright, let’s get in line
Being toward the front and going fairly quickly into the line, we didn’t have very much of a wait. 5-10 minutes maybe….so a fairly quick walk through the queue this time around.

I would be riding in Slinky Dog with Joshua on our first ride

Joshua had fun playing, but had a little trouble shooting AND holding the popper low enough to hit enough items. When the game was over, I had forgotten that I wanted to get a picture of the score and scrambledly managed to snap one

142,400 for me……..16,300 for Joshua. Good showing for his first time around. Of my 142k, I was pleased. Hopefully I’ll get more opportunities and can improve….

On the way out, Joshua thought the huge crayons and Lincoln Logs were cool

With one riding down, time to quickly grab some FP’s so we can come back and ride again later. Luckily, the FP times had only gotten to 10:10 at this point

With Toy Story accomplished, the goal now was for the Brave Ones to go ride the Tower of Terror. The Brave Ones include myself, Bridgette, grandpa, and Joshua. Up to this point, we had been calling this the Elevator Ride to help keep Joshua interested and calm.

We got sidetracked on the way over, though

Before getting up to ToT, we decided to stop at a Photopass photographer. Here’s a picture of The Braves Ones

And a picture of Joshua….I think he has the appropriate facial expression for someone who is going on this ride for the first time

While walking through the queue (our total wait time was probably only 10 minutes), Bridgette mentioned to Joshua that it sure is dusty in here. His response, “Maybe, they meant for it to be like that” Haha! 5 years old and he’s already figured out Disney theming.

We all made it into the elevator without any chickening out. This ToT ride was one of the better ones I’ve been on. It seemed like we got a couple extra drops and I loved how instead of going up and stopping it would just fling us up and then immediately drop back down. Very fun!

As for Joshua? Well….he handled it just fine (grabbed onto both of our hands very tightly) and commented something to the effect that he would prefer not to do that ride again. LOL. Oh well. He was a trooper for trying….maybe next time to the World, he’ll be up for trying again.


Getting off the ride, Grandma, Mary, and Samantha were patiently waiting for us. Next, we decided to cross the park and go give Star Tours a try. This was the one ride I was sad that Samantha was not tall enough for. I tried to walk her on anyway, but the CM out front was quick to measure her and disallow her presence. Oh well.

We pretty much walked straight onto this ride. Excellent! Afterward, Joshua seemed to have really enjoyed it….and of course, I figured he would be very excited upon exiting as I knew we’d have to walk straight through Tatooine Traders. We went ahead and let Joshua make a light saber at this point…and smart boy that he is, he chose a Darth Maul-esque two-sided saber. He also chose to get a cool toy that is a replica of the machine you travel in for Star Tours. (more on these toys later…..)

While I finished the purchase, Joshua and Bridgette went over to Jedi Training Academy to try and get chosen to learn to become a Jedi. Joshua had a little trouble getting enthusiastic and didn’t wave or bounce around too much. In the end, he was not chosen. That’s okay…if he wants to later, we’ll try again.

Up next: What’s big, purple, and really scary?

 

[crocko]

That AK play area looks awesome! Thanks for updating!

I could spend hours in Once Upon a Toy. That place is HUGE!

Yes, it is a GREAT store. Love checking it out. In December, Bridgette and I went hog wild trying to stuff potato head pieces into one of the boxes.

That's hilarious. I even looked at the clothes and I thought her hair is different, maybe it is the coloring or lighting. I didn't remember any pic of Samantha with a paci.

LOL -- yeah, the pacifier was the quick give away to me when I first saw the picture.