"Really, We Don't Work Here" A Not So Scary Adventure

[pirateprincess1976]

Really, We Dont Work Here A Not So Scary Adventure COMPLETE+PTR!
Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy. Yup, Uncle Walt completely sums it all up right there. Can I just say Walt Disney is my hero. Seriously. Anyways& Greetings all, I will be your host on one of the most magical trips, full of fun, adventure, a couple of Dismeets and generally being mistaken for Cast Members. Pretty cool, right? I think so
The Who:
Me

Mary- Basically your typical, everyday, Disney obsessed girl. I blame the universe, I happen to share a birthday with Disneyland. Yup, July 17th is practically the BEST DAY EVER!!! (Yup, I quote Rapunzel. Punzie and I are BFFs LOL)
Allison

One of my best friends since high school. She likes Disney, but not crazy obsessed. She pretty much lets me do all the planning, I just need to tell her where to go and what time. Her only requests are that we visit Claire Huxtable over at Dinosaur, Patrick on Soarin, and Ellen, Bill Nye the Science guy and Stupid Judy over at Ellens Energy Adventure.
The When: September 12-18 2013
The Where: Art of Animation- Little Mermaid rooms!!!!!!
The Why: Just because we can Keep your hands and arms inside the carpet! Weeeeeeere outta here!!!!!

 

[katt789]

Yay!! I'm totally in, also hopefully first!!

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Yay!! I'm totally in, also hopefully first!!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are!!!!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Following along!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hi!

 

[disneymommagic]

My birthday is also July 17 th I never knew it was the same as Disneyland you learn something new everyday !!!!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

The One With all the Background

OK& This is that slightly boring before the trip post.
So& Allison and I have been to Disney World a few times together. Pretty much every other year we would plan a trip. The last time we went together was September of 2009. We were going to go in 2011 but money wise poor Allison couldnt swing it Finally 2013 came and yay! Allison had enough money in the Disney fund!!!! During an exceptionally snowy February and March here at home, we finally hashed out the details and booked a 6 night, 7 day vacation at Art of Animation- Little Mermaid rooms!!!!!


Yup. 188 days out. Seemed so far away. We couldnt wait to go. Poor Allison hadnt been in 4 years, and Disney World was practically a completely different place! I mean, the last time we went together, Space Mountain was closed for a long refurb, Snow Whites Scary Adventures was still there, Mickeys Toon Town Fair was there, New Fantasyland was still a dream& But before we knew it, these babies arrived!



As we were getting closer they were announcing magic band testing and originally Art of Animation was not testing L But& I was playing around one night on my iphone and was on MDE and lo and behold& I had magic bands waiting to be customized! I wasted no time ordering the bands and selecting our fast pass+


Two days later I got the email that Art of Animation was added to Magic Band testing LOL
Finally it was the day before Disney and you know what that means& Packing! (who are we kidding I was pre packed for months LOL)

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Didnt take long for my kitty to figure out I was leaving.
Allison dropped of her luggage at my house that since we were leaving super early in the morning and pretty soon it was off to attempt some sleep. Tomorrow was Disney day!!!!!!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

My birthday is also July 17 th I never knew it was the same as Disneyland you learn something new everyday !!!!

In February I was staying at Pop Century and they have daily trivia and apparently July 17th is also Splash Mountain's birthday LOL

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 1 9/12 Part 1:
The One Where it’s Disney Day!!!!!

Here it was, Disney Day!!!! My alarm was set super early at 3:30am. Our flight was at 7:05am and our ride was due to pick us up at 4:30am. I was in dreamy dream land when I heard “This as you may recognize is a maintenance service elevator…” The Tower of Terror Spiel, aka Allison’s ring tone. I open my eyes and my phone say 3:29am, and it’s just Allsion telling me that she was up and I didn’t need to wake her.
I got up, jumped in the shower and dressed and was basically ready to go. Allison got to my house a little after 4 and pretty soon our ride was here to take us to the airport.

Now, when I fly, I normally just fly out of Logan, it’s super easy to get to and I can pretty much be there in 20 minutes. Allison, however, is not the biggest fan of Logan, so we ended up flying Southwest out of Manchester, which is smaller and less overwhelming if you don’t travel very often. Manchester is a bit of a hike but since our flight was so early we made it there in about an hour.
There was a little line to check in, but nothing too painful and I breezed through Security. And I waited for Allison. And waited. And waited…. She was originally right behind me but apparently ended up getting stuck behind people who didn’t remove laptops from bags and set off alarms. Good times LOL
Finally Allison made it through and we headed to a necessity for me…

Yup. Dunkies ice coffee. Mocha Caramel. Extra milk. My reason for living. What can I say? I’m a Boston girl. You know you’re from Boston when you start to panic when you don’t see a Dunkin Donuts or a CVS. This is completely true. I once had anxiety so bad because I was lost in the middle of nowhere (well, not really nowhere, I was in Natick, but still you have to take the Pike to get there. If you gotta take the Pike it’s the middle of nowhere) I had to have my boyfriend come retrieve me. True story. Disney World is the only place I do not have lack of Dunkies panic. Weird, I know. But I digress.
I enjoyed a little croissant sandwich, which was your standard egg and cheese. No frills, but did the job. And we just chilled waiting to board.

We boarded around 6:30am and took off on time. The flight was pretty uneventful. I listened to my ipod and read a couple of magazines. We got peanuts (yay!) and cookies. We landed a little early, right around 10am.
Soon it was the Fake-O-Rail and of to DME

There was no one in line and there was a bus waiting for us! And it was the pretty Disney one, not the ugly Mears!


The bus pulled out around 10:30am. We were the first stop (Yay!)
Pretty soon we were here!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 1 9/12 Part 2:
Checking Out Art of Animation!!!

Ok, so I know I’ve been a bad Dis-er lately. I work retail and as you all know retail gets INSANE November and December and then we just had inventory. But now the craziness has eased up I can get back to this, so here we go…
When we last left off we were pulling into Art of Animation.





Check in was super quick and easy. I had done online check in so all of our check in material was all set, all they needed to do was check my id and what luck! Our room was ready!
We took a quick detour to pick up our refillable mugs and then headed off to find our room.

 

[Tracy161]

Per Katt's suggestion, joining! Also, I was there during most of your trip!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Per Katt's suggestion, joining! Also, I was there during most of your trip!

Yay! welcome!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 1 9/12: Part 3
The Room!

We headed off in search of our room. We were staying in the Little Mermaid section, which is the farthest section from the main building. It was a bit of a hike but not unbearable.
We were in building 8, which is the Ariel building. We easily found our room which was right next to my girl Ariel, on the first floor right near the pool. We loved our location.




Can I just tell you how excited I was to stay here? I felt like I was in the middle of the movie J



I was in love with the shower. I mean, it’s decorated as Ariel’s grotto AND there are Hidden Mickey’s! I may or may not have sang “Part of Your World” in here



It’s a good thing I live in a house full of men otherwise I probably would have bought this shower curtain lol




The band geek in me was in love with the sheet music on the table. Actually I used to have the sheet music for the Little Mermaid when I was in high school.





At this point it was getting close to noon and we were FAMISHED! It was time to go in search of food and our first adventures of the day.

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 1 9/12: Part 4
Downtown Disney!

We headed off to catch the bus to Downtown Disney. We didn’t have to wait too long, we had pretty good luck with the buses. The longest waits we had was at park closing but that’s to be expected. Pretty soon we were on our way to Downtown Disney.
So what delicious Disney food were we experiencing? The Earl of Sandwich, yum! This was a first for Allison, but I’ve been here before. I sadly do not have much in the way of food pictures. I promise to do better next time lol.
I got my favorite, the Hawaiian BBQ and a coke and Allison got a Chicken Caesar wrap and a water. On the recommendation of a cast member, we both got the vanilla bean cupcake for dessert. We both enjoyed what we got. Would we go back? Absolutely!
When we were done, we decided we would browse through the shops on the way to our next destination. As soon as we left Earl’s, I thought I saw a familiar face and I did! It was Meg, aka LifeIsDis, and her mom! Yay, first Dismeet! J They were super nice and we stopped for a bit and talked Dis before we all headed on our ways.
We of course stopped in the pin store because, well, I mean Disney pins! And I wanted to make a vinylmation trade. Now, I’m not really into vinylmations per say, but I had one that I’ve been trading haphazardly for a couple of years. Well to my surprise, this is what I got on the trade…

Ursula! From the new Little Mermaid series! Needless to say that ended my trading and sparked my desire to start collecting that set. I ended up with like seven of them lol
In our travels I found the best phone case…


And yes, I did get it. It goes so well with my ringtone lol
And we continued on.

I love this guy!
We headed over to the West Side for a very special adventure… Splitsville!

This was one of the things Allison was dying to try. She bowls on a league, I personally am not a fan of bowling but I said I’d try it. Well this was going to be interesting. See, we’re from the Boston area and we don’t really have big ball bowling here. Most places are candlepin, neither of us have ever big ball bowled. There’s a first time for every thing.

The balls were cute!






I kind of kicked her butt lol
It’s not something I would do all the time but we definitely had fun.
We got out and it was raining a little, not too bad and we headed to the bus stop on our way to our next adventure…

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 1 9/12: Part 5
Dinner in Paradise

So we were on our way to our next adventure… Dinner! I was so excited about this dinner, it was the one I was looking the most forward to after all the amazing looking reviews I saw here on Dis. This was a first for both me and Allison. We were going to ‘Ohana!!!!!!
We caught the bus from Downtown Disney and headed to the Polynesian. Before we knew it we were here!





I am in LOVE with the Polynesian. It’s my idea of Heaven and some day I will stay here. They should bottle the smell in the lobby. Seriously, that’s the air freshener Disney should sell. That and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Our reservation was at 5pm and we got to the Poly around 4:30 and checked in and hung around waiting to be called. ‘Ohana opens at 5pm for dinner and the cast member open it singing “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride”.



We got called in soon after and were seated right near the grill.



OMG it smelled fabulous in here! Our servers were Sam and Gary (I think lol) but they were newlyweds and so cute, they were fabulous! Anyways, we got our drinks and the delicious Welcome Bread and here’s where we made our first mistake of the meal… yup, we each managed to polish off a loaf of the most delicious bread. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the most brilliant idea, but it was sooooo good! Next the salad came, but lets face it, it’s salad and not the most exciting feature of the meal. Next was the fabulous chicken wings and pot stickers. Here’s where we made our next mistake. They were so phenomenal that we filled up on those. Next was the lo mien and stir fried veggies. Now I usually don’t like lo mien but this lo mien was fantastic. If you don’t like lo mien, at least give this a taste cuz you might be surprised. Next was the meat, skewers and skewers of meat! And here’s where our earlier mistakes came to pass… we were so stuffed we could hardly enjoy the meat selections lol There was shrimp (I didn’t have it but Allison seemed to enjoy it), pork, chicken and the most perfectly cooked steak… yum!
Finally it was time for dessert… ‘Ohana’s famous bread pudding! I don’t know how but we managed to find room for this….



Best dessert EVER!!!!!

How did we like ‘Ohana? We loved it, it lived up to the hype and did not disappoint.
Would we go back? Absolutely!

It was time to roll ourselves out of the Polynesian for our next stop.

Please stand clear of the doors! Por favor mantangase alejado de las puertas!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 1 9/12 Part 6:
Every Main Street Should End with a Castle

When last we left off, we were jumping on my favorite mode of transportation (the monorail, of course!) and heading to my favorite park, the Magic Kingdom! The monorail pulled in to the Magic Kingdom Station and I went skipping down the ramp to bag check. So excited to be back in my favorite place.
After a pretty quick and painless bag check, we were at the former turnstiles turned glowing Mickey heads, tapping away to enter.



I should probably mention how our experience with our Magic Bands were going and so far, so good! They worked perfectly for the Magical Express, access to our room, the dining plan and the Mickey head glowed green to let us into the park.



I just love how Main Street decorates for the fall.
In the grand tradition of remembering it was all started by a mouse, we headed off to visit Mickey. After a relatively short wait we were ushered in to meet the star…

Once Mickey was properly greeted we headed off in search of a particular item. I am a big fan of mouse ears and when we were shopping at Downtown Disney, I spied someone wearing a special set of ears I had never seen before. I asked her about them and she told me she found them at the Magic Kingdom and they had just been released. What were they? Ariel mouse ears! So I decided to head to the Chapeau in search of them, as well as picking up a set of regular embroidered one for my newest niece. I looked high and low and finally spied the Ariel ears, and there was only 1 left and they were mine!

Aren’t they cute?
With purchases in hand we headed down Main Street to this beautiful sight

Why doesn’t every Main Street end with a castle?

It was around this time that I got my first “don’t you work here moment”.
As we were admiring the castle we got to talking with one of the photo pass CMs. She was admiring my monorail hair bow and asking if it was Magical Ribbons and I told her no, they were Mickey Waffles Bows. And we were talking about the different disney ribbons and just Disney in general and she asked where I worked in Disney. That made my night. For a Disney obsessed person like myself, being mistaken for a cast member is the highest compliment lol
Basically walking on air at this point we headed off to our next adventure, Fantasyland!

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 1 9/12 Part 7:
Fantasyland!

Before we get into Fantasyland here's my super cute monorail bow I wore that night

I got a ton of compliments on it, go check out mickey waffles bows, she's got a ton of cute ones.
Our first stop was a big favorite of ours, Mickey's Philharmagic!

I just love the posters in here! After our musical adventures with everyone's favorite duck, we headed off to the Kingdom of Corona.







I know it's just a bathroom area, but it is an amazingly detailed, themed area. I never want to use another bathroom again lol
We when worked our way over to New Fantasyland, which Allison has never seen. She was blown away with the details.




After visiting Gaston (no LeFou's Brew this time, too full from 'Ohana, but rest assured it would be sampled later in the trip) and we had to stop by and check out our favorite mermaid.

Gadgets and gizmos aplenty

Whosits and whatits galore

Poor unfortunate souls!

Kiss the girl <3

After our under seas adventures we headed over to another first for Allison, the new Dumbo!



I adore Dumbo at night. The lights and the water effects... perfection.
Our night was drawing to an end, that 3:30am wake up call was starting to take its toll, but we still had a couple of more things to do.

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 1 9/12 Part 8:
Ending the Evening

While we were over in Storybook Circus, we decided that we should take some time to meet old friends in their new homes. We jumped in line first for Daisy and Minnie. The wait wasn't too bad, about 15 minutes or so. Pretty soon we were meeting these lovely ladies.

I just love Daisy, she's so feisty. I wish she was featured more than she is. Instead of the Fab Five it should be the Sensational Six!

Minnie was adorably sweet, as always.
Then we headed over to jump in line for the boys, we only had to wait 5 minutes for them.

Goofy was fun and crazy! Pretty sure there was some kisses on the hands for us as well, that Goofy's a gentleman.

Somehow I don't have a picture of myself and Donald, pretty sure its on Allison's camera, but I assure you I gave Donald plenty of love.
We headed down the walkway to Tomorrowland. Space Mountain was closed this night so we took a leisurely spin on the Peoplemover.





Space Mountain had it's lights on! That was pretty cool to see.
Next we defended the galaxy against the evil Emperor Zurg.

I do awful on this, but I can never resist. I think we both finished as Ranger First Class.
Then we headed toward the exit and the buses, our beds were calling our names. We made the long trek back to our room.

Dinglehopper!

We basically passed out as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 2 9/13 Part 1:
Rope Drop Here We Come!

I heard my familiar alarm tone at 6am. Time to get up! It was our first full day in Disney! I jumped in the shower and got dressed and woke Allison up around 6:30. Normally I'm not a morning person, but in Disney I am! I love taking advantage of Rope Drop, especially at the Magic Kingdom. I adore the Morning Show. While Allison was getting ready I turned on Stacey because you know, "It's time to do the Must Dos!"
Once we were both dressed, we grabbed our refillable mugs and headed to the food court for breakfast. I took some pictures of the Lion King section on our way.







I got the Character waffles for breakfast. They were cute but not quite as good as the Mickey or Pop waffles, I think because there wasn't as many little crevices for the syrup to sink into. Man, there is nothing better than the ears on the Mickey waffles, yum! Allison's not really a big breakfast person so she got one of the make your own yogurt parfaits and she really enjoyed it. She ended up getting it almost every morning.
We headed back to the room to grab our pins and park bags and put our mugs away and headed off to catch the bus to the Magic Kingdom. On the way I needed to take a special picture...

Me with the Snarfblatt! I needed this picture, not only because I was wearing my new Ariel ears, but because I was wearing this super cool shirt...

I love this shirt! When I found it at Hot Topic I had to have it. Hot Topic has the best Disney stuff!
We made our way over to the bus stop and pretty soon we were on our way!



Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!
We made our way through bag check and headed to the turnstiles. Allison tapped her and.... green mickey head! Yay! I tapped my band and... denied! Doh! I tried it again and... still denied! A CM came over with the ipad and tapped it and it still didn't work! So he took me over to Guest Relations so we can see what was going on with my band. I was getting nervous that I was going to miss Rope Drop and that I was going to lose all my FP+ if the band wasn't working. Fortunately, it turned out the problem was with the wifi in the ipad and not my band lol although it ended up being a running theme that my band wouldn't work on my first park of the day, but it worked when I park hopped (confused?).
Problem solved, we found a spot to see this...

At this point I was pretty much sobbing because life was perfect.

 

[pirateprincess1976]

Day 2 9/13 Part 2:
A Fantasyland Morning

We headed onto Main Street once the morning show finished.



I wish I could see this everyday!
We made our way through the castle into Fantasyland and headed over to an old standard... It's a Small World! I have a fondness for this ride, it was my mom's favorite.







Once we disembarked from the "happiest cruise that ever sailed", we started to make our way towards New Fantasyland. As we passed the carrousel, I noticed a few special guests... Anastasia, Drizella and Lady Tremaine! We waited for them to finish their ride and followed them over to their meet and greet. We were the second group line.

They were wonderfully hilarious, as usual.
We continued on, we had a couple of FP+ to use, but first we made a stop into Gaston's Tavern. It was time for another first for Allison, LeFou's Brew! And man could we use one, it was barely past 9:30 and it was definitely a hot one! So, how did Allison like Lefou's brew? She loved it! I like Lefou's Brew, but I do think it's a little sweet. Unfortunately for me, the drink was so cold and the day was so hot, I drank it a little to fast and brain freeze! Ow!
We headed back to Ariel's Under the Sea Adventure to use our 9:40 FP+ and then it was time for me to meet Ariel. I haven't had the opportunity to meet her before but it was a definite must for me this trip. We waited about 15 minutes and then I got to meet my favorite mermaid.

Here she is admiring my new ears. She was so excited to see them, they were the first ones she had ever seen.

She was super sweet and bubbly.
After Ariel, we headed over to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh for a little trip through the 100 Acre Wood before our next FP+