She's a Princess, a Superhero, and a Rock Star -a Sept 2013 TR (Completed 2/24)

[Wood Nymph]

I just love your early morning pictures. We'll have to look for an armadillo next time we are there. We saw lots of deer on our last trip, including young ones.

Allie looked so cute in her tropical dress. It looks like it was cool and comfortable, too.

Your AK bus was really weird. I can't believe how they sent you back and forth like that. This last trip we walked to FW for breakfast on two of our mornings. Then we took the internal bus to the Outpost to catch the AK bus one morning and the HS bus the next. Those buses are nonstop from FW, which is nice. I hate going from WL to the GF before heading to a park.

We saw the Nemo show at AK for the first time, too. I really enjoyed it but DH thought it was only "okay". Did Allie enjoy it? The WL seemed very empty when we were there recently. It was much nicer to have a quiet lobby than the crazy-busy lobby in December. Is Shelly an intern or a regular employee? That is sad that you had to say goodbye.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I just love your early morning pictures. We'll have to look for an armadillo next time we are there. We saw lots of deer on our last trip, including young ones.

Allie looked so cute in her tropical dress. It looks like it was cool and comfortable, too.

Your AK bus was really weird. I can't believe how they sent you back and forth like that. This last trip we walked to FW for breakfast on two of our mornings. Then we took the internal bus to the Outpost to catch the AK bus one morning and the HS bus the next. Those buses are nonstop from FW, which is nice. I hate going from WL to the GF before heading to a park.

We saw the Nemo show at AK for the first time, too. I really enjoyed it but DH thought it was only "okay". Did Allie enjoy it? The WL seemed very empty when we were there recently. It was much nicer to have a quiet lobby than the crazy-busy lobby in December. Is Shelly an intern or a regular employee? That is sad that you had to say goodbye.

Yes, the lodge is just so beautiful early in the morning, and you have it almost all to yourself. Sharing it with a quiet armadillo isn't too bad.

Allie enjoyed her Lilo dress. Melissa screen printed the flower pattern on it, and at the same time did a shirt for herself so they had similar outfits that day. Stitch liked them at breakfast.

The bus thing was strange, and definitely had the most stops of any Disney bus we've been on. I don't think that route is normal because I haven't seen that many people on the AK bus already when it arrived at WL in the past, but it was kind of an off time so perhaps they were combining routes. We just went with it, and it gave us a chance to stop by WL one more time, even though we didn't get off the bus.

I liked the Nemo show quite a bit, probably more than Festival of the Lion King. Allie liked it, but preferred the dancing in the Lion king show. We all were glad to spend some time in the air conditioning, which made it perfect for that day.

We have enjoyed following your recent WL trip on the WL FAQ thread. It is neat that you got a courtyard view room and the crowds were light. We would love to do a behind the scenes tour sometime, that sounded great. We did one at AK during our honeymoon and enjoyed it. Once Allie is older we'll have to do one again.

Shelly was part of Disney's college program, and returned back home to Texas in January. It was fun talking to her about what she learned getting to spend six months immersed in Disney.

Our next update will be coming soon, and we still have lots of fun from our last full day to write about. Thanks for following along!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I am seriously considering doing the behind the scenes tour. We enjoyed the WL tour so much that it made us want to take another tour. The MK tour sounds fascinating.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Once we got to AKL we checked out the second floor outside animal viewing area. It is always impressive to get to see the animals from the resort, and this was an area we had never visited before.


Since it was hot the animals weren't super active but we just watched them chill and nap in the shade. Allie also educated some people about zebras while we were there.

We decided to head downstairs to Mara to find a cool spot to hang out and enjoy a late lunch. Besides the requisite package of Zebra domes, I tried the chicken flatbread and Melissa had a pita. Not being quite as adventerous, Allie stuck with chicken nuggets.

The Falafels were really good and something that I would come back here for.


Mara is one of our favorite resort Quick Service locations. I love Roaring Fork at WL, but Mara has a huge seating area and a lot of variety (but still has stuff to satisfy a burger guy like me).

After Mara we went upstairs and shopped in the big gift shop. Allie convinced us she needed a stuffed leopard, and then we headed to the bus stop.


Our next stop was our favorite park, Epcot. We hadn't spent as much time here as we thought we would, and there were still things we wanted to see. The bus to Epcot arrived at 4:55, and we arrived at the park at 5:08, which felt pretty quick.

Paul was itching to ride the new Test Track so while he did that Allie and I played the Where's the Fire game at Innoventions. She was a little young to be actually competitive but we had fun and took a picture in front of the big fire truck when we were done.


After that we did the Great Piggy Bank adventure which is always a hit. She loves that game.


Meanwhile I took advantage of the single rider line for Test Track. We were afraind it would rain and close the ride, and they had warnings while I was in line that a storm was expected, but I got on without any problem. This was my favorite ride during our honeymoon, and it had been closed when we were here the year before. I wanted to see the re-themed version, so I was excited.


I liked the changes, and I thought that emphasizing the design aspects was pretty neat. I think it made the ride even better suited to me as a car guy and an engineer (and a bit of a tech nerd too...)

After the ride I met back up with Melissa and Allie and we walked through After Market (still the best named dump shop in the park). We were surprised to see that the displays at the end of the ride had changed from earlier in the trip, and they now had a kids car seat exhibit.


I was super excited about the carseat section. I'm a bit of a safety nut when it comes to carseats so I was happy to see that education going on. Allie wanted to get weighed and measured to make sure she was in the right carseat (which she was of course) but the kids behind us in line were apparently not which the mom was surprised to find out.

I remember getting to sit in the cars when I visited WDW when I was five, so it was cool to sit in them with Allie.


We both were a little bummed they wouldn't let her sit in the back seat of the Camaro though, so we settled for a picture of her on my lap.


I also got a Test Track T-shirt, since they had been out of my size earlier in the trip.

After that we headed to Mouse Gear for one last round of Epcot shopping. Allie got a lollipop as a bribe for posing for pictures earlier in the day and got some Little Mermaid figures that she still plays with in the tub.


After our shopping we made our last trip out of Epcot. Once again it was hard to say good bye but we were starving so it was time to find some dinner.


We had one last meal that we just had to do. We had intentionally not scheduled an ADR since we didn't want to have to rush, but I knew right where I wanted to go.


To get to Fort Wilderness we had a few options. We could take the bus, but it went to WL first and then we'd have to transfer to a FW internal bus, so instead we hopped on the monorail. We rode it to the TTC, where Allie decided she wanted to ride the ferry boat. We rode it to the front of MK, and then walked right on a boat headed for Fort Wilderness.

We arrived for dinner at about 8:30, and found that we definitely didn't need an ADR.


We pretty much had the place to ourselves and were relieved to find the Diet Coke tasted like Diet coke this time.

Oh yes. It is amazing how much the bad Coke had adversely affected our opinion of the restaurant. We had a great meal, and I ate my fill of those barbecue ribs.

After dinner we had one more place we needed to visit before we were done for the evening. We watched the EWP from the boat dock then hopped on a boat to the MK.

So our route of travel for the day wasn't the most direct, at least we hit all the places we wanted. Catching the water parade was a nice bonus, and the crowds at MK were really pretty light once we got there.

We wondered through Main street and into Frontierland. The park was set to close at 10PM, but there was a Main Street Electrical Parade scheduled for then so we figured we'd catch it from Frontierland.

We wandered into the candy shop looking for fudge. They were getting ready to close for the night and one of the CM's asked if he could give Allie a bag of cotton candy. The kid was in heaven, it was the first time she'd ever had it.


Paul picked out some fudge and then we went out to grab a spot to watch the MSEP. The park was so empty that we pretty much had a whole section to ourselves.


It felt like our very own viewing of the parade. It was pretty awesome.


It really was something to get to see the parade without crowds. It ended up being an abbrievated version, as some of the floats were not included, but it was still impressive.

After the parade the park was really emptying out. We ran into Dani and Matt again and helped them out with taking a picture in front of the castle. We said our goodbyes and made our last trip down main street. At some point between Frontierland and this walk down Mainstreet Allie crashed in the stroller so she was out for the night.


At the end of mainstreet a CM was handing out caramel apple samples and I got the last one of the night. It was so yummy. My mouth is watering now, I think I'm gonna have to add one of those to my list for my next Disneyland trip.

Since it was now about 11PM (an hour after park closing), we wondered if we might have an issue with transportation. Walking out the front gates we saw that the boat docks were closed, so we headed to the buses. We walked up to the empth WL bus stop and then a bus arrived very quickly. I think they were just waiting to see where people needed to go.

We got back to WL very quickly and headed up to our room, all with Allie asleep the whole time. While Melissa got ready for bed, I decided to head out with the camera and tripod for some night shots of the Lodge.



I love how you can see the "Bear Face" in the window layout on the East side of the lodge.





I then headed up to the room just after midnight knowing that I had gotten every last minute out of our last full day at WDW.


Coming up next, our last morning at the lodge, a breakfast snag and where do we go after our plane lands?

 

[ProudMommyof2]

Wow ! That is one impressive day! It so cool that you get to the resorts as well.

The empty park for MSEP is

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Wow ! That is one impressive day! It so cool that you get to the resorts as well.

The empty park for MSEP is

Thanks, we sure had fun. Last year we hit all four parks on our last day, but three was enough this time.

We couldn't believe the lack of MSEP crowd either. We'll make a note to plan on attending the parade on one of the nights where it runs at closing time again.

Thanks for following along and we'll have another update soon.

 

[WDWKOOK]

Oh no! We're close to the last day! That means it's time to book another trip

I love the photo of the (almost) empty WL lobby. So peaceful and serene. Aren't those armadillos the cutest thing? When we lived in TX, I remember commenting about how we never saw one "animated," only "asleep" on the roads, so it's always a treat to see them alive and well around WL, but still a surprise early mornings.

Did anyone comment at breakfast about the Lilo dress? So cute and identical to Lilo's. You've got me missing Shelly, too. Was she a DCP participant? I think your leaving the stroller was wishful thinking. It won't be long now before Allie prefers pushing over being pushed. But, then you'll get fun park bench breaks.

Sue's comment about Nemo made me chuckle because I thought it was just great, too, but DH thought it was just okay. He didn't think it was poorly executed, just not his cup of tea.

DD and I love The Mara, too. It's like being in a cave down there and they have a great selection of very tasty food. I even like the musical accompaniment. Did Allie name her leopard? Does she bring her Disney animals on future trips?

So what did you think of TE? You ate there so late - you were on CA time! Did you ever try their breakfast? It's delicious, especially the Pulled-Pork BBQ Eggs Benedict. It's our favorite. Did you happen to meet Josephine by any chance? She usually works in the morning/afternoon as a seater/greeter. She has worked at FW for many years and may even be an OCM (Original Cast Member). She is just hilarious and loves to talk and tell stories and we love seeing her there every trip.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Oh no! We're close to the last day! That means it's time to book another trip

I love the photo of the (almost) empty WL lobby. So peaceful and serene. Aren't those armadillos the cutest thing? When we lived in TX, I remember commenting about how we never saw one "animated," only "asleep" on the roads, so it's always a treat to see them alive and well around WL, but still a surprise early mornings.

Did anyone comment at breakfast about the Lilo dress? So cute and identical to Lilo's. You've got me missing Shelly, too. Was she a DCP participant? I think your leaving the stroller was wishful thinking. It won't be long now before Allie prefers pushing over being pushed. But, then you'll get fun park bench breaks.

Sue's comment about Nemo made me chuckle because I thought it was just great, too, but DH thought it was just okay. He didn't think it was poorly executed, just not his cup of tea.

DD and I love The Mara, too. It's like being in a cave down there and they have a great selection of very tasty food. I even like the musical accompaniment. Did Allie name her leopard? Does she bring her Disney animals on future trips?

So what did you think of TE? You ate there so late - you were on CA time! Did you ever try their breakfast? It's delicious, especially the Pulled-Pork BBQ Eggs Benedict. It's our favorite. Did you happen to meet Josephine by any chance? She usually works in the morning/afternoon as a seater/greeter. She has worked at FW for many years and may even be an OCM (Original Cast Member). She is just hilarious and loves to talk and tell stories and we love seeing her there every trip.

Hi KOOK! We did book the bounceback, but we have to look at the finances to see if we'll be able to keep it before we get too excited. My parents are planning on going too if we make it, so it will be another fun trip. We may consider AoA if the finances won't allow for WL, but we'll see. We still have a little bit of time before we have to commit, and once we do we'll really get into planning mode.

We thought the armadillo on our honeymoon was some freak thing, and we talked about it quite a bit, so it was fun to see (and get pictures) of another one. They are much cuter "animated" vs. the roadside variety.

At breakfast Lilo noticed Allie's dress and Melissa's shirt. I don't think anyone else said anything, but you could tell Lilo appreciated it.

I do think I liked Nemo more than I thought I would, because it wasn't high on my priority list. I thought it was nice, although we recently saw the Beauty and the Beast musical and I absolutely love that, so I guess I do enjoy a Disney stage show.

The leopard has had a couple of names, Leo, and then Kitty, and back to Leopard. Allie is a huge fan of her stuffed animals, and we brought a bunch of them on her first WDW trip. One day the mousekeeper arranged all of them for Allie:


This trip we convinced her to bring fewer animals, but some of her favorites (especially Belle, who is THE favorite) came along.

We did do TE for breakfast both on this trip and with my parents. This year we did it on our first morning and wound up disappointed, but that was largely because the Diet Coke was messed up and they wouldn't fix it. It is a nice breakfast, but fell a little short for us this trip. I loved the TE dinner though, and the Ribs are still among my favorites. It and WCC are the only WDW restaurants we have been to on each of our trips, and that will likely continue when we get to go back. We didn't get to meet Josephine, but will know to look for her next time.

 

[CuteAsMinnie]

Simply loved finishing reading your trip report and pictures! So wonderful!! Thank you for taking the time to share. Allie's outfits are sooo adorable!

This last photo reminds me of the year DD was 6 (now 21) and we drove down to WDW to our first stay at WL with little her little brother (then 3, now 18). Daddy let her bring, along with all her other friends the LARGEST teddy bear you ever saw! The car was packed around this bear, named Big Min, and he proudly had his space on the top bunk with her and many other friends. Funny thing was, when she placed BIG MIN in her pile of things to take, DH (car packer extraordinaire) didn't even flinch.

Thank you again and wishing you many more trips filled with many more memories!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Simply loved finishing reading your trip report and pictures! So wonderful!! Thank you for taking the time to share. Allie's outfits are sooo adorable!

This last photo reminds me of the year DD was 6 (now 21) and we drove down to WDW to our first stay at WL with little her little brother (then 3, now 18). Daddy let her bring, along with all her other friends the LARGEST teddy bear you ever saw! The car was packed around this bear, named Big Min, and he proudly had his space on the top bunk with her and many other friends. Funny thing was, when she placed BIG MIN in her pile of things to take, DH (car packer extraordinaire) didn't even flinch.

Thank you again and wishing you many more trips filled with many more memories!

Thank you for your kind comments and for following along. We enjoy writing about the trip, and will save the final version of the trip report as a record of the trip.

The story about BIG MIN is so cute. That's a Daddy, taking whatever she wanted.

Thanks again, and may you have many more great trips as well!

 

[Wood Nymph]

Hi KOOK! We did book the bounceback, but we have to look at the finances to see if we'll be able to keep it before we get too excited. My parents are planning on going too if we make it, so it will be another fun trip. We may consider AoA if the finances won't allow for WL, but we'll see. We still have a little bit of time before we have to commit, and once we do we'll really get into planning mode.

AoA looks really cute. Will you be able to get free dining if you stay there next year?

We did do TE for breakfast both on this trip and with my parents. This year we did it on our first morning and wound up disappointed, but that was largely because the Diet Coke was messed up and they wouldn't fix it. It is a nice breakfast, but fell a little short for us this trip. I loved the TE dinner though, and the Ribs are still among my favorites. It and WCC are the only WDW restaurants we have been to on each of our trips, and that will likely continue when we get to go back. We didn't get to meet Josephine, but will know to look for her next time.

We went over to Trail's End for breakfast two days in a row on our last trip, and the second day's breakfast was much better than the first. The food had been out a little too long the first day. We are planning to go back for dinner when we are at the Beach Club in March. I figure that we will miss FW a lot and we'll need to get over to TE for the fried chicken.

I took my husband to the Great Piggy Bank Adventure. It is a lot of fun, but I think I managed to save more money when I played it with my six year old grandson.

It is sad to see your trip coming to an end. I'm sure you felt that way, too.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

AoA looks really cute. Will you be able to get free dining if you stay there next year?

Yes, tentatively. We talked with a CM when we added our room requests and learned that we can transfer our bounceback to other resorts, even AoA, and still get free dining, but at a value it would be Quick Service dining, so we would pay to upgrade it to the regular dining plan. It looks like the price difference for us (with the same dining) would be about $1370 for the 9 night trip between WL and AoA. For my parents the difference is even higher, since they don't have free dining either way yet. That could all change if/when Fall free dining promotions are announced.

We went over to Trail's End for breakfast two days in a row on our last trip, and the second day's breakfast was much better than the first. The food had been out a little too long the first day. We are planning to go back for dinner when we are at the Beach Club in March. I figure that we will miss FW a lot and we'll need to get over to TE for the fried chicken.

I took my husband to the Great Piggy Bank Adventure. It is a lot of fun, but I think I managed to save more money when I played it with my six year old grandson.

It is sad to see your trip coming to an end. I'm sure you felt that way, too.

I guess TE is like any other buffet, and can vary somewhat. It is interesting to hear about varied experiences even on back to back days. It isn't a must-do at breakfast for us, but I do love the dinner.

I missed out on the Piggy Bank Adventure this time because I was over at Test Track, but I thought it was neat last year. I still am surprised they don't offer piggy bank souvenirs, since Allie totally wanted to keep the piggy bank.

We were sad to see the trip wind down, but we got to do so much that it felt like we had accomplished most of what we wanted to. Having doubt over when we'll get to go back makes it a little harder though. Once we have airfare booked, then we'll let ourselves get excited.
We still have our last day of the trip to write about, and hopefully we'll get to that this week so stay tuned!

 

[Sisa]

I have been reading your WDW TRs over the past couple weeks, I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of them.
I am totally jealous that you get to visit DL often. I took my young children to DL this past September, my husband and I agreed, we really enjoy Disney during this time of year.
I was very happy to be able to read your experiences in the last 2 years in September as we are planning a trip to WDW in September 2015, so your TR has helped me in getting to know WDW a little. I still have SO much to learn.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your detailed report.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I have been reading your WDW TRs over the past couple weeks, I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of them. I am totally jealous that you get to visit DL often. I took my young children to DL this past September, my husband and I agreed, we really enjoy Disney during this time of year. I was very happy to be able to read your experiences in the last 2 years in September as we are planning a trip to WDW in September 2015, so your TR has helped me in getting to know WDW a little. I still have SO much to learn. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your detailed report.

That's awesome. Thanks for posting. We really love WDW in September, when lighter crowds make a big difference. Our first trip there was in June and it was busy. We really hope to go back this September too.
Feel free to ask any questions here that you think we could help with, and enjoy your trip planning. That is almost the best part.
We have our next update almost done, so check back for it early next week. Thanks again for following along.

 

[Jackiemarie21]

Hi! I just found this TR. I followed along with your last one, but didn't realize you started a new one!

I have really enjoyed it! My DD who is currently 2.5 is just behind Allie, so reading along with your trip helps me anticipate where she will be during our next trip!

Sounds like you all had a wonderful trip. I am looking forward to your next update!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Hi! I just found this TR. I followed along with your last one, but didn't realize you started a new one!

I have really enjoyed it! My DD who is currently 2.5 is just behind Allie, so reading along with your trip helps me anticipate where she will be during our next trip!

Sounds like you all had a wonderful trip. I am looking forward to your next update!

Cool, we're glad you found us, and were interested in reading about a second trip. Allie loved both of her WDW trips, but it was amazing to see how she grew up in the year in between. She slept a lot less the second time, and had more input on what she wanted to do. She still says that visiting Belle's house was her favorite part of this year's trip, so that would probably be something for you guys to plan on too.

You won't have long to wait for the next update, since it will be up today. Thanks for following along, and have a great time planing your trip!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

After being up late the night before, I slept a little later but knew that we had packing to do so I got out of bed about 7:30. Since our Magical Express bus pickup was scheduled for about 11:30, we decided we wouldn't go to a park today but would instead just hang out at WL and get packed and ready.

After I got out of the shower I stuck Allie in the tub to keep her occupied while we played a form of Tetris trying to get everything packed back up.


We brought a small electronic luggage scale with us that was worth its weight in gold to us since it let us spread our stuff evenly between the three bags that JetBlue let us bring free. We had enough souveniers and stff that each bag was over 40 lbs.

Before heading down to breakfast there was one more thing we decided to do before we considered checking out. We called the reservations number to reserve our bounceback for 2014. We knew that it would be a real stretch to make a third trip in a row, but with their generous cancellation policy and the chance to lock in free dining we decided to go for it.


Once we were all packed and had our bags checked with the resort checkin, we headed down for some breakfast at Whispering Canyon. Allie got really into playing with the Lincoln Logs while we waited for a table.
So into them she didn't want to leave when a table opened but the host was great and let her take a handful to play with at the table.


As we ate breakfast we saw our favorite waitress from last year "M.T. Wallet" putting on a show with another waitress and some guests. Allie continued playing with her Lincoln Logs and enjoyed her pancakes, undisturbed by the commotion.


Melissa and I both really enjoyed our food, and decided that we should make having breakfast here a last morning tradition.

I got the maple waffle and it was delicious. I know people really like the skillet here but I really like waffles so it's an easy decision for me.

We gave the waitress our KTTW card to use our last three table service meal credits and she came back and said that we unfortunately only had one adult TS meal remaining.

This seemed odd to us, as we had been tracking the totals after each meal, and had used all of our TS credits all together, but we told her no problem and agreed to pay OOP for one of our meals.

After we finished our meal and were ready to go, we still had enough time that I decided to stop by the front desk and see what the issue was with the meal credits. I was greeted by a wonderful CM who was genuinely concerned about what had happened and printed out a statement of our meals used. He discovered that appearantly we had been charged for three adult meals and one child at Trail's End the night before.

I was willing to just let it go, but he would not leave it. He offered to immediately credit us with an additional meal, and if we had room charged the extra breakfast he could have deducted it from our bill. Since we had just paid cash, I asked him if there was any way that I could get an extra snack credit instead to grab something for the trip home at Roaring Fork. He replied that that was not an acceptable solution, because sit down meals are worth far more than that and credited our account with three additional snack credits to use immediately.

So, while Allie and I went back up to the room to finish up the final packing Paul went to go grab some rice crispy treats to take home. We brought our carry ons down to the lobby and found a lady checking in to give our left over case of water to and headed out to the ME bus stop.

We had tried arranging to leave them with someone else via the DIS boards, but didn't hear back from them and it was within 15 minutes of our ME bus pickup time, so we asked at the front desk and they let us know that the ladies next to us were just checking in, and they were quite happy to get an extra case of water. Then we had a few minutes to walk around the lobby and take a couple more pictures before strolling outside to wait for the bus. This process was much more relaxed this year, and I really enjoyed not having to be in a hurry.

Eventually the bus came and we were on our way to the airport. Allie and I made our best sad faces.


I just looked out the window and tried to get one last good picture of the Lodge...


After stopping at the Poly one last time, and then GF, Mickey said we were ready to go.


How is it he can be just as cheerful for the return trip as he is when we get there? That ride is probably the worst part of the trip for me, especially not knowing when the next trip will be.

The flights home were uneventful, which is really the way flying should be. At the airport in Austin for our layover we were trying to figure out what we should do for dinner on the way home.


Compared to last year, when we had delayed flights and the Orlando airport shut down due to thunderstorms this year was super easy. The earlier flight time meant that we would be back in California about 5PM, just in time for dinner. It also happens that Disneyland is pretty much on the way from the airport to our house, so we had a mission: To have a double-lodge day with the Wilderness Lodge and Grand Californian. Knowing that we had one more Disney meal to look forward to brightened my mood, and we had a great flight to California. Melissa's sister picked us up at the airport, and within a half an hour of landing we had our bags and were headed for "Mickey's Little House" as Allie calls it.

It was a nice transition back to reality and I was looking forward to Nachos at White Water Snacks which is our go to favorite meal at Disneyland.

We walked to the hotel from the parking garage rather than waiting for the tram (since everything seems so close at Disneyland)


but we were soon reminded that our feet were still pretty tired from the nine days before. We did walk around the hotel a little bit and took a few pictures before heading over to get our nachos.









Just after we ordered our nachos, Melissa's phone rang.

It was our neighbor saying that all three of our dogs were out and headed toward the end of our street which is quite a busy street with a freeway onramp. She was afraid of them so we told her to just leave them alone and we'd get home as soon as we could. I called my brother who had been house sitting for us, he'd already gone home but would start heading toward our house to see if he could get them herded back home. We asked for our nachos to go and made the quickest walk ever out of Disneyland. (even quicker than when Allie peed on me on Pirates and we had to leave so I could go buy dry clothes)

It was crazy that they had been fine for 10 days with us across the country, but now that we were an hour away they decided to escape. Fortunately by the time we got there Melissa's brother had gathered them up and locked the gate that they had gotten unlatched after he unlocked it.

He felt really bad about it, but at least all of our furry kids were safe and sound back home and so were we.


So that's it, the end of Allie's second WDW adventure. We are still finalizing details for a potential 2014 trip, and we'll post updates here soon as we make the final decision. We hope you enjoyed reading about the trip as much as we enjoyed writing about it, and feel free to post here with any questions or to just say hello.

We are really crossing fingers that we can make a trip for this year happen and we should know soon.

 

[WDWKOOK]

Call the waaaaambulance, I'm sad your TR is over. But I have high hopes that a PTR will be posted soon

It's great how you took us from WL to GC all in one day! That is just so neat and I'm glad your trip home was so easy. Do you think the dogs sensed that you were home and were just coming out to meet you on the HWY? It's great that you have your brother to watch after things, but did he leave the gate unlocked? (I just had to ask)

I love the official-looking photo of Operation Bounceback Booking! Allie looks like she's thinking you're extending your stay and you can all unpack now. I also like how she's imitating Mom (or is it the other way around?) on the ME bus - so cute.

We have several pictures with MT Wallet over the years - she is a hoot and we always enjoy seeing AND hearing her antics.

Thank you Paul, Melissa and Allie for yet another entertaining and fun glimpse into your WDW vacation. Your TRs are terrific and you make us all feel like part of the family - what a wonderful family you have - thank you and happy planning to all of you and...

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Call the waaaaambulance, I'm sad your TR is over. But I have high hopes that a PTR will be posted soon

It's great how you took us from WL to GC all in one day! That is just so neat and I'm glad your trip home was so easy. Do you think the dogs sensed that you were home and were just coming out to meet you on the HWY? It's great that you have your brother to watch after things, but did he leave the gate unlocked? (I just had to ask)

I love the official-looking photo of Operation Bounceback Booking! Allie looks like she's thinking you're extending your stay and you can all unpack now. I also like how she's imitating Mom (or is it the other way around?) on the ME bus - so cute.

We have several pictures with MT Wallet over the years - she is a hoot and we always enjoy seeing AND hearing her antics.

Thank you Paul, Melissa and Allie for yet another entertaining and fun glimpse into your WDW vacation. Your TRs are terrific and you make us all feel like part of the family - what a wonderful family you have - thank you and happy planning to all of you and...

Aww, thanks, that is such a nice post.

We think the dogs saw something in the front yard and jumped up on the gate and were probably surprised when it opened. Melissa's brother had been back there, and didn't get it locked. Fortunately he got the dogs all put back, and they were perfectly normal when we got home, looking at us like "We haven't been up to anything..."

That is so funny about the bounceback call picture. I think you nailed it, Allie was ready to unpack right then and stay "home" as she called it. For the bus picture, I think they were both imitating me...

We are so glad that you enjoy reading the trip reports. We save them as a record of the trip for us so we can look back and remember all the fun we had, but it is neat that others enjoy reading them too. We sure have fun on the trips, and it is neat capturing that in words and pictures.

Thanks for the happy planning wishes too. Right now we are finalizing the dates for a wedding that we hope to photograph in September, and may have to adjust our booked dates. We are also looking at Art of Animation for the potential cost savings, but since my parents will be joining us again we are concerned about the longer walking distance (and not being "home" at WL). We'll see, and we should know more in a couple of weeks, which will still be in time for booking ADRs.

 

[ProudMommyof2]

I really enjoyed your TR! Thanks for sharing and make sure you check in on this TR if there is a PTR in the works!