SOOZE's Grand Gathering... it's so good, I have to bevel! Update! 2/3

[Queenofallthings]

I have to say I am loving your TR! The kiddies are beyond adorable and the adults look like they all get along so well...you can just tell how much fun you're all having!! Great update!!

 

[Sooze]

Great Trip Report and what a beautiful family! Our extended family of 20 is heading to WDW the week after Christmas (are we crazy??) for our own Grand Adventure. We have our family reunions at WDW every 3 years and this year we decided to choose the Holiday time; hope we won't regret it.

This year we will have a 3 year old and a 4 year old who will see the castle for the first time. They've actually seen it before but were too young to remember. Anyhow, just seeing your little one's face made me smile and also made me very excited to think of my two little granddaugthers seeing the castle and meeting a princess for the first time.

Thanks for sharing your wonderful pictures and your story.

Aunt Bee

Yes. Yes you ARE crazy! But the memories you make together will be worth the crowds and expenses!!

One thing we learned having Avabelle with us, is to have the cameras out and ready and aimed at her face at all times!!

And thank YOU for following along with us!

Avabelle's expressions are just priceless! I love seeing how excited kids get when they experience the magic of Disney.

It was great for us having a first-timer... since we go so often, that feeling of awe and amazement gets lost for us (unless we witness something new, like the Memories show at the castle!!). So we just LOVED having Avabelle with us!

Cant wait hurry up the girls remind me of my neices when we took them at that age oh what memories

Updates to come soon!! Thanks for waiting and for enjoying the memories!

subbing!!! Really enjoying your TR thus far. Have always wanted to try O'Hana and after reading this we are definatly gonna have to try it. I also love reading first time trips for people. Whether it be kids or adults. And seeing her face seeing the castle for the first time reminds me of when we took my step son to Disney for the first time.

Welcome! And thanks for commenting!! I hope you give O'hana a try, and that you love it as much as we do! I've heard of some people having bad experiences, but we have NEVER had a bad one there!

Glad I could bring back a wonderful memory for you!

I have to say I am loving your TR! The kiddies are beyond adorable and the adults look like they all get along so well...you can just tell how much fun you're all having!! Great update!!

So happy you are liking the TR! I had a feeling this would be a fun one to write!

This October, I'm taking a trip with the kids, another family of friends, and another mutual friend of mine. We are all HEAVILY involved in community theater (including the kids). I think it's going to be another amazing trip and hilarious trip report!

This December, we are taking our first cruise and it's a NYE cruise! So... I'm thinking I'll have LOTS of fun TRs this year. I'm truly blessed!!

 

[Sooze]

Here are the few pictures we had taken in front of the castle that very special first night!

Love the brotherly love in this one. Matt is purposely blocking Ben's face. Some things never change, eh?

 

[Fantasyland Mom]

I have loved reading this so much that I subscribed AND went back and read some of your other reports!

 

[jeremysdisneymom]

Love Avabelle's pictures the first time in the Magic Kingdom. It is just precious.

I also love the picture of Shae and her with Tink in their hands.

Okay, where is Miss Shae's princess ears? Please don't tell me that she is not wearing them now. I loved how she wore then in your other reports!

 

[mermaid764]

Your pictures turned out great, I love the one of the girls holding Tinkerbell.

I also love your shirt Sooze, is that from the parks?

 

[Sooze]

I have loved reading this so much that I subscribed AND went back and read some of your other reports!

You just made my day!! Thank you so much!!!

Love Avabelle's pictures the first time in the Magic Kingdom. It is just precious.

I also love the picture of Shae and her with Tink in their hands.

Okay, where is Miss Shae's princess ears? Please don't tell me that she is not wearing them now. I loved how she wore then in your other reports!

She DID bring the ears... but didn't wear them as much. Honestly, I think it was the HEAT! Plus, she was always so distracted with her fun times with Avabelle, that we would forget about the ears! She still has them though... I'm sure they'll be back for our fall trip!

Your pictures turned out great, I love the one of the girls holding Tinkerbell.

I also love your shirt Sooze, is that from the parks?

Thanks! I tried to use Photopass as much as possible since we pre-ordered the CD.

My shirt is actually a Wal-Mart special! Sometimes I find some really cute ones there!

 

[mickeyfan71]

Just found your TR and I have already subbed! You and your family seem like y'all have so much fun together! Excited to see Avabelles reactions to more firsts and the funny photos!

 

[Queenofallthings]

Great pictures!

I too love your shirt...that color looks really good on you! Brothers...some things never change do they My sister and I are the same way....she would argue that it's more me than her though

 

[disneylovin24]

Stumbled across you TR tonight. I knew I had to read it when I saw the family picture featuring everyone in Yankees shirts


The photos of your neice witnessing everything for the first time are too precious! I can't stop smiling looking at them.

This is the second TR I've read today with pictures of Ohana food. It looks so good, I so want to be there eating it right now.


Can't wait to read more

 

[glennbo123]

Love the brotherly love in this one. Matt is purposely blocking Ben's face. Some things never change, eh?

And it looks like Pahta is up to no good too. His hand is coming down on Ben's head. Other than that, the pictures look like family portraits -- really great!

 

[teachermommy78]

Oh my goodness!!! How sweet is that update!!! Great update so far! You all seem like such a fun bunch!

 

[ZFamily5]

Great pictures! I especially love the one of Shae and Avabelle! Too cute!

 

[Sooze]

Just found your TR and I have already subbed! You and your family seem like y'all have so much fun together! Excited to see Avabelles reactions to more firsts and the funny photos!

Welcome!! I'm happy you found me, and that you are enjoying the report!! Lots of fun stuff to come!

Great pictures!

I too love your shirt...that color looks really good on you! Brothers...some things never change do they My sister and I are the same way....she would argue that it's more me than her though

You know, sometimes it's a pain in the rear to stop what you are doing and make time for photopass pictures (we usually blow right past them), but I'm so glad we took that time! Such great pictures of ALL of us!

Thanks for the kind words... Most of my Wal Mart shirts don't fit right, or get shrunk accidentally in the wash, but this one has really turned out to be a great purchase! And, as my mom tells me, it makes my eyes look really blue

How funny about you and your sister... I am the same with my little sister. We are still complete goofballs and I love it!

Stumbled across you TR tonight. I knew I had to read it when I saw the family picture featuring everyone in Yankees shirts

Welcome! I often wonder how many people I've turned AWAY with that picture! I'm sure some Boston-type folks have QUICKLY clicked off my report!

The photos of your neice witnessing everything for the first time are too precious! I can't stop smiling looking at them.

They make me smile, too. It was so magical!

This is the second TR I've read today with pictures of Ohana food. It looks so good, I so want to be there eating it right now.

Me too!! Have you eaten there before?

Can't wait to read more

Update coming today!

And it looks like Pahta is up to no good too. His hand is coming down on Ben's head. Other than that, the pictures look like family portraits -- really great!

I did not notice that! Looks like they are both ganging up on poor Uncle Ben!

Oh my goodness!!! How sweet is that update!!! Great update so far! You all seem like such a fun bunch!

Glad you enjoyed it!!

Great pictures! I especially love the one of Shae and Avabelle! Too cute!

Thanks so much! When they took that picture, Auntie Cindy said, "What are they doing with their hands?" I said, "Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to be surprised?" She said, "Ooo! I'll be surprised!!" It's SO much fun to be in Disney with people who don't 'know it all'

 

[Native NYer]

Great pictures!
They really capture everyone's excitement.

 

[Sooze]

Great pictures!
They really capture everyone's excitement.

Thanks a bunch! Looks like you're getting closer to some excitement with Mickey!!

 

[Sooze]

After a solid night’s sleep, we all woke up rested and ready to go! Our goal was to get to DHS at rope drop, send Matt flying to the TSM FP machines, send myself flying to AIE auditions, and just see what happened from there!

The first thing I noticed this morning was Shaelyn’s rash. Not only did her cheeks NOT look any better, but it had spread down her legs and arms. I started thinking of all of the allergic reactions she could be having.. detergent? Food? We weren’t TOO panicked, though, because the rash was not bothering Shae at all. No itching, no pain… it just looked nasty! We decided to ride it out another day and see what happens.

After eating a quick breakfast at the villa, I took a step out onto my balcony for some fresh air, only to see this:

Uh, yeeeaaaahhh…. NOT what you want to be seeing in Disney World. We quickly turned on the TV to find out it was a hotel off-property that burned to the ground. This was not a guest hotel, but more of a living place for people with no means to own a home or rent an apartment. I was glad to hear that no tourists had their vacations ruined, but saddened for the people who lost their only ‘home’.

With that taken care of, I had time to snap a quick picture of the view from our amazing villa:

(LOVED being on the top floor!)

And soon we were out the door and on our way. Hmmmm…. Should we walk to DHS or hop on a boat?

BOAT BOAT BOAT BOAT BOAT!!!

Ok, guess we’re taking a boat! The princesses were decked out and settled comfortable in their royal carriages:

And soon, our FriendShip was ready to take us (ever so slowly) to DHS:

The back seats were open, and our large group quickly took them over:

The crowd level at DHS was actually not too bad! We made it through the gates smoothly and I was soon shoved away by my family. GO AUDITION FOR AMERICAN IDOL!!!
When I arrived at auditions, there was one other young man with me. We sat through Ryan Seacrest’s spiel and I soon found myself in a tiny room with a very nice gentleman. He introduced himself and asked me some questions about me. He gave me a cute button with my name on it that said “I auditioned for American Idol”. He asked me to sing, and I did…. And he quickly sent me on to the next round! The Coke Lounge was waiting for me!

Lighting fixture in the lounge:

Coca Cola décor everywhere:

In this room, they have iPods loaded with the 100 songs that you can choose from. In the 1st round, you can sing whatever you want. If you make it to the 2nd round, you have to pick from their list. Since I had done this before (and felt like SUCH the pro), I chose the same song as last time, since it worked for me. I sang “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by good ol’ Whitney Houston (before she went crazy).

There were at least 6 people waiting in the Coke Lounge. We all had our head phones on and were practicing our tunes for the next round of auditions. This is the list of songs that I pretended I was taking a picture of… but I was really video recording what it sounded like in the lounge. You can hear a guy singing.... usually, you can hear 3 or 4 people singing at a time!



I was watching a young girl across from me, who was there with her mom, trying desperately to choose a song. Since the competition is karaoke-style, there really weren’t too many contemporary songs. She kept saying, “I don’t KNOW any of these songs… they’re so old!” Thanks a lot, kid…..

Soon I was in front of the producer, who had me sing my song for him. The words were on a screen behind him so it was karaoke style. I did my Whitney song along with a back up (I Can See Clearly Now). He was very quick to play the Ryan Seacrest video for me that told me I MADE IT!!!!! And told me to stick with Whitney.

Now, that was the cool part. But even cooler still was that they put me in the very first show of the day, and they put me in the 2nd singer slot. Now, if any of you have seen the show, there are 3 singers. Before each singer sings, they do a little ‘bit’ with the host. The 1st slot gets to have a special message from their favorite American Idol played for them. (This was the slot I had last time, and Kelly Clarkson told me to relax and have fun.) The 3rd time slot has a video bit where they go out into the crowds before the show and have people chanting for that person. For example, if it was me, they would’ve filmed people yelling “SUSIE IS MY AMERICAN IDOL!!” and silly stuff like that. But the 2nd slot… the 2nd slot is the BEST because they do a whole video montage. They interviewed me, they took video footage of me dancing, giving thumbs up by the AIE sign, running down the hall, being silly… then they put it all together into a great video that played before I sang. And because it took extra time for me to film this video, they gave me two fast passes for ANY attraction at DHS. Each fast pass would get up to 5 people in!!

Here I am with my bling bling. You can see the crew behind me filming another 2nd slot contestant.

They day was just awesome, but I was in for another quick surprise. As I was standing and waiting for my turn with the film crew, I spotted a DISer meandering past the filming location! DDDisrunner, AKA Diane and her family! I walked right out to her, catching her off guard, I think, and just yelled “DIANE!?” We had time for a quick picture:

She asked when my show was, which was 12:30, and unfortunately, they already had ADRs for lunch, so they were going to miss it. Oh well….

I got in touch with the family, who were all off riding rides and seeing VoTLM. We finally reconnected with hugs and cheers! We had about an hour to kill before I had to report back to AIE. We caught Donald and Daisy while we tried to figure out what to do next.

And a quick visit with Stitch. (Whom Avabelle had NO CLUE about! )

After a bit of milling around, we decided to head over to Star Tours. I was surprised the wait was not too long, but the line did extend beyond the queue while the CMs were trying to reroute the wait. And here, here was the first ‘unmagical’ moment of our trip. When Sooze almost got in a tiff with another guest. Yeah… here’s what happened:

You know when the line extends out of the queue and most normal human beings look for the end of the line and get in it? Then you have those selfish, unaware-of-their-surroundings, it’s-all-about-me-and-mine kind of people, who just push their way into line like it’s a funnel instead of a line? Yeah.. you know what I’m talking about. Well at LEAST four families cut in front of us, and by the time another family started weaseling their way in, I was OVER IT. I said… kinda loudly …”REALLY?! Do you not see the line behind us? REALLY?!?!!” And the mom turned to me and said (super duper SNOTTY, btw) “I’m SORRY. We didn’t know there was a line!!!!”

….


….


….



REALLY? Really. Now, if I had any ounce of confrontational bones in my body I would’ve barked right back at her and said, “How could you NOT see the line?” Or “Do you see it NOW? Why don’t you go get IN it!!?” No. I backed off and said, “I’m sorry. You’re just the 5th family to cut in front of us.” (And no, I was not snotty at all… truly.) So you ‘d think she’d get out of line and go to the back? NOPE. She and her family stayed in front of us, along with the 4 others that cut as well. This brought about our word for when things didn’t go exactly the way we wanted:

UNMAGICAL.

Oh well. Time to shake it off and see what this refurb was all about.

Cindy was asking what kind of ride this was and I told her it’s a simulator… totally not scary and that Shae had ridden it before. Avabelle should be fine! What I didn’t realize or remember, was that Cindy suffers from Vertigo. Doh!! About 30 seconds into the ride, I could see that she was miserable!!! She was closing her eyes and holding her head. I felt so bad!!! Afterwards, she had to sit on a bench for a while and recover. Uh oh… two unmagical moments in a row!

After torturing Cindy on Star Wars, it was time for me to head back to AIE for my big performance! I gave the family hugs and they gave me wonderful words of encouragement. They were going to get VIP seating and early entrance so they kind of hung around the AIE and waited.

I met the AIE CM outside of the stage door and was introduced to the two girls I’d be singing with. One was an adorable 14 year old who was singing Pat Benetar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” and the other was a 20-something who was singing “Independence Day” by Martina McBride. This girl had vocal cords of STEEL… she was awesome! Anyway, we were escorted into the green room:

We were given instructions about how the next hour was going to go. We split into three stations. One was hair/makeup, one was vocal coaching, and the last was quiet time in the green room. Each one of us was at a station at a time. I started with hair/makeup, then moved on to my vocal coaching session (loved it!) and ended up with the green room time. They had great American Idol coffee table books to peruse, so time went quickly.

Finally, it was time to get on stage. We were able to do a practice run of our songs. The VIPs were already in the audience, so my family got to see my practice run. They were AWESOME fans… just screaming and cheering for me. And, with 8 of them there, I had, by far, the biggest personal fan club!

The show was great, and it was a full house. If you’re interested, here is a video of my big performance!



In the end, the girl who sang Indpendence Day was the winner, which was COMPLETELY justified. She was AMAZING!!! Tyson held it together and didn’t cry when I lost (like he did last time) and I was relieved that I was able to share this VERY MAGICAL experience with my family and didn’t have to come back for more this evening!

We were all ecstatic and starving and ready for a break at the villa. We had a wonderful walk back home, and were actually stopped a few time by people who had been in the audience of AIE. They were so supportive and complimentary of me… I felt like a little celebrity. (And this continued later in the week with a surprise encounter…..)

Up next… afternoon breaks and more DHS!!

 

[Sooze]

I have TONS of Photopass pictures from American Idol Experience that I'll be posting at the end of Day 2. So if you want to see more... they're coming!

 

[ZFamily5]

That's so cool you got to do the AIE!! Thing2 wanted to do it, but she wasn't quite old enough. Maybe next time...can't wait to see the Photopass pictures of it! Did you get a copy of the video montage they made of you?

 

[jeremysdisneymom]

Yay, I am so glad you got to do American Idol. Sure wish we had been in the park that day. Would have loved to seen it!

I can't believe we missed Donald and Daisy dressed that way. I love Daisy and would have jumped in that picture!