Spending Halloween with the Princesses at the World

[amreli]

Spending Halloween with the Princesses at the World
Otherwise known as: Why is it so HOT in October?!?!!

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Hi, my name is Amy and although I've been on DIS since 2001, when I was planning my disneymoon, I tend to read a lot more than I post. I’m a TR junkie and read them on a nightly basis.

Our last trip to the world was in 2009 (crazy, I know, but life gets in the way of Disney at times)! My sister-in-law and I ran the half marathon during that trip and I wrote a TR for it (see my sig).

We've been wanting to go back and actually had a trip booked for 2012, which we cancelled after finding out that I was pregnant with our 2nd daughter. We also had a Disney cruise scheduled for 2010, which we ended up cancelling due to finances and Amy being pregnant with L.

We had hoped to at some point do the princess half marathon, but after pretty much quitting running and having two kids, that wasn't happening anytime soon. With my youngest daughter’s 3rd birthday looming, we decided to go for Halloween so that she would still be free. So, we booked it and bought our Halloween Party tickets!

I knew I wanted to write a TR this time around too. I just haven't had the time to sort through pics and start writing. It seemed daunting too as I forgot to take notes during the trip. That’s one of the reasons that it’s taken me so long to actually get this going. Next trip, we will be better DISers and take notes.

However, free dining dates were released recently for this fall and we booked a trip for December! We were just a couple weeks out from ADR’s and I started feeling the Disney warm fuzzies all over again, so it’s time to get this started!

** Update ** So, we ended up canceling our December trip due to finances. BUT, we’re going in February for the Princess Half Marathon! Mia called me last week about 10 min before the marathon registration began and we registered! Next year the 10k theme is Beauty & the Beast, which is Mia’s all-time favorite, so we’re both doing that. She, on a whim, signed up for the princess challenge though, which is the 10k and the half. I’ll be skipping the half this year, but will cheer her on from the stands! It won’t be as long of a trip, but at least we’re going to Disney!

So, without further ado, here’s our who, what, when,where, why, how of the Halloween trip (and some details of our Feb trip thrown in for good measure):

What: DISNEY TRIP (Halloween) and our girls first trip to WDW!!
When: October 23-November 2, 2015
Where: All Star Music
Who: 5 of us (meet the cast below)
Why: Free dining and we HAD to go before the baby turned 3!!
How: Read the report

Meet the cast:

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Me: 39. I'm a Disney lover and compulsive Disney trip planner. I LOVE planning Disney trips (even ones we don’t take), talking about Disney trips, and dreaming of future Disney trips. Unfortunately real life gets in the way of this often, but I do the best I can.

Favorite Disney park: MK
Favorite Ride: Soarin’, Everest
Favorite Disney Character: The fab five + Pooh characters!
Favorite Disney Restaurant: Chef Mickey’s!
Favorite Disney moment: Up until this trip, it was seeing the castle lighting during our 2009 trip.

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DH: 40 (aka Grumpy, though he's coming around now that we have 2 Disney loving daughters!). A complete homebody and computer geek. While Disney's not his thing, he knows the girls and I love it, so he's along for the ride. He would never admit it, but I think he secretly likes Disney as he stays on top of Disney news via fb groups more than I do these days!

Favorite Disney Park: MK
Favorite Ride: people mover, test track
Favorite Disney Character: goofy
Favorite Disney Restaurant: Rainforest Cafe
Favorite Disney moment: “When my daughter held her flounder toy up to show Ariel during the Festival of Fantasy parade and Ariel waved and made a fish face back at her.”

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L: 5, an almost-kindergartner who thinks she really is a princess. But then what little girl doesn't, I suppose. Her favorite princess is Aurora (because she's pink -her favorite color) and up until this trip she literally lived in her collection of princess dresses. For as small as she is (just barely 40 inches at the time of the trip and about 33 lbs), she's a thrill ride junkie. We were super excited that she had hit 40 inches as she had watched the 7 dwarves mine train coaster on youtube a million times and couldn't wait to ride.

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K: 3, a MMC lovin 2-year old at the time of the trip. She turned 3 just 5 days after we got home. We had originally planned to go during the Christmas party in November, but moved it to October so that she would still be free! She's a mama's girl, not a thrill seeker like her sister, and was mostly excited to meet her favorite characters, especially Ariel, Mickey, and Chip & Dale.

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Mia: 38 Another Disney lover and one of my closest friends, and Ben’s sister (fortunately or unfortunately...still deciding) She is my trip planning partner and literally has like our next 5 trips already planned out. Other than my husband and I, Mia is my girls’ next favorite person in the world (after us, of course). I introduced her to the DIS Boards before our last trip and she quickly became more addicted than me! We spent countless hours creating and tweaking our spreadsheet of plans almost down to the minute. Mia will be commenting in this color during this TR.

Favorite Disney park: MK
Favorite Ride: IASM (don’t flame me on this!)
Favorite Disney Character: Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Belle!
Favorite Disney Restaurant: Chef Mickey’s
Favorite Disney snack: Dole Whip Float! YUM!
Favorite Disney moment: Wishes!


I'm sorry if I get a bit wordy in the TR. Once I get writing or talking I don't stop, but I promise to try to break it up with lots of pics. (we don’t get pictures in real life)

Getting Started: The trip details
Day 1: On our way!
Day 2, Part 1: We have arrived
Day 2, Part 2: Lunch in a rainforest
Day 2, Part 3: The first mickey bar
Day 3, Part 1: An early morning at Chef Mickey's

 

[amreli]

The Trip Details
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Saturday, October 24th - Monday, November 2nd, 2015. We were going during Free Dining, but it didn't start until Sunday the 25th. So, we drove down on the 23rd, spent the night off site, then checked in for a 1 night stay on the 24th before starting our FD package on the 25th. The first night, we were all 5 in one room, which we could do since Kara was considered an infant. This led to several problems while there unfortunately.

We had planned to go much slower on this trip since we were now traveling with two kids, but we learned that we just can't do Disney slow. We had jam packed days, despite trying to take breaks. While we had lots of issues with our magic bands, tickets, and rooms, we still had a blast!

We decorated our magicbands and we received 2 sets since we had a room-only and also a package reservation. Kara’s favorite color is purple and it took ½ a bottle of nail polish to paint hers.

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After the final trip payment was made, the girls and I made a countdown chain. Just 5 days left here…

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[amreli]

Day 1
Traveling​

I know this is the *boring* part of the TR, so I'll try not to be too wordy.

For my crew, we were driving down to Orlando that day, which would be an expected 6-7 hour drive with stops. We've driven longer distances with the girls before and while we've had our miseries (a 9 hour trip to AL to see family taking us 15 hours!), we've also had some good trips (9 hour trip to see Mia taking 12 hours - yep, that's a good one). Love it when they come to visit!

So anyway, we had planned to leave by 11 or so and get to Orlando in time for dinner. We were spending the night at Seralago Hotel, which was only a few miles from Disney and was only $55 for the night. Anyway, we were hoping to get checked in and unloaded and then maybe head to downtown disney for dinner or to the disney outlet store or something.

We finally left home around 1pm and the girls were playing with their new Frozen art sets that they had gotten for their birthdays and we had saved for the trip.

On our way!

When we texted Mia that pic, the only thing she said was that she couldn’t believe how much stuff we were bringing

As soon as we hit the road, Kara started drifting off. We realized immediately that we had forgotten to put her in a pull up, which she still wears while sleeping. It ended up not being an issue though as Lila announced almost immediately that she had to go potty.

So, 20 minutes after we left the house, we made our first stop. In the process of putting a pull up on Kara, she woke back up and stayed up for the rest of the trip. So much for that nap.

The rest of the trip would continue on like this. The girls were so excited and really bored (despite having toys to play with, movies to watch, and their new frozen coloring sets). We had a steady stream of snacks, whatever would keep us moving. By the time we reached the GA/FL border for dinner at 5 (so much for dinner at DTD), we had stopped like 5 times. I was at work and was getting updates and couldn’t believe how slow their drive down was taking. At first I thought they were joking when they mentioned that they had stopped 20 minutes after leaving home!

Finally we pulled into Chik-fil-a because we figured they could eat something and get some energy out. That plan backfired on us as there was a birthday party going on and the play area was crowded. Who has birthday parties at Chik-fil-a at 5pm on a Friday?!? After eating yogurt parfaits (which is all they wanted to eat) and spilling an entire large sprite all over the place (Kara was now soaked), we left that joint. Goodness, I was really hoping this wasn't a sign of things to come for the rest of the trip.

We proceeded along without many more stops luckily. Until we got to Daytona and were exiting onto I-4. Wowzers. Traffic was at a standstill! We literally were stopped and not moving at all. I think we sat there for at least an hour.

Terrible traffic


But, while sitting there, we spotted our first sign of Disney!!

I know it was after 7pm or closer to 8pm around this time because we were talking to Mia on the phone and she was in traffic headed to Cincinnati to spend the night at a hotel as she had a super early flight the next morning. My suitcase was all ready to go!

We were getting antsy and the gas ticker was getting closer and closer to E. We had planned to stop for gas after getting onto I-4. Then Lila decided she needed to go potty. I was so wishing they would have fallen asleep, but my kids are like the energizer bunnies. Kara stopped napping shortly before she turned 2 and Lila right before she turned 3. As we inched along, not knowing what was holding up traffic, we started seeing Disney billboards - yay!! By 9 or so we were finally moving again. We quickly stopped for gas and a potty break, then got back on the road. After planning to be at the hotel by 6, we didn’t end up making it until 11!

It was an older hotel, but nice enough for 1 night considering we didn’t get there until 11pm and were leaving by 8-8:30am.

We unloaded the necessary items for the night, got settled into the room and saw that Stacy’s Disney show was playing, so we watched that as we fell asleep.

 

[miabellarose]

Yay! You finally started the TR! I really didn't think you were going to write one, even though you had planned on writing one. And you changed your countdown ticker! I'll have to change mine too! Can't wait to read more!!! Can I say how adorable my nieces are? LOVE THEM!

 

[amreli]

Day 2 - Part 1
We have arrived!​

I was up at 7 or so, getting myself ready and packing up our things from the night at the hotel. Lila was the next to wake up and after getting dressed, she and I took a little walk around the resort. They had a playground outside that she was dying to play on, but we had bigger plans for the day - DISNEY!

I soon got everyone up and dressed and we check out. We were on our way. Well, sort of. DH was starving, so we ran through the chik-fil-a drive thru for breakfast burritos on the way. Soon though, we were passing under this sign on our way to the resort and I couldn’t help but cry.

We were pointing the signs out to the girls, who were mostly excited at that point for Mickey waffles, which they couldn’t wait to try.

After finally making it to All Star Music, we checked into our room for the night, which would be in the Broadway section and were told to come back down tomorrow to check in for our package. We would unfortunately have to move rooms again the next day.

While in the check-in line, I asked about activating our tickets from our package a day early so that we could go to MK today. We knew from DIS that this was possible. She told me to go over to concierge, so I got in that line next. While they couldn’t help -- they said I had to do it at Guest Relations once I got to the park -- they did give us first visit buttons for the girls and birthday buttons for myself and the girls (our birthday were all within weeks of the trip). I was on the Magical Express and was texting back and forth with Amy and she had mentioned that they hadn’t received any of the celebration buttons. I had her go back and ask for them since I had listed in our ressie about all the celebrations everyone was celebrating.

We have buttons now! Not sure why we bothered because those buttons did not last long on them! At least it’ll be a good souvenir!

I rounded up DH and the girls, who were wandering around the gift shop and went to the food court for Mickey waffles. That place was packed! On previous trips, we never really ate at the food courts, especially during prime times, so I was shocked at how many people were in there.

Here’s the first of many Mickey waffles from the trip -- easily their favorite meal:

After breakfast, we headed out to explore the resort a bit while we waited for Mia. She had landed, but was waiting on Magical Express.

Kara spotted her favorite princess!

Soon enough, Mia arrived!! I’m home!!!

First thing first, DH had to switch shoes! Mia had brought shoes all the way from KY for DH that she had picked up from Kohl’s since our Kohls was out of them. This was NOT a smart idea.. As he would learn later in the trip. I completely forgot about that! In fact, I had to drive across the river into Indiana to a Kohls there to pick up the shoes.

At this point, we left our car in the front lot and boarded the bus to Disney Springs. I swear this was the slowest bus in the world. It took us f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to get there.

So instead of immersing himself in the Disney love of his 1st Disney bus ride of the trip or sharing the Disney excitement with everyone, Ben was doing this:

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I don’t remember what time we left ASmu, but we had an ADR for noon at Rainforest Cafe and we were worried about making it. We ended up getting off like 10 min before the ADR and immediately the girls spotted the splash pad.

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Here's a really cute video of them running in the fountain: https://goo.gl/photos/WXtX8E6m2pdpQNGT6

Next, we spotted Pooh & friends, so we had to make a super quick stop.

After playing for a few minutes, we pulled them away and went to get Mia’s #1 souvenir from the trip-- her ‘pick a pearl’ necklace. It turned out to be a good thing she did it first thing as we never did make it to Japan during our trip to do it there.

Mia let Lila pick the oyster and the lady manning the booth banged the drum and made a big production. The necklace turned out beautiful but we should have noticed the first sign of things to come when Mia’s magic band wouldn’t work to pay, despite making sure a card was attached to the room.

Mia ended up having to pay with her card and they couldn’t do it at the booth for some reason, so she went in a nearby store to pay. Their register wasn’t working so she wrote up a ticket for me to take to the store nearby and I had to pay there. Here’s my necklace! I LOVE it!! I wear it almost every day!

We did the pick-a-pearl at Disney Springs b/c the kiosk there had the crown setting and I really, really wanted that one.

Continued in the next post...​

 

[amreli]

Day 2 - Part 2
Lunch in a Rainforest
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Once she finished, we headed to Rainforest Cafe for our ADR. I know they have these in other places, but we’ve never been to one and I thought the girls would love it, which they did. Lila even says now that it was one of her favorite restaurants from our trip.

So we finally made it, with maybe a minute or two to spare. But first a picture outside while Mia checks us in:

We were seated in the back, but there’s not really a bad seat in there. The first thunderstorm kind of scared the girls a bit, but after that they were just excited and wanted to explore. We did walk around a bit, but it’s hard to look at too much without disturbing other diners. Ben’s and my mom sewed the dress Lila and Kara wore today. She did a really great job!

Ben, why are you swinging in the trees?

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Food.. I think we ended up with like 3 appetizers and an entree for our meals. Using giftcards bought from points through MyPoints, this meal was completely free!!!

It was all delish, we packed up the last couple of chicken tenders and put them in my backpack. It never fails - the girls eat nothing at a restaurant, then claim they’re hungry 10 min later. We made a quick stop into Goofy’s Candy Co. because I had told them we’d stop in and they could each pick out something. After much debating, we ended up with two Ariel cookies and were on our way. The girls were excited about their Ariel cookies! Lila ended up getting an Ariel cookie too because after comparing the sizes of the other cookies at Goofy’s Candy and Co, she decided the Ariel cookie was the biggest!​

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We boarded the bus again, but this time to the Polynesian Resort! We were on our way to MK! Our trip just started and Ben’s already exhausted!
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When we got to Poly, we switched to the monorail and rode over to the park. It was about 2:15 or so at this point and we were trying to make it to the 3pm Festival of Fantasy parade. But, we still had to go to the dreaded guest services window. And that line was long. And it was hot. Very hot. With little shade. Mia got in line while DH and I waited with the girls in the stroller. After a bit, some people moved and we found a little shade. The girls were getting so antsy.

Mia finally made it to a window but the parade was going to start in minutes. So much for that plan. We were still hopeful that we’d make it in the gates and could see the parade since it would take 15 min for it to reach us anyway. But we kept standing at guest relations waiting for them to figure out how to activate our magic bands one day early. The CM could see our reservation but our magicbands would not work when putting it up against the sensor! Finally, by 3:30, he gave up and gave us paper tickets for the day. After standing in the heat waiting for guest relations for an hour, we promised the girls mickey bars, so that was our first stop.
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Kara wasn’t too happy until she saw Pooh walking by…
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We headed in, oohhhhed and ahhhhed at the castle, and headed to fantasyland. The girls were so excited to finally be in MK! Lila had one thing on her mind and that was getting into that castle.

But first, we were hot and needed to find those elusive Mickey bars!​

 

[miabellarose]

Yay! You updated! Hopefully you'll be able to get this TR finished before our next trip! Uggh...those magicbands...nothing but trouble . I still my pearl necklace! Can't wait to read more!!

 

[dmoore718]

Love it so far!! Can't wait to read more! We are going THIS Oct 23-30!!

 

[amreli]

Love it so far!! Can't wait to read more! We are going THIS Oct 23-30!!

You will have so much fun!! We did two Halloween parties and had a blast!

 

[amreli]

Day 2 - Part 2
The first Mickey Bar!
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It was so hot and after that long wait at Guest Relations, what better way to cool down than with a Mickey Bar? Not knowing exactly where to find them, we had headed towards fantasyland to search.

We finally found an ice cream cart by Pinocchio Village Haus and got our Mickey bars (and a strawberry bar for me!). It was so hot that they were melting all over us. This ended up being a HUGE mess, but the perfect treat after that disappointing start to the afternoon at MK.

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Can you tell they LOVED the Mickey bars? We always meant to get them again after that and never did. Love Lila’s facial expression! Her 1st Mickey Bar! After Mickey bars, we headed through New Fantasyland over to Dumbo! As packed as the park was, there was barely a wait at Dumbo. We passed the play area and Lila really, really wanted to stop and play, but with no wait, we persuaded her to go on the ride with a promise to come back later (though we never did make it back ).

After our ride on Dumbo, the girls wanted to go on the carousel, so we took them on that while Mia went to the FP kiosk to get us a FP (we had none for that day since our tickets technically didn’t start until the next day).

When she was done, she headed down to the castle to save us a spot for the Dream Along with Mickey show. We finished the carousel and headed that way, but were running late and couldn’t find Mia because the crowd had thickened. Girls hoisted on our shoulders, we watched -- they were excited to see the characters and Mia ended up finding us during the show.

After the show we sat on the curb to watch the Move It, Shake it dance party right there in the hub.

I have never seen this and thought it was so much fun! Perfect for our first day in the park!

The girls were kind of shy to get too close to the characters, but they got up and danced a bit with us after some coaxing. During this time, DH took Lila to the bathroom while Mia and I tried to get Kara closer to Chip and Dale, who she loves. She actually even gave them a high five, which was super cute and made the really long wait in guest relations worth it. ​

After the floats headed out, we made our way out through the crowd and headed to the Ariel ride to use our FP. Ariel is Kara’s favorite princess and she was just too cute on this ride. Mia, Lila, and I went in one shell with DH and Kara in the other.

She was so excited, pointing at Ariel and Flounder and friends, until we got to Ursula. She put her hand over her mouth and wouldn’t remove it until she was gone.

Video: https://goo.gl/photos/aJ15vs2T8LjicTaW8

When we finished the Ariel ride, we debated about doing something else, but it was just so hot and Lila was begging to swim in the pool. So, we left MK with the thought that we may come back later to watch Wishes if we felt up to it after all the traveling.

We got back to the resort and stopped in the food court for dinner where we just got a large pizza to share, drinks, and desserts.

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The kids were getting very impatient about getting in the pool, so Mia took the girls to the room while DH and I pulled the car around near our building for the night (Broadway) and brought in our luggage.

We made it to the pool and swam and swam for quite a while, much to Lila’s delight. We finally left as it was dark and getting pretty cold. Plus, we had a very early morning the next day!

This is when we ran into another problem -- 1st Mia couldn’t use the magic band to pay for her pick a pearl, 2nd they couldn’t get the magic bands to work at guest relations, and now, our magic bands wouldn’t open our room! I should say, a couple of the bands worked, which is how we got in the first time, but the bands that we had with us when we went to the pool would not open the room.

The girls were wet, cold, and had nothing but towels. Mia headed to the front desk while we hung out outside the room trying to stay warm. I think it was after 9 at this point and they were getting pretty tired as well.

After a while, Mia came back and got us into the room. I don’t know what happened at the front desk, but she was pretty frustrated. But they had managed to get us in our room at least.

After baths and bed, everyone finally drifted off to sleep…

Daily Recap:
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Best moment - Seeing the castle for the first time again and sharing that with the girls
Best Moment: getting my pearl crown necklace!

Worst moment - The horrendous line at Guest relations in the horrible, horrible heat
Worst Moment: all the problems with the magicband

What I’d do again - Rainforest Cafe, though I think we’d do it at AK next time. The girls really liked it and Lila says it was one of her favorite restaurants.

What I’d do differently - I would not plan a lunch at Disney springs and then try to make it to MK for the parade. We just totally underestimated the time it would take to do all of this. We should have just gone straight to MK and done lunch there.

 

[amreli]

Sooo, our ADR window for our next trip opened up this past week! It's a shorter trip since the main reason we're going it for the Princess Half Marathon weekend!

Wednesday, 2/22
- Arrive really, really late. We're driving after picking the kids up from school & Mia's flying in after work
Thurs, 2/23
- Breakfast at Chef Mickey's (tradition)
- Head to the race expo / check in
- Magic Kingdom
- Crystal Palace dinner (Kara's pick)
Friday, 2/24
- Animal Kingdom
- Dinner at AK Lodge, Sanna (DH's pick)
Saturday, 2/25
- Mia & I run the 10k!!
- Hollywood Studios
- Fantasmic dinner package at H&V (not sure we'll keep this ADR)
Sunday, 2/26
- Mia runs the half and we cheer her on!
- Magic Kingdom
- Dinner at Be our Guest (Mia's pick)
Monday, 2/27
- Princess Breakfast at Akershus (Lila's pick)
- Epcot
- Beaches & Cream for dinner (we've been wanting to do this for a while and always cancel it)
Tuesday, 2/28
- Disney springs
- Departure

The kids have no idea that we're going and it's going to be a surprise. We got their restaurant picks by asking where they'd want to eat the next time that we go. We're telling them, when the time comes, that we're headed to Mia's house to visit.

Now to actually start training for the race or races in Mia's case!!

 

[miabellarose]

Another great update! It was so frustrating at times...especially spending about 1-1 1/2hr at the guest relations desk to get our magicbands to work. But seeing the girls' faces seeing Pooh and Tigger walking by and them eating their 1st was so worth it!

 

[miabellarose]

Sooo, our ADR window for our next trip opened up this past week! It's a shorter trip since the main reason we're going it for the Princess Half Marathon weekend!

So are you writing an official pre-trip report too while writing this TR? or just writing posts about our next trip just here and there? I want to say thanks for doing the race with me! I know it was completely unexpected but when I heard that that theme was possibly Belle, I had to sign up! Can't wait for the girls' reactions when they find out we're going back to Disney!