The DDA Trouble Free Zone Part 29

[lovesdumbo]

Happy Anniversary Bernadette

Happy Anniversary, Bernadette!​

​

Bernadette,

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Bernadette, fabulous pictures! Happy Anniversary.

Have a Fabulous day everyone

+1

Thanks everyone!!!

Bernadette,

I ran some prices 2 days on either side of our planned dates & they are still too high. Our cruise leaves 4/20 (sat) so we are booked at the port (marriott) for saturday night. I figure we can leave Friday & drive friday & saturday. Coming home we are looking at leaving 8/28 (mon) & driving mon & tues. I am not thrilled with it but we have a dvd for the car & the kids have their gameboys. Its either we drive or we don't go unfortunately. I don't want to push the matter either as I want to go again in August.

I just found JFK to MCO Wed 4/17 to Tue 4/29 at $258 RT. Of course that require a few days at WDW.

 

[KBerly]

And the boys have lost their cartoons and videos on Monday too. They're working on Tuesday now...

 

[lovesdumbo]

After a late night at the party we slept in again. Again I stayed in bed very impatiently waiting for others to wake up-who needs sleep at Disney? My original plan was to be at Magic Kingdom for the 9am opening and then head over to the Grand Floridian for an 11:30 breakfast. I thought we could go back to the hotel after breakfast and go out later in the day for some sort of dinner. My new plan was to make it to the Grand Floridian by 11:30 and that was tough with my slow moving crowd. We took the bus to the Magic Kingdom and then a boat to the Grand Floridian. Breakfast was great-the food was good and the characters were great too. I wasn’t sure what to expect as the breakfast was in the GF Café while they renovated 1900 Park Fare. We had such great character interaction last year that I thought it was worth trying. They started with patries and fruit and then we all ordered off a menu. DH had a traditional breakfast platter-eggs, potatoes, toast. I had stuffed French toast-very good but way too much, Joe had a breakfast pizza-scrambled eggs and cheese on pizza and Lizzy & Emma had chocolate chip pancakes. They wanted to bring us Mickey waffles at the end but we had to decline as we were way too full.

We saw Pooh, Tigger, Mary Poppins, Alice and the Mad Hatter-Emma wouldn’t go near the girls. The Mad Hatter was very fun. He told us he had seen Liza Manelli at the Music Circus in Cohasset (our small hometown-about 7,000 residents). It really is a small world. After breakfast we had to change Emma as the chocolate chip pancakes came with the chocolate chips on top instead of inside the pancakes. She was wearing way too much chocolate and was getting it on me. Thankfully I had the dress in my bag.

 

[lovesdumbo]

We took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. I liked the sign in the train station as I grew up in Medfield. We went on lots of rides and saw lots of characters. I had seen a pressed penny on line that I wanted at the firehouse so we went there. I never even knew this was a gift shop. While we were there Joe wanted a stuffed Police Man Mickey. I told him it was $10 and he would have $15 left after that did he really want it? He said he wanted it but as soon as we left the store he cried that he didn’t want it. I was very angry that he was carrying on about me having purchased him a gift. I took him aside and told him to wise up. He thought about it for a while more and decided he really did want it. He slept with it the rest of the trip and wouldn’t buy anything else even when I told him he wasn’t going to get the extra $15 when we got home. He was so cranky on this trip. I really don’t know what his problem was. He was good when anyone else was around (like Elizabeth or my friend Terry). He tried a lot of new things on this trip so maybe he was in some sort of turmoil over that?

When we went on the carousel Emma had to have a horse with arrows on it-not some pretty flowery thing for her. The park was pretty crowded-we had to wait in line to ride Small World. When we got back to the resort the housekeeping staff had arranged the stuffed animals and made an elephant (I think) out of towels. Lizzy & I went to the food court to get something for dinner to bring back to the room. The water wheel at the food court had not been running the prior 2 days so she was excited to see it going.

 

[tinker1bell]

Bernadette---The pictures of the castle and fireworks are fantastic.



Janet---

GARY

Debbie, So glad to hear the weather is better now.



Tom, the pictures of the outfits are just awesome. Cannot wait to see them in your trip report.

 

[lovesdumbo]

Bernadette---The pictures of the castle and fireworks are fantastic.

Thanks!

Gary's birthday wish is cool too!

 

[lovesdumbo]

Another late start this morning but that had been my plan all along. We had an early lunch reservation at the Sci Fi Dine In and had our DDA meet for dinner and possibly stay for the nighttime Fantasmic show. I thought if we made it to the park for our 11:00 lunch the kids might be able to stay up for Fantasmic that started at 8:30pm. When we got to the park we had our photo taken with the big hat. The photographer was great and even took a few photos with my camera per Joe’s request. She took photos of Lizzy & Joe wearing the big hat. She also took the great Stitch photos. She told me that she glad I had requested it as they can take them if we ask but she’s not allowed to suggest it anymore.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Bernadette - I thought your kids were all very well behaved! Then again, almost ALL kids are well behaved when someone else is around. Of course DS has no problem being snarky no matter who else is there to see it.
The family I sat for last weekend were just flabbergasted that I got their DD to take a nap. She never questioned it - just walked up the stairs and hopped in her bed! And the next day she asked her mom when I was coming to play with her again. They are a very nice family.

 

[lovesdumbo]

Lunch at the Sci Fi was great. The kids love the atmosphere with the very funny “horror” movies and they love eating in a car. I bought the kids special cups with light up Tinker Bell or Captain Hook. We saw Anne Marie at lunch too!

After lunch we saw Mike & Sully from Monsters Inc. The kids were so happy that we got to see Mike (the last family before he had to “head over to MK”). I don’t think we’ve ever seen him before. Then we got fast passes for Star Wars and went to see the Indiana Jones show. Gene & I hadn’t seen this show since 1994 and the kids had never seen it-they all like it but Lizzy really loved it. We got some of the last seats for that show. I called Elizabeth but they were at the other side of the park. We rode Star Wars (Emma’s first time). Then we got fast passes for Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster. We took a break and I was getting Emma a snack when Elizabeth recognized us. She decided to join Lizzy, Joe & I on Tower of Terror while her DS stayed with Gene & Emma. Joe had never ridden it before. We got a pretty tame sequence on the ride and while Joe didn’t say a word to me he did tell Lizzy he liked it. We had to get Joe’s photo taken with TOT and did more Stitch photos too.

 

[lovesdumbo]

Dinner at Hollywood & Vine was a great buffet. The kids had never met before but were instant friends. After dinner we wanted to get a photo of our group of 13 but we lost Emma. We found her in less than a minute and she already had 2 cast members with her. I had custom silicone bracelets made for the kids with my phone number but Emma wouldn’t talk to the cast member so they didn’t notice it. It was scary but she was a lot better about not pulling away from us after that for the rest of the trip. And I told her she didn’t have to talk to the cast members just give them her bracelet if it happened again. Gene took Emma back to the room and I took Joe & Lizzy to Fantasmic with my 8 friends.

Fantasmic is a real good vs. evil show. Joe had said he didn’t want to go when he saw the video at home but had decided he wanted to go with his new friends. This was the only night I had actually remember the glow bracelets. The kids all had a great time while waiting for the show to start. Joe did great. When we got back to the resort we bought Emma a little gift in the gift shop. She was asleep when we got back to the room and DH said she got over her ordeal quickly.

 

[lovesdumbo]

After a late night at Fantasmic we were late getting to Animal Kingdom. Anyone who has ever gone to Disney with me has to know how excruciating it was for me to get a late start for 5 days in a row. I would have to change that! Emma loved, loved, loved this black swan-she named him Blackie and was chatting away with him. I bet she would have spent hours with him but after about 5 or 10 minutes we moved on and found the macaws and greeted Flick from Bugs Life and Baloo from the Jungle Book. We got fast passes for Safari and the kids made masks.

It still wasn’t time for our Safari ride so we took the train out to Rafiki’s Conservation Station. They have lots of animal exhibits, we went into a sound booth to listen to the rainforest-very realistic, the kids got to pet a rabbit and we greeted Rafiki, Pocahontas, and Jiminy Cricket-first time I had ever seen him. I wish Emma would watch the Pocahontas movie because I think she’d like her if she knew her story. Same thing with Mulan and Jasmine from Aladdin. They are all very strong women but Emma thinks all girls are princessy.

There is a petting zoo at the Conservation Station. We all got a kick out of the not so hidden Mickey on one sheep.

 

[mommykds]

I just found JFK to MCO Wed 4/17 to Tue 4/29 at $258 RT. Of course that require a few days at WDW.

Our plan is to do the cruise 1st & then surprise the kids with 4 days at the world. They don't know, I am going to wake them up the day the cruise is over & let them think we are heading home & then just drive to Disney. So thats why we have a few days tagged on the end. (Only doing the 4 day cruise & that ends 4/24. I just can't believe how high the fares are..maybe SW will have a better fare. I have never paid over $99 each way so any more than that just isn't in our budget.

I LOVE this one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[mommykds]

We are all home today decorating the house for Halloween.

 

[lovesdumbo]

Our plan is to do the cruise 1st & then surprise the kids with 4 days at the world. They don't know, I am going to wake them up the day the cruise is over & let them think we are heading home & then just drive to Disney. So thats why we have a few days tagged on the end. (Only doing the 4 day cruise & that ends 4/24. I just can't believe how high the fares are..maybe SW will have a better fare. I have never paid over $99 each way so any more than that just isn't in our budget.



I LOVE this one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope you can find a good ding. Jet Blue does often come out with really high rates and then drops after a few days but I wouldn't count on April vacation rates to drop too much.

I love that Stitch photo too. It looks like I'm touching Stitch and I love how Lizzy is standing to see him. That photographer was really great. I did notice that a lot of my photopass photos are out of focus. Some of the photographers just weren't that great. Joe would often ask them to take a photo with my camera and they often did better with my camera. I would take just 1 character photo trying to sort of keep out of the photopass photographers way and trying to help the line move faster but next time I will take more of my own photos too.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

I love the sheep with Mickey on his back! We didn't do Rafiki's this time around. Which is a shame because I saw that at least one of the CM's had PINS!

 

[lovesdumbo]

I love the sheep with Mickey on his back! We didn't do Rafiki's this time around. Which is a shame because I saw that at least one of the CM's had PINS!

 

[lovesdumbo]

We took the train back to Africa and got fast passes for Everest on the way to lunch. On the way we saw DeVine. She has stilts on her arms and legs so you can’t really tell which limb is which. She’s pretty cool but some think she’s on the freaky side.

Every time I look at the Tree of Life I see something new.

We were under cover eating lunch when a thunder storm hit. We knew before the rain started that they had shut down Everest because we could no longer hear the screams. They do shut it down if there is lightning. We got to take in all the details during the storm-animal kingdom if full of details! But we didn't get to do Everest as we spent too much time at lunch and only had time for Safari before dinner.

When the rains slowed down we headed to Safari. We stopped at the baby center to find a nice quiet potty for Emma. Love the giraffes on exterior wall of the baby center. Emma would always want to wait til we got back to the hotel to use a potty but we had dinner reservations at AKL so I knew a baby center would be the best place for her.

I get frustrated with the bumpy ride of Safari because I wish I could take better photos. We’ve had good luck riding during or just after the rain seems to make the animals more lively. I love how you believe you are on the African savannah. They changed the Big Red/Little Red story line a bit but they still have a poacher story line. I wish they would just drop the whole poacher story and let the vehicles drive nice and slow for better photos.

After the Safari ride we saw the blue macaws on the way out of the park.

We took the bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge and had dinner at Boma-an African buffet. The soups and salads are great here. Gene loved the salmon and believe it or not my picky eater ate more here than any other meal. They had a home made mac & cheese instead of the too cheesy frozen kind at most Disney buffets. Emma had 2 bowls and a chicken strip. We took the bus from Animal Kingdom Lodge to Downtown Disney despite my better judgment-we should have waited for an Epcot bus. It was a zoo in the rain at the bus stop at Downtown Disney. Other guests were complaining about the bus driver loading a handicap passenger first while they waited in the rain. I loudly told my children we should be grateful we were able to stand in the rain.

We got back to the resort relatively early and got the kids to bed for an early morning!

 

[lovesdumbo]

Terry was arriving from Jacksonville today. We met nearly 40 years ago when we were in the 3rd grade. She’s a physics professor. When ever my kids ask me really tough questions I always say you’ll have to ask Terry. Her daughter Halley is just 3 ½ months younger than Lizzy. They are the best of friends. I knew Terry had hoped to get to our resort around 8am so I got up early and went to the front desk. They allowed me to check her in and get her room keys. Her room wasn’t ready but they did find one in our building and we had a phone number to call later to find out the room number. I got the kids up and ready to go when Terry & Halley arrived. We just had to put on sun screen and we all took the bus to Epcot. We actually made it right at opening. The crane we had seen on Monday was now gone. All that was left of the hand/wand on SE were the mounts for the stars. I have since read that those will be removed from the inside.

Terry & I brought the kids to the character connection while Gene went to get fast passes for Soarin’. Lizzy had wanted to see the characters on Monday but there was a 1 hour wait. We saw the characters with little wait but there was live squirrel in the building that was causing quite a stir. At one point Pluto got down on all 4s and was trying to chase it out. Then Chip & Dale were mad at Pluto. It was very funny but the character handlers were getting worried that there may have something wrong with the squirrel. They finally got it out of the building and we got to see Mickey, Minnie, Chip & Dale, Pluto and Goofy. Halley didn’t like some of the backgrounds so she wouldn’t get in some of the pictures and Emma didn’t like the girly Minnie.

We did the Land boat ride and the Mickey head lettuce that Lizzy had noticed on Monday was gone. The pumpkin that was in the Mickey mold seemed bigger than just 5 days earlier. After the boat ride it was time for Soarin’. They let us ride in the middle section front row-perfect spot! Emma loved it again! What a change in 1 year. Gene & Terry brought the kids the Living Seas while I went to get fast passes for Test Track. I took a few photos of the new looking SE.

I took a few photos of the Nemo statues before trying to meet up with the others inside the Living Seas. I think this photo of Bloat may be one of my favorite non kid photos of the trip.

At first I couldn’t find them and the cell phones were not working but Terry found me. We had to do Bruce photos and then went to Turtle Talk with Crush.

 

[PNO4TE]

Bernadette -- First of all... HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! Also, your pictures of the castle were spectacular!

 

[lovesdumbo]

We had lunch at the Electric Umbrella a bit early before it got too crazy. It really was crazy by the time we left-folks stalking us for our table. Then we went to the Test Track gift shop and got Lizzy, Joe and Emma Test Track drivers licenses in a little photo booth. I wanted to get one for Halley but she doesn’t like Test Track so she didn’t want one. Halley didn’t want to ride so we got a child swap pass. Terry stayed out with Halley while we all went on and then Halley and Lizzy stayed with DH while Terry, I, Joe & Emma when on. Emma was a bit smaller than the average 5 year old male test dummy and Joe was a bit larger. Never too much Test Track for Joe and Emma.

We went to see Figment and then rode his ride. Here’s the skunk Figment that Joe likes to hold his nose when he sees. He used to hold his nose for the entire ride but now he only does it just when the smell sprays.

After Figment we headed over to the world showcase. We met Kenai from Brother Bear in Canada. The kids started masks and Emma tried to make hers scary. When we finally got the kids to move on toward the UK Koda was out with Kenai so we stopped to see him. After a stop in the UK we took the boat to the Beach Club. We had just missed a boat and it would have been much quicker to just walk but it was really HOT. While waiting for a boat we saw Marie from the Aristocats was out in France but she would have been gone by the time we went back through security to get back in the park. Joe really wanted to see her.

Dinner at the Beach Club’s Cape May Café was great until Terry got sick. She managed to make it to the bathroom in time but we knew she wasn’t up for boating the MGM to catch a bus back to the resort so we went out to the front of the Beach Club and the valet staff called to get us a van taxi. Terry was already feeling better by the time we got back to the resort and the taxi was only $10 + tip. Her room was a handicap room and was interesting to see the differences. On the way to our room from hers we found the ramp for our building-much easier than stairs with a stroller.

We found a towel snake on the bed with our friends and Halley’s pig. We got to bed relatively early and agreed to meet Terry around 7:30 am for early entry into the Magic Kingdom.