The One Where I Go To Disney World for the Tenth Time: Aug '14 TR - COMPLETE 5/21 LIFE U/D 7/7

[heathsf]

T W O D A Y S ! ! ! ! ! !

I've started packing. More like overpacking. So far I have enough clothes to wear 2.5 outfits per day (which I may actually go through since it's going to be SO hot!)

Today in Disney History:
-In 2010 Via Napoli has its Grand Opening ceremony
-In 1992 a 10-year-old boy becomes WDW's 400-millionth guest and his family receives lifetime passes to all Disney parks worldwide

2 Years ago in Disney History:
-Wreck It Ralph is released
-Art of Animation Resort opens
-Part of New Fantasyland open: Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid, Be Our Guest Restaurant, Gaston's Tavern, Enchanted Tales with Belle, Ariel's Grotto, Storybook Circus

 

[amyrose26]

Following along! Started reading because you started your title the one with.. I'm a friends fanatic so I got excited. As I started reading I noticed that u will be there when it am there. It's also my tenth trip and my birthday trip. Have a great trip and happy birthday

 

[ariane37]

Getting so excited for you!!!! DH just checked the weather for our trip (in 3 weeks, yay!!!) and yeah, gonna be HOT when you're there lol! I shouldn't laugh, it'll only be like 2 degrees cooler when we go!

I plan on packing 2 outfits per day for each of us, especially since this is our first time going in summer so I don't blame you for doing the same. Are you taking mid-day breaks? You probably mentioned that in the beginning of your report but I can't remember

PS I love the "on this day in Disney history" parts of your posts

 

[heathsf]

Following along! Started reading because you started your title the one with.. I'm a friends fanatic so I got excited. As I started reading I noticed that u will be there when it am there. It's also my tenth trip and my birthday trip. Have a great trip and happy birthday

Wait a minute...
We are going to WDW at the same time,
It is both of our tenth trips,
Both of our birthdays (okay I'm cheating a little but still...)
And we're both obsessed with Friends.
That is CRAZY! And also AMAZING!

I need more info! What are your dates? When is your birthday?

Getting so excited for you!!!! DH just checked the weather for our trip (in 3 weeks, yay!!!) and yeah, gonna be HOT when you're there lol! I shouldn't laugh, it'll only be like 2 degrees cooler when we go!

I plan on packing 2 outfits per day for each of us, especially since this is our first time going in summer so I don't blame you for doing the same. Are you taking mid-day breaks? You probably mentioned that in the beginning of your report but I can't remember

PS I love the "on this day in Disney history" parts of your posts

Aww thanks! I am enjoying writing them. I like expanding my Disney knowledge! The site I use for that is here in case you want more

No, you shouldn't be laughing, but your comment did make ME laugh I am doubting those 2 degrees will make very much of a difference, especially with the humidity. Can you really see the weather 3 weeks out? I planned on taking mid-day breaks last time (also in August) and it didn't really end up happening. So I guess I couldn't have been that miserable One day at AK we were just dying from the heat and we went back to the hotel to swim. But other than that I don't remember being particularly unhappy. Sweating at Disney is better than being cool at home, after all. I'm all for taking breaks if we need them though.

 

[heathsf]

The One with the Magic Bands​

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My Magic Band has gone through four incarnations over the past few weeks. I'm finally happy with it (whew, just in time ) after having a Magic Band Painting Party tonight with DH.

Yes, you read that right. DH and I had a Magic Band Painting Party complete with Disney music. He even whistled along to some songs.

So immediately upon receiving my band, I painted it. And did not like it. I used cheap nail polish and it didn't come out looking very good.

The pink from the band showed through the polish and skewed the colors. To compensate, I used a LOT of coats and it got thick and puffy and I decided to use nail polish remover to start over. That stripped my band of it's original pink color and left it looking faded and peach and stained by the stripes. Ugh. I almost cried.

As a comparison, here's a before and after shot:
(The blue on the outside is painters tape)

I looked for a dark color to cover the mess, and even though it was 3 coats of a dark pink I could still see stripes underneath. I decided to make dots to distract from the stripes.

I had accidentally made a Minnie Mouse band! I liked it, but I didn't love it. Something about it was just bothering me. Maybe it was that I could still sort of see the stripes, or maybe it was the dots were too small. Or maybe both. Or maybe it was just so different than what I had wanted to begin with, which was neon colors.

Meanwhile, I cut the extra length off the end of my band and that made it a lot more comfortable, so I was very happy with that choice. But I still wasn't feeling the Minnie band.

So tonight I decided to start over again.
I asked DH if he wanted to paint his band.
And he said he did.
And I was like...

...and thus commenced the painting party!

We listened to the Magical Express music loop and Bobby actually said he liked it! He whistled and sang along to certain parts. It was amazing! It's the little things that make me happy...

Anyway, I'm FINALLY happy with my band. I love it and I'm so glad I started over again.

DH worked on his for twice as long as it took me to do mine. It blew me away.

Oh my gosh, are you ready for this? Let me remind you that this was created by the man who "doesn't like Disney" (or so he says).

Do you see it?

I suggested he draw two black dots in the top white section for eyes, as I thought that would really make it obvious it was Donald. But apparently that suggestion was insulting But regardless, I thought this was amazing. I told him that Donald was going to be thrilled when he saw the band on Friday for dinner at Chef Mickey's and DH actually got excited. He asked if Donald was definitely going to be there, and I said yes. And he said, "Are you sure?" He was like a little kid. I just love it. He got even more excited when I pointed out that Mickey probably wouldn't like it very much. He's adorable.

Here are M & S's bands. I haven't seen them in person yet but M sent me a picture tonight.

So now that it's after midnight, can I say I'm going to Disney tomorrow? Yeah, I guess not. I better go to bed so that I can wake up and actually say I'm going to Disney tomorrow! Yahoo!!

 

[amyrose26]

I leave Friday the 8th for WDW I come home the 13th. My bday was Monday so I'm cheating too. But I'm celebrating with my best friend she lives in Texas so she and couldn't be together on my actual bday so I'm extending my bday.

 

[heathsf]

I leave Friday the 8th for WDW I come home the 13th. My bday was Monday so I'm cheating too. But I'm celebrating with my best friend she lives in Texas so she and couldn't be together on my actual bday so I'm extending my bday.

Yay for extending birthdays! Have a wonderful trip! And Happy Birthday!

 

[heathsf]

I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD TOMORROW!

...she said casually.

In honor of there being only 1 day left in the countdown, I present today's Disney History trivia:

1901 - Walt Disney was born.

And that's it for the countdowns!

We are leaving for the airport at 10:30 tomorrow morning. I can't believe it's really here. For a while it felt like this trip would never come. Like literally, never.

You can follow me on Instagram while I'm away @heathsf and I look forward to sharing what I expect to be an amazing trip

Guess I better go finish packing!

 

[ariane37]

Hi there! First to answer your question from a couple days ago, YES you CAN track the weather 3 weeks out! The Accuweather site actually shows you 45 days out and when I used it before our Feb. trip, I found it quite accurate! Of course when I checked it today the extended part wasn't working for some reason, but that always happens when you tell someone about something lol!!!

Second, have an AMAZING trip!! I wish you safe travels, low crowds, great weather and magical moments And I'll be following you on Instagram!!

 

[Leshaface]

Yay you're gone! (in a good way of course!)

I'll definitely be following along over on IG and FB!

Such a good idea about painting the bands. Never thought of that, and now i'm going to be stealing your idea if that's alright

 

[heathsf]

I'm just popping in to say hi! We had an amazing first park day yesterday. We did SO much I can't even believe it. The heat and crowds weren't unmanageable like I thought they would be. Today we have our BOG lunch and I can't wait! Have a magical day everyone!

 

[heathsf]

Yay you're gone! (in a good way of course!)

I'll definitely be following along over on IG and FB!

Such a good idea about painting the bands. Never thought of that, and now i'm going to be stealing your idea if that's alright

I can't take credit for the magic band idea. There's a huge thread on here where people posted pictures and shared ideas for decorating. We've gotten a lot of attention from CMs and some guests over them. And Donald Duck was very excited to see Bobby's band. It's been a lot of fun.

Hi there! First to answer your question from a couple days ago, YES you CAN track the weather 3 weeks out! The Accuweather site actually shows you 45 days out and when I used it before our Feb. trip, I found it quite accurate! Of course when I checked it today the extended part wasn't working for some reason, but that always happens when you tell someone about something lol!!!

Second, have an AMAZING trip!! I wish you safe travels, low crowds, great weather and magical moments And I'll be following you on Instagram!!

Thank you! It actually hasn't been quite as unbearable as I was afraid it would be. Yes, it is SUPER hot in the late morning and afternoon but ducking into lots of air conditioned shops to cool down is very helpful. The humidity hasn't bothered me as much as I thought it would either. And the fact is, bad weather in Disney still beats good weather almost anywhere else

 

[Leshaface]

I'm just popping in to say hi! We had an amazing first park day yesterday. We did SO much I can't even believe it. The heat and crowds weren't unmanageable like I thought they would be. Today we have our BOG lunch and I can't wait! Have a magical day everyone!

Eeek! I can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[NPRinLA]

I know you're smack in the middle of your trip, but I can't wait to hear all of the details!! Hope you're having a blast!

 

[Bebella]

You made my day with your comment, I can't believe you remember reading my TR 3 years ago! Bringing the grandparents along is a great idea! I'm sure that going to Disney with kids is the most amazing experience. Do you have a trip planned?

Not yet...our son is 15 months, and I'm pregnant with our second...so we'll probably wait until fall 2016...ugh...that seems so far away! I'm on the dis everyday getting my fix! (Is it so sad that I already know what dining reservations I'm going to make?? ) My sister in law is so excited to go too though...she was talking the other day about "drinking and eating around the world" (I didn't even know she liked Disney!) and I'm pretty sure I just started to love her more! With her help, we'll be able to convince our husbands to go as soon as we can.

 

[heathsf]

I know you're smack in the middle of your trip, but I can't wait to hear all of the details!! Hope you're having a blast!

Thank you! It was such an incredibly fun trip, I am so sad to be home. But I'm at least looking forward to sharing it all here

Not yet...our son is 15 months, and I'm pregnant with our second...so we'll probably wait until fall 2016...ugh...that seems so far away! I'm on the dis everyday getting my fix! (Is it so sad that I already know what dining reservations I'm going to make?? ) My sister in law is so excited to go too though...she was talking the other day about "drinking and eating around the world" (I didn't even know she liked Disney!) and I'm pretty sure I just started to love her more! With her help, we'll be able to convince our husbands to go as soon as we can.

No, it is not sad that you know what dining reservations you want to make! I had been planning mine for the last 3 years! Congrats on your pregnancy, when are you due? That's amazing that you have your SIL on your side. at loving her more! And there will be an episode of drinking around the world in this TR

 

[heathsf]

Well...we're back

I'm not sure I've ever been so sad to leave Disney. I think deep down inside I was confusing the idea that my trip was 9 days (my longest trip ever!) with it lasting forever. On that first day, it felt like it would never end and we had so much ahead of us. But, of course, it flew by. And now we're home. This is definitely my saddest birthday ever

But on the bright side, we had an amazing trip with many fun and magical moments and lots and lots of delicious food. It felt like the whole trip revolved around food, in fact. I took almost 1,400 pictures, not including photopass, so I've got a lot to share. I'm going to start going through the PP pictures today and I'll officially start the TR very soon!

 

[Leshaface]

I soooo know how you feel when returning from a trip!

However, you'll be able to relive the trip through your TR and i'm so looking forward to seeing that! I loved seeing your pics on IG, but really excited to hear all about it

 

[heathsf]

I soooo know how you feel when returning from a trip!

However, you'll be able to relive the trip through your TR and i'm so looking forward to seeing that! I loved seeing your pics on IG, but really excited to hear all about it

It's the worst! I still can't believe after looking forward to the trip for SO long that it's already over. How is it possible!?

 

[heathsf]

Episode 1
The One Where We Leave for Disney​

It was Thursday, August 7, the day I had been counting down to for the last 303 days. M and S drove over to our house at around 10 am and my mom kindly picked all four of us up to drive us to the airport. Going through security was a breeze and we had plenty of time to get some food, use the bathroom, and relax for a few minutes at the gate before boarding.

We boarded on time and I was super excited and ready to go! And DH was... well...

He was excited too! He just thinks he's funny...

Everyone was boarded, the door was closed, we buckled our seatbelts, and we waited. And waited. And waited. AND WAITED! Finally the captain made an announcement that there was a problem with the aircraft and they were waiting to talk to the company and we would get an update in 5 minutes. I was immediately convinced that our flight was going to be cancelled and we wouldn't get to go. I knew the trip was too good to be true! 5 minutes comes and goes, and it turns out to be 20 minutes before the captain comes back on to tell us that the problem is paperwork, and as soon as it's sorted out we can leave, probably in a half hour. Well, it ended up taking an hour and a half from when we first got on the plane but I was so relieved we were actually taking off I didn't even care.

It was only a two hour flight so I barely had enough time to finish watching Cars! Cars is S's favorite movie and I had only seen it once while I was in college and hardly remembered it. He logged into his iTunes account on my computer so I could watch it. I really enjoyed it much more the second time, and it even had me laughing out loud a few times. Mostly I was glad I rewatched it so I could fully enjoy the Cars section at Art of Animation. It is STRAIGHT out of the movie. Amazing. I definitely would not have enjoyed it as much if I wasn't familiar with the movie.

After landing my excitement level was through the roof. I was practically running to the Magical Express counter. All we had to do was have one person scan their magic band and that person was... DH! He got to be the first one to use his band. I was amazed. It was awesome watching that little Mickey head turn green. We had to scan again at the beginning of the line. As painful as it was, I let S scan his band even though I really really really wanted to do it. There was one more scanner right before getting on the bus and I told M, "Sorry! I need to do this!" She obviously was okay with it, because she's the best and I finally got to use my magic band!

The bus was empty and we waited a half hour for it to completely fill up before we left the airport. I took a few pictures while we waited. Doesn't he look thrilled to be in Disney?

When we got on the bus, the skies were very dark and it was clearly going to thunderstorm. And sure enough, it started pouring rain before we left. When we finally did leave, there was a lot of traffic so between that and the weather it took a while to get to the hotel even though we were the first stop. I'm not gonna lie, we weren't exactly the happiest bunch at this point. We were on the plane almost twice as long as we needed to be, on the ME almost twice as long as we needed to be, the weather was awful, we were stuck in traffic, and we were very tired and very very hungry.

DH took a nap on the bus while I diligently watched the Magical Express movie. It was different from 3 years ago, which shouldn't have been surprising considering how much has changed in the last 3 years. But I missed the old one with the characters checking into the hotel. By far, the worst part of the video was that they show clips of people drinking the Beverly in Club Cool. Sheesh, spoiler alert, they totally ruined my plans of getting S to drink it.

When we finally got to the glorious Welcome sign, I got my camera ready to take a video. I got about 0.01 seconds of the sign before the person in front of me totally blocked my shot with her head. DH thought this was hilarious. I did not. Oh well. We were officially on Disney property so

By the time we arrived at AoA, it had stopped raining and there was no line for check-in. Since I had done it online it took about 1 minute for the CM to give me the map and show me how to get to our room. I was all done with it before DH, M and S even made their way into the hotel. They were too busy getting Mickey stickers from the CM outside greeting guests.

We booked a standard room and all of the standard rooms are in the Little Mermaid section. Cars, Finding Nemo, and Lion King are all suites. Let me tell you, the Little Mermaid section is a FAR walk from the food court and the buses. I had read that online, and shrugged it off because I had stayed at Pop several times and it never really felt too far no matter what building we were in. But this felt really far. Later on in the trip we clocked a few different routes to try to find the fastest and the shortest we could find was 0.34 miles and that was from our door to the entrance of the food court. Oh, and we weren't even in the furthest LM building. On the bright side, I can't think of any other issue we had with this resort. The theming was impeccable. Even though our walk was far, there were lots of fun things to look at all around.

When we got to the room, this was waiting for us:

Okay, wait, maybe one more tiny thing to gripe about - this was the only towel creation we saw for the entire 9 day trip. M was particularly sad about this. But other than those two small things - we loved the hotel!

Another thing we love is food, and we were all starving at this point so off to Downtown Disney we went! It was 6:30 when we got there, exactly 8 hours after leaving for the airport.

In my mind, I knew exactly where I wanted to eat. I suggested it to the others and they said they were fine with whatever, so yay! And finally we were here:

This meal was wonderful. We were so hungry and it really hit the spot. Not to mention it was our first Disney food of the trip and it finally felt like vacation was starting. We had 8 fun-filled Disney days ahead of us. I love that first-day feeling where the end of the trip is SO far away it feels like it will never come and you'll get to be in Disney forever... sigh...

Anyway, back to the food.

I had the four cheese pesto pizza. It was perfect. Ugh I wish I could eat that right now. I would love it if WPE would open a location near home. The only other place I've eaten it is at LAX airport.

DH had the turkey club sandwich. He really liked it.

M and S shared a cheese pizza and chicken fingers which they also really liked.

I got creme brulee for dessert. Everyone else got ice cream.

At some point during dinner I realized that DH was the only one out of the four of us who was wearing a Mickey Mouse sticker. Yup, Mr. I Don't Like Disney. On my first few attempts, he successfully blocked me from getting a picture of the sticker, but I eventually got it while he was distracted by his french fries. Busted.

After eating we did some shopping. M wanted to buy a pair of personalized ears for her niece's first trip next month. I tried on sparkly Minnie ears which I think are so cute, but way too uncomfortable to actually wear. DH surprised me by putting on a pair of ears and letting me take a picture. Those Mickey Ears are magical I tell ya!

We went into Goofy's Candy Co. where we saw these rice krispie monstrosities!

We walked in and out of a few other stores, and then finished up the night with a shopping spree at

We split up from M and S as they had their own shopping list. For myself I got a Mickey Mouse Alex and Ani bracelet. I had a really hard time choosing which one I wanted. I went in thinking I wanted the one that says "Walt Disney World" with the castle but the words were so tiny and difficult to read. There was also a mickey head with a design but I ultimately decided to get this one:

Honestly, I have a little bit of buyer's remorse and wish I had gotten the castle one anyway. Oh well.

We bought donald and mickey plushies with rattles inside for our two youngest nieces and an Elsa doll that plays two lines of "Let It Go" when you hold her hands for our 3 1/2 year old niece. For himself, DH got a Donald shot glass for his collection and a t-shirt to wear tomorrow to Chef Mickey's.

When we got out of the store the sky was gorgeous.

We met back up with M and S and checked out the Lego store together. They have some really neat stuff in there. We walked towards the West Side where S wanted to go to the Harley Davidson store. DH was tired of walking so the two of us stopped at the Hole in the Wall, a small outdoor bar right next to Raglan Road. He got a Guinness and I got a water and we relaxed there until M and S were done shopping. They picked us up on their way back and we got right on a bus back to AoA.