Katy Belle
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2004
- Messages
- 4,013
Feb.25-March 2
Me-Katy 35-never been to WDW. Always, always, always have wanted to visit the mouse
DH-Scott 38- one trip to WDW, many, many moons ago.
DS-Jacob - 8 Cautious- brainy kid -looking forward to Epcot
DS-Nathan -6 Dare Devil - thinks he can fly (think concussion)- hopes to lose his first tooth at WDW and leave it under his pillow for Tinkerbell, hoping she will leave pixie dust!
DS-Matthew-4 Scaredy Cat - after viewing the Disney Trip planning video he called the Dumbo Ride "The Scary Roundy Round elephants"
This is our final park day. We fly out tomorrow morning to return to the real world. So we are ready for a fun filled finale! We head to MK, via bus, to do the lands we didn't get to on Day 2. We started with Frontierland. We went straight to Splash Mountain. This is another ride that I had heard about for most of my life and had no idea what it really was. I was really expecting just a normal theme park water ride, but maybe a bit more aggressive. We LOVED the story and all the characters. Matthew was feeling brave, so the whole family went! Loved it! We got right back in line and did it again! Matthew told us the story of Brer Rabbit over and over that day! Well done Disney! Next is BTMR. Matthew is done feeling brave, so he and I head for Country Bear Jamboree while Scott and the big boys do the BTMR. CBJ was cute, not really my style, but Matthew liked it. When we emerged the crew had gone on their ride twice! But Nathan was ready to ride with me, so away we go. Great! But I'm glad Matthew sat it out. There was a little boy in front of us that was apprehensive and by the end he was in tears. Its a pretty clunky ride! Popcorn and ice cream and we head to Haunted Mansion. Do you think Matthew was brave and tried it? NO WAY! The Disney marketing video scared him to death on this one too. Now having experienced, I know he would have HATED it! Jacob, Nathan and I did it together. We enjoyed it but it made some of us nervous. We stopped in the middle for several minutes, which was un-nerving for some in my party. I'd like to do it again, I know I missed a bunch of stuff. We emerged and found Scott and Matthew. While waiting they ventured into FantasyLand, Matthew saw IASW, and requested another go on it. So I asked him if he wanted to ride it with me and he said, "Yes. I just LOVE those singing girls!" So we split up. Scott took Jacob and Nathan to Pirates of the Caribbean while I took Matthew to IASW.
Now, I was so pleasantly surprised with how un-crowded MK was today! Virtually no waiting for anything....until we hit FantasyLand! UGH. You literally couldn't push a stroller through. I parked it and found it 2 hours later, much easier! We got FastPasses for the whole family for Mickey's Philharmagic, then headed to IASW. We enjoyed the singing girls soooo much. Just delightful to watch my little boy checking it all out. Next we hopped on Cinderellas Golden Carrousel, which we had skipped on Day 2. It is huge! Matthew loved his ride. Then we shopped a bit and finally found IASW stuff in the Philharmagic gift shop. I bought Matthew a little snow globe that plays the song. I thought we'd want it stuck in our heads at home too! Then we got some pretzels and sat down to wait for the crew. Here they come! They loved POC and they did the Tiki room and Tom Sawyer Island. Smiles all around. They sat with us and shared the pretzles. Matthew was showing off his snow globe.......and dropped it. Tiny bits of glass and glitter everywhere. He was crushed. We alerted a CM who cleaned it up and we went and bought Matthew another. Time for Mickey's Philharmagic. Excellent once again!! Really outstanding Disney! Then through the gift shop where Jacob purchased a Donald figurine. Time to head out of MK, for good. Sad, but I think we will return some day.....
We ask the CM at the monorail if we could ride in the front. She has us sit on the bench and away we go. When the monorail stopped the driver exited and another CM went in. I think he just drives it to let the others take their break. He didn't seem to want to be there. He would answer our questions, shortly, but did not seem very happy to have us there. No co-pilots liscence or anything. BUT the view was excellent and they boys LOVED it. The photos I took from in there are excellent. And, I must say, we left, once again singing, "Its a SMELLY world afterall!" I guess its just the "Disney gas" phenomenon, but UGH!!!
So, now its 3, and we arrive at Epcot. We haven't eaten lunch yet. This whole trip we didn't eat close to normal times! The plan is to hit Test Track, for a FAstPass, then do the World Showcase, and grab lunch quickly. The original plan was to leave Epcot at 6 to see Wishes at MK at 7. Now its 3 and I'm fretting again.....only 3 hours to finish Epcot. We began debating whether to skip Wishes and just stay at Epcot for Illuminations. Difficult decision, so we waited to decide. Test Track was broken! On to World Showcase. We arrive at the same time as the character bus! That is a delightful thing! I got the absolute cutest photo of my 3 boys with Mr. Smee from Peter Pan!!! They are all 4 saluting, cute, cute, cute! We visited some other characters then started on our way. We ate at the French Bakery. Yum, I can still taste that ham and cheese croissant! We had lots of yummy stuff and enjoyed it. Then we start our Sprint around the Showcase. Because we are still planning to leave at 6, sort of, we aren't taking time to see much. We find the living statue at the very end of her act and Matthew missed her completely. Disappointing. We get to Maelstrom in Norway and the stand by time is 45 minutes and Fast Pass is for much later. Ugh. We really haven't done anything since we arrived at Epcot and the kids wanted to 'ride' something. So we sit down on a wall and start discussing it. Matthew is afraid of it, its a long line, are we going to go back to MK? We weren't arguing, but we were starting to get poopy with each other. THEN........out of the Maelstrom building come two Norwegian girls. They are smiling at us and they walk right up to us. (Insert your own Norwegian accent here)"Are you going to go on the boat ride?" Me, "Well, we were thinking about it, but the line is long and we don't know if we want to wait." (Insert accent once again)"Would you go on it if you came with us and we took you right in and you didn't have to wait. We will ride with you on the next boat." My family is in various states of smiles and mouths hanging open. Is this for real??? So we say "Sure" and Matthew is looking scared to death. So I ask"Is it scary?" They say (accent) "Oh, no. Here, you can wear our hats and hold our swords" So they dress the little ones up and away we go. They took us right past all those people in line, if it was you, I'm sorry! So we do the ride and it was great! Then we DID stay and watch the movie on Norway, wouldn't you!!! Disney Magic. One of my good friends wonders if Disney has microphones hidden in the bushes and they listen to everyones conversations and when people start getting poopy with each other they send the "happy police CMs" to come and rescue them!! I don't know.... but it sure was great.
Now we are feeling a little better and we are ready to make a decision. We decide to stay and watch Illuminations. Now we head back to future World to check on Test Track. Still broken. Bummer. Jacob was dying to take Nathan on the Figment ride, so we all did that. Nathan was not really impressed. He is the daredevil, but he was very polite to his brother about it. . By this time Scott has a bad headache, so we get him some meds from the gift shop in that area behind the Figment ride. We hit MouseGear and buy all of our remaining shirts and a Chip and Dale figurine for Nathan. Scott hung out outside trying to shake the headache. It didn't work. It is 7 now so we head to World Showcase to see what we missed. The boys and I did the ride in Mexico! Loved it! We checked out the tin toys in Japan and had dinner at the counter place in China, 4 kids meals. Scott wasn't eating and the kids meal was enough for me. The kids ate well. Then we got chocolate in Germany and scoped out a place for Illuminations. Turns out the place we scoped out wasn't great. We were on the far side of the bridge near the fish and chips place. There were tons of other people there too, but you couldn't see the Globe, which I had no idea was part of the fireworks. We did our best to see. The boys were troopers. Now we head out with the rest of the world. It didn't take that all long, considering. We got to the front and turned in Our Pal Mickey. He really was a delight! We catch the bus to the Happy Motel, POR. Sad, that last bus ride! To sleep, after the nightly cartoons. Yes, magic once again!
We don't need to leave for the airport until 10 Tues. morning. So we slept in a little bit, then began the process of packing. Packing up the dirty laundry from 5 people for 6 days wasn't much fun! But I did it! Scott took Nathan and Matthew swimming in the quiet pool one last time, while Jacob watched the Disney cartoons once again. A stop by the food court for mickey rice crispy treats and off to the airport. The flight was fine. We were all seated together with a man right in the middle of us. He stayed there, and he actually complimented us on our well behaved boys at the end of the flight! Success! We arrived at our house about 4pm, which gave us time to get the dog from the kennel and play with our friends a bit before bed.
I will write a conclusion and final thoughts in one final post. I'm just not ready to stop talking about it!! And there is so much I forgot to tell you! So hang in there with me for one final post and we can decide together if it was "The perfect trip??"
Katy
Me-Katy 35-never been to WDW. Always, always, always have wanted to visit the mouse
DH-Scott 38- one trip to WDW, many, many moons ago.
DS-Jacob - 8 Cautious- brainy kid -looking forward to Epcot
DS-Nathan -6 Dare Devil - thinks he can fly (think concussion)- hopes to lose his first tooth at WDW and leave it under his pillow for Tinkerbell, hoping she will leave pixie dust!
DS-Matthew-4 Scaredy Cat - after viewing the Disney Trip planning video he called the Dumbo Ride "The Scary Roundy Round elephants"
This is our final park day. We fly out tomorrow morning to return to the real world. So we are ready for a fun filled finale! We head to MK, via bus, to do the lands we didn't get to on Day 2. We started with Frontierland. We went straight to Splash Mountain. This is another ride that I had heard about for most of my life and had no idea what it really was. I was really expecting just a normal theme park water ride, but maybe a bit more aggressive. We LOVED the story and all the characters. Matthew was feeling brave, so the whole family went! Loved it! We got right back in line and did it again! Matthew told us the story of Brer Rabbit over and over that day! Well done Disney! Next is BTMR. Matthew is done feeling brave, so he and I head for Country Bear Jamboree while Scott and the big boys do the BTMR. CBJ was cute, not really my style, but Matthew liked it. When we emerged the crew had gone on their ride twice! But Nathan was ready to ride with me, so away we go. Great! But I'm glad Matthew sat it out. There was a little boy in front of us that was apprehensive and by the end he was in tears. Its a pretty clunky ride! Popcorn and ice cream and we head to Haunted Mansion. Do you think Matthew was brave and tried it? NO WAY! The Disney marketing video scared him to death on this one too. Now having experienced, I know he would have HATED it! Jacob, Nathan and I did it together. We enjoyed it but it made some of us nervous. We stopped in the middle for several minutes, which was un-nerving for some in my party. I'd like to do it again, I know I missed a bunch of stuff. We emerged and found Scott and Matthew. While waiting they ventured into FantasyLand, Matthew saw IASW, and requested another go on it. So I asked him if he wanted to ride it with me and he said, "Yes. I just LOVE those singing girls!" So we split up. Scott took Jacob and Nathan to Pirates of the Caribbean while I took Matthew to IASW.
Now, I was so pleasantly surprised with how un-crowded MK was today! Virtually no waiting for anything....until we hit FantasyLand! UGH. You literally couldn't push a stroller through. I parked it and found it 2 hours later, much easier! We got FastPasses for the whole family for Mickey's Philharmagic, then headed to IASW. We enjoyed the singing girls soooo much. Just delightful to watch my little boy checking it all out. Next we hopped on Cinderellas Golden Carrousel, which we had skipped on Day 2. It is huge! Matthew loved his ride. Then we shopped a bit and finally found IASW stuff in the Philharmagic gift shop. I bought Matthew a little snow globe that plays the song. I thought we'd want it stuck in our heads at home too! Then we got some pretzels and sat down to wait for the crew. Here they come! They loved POC and they did the Tiki room and Tom Sawyer Island. Smiles all around. They sat with us and shared the pretzles. Matthew was showing off his snow globe.......and dropped it. Tiny bits of glass and glitter everywhere. He was crushed. We alerted a CM who cleaned it up and we went and bought Matthew another. Time for Mickey's Philharmagic. Excellent once again!! Really outstanding Disney! Then through the gift shop where Jacob purchased a Donald figurine. Time to head out of MK, for good. Sad, but I think we will return some day.....
We ask the CM at the monorail if we could ride in the front. She has us sit on the bench and away we go. When the monorail stopped the driver exited and another CM went in. I think he just drives it to let the others take their break. He didn't seem to want to be there. He would answer our questions, shortly, but did not seem very happy to have us there. No co-pilots liscence or anything. BUT the view was excellent and they boys LOVED it. The photos I took from in there are excellent. And, I must say, we left, once again singing, "Its a SMELLY world afterall!" I guess its just the "Disney gas" phenomenon, but UGH!!!
So, now its 3, and we arrive at Epcot. We haven't eaten lunch yet. This whole trip we didn't eat close to normal times! The plan is to hit Test Track, for a FAstPass, then do the World Showcase, and grab lunch quickly. The original plan was to leave Epcot at 6 to see Wishes at MK at 7. Now its 3 and I'm fretting again.....only 3 hours to finish Epcot. We began debating whether to skip Wishes and just stay at Epcot for Illuminations. Difficult decision, so we waited to decide. Test Track was broken! On to World Showcase. We arrive at the same time as the character bus! That is a delightful thing! I got the absolute cutest photo of my 3 boys with Mr. Smee from Peter Pan!!! They are all 4 saluting, cute, cute, cute! We visited some other characters then started on our way. We ate at the French Bakery. Yum, I can still taste that ham and cheese croissant! We had lots of yummy stuff and enjoyed it. Then we start our Sprint around the Showcase. Because we are still planning to leave at 6, sort of, we aren't taking time to see much. We find the living statue at the very end of her act and Matthew missed her completely. Disappointing. We get to Maelstrom in Norway and the stand by time is 45 minutes and Fast Pass is for much later. Ugh. We really haven't done anything since we arrived at Epcot and the kids wanted to 'ride' something. So we sit down on a wall and start discussing it. Matthew is afraid of it, its a long line, are we going to go back to MK? We weren't arguing, but we were starting to get poopy with each other. THEN........out of the Maelstrom building come two Norwegian girls. They are smiling at us and they walk right up to us. (Insert your own Norwegian accent here)"Are you going to go on the boat ride?" Me, "Well, we were thinking about it, but the line is long and we don't know if we want to wait." (Insert accent once again)"Would you go on it if you came with us and we took you right in and you didn't have to wait. We will ride with you on the next boat." My family is in various states of smiles and mouths hanging open. Is this for real??? So we say "Sure" and Matthew is looking scared to death. So I ask"Is it scary?" They say (accent) "Oh, no. Here, you can wear our hats and hold our swords" So they dress the little ones up and away we go. They took us right past all those people in line, if it was you, I'm sorry! So we do the ride and it was great! Then we DID stay and watch the movie on Norway, wouldn't you!!! Disney Magic. One of my good friends wonders if Disney has microphones hidden in the bushes and they listen to everyones conversations and when people start getting poopy with each other they send the "happy police CMs" to come and rescue them!! I don't know.... but it sure was great.
Now we are feeling a little better and we are ready to make a decision. We decide to stay and watch Illuminations. Now we head back to future World to check on Test Track. Still broken. Bummer. Jacob was dying to take Nathan on the Figment ride, so we all did that. Nathan was not really impressed. He is the daredevil, but he was very polite to his brother about it. . By this time Scott has a bad headache, so we get him some meds from the gift shop in that area behind the Figment ride. We hit MouseGear and buy all of our remaining shirts and a Chip and Dale figurine for Nathan. Scott hung out outside trying to shake the headache. It didn't work. It is 7 now so we head to World Showcase to see what we missed. The boys and I did the ride in Mexico! Loved it! We checked out the tin toys in Japan and had dinner at the counter place in China, 4 kids meals. Scott wasn't eating and the kids meal was enough for me. The kids ate well. Then we got chocolate in Germany and scoped out a place for Illuminations. Turns out the place we scoped out wasn't great. We were on the far side of the bridge near the fish and chips place. There were tons of other people there too, but you couldn't see the Globe, which I had no idea was part of the fireworks. We did our best to see. The boys were troopers. Now we head out with the rest of the world. It didn't take that all long, considering. We got to the front and turned in Our Pal Mickey. He really was a delight! We catch the bus to the Happy Motel, POR. Sad, that last bus ride! To sleep, after the nightly cartoons. Yes, magic once again!
We don't need to leave for the airport until 10 Tues. morning. So we slept in a little bit, then began the process of packing. Packing up the dirty laundry from 5 people for 6 days wasn't much fun! But I did it! Scott took Nathan and Matthew swimming in the quiet pool one last time, while Jacob watched the Disney cartoons once again. A stop by the food court for mickey rice crispy treats and off to the airport. The flight was fine. We were all seated together with a man right in the middle of us. He stayed there, and he actually complimented us on our well behaved boys at the end of the flight! Success! We arrived at our house about 4pm, which gave us time to get the dog from the kennel and play with our friends a bit before bed.
I will write a conclusion and final thoughts in one final post. I'm just not ready to stop talking about it!! And there is so much I forgot to tell you! So hang in there with me for one final post and we can decide together if it was "The perfect trip??"
Katy
Hi Katy,
. I'll be looking for your final post.
