'There once was a girl...' - We leave today! (#56)

[AmandaSparks730]

Pink Elephants on Paraaaaadeeeee

That scene freaked me the hell out when I was little

Not my fav. Disney movie, needless to say.

 

[kiranic]

I haven't watched Dumbo in a long time. I am going to have to pull it out of my Disney library and watch it before we leave in October!

 

[tink1957]

Great Dumbo review, I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of your plans, you have a wonderful way of expressing yourself.

 

[BabyPiglet]

Thanks everyone! I love hearing everyone's opinions. :

 

[BabyPiglet]

*gasp* Yes, it's true! I'm finally posting our plans! I was going to do this in a two part segment (ADRs/park plans) but decided to lose that and do it all together. Kind of. I'm still attempting to drag this baby out for as long as possible, because really, nothing is worse than someone making a PTR too early and not being able to talk enough.

But for those of you who know me, you know that having nothing to talk about is not a problem of mine. Not that I'm...annoyingly talkative or anything.

Uhm yeah, back on topic! I have painstakingly crafted these plans to be of the upmost quality and efficiency. Okay. You caught me. That's a lie. Me and my mom threw these together a couple nights ago....I was instantly happy with them though, they seem PERFECT!

Oh, I just remembered something! There might be one thing worse than ridiculously silent pre-trip reports, and that's boring plans. Sometimes I'll be reading a PTR, and I'll have to skip right over the 'plans' section. Nothing more unbearable than than a 'sentence' like "Wed - MK/EPCOT Le Cellier at 5.' Come on, you know you agree with me!

So, in the effort to make all of my past and future english teachers happy, and to not put my dearest readers to sleep, I present your dinner. Be our guest, be our guest! No, uhm, I present my park plans.

Be my guest, be my guest
Put my writing to the test
Tie your glasses 'round your head, cherie
And I'll provide the rest

(There's a reason my major isn't in musical theatre....)

Saturday, September 5 -- We s'pose to leave this here domicile at 30 minutes past cow-milkin time. That be 3:30 pm for all you yankees out there. (Yeah, I can't keep that up for long. To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever even seen a real life cow.) I plan to try and sleep in a little bit that morning (okay, everyone can laugh) so I'm not so exhausted the next day. I'm not sure yet if Laura will come over the day before (most likely) or will be dropped off on this day. Either way, I've been talking to some other family members, and I'd like to have go out and have a big lunch.

You see, our flight doesn't land in MCO til 9:30, and I'm not sure if we'll be able to eat something that late. So if we have a big lunch, maybe we won't be too hungry. Besides, I think it would be a nice oppurtunity for my aunt, uncle, other cousin, other uncle, and grandma to talk about our Disney plans and spend some time together. Plus, I'm sure my aunt will want to spend a little time with Laura before we leave. I think it would be fun!

Before that I will have gotten Laura Jane dressed (if she stays the night). Do you think it should be something new or old? She might be motion sickness on the plane.....Anyway, and finished packing up! I'm getting a little time-drunk over here. Let's get this back in order.

Then AFTER lunch, I'm sure my family will all want to see us off at the airport, so we'll drive the 75 seconds (you don't have a spot on your glasses, I said SECONDS.) over to our itsy, bitsy, are you sure this is an airport and not a gas station? airport and check in. I figure it'll be about 2:30 - 2:45 when we get checked in. This will give us time to chat, and build the excitement.

We'll hop like Tigger and Roo...and sometimes Rabbit through security and onto the plane! I'll talk about our seats and the stupid flight times in another section.

I believe our layover in DFW (Dallas) is only 51 minutes, but that isn't a problem. We've been to this airport many times before and know how to navigate the 'Skyway' (aka tram thing not dearly departed Disney attraction) and we should be to our gate in know time.

Board, take off, fly, land, turn cell phones back on, call jealous families. Then we're off to the MagicalExpress counter (I will be navigating our way this time, everytime I let my mom do it we get terribly lost. Lost like Pooh, Piglet, and Rabbit on that hazy day when they tried to un-bounce Tigger. That lost. Coming back to the same sandpit lost.

Uhm, what was I saying? Oh, I'm getting time-drunk again. Somewhere in there we'll have to go pick up our baggage. Of course we could let ME pick it up, but since it's so late at night, we don't want to chance not waking up with our luggage.

Yeah. ME, watch welcome video, get Laura pumped, arrive at POP, check in at POP, hopefully run into the Everything POP and grab something to eat before we POP into our rooms, and POP off to sleep!

Talkative? Me? NO WAY JOSE. (Get your mind off Disney for one second, I am not talking about peanut butter sundaes here!) So...there's part one. No, I am absolutely not joking. Stop laughing.

The rest of the parts *should* involve more than one. But I just get so excited about the little stuff! That's important to me in trip reports, DETAILS. So, if you don't like to read a lot, then I will show you the door! Or..you should just skim. :

 

[AmandaSparks730]

Yay for cow-milkin' time!

But for us New Englanders, it's more like "yeah, yeah, whatever time."

 

[BabyPiglet]

Haha, I don't know where I pulled that out from. Like I said, never even seen a real cow. I did kind of milk a goat once when I was forced to on a school trip. Let me just say, it was not pleasant.

 

[BabyPiglet]

Okay, perhaps that was a bit over-dramatic. We have a love/hate relationship with it.

Love -- We got airline tickets for 200 dollars (without tax), when through travelocity or other places, the tickets would be upwards of 300 dollars. I guess that is a good thing, although my mom is saying now she wishes she would've just paid the difference to be able to pick her flight times.

Hate -- Our flights leaves at 3:30. So basically, we miss a half day at Disney. We absolutely adored the early morning flights we've had for our past few trips, so this was kind of a bummer. We were planning on spending that evening at MK or DTD. And then, our departing flight leaves at something like 11:30 am. So we have to get up for ME during the wee hours of the morning.

We won't get into Orlando until 9:25. Which means (hopefully) we'll be at POP by 10:30. Which will hopefully give us justtttt enough time to grab something to eat from the foodcourt, that closes at midnight. I'm sure we'll be hungry.

We just aren't really gambling people, so it kind of was unfortunate that we got such crappy flight times. What can you do though? We knew that was a possibility going in...

I'm uploading some crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful pre-trip stuff pictures. Look out for those soon!

 

[deslynnpatterson]

Okay, perhaps that was a bit over-dramatic. We have a love/hate relationship with it.

Love -- We got airline tickets for 200 dollars (without tax), when through travelocity or other places, the tickets would be upwards of 300 dollars. I guess that is a good thing, although my mom is saying now she wishes she would've just paid the difference to be able to pick her flight times.

Hate -- Our flights leaves at 3:30. So basically, we miss a half day at Disney. We absolutely adored the early morning flights we've had for our past few trips, so this was kind of a bummer. We were planning on spending that evening at MK or DTD. And then, our departing flight leaves at something like 11:30 am. So we have to get up for ME during the wee hours of the morning.

We won't get into Orlando until 9:25. Which means (hopefully) we'll be at POP by 10:30. Which will hopefully give us justtttt enough time to grab something to eat from the foodcourt, that closes at midnight. I'm sure we'll be hungry.

We just aren't really gambling people, so it kind of was unfortunate that we got such crappy flight times. What can you do though? We knew that was a possibility going in...

I'm uploading some crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful pre-trip stuff pictures. Look out for those soon!

aww i am so sorry about your flight times i am not sure how travelocity works-- put is there any way you can call and change the flights to the earlier time and pay the difference? oh the upside-- last year we flew in in the evening and our flight landed at about 9pm and the airport was empty we got right on MME and right to our hotel we acutally just changed our flight a few weeks ago the flight we originally booked flew out of pittsburgh at 4pm then it got pushed all the way till almost 7pm so we are now getting a 11:30 flight and will land at 1:30-- still not as early as we would like but better than the other times!! you are right though it really is a love hate relationship with flights LOL

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

I just wanted to POP in and say that I'm in!!!

I love the pictures and the report so far. I bet you are getting psyched for the trip!

My family for some reason ALWAYS picks late flight times leaving and early flight times leaving WDW so I know the feeling. I'm pretty sure POP food court closes at 11 but if worse comes to worse you could hop a bus to DTD where things are open later or hop a bus to DTD and then to Poly bc their food court is 24/7. I always thought that the food courts should be open way longer, esp. in the summer when you want to get a drink before going to bed!!!

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[BabyPiglet]

aww i am so sorry about your flight times i am not sure how travelocity works-- put is there any way you can call and change the flights to the earlier time and pay the difference? oh the upside-- last year we flew in in the evening and our flight landed at about 9pm and the airport was empty we got right on MME and right to our hotel we acutally just changed our flight a few weeks ago the flight we originally booked flew out of pittsburgh at 4pm then it got pushed all the way till almost 7pm so we are now getting a 11:30 flight and will land at 1:30-- still not as early as we would like but better than the other times!! you are right though it really is a love hate relationship with flights LOL

Yeah, I don't think we can do that. Priceline is very strict. Oh well, I guess we'll make the best of it!

Originally Posted by TinkerbellLuvr7
I love the pictures and the report so far. I bet you are getting psyched for the trip!

My family for some reason ALWAYS picks late flight times leaving and early flight times leaving WDW so I know the feeling. I'm pretty sure POP food court closes at 11 but if worse comes to worse you could hop a bus to DTD where things are open later or hop a bus to DTD and then to Poly bc their food court is 24/7. I always thought that the food courts should be open way longer, esp. in the summer when you want to get a drink before going to bed!!!

Can't wait to hear more!

Welcome!

I'm not quite sure about the closing time. Allears says midnight, and I seem to possibly remember it being 12. Or maybe 11? Oh well!

Like I said before, we're planning a big family lunch, so hopefully we won't be that hungry anyways. I might pack some little snacks for Laura anyways, for the plane.

 

[BabyPiglet]

Okie Dokie. I promised I'd post some pictures of how we Babypiglets prepare for a trip to the World.

First, let's start off with something classic. The plushies. We usually start a trip by curling up to these at night, and dreaming of a trip to fairyta-- er, you get the picture.

See, here I am curling up to my little french Minnie. She's my favourite.

Don't you think my hair looks so much better straight? If only there was a way to have nice, smooth, straight hair at Disney. But alas, I am way too tired (lazy) on a Disney morning to go through all that trouble. So I hunker down with some frizz-ease, lots of conditioner, and a handful of hope that I survive the storm, that is, my hair. (Here I go again, getting off topic.)

Oh, and I can't leave out Mr. Norwegian Mickey! French Minnie and Norwegian Mickey have a cross-country love affair going on.

Anyways, after we our thoroughly 'cuddled', we book a trip. I have no pictures to illustrate this action, but I'm guessing that since you're on the DIS, you know what this looks like.

So, after the Babypiglets have their trip all booked, you'd think the paperwork would come next? NO. Our first action is always, always to scribble all over the calendar. See, what I do is, take the day we're going to leave, and then count UP to the day I'm at, writing how many days are left on each day. Then, everyday we mark off that day with a big, black, sharpie X. Uhm, I lost you didn't I?

You see how each day is numbered in light ink? That's the number of days we have left. Right now I'm at 24. TWENTY FOUR. (Omg, what a coincidence that my dad is currently watching some movie called Mirrors, starring none other than, Keifer Sutherland! Haha, 24. 24. Get it? 24.) Anyways, yay 24 days.

Nowwww, is when we get to the paperwork. This is the ever-popular birthday voucher thingy. I hear it speeds up the process when you want to go pick up your fun card. So we did the online thing. We printed it out. We. Are. Ready.

Paperwork done. What's next? Well we have to SHOP of course. What kind of respectful, Disney-loving gal are you if you don't go out and spend all of your money on semi-useless, pre-trip STUFF. Uhm, they're not entirely useless. I mean, we bought a lot of clothes. Clothes are useful for...weather protection and uhm nakey-coverness (I think I'm making up words now).

I mentioned earlier that we bought Laura a skirt for the Princess breakfast. No biggie, right? HAH. She loves this thing! She swirled around in the dressing room proclaiming her royalty. Kids, huh?

I'll try to post pictures of some of my new tank tops and such later. I didn't get around to it during this round of picture-taking. And ugh, it takes so long to connect them to the computer and upload them and yadda-yadda-yadda.

So we get home shopping, throw the bags on my bed, and what do we realize? OMG WE HAVE NOT UPDATED THE WHITE-BOARD YET. OMGOMG. (I can't help it with the OMGs, I am still kind of a teenager, ya know? You'll learn to love it.) See, I have this dry-erase board thing in my room, and during the countdown to every trip, I always update it everyday with how many days are left. I'm confusing you again, yes? Let's get to the point. This is it.

Ignore it though. It's really 24. I was just too tired (lazy) and didn't post this after I took the picture. Uhm yeah, where's my ADD medication again? (Just kidding. I really don't have any kind of illnesses. Except allergies. Which is also off topic. I really need to stop that.)

After updating the board, I decide to NOT be lazy and go put away all the new stuff we bought. In our Disney bucket. Uhm, aren't these things kind of a requirement to being a good DISer? Our 'bucket' (as we so affectionately call it) is where we throw (uhm...place gently) all the stuff we buy/need for Disney. Yeah, you know. I'm sure you're a good DISer and have one of these yourself.

Don't let its size decieve you. It holds A LOT. One trip we actually filled up two of these suckers, and still have stuff overflowing. It's getting pretty tight in there right now though, so I might have to pull out 'buckettwin'.

I 'gently placed' the things inside, and realized it was missing stuff. So I scrounged around in my closet for a bit until I pulled out these things.

The crocs. Now to be honest, these are only comfy at Disney. Where I don't care as much what my feet look like. Well I do care. But since everyone else is wearing some form of these, I figure, what the heck? I'm also taking flip flops (probably my main mode of foot transportation) and some nike running shoes. Those are boring and not nearly as 'DISer' though.

Quintessential to survival at a Disney park is a good bag. I've found that, with this Vera Bradley mini-hipster. The strap lays comfortably on my shoulder, and it holds all my worldly possessions. Like the good ol' camera. And my phone. And KTTW. And I'm tired of these little sentences.

It's a little on the pricey side, but well worth it, I'd say.

So here ends this post. I'm sure you're all very happy about that. I cannot help it, people! I am a TALKER. I can make a conversation about mud if you'd like. I could've just posted all these pictures and let you figure it out by yourself, but that's just borrrrring. And I'm anything but boring (laugh if you must).

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

nice update!! I have that calendar!!!!!!

..my mom has that VB bag and LOVES it. She used hers at WDW until she bought a WDW backpack but decided it was easier to get a cell phone, chapstick etc. out of the VB bag and then switched back haha.

I also have those crocs and crocs are great in the parks! but they give me blisters from time to time Have u tried those Nike Flip Flops?! they are wonderful and I wear those like they are tennis shoes/sneakers but they are horrid in the rain!

..can't wait for more!

 

[BabyPiglet]

nice update!! I have that calendar!!!!!!

..my mom has that VB bag and LOVES it. She used hers at WDW until she bought a WDW backpack but decided it was easier to get a cell phone, chapstick etc. out of the VB bag and then switched back haha.

I also have those crocs and crocs are great in the parks! but they give me blisters from time to time Have u tried those Nike Flip Flops?! they are wonderful and I wear those like they are tennis shoes/sneakers but they are horrid in the rain!

..can't wait for more!

Awesome! Yeah we buy a Disney calendar every year when we're there. And then we precede to scribble and mark all over it, haha.

I do know about Nike flipflops, but they just don't feet good on my feet. It's like the toe area is too large or something, and my foot slides around. My feet are weird. They're actually too small for crocs (they slide around a lot) but I manage.

And yes, rain, haha. I was wearing flip flops last September when we got caught in a huge rain shower at the TTC. As I was coming down the monorail ramp, I actually kind of slid downwards! Now I'll most likely wear crocs or flip flops, and put the nikes in the stroller (gotta love that storage!) to be used if it starts raining.

Most likely I'll be posting about the birthday next. I noticed I hadn't told you guys we're celebrating a birthday on this trip!

 

[BabyPiglet]

This part of this has absolutely nothing to do with my plans, movie reviews, or random pictures, but it’s some things I wanted to discuss.

1) I’m probably going to start doing updates on certain days. It just seems like it’d be so much more structured that way, and I can make a plan so this drags out for 3 more weeks. First I was thinking Tuesday and Thursday, but between Thursday and Tuesday is kind of a long time to go without an update.

The reason I was thinking those days is because that’s when I don’t have class (hah, no I wasn’t joking about that college freshman part in the intro. I’ll talk more about that later. Let’s keep on track, shall we?). But then again, on those days I should probably be focusing on studying or writing papers or some other nonsense…er, important school related business.

So then I was thinking the evenings of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday would be a good time. What do you think? I go to class those days, but I’m kind of all tuckered out from school stuff, so I try to do the bulk of my studying on Tuesday and Thursday.

My last class is at noon, and then I have this big chunk of my day where I just do random stuff. I’m either watching daytime tv (not-so-likely), on the computer doing homework (semi-likely), or DISing (95% likely). I figure, if I’m already DISing, why not add something to the DIS world? Why not use that time to update my PTR?

And I can’t very well update on the weekends. I’m usually busy swimming, shopping for Disney, or spending quality time with the family. Or uhm…doing homework, dontcha know?

So, we have decided. This TR will now be updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday! I’m drawing up some organized plans as we speak!

2) Yes, there’s one more teensy tiny thing. I’m not happy with the title of this sucker. It just doesn’t fit my personality. Sure, it fits with the intro of my PTR, but…I just don’t know about it. I can be so witty usually, but I’m just not comin’ up with anything better.

SO, I’m reaching out to my readers. I know you feel for me. If you have any suggestions, any at all, I’d totally love to hear them! You’ve read quite a few chapters so far, you know my personality, go crazy, go wild, come up with anything, if you can.

Okay, thanks for listening to me blabber on for another post. You’re all great! My next chapter will probably be about birthdays!

 

[BabyPiglet]

So there I was, typing away at my pre-trip report, when I realized ‘oh my goodness, I haven’t told them about the birthday!’ How could I forget? Especially with all the ‘what will you celebrate?’ promotion popping up everywhere.

Okay, so almost 57 years and 1 month ago, somebody rather important to me was born. Ohh, I guess you could call him super important to me! It’s my daddy! Please don’t kill me for posting your age, dad. I love you!

As you all know, we’ve been for the past two years around this time. On our September 2007 trip I even had a cake delivered for my dad during our Chef Mickey’s dinner. It was really yummy, but we didn’t really have a way to store/eat it in our room, so I kind of went to waste. I won’t be doing that again, I’ll just get him a cake when we get back home if he wants it.

Although during that trip he wouldn’t wear that darn birthday button!
Well don’t you worry my fellow Disney lovers, I will be FORCING him to pin that sucker on his shirt every single morning!

So I’ve put it on all of our dining reservations (I’m secretly hoping to embarrass him with pixie dusted tables and little free cupcakes!). I’ve also added that it’s Laura Jane’s first visit. I’m not sure how they really celebrate this (?), but I figure I’d put it on there anyways.

So there you go. I figure we’ll get the birthday fun card, instead of the free admission. Since we don’t need free admission. Since we have annual passes. HAH, be jealous.

My next update will be more pre-trip pictures and, of course, lots of talk!

 

[Ms.Squeakers]

Woot! Sounds fun!!

10 days at Disney? Ooh, for a five year old! She may get homesick :-/

Except...I have NO idea how you can get HOME SICK at Disney. but It could happen if your without your parents for a long period of time at such a young age.

 

[BabyPiglet]

Woot! Sounds fun!!

10 days at Disney? Ooh, for a five year old! She may get homesick :-/

Except...I have NO idea how you can get HOME SICK at Disney. but It could happen if your without your parents for a long period of time at such a young age.

Yeah, I am a little worried about that. We're really close though, so I hope that will help some.

 

[AmandaSparks730]

As long as she meets Ariel!

It's so close! In the "teens" now!

 

[BabyPiglet]

As long as she meets Ariel!

It's so close! In the "teens" now!

Oh my gosh, I know! When I marked today off my calendar (I mark it off at noon) I jumped for joy, literally! Me and my dad were just acting crazy silly.

And the best part? When I go back to school, I'll only have 12 days left, and only 6 days of class!

I need about a million of those dancing bananas to describe my excitement.