2diamonds&a~gem
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2005
- Messages
- 226
So we flew out of Indianapolis on Sunday the 5th. Back on Christmas Eve when I got the awesome DING- I was so hopeful that my Colts would be playing in the big game on the 5th. Had a great shirt designed by Kate with Mickey wearing a Colts uniform on the field with: My Daddy missed the big game to give me the WORLD! But, we ended up not needing that design after all.... 
YEA! to the Steelers, glad the team the Colts lost to turned out to be the best! 
This is not our first trip, but it is the first trip report.
Here is us:
Me- 28-has been to WDW 4 times since Oct of 2004- has planned a 14 person Grand Gathering for Sept 2006 & a Land & Sea for April or Sept of 2007.
DH- 29-has been to WDW same 4 times & wishes I would plan cheaper vacations, but really knows that we will be going to WDW 2x's per year for a long time.
DD- 30 mos- has been the same 4 times- doesnt know that there are kids that have never been to Mic Mouse House.
Dining reviews to follow in the Dining section.
So we have a very uneventful flight, thank you Southwest. We arrive at POP & are through the check in and off to the room within 10 minutes. We are in room 5422 in the 60's, forth floor view of the lake and Baloo's rear end every time we go to the elevator. (But I have seen worse)
We have a king size bed, that suits DD just fine for regular jumping.
**** We were so very lucky to have an AWESOME mousekeeper! We had 3 washcloth mice waiting for us when we arrived & later in the week we got a dove. Several times Pal Mickey, Baby Jax (CPK) and Mickey bear where hanging (not the scary kind of hanging, more like swinging) from the curtains in the window when we returned.**** We were very pleased with these tiny extras! Thanks again!
So on Sunday- We are off to 1900 for dinner and then to DQ. DTD was nearly empty. Not sure if it was the game of just this time of year or that MK was open til 12:00am?
Monday- breakfast at Chef Mickeys, then to AK & then to Epcot for dinner @ LeCellier. AK was great this was our first visit to any parks other than MK. The safari was awesome, even @ 1:30 in the afternoon we saw all the animals. In camp Minnie/Mickey we found Donald and when DD got her turn she marches up to him & says: "raaaaarh" in her best lion/tiger/bear/ really any animal she likes to assign this noise to grawl. Donald jumps back acts scared and starts laughing at her & she falls madly in love with him. This was an awesome sight. DD fell asleep on the safari, so we soon left & off to Epcot.
--> Now this is not the norm but I will still share the pixie dust we received...
OUr ADR was for 4:30 @ LeCellier, I called for a later time as we were delayed @ Chef Mickeys until noon and we were not ready to eat again. Nothing later, so ok, just cancel. Once we were in Epcot, I called dining and asked to speak to LeCellier. I ask the hostess if there is any chance to get in tonight, explain that I had an ADR for 4:30 & CANCELED as we were not ready to eat & CM troubles & blah, blah, blah... so can we still come??? Please, Please, PLease? Hostess is off to talk to manager and back to say how soon can you get here? I can be there in 10 minutes! OK? OK! Great, on the way. So I super fast walk from The Living Seas to LeCellier, DH- Are we late for something? (He has no idea what goes into planning & making all things "work" on trips. He has been with me during the phone calls but still has no idea what is going on & how LUCKY we have just gotten) So we are at LeCellier like um 3 minutes later. We were seated immediatly, this all took place around 6:00-6:20.
DD is only 34.5 inches so we were very limited as to what we could do. We rode the boat thing in The Land, but were denied Soarin due to her height. But I would rather skip it than put her in any kind of danger. (The super fast walking from Living Seas to LeCellier was dangerous enough.
)
So on Tuesday we had an 8:05 ADR at CP @ MK... so I am sure you know where this is going. Disney freak of a mom, with a toddler, from Dis, with first ADR of the day--> running to the castle waiting for the rope to drop & again the dangerous stroller ride accross the bricks to Tinkerbells Treasures. All I can say is MAGIC! PIXIE DUST for all! Breakfast was great, all the characters were amazing with DD and gave her lots of attention. Funny thing was that when we were waiting at the rope to enter MK, I start chating with another mom & gramma and 2 kids, a boy around 5ish and a girl around 7ish.
MOM: You going to CP?
Me: Yes and you?
MOM: Yep 805 ADR.
Me: Thinking but not saying- she said ADR- she knows stuff... she is not a rookie & they are going to CP @ 805, they are going to try to wake Tink!
Me: Are you from the Dis?
MOM: No but I am on another Disney board.
Me: Thinking but not saying- there are other Disney boards?
OK so the rope comes down, off again as if it is the Indy 500 to CP... we are the second ones to check in and are seated within minutes. I cant see the "intruders" anywhere. It is now 8:50ish and we are off to the castle, when it happens. The mom, gramma and the kids pass us. DH, bless his heart, he says "they were nice, huh?" I look at him as if he sprouted ears like Stitch and say "They are going to try to wake Tink, you know that right?" DH says "How do you know?" I say "Did you not see how that mom looks? She is on a mission, look how fast they are walking, she is determined!" Now DH looks at me as if I sprouted the Stitch ears. I love how innocent he is.
We get to the castle, we are at the rope with the "intruders" so I say to the little girl "you gonna try to wake Tink?" She looks at me like I spoke in Greek and said "yes" so I say "I can out run you." She looks at her mom and back at me and says "I can out run second grade boys." I am cracking up, she is so sweet and really my DD has no idea what is going on anyway and I know we will have many other trips in the future and this may be a once in a lifetime thing for her, so I have melted. So we are chatting for the next few minutes and the gramma says to my new friend Courtney, "let her do it, she is so young" talking about my DD, I say "not a chance, Courtney will wake Tink, and Asher will watch and then we will do a fake picture with the wand and it will be perfect." Now here is an interesting bit, there was a guided tour that was stopped in front of Tinks while we were talking and when the rope dropped Courtney runs up the middle of the group and says to the tour guide "I wanna wake Tink!" I am in a panic, fearing some other kid, other than my new friend Courtney is gonna get in the store first and so we (me and DD) take off- full run with the stroller, mind you not a jogging stroller- accross the bricks for the shop, I am yelling at her to get inside the store... we walk in together and she is silent. I yell out "We wanna wake Tink!" and push her to the middle of the store. 
We did it! Courtney was on 
and her mom & gramma I think were in shock that a stranger would give it up to let her do it. It was an amazing experience all the way around. We cheered when Tink "flew" around the room & I took a picture of Courtney smiling ear to ear and after it was over she said "I have been thinking about this for 39 days!" This really couldnt have gone any better and I will never forget it. So MK was empty and we rode everything and went to the judges tent for Snow White & Snow Prince, Aurora & Cinderella.
I will add that I did the autograph pages that the super folks in the Dis design area have & they were very popular with the characters.Each had their own page with their name and picture on it, they all turned out great.
I will also say that I made a different tee shirt for DD for each of the four days we would be at the parks and they were a big hit with the characters too! (Pics to follow) Big thanks and credit to those that made the designs. I will post a thanks to them directly on the DDA thread.
OK- so my granny & granddad live in Bartow & they drove over to spend the next 4 days with us, so we had dinner on Tuesday at Ohana. It was great! This was G&G's first time to WDW & they loved the food and atmosphere at the Poly.
Wednesday we are off to MGM looking for more characters and the Ariel show. We also stumble into the Chicken Little tour thingy- with Chicken Little & Abby Mallard at the end, this was a big hit with DD. We saw the muppets 3D, DD not such a fan as she doesnt "know" them like she does several of the others. Note- Aliddan scared the crap out of DD, was very funny at the time & still is. He wears tons of make up and has truly funny hair, so I can see why she was scared. The real reason is that she has never seen his movie so she didnt "know" him. But it was funny. We tire of MGM & we are off to Epcot for a trip around the world & to find that pastry shop in France. We are to dine at WCC @ WL at 7:20, again I try to get a earlier ADR, but none. So we go early... with the hope of a early entry. We get there at 5:20ish & are seated within 5 minutes.
What is this about? Dining says booked for the night & when we talk to the hostess "sure come on in, we have plenty of seating." Whatever... DD is out of diapers and this was our first trip with a potty using toddler, so we see every bathroom several times. In the potty at WL by WCC, I see a Diser. 
About $3.00 worth of pennies in the brook later we are off back to the room for LOST. We left the table about 7:35ish, when we werent even to be there until 7:20. Again the magic was with us.
We are so close to the end and I start to feel badly about having to leave...
Thursday we are off to 1900 for a character breakfast with G&G, while we already have Pooh & Tigger from CP, we are set to get Mary Poppins, Alice & Mad Hatter. Mad Hatter was so good to DD- spent lots of time with us, even though DD didnt love him, she was just ok with him being around. Tummys full we are over to DTD for some shopping @ Goofys candy shop, how great is that jelly bean goofy sign in the shop? I love that, it really is the small stuff that makes the difference. Got an ornament @ the Christmas shop, played in the Lego area for ever it seemed, stopped at the McD's for an ice cream cone and coffee for G&G, they said they need to warm up. Funny how low 60's to us means tank tops and jeans or capris and to them long sleeve tops, pants and jackets. We had awesome weather the whole time we were there. We never swam but saw many every morning & night in the Hippie Dippy. In the morning I wore a light Old Navy sweat jacket over a tank top & capris, around 11ish I could lose the jacket until say 5ish. Perfect weather!
Thursday afternoon we had AAA Storybook thingy- so we are the MK around 2:30ish and man-o-man is it packed, now not really like summer time or christmas or even like during last years free dining, but compared to Tuesday... it was like Christmas week. Oddly everyone seemed to disappear after say 4pm.
Musta been my wishful thinking or that potion, either way, yea for us. We saw the Mayor on Main Street, is he always there? This was our first time to see him and I read on a site that he was rarely out, so I didnt print a autograph page for him. So he signed on a blank and we were off to story time. Who do you imagine would be doing the story reading this day???? But of course Alice, who we already had breakfast with that same day. 
Why couldnt it be someone super rare? Someone really great like..... well I cant really think of who, but Alice? As it turned out, DD remembered her from breakfast & in the middle of the story reading DD says to Alice "where are your tea cups?" and when Alice doesnt answer her "where are your tea cups?" even louder. Alice from breakfast talked to her about riding in Alices tea cups. This was priceless and turned out to be a favorite. If you have AAA try to do this, it only took 20 or so minutes and was very small, maybe 10 families total. It was great!
Thursday night back at POP DH says... "well if you die, we wont have trips this good anymore." I am on . He is odd. He goes on to say... "I would just got on the plane & show up & try to get a room somewhere & then just show up at the places I wanted to eat." I am laughing hystarical 
, but I keep it in for he is trying to say that he appriciates what I have done and damn I love this man!
And it is Friday-- time to leave.
Thanks so much to Walt for his vision, to all the folks that work at WDW to make it magical for us and to the really special folks that go above and beyond the norm, the folks that love their job, the ones that want to make us happy give us awesome memories not just collect a pay check. Thanks to Kristin at AAA- she is amazing. Thanks to my amazing DH for letting me drag his happy butt twice a year. And finally thanks to all the great chefs at WDW I gained 6 pounds.
Back to the treadmill I go. And now to plan for Sept. 180 days ADR's start on March 23rd, I cant wait! 
YEA! to the Steelers, glad the team the Colts lost to turned out to be the best! This is not our first trip, but it is the first trip report.Here is us:
Me- 28-has been to WDW 4 times since Oct of 2004- has planned a 14 person Grand Gathering for Sept 2006 & a Land & Sea for April or Sept of 2007.
DH- 29-has been to WDW same 4 times & wishes I would plan cheaper vacations, but really knows that we will be going to WDW 2x's per year for a long time.
DD- 30 mos- has been the same 4 times- doesnt know that there are kids that have never been to Mic Mouse House.
Dining reviews to follow in the Dining section.
So we have a very uneventful flight, thank you Southwest. We arrive at POP & are through the check in and off to the room within 10 minutes. We are in room 5422 in the 60's, forth floor view of the lake and Baloo's rear end every time we go to the elevator. (But I have seen worse)
We have a king size bed, that suits DD just fine for regular jumping.
**** We were so very lucky to have an AWESOME mousekeeper! We had 3 washcloth mice waiting for us when we arrived & later in the week we got a dove. Several times Pal Mickey, Baby Jax (CPK) and Mickey bear where hanging (not the scary kind of hanging, more like swinging) from the curtains in the window when we returned.**** We were very pleased with these tiny extras! Thanks again!
So on Sunday- We are off to 1900 for dinner and then to DQ. DTD was nearly empty. Not sure if it was the game of just this time of year or that MK was open til 12:00am?
Monday- breakfast at Chef Mickeys, then to AK & then to Epcot for dinner @ LeCellier. AK was great this was our first visit to any parks other than MK. The safari was awesome, even @ 1:30 in the afternoon we saw all the animals. In camp Minnie/Mickey we found Donald and when DD got her turn she marches up to him & says: "raaaaarh" in her best lion/tiger/bear/ really any animal she likes to assign this noise to grawl. Donald jumps back acts scared and starts laughing at her & she falls madly in love with him. This was an awesome sight. DD fell asleep on the safari, so we soon left & off to Epcot.
--> Now this is not the norm but I will still share the pixie dust we received...
OUr ADR was for 4:30 @ LeCellier, I called for a later time as we were delayed @ Chef Mickeys until noon and we were not ready to eat again. Nothing later, so ok, just cancel. Once we were in Epcot, I called dining and asked to speak to LeCellier. I ask the hostess if there is any chance to get in tonight, explain that I had an ADR for 4:30 & CANCELED as we were not ready to eat & CM troubles & blah, blah, blah... so can we still come??? Please, Please, PLease? Hostess is off to talk to manager and back to say how soon can you get here? I can be there in 10 minutes! OK? OK! Great, on the way. So I super fast walk from The Living Seas to LeCellier, DH- Are we late for something? (He has no idea what goes into planning & making all things "work" on trips. He has been with me during the phone calls but still has no idea what is going on & how LUCKY we have just gotten) So we are at LeCellier like um 3 minutes later. We were seated immediatly, this all took place around 6:00-6:20.
DD is only 34.5 inches so we were very limited as to what we could do. We rode the boat thing in The Land, but were denied Soarin due to her height. But I would rather skip it than put her in any kind of danger. (The super fast walking from Living Seas to LeCellier was dangerous enough.
)So on Tuesday we had an 8:05 ADR at CP @ MK... so I am sure you know where this is going. Disney freak of a mom, with a toddler, from Dis, with first ADR of the day--> running to the castle waiting for the rope to drop & again the dangerous stroller ride accross the bricks to Tinkerbells Treasures. All I can say is MAGIC! PIXIE DUST for all! Breakfast was great, all the characters were amazing with DD and gave her lots of attention. Funny thing was that when we were waiting at the rope to enter MK, I start chating with another mom & gramma and 2 kids, a boy around 5ish and a girl around 7ish.
MOM: You going to CP?
Me: Yes and you?
MOM: Yep 805 ADR.
Me: Thinking but not saying- she said ADR- she knows stuff... she is not a rookie & they are going to CP @ 805, they are going to try to wake Tink!
Me: Are you from the Dis?
MOM: No but I am on another Disney board.
Me: Thinking but not saying- there are other Disney boards?
OK so the rope comes down, off again as if it is the Indy 500 to CP... we are the second ones to check in and are seated within minutes. I cant see the "intruders" anywhere. It is now 8:50ish and we are off to the castle, when it happens. The mom, gramma and the kids pass us. DH, bless his heart, he says "they were nice, huh?" I look at him as if he sprouted ears like Stitch and say "They are going to try to wake Tink, you know that right?" DH says "How do you know?" I say "Did you not see how that mom looks? She is on a mission, look how fast they are walking, she is determined!" Now DH looks at me as if I sprouted the Stitch ears. I love how innocent he is.
We get to the castle, we are at the rope with the "intruders" so I say to the little girl "you gonna try to wake Tink?" She looks at me like I spoke in Greek and said "yes" so I say "I can out run you." She looks at her mom and back at me and says "I can out run second grade boys." I am cracking up, she is so sweet and really my DD has no idea what is going on anyway and I know we will have many other trips in the future and this may be a once in a lifetime thing for her, so I have melted. So we are chatting for the next few minutes and the gramma says to my new friend Courtney, "let her do it, she is so young" talking about my DD, I say "not a chance, Courtney will wake Tink, and Asher will watch and then we will do a fake picture with the wand and it will be perfect." Now here is an interesting bit, there was a guided tour that was stopped in front of Tinks while we were talking and when the rope dropped Courtney runs up the middle of the group and says to the tour guide "I wanna wake Tink!" I am in a panic, fearing some other kid, other than my new friend Courtney is gonna get in the store first and so we (me and DD) take off- full run with the stroller, mind you not a jogging stroller- accross the bricks for the shop, I am yelling at her to get inside the store... we walk in together and she is silent. I yell out "We wanna wake Tink!" and push her to the middle of the store. We did it! Courtney was on and her mom & gramma I think were in shock that a stranger would give it up to let her do it. It was an amazing experience all the way around. We cheered when Tink "flew" around the room & I took a picture of Courtney smiling ear to ear and after it was over she said "I have been thinking about this for 39 days!" This really couldnt have gone any better and I will never forget it. So MK was empty and we rode everything and went to the judges tent for Snow White & Snow Prince, Aurora & Cinderella. I will add that I did the autograph pages that the super folks in the Dis design area have & they were very popular with the characters.Each had their own page with their name and picture on it, they all turned out great.
I will also say that I made a different tee shirt for DD for each of the four days we would be at the parks and they were a big hit with the characters too! (Pics to follow) Big thanks and credit to those that made the designs. I will post a thanks to them directly on the DDA thread.
OK- so my granny & granddad live in Bartow & they drove over to spend the next 4 days with us, so we had dinner on Tuesday at Ohana. It was great! This was G&G's first time to WDW & they loved the food and atmosphere at the Poly.
Wednesday we are off to MGM looking for more characters and the Ariel show. We also stumble into the Chicken Little tour thingy- with Chicken Little & Abby Mallard at the end, this was a big hit with DD. We saw the muppets 3D, DD not such a fan as she doesnt "know" them like she does several of the others. Note- Aliddan scared the crap out of DD, was very funny at the time & still is. He wears tons of make up and has truly funny hair, so I can see why she was scared. The real reason is that she has never seen his movie so she didnt "know" him. But it was funny. We tire of MGM & we are off to Epcot for a trip around the world & to find that pastry shop in France. We are to dine at WCC @ WL at 7:20, again I try to get a earlier ADR, but none. So we go early... with the hope of a early entry. We get there at 5:20ish & are seated within 5 minutes.
What is this about? Dining says booked for the night & when we talk to the hostess "sure come on in, we have plenty of seating." Whatever... DD is out of diapers and this was our first trip with a potty using toddler, so we see every bathroom several times. In the potty at WL by WCC, I see a Diser. About $3.00 worth of pennies in the brook later we are off back to the room for LOST. We left the table about 7:35ish, when we werent even to be there until 7:20. Again the magic was with us. We are so close to the end and I start to feel badly about having to leave...
Thursday we are off to 1900 for a character breakfast with G&G, while we already have Pooh & Tigger from CP, we are set to get Mary Poppins, Alice & Mad Hatter. Mad Hatter was so good to DD- spent lots of time with us, even though DD didnt love him, she was just ok with him being around. Tummys full we are over to DTD for some shopping @ Goofys candy shop, how great is that jelly bean goofy sign in the shop? I love that, it really is the small stuff that makes the difference. Got an ornament @ the Christmas shop, played in the Lego area for ever it seemed, stopped at the McD's for an ice cream cone and coffee for G&G, they said they need to warm up. Funny how low 60's to us means tank tops and jeans or capris and to them long sleeve tops, pants and jackets. We had awesome weather the whole time we were there. We never swam but saw many every morning & night in the Hippie Dippy. In the morning I wore a light Old Navy sweat jacket over a tank top & capris, around 11ish I could lose the jacket until say 5ish. Perfect weather!
Thursday afternoon we had AAA Storybook thingy- so we are the MK around 2:30ish and man-o-man is it packed, now not really like summer time or christmas or even like during last years free dining, but compared to Tuesday... it was like Christmas week. Oddly everyone seemed to disappear after say 4pm.
Musta been my wishful thinking or that potion, either way, yea for us. We saw the Mayor on Main Street, is he always there? This was our first time to see him and I read on a site that he was rarely out, so I didnt print a autograph page for him. So he signed on a blank and we were off to story time. Who do you imagine would be doing the story reading this day???? But of course Alice, who we already had breakfast with that same day. Why couldnt it be someone super rare? Someone really great like..... well I cant really think of who, but Alice? As it turned out, DD remembered her from breakfast & in the middle of the story reading DD says to Alice "where are your tea cups?" and when Alice doesnt answer her "where are your tea cups?" even louder. Alice from breakfast talked to her about riding in Alices tea cups. This was priceless and turned out to be a favorite. If you have AAA try to do this, it only took 20 or so minutes and was very small, maybe 10 families total. It was great!Thursday night back at POP DH says... "well if you die, we wont have trips this good anymore." I am on
. He is odd. He goes on to say... "I would just got on the plane & show up & try to get a room somewhere & then just show up at the places I wanted to eat." I am laughing hystarical , but I keep it in for he is trying to say that he appriciates what I have done and damn I love this man! And it is Friday-- time to leave.
Thanks so much to Walt for his vision, to all the folks that work at WDW to make it magical for us and to the really special folks that go above and beyond the norm, the folks that love their job, the ones that want to make us happy give us awesome memories not just collect a pay check. Thanks to Kristin at AAA- she is amazing. Thanks to my amazing DH for letting me drag his happy butt twice a year. And finally thanks to all the great chefs at WDW I gained 6 pounds.
Back to the treadmill I go. And now to plan for Sept. 180 days ADR's start on March 23rd, I cant wait! 
