Two Middle-Aged Moms & Tears Around the World!

[TaraPA]

I just didn't know how to make the title for this trip report! No matter what I typed it didn't make sense, or was too "cutsie" or whatever. So here it is, Two Middle-Aged Moms & Tears Around the World!

I am T, have been to WDW 9 times since 1999, and love the place. Can't get enough. I'm 37 & have 2 sons. C is my friend who has 6 kids, late forties & has visited WDW a few times in her life, the last being in 2001 with all 6 kids. She had heard me talking about my solo trip in May & decided she just had to get away & come with me for an adults only vacation. We made the arrangements, had back-up plans in place for the kids & off we went! We just started planning this in September so it went fairly quickly.

DAY ONE
Perfect flights, got in early to MCO at 1pm, grabbed a cab & off we went to The Dolphin. I chose this hotel because I love the location. I absolutely love being able to walk or take the boat to Epcot & MGM, and MK is just a 5-minute bus ride away. At check-in we were upgraded to a fireworks view of Epcot deluxe room with a balcony. YEAH! Thank you DH, for your Starwood Gold status!

Our view from the balcony:

 

[TaraPA]

We had tickets for MVMCP so we decided to shower & relax & get ready for that at 4pm, rather than to rush to a park & use a day of our park hoppers. Neither of us had been to MVMCP before, we were like excited little children getting ready.

We got to MK right at 4pm & it was fairly crowded. We did manage to do all of the attractions we wanted to. I even tried Space Mountain - a first for me! Although my mom tells me I rode this as a child, I don't remember it.

Another first - my first DOLE WHIP!!!! WOW now this is great! It would have been much better had it not been 60 degrees & breezy, but well, it was better then being in PA where it was 30 degrees!

 

[heaven2dc]

How fun - a girls' trip! My DBFF & I spent 4 days 01/31-02/3/08 and had a blast (her first visit & she went along just so I wouldn't have to be alone).

Don't you just love those "firsts" at WDW?!! I had a Dole Whip for the first time too last visit and loved it. Can't wait to hear how you liked the MVMCP - I had to skip it for my trip next week but maybe someday

Your view is awesome! It's so fun to stay in the Epcot area (I have Boardwalk view at BWV and can't wait to see what room I get).

 

[TaraPA]

Wow heaven2dc - only 4 more days for you! Have another Dole Whip for me please!

DAY ONE EVENING
Ok here comes the tears moment #1...

We were riding TTA & as we came out of the Buzz Lightyear ride we look over & the castle lit up! All those millions of twinkling lights right before our very eyes. There's no way it could have been timed any more perfectly, it was amazing. We both looked at each other like OMG this is going to be the best trip. And then we got all teary!

This pic was taken about 30 min. later...

 

[TaraPA]

MVMCP was great but I'm not sure I'd need to do it again. Ok if I was with friends, yes, with my kids, then probably not. They are usually cranky & miserable by 8pm in WDW, so that would stress me out. C & I saw 'Twas The Night Before Christmas, the parade & the fireworks. Fun fun fun! We also consumed more hot chocolate than should be allowed! It was very chilly that night, I'd say 50 degrees with a slight breeze, so the hot chocolate really helped. I realize it's only Nestle powdered hot chocolate, but in WDW it just tastes better!

C getting hot chocolate...

I didn't think it was over-crowded, but it wasn't as packed as I thought it would be. We did all of our favorite attractions 1-2 times, then called it a night at 11:30. We got right on a bus for S/D and were back in the room & asleep by midnight!

Coming up next...Day 3 at AK & Epcot & the crazy bus lady...

 

[scottny]

Hi,
Just found your report and the title intrigued me.

Great start. The castle pic is gorgeous.

I leave Saturday and cannot wait.

Congrats on the upgrade of the room.

 

[TaraPA]

I forgot to add that I saw 2 DIS-ers at MVMCP! Hi Jamstew & RedBudLover!! I recognized Jamstew (Jamie) because I met her in WDW in May at a DIS Meet, and have been chatting with her on here routinely. It was funny because she didn't turn around when I called her name - only after I called her screen name!

Off to work now but tons of pics to post later. Oh yeah and the crazy bus lady!

 

[Villainess]

I'm in - how fun - a girls' only trip!

 

[PrincessAlways]

Hey Tara! Love your title..... Great start! Don't you just love that castle!!

 

[TaraPA]

DAY TWO
I absolutely love AK so I couldn't wait to get up & go. There's something about the atmosphere in this park that is magical to me. I can take a good hour or more just strolling from Africa to Asia, checking out all the little paths that shoot off. We got there for rope drop & while people were 10-15 deep it wasn't a madhouse. Love the Christmas tree here. We got fast passes for the Kilimanjaro Safari (30 min. wait at opening) and wale the Pangani Forest Trail. I LOVE the gorillas on this trail, and today they were out in full force once again.

I'm a foodie, C is not. So we only had 3 sit-down meals, the rest were snacks all over the place. After pastries & coffe at Kusafiri Bakery I stopped for a vegetable egg roll at the little cart in Asia. It was surprisingly good! We went down one of those little side trails towards the water in Asia & just sat in the sun & took it all in. We got a little teary. Tears moment #2! I doesn't take much for us obviously.

We walked the Maharajah Jungle Trek which I also love. We had our 1st laugh-til-you-cry moment here. We realized we didn't have any pics of us together, so we saw a nice family & asked if they would mind taking our picture. Well the man said sure & started snapping away. We said 1 pic was fine & he said no no, let me get some more. Meanwhile his entire family had left him, and he just kept zooming in & zooming in to take more pictures. After a few minutes we finally say thank you & take our cameras, and C starts cracking up. She looks at me & says "Didn't you realize he was fixated on your chest & kept taking pictures? I think he wanted his real family to leave so he could come with us!" I guess you had to be there, but it was really funny. And yes, when I saw my pics, there are several close ups from our chests up!

C had never done EE, I had tried it for the 1st time on my solo trip in May & loved it. We only had a 10 minute wait in the single rider line YAY! We got off & got right back in line & rode it again. We did Dinosaur, my favorite ride, and then headed out to Epcot. Here's the crazy bus lady story...we're in line waiting for the bus for Epcot. The bus behind us (no idea where it was going) starts to slowly pull away & this lady, who obviously wanted to be on that bus, started waving & screaming for him to wait. She was pretty far away from him, so she should have realized there was no way she was going to make that bus. She runs out in the line of busses coming & going still screaming at him. He motions for her to get out of the way & go back to wait in line & she starts kicking the bus & cursing at him! She's pounding her fists on the side of the moving bus screaming "You son of a b***h! You can stop for me! You bas***d!" I was so stunned I forgot to get a picture. I know how frustrating it is to see the bus you want pulling away but seriously, they can't just stop in the line of traffic to pick someone up or they'd be doing that all the time! Everyone was cracking up but trying to conceal it in case she was crazy & would come start yelling at us! We couldn't stop laughing. She was a large lady with 2 HUGE fanny packs and some light-up spinning hat on her head. Kicking & pounding on a Disney bus in motion! You had to see it to believe it.

 

[heaven2dc]

Wow - what a day at AK! At first I thought that lady might have had left a purse or something valuable on the bus or her kids got on before her and she was trying to catch up with them but now I think she was just plain crazy

 

[TaraPA]

DAY TWO CONTINUED..

We took the bus over to Epcot & hopped on a few attraction -Ellen's Universe of Energy being one of my faves! Did Mission Space Green - I had never done this before, and liked it. The wait for Soarin was 90 min. & fast passes were gone, so we decided to try that another time. Teary moment # 3 (or is it #4 by now?) - for some reason I get teary on Living With The Land boat ride. I remember being on this with my grandparents when I was a child & they just loved the ride. They were farmers & they were so interested in everything. They are now deceased, so when it gets to the part with the farm house, showing the black & white pictures of farmers, I choke up. Dork, yes, I know!

We raced over to WS around 3:30 to see how the line was for the 5:00pm CP. OMG the line was crazy long already! C really wanted to see this, but we decided to skip the line & just hang out at the ropes right in front of the CP pavillion (across from American Adventure). We ran around a few countries & headed to the rope around 4:30pm. No one else was there, surprisingly, and no one made us move. By 5pm they cut the line off, the CP was full to capacity, and we had a great view from right there. It suddenly filled up where we were standing, people were 5 deep by the rope. C is a huge fan of Brian Stokes Mitchell - so when he began, she cried. Yes Teary Moment Number 5! I wanted to explore more countries, so we agreed to meet in front of Morocco (my fave) at 5:45.

We headed back through the International Gateway to The Dolphin. We stopped at the Flying Fish on the way to make a 7:15pm reservation. We showered & headed back out to Flying Fish. I LOVED the atmosphere & the food! We sat at the Chef's Bar where you are watching them cook. It ended up the chef right in front of us is originally from a town just 20 miles from where we live. C had an arugula salad & mussels, I had oak grilled scallops. YUM.

 

[TaraPA]

DAY TWO EVENING - and more tears!

After Flying Fish we walked back over to Epcot. It was EMH so we had plenty of time to do the attractions we had missed earlier or wanted to do again. We decided to see what the wait for Soarin was during Illuminations - what a good idea - 20 minutes!!!! I have never seen a smaller wait for Soarin. So we got in line & really only waited 15 min. I am terrified of heights, so I wasn't even sure about doing this, but C convinced me it would be great. HA. As soon as it started & we went over the Golden Gate bridge I freaked. I hate water too, so Soarin' over that really did me in. The little boy aside of me hanging out over the lap bar wasn't helping me either! C was loving every minute of it. I covered my eyes. Tears were starting to well up, that's how scared I was. Everytime she said "OMG look how beautiful" I would peek & get even more scared! At the end she started cracking up because of how childish I was acting - then we got the giggles. I don't know if I was crying from being so scared or from seeing her crack up, but the tears were flowing!!

We headed over to Spaceship Earth which is one of my favorites. I love anything historical & I think the scenes in this ride are amazing. Almost to the point of making me teary! Well...the biggest tears are about to come...if you've ridden SPE in the past year since the rehab you'll remember the end, where you are asked questions about your lifestyle, and then the computer makes up a little skit about you in the future. Well they take a picture of each of you & insert your face on these Jetson-type cartoon characters' bodies. When our skit came up it was positively hilarious. We lost it. We were laughing so hard we hurt, and our make-up was running down our faces. The even funnier thing was that no one else around us seemed to think this was funny. Not one. We must have seemed like a bunch of intoxicated crazies. We could barely get off the ride we were laughing so hard. SO what did we do? We got right back on to answer the questions differently to see what new skit we would get. OMG the 2nd one was even funnier than the 1st. I have never laughed so hard in my life. Here is a pic of the screen, I guess you had to be there, my family didn't really think it was funny either!

 

[PrincessAlways]

OMG....that bus lady was certainly crazy!!!! That must have been something to see! Don't know how you kept from laughing! Well, I don't think you'll be riding Soarin again!

 

[LISAMWDW]

Omg, you had a crazy day encounter with the guy taking a million pictures and the crazy lady trying to hijack the bus!

Can't wait for more!

 

[WDWMaiselFamilyWDW]

Loving this TR! I have an equally Disney-obsessed friend (equal to myself, that is) who I would love to take a girls-only trip with. So I am living vicariously! Looks like so much fun. Bet we could match or beat your teary count!

 

[OhMari]

Bump to the front.

 

[TaraPA]

OMG I forgot to finish my trip report!!!

On to Day Three....Four Parks In One Day!

This was our last full day & we wanted to make the most of it. We got up & headed to DHS (I noticed I called this MGM earlier - it will always be MGM to me!) for EMH. Got there around 8:20am which was great, the rope drop crowd was already in. We got fast passes for TSM & headed to Starring Rolls for a quick breakfast. I think half of the park was in line at Starring Rolls! C really wanted to do TOT which I knew I'd hate, but she convinced me. It was only a 20 min. wait. The queue line for this ride is awesome - too bad I didn't go with my gut & exit at the chicken door...yes more tears here - tears of terror! All I remember is yelling "MAKE IT STOP!" over & over. C had tears too - once again from laughing so hard at me acting like a child.

Here are some nice queue pics from TOT:

 

[TaraPA]

Day Three - con't....

We walked over to Walt Disney One Man's Dream, which I was excited about because the kids never want to do this. As we were getting in line I saw them!! THEM!!!

We won Dream Fast Passes for the day! Ok, no tears, but we were really excited!

We did get teary, however, during Walt Disney One Man's Dream. What are we at now, Teary Moment #15???

We went to TSM to use our fast passes from the morning. There was still a 20 min. wait in the Fast Pass line. I know there's a ton of hype over this ride, but I just didn't get it. It's just not the type of attraction I like. I can see my boys going nutso over this though!

Decided on Hollywood Brown Derby for lunch, C had always wanted to try the grapefruit cake. I had the Cobb Salad:

I loved the atmosphere inside but it was very loud while we were there. I'd like to try it for dinner sometime. After lunch we decided to head over to Epcot to really stroll through the countries.

 

[TaraPA]

Had tons of fun taking our time in World Showcase. We decided to stop for a snack in France...

We strolled around until sunset & we were COLD! So we flew out the International Gateway & over the Boardwalk to The Dolphin to change into something warm. Then we walked back over to DHS to see the Osborne Lights! This is park #3 for the day & it's only 6pm at this point!

I had seen the Osborne Lights previously, but it was rushed with the family. We took our time & just watched the lights for 30 min. Yes, another teary moment! It's so magical watching all those twinkling lights. It's one of those experiences that you have to see to appreciate.

After watching for awhile we decided to get some use from our Dream Fast Passes & rode Star Tours & TSM again. By this time it was 7:30pm & I had a DIS Meet to get to in Epcot at 8:30! Off we flew to Epcot....that makes 4 parks in a day!

Coming up next.....laughing til we cry over another guest's comment!