Update 2/16: NOW I feel magical! ~ A July 2012 TR

Looks like y'all had a fun day in AK! :thumbsup2

That's so sad about hearing the parents argue next door....especially since their kid was with them. :sad1:

Sounds like a fun night around Boardwalk!

Despite the rain, we did have a good time!

And yes, very sad. I just felt horrible and we heard it almost every day of our trip.

We definitely had a good time at the Boarwalk! I'm really hoping to stay there next year so we can spend more time looking around!


AK really is a beautiful park! Glad you guys had a good time there!!

We have ALWAYS wanted to go to Jellyrolls, but always forget to!! Someday we definitely will, I've heard such good things about it!!

Definitely go! It was definitely one my favorite things on this trip! Just keep an eye on the time! The bar is open super late but the buses back to DTD stop running at some point (like 11 or midnight...I can't remember for sure). But the buses back to the resorts from Pleasure Island run until like 2am.
 
Sounds like you all had a great time. As nice and relaxing as going with just me and the DW, trips with friends and family are always more entertaining, also more strange random things happen when there are more people.
 
Sounds like you all had a great time. As nice and relaxing as going with just me and the DW, trips with friends and family are always more entertaining, also more strange random things happen when there are more people.

I swear, Lumar and I were JUST talking about this not half an hour ago! We like going, just the two of us, but having others with us makes it a different experience! I wish I could a few people to go with us again next year!
 
We've never done Big River Grille...I've read mixed reviews on it. What did you have to eat?
 

I had a cheeseburger and Lumar had the meatloaf. We all really enjoyed ourselves although it was pretty loud in there so if you prefer a quieter atmosphere it might not be a good choice.
 
We woke up on Thursday morning and got ready for our first day at MK! Lumar and I decided to eat breakfast at the bakery on Main Street, Mike and Tom claimed they "weren't hungry" and the other four ate in their room that morning.

We got on a bus at 9:40 and arrived at the MK to find....

THE ENTIRE ENTRANCE WAS PACKED WITH RED T-SHIRTS!!! Hundreds of them! We all looked at each and hung our heads in defeat. What can you do, you know? And we'd noticed already that they seemed to only half days at each park...they would get there early and leave around 2 or 3 in the afternoon for some reason so it wasn't totally horrible.

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We watched to see which way the shirts went and when they headed to Adventureland, we headed to Tomorrowland!

We got FPs for Space, then went over to Liberty Square for a doom buggy tour of everyone's favorite haunted hang-out! No one except for Lumar and I had seen it since the refurb (and even the queue was new for us) and they were all so impressed by it! The staircase room was definitely everyone's favorite part!

After being tossed out of the attic and back into the 90 degree sun, I told everyone that I had to eat something before I passed out. Mike and Tom said they still weren't hungry and they were going to just wander. Our FP return time for Space was 11:40 so we told them to just meet us there.

We went to the bakery and of course, they stopped serving breakfast at like 10am. :confused3 I remember I got a frozen mocha coffee but I can't remember for the life of me what I got to eat.

We decided we wanted to get FPs for BTMRR, since we still had some time before we could go back to Space. But of course, Mike and Tom had their park tickets with them. I was texting Mike telling them to head back to Frontierland but my text messages wouldn't go through! My phone kept saying I had full reception and I was on 3G but I had to stand in a certain spot in a certain position to get anything to work! It was really frustrating! So finally, we got a text back from Mike saying they were headed over there now. We'd already been waiting about 10 minutes and 10 minutes after that, they finally showed up. This is going to sound gross but they were sweating horribly! I was like what the heck did you do? Run here? I had assumed that they had stayed in the Adventureland area, since that was where we left them before we went to eat. Turns out, they had gone BACK to Tomorrowland and when they got my text they were in CoP! So yes, they RAN back to Frontierland to meet us and I felt horrible since I was the one who had told them to wait for us at Space!

So after we got our FPs for BTMRR, we made the trek back to Space. Everyone had a blast and commented that it was MUCH better than the old version!

So after all of that walking back and forth, some of the group (i.e. Mike and Tom) decided that they were now starving :rolleyes1 We stopped at Cosmic Rays where Rob and I downed two Iced Mocha Coffees each (we REALLY like those!), but most of us didn't eat since we'd eaten already.

After lunch, we went back to Tomorrowland for Buzz! Of course, Lumar beat me!

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(Mike & Tom)

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(Rob & Steph)

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(Rob & Lumar)

I tried to use the app on my phone to check wait times for the other attractions, but the stupid thing wasn't working and I was getting really
annoyed!

Since we were close to Fantasyland, we decided to walk through and check out the wait times. Of course, I had to take a picture of Beast's Castle! It looks so pretty!!!

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We went on Peter Pan's flight, Winnie the Pooh, and I forced everyone to go on IASW. They had fun. Don't let them tell you otherwise.

Since we'd already done HM and the wait for it was now 35 minutes, we decided to head over to Adventureland for Pirates. Via turning around and walking BACK through Tomorrowland :confused3

We stopped for a PP pic as we left Tomorrowland!

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(For those of you that have seen the 4th Pirates movie, I saw today that they've added mermaids to the attraction now and I'm SOOO excited! There is a short video of it floating around out there! Ahh! I can't wait to go back and see it in person!

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(Rob)

After Pirates, Toni asked if we could go see The Country Bears. Lumar and I had never seen it, so we said what the heck.

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I was so exhausted already (even after THREE mocha coffees!) that I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Until Big Al came out. Then I could NOT STOP LAUGHING. HYSTERICAL LAUGHING. For no good reason! I have no idea what was so funny about it but I was crying I was laughing so hard. Then I got Mike started. Then Tom started. Then Rob. Lumar, Toni, Josh, and Steph were kind of bewildered but we just couldn't explain it!

After Country Bears (which I have ZERO desire to EVER do again...) we headed back to BTMRR and used our FPs. I wanted to do it again at night and have everyone be able to compare a day time ride to a night time one. I think it's SO much better at night!

We had dinner reservations for The Wave for 5:15pm so we headed out to the Monorail at 4:45pm.

We arrived at The Contemporary and checked in for dinner. There was almost NO ONE there so I was a bit nervous at first! 6 of us sat in, what we called "The Blue Room." It was a small waiting area with a big comfy couch and blue lighting. Pretty cool but impossible to take a good picture in! The other two? Well...

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That's them in the white shirts, facing the camera on the other side of the bar. Magic Kingdom being a dry park is a challenge for some people, I guess!

We were seated at a large round table right near the entrance, which was good because we were close to the bathroom, and we didn't have to fight through chairs and tables to get back and forth.

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As you can see...the restaurant is basically empty!

We ordered our food and drinks (another Magic Star Cocktail for me! SO GOOD!!) and although the food is on the pricey side, it was a fantastic meal! Our server was attentive, our food was fresh and cooked perfectly. If you're looking for a nice place to go and eat that doesn't require a change of clothes (I'm talking to you, California Grill!), you should definitely give The Wave a try!

As we were finishing up our meal, I could hear the chatter about whether or not to order dessert start up. As a surprise, I had ordered a custom cake to be delivered at this meal and I was really nervous that I'd have to spill the beans before the server brought it out! Luckily, she had perfect timing!

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I took a bunch of pictures to try to get all the angles but of course, no one took a picture of a cross section that I'm aware of...

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It was chocolate and vanilla layers with Bavarian Cream and German Chocolate filling.

I had everyone send me their favorite Disney character so that I could include them on the cake. I was aiming for a Fantasmic theme but only had a $100 budget for it and overall, we were thrilled with what we got. Everyone loved it, the cake itself was SO good and it was WAY more than we could all eat.

While we were eating, it had started to rain. We decided to call it a night and head back to OKW so we hopped on the Monorail back to MK, then got on a bus. THIS was the night that the neighbor yelled at us for being loud while we playing Cards Against Humanity!
 
I sometimes have random Disney phone reception problems too, I totally understand the "having to stand on one leg with your arm at a 68 degree angle to get a text message to FINALLY send" thing!!

We've never tried The Wave before, but it sounds really good! Your cake turned out great, how fun that it featured everyone's favorite characters!
 
We love the Wave. It never seems too crowded (or too loud). It's one TS credit and the food is delicious! I think I just convinced myself to go there instead of Narcossee's on our trip.

The cake is so cute! Good job on that!

Just reading about you going with a group makes me stressed out. My Type A personality could not be the one responsible for planning the trip b/c I definitely would want to be the person going with the flow. You're doing such a great job! I went with my family but we had no idea what we were doing and had a blast! LOL!
 
Stringbean&Wingnut said:
I sometimes have random Disney phone reception problems too, I totally understand the "having to stand on one leg with your arm at a 68 degree angle to get a text message to FINALLY send" thing!!

We've never tried The Wave before, but it sounds really good! Your cake turned out great, how fun that it featured everyone's favorite characters!

OMG the cell service was terrible! Just too many people accessing the network I guess but ugh! How frustrating!

You should definitely try it! I'd love to read one on your food reviews about it!

DisneyCrafter said:
We love the Wave. It never seems too crowded (or too loud). It's one TS credit and the food is delicious! I think I just convinced myself to go there instead of Narcossee's on our trip.

The cake is so cute! Good job on that!

Just reading about you going with a group makes me stressed out. My Type A personality could not be the one responsible for planning the trip b/c I definitely would want to be the person going with the flow. You're doing such a great job! I went with my family but we had no idea what we were doing and had a blast! LOL!

Haha! Nice! I've never been to Narcoosee's but for our first experience with The Wave we were quite happy! I'd definitely like to try it out for breakfast some time!

And thank you! I wished I could have gone bigger on the Fantasmic theme but it worked out. And honestly, we ended up tossing out half of it because we just could eat it all. I would have hated to spend $200+ on it and have thrown out as much as we did, you know?

Honestly, I was freaking out about going with a group but once we got there, it went much better than I thought it would. I think it helped that everyone was really open to doing whatever because it had been so long since they'd all been there they were really into the "let's do EVERYTHING" plan that I had! And it helped that I actually HAD a plan of where to go, what to do, and when. Being organized definitely helped!
 
Sounds like it was a nice day with a good ending at the dinner! That cake is really cute and sounds delicious!

UGH for rain! We were plagued with rain on our recent trip. :sad2:
 
great updates and pics.

we just got back and yes the mermaids are there. Blink and you will miss it. The Country Bears also opened again with new fur on the bears and a shorter version. 2 songs are gone.

I hate rude neighbors.
 
Great update, Ali. Sorry about all those red shirts. :eek:

You guys got a lot accomplished, even if you did criss cross the park a time or to.

We do Country Bears every couple of years...it's corny, but it's a nice place to relax and cool off. I do want to see the Christmas version in December.

My BFF was supposed to eat at The Wave last night but she said they recently changed the menu and nothing appealed to her and her husband. I wonder what the changes were since you were there?
 
amandaw said:
Sounds like it was a nice day with a good ending at the dinner! That cake is really cute and sounds delicious!

UGH for rain! We were plagued with rain on our recent trip. :sad2:

It actually turned out to be a GREAT day! We got a lot done and still found time to relax at the end of the day. I was worried about stressing everyone out by trying to do too much, but our schedule really ended up being pretty awesome!

The rain our AK day was worse. We only had one day to spend there and I was disappointed that we had to cut it a bit short but it was just absolutely down pouring. Of course, it cleared up after we'd already left.

scottny said:
great updates and pics.

we just got back and yes the mermaids are there. Blink and you will miss it. The Country Bears also opened again with new fur on the bears and a shorter version. 2 songs are gone.

I hate rude neighbors.

Thanks, Scott! I saw the YouTube video of the mermaids and you're right... If you blink, you won't see it. At least I know to look for them! I'd never done Country Bears, never had any interest... At least now I can say I've done it! I wish they out some rehab effort into The Great Movie Ride! That poor thing desperately needs TLC!


KatMark said:
Great update, Ali. Sorry about all those red shirts. :eek:

You guys got a lot accomplished, even if you did criss cross the park a time or to.

We do Country Bears every couple of years...it's corny, but it's a nice place to relax and cool off. I do want to see the Christmas version in December.

My BFF was supposed to eat at The Wave last night but she said they recently changed the menu and nothing appealed to her and her husband. I wonder what the changes were since you were there?

I think probably if I'd done Country Bears the first time I went to Disney (or maybe if I'd seen the movie?) it might be different. My cousins have seen it multiple times since they were kids so it holds a special spot for them. I guess my equivalent is Figment. I never saw the original but this version has a special spot in my heart!

I'm not sure what changed at The Wave... To be honest it was so long ago now that I don't even remember what I ate! Probably chicken.... I know a few people got the seafood pasta dish and I know everyone really enjoyed their meals but it was on the expensive side... About $50/person.
 
Well, Hurricane Sandy is upon us! Good luck to everyone in New England getting battered right now! Stay safe!
 
Hey everyone! We did make it through both the hurricane and subsequent nor'easter OK but the Internet on my computer got messed up somehow so I haven't been able to do an update. I called Comcast, spent an hour talking to them and trying to have them fix it over the phone. Of course they were not able to do anything for me so they arranged to come out, but their first available appointment was a week away.... I got so fed up the other night that I finally decided to do a system restore on my computer and lo and behold it worked! I am hoping to finally get in an update or two this weekend! Thanks for sticking with me!
 
So happy you guys are okay....I was getting worried about you guys.:hug::hug:

Anxious to read the next update. We leave in 20 days for Mark's surprise trip.
 
Hello everyone! I'm so sorry it's been so long! I don't know what's going on with my computer at home but it keeps changing my internet settings all by itself, which is causing me to not be able to connect to the internet. I've had to do 3 system restores, and a defrag, and now it finally seems to be working again!

I'm working on an update right now and want to get this TR finished soon because....


WE BOOKED OUR TRIP FOR 2013!!!! :woohoo::woohoo::woohoo:
 
Before I get started, I'm going to warn you. I NEVER take pics at DHS. I don't know why. And this day was even WORSE because it was so humid, that every time I took my camera out to use it, the lens would fog up on the INSIDE. So after several attempts, I gave up.

We woke up super early on Friday the 13th, and prepared for our day at DHS! Lumar and I got up and took some pics of OKW on our way down to breakfast!

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(The room on the top floor in the corner - kind of hidden by a tree - the room that Steph, Rob, Toni, & Josh were living in)

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We ate breakfast at Goods To Go then met up with everyone at the bus stop around 8:30am. At 8:40, we were on a bus and headed to DHS!

We arrived at 9am, and I was so nervous about getting to TSMM!

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So we got FPs and then got in "line"....

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Yeah! NO LINE! It was incredible! I was so psyched!

Everyone LOVED this ride, and talked about it often after our first ride through. They were all really happy that we'd gotten FPs so we'd be able to go on again!

We headed over to the Animation Academy and drew Tinkerbell! We'd never drawn her before, and Lumar and I have done this class multiple times, so we were excited! Plus, Tinkerbell is my sister's favorite character!

We decided to go right back to TSM after our drawing class and use our FPs. Everyone definitely wished we could have done this 20 more times, but the stand by line was already 80 minutes! So after our 2nd ride through, it was time to say goodbye to Pixar Place!

Next, we hit up Star Tours!

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Rob gets terrible motion sickness on certain things so he opted to sit this one out and hang out in the gift shop.

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Which figures because it was probably the most hilarious time we'd had on any ride during the whole trip! We got in line and there was a sea of blue shirts behind us (maybe they were green this day...I don't remember for sure).

We were at the front of the line, so as we were waiting to be loaded in, we started talking to the CM. He reminded me a LOT of David Cross (he's a comedian/actor...most of you probably know him from the Men In Black movies, if nothing else.) He ran through the whole safety spiel at the beginning of the ride, throwing in a few snarky comments here and there. It made the 7 of us laugh hysterically. The tour group kids just looked at each other in utter confusion which made us laugh harder. Then, at the end of the ride, my cousin Tom was the rebel spy!

After our ride was over, we went over to the Indiana Jones show but the 11:30 was standing room only so we hung around doing some browsing and went back for the 12:45 show. Most of our group hadn't seen it before and they all really liked it!

We decided to grab some FPs for RNRC and then headed over to Mama Melrose's for our lunch reservation! I took ZERO food porn pics - sorry!! But everyone loved their meal, our service was GREAT, and we had a really nice time! I may or may not have had two magic star cocktails....

We decided to go check out the wait for ToT before heading back to RNRC. My cousin Toni, is apparently, deathly afraid of this ride. She can do EVERYTHING else. But ToT (and rides like it) scares the bejesus out of her.

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But she's a good sport and after waiting in line for 35 minutes, went on it anyway. We decided that since this would probably be the last time we rode this one, that I would buy the ride photo for the scrapbook. I told the CM that I JUST wanted the digital copy. She keeps insisting that it's better to get the digital and the 5 x 7 because it's the same price. I told her again that I understand but I JUST want the digital copy. I ask her if she can scan it onto our existing PP card. She says yes. I pay her. As we're walking away, I can see the prompt on the screen that is asking her "Are you sure you want to save this?" with a 'yes' or a 'no' option. I almost said something but didn't. I wrote down the date, time, and photo number, just in case. Lo & behold, we get home from our trip and the photo is not on my card. I emailed Disney.... "they can't locate it." I was going to call and argue with someone over the phone but since I went back to work right away, I just never had the time and now it's definitely too late. So $14.95...gone. It's not even the $15 that bugs me! I just REALLY wanted the picture!

We went back to RNRC where we obtained more FPs after our ride was over, then headed over to the LMA Stunt Show. Only me, Lumar, and my brother Mike, had seen it before so it was definitely something I thought the others would like. Aside from the giant pole in the middle of our view...it was a hit!

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After the stunt show, we went to see MuppetVision. I don't think Mike & Tommy joined us for this one but I don't remember what they did instead. After the show, we all split up for a little while and decided to meet back at RNRC at 9pm, then we'd get in line for the 10:30 showing of Fantasmic.

I have absolutely no idea what the heck Lumar and I did for the next 4 hours. I know that Toni & Josh went over to one of the resorts for drinks (it's entirely possible the Mike and Tom went with them, but I have no clue). Same for Steph & Rob. No idea where they went.

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We met back up with everyone at the entrance to RNRC, used our FPs, then lined up for Fantasmic around 9:45pm. We were herded into the theater and I was SUPER excited when we got front and center seats. I was nervous about getting seated on the side of the theater, where we'd have another pole to contend with, or whatever. But it was perfect! Lumar and Rob went to get some snacks and Lumar decided that I needed an R2D2 Popcorn holder. (Rob used the display one to model his soda for us....)

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When the show ended, the whole group turned to each other and just exploded with excitement! They couldn't stop talking about how amazing it was and as we were getting up to leave, my sister Steph, turns to me and says "NOW I feel magical!" She said how things started off a little rough with all the issues at OKW, but after this day, she was totally feeling the Disney Magic! Everyone else agreed and kept telling me how thankful they were for all of the planning I had done, and how much they appreciated all of the things that Lumar and I were able to share with them. It was such a great day and it ended in a great night!

But I was exhausted and couldn't wait to get some sleep!

Next up: Epcot and WWoHP!
 















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