We Are Going to Disney in August............SURPRISE - We leave today!!! (4/25 - 5/2)

[Melknor]

I started typing this up the other night and then lost everything , so I will try my best to start again............... I tend to ramble on, so forgive me if I do in here. I hope you enjoy reading and the pictures (if I can figure out how to upload them). We had such a wonderful trip, I'm trying to prolong the enjoyment. Our trip was from April 25 - May 2nd and we stayed at Westgate Vacation Villas (timeshare condo)


I have never been to Disney World, but I really wanted my kids to experience what I didn't get to. DH had been there before we met, but I don't count that. This trip came into view back in 2007 when DH & I took a trip to Las Vegas and did a timeshare tour. We bought an owner's experience week with Westgate with the intention of using it to go to Disney. Now this all happened before I found the DIS and we could have stayed on-site, but it was a done-deal, so off-site we stay this time. We really loved it though.

Since we had to use our week buy July, 2009, I started looking at dates. I really didn't want to go in the hot summer, so late April to early May sounded good. I booked our condo (2bed / 2 ba) and we were set. Now this is back in the fall of 2008 and I started researching Disney on the DIS and joined Tour Guide Mike. The family was hearing too much Disney talk from me.

Here is where my TR title comes into play...... We told DS we were going in the summer (and that he couldn't miss school). In reality, it was a surprise trip and he did get to miss school. So who is all going, you wonder?

Me (35) - works in insurance from home.............really needed a vacation. Before last fall, hadn't taken a full week off in 4 years.

DH (39) - active duty military. Is currently stationed out of state and travels home on weekends to be with us (luckily only a 3 hour drive). He is a big kid. We really needed this vacation to reconnect all of us again.

DS8 - I will call him Goofy since he is silly at times. He has the biggest heart and is a great kid.

DS3 - Stitch - he is always getting into something.......has a lot of energy, but would rather be carried or ride in the stroller than walk.

Here is a picture of us from last summer. Hopefully this will post right. If not, can someone tell me how to get it to go through?

We live in Iowa, so it would be approximately a 24 hour drive down to Orlando. I'm not a fan of driving late at night and I can't sleep very well in a car, so I was really pushing us to fly. I found some decent airfare out of Des Moines, only we had to fly into Tampa to save some $$. Since we were staying off site, we would need a rental car anyway, so it wasn't a big deal to drive from Tampa to Orlando. So we had our condo, we had our airfare.........now we just needed to get tickets. I got an email with a savings link through Undercover Tourist. I bought 7 day tickets for our trip and we were set..............or are we??

This spring Disney came out with the military ticket offer. Great, but I had $$$ tickets sitting on my desk for our trip. I discovered that the tickets don't expire until after the first use, so I could use the military offer and save these ticket that were already paid for for a future trip. I also had to figure out when we would buy these military tickets as we are not stationed on or near a base that sells them. I made up a budget to estimate how much we would spend (esentially it went out the window, however at the end we were within $150 of it ), worked on tour plans with the help from TGM and the Dis, read trip reports and waited for the days to pass until we left..................

Since this was a surprise trip, I had made up clues which were put into envelopes with a letter to spell DISNEY. At the end, DS8 was to figure it out. I was waiting for that excited scream and jumping up and down, but I cried wolf too much in the months before (hey, we should go to Disney today.....) and he didn't believe that we were actually going. At least not until I brought down the packed suitcases.

The plan was to travel on 4/25 (Saturday)
Sunday - AK
Mon - Epcot w/break
Tue - MK w/break
Wed - No planned parks - character breakfast & shopping DTD
Thurs - DHS
Fri - MK
Sat - Travel home

Our flight didn't leave until 11, so we had plenty of time for the scavenger hunt. I had them running all over the house Our car was packed full as we had two large suitcases, carry ons and the stroller. We were also taking our car seat so we didn't have to rent one. Me, being the planner I am, had bought a car seat carrier bag that had a carrying strap. If you check your carseat, you should definately check into getting one of these. It was wonderful (kept the seat protected and easy to tote around). Anyway (see, I ramble...........) we got all loaded up and made it to the airport in plenty of time. Since I'm so stinkin' smart, I had the brilliant idea to drop DH, the kids and all luggage off while I went to park. That way we didn't have to struggle getting all that stuff onto the shuttle back to the airport. This worked out so well.

Within minutes, I was back at the airport and we were checking in. Good thing we weren't in a hurry! The CS person was slooooowwww. Made up up through security and just hung out until it was time for our flight. Since we were flying over lunch (and they don't serve food anymore), I had packed sack lunches for all of us. I'm sure everyone on the plane was jealous of our food. The flight attendant even asked if we would share. Flights were fine and we made it to Tampa on time, collected our luggage and made it across the walk way to the Thrifty car rental. Now this walkway wouldn't be too bad if you didn't have much luggage, but we had a lot, plus DS3 in the stroller. We got our car, got the GPS that we brought from home all set up and were on our.....................until the stupid GPS had us going the wrong way out of the airport! It had us headed south! Finally we got turned around and the drive to Orlando was uneventful once I finally relaxed.

We found our resort, checked in fairly quickly, was shown to our unit and discovered we got an upgrade!! We had paid for a 2 bed/2ba and discovered we actually had a 3 bed/2 ba unit. And they honored my request to be on the second floor (I was paranoid about snakes getting in on the lower units) and to be near a pool for the kids.

We were hungry as we hadn't eaten since the sack lunch, so we head over to the Black Angus Steakhouse, which advertises $10.99 steak. If you want this, you have to look real close to that menu to find it! The food was good and we were full. It was getting late and I didn't have any groceries for breakfast nor any water for our first park day. As we leave the restaurant, we see a sign for liquor. Hhhmmm, some wine might be a good way to end the day.........luckily, it was also a market (King's Market, I think). Anyway, I don't recommend this place. It was expensive!! I bought milk, poptarts, a bottle of cheap wine and a case of water for $40 At least it would get us through Sunday when I could get to a grocery store. Oh well, I'm on vacation..........

I will continue with our first park day later........ Will we make RD? Did we have any problem getting tickets? Hope you aren't bored yet!!

 

[Melknor]

Reserving space to add shortcut links on the chapters (if I can figure out how to do this as well)

Westgate Vacation Villas http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=31741312#post31741312
Animal Kindgom - Day 1 http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=31741993#post31741993
Animal Kingdom - Cont'd http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=31762113#post31762113
Epcot - part 1 http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=31778643#post31778643
Epcot - part 2 http://disboards.com/showthread.php?p=31841306#post31841306

Magic Kingdom - Part 1
Magic Kingdom - Part 2
Break Day
DHSMagic Kingdom

 

[MouseFan Down Under]

Definiately not bored!!!

And waiting for the next chapter!!

 

[MEK]

Great start to your TR!

 

[Melknor]

Yeah, I have readers with comments!!! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it.

In case anyone is interested, here are some pictures of our condo at Westgate Vacation Villas. This place doesn't get the best reviews at times, but we are not hard to please, so it exceeded our expectations. Yes, it could use some updated furnishings, but it was fine for a week. And I loved coming home with a suitecase full of clean clothes!!

View of condo from the entryway. The steps lead up to the third bedroom / loft area. They boys loved sleeping up there. They each had a twin bed and huge flatscreen tv.

View of the kitchen area. The washer and dryer (full size) were on the left in the white closet doors.

Here is the view of the master bedroom / bathroom area. The huge jacuzzi tube was wonderful after a long park day.

We were really happy with this and liked having all the space. It was nice to be able to put the kids to bed and then me and DH could enjoy the balcony or watch TV without disturbing them. Now I had heard Westgate will call you every day and bug you about taking a tour, etc, but we never had any problems. There would be a message each day, but that was about the activity schedule. The drive was very quick and easy, especially the short cut to Animal Kingdom taking Sherbeth Rd (I think that is correct).

Ok, so on to our first park day............Animal Kingdom. Be prepared for tons of pictures as we took over 1,000 (that doesn't include the almost 300 photopass pics I don't have back yet). DH and I both had our cameras, which was nice to get pics from both of us.

 

[Melknor]

Prior to the trip I painstakingly planned out our itinerary. I had it in an excel spreadsheet that I printed out 4x6 and put into one of those $1 flip photo books from Wal-mart. With the help from DIS and TGM, I was set with a plan..............did we follow the plan? Was I too commando for our first trip?

Since we had never been to WDW before, I wanted to have an idea of what we should do when, so we just didn't wander around or cross back and forth all over the parks all day long. I definately was not in the mindset that we have to do "X" ride at "X" time, but the plan was more for "ok, we should do this in this particular order the best as possible". This actually worked out great for us and we got so much done over the week, more than I would have expected and without any major meltdown.

So plan in hand, we were headed to AK on Sunday morning. I set the alarm for 6:45 hoping to have all of us out of the condo by 8ish, but woke up at 6:30 (keep in mind Florida is an hour ahead of what we are use to). I got up, made coffee and set on the balcony to enjoy the morning. DS8 heard me up and got up as well and we enjoyed pop-tarts together for breakfast. (remember, I hadn't been able to get groceries yet, so these were our expensive poptarts ) Keith (DH) woke up a little later as well as Alex (DS3). It took awhile to get going, but we were out of the condo around 8:15. Due to the short cut, we made excellent time. We parked in the Unicorn section, which was really close as we walked to the entrance and beat the tram that left at the same time as we did. I have to note in here that each morning Mickey left small gifts for the boys along with a letter letting them know what they would be doing that day. The LOVED this! They looked forward to it each morning and were sad they didn't get anything on the day we left. I used my digital scrapbook software I have to put the graphics together for the letters and each letter was signed by whatever character we would be meeting today (MK was from Cinderella and Prince Charming; our off day from Lilo & Stich, etc) Also, that first night after returning from dinner, they had a welcome letter from Mickey and each boy got a little stuffed Mickey, which they slept with every night.

Here you can see Alex waking up with Mickey beside him.

Since we were using the military ticke offer (service member gets a 5 day ticket with park hopper and waterpark and more for free, plus can buy up to 5 additional tickets of the 5 day base tickets for $99 each), we needed to purchase our tickets. I had originally debated if we should get them on arrival night at DTD or wait until the morning before park opening. Since arrival night was late and AK was so close, I decided to get them that morning. Another good decision on my part!! We got to the ticket booth and we didn’t have a line at all to purchase them. I knew from my obsessive readings to always look for the shortest lines and not to follow where everyone else was going. This was key over the whole week for us. It took a little while to get our tickets due to all the details associated with it. Once we had those, we then also got our celebration buttons - 1st visit, birthday and anniversary. And yes, I wore all three of them!! My birthday / anniversary (we got married on my birthday) was the week before our trip. If I had planned better, we should have gone this week. Oh well...........

We went through bag check and the turnstiles with no problems. We also picked a quick line to get our tickets scanned and into the park. We then moved forward and waited for the official rope drop. I was able to maneuver us up fairly well, about half way. I was amazed at the space people left, so I figured if they weren't going to get up closer, we were. We weren't right up front, but could see the characters on the jeep to welcome us.

Keith and Alex watching the opening show:

The plan was for Keith to be the FPV (fast pass volunteer) to get to Expedition Everest to get the Fast Passes. While doing this, the plan was for me and the boys to get to Dinoland and ride Triceratop spin. He doesn't do spinning rides, so this worked out well. So off he went with the map and our tickets to get the FP's. On our way to Dinoland, I got sidetracked by a character meeting of Pooh and Eeyore. There was only one person in front of us, so that worked out really well. It was early, so I figured no big deal. After all, I didn't want to be commando on the trip..........

After pictures and autographs, it was on to Dinoland where there was no wait to ride Tricertop Spin. All we had to do was wait for the current ride to finish. Just was Me, Evan and Alex were loading up, Keith arrived. What a quick FPV!!! Once our spin was over, Evan really wanted to ride Prime Evil Whirl. The wait time said 10 minutes. As we entered, I was given the red timer to hand to the ride operator. The 10 minutes it took us was to walk up the ramp and wait again for the next ride vehicle. Evan seemed to really like this ride as well. I thought it was fine, but it really is a rough ride.

Tricertop Spin

Prime Evil Whirl

As we were on Prime Evil Whirl, Keith and Alex checked out the games and ended up winning a stuffed animal. Keith and Evan then road Dinosaur with less than 10 minute wait as well while Alex and I hung out in the shade and then the air conditioned gift shop. Evan was scared on Dinosaur. The photo shows him ducking down. Too bad you can't add all the ride photos to the photopass. Dinoland done, we then walked over to Kali River Rapids where Evan and Keith rode this. I offered them ponchos, but they refused Evan got drenched!! The "plan" was for me and Alex to get FP's for the Safari while the other two were on Kali. Since the waits had been sho so short I had completely forgotten I was suppose to do this. Instead, Alex played in the bubble fountain nearby and enjoyed this. Luckily he didn't get too wet.

I hope this isn't too detailed. I kept a diary each evening on what we did. If the pictures are too big, let me know as well and I will try to see if I can get them smaller. This is my first trip report, so I'm learning. I'll try to post later the rest of the AK day.

 

[Shir Kahn]

Very nice suite! Hope your trip was wonderful! Can't wait to see more! (and don't worry about being too detailed, I think all of us want tons of detail)

 

[tinkerbells mum]

I'm loving your trip report, really glad i found it right at the start. the photo's are great they are definately not too big, as the PP said the more detail the better, looking forward to hearing more xx

 

[Melknor]

Ok.............where did I leave off??...........Alex playing in the water fountain. There was another little boy playin there as well and he was SOAKED.

We then went to the Maharajah Jungle Trek to check out the animals since it was close by. The details they put into this and everything else in the park are so amazing.

After the trail, we walked towards the safari, so I went to get a FP for the safari while Keith and the boys hung out in the area. When I came back, they were in line to see Baloo and King Louie. I had made up my own autograph book before the trip and hac 4x6 cards printed with the character's pictures on them and those I didn't have, we used a generic mickey head outline. Anyway, I had one of Baloo and not King Louie. King Louie got made he didn't have a picture and walked off pouting. I was a fun interaction for the kids!

While waiting in line, DeVine came out to perform. She was amazing to see!! (sorry for the bluriness)

By now we were getting hungry and it was around 11 (I think - I forgot to note times throughout the trip) so we decided to get some lunch. I really wanted to try the Italian sandwhich that came highly recommended on the Dis so...........we ate at Pizzafari. Keith and I split the Italian sandwich which came with chips. The boys had a pizza, which came with a Caesar salad, which Keith & I shared as well. We all split a chocolate cake for dessert. (note this is the only food porn pics I remembered to take )

While they were waiting for me to get the FP's, Keith had seen kids with faces painted and the boys were interested in getting this done. So on our way to the Safari, we stopped to get this done. There was not line, so both were done at the same time. This didn't take very long (15 min max??) and they did a really cute job, plus the paint stayed on all day. ($15 each, but varied depending on the design chosen) Evan was painted as Simba and Alex as a big tiger. They looked awesome and got so much attention, especially when Alex would roar.

After this we used our FP’s for the safari and saw all kinds of animals. Since I'm sure you have seen other pics of the animals, I will skip ours. Since we had never been on this before, I couldn't tell you if they were active or not.....mostly they laid around or walked around grazing. Once done with the Safari, we went on the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail where we saw the gorillas and bats and other animals.

Next we headed over to see Nemo the Musical, as this one was of my "must do's at this park. Of course we stopped for some photos along the way. (I won't have my photo pass pics back until the end of the month) Once Nemo was over we decided to use our Expedition Everest fast passes. Evan and I went first. The line moved very quickly and in no time we were outrunning the Yeti. The backwards, dark portion made me a little queasy and Evan was scared to death. Once it was over, I don’t think he felt too well. He made out like he was going to faint, but it sounded like he was OK after all. It sure did scare me and DH.

Keith was going to ride next in the single rider lane since Evan didn't want to go again, but decided at the last minute that it might make him sick (he gets motion sick and since I said it made me a little quesy). Once we had everything done, we decided to stop closer to the tree of life and found a path that takes up really close to see the animals. I'm not sure if this is the "secret path" I had read about, but we were getting close up views, and there was hardly anyone else there. It felt like we were in our own little world.

After this and a few more pictures done and we headed back to the condo. We saw everything I had orignally planned and then more. It was busy, but not unbearable. The park was beautiful and I can't wait to visit again to just take in more details. Once back at the condo, DH took the boys swimming while I went to Target to get groceries for the week. Once back, I made dinner and we hung out a while longer before bed.

Next up, Epcot...............will we save the world? Will flat grandma make it out of the bag? Will we eat and drink around the world? Will we keep on plan?? You will have to wait and see................

 

[MEK]

Just found your updates..... sounds like you guys had a blast at AK. Unfortunately, I can not see your pics while I'm at work, so I'll have to go back and view the fun later.

 

[Melknor]

Our second park day that I planned was at Epcot. My "original" plan was to do future world, take a break and the do the world showcase late afternoon/evening. Did we stick to this plan??????

We woke up, had breakfast at the condo and were on our way by 8:20. Every day was later that I always hoped. DH doesn't always get up as quick as I would like............ Still, the drive was short and we had close parking again, which is a plus at the end of the day. Rope drop had just finished when we approached the area. Keith and Evan went to get fast passes for Soarin, while Alex and I went to get two for Test Track. The plan was to then meet at the Character Connection to see the Fab 5. Keith said the crowds to Soarin' were huge and it was confusing on where the fast pass distribution was, so it took him longer than expected to get these. Once we met back up, we got in line to see Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald and Goofy. The boys loved meeting these guys. These photos are all on photopass, which I don't have back yet, so I will insert later.............

Once we were finished meeting the characters, we headed to the Seas with Nemo. I thought this was a cute ride. After that was finished, it was time for Turtle Talk with Crush. I had been looking forward to this and was really hoping they would pick one of our boys. DS3 can be quite the character....... Unfortulatey they only picked one little boy and his mother. This show was hilarious and cute!!! I could sit through several of these. Afterwards, we looked around the area and took some pictures.

Since we were close to Soarin, we decided to use the Fast Pass / Child swap option. I have to say the Land pavillion is way bigger that I had imagined......Evan and I went first with our two fastpasses while Keith took Alex on Living with the Land (we obtained the child swap before we went on) . Keith really enjoyed this ride, however I couldn't convince Alex to go back on it during the child swap. When we met back up, Keith and Evan took their turn with the child swap option and Alex and I decided to do the Kidcot station on the upper level. He enjoyed coloring his badge. We then decided to wait at the exit area. During the wait, I decided to obtain another set of fast passes for us to use later. This ride really was awesome. We all scored the front row without asking for it.

By now, it was near lunch time (before 11:30) and we were all hungry, so we ate at Sunshine Seasons in the Land pavillion since we were right there. Keith had the pork chop meal, I had the Turkey and muenster cheese sandwich, Evan had the kids sub platter and Alex shared with all of us. It was very good food and would definately eat there again. The original plan was to break after lunch, but since we did so well yesterday without a break, we would just see how far we could get and then go from there. With lunch out of the way, we decided to head to the world showcase, but first we needed to stop by Club Cool and try the sodas. I had to get the guys to try Beverly and get photos of it. Of course I tried it to since this was our trip. It really is as bad as described!

As were headed to the countries, we came across the Kim Possible Mission station and decided to try it. We scanned our park tickets and were give a pass with a time to get our Kim-municator (within 1/2 hour) at the International Gateway. Since we were there during the Flower & Garden Festival, I snapped some picture of the various displays they had.

Now it was on to the first country, Canada. We didn’t really check this one out too much as we were trying to get to the area to pick up our Kim-municator. Once we had that, our first mission was in England. We were able to really explore the countries by doing the missions. Keith and I also decided to have our fist beer there as well. Once our mission was complete in England, we decided to do another one and were on to a mission in France. As Keith and Evan were ready to begin this one I decided this gave me the perfect opportunity to explore the countries on my own. Princess Aurora came out near us so Alex and I went over to meet her. Alex was so cute with her. She kissed him on the cheek and left him a kiss mark. He was so proud of his Princess kisses.

While they were finishing saving the world in France, I came across the stand where they were doing the silhouette cut-out pictures and decided to have them done for both of the boys. It was $8 for each child and you actually got two photos each. I thought this was a wonderful souvenier. This also happened to be next to the cart with the Grand Marnier orange slushies. YUMMY!! I didn't share, so Keith had a beer. We were also able to watch the entertainment there as well.

After France, it was on to Morocco where we explored a little bit. I was hoping to run across Jasmine and Alladin, but all we saw was the Genie. We also saw Mo' Rockin, which were very good.

I will continue in another post the rest of the countries and the introduction of Flat Grandma.

 

[MEK]

Crap... I am reading again at work and I still haven't seen your pics. I am enjoying your updates, though! I promise to try to look at them really soon.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Signing on for more! Looks like you guys are having lots of fun so far.

 

[MEK]

Finally.... I looked at all your pictures and they are really good. But this one is fantastic! So cute! Your boys are adorable!

 

[Melknor]

Finally.... I looked at all your pictures and they are really good. But this one is fantastic! So cute! Your boys are adorable!

Thank you! I was really worried how he would do with the characters, but he loved them! At the end of the day, we saw Pooh again and he gave him the biggest, longest hug! I didn't think he would let go. To bad we didn't get video of that.



Welcome to the new readers!!!

 

[Melknor]

I figured while the boys are watching a Disney movie, I would do an update to my TR. I have to tell everyone that I may be going back in September!!! DH and I are taking a cruise from Tampa to celebrate our 10yr anniversary, and I'm working the numbers to add on three extra days to our trip to go to WDW. I never knew how wonderful that place was........... I now call it my happy place.


Anyway, on to the update. We left off in Morocco. Now wold be a good time to introduce Flat Grandma. This is my mom that we printed out her picture, made small mouse ears and mounted on a stick. She traveled with us on this trip. She isn't a fan of crowds and children (although she of course loves mine............most of the time. ) She had a wonderful tour around the world showcase, courtesy of my husband taking a ton of pictures with here in it. I had left her in the bag the previous day, so I was banned from being in charge of F.G. for the rest of the trip. So on to Japan.........we were still doing another Kim Possible mission in this country as well. This was also the country where the boys wanted to get their souveniers. Evan was excited about Pokemon toys, but ended up with something else. Alex ended up getting power ranger stuff. I just shook my head and chalked it up to being on vacation..........we could have gotten the same stuff at Wal-mart for much less............oh well.

We missed the candy lady's show (sorry, don't remember her name), but did get to see the drummers. They were really good.

Here is a picture of Flat Grandma in Japan:

After Japan, we skipped over the American Pavillion and headed to Italy. We were starting to get tired as we didn't take a break, so we kind of breezed through the rest of the countries. We stopped doing the Kim Possible missions in Japan. In Italy, we looked around a little and had some gelato. It was ok, but I've had better.

After a little snack and a break on a bench, it was off to Germany. I was really looking forward to seeing this country because my Grandma is from Germany.

We did a little exploring, had a beer and pretzel (can't pass that up!!) and were on our way. Of Course F.G. also had to try the beer and she meet a very nice young German man.

I just figured out to correctly size the pictures so these should be better here on out. As we were touring Germany, we came across Snow White. DS3 thinks the Princesses are still cool, so I figured I better get photo ops while I still can. DS8 wanted nothing to do with them. The princesses seemed to really enjoy interacting with him and most gave him a kiss on the cheek, which he LOVED!!!

They had this nice little play area nearby, but unfortunately DS3 was too little for it, which made him not happy. I did get these pictures though. F.G. maybe had a little too much beer in Germany???

After Germany, we headed to China. We were getting hot and tired, so we decided to check out the 360 movie. It was very interesting and not crowded at all. We sat on the floor and enjoyed it.

Here in China we ran into Mulan. DS8 was willing to meet her. His reason was because she fights and is tuff. Again, DS3 got a kiss, but DS8 wanted nothing to do with that.

We looked around a little bit in Norway, took a picture with the troll and the silly hats and headed to Mexico. We skimmed over these countries so much, that I can't wait to go back and explore them more in depth. In Mexico we decided we were hungry, so we split nachos and a churro. When in Mexico, you can't pass up a margarita!!!

We were ready to leave for the day, but first wanted to use our fast passes / child swap on Test Track. Evan and Keith went first while I waited with Alex. This seemed to take them forever!! Maybe because I was just ready to leave. Alex and I checked out the gift shop and just hung out. Then it was my turn. I liked it well enough. I can't say it was a favorite/must do ride though. We headed towards the front of the park, had one last photopass pic with Spaceship Earth in it and headed toward the tram to the car. Can you believe we didn't get to SE? Oh well, maybe next trip! This park is sooo big with so much to see and do. I could definately spend several days there. The boys seemed to enjoy it as well.

Next updated will be our first day at the Magic Kingdom!!

 

[MEK]

Anyway, on to the update. We left off in Morocco. Now wold be a good time to introduce Flat Grandma. This is my mom that we printed out her picture, made small mouse ears and mounted on a stick. She traveled with us on this trip. She isn't a fan of crowds and children (although she of course loves mine............most of the time. )

Here is a picture of Flat Grandma in Japan:

I love that your brought Flat Grandma on your trip. But I gotta tell you - your mom does not look like a grandma. She looks like she's in her twenty's in this pic!

Thanks for another great update!

 

[Melknor]

I love that your brought Flat Grandma on your trip. But I gotta tell you - your mom does not look like a grandma. She looks like she's in her twenty's in this pic!

Thanks for another great update!

She does look young. We probably look more like sisters! She thought the whole Flat Grandma thing was hilarious

 

[Melknor]

Time for another update.............I got sidetracked trying to work numbers on a short trip in September for just DH & I.


Ok, left off with the end of Epcot and we are ready for our first MK day. The "plan" was to be there for rope drop. Well, DH doens't isn't as much a morning person as the rest of us...........so we didn't get out the door as quickly as I would have hoped and I did not realize the whole getting there process took as long as it actually did. We didn't get to see the opening ceremony, but I did get a glimpse from the ferryboat on the way over.

Still, not too bad. The main agenda was to get Dumbo out of the way. From my research, I knew the quickest way was through the castle, but that was blocked off, so we took the closest path to the left. DH and DS need to learn to keep up when I'm on a mission! I did manage to get this castle picture though.

It seemed like half the park had the same mission as well, although Fantasyland was basically empty. By the time we got there, it said a 20 minute wait, and it definitely took that long. Evan rode in his own elephant and I rode with Alex while Keith watched us. I didn't think the 3 of us would fit in one. Now if I was more prepared and thinking, I would have had Keith get us FP’s while waiting on us (he doesn't do spinning rides). He checked out the area and took flat Grandma on a little tour.
Empty Fantasyland:

Flat Grandma near the castle:

After Dumbo, we went on The Many Adventures of Pooh, which was basically walk on as well (no more than 5 min wait). After Pooh, we rode Snow Whites Scary Adventure, which again was walk on. Alex rode with Keith and was not scared on this ride, which I was concerned about. After Snow White, we made our way over to Peter Pan’s Flight, again walk on (5 min). We needed to use the restroom, which is right next to this ride, in case any needs to know. We decided to skip It’s A Small World and Mickey’s Philharmagic at this time as it was getting close to 10 and I wanted to hit Toontown withougt too much of a crowd. We first stopped at the caroussel (walk on). We headed over too Toontown so Alex could ride his first coaster ride on Goofy’s Barnstormer. This ride was walk on as well (5 min). He loved it so much that we got right back on (again 5 min). And again...............I think it was three or four times that we rode this. It is a cute ride, but a short one.

Next we hopped the train to take us over to Frontierland (saves on the walking, plus the boys loved the train) where we got two FP’s for Splash Mountain and two for Thunder Mountain (so we could use the child swap along with them). It was then close to lunch time (around 11 ish), so we decided to eat at Peco’s Bills. Keith and I split a bacon double cheeseburger by getting an extra bun (this really works!). The boys split the chicken wrap, which was ok, they basically picked out the chicken (the wrap itself was dry and hard to handle as it cracked). The fries here were really good, so we ended up getting some extra ones to eat. This place had toppings bar, with cheese sauce as well, which is really nice if you split the burger like we did.

After lunch, our fast passes where ready, so we Evan and I hit Splash Mountain, while Keith and Alex waited for us so he could do the child swap. When we got off, it was their turn. During my wait with Alex, he played in this little play area near the exit to Splash. After this ride, we then used our FP’s / child swap on Thunder Mountain. I ended up leaving my sunglasses on this ride. Luckily Keith said to go ask about them and they were able to locate them for me, unlike the guy whose hat went flying back off the train.

Now it was time for us to leave the park for a mid afternoon break. But first we stopped in front of the castle for a photo pass picture (I don't have these back yet). Once this was done, I hoofed it over to Tomorrowland to get a FP for Buzz to use it when we returned for the evening while the guys sat at a bench and waited for me to return. We stopped to get Mickey ears for Keith and Alex on our way out of the park. It was a small wait to get the names on them so we decided to get Daisy’s autograph and picture. Just as Alex and I finished, Keith and Evan returned with their purchases. Since we took the ferry over in the morning, we decided to take the monorail back to the lot. Since there was hardly anyone there, I took the chance to ask if we could ride up front. No one else had asked!! YEAH!!! Our first monorail ride and it was up front!! And the driver gave us co-pilot licenses. (you can take your stroller in the front, you just need to fold it up) People were looking at us funny as we went to the area for the front and then started getting on. Guess they should DIS too.!

We made it off and got the tram. We thought we had parked in Chip n Dale lot…………….apparently we looked at the wrong sign that morning as we were actually parked in Pluto (Chip n Dale is CM parking). That was a small nightmare to locate our car, but we were only one lot away. We made it back to the condo in record time. We all got ready to rest with Keith, Alex and I in the king bed, however once Alex fell asleep, I moved over to the front bedroom as there was a lot of noise from the pool area (I'm a light sleeper). Evan was reading a book, so I made him finally put it away and he ended up falling asleep as well. This was a really good idea to take this break since we were going back and staying for fireworks. I will continue with our return.............I need to get the little one into the bathtub!

 

[MEK]

An update and I can't see your pics here at work. In fact, I can't even add smilies to my posts! What's up with that?