We Survived! 9 days of land & sea - with a 3 year old! -9/1- NEW PIC I HAD TO SHARE!

[emma212010]

Joining in!! Sounds like so much fun!!

 

[FreezinRafiki]

We finally arrived at the airport & got checked in with Southwest. I have to say, this is the 1st time we ever flew Southwest & I was very happy with them.

April was our first time on Southwest, and we liked them as well. I was a little nervous about the whole "open seating" thing, but it worked out just fine!

Since we were there, we decided to take a "cookie" break. It was a very wise decision, as they were very tasty!

You know, I've never had a bad experience on a cookie break. In fact, I think I'll take one as soon as I get off the DIS!

I love this picture!


Great updates!

 

[amandaw]

You will love the Poly. That's funny that Ed doesn't want to stay at the AKL. DH wants to try WL and I refuse.

We don't mind it being a distance from everything because we rent a car and drive everywhere, so it is no biggie for us. We probably wouldn't have even done it this year, but I got a great deal on a one-bedroom villa from a coworker and I couldn't pass it up (we're not doing parks the days we are there; we'll do parks when we go "home" to the CSR).

That is too funny! It would be a sin to pass up a good deal for Disney!

Joining in!! Sounds like so much fun!!

Welcome! So glad you could make it, make yourself comfortable!

April was our first time on Southwest, and we liked them as well. I was a little nervous about the whole "open seating" thing, but it worked out just fine!


You know, I've never had a bad experience on a cookie break. In fact, I think I'll take one as soon as I get off the DIS!



I love this picture!


Great updates!

Thanks! I was nervous about the whole boarding thing with Southwest, as well. But, it was very well organized & went quickly. What helped us is that, because Reid is 3, we got to do family boarding in between groups A & B.

I think you should take that cookie break. I'm sure you've done something so far today to deserve it!

That's one of my favorite pics from our trip!

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Great start!!! Joining in! Dying to see how you enjoyed the cruise portion. I just took my first cruise ever in April (Girls Weekend) and I'm still not entirely convinced my family would enjoy cruising. I'm guess that the Disney Cruise is entirely more family friendly than Royal Caribbean though.

 

[amandaw]

Great start!!! Joining in! Dying to see how you enjoyed the cruise portion. I just took my first cruise ever in April (Girls Weekend) and I'm still not entirely convinced my family would enjoy cruising. I'm guess that the Disney Cruise is entirely more family friendly than Royal Caribbean though.

Thank you & welcome! How much fun - a Girls get-away on a cruise! You'll definitely have to stick around for the cruise portion of this report. I promise we'll get there..........eventually.

 

[amandaw]

Tip of the Day: If you have a little person(s) that you will be taking to WDW during the hot months, please consider buying them a stroller fan. They aren't expensive & really help cool them off!

Now, let's begin our day:

5:00 am the alarm went off. But wait, I'm in Disney! So, I hopped right out of the bed. Eventually, all three us had woken up & gotten ready for the day ahead. We were out of our room for 6:15 am, headed to wait for our cab. When we got down there, the cab wasn't there yet, but no big deal. There was an extremely nice CM working the valet that morning. He kept playing with Reid & giving him stickers. After a little while, he called to check on our cab for us & within a few minutes, they were there to pick us up! So, where did we go?







Okay, so I know some may be questioning why we took a taxi. We had an ADR for 7am. The boat from Wilderness Lodge to Contemporary doesn't start running until 6:45 & I felt that was cutting it too close. Remember, I like to be places early. And I was told the bus would only drop us off at MK & then we'd have to walk to Contemporary. Not that it's a long walk, but for $8 we got dropped off right in front of Contemporary.

This was the 1st time any of us had done Chef Mickey's. I've always heard mixed reviews on it, but figured we had to try it since we have a little one. We were about the 5th people in line when they opened promptly at 7am. We got in, took our family picture & waited to be seated. We ended up being the first family seated and were seated at a table right outside the kitchen. Now, I've heard people complain about sitting right by the kitchen. I loved it! With being the first people in for the day, the characters came to our table second when they would come out of the kitchen. The food was good. I don't understand the complaints. It's normal breakfast fare & everything was hot. Our waitress was really sweet, too. Okay, here's just a few of the friends we met:




Donald was giving Reid a high-five because Reid had Donald on his shirt.



Now, the characters definitely don't stay long at your table. It is what it is. I had read this going in, so I wasn't terribly disappointed. With the characters coming to our table second, we were able to get out of there for 7:55am. We hopped onto the monorail and went to.............


Epcot!

We arrived for 8:30am and they weren't opening until 9am. So, we took some time to make sure we were all slathered in sunscreen. Now, this is the 1st time we'd ever been during the Flower & Garden Festival. I was extremely exicted since, well, I'm a girl & like flowers & all. Now, I have LOTS of pictures for this day, so it might take me few posts to get everything in for this day. So, we started walking to our first attraction & along the way, we saw:





And we finally ended up here:



This was our first time riding this. Reid wasn't too sure since it's very dark getting to the ride. Thankfully, there was absolutely no one there & we just walked right up. He ended up loving the ride. When we got out of our clam-mobile, we went over to Turtle Talk with Crush. A CM told us it would be another 20 minutes before Crush showed up. Those turtles just are too laid back for me! Reid didn't want to wait around for Crush, so we walked around looking at the fish, which he really enjoyed. And then we were out walking again....



And we ended up here....



This is one of my absolute favorites! I was so excited for Reid to ride this since we didn't go to Epcot during our December trip. Again, we walked right on. He really liked it, except for the couple of parts where you get big blasts of air blown on you. Once we made our way out of there, we took some time to explore the flowers & topiaries. Sorry guys, you have to endure some flower pictures here for all the girls:

Outside the butterfly tent


Inside the butterfly tent


















Okay, I'm done with the flowers. After our walking tour, we went & got Fast Passes for Ed & I for Test Track. I had measured Reid before we left home (to avoid any possible tantrum) and knew that, even with his tennis shoes, he was still 1/2" short to ride. After we collected the FP's, we headed to the Electric Umbrella for some lunch! Ed had a meatball sub, fries & a chocolate chip cookie. He said the sub was very good & messy. He also liked his cookie very much. I had a chicken caesar salad & a fruit bowl. I was surprised by how fresh the salad was. The fruit was ok.

After lunch, we decided it was time to be brave & go ride....



Okay, so maybe we didn't need to be too brave. Reid absolutely LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this ride. We told him it was called "Spaceship Earth" but he referred to it (and still does) as "Golf Ball Earth". Can't say I blame him.

After Golf Ball Earth, we headed to....



As I expected, Reid threw an absolute tantrum when his daddy went to ride. I really felt bad for my little guy. He was crying, screaming, "I'm not little, I'm a big boy!" I decided to stroll him away from Test Track to hopefully get it off of his mind. Well, I guess it worked.....



Ed found his way back to me & then it was my turn to test the track! Ok, sorry, that was bad! After I rode, Reid was still asleep, so Ed & I decided to wander to far off places....aka the World Showcase!

Up Next: Our world travels! And dinner.....yummy!

 

[emma212010]

HAHA! Too funny about Reid falling asleep after the Test Track episode!! Those flowers are so pretty!! I've never seen them before!

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Great update! Love all the pics...esp of the Flowers since we never get to WDW when that is going on. Always have to ask, what kind of camera do you use????

 

[KatMark]

Great update, Amanda.

We have always loved Chef Mickey's for breakfast (dinner, now that is another story); we've not gone in years because I HAVE to go to Crystal Palace for breakfast with Pooh and friends.

I love that Reid loved the Nemo ride. And it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice to see someone else besides me who loves Journey Into Imagination. Granted, I liked the first version the best, but this one is pretty darn good (especially after the middle one).

You got some beautiful pictures of the flowers.

 

[Disney_Jill]

Great pictures! I love your ds with his little mickey ears. Sooo cute!!

 

[Joyciemc]

We were there at the same time!

Reid is adorable- seriously.

Can't wait to read more!

 

[amandaw]

HAHA! Too funny about Reid falling asleep after the Test Track episode!! Those flowers are so pretty!! I've never seen them before!

I know! I think his tantrum wore him out. The flowers are so pretty for the festival. If I ever did a solo trip, it would probably be during this time so I could take more time for photographs.

Great update! Love all the pics...esp of the Flowers since we never get to WDW when that is going on. Always have to ask, what kind of camera do you use????

Thanks! I have a Nikon D3100. I'm just starting to learn how to "really" use it. Hopefully, I'll continue to learn more & get better.

Great update, Amanda.

We have always loved Chef Mickey's for breakfast (dinner, now that is another story); we've not gone in years because I HAVE to go to Crystal Palace for breakfast with Pooh and friends.

I love that Reid loved the Nemo ride. And it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice to see someone else besides me who loves Journey Into Imagination. Granted, I liked the first version the best, but this one is pretty darn good (especially after the middle one).

You got some beautiful pictures of the flowers.

Thanks! I wanted to do Crystal Palace but Reid has never gotten into Pooh bear, which makes me kinda sad because Pooh is one of my favorites. I completely agree with you about the first version of Journey!

Great pictures! I love your ds with his little mickey ears. Sooo cute!!

Thank you so much!

We were there at the same time!

Reid is adorable- seriously.

Can't wait to read more!

That is too cool! Thank you! He is such a ham & a handful, that's for sure!

 

[NateNLogansDad]

All caught up! Your pictures are beautiful! I just started going through my own and I pulled a rookie move by leaving the ISO set at 3200 for most of our first day. I'm another one for Figment and Nemo! They are on our list of must do's whenever we go into EPCOT.

I'll be over here in the corner waiting for the next update. If I doze off, just kick me a little

 

[amandaw]

All caught up! Your pictures are beautiful! I just started going through my own and I pulled a rookie move by leaving the ISO set at 3200 for most of our first day. I'm another one for Figment and Nemo! They are on our list of must do's whenever we go into EPCOT.

I'll be over here in the corner waiting for the next update. If I doze off, just kick me a little

Thanks! I can't tell you how many times I did the same thing with the ISO on our trip. I just love Figment! And I'm so glad we did Nemo. It was so cute.

For the last two hours, I've been saying that I was going work on the next installment. But, I've been distracted by all the mindless TV shows I recorded on my DVR while we were gone. Focus, Amanda, Focus.......

 

[amandaw]

Ok, so when I left y'all earlier, Ed & I were about to take Sleeping Reid traveling around the world........showcase.

Our first stop was in Mexico.

We didn't really stop here, just a quick walk-through.

From there, we went on to Norway and were greeted by this guy:

Eeek!

I'm not a big shopper. And even though we do like to eat, we're not big on snacks. So, we make it through the world showcase fairly quick, even though we do like it. Anyway, next up: China!


Ed & I decided to take a little rest on a nice, shaded bench while we were in China so that we could look at the pictures on the camera. Well, this is when Sleeping Reid decided to awake. All I can say is he awoke as one of the seven dwarves. Was he Dopey? Oh no. Bashful? I wish! Sneezy? Nope. He was the one & only GRUMPY! And Grumpy was demanding ice cream. I normally don't give in to my child's every whim. But, I do believe you have to pick your battles and especially on vacation. So, I decided we would skip a few countries for the time being and I set off on an ice cream mission.

On our way there we saw these guys:







We ended up in the good ole US of A and got ice cream from Fife & Drum. I have to say, this ice cream was excellent! I have no pictures because I was trying to make sure Grumpy was making a transition to Happy. And I'm glad to say he did!

We were then off to Germany, where I knew Reid would want to see the miniature train display.


Now I love the details that Disney puts into so much of their work, as I'm sure all of you do as well. I noticed for the Flower & Garden festival, they had added miniature topiaries to the miniature train display!

I just loved that! We were then on to Italy for some quick picture taking.

After this, Reid really wanted to go & ride Golfball Earth again. So we headed back that way to ride. We then went & rode Journey into Imagination one more time. We decided to ride The Land & see how he liked it. He actually enjoyed it, especially the part where you see the fish in tanks & the baby alligators. He is obsessed with alligators! We then started making our way back to the world showcase. Here's us setting out on our way:


So we were heading back to the World Showcase because we had our dinner ADR in there. We entered in Canada & headed straight on to Jolly England. And we checked in for our ADR here:



It's not the best picture, so if you can't tell, it's Rose & Crown. Originally, I had an ADR for Via Napoli. But, Ed said he would rather eat here. Since he hardly ever makes any requests on our trips, I thought I would act like a nice wife for once & oblige him. Our ADR was for 6:30 pm. We checked in around 6:20 pm & were seated about 6:45 pm. This was our first little sprinkling of pixie dust on our trip. We were seated right on the water! Have a seat & enjoy the view!



Okay, enough of the view, let's get to the important stuff - the food! Ed had the Turf (steak) and Surf (fish). He thought this was excellent, especially the fish. In fact, he said he wished he had just ordered the Fish n Chips. For dessert, he had lemon meringue pie that he also thought was very good. I had the Sunday Roast, which is, basically, pot roast. It was very good. And so were the green beans & potatoes that came with it. I had the Chocolate Scotch Cake for dessert & it was just delicious! I also have to say that our waitress here was really nice.

With our bellies full, we headed on over to Paris just so I could see some of the topiaries there. We did run into one topiary in England right by Rose & Crown that our whole family loved and then continued to Paris. I'll let the pictures do the talking for me.....



Okay, now on to Paris:











We then decided to head back to the front of World Showcase to try & find a half-way decent spot to watch Illuminations. Now, my son has never been to anything with fireworks. He's seen them on TV, but not in person. I had been talking up the fireworks to him in the time leading up to our trip. We got our spot & didn't have to wait too long for the show to begin. And off went the first fireworks.....and out came the tears & screams! Thankfully, we were able to calm him down enough so that we could stay & watch Illuminations. I'll treat you to the few decent shots I got. Put in your ear plugs if you don't like firework noise either.









After Illuminations, we made the mad dash to get out of the park & onto a bus. There was a bus already there for Wilderness Lodge & we were able to cram ourselves, stroller & bags onto it! We made it back to our room to find these guys waiting up for us:



They must've heard that we had bought another fuzzy friend (Nemo) that morning and were too excited to sleep! I got my guys to bed & then did preparations for the next morning & was in bed myself for 12:05 am!

A few extra notes about Epcot: The crowds were moderate, not too bad. For us, the only place we really noticed it was in the Character Spot. We went in and the line was loooooong & just NOT moving. We got out & said we would go back later, but never got around to it. It had started off as a breezy day so the hotness didn't feel too bad at first. But, you could really feel it in the World Showcase.

Up Next: Magic Kingdom!

 

[KatMark]

Great update, Amanda. The photos are great. We really have enjoyed Rose & Crown every time we've gone and now you have me thinking I should change our Epcot destination for dinner in September.

It's Disney...so every child is entitled to an ice cream every now and then.

 

[petals]

joining in. Luvin the pics so far

 

[NateNLogansDad]

Loving it so far

 

[amandaw]

Great update, Amanda. The photos are great. We really have enjoyed Rose & Crown every time we've gone and now you have me thinking I should change our Epcot destination for dinner in September.

It's Disney...so every child is entitled to an ice cream every now and then.

Thank you! I have to say, I was really happy that Ed spoke up & asked for us to change our ADR to Rose & Crown. I was a little unsure going in, but I left a believer! I always have the hardest time settling on where to eat dinner. I can't tell you how many changes I made for this trip!

Yeah, at Disney, I have a tendency to give in to ice cream & souvenirs.

joining in. Luvin the pics so far

Welcome & thanks for joining! I'm glad you're enjoying the pics. I'm going to try & get started on my next installment later tonight, so there'll be more coming your way!

 

[amandaw]

Loving it so far

Yay! I'm glad everyone seems to be enjoying it. I was intimidated to do a TR on here, but I'm really glad I'm doing it. It's like reliving our vacation all over again!