We're not on the plane yet..our July WL family trip report-NEW Day 8-8/7

[vassar36]

We just got back from 9 days vacation at Disney World’s Wilderness Lodge and we had a great time, a wish granted and fireworks & campfires at night… this will be my attempt at our trip report…so hope you like it…

For some background I’ll start off with The Cast of Characters:

Cassie: Age 5, the oldest, She loves June from the Little Einstein’s, the weather, the Boston Red Sox’s and swimming. Cassie is still in pre-school and likes the princesses but recognizes that only Belle has hair the color of hers, she doesn’t nap, is a morning person, and she is a mini planner like her mommy.

Daphnie: Age 3, the youngest, the red head, she loves Peter Pan, and the Lion king. Carries the Nala and Simba dolls to pre-school every day and has proclaimed that she doesn’t like the “bad guys” (villains) anymore but her face lights up when she sees Scar and Captain Hook. Daphnie believes that the characters are still real.

Scott: My husband, the dad, he loves the kids and the family and is looking forward to spending time together as a family for this trip. He grew up here in MA and is not bitten by the “Disney bug” but is being a good sport about this trip because he knows that I have been looking forward to it so much. He is active and likes the Boston Red Sox’s too.

Me (Stacey): I’m the mom, and have been looking forward to this Disney trip for over a year now. I have been planning vigorously and yes, even have the note cards to prove it…I grew up in Florida and used to go to Disney all the time in the 70’s & 80’s. My most recent trip was last year for a family reunion, and boy has Disney changed…but that is a whole ‘nother topic. Disney was always a Happy place for me and this has been a tough year with my mom being diagnosed with lung cancer and with my husband changing jobs etc. So planning for this Disney trip was my escape from reality.

My Mom, Susan: (joins us half way though the trip). Lung Cancer surviror and long time Disney fan. She now needs to use a wheelchair b/c she had/has tumors in the brain from the cancer that effects her balance and walking. This is a big change in lifestyle for my mom b/c before the cancer she was always on the go and very physically fit and active.

My step dad, Irwin: (joins us half way though the trip) Nice guy married my mom last year, he is a bit of a slow walker and likes meat and potatoes and yummie desserts.


OK so let’s start off with the day before our trip:

Friday July 13-day before we leave

Cassie wakes up and has a bug bite on her heel. So I put some cream on it and think it looks a little like it is swelling but not enough I am sure she will be better at school (pre-school). I wonder if I should take her to the doctor, but decide that I already have to drop out dog Chase off at the kennel and am already taking a week’s vacation from work, so decide against it. Then as we are about to leave Daphnie bumps her head into the chair and her nose starts bleeding…I keep thinking NOOOO is this a bad joke, the day before we leave for Disney….So I put ice on Daphnie’s nose hope it doesn’t swell up for the pictures and the bleeding soon stops….Eventually, I drop the kids off at day care, take the dog off at the kennel and go to work.

When I pick up the kids Cassie starts limping when she sees me. Now Cassie tends to “ham it up” a bit and over react, so I dismiss the swelled up bug bite on the bottom of her heel and take her and Daphnie home. I really can’t do much anyway I reason, it is past 5 o’clock on a Friday and we leave in the morning and I can’t take her to the doctor now, so we go home. I heard that baking soda and water on the bug bite will help the swelling go down so I put that on when we get home. An hour later when Scott comes home, Cassie says she can’t walk on her foot with the bug bite and I start to panic. Scott calls the doctor and the doctor calls back and tells us to give her some benadrill to help the swelling go down. I start to panic some more, and Cassie says she is going to throw up thinking we are going to have to cancel our trip and then she lies down on the sofa. Her stomach feels better and Scott carries her upstairs to get ready for bed. At this point we tell her the swelling will go down while she sleeps and she is sleepy anyway from the benadrill we gave her, so she goes to sleep. Finally we get Daphnie to sleep too, and I am running around packing last minute items. At about 10:30 we both go to sleep.


Day 1: Saturday July 14

The next morning at 6:20 the alarm clock goes off and I jump out of bed and shower and start getting dressed. When I come out of the shower Cassie is on our bed crying b/c her foot hurts and I look at it and her heel is all swollen….OH NOOOOO this is not happening..I think…she says her foot hurts in the crocs she is wearing, so I make her put on some socks, so the bug bite doesn’t get infected and she wears sneakers which feel better on her foot. We give her more benadrill and her motion sickness pills and everyone gets in the car on we are on the way to the Boston airport by 7am ish.

We catch our flight to Orlando, and Jet Blue is GREAT!!! As we approach Orlando the pilot announces that there are thunderstorms in the area so we have to circle the central Florida area for a while, and then we and about a half hour later than expected. On this day my cusion and his wife and baby who live in Orlando are supposed to meet us at our hotel for a swim before dinner tonight, so I give them a call and tell them we are a bit delayed, no problem, they are waiting for the baby to wake up from the nap anyway. We plan to meet later at the hotel.

We are finally here!!!!


We take the tram over to the Terminal B I think and we catch the Magical Express….Everyone is very excited, Cassie says her foot feels better, but it itches and Daphnie is excited and we get on line for the Wilderness Lodge. We are all excited to get to the Wilderness Lodge, as we have never been there before and Cassie is beside herself ready to go swimming in the pool that we have been talking up for months.

We get on the line that says Wilderness Lodge and the Contemporary Resort. Great we figure we will be either the 1st or 2nd stop. So as we board the bus we are getting more excited!!! It is a longer bus ride than I remembered it being (last year we stayed at POP)…but maybe it always seems long on the way to Disney World…So we pull into the Polynesion Resort 1st (guess we are not the 1st stop after all). Then we go to the Grand Floridan, (OK guess we are not the 2nd stop either)….Finally we pull into the Wilderness Lodge and the background music starts playing!!!!!!

We get out and walk into the enormous lobby, Scott goes and checks us in, while I explore the lobby with the girls. We sit in front of the breathtaking fireplace which seems a little strange to us that a fire in going on in the middle of July in Florida, but hey this is Disney, a place where reality goes out the window and the Disney magic comes in, so we go with it. I am hoping that the room assigner has granted my request of 5th floor north wing, overlooking otter pond. So Scott comes back, I ask “what did we get?” He says he doesn’t know the lady didn’t really tell him anything, he just asked about my mom’s reservation and asked if she would be placed close to us, and the CM said she would. OK I tell myself relax, we get what we get….



So we go across the lobby to the left and down the ramp, around the corner past the Roaring Forks and to the elevators to our room. We get to out room 4022 and we go in, it is beautiful….I look out and I can see the Contemporary Hotel, but not the castle. There is a pond below us and it has green stuff covering it over 90% of the area. It starts to rain and thunder. Cassie is very upset that she is not able to go swimming now, she almost starts to cry. Scott is very excited about the flat screen TV in the room and we turn and the TV and relax on the bed for about 10 minutes.

I go outside on the balcony and I hear the bull frogs below, I can’t believe we are finally here!!!!


A little while later my cousin calls and says they are here we go down to the lobby to greet them and then sit and hang out in the lobby for a while. Meanwhile the pool closes and a lifgaurd comes up to my kids and asks them if they want to color or play games at the table over to the right. Wow what a great place I think to myself.
The girls & I go over and they color some pictures of princesses and one of the Lion king.

By now it is getting closer to our dinner reservation at Whispering Canyon Café. Our meeting with my cusion was sort of a last minute thing, so when I tried to change our reservation at WCC they told me it would be 8 o’clock before we could eat there. We had a very early day the next day with a 7:40am ressie at Chef Mickey’s so I wanted to kids to be in bed by 8pm, not eating dinner, so I declined the 8pm reservation, and instead kept out 5:30 one instead. Well it was 5pm, so Scott who works in customer service thought he’d go up and try to see if they could seat us any early with our larger party, it was raining after all and maybe some people would not show up. It took him about 15 minutes and 2 different people he talked to but he came back and said that we had table for 7 at for 5:30pm at WCC. Way to go Scott!!!


UP next Dinner at WCC, breakfast at Chef Mickey's and Day 1 at the Magic Kingdom!!!

 

[suttlesboys]

Enjoying you're TR so far. Can' t wait to hear more.

 

[vassar36]

First Night at Disney

Ok, so where was I oh yes, Scott has successfully increased out reservation to include my cousin’s and his wife and baby. So we are all go right up to Whispering Canyon Café and check in. We are seated immediately at a big table on the other side of the wall from the main dinning room. I am a little disappointed and hope this doesn’t effect the “fun” we came here for, but can’t complain because they did accommodate us and increase our reservation. Our hostess seats us and says Slippery Pete will be our waiter. Slippery Pete shows up and my cousin’s wife tells him his name tag says a name different than slippery Pete, and he replies that the name tags don’t say the real name. So then he gives us our menus and we order and are hoping for some “tomfoolery” as my husband says. Slippery Pete or Bob throws some straws at us, Daphnie the 3 year old LOVES this part. But that was about the silliest he got.

They announce that there is going to be Pony Races in the main dinning room, Cassie surprising does not want to do it, but Daphnie does!!! Then they give all the Pony racers a “prize” when it is over. Cassie gets jealous b/c Daphnie is getting a prize and she is not.

Later on our food arrives, and we need ketchup, and we are in the mood for some silly fun, and we asked the waiter for ketchup, he sighs and says that you know what that means right, so he counts to 3 and we yell that we need ketchup, but since we are in a table in the back only 3 bottles come, so again a bit disappointed but I am staying positive because we are at Disney. A little bit later someone else screams for ketchup so my girls bring the bottles over to the other table and that is the end of that.

Dinner is over and we bid my cousin, his wife and their baby goodbye. Cassie is dying to go swimming so we go up to the room to change into the bathing suits. Scott goes down to the pool with the kids and I investigate where and if Garden Grocer delivered our food b/c the from desk that my husband called has no idea where it is. So I call Garden Grocer directly and find out they left it at the Bell station, I believe and I arrange to have it delivered up to our room. I wait in the room while they deliver it put all the groceries away and then head down to the pool to see the kids. When I get down to the pool they are just making their way out. So we all go back to the room.

The kids get bathed and we put them to bed with dreams of Mickey dancing in their heads.

Scott and I grab a beer and go out and sit out on our balcony. As we are talking about our day tomorrow, I hear the Water parade that I remember from my childhood. We can see some of the floats through the trees, and the song that starts it all off is the same one I remember from all that time ago. I have to say it hasn’t changed much, some of the music has changed but the floats are still the same. Now we are wondering if we are going to be able to see some fireworks. After a while we figured that we wouldn’t since I had asked for the 5th floor not the 4th, but we decide that we are in Disney World at a beautiful hotel so it is ok if we don’t see them. Almost about a minute later, we see some fireworks above the trees. WOW….Scott says it’s great, not perfect, like an obstructive view at Fenway Park, very true….So our first night there is a magical night after all….


Day 2: Sunday July 15- MK day


6:30am we get the wake up call and all of us jump out of bed. We put our clothes on and run, I mean walk down to the boat dock and low and belhold we see the sun rising..

We are all very excited, we have a 7:40am reservation at Chef Mickey’s and want to catch the 1st boat to the Contemporary so we can eat and hopefully be out of there by 8:40 the latest, walk over to the MK and be there by rope drop.

We catch the boat about 5 minutes later and we are off to Chef Mickey’s everybody is filled with excitement!!!

We get to Chef Mickey’s way ahead of schedule around 7:15 am, but there is a line waiting to check in so we figure we’ll check in and then look around. Well to my surprise they checked us in right away and handed us a ticket told us to get out picture taken and then we were seated by 7:20am. We were seated in the back section (again) oh well, and it was practically empty back there. (Oh, I overheard that there was a problem with the momorail earlier that morning and that people would be comming soon...so maybe that is why it was empty)...Ok so we go and get some food and then Donald duck comes over when we return!!!! Then Mickey comes over and sits down next to Daphnie. The character interaction was great, and we were excited that it seemed like the characters were coming to us right away because then we, I mean (me) didn’t have to stress about the timing of going up to get the food and when to see the characters. So that was good. Soon Pluto and Minnie came over and all we needed to see was Goofy who was still in the front of the restaurant. We were done with breakfast and still haven’t seen Goofy, and it was only 8:10, we were doing great on time. We thought about it and asked the kids did they want to wait for Goofy which looked like another 15 min or more, or did they want to rake the Monorail to the MK. Monorail won out when I promised them that we would make time to see Goofy again.

Daphnie at CM

So we all get up on go on the Monorail to the MK. A green one comes and it’s Cassie’s favorite color so she is very excited!!! When we get to the MK we get off and to save time on the stroller rental Scott spots the stroller rental people by the boat doc and we pay there and get a length of stay ticket. GREAT job Scott. We make it into the MK and see the opening ceremony and some family from Las Vegas gets to open the park…..

After rope drop we go to Dumbo 1st: the kids get the colors they want Cassie wants turquoise and Daphnie gets pink.

After Dumbo we head on over to Pooh which is a great fun ride. When we are exiting pooh I see a woman with a white vest on!!!!!!! I know what that means, so she hands us and everybody else who was getting off the ride DREAM FASTPASSES!!!!!!! Yeah….we won!!! I am the only one in our party that knows what these are and how lucky we are, and I am soooooo excited. Dream Fastpasses on our 1st day, does it get any better than this?????

Scott and Cassie with their Dream FP

We then go on Peter Pan, Small World and then head over to POC. We were a bit worried about the small drop on this ride because the kids might be scared, but it turns out they loved it!!! So then we go on Aladdin’s magic carpets and use our dream fastpasses for the Jungle Cruise after that.

It’s getting pretty crowded & hot at the park now, so we decided to have lunch. We grab a bite to eat over at CHH and let me tell you, it was our lucky day b/c there was no line when we went but after I started ordering the line formed behind us. This was by far my favorite CS place. The tuna sandwich was great and the atmosphere was nice and relaxing.

After lunch we head back over to Peter Pan and use the fast passes I got in the morning. Then we go to Mickey’s Philharmonic, and WOW what a great show…when they squirt the water at you, Daphnie says “mommy I just got wet!!!” . The kids keep reaching for the things in the air during the movie and at the end of the show when Donald goes flying in the back, Cassie says to Daphnie, ”look Daphnie, he really flew…he really flew…”

Cassie at Philharmonic

Now it is hot and crowded so we take the boat back to the hotel. When we get to our room we see our 1st towel animal and nala and simba (that I told Daphnie had to stay in the room, she usually carries these everywhere she goes) are arranged on the bed next to each other….aww how sweet…….

Up next the pool, nap and return to MK at night!

 

[PEANUT1]

Wow! Dream Fast Passes in July..you can't get much better than that.

 

[vassar36]

Day 2 Cont…..

It is so hot right now, and Cassie LOVES to swim, so we head to the pool. The water is nice and warn, not like up in Mass where the water in the summer time is still cold and the only ones who don’t think so or care are little kids or people who grew up in Mass and are used to swimming in the ice cold water that runs down from the mountains when the snow melts in the winter…I honestly don’t know how my husband goes swimming up in NH and Maine when we go there for the summer sometimes…Me I am grew up in Miami and like to swim in ahh bath water temp is great!

But my kids were born up here in MA so the kids are excited to try the water slide and Scott and I set up a plan, he goes to the top with them, because Cassie can be very "cautious" lets say, and I’ll stay near the bottom and “scoop” them up when they come down.

I am only 5’1 so not much taller than the water in the deep end near the slide to grab my girls. My husband on the other hand is 6 feet, hmmm who thought about this arrangement of Scott going up and me staying in the deep water..oh well..it doesn’t matter because ..whoosh…. Cassie goes down first…man that water slide is a bit more powerful than expected!!! But I do a good job and scoop her up. Cassie is scared but likes it enough to do it again. Next comes Daphnie….Daphnie comes flailing down, I have a bit more trouble getting Daphnie, b/c Cassie is still holding on to me, so a nice woman wrangles Daphnie and hands her to me…if you’re reading this thanks nice lady!!!...so Daphnie is crying and scared, but after a minute she stops and says it is fun but does not want to do that again. So I hand Daphnie over to Scott, for him to watch her while I catch Cassie again. Cassie is a better swimmer than Daphnie, she is not a “strong” swimming but can swim, Daphnie you need to watch like a hawk b/c she is used to swimming with a noodle and/or bubble.

After swimming we go upstairs to our nice room and nap, all except Cassie, who we tell to quietly play with her toys near the sink area.

Around 4:00 we wake up and get ready to go back to the MK tonight with our Dream Fastpasses!!!!

So we catch the boat over and head straight for Buzz. We have never been on this ride before, and didn’t know what was going on until about ¼ of the way in, but the kids loved it and I must have hit something big b/c my points were excellent…beginners luck I guess…

Then after Buzz we did the Laugh Floor, which was cute and the girls liked it very much. I liked reading the “personals” posted on the left side of the room as you are standing in the que area. There is a funny one that looks like it is posted by Mike at the end it says “no fire breathers”…did anyone else notice that???? This is one of the reasons that I love Disney, its all about the details, just a little funny note that is almost an afterthought that makes Disney so special.

So after the show we hit the TTA a classic and somewhat favorite of mine, it is a nice ride and very relaxing and the breeze always feels nice. In line we meet some girls that said they won a dream the day before in Epcot they were coming of Imaginations in the middle of the afternoon and they were given a special pass (along with 1,600 other people) to stay at Epcot after the park closed to the public and ride the rides and do special activities…cool very cool…

After TTA we go to dinner at Cosmic Rays and we sit on the side with the Chicken food, and it is not as crowed as expected, but the girls and I grab a table anyway in case it gets crowed after Scott gets our food. Daddy comes back with the food and the girls eat up and their desserts of course. I know everybody says what a lot of food the dinning plan is and now we see it for ourselves. I think what makes it a lot is that you get all the desserts at every TS & CS meal (with the exception of breakfast) and then a snack credit that we often used for ice cream. So really it’s like giving your kids 3 desserts a day which we don’t normally do. But in the beginning we felt like we had to “get our money’s worth” so we did it, in the end, we would just get them applesauce for “dessert” or just 2 sides and no dessert for their CS meals and then they would eat desert with dinner at a TS place and one ice cream during the day….but enough about the dinning plan…

So after dinner Cassie says her stomach hurts (most likely from all the food we ate today) so she stays in the carriage, opps I mean the stroller, and instead of going to Pooh and Peter Pan, we opt for ToonTown so she doesn’t have to go on any rides.

By the way Cassie’s foot is feeling better and the swelling went down so we were happy about that…..

We get to Toontown and it is packed!!! It was a RED night according to TGM, but it was out 1st full day there and we had dream FP so we braved it and went back…

Scott parks the stroller and we all go to look in Minnie’s house. Cassie still doesn’t feel good so she goes back to the stroller, and Daphnie and I stay in the house. Daphnie listen’s to Minnie’s phone messages, and looks in her fridge, and then poses in the sunroom.

Minnie's To Do List:

After Minnie’s house we go to look in Mickey’s house, Cassie is sitting in the stroller and starts to feel better. So we head back to the stroller and start back out to Winne the Pooh Ride (ahh where it all began…) We ride pooh, peter pan and small world (beginning to see a pattern???)

Now it is pretty crowded & we have an early day tommorrow so we head back out toward Main Street and let the girls pick up something in the Candy shop for their “snack” credit and take the boat back to the hotel.

When we come back we are surprised by Nala and Simba again…They are arranged together and they are reading an Indian proverb that was left there…oh yes and also chocolates!!!!

Well we get the kids in bed give them their Princess Gear for tommorrow’s Princess Breakfast at Norway. They want to try it on just to see if it fits…..

After they are asleep Scott & I slip out onto the balcony, have another beer and watch the fireworks…

Coming up tomorrow….Disney Dining with the Princess, the Soarin Stampede, Le Cellier, and Illuminations!!!!!

 

[dmthoma76]

The pic of the girls in their princess gear is adorable, just wanted you to know someone is reading, great trip report so far!

~Donna

 

[krismom]

Awww man, I'm at the end already?! great report, beautiful family!

 

[vassar36]

Enjoying you're TR so far. Can' t wait to hear more.

Thanks suttleboys...more comming up today

Wow! Dream Fast Passes in July..you can't get much better than that.

Yes, peanut1 it was a magical start to the vacation, only thing is girls expected it to happen everyday

The pic of the girls in their princess gear is adorable, just wanted you to know someone is reading, great trip report so far!

~Donna

Thanks Donna, I really appreciate that

Awww man, I'm at the end already?! great report, beautiful family!

Krismom: More comming up today .....

 

[Disney5Mom]

Great trip report! Love the photos !Glad you had a great time.

 

[scottny]

Great report so far. cannot wait to hear the rest.

 

[vassar36]

Day 3: Monday July 16- Epcot day

We get a 7am wake up call and Cassie answers it and it is Stich. I take our refillable mugs and go down to the Roaring Forks to get coffee for Scott and myself. Its is quite amusing that early in the morning going to down to Roaring Forks, you see people on the elevator holding 2 or 3 mugs each going to get coffee for whichever other person is still sleeping in the room. I called it the “coffee parade” each morning.

So after filling up the 2 mugs of coffee (and not having to wait in any line to pay…which is a great time saver) I head back up to the room with the “bribe” for my husband to get up and get dressed. At the door to our room the USA today paper is there, bonus!!! Being our 2nd full day at Disney World this is not as hard as it will be in the days that follow.

We make it down to the bus stop by 7:45 am, I was shooting for 7:30am so we could catch the 1st bus and not be late to our reservation at 8:30 for the princess breakfast at Norway, especially since I thought we would most likely be stopping by another resort on our way to Epcot, Norway is a bit of a walk from the entrance, and I was not sure if they would give us a stroller before the park opened too. Also I thought we could be done by 9am when the park opens and then we could get our FP for Soarin and start our plan of attack while the park wasn’t so crowded yet. If we missed the 1st bus this was going to throw EVERYTHING off…

So we are waiting at the bus stop and it seems like all the other buses are coming and going, and I start getting annoyed with Scott b/c he is the one who was dragging making us late. Cassie keeps asking when our bus is coming and I say that I think we missed the 1st bus so we might be late, she is like a little me and starts getting a bit upset too. Scott is naturally not an “on time” sorta guy, and I am a ‘lets be early so we won’t be late’ sorta girl…we have been married now for 8 years and traveling has always been a sore spot for us because I like to get to the airport 2 hours early and he likes to take the time to stop by the bathroom when they are boarding the plane. So I get a bit snappy at him now, thinking we are going to be late and it is his fault. Wouldn’t you know it the bus pulls up right after I snap at him, and says very loud, “say your sorry to me” when the Epcot bus pulls out, I say I’m sorry and this other couple looks at us like we are crazy….

Ok so we get on the bus finally! I am trying to calm down thinking “Ok we are on the bus, now at least we are in motion on the way”. The bus pulls into Ft Wilderness and wouldn’t you know the gate won’t open for this bus. AHHHHHHHH…So the bus driver radios Ft Wilderness guy and they tell him that they can’t fix it and just go around the other way…AHHHH all I hear in my head is “Tick Tock Tick Tock…” Another bus pulls up behind up, and our bus driver backs us out. The other bus goes through the gate!!!! What?? Then I try and calm myself down b/c I think that why didn’t this bus just go through right after the last bus and sneak into the gate (you know like we do at work sometimes when someone forgets their parking badge???) Ok, so I am a bit high strung when it comes to Disney….So our bus goes all the way around the parking lot and out again back to the road, we pull into another entrance of Ft wilderness and finally make it over to the bus stop…..(Tick tock tick tock…can you hear it too?) Guess what there is NO ONE waiting for the Epcot bus at Ft Wilderness, “you have got to be kidding” I think. Well that is the bad news the good news is that we are off to Epcot next!!
I think it is around 8:10 for time so we will rush but we will be OK.

The bus pulls into Epcot and we jump off and run, I mean walk swiftly, towards the turn styles. We go in the special princess breakfast line, and the nice lady who lets us in asks the girls for their autograph!!! How sweet.

Scott races off and gets the stroller and I snap a picture of the kids in front of Spaceship Earth.

We walk VERY fast in the heat and make it to Norway in time. I check in and we get out the crowns and princess jewelry for the girls to wear and then they call our name. Cassie quickly puts hers on, but Daphnie is running a bit slow. We are escorted in and toward Sleeping beauty who is waiting in the lobby area to take pictures with the kids when they 1st come in. It is our turn and Daphnie still doesn’t have her crown on, but they are very efficient at Disney so the kids are escorted up to Sleeping beauty for their picture. Sleeping beauty signs their autograph books, and sees that Daphnie does not have her crown on and now she sweetly helps Daphnie put on her crown…

After pictures are taken we are shown to our seats on the left hand side when you 1st walk in. (The princess come out from here so this a good spot to be in even though it isn’t the main castle room). We get some fruit and danishes from the buffet. Scott and the kids love the sticky bun danish. Our waiter comes over and brings over OJ and coffee and I order drinks for the girls. About 10 minutes later he brings out a plate of food for everyone to share. There are scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and some potato/cheese thing-a-mi-gig. Scott loves the potato thing and the scrambled eggs are tasty.

The princesses don’t come out until 9am!!!! OMG!! This is going to put a damper in my plans!! But Scott is a fast eater and a good sport, so he volunteers to go join the Soarin Stampde and get us Fast Passes while the girls and I eat and get pictures with the princesses. So he takes off to go get the FP’s. About 4 minutes later I realize that he hasn’t taken our room keys which are also the park entrance keys which are also the things you need to put into the FP machines, and are also the cards you hand to the server to pay for your meal on the dinning plan. So I call him and he comes running back, gets the all in one keys and is off to get FP's....Take 2!!

Meanwhile the princesses are now out and working their way to our table. There is Belle in her blue dress, Scow White, Ariel in her dress, and Mary Poppins (and in that order). We get pictures and autographs from all of them. After Mary Poppins comes to our table Scott returns and says, “Mission Completion!!” he has the 4 Soarin FP in hand. He tells us that it was a mad house, and that his card wouldn’t work at first and he could tell the people behind him were getting frustrated…So now he is back and we pay for our meal and leave around 9:30am.

I tell Scott to “book it” over to Turtle Talk so we can see the 1st show of the day. While we are leaving Norway on our way to Mexico who should be standing all by her lonesome, but Mulan!!! Wow bonus princess!!! We stop and Cassie goes up to Mulan and gets her autograph. Daphnie meanwhile, is comfortable in the stroller and does not want to go say hello. So Mulan says for us to wheel the stroller over to her and we can take a picture of her and Cassie with Daphnie still in the stroller. (I guess my little princess Daphnie was all “princessesed out” for the day!!) That was VERY nice of Mulan and we thanked her and were on our way to Turtle Talk.

We get to Turtle Talk at around 9:40 and get in line and look around in the que area, this show is a 1st for us and we are all excited. We see some people with Dream FP’s on and we asked them where they got them and they say here, just 20 min earlier…(Darn we were close) They said that they were giving them out to everyone who walked in….

So we see turtle talk the girls sit up front, and the show is super cute!! Next stop is the Nemo ride. We waited about 7 min to get on this ride and by this time it is visibly getting more crowded. This was also our 1st time on the ride, and like many have said before it was cute, but they could have done so much more with this ride. Ok so next step is to get the kids out of the Living Seas area and onto the next ride without having them look around too much. We do and then it is off to Imaginations. I haven’t been on this ride since the original version and loved it then, but I have heard they have changed it, so we’ll see. We go on it is a “walk on” and this version is cute but no where near as good as the original. I did spot a hidden Mickey on the desk where they do the sight part I think it is..check it out! Anyway we need to leave this area quickly after the ride is over again, (no dilly daddling today) and go catch Soarin. To my surprise we made it out of there and Cassie says she really liked the ride, WOW I guess I forgot how different things are different though a child’s eyes.

We go over to the Land and let me tell you it is PACKED!! We have never been on Soarin before and are a little apprehensive because 1) Cassie gets car sick and 2) Daphnie is just 40 inches. So we don’t know what to expect. We use out FP and go on behind this tour group (which by the way there was a ton of them when we were there!!) So 1st of all they didn’t even measure Daphnie, now we are waiting to go on and we have been told to go to row 2. We tell the kids that if they feel sick or scared to just close their eyes. We load onto the ride and Scott and I are definitely apprehensive about Cassie. During the ride Scott & I are both glancing at Cassie to make sure she is not going to throw up, but she looks fine. When the ride is over the kids declare that they LOVED it and want to go on it again. So as we exit the ride we get FP to use tonight.

Now is our “scheduled” time to eat lunch before it gets too crowded at the Sunshine Season’s that I heard lots of good things about. I planned it here so Scott can get salmon for a CS credit, but even he says he isn’t hungry. We discuss our options while the kids sit and color the lady bug at the kidcot station by the Garden Grill Restaurant. Finally we decide to get lunch back at the hotel and then take a nap b/c we will be returning tonight for Le Cellier and Illuminations. So we catch the bus back to the hotel, I see it and “run for it” now we are sitting in the A/C bus and it feels very nice.

When we get back to our hotel we have lunch at the Roaring Forks and then go up to our room to see what Simba and Nala are up to and noticed they haven’t cleaned out room!!! I am a little upset at this because it is so nice to come back to a room with the beds all made fresh towels etc, and we are tipping mousekeeping so I don’t understand what happened. I am annoyed and tell Scott and Cassie to bring back some fresh towels from the swimming pool when they head down there and Daphnie and I stay in the room. Daphnie falls asleep right away and I take a shower and then nap with her. Cassie and Scott return from swimming and Scott naps too, and we have to convince Cassie that she might miss the fireworks tonight if she does not nap as well. Eventually Cassie naps too.

After our naps we get freshen up and I call the front desk and tell them that our room has not been cleaned today, and we are going out so we want it cleaned when we are out.

The girls stop and rub Humprey's nose for good luck before we go.

We catch the bus back to Epcot and head over to the Soarin. We ride Soarin again, this time they check Daphnie’s height and yes, she just about makes the cut!! So she says, “I a big girl, I get to ride Soarin”. So we ride Soarin, now we are in row #3. The kids love it again and so do Scott & I. I ask Cassie what her favorite part is and she says the fireworks, b/c you can see them even though its not late at night”. Meanwhile Daphnie is now obsessed with sharks and keeps asking, “Mommy sharks in that water?” each time she sees some water in Soarin. After Soarin we head over to the Circle of Life movie, b/c Daphnie loves the Lion King. This is the 1st time we saw this movie and at first I found it a bit ironic that Disney was talking about people being greedy and wasteful by wanting more and more…(I mean isn’t that in a way how Disney sells things…like you might have seen this or bought this, but this newer one is better and buy this and that and this one…) Anyway am I the only one who thought about that???

Ok so now onto Canada for our dinner at LeCellier Steakhouse. I love Steak, so this one is for me!!! Canada is beautiful but it looks like it is going to start to rain soon, so we are happy that we will be going inside for dinner.

I check in and they tell us to wait a bit and that the kids can go over to the kidcot station and that would be OK. Great!! So we head over to the kidcott station and the kids get their masks and start coloring.

About 5 minutes later we are called for our table. The restaurant itself is beautiful and cozy. We had a terrific waitress, who I forgot her name, but she was great. I ordered the Le Cellier Mushroom Filet Mignon and Scott had the Salmon. I ordered the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup for the girls for their apps and the Seared tuna for myself. Scott had the salad. Also I ordered a Glo-tini which was GREAT.

The girls like playing with the ice cube once I finished it too. For my drink I ordered a bottle of evian, which (counted as your drink with the meal plan..this was a nice tip that our waitress told me about)

The girls did not like the soup so of course not wanting to be wastefull, like the movie had said, I ate it all up, and my tuna app too. Both were yummie!!! Cassie had the pasta with plain butter and Daphnie ordered a hot dog. Both enjoyed their kids meals. Scott and I both liked our meals to it was very yummie. But what we were looking forward to most was the camp smore which we saw a picture of on another trip report that I had read before we left. It was YUMMIE!!!

After dinner we went over to Mexico to go on the new boat ride, great improvement!! It was a cute Small world like boat ride for Mexico with Donald Duck. Definitely worth seeing if you haven’t. Then we stopped at the kidcot station next door and the kids got their 2nd “charm” on the mask. Daphnie’s mask had broken off and the nice young man at the kidcot spot in Mexico taped it back on.

Next was China and the kidcot spot, we went and there was a bit of a line but it was cute and the kids got their third charm. My plan was to get as many charms as we could tonight and then bring the masks back on our second day at Epcot so the kids could get the “poster” when you collect all of the charms. So we traveled over to Germany and it was getting late so Scott found a nice spot and saved it for us to watch Illuminations. The kids and I went to Germany while we were there and yes, you guessed it they picked up their 4th charm there.

Afterwards we returned to see Scott and he went off to get a beer from Germany. He went to the Sommerfest place because he wanted an “Authentic” German beer that you can’t readily get in the states. While the guy was giving him the beer Scott asked him which beer he likes best, and he said he prefers to Becks!!!!! Oh well, Scott brought his authentic German beer and it tasted nice and cold on a hot July night.

Meanwhile, we waited for illuminations and Daphnie decided to do play “Dance Party”. So it was cute and she was dancing away with no music playing. Cassie and Daddy joined her after a while.
Daphnie Dance Party

Soon Illuminations started and it was beautiful and great!

After it was over we decided to do some shopping and let the crowds dissipate a bit. So we went into MouseGears and the kids tried on silly hats and each bought one toy.

We caught the bus back to the hotel, and returned to our room exhausted!

Finally our room was cleaned and Nala and samba were under the blanket sleeping…..

UP next…late start to the day at MGM…lunch @ Hollywood and Vine w/ the Little Einstein’s and friends & Camp Fire at Ft Wilderness.

 

[scottny]

Another great update. We did not do Epcot, but I will not make that mistake again next year. Love all the photos.

 

[grossnmoe]

I'm hooked great trip report! Your kids are so cute! We will be there next month

 

[vassar36]

Great report so far. cannot wait to hear the rest.

scottny Thanks, I'll post Day 4 soon

Great trip report! Love the photos !Glad you had a great time.

Disney5mom. Thank You, yes we were very lucky to have had such a magical time

Another great update. We did not do Epcot, but I will not make that mistake again next year. Love all the photos.

scottny. Yes we made that same mistake last year of not doing Epcot, but we went for a longer time this year too, and I didn't realize Epcot had alot to do and see for the kids too.

I'm hooked great trip report! Your kids are so cute! We will be there next month

grossnmoe: You are going to have a great time!!! Can I come????

 

[mdsouth]

I am enjoying the report. I am amazed that you were able to get your kids and husband up and out the door so early every day!

I am an early riser but the rest of my family is not. So, we missed the rope drops but stayed till closing each night. My DS (age 8) and I even did an after hours night until one AM. I would have loved to do an early morning at least once on our trip.

Maybe next time ...

Looking forward to reading more of your trip. I enjoyed the pictures of the girls, so cute! and the photos of you and your husband. I like to see a photo of the entire cast, just to get a better picture.

 

[vassar36]

Day 4: Tuesday July 17- MGM day & Campfire Sing-A-long night


Today was our planned “late day” we sleep in a bit, and get a wake up call at 9:30am. Today Cassie does not answer it b/c she is still sleeping. No one is quick to get up today, so I stumble out of bed and grab the coffee mugs and participate in the “coffee parade” again.

I come back up bring my husband the paper and coffee (aren’t I a good wife??) and tell him to get up and get the kids ready… …He gets in the shower, and I turn on the TV to wake up the kids. Then I get the cereal that we ordered from Garden Grocer out and pour them cereal and milk in the bowls that I also had delivered and set up their breakfast on the table. They eat their cereal and yogurt, while I drink my coffee.

After everyone is dressed and we are all packed and ready to go we get to the bus at around 10:30ish. Today there is no rush and no worries about catching the 1st bus. We have a 12:00 pm lunch planned at the Hollywood & Vine to see the Playhouse Disney characters and then plan to stay for the parade afterwards. We don’t do the “thrill” rides yet, so we can show up to MGM late b/c the things we do there aren’t the popular rides.

So we make it to MGM around 11:15 and we are standing in a LONG line. Scott’s wearing his Red Sox’s cap today, like everyday so far. There was also another person wearing a red sox cap behind us as well. So we are standing in line and a security guard yells at the guy behind us “Sir there’s a Bee on your cap” I flinch b/c I hate bees and then realize he means a “B”… ha ha… everyone’s a comedian right????

We finally make it in and get the stroller, which is becoming old hat by now and we make our way down Commissonary Lane we are walking down this street and we pass a very small line of people and we see they are waiting to get their pictures taken with Sully & Mike from Monster’s Inc. So we need to kill some time before our lunch ressie, so we wait on the short line and the kids and Scott go in for a picture. The kid in front of us getting his picture taken went right up to Sully and ignored Mike, well Mike was hamming it up acting all offended and such, it was funny!!

Next we head to the Muppet Movie. We saw this last year too, and liked it so thought we’d go again. At the end of the movie Cassie asks me if they “broke” the theater last year too? I think she really believed the ending, its funny you never know with kids.

So after the Muppets it was HOT, we made our way to H&V for our much anticipated lunch with the Little Einstein’s…June was the “Uno Numero” character for Cassie and she had been looking forward to this lunch for about a year. Last year when we were there we missed the opening of the H&V by a week or 2, so she has wanted to do this ever since.

We check in and waited outside, still very hot.

Kids waiting to be seated

We are seated within about 5 minutes. Now I am a very picky eater, which is where Cassie gets it from, so please remember that when I say the food here was not good. It was one of the worst meals for me. I got the salmon and the pasta (which was ok) the chicken, (didn’t like it) and something else. Maybe I don’t like buffet food unless its breakfast….. On the bright side, we were here for the characters and not so much for the food (although next time I’ll stake out June by her trailer and skip the lunch!).

Leo was the 1st character to come to our table, and he was good but the music started and he started to leave until we got a quick shot of him. JoJo came over next and he spent some time with the girls which was nice. But really they should update some of these characters, I mean is JoJo’s circus really still that popular? I mean what about Mickey Mouse’s club house where we could meet Daisy Duck and the gang? Or Handy Manny? And how about the new Pooh show? Or have all of the little Einsteins show up…

Ok so now the heavens open up sunlight comes though the clouds because JUNE is coming our way …Cassie’s face lights up…and this is a moment to remember. June signs her book takes a picture and…oh no..not the music again,…June tries to escape, but not before Scott wrestles her down & gets her to sign Daphnie’s book and get a picture with both of them, finally she goes…ok it didn’t exactly go down like that but you get the picture… when the music comes on the characters book it outta there….

Finally my kids decide they don’t care that much about Goliath to wait for him, so we pay and leave.

We go over to see if we could catch the playhouse Disney Show before we need to get seats for the parade. So we head over to playhouse Disney and pass a villains store..Daphnie is intrigue…we go in and she sees SCAR…ohh she loves Scar..she wants the Scar doll but we tell her “maybe later”, which in parent speak means “No”….

We leave and head over to Playhouse Disney, when we get there we realized we missed the show and there won’t be another one we will be able to see until after the parade, sounds OK with us. I get some FP for the Little Mermaid and we head over there to see the show. Again this is a 1st for us b/c last year we heard it was too scary to see, but this year we tried it and it was a good show. Daphnie did not like the part where it rained on her. After the show we got our nice shady spots for the parade as suggested by TGM.

The kids play with the Lion King toys that we got them while we waited for the LM and I go off to get some frozen fruit pops while we wait for the parade. It was HOT again, and the frozen fruit pops were melting fast.

Right before the parade begins these people come over and crowd around the kids and I’ll tell you if the kids weren’t in a big stroller, these people would have trampled on top of them to get their video shots of the parade!!! The parade was cute and Darth Vader came right up to Scott and pointed at him for what seemed like at least 30 seconds…it was funny…Scott let out a big laugh…Chip and Dale gave the girls a high five and that was nice.

After the parade we caught the Playhouse Disney Show and this show was cute, but again it needs some updating. I mean is Stanley & the Bear in the Big Blue house even on anymore???

So we are pretty tired now, so we leave MGM and head back to the hotel. It is very hot and muggy now. When we get back to the hotel, Scott & Daphnie go upstairs to nap and Cassie and I go to the lobby to ask about how to get to the campfire tonight. We are all very tired and don’t want to exert a lot of energy going anywhere “far” tonight because we have an early morning Rope Drop at the MK tomorrow morning with our name on it!! So Scott and I think that we should just stay at the hotel and go swimming tonight, but I go and ask about the campfire and sing along songs anyway. The CM that was helping out the concierge told me that it was just off the boat and not far, we could walk actually to the campfire. I explained that we were all exhausted and didn’t want to do anything like take a boat to a bus or a bus to a bus, to get to the camp fire, he assured me that it was just off the boat that goes to Ft Wilderness from the WL, and we could catch the 7 o’clock boat and make it in plenty of time. This sounds “doable” to me, but I go up to the room and consult with Scott. He says he is really wiped out and would like to stay and swim at the pool tonight, I agree with Scott, but we figure we ask the kids what they wanted to do, figuring Cassie who said her favorite thing about this trip was swimming everyday would agree with us and opt of the swimming option. Well Cassie surprises us and says she wants to do the campfire!!!! So since its only a “boat ride away” we say ok, and nap until dinner.

Back up, a bit when we came back to our hotel room we see some new towel animals and Nala and Simba are with each other!!!!

At 6:30 we all get up go down to Roaring Forks and eat some dinner, then we catch the boat to Ft Wilderness. We get off the baot walk about 200 yards and look around, no campfire. We ask some people and they say they don’t know but they just came from the BBQ and it is right there, and the Hoop De Doo is right up that way about 100 yards. So we look around and don’t see any signs or anything. Finally this nice kid comes us to ask and asks us whet we are looking for, we ask him about the campfire. He says it’s a LONG walk from here, but lo and behold, he has a golf cart (it seems everyone has these at Ft Wilderness) and he will give us a ride there if we like. Nice kid, we thank him and take him up on his offer. Now it is about a 5 min ride in the golf cart, so it would have been a very LONG walk especially with little kids and no stroller. He drops us off near a pool and we walk around the pool and see signs for it.

It was cute, not like I remembered. The few times we did camp at Ft Wilderness when I was a kid and went to the campfire, it was a real big campfire and almost like a free for all. This was different but nice too. It was more organized. There was a dedicated “pit” to the left sides of the permanent benches that were set up for the sing along and the movie afterwards. Also on the left hand side was a stage in the front where the sing-a-long would take place. In the back was a place to purchase sticks, marshmallows, gram crackers and chocolate to make smores. We had brought our own marshmallows and figured we would just purchase the gram crackers and chocolate with the snack credits on the meal plan, but they did not take the meal plan there, so we paid cash.


The girls went ahead and roasted their marshmallow with daddy while I set up the gram crackers and the chocolate for the smores. Although, they did eat quite a few marshmallows before they understood it went in the smores. Oh well they had fun!

A few minutes later a CM starts the sing along and Chip and Dale Come out. They walk out to the crowd to say hello, take pictures and sign autographs.

Then the sing a long starts and it was cute. The girls liked it a lot. Chip and Dale stay up on the stage for the sing along. After the sing along they start the movie, but that’s when we left.

We had asked a couple of people how to get back to WL or the boat dock and got a couple different answers. Eventually we were told that we had to take an internal bus back the boat dock or an internal bus back to the main trading post to catch ANOTHER bus back to WL. So we found out where the bus stop was and waited and took the bus back to the boat dock. Missed the boat pulling out , there was no room left, and then waited for the next boat which went to the Contemporary and then finally back to the Lodge. When we got back to the lodge it was 9:25, and the Water Parade was going to start soon. So much for our early night! Well we are already here, so we figured we wait for the water parade to come and we would watch it. So just then Daphnie has to go to the bathroom and now so does Cassie. Well we all go and then race back, and catch the parade already in progress. It is really a cute parade and maybe I am partial to it because I saw it in my childhood, but I would definitely recommend seeing it at least once if you can.

So now it is late, we go back to the room and get in bed. The kids hear the fireworks outside so we open up the curtains and all lie on the bed and watch the fireworks from our room….It was a great end to another terrific day.

Up Next Rope Drop at MK, Scott wants to ride the tomorrowland speedway, but will this throw off our plans?? The kids go on Barnstormer to “test” if they want to go on BTM next… Mom and Irwin Join us …. dinner with Cinderella at the GF and then Spectro!!!!

 

[vassar36]

I am enjoying the report. I am amazed that you were able to get your kids and husband up and out the door so early every day!

I am an early riser but the rest of my family is not. So, we missed the rope drops but stayed till closing each night. My DS (age 8) and I even did an after hours night until one AM. I would have loved to do an early morning at least once on our trip.

Maybe next time ...

Looking forward to reading more of your trip. I enjoyed the pictures of the girls, so cute! and the photos of you and your husband. I like to see a photo of the entire cast, just to get a better picture.

Thanks mdsouth....I think we will be in trouble getting the kids up eariler as they get older, Daphnie even at 3 is a big cranks in the morning and when she wakes up from her nap.. Scott and Cassie are naturally morning people. I am not but am at Disney, if it measn shorter lines for us.

I have a photo of the entire cast i'll post for epcot day 2....

thanks for reading!!!

 

[vassar36]

Ok...I hope i still have some readers......

Day 5: Wednesday July 18- MK day & Cinderella Gala Feast & Spectro

We’re not on the plane yet

Today the wakeup call comes at 7:30. I answer the phone, pretty tired. I get up get dressed, try and get the kids and Scott up, it is tough this morning. Scott goes down and gets the coffee this morning, while I get the kids’ breakfast ready.

We are at the boat dock by 8 ish, and this time we are not alone, there is a small line of families there waiting too. Today Scott wants to “break plan” and go on the tommorrowland speedway, not wanting to be too much of a control freak, I tell him that he can do it but it might throw everything off, he says he wants to do it. Ok, then I say. So we get to the MK before rope drop again great!!! The new plan is to split up when the rope drops, he goes and gets the stroller with the kids and I run and get some fast passes at Buzz.

Opening Ceremony at MK

Count down 10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2…1… Rope drop….. GO……..

After what seems like forever, Scott and the kids meet me at Tommorrowland speedway….we wait in a short line, about 5 min and ride the cars. Scott and Cassie go in front and Daphnie and I are behind him. Scott thinks its funny to stop short, sorry to say I am not paying too much attention so I almost bump into him!! After the race cars are over we head to Pooh, there is a short line, and no dream fastpasses today, but still a great ride...we saw the picture where Mr Toad gives the deed to owl...Next is Peter Pan where the line is growing, so we wait in the line and then go on. Then Small world, where Daphnie’s favorite part is the pink elephant. After small world we head over to Toontown to try Barnstormer. The kids have never been on a rollercoaster before, so we figured we give it a try and see how they like it. We walk on, no line. Daphnie loves it, Cassie doesn’t like it, so we decided not to do BTM b/c Daphnie probably isn’t tall enough anyway and Cassie would be scared.

So we head over to POTC. We wait in about a 10 min line, but it is nice and cool inside the caves where the line is so we don’t mind the wait. We all LOVE this ride, Scott calls it “Small World for Adults”. After pirates we decided to hit the Tiki Room. I haven’t seen this show in years, I have heard they changed it from like 20 years ago, the last time I saw it, but it was still cute and I am glad we saw it.

Kids and Scott waiting for Tiki Room

Afterwards we are getting tired and we start walking toward Pesco Bill’s for lunch, but we see Captain Hook & Mr Smee right by the taco place. Daphnie wants to see them, Cassie does not. (remember the other day when Cassie wanted to see Mulan and Daphnie wouldn’t get out of the stroller??) Well my little baby who says she doesn’t like the “bad guys” anymore still does!!!!

Ok so we wait in line, while Scott and Cassie sit in the taco place. Daphnie gets a picture with Captain Hook and Mr. Smee and when daddy sneaks in the picture and Daphnie gets a little upset!!!

Next we walk to Pesco Bills and get lunch, it is more crowded than CHH but a nice big place and luckily we get a table for all of us to sit at. Afterwards I go and collect some FP for later and the kids and Scott watch the Woody’s Camp Show, which they thought was cute. We meet at Sleepy Hallow for the BEST snack EVER…As my husband would say its WICKED good…here’s a picture of it…

BEST SNACK EVER!!!!

I told Scott we had to get it b/c I read it on these boards and it did not disappoint. It is 2 big freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (still warm) and then big scoops of vanilla ice cream smashed in between them. WOW this dessert was YUMMIE!!!

We head for the boat back to the hotel and I call my mom to see where they are, she says they will be here at about 2ish and they will call when they check in. The kids are chasing away the birds that come near them, I know its not nice to do that, but I am hot and tired and no one else is around so we let them do it.

The boat comes and on the boat ride back Cassie says that our trip is halfway over, and gets a little sad.. Scott says to her, don’t worry we still have more to go because “We’re not on the plane yet!” so that becomes our mantra and theme for the rest of the vacation.

Daphnie on the boat ride back to WL

We get up to the room and again find Nala and Simba arranged in a cute way and guess who is joining in the fun? Baby Simba that Daphnie got after Illuminations when we were shopping…..

Cassie and Scott go down to the pool for a swim, they take the refillable mugs that we use for coffee each morning and get some ice cold lemonade and fruit punch on the way to the pool. (We have been doing this all week) We like it because we feel like we really “get our money’s worth” doing that.

Daphnie and I nap, surprised right?! The phone wakes me from my nap and its my mom saying she’s arrived and is in her room.

A little background on my mom: My mom & I do not have the traditional happy mother/daughter we love each other never fought type of history, as a matter of fact, things for various reasons, were very rocky for a very long time. Mom and I started to mend our relationship when Cassie my first daughter was born 5 years ago and things have gotten much better since. My mom is the most involved grandparent that my kids have, and for that I am very thankful. Even though she lives in Florida and I live in Ma she visits the kids more than any other grandparent, and is emotionally closest to them too. Last year the day before she was going to come up to visit us again in the Fall she went to the doctor b/c she was walking funny, and her balance was off. They took a CAT scan of her head and as she was driving home the doctor told her to come back to the office. They told her there was something in her brain and she had to go to the hospital right away to see what it was. Long story shorten…1 week later she had brain surgery had 3 of her 5 tumors removed, they still didn’t know if it was cancer or not, and if so what type of cancer was it. About a week after the brain surgery and tons of tests they determined it was lung cancer. The doctors estimated 3-6 months for her “expectancy” they called it. Now my mom is a very stubborn woman and also denile isn’t always a bad thing, especially in mom’s case. For the next 8 months she had whole brain radiation and chemo, where things were touch and go. But in May the doctors declared her cancer free above the head (where she still has 2 dead tumors in her brain which affect her balance and walking). She uses a wheelchair now for long distances and a cane for short distances. My Mom is a very proud and stubborn person and does not like to use her wheelchair and other aids, so this is good, but at times can be quite frustrating for herself I am sure and those around her. Ok enough about mom..back to the TR.

So we go and visit with my mom aka “Grammy” and Irwin aka “Papa” for a bit, the we return to our and get ready to meet Cinderella.

Tonight we have reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Feast dinner at the Grand Floridian. So we decide to take the boat to the MK or contemporary which ever comes 1st and then catch the monorail over to the GF hotel for Dinner. The MK boat come first so we catch that and then the monorail to the GF, we are not making good time because my mom doesn’t want to get in the wheelchair and her walking is very slow. This bothers me, because I hate being late but at the same time, I feel guilty for feeling annoyed and know that I should just be thankful that my mom is here with us. So this will be my internal conflict the rest of time we are here. Needless to say mom gets in the wheelchair when we get off the boat at the MK b/c the monorail is on in incline up, so Irwin pushes her and it is hot. Finally we get to the GF in time for our reservation.


Cassie waiting for Cinderella

the family shot:

We were seated at a wonderful table right near the window which was bright and plesant. We were seated very quickly and the characters were already circulating, although Cinderalla and Prince Charming didn't come to our table until the end of our meal.

Cinderella and PC & the girls

We did have a cute interaction with one of the mouses, either Perla or Suzy. They saw that the girls didn’t want to wear their crowns anymore, so they placed the crown on their head instead and we took a picture of that:

Suzy or Perla with Cassie’s crown on

Here are the girls with the fairy godmother, who had a nice talk with the girls and my mom as well.

The kids and fairy godmother

Overall we went mostly for the characters and not for the food quality. I would say the food quality is more of a buffet brought to your table quality rather than table service quality that you would find if you ate at Coral Reef or Le Cellier etc.. The restaurant itself is beautiful and plenty of light comes in. The character interaction was good, the fairy godmother was the best, but Cinderella and Prince Charming came together and seemed a bit rushed. In the end we got what we came for, a meeting with Cinderella (albeit brief) a picture with her and prince charming and some character interaction with the mice and the fairy godmother.

After dinner which took longer than I expected we took the monorail back over to the MK to see Spectro.

The MK was very crowded when we got there and it was difficult and slow for my mom to move though the crowds in a wheelchair. She and Irwin had to pick up their tickets they got at the guest services desk, it was getting late, and we wanted to use our FP for Pooh & PP that we picked up earlier in the day, so we decided to go ahead of them and meet them at Peter Pan.

We went to Pooh 1st and the line for the FP return line was very LONG. It was out almost as long as the standby line. When I asked the CM if this is the FP line she said yes. So we left and went over to Peter Pan’s FP line, which was also packed, but it was packed b/c people were standing around the entrance who’s FP were not available to use yet. So we went in and rode Peter Pan. Daphnie loves this ride and says “Hi” to Peter Pan during the last shot where he is driving the boat. Now did anyone notice that the Chef of the Indians has a baby on his back???

We get off Peter Pan, meet up with Grammy & Papa and head out to get our spot for the spectro parade. We find a nice spot again recommend by TGM and settle down. I get the kids popcorn to eat as we wait for the parade. Finally the parade rolls by and this is GREAT!!!!

Spectro

The only problem is after the parade getting out of the parks. I don’t think it would have been such a problem if my mom was not in a wheelchair b/c with the heavy crowds she was even more slow than usual. So it took us FOREVER to get out of the MK. We finally made it back to the boat dock and got on the boat. And guess what a nice surprise for us…The Electric Water Parade was going on and we could see it from the boat!!!!!!
Ahh now I am back in that Disney mood again.

Also when we get back to our room we see this:

Nala & Simba Turndown

Every time we return to our room Daphnie says, “I wonder what Nala and Simba are doing?” and when we go in the room, she says “mommy take a picture”, so I do….


UP NEXT: Animal Kingdom Rope Drop; and Grammy & Papa babysit for our romantic dinner at Artists Point

 

[krismom]

Still here and lovin' your report!
one question... where the heck is Sleepy Hallow because I have to get one of those cookie sandwiches!

 

[vassar36]

Hi Krismom

sleepy hollow is in liberty square part of the MK near the castle and it is near the Hall of presidents and a great little bridge which leads to the bridge to Adventure land..those were amazing ice cream sandwiches, truely the best ever . They were also only 1 snack credit on the dinning plan, but if you get it they are really big, so try and spilt it with someone 1st...